I didn’t see him.
We walked over to the hotel where Mr. Stilwind lived. In the lobby, we looked around and wondered what to do. A young man behind a counter smiled at us and beckoned us over. He wore a black suit and white shirt and his hair was slicked down flat against his head. He looked like the kind of guy Callie might find attractive.
He said, “May I help you boys?”
“I need to see Mr. Stilwind.”
“Are you kin?”
“No.”
“I believe I should call him. May I tell him what this is about?”
“Tell him Susan and her baby.”
“Susan and her baby?”
“Yes.”
“Should I elaborate on that?”
“No. He’ll know.”
“Very well.”
He called up, spoke what I had told him over the phone. When he put down the receiver, he said, “He’ll be right down. Would you like to make yourself comfortable.”
We went over and sat in some big soft chairs. After a moment, the elevator dropped, opened, and out stepped Stilwind, all dressed in black, looking as if he were about to go to a funeral. The only thing missing was his hat.
He saw me, startled, then came over. “You,” he said.
I hadn’t really noticed before, and maybe it was the harsh sunlight slipping between the great hotel curtains, but up close his face was as marked with wrinkles as a henhouse floor with chicken scratches. He looked ten years older than I had first thought him to be, and I hadn’t thought him to be a spring chicken then.
“I got something for you,” I said.
“An apology from your father . . . He decide to take my offer? It’s still open, you know.”
“No, sir. He would want me to tell you to cram your offer where the sun doesn’t shine. I have a copy of something. This was written by Chief Rowan. It has to do with you and your daughter Susan. We have the original put away in a safe place. This is a copy I made.”
I gave it to him. He read it. His face turned pale. He held the paper in his hand as if he had suddenly discovered a snake there.
“That’s your copy,” I said.
“I assume this young man knows about it?”
“As well as others.”
“If everyone knows, why should it matter to me?”
“Not everyone knows. Me and a few others.”
“Adults?”
“Yes. I told enough people so I’d have backup. I want my family left alone.”
“Your father put you up to this?”
“No. If my father wanted to do something about this, he’d come over and beat you and throw you down the stairs and drag you through the street and set you on fire. He doesn’t know about it.”
Stilwind’s face moved, tried to find an expression, settled on a sneer.
“How do I know you have the original?”
“How do you think I made this copy? Think I’d give you the only copy?”
“How did you come by it?”
“That’s my business.”
“You know the chief?”
“Never met him, never heard of him until recently.”
“He isn’t in on this?”
“No.”
“You want money, of course. Money for your silence.”
“No. I want you to leave my family alone. No made-up safety problems for the police or the fire department to inspect out at our drive-in. No problems from you of any kind.”
“I can’t be responsible for anything you think might be my fault.”
“That’s your problem.”
“You sound awfully grown-up for a kid. Awful mean.”
I did sound grown-up, and I was proud of it.
“I’m not mean. You made a threat to my family. This is a way of keeping things where they belong. The only thing left is your son, James. He better never come within fifty feet of any of my family.”
“And what about this boy?”
“You don’t need to know who he is, but he counts too. You stay away from him.”
“Gladly. Is that all, you little worm?”
“Yes, sir. That’s it. The Worm has spoken.”
———
OUT ON THE STREET, in the hot sunshine, I was ecstatic. What I had done had been Buster’s idea, not mine, of course, but I was proud of myself. I liked the way I had talked, the sound of my voice. Richard was very impressed, and told me so.
“Man, you had him by the short hairs.”
“The short hairs? What’s that mean?”
“I don’t know exactly, but I’ve heard it. You were really good in there.”
“Thanks.”
As we walked past Harriman’s Feed and Seed, Mr. Chapman came out. He was wearing a sweat-stained brown hat and was carrying a large bag of fertilizer. He didn’t see us at first. We froze. He eased down the steps to the curb and dumped the bag into the back of his old rickety black pickup, made it companion to a half dozen other bags there.
When he looked up, he saw us. There was something about his face that I can’t describe. A kind of blankness as far as his features went, but his eyes, they were as dark and nasty-looking as a dying animal’s.
“You,” he said to Richard. “You had a punishment.”
“I ain’t gonna take no more of that,” Richard said.
“Say you ain’t?” Chapman said. “Say you ain’t?”
“No, sir, I ain’t.”
Beside me, I could feel Richard tense.
Chapman glared at me. “And you and your high and mighty daddy, and that little Jezebel of a sister—”
“Shut your mouth,” I said. “I’ll tell Daddy if you lay one hand on me or Richard. And he’ll come to your house and beat you like a dirty rug.”
“He will, will he?” Chapman said.
“He sure did the other day,” I said, “and he wasn’t even trying.”
“I ought to whip your proud butt with my belt,” Chapman said.
“You ain’t gonna whip either our asses,” Richard said. “You laid your last hand on me, old man.”
Chapman glared. “By the Lord Jesus Christ, you ain’t no son of mine. Not no more.”
“I never was,” Richard said.
Chapman cackled like some kind of creature out of a storybook, turned, got in his truck, and drove away.
