The Homecoming of Samuel Lake

  Grandma Calla was looking at her expectantly. She had to say something.

  “Well,” she started, “he’s been right tore up over the loss of his loved ones—”

  Samuel said, “Now, Swan, God’s listening.”

  He’d always taught his children to tell the truth and trust God for the outcome, and now did seem like a good time for her to test the principle. But she had gone too far to turn back.

  “I know,” she said, solemnly. “And God knows how tore up he is.”

  Samuel didn’t have it in him to call Swan on her fabrication. Not here and now, with that little boy looking at her like she was an angel of light. And looking at Samuel as if he held his life in his hands.

  So it was Samuel who backtracked. “I reckon we can hear the whole story later on.”

  Swan was so glad he said that.

  “Right now,” Samuel went on, “I’ve got to get to work, and you children need to be some help around here.”

  “Oh, they don’t have to be any help today,” Grandma Calla chirruped. “They was so much help yesterday, I’m still not over it.”

  Once the kids had gone out to play, Bernice cleared off the table while Willadee filled the sink with hot, soapy water.

  “I just cannot understand,” Bernice said, “why nobody’s concerned enough to notify the authorities about that poor little orphan.”

  “Because he’s not an orphan,” Toy told her. “His folks live around the bend, at the end of that lane that cuts off through the chinaberry thicket.”

  Bernice almost dropped the stack of dishes she was carrying. “He’s Ras Ballenger’s boy?”

  “Who’s Ras Ballenger?” Willadee asked. She’d been gone from these parts for a long time. The Ballenger family had moved in after Samuel spirited her off to Louisiana.

  “Satan’s stepson,” Calla said. “At least, that’s the feeling I get when I look at him.”

  “Well, the child can’t stay here,” Bernice protested. “I will not sleep in a house where a runaway child is being harbored.”

  Calla wanted to tell Bernice that there was a whole world out there she could sleep in, but she managed to hold her tongue.

  Samuel said, “I’ll take him home on my way into town.”

  Willadee and Calla tried not to look anguished, although they were.

  Out back, Noble, Bienville, and Swan were showing Blade the Territory.

  “Over yonder are the Badlands,” Noble said, indicating the cow pasture. “And back over there”—he waved toward the creek—“is the Big River.”

  Blade nodded soberly and hitched up Bienville’s britches. Noble jerked his head in the general direction of the chicken pen.

  “Now, over here, is the saloon. You can’t really go in there, because that big, speckled rooster has spurs that’ll rip you ragged, but you can stand around outside and talk about how you’d sure like a glass of sarsaparilla.”

  Blade nodded again. There was a lot to remember.

  Noble pointed at the calf lot, where Snowman was standing. “And over there’s the Box Canyon, where we trick Outlaws into holing up so we can shoot ’em as they ride out.”

  Blade’s eyes lit up at sight of the horse.

  Swan put her arm around him, like they were old buddies. “The biggest thing you have to remember in the Territory,” she instructed, “is that it’s the Good Guys against the Bad Guys, and the Good Guys always win.”

  Blade hoped he’d get to be a Good Guy. From the sound of things, it had its advantages. Swan started over toward the Box Canyon, keeping her arm across his shoulders, taking him with her. Noble and Bienville hustled alongside.

  “Now, what we’re doing today is, we’re looking for a no-good named Dawson,” Swan explained. “He’s been poisoning all the watering holes, because he wants to make all the ranchers go broke, so he can get their land and sell it to the railroad.”

  Noble said, “I’m the sheriff.”

  Swan said, “I’m the United States marshal.”

  Bienville’s hands went to work signing, indicating his own identity, but Blade couldn’t read sign language, so he just looked at Swan, since she seemed to always have the answer for everything.

  “He’s a deaf and dumb Indian scout,” Swan said. “He can’t talk, and he can’t hear you when you talk, so you can say anything you want to around him.”

  As if to illustrate her point, Noble turned to Bienville, and grinned real big, and said, “You’re ugly, and you smell like a cow pile!”

  Bienville grinned back, nodding his head up and down as if to say that he couldn’t agree more.

