Preacher''s Boy

  This year the Wilson children were riding ponies. They are younger than me, but their rich grandpa gave them each a pony. Another of my failings, you might as well know, is the sin of envy. And to tell the truth, I was more jealous of those ponies than I was of Tom and Ned Weston's new sets of wheels. But since it was plain impossible to imagine ever owning a pony, I spent most of my sin of covetousness that day on the Weston boys' wheels, because owning a bicycle seemed closer to possible than owning a pony. No point in wasting a sin on something that's just plain not going to happen in this world. I kept forgetting that I had decided not to believe in God and that therefore it didn't matter about sin anymore. Old habits die hard, as my grandma used to say.

  It was a good parade while it lasted, but once it was done, Willie and I dragged Letty home as fast as her weight and those wobbly wheels would allow. It was nearly noon, but I begged off dinner, as did Willie. Ma made us sandwiches to take to the creek. She didn't have to tell us to be home before dark. There would be fireworks at dark, and besides, supper would come before that. A couple of sandwiches apiece would not suffice to stave off starvation between morning and bedtime.

  Wouldn't you know? Fast as we hurried, Ned and his big brother Tom was sitting sassy as overfed cats at Willie's and my fishing spot. Ned knew perfectly well whose spot it was. He had seen Willie and me there often enough. I wanted like Christmas to teach him the lesson I hadn't been able to earlier that morning, but his brother Tom is two years older than me and a good boxer to boot, so I decided that it was one of those occasions when "digression is the better part of valor," and me and Willie had to be content with our second-favorite spot.

  We were quiet for a long time, busying ourselves threading our worms on our hooks, making a few trial throws, until finally we settled back into the bank, our caps over our eyes to shade them from the sun. I sighed. With the heat and the loss of our best place, we weren't liable to need many worms.

  "So," said Willie after a while, "you still an apeist, Robbie?"

  "A what?"

  "You know," he said in a dignified tone, "one of them there heathens who don't believe in God."

  I hadn't known the proper term for people like me, and it was months before I found out that the word was atheist, not apeist. When Willie said "apeist," my first impulse was to thump him on the head. But I controlled myself. Maybe it was all in one package, and if I was going to be an unbeliever, I had to be an apeist whether I liked the notion of monkey granddaddies or not. Besides, I pride myself on having the largest vocabulary in Leonardstown school, on account of all the reading I do. I couldn't admit to not knowing the proper word for what I had determined to become. "I reckon," I said, even though the monkey part made me queasy in the belly. "Eh-yup. One of them apeists."

  "Ain't you—wal, ain't you the least bit scared?"

  "Scared of what?" I probably sounded belligerent.

  "I mean, apeists is liable to end up going someplace you wouldn't be all that pleased to end up in."

  "You forget, Willie," I said, as much to myself as to him, "if there ain't no God, there ain't no down nor up."

  He considered this for a minute or two, twitching his line a bit. "Neither one, eh?" he asked at last.

  "Stands to reason, don't it?"

  "I reckon."

  "I forget sometimes," I confessed, to soften it some. "I forget that I don't believe anymore. I been known to throw up a prayer now and again."

  "Yeah?"

  "It don't do no good nor harm neither, I suppose." I jerked my pole up and threw the line farther out. Not a nibble. Curse those blinking Westons. "But it is a relief," I continued, "not to have to bother myself anymore about commandments."

  He sat straight up. "What are you talking about?"

  "You see, Willie"—I felt just like Pa must when he's trying to explain the Bible to thick-headed parishioners—"it stands to reason, don't it? If a person don't believe in God, then he don't have to worry about all that stuff in the Bible anymore. Why, just now I was sitting here thinking I wanted to cuss those durned Westons for taking our best hole. So I just went right ahead and helped myself. I can cuss anytime I feel like it now. The commandments don't apply."

  "The Ten Commandments?"

  What other commandments were there? "Sure," I said. "If I need to lie or steal or cuss or"—and here I felt a little shiver go through me as I said it—"or do somebody in..."

  Willie was up on his feet staring down at me like I'd suddenly turned into a porcupine.

