Taking Lottie Home

  No, he thought. No.

  He was near Ford Street, which led from James Howe’s home to Main Street. A sound, like a footstep on dead leaves, popped behind him, and he turned. He saw nothing but the trunks of trees. A shiver rippled down the back of his arms and he shook them to shake away the odd chill. He turned back to the street. He could see a light burning in James Howe’s house.

  And then he heard the sound again, louder. He started to turn. The shadow of a tree seemed to move over him and a blow caught him in the back, low on his ribs. He could feel them breaking, feel the air of his lungs blowing through his mouth. He heard a sharp cackling laugh, a harsh cawing. A roiling purple bubble of pain exploded in his brain and then he lost consciousness.

  SIX

  BEN AWOKE TO pain in his back and in his face, and to a searing white light that hurt his eyes. The white light was the sun streaming through a window. He moved his head and a shock flew up the stem of his neck, making him gasp. He closed his eyes. He could feel puffed flesh on the left side of his face.

  “Ben?”

  It was his mother’s voice.

  He licked his lips, tried to speak, but could not.

  “It’s me, Ben. Your mother.”

  He moved his head in a slight, acknowledging nod. The pain in the stem of his neck was excruciating.

  His mother’s hands touched his face carefully. Her voice trembled: “Thank God you’re alive.”

  Was it a surprise that he was alive? he wondered. If so, how near to death had he been?

  “Some water? Do you want some water?”

  His mouth was dry. He dipped his head once.

  “All right, be still,” his mother said anxiously. “I’m going to pour some on a cloth and let you suck from it. That way you won’t have to sit up.”

  Ben could hear movement at the bed, then the sloshing of water. He heard his mother say, “Go tell the sheriff that he’s awake, Elton.”

  He heard his father’s mumbled reply, “Maybe I’d better wait a few minutes.” The water-soaked cloth was on his lips.

  “No,” his mother commanded. “Go now.”

  He felt his father’s hand on his own hand. “You’ll be all right, son,” his father said. “You’ll be fine. Your mama’s right here.” He heard his father leave the room.

  He took water from the cloth and listened to his mother’s purring voice: “Just a little at a time, son. That’s it. Good. Does it hurt to swallow?”

  He shook his head weakly.

  “Can you speak?” his mother asked.

  Ben licked his lips again. He opened his eyes, blinked, tried to turn his head.

  “You’re at home, son, in your room,” his mother told him.

  He forced the words from his throat: “What—happened?”

  The sound of his voice startled his mother. She squeezed the cloth involuntarily, dribbling water across Ben’s chin. “I’m sorry,” she said, quickly wiping at the water with the dry end of the towel.

  “What happened?” she said as she fussed over him. “Somebody almost beat you to death, that’s what happened. Most likely that no-good carnival crowd. The sheriff’s been talking to them all day, but he’ll not find out anything. A bunch like that, they stick together like fleas. A lie means nothing to that sorry lot.”

  Ben thought of Foster and Lottie, wondered if the sheriff would talk to them.

  “Whoever it was, they meant to hurt you,” his mother said. “The doctor said that.”

  A moving shadow blinked in Ben’s memory and he heard shrill laughter and he knew that he had been attacked by Baby Cotwell and he knew that the midget he had seen at the carnival had cheered the attack.

  His mother spoke rapidly, telling him the story of James Howe finding him, called out of his house by the braying of his dogs, and of the doctor’s treatment and of the sheriff’s questions.

  “Sheriff said he didn’t find your wallet on you,” his mother said. “He thinks they must have seen you walking on the path and decided to rob you.” She took the cloth from his mouth, dabbed it lightly over his forehead.

  “You’ll have to stay as still as you can for a while,” his mother continued. “Doctor says you have some broken ribs, and maybe even a broken jaw.” She paused, took the cloth away from him, sighed sadly. “Oh, my baby, your face—”

  Ben wanted to ask about his face.

  “I swear they were trying to kill you,” his mother said. She took his hand, stroked it. “But you rest now. You rest. The sheriff will be here soon. He’ll want to talk to you, but if you don’t feel like it, you don’t have to.”

