Preacher's Boy (15 page)

"He whapped me on the head right proper," I said.

"I know, and he shouldn'ta done it, but you
did
pervoke him, Ed. It was partly your fault, innerfurrin' like you did."

All my sympathy flowed away like a spring torrent. I had "innerfurred" to save her dirty little neck. "Even if he didn't kidnap me, he
did
assault me, thereby committing bodily harm," I said primly. She opened her mouth to object. "He might have killed us both, Vile. You know that."

"He wouldn'ta
meant
to." She was pleading with me. "He would have felt sorry as a—a—sorry as could be afterwards. He really would've."

"
Afterwards?
There'd be no afterwards for you and me whether he meant it or not. That 'sorry' wouldn't count for an ice chip in Hades after we was dead and planted under the grass."

"Oh, Ed, please.
Please.
Think of your old pal Vile if you won't think of him. Paw's all I got in this world, Ed."

Suddenly it irritated me something awful for her to call me Ed. I know. I know. It doesn't make any sense. Who had started it all, trying to get them to think my name was Fred? But I was sick of Fred and Ed and Zeb and that awful cabin smelling of decaying chicken head and fish offal and wretched human sweat. I was even sick of having to worry about Vile.

I'm ashamed to say this, but I closed my eyes, hoping she would get the hint and leave. Before you judge me too harshly, remember how much glass was picked out of my scalp—how high my fever had shot to.

"Ed?" she said softly. "Please, Ed, before it's too late-"

I opened my eyes again. She looked so pitiful with that multicolored eye. What was to become of her? Where could she go? Back to that empty cabin where there was nothing to eat, the matches nearly used up? Before I could say anything, there was a sound on the stairs. She started like a doe. "Please," she said one more time before she dashed out the door.

Pa came into the kitchen. He pulled the quilt up close to my chin. "Are you awake, Robbie?" he asked softly. I kept my eyes closed while I tried to figure out what to answer. "Just talking in your sleep again?" He felt my forehead, seemed satisfied that my fever had not
returned, then tiptoed out of the kitchen and back up the stairs.

You'd think an uneasy conscience would keep a person awake, but next thing I knew, the light was streaming through the windows and Ma was stirring up the breakfast fire. I sat up slowly so as to not rattle my head. Ma is a good-looking woman even from the back. She has long auburn hair tucked into a big bun on the top of her head, but she is always in a hurry, so short curly hairs escape and make a kind of halo around her face. I got her curly hair, but mine's more red than auburn. She says my Scottish grandpa gave it to me, but I wish he'd kept it to himself. In the modern United States of America red curls might look fine on little girls like Letty, but they seem unmanly on a boy.

Ma was bent toward the stove, feeding in a piece of wood, neatly chopped and split by Pa. Her apron was tied in a lopsided bow in the middle of her back over a gray dress that when she bent over showed just the tops of her high shoes. I could see why Pa had taken such a fancy to her. She must have been a beauty when she was young.

I guess she felt me staring at her, because just then she turned around and smiled. I don't know any woman in the world with such a smile. It would charm the gruff off a Billy Goat, that smile. "You must be feeling better," she said, and came over and kissed my forehead. Ordinarily a boy who is nearly eleven would dodge a kiss from his ma, but I knew she meant no harm. It was just her way of taking my temperature. I lay back and let her tuck the quilt up. "Oatmeal this morning?" she asked, so sweetly that I felt tears starting in my eyes. I pulled the quilt up a bit to hide my face.
"Or I could do griddlecakes, if you have the appetite."

Flapjacks for breakfast! She was making a pet of me. I pushed the covers off my face. "Yes, thank you," I said.

She laughed, a sound pleasing as the song of a hermit thrush. About then it dawned on me that my sickness had turned me into treacle pudding. I couldn't let that happen. But every time I tried to stop thinking about home and how glad I was to be there, my mind would go to Vile, who had none. How was she managing it alone? I tried to tell myself she was better off without that old villain, but she wouldn't know that. What was she eating? Why hadn't I made her take at least a handful of Montpelier crackers last night? The sweet smell of flapjacks on the griddle and sausage in the pan made me think all the more bitterly of some nauseous soup that might well be her only nourishment today.

Today? I sat up so fast, my head spun. "Ma!"

