The Grave Robber's Secret (2 page)

Robby did not watch his father remove the dress or put Ruth's body into the white bag his mother had made. He did see the dress after it fell from his father's hands back into the open casket. He put the lid back on, and he began to shovel then, shovel with all his might, lifting and tossing spadeful after spadeful; he was almost finished by the time his father had arranged the body in the cart. When the grave looked as it had before the theft, they moved silently to the path, Da pushing the wheelbarrow with the shovels tucked in on either side of the bag. Robby carried the crowbar over his shoulder.

Da led the way. Near the cemetery gate, he lowered the cart. “I'll just pop out and make sure there ain't no nosy people wandering about,” he said.

Robby's heart beat fast. He was not certain what he wanted. Did he hope no one would catch them? If they were discovered, there would be trouble. Likely his father would fight his way free and run, leaving Robby there to take all the punishment. Still, wouldn't that be better than being successful? If they escaped detection, there would be other midnight robberies.

Again Robby saw a movement in the willow tree. This time he moved closer and parted the limbs. It was a woman! When he could make out her face, Robby recognized her. She put her arm up as if to ward off a blow. “Leave me be,” she muttered.

“It's me, Robby,” he whispered. “Don't you know me, Jane? I'd not hurt you, not ever.”

Just then he saw that his father was back inside the cemetery. He waved Robby forward, and picking up the cart handles he began to push. “What in tarnation was you doing mucking about that tree?” Da asked over his shoulder. “We ain't out here on a lark.”

Robby's mind raced to think of a response, but to his relief Da did not seem to expect an answer. It would not do for Da to know about the woman everyone called Daft Jane hiding in the tree. Robby's mother sometimes took in the poor creature to give her a meal and helped her clean up a bit, but never when Da was home. Robby couldn't trust his father not to hurt Jane if he suspected she had seen them take the body.

The street was deserted, no one in sight except for a man and a woman who leaned against one another in a doorway. They were too interested in each other to look at a boy and his father with a wheelbarrow.

Pennsylvania Hospital was a huge brick building on Pine Street. It stretched across a full block between Eighth Street and Ninth Street. Robby had seen the big building many times, but he had never dreamed he would be going inside to sell a body in the dead of night. Da steered the cart to a small door at the back of the east wing. A faint glow showed through a nearby window, proving that somewhere a lantern burned. “This here is the school part,” he said, and he set down the cart. “They say you got to bang hard, hard enough to wake the dead.” He laughed at his choice of words and began to pound.

Finally, the door opened. “Can I help you?” The man inside was neither young nor old. He had a thin face and kind eyes. His hair stood up on his head, his clothing in disarray. Robby thought he must have been asleep. He carried a lighted candle.

“It's me what can help you, sir,” said Roger Hare. “That is if you be a doctor.”

“My name is Dr. Bell.”

“This here is your lucky day, Dr. Bell,” said Roger, and he smiled broadly. “We've got a body for you. Fresh too, just buried today.”

The doctor stepped out of the doorway, went to the cart, leaned over, and opened the bag. “Oh,” he said, “this is a child.”

“Her name is Ruth,” Robby said. His father gave him a little shove.

“Keep your mouth shut, boy,” he said. “Her name don't matter now.”

“I imagine it matters to her parents,” said the doctor.

“They won't never know she ain't still in the grave. Why all this talk?” said Da. “You take young ones, don't you?” He folded his arms across his chest. “Young'ns slice up same as grown ones, don't they? I want full pay.”

The doctor shot him an angry look. “You're a tender-hearted fellow, aren't you?” He turned to Robby. “Hold this candle for me,” he said, and he gathered the body bag into his arms. “Well, follow me,” he said over his shoulder.

Robby hung back. “I'll wait here, Da,” he said, but Roger reached out to grab his arm.

“You'll come along with us,” he ordered.

The three walked down a dark hall, their steps sounding loud on the wooden floor. A strong medicine-like smell filled Robby's nose. The doctor led them into a large windowless room, where two candles burned. Dr. Bell placed the bag on a long table. He turned to take the candle Robby held and began to light six gas lamps that were fastened to the walls. Robby could see the loft now on one wall. Stairs led up to it and seats were arranged there in three rows at graduated heights. The doctor noticed Robby looking at the loft. “Our students sit there,” he explained. “So they see what is done here on the floor.”

