8th Day Page 6

  "House Leaders. It's a pretty big honor. Takes a long time to earn the rank. They're kind of like peer police, though I think the term conflict managers is preferred. A lot of the discipline problems are handled by them. They're in charge of making sure everything in their house is in order."

  "What if it isn't?" I asked. We'd stopped at the door and were looking back over the whole group.

  "They report infractions to Coach," she whispered. "Coach takes it from there."

  "What if they don't report an infraction?"

  She looked at me like I was nuts. "If they don't, and someone else does, they get punished, too."

  "What if no one else tells?"

  She took my elbow and led me outside, talking to me like I was a slow learner. "Let's say a couple of boys in the orange house start talking after lights out. If Dillinger, the House Leader, doesn't stop the problem immediately, and/or if he doesn't report it at morning roll call, then not only will the two kids get double what the punishment would have been, but Dillinger gets punished too. Because there's always the possibility that someone else will tell, see? And Dillinger can't take the risk of not telling. If it happens a second time, Dillinger loses his status as House Leader. Just knowing that someone might tell is enough to motivate a kid like Dillinger to report everything. House Leaders do not want to lose their status or privileges."

  Lacy steered me toward the parking lot, and, when we neared the electronic gate, it swung open as if on command. I glanced around and saw Coach, not fifteen feet behind us, aiming a hand-held remote control in our direction. I waved my thanks, though, in truth, his presence made me uneasy. It was like being guarded by a Doberman you couldn't quite trust. I retrieved my bags from the dusty Jeep and handed Lacy the lighter of the two. Lacy led the way past the administration building toward the staff cabins I'd seen earlier.

  I noticed that, behind us, students had begun to file out of the mess hall, heading toward their afternoon sessions. They did not seem to be color-coordinated in their destinations, and I pointed this out to Lacy.

  "Oh, no. Doc groups them by compatibility for their houses, but by interests and capabilities for their classes. This way, boys and girls get a chance to interact, which Doc thinks is healthy."

  Some of the kids were headed for their work stations while others went in the direction of the classrooms. Maddie, I noticed, was headed for the machine shop.

  "Yours is the last one on the end," Lacy said, leading the way up the dirt path past dozens of small cabins nestled in the pines. Each little cabin was separated from the next by a stand of trees, giving them all a sense of privacy. The last cabin was indeed off by itself, nearly hidden by the evergreens that shaded the front porch. Lacy flung open the creaky door and ushered me inside like a bellhop showing me to my suite. I was tempted to tip her.

  "Pretty cool, huh?" She set the duffel bag on the wood floor with a gargantuan sigh.

  "Not bad," I agreed. The cabin was rustic but tidy with a nice picture window looking out onto the lush meadow behind it. Sun streamed in through the lacy curtained window, catching dust motes floating lazily in the air. The center of the main room was filled by a patchwork quilt-covered double bed that looked inviting enough to crawl right into. In fact, Lacy walked over and plopped herself on top of it, letting her legs swing over the side. She acted like she'd done the same thing a hundred times before.

  "Not the Hilton, but it's got everything you need," Lacy said, getting up to show me the miniscule closet. The far right side of the room was divided between a tiny kitchenette and a half-bath. "You can even cook meals, if you want, but, with Pat cooking over at the mess hall, why bother? She's a great cook. You should meet her pretty soon. She's in the next cabin over. You want me to help you unpack?"

  "No, thanks," I said nastily. "To tell you the truth, what I'd really like to do is grab a quick nap and a shower before I go sign the paperwork, then maybe walk the grounds. The drive up here wore me out." What I really wanted to do was find a place to stash the stuff I didn't want someone else to stumble upon, namely my gun.

  Lacy looked a bit crestfallen, like she'd been looking forward to hanging up my clothes, going through my stuff. It occurred to me that she might have been friends with Miss Sisson. If so, she was probably missing her.

  "Did this cabin belong to the teacher who left?" I asked nonchalantly.

