Preacher''s Boy

  She gave a short laugh, picturing herself, I suppose, as a black-bearded hobo. Then she sobered. "Do we have to tell Paw about it?"

  "Well, he'll sort of be in on it."

  "Yeah, but if he knows about the plan, he'll turn all funny. Especially when he's liquored up. He might even brag."

  "We can't have that!"

  "No, we can't. So it'll have to be jest between us two, okay, Ed?"

  "Okay." I'd given up reminding her that my name was supposed to be Fred.

  After much thought I decided it would be fitting to write the note with a chicken quill dipped in berry juice the color of blood. Unfortunately, raspberries was the only thing I was sure was ripe. I didn't know how raspberry ink would work, but I sent Vile down to the patch with her tin cup to get some. We couldn't risk anyone seeing me down there. Using birch bark for paper would be a nice touch, but the Finches had all that paper tied up in the kerchief, so why not use it? Besides, only Indians would think to use birch bark. Hoboes, I figured, were more likely to use the backs of Wanted posters. I wondered if Zeb's picture was on one of those posters, but I wasn't sure I had the nerve to ask.

  It seemed to take Vile forever. The more I thought of the chicken quill and berry ink, the less I liked the idea. I longed for the pencil stub that along with my pocketknife was at the bottom of Cutter's Pond. And that wasn't all. There was my taw (I'd never be able to shoot a decent game of marbles without it), a ragged handkerchief (my ma often checked to make sure I had one on me), even a few pennies, in case I was seized with pangs of uncontrollable hunger just as I was passing the general store and had to have a sourball or lemon stick. Darn it all.

  I wondered if they were missing me yet. I sighed. Pa wouldn't start looking for me while it was still daylight. Then I remembered it was Wednesday. He wouldn't start looking for me until after prayer meeting was done. I told myself that was a good thing. It would give me lots of time to work out the scheme.

  I squinted up at the sun. I made it to be no later than four in the afternoon. I shouldn't have thought about sourballs. I was seized with pangs of hunger unlike any I had ever experienced before. My belly had let those few bites of dace go past without hardly noticing. I tried not to smell the pot bubbling in the cabin, which I felt sure my gut would reject altogether.

  I wondered what Mr. Weston had said to Pa, and what Pa had said back. Did Pa take up my side? If I'd been a Filipino, he would have. But how could he defend me? He knew the kind of temper I had. He was not likely to doubt that I had indeed tried to drown Ned Weston, or at least scare the Devil out of him.

  For a fellow who'd given up on God and the Ten Commandments, I was feeling myself strangely close to what Reverend Pelham would have called a vile sinner. I recalled the awful rage that had come over me, making me shove Ned Weston's head under the water. Willie thought I was fixing to kill Ned. He was right. I might have. I really might have. I felt sick all over just remembering it.

  Then it occurred to me that it was really Pa's fault-not altogether, not even mostly, but surely a little bit. He had no business having those heathen books around where anybody, especially some pious deacon or hellfire reverend, could just wander in and see them sitting bold as brass on the shelf. Like Reverend Pelham said, Pa was a preacher. He owed it to God not to go flirting with the powers of evil and unbelief, now, didn't he? Surely Pa didn't think people descended from apes, no matter what trashy books he had sitting around.

  But ever since the night Elliot was lost, I was thinking worrisome thoughts about Pa. Why did that crying over Elliot get to me so? Was he having some kind of nervous disorder? If so, what would my disappearance do to him? Or, for that matter, his knowing that his son was a near murderer? Would that do him in?

  Yes, it would be better for him to think I was kidnapped than to think I was a fugitive from the law. Wouldn't it? I was banking heavy on Mr. Weston coming to feel sorry I was gone and forgetting all about my attacking his boy. What if, even after I was miraculously returned to the bosom of my family, Mr. Weston still hadn't forgiven and forgotten? Then Pa would get it with both barrels—his son the victim of a vicious crime and his son the perpetrator, or near perpetrator, of an equally heinous crime, one against the son of the town's most important citizen. Oh, mercy.

