A Difficult Boy (35 page)

Ma took the milk bucket inside, then ushered the men and boys into the best room. She disappeared into the kitchen to find the girls and muster up a tea worthy of company. Every now and then one of the girls would run to the door and stare at Daniel with wide eyes until Ma pulled her away. The kitchen clattered with dishes and pots, and the smell of the fire newly started drifted out into the best room.

Daniel stared around the best room in a daze. He seemed unsure where he was or if he'd be allowed to stay. Ethan guided him to Ma's rocking chair. Daniel settled into the chair slowly, as if every movement hurt. He closed his eyes and ran his hands along the chair's arms. For a moment, Ethan thought he might go to sleep. Then Daniel sighed, opened his eyes, and curved his mouth into a slow, cautious smile. “It's true, then. It's really true.”

Ethan smiled. The weary stranger was starting to turn back into the Daniel he knew. “Isn't it wonderful?” Ethan said. He plopped himself on the floor at Daniel's feet while Pa pulled out chairs for himself and Silas. “Of course, there's a lot nobody can prove, like when Mr. Lyman put his thumb on the scale and such, and Silas made Lizzie and me promise not to tell anyone but you and Ma and Pa—”

“It ain't kind to gloat, lad,” Daniel cautioned, giving Silas a wary glance. “Not with the man's own son right here.”

“But—but—” Ethan glanced at Silas. He, too, looked solemn and tired and old. But they'd won—Ethan and Daniel and Silas and Lizzie. They'd won, and Mr. Lyman had lost. Ethan wanted to sing with joy, while everyone else looked like they were at a funeral.

Silas looked down at his hat. He turned it around and around in his hands until he'd bent the brim out of shape.

Pa leaned toward Silas. “I've kept my peace until now, sir,” he began, “only because Ethan and Lizzie begged me. But I need some explanations. Why should I help you hide what your father's done? He lied to me—to all of us. If half of what Ethan's told me is true—” He looked at Daniel's wounded face. “Mr. Lyman needs to pay for his crimes.”

“He'll pay, sir,” Silas said. “I'll make sure of that.”

“How then, if you don't hand him over for the law to deal with him?”

“The law may see him locked up, perhaps impoverished as well, but it probably won't see anybody paid back,” Silas said. “If he's prosecuted, he'll fight until he exhausts his appeals. Court costs and lawyers' fees will whittle away his fortune until there's hardly anything left to repay the people he's cheated.” As Silas talked, Ethan noticed that his tone was different when he referred to his father. The
he
s and
him
s now seemed to begin with lowercase rather than capital letters. “If you let me handle things myself, I can use the income from the store and the farm, sell some land, perhaps, or even the house, to return what he's taken. It will take some time, but I swear to you I'll go over every page of those books and see that every penny's repaid, with interest and damages. The law can't promise you that. Which would you prefer, Mr. Root, to see him jailed or to see restitution paid to his victims?” He spread his hands wide. “The law may not have room for both.”

Pa lit his pipe and mulled over it for a long time. “And
how will you pay all those people back without them finding out the truth and bringing the law down on his head anyway?”

Silas rubbed his jaw. “I've thought about that, sir. I think—I think they will hear Mr. Lyman has suffered a fit of nervous prostration, perhaps an apoplectic shock. If you saw him now, you'd not have a hard time believing it. It has unsettled his mind, caused him to become confused, agitated, accuse people of things they haven't done. Become violent, even.” He gave Daniel a pointed look. “He will need to withdraw from his business affairs, of course, which I will take over. I expect I will find . . . mistakes in his bookkeeping. If he could manipulate the accounts to his favor, they can be manipulated the other way as well.” His mouth curled in an ironic smile. “If he recovers, he'll not be able to return to his work. I expect he will devote the rest of his life to charity and philanthropy.”

Ethan imagined how much it would torment Mr. Lyman to lose his power and to watch Silas give away his wealth to those he regarded as weak and undisciplined. But Silas would have to spend the next twenty years or more standing guard over a man he despised. The two would be virtually chained together for the rest of Mr. Lyman's life, their grand white house becoming as much a prison for its masters as it had been for Ethan and Daniel.

“New lies to cover the old ones,” Pa said, his tone heavy with disgust. “How do I know you're not lying to me now?”

