Homecoming (33 page)

When they were all awake, even Sammy, and when Dicey had pulled out her jackknife
and dried it thoroughly on her shirt and counted her money (handling it delicately
so that the damp paper wouldn’t rip apart), she gently spread the map before them.

“We’re about here,” she said. She pointed to a place on the southern bank of the Choptank.
“Let’s head for that town.” Her finger traced a path to a place named Hurlock.

James protested: “Secretary’s closer.”

“Hurlock’s bigger. It’s in the right direction,” Dicey said. “If he comes after us—”

“You think he will?” Sammy asked.

“I don’t know, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

“It’ll be easier to hide in a bigger town,” James said.

That was what Dicey was thinking. She was also thinking what a long, unknown way lay
between here and Crisfield; and that Crisfield too was unknown.

They cut across fields. The ground underfoot was dry and crumbly, and although they
tried to hurry, it was difficult because the furrows rose up to trip them. Walking
across fields was like having one leg shorter than the other.

One of the fields they had to cross was being picked. Pickers were scattered among
tomato plants that rose up from the tops of furrows. Weeds had been kept down in this
field, and the plants had been trained up stakes. It looked like a painting, the ridges
of brown earth, the tepees of dark green tomato plants with their bright red fruits,
the bent figures of the pickers and the blue sky overhead.

Dicey led her family single file along the edge of this field. She set a brisk pace,
so that anyone who saw them would think they had someplace to be and the right to
be where they were. Nobody paid them the slightest attention.

After the field they came to a road. Dicey turned right on it. She wasn’t sure of
her direction, except that she wanted to go south, away from the river.

So began another morning’s march. This part of the journey was often interrupted because
at the faintest sound of a motor, the Tillermans ducked into the bushes at the side
of the road and hid. Dicey didn’t have to tell anybody this.

No green pickup passed them. He would have to search both sides of the river, Dicey
thought. If he searched at all.

Their road made a fork with another road, and now they walked on a gravel shoulder.
After an hour, they came to a
crossroads that had signs. Hurlock was one and a half miles straight ahead. Dicey
found herself looking at the houses they passed (whether the buildings were run down
or cared for, whether they were small or large, close to the road or set far back)
with questions in her mind. Every house was a secret place, a fortress, within which
anything might be going on. Every house was perhaps a trap.

They bought a cantaloupe from a boy at a roadside stand. Dicey cut it up with her
jackknife. They pulled the seeds out with their fingers. The juices ran down their
chins as they took huge bites of the warm fruit. It was mild, sweet and chewy. When
they had finished it, they heaved the rinds into an empty field and continued on.

An hour later, they reached the outskirts of Hurlock, a dusty, sprawly little town,
with one stoplight at its center. The windows of the stores were crammed with notices
of church suppers and house tours. One poster advertised a circus and showed a lion
jumping through a hoop. Hawkins Circus, it announced. Admission, $1.50 for adults,
$.75 for children. Taped to the bottom was a hand-lettered notice that said that the
circus would be in town for two nights only, on the grounds of the elementary school.

Dicey went into the second market, just after the stoplight at the center of town,
and bought milk, peanut butter and bread. When she emerged, she saw James studying
the circus poster.

“That’s nothing to do with us,” she said. He followed her down off the porch. Sammy
and Maybeth stood up from the curb.

A dusty green pickup drove by them, driven by a square-faced man. The head and shoulders
of a large dog were visible sitting beside him. The man and the dog looked straight
ahead. The truck headed out of Hurlock, past the stop light, back toward the Choptank.

Dicey’s heart jumped. She clutched the bag of food to her chest.

James watched the back of the green truck. “He didn’t see us. I don’t think he saw
us,” he said. “What can he do, anyway?”

Dicey couldn’t imagine what Mr. Rudyard could do, but she was afraid he would do something.
“Let’s run,” she said. The elementary school might be on the far side of town. They
hadn’t passed it coming in. “Come on.”

“He didn’t even turn around,” James protested.

“A circus is here now. There’ll be people and if he does turn around and try to do
something, we can get help. Call the police, or something.”

“They wouldn’t believe us.”

“Stop arguing, James!”

Dicey grabbed Maybeth’s hand and began to run. James and Sammy followed.

