The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg (7 page)

“Where are you going?” Mrs. Bean calls out when I get up from the table. “What are you going to do?”

But I’m running out the door without an answer. Running into the sooty blue darkness where Smelt is waiting. Smelt with his knife and probably a gun, too. And I’ve got no idea what to do, no idea at all.

Except I know one thing. I can’t do nothing. Nothing is not an option.

B
REWSTER’S PRIVY LOOKS
better cared for than Squint’s whole house and is nearly as big. It’s got fancy wood trim, all painted neat and white, and a half moon cut in the door. Very civilized, and way better than the cow ditch me and Harold used when we had to do our business out behind the barn.

I’m most ways to the privy door when a dirt-colored hand clamps over my mouth and yanks me into the shadows behind the building.

Smelt with his knife, like I figured.

“Evening, boy,” he whispers, his nasty little eyes flicking to the big house. “If you try and scream I’ll wring your neck and drop your body into the cesspit. Nod if you understand.”

I nod. Smelt grins, showing me his tooth.

“Fatten you up, did they? Fuss over you some? Hope you enjoyed it, boy. Hope you paid attention. ’Cause if you can’t tell me where they hid them fugitives, this world’s got no more use for Homer Figg. You might’s well jump in that cesspit and save me the trouble.”

My brain has been racing since I run from the house, trying to find a lie that will save me and the runaway slaves and Mr. Brewster, too. Comes to me in that very moment, with Smelt jabbing the point of his knife in my ribs, looking for a soft spot. Don’t know if the lie is powerful enough to work, but it’s the only one I have at the moment.

“Gemstones!” I exclaim. “Tourmaline!”

“Hush your voice, boy,” he hisses.

“In the mine,” I tell him. “They’re hiding in the old tourmaline mine.”

That filthy hand of his starts squeezing on my neck. “The mine? Who told you, the cook or the old man?”

“Showed me,” I say, gasping as his hand tightens.

“You saying he took you up to the mine and showed you where he’s got the slaves hid? You expect me to believe that?”

The part of the lie I’m counting on is that Smelt doesn’t know he was spotted shadowing me and Jebediah Brewster to the mines. Best kind of lie has some truth in it, just like Smelt said. Used to drive my brother, Harold, crazy when I’d tell folks our Dear Father was killed by a tree that measured a mile high from roots to top. The tree was real but the mile wasn’t, and Harold said that made it worse, telling a lie that was partway true.

I can see in Smelt’s eyes that he’s trying to catch me lying but hasn’t so far, because he knows Mr. Brewster really did show me the mine.

“I been all over that site,” Smelt says, puzzling it out. “Didn’t see no fugitive slaves, nor any place to hide them.”

“Old shed with a rusty tin roof,” I tell him, making it up as I go along. “There’s a secret passage in the shed.”

“Nothing in that shed but rocks and dirt,” he says suspiciously.

“Under the dirt,” I tell him. “There’s a door under the dirt. Mr. Brewster wouldn’t let me go down there, but he lifted the door up enough with his foot so I could see the ladder down.”

“Hole in the dirt don’t mean nothing,” he says. “It’s a mine, there’s lots of holes in the dirt.”

“Heard a baby crying,” I tell him.

That gets his attention. Probably he knows the fugitives have a child or two. “Baby cryin’, you say?”

“Yes, sir.”

He presses the knife harder. Another twitch and he’ll be drawing blood. “Tell me the truth now. Why’d a man like Jebediah Brewster show you where he’s hid them fugitives? Why’d he trust a lyin’ boy like you?”

“Said it was up to me, whether I wanted to help or run away.”

Smelt makes a face, nods to himself. “Sounds like that Quaker fool.”

“So now you know, right?”

“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t.”

“I did what you wanted. Give me back my horse.”

That makes him laugh. “It’s my horse now, for sparin’ your worthless life.”

“You promised to let me go,” I insist. “I’ve got to find my brother before he gets to the war.”

In the dark he looks like a jack-o’-lantern with one snaggle tooth, grinning me for a fool. “That wasn’t the deal. The deal was, do like I say and I might let you live. It’s still a ‘might,’ boy. Show me this door in the dirt and then we’ll see who is lying and who is dying.”

Then he stuffs a rag in my mouth, whips a rope around my wrists, and drags me off into the night.

W
HEN
I
WAS LITTLE
, and we first went to live with our uncle Squinton Leach, the thing I was most scared of, other than the dark, was my brother, Harold, disappearing. Our father was gone and our Dear Mother, too, and it seemed like my big brother would be next and then I’d be all alone in the world. I’d wake up crying and afraid, and to soothe me Harold told stories about pirates and Indians. The pirates and Indians wanted to get us, but couldn’t, no matter how hard they tried. Harold always made me the one who saved us. I’d trick the pirates and we’d get away. Or I’d show him how to hide from the Indians, and he’d tell me how clever and brave I was, only it was him making up the story, not me.

Harold never believed in pirates, not real pirates, and the only Indians left in Pine Swamp worked for the timber company, felling trees. It was only made-up stories to make me feel safe. We never had a story about someone like Ebenezer Smelt because we never knew a man that bad really existed. A man that’ll hunt innocent people like animals and drag a boy through the dark of night and threaten to kill him.

