Smugglers Notch Page 24

  St. Germain tilted his head back and stared solemnly toward the stars.

  “That’s not funny,” Conklin said.

  “You bump into Mel, you can tell him something for me.”

  “What—?”

  “He had a real jerk for a brother.”

  “What if I don’t … if I go to … What if he’s not there?”

  St. Germain shrugged. He put his other foot down and then stopped and fished inside his pockets, came out with a quarter and flipped it after the patch.

  “What’s this for?” Conklin asked him.

  “Maybe you can call.”

  He watched the boy struggle some more, then collapse and scratch spastically at the snow. He lowered himself to the boulders and leaned against the cliff, listening to him howl. With a pine bough for a walking stick he made his way over the loose rock. Someone was coming toward him from the trees. In the moonlight he thought he saw a sheriff’s officer or trooper and was furious with himself for not finishing off Conklin while he had the chance. But then Brenda ran up to him, and he said, “What are you doing here?” and put his arm around her, letting her take some of the weight off his leg.

  “I was afraid you were in trouble and I could help,” she said shyly.

  “That was a very brave thing for you to do.”

  The girl cringed, looking past him toward the cliff. “Did you hear that? It sounds like someone screaming.”

  “It’s an animal,” he said.

  “He’s dead, isn’t he? I heard shooting.”

  St. Germain nodded and Brenda felt moisture against her neck and saw that he was bleeding. “He hurt you again,” she said. “I thought … I thought he’d killed you.”

  “He did.” The stick fell from St. Germain’s hand and he walked with her into the trees. “But I’m over it now.”

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