  Ben blinked a nod, then closed his eyes. He could sense his mother moving away from the bed and he realized how well he knew the sounds in his room. His mother settled into the rocking chair that stayed in a corner of his room, but had been pulled close to the bed. She said in a low voice, “Try to sleep some, Ben. That’s what you need, some rest. You need to rest.”

  And he did sleep.

  WHEN HE AWOKE again, it was his father in the chair beside the bed. By the tilt and color of the light in the room, it was late day. The pain in his back and neck and face was not as fierce as it had been.

  “Your mother’s taking a nap,” his father told him. “She was up all night, right here beside you. Couldn’t pry her away.”

  Jack Rutland, the sheriff, had come and gone, his father said. And the doctor had also visited, leaving some ointments for his abrasions, and several neighbors who had heard the news, leaving food, and the preacher, leaving a prayer.

  His father shifted closer to the bed. He added, “And, Ben, there’s a man and a girl outside on the back porch—that one-legged fellow who’s with the carnival. Says the girl is his sister. Says he won’t leave until he knows you’re all right and he can speak to you.”

  Foster, Ben thought. And Lottie.

  “Why’d he come by?” asked Ben.

  “Said he’d seen you play down in Augusta, and just wanted to pay his respects,” his father answered. “Said there was talk all over the carnival about what happened, and the sheriff believed that somebody with them did it. Said he hoped his bragging on you yesterday didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  His father paused for a moment. Ben could smell the face lotion his father used after shaving, a faint, sweet alcohol scent.

  “You got any idea who did this to you, son?”

  Ben did not answer for a moment. Then he lied: “No sir.” He moved slightly in his bed. He could not tell his father about the one-armed giant and the midget. If the sheriff arrested him, Baby Cotwell would tell the truth of Foster and the set-up baseball hit, and maybe even about him being alone with Lottie—if he knew about it, and Ben believed that he did.

  “I didn’t see nobody,” he added. And that was the truth. He had seen only the movement of a shadow and had heard the laughter of the midget. He had not seen anyone clearly.

  “I can tell him you’re all right, but you’re not up to seeing anybody,” his father said.

  “No sir,” Ben said. “Bring him in.”

  His father wagged his head in indecision. He started to speak, stopped. Ben knew his father. His father was a patient, forgiving man. He could not turn away Foster and Lottie, because Foster and Lottie had had the dignity and the bravery to appear at his home.

  “All right,” his father said. “But just for a minute.” A tired smile crossed his face. “I get the feeling if I don’t, he’ll be moved in by morning. Besides, if I’m going to do it, I’d better do it now, while your mother’s sleeping. If she wakes up and finds them loitering around, she’ll be fit to be tied.” He left the room.

  A few minutes later, Ben could hear Foster’s crutch-step in the hallway, a cautious walk, a walk taken from a warning.

  The door opened and Foster and Lottie stepped inside, followed by his father.

  “Just a couple of minutes now,” his father said in a low voice.

  “Yes sir,” Foster said gravely.

  His father
stepped out of the room and closed the door. Would be standing guard against his mother, Ben reasoned.

  Foster was dressed in a wrinkled black suit, with the right pants leg pinned up, and a yellowed white shirt buttoned to the neck. Lottie wore a full-length, misfitting white dress with long sleeves and a high neck. Borrowed, Ben thought. Yet she was remarkably pretty. Her bronze hair had been delicately combed.

  Foster hobbled to the bed and looked down at Ben. “God-o-mighty,” he whispered. He shook his head. “God-o-mighty,” he said again.

  Lottie stood behind Foster, a puzzled look of horror on her face.

  “He did you a job, boy,” Foster said.

  “I guess,” Ben said. “I’ve not seen it. I just feel it.”

  Foster leaned close. “I come to tell you he won’t get by with it,” he said softly. “Now, you get yourself well.”

  “I’ll be all right,” Ben said.

  “I guess so, but you sure as God not gone be as handsome as you was.”

  Ben smiled and the smiling hurt his face. He moved his head to look at Lottie.