  Along about then, Vile trudged up the hill into sight. "Birds got most of your berries," she said. I couldn't help but notice that her mouth was stained light purple. She held out the cup. It was about half full. I got a stick and smashed the berries into a pulpy juice. Vile fetched me a handbill from the kerchief in the cabin. It had a sketch on the front of a bank robber in Albany. I restrained myself from asking questions about robbers or what she and Zeb had been doing in New York State. Avoiding as best I could the fish mess on the flat rock, I set to work.

  Have you ever tried to write anything with a chicken-feather quill? I swear, I don't know how Thomas Jefferson could possibly have got through anything the length of the Declaration of Independence with just a quill pen. Of course, he had a proper desk and real ink. In about ten minutes I had only managed, in pale wobbly letters, to write "Help!"

  Vile was leaning over my shoulder, bumping my right arm to make matters worse. "Awful weak," she said. "I can't hardly read it."

  "I can't help it," I said. "Raspberries ain't good ink." I had planned to write out "Help! I have been kidnapped!" But after all that trouble with "Help!" I just put "Kidnapped!" next. I still had to write all that stuff about the ransom—where and when.

  "I don't think it's going to work," she said.

  "You're right," I said finally. "But where are we going to get proper pen and ink? Or even a lead pencil?"

  She put her hands on her hips, thinking. "Hmm. Why don't we go down tonight to the general store and help ourselves to one?"

  "'Cause if we're caught, the jig is up."

  "We wouldn't get caught. Leastways, /wouldn't."

  I didn't ask her why she was so sure. I didn't really want to know all Vile's experiences with breaking the law. "If we were to get caught—and you got to allow the possibility, Vile, that something might go wrong—if we did get caught, not only would we lose any chance of getting the ransom money, we'd both be thrown into jail."

  "What jail? You can't tell me this one-horse town's got a jail."

  "Yes, we do," I said in a dignified way as befit a loyal citizen. "In the town hall basement. It's not big. It's, well, it's more like a circus cage—"

  "A cage?" She drew back, horrified. "They put people in a cage like some wild beast?"

  I nodded solemnly. I had actually never seen anyone in the cage, but I had often seen the cage—all iron bars—in the town hall basement.

  "Wal, I guess that puts the lid on your big scheme, then."

  I wasn't quite ready to give it up. It was prayer-meeting night at both the Congregational and Methodist churches. A good night for a minor burglary. I could burgle the manse while everyone was down at church. There'd be no one around to catch me, and even if someone did, it wasn't likely that they'd call the sheriff to arrest me for robbing my own house. And I could pick up some foodstuff while I was at it. Vile liked that idea fine. All we had to do was wait until prayer-meeting time and hope our stomachs didn't cave in before then.

  Vile dug the rest of the raspberry "ink" out of her cup and slurped it up. Then she went in and dipped out some of her soup into both the cups. She handed me Zeb's. It seemed unmannerly not to take it, though you can just imagine how anxious I was to drink that soup out of a cup belonging to that man.

  Let me tell you, I have tasted some bilious potions in my time, but nothing quite to beat that single sip of Vile's antique chicken-head soup. It was all I could do not to throw up my guts.

  She was watching me anxiously. "It ain't my best effort," she said apologetically.

  "It's fine," I said, coughing and covering my mouth. "I'm just not very hungry, that's all." I couldn't imagine even God (if there was a God) would blame a person for lying under those circumstan
ces.

  We sat there, our backs against the side of the cabin, she drinking, me pretending to drink the soup. We were so quiet that we could hear the late-afternoon breeze stirring the leaves and the lazy chirping of the birds. The insects were down to a low hum. It was peaceful in the woods. Even the sound of Zeb's snoring was muffled by the log wall. Then it stopped. We could hear him shudder to his feet and begin rattling around the cabin.

  Suddenly, a roar of "Viiiiile!" I froze, and beside me I felt Vile do the same.

  "Paw," she whispered.

  He came thundering out the door. Before this I'd only seen him as a sort of stupid old man, but Zeb was transformed. His eyes were blazing, his mouth wide showing all his rotting teeth. He looked seven feet tall, waving his arms about and bellowing, "Where is it? Which of you varmints stole my bottle? I'll kill the bustard!"

