The Homecoming of Samuel Lake (16 page)

Chapter 19

Ras knew that pretty soon, unless he could figure some way around it, he was going to have to call Odell Pritchett and tell him that his horse was missing. It galled him to have to say it was missing when it wasn’t missing at all, it just wasn’t where it was supposed to be. There ought to be a way to get it back.

But there wasn’t. He’d already overplayed his hand by blowing off his mouth to Early Meeks about how the horse had been stolen. Now Meeks knew whose place the animal had come off of, and that was the first place he would look if it was to go missing again.

When Ras got home, he did chores around the place, and ate what Geraldine put in front of him, and drew back his hand every time she opened her mouth to speak. He didn’t even talk to Blue.

He didn’t call Odell yet, because he hadn’t finished thinking out how to handle the situation, and he still did not go looking for Blade, even though Geraldine blubbered and begged. He wasn’t in a hurry. Let the little bastid see how he liked going hungry and sleeping on the ground. Then, in a day or so, he could see how he liked what else was in store for him.

All afternoon, Blade Ballenger hung out near the creek, watching the Lake children pretend to track outlaws. Actually, they didn’t do all that much tracking, they were too busy making over the horse. They were leading it down to the creek for a drink, and scratching its ears and its belly, and when it lay down in the tall meadow grass, they lay down all around it and used it for a pillow.

Blade wanted to go play with them, but he didn’t dare show himself. He didn’t think the girl would run tell her folks about him (she had let him sleep in her bed that once, after all), but he wasn’t so sure about the boys. Besides, those children were fully dressed and reasonably clean, whereas he was still wearing what he’d had on the night before—the same tattered shirt and underwear, filthy with his own blood and his brother’s pee and dirt from hiding under the house after he jumped out the window this morning. He’d stayed under there, afraid to breathe, until his daddy tore out of the yard in the truck, and then he’d made a beeline for the woods.

So now, here he was. He couldn’t go home, and there was nowhere else to go. All he could do was stay still and watch those kids playing with the horse he had saved, and wait for something to happen.

But staying still made it hard for him to keep his eyes open. He was dead for sleep, plus he hadn’t eaten a bite all day, and he was running on empty. His eyes were dry and grainy, so he blinked them, hard, and that was all it took. Once his eyelids came together, they wouldn’t pull apart for the longest time. When he finally got them open again, it was dark, and the children were gone.

Blade had been to the Moses place enough times that he knew the ebb and flow of life here. He knew how to blend into the shadows as he crept across the yard. He also knew where to step in the kitchen so as not to hit a board that creaked, and he knew where everything was kept. Leftover corn bread would be on the back of the stove, covered with a dish towel. Lately, there’d even been pieces of cake, or sometimes a slice of pie. Other leftovers would be in the icebox, sometimes stored in covered bowls, but often as not, in lidded mason jars. These he preferred, because he could grab the jars and go, instead of digging in the covered bowls and hoping no one heard. Blade suspected that women liked their bowls, and would get upset if one disappeared, but nobody worried about a missing mason jar.

He knew a lot for a boy his age, but he didn’t know everything. He didn’t know, for instance, that Sam Lake sometimes sat in the dining room, in the dark, after everyone else had gone to bed, thinking about his situation and wondering how to make it better. Samuel had spotted Blade a couple of times sneaking jars of string beans and chunks of corn bread, and he had started keeping up with whether the boy had been around by leaving his dessert on the stove after supper (“for later,” he told Willadee, in case he got hungry during the night).

On this particular night, Samuel was in the dining room again, and when Blade stole out of the house, Samuel trailed him. Far enough behind that the kid had no idea he was being followed.

Blade holed up in the barn and ate his supper with gusto. When he was done, he hid the jars under a pile of spoiled hay with the growing accumulation of empties. Then he burrowed into the hay himself, curling up like a fox in its den.

He slept.

Sometime during the night, a crisp sheet settled over him like a cloud, and a set of clean clothes was laid out on top of the sheet. The sheet smelled fresh as sunshine, and when daybreak came sifting through the cracks in the old barn walls, it took Blade a few seconds to wake up and realize what had happened, and what it meant.

