Under the Same Sky Page 15

  Then we got to the town of Lyons, which I’d forgotten about completely. It was pretty big, and the streets were all lit up. There were people everywhere even though it was around two o’clock in the morning. Why weren’t they all home in bed? I wondered crankily. There were cops everywhere, too, which didn’t help me to relax one bit.

  By the time we got through Lyons I was a wreck, trying to keep my eyes on the road ahead, in the rearview mirror, and on the speedometer. I couldn’t seem to get a handle on the speed thing. I felt as if I was going way too fast for the amount of control I had, and still I’d discover I was going too slowly.

  The whole time, part of my mind was focused on Luisa—the others, too, but mostly Luisa—in the back of the truck. She had to be uncomfortable and scared and—

  Just drive, I told myself.

  Adding to my worry were all the deer that came out at night to feed in the fields. From time to time, I’d see their dim shapes or the green glow of their eyes shining in the headlights as they browsed by the road. Once, three of them jumped out of nowhere to race across the road in front of us. I slammed on the brakes and we squealed to a stop and stalled.

  I sat for a moment, my heart doing flip-flops. I’d seen what hitting a full-sized deer could do to a truck. The last thing we needed was a crash. I imagined police cars and tow trucks arriving at the scene, and shuddered as I turned the key in the ignition and started up again.

  Route 14 went right up to the edge of Lake Ontario. There were lots of big fruit orchards up that way, and I guessed that we were heading for one of them. As we neared the lake, Manuel began peering at road signs.

  “Turn here,” he said suddenly. “Derecha—to the right.”

  We turned several more times, passing through row after row of fruit trees that grew right up to the side of the road. We came to a sign that said ALDERMAN ORCHARDS—APPLES, PEACHES, CHERRIES—SINCE 1942, passed a big roadside stand, then a house and some barns. About a quarter mile farther, a dirt road led off to the left.

  “Here,” said Manuel tensely, pointing for me to take the dirt road. “Turn off the lights.”

  Slowly, we lurched along the rutted lane. I was thankful for the moonlight, which allowed me to see pretty well once my eyes adjusted. Ahead was a clearing with a semicircle of cabins, a few trailers, several cars and trucks, some lawn furniture and a picnic table, and a pole with a plastic gallon jug hanging from a rope.

  A light shone from the window of one of the cabins. As we pulled to a stop, the door of the cabin opened, and a man walked toward us, stopping at my window and peering in.

  “Manuel?” he said uncertainly.

  I pointed to the passenger seat and leaned back so he could see Manuel beside me.

  “You are Angelo?” asked Manuel.

  “Sí.”

  “Bueno.”

  They began talking rapidly in Spanish, and I couldn’t follow what they said. Manuel got out of the car, so I did, too. I helped him pull off the tarp that covered the truck bed, and Luisa, Rafael, and Frank sat up, pulling straw from their hair and looking around.

  Luisa was wearing some of the dark clothing I had given Manuel. In the moonlight, her eyes looked huge and frightened.

  I couldn’t help it. I whispered her name. “Luisa!”

  “Hi, Joe,” she answered, just as quietly. Then she smiled, but I could see the strain on her face.

  I nodded hello to Rafael and Frank, and though they smiled, too, they looked anxious and exhausted.

  The truth was, I felt like jumping into the truck bed and hugging all three of them, I was just so glad to see them.

  There was more rapid Spanish from Angelo, and Luisa and the guys climbed out of the truck. We all stood for a minute, while Angelo explained something to them. I was dying to know what was going on, but I knew enough to keep my mouth shut.

  What’s going to happen now? As soon as the question crossed my mind, it was answered. Angelo looked at Luisa and pointed to one of the cabins, then he looked at Frank and Rafael and pointed to another.

  And that was it. It was time to go. Manuel and the two men hugged each other, shook hands, and hugged again. Then Luisa threw her arms around Manuel. Crying softly, she whispered to him in Spanish. He nodded over and over, as he squeezed her hard. Then he stared into her face for a long moment before letting her go.

