John Fitzgerald GB 05 Great Bra (14 page)

I watched Uncle Mark for what seemed like hours but could only have been a few minutes before Papa arrived on a borrowed horse. Several men were with him, including Parley’s father, who was carrying some blankets.

“Are they alive?” Papa asked me.

“They must be,” Mr. Benson said before I could an-swer, “or the marshal wouldn’t be trying to get the water

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out of them. No sense in all of us getting wet. I’ve got the whiskey and blankets. I’ll go across.”

The river was almost as high as when Uncle Mark crossed, but there were no uprooted trees and logs in it now. Mr. Benson swam his horse across and was soon with Uncle Mark—

They carried Jimmie to the raft. Uncle Mark held Jimmie’s head up while Mr. Benson forced some whiskey down his throat. I saw Jimmie’s head move and then his legs. Then Uncle Mark and Mr. Benson rolled Jimmie in a blanket. I watched them do the same thing with How-ard. Then they carried Tom to the raft. I held my breath as they tried to force whiskey down Tom’s throat. Tom didn’t move. Mr. Benson forced more whiskey into my brother. This time I saw his head move as he struggled unconsciously to avoid the whiskey.

Then I did something that I’d never done before. I tainted-When I woke up I was home in bed. Frankie was standing by the bed, holding my hand.

“You woked up,” he said, smiling. “I’ll tell Mamma.”

I looked at Tom’s bed. It was empty. “Where is Tom?” I asked.

“In Mamma’s bed downstairs,” Frankie said.

“And Jimmie and Howard?” I asked.

“Nobody is deaded,” Frankie said. “They are home in bed.”

It wasn’t until then that I realized it was morning. I’d slept right through from the time I’d fainted.

“Never mind telling Mamma,” I said. “I’m going to get up.”

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“Want to know where Papa went?” he asked as I was getting dressed.

I nodded my head.

“Papa and Uncle Mark took saws and axes to chop up the raft so nobody can ever use it again,” Frankie said. “And Papa is real mad at Tom.”

“So am I,” I said, suddenly feeling an anger against The Great Brain that I had never believed I was capable of feeling.

It was nine o’clock when I went downstairs with Frankie. Mamma and Aunt Bertha were in the kitchen. They both hugged me, as if I’d been away for a long time.

“How do you feel?” Mamma asked.

“Hungry,” I answered.

“That is because you haven’t had anything to eat since noon yesterday,” she said. “I wanted to wake you last night, but Dr. LeRoy said to let you steep until you woke up by yourself. What would you like for breakfast?”

“Everything,” I said. “Mush, hot cakes, bacon and eggs, toast, and milk. Gosh, but I’m hungry. How is Tom?”

“All right, thank God,” Mamma said. “You can go talk to him while Bertha and I fix your breakfast.”

“I don’t care if I never see him again,” I said.

Mamma looked at me as if I’d said I was going into her bedroom to cut Tom’s throat. “How can you say such a terrible thing about your own brother?” she asked.

“Easy,” I said. “How would you feel about somebody who almost killed your two best friends?”

Mamma made me tell her all about it as I ate the biggest breakfast of my life. I told her about Tom swindling me out of my ten percent commission too. She and Papa

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didn’t even know that Tom was charging kids to ride on the raft. But did I get any sympathy? Heck, no.

“Your father and I have warned you time and time again not to make any bets or deals with your brother,” she said. “As for what happened to Jimmie Peterson and Howard Kay, your father is going to have a long talk with Tom Dennis. Dr. LeRoy said to keep him in bed until suppertime.”

I knew Tom was in for it when Mamma called him by his full name. She only did that when she was very angry.

Eddie Huddle came over to play with Frankie by the time we finished the morning chores. I got my bike and rode over to Jimmie’s house. His mother told me I could go up and see him, but he had to remain in bed all day. Jimmie looked pretty darn pale and sick when I entered his room. He propped himself up on a pillow.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

“How would you feel if you’d had a belly and lungs full of muddy river water and almost drowned?” he asked.

“I guess I’d feel pretty bad,” I said. “But not as bad as if I’d drowned. Tom did save your life and Howard’s.”

“Maybe it would have been better if he’d just saved himself and let us drown,” Jimmie said to my surprise.

