The Trade

One of the girls started to cry. She appeared to be the oldest, the longhaired girl he’d been chasing.

Matt took off his denim jacket, held it out to her.

“Come on, you need it. It will protect you.” He patted his own shoulders to show her what he meant.

The girl moved to reach for it. The boy spoke sharply.

In spite of her distress, the girl responded just as sharply. Nothing wrong with their hearing, Matt thought. For a moment, they argued in a language he had never heard before.

The girl accepted the jacket and said something to him. Matt thought she was asking a question. It could be English, but the accent was so heavy he couldn’t make it out.

He shook his head. “I’m sorry. Please, speak slowly.” He watched her lips. It sounded as if she were saying “eye eeder.”

“Eye eeder.” Her voice broke on a sob. “Eye eeder.” The boy yelled at her. The other three girls started to cry.

“Eye eeder?” Matt started to shake his head, then realized she was saying a name. Matt gestured toward her. “Your name is Aida?”

She shook her head.

“She was the girl on the road?”

In a soft voice, she answered, “Yes.”

Her eyes darted toward the boy. Screaming, he lunged at her, the heavy stick raised. Matt grabbed him before he could strike, shook the menacing club out of his hand, spun him around so that the boy’s back was against his chest. Holding him was like trying to control an octopus, limbs everywhere. The kid was frantic, explosive, strong beyond his slight frame. It took a few minutes before Matt was able to pin both arms to his sides and swing him off his feet. Gradually the boy stopped struggling.

“Listen,” Matt said against his ear. “I’m not going to hurt you, any of you. A girl died. Tell me how she died.”

“You bring police,” the boy said.

He could speak English. Now maybe they could get somewhere. “No one’s going to bring in the police, so you just relax, all right?” The boy said nothing. “Okay?” Matt said again. “I’m going to let you down now. Just stay quiet, nothing is going to happen to you.”

It was a long time coming but finally the boy nodded. Carefully Matt allowed the boy’s feet to touch the ground and as soon as he thought the kid would stay put, released him. The boy turned quickly. Tears of rage wet his eyes.

“You’re a good man,” Matt said. “You’re okay. What is your name?”

The boy clenched his lips together as if to prevent Matt from seeing that they were trembling.

“Hasan.” The older girl answered for him, and the boy spat what sounded like a curse.

Matt looked at him in surprise. The Arabs Matt had met or seen were dark-eyed, dark-haired, olive-skinned. This Arabic boy was blue-eyed, had dark blond hair, neat small features. Matt kept his eyes on the boy. “That’s you? Hasan?”

The boy did not answer.

“Okay,” Matt said. “Hasan. Good. And Aida was the girl who died. How did Aida die?”

No answer.

He tried a different question. “Where do you come from?”

The older girl said an indecipherable word. She pointed to herself and the two other white girls. She repeated the word. Matt still couldn’t understand her.

Matt looked more closely at the little black girl. “What about you?” he asked gently. “Where do you come from?”

The child refused to meet his eyes, and the older girl, the only one who had so far spoken, put an arm around her protectively.

“Africa,” she said. “She from Africa.”

CHAPTER 7

Matt took off the flannel shirt he had on over his T-shirt and stepped forward to wrap it around the child. All he could see was the top of her small dark head. She flinched as he touched her, and the older girl murmured a crooning sound of comfort. She took the shirt from Matt’s hand, knelt and wrapped it around the African child’s body.

“What’s happened to her?” he asked softly. And to the rest of you, but he left those words unsaid. What kind of disaster had brought this strange band into Encinal Canyon?

Darting fearful looks at Matt, the girls exchanged a few words among themselves, until Hasan spoke sharply, driving them back into silence.

“She want mama,” the boy said.

Yes, Matt thought, of course she does. Matt had the sudden image of himself at that same age, watching his mother’s flower-blanketed coffin being carried from St. Aidan’s Church. He took a breath, and the image faded, leaving him feeling as if he had been hit by a two-by-four.

He fumbled in his pants pocket for the energy bar he always kept handy and offered it to the child, but she would not look up. He passed it to the older girl, who unwrapped it, lifted the child’s hand, and pressed her fingers around it until she was sure it would not fall from the child’s grasp. The child broke off a corner, put it into her mouth and handed the rest back. The older girl divided it up, handing a fragment to each of the others, including Hasan who ignored the piece she held out to him. After a moment, she gave it to the little one.

“This little girl needs help,” Matt said. “All of you need help. I will take you to my house, get you some food and clothes.” He looked at Hasan, making a point of including him. “We will talk, and we will decide what to do.”

“Kanita,” the older girl said. She pointed to herself. “Kanita,” she said again. She then pointed to Matt.

More progress, he thought. They were communicating. “You are Kanita.” He enunciated each word carefully. “I am Matt.” He glanced at the closed, hard face of the boy, and turned back to the girl. “Kanita, you cannot stay here.” He pointed to the sky, gestured rain with his hands, hoping she understood. “Rain. Rain is coming. You must get shelter. Come with me. I’ll get help.” And maybe these kids could tell the authorities what they knew about the dead girl, Matt thought, and remove the cloud of suspicion hanging over his head.

Kanita slid a nervous yet defiant look at Hasan then beckoned to Matt and started toward a cluster of large granite boulders. Matt glanced at the boy, then went after her. She led him between the rocks and into a sheltered crawlspace created by a tangle of roots and the limbs of canyon oak trees. Matt peered inside.

A slight solitary figure lay motionless on the ground. Also a teenager, she was dressed similarly to the others, in a beaded tank top and gauzy loose-fitting lavender pants. She lay on a makeshift bed of brown paper grocery sacks spread out on the bare ground.

Matt’s throat tightened and he fought back a wave of panic. Another dead girl? He crawled into the shelter and touched the girl’s hand, and started to breathe again. Her skin was an unhealthy grayish white and clammy, but warm, maybe too warm. Her eyes were closed, her face framed by a mass of dirt-encrusted black hair tangled with bits of leaves and twigs.

“How long has she been like this?”

Kanita frowned and he repeated the question slowly.

“Today, yesterday, tomorrow.” Kanita shrugged as if an explanation of time was beyond her.

He patted the unconscious girl’s hand, hoping to rouse her. He’d have to carry her out and she would be a dead weight to pick up. He turned to Kanita. “What’s her name?”

Kanita shook her head. Matt pointed to himself, to Kanita, repeating their names as he did so. Then he indicated the girl. Kanita patted her mouth, pointed to the girl and shook her head again.

This was getting them nowhere. Matt slid an arm around the girl to lift her into a sitting position.

The girl opened her eyes, deep black eyes that widened in terror at the sight of him. She shoved hard at his chest, scrabbled to get away but managed only a few yards. A long high-pitched keening ripped from her throat.

The skin on the back of Matt’s neck shuddered at the sound. “It’s okay. You’re okay.” He managed to quell the instinct to raise the pitch of his own voice and kept his tone low and reassuring. “I’m not going to hurt you. It’s okay.”