The first time John Menden ran away from home he was eleven years old. It was not from his parents' home, of course, because they were elsewhere, out in the big wide open, out in the sky somewhere. It was Stan and Dorrie's.
He packed up the necessities for life on one's own: sleeping bag, a pillowcase full of food, pocketknife, all the cash he had- twenty-six dollars, a flashlight and a jacket. It was imperative that he bring his box with him. It was a cedar cigar box his father had given him, and it locked shut with a shiny brass hook. Inside it was the accumulated personal wealth of his eleven years: a silver ring with a big turquoise inlay that his parents brought him from Mexico and that was much too large even for his thumb; a piece of tree turned into a rock from the petrified forest of Arizona; pictures; a wristwatch that no longer worked; some sea shells he collected; two arrowheads he found himself; one shark's tooth he got up in the Mojave Desert and another, black and gigantic, that his mother bought for him; a collection of minerals in separate plastic bags that came with an Audubon Society book on rocks; Stebbins's Field Guide to Western Reptiles and Amphibians; and a loose rubble of acorns, tiny sand dollars, crab claws, pertinent stones and snake rattles. His latest addition to the box was the plastic bag the Sheriff had given him with the fossilized seashell and two gold rings. All of this luggage he strapped to his bicycle with Uncle Stan's duct tape, using the little book rack on his three-speed for the cigar box, sleeping bag and food. He slipped away late one summer morning.
First he went by his old house, which was only half a mile away. He stopped on the opposite sidewalk, leaned his weight onto one leg, and paused there to absorb the atmosphere of that place. The new owners had already painted the outside a dainty yellow with white trim, which John found too girlish. The woman had placed planter boxes under the bedroom windows and spiked them with marigolds and lobelia.
As he watched, two little boys about his age charged from the house and started up a game of stickball against the garage door. John looked on as they proceeded to use the very same strike zone that his father had painted there for him. The tennis ball thudded against the wood. One of the boys looked at him for a moment, then spit into the street. John leaned back onto the bicycle seat, strained his legs full-length to reach the pedals and headed off down the sidewalk.
Down Fourth all he way to the Marine Base, west along the chain link of the military property, past the guard house to the freeway, down the frontage road and old Coast Highway to a gravel path that led through a saltwater slough and into the gentle but wild foothills of the Rancho del Sol and a short three hours later John was on the place that would someday be known as Liberty Ridge.
He pushed his bike as far as he could into the brush, toward the lake. When he couldn't push it any farther he unstrapped his belongings and left it hidden under a lemonadeberry tree. It tool him almost an hour to cross the ridge of foothills and reach the lake. He could see the old mission house far on the other side, up on a rise where it commanded a view of the countryside around it. The roof tiles were orange in the summer light and the wall: were white. He found the old boat in its usual place, tucked up under a sandstone ledge not far from shore, with bunches of tumbleweeds to hide it. The oars were lying inside the hull.
"Who are you?"
He reeled behind him, toward the voice. A dark-skinned boy stood exactly where John had walked just a moment before. John was impressed that anyone could move that quietly. He was more impressed with the long, slender-bladed knife in the boy's left hand. He was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and a pair of sandals He was probably a teenager.
"John."
"That's my boat."
"Okay."
"You stealing it?"
"I want to go to the island."
"That's my island, too."
"Okay."
"I live here. My whole family works for the Holts."
"I rode my bike."
"Then where is it?"
"In the bushes. Way back that way."
"I'm Carlos and this is my lake. I could skin you with this knife and take your bike."
John was trembling and he knew his legs wouldn't get him far. He tried to imagine what his father would say.
"Carlos," he said. "What do you say we go over to the island and bullshit a little?"
The dark boy glared at him, then bent his knife in half and slipped it into his pocket. "I'm gonna row."
It didn't take long to get to the other shore. John helped Carlos drag the boat into the cattails that lined the south edge of the island. The air filled with blue dragonflies and every few seconds he could hear a frog plop into the water.