  "It sure did," she said, sighing again. "Annie had a real knack for making things homey. She had bright pictures on the walls and always had a vase with wild flowers on that little table. Even her grandmother's old quilt makes the place feel homey, doesn't it?"

  "It sure does. Why'd she leave it?"

  "That's what I wondered, too. I mean she cleared out of here in the middle of the night with not so much as a goodbye to anyone. Maybe she was just in too much of a hurry to take it. It was hanging out back on the clothesline, so I guess she could've overlooked it, but it had belonged to her grandmother. I thought about taking it myself, but, I don't know, it just didn't seem right. Besides, I keep thinking she might change her mind and come back. I'd feel funny having her grandmother's quilt on my bed if she did come back."

  "I see what you mean. Maybe I should fold it up and save it for her."

  "Nah, Annie wouldn't mind you using it. She's real generous that way. Too generous sometimes. She's one of the easiest going people you'd ever want to meet. The kind people tend to take advantage of sometimes."

  "Really? How so?" I didn't want to sound too interested, but I wanted to keep her talking.

  "Oh, I don't know. Like everyone knew she'd cover a class if they asked her, 'cause she just never liked to say no. So, naturally, people were always asking her, and she ended up working right through her days off. Stuff like that."

  "Any idea why she left?" I asked, pushing my luck.

  "Oh, I've got my suspicions," she said, folding her arms over her ample chest. Her pink lips had become pursed.

  "Really?" Trying not to push. Trying to coax gently.

  "It's a long story," she said, "and not really mine to tell. Anyway, if I don't see you sooner, I'll catch you at dinner. I'm just four cabins over. Holler if you need anything." With that, she flounced out the door, letting it bang closed behind her, leaving a hint of Chantilly in her wake.

  Wondering how I was going to get Lacy Godfrey to tell me the long story that wasn't hers to tell, I began unpacking. It only took a few minutes to hang my clothes and put away my toiletries, but quite a bit longer to find good hiding places for my cell phone and gun. There was no rule as far as I knew against having a cell phone at the camp, but I'd learned in the past that it was good to keep a few surprises in reserve. Having immediate access to the outside world might come in handy in an emergency. I flipped open the cell phone and punched in my security code, waiting for the computerized voice to tell me I could make a call. Instead, the image of a flashing antennae filled the tiny screen, alerting me that I was not in calling range. So much for emergencies. Maybe the phone would work once I got out of the shadow of the mountain. In the meantime, I'd just need to stash it someplace safe. Not that anyone was likely to come looking through my stuff, I thought. Still, out of habit, I felt the need to play it safe.

  The problem was, there weren't too many hidey holes in the cabin. There was a large wicker basket, which I supposed was for use as a laundry hamper, but that would be too obvious. I could always stash the gun and phone under the mattress, but that was probably the first place someone would look if they were searching the cabin. I finally settled on using the duct tape I'd brought to secure both the gun and cell phone behind the drawers in the small chest beside the bed. Not as easy to get to, I knew, but less likely to be discovered by a nosy neighbor.

  I slid the top drawer out and turned it over on the bed, then stopped, my mouth open with surprise. Someone had beaten me to the punch. Something was already taped to the bottom of the top drawer. My heart raced as I peeled the masking tape back and pulled three small pink plastic packet
s free. They were lightweight in my palm and harmless looking. I slid a hard plastic card the size of a credit card from one of the packets and stared down at twenty-one green tablets half the size of an aspirin. I turned the packet over and read the prescription made out to Annie Sisson for Low-Esterin. It appeared that Annie was taking birth control pills and for some reason had felt compelled to hide them.

  Quickly I checked the rest of the drawers, but found nothing else out of place. I taped my holstered gun behind the bottom drawer and my cell phone behind the second drawer, making sure the tape would hold their weight and that the drawers would close normally. Once I had them right, I put Annie's pills back beneath the top drawer as well. If Lacy was right and Annie decided to come back out of the blue, I didn't want her stumbling upon the gun when she went to retrieve her pills.