  "Or be wicked on Sunday or commit 'dultry—"

  "Hush your mouth, Robbie Hewitt. Suppose your father heard you talking this way."

  "I would never tell him," I said grandly. "It would break the poor man's heart."

  Willie sat down again, still considering what his best friend had become. Finally he lay back against the bank. "You better think this through careful, Robbie," he said quietly.

  "You think I ain't give it proper thought?" I said. "Why, it's practically all I think about anymore." Which was not true. I thought an awful lot about motorcars and bicycles. (Was there any chance of my ever owning a pair of wheels?) And would the members want to throw Pa out after the next annual meeting of the congregation because he wasn't thrilled enough about eternal damnation? I—though I could hardly confess it even to myself, much less to Willie—I even thought about Rachel Martin, who sat right in front of me at school—how it might feel to give one of those corkscrew curls of hers a proper yank, just to see if it boinged back in place like a pond frog. But faced as I was with the end of the world, it didn't seem fitting to have thoughts about girls with dark brown curls hanging down their backs. Anyhow, thoughts of Rachel Martin made me a little itchy under the collar, even when I never breathed them out loud.

  We were quiet a long time, lying against the bank, chewing our wood-sorrel sticks, our lines only moving with the gentle current, the smell of the new-mown fields in our noses, the hum of insects in our ears. At the time it seemed the Fourth of July would last forever. But there was a sadness already in the lazy call of a crow, as if it knew that everything was all downhill from here, like it was the beginning of the end of our last summer on earth.

  "So," said Willie, and when he did, I realized that he had said it more than once and I hadn't been paying attention. "So, what do you want to do?"

  At that moment I didn't want to do anything but lie against the bank of the North Branch and get mildly drunk on the smells of midsummer and listen to the stream laughing past and the insects busy humming in my ears. I didn't answer. Willie didn't ask again. I think he was content, too. It had been a great parade, even with having to pull that bum wagon with Letty aboard.

  I allowed myself the luxury of a daydream of next summer's parade. Me on a pair of wheels from W. R. Nichols in Tyler. The ad in the Tyler paper was framed in a double-thick black-lined box. I had the words memorized: "Bicycles, the most complete of any in the city and I will sell them at any price you want!"

  That was a lie, of course, because the ad went right on to say the price Mr. Nichols wanted.

  "Prices from $20 to $125," which was sure not any price I wanted, my total savings at the moment being a whopping $1.35. But there was this tantalizing phrase at the bottom of the lying ad: "A large number of secondhand wheels almost given away in the basement of the Nichols Block. Come and see me!"

  All right, it sounded a little bit like the witch in "Hansel and Gretel" inviting the young folks into her gingerbread house, but I could hardly resist walking the ten miles to Tyler to find out. What did "almost given away" mean, exactly? A dollar thirty-five? That would certainly be a giveaway compared to $20 or $125. Just who on God's green earth would pay $125 for a pair of wheels? Boy, if I had $125, I wouldn't waste it on any fancy bicycle. I'd go straight out and buy me a Winton motorcar like the one I saw in Tyler. I sighed. No, motorcars probably cost a fortune, more like a thousand dollars than a hundred.

  4. Missing Elliot

  NO FISH THAT AFTERNOO
N—TOO HOT AND THE WRONG spot—but supper made up for it. We hadn't had as good a meal since the Reverend Pelham left town. Ma roasted up one of the older chickens that had given up laying. It was hardly tough at all the way she did it. On top of chicken we had baked beans and Indian pudding and some kind of custard.

  Pa was very jolly and talked about the parade. He even spoke kindly of how good me and Willie had been pulling Letty the whole length of the parade route. I guess he hadn't heard about my little alteration with Ned Weston. At least he never mentioned it. He and Ma had stayed for all the speeches on the town hall green. Mr. Weston had surprised everyone by only speaking an hour and a half—a full forty minutes short of his previous record.