“How do you figure that?” I asked.

“Then all the grownups would hate him, just like the kids do,” Jimmie said. “And nobody in town would have anything to do with him and his great brain.”

I knew the kids had been avoiding Tom until he built the Explorer and started running excursions on the

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river. But I sure as heck didn’t know they hated my brother.

Jimmie’s mother came into the room and said it was time for me to leave. I rode my bike over to Howard’s house-His mother said I could see Howard but not to stay too long. Howard was in bed too. He looked pale but not as badasJimmie.

“Hello, John,” he said in a weak voice.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

“Weak and dizzy,” he said.

“You’ll get over it,” I said. “I’ll bet you’ll be coming over to play with me by tomorrow.”

“I’ll never go to your place again until Tom goes away to school,” Howard said. “He almost got me drowned Just to make thirty cents.”

“I begged you and Jimmie not to go,” I reminded him.

“Tom made darn sure we had to go,” Howard said. “He knew we’d rather go than let the other kids think we were cowards. I never want to speak to him again. But you can come over and play with me any time, John.*’

“I’m glad you aren’t mad at me because Tom is my brother,” I said.

“Pa says Tom belongs in a reform school,” Howard said. “And Ma wanted to have him arrested for almost getting me drowned. But Pa said no because he is your father’s friend.”

“I guess I’d better be going now,” I said. “Your mother said not to stay too long.”

It was lunchtime when Papa returned from helping Uncle Mark destroy the raft. Mamma told him what I’d

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told her. He made me tell it all over again. And just for good measure, I told him what Jimmie and Howard had said. Usually when Papa got angry, his cheeks would puff up and his face turn red. But the more he listened, the whiter his face became and his cheeks appeared to sink” in his face. He looked positively sick by the time I finished.

“I don’t know what we are going to do with that boy,” he said to Mamma.

I had a few suggestions, like making Tom give me back my dollar and paying me the ten percent commission on the tares he had collected before the wreck of the Explorer. But Papa looked so sad and bewildered that I just kept my mouth shut.

I played with Frankie in the backyard all afternoon. Not one kid came over to play. I knew they weren’t swimming because after a flood the water in the river stayed muddy for a couple of days.

Mamma let Tom get up and get dressed late in the afternoon. He came out of the house just as Frankie and I were starting to do the evening chores. We were in the woodshed getting kindling wood when he entered.

“Why haven’t you been in to see me?” he asked.

“I told Mamma that I didn’t care if I never saw you again,” I said. “Papa and Uncle Mark destroyed the raft. That means you swindled me out of my dollar and commission. But that isn’t the worst part. You and your money-loving heart almost got my two best friends drowned because you couldn’t pass up thirty cents.”

“Maybe that last trip was a mistake,” he admitted. Then he went over and sat on the railing of the corral fence until it was suppertime.

I sat at the table during supper waiting for Papa to

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start blasting Tom, but he didn’t. After supper I sat in the parlor waiting for Papa to give Tom a lecture until it was bedtime for Frankie and me. But I knew a blast was coming. I went upstairs with Frankie and took off my shoes.

“You stay here,” I said. “I’m going to sneak down the stairway and listen.”

I crept down the stairway almost to the bottom. I could hear everything that was said in the parlor.

“If I had known,” Papa was saying, “that you were going to charge your friends to ride on the raft, I would never have let you build it. But since you did make them pay, it is only fair and proper that you pay me for using Bess. A team of horses rents for three dollars a day. You will therefore pay me a dollar and a half for each day you used Bess to pull the raft on the stone sled back up the river.”

“But that’s a lot more money than I made each day,” Tom protested.

“What you made,” Papa said, “has nothing Co do with the going rental price for a team of horses. This morning your Uncle Mark and I destroyed the raft. That means you cannot turn it over to J. D. as promised.” -

“I didn’t destroy the raft,” Tom said. “That is J. D.’s hard luck.”

“No,” Papa said, “that is your hard luck. You will give J. D. back his dollar and pay him the ten percent commission on fares you collected. And we will now get down to the really important part of this raft business.”

“Don’t you call my having to hand over a fortune important?” Tom asked.