  Then I sat back on the bed and wondered why someone who decided to leave in the middle of the night would leave her grandmother's quilt and three months' supply of birth control pills. Maybe someone else had cleaned out the place, not realizing the quilt was hanging out back, not knowing there were pills hidden beneath the drawer.

  Well, I wasn't going to get any closer to the truth sitting there brooding about it. I gave one last look around the cabin, knowing I'd done the best I could, then looked at my watch. It was time for a quick shower, another session with Ida Evans, and then, if I could wing it, a self-guided tour of the camp, giving me a chance to catch up with my friend, Gracie Apodaca.

  Chapter Six

  The session with Ida turned out to be a much more involved ordeal than I'd anticipated, and it was nearly dinnertime by the time we'd finished. The paperwork, as she called it, took almost no time at all. But my orientation was intense. First, I got to watch a videotape about Camp Turnaround. It was the same video shown to parents of prospective enrollees. Then I got to watch the staff video, which had a lot of the same information but with a different slant. First and foremost in both tapes was the emphasis on behavior modification. Taking unacceptable behavior and turning it into desirable behavior was the goal of Camp Turnaround. The parent video focused more on the work and education programs, while the staff video stressed the active use of consequences for appropriate and inappropriate behaviors. Inappropriate behavior was to be confronted, consequented, and redirected, while appropriate behavior was to be reinforced and rewarded. I kept waiting for a shot of Coach zapping another kid with the cattle prod, but somehow they'd decided not to include that particular behavior mod method in the tape.

  Yet a third video turned out to be the most interesting. With Ida serving as commentator, the video consisted of personal testimonials by camp graduates and their parents, teachers, ministers, and even employers. One after another sang the praises of Camp Turnaround. It seemed all of the graduates had gone on to be successful in life and credited the camp with getting them back on track. Nobody mentioned the cattle prod, and there was no reference to Isolation, though a number of the grads did talk about learning to be accountable for their actions and about how self-discipline led to self-worth. By the time I'd finished the video series, I was fairly convinced that all kids should be sent for at least a summer to Camp Turnaround, and that most adults could use a month or two there themselves.

  After the videos, Ida showed me a map of the facilities and a daily student schedule that began with roll call and morning calisthenics at six, included four hours of classes, four hours of work, an hour for physical training, an hour for group or individual counseling and/or therapy sessions, an hour for leisure, an hour for planned social activities, an hour for team building, and of course, the three squares a day. Lights Out was at ten o'clock, which left very little time for homework or reading, but I doubted too many of them put up much of a fight over it. By the end of the day, they were probably exhausted. There were no televisions, no computer games, and no telephones at Camp Turnaround. The only phone calls home, like the e-mail, were closely monitored. There were no weekend passes or home visits, and the only parent visitations were on planned parent days such as Camp Graduation.

  "Everything's so organized," I told Ida when I'd finished my reading assignment.

  "Has to he. When Doc and Clutchie and I started, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. We learned to get organized quick or we'd sink."

  "Who's Clutchie?"

  "That's Clutch to you." She gave me a schoolgirl laugh. "Got his nickname from his platoon leader in Nam, who said there was no one better in a clutch situation. In fact, I'm the only one who gets away with 'Clutchie.' " She winked. "He's my husband. He's also the finest horse trainer and breeder this side of Kentucky. He'll tell you so himself. Just ask him!" Her eyes beamed, and it was clear that she thought Clutchie hung the moon. It was also clear that Ida loved nothing more than talking about Camp Turnaround.

  "Clutch and I started out with a dream of running a summer horse camp for kids. His uncle owned this land along with the old worthless gold mine on it that he spent his younger years trying to make pay off. It took Uncle Joe half a lifetime to realize the land was more valuable than the mine, and that's when he started raising horses. Anyway, he practically raised Clutch on the ranch, teaching him what he knew, and when he died, he left the land to him.

  "While I was in school training to be a high school guidance counselor, Clutch got called off to Vietnam. When he came back, all he wanted was to work with horses on this land; I couldn't get him anywhere near a city. It was either give up my dream of working with kids, or give up on Clutch. The camp idea just seemed a natural compromise. He could work with horses, I could work with kids, and we could stay right here in paradise. Am I boring you?"

