Billy and the Bearman. David A. Poulsen
he chose to take out whatever was bugging him on Billy.
And one thing Billy knew for certain was that he hadn’t run away from what was happening to him at home so that he could be beaten up by someone else.
CHAPTER
4
Billy changed his mind at least three times on the drive into Palliser. First, he decided he’d stay. After all, Bearman hadn’t actually hit him. Then he made up his mind to go. He would strike out on his own when they got to the town. Although he hadn’t been hit, he could have been and that was enough. But finally he reached the decision to stay with Bearman. There were several reasons for coming to that conclusion but the two most important were, first of all, that he liked Bearman, bad temper and all, and secondly, he really didn’t have a lot of other options. On his own, he’d either be found by the police or his parents or get into some scrape he couldn’t get himself out of. Staying was the better choice, at least for now. Even so, Billy told himself he would only stay so long as Bearman never hit him.
Once he’d arrived at his decision, Billy had an idea he wanted to try on Bearman. “What do you think about a treehouse?” he said as they took a corner a little too fast and he was forced to hang on to the door handle.
“What?”
“I was wondering about a treehouse.” Billy turned in the seat to face Bearman. “I bet we could build one. I read a book once where they built one. And then we’d be off the ground and everything.”
“A treehouse,” Bearman repeated slowly.
“And nobody will even be able to see us up there. They could walk right underneath us and never know we were up there.”
“A treehouse,” Bearman said again.
Billy nodded. “Swiss Family Robinson. That’s the book I read it in. A whole family lived in there. Of course, ours wouldn’t have to be as fancy, but I bet we could do it.”
This time Bearman didn’t say anything.
“So, what do you think?” Billy asked again. “You said we needed a more permanent place to live.”
“A treehouse.”
“Yes, a treehouse, a treehouse!” Billy was becoming impatient. “Geez, a . . . treehouse. What do you think?”
“I think . . . it’s not a bad idea.” Bearman kept his eyes on the road ahead. It was a gravel road, a back road where they weren’t as likely to be seen. “Not bad at all. Of course, we’ll need lumber, but I’ve got an idea where we could get all we need and tools won’t be a problem either.” He reached across and punched Billy lightly on the shoulder. “Yeah, might not be a bad idea at all.”
They rode in silence then, until they reached the edge of town. It was just after noon. Bearman slowed the truck.
“This is a good time to be here,” he told Billy. “Everybody’ll be having lunch. Even if the Mounties are in town, they won’t be likely to notice us.”
Bearman guided the pick-up down a side street and parked it behind a bread delivery truck where it was well-hidden from the main street.
“No sense drawing attention to ourselves,” he said. “Let’s go. First stop, grocery store.”
It was the smallest supermarket Billy had ever seen, an IGA store, two buildings in from the corner. The lone clerk in the store was a teenaged girl with a ponytail and a fair sized wad of bubblegum in her mouth. Billy guessed she was a couple of years younger than Bearman. She looked bored and uninterested, not the type to pay a whole lot of attention to the two of them. She didn’t look up as they entered the store. A couple of women pushing grocery carts and an elderly couple arguing over what detergent to buy were the only other people in the store.
“Since we don’t have any way of keeping anything cold, we’ll have to buy stuff that won’t go bad,” Bearman said quietly as he led the way down the first aisle.
For the next quarter of an hour, they weaved their way up and down aisles, Bearman selecting the items and dropping them into the grocery cart, Billy keeping track of how much they had spent. Bearman had allotted thirty dollars for groceries. They took no meat; Bearman was sure they’d be able to trap or shoot that part of their diet. He filled the shopping cart with canned and packaged goods, bread, several boxes of macaroni and cheese and a large bag of potatoes.
“We don’t have any butter,” Billy said. “Don’t we need butter for macaroni?”
“Not the way I make it, Kid.”
“Yuk.”
Bearman added a small jar of peanut butter to the contents of the shopping cart.
“Twenty-seven dollars,” Billy announced.
“Right,” Bearman nodded. “And that about does it, so I figure we oughta splurge with the last three bucks.”
“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Billy nodded. “How about we splurge on butter?”
“Nope, tonight we dine in style,” Bearman said, holding up a pound of hamburger. “Grab some buns and we’re outa here.”
The store clerk, intent on reshaping the wad of gum, barely looked at them as she checked their purchases through the till. On their way out of the store the boys passed a table near the door where a tiny, old lady with a wrinkled, grandmotherly smile was selling fresh-baked blueberry pies.
Bearman stopped to examine the pies. “How much?” he inquired.
“Two dollars,” the lady replied, “and they’re guaranteed good.”
“They look good,” Billy swallowed.
“I’ll give you a dollar fifty,” Bearman told the lady.
“Not if you want one of these pies, young man.” The sweet smile never left the lady’s face, but Billy sensed that she wasn’t about to let any of her pies go for less than the quoted price.
“Well,” Bearman started, rubbing his chin deliberately, “you see, ma’am, my little brother here is in need of an operation and if I pay more than a dollar fifty for your pie, not sayin’ it ain’t worth the full two dollars understand, but if I pay more than that dollar fifty, I’ll have to dig into little Billy’s operation fund.”
The pie lady seemed about to laugh, but she didn’t. Instead she turned in her chair and looked sternly at Billy. “And what sort of surgery is it that you’re requiring, Billy?”
Billy tried to think fast. “Brain!” he blurted. “Brain surgery. I . . . uh . . . fell off my bike.”
This time the old lady did laugh. Bearman smacked the palm of his hand against his forehead and rolled his eyes.
“Two dollars,” the lady said again.
Bearman nodded and reached into his pocket and took out a two dollar bill.
As they made their way toward the door with their grocery bags, he shook his head. “Brain surgery, I can’t believe you said that.”
Billy shrugged. “It was all I could come up with on short notice.”
Bearman grumbled all the way to the pick-up. “You need brain surgery, that part’s true.” He laughed then and Billy did too. He started to get in the truck, but Bearman stopped him.
“We’ll leave it where it is,” he told Billy. “It’s almost out of sight here. We can walk to the clothes place.” They set the groceries inside and started back toward main street.
As they walked, Billy kicked a couple of stones, then turned to look at Bearman. “Before . . . when we were talking about the treehouse, you said the wood and tools would be no problem.”
Bearman nodded and kicked a stone of his own.
“How are we