Search for the Shadowman (2 page)

His slender, blond grandmother, Dorothy Thomas, led him into the parlor, cool and dim with the drapes drawn against the afternoon sun. The room smelled tangy with lemon oil from the highly polished tables, and a light fragrance of cinnamon drifted in from the kitchen.

Grandma Dorothy gave Andy a hug. “You’re out of breath. What’s the rush?” she asked.

“Homework,” Andy said. “We’ve got to write a history of our family. I’m supposed to start by interviewing the oldest member available.” As he glanced toward the glassed-in back porch, where Miss Winnie liked to read and knit, he lowered his voice. “She always tells the same old stories.”

“If you want new stories, ask her some new questions,” Grandma Dorothy said.

“What new questions?”

“That’s up to you.”

Andy looked at his grandmother with hope. “Hey,
Grandma,” he said, “you’re kind of old. Maybe I could skip Miss Winnie and interview you.”

Grandma rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips. “Now my dear, stick to Plan A. Talk to Miss Winnie first. Then you can interview the rest of us decrepit old folks.”

“What I meant,” Andy said, but his grandma was already on her way to the kitchen. Bracing himself, he walked to the sunlit back porch, with its wicker rockers, potted plants, and countless embroidered pillows, and greeted his great-aunt Winnie Bell Bonner. Today he looked at her and saw a tiny woman with tightly curled white hair and smile-line crinkles at the corners of her mouth and eyes.

As Andy settled on the footstool next to Miss Winnie’s rocking chair, he explained the interviews he had to do.

Even before he’d finished, Miss Winnie’s eyes sparked with indignation. “I don’t know why this Mr. Hammerhead’s got an interest in other folks’ family business.”

“Hammergren. I don’t think he’s being nosy, Miss Winnie,” Andy said. “He wants us to write the oral histories of our families so the old stories won’t be lost.”

“Some of those old stories are better off being lost and long forgotten,” she snapped.

“But you’ve been telling us stories for years about
taffy pulls and what kinds of things you ate and the clothes you wore and all that stuff. You want those to be lost and forgotten?”

Miss Winnie hunched over, leaning forward, so that her nose was close to Andy’s. She smelled faintly of the dried rose petals Grandma Dorothy kept in bowls in the bedrooms.

“Everybody knows about trifling things like clothes and taffy pulls,” Miss Winnie said. “It’s the
people
stories your teacher wants. It’s the
people
stories that make history.”

“Okay,” Andy said. He opened his notebook and held up his pencil. “Tell me some
people
stories.”

Miss Winnie thought a moment. “Some stories are for the telling, some are not,” she said. “I’ll decide which are which.”

“Why should some stories not be told?” Andy asked. Suddenly he was curious. Really curious.

“Never you mind.” Miss Winnie shook her head.

Andy shrugged. “Okay, then,” he said, “I guess I should ask you some of the questions Mr. Hammergren had us copy off the board. They’re about transportation and how you handled sandstorms and how work was done in the home and stuff like that. They’re not exactly people stories. I don’t know where else to start.”

Miss Winnie leaned back and waved a hand, shooing away the questions like flies. “I’ll begin back as far as I heard tell, when in 1879 the Bonner family came to
West Texas to live. You’ve got a pencil, Andy boy. I’ll start talking and you start writing.”

“I’m ready, Miss Winnie,” Andy answered, grinning. He remembered his conversation with J.J. “By the way, if there’s any bank robbers or horse thieves in the family, don’t forget to include them.”

Miss Winnie’s spidery-veined hands flew up to her cheeks. In a quavery voice she asked, “What have you heard? Just who’ve you been talking to?”

She looked so pale that Andy was scared. “Nobody! I was just teasing, Miss Winnie. Honest,” he said.

Miss Winnie rested her head against the back of the rocker, closed her eyes, and took three long, deep breaths. The pink came back to her cheeks, and her eyes opened as she answered, “I was, too. Now, let’s start with my great-grandfather, Malcolm John Bonner.”

U
nder Miss Winnie’s eagle eye, Andy dutifully wrote down almost every word she said. Malcolm John Bonner may have brought his wife and near-grown children to settle in Hermosa at great personal sacrifice, but Andy found it hard to really care.

Now part of his mind was on his great-aunt’s strange reaction to his comment about horse thieves and bank robbers. She’d said she’d tell him only those stories she wanted to tell. Was she hiding something?