They ran along uneven sidewalks in front of stores, then houses. Nobody paid any attention
to them. They cut past two women who were meandering along, talking. At corners, Dicey
looked quickly up and down, for a building that might be an elementary school. It
had to be in the town. When she didn’t see it, she dashed across. She couldn’t go
as fast as she wanted because Maybeth’s legs were shorter than hers.

At last she saw a modern building that nestled against the ground, down a low sloping
hill. Behind the building rose the hoop of a ferris wheel.

The sidewalk they were on went beside a playground, then up to the front door of the
school. As the Tillermans, breathing in gasps, were passing the playground, a dusty
green pickup swung into the road that circled before the school entrance.

Dicey swerved onto the grass. “James! Go around behind!” She grabbed Sammy’s arm and
pulled him. He struggled to keep
his balance at Dicey’s pace. Ahead of her, James and Maybeth ran side by side. Maybeth’s
legs pumped frantically.

Around the corner of the building, Dicey caught sight of the big tent. She pulled
Sammy up even with James and Maybeth. “Into the tent,” she gasped. They dodged around
the base of the ferris wheel. Dicey heard footsteps behind her now and the familiar
snarling of a dog.

She turned her head. Mr. Rudyard was jogging along easily, pulled by the dog, which
he held on a short chain. The rest of the chain he carried looped over his shoulder.

At the open space before the tent, Sammy tripped. He stumbled and fell, rolled over
and sat up. Dicey stopped. She turned to face their pursuer. That would give Sammy
time.

James and Maybeth had run into the tent. Dicey heard noises from within, voices and
the yapping of dogs. She backed toward the entrance. Mr. Rudyard slowed his pace to
a walk. He took the loops of chain down from his shoulder and began to play them out.
The dog strained toward Dicey. She could see the yellow eyes and the saliva dripping
from its tongue.

He was going to loose the dog on her.

Dicey put the paper bag up over her chest and throat, ready to jam it down the dog’s
teeth if he should leap. Dogs went for the jugular. “There are people around here,”
Dicey panted. Her voice was hoarse. “You can’t get away with it.”

He didn’t seem to hear her. He was intent upon her face and her slow backing away.

Suddenly, Dicey’s legs were shoved from behind. Her knees buckled and she fell on
the ground, flat on her back. She dropped the bag. Up she sprang to her feet, still
facing Mr. Rudyard. He was not the kind of man you could turn your back to.

Three white terriers had charged out from behind her, bowling her over in their excitement.
They yapped and yipped, happily.
They ran up to the big dog, holding their tails up like little flags. The big dog
snarled, growled and dove into their midst. A cacophony of noise burst out of the
mass of tumbling dogs.

Claire rushed out from behind Dicey. She laid into the dogs, cracking her whip. The
terriers danced away. Claire played her whip around the ears and eyes of the big dog,
forcing him backward until he stood at Mr. Rudyard’s side.

Dicey turned around then. She saw a ring of people, with Will at the center and James
beside him. Two men were dressed as clowns; three more large, muscular men in jeans
and workshirts inched forward with clenched fists; a girl in ballet tights stood tensely
beside an older man who wore glasses and chewed on a fat cigar.

Claire looked Mr. Rudyard in the eye. In her high heels, she was six inches taller
than he was. “Hold your dog,” she said.

His hand took the leather collar. Dicey edged toward James.

“Where you going?” Mr. Rudyard’s voice demanded. He surveyed the group. “They’re my
kids, foster kids,” he said.

“No, we’re not,” Dicey said. She turned to Will. “We’re not, you know that.”

“You in charge?” Mr. Rudyard asked Will. He sounded surprised.

“I am,” Will said. He stepped up beside Dicey.

“They gotta come back,” Mr. Rudyard said. “I got papers.”

“What kind?”

“Legal papers.”

“Show me,” Will said.

“I’ve got them back home,” Mr. Rudyard said.

Dicey looked at James. She saw Maybeth and Sammy standing in the gloom just within
the tent entrance. They could still run, maybe. How did Will know what was true? How
could he possibly know they were telling the truth? He seemed to be
thinking about what Mr. Rudyard was saying. Nobody knew the Tillermans, except back
in Bridgeport, nobody even knew they were alive. Why should anyone care what happened
to them?

And how was Dicey going to keep them safe?