  “You got a pretty home, Ben,” Lottie said. Her eyes wandered over the room, memorizing it. “Prettiest one I ever saw.”

  “Thank you,” Ben replied.

  “We got to be going in a minute, Ben,” Foster said. “I promised your daddy we’d just speak. Just didn’t want to leave without seeing that you all right.”

  “Thanks,” Ben said. “Where you going next?”

  “I got to take Lottie home,” Foster said. “Like I promised. But we going back to Tennessee first.”

  “What for?” asked Ben.

  “I figure that’s where Baby went to,” Foster told him. “Probably hopped the train out this morning. Him and the midget. Took some of our money with him—mine and Lottie’s. And, damn his soul, he took my bat. I paid good money for that bat. I got to get it back, and I got to square what he done to you.”

  “It’s all right, Foster,” Ben said. “You don’t need to square anything for me.”

  Foster glanced toward the door, then back to Ben. “Well, now, Ben, the way I see it, what he done to you was about the same as doing it to me.” He paused, narrowed his look at Ben. “You didn’t tell nobody who it was, did you?”

  “No,” Ben said.

  “Good,” Foster mumbled. “You keep it to yourself.” He pushed back on his crutches and nodded to Lottie. She stepped close to the bed, took Ben’s hand in her own hands, then leaned over him and kissed him gently on the forehead.

  “You take care of yourself, Ben Phelps,” Lottie whispered.

  “I will,” Ben said.

  “I’m glad I got to know you,” she told him.

  Ben nodded. “Me, too.” He added, “I hope you get home soon.”

  Lottie smiled. A hollow smile. “Someday,” she said. “Someday.”

  JACK RUTLAND HAD been sheriff of Caulder County for three terms. By count of years, he was sixty, yet by the amount of death he had seen in his life, he was ancient. He had joined the Confederate forces at the age of seventeen and had fought in the battle of Atlanta, falling with a saber cut across his chest in an assault of Union troops. The blood that had poured from him was enough to pronounce him dead, but a doctor—a Union doctor, Jack believed—had stitched him together in the vestibule of a church using sewing thread, and, miraculously, he had lived. A ragged, thread-pocked scar running from his left shoulder to his right hip was his badge of honor, he proudly declared.

  As sheriff, Jack had enjoyed the most peaceful employment of his life. In twelve years there had been only three homicides in Caulder County, all over gambling disputes.

  Now, he had a fourth.

  On the morning after the Marvels of the Earth Exhibition had departed for Atlanta, Billy Moorehead, who was twelve, found the body of Baby Cotwell in a thick privet growth behind the fair-grounds. His skull had been crushed by the baseball bat used in the act that he and Foster had performed. Ben’s missing wallet was discovered on the ground beside him, empty of money.

  “I know you didn’t do it, Ben,” the sheriff said easily, standing beside Ben’s bed, “but I thought I’d come by and tell you about it, and bring back your wallet. Sorry it’s empty.”

  Ben wiggled his head against the pillow to acknowledge the sheriff. He thought of Foster, remembered Foster’s promise to square what Baby Cotwell had done to him.

  “Your daddy tells me his partner—that one-legged fellow—come by to see you,” the sheriff continued.

  Ben nodded again.

  “Had his sister with him, is that right?”

  “Yes sir,” Ben whispered.

  “You don’t reckon he had anything to do with it, do you?”

  Ben shook his head. “No sir.”

  “Don’t guess I do, either,” the sheriff said. “Don’t see how a one-legged man could handle crutches and a baseball bat at the same time, not up against somebody as big as that one-armed fellow was.” He paused, rocked his body in thought. “From what I been able to tell, that one-armed boy was hooked up with a midget. At least, that’s what I was told when I did my asking around about who might of beat up on you.”

  “You think it was the midget?” asked Elton Phelps.

  “Good a guess as any,” the sheriff said. “One thing I do know: that one-armed boy had enough liquor in him to float a boat. He had his pants pulled down around his knees, like he was about to take a pee, and from the looks of things, he was hit on the knee with the bat we found, and that must of knocked him over, and then he was cracked in the head. If I was a midget and wanted to get a man down to my size, first thing I’d do is take his legs out from under him.”