  As good as supper was, we hurried it a bit. The band concert was due to begin at six-thirty, while it was still light, and we didn't want to miss any of it. And yes, Letty could stay up for the fireworks. Both Beth and I were obliged to object. We'd never been allowed to stay up that late when we were five, but it was a halfhearted protest We were all in too good a mood. Besides, if Letty was put to bed, one of us might be recruited to stay home with her. We couldn't take that chance.

  By quarter past six we had a blanket spread out on the green. We're a big family for one blanket, so we held to sit close together. I huddled against Pa. "You cold, Robbie?" he asked. I nodded yes, so he put his arm around me. I wasn't really cold, but somehow I was feeling that if I got more than an inch away from the warmth of his big body, I was likely to freeze. Was that what being out on your own in the cold, cruel world meant? Was it like the coldness you feel on a summer night when you can't get close enough to your pa's big, warm presence?

  It didn't last. Letty keeled over, dead asleep, and Pa reached out and picked her up and held her, cradling her head against his chest. She didn't even wake up when the band started tuning up, just kind of stirred a bit and settled down.

  "I guess I'll go sit with Willie," I said.

  "All right," Pa said, smiling. I wanted him to say something like "Don't go. Sit here with us," but he didn't.

  I would have really enjoyed the band concert except I couldn't get over how cold it was—though it was July the Fourth and not dark yet. But then the concert ended and the fireworks were on. It's hard to think about much else when the sky is exploding: rockets whizzing and whining and blasting to great umbrellas of shattered light all over the town and as far as the mountains on either side. I wondered, but not in a scary way, mind you, just wondered if the end of the world could hold a candle to those fireworks for aerial excitement.

  "Robbie, have you seen Elliot?" I jumped up at the sound of Pa's voice. He had startled me there in the dark, my mind being on the convulsions of light in the sky. He was standing behind me, a kerosene lantern in one hand.

  "No, Pa, no I ain't." I could tell he was worried when he didn't correct my grammar.

  "You boys help me look for him?"

  "Sure, Mr. Hewitt." Willie was on his feet now, tucking his shirttail into his pants, all business.

  "Sit down and be quiet," somebody said loudly and rudely from a few feet behind us, so we moved off, Willie folding his blanket as we headed off the green and into Main Street.

  "We were all here together watching the display when he said he had to go—I was afraid he might—well, I had Letty on my lap, so I just told him to run along home and use the privy there. He didn't come back right away. At first I didn't worry, but then—well, he was gone so long, I went home to see what the trouble was, and he's nowhere around. I—I can't locate him."

  "Don't worry, Mr. Hewitt." Willie sounded like somebody's mother. "We'll find him, sure."

  Pa smiled a sort of crooked thank-you. He held out the lantern. "Here, you boys take this. I can manage."

  I took the lantern from him, not knowing what else to do. It was a dark night except when an exceptionally large display lit the sky momentarily. "Where should we look?" I asked, half scared about Elliot and half grumpy to be pulled away from the fireworks.

  "I'm thinking I'd better head up toward the quarry," Pa said. "God forbid—"

  I jammed the lantern handle back into his hand. "You take the light, then," I said.

  "Yeah," said Willie. "You'll need it worse than us. Anyhow, I can get one when we pass my house. We'll look around the crowd. He's likely ran into a pal and is just setting here watching the show." You could tell how hard Willie was trying to buck Pa up. He knew good and well Elliot didn't have any pals except maybe his friend Jesus.

  "Perhaps..." Pa said. "But it probably makes sense to look around here first. Thank you, boys." With that he hurried off in the direction of East Hill Road—the one that passes the cemetery and ends up at the quarry, which is about a fifty-foot-deep hole in the ground lined with nothing but granite rock. I shivered, as both Willie and me watched until the dark swallowed Pa up.

  "Where you think Elliot is?" Willie asked.

  "How should I know?" I snapped. It was hard enough having a brother like Elliot without having him disappear in the middle of the Fourth of July fireworks, worrying your pa half to distraction.

  We looked around the crowd as best we could, but people didn't take kindly to us peering down at their blankets. Soon Willie said, "Let's go home and get another lantern. Then we can see what we're doing."