“I want them kids back now,” Mr. Rudyard said.

“I’d need to see those papers first,” Will answered slowly. He took a couple of steps
forward. His boots creaked.

Dicey’s legs felt watery.

“I said, I’ll take them now.” Mr. Rudyard’s voice was steely and he didn’t bother
to disguise the threat.

“I don’t think so,” Will said, still slowly. “Not until I see the papers.”

Mr. Rudyard loosened his hand on the dog’s collar.

“I wouldn’t,” Will said, still slowly. “Claire here—she’s got one nasty temper—and
a good hand with a whip. That so, Claire?” Claire smiled. “And I’ve been chased by
dogs myself often enough not to be overly scared of them. Animal dogs or human dogs.”

“Nigger!” Mr. Rudyard hissed the word.

Will didn’t move a muscle of his face or body, but the three big men behind him did.
Claire, however, was the one who attacked. She moved smoothly, like a snake. She cracked
her whip before her, at the dog’s feet and chest, at his head. The dog whined and
growled and backed away. Mr. Rudyard was forced to move with him.

Claire moved steadily forward. She cracked the whip again, at Mr. Rudyard’s feet,
then at his knees, then at his hand where he held the dog, then at his shoulders.
He was wearing another fancy shirt, red with long white fringe hanging from the shoulders.
Claire snapped the whip at one shoulder then the other, back and forth.

He backed steadily away from her. His eyes burned cold at her.

“Get out,” she said. She didn’t shriek it, she hissed it. “You make me sick.”

Mr. Rudyard looked as if he wanted to say something. Instead, he spat into the dust
at his feet. Then he turned his back to them and walked slowly away, the dog at his
side. Claire lifted the whip and snapped it sharply against his fanny. He leaped forward.

Dicey held herself stiff until she heard the motor of the truck start, and then longer,
until she saw the truck pull up the long slope before the school building and turn
back to town. Then she let her legs collapse underneath her.

The people drifted away, leaving Claire, Will, the Tillermans and the three terriers,
who ran happily in circles.

“Well, Claire,” Will said.

“Well, Will,” she answered, looking him straight in the eye. Her cheeks were red.

“I always said you’ve got quite some temper.”

“You could use a little of it,” she said shortly. “I’m going back to work.”

Will turned to the Tillermans. “Why don’t we talk this thing over?” He sat down beside
Dicey. James, Maybeth and Sammy joined them. Dicey kept trying to speak, but her voice
caught in her throat and she couldn’t make words come out. The others waited for her
to say something first.

“What’s in the bag?” Will asked. “Food? Lunch?” Dicey nodded. “Go ahead and eat. If
you’ve got enough, I’d like something too. I seem to have a bad taste in my mouth.”

Making the sandwiches relaxed Dicey. It was such an ordinary thing to do. She spread
the peanut butter with her jackknife, then wiped the blade clean on her shorts. She
made everybody one sandwich and two for James. She opened the milk and set it on the
ground.

“We’re not foster kids,” James finally said. “That’s the truth.
He—it’s so crazy I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t believe it—we took jobs as pickers
and—”

“He never paid us!” Dicey realized.

Will chewed contentedly on his sandwich. “Happens I do believe you. That was one mean
man.”

“Boy, was he,” Dicey said. Her voice had returned. “We—thanks, you know?” He waved
that away with a hand.

“My idea is you ought to stay with us awhile,” Will said. “We’re going south to Salisbury
for our next shows, then Berlin. After that down to Virginia. Where are you headed
for? You ought to tell me. Don’t you think?”

“We can work,” Dicey said. “We can help out. We could pay you, too.”

“Let’s start somewhere solid,” Will said, smiling. “Like names. I’m Will Hawkins.”

Dicey introduced them. She picked up her sandwich and began to eat. Between bites,
she told their destination, as briefly as she could, not about Momma and the journey
to Bridgeport, nor about leaving Cousin Eunice’s house, but about Crisfield and the
grandmother there they’d never met and about needing some kind of home. He listened,
nodded, asked no questions and made himself another peanut butter sandwich.

“We’ve got two nights here and then we break. We’ll be a week in Salisbury,” he said.
“What say you stay with us and we run you down to Crisfield one of the days in Salisbury.
That okay?”