"Ever seen the cave?" Carlos asked.
"I slept in it."
"Find my magazines?"
"Just bugs and the spring."
"Those are my magazines with the naked pictures."
'"My dad has Playboy."
"I got Playboy too. You wouldn't believe this one where the girl's in a hammock eating an apple. It's Miss December."
They walked through the brush and into trees growing close together near the center of the island. They went into the cave. It was a big cave, with a mouth wide enough to drive a car through, thought John. As soon as he went in he could hear the warm water gushing up from the earth and echoing off the walls and he remembered how easy it was to sleep with that sound next to you. Carlos lit a lantern.
John set his things on the damp rock cave bottom. He walked to the deepest part and looked down between the rocks at the water coming up. It looked black. It was warm when he touched it and had a soft, silky feel. Carlos showed him the fold out of the girl in the hammock eating the apple. The seam between the pages was soft and broken in places. John felt that sweet little tickle in his stomach, the same feeling he got once ii an elevator with his mother and used to get all the time in the station wagon when his dad drove fast. Stan didn't drive fast enough to make it feel that way.
He and Carlos walked through the woods to the other side of the island. There was a small beach of dark sand just beyond a thick stand of California lilac. They crouched down in the bushes and looked toward the big mission house.
"Don't let 'em see us," said Carlos. "I'm not supposed to be here."
John peered over the bush tops like a spy. He could feel the dampness of the ground seeping into the knees of his jeans. He felt a sudden affection for Carlos.
Then he saw some people walking along the lake on the far shore. At first they weren't there, and then they were. It was man and a woman and a small boy. When they reached the point opposite him, John could see that the man and woman were about his parents' age. The boy trailed a little behind his mother holding her hand. The woman trailed a little behind the mar holding his hand. The man had the same stout bearing and erect posture as his father. The woman had bright blond hair and she wore a loose white dress from which her stomach protruded roundly.
"That's the owner's son," said Carlos. "He's in the FBI an he's got a gun. Mrs. Holt looks like Miss March when she isn't pregnant. They come here sometimes, but not very much."
John watched the man and his wife and son walk along the shore. The boy got tired and the man picked him up and carried him.
"That's a good family," said John.
"How do you know?"
"They're like mine."
"What makes yours good?"
John looked at Carlos, then back to the shore. "Just is. We do lots of things together."
"Then why'd you run away?"
"They took a trip for awhile. They're coming back. I'll see if Dad might want to live here someday."
"The rancho isn't yours."
"He could buy it. He bought an airplane."
Back at the cave they sat just outside and ate the cookies and fruit cocktail John had packed. While Carlos looked at his magazines, John lay down in the late afternoon warmth and looked at the sun through his eyelids.
For a brief moment he felt that the sun out there was his sun. He felt that the cool earth under him was his earth. He felt self-sufficient, contained and welcome. He was certain he belonged here in a way he no longer belonged in the old house, or in Stan and Dorrie's. It was the best feeling he knew, this attachment to a place, because a place never went away. But the feeling was over quickly, like the one in his stomach when he looked at Carlos's picture.
Look down on that county, son. It's yours. That's a nice thought, isn't it?
It's not really mine, dad.
No, it is. It belongs to whoever puts down his roots there. Your mother and I have. You will…
"I want to live here someday," he said out loud. "Right here on this island. Right in this cave."
"It's not yours."
"It belongs to whoever puts down roots here, Carlos."
"Here's the one that Mrs. Holt looks like."
Carlos brought over the magazine. John steadied the fold-out page in the afternoon breeze. It was Miss March and she was up on her knees, on a bed, wearing a tattered old workshirt that cast her middle in shadow but parted conveniently around her big tan breasts. She had a pretty face and she was smiling. She looked like John's mother, and his stomach dropped and tickled sweetly. She looked like the woman on the shore, too.
That's just exactly what a lady is supposed to look like, he thought. Just like the one that's going to belong to me someday.