  11. Among the Stones

  VILE AND I WERE BOTH ON OUR FEET. AS I JUMPED UP, Zeb's tin cup bounced to the ground splattering greasy soup on my bare feet and the bottom of my britches legs.

  "Where's m' bottle, I say!" Neither Vile nor I made a sound; we just stood there backed against the wall.

  Zeb lunged for Vile, grabbed her by her thin shoulders, and shook her like a cat shakes its quarry before it kills it. "Don't play dumb with me, girl. I know you got it!"

  She's a brave one, that Vile. She kept her lips clamped together. Not a sound came out, even when he left off shaking her and smacked her hard across the face with his right hand.

  That old familiar rage came boiling up. How dare he hurt her? The knife was still lying by the rock. I grabbed it. "Let her go!" I cried, raising it like a dagger.

  "Stay out of this, Ed," she said through her teeth, not turning around, but Zeb could see the knife. More in surprise than anything else, he loosed his grip. Vile shook herself and backed up slowly, putting the flat stone between herself and her father.

  He glanced down at the stone. My failed attempt to write a ransom note still lay there. He squinted at it. I prayed he couldn't read. But he obviously could make out the first word.

  "What's this now?" He snatched up the paper. "Help?" He glared at us both. "Jest who needs help around here?" His tone was threatening, but I knew he was keeping the knife in view. He didn't move toward either of us.

  "Jest a game, Paw. No harm meant."

  "I don't fancy your games, girl," he said, jamming the "Help! Kidnapped!" note into his pocket. He shot another glance at the knife.

  Vile turned toward me to see what he was looking at. "Put down the knife, Ed," she said. "He ain't gonna hurt you."

  "Jest tell me where m' bottle got to. That's all I'm after." But even as he spoke, he saw the broken glass under the spruce tree and the dark stain on its trunk.

  "Why, you leetle—" He made as if to lunge for her, but I was quicker this time, jumping toward him, the rusty blade high. He stopped with a jerk.

  The knife shook in my hand. He'd soon see I was bluffing. "Run, Vile," I said. She hesitated. "Run!" I yelled it this time. "I'll catch up." I started to run, snapping the knife into its handle as I did. Zeb came after me. I turned and hurled the folded knife at him. I heard him yelp, so I must have hit the target, but I wasn't waiting around to see. I was chasing through the brush down the hill as fast as I could tear. I soon caught up with Vile, grabbed her hand, and pulled her along, the branches scraping our faces and bodies as we stumbled on.

  "You didn't hurt him?" she managed to pant out.

  "No. Promise. Just keep going. He's after us." I could hear his clumsy thrashing on the hillside above us. "C'mon. Faster." Still holding her hand, I headed diagonally north down the hill. I was banking on Zeb to follow the path straight down toward the center of town.

  At last we were at the creek. I realized suddenly that I was still holding her hand. I dropped it quickly. Vile pretended not to notice, just stood there holding her side and panting for a minute. "We'd better keep going," I said, wading straight in. I guess I was figuring my feet and britches would welcome a rinse after their chicken-head soup shower. Vile nodded and followed after, surprising me by lifting her tattered hem up about ten inches, holding her skirts as dainty as if she was a member of the Ladies' Aid Society. She'd got her voice back after the race down the hill. "Where we headed?" she asked.

  "To the stone sheds. We can rest there a bit—decide what to do next." I didn't want to use the word hide. I was afraid she might balk at the idea. Still, she looked worried. "They let off work at three. Nobody will be around."

  "How we going to get in?"

  "They don't lock up. Who's going to steal granite? You need a crane to move it at all, and a train or at least a team of horses to carry it away."

  After I'd made sure there was nothing coming from either direction, we crossed the Tyler road, then the railroad tracks. Each of us pulled a few berries as we went past the raspberry patch, but we did it on the move. I figured we'd do what I'd done earlier, hike up to the woods and go south toward the stone sheds under the cover of the trees. Once we were near the backs of the sheds, we could drop down the hill and sneak into one of them.

  "Ed," she said, "we shouldn'ta left him."

  "What?" I couldn't believe my ears.

  "He ain't got no more sense than a toadstool when he goes off his head like this."