  “Did anybody see anything?” Elton wanted to know.

  “One or two people I talked to say they saw some of them carnival folks walking around in that area, but it was at night, and they couldn’t tell one way or the other who they might have been. There was some tents set up back there, so I guess it could of been anybody.”

  Ben pushed his head against the pillow and swallowed hard. He thought of Foster’s tent, and of Lottie, and he wondered if anyone had seen him go into the tent.

  “What’re you going to do about it?” Elton asked.

  “Well, Elton, I guess I’m just going to forget it, unless the people of Caulder County want to pay me to go chase carnivals all over the country,” the sheriff said slowly. “And to tell you the truth, them people’s not worth it and I’m not up to it. They can go kill each other off and charge admission to it far as I’m concerned. And between me and you and Ben, here, I lean to every town having at least one crime that’s never been solved. Gives people something to talk about.” He looked down at Ben. “You take care of yourself, young fellow.”

  “Yes sir,” Ben said hoarsely.

  TWO MONTHS AFTER his beating, when the healing was complete, leaving him with a thin scar over his left eyebrow and an occasional sharp pain under the ribs in his back, Ben received a letter from Lottie containing a clipping out of a Knoxville, Tennessee, newspaper. The clipping was the story of the death of a carnival midget named Joseph Callahan, who had committed suicide by hanging in a hotel room.

  Lottie’s letter said:

  Dear Ben Phelps

  Foster found this in the newspaper up here and said send it to you. This was the midget that was with Baby. We heard about what happened to Baby down there. How somebody killed him. Foster said he would have done it if somebody else didnt. Me and Foster are sure sorry about the money they took from you. Foster said he wished he never had seen Baby. So do I. I was scared of him. I hope you are feeling better now. Foster said him to. We still with the carnival but Foster dont have the baseball show now. I make most of the money now. Maybe someday we will come back to where you live. You have a pretty house.

  Lottie

  Things were square, Ben thought.

  He wondered if Foster would ever take Lottie home.

  SEVEN

  THE LIE THAT Ben Phelps would share
with only one person before his death—his feat against the one-armed giant named Baby Cotwell—quickly became part of the lore of Jericho, making Ben a perennial legend, a reseeded story that sprouted in warm, moist fields of tongues with the greening of spring and the playing of baseball. Each season, each time the story was told, a thin veneer of exaggeration was wrapped around it, like the sap rings of a tree, refining it as heroic history.

  “Got himself almost killed because of it,” the tongues remembered. “And then somebody come along and killed the man that beat him up, and they still don’t know who done it.”

  Ben spoke reluctantly of the feat, calling it luck.

  “Nobody’s that lucky,” the people said. “You hit him, Ben. By God, you did, and nobody else even come close.”

  “Well, I guess I did at that,” he admitted sheepishly.

  Only when young boys of the town surrounded him on the streets and asked him about it would Ben retell the lie that made him uncomfortable, but the lie he could not forget.

  “It was a curveball,” he would say. “I saw it making its break and I remembered what they’d taught me down in Augusta about pulling my hands in a little bit, just to keep the bat on the ball.”

  The boys would gaze at him in wide-eyed amazement, picturing Ben as David and the one-armed giant as Goliath, and Ben would tell them that any of them could do the same thing. All they had to do was to keep trying on their own, and to remember that hitting a baseball was more work than dream.

  The boys could see David hoisting the head of Goliath by the hair, blood dripping from the bottom of his neck, with the fowls of the air and the beasts of the fields waiting to devour the flesh of the Philistine.

  “Show us how,” the boys would beg.

  And Ben would take one of their bats and swing at an imaginary ball, and he would talk of the advice that Arnold Toeman, the manager of the Augusta Hornets, had given him.

  “I guess he knew more about baseball than anybody I ever met,” Ben would say. “But the best thing I learned from him was, ‘Do it again.’ That’s why Milo Wade is so good. Doing it over and over, until he got it down right.”