Stepping Stones (5 page)

Georgie nodded, tears spilling down his cheeks.  “I promise, Mama.”

Georgie never made anything move again, but sometimes when we were off by ourselves and nobody could see, we played other games.  Georgie learned he could wrap himself up in that power of his, wearing it like an invisible skin.  When he had it on, it made him as slippery as creek-bottom mud.  Nothing could touch him.  He could go swimming in his clothes without getting wet, pick up a hot coal and not
get burned, things like that.

We were careful
,
and
we
never again got caught.  But it was easier for me than Georgie.  The things I was learning to do didn’t show . . . not on the outside, anyway.

Ma took sick three years later.  She died not long after that.  Toward the end I used to sit with her in the morning before my chores, and again in the evening before going to bed.  As I held her hand, I could feel the cancer spreading through her.  I tried to understand how it could be a part of her and yet still destroy her.  I wanted to understand, hoping I could stop it.  I tried.  I didn’t know how but I tried, and I kept trying until the pain grew too great and I couldn’t stand it anymore.

Ma knew what I was doing.  I never told her, but like everything else, she knew.

After Ma died Pa took to drinking.  Georgie and I handled the farm chores, and I watched out for Georgie.  Pa and I got further apart.  We lived together but we weren’t a family
. . . not after Ma died.

I was wrong about Pa.  He only lasted twenty minutes before climbing
out of
the trench and reaching for his jar.  By then he was dripping sweat and the skin on the back of his neck had turned an angry pink from the sun.

Georgie and I had
been taking turns shoveling while Pa swu
ng the pick.  As soon as Pa quit, Georgie grabbed the pick.  I kept shoveling.  Pa reti
red to the shade with his jar and
quickly
reduced its contents
by half.

While Pa rested, we kept at it.  Some fair-sized rocks slowed our progress and we
used
the beam
that Georgie had brought to lever them out.  By
late afternoon we were down five feet
all the way around
, and the base of the rock was finally
beginning to cut
back in.  Ten feet of solid granite lay uncovered.  From the looks of it, four more still remained in the dirt.

“What the hell you dog turds doin’?”

Squinting up, I saw Jake McClintock
, the younger of the McClintock boys,
gawking over the edge of the trench.  He had his back to the sun, blocking it with his huge bulk.  He leaned over the trench a bit more, knocking dirt on Georgie.  “Sorry about that, swifty,” he laughed, his tone saying otherwise.

“What’s it look like we’re doing, Jake?” I
asked
.  “And his name isn’t swifty.”  Jake and his brother were always teasing Georgie about being slow.  I didn’t like Jake much.  Fact is, I didn’t like any of the McClintocks.

“Oh,
excuse
me,” said Jake with a nasty grin.  “And since you ask, it looks to me like you two
retards
are tryin’ to dig up that boulder.

Pa wove his way up behind Jake.  “Mind your own business,” he ordered.  In the backlight I could see spittle spraying from
Pa’s
lips.  I smiled as I saw some
of it
land on Jake.

“My old man already thinks you Neumans are loco,” Jake hooted, ignoring Pa’s warning.  “Wait’ll he hears about this!”

“Get off my land,” Pa hissed, stumbling as he bent for a stone to send Jake packing.

Jake turned and sauntered off, keeping
an
eye on Pa’s throwing arm as he left, his laughter mocking us as he disappeared into the woods.

“Snot-nosed McClintock whelp,” Pa called after him, his face flushed with anger.

By then the sun was low in the sky, and cool gusts from the high plateau were spilling down the valley.  I
sighed
, realizing from Pa’s flinty scowl that
we would
probably be there all night.

“Bring that beam over here,” Pa commanded, dropping into the trench.  “
Time to
get this sonofabitch out.”

Although Georgie and I’d had a tough time levering out some of the smaller rocks we’d encountered, we went ahead and did what Pa
ordered
, clearing away the loose diggings and getting the beam positioned as best we could.  Despite our efforts, anybody co
uld see it was set up wrong.  We
couldn’t get a fulcrum low enough, and the beam was too short
to be
a proper lever.  It was like trying to move a house with a broom handle.  Nonetheless, we tried.  It was easier than arguing with Pa.

At one point
,
while Pa and I wrestled with the beam
,
Georgie went around to cut more dirt f
rom the backside of the boulder
.  Unexpectedly, the boulder shifted.  Georgie had undermined the rock enough to let it lurch forward, right on top of him.

“Georgie!” I screamed.  Pa and I rushed to the other side.  Georgie was trapped under the boulder.  But it wasn’t
on
him.  A space showed between him and the stone.

Suddenly
I realized what had happened.  At the last instant Georgie must have put on his “skin,” and it had saved him.  “Hang on, Georgie,” I yelled.  “We’ll get you out.”

“I’m okay, Seth.  I think I can move it.”

“What?”

“I can move it,” he repeated.  “Watch me, Seth.”

Speechless, Pa and I
watched
as Georgie shoved the boulder to the other side of the pit.  But he didn’t exactly shove it.  It just . . .
moved.

Georgie climbed from the hole.  “I did it,” he said, grinning like a kid.  “Did you see me?”

“We saw you,” I said,
staring
in amazement.

Pa remained silent, lost in thought.  Then he asked, “Can you move it out of the pit?”

Georgie frowned.  “I don’t know, Pa.  I promised Mama I wouldn’t make anything move.  I shouldn’t have done it.”