  Blade laughed out loud. He’d never had so much fun.

  Swan said, “Okay, let’s figure out who you are.”

  Noble had already been thinking about that. He reckoned Blade ought to be a little Mexican boy that they had found out in the desert wandering around dying of thirst, and they had let him drink out of their canteens, and now he followed them everywhere they went. Bienville said that wouldn’t do, what they needed was another Indian. Swan argued that one Indian was enough for anybody, but she could sure use a deputy.

  While they were fussing about it, Blade let himself into the calf lot. The other kids heard the gate creak open, and they all spun around just in time to see Blade venturing toward the horse. They rushed into the lot to protect him, but he didn’t need protection. He was reaching his hands up, and the horse was reaching its head down. The two were having a real reunion.

  “You shouldn’t go up to a horse you don’t know,” Noble warned him. “You lucked out this time, but what if it had been a raging stallion?”

  “I know him,” Blade said. He nuzzled Snowman’s muzzle. “Don’t I know you, Snowman?”

  Swan sighed. She hated to upset the kid, but she had to set him straight. “You can’t go naming other people’s horses, either. His name is John, and he belongs to Grandma Calla.”

  “His name’s not John, it’s Snowman,” Blade shot back. “And he belongs to Mr. Odell Pritchett.”

  Noble and Bienville and Swan all stared at Blade, wondering if he knew what he was talking about. Which was probably why they didn’t see Uncle Toy, who had come out to tell Blade Ballenger to run back up to the house, because Samuel was going to take him home.

  Chapter 21

  As soon as Blade realized what was up, he lit out. Of course, he didn’t get far. Being inside the calf lot worked against him. He set in climbing the rails, trying to get away, but Toy caught him from behind and stood there holding him while he kicked and scratched and howled like a banshee.

  “Hey, now, son,” Toy said, easy and quiet. Blade just went wilder than ever. It was no use, though. Toy had a good solid hold.

  Noble and Bienville and Swan were watching in dismay. They could hardly stand to see this happening.

  “You can’t send him back there!” Swan hollered, and she started hitting Toy on both legs—one of which was bound to be feeling the blows. “His mean old daddy will do something terrible to him!”

  Toy said, “We can’t keep him, Swan. It’s against the law. If we didn’t know who he belonged to, maybe we could keep him till his folks was found, but we’d still have to give him back sooner or later.”

  “You make him sound like he’s a dog!” she wailed. “Which is how his daddy treats him! He’ll probably turn out tied to a tree, with a chain around his neck!”

  She was still punching Toy’s legs with her fists, and Blade was still kicking and scratching for all he was worth. Toy Moses was getting a good going-over. Then Noble and Bienville pulled Swan back and held on to her, so Toy could walk without stepping on her. And Swan lit in on them.

  Noble dodged a blow and said, “Swan, you ain’t helping.”

  It was a losing battle, and Swan knew it. She slid out of their grasp and sat down in the dirt, sobbing helplessly.

  By then, Toy was up in the yard where Samuel was sitting in the car with the motor idling and the passenger door open. Toy set the kid in the f
ront seat, and closed the door, and stood there holding it until the car started moving.

  The last thing Samuel wanted was for Blade to feel unwanted, so while he drove, he spoke reassuringly to the boy, telling him that the whole family liked him, liked him a lot, and he was welcome to come back over and play anytime he wanted to, only it had to be with his parents’ permission. Samuel also promised that he’d go in and talk to Blade’s folks for a few minutes, and try to smooth things over a little.

  “Sometimes all a family needs is to talk about what’s bothering them,” he counseled. “It could be, if your daddy knew how scared you are of him, he’d feel bad about it and put out a real effort to show how much he cares about you.”

  Blade had found a tiny hole in the upholstery, and he was working his finger into it, probing around in the stuffing underneath. Not that he wanted to destroy anything. You just do what you have to do.

  “So how about it?” Samuel asked. “Do you think it might help for me to talk to them?”