I peeked over at Richard. His chin was nearly on his chest, his shoulders slumped. He looked as if he were being held up by an invisible noose around his neck.
I took him by the elbow. “Let’s go home.”
22
THAT NIGHT, as Richard lay on his pallet on the floor, I heard him whimpering, and now and then he would sob. Nub, lying beside me, sat up, looked at him.
I rose up and took a look. I called Richard’s name softly, but he didn’t answer.
I pulled Nub close to me and went back to sleep.
———
SUNDAY, Drew came by, asked if Callie could go for a drive. Daddy studied Drew for a moment. He looked very different from Chester. He was neat, with a white sports coat, tan slacks, and a dark shirt and white shoes.
Dad said, “She can go, if you take Stanley and Richard.”
Drew tried not to show it, but his face fell like a cake.
“Daddy,” Callie said, “I don’t want them to go.”
“Be that as it may, I want them to.”
This, of course, was just Daddy’s way of messing with Drew, making sure that Callie and Drew were not alone all the time. It was a losing battle, but one caring fathers all over the world participate in.
Still, this deal had to have our cooperation. “You boys want to go for a ride?” Daddy asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I think I’d like to just stay here and play chess with Richard. I’m going to teach him how.”
“Richard?” Daddy said.
“Yes, sir. I think I’d like to play chess. I mean, a ride would be okay, but I don’t know.”
“Looks like it’s the couch
and television,” Daddy said.
Drew knew a bribe was in order. “I’ll treat us all to a sundae at the Dairy Queen. Then we’ll just ride around awhile.”
Richard and I looked at one another. I said, “Sure.”
“I don’t want Callie in too late,” Daddy said. “Tomorrow’s school.”
“Yes, sir,” Drew said. “I thought we might go to the movie downtown.”
Before Daddy could answer, Callie said, “I don’t believe I’ll be going there anymore.”
“Why is that?” Drew asked.
“I’ll tell you sometime,” Callie said. “Just not right now.”
“All right,” Drew said. “We’ll just have a soda and drive around.”
“And you know to respect my daughter, of course?” Daddy said.
“Yes, sir.”
In the car, Callie sat on her side, but when we drove up from the drive-in, made the corner into town, she slid over beside him.
I looked at Richard and we snickered.
Callie looked over the seat at us. “You won’t think it’s so funny when you start dating.”
“I hope that isn’t any time soon,” I said.
“Well,” Callie said, “in your case it may be never.”
We stopped at the soda shop and had sodas. Tim wasn’t working. A fellow with pimples was. I kept thinking one of them might have popped in my malt, and the idea of it sort of put me off the drink.
When we finished, we drove through town a couple of times, then on out to the lake. The sun went down and up came a beautiful night with the moon hanging high. The light of it spilled all over the streets and woods like milk froth.
Callie and Drew were sitting very close now, what Daddy called the two-headed monster when he saw kids in cars pass us sitting close together.
After a while, I said, “You know, at the top of the hill where you live, that old house? They say the old lady comes back there.”
“How’s that?” Drew asked.
“They say Mrs. Stilwind comes back,” I said. “She lost her mind and comes back. Her daughter died in a fire right behind where the drive-in is now. But Mrs. Stilwind saw her ghost in the house on the hill. Guess she comes there hoping to see her again. She leaves the old folks home when she wants and goes there. We could drive over and see if she comes home. There’s a hill behind the house, and some woods. If there’s a road—”
“There is,” Drew said, and he seemed happy about the idea.
We drove over there, went up a red-clay road and wound around amongst some trees and came out on a hill that overlooked the great house.
In the moonlight, from that distance, you couldn’t tell the house was run-down. The swimming pool, with the light of the moon filling it, looked to have water in it.
“When is she supposed to come?” Drew asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s just a chance you might see her. She might be in the house now. She might not come at all.”
“I know,” Richard said. “Let’s go down there for a look.”
Drew said, “Why don’t you two go look?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Not by ourselves.”
“You chicken?” Drew said.
“Yes,” I said.
Drew laughed. “That’s honest. Oh, hell, let’s all go.”
Drew pulled a flashlight from under the seat. We walked down the hill, past the pool. We pushed open the back door. The only light was the moonlight that came through the windows.
Inside, Drew pulled the door closed, and there was an explosion of sound like dry leaves being run over by a herd of elephants.
“Bats,” Drew said.
I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them, fluttering up near the high ceilings and at the top of the staircase. In the beam of the flashlight, I could see the floor was littered with bat guano. It hadn’t been there at the first of the summer.
Drew played the light on the ceiling. There were large rafters and from the rafters hung bats, but just as many bats were fluttering about the house.
With a burst, the remaining bats on the rafters let loose and joined the others and swirled about. Then with a rush and a flutter, they made a stream of shadow. Drew’s light followed, and they exploded through a place where the roof had rotted and fallen in.
“Oooooh,” Callie said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“What a shame for such a nice house to go to pieces,” Drew said.
“Come on, Drew, let’s go,” Callie said.
“In a moment,” Drew said. He shone the light on the stairs. “Let’s have a quick look up there. How much of the house have you seen, Stanley?”
