The Believer (3 page)

The man snorted and squeezed the water out of his beard. "Didn't that old preacher man teach you it's a sin to lie?"

"I'm not lying:" Ethan's voice didn't tremble much.

"And I'm not Hawk Boyd:" The man laughed and cuffed Ethan on the side of his head almost playfully. "Go on and relieve yourself over there in the bushes. The rope's long enough, but don't be trying to unloose it. I ain't the kind of pa to spare the rod. You best keep that in mind, son:"

When Ethan came back from the bushes, the man handed him a piece of dried meat. "This'll have to do till we get to the river. Then the vittles will be better."

"The river?" Ethan had never seen a river. Creeks like the one they were sitting beside, but no rivers. Preacher Joe had seen rivers. Had said he'd even once ridden a boat on a river somewhere in the east. Ethan stored that bit of knowledge. Preacher Joe had taught him his directions and how to look at the shadows of the trees and the sun to figure out which way to go. Except he wasn't sure which way they'd come in the night.

"That's right. Your old pa is a river man. Your ma knew that when she married me. She knew I couldn't stay on hard ground. Got to feel the water under my feet." He bit off a piece of the dried meat and stared at Ethan as he chewed.

"I don't want to go with you:' Ethan spoke the words as firmly as a six-year-old could.

The man's eyebrows scrunched together, making deep lines between his eyes, but he didn't look mad exactly. "I come all this way to get you, to do right by you, and here you are being plain contrary. A boy big as you should want to be with his pa." He stared at Ethan as if he was a puzzle he was trying his best to figure out. Then his frown disappeared as he blew out a breath and said, `And you will. My blood's flowing in your veins. Won't be a week till you'll be thanking me for coming back for you'

"No:" Ethan spit at the man. It was the worst thing he could think to do.

The man smacked Ethan on the jaw and knocked him off his feet as easy as he might have swatted down a bothersome horsefly. "First thing, you better learn some respect. Don't be saying no to your pa or the next time I'll use a stick on you" He picked up a fallen branch as big around as Ethan's arm and held it menacingly over Ethan. "Got that, boy?"

Ethan tried to scramble out of the man's reach, but the rope held him.

The man rapped him smartly across the backside with the stick and then laughed again. "Just a taste of what you'll get if you don't jump when your pa says jump. Now get up. We have to reach the river before the sun sets. They won't wait for us longer than that"

A day and a night on a horse. Ethan had no idea how many miles that might be, but he grabbed hold of the information anyway. They rode along the creek until the sun was a couple of hours up in the sky, and then they came out on a road wide enough for wagons. The man kicked the horse into a faster gait. Each time they met somebody on the road he pressed his fingers hard into Ethan's thigh to warn him against making a sound. With the pain still throbbing in his jaw, Ethan kept quiet, but whenever he heard a horse coming up on them from behind, his heart bounded up with hope that it might be the sheriff Preacher Joe had talked about. It never was.

The sun beat down on them until the horse was lathered and the man's shirt behind Ethan's back was soaked with sweat. The man stopped to let the horse drink from a trough in front of a stone house. Then he pushed Ethan in front of him into the building, where he downed a big glass of something that foamed on the top and had that peculiar smell Ethan had noticed the night before when the man stole him out of his bed.

The man bought some apples and cheese for him and Ethan and corn for the horse. Then they were on their way again even though the man at the stone house shook his head and said the man ought to rest his horse through the heat of the day.

"No time for that,' the man said as he sat Ethan on the horse and swung up behind him.

Dusk was falling when they left the road and started downhill through another woods. The horse's head had been drooping as they kept to the road, but now he perked up his ears and began to move faster.

"He smells the water;" the man said, the first words he'd spoken since they left the stone house. The man pulled in a deep breath. "And it's a mighty fine smell. We're almost there, boy. Can you smell it?"