  "No. Not at all. Really."

  "Well, after that first summer, which was something of a nightmare, it was Doc who approached us about turning the camp into a ranch for troubled teens. He and Clutch served in Nam together and had kept in touch. After Nam, he'd finished med school, but he knew he wasn't cut out for the sterile environment of a hospital clinic. He wanted to work with adolescents and do therapeutic interventions. He just needed the right location, the right setup. What Clutch and I needed was capital, and that's where Doc's little brother Ben came in. He was already doing pretty well as a machinist. He wanted to start his own machine shop and needed the space to build. One thing we've got here is plenty of space. So Ben built his machine shop, and the kids get valuable hands-on skills they can take with them while Ben gets cheap labor. Clutch gets the help he needs during the peak seasons of horse breeding, and the kids get hands-on experience in ranching. It's a win-win situation. And Doc and I get to work with kids. Sometimes things really do work out the way they're supposed to." She was brimming with pride.

  "You've come a long way from a summer horse camp," I acknowledged.

  "Boy, if that ain't the truth. After the first few years, we just kept growing and growing, taking on more staff as the enrollment grew. Pretty soon, we were running the camp year-round. We finally had to start turning kids away. Now the camp has a waiting list a mile long. Soon as someone leaves, we open a spot for someone else. You sure I'm not boring you?"

  "Please. I find this fascinating."

  "The hardest part is knowing that some of these kids could revert to their old ways once they're back in the old environment. We've got seminars for the parents now, giving them some parenting tools. But, of course, some of the parents were part of the kids' problem in the first place.

  "Still, I imagine it's hard for most parents to give up their kid," I said, thinking about how difficult it must've been for Connie to let Maddie go. But that was different, I knew. Connie didn't know she'd be getting out of prison.

  "Oh, sweetie. These parents are so darn grateful that someone will take their kid, they'd pay us double if they could afford it. By the time they come to Camp Turnaround, they've all but lost hope. They've already given up on the kid. Giving him up is a lot easier than you'd think. We get stories all the time about how, for the first time in years, their
household is sane again, just because they've got the bad kid out of the house."

  I thought about Maddie. She hadn't started out a bad kid.

  "Don't you wonder sometimes what makes these kids bad in the first place?"

  She laughed. "There's more answers to that one than you'd believe. Some of the kids are into drugs. Some of their parents were into drugs, and the kids are so-called 'drug babies.' Those are the ones we have the most difficulty with, because they seem to lack the natural sense of right and wrong the good Lord gave the rest of us. Some of the kids were abandoned as children; some were abused. The list goes on and on. That's what Doc does so well. He gets to the root of their anger. Clutchie and Ben teach them the value of a hard day's work, how to care about something other than themselves. Doc reaches right down inside them and tugs on the things that make them tick."

  "And what does Coach do?" I asked.

  She frowned for a second, shaking her head. "You can't be too quick to judge Coach, Cassidy. There's more to him than meets the eye. Like he told you, he gets their attention. But he does much more than that. Sure, he has to tear them down a little. That's so Clutchie and the rest of us can build them back up. That's so Doc can work his magic. Someone has to play the bad cop. And Coach knows the value of the role he plays. He's a big reason our success rate is so high."

  "You've convinced me," I said, and she laughed again.

  "I do go on sometimes, don't I? Clutchie calls me a motor-mouth when I get wound up. Just tell me to shut up the next time I start waxing philosophical about the merits of Camp Turnaround. You think this is bad, you should hear me with the parents!"

  I laughed, but I was beginning to wonder if Ida weren't a little too wound up, like maybe she was getting a little pharmaceutical help. Diet pills could do that, sometimes, and her eyes did have a glassy brightness to them; but Ida hadn't appeared to be dieting at lunch and some people were naturally effervescent, I thought. Either way, I imagined Clutchie rarely got a word in edgewise.