  It was all happening so fast. I was close to tears myself when Rafael took my hand and shook it.

  “Gracias,” he said. “Por todo. Vaya con Dios, Joe.”

  “You, too,” I answered, realizing at that moment how much I was going to miss Mula.

  Then Frank took my hand. “Muchas gracias, Joe,” he said.

  “De nada,” I answered, using some of the little Spanish I knew.

  “Eres un verdadero amigo,” he said, still shaking my hand.

  I was suddenly all choked up. I wanted to tell him how much I’d enjoyed working with him, but I couldn’t think how to say it. “Adiós, amigo,” I said instead.

  He gave my shoulder a little punch and with a last grin from under his baseball cap said, “Go, Yankees!”

  I laughed and echoed, “Go, Yankees!”

  Then I turned to face Luisa. I couldn’t help it. As soon as I looked into her face, I took her in my arms. I felt her tears when her cheek touched mine.

  “Luisa,” I whispered. There was so much I’d have liked to say, but there was no time and I didn’t have the words.

  “Joe, I will not forget you,” she said, “or what you do for us, not ever.”

  “Shhh,” I murmured. “I didn’t do anything.” There was something important I needed to say. “Remember what you told me?” I said. “About coming back with your sisters and going back to school someday?”

  I could feel her nod.

  “Tú puedes,” I said softly into her hair. “You can do it. You will do it. I know it.”

  Angelo spoke sharply then, and I knew he was impatient for Luisa and the others to be safely inside and for Manuel and me to leave.

  “Goodbye, Luisa.”

  She pulled away from me and put a finger to my lips. “No. Not goodbye, Joe. Hasta luego. But not goodbye.”

  Until later. I knew what the words meant, and I wanted to believe that I would see her again.

  She turned to go.

  “Wait!” I cried. I ran back to the passenger side of the truck and pawed through the glove compartment. Please, I prayed silently, let it be there. My fingers closed around a long narrow shape—yes, a syringe! I went back and pressed it into Luisa’s hand. “You watch for hornets,” I said, holding her face in my hands. “Keep this with you. All the time, okay?”

  She nodded. I kissed her gently.

  “Luisa!” Manuel whispered loudly. “You must go!”

  “Thank you, Joe,” she said, and she was smiling and crying at the same time. “I had to leave Señor Oso behind. You give him to Meg, all right? Until I come back.”

  Señor Oso? For a second I hesitated, feeling confused. Then I remembered. “The panda bear! Sure, I’ll give him to Meg.”

  Luisa began to walk away, then turned to say, “My dress! The one my mother sewed.” She faltered, and my chest ached for her.

  “I’ll keep it for you,” I promised. “Until you come back.”

  “Luisa!” Manuel was pushing her now toward where the others had headed.

  And then she was gone. They all were gone. Manuel and I got into the truck and drove out the way we had come.

  We didn’t talk for a long time after that. It wasn’t because of the difference in our languages. I was learning that there are times when it’s impossible to find the words for what is in your heart, no matter what language you speak.

  We were maybe halfway home—it was hard to tell, because it was dark and I didn’t know the road very well, and because my mind was so disoriented from everything that had happened—when I noticed headlights in my rearview mirror. I looked down at the speedometer and saw I was going thirty-five. You’ve go
t to pay attention! I scolded myself silently. Why didn’t you think to let Manuel drive? Stupid.

  Rather than pulling over right then and switching drivers, I figured I’d wait until whoever it was passed me, as the few other cars that had come from behind earlier had done. But this car hung back, remaining at the same distance from the truck, for what felt like a mile. It was making me nervous.

  “Manuel,” I said in a low voice, breaking the silence. “There’s a car just sitting on my tail back there. What should I do?”

  Manuel looked back over his shoulder. Then he looked at the speedometer. “Better to speed up, maybe,” he said.

