“My money is on that dream-peddler character,” said George. “That Robert Owens.”
“You must be kidding,” Evie said.
“Why not? They’ve been seen together everywhere—at the store, the dance. . . . He walks her around town all the time. Now she’s pregnant. Cora’s always been a flirt, but nothing ever came of it until that man showed up in town.”
“I don’t think so,” Evie said. “He’s so much older than she is. He looks at her the way a father would look at his daughter. I’m sure of it.”
George waved his empty fork. “You’ve missed the point entirely. He is so much older. He could so easily take advantage. And all this dream hocus-pocus, he could be feeding her all kinds of nonsense. Giving her dreams. Making her like him.”
“That’s crazy!”
“I don’t think so. Don’t you remember, even way back at the dance, you were so aggravated with him for not returning the cups? And he was taking punch over to Cora, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, but—”
“He could have put something in her drink. No one would ever have noticed.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“It’s what her parents think,” said Sam.
Evie turned on him. “What? Why would they think that?”
“I guess she was seen after prayer meeting running away from him. . . . She was crying. She won’t say what happened. Mary saw it with her own eyes, and Robert Owens looking very guilty at Cora while she ran off. I don’t know if he gave her any dreams or not, but something happened there.”
“Oh, my goodness. Well, I don’t really know the man,” Evie lied, “but I still think you’re wrong. That’s a serious accusation against him. It’s so much more likely to just be some gangly boy who loves Cora, and the two of them got themselves into some trouble. That’s all it is.”
George shrugged. “Are we having some of that award-winning pie for dessert?” he asked.
Chapter 25
A rumor sifted up out of the ground and began to drift about the town. Like sand blown by a windstorm, its grains were driven in everywhere: in windowsills and doorways, in the cracks of the house walls and the soles of shoes, collecting in between blades of grass on the lawns. It went into seams and under fingernails, surfaced brown in the dishwater, was tossed into the garden with the waste and grew there again. It rustled in the pillowcases and the curtains and could not be swept out; it was tracked back into every house and settled in every family.
* * *
* * *
Robert Owens sat in Violet Burnley’s parlor and waited, but no one came to see him. The trees outside began to preen their secret colors, the ones they had all summer long been hiding beneath the green. He walked down the road on some days and sat instead on the bench outside Jenkins’s store, but no one spoke to him. Cora’s father watched the back of his head through the front window and stared blackness at it, but he would not stoop to go out and tell him to leave. The glances of people as they walked by, even those who had to pass him to enter the store, flitted onto parts of him and slid away, as if he were a hill of mud.
“It’s something to do with that fair day, it must be,” he told Violet.
They were hunched over the late garden vegetables, searching out hidden squash and beets, digging up potatoes. He sat back on his heels in the dirt.
“The way Jackson Banks was hollering at me to stay away . . . people will think I did something to her.”
Violet looked at him and then down, at the earthy clumps falling away from the purple skins of the beets she’d pulled.
“I was in town yesterday, for the first time since the fair,” she said. “And more than one person made a point of coming to speak to me, because they worry for me, they say, with you living in my house.”
Robert laughed. “Well, I haven’t murdered you in your sleep yet, have I? And made off with the silver? Seems a bit late for that now.”
Violet said nothing.
“So?” he prodded her. “Do they think I’ve been carrying on with Cora? That I’ve hurt her in some way?”
Violet looked down at her hands as if her words could be weighed within them.
“I hurt her feelings, Vi, nothing more,” he insisted gently. “I can’t imagine why, but she thinks she is in love with me. She wants to leave town with me when I go, and I can’t let her do that. So I’ve made her hate me.”
“I don’t think Cora hates you. And anyhow she’s been kept home sick. So it’s not her who’s been saying anything against you.”
“The Reverend Arnold again?”
“I think it might have started with Jackson. He blamed himself for Cora’s fainting spell, because he shocked her. With some things he said about you.”
Robert dug hard into the ground with his spade, his shoulder rolling and bucking under his shirt. “So what does he have to say?”
“Well, I don’t even want to repeat it.” Violet rubbed at the beets like she was trying to remove every trace of dirt before they went into her basket. “He says he thinks you aren’t natural . . . with the children. That he saw you leading Ali McBryde away with you somewhere when you hadn’t any business to. And of course that you . . . that you came into town that morning. When Benjamin Dawson went missing.”
Robert’s chest swelled. He wasn’t sure if he could laugh at that, but the bubble of laughter was there, pressing painfully into his ribs like a big, friendly dog.
“So it’s Jackson Banks, is it? Of all the people to try to run me out of town, I wouldn’t have pegged him for it.”
“Of course it’s all nonsense, I know. . . .” Violet trailed off. Her words fell down into the furrows they were digging and seeded there. “But then you know there’s his mother, Evelyn. You . . . you avoided her, when she came looking for you. You kept running away from her. . . .”
Robert glanced at her, but she was still staring down at the earth gathering under her gloves.
“I told you why,” he said, surprised. “I thought she wanted dreams of him. I didn’t want to take advantage of her.”
