The Hollow Tree at Dead Mule Swamp

by Joan H. Young

from another lady and put them in the dishwater. She thrust a towel into my hands.

  "Yes, I can understand that. I haven't even met the parents yet. Let me see what I can do."

  "You should join the committee."

  "Adele! I just came to church for the first time today." She handed me a wet plate, and I dried it.

  "OK, come a few more times, and then join the committee."

  "I'll think about it."

  "That's what you said about coming to church, and here you are. I think you mean 'yes,' but just don't like to be pushed."

  I took another plate from Adele and reflected that I understood how Jimmie felt when I asked him to do new things.

  That afternoon, I had changed into jeans and was getting ready to work on my wainscoting some more when there was a soft knocking on the front door. I opened it and Jimmie stood there with his bag.

  "Come in!" I said.

  Jimmie entered and looked around at the sawhorses, raw wood sections, tools and general mess. His dark eyes gleamed. "You're doing this yourself?"

  "I am. Most of it anyway. I'm not so good at drywall seams." I spoke to him as I would to an adult.

  "I think my grandfather would have liked this."

  "I hope so. I've seen a picture of this house when it was new. It was well cared for then."

  "Really? Where's the picture?"

  "A lady I know named Cora has it."

  "Could I see it sometime?"

  "We can arrange that." I said. I knew Cora would love to meet young Jimmie.

  Abruptly, he changed topics. "I've been thinking about my bag. Maybe it would be good if it were here. But I don't want to bother you every day."

  "It wouldn't be a bother."

  He went on as if I hadn't said anything. "It would be OK if you kept most of the money inside. But I want to keep some of it in a place I know about, so I can get at it."

  "That might work," I said. "Where is it?"

  "I'll show you. Come on."

  Jimmie led me outside, and around to the back of the house. There is a stone basement under the two-story portion of my house. It's not very useful because it's damp, but it has an outside entry with a slanting hatchway door. He opened one of the sides of the double door and started down the wide concrete stairs. I opened the other side to let in more light and followed him down. On the steps were several old crocks. Jimmie found one that wasn't broken, and he turned it upside down.

  "I never wanted to use this place before, because people do poke around old houses looking for stuff. But now that you live here, it will be safer. I'll put my bag under this crock. Here in the shadows you can hardly see it anyway."

  "I think it's a perfect place! Let's go back inside, and I'll pay you what I owe you, too"

  "You owe me money?"

  "Yes, I said I'd pay for your time on Saturday."

  We walked in silence into the house. He put his envelope on the kitchen table, and I put a twenty-dollar bill beside it.

  "How much change do you want?" he asked.

  "None," I said. "That's yours."

  "Geez, that's too much!" he said, looking at me in horror.

  "Not at all. We worked for three hours. That's not even minimum wage."

  "Nobody paid me money like that before. They think I can't work hard because I'm so small"

  "You proved to me you work very hard," I said. "Take it."

  Jimmie carefully laid his money on the table. He put the seven ones back in the envelope and handed me the remaining $89.00. He'd already put the $16.00 from yesterday in his stash, and he'd added money two other times when I'd watched.

  "How much does a washing machine cost?" he asked.

  "I'm not sure. I think you can get a basic one for about $400.00."

  Jimmie's face fell. "That's an awful lot."

  "It is. Maybe you could find a used one that still works well."

  "That sounds better."

  "Jimmie," I began. This was going to be difficult. "I drove past your house. Is that really where you live? In that old truck?"

  He hung his head and nodded. Then he added, "I only live in the shed."

  I was appalled, but tried to keep my voice even. "Why there?"

  "Bert doesn't like me in the house, and Mom won't argue with him. She thinks he built me a nice place. It's not so bad. I fixed it up a little bit. I've got a mattress. And it doesn't leak with the tarp over it."

  "That's good." I couldn't think of much to say. Instead I got up and pulled the peanut butter out of the cupboard, and set it in front of Jimmie with the bread and a knife. "Want jelly?"

  "Sure!" Food was always a good way to cheer up a growing boy.

  "What is Bert's last name?"

  "Fowler," he said, eagerly spreading peanut butter thickly on a slice of bread.

  "What's your mom's name?"

  "Desiree, but she likes to be called Dee. My parents were Dee and Lee. It was like a family joke. My dad died in a car crash. I guess I was in the car too, but I don't remember." He spooned jelly on top of the peanut butter.