Miss Winnie took a deep breath. “Now that we’ve got the begats out of the way, we’ll—”

“The what?” Andy interrupted.

“The begats. You know. Malcolm John and his wife, Grace Elizabeth, begat Malcolm John Bonner, Jr., who married Mary Ellen Hansen, who begat …” She
shrugged impatiently and reached up to tug a small embroidered pillow to a spot behind her left shoulder. “You wrote it all down. I watched you. Let’s start with Malcolm John’s story.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Andy said.

“Malcolm John Bonner brought his family to West Texas in terrible poverty,” Miss Winnie began.

“Why’d they have to move? Especially if they were so poor?” Andy asked.

“They had no choice.” Miss Winnie shook her head sadly, but her glance at Andy was wary. “Grace Elizabeth was sickly in the damp, humid climate of Corpus Christi, where they lived. Their doctor said the only way she’d survive would be to move to a dry climate.”

“But they had no money to move.”

“I didn’t say that,” Miss Winnie insisted. “They were good, frugal people. Malcolm John Bonner built and ran a successful dry goods store. He sold it and bought ranch land here in Hermosa, where people were gathering because they’d heard the railroad was planning to come through. But the money he’d saved to build a house and buy stock … that was stolen. Every cent of it.”

Andy stopped writing and stared at Miss Winnie. The story was beginning to get interesting. “Who stole the money?” he asked.

“That was long ago and best forgotten,” she answered. She looked away from Andy and went on.
“Malcolm John and his sons worked mighty hard for anyone who could afford to pay for hired help. Grace Elizabeth and her daughters became seamstresses and milliners, and …”

Andy had barely opened his mouth before Miss Winnie said, “That means they made dresses and hats for other folk.”

“Okay,” Andy said, and wrote fast.

“As I was about to say,” Miss Winnie told him, “the family worked hard, saved as much money as possible, and eventually were able to buy some livestock and develop their land.”

“Good!” Andy exclaimed, surprised at the rush of relief he felt that these relatives from the past had come through their troubles.

Grandma Dorothy walked into the room and rested a hand on Miss Winnie’s shoulder. “Andy, why don’t you come back tomorrow afternoon?” she asked. “We’re having an early supper so we can take in a movie.”

He closed his notebook and stood up. “Thanks for your help, Miss Winnie. See you.”

“Delighted,” Miss Winnie answered. “In the meantime, if you want, go up to the attic and look for a large cardboard box with ‘Winnie Bell Bonner’ printed on it. When I moved here from the ranch, I crammed it full of family papers and photos. You might find something you can use for this school project.”

“Great,” Andy said, although he didn’t mean it. Interviewing relatives and writing down what they said was going to take a lot of time. He edged toward the back door, but Grandma Dorothy stopped him. “This would be a good time to get the box, Andy. I know where it is. You’ll find it on top of a trunk against the back wall of the attic.”

It didn’t take Andy long to find the box. It was heavy, but he balanced his notebook on top and managed to carry it down the stairs.

As he staggered through the back door of his own home, his mother, who had been looking through the day’s mail, glanced up in surprise and rose to help him. Strands of reddish brown hair clung to her cheeks, her tailored blouse and skirt were wrinkled from the late September heat, and she had kicked her shoes off.

“Hello. What in the world is that?” she asked.

“I dunno,” Andy said. “Miss Winnie said it was full of papers and photos that might help me with my genealogy report.”

“I can’t wait to see what’s in here,” she said, cutting the tape on the sealed box with the letter opener. “I’d love to know more about the Bonners.”

“Then I wish you could write the report, instead of me!” Andy told her.

“Oh, come on, Andy,” Mrs. Thomas said as she pulled off the top of the box. “This is fun. Let’s take a look.”

In spite of himself, he was intrigued as his mother gently removed a handful of papers, smoothing them against the kitchen tabletop and laying them flat. “Letters … a bill of sale for livestock … an old receipt for county property taxes … Oh! Here’s a child’s drawing,” she said, then reached into the box for a framed photograph.

“My, my, look at this,” she murmured. “You’ll have to ask Miss Winnie who all these people are. It looks like a family portrait, taken at a party.”

Andy, who could almost match his mother’s height, leaned over her shoulder, studying the faded, brown-tinged, double row of unsmiling adults—so many they filled the photo, crowding against the narrow wooden frame. The women were dressed in high-necked, long-sleeved dresses, with skirts that touched the ground. The men’s necks were squeezed uncomfortably inside stiff, high collars that poked above high-buttoned coats.

