The Last Child by John Hart

that kid, you know.”
    They both knew the story, a fourteen-year-old from one of the county schools who tried to hop the same train and lost his grip. He’d fallen under the wheels and lost both legs: one at the thigh, one below the knee. He was a cautionary tale for kids like Jack.
    “That kid was a wimp.” Jack rooted through one of the outer pockets of the backpack and came out with a pack of menthols. He pulled out a cigarette with his bad arm and held it between two baby fingers as he lit it with a lighter. He sucked in smoke and tried to blow a ring on the exhale.
    “Your dad buys crap cigarettes, too.”
    Jack looked at the perfect blue sky and took another drag. The cigarette in his small hand looked unnaturally large. “You want one?” he asked.
    “Why not?”
    Jack handed Johnny a smoke and let him light it off the coal on the end of his own. Johnny took a drag and coughed. Jack laughed. “You are so not a smoker.”
    Johnny flicked the butt into the river. He spit into the dirt. “Crap cigarettes,” he repeated. When he looked up, he caught Jack staring at the bruises on his chest and ribs.
    “Those are new,” Jack said.
    “Not so new.” Johnny watched the current carry a log past their rock. “Tell me again,” he said.
    “Tell you what?”
    “About the van.”
    “Damn, Johnny. You know how to suck the joy out of a day. How many times do we need to go over it? Nothing’s changed since the last time. Or the time before that.”
    “Just tell me.”
    Jack pulled in smoke and looked away from his friend. “It was just a van.”
    “What color?”
    “You know what color.”
    “What color?”
    Jack sighed. “White.”
    “What about dents? Scratches? Anything else you remember?”
    “It’s been a year, Johnny.”
    “What else?”
    “For fuck’s sake, man. It was a white van. White. Like I told you. Like I told the cops.” Johnny waited and eventually Jack settled down. “It was a plain white van,” he said. “Like a painter would use.”
    “You never said that before.”
    “I did.”
    “No. You described it: white, no windows in the back. You never said it looked like a painter’s van. Why would you say that now? Was there paint spilled on the side?”
    “No.”
    “Ladders on the roof? A rack for ladders?”
    Jack finished the cigarette and flicked his own butt into the river. “It was just a van, Johnny. She was two hundred yards away when it happened. I wasn’t even sure it was her until I found out she was missing. I was coming home from the library, same as her. A bunch of us had been there that day. I saw the van come over the hill and stop. A hand came out of the window and she walked up to the side. She didn’t look scared or anything. She just walked right up.” He paused. “Then the door opened up and somebody grabbed her. A white guy. Black shirt. Like I’ve said a hundred times. The door closed and they took off. The whole thing took like ten seconds. There’s just nothing else for me to remember.”
    Johnny looked down, kicked at a stone.
    “I’m sorry, man. I wish I’d done something, but I just didn’t. It didn’t even look real.”
    Johnny stood and stared at the river. After a minute, he nodded once. “Give me another beer.”
    They drank beer and swam in the river. Jack smoked. After an hour, Jack asked: “You want to check some houses?”
    Johnny skimmed a rock and shook his head. Jack liked the game of it, the risk. He liked creeping around and seeing things that kids were not supposed to see. For Jack, it was an adrenaline thing. “Not today,” Johnny said.
    Jack walked to Johnny’s bike, where the map was wedged into the spokes of the front tire. He pulled it out, held it up. “What about this?” Johnny looked at his friend, then told him about his run-in with Detective Hunt. “He’s all over me.”
    Jack thought it was bullshit. “He’s just a cop.”
    “Your dad’s a cop.”
    “Yeah, and I steal beer from his fridge. What does that