He came back to the table again and started to slip the bag away from the body. Robby had hoped to be out of the room without seeing Ruth again, and he turned his head quickly away. On the wall just beyond the table was a drawing of the human body. Each organ and bone had a name written beside it. Robby stepped away from the table to study the diagram, but from the corner of his eye he could still see his father and the doctor.

“You've got to check the goods, I reckon,” said Roger Hare, “but let me remind you that I ain't been paid. That body's still mine, it is, until I get the money, yes sirree, Bob.” He held out his hand, and Dr. Bell reached onto a nearby shelf for a metal box from which he took bills. He counted them and then placed them in Da's hand.

“Now be gone with you,” he said, but Da shook his head.

“I'll be troubling you to give me back me bag,” he said. “My missus just sewed it up for me, she did, and there will be need of it again.”

Robby still gazed at the drawing. He'd had no idea there were so many things inside a body. “Is this really how it looks inside … of a person, I mean?” He had not meant to speak, and he looked down, self-conscious.

Dr. Bell turned to lay his hand briefly on Robby's arm. “Yes. Fascinating, isn't it?” he said, and he smiled. He pointed to the heart. “A heart is about the size of a fist, and it pumps blood to every part of the body.”

“And if the heart stops, a person dies, right?”

The doctor nodded. “The blood caries the oxygen we need to live.” He smiled at Robby. “What's your name, son?”

“Robby—” He was about to add the last name, but his father interrupted.

“We ain't here for no conversation.” Da held out his hand. “Me bag?”

Without a word Dr. Bell finished removing the bag, covered the body with a sheet, and handed the bag to Roger. “I'll let you out,” he said, and they followed him back to the door.

When Da had stepped from the building, Robby turned quickly to the doctor. “Is Ruth's heart small because her hands are small?”

“Yes, the heart grows at about the same rate the hand does.” He smiled at Robby. “Maybe you would like to come back sometime and look again at the chart or other things here.”

“Oh, thank you.” The invitation pleased him, but he wanted to forget the place and the reason he had been inside. Da reached back, jerked Robby forward, and pushed him back the way they had come.

“That one's high and mighty,” he said when the door was closed. “He's a butcher, that's what he is! He ain't got no right to be looking down on the likes of us. At least we don't go about carving up little girls.”

Robby hoped his father would say nothing more, and Da was blessedly quiet as they walked the dark streets toward home. They had gone only a few steps when a cold rain began to fall. Robby felt glad. The rain chilled him, but he felt it might also cleanse him. He held his hands out to get every drop.

It continued to rain until they turned onto the street where their house with the broken stoop stood in the middle of a long row of houses, all two stories and made of red brick. In the dark and at first glance, the Hare house did not look so different from the others. But in the daylight an observer would notice that besides the broken board on the stoop, shutters hung loose from two of the front windows. The wooden door frame wanted painting too. Robby wondered if he could fix the shutters himself. Da would never get around to them.

They cut through the alley between the houses to go to the back door. A light shone through the kitchen window, and Robby knew his mother had worried all the time they had been gone. She looked up from mending when the door opened. “God be praised. You're safe,” she said when she saw Robby.

“Safe?” said Da. “Of course we be safe. No man in these parts wants to tangle with Roger Hare.” He held up the crowbar he had taken from the wheelbarrow he left near the door. “Any man who tried to get in me way would have found hisself wearing me trusty bar here through his head. I'm starved, woman. I'll just go change me wet clothes while you get me some vittles.”

Robby had gone immediately to position himself before the stove. His mother took a bowl from the cupboard and came to stand beside him. “Are you hungry, son?” She took the cover from a big pot that sat on the back of the stove and filled a bowl. “I've got some stew with a bit of mutton in it.”

He shook his head no, but he did not speak. She set the bowl on the table and laid the palm of her hand against his cheek. “It was terrible hard for you, and I'm dreadful sorry for such a thing to fall to you.”