“About what you see now. I didn’t stay long. I thought I heard and saw someone up there.”
“It could be a bum,” Callie said. “Anyone.”
“I think it was her. Mrs. Stilwind. That’s what Buster thinks.”
“Buster doesn’t know,” Callie said.
“He knows more than you think about most everything.”
“It won’t hurt to look,” Drew said.
“It might,” Callie said.
We went up the stairs, clustered together like grapes, Drew shining the light. The stairs creaked as we went. We came to a hallway. Along it were a number of doors. We opened one and Drew shone the light about. It was an empty room. The wallpaper was peeling in spots, and as we entered, dust rose up from the floor like a mist.
We checked a couple of other rooms. Same situation.
Finally, we entered a room and found a bed inside. There was also a nightstand with a mirror and the mirror was broken, only one piece of glass still in it. It was in the right-hand corner and was a very small piece. The rest of the mirror was on the floor, spread out like pieces of silver.
There was a brush on the nightstand, and there were long gray hairs in it. The bed had wrinkled dirty sheets on it and looked as if someone had been sleeping there. Up close, we saw there were gray hairs on the pillows.
“Wow,” Drew said. “Maybe she does come back here.”
“Come on,” Callie said. “Those bats make me nervous.”
“They’re gone,” Drew said.
“Come on,” Callie said again, and there was no sweetness in her voice.
We left out of there, half expecting to meet Mrs. Stilwind at the door.
Drew drove us home, Callie moving to the passenger position as we came closer to the Dew Drop.
———
UP IN MY ROOM, me and Richard went to bed early, preparing for school the next day. I was both excited and worried. At least I had one friend there. Richard. And he’d be going to school with me.
I was thinking about all this, lying wide awake, when Richard raised up on one elbow from his pallet, said, “Stanley?”
“Yes.”
“Your family has been good to me. Thanks.”
“No problem.”
“But I’ve got to go.”
“Do what?”
I sat up in bed. So did Nub. He seemed annoyed. He didn’t like his sleep disturbed.
“What do you mean go?” I asked.
“I have to go home.”
“You can’t go there. Your father doesn’t want you there.”
“Not to see him. Or my mama. I was thinkin’ about that story you told about that old woman wandering back to her house, looking for her daughter’s ghost. My daddy and mama don’t even care about me and I’m alive. I’m not going there to see them, you can bet on that.”
“Then why?”
“I want my bike. That’s the main reason. I’m going to go over there and get it. I don’t get it, Daddy’s gonna sell it or throw it away for spite.”
“Do you have to do it tonight?”
“During the day they’ll see me, and if I wait too long, he’ll get rid of it. May have already.”
“You could get another bike.”
“I made that one out of old bikes I got down at the dump. He didn’t give it to me. They ain’t never gi
ve me much of anything besides a beatin’ and hard work. I’ve had more clothes give me since I been here than I got all them years from them. I didn’t even have no underwear till your mama gave me some.”
He stood up, took off the pajamas Mom had given him, started pulling on his clothes.
“You’re just going to go over there and get your bike?”
“Yeah. At least that.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ll be back.”
I don’t know what I feared he might do, why I thought he might need a backup, but I said, “Wait up, and I’ll go with you. Just wait until it’s later and we’re sure everyone’s asleep, then we’ll both go. You’ll have to hide the bike nearby. Out behind the house in the woods. We’ll get it tomorrow, say we went over and got it after school. They see it tomorrow, they’ll know we went out tonight.”
“Ain’t no need in you going,” Richard said.
“I know. But I’m going.”
———
I GOT MY HOPALONG CASSIDY flashlight and snuck silently out the back way. In fact, any noise we might have made was covered by Rosy’s snoring.
With only one bike, we walked. Nub went with us, trotting along, sniffing the ground. There was a cool, late August wind, and it gently shook the trees on either side of us and made the shadows of their boughs cut back and forth across the road as if they were sawing the earth in half.
When we could see the old sawmill, we stopped. Nub sat down in the road and let his tongue hang out, dripping drool onto the ground.
Richard said, “I feel like that little colored boy under all that sawdust and nobody giving a damn. ’Cept I ain’t dead. If’n I was dead, maybe it would be easier. Maybe he’s got it lots better now.”
“Don’t talk like that,” I said.
“I don’t know any other way to talk. Come on, we’ll go behind the sawmill, slip over to the house, out to the barn. There ain’t no dog to bark, so we can get up there pretty easy. I can get a shovel there.”
“A shovel?”
“Yeah. I want to dig Butch up.”
“Say what?”
23
WHAT IN THE WORLD are you talking about? You came here to get your bike.”
“That too,” he said.
“Why would you dig up a dead dog . . . Your daddy’s dead dog?”
“That’s the one. I’m gonna dig it up because it meant so much to him. He cried over that dog. I ain’t never seen him cry over nothin’. He sure ain’t cried over me. I ain’t never seen him like nothin’ enough to even say so ’cept that dog. You know I oncet pulled cotton all day, and I filled bags good as a grown man, and I was only nine, and he didn’t even say good boy, but he always told that dog how damn good it was. He never said nothin’ to me. Not a thing.”