“If I don't satisfy you, go to Mr. Flagg. Tell him the truth.”

“After you've destroyed those books, I suppose?” Pa raised a suspicious eyebrow.

“Silas isn't like that, Pa,” Ethan said. “I swear.”

“You don't know, Ethan,” Pa said. “He could be fooling you just as his father fooled me.”

“Wasn't I right about Daniel?” Ethan said.

Pa studied the smoke drifting toward the ceiling.

“There are the girls to think of as well, Mr. Root,” Silas continued. “And the baby. They've done no harm to anyone. I'd like to keep a home for them, at least.”

Pa tilted his head toward the kitchen, where Ma was teaching the girls a song while they worked. Ethan wondered if he was trying to put himself in Silas's place, considering what lengths he'd go to in order to keep a home for Benjamin and Maria and Chloe.
And me
, Ethan thought.

“I think maybe—” Ethan began, then stopped, not sure quite how to say why he'd agreed to keep Silas's secret.

“What, son?”

“Well, I wanted to hurt Mr. Lyman, too. Something awful, especially after what he did to Daniel. I even wished he was dead.” He glanced at Silas. “Sorry,” he said, then turned back to Pa. “But I was thinking of something Daniel told me once. Something his mother said:
If you wish someone ill, it only comes back at you in the end. So you're better to wish somebody good
. So maybe Silas is right.”

“Aye,” Daniel said. “From what I seen of that prison, I can't say as I'd be feeling any sorrow to have him locked away there. But what good would that do, if it don't undo the ruin he's caused to folk like meself?”

Pa made a little humphing sound and blew smoke out through his nose. “Very well, Silas. I'll hold my peace for now. But I'll be watching to see if you keep your promises.”

“That's all I ask, sir,” Silas said.

The four sat in uneasy silence until the comforting sounds of Ma and the girls singing and laughing in the kitchen wore the tension out of the air.

“What are you going to do now?” Ethan asked Daniel.

“I don't know.” Daniel's shoulders sagged as if he couldn't get out from underneath the weight of all that had happened.

“You can stay with us. Can't he, Pa?” Ethan tugged at Pa's trouser leg.

Pa gave Ethan a reluctant frown. “I'd like to say yes, son, but I can't pay him. I can't ask a man to work for just his board. It wouldn't be fair.”

“I'd not be minding, sir,” Daniel said. “It's more than I got now.”

“That's not true,” Silas said. “You have ten acres of land.”

Daniel laughed wearily. “And what'll I be doing with that now? I hardly think your da'll be wanting me for a neighbor.”

Silas pulled a small cloth bag from his pocket. It clinked heavily as he pressed it into Daniel's hands. “Sell it to me. I've counted out a fair price for it. And I owe you rent for all the years we've been using it. I still haven't done the sums for that. Sell it and make a good start for yourself somewhere
he
isn't. There should be enough to buy you some tools or some livestock or a little bit of land.”

Ethan grinned and hugged his knees to himself. Now Daniel would be happy, he thought. Now Daniel could be sure everything was all right. Even Pa smiled at last.

Daniel sat for a long moment, weighing the purse in his hand as if he were afraid to look inside it. Finally, he opened it and took a cautious peek. He pulled out one of the coins and held it in his palm, watching the sun sparkle across its copper surface. “Is there enough here to buy a horse?”

Ethan turned the bone-handled knife over and over in his hands.

“Mr. Bingham told me which one you fancied,” Daniel said.

“It's beautiful. I—thank you. Ta.” He grinned up at Daniel.

“Take care of it. I'll not be around to buy you another.” Daniel's words smothered Ethan's joy in the gift and replaced it with a heaviness that sat in his stomach like a stone.

It was strange to see Daniel dressed in brand-new clothes made just for him. Ma had told him to have them made a little big, because he had so much growing yet to do. Even so, the bottle-green jacket looked especially fine. Lizzie'd been right about the color; it made his red hair seem a rich shade of copper rather than dull faded orange. The vest fabric she'd picked out was a soft fawn color shot through with copper threads that looked as though they'd been plucked from Ivy's mane. He slipped on a new green cap that matched his coat.