Violet nodded.
“Yes, it’s nonsense,” he agreed. They dug on in silence, yanking the tough, resistant tubers out of the ground and banking them like sandbags before a storm.
* * *
* * *
Tom and Toby Jenkins spied Jackson as soon as they drew up to the house. He was chopping wood, and he’d taken off his shirt and draped it in the grass. Even so his bare arms and neck were oily with sweat.
Toby jumped down from the wagon and hitched their horses at the fence. Tom was just quick enough to stop him from rushing at his friend.
“Keep your head,” Tom told him. “We’re just here to talk. And you can’t go off half-cocked at a man wielding an ax.”
Jackson straightened as they approached, raising his empty hand and wiping his brow with the back of his forearm. “It’s the Jenkins men,” he said. He smiled uncertainly. “Glad to see you. I’ve been wanting to ask after Cora. She feeling better?”
“You don’t even say her name,” Toby growled.
“How’s that?”
Tom kept a hand on Toby’s arm. “You’ve got some explaining to do, son. Cora told her mother everything.”
Jackson’s eyes shifted. “What do you mean?”
“She was pregnant,” Toby spit. “You understand? She didn’t faint from the heat at the fair. She was losing a baby—your baby.”
“I’m so disappointed in you, Jackson.” Tom stepped forward, putting himself between the two younger men. “How could you do that? How could you use our Cora that way?”
Jackson let the ax slip out of his hand and bite the ground. “I never touched her.”
“Liar!” Toby lunged at him, pushed at his chest so hard that Jackson staggered back and almost fell.
“Stop it!” His fa
ther went after him, pulling Toby away before his fist could swing out. “You’re always too quick to jump in. You must listen. Take time to think. Then decide.”
They turned back to Jackson, who was righting himself by touching one hand to the top of the chopping block. “I think I know what’s going on,” he said.
“Yeah,” said Toby. “You’re calling my sister a liar.”
“I’m not. But I think we all could guess, if Cora was in the family way, who is most likely to be the father.” He waited to see the answer in their faces. “After all, it’s not me who’s been walking her home from church, is it? Not me dancing with her or mooning with her in the dark right outside the prayer meeting. Just think about it for a minute. If he’s got her under some kind of spell, some kind of magic, wouldn’t she say anything to protect him?”
They looked less certain now. The anger that tightened their bodies gave and slackened.
Jackson saw his chance and made his low voice smooth and soothing. “Toby, c’mon, you know me. We’ve always been friends. You have to know I wouldn’t do something like this.” He glanced quickly at Tom. “Not when you stop and think about it.”
“We did think about it,” said Tom. “We thought at first it must be him, but when Cora talked to her mother, she was so insistent . . . of course we believed her.” He looked at Toby. “I guess we forgot all about the way she’s been acting. . . .”
“Yes, the way she’s been acting,” echoed Jackson. “You just have to ask yourselves, who does she really love? It’s not me. It’s him.”
* * *
* * *
Robert sat on Violet’s porch, taking the air and cracking walnuts. He pried the broken shells open with his thumbs and worked out the meat in pieces, popping them into his mouth. There was a bowl down on the boards beside his chair to catch the shells and bits of dark skin, so he wouldn’t leave a mess on the freshly swept porch.
He was still chewing bitter grease when he noticed a small figure wobble into the sunlight down the road. He didn’t look up again until it was close enough to hear, and then the skipping sound of small shoes against dirt raised up his smile like a sail. To his surprise, Ali turned in at Violet’s gate and made his way past her carefully tended rose borders. He took the porch steps one at a time, hopping up with both feet.
“You’re back,” said Robert.
“Yup. I got my hands on some more money, and I’d sure like to buy another dream.”
“Oh, yes? Another nightmare? You enjoy that last one?”
“Sure. Sure I did.” Ali shifted his feet. “But it’s not for a nightmare this time. I want a dream where I’m playing in the big leagues.” He held up the baseball he carried.
“I see.”
“I got it all worked out. I’m the star player, best batter they’ve got, and it’s bottom of the ninth, bases loaded.”
“I think I understand.” Robert smiled, studying him. Had the boy’s parents not warned him to stay away? Or had he ignored their warning? “But I don’t know if I can help you. There’ve been some . . . complaints, about me. Your parents wouldn’t like it. And I’m about to close up shop here, see.”
“Oh.” Ali began to throw his ball up toward the porch ceiling, playing catch with himself. “That’s okay.” He was rapidly blinking his eyes.
Robert looked up and down the street, but there was no one about. “I tell you what,” he said. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt to do just one more. Make my wagon a little bit lighter, eh? You wait here. I’ll bring it out for you in two shakes.”
“I’m sorry you’re leaving. It takes me so long to save up enough money. . . . I woulda bought more.”
Robert smiled again. He left Ali still playing with his ball, bouncing it off the pillars of the porch.
Ali threw the ball and caught it. He stepped back a few paces and tried to spin around while the ball was still in the air. He missed, ran to grab it before it rolled off the edge of the porch and into the bushes. By the time he scrambled up, he could see someone passing by in the street, a tall figure carrying a sack over his shoulder.
