The Buffalo Soldier Read Online Free

on a ladder-back chair when he entered the kitchen, rummaging among the tins and cake mixes on the highest shelf for a can of Cheddar cheese soup, and he was embarrassed that he could see so much of the backs of her legs. She was wearing a corduroy dress that fell to just above her knees when she was standing but climbed higher now that she was stretching her arms high over head. Her cats--two girl cats she'd brought home from the shelter soon after she started working there, a pair of common-looking black-and-white kitties with markings that looked vaguely tuxedo-like--were watching her from the kitchen counter.
    Okay, she said finally. Just come right back if it starts to drizzle--or snow! Don't wait. Okay?
    He nodded and took the parka they'd bought for him off the cherry coatrack across from the door, and replaced it with the blue-jeans jacket he'd been wearing. The coatrack had feet that looked like tree roots, and he knew it was one of Laura's favorite things in the house. Certainly it was one of the most elegant. He figured she would prefer that he wear a wool hat--that was actually what he'd had in mind when he offered--but at the last moment he decided to wear the souvenir ball cap with the buffalo on it instead. It wouldn't keep his ears as warm, but he liked the way it felt on his head. Then he reached into his school backpack for his portable CD player--it wasn't much bigger than a CD case and had a clip on the back for his belt--and left the woman alone in the kitchen.
    IN THE CEMETERY he scuffed his way through the fallen leaves, kicking them before him as he walked. The wind was picking up, but it still hadn't started to rain.
    When he reached a monument in the old section for some family named Granger, he pushed aside the tendrils and twigs from the massive hydrangea tree and crawled underneath. It was like being inside a cave, except that it was neither damp nor musty nor dark. At least not too dark. Though some of the conical flowers had turned brown and fallen off, many of the dead blossoms still clung to the talonlike branches of the tree. Enough foliage remained both to offer him the illusion that he was completely hidden and to keep him dry if the rain didn't become more pronounced than a shower.
    He placed the headphones for the CD player over his ears as gently as he could, because his right lobe and the cartilage that ran like a seashell up the side had never healed properly, and would still smart if he failed to slip the headset on carefully. He didn't miss the studs he'd worn there that summer as much as he'd thought he would, but there had nevertheless been moments when he wished he still had them. They hadn't simply looked cool, they'd looked scary on a kid his size, and he knew that made him look tougher. Bigger.
    When the earpieces were comfortably in place, he rested the cap loosely on his head.
    He wished Terry or Laura smoked. If they did, he could have swiped a cigarette and had one right now. The Pattersons--the older couple he'd lived with in Burlington until they'd grown tired of chasing him down--had smoked, and he'd found that on any given day he could take a cigarette or two from the opened packs that littered the house and no one was ever the wiser.
    A cigarette, the music cranked up loud on the CD player, a little peace. Not a bad moment to imagine. Still, he was vaguely content even without the cigarette.
    He leaned against the boxy monument, wondering if other boys in the fifth grade knew of this spot. None of them ever talked about hanging out at the cemetery. The few afternoons he'd wandered aimlessly around the town with Tim Acker, another boy in the fifth grade, they'd never even considered heading up the hill to the graveyard. Maybe it was just too far, but maybe it was something more. For an instant he grew alarmed that his presence here was a sacrilege he didn't quite understand. After all, the other boys had family buried in this graveyard, grandmothers and grandfathers and