Wolf Hollow (19 page)

School was different that day, for two reasons.

First, because I walked in to find myself the subject of a standing ovation. Even my brothers joined in, though they looked a little abashed about it. No one had ever clapped for me before, and I was sorry to be applauded now for something I might have done faster and better than I did.

In the second place, school was so much better without Betty, or Andy, for that matter, and I was not sorry about their absence. But it was also worse because Ruth was gone, too, and some of the littlest ones kept home by mothers who did not know Toby as I did and feared he might be lurking in the bushes, waiting to toss their babies down the nearest well.

We were no more than twenty, so Mrs. Taylor was able to spend plenty of time with us at the board in turns, doing sums and grammar.

It was during one of the arithmetic lessons that I began to realize what I should do next. The logic of the numbers was soothing, and it fired the nuts-and-bolts part of my tired brain.

If proving Toby innocent was the problem, then Andy was the answer.

He knew everything—who had thrown the rock, who had strung the taut-wire, why Betty had gone to Cobb Hollow—all of it.

If getting Andy to tell the truth was the problem, then I didn't know the answer.

But I remembered how much easier it was to tell my own secret when I realized my mother already knew part of it—that Jordan was really Toby. And once the cork was off the bottle, the rest of it flowed out.

If the answer was to pull the cork, then I needed to figure out how to convince Andy that we already knew the truth he had not yet told.

I spent the rest of the day thinking about that. And by the time school ended, I had the beginnings of an idea.

I needed some time to think about my new idea before I did anything about it.

For days I had popped from one problem to another like a pumpkin seed on a griddle. And I was tired of it.

Just weeks ago I'd begun to hunger for change, impatient with my life, much as I loved it. Somewhere, excitement waited for me like an uncut cake.

Now I wanted nothing more than to be still and thoughtful and quiet for just a little while.

The Turtle Stone was not far from the schoolhouse. Deer traveling the path out of Wolf Hollow had beaten other narrow trails that led to the fern beds they loved.

I took the first of these, once again grateful that Betty was not waiting for me. I wondered if I should feel guilty about that, but I didn't. I could have hurried more to find her, but I hadn't put her down that well. She'd done that all by herself.

I was truly alone. My brothers were long gone. And all the birds and small animals were hiding in plain sight, waiting to discover my intentions.

I had none.

The Turtle Stone sat at the center of the clearing like a great moon in a galaxy of yellow maple stars. It was a beautiful thing with quartz veins running deep and clear through its hard, reddish shell. We had long wondered about it—where it had come from, why it was the only one of its kind in these hills.

I'd been angry about a lot of Betty's nastiness, but when I saw the scars she'd made on the stone and remembered the reason for them, real fury overcame me.

I ran my hand over the stone, expecting some suggestion of softness. Instead, the stone itself told me a thing or two about age and resilience, and the trees at the edge of the clearing quietly concurred.

Who was I to worry about a stone that had been here since long before any of us, that would be here long after we all were gone?

I had come here to consider serious matters and how I might figure in the scheme of things. Important things. Instead, the stone made me aware for the first time that my life, however long, would amount to nothing more than a flicker. Not even that. Not even a flicker. Not even a sigh.

As I made my way back through the woods, I thought of the men who had dug pits close by here. Maybe boys, too, not much older than I was right now.

I imagined those pits, the wolves trapped in them, snarling and whining for release. The bones they'd left behind. The unborn pups and their rose-petal ears.

I thought about Betty and her “gone” father and why she had intended Toby such harm.

The awful stories he'd told me, and the terrible softness of his scars.

And I decided that there might be things I would never understand, no matter how hard I tried. Though try I would.

And that there would be people who would never hear my one small voice, no matter what I had to say.

But then a better thought occurred, and this was the one I carried away with me that day: If my life was to be just a single note in an endless symphony, how could I not sound it out for as long and as loudly as I could?

When I got home, I found my mother and my grandmother in the sitting room, their laps full of mending.

I said my hellos and “Where are the boys?”

“Out in the haymow with Jordan,” my mother said, giving me a look.

I kept my jaw from dropping. “With . . .”

“Jordan,” my grandmother said, her eyes on her work. “Such a nice man to stay on and help your father patch up the barn.”

“Can I go help, too?” I asked.

“For a while,” my mother said. “Bring your brothers back with you when you come.”

“Did you give Jordan some lunch?”

At which my mother looked up, smiling. “No, Annabelle. Your father asked him to help in the haymow all day, but we didn't invite him in at lunchtime.”

My grandmother chuckled.

“I was just asking,” I said.

“And I was just telling,” my mother replied. “Now get out there so you can get back here to help with supper.”

I followed the sound of hammering and boy-holler out to the barn. At the big upper doors to the threshing floor, I found my father and Toby patching a gap-toothed wall while my brothers swung to and fro from a knotted rope.

I guess it was jealousy I felt at the sight of them carrying on so well and easily without me.

“What kept you?” my father said. “The boys have been here a half hour or more.”

“I spent some time at the Turtle Stone,” I said.

My father and Toby both looked at me like the horses did when I disturbed their grazing.

“It's quiet there,” I said. Which seemed to satisfy them both.

I looked over my shoulder at the boys, who were making more noise than crows over a hawk. “Did you hide the stuff up in the loft?”