  We headed toward Willie's house. His aunt was already asleep. Fireworks or no fireworks, the woman kept absolutely regular hours. Willie and me tried hard to tiptoe and whisper, but before we were three feet inside the door, I stumped my toe on the cat's water dish, sending it clanking across the wood floor.

  "Who's there?!"

  "Just us, Aunt Millie."

  "Why aren't you in bed, William?"

  "Me and Robbie got to help Reverend Hewitt look for Elliot. He kinda wandered away during the fireworks. I come to fetch a lantern."

  She mumbled something from her room down the hall, which we took as permission. Willie got the lantern from the pantry. He waited until we were safely outside to strike the match and light it. The sudden sulfur smell of the lucifer match brought to mind Reverend Pelham's spare-no-details description of Hell. I shook myself to be rid of such a thought.

  We tried to think of all of Elliot's favorite places, the general store being top of the list because that's where all the candy is. There was no one near the darkened storefront. No Elliot peering into the front glass window or sitting on the edge of the porch, swinging his legs. We went back to the fireworks just to make sure he hadn't returned, but they were over and the crowd was breaking up. People started to wander down the street in both directions, heading home.

  "Should we find your ma?"

  I shook my head. "She'd only worry," I said.

  We tried the livery stable next. Only old Rube Wiley was around, but he hadn't seen "head nor hair of no one with less than four legs" since the concert began hours before. "I'd help you look, boys, but all that banging has made these horses skittery as brides the day before the wedding."

  We walked to the south end of Main. Then we circled behind the houses on the west side, next behind the houses on the east side. We checked the green once more to make sure Elliot hadn't somehow returned. All we found was a blanket and a wicker basket that someone would be hunting for come morning.

  "Better try the railroad tracks—and the creek," Willie said.

  Lord have mercy. Surely Elliot wouldn't go to the creek in the middle of the night. Surely he had more sense than that! I followed Willie back up Main and then down Depot Street. We swung the lantern around the platform and down the tracks. Then we crossed them, recrossed Main, and walked along the North Branch at least half a mile.

  "He wouldn't have headed for the pond, would he?"

  "Nah! He ain't a total idiot!" I was talking too loud, trying to outyell the thought of Elliot floating facedown in the middle of Cutter's Pond.

  "C'mon, Robbie. Nobody's calling nobody nothing. I'm just trying to think of everything."

  "I know," I said. "Let's go check ar
ound the stone sheds. If he ain't there, we'd best go home. Why, he's probably there right now, safe and sound, while you and me is running around looking for him like crazy men."

  There was no sign of him around the stone sheds, their low metal roofs gleaming ghostly under the single tall gaslight. It didn't help to know that under those roofs lay hundreds of gravestones in the making. We headed up West Hill Road, then turned at School Street, not talking until we reached the manse. Neither Elliot nor Pa was there, but Ma was so relieved to see Willie and me that she refused to let me go out again. "Go on home, Willie. Your aunt will be frantic if you stay out much longer. Mr. Hewitt will find Elliot. I know he will. Thank you, though." She gave him a large piece of pie to eat on the way and hurried him out the door.

  Letty was already in bed. Ma and Beth and I sat at the table and tried not to look at each other's faces, pale and drawn in the gaslight of the kitchen.

  "He's dead. I just know he's dead," Beth burst out.

  "Oh, Beth, I'm sure he's all right." But how could Ma be so sure?

  The silence among us was so huge that each tick of the hall clock hit my head like the stroke of Teacher's ruler against my palm. I cleared my throat.

  "What, Robbie?" Ma looked at me all expectant, as though I might have come up with a good idea. I felt pushed to say something.

  "Me and Willie combed the town—all Elliot's favorite spots. We even hunted up the creek." The look of fear that crossed her face made me hurry on. "It's running low," I said. "You know how dry it's been."

  She tried to smile.

  Beth scraped back her chair and got noisily to her feet. "I can't stand just sitting here staring," she said.

  Ma looked up, all lit up with hope. She really thought one of us was going to come up with some great idea, but we didn't have any, not any we could bear to put into words. The quarries east of town and the pond to the south—they were too unthinkable.