It meant he was home.

Chapter 20

At breakfast, Samuel asked the rest of the family whether they’d ever noticed a little black-headed boy hanging around looking like he didn’t have anyplace to live, and everybody looked confused as the devil, especially Swan. She said she sure hadn’t noticed any little black-headed boy hanging around, she hadn’t ever noticed one solitary soul hanging around, if she had, she’d have told a grown-up so fast it would’ve made their heads spin.

Willadee took note of her daughter’s emphatic denial and put the note in a mental file to be examined later.

“Well, I’ve seen the little shaver several times,” Samuel said. “As a matter of fact, I saw him just last night, taking food from the kitchen again.”

Grandma Calla squinted at Samuel and cocked her eyebrows way up nearly to her hairline.

She said, “Again,” kind of like she was asking a question, and kind of like she was providing an echo.

“I reckon I should have said something sooner,” Samuel admitted. “He’s been coming and going for weeks. At first I thought surely he had a family, and maybe they were just short on groceries, but last night made me wonder.”

Then he told them about trailing the kid out to the barn, and how the kid had burrowed down into the hay to go to sleep, and how he’d looked so pitiful, like a little lost dog that had been dumped beside the road.

“I took one of your good sheets out there and covered him up,” Samuel said to Calla. “I hope you don’t mind.”

Calla said that she didn’t mind, sheets were made for covering people up, there wasn’t any other reason to own one.

When Bienville found out that Samuel had also taken some of his clothes out there because the little boy was wearing filthy rags, he sat up so straight and proud you’d have thought he just found out he was kin to Abe Lincoln.

“Well, I sure don’t grudge him the use of my clothes,” he said grandly. “What’s the use of having more clothes than you can wear at one time, if you’re not willing to share?”

Down at the end of the table, Bernice was holding hands with Uncle Toy like the good wife she was determined to appear, and she was about to choke on all this milk of human kindness.

“Well,” she observed in just the silkiest tone. “We have to find out who his parents are, and take him home. They must be beside themselves with worry.”

Swan said, “Maybe his parents aren’t good people. Maybe his daddy is a mean old sonofa——”

Samuel looked at her, hard, and she realized what she’d almost said, just in time to alter the outcome.

“
—biscuit eater,
and the kid is scared to go home.”

Willadee made another mental note.

Toy Moses pushed back his plate and lit a cigarette.

After breakfast, the family gathered at the window and watched the barn for signs of life.

“I bet he’s already come out and gone.” Noble was disappointed. He’d been looking forward to meeting a little kid who slept in people’s barns and stole food out of people’s kitchens late at night. Now that kid must be
formidable.

“If he’s eating here and sleeping here, where would he go?” asked Willadee.

And Calla said, “I feel just like I’m waiting for a cow to calve.”

Blade Ballenger had tried on Bienville’s clothes and found that the shirt came down to his knees, which was good, because the pants were so big on him that they kept slipping down there, too.

He hated to put on such nice clean clothes, because he was so dirty, and he hated to go out into the open, because he knew he looked foolish. For a little while, he stayed in the barn, both hopeful and afraid that someone would come out of the house. For sure, they must be nice people; only nice people would come down and cover a kid up in the middle of the night with a sheet that smelled like sunshine. So that was the hopeful side. But he was still afraid.

After a while, he ventured out of the barn and sat down cross-legged, staring at the house. And waited.

They all saw him at once, and they all started oohing and aahing as if they really were watching a calf get born. All but Toy, who had figured out who Samuel was talking about even before the kid came out of the barn, and Bernice, who simply couldn’t get excited about the same things everybody else did.

“There he is! There he is!” Noble was yammering, and Bienville said, “Well, I’ll be dawg,” and Calla said, “Now, ain’t he something in Bienville’s clothes?”

Willadee glanced at Samuel, proud of him for what he’d done, but he wouldn’t look back. He was feeling far too much to look anybody in the eye, even Willadee.

Swan started for the door. “I think y’all better let me be the one to go talk to him,” she said. “I’m good with little kids.”

Willadee’s mental notebook was filling up fast.