  They were coming up on the bend in the road, and after that, not far, would be the turnoff into the lane. Whatever was going to happen would have to happen fast. Blade curled his finger inside the upholstery and yanked, hard. The fabric (which was as old as the car, which was older than Blade) rrrrripped.

  Samuel was so shocked that he hit the brakes—not stopping the car but sure slowing it down. Blade grabbed the door handle with both hands and yanked. The door flew open. And Blade flew out. He landed on all fours, in a thick patch of clover, and was up and running before Samuel could pull over to the side of the road and kill the engine.

  Samuel got out and looked around, and crossed the ditch, and tried to get through the thicket, but the trees and the brush were grown up so close and tight that only a rabbit or Blade Ballenger could get through.

  He couldn’t leave an eight-year-old boy out loose in the woods, so he drove on to the little lane and followed it back to the Ballenger house. The most logical thing in the world was to tell those folks where their son had spent the night and what was going on. They must be worried sick.

  There were a bunch of cur dogs in the yard fighting over some scraps, but when Samuel got out of the car, the curs lost interest in the food and headed in his direction with their heads down and their hackles up. The Protection of the Lord must have still been working for Samuel. He waded through those dogs like Moses through the Red Sea.

  When he got up close to the steps, a timid-looking woman appeared in the doorway, with a baby on her hip and a toddler hanging on to her skirt tail. She didn’t offer to come out, and she didn’t invite Samuel in. Just stood there on the other side of the screen door looking like she’d rather he hadn’t stopped by.

  “Them dogs’ll bite,” Geraldine Ballenger warned.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Samuel answered respectfully, even though the dogs weren’t showing any further signs of being in a biting mood. Then he introduced himself and explained why he was there, telling her all about how Blade had shown up at their house last night, and how he had tried to bring him home a while ago, but the kid had gotten away from him, and now he was worried that the little fellow might get hurt or lost, out in the woods by himself.

  “I expect you’ll want to get somebody out looking for him,” Samuel finished up. “If you’d like for my family and me to help—”

  Geraldine jerked her eyes away from his face to something off in the yard, and she backed away from the door so quick that he almost wondered if she’d ever been there. He turned to see what she’d been looking at, and there before him was Satan’s stepson. Well, those were the words that came jolting into his mind. Calla’s words. And they sure seemed to fit.

  Ras Ballenger came swaggering across from the barnyard with a sardonic smile on his lips. There was a little boy scudding along beside him, aping his movements and attitude—looking up every few seconds to make sure he was getting it right.

  Samuel had met a lot of men in his life, some good, some bad, but this was the first man he’d ever met who made his blood run cold. He stuck out his hand anyway, the way a gentleman is supposed to do. The way a preacher does.

  “I’m Sam Lake,” he said. “My family and I are staying over at the Moses place for a while, so I guess we’re neighbors.”

  Ras ignored Samuel’s outstretched hand and hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. “You come all the way over here to tell me that?” he asked.

  Samuel dropped his hand. He was becoming more convinced by the second that helping these parents to get their son back might cause the child more harm than good. Maybe going to the authorities would have been a better idea. Still, he’d already told the woman the whole story, so there was nothing to be accomplished by holding back now.

  “No, sir,” Samuel said. “I came over here to tell you that your son is out in the woods yonder, and to offer to help you look for him.”

  Ballenger’s smile widened and stiffened, all at the same time.

  “Well, I appreciate the charity. I do. And when I need your help, I’ll ask for it.”

  Which was pretty much the same as saying “Get the hell off my land.”

  So Samuel did.

  Toy Moses didn’t get any sleep that day. As soon as Samuel had left with Blade, Toy had called Sheriff Meeks, who put in a few calls of his own to lawmen in neighboring towns. Jack Woodard, the constable over in Camden, said sure he knew Odell, everybody knew Odell, Odell was a fine, upstanding member of the community.

  Jack called Odell to tell him that his horse had been found, and Odell called Ras to ask when the hell the horse had gone missing, and why the hell he hadn’t been notified. In the meantime, Early Meeks called Toy back to tell him that Odell had been located.