Robby swallowed back the sob that wanted to escape from inside. If he cried, his mother would feel even sorrier. Besides, tears would help nothing. He jammed his hands into his pockets. “I'll not do it again, Ma,” he said. “I'll run away before I do it again.”

His mother's eyes darted toward the hall from which Da's steps could be heard. She laid a finger against her lips. “Ssshh! He mustn't hear you.”

“I won't, though,” Robby said quietly. “I'll run away if I have to.” The look in his mother's eyes made him immediately sorry for his words.

“Oh no, Robby, please don't say such a thing.”

Roger Hare came into the kitchen then from his bedchamber, and Robby went through the swinging door into the parlor and on into the hall, where he sat on the stairs. He stretched his legs across the third step. Using his arms for a pillow, he rested against the step above him. Maybe tomorrow someone would come to take a room, or even better, maybe two people would come. Surely if the rooms were taken, his father would not go out at night to steal bodies. Robby closed his eyes.

His mother woke him with a gentle shake. “He's gone to bed now,” she said softly. “I've laid your pallet out. You'll feel better tomorrow,” she said, and she bent to kiss his cheek.

CHAPTER TWO

H
e did not feel better the next day. Da slept late, but Ma was up as usual making breakfast. “Miss Stone needs breakfast,” she told Robby when he pulled his quilt over his face.

Old Miss Stone was their only boarder. She had seemed increasingly frail over the last few weeks, and most of the time Robby carried her food up to her. He loved to be in her room because of her books, filling a big bookshelf to overflowing.

Miss Stone, who had been a teacher in her younger days, had read from her books to Robby, and she had used them to teach him to read. He could still remember the thrill he had felt when he sat beside her with the red primer in his lap, using his finger to point to the words. Da, who had never learned to read, did not see the need of school and would never have allowed Robby to attend, but Miss Stone educated him well. He had read most of her books by now, and he loved them. “They will be yours when I'm gone,” she had told him once. He had given a quick shake to his head. No, he did not want to think of Miss Stone's death. “Oh, don't fret,” she had said. “I've no plans to depart soon.” She had smiled at him. “Still I want you to know about the books. I haven't any family, and I want you to have them.”

There had been no supper for him the night before, and shortly the smell of porridge forced him up.

Da did not appear until midmorning to demand Ma fix him something to eat. Robby stayed out of the kitchen until he heard his father go out the back door. He helped his mother carry the heavy laundry out to the backyard, and they were hanging up a sheet when Da appeared, red-faced with hurry and excitement.

“It's a good day for the Hares,” he shouted as he came around the house. Robby glanced at Da and turned back to put a clothespin on his end of the sheet. He bent to take an apron from the basket, but his father grabbed his arm. “Listen to me, boy,” he said. “I've got important news.” Da leaned his head to point toward the house. “Inside with the two of you, I say. Let the laundry wait.”

A great dread grew in Robby. Da took Ma's arm, and Robby followed. “I'll have me a cup of tea first.” With an air of importance Da settled in his usual chair at the end of the table while Ma went to get his cup and the kettle. Robby moved from the doorway to the window. Da slapped the table with his hand. “Set yourself down, boy, you make me nervous with that blasted pacing about.”

Robby sighed and went to the bench. Ma brought Robby a cup too, but he shook his head. She poured Da's tea and sat on the bench across from Robby. “All right, then,” Da said after a long drink of tea. “I was out for a bit of a walk, and what do you think I see?” He looked from his wife to Robby. Neither of them spoke. “I see money, yes sirree, Bob, money just as plain as the nose on me face.”

“You found money?” Ma asked.

“Well, not as much found it as found an opportunity to lay hands on it.” He nodded his massive head in satisfaction. “I come around a corner and there is a funeral procession, a whole passel of people following a hearse drawn by four white horses.”

Robby leaned his elbows on the table and lowered his head to rest in his hands. Da reached out to hit one arm. “Get your head up, boy. I'm talking here, I am. So, of course, I follows along to the grave site, then just slip away, all natural and easy. No need to watch the poor soul put down, seeing as it be me and my boy that will bring him back up this very night.”

“I won't do it, Da.” Robby's voice was low but firm.