“Hey,” Jackson called to him. He’d caught sight of Ali up there on the porch and stopped in the street. “Hey, aren’t you Barto’s kid brother?”
“Yeah. So?”
Jackson grinned. “So nothing. Why you waiting around out here? Taking piano lessons with old Violet?”
“Nah.”
Behind Ali the front door opened and Robert stepped outside.
“Oh, it’s you,” said Jackson. He turned in to Violet’s yard and approached them. “I’m surprised you haven’t gone.”
“Not just yet,” said Robert. He eyed Jackson’s bag. “You going on a trip?”
“What do you think you’re doing, messing around with Barto’s little brother?”
“Not a thing. We’re in the middle of a business transaction.”
“Business, huh?” He looked up at Ali. “That true? You come here looking to buy a dream?”
Ali said nothing. He held the baseball tight in his hands.
Jackson set his bag down on the ground and climbed the porch steps. He hunkered down in front of the boy. “Don’t you know how dangerous that can be, hanging around with a strange man? Taking his potions?” When Ali still didn’t answer, Jackson stood up. “You’d better run on home now. And don’t come back here again.”
Ali looked to Robert, who nodded slightly. As the boy passed him, Robert went to slip the dream vial into his hand, but Jackson noticed and snatched it away. He threw it into the garden, where it struck a stone and shattered, weeping into the grass.
“Do you think that was necessary?” Robert asked.
At first it didn’t seem as if Jackson would bother to answer. They watched Ali head back down the road, the white ball lofting up into the sky like a tiny hope trying to take flight.
“He shouldn’t be hanging around near you. I don’t even know what you think you’re still doing here.”
Robert looked into his face. “It was you, wasn’t it? You started that talk. You’ve got them all thinking I . . . can’t be trusted.”
“That’s right. Because you can’t. You don’t have any scruples. Taking advantage even of little kids, taking their money like that.”
“I never took money for something I couldn’t give. Ali came back because the first dream he bought satisfied him. That’s how it works.”
Jackson shook his head. “I don’t believe it. I took one of your so-called dreams, and it didn’t work at all. Just wasted my money.”
“I don’t remember ever selling you anything.”
“I got it from Toby. He’s been selling those dreams you mix him, all along. Probably charges more than you for his trouble, makes himself a nice profit.” He descended the steps and shouldered the bag he had dropped.
“I didn’t realize.”
Jackson laughed. “You must have thought Toby was one lonely sucker.”
“I never thought that.”
Now Jackson turned to look up at him. “The truth is, all this dream selling is just a cheat. A cheap trick. This whole thing with Cora was your fault. I had to do it. The dream Toby gave me didn’t even work.”
Robert drew in his breath. “But, Jackson . . . you can’t expect a dream to change who you are.”
Jackson tilted his head back, veiling his eyes. “And why not? Why can’t I?”
Chapter 26
There were no customers in Jenkins’s store when Evie entered.
“Cora, do you know what you’ve done?”
Cora glanced up from the ledger, over which her lips had been moving in unuttered efforts of addition. “Why, what do you mean?”
She looked into Evie’s eyes and was surprised to see their dismay—and something else that might have been anger, sitting in behind it like stones.
“All these aw
ful things being said about Robert Owens, and he was never anything but kind to you. You know he wasn’t.”
Cora sniffed. “I wouldn’t exactly say he was kind, Mrs. Dawson. He was very hurtful to me.”
Evie threw out her hands in exasperation. “Hurtful to you? Hurtful? Hurtful would have been to drag you away from your family and into a nomad life with him, scraping your way from town to town. He’s too decent for that. And so you thank him by helping that stupid Jackson Banks spread stories about him.”
Cora was not to be cowed. “My parents already think he might have been the one . . . might have been the father. It’s just easier this way. Don’t you see? He will be leaving soon, but the rest of us have to stay here. We have to face the judgment of everyone around us. And I can’t bear that.”
“But no one else understands why you really fainted at the fair. Because of Jackson all they can talk about is Robert Owens and the children. The day he came into town.” She swallowed. “It’s my son, Cora. My beautiful son they’re gossiping about.” The girl looked away from her. “I know this man. I’ve come to know him better than anyone else, and there is absolutely no way he would ever harm a child.”
Cora became thoughtful. “How do you know him? Why do you know him better than anyone else?”
Evie backed a step away from the counter. “It doesn’t matter,” she said.
Cora’s eyes narrowed unhappily. “Oh, I see. I understand it now. And the reason he never liked me, never even looked at me . . .”
She lowered her eyes and tapped her pencil against the ledger. It drummed there faintly, like rain beginning on the roof.
“I didn’t mean to help Jackson tell lies,” she said finally. “But we don’t know they are lies, do we? How can you be so sure? We don’t know what the dream peddler might be capable of. He’s a stranger.”
Evie shook her head. “Not this.”
The bell over the door awoke with a jangle, and Robert Owens came in. He pulled his hat off and held it in front of himself.
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