Ma wheeled around from the stove to study me. "What is it, Robbie? What's the matter?"

"Nothing." I shook my head, gently so as not to make my headache worse. Today they'd be sending Zeb to Tyler to stand trial.
For kidnapping and attempted murder.
Not just that, I told myself. He'd practically destroyed Wolcott's Drugstore, hadn't he? I fingered the bandage on my head. My poor head. Hadn't I nearly died?

I lay back down carefully. Let the rascal hang, or rather, let him rot in jail. What did I care? He deserved it, the old drunk. Vile would be better off if she never laid eyes on him again.

But what would happen to her? Where could she go? There were orphanages. I dropped that when
scenes from
Oliver Twist
came to mind. Or kindly widows, as in
Huckleberry Finn.
I tried to picture Vile with somebody like Aunt Millie. They'd drive each other crazy in a week. I let out a giggle.

Ma turned again, looking a little puzzled, but when I just smiled and shrugged, she turned back to the stove. She's too much of a lady to pry.

Pa would know what to do about Vile. I'd tell him about her. He'd figure out something good. Wouldn't Vile be happier in a warm house with three sure meals a day than in a ruined cabin where you'd freeze even in July?

The family began to gather. Apparently they'd been eating in the parlor while I was sick so as not to disturb me. Beth took note of the flapjacks, snuck a look at me, and sniffed slightly before intercepting Letty at the door to put on her apron for her.

"Flajacks for breffast!" squealed Elliot and clapped his hands. Pa patted his shoulder and nodded at me.

"It appears your mother has killed the fatted calf, on a Wednesday, even."

I knew what the "fatted calf" meant. When the Prodigal Son comes home after wasting all his father's goods, instead of scolding him, the father throws a feast to welcome him. I didn't know quite how to feel, Pa likening me to the Prodigal.

When Ma announced that breakfast was ready, I sat up and made to put my feet on the floor. Pa stopped me. "You can eat your griddlecakes right there, Robbie. The doctor doesn't want you bouncing around for a few days yet." I lay back down. My head was throbbing from just trying to stand. Ma sent Letty to fetch a couple of cushions from the parlor. Then Pa
propped me up so I could eat my breakfast from a tray.

At the table Pa said the blessing, adding a thanks to God that I was improving in health and strength. Everybody dug in except Ma, who was watching me like a mother hawk from her position at the stove. "Small bites, Robbie. You have to eat slowly. You haven't had any solid food for a week." My mouth was jammed full of sausage and flapjacks with maple syrup leaking out the corners. I could only nod in answer. "
Small
bites, Robbie, and chew each one."

"He'll be all right, Mother," said Pa. "Now you come sit down and enjoy some yourself." She looked at me doubtfully, but she put another platter of cakes on the table, served herself, and sat down.

It felt lonely watching the five of them gathered around the table eating and talking and me across the room on the daybed with my solitary tray. Maybe it sounds silly, but I felt as far away from them at that moment as I had up at the cabin.

Occasionally, Ma would peer across the table at me and smile as if to ask how I was. But it just made me feel lonelier and less a part of them all to be singled out. I was drifting down past melancholy toward self-pity when Beth said, "I heard they were moving that man to Tyler today."

A shiver went through me. I didn't want to be reminded.

"What man?" Letty asked.

"Da bad man wha' stole Robbie," answered Elliot, proud to be the one who knew the answer.

My stomach lurched. I grabbed the chamber pot and fed it all my breakfast.

"R
OBBIE
!" B
OTH
M
A AND
P
A WERE BESIDE ME IN A HOP.
"Oh, it's all my fault," Ma moaned. "I should have known better than to give him sausage."

"It's all right, Mother." Pa was wiping my face with his big white handkerchief. He put it back in his pocket, gave me a wry smile, and took hold of the chamber pot I was still clutching. "Need this any longer?"

I shook my head and lay back against the parlor cushions.

"It smells bad!" Letty protested.

"I'll take care of it," Pa said, bearing my late lamented breakfast out to the privy.

"Excuse me," Beth said primly. "I seem to have lost my appetite."

"Robbie din' mean to. Di' you, Robbie?" Elliot was leaning anxiously over me.