The slap came as quick as a heartbeat, and the hand knocked Robby's head against his right shoulder. Jerking himself straight again, he repeated. “I won't do it.”

The second slap was as fast as the first, but Robby knew it was coming. Bracing himself with his hands on the table's edge, he closed his eyes before the blow struck. He took in a great breath, opened his eyes, and said again, “I won't do it.”

Then suddenly Ma was there, grabbing Da's arm. “Don't hit him again, Roger. I'll go with you my own self. You know my arms are strong, likely strong as Robby's. Just don't hit him again. I'm begging you, please.”

Da turned to stare at her, then pulled his arm free of her grip. He turned back to Robby. “So you would send your mother out in the night to do your work, would you, little baby?”

Robby swallowed hard. “I'll go,” he said almost in a whisper. “I'll have to go.” Da said nothing more, and Robby left the kitchen.

The rest of the day passed in usual fashion. He went back to hanging clothes on the line to dry. He pumped water and then walked to the market to buy cod for supper. Market Street was full of stalls where all kinds of food were sold. Vendors also roamed the street, their carts or baskets full. “Buy yourself a bit of a treat,” Ma had said when she handed him the money for the fish. Robby knew she hated that he had to go to the cemetery again and wanted to make it up to him.

He did not want to decide too quickly what to buy. It was an unusual pleasure to spend a few pennies, and he had no wish to speed the process. He considered oysters, baked sweet potatoes, and peanuts, but a woman selling ears of corn drew him to her by the smell of her wares and by her cry, “Here's your nice hot corn! Smoking hot! Piping hot! Oh what beauties I have got!”

Robby sat on the ground to eat his corn and leaned against the trunk of a big tree, just beginning to leaf out. He told himself not to think of what lay ahead of him, but thoughts of the night's business could not be pushed from his head. His father would make him climb down into the grave again to fasten the rope to the body.

The corn was sweet and good, but Robby could take little pleasure in it. He finished the ear, wiped his hands on his trousers, got up, and headed toward a man who blew a tin horn and shouted, “Here comes the fisherman! Bring out your pan!”

He purchased the fish, slipped it into a bag his mother had provided for them and headed home, walking an extra mile, just as he had on the trip there, to avoid going by the cemetery.

All too quickly the evening passed. Da had himself a good sleep in preparation for their nighttime mission. From the kitchen where Robby sat by the stove, he could hear Da snoring. Ma came in to urge Robby to lie down. “You might be able to sleep some. Won't know for sure till you try.”

He lay for a long time in the dark listening, his mind full of terrible images. He heard the town crier call out, “Twelve o'clock, and all's well.” Some time after twelve he fell asleep.

Da woke him with a nudge from his boot. “Up, boy,” he said. “It's well after two. We got to get moving.”

Robby rubbed his eyes. He wished he could sleepwalk to the cemetery without knowing what he did, but he knew that wouldn't happen. Having slept in his clothing, he had only to take his worn jacket from the peg to be ready.

Da whistled as they moved along the cobblestones, Robby following with the wheelbarrow. A dog ran at them as if to bite, growling deeply at Robby, who paid it no heed. What did he care if a dog bit him? Da turned back and swung at the creature with his shovel, struck it, and sent it howling back where it came from. “What's wrong with you, boy?” Da asked. “That mongrel was about to bite you, he was, and you with a shovel in your wheelbarrow. Step to it, boy. You act like you ain't got good sense.” Robby made no comment, and Da turned back to his whistling and his walking.

This time it was Da who led the way to the grave. “We're about to resurrect a rich man, we are.” He stuck his shovel into the newly turned soil. “Pity is them doctors don't pay no more for a fellow as was well-heeled than for a pauper. Get that shovel moving, boy.”

While he dug, Robby tried to tell himself that he was still asleep, that all of this was only a bad dream, but all too soon he heard the dreaded thud of his father's shovel striking the casket. “There we go. We'd better shovel off the whole thing. Won't be as easy getting a man out as last night's job.”

This time Da had brought two crowbars and had placed them beside the grave. He reached for one and tossed it to Robby. “You pry at this end. I'll move down to the other.”