  "Nothing going to happen to him," I said firmly. The picture of Zeb shaking and slapping Vile was burned into my mind. It was hard to believe she was worried about him.

  "It's the booze, you know. He's a good sort, really. Don't mean no harm."

  I looked at the red spot on her cheekbone. "Well, he may not have meant to, but that rosebud on your face is going to bloom into a beauty of a shiner."

  She patted her cheek gently. "It don't hurt none."

  "Maybe not," I said. "But let's just wait out this crazy spell, okay?"

  She didn't argue, just kept following me. We came down behind the first shed. The back door opened easily. There was still dust in the air of the shed, giving it a twilight feel. Inside, large blocks of still-raw granite were mixed with tombstones in various stages of progress.

  "I don't like it," Vile whispered. "It's like a graveyard."

  "It's just granite," I said. "Stone. There ain't no bodies buried here."

  "I'm saying what it feels like," she said in a more normal tone of voice.

  I sat down on a rectangular block that was resting benchlike on one side. I patted the place beside me. "Might as well rest."

  She obeyed, perching on the edge of the granite. After a while she got up and began to pace among the stones. I felt too tired to stand up, much less walk, though the cold of the stone was penetrating, especially where my pants legs were damp.

  She came back to where I sat. "I need to go look for him," she said.

  "He won't thank you," I said. "He's likely still mad about the bottle."

  "I shouldn'ta done it," she said. "It's his only comfort." I couldn't believe she'd defend him and said as much. "He can't help it, Ed. It's like a sickness."

  I grunted. "More like demon possession."

  "You don't understand. You're a preacher's boy."

  "I've heard plenty about the demon rum," I said. And I had. Leonardstown had a very active chapter of the Temperance Union. They'd even brought traveling theatrical companies to town, who acted out melodramas about the evils of drink. In fact, if at that very moment one of those pious ladies had magically appeared, pledge card in hand, I think I would have signed it, swearing off intoxicating spirits for the rest of my natural life. I'd had too vivid a sample in the last hour of what alcohol could do, and it made me furious as well as scared.

  She wandered off again, leaving me to ponder the evils of drink. "Hey!" she called a few minutes later. "Look what I found." She came around a stone angel at the far end of the row, carrying what looked like a lunch pail. "Somebody forgot to eat their dinner."

  She put it down on the stone and lifted the lid. It was a feast—bread, cheese, even a large slab
of pie, which when unwrapped proved to be raspberry. "It's a miracle," I said, "just when we were about to starve." She looked at me oddly. I didn't try to explain that if God provided a miracle, then it couldn't be considered stealing to accept it. And even if, strictly speaking, it was stealing to eat somebody else's dinner that they'd forgotten to eat earlier, well, I didn't have to worry anyway, being currently an unbeliever. It was too complicated to explain to her.

  Vile smoothed out a piece of the paper wrapping and spread the feast out on the granite. "There's even something to drink," she said, taking a corked green glass bottle out of the pail. She yanked out the cork, smelled the contents, then handed the bottle across to me.

  I sniffed. It was some stonecutter's homemade—there was no mistaking it. "It's wine," I said.

  "Oh," she said, replacing the cork. "Then I'll save it for Paw."

  "Are you out of your mind, Vile?"

  She sighed. "I guess I won't." She put the bottle back into the pail. "Here," she said in a more cheerful voice, breaking the longish loaf of bread in two and then the cheese. "Let's eat."

  The bread was crusty on the outside and a little bit hard, as was the cheese, but it didn't matter to either of us. By the time we had worked our way to the pie, we were full enough to eat more slowly, rolling every bite around in our mouths to get the last bit of flavor.

  "I bet the president of the Yu-nited States don't eat this good," she said, smacking her lips, which were now more stained with raspberry juice than before.

  "Probably not," I agreed, knowing in fact that in the white manse on School Street we ate like this on many an ordinary day, but I had never been truly hungry before. It does add something powerfully delicious to a meal to eat it when you're so hungry.

  When we had pinched every crumb from the wrapping papers, she gave another tremendous sigh. "We didn't save Paw a bite," she said. I could see her eyeing that little bottle of wine.