Doctor Who_ Warchild - Andrew Cartmel [8]
But there had been no ensuing violence. No race riot.
The under-age white boys had emerged from the bar untouched. What exactly had happened was unclear. All Creed could glean was that someone had panicked and called the police, who duly escorted the boys home from their adventure on the wrong side of the tracks.
And that would have been the end of it, except the next day an old man came to visit Creed at the cabin.
He was an Indian. In fact, he was what might best be described as the local shaman. He didn’t possess any of the traditional attributes of the witch-doctor or medicine-man. He wore jeans, an old check shirt, and drove a pick-up. Creed guessed his age at upward of 60 but the shaman was full of wiry muscular vigour. His long grey hair was fastened in a pony-tail with a turquoise and silver comb. His seamed face looked like a lizard’s, Creed thought. The shaman removed the comb, shook out his hair and re-tied it as he sat on the porch of the cabin and talked with Creed.
Ricky was out on the water in the boat, forbidden to go into town and fishing for his penance. As Creed and the shaman talked their eyes kept returning to the simple shape of the boat sitting on the sky-filled lake. A boy sitting in it with his fishing pole angled towards its own reflection.
They talked about the Grateful Dead and some recent sporting events they’d both seen on satellite television. They talked and talked but the old lizard never let on why he’d really come to visit. But he took a long careful look at Creed when he thought Creed wasn’t paying attention. And every time his gaze settled on Ricky the shaman got a distant, thoughtful look in his eyes.
He drove off without ever stating his business, shaking hands with Creed and thanking him for the beer. But as he climbed into the cab of his pick-up he looked back out at the lake one last time, towards the boy in the boat.
Now Ricky was fifteen, lanky, stoop-shouldered and a bit shy. An intelligent kid who somehow never seemed to fit in at school. In fact, despite a good record of academic achievement, he had been asked to leave the last three schools he’d attended.
The first time this happened it was a baffling shock to Creed and Justine. The second time, exasperating, and by the third merely a routine nuisance, calling for some logistical nimbleness.
The worst part was that none of the school principals and none of Ricky’s teachers seemed to be able to give a concrete reason for the problem. It wasn’t as though Ricky was dealing drugs in the playground or beating kids up. ‘If only,’ muttered Creed.
‘What did you say, daddy?’
‘Nothing honey.’
‘It’s OK,’ said Eve from the back of the car. ‘Ricky will be OK.’
Creed felt a strange little chill as he glanced at his daughter in the rear-view mirror. Maybe Ricky wasn’t the only one of his kids who was a little odd.
Creed looked back at the road, trying to concentrate on the driving and the problem of Ricky. All they could get out of the schools was that Ricky ‘didn’t fit in’. While not actually being a trouble-maker, he was nonetheless some kind of disruptive influence in the classroom and his educators were uniformly glad to see the last of him.
As he drove, Creed found his thoughts straying from his son and returning to the encounter outside the sports centre.
Returning to the cowardly way he’d hid in his car, waiting for the blonde to drive past.
Returning to Amy Cowan.
Amy was Creed’s personal assistant at the Agency. Up until a year ago that role had been filled by a carrot-haired kid with an angular face called Casey Brennan.
When Brennan left to take up a better job on the west coast Creed set about surfing the