"No, Robbie didn't mean to be sick," Ma said,
watching my face and not Elliot's while she spoke to him. "Now go back to the table and finish your breakfast."

The girls were soon out of the kitchen, leaving Ma still looking worried and guilty and Elliot reaching over to the girls' plates and helping himself to their flapjacks.

Pa brought the chamber pot, scrubbed clean, back in and put it down beside the daybed.

"Pa," I began, not sure how to say what I needed to say.

"Yes, Robbie?"

"The—the man they caught has a girl, a daughter. Is anyone seeing to her while—you know—while—"

Pa sat down on the side of the daybed, smiling as though I'd said a kindly thing. "We surely will take care of her when we find her, but right now no one knows where she is."

"I think—well, they were staying in that old abandoned cabin—"

"Yes, that's what the man said. But Willie and I looked there—"

"It ain't her fault, Pa. She can't help he's her father."

"No." Carefully, he pulled the parlor cushions out from under my back. "No. She can't help that." He patted my shoulder. "Now, you just lie here and get a good rest. Don't you fret about the girl. I'll ask around. Do you know her name?"

"Vile," I said. It felt good to be stretched out flat again.

"Vile?"

"For Violet. Violet Finch."

I tried to keep a picture in my mind of Pa climbing the hill again like the Good Shepherd looking for the
lost lamb. Finding Vile huddled up in the cabin, frightened and alone, and gently persuading her to come home with him, taking her small dirty hand into his big strong clean one—It didn't work. No matter that I'd brought on another headache trying to concentrate on Vile's rescue, by midmorning Pa had come home alone.

"I went up to the cabin again. I'm afraid she's gone—cleared out. There's nothing to suggest that anyone has been there for the last day or so."

I didn't sleep well that night. Why should I have to feel responsible for Vile? She wasn't my care. She wouldn't want to be. I'd nearly got myself killed trying to save her life, and was she grateful? It was plain she didn't want me or anyone else trying to help her. I tossed over to the other side, sending a pain through my skull. She'd come in the middle of the night to ask me for help.... But I was hardly in my right mind when she was begging me so pitiful, and she sped away as soon as she heard Pa coming. I really hadn't had a chance to say or do anything.

I turned over again. I must have been groaning out loud, because before long Pa was sitting beside me, putting a cold compress to my forehead.

"Shh—shh. It's all right, Robbie. Just try to lie still and the pain will go away."

His hand felt warm and healing on my head. I wanted to grab it and hold it there, but it seemed a baby—an Elliot—kind of gesture. I kept my arms stiffly by my sides.

After a while he leaned over and kissed my forehead, just as Ma might have. "Can you get back to sleep, do you think?"

I wanted to beg him to stay with me. Instead I said, "Yessir," and he went quietly up the stairs.

Morning came at last. Pa was down as early as Ma, dressed in his Sunday suit. "I'll just take some bread and tea," he said to her. "I have to get on my way." He came over to the daybed before he left, but I pretended to be asleep. He was gone before I realized that it was important that I know where he'd gone.

Carefully, I propped myself up on my elbows, trying to avoid those sudden movements that sent my head to clanging. "Where'd Pa go?" I asked.

"Oh, Robbie. I was hoping you were still asleep."

"Pa. Where did he have to go?"

"To catch the early train," she said.

"Is somebody in the hospital?" Somehow when you're sick yourself, you tend to forget that things happen to other people at the same time. I'd forgot that Pa still had parishioners to think of.

"No. No one's sick. They've called him to testify."

"Testify?" A picture flashed in my head of a big prayer meeting in the city, where Pa would get up like Deacon Slaughter and make announcements about what God was up to. "Testify in Tyler?"

"About the kidnapping," she said gently. "Dr. Blake said you weren't well enough to be a witness yourself, so they called on your father."

"Oh." I lay back down slowly. I had to think. Even Pa thought Zeb had kidnapped me. Well, the bum had nearly killed me. What was the difference?
Thou shalt not bear false witness.

I reasoned that Pa wouldn't know it was false. He'd only say what he believed to be true. But I knew better.

And Vile, wherever she was, knew better. She'd never forgive me if I let my pa send hers to prison for kidnapping. Why hadn't I told Pa the truth? I let out a sigh as long as a train pulling into the depot.