  Ras Ballenger arrived before Odell did, and you’d have thought another tornado had hit Columbia County. He came slamming out of his truck and stomping across the yard like a whirlwind. Toy was in the side yard, untangling a trotline that he’d been intending to string across Calla’s pond the next time he wasn’t either working or resting up from it, so he saw him coming.

  He wished to God he hadn’t loaded that kid up a while ago and sent him back to a place where fear must live in the very walls. But he’d had no choice. As soon as it had become common knowledge that the boy was on the Moses place, someone would have come for him. The question was not whether Blade would have had to go back. The only question was who’d have to lie awake nights knowing they’d had a hand in it.

  Toy dropped the trotline and stepped into Ras’s path just in time to stop him from treading on Calla’s double ruffled petunias.

  “Help you, Mr. Ballenger?” Actually, the only way he wanted to help him was out of this world and into the next one, but he knew from experience that doing a thing like that could be hard to live with, later on.

  “You already helped yourself to a horse that don’t belong to you,” Ras snarled. “Seems to me you’ve helped enough.”

  There were plenty of things that Toy could have come back with, but all he said was “The horse is out back.”

  With that, he turned on his heel and headed toward the barn. Ras had to break into a trot to keep up. When they got to the calf lot, Ras leaned against the fence and stared at the horse like he was seeing it for the first time. He couldn’t have looked any more shocked if the fence had jumped out from under him.

  “I don’t reckon you’ll own up to knowin’ who done that.” Ras spat, indicating Snowman’s wounds.

  Toy just shook his head in disgust. Some people were beyond belief or redemption.

  Snowman had turned away at the first sight of Ras, and now he started to quiver slightly. Toy went into the lot and walked over to the horse’s head.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “That’s not who you’re leaving with.” The fact that he hadn’t somehow saved the boy from going back was gnawing on him now worse than ever.

  Ras heard what he said and would have torn into the lot and laid into Toy, except for two things. He didn’t reall
y think he could beat Toy Moses in a fair fight, and he was pretty sure the horse would stomp his brains out if he went in there without his whip—which he had left at home for obvious reasons. So he just smoldered.

  Then, all of a sudden, Odell Pritchett’s truck and trailer pulled up in the yard and Odell came spinning out, bearing down on Ras.

  “That’s how you train a horse?” Odell bellowed when he got a look at Snowman. He was a hefty fellow. Not as big as Toy, but there was a sight more to him than there was to Ballenger. He was soft, though, and he knew it. That showed in the way he kept clenching and unclenching his fists. Wanting to hit but not daring to do it.

  Ras bowed up and stuck out his chin, the picture of righteous indignation. “That horse didn’t have a mark on it when it was stole off my place,” he claimed loudly. “And I don’t much like you insinuatin’ that I had anything to do with what’s happened to it since.”

  “I’m not insinuating,” Odell flared back. “I’m saying.” He was talking through clenched teeth, like he had his mouth wired together.

  Ras said, “I reckon next thing, you’ll be sayin’ you don’t intend to pay me for the work I put in on the animal.”

  Odell’s teeth unclenched real fast, because that’s what happens when a man’s jaw drops.

  “Pay!” he exploded. His skin was kind of rosy-toned anyway, and now it turned red as a tomato. Even his ears lit up. “I’ll pay, all right! I’ll pay the newspaper for running a full-page picture of this horse, so folks can see for themselves the kind of work you put in!”

  “You do that, and you’ll pay more than you know.”

  Ras was talking low, so low Toy didn’t hear. But Odell caught every word—and believed them, too. He backed off from Ras and shook himself involuntarily, trying to get rid of the feeling that had just settled over him.

  About this time, Toy came out of the lot, leading Snowman. Ras was standing smack in his path and didn’t make a move to get out of the way until Snowman snorted and reared and screamed as only a horse can scream when it is filled with sudden fury. Then Ras moved like lightning. Snowman’s hooves crashed back to earth, slashing the ground that Ras had been standing on, but Ras had already shinnied over the fence and was inside the calf lot looking as if he’d just gotten a rupture.