“You,” Papa said, “and every boy in this town know

that when it rains hard in the mountains there is a very good possibility of a flood in the river. You knew it had been raining in the mountains all day. You knew the water was turning muddy, indicating the possibility of a flood. And yet you jeopardized the lives of six boys for thirty cents. And as a result, Jimmie Peterson and Howard Kay almost drowned.”

“But they didn’t drown,” Tom protested. “And I risked my own life to save them. Don’t I get any credit for that?”

“If you hadn’t shamed them into going on the raft with you,” Papa said, “there would have been no need for you to risk your life to save them. Now, I’ve just about had it with you and your great brain. So I am giving you fair warning. If you don’t reform, I will send you to the strictest military academy in the United States. So you damn well better reform. Now go to bed.”

It was the first time I’d ever heard Papa swear in front of Mamma and Aunt Bertha. I guess that shows how angry he was with Tom. I scooted back upstairs and was starting to undress when Tom entered the room.

“You listened,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “And boy, oh, boy, did Papa lay it on you good.”

“You told him everything,” Tom said with an accusing look. Then he shrugged. “I guess you had to after what happened. And even if you hadn’t told him, he would have found out all about it anyway.”

“Well?” I asked.

“Well, what?” he said.

“Are you going to reform like Papa said?” I asked.

“Papa is just a little upset,” Tom said. “But he will

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get over it, just as he has in the past. What is the sense in having a great brain if you don’t use it?”

“But if you don’t reform,” I said, “Papa will send you to a military academy.”

Tom sat down and took off one shoe. “You sure are dumb when it comes to parents,” he said.

“And just how do you figure that?” I asked because no kid likes to be called dumb unless he knows why.

“You didn’t hear Mamma say one word. did you?” Tom asked.

“What has that got to do with me being dumb?” I asked.

“Papa told Mamma he was going to lay down the law to me,” Tom said. “She knew it was something he had to get off his chest. But Papa knows as well as I do that Mamma would never let him send me away to a military academy. And speaking of academies, I have a proposition for you before I go back to the Catholic Academy in Salt Lake City.”

“Not me,” I said. “I may be dumb but not dumb enough to make any more deals with you.”

“Have it your way,” Tom said, “I can sell the basketball and backstop to some other kid before I leave.”

That made me change my mind. “What do you want for them?” I asked.

“Let me keep the dollar and ten percent commission money Papa said J had to give you,” Tom said, “and you can have the basketball and backstop.”

I knew the basketball and backstop cost a lot more than that. And when I owned them, I was a very popular fellow because I didn’t charge the kids to play.

“It’s a deal,” I said.

“Shake on it,” Tom said.

We shook hands to seal the bargain. I went to bed that night knowing that The Great Brain had no inten-tion of even trying to reform. But in spite of his money-loving heart and the many times he had swindled me, Tom was my brother, and I loved him. The Jesuit priests at the academy had failed to reform him. Papa and Mamma couldn’t make him reform. So it was up to me to make Tom turn over a new leaf. I knew I had to do it for his

own good.

Tom had taught me to think about a problem before

going to sleep and my subconscious mind would solve it. I was thinking very hard of a way to save Tom from himself when I fell asleep.

THAT TRICK TOM TAUGHT ME of making the subconscious mind solve a problem while you are asleep sure worked. When I woke up in the morning, an idea popped right into my head of a way to make Tom reform. If The Great Brain got a taste of what it would be like to go on trial as a confidence man, swindler, and crook, maybe that would make him reform. I would get the kids to put Tom on trial in our barn.

After the morning chores were over I got my bike and went to Smith’s vacant lot. Most of the kids our age were there. I explained my idea to them. They all thought it was a peach of an idea. The only trouble was that all of

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them wanted to be witnesses against Tom. I couldn’t find one kid who wanted to be on the jury. I decided to have Tom tried just by a judge, the way Judge Potter often tried cases in court. But I couldn’t find one kid impartial enough to be a judge. They all said Tom was guilty.

Then I happened to look across the street. Harold Vickers was sitting on his front porch, reading a book. Harold was always reading. He was the son of the district attorney and sixteen years old. He had something the matter with his eyes and wore glasses with thick lenses. I walked over to the front porch, explained everything to Harold, and asked him to be the judge.