  "How do you get enough money to live on?"

  "Mom gets a check for me, because Dad died. And another one because she's sick. But Bert takes the money because Mom has to sign the checks for him to cash. She doesn't go out. She used to be ok, but now she weighs too much."

  "And he drinks?"

  Jimmie nodded again. His mouth was now full of sandwich.

  "Jimmie, I don't want to make trouble for you, but would your mom talk to me? Maybe I could get her some help. Maybe we could get her a separate bank account that the checks could be sent to so Bert can't get the money."

  The frightened look came over the boy's face again. "She'd lick me too, if she knew I'd told you about Bert. He says he'll kill her if she rats on him. I think he would."

  "All right. We'll wait on that. But I'm going to think hard about a way to fix this. You do know that most boys don't live in sheds with a tarp for a roof, don't you?"

  "Yes, but it doesn't make anything better to think about it," he said with glum wisdom.

  I wrote Jimmie a receipt for the money I would keep for him, and he put the seven dollars in the bag under the crock on the hatchway steps. I gave him the peanut butter and jelly and the loaf of bread. He tried to refuse, but finally relented when we slipped it in a plastic bag and put it under some empty beer cans in one of the milk crates. I couldn't understand how a child could be too frightened to bring home food. And I still knew nothing about the mysterious sisters. I hadn't dared bring that subject up again.

  Jimmie and I slipped into an easy routine for the next week. I decided I might get more answers from him by giving him a way to communicate without being embarrassed. Sunday night, I worked out a message in his tic-tac-toe code and slipped it into the envelope along with a pencil. I first asked him, "Why an angel?"

  Late Monday, I saw Jimmie slip into the back yard. He hadn't ridden his bike up to the house, but had come in from between the trees. I didn't go out to talk to him. However, after he left I checked under the crock, and he'd answered, also in code, "Christmas for my mom." That made sense. I was extremely pleased that Jimmie seemed willing to answer personal questions via code.

  He came to the hatchway each day, and by the end of the week I'd learned his sisters' names were Beth and Lindsey, that they were seven and four years old, and that they lived with their father, somewhere in Iowa. From this information, I deduced Dee had a boyfriend or husband between Lee and Bert, and the girls were Jimmie's half sisters.

  Writing coded messages was not all I did that week. I spoke to both Adele and Cora about the situation, now that I knew the boyfriend's name was Bert Fowler. Adele immediately knew who he was, and told me with barely suppressed anger that the county had been trying to do something about that family for months. She said no one would file a complaint because of Fowler's violent temper and general threats to kill anyone who interfered with his family.

  Since Adele know pretty much what everyone
was doing most of the time, she also told me Bert hung out at the Dead Dog, a local bar, some week nights, but always on Saturdays. She also said Dee Mosher had once been a good-looking vibrant woman. When Lee was killed she had married again, and moved away. Adele didn't know where. But when Dee moved back to Cherry Hill, she was overweight and depressed. She'd spent too much time at bars and the truck stop in Emily City. Then she'd taken up with Bert and all but disappeared from view. That was three years ago. But Jimmie came to school, was clean and not a discipline problem. He never had any visible bruises. Everyone could see how they lived, but there wasn't an obvious reason to file a complaint. Sure, the boy was thin, but so was his grandfather. Most everyone remembered that Jimmie Mosher. He'd owned the Cherry Blossom Restaurant.

  I asked what Bert looked like, and she told me he was about fifty, not yet fat, but going bald on top, so he wore a cowboy hat. He had a waxed mustache, and a swagger that made him stand out.

  Cora was excited about meeting Jimmie, and she urged me to bring him to visit her. I promised her I'd try to work something out. It seemed as if no one kept track of the boy well enough to mind if he were missing for a few hours. He apparently spent all day riding the back roads looking for metal. And Jimmie had said he'd like to see the pictures. I just had to work out the logistics.

  Meanwhile, it was Saturday, and I decided I wanted to meet Bert. I put on my tightest jeans and a scoop-neck t-shirt. When I added some flashy dangling earrings and eye makeup, the effect was terrible, but it seemed to fit with what I had in mind. A little after nine that evening, I walked into the Dead Dog and blinked. The interior of the bar