Some things are worse than the worst kind of nightmare, and it turns out the only thing worse than Ebenezer Smelt is his partner, Stink Mullins, who’s waiting for us in the woods.

The moment we get there Stink grabs the rope, throws me to the ground, and kicks the air out of me.

“You was thinkin’ something bad,” he says, satisfied. “That’ll teach you.” Then he grabs the rag from my mouth and dabs at his empty eye socket. Lucky for me he decides to keep the rag, and jams it in his pocket.

“Where they hid?” he asks Smelt. “The boy find out?”

“Says they’re at the mine, in a secret tunnel.”

“You believe him, do you?”

“I don’t believe nothing till I see it with my own eyes. Where’s Festus?”

“In the lean-to, trussed up like a turkey,” Stink says with a chuckle. “That darky is too scared to move, let alone get himself free.”

I don’t know why they call Samuel Reed, the conductor, Festus. I figure he’s got about as much chance of seeing the sunrise as I do, once they figure out I’m lying about the mine. Unless I can come up with a better lie, one that will set us both free.

“They on the move tonight?” Stink asks, prodding at me with his boot.

Best I can do is nod. That’s enough to get us up and moving again. There’s no moon in the sky, and only a few dim stars showing through the clouds, but the two men know where they’re going. Before long we’re on the trail up to the mine, following the wagon ruts. The dark feels heavy, like a thick blanket that won’t let you breathe, and the ground is hard and sharp under my feet.

Suddenly Smelt holds up his hand and stops us. “You hear that?”

Pebbles skitter down from the hills around us.

“Ground is always moving here,” says Stink. “All that scavenge from the mine.”

“Something’s out there,” Smelt complains. “Something alive.”

“Raccoon or a skunk,” says Stink with a laugh. “What you afraid of?”

“Nothin’.”

“Afraid of an old Quaker man that won’t lift a hand to defend himself? ’Fraid of a bunch of scared-to-death darkies?”

“Shut up.”

The strange thing of it is, the closer we get to the mine, the calmer I feel. Doesn’t make sense, because I still don’t know what to say when they find there’s no door in the dirt. Maybe the strange calm feeling is what happens when a man stands up for the firing squad, or climbs the gallows to be hung. Like you’re calm because the waiting part is almost over, and you’re tired of being afraid.

Only difference, it’s so dark I won’t need a blindfold.

We come at last to the old tin shed, in a place so empty even the ghosts have gone away.

Stink pulls me up short on the rope. He smells worse than the cesspit. Worse than rotten eggs, or a dead cat. “No sense waiting,” he says to Smelt, unsheathing his knife. “The slaves are here or they ain’t. Either way, Homer Figg has outlived his usefulness.”

I’m trying to decide should I close my eyes or not, when all of a sudden the darkness moves and takes the shape of a man.

Samuel Reed, freed from his bonds, is swinging a six-foot iron bar like it’s a baseball bat, and Stink Mullins is a cheap home run.

T
HE FIRST SWING DROPS
Stink like a bag of smelly potatoes. He’s out cold, not moving.

If I was Ebenezer Smelt and saw what happened to my partner, I’d hightail it and run for my life, but old Smelt decides to stand his ground.

“Put down that weapon!” he screams. “You’re my lawful prisoner!”

Smelt drops into a fighting crouch, jabbing away with his big blade, looking for an opening, but he can’t get close enough to Samuel Reed to poke him with the knife.

Reed doesn’t say a word. He just swings that heavy iron bar like it was a twig. The hiss of it cutting the air sounds like a cold steel snake eager to strike.

“You’ll hang for this!” Smelt promises, but he’s starting to sound afraid.

Samuel Reed takes careful aim, and when Smelt gets too close, the iron bar smacks his hand and his knife goes flying into the dark.

Smelt scrambles after it, cursing, and the iron bar catches him hard in the butt, knocking him down flat. When he tries to sit up — big mistake — Mr. Reed whomps him on the head and his eyes roll white and he falls back unconscious.

Then a strange thing happens. Samuel Reed drops the iron bar like it’s burning his hands and covers his eyes and starts to weep.

“But you won,” I tell him, confused. “You got ’em good!”

Mr. Reed takes a deep breath and stops sobbing. “I was a dead man,” he says in a husky voice. “Dead man has nothin’ to lose, nothin’ to be feared of. Now I’m back among the living and scared to death about what happens next. Does that make sense?”

Only thing makes sense is taking care of those two villains before they wake up and try to kill us. Reed helps me get the rope off my wrists and we use it to lash Stink and Smelt together, hands behind their backs. Seems like Samuel Reed has lost all his strength and it’s up to me to make sure the knots are good and tight.

When we’re done we start the long walk back to Mr. Brewster’s house. Samuel Reed has started to limp from his efforts, and has to lean on me for support.

“Used up everything I had,” he explains, panting. “No food for three days, precious little water.”

“How’d you manage to get free?” I ask him.

“Jebediah found me in the woods,” he says. “You told him about me, and he had a good notion of where to look. Knows these lands like the back of his hand, does Jebediah.”