Robby threw himself into the job. “Get it done and over,” he told himself. Tomorrow he would gather his few belongings and leave his father's house. No matter how his mother begged, he would go, just start walking. Da would have to kill him to make him stop. The popping off of the casket's fastener made him stop dreaming of escape.

“Up with you, now,” said Da, “and hand me the rope. This one needs pulling open.”

Robby scrambled up and threw down the end of the rope. Da attached it well to the coffin handle, climbed out, and began to pull. “Grab hold,” he yelled to Robby. “The thing is powerful heavy.”

When the lid was finally open, Da untied the rope, made a big loop of the end, and handed it to Robby. “Down with you, boy, and mind you don't step on him. We cannot sell damaged goods. There's room for a foot on each side of the body. Then bend and get the rope over his head and around his chest.”

“It's too dark, Da. I can't see him.”

“Balderdash! That moonlight's bright as day. Down there, now!” Da took a step toward him.

Slowly, Robby lowered himself. The corpse wore a white shirt, making it easer to see. When he leaned over the body, a sickeningly sweet smell met him. He held his hand over his mouth and swallowed back the gorge that rose in his throat. This one had been dead too long before burial. Robby forced himself to lift the head and then one shoulder after the other, sliding the rope around the body.

“All right,” said his father. “You'll be lifting on this fellow, way too heavy for just me. Get a good hold on him.” Robby stepped carefully back, then put a hand under each of the dead man's arms. “Heave,” yelled Da, and Robby did. Slowly, the body began to move. “Get a lower hold now,” Da yelled, and Robby moved his arms to the waist, lifting the upper body to ground level. “I'll hold him here,” Da panted between words. “Get yourself up here to help me.”

“We can't get him in the bag,” Robby said when they had laid the body beside the grave.

“No, we cannot. Just never figured how heavy a dead weight could be, and me with nothing but a scrawny boy for help.” Da took the bag from the wheelbarrow. “This fellow ain't even particular big for a growed man.” He shook his head. “We'll get his top half in the cart and leave his legs dangle over. Just hope we make it to the school without some busybody snooping about. Help me get his clothes off.”

Robby started with the shoes, but he had to stop and vomit. “Get hold of yourself, boy,” Da said. “Your mother's coddled you, that she has. Stop acting like a little girl.”

“Say what you want to me, Da,” he thought. “It won't matter after tomorrow. After tomorrow, I'll be gone.”

When the body was in the cart and the clothing thrown back into the coffin, they covered the grave. Robby spread the white sack over the man, and it hung down over most of his legs. “Off with us now,” said Da, “likely you'll have to spell me some on the pushing. Maybe I'll look for a fellow to team up with us, if I can find someone I'd trust. Don't go thinking you'll get out of the business, though, no sirree, Bob. Hare and Son, that's the name of this here resurrection business.”

At the school, Dr. Bell was surprised to see them. “Back so soon?” he said when he came to answer the knock. He lifted the bag to look at the body.

“You want him or not?” Da folded his arms.

The doctor hesitated only a second. “Never said I didn't. You'll have to push the cart in.” He led the way to the same room they had entered last night. Robby hovered near the door, afraid Ruth's body might be still on the table, all bloody and cut. When he saw that the table was clear, he stepped inside and moved to the chart, anxious for another look.

The doctor helped Da lift the body from the cart onto the table. In the dim light, Robby leaned close to the drawing to read the names of the organs. Then his gaze fell to a small table just to the right. A clear glass full of liquid held a grayish pink, roundish object with many ridges and grooves. Robby studied the object, then looked back at the chart. “Is that a brain?” The words came out without his thinking and immediately he was sorry.

The doctor did not seem to mind. “Yes,” he said, and he stepped to a wash pan where he washed his hands. “Would you like to hold it in your hand?”

“No,” Robby said quickly, but he was surprised that down inside himself he could feel the desire to do just that. The thought came to him then that the brain might be Ruth's. Maybe that brain was all that remained of the little girl who had worn the white dress. He edged away from the table and toward the door.

The doctor paid Da and led them back to the front door. “When a child is six or so, the brain is as large as it will ever be,” he said to Robby after he had opened the front door.