Blade didn’t move a muscle when he saw Swan barreling out of the house and coming his way. She was across the yard in nothing flat, and was standing right in front of him before he hardly knew it.

“Don’t let on like you know me!” she hissed. “My folks might get mad if they find out I let you stay in my room that time.”

Blade’s eyes got big and round, and he started to get up and run off. He didn’t like to be around when folks got mad.

Swan laid a hand on his arm and held him back. “Don’t worry,” she reassured him. “When my folks get mad, nothing much happens.”

Blade relaxed a little.

“How come you to sleep in our barn last night?” Swan asked.

Blade shrugged elaborately.

Swan said, “I mean, it’s all right. It’s all right as everything. I was just wondering.”

Blade shrugged again and tugged Bienville’s britches up under his armpits to keep them from falling off.

Swan slung an arm around his shoulders and gave him a conspiratorial look. “Well, anyhow,” she said, “I’ll bet you’re hungry. So you just come on up to the house, and my mama will fix you something to eat, and I’ll tell you on the way what to say and what to keep quiet about.”

You never saw a small child eat as much as Blade Ballenger ate that morning, and you never saw so many folks gang around watching with such fascination. Swan was sitting right beside him, so she could poke him if he got mixed up on what not to say. Nobody asked him any uncomfortable questions, though. Mainly things like “You want some more butter on those pancakes?” and “You got room for another couple strips of bacon?” Things he naturally said yes to. He didn’t volunteer any other information. Swan did, though.

“His name is Blade,” she announced, as if that was something she’d just found out two minutes ago. “His folks got carried off by the tornado, and he doesn’t have anybody to take care of him, so like as not, we’re gonna have to adopt him.”

Toy was on the other side of the room, leaning against the door-jamb, and he nearly fell over at the sheer magnitude of that whopper. He understood why Swan had told it, though. She’d seen the way Ras Ballenger treated the boy that day in front of the store, and he knew she wouldn’t want him to have to go back to more of the same.

Toy wasn’t the only one who saw the holes in Swan’s story. Samuel knew for a fact that the kid had been coming around since before the storm. As for Willadee and Calla, they simply knew when Swan was lying. Noble and Bienville couldn’t tell for sure, but Bernice (not having kids or maternal instincts or any experience with liars—herself excluded) bought the tale hook, line, and sinker.

“You can’t adopt a child just because it’s an orphan,” she told Swan.

“He’s not an it,” Swan bristled.

“Well, of course, he’s not. He’s a little boy who’s lost his family, and little boys who’ve lost their families have to be turned over to the Welfare, for their own good.”

Blade gave her a look that said he didn’t know what she was talking about, but he didn’t like the sound of it.

“Nobody’s turning him over to anybody yet,” Grandma Calla put in. “Why, my goodness, we haven’t even heard the whole story.”

She nodded for Swan to continue, just as if she thought the truth might suddenly start pouring out of the girl’s mouth.

Swan hadn’t actually planned to continue. She had more or less expected that Blade would be invited to move in, and that would be that. In the back of her mind, she knew that Blade’s folks would try to get him back, but some things you can’t think about until you absolutely have to.

Grandma Calla was looking at her expectantly. She had to say something.

“Well,” she started, “he’s been right tore up over the loss of his loved ones—”

Samuel said, “Now, Swan, God’s listening.”

He’d always taught his children to tell the truth and trust God for the outcome, and now did seem like a good time for her to test the principle. But she had gone too far to turn back.

“I know,” she said, solemnly. “And God knows how tore up he is.”

Samuel didn’t have it in him to call Swan on her fabrication. Not here and now, with that little boy looking at her like she was an angel of light. And looking at Samuel as if he held his life in his hands.

So it was Samuel who backtracked. “I reckon we can hear the whole story later on.”

Swan was so glad he said that.

“Right now,” Samuel went on, “I’ve got to get to work, and you children need to be some help around here.”

“Oh, they don’t have to be any help today,” Grandma Calla chirruped. “They was so much help yesterday, I’m still not over it.”

Once the kids had gone out to play, Bernice cleared off the table while Willadee filled the sink with hot, soapy water.

“I just cannot understand,” Bernice said, “why nobody’s concerned enough to notify the authorities about that poor little orphan.”

