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Read Ebook: Little Boy by Bixby Jerome Orban Paul Illustrator
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Ebook has 139 lines and 11803 words, and 3 pages
He took a step toward her, lips curled back.
She retreated two steps, and her back was against a tree trunk.
He came up to her and stood with his knife point pressing into her belly just above where the blouse entered the man's pants.
She whimpered and shook her head and whimpered again.
He scowled at her. Looked her up and down. She was wearing a tarnished ring on her right hand, with a stone that sparkled. He liked it. He decided to kill her. He pressed the knifepoint harder, and twisted.
She said, "Little boy--" and started to cry.
Memories assailed Steven:
Distrust. Kill her.
His knifepoint wavered. He scowled.
Kill.
Tears were rolling down her cheeks.
Leaves rustled. Steven and the girl froze motionless.
It was only a squirrel in the bushes.
He bent silently, looked around under the leafy green bushes that surrounded them, almost at ground-level. If there had been men nearby, he could have seen their legs. He saw nothing. He kept one eye on the girl as he bent. She wasn't crying, now that he'd taken the knife away. She was watching him and rubbing her belly where he'd pressed it.
When he straightened, she took a step away from the tree, moving as silently as he ever had. Suddenly she stooped to pick up her knife, made a slashing motion at the ground with it, looked up at him.
He was in mid-air. On her. She flattened beneath him with a squeal. She was stronger than he was, and experienced. She brought her knife back over her shoulder, and if he hadn't ducked his head it would have laid his face open. When she brought it down for another try, he clubbed the back of her hand with the hilt of his knife, and she gasped and dropped it.
Astride her, he raised his knife to kill her. She was pointing with her left hand, frantically, at something that lay on the ground beside them, and saying, "No, no, little boy, no, no--" Then she just whimpered, knowing that his knife was poised, and kept stabbing her finger at the ground. Because she was helpless, he paused, looked, and saw a squirrel lying there, head bleeding.
He understood. She hadn't been trying to kill him. She had seen the squirrel, and gotten it.
He decided to kill her anyway. For the squirrel.
He hesitated.
After a moment he rolled off her.
She sat up, cheeks tear-streaked. She pointed at the squirrel, then at Steven, and shook her head violently.
Knife threatening her, he reached out to pick up the squirrel.
At that point the squirrel, which had been only momentarily stunned by her blow, shook itself and scrambled for the bushes. His hand missed it by inches. He lunged for it, flat on his belly, and caught its tail with one hand.
As another squirrel's tail had done long ago, this one broke off.
He lay there for a moment, snarling, the tail in his hand; and when he turned over, the girl had her knife in her hand and her teeth were bared at him.
Blue eyes blazing, he got to his feet, expecting her to attack any second. He dropped the tail. He crouched to fight.
She didn't attack.
Nor, for some reason, did he.
He stared. At her strange snarl that wasn't a snarl. At the knife she had put away. He had never seen anyone do that before.
He looked at the squirrel tail lying on the ground. He worried it with a foot, then kicked it away. It wasn't good to eat--and he thought of how the squirrel had looked scrambling off, and felt his lips stretch tighter.
He tried to think of the word. Finally it came.
"Funny squirrel," he said, through his tight lips.
He stuck his knife in his belt.
They stared at each other, feeling each other's pleasure at the peacemaking.
She bent, picked up a small stone and flipped it at him. He made no attempt to catch it, and it struck him on the hip. He half-crouched, instantly wary, hand on knife. A thrown stone had only one meaning.
He reached out and caught it as it descended.
He started to toss it back to her, and remembered only at the last moment not to hurl it at her head.
He tossed it, and she missed it.
He grinned at her.
She tossed another one back at him, and he missed, and they both grinned.
Then he grunted, remembering something from the dim past. He picked up a small fallen branch from the ground.
When he looked up, she was poised to run.
This time he shook his head, waving the stick gently. "Play," he said.
She threw another stone, eyes warily on the stick. He swung, missed.
He hit the next one, and the sharp crack, and the noise the stone made rattling off into the bushes, flattened him to the ground, eyes searching for sign of men.
She was beside him. He smelled her body and her breath.
They saw no one.
He looked at her lying beside him. She was grinning again.
Then she laughed; and, without knowing what he was doing or why--he could hardly remember ever doing it before--he laughed too.
It felt good. Like the snarl that wasn't a snarl, only better. It seemed to come from way inside. He laughed again, sitting up. He laughed a third time, tight hesitant sounds that came out of his throat and stretched his lips until they wouldn't stretch any more.
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