“It must have been a terrible party,” Andy said. “They all look miserable.”

“Back in the eighteen hundreds, people didn’t usually smile when they had their photographs taken,” his mother said. “For one thing, they had to hold still without moving for a long time, while the photo was being made. Also, many of them had missing teeth! Dental work wasn’t what it is today.”

Andy peered more closely. “The men are wearing
something around their necks,” he said. “They look like bolo ties, except they each end in a circle.”

“Like this?” His mother fished a narrow strip of leather from the box. Hanging from the middle of it was a horseshoe nail, hammered flat.

“Weird,” Andy said as he took it and examined it. He hung it around his own neck.

Mrs. Thomas reached into the box again. “Oh, look, there are some books in here, too. What’s this? A poetry book. And this one looks like a child’s reader.” She pulled out a thick, heavy book with a worn, frayed leather cover. “This must be an old family Bible,” she said.

She opened it and held it toward Andy so that he could see a faded list of names. “Malcolm John Bonner,” she said. “He wrote his birthdate and date of marriage to Grace Elizabeth Hardy. And their children are listed underneath.” She touched the page lightly. “Someone has added their dates of death, as well. This is a real treasure.”

“They sure had a lot of kids,” Andy said. “There’s a second Malcolm John Bonner, and an Elizabeth Anne, Margaret Jane, Cole Joseph, Peter James, Victoria Grace, and Rose Marie. Looks like for a while Mrs. Bonner had a baby every other year, or even closer.”

“Back then people had big families because they knew they’d lose some of their children to illness,” Mrs.
Thomas told Andy. “Look at the dates of birth and death. Victoria Grace and Rose Marie were infant deaths. Peter James lived only into his mid-twenties.”

Andy stared at one name on the page. “I don’t get it,” he said. “Cole Joseph had a birthdate—August 1, 1856—but not a date of death, and somebody put a line through his name. Isn’t that weird?”

His mother shrugged. “That’s something to ask Miss Winnie about.”

Andy took a step toward the back door as he said, “Grandpa, Grandma, and Miss Winnie are going to a movie, but I think I can catch them before they leave.”

“When’s the report due?” Mrs. Thomas asked.

“In a couple of weeks,” Andy answered.

“Then visit Miss Winnie tomorrow. She’ll tell you then.” Mrs. Thomas smiled. “You’re really interested in this project, aren’t you?” she observed.

“I can make it,” Andy insisted as he fingered the flattened nail. “I just have to ask her two questions.” He was sure Miss Winnie had a secret, a family story she didn’t want told, and he was beginning to suspect that the story had to do with Cole Joseph Bonner.

Andy ran through the crackling leaves, promising himself he’d rake them up for Grandpa as soon as he found time. He arrived just as Grandpa and Grandma were helping Miss Winnie down the back steps.

“Me again,” he called. “I only want to ask you two questions, Miss Winnie!” Andy paused, gulping in a
long breath. He held up the nail on the leather thong he was wearing. “What is this?”

Miss Winnie smiled. “That’s a nail from the shoes of Malcolm John Bonner’s horses. He made those circles for himself and his sons to wear. I believe they stood for his faith in the family’s future. A circle means ‘unbroken,’ you know.”

“They all wore them?”

“So I heard. Always.”

Grandma Dorothy looked at her watch, so Andy quickly said, “The last question’s about Malcolm John Bonner’s family Bible.”

Miss Winnie started. “The Bible? That was in the box?”

“All the names listed had birthdates as well as dates of death—all except one. Cole Joseph Bonner. Somebody drew a line through his name.”

Miss Winnie leaned heavily on Grandpa Zeke’s arm. “There was no Cole Joseph Bonner,” she said so firmly that the tight white curls on her forehead bounced.

“His name was right there,” Andy persisted. “It was written in the same handwriting as the other names. So sure there was. You know why it was crossed out? Please tell me.”

“Listen to me, Andy boy,” Miss Winnie said. “You’re poking your nose into matters where it shouldn’t be poked. I don’t care what your Mr. Hammerhead assigned. Leave Coley Joe out of it. You’re
going to stir up problems that you and the family can’t handle.”

“Coley Joe? You called him Coley Joe! That means you know about him!”