  “Okay.” I pressed my foot on the accelerator. Then I glanced into the rearview mirror just in time to see a bar of flashing red lights appear across the top of the car and to hear the whoop-whoop-whoop of a police car’s siren.

  26

  “Oh, man,” I moaned. “Oh, man. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this is happening. It’s a cop. What do I do? What do I do?”

  “You have to stop, Joe,” Manuel said urgently. “Pull to the side.”

  “Oh, man,” I repeated as I steered the truck to the shoulder and stopped. “We’re dead. I’m dead. Oh, man.”

  The siren went off, but the red lights continued flashing. In the side mirror, I could see the policeman get out of his car. He shone a flashlight around in the back of the truck, even picking up the tarp and looking underneath. I had a momentary rush of panic, thinking how much worse this would have been had it happened on the way to Sodus instead of now.

  It was plenty bad enough now.

  The flashlight beam shone through the window on the back of the cab, lighting up Manuel’s head and then mine. Then the cop’s face appeared at my open window, and the light flashed directly in my face for a second, then went off.

  “License and registration, please.”

  License—forget it. I remembered once when Mom had gotten pulled over for a missing taillight or something. She’d gotten papers out of the glove compartment and handed them to the officer. The door on the dash was still ajar from when I’d gotten the syringe for Luisa. I fumbled around until I felt a little plastic sleeve with some papers inside. I handed them over, and the officer examined them.

  “This truck’s owned by a James L. Pedersen. Is that you?”

  “No, sir,” I said. “That’s my father.”

  “And you would be…?”

  “Joe. Joe Pedersen, sir.”

  “This vehicle is registered for farm use only, not for the highway. Did you know that?”

  I shrugged.

  “May I see your license, Joe?”

  There was a pause, while I tried to think of something I could say that would get me out of this. “I don’t have one,” I answered at last.

  “Do you know why I pulled you over, Joe?” the officer asked.

  I shook my head.

  “You were going about thirty-five in a fifty-five zone. Now, in my experience that means a driver who is either drunk or very old…or else a driver who’s young and inexperienced. How old are you, Joe?”

  “Fourteen,” I mumbled.

  “Would you mind getting out of the car for a minute, Joe?”

  I opened the door and stood in the glare of the flashing red lights.

  “Would you mind taking a little walk down the yellow line by the shoulder of the road there, Joe?”

  I knew that he was watching to see if I could walk straight, and that made me even more nervous than I already was. I stumbled once, and was terrified he’d think I was drunk as well as underage and unlicensed. But he seemed satisfied.

  “Okay, Joe, you can come on back here.”

  When I was standing before him once again, he said quietly, “So, Joe. What are you doing out at”—he checked his watch—“close to three in the morning, driving without a license?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Do your parents know where you are?”

  “They’re out of town.”

  “And they let you stay home alone?”

  “Yeah,” I said. I didn’t see any point in trying to explain.

  “And so you decided to go for a little joyride with your friend here?” He pointed into the cab at Manuel, who hadn’t moved or said a word since we’d been stopped.

  Joyride? I thought. If you only knew.

  I shrugged again.

  “Did you boys get into any trouble tonight?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Just out riding around, is that it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He looked right at me for a minute, and I was surprised to see something like kindness or understanding in his eyes. I noticed the name tag on the pocket of his uniform. Sergeant H. V. Wellman.

  “Well, Joe, we can’t allow fourteen-year-old boys to be out driving around. It’s against the law, I’m sure you’re aware of that.”

  “Yeah,” I answered, in a voice so low he might not even have heard me.

  “I could take you down to the station now, book you, and keep you until your parents come back.”

  He paused, maybe to give me time to think about that. I pictured myself sitting in a jail cell, and imagined the look that would be on Dad’s face when he came to get me. I was dead.

  “That could keep you from getting your night license, even when you are sixteen,” Sergeant Wellman went on.

  Oh well, I thought, I’m not going to live to be sixteen, anyway.