Ethan raised his head up and took a deep breath in spite of himself. He did smell something different. Dank and fishy and cooler. He couldn't keep from stretching up taller to look for this river the man said was up ahead. When they came out of the trees, the river was bigger than he expected. Four or five times as broad as the biggest creek he'd ever crossed, with brownish green water moving past them. Southwest, according to the shadows made by the setting sun.

"What river is it?" Ethan knew rivers had names.

"The Kentucky," the man said. "It flows into the Ohio. The Ohio flows into the Mississippi and the Mississippi flows into the Gulf of Mexico. That's all the geography any river man needs to know."

A big flat raft with a lean-to shelter in the middle of it was tied up to a tree on the bank. Two men stood on the raft while another was on the bank. At the sound of the horse, they looked up, and the one on the riverbank said, "We was about to shove off without you, Hawk:"

"I told you I'd be here before nightfall' The man slid down off the horse and then pulled Ethan down with him. He tied the horse's reins to the saddle horn and pulled the saddlebags off before he gave the horse a slap on the rump. "Get on home:"

The horse went to the river and found a spot to drink before it headed back through the woods.

One of the men on the raft watched the horse go and said, "We coulda maybe tied him to the raft"

"No," the man who had stolen Ethan said. "I told the stable owner I'd send him home:"

"When did your word ever matter?" the man on the raft said. "A horse would be more use than that boy there. What you expecting us to do with him, Hawk? We ain't nursemaids."

"He's my boy and he's going" The man's fingers dug into Ethan's shoulder while his other hand hovered over the knife sheath hanging down from his belt. "Any of you got a problem with that?"

The man on the bank stepped back a couple of steps, held up his hands and answered for all of them. "I reckon a boy should be with his pa. We ain't got no problem with that, do we, fellers?"

The other men stared at Hawk and shook their heads.

"Good to hear." Hawk pushed Ethan forward. "This here's Ethan:" Then he pointed toward the men. "That's Bert here on the bank. That one worried you'll be a hindrance is Red, and the other one is Ansel. He can't hear thunder, but he knows every sawyer in the river"

Ethan had no idea what a sawyer was, but he didn't open his mouth to ask. The man kept hold of Ethan's collar as he fished the rope out of his saddlebags and tied it around Ethan's waist again.

The man named Bert frowned. "What's with the rope? I thought you said he was your boy."

"He is, but he's been living with a landlubber." Hawk pulled on the rope to be sure the knot would hold and then hooked it to a post on the raft. "He ain't exactly figured out he wants to be a river man yet, but he will soon enough"

Bert made a sound that might have been a laugh. He waited until Hawk walked away before he eased over beside Ethan. He looked over his shoulder toward Hawk who was digging a bottle out of one of the crates, then got right down in Ethan's face. His teeth were black and his breath smelled worse than Birdie's after the dog had been eating something rotten. He kept his voice low. "I'll tell you two things a river man might need to know straight off. One you probably done know already. That's that your pa is one mean son of a gun. The other is that a sawyer is a tree caught in the river that saws back and forth and can catch a raft and dump what's on it into the river. Sometimes everything on it. Sometimes just a thing or two" Bert's eyes narrowed on him. "If you can't swim, boy, you best be thinking on learning"

The frogs and night bugs were in full chorus when they finally pushed off from the bank as night was falling. Mosquitoes buzzed in Ethan's ears, but he didn't pay them much mind as he studied the knot on the rope around his waist. He didn't intend to go down the river. At least not far. Preacher Joe had taught him how to swim in the deep part of the creek out back of their house a long time back. But he had to wait for the time to be right.

All the men except the one named Ansel stretched out on the raft to go to sleep. Hawk checked the knot on the rope around Ethan's waist and took the end off the post and tied it to his arm before he said, "I ain't a heavy sleeper. You try anything, you'll wish you hadn't"

It wasn't long until all three men were snoring. Ethan had to fight to keep his own eyes open. He was so tired. He worked the knot loose enough to slide it down the rope very carefully while keeping one eye on Ansel standing toward the front of the raft watching the river ahead. The man held the long stick he'd used to push them away from the bank.

