More Than Neighbors. Janice Kay Johnson

* *

      “HI. ARE YOU BUSY?”

      Gabe straightened from the bin of boards he’d been sorting through and saw Mark Malloy standing at the entrance to his timber store. This corner of the barn, walled off from the rest but for a wide doorway, held his supply of solid boards, veneers and smaller pieces of exotic woods. This space had a ceiling, unlike the rest of the barn with its high rafters and loft that hung over what had been stalls. A dehumidifier protected his stock of wood.

      “This barn is my workshop,” he said. “Yes, I’m working.”

      “You don’t look like you’re working.”

      “I’m choosing some pieces of maple for a particular job.” He didn’t know why he was explaining, but did.

      “Oh.” The boy came to his side and gazed into the bin. Right away, he asked why Gabe didn’t just grab a bunch of boards.

      Gabe found himself explaining his criteria for this and other jobs, again without entirely understanding himself. He didn’t want to hurt the kid’s feelings, he told himself, but wasn’t sure that was exactly it.

      Mark helped him carry half a dozen boards to his Felder saw.

      “Your mom know where you are?”

      “She was working.”

      Lucky Mom.

      “But she wouldn’t mind. She said I couldn’t go into the pasture, but she didn’t say I couldn’t visit you,” Mark confided with a winning smile.

      “Shouldn’t you be in school?” Gabe asked, leaning one hip against a workbench. Or had school already let out? It occurred to him belatedly that Ciara might have driven her son today.

      “I’m homeschooling.” The kid’s tone was odd, maybe stilted. “I went to school back where we used to live—you know, near Seattle—but Mom got mad at the school so she said she could be my teacher.”

      Gabe knew he shouldn’t raise questions; all that would do was encourage the boy. But he was curious enough to risk it. “What grade are you in?”

      “Seventh.”

      “I see.” No, he didn’t. Did the mom want to give Mark an education steeped in religion? Or did she just not think it was fair for him to have to start at a new school so late in the year? “If you’re not going to school, you’ll have to find a way to make friends around here,” he commented. “It’s probably too late to sign up for Little League.”

      Mark grimaced horribly. “I’m not very good at baseball.”

      “Basketball? You’re tall for your age, aren’t you?”

      “I guess, but I’m not very good at that, either. I hated PE.”

      “You’ll grow into your feet,” Gabe said, nodding at them.

      “How do you grow into feet?” Mark laughed nervously. “That sounds weird.”

      “It’s a saying.” Gabe did some more explaining, this time about how bodies grow in fits and starts, and not always in a well-coordinated fashion. His own feet had reached their final size—a twelve—long before he’d attained his current height.

      “Is that why baby horses—I mean, foals—look so different?”

      “That’s right. They have to have long enough legs to reach their mother’s teats to nurse and to keep up with her when she runs. In the wild, they wouldn’t survive if they couldn’t run as fast as the herd. But it takes time for the rest of their bodies to mature so they’re in proportion.”

      “Oh.” The boy shuffled his feet and hung his head. “I don’t think Hoodoo and Aurora like me. They won’t even take a carrot from me.”

      Gabe knew why; he’d seen the kid a couple of times at the fence, jumping up and down and waving his arms and yelling to get the horses’ attention. God knows what kind of strange creature they thought he was, but it was unlikely to be a flattering conclusion on their parts.

      “Did you remember what I said about staying quiet and moving slowly?”

      His expression became mulish. “But if I just stand there, they ignore me!”

      Smart horses. Gabe wished he could ignore the kid, too.

      * * *

      CIARA WENT OUT the kitchen door and made her way toward the creek that ran at the back of the property. In front, the land was all pasture, but sloping down behind the house was the beginning of a kind of open, dry woods that continued as far as she could see. The trees were evergreen, but there was no understory like there’d be in Western Washington, with ferns and salal and salmonberries, all encouraged by the generous rainfall. Instead there was thin grass and otherwise bare ground that she imagined would be really dusty once summer came.

      Were there fish in the creek? She speculated about whether Mark would enjoy fishing. After a moment she made a face. She couldn’t picture him being willing to knock a wriggling trout he’d caught on the head to kill it. Or doing something as gruesome as cutting off the head. And Lord knows she didn’t want to do that part.

      She ought to let him wander in peace. That was part of the beauty of owning a good-size piece of land, wasn’t it? If there was a raging river back here, that would be different, but he couldn’t drown in the creek, not unless he slipped, cracked his head on a rock and ended up unconscious and facedown in the water.

      Her steps quickened. He did trip an awful lot. Still— Mostly, she just wanted him to let her know when he went outside and when he came back in the house. Plus, she didn’t know the dangers here. This was so different from any place she’d ever lived.

      The day felt pleasantly like spring, blue sky arching overhead. Trees she thought might be cottonwoods clustered along the creek. Even so, it didn’t take her long to determine that Mark wasn’t here, either.

      She cupped her hands and yelled, “Mark!”

      There wasn’t any answer this time, either. Mild concern morphed into the beginnings of apprehension. She was running by the time she reached the house again. After bounding up the steps, she called his name one more time, but the same quiet met her. Damn it, where could he be?

      Had somebody come by that she hadn’t heard? Would Mark have gone with anyone without having told her?

      She grabbed her purse and car keys then raced back out. She’d go from neighbor’s to neighbor’s, driving slowly in between. She wouldn’t panic yet. A boy Mark’s age had no reason to feel a need to check in constantly with his mother. He wasn’t inconsiderate, exactly, but the idea of her worrying wouldn’t cross his mind.

      Gabe Tennert’s first, she decided. Mark had been intrigued by him. Neither of them had yet met the people on the other side or the ones across the road. Although there were obviously some kids at the house a little ways down. Maybe—

      She drove down her long driveway faster than she should have, dust pluming behind, turned right on the two-lane road then right without even signaling into Mr. Tennert’s driveway. As cool as he’d been, she was trying not to think of him as Gabe. That was too...friendly.

      And friendly was the last emotion she’d feel if she found out he’d been letting Mark hang out without insisting her son call home first.

      * * *

      GABE KNEW MAD when he saw it, and there it was, vibrating in front of him, in the person of Ciara Malloy.

      Mark didn’t seem to have noticed. “Mom! Look at all these cool tools Mr. Tennert has. And he’s like me. See? He has a place for everything, and he says he never quits work without putting every single tool away and cleaning up every scrap of wood and even sawdust.” He sounded pleased and awed. He hadn’t been as impressed by the huge band resaw or the pillar drill, grinder and sanding machines as he’d been by Gabe’s regimented ranks of clamps and