  “But I’ve got a feeling about you, Joe. I’m betting this is your first offense, is that right?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay. I’m going to make this easier on you than I could, you understand?”

  I nodded again, even though I didn’t really understand, except that it sounded as if he was going to give me a break.

  “What I need you to do, Joe, is promise me you’ll never pull another boneheaded stunt like this. What do you say?”

  “Yes. I mean, I do. I promise. I won’t.”

  Sergeant Wellman gave me a long, searching look. “Okay,” he said. Then he peered into the cab at Manuel. “You, son,” he said, “how old are you?”

  Manuel looked startled at being addressed. “Sixteen,” he answered.

  “You got a license?”

  Manuel nodded, reached into his back pocket, and handed over his license.

  “Manuel Velarde,” the sergeant read aloud, and I realized it was the first time I’d ever heard Manuel’s last name.

  “I gotta ask,” the sergeant said, looking at us curiously. “Why was Joe here driving, when you’ve got a license?”

  It was a logical question, but there was no way we could answer it with the truth: on the trip up we were afraid of getting caught for transporting illegal aliens, and on the way back we were too freaked out to think of trading places.

  “My dad’s truck,” I said with a shrug.

  “I see,” said Sergeant Wellman. If he suspected there was more to the story than that, he decided to let it go. “All right, Manuel, I’d like you to switch places with Joe and drive this truck home. Where do you live?” he asked, turning to me.

  I explained where the farm was.

  “You live at the farm, too?” the officer asked Manuel.

  “Yes.”

  The sergeant nodded. “Okay, then. I’m going to follow you boys home in the cruiser. First, I’m going to have to write you a ticket, Joe, for being underage and driving without a license in an unregistered vehicle. I won’t make you go to the station now, but you are going to have to appear in family court with your parents, and there’s a chance you’ll get a pretty hefty fine.”

  He went back and sat in the police car, writing out the ticket, I guessed. Manuel and I switched places and waited, too dazed and tired to talk.

  Sergeant Wellman handed the ticket through the window, and I placed it on the seat without looking at it.

  The sergeant told Manuel to drive home carefully. He followed us, with the flashing red
lights mercifully turned off, all the way into the driveway at the farm. The windows in the crew’s quarters glowed with light, and I pictured the rest of the guys inside, anxiously waiting for Manuel to get back.

  The sergeant told me there were instructions on the ticket for what my parents and I had to do. Before he left, he said, “Now, don’t make me sorry I gave you a break, Joe.”

  “No, sir.”

  Manuel and I stood in the driveway for a moment, watching the police car until it disappeared. “Well,” I began, “I—”

  But Manuel interrupted. His face in the dim light looked very serious. “I don’t know—how to say—except, thank you. I will tell your father when he comes back, it was not your fault. I—”

  “No,” I broke in. “You don’t have to say anything. I wanted to go. I knew what I was doing.”

  Manuel looked right at me, and I almost had the feeling he was really seeing me for the first time. “We are—all of us—very grateful,” he said rather formally. Then he reached out to shake my hand. “Thank you, Boss.”

  I went inside and climbed the stairs to my room. I put the ticket on the bureau and fell onto the bed, more tired than I’d ever been. It wasn’t until the moment right before I slipped from consciousness that I realized Manuel had called me Boss.

  27

  I woke up hot and sweaty, and my room was filled with blazing sunshine. I closed my eyes quickly to block out the glare, along with the vague sensation that something terrible had happened that I didn’t want to face. Dim memories passed through my mind, filled with darkness and furtive movement and flashing red lights.

  Red lights. A police car. Luisa’s face, her eyes huge and dark with fear. A nightmare?

  I opened one eye and saw the ticket sitting on my bureau. No, not a nightmare. I opened the other eye, letting the pain of the blinding sun jolt me to full awareness. The events of the previous night washed over me all at once, and I sat straight up in bed. I glanced at the clock: It was after one in the afternoon. No wonder the sun was beating in so ferociously.