My father nodded. “I buried the hair in the woods. We wrapped the guns in Toby's coat and stuck them under a bale of hay. The bedding, too. The camera's in his hat, behind the bales. And I told the boys to stay out of the loft.”

Which was the most alarming thing he might have said. Telling the boys not to do something was like giving steak to a dog and telling him not to eat it.

“I have an idea,” I said.

It amazed me when these two grown men put down their hammers at my four little words.

“Let's step outside,” my father said. Toby and I followed him out through the big side doors. “What idea?”

I thought back for a moment to the thread that I'd followed at the schoolhouse. And the decision I'd made at the Turtle Stone: to use that thread to mend what I could.

“I think I know how to get Andy to admit that you're innocent, Toby,” I said.

They waited.

“Andy and Betty saw you above them on the hill that day. They saw you up there with a camera.”

“So?”

“So we just tell Andy that you took a picture of Betty throwing the rock.”

Toby shook his head. “But I didn't. It happened too fast. And then they ducked back into the bushes. And all I got was a shot of the road down below. You. And Ruth, hurt.”

“We know that, Toby,” my father said. “We saw the picture. It made
you
look guilty. But Andy doesn't know that. He just knows you were up there on the hill with a camera. We'll tell him the pictures came back and one of them shows Betty throwing the rock. And if he thinks he's been caught in the biggest lie, he has no reason to lie about the rest of it.”

“And you had no reason to push Betty down that well,” I said to Toby.

“We need to go talk to Andy as soon as we can,” I said to my father. “Take the constable with us so he can hear for himself what really happened.”

But that's when the boys scattered our best-laid schemes like a fistful of birdseed.

We all turned as they raced out of the barn toward us.

“Look what we found!” they cried.

James held a black hat high in his fist.

Henry, a camera.

We stared at them, speechless.

“Toby's been in our barn,” Henry said. “Maybe he's still around here, hiding.” He suddenly lowered his voice. “Maybe he's still in the barn somewhere. Daddy, do you think he's still in the barn?”

What were we supposed to say?

We couldn't tell them that Toby was standing right in front of them. The boys were blabbermouths.

And we couldn't tell them not to say anything about what they'd found. They would see no earthly reason to keep such information from the police when there was a manhunt going on, whether they liked Toby or not.

“Where did you get those?” my father asked.

“In the loft,” James said, dancing in place. “Behind some bales.”

“Why would Toby leave his hat and his camera in our loft?” Henry said. “It doesn't make any sense. Unless he's still around here somewhere.”

“How about we let the constable worry about that,” my father said, taking the camera out of Henry's hands. “Now go on back to the house and wash up.”

“But—”

“Get going,” he said, relieving James of the hat. “We'll be along in a minute.”

James made a face. “How come she doesn't have to go?”

“She'll be right behind you. Now git.”

We watched the boys stomp away down the lane. Toby took off his gloves and rubbed his bad hand.

“This isn't good,” my father said.

“I should go,” Toby said.

“We need to get over to the Woodberrys' quick,” I said.

“Annabelle, this is starting to feel like a mare's nest,” my father said. “I think we should tell everything to the constable and let him deal with Andy.”

“And if that doesn't work?”

We spent a moment in thought.

“I suppose you can stay in hiding, Toby, while we try it,” my father said. “If Andy doesn't fess up, you can take off.”

“And walk straight into a manhunt,” I said.

Toby shrugged. “I walk quietly.”

“You're not walking anywhere yet,” my father said.

“What harm would it do to talk to Andy?” I said. “We can go right now, tell him there's a picture of him and Betty on the hill when Ruth got hurt, and see what he says.”

“Which will mean trouble for you if he doesn't confess,” Toby said. “You'll be telling lies to get him to tell the truth. People will wonder why.”

“Let them wonder,” my father said. “We've defended you all along. It's not a stretch to think we still might try to help you out.”

“Which raises the question,” Toby said slowly. “Why did you defend me all along?”

My father tipped his head up in surprise. “Because you didn't do anything wrong,” he said.

Toby considered that for a long moment, rubbing his scars, and I heard his stories butting at their lids.

When Toby finally straightened up and took the hat out of my father's hands, I knew what was coming.

“Thank you for what you've done.” He said it mostly to me, though he avoided my eyes. “But this is a game I don't want to play anymore.”

He put the hat on.

Instantly, Jordan was no more.

“What are you going to do?” I said, following him into the barn.

But he didn't answer me. Nor did he answer my father, who asked him to stay until we could clear things up. He didn't seem to hear us as he climbed the ladder to the loft.

“That man's so stubborn he could be a member of the family,” I said.

“From your mother's side,” my father said.

We watched as Toby climbed back down in his long black coat, his guns once again slung across his back.

“Toby, you can't just go off like this,” I said. “It's not a game.”

But he simply paused for a moment to hand my grandfather's coat to me and to give my father the gloves he'd been wearing.

“You're really leaving?” I said. “Just like that?”

But he didn't answer.

It was hard to believe, after everything we'd tried, but I realized that he truly meant to go.

“Your camera,” my father said, holding it out to Toby, who refused it with a wave of his hand. What I could see of his face was as pale as I'd ever seen it.