Perhaps he didn't look like an Irish prince, but he looked respectable compared to the ragged, bruised boy Silas had brought back from Springfield three weeks since. He even wore a pair of boots, although he shifted from foot to foot as though he'd rather have gone barefoot. He would probably shed boots, coat, and vest as soon as he was shy of town, but he'd said he wanted to say his good-byes looking like a proper gentleman. He'd already given parting gifts to Ethan's family. Now Ivy stood by him, ready for the journey, her saddlebags fat with supplies.

“I don't understand why you have to leave. You can stay with us forever if you want,” Ethan said. He kicked at a stone and stubbed his bare toe. The dull ache matched his mood.

While Daniel had stayed with Ethan's family, his bruises had healed and his strength returned. He'd helped Ethan and his father harvest the rye and bring in a sparse second cutting of hay. Meanwhile, Silas and Lizzie had fitted him out with new clothes and goods for his journey. In between, the boys had somehow found time for swimming and fishing and, best of all, riding. Ethan had found it all great fun, until today. Until today, there'd been the hope that Daniel would change his mind and stay.

Daniel had spent one long morning with the Lymans—Silas,
George, and Henry. He'd returned with a dazed look on his face and a sheaf of legal papers in his hand: receipts for all his goods, so no one could accuse him of stealing; papers freeing him from his indenture to Mr. Lyman; letters of reference drafted by Silas, signed by George Lyman, and witnessed by Henry Lyman. Silas had wanted to make sure nobody would question Daniel's right to go or to own the things he carried.

Silas had proposed that Daniel go west to work for a business associate of Mr. Lyman's. There was, indeed, a letter from Mr. Lyman to a Jonas Farrow in Parma, Ohio, but Ethan doubted Daniel would ever use it. He'd want to avoid anybody remotely connected with George Lyman. Silas must have known that, too, for he'd provided Daniel with reference letters from other people as well. It was no surprise that Silas had included a letter from Ethan's father and an introduction from Mr. Bingham to his brother in Ohio. But he'd also managed to convince both Lizzie's father and Constable Flagg to write about what a hardworking, upstanding young man Mr. Daniel Linnehan was.

Daniel had read the letters over and over, shaking his head in amazement at the words. “I can't hardly recognize meself in here,” he'd told Ethan. “You'd think I was Saint Daniel instead of me own self, wouldn't you, now?” Daniel traced his finger over Mr. Flagg's signature. “I'm surprised Silas didn't try to get one from the minister. But I fancy Mr. Merriwether wouldn't be recommending a bloody Papist for anything but a place in hell.”

Daniel had carefully stored all his papers in a leather wallet and packed them away in Ivy's saddlebags. All but the most important one: the bill of sale for Ivy, which Daniel kept safe in the breast pocket of his new green coat.

Silas had brought the mare up from the Lymans', and Daniel had given Ethan a daily riding lesson. Now, just as
Ethan felt confident enough to ride Ivy without Daniel's help, Daniel and Ivy were going away. It wasn't fair.

“Please stay,” Ethan said. “Then you could be my brother for real.”

Daniel avoided Ethan's eyes. “I'd be doing you no favors, lad.”

“You can stay here, even if you work for somebody else,” Ethan said. “Pa said so. There's plenty of folks around here who need a hand now and then.”

Daniel shook his head. “And how would I be trading at Lyman's store, with all that's between us?”

“He won't cheat anybody again. Silas will make sure—”

Daniel raised an eyebrow. “How will I be living in this town, with no one wanting to hire me or trade with me, for fear I'll rob 'em or murder 'em should they turn their backs? Anytime someone's goods go missing or some such happens, and there's no one to hang the blame on, folk'll be looking to me 'cause I'm the lad as tried to rob Mr. Lyman.”

“But you didn't do anything wrong. Everybody knows that now.”

“And how will they be knowing, with you and Lizzie and Silas and your folks all keeping it secret?”

“They'll know 'cause you're free. They wouldn'a let you go if you were guilty.”

“Oh, is that the way of it, now? Or will they be saying I'm free only because Lyman's a charitable and forgiving man, not because I done nothing wrong?”

“But—but—” Ethan hated the way arguing with Daniel felt like swimming upstream. Couldn't Daniel let him win just this once, when it really mattered?