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Part Six "Beaver Creek," Nick said, reading the sign. "Are there beavers, do you know?" "Downstream there are," Stacy said. "There's a place where they built a dam on our land. It used to flood the bottom of the cornfield, but last year Dad dug out the creek so the beavers could have their pond without making a flood, and so we could swim." "Can you swim in it now?" "It's too cold." "Ever skinny-dip?" She looked at him. "Hardly!" "Is that a beaver?" Nick pointed to something in the underbrush, then abruptly left the road and scrambled down the weedy stream-bank. "I think it's hurt!" he said. Stacy didn't see anything but she felt a proprietary interest in the beaver so she followed him down to the creek, sliding a bit on the wet bank and getting her shoes and jeans muddy. "Where is it?" she said. "Right there," Nick said, pointing into a cluster of bushes on the other side of the creek. They weren't in full leaf yet, but there was enough greenery to make it hard to see what was under them. Stacy stepped on a flat rock that stuck out of the creek, then another one, balanced between the two as she tried to see the beaver. She didn't want to get too close to a possibly injured wild animal. Something shoved her in the back, hard. With a little scream she fell forward, landing in the cold stream on her hands and knees. Her right hand slipped on a rock underwater and smacked into a hole, twisting her wrist and hurting her knuckles. "Grab her!" said a boy's voice. As she scrambled to her feet, Nick took hold of her arm. At first she thought he was helping her up, but then she saw his three friends running out from under the bridge and realized she had been betrayed. "Let go of me!" she cried, striking at him with her injured hand. It wasn't the kind of strike her brother had taught her but more of a flimsy slap. Her voice was not the commanding roar that she had practiced with Dane; it was more of a panicicken squeal. "Just take it easy there, Stacy," Nick said, in a honey-sweet mockery of the friendly tone he had used on her earlier. "We're not going to hurt you." "Yes we are," said the big boy whose name was Murph. The other three were moving to surround her. Nick laughed. "Okay, we are. But you might like some of it." He gave her arm a jerk. "Come on, get out of the water." Standing in the creek, she had more secure footing than Nick who was on one of the stepping-stones. When she took off running he lurched after her and fell, letting go of her arm. She sprinted up the hill, through her neighbors' woods, into the Tilssen front yard, around to the back door, and stuck her head into the kitchen. "Dane here?" she panted. Mrs. Tilssen looked up from kneading a wad of bread dough. "Not at the moment—" Slamming the door, Stacy ran across the farmyard, let herself into the pasture and ran for the tenant house. Dane was on his front porch. He saw her coming and ran to meet her. "What's wrong?" He glanced at her muddy legs and scraped knuckles. "What happened?" "They jumped me!" she gasped. "All four of them!" "Are you all right?" She nodded. He looked a little ill, but as he gently examined her right hand he smiled at her injured knuckles and said, "At least you did them some damage. Good for you!" "No!" The word came out in a wail, as she recognized that she had failed to use any of the techniques he'd taught her. She couldn't defend herself at all. "I hurt my hand when I fell!" "Where are they?" "They jumped me at the Beaver Creek bridge." "Very long ago?" She shook her head. "I ran straight here." "Go inside and clean those knuckles with iodine," Dane told her. He turned and ran towards the farmyard. A minute later she heard his car start up and skid in the gravel as it barreled onto the county road. Stacy walked up to the tenant house. They wouldn't still be there at the creek. They'd probably be back in town by now and her brother didn't know what Nick and his friends looked like. Come to think of it, she wasn't even sure she had mentioned anyone's name to him except Roger Marsh and that was three weeks ago. She had been completely ineffectual and Dane would be, too. Or else if he did somehow find them, he might cripple or kill them and go to prison for it. She looked down at the guitar on the porch swing, and remembered that he kept his gun in the same closet as his instruments.
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