The sliver of moon sinking in the west reflected a glimmer of light off the river water. Ethan looked up at the stars that seemed to be right above his head and whispered a prayer in his head. Don't let Hawk wake up. He slid the rope down his body and off his feet and then eased it up and around a bundle of furs.

The men kept snoring and Ansel kept staring out at the river ahead of them. Ethan looked toward the bank of the river. It looked a long way and the water was flowing fast. Faster than any creek water he'd ever seen.

He waited until the river carried the raft closer to the left bank, and then with his eye on Ansel, he slipped off the raft into the water. He barely made a ripple in the water. He churned hard with his arms to move toward the bank, but it seemed to get farther away as the river swept him downstream after the raft. His arms turned to rock and his head went under the water.

For a minute he drifted there with the dark silkiness of the river all around him. He couldn't breathe, but it didn't seem to matter. Then a voice told him to kick. He wasn't sure whether the voice was in the water or in his head, but it was a voice he couldn't ignore. He kicked his feet and broke out of the water, gasping for breath. Directly in front of him a tree stuck up out of the water. He wondered if it was one of the sawyers Bert had told him about as he grabbed at the limb and caught it.

Ethan clung to the branch and watched the raft until it was swept around a bend in the river. None of the men on it were yelling. He was safe. And then a lost feeling welled up inside him, and he wondered if he should have stayed on the raft. With the man who claimed to be his born father.

But no, Preacher Joe was the father he wanted.

Ethan began working his way along the tree toward the river's edge by grabbing first one branch, then another, until his feet touched bottom. He climbed up on the rocky bank and collapsed. Morning would be soon enough to worry about how he was going to climb out of the rocky cliffs that rose up from the river.

The next thing he knew, a hand on his shoulder was shaking him awake. Ethan's eyes flew open, but the morning sun was so bright, all he could see was a blurred face and a hat. He scrambled away from the man's hand.

"Easy, little brother;" a gentle voice said. "I mean you no harm. How come you to land here on these rocks? Where are your people?"

Ethan pulled in a breath as he squinted his eyes to better see the man. His smile was kind, so Ethan told him the truth. "I don't know. A man stole me from where I live with Preacher Joe and was taking me down the river. I slid off the raft and swam to here'

`And who was the man that stole you?"

Ethan stopped telling the truth. "I don't know;' he said.

"So:" The man frowned a little as if he knew Ethan lied before he asked his next question. "Do you have a name?"

"Ethan. Ethan Boyd"

"Well, then I'm sure your people will be looking for you, young Ethan:" The man's frown disappeared as he reached a hand toward him. "Until then, I daresay you're hungry. How about you come with me to find some breakfast?"

Ethan let the man pull him to his feet and looked up at the rocks rising up from the river. "Is there a way out of here?"

"Yea, for a certainty." The man in the hat laughed. It was a good sound. It reminded Ethan of Preacher Joe. "My name is Issachar Barr. I live in the Shaker village up on top of the hill. You can call me Brother Issachar'

Ethan looked up at the man. Some people called Preacher Joe Brother Joe, and he had the same kindness in his eyes. "What is a Shaker?" Ethan asked.

"Someone who puts his hands to work and gives his heart to God"

"Can I stay with you until Preacher Joe finds me?"

"Yea, that you can. The Shakers never turn away one in need" Brother Issachar knelt in front of him, put his hands on Ethan's shoulder, and looked straight into his eyes. His dark eyebrows were like unkempt bushes over his light blue eyes. "The river has gifted the Shakers with many things in the years since I've been here. But a young believer. You may surely turn out to be the best gift ever." Brother Issachar stood up and took Ethan's hand. "Come, my young brother. A sister will find you some food"