“Because he’s not an orphan,” Toy told her. “His folks live around the bend, at the end of that lane that cuts off through the chinaberry thicket.”

Bernice almost dropped the stack of dishes she was carrying. “He’s
Ras Ballenger’s
boy?”

“Who’s Ras Ballenger?” Willadee asked. She’d been gone from these parts for a long time. The Ballenger family had moved in after Samuel spirited her off to Louisiana.

“Satan’s stepson,” Calla said. “At least, that’s the feeling I get when I look at him.”

“Well, the child can’t stay here,” Bernice protested. “I will not sleep in a house where a runaway child is being harbored.”

Calla wanted to tell Bernice that there was a whole world out there she could sleep in, but she managed to hold her tongue.

Samuel said, “I’ll take him home on my way into town.”

Willadee and Calla tried not to look anguished, although they were.

Out back, Noble, Bienville, and Swan were showing Blade the Territory.

“Over yonder are the Badlands,” Noble said, indicating the cow pasture. “And back over there”—he waved toward the creek—“is the Big River.”

Blade nodded soberly and hitched up Bienville’s britches. Noble jerked his head in the general direction of the chicken pen.

“Now, over here, is the saloon. You can’t really go in there, because that big, speckled rooster has spurs that’ll rip you ragged, but you can stand around outside and talk about how you’d sure like a glass of sarsaparilla.”

Blade nodded again. There was a lot to remember.

Noble pointed at the calf lot, where Snowman was standing. “And over there’s the Box Canyon, where we trick Outlaws into holing up so we can shoot ’em as they ride out.”

Blade’s eyes lit up at sight of the horse.

Swan put her arm around him, like they were old buddies. “The biggest thing you have to remember in the Territory,” she instructed, “is that it’s the Good Guys against the Bad Guys, and the Good Guys always win.”

Blade hoped he’d get to be a Good Guy. From the sound of things, it had its advantages. Swan started over toward the Box Canyon, keeping her arm across his shoulders, taking him with her. Noble and Bienville hustled alongside.

“Now, what we’re doing today is, we’re looking for a no-good named Dawson,” Swan explained. “He’s been poisoning all the watering holes, because he wants to make all the ranchers go broke, so he can get their land and sell it to the railroad.”

Noble said, “I’m the sheriff.”

Swan said, “I’m the United States marshal.”

Bienville’s hands went to work signing, indicating his own identity, but Blade couldn’t read sign language, so he just looked at Swan, since she seemed to always have the answer for everything.

“He’s a deaf and dumb Indian scout,” Swan said. “He can’t talk, and he can’t hear you when you talk, so you can say anything you want to around him.”

As if to illustrate her point, Noble turned to Bienville, and grinned real big, and said, “You’re ugly, and you smell like a cow pile!”

Bienville grinned back, nodding his head up and down as if to say that he couldn’t agree more.

Blade laughed out loud. He’d never had so much fun.

Swan said, “Okay, let’s figure out who
you
are.”

Noble had already been thinking about that. He reckoned Blade ought to be a little Mexican boy that they had found out in the desert wandering around dying of thirst, and they had let him drink out of their canteens, and now he followed them everywhere they went. Bienville said that wouldn’t do, what they needed was another Indian. Swan argued that one Indian was enough for anybody, but she could sure use a deputy.

While they were fussing about it, Blade let himself into the calf lot. The other kids heard the gate creak open, and they all spun around just in time to see Blade venturing toward the horse. They rushed into the lot to protect him, but he didn’t need protection. He was reaching his hands up, and the horse was reaching its head down. The two were having a real reunion.

“You shouldn’t go up to a horse you don’t know,” Noble warned him. “You lucked out this time, but what if it had been a raging stallion?”

“I know him,” Blade said. He nuzzled Snowman’s muzzle. “Don’t I know you, Snowman?”

Swan sighed. She hated to upset the kid, but she had to set him straight. “You can’t go naming other people’s horses, either. His name is John, and he belongs to Grandma Calla.”

“His name’s not John, it’s Snowman,” Blade shot back. “And he belongs to Mr. Odell Pritchett.”