“The boulder was on top of you,” I pointed out.  “You had to.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Listen, Georgie,” Pa interrupted.  “I’m your
father
, and I’m te
lling you it’s all right.  You’v
e already done it o
nce.  Do it again. 
Ma wouldn’t mind.”

Georgie glanced at me.  I shrugged, thinking he couldn’t do it anyway.  Shifting the boulder was one thing; lifting it was another.

“Okay,” said Georgie.  His eyes went vacant, as if he were thinking about something that had happened a long time back.  A split second later Pa and I scrambled out of the way as the boulder came floating hole!

Looking like
a
huge, prehistoric tooth that had
somehow
been ripped from the earth, it hovered three feet above the pit, the bottom third covered with dirt, my shirt and long johns still on top where I’d thrown them.  Pa danced around the stone, gleefully slapping his thigh.  “Over there, Georgie,” he shouted, pointing to the rock wall dividing our field from the McClintocks’
acreage
.  “Over there!”

Grinning
, Georgie trailed along behind the boulder, dwarfed by the giant rock as it floated toward the center of the field.

“Set it on top,” Pa ordered.  “Right on to
p, Georgie.  Right on top!
”

Recalling Ma’s story, I stood numbly, a premonition of disaster gnawing at my insides as Georgie set the boulder atop the boundary wall.  It settled onto the loose stones, thrusting them aside as it descended, shattering the larger rocks below and sending
stone
fragments flying in all directions.  The smell of powdered
rock
filled my nose as the boulder continued to
settle
, coming to rest when it had reburied itself a couple of feet in the soft earth.

“By God, we did it!” Pa roared, thumping Georgie on the back.  “We did it!  Boys, we’re celebrating
tonight.  Tonight you’
re going to the tavern with me
.”

Georgie was beaming with pride.  I’d never seen him happier.  “Pa, there’s a problem,” I said, not wanting to ruin
the moment
but knowing I had to speak.  “People will ask how we did it.  What are you gonna tell them?”

“Hell,” Pa snorted, “I’ll tell ’em we just
rolled
it over there!”

That night, for the first time since Ma
had
died, Georgie and I ate dinner at the tavern.  Oh,
we had
been to the Bent Pig often enough to help Pa stumble home, but not as paying customers, and definitely not to eat. 
Georgie and I
sat beneath a kerosene lantern at a table in the back,
eating from large
bowls
filled with
pork, potato, and butter-bean stew
, one of the Pig’s specialties
.

The bar was fairly crowded that night—fifteen to twenty men drinking and smoking and discussing the weather, their harvest, news from the city.  Pa was buying drinks for friends and talking loud as usual, filling the room with his big booming voice.  We could hear him all the way back at our table.  He was bragging about his boys.

I looked over at Georgie.  He was eating steadily but never taking his eyes off Pa, a big grin on his face.  For my part, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was about to go wrong.  Pa could hold his liquor, but sooner or later
he would
always reach a poin
t when something slipped
and suddenly he’d be soused.  He already had more than a good start
on it when we
arrived, and I was worried.  If he shot off his mouth about that boulder . . .

My apprehension shot up several notches as I
saw
Abe McClin
tock stomping through the door.  H
is two huge sons, Caleb and Jake,
were
in tow.  From the expression on Abe’s face, I knew the mood in the Bent Pig was about to change.

Abe stopped inside the doorway, his
thick
callused hands perched on his hips.  “John Neuman!  Where the hell are you?” he bellowed, surveying the room as if he owned it.  Caleb and Jake stood behind him like pit bulls, all muscle and spoiling for a fight.

Pa turned slowly.  “You lookin’ for me, Abe?”

“Damn right I am.  Get that rock off my property!”

“What’re you talking about?” Pa replied.  “We put that stone dead center on the boundary wall, just like
all
the others.”

“It’s hanging a good six feet
onto
my field!”

“No more’n it is
onto
mine, Abe,” Pa pointed out pleasantly.  “If you don’t approve of where it is, why don’t you get those two strapping boys of yours move it?”

“Damn you, Neuman.  There’s no way we can move that rock.”

“Why not?  Me and
my
boys rolled it over there,” Pa chuckled, clearly enjoying himself.  “You telling me you McClintocks ain’t up to it?”

Abe’s face reddened.  “My boys can outwork them skinny brats of yours any day of the week,” he
said
.  “Besides, you never rolled that stone.  There’s no track in the field.”

“Well, Abe, it must’ve been nigh on dark when you went up there,” said Pa.  “Could be you just missed the track.  Or,” he added slyly, “maybe we raked over the ground so’s you couldn’t tell how we done it.”

A number of Pa’s cronies snickered, which was all the encouragement Pa needed.  My bad feeling got worse.  Pa
didn’t know
when to quit.

“I’m telling you me and my boys moved that rock, and it’s sitting in the middle of the north field to prove it,” Pa taunted.  “You may not like it, Abe, but that’s a fact.  And I’ll tell you something else.  That’s rock’s gonna stay right where it is because when it comes
right
down to it, none of you McClintocks is a match for a Neuman.”

“That so?”  McClintock’s eyes turned squinty-shrewd.  “If you’re so sure of that, let’s put some money on it.”

Pa stroked his chin.  “What’ve you got in mind?”

“What I have in mind is
a wager, Neuman,” Abe spat.  “I’ve got money says my boys can wrestle them two runts of yours flat on their backs inside of five minutes.”

The room quieted, the mention of money getting everyone’s attention.  I pushed away
from
my food.  I wasn’t hungry anymore.