The Outlaws of Sherwood Street: Giving to the Poor

by Peter Abrahams

  “I’m going to smack you,” I said—not nice, I know, although I always got a bit charged hearing Ashanti say it to him.

  Ashanti went in first, hanging by the edge and then dropping down. I turned to Silas. “You’re up.”

  “I like being last.”

  “Some other time.”

  Silas crouched, wriggled around, and lowered himself over the edge, clinging to the surface with his hands.

  “Just let go,” Ashanti called up. “It’s not far.”

  “It feels far.”

  “I managed,” Ashanti said.

  “Does everything have to be a competition?” Silas said. “Oh, my God—I’m slipping.” He lost his grip and dropped down, landing with a thud. “Ow,” he called out.

  “You all right?” I said.

  “Scale of one to ten? Three.”

  “Could be worse,” I said, dropping down into the hole and sticking my landing smoothly, gymnastics-style. “Let’s explore.”

  “Or not,” Silas said.

  Ashanti shone the light into the tunnel—yes, a tunnel for sure, stretching away into murky gloom.

  “Don’t know about you,” Silas said, rubbing his hands together the way people do after a job well done, “but I’ve seen enough.”

  We headed into the tunnel, Ashanti first, with the light, then Silas, then me. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all hard-packed dirt. After just a few steps, we came to what looked like the roots of a big tree sticking out of the right-hand wall.

  “Hmmm,” said Silas. “Member of the oak family, not much doubt about that. The tree itself being long gone, of course.”

  “Kind of a metaphor,” Ashanti said.

  “For what?” said Silas.

  Ashanti ran her fingers over the twisted root ends. “How come it’s warm in here?” she said.

  “The earth’s got a molten iron core,” Silas said. “It’s really one big magnet.”

  “You’re saying we’re closer to the core of the earth?” I said.

  “A little.”

  “Enough to make it warmer?”

  “Just a theory,” said Silas.

  We moved farther along the tunnel, all eyes on the point where the end of the flashlight beam dissolved into shadow. I saw the tail of a worm poke through the ceiling and wriggle around, as though trying to figure out what to make of this space, just like us.

  “What’s that sound?” Ashanti said.

  We stopped and listened. At first I heard nothing, and then—

  “Water,” Silas said. “Running water.”

  “The spring?” I said.

  No one answered. We kept going, the sound of running water growing louder. Then, maybe after we’d gone fifty feet or so—my sense of distance didn’t seem to work well down in the tunnel—the sound went fainter. We stopped. Ashanti turned back, patting her hand along the wall. Then she began scratching at it.

  “A cave-in right now wouldn’t be good,” Silas said, his voice much quieter than normal.

  “Hold the light for me,” Ashanti said.

  I held the light. She scraped away at the wall. Dirt fell to the floor in little clumps, damper the deeper Ashanti got. When she’d dug a strip maybe a foot long and three inches deep, she motioned us closer.

  I leaned in with the light. Ashanti had exposed something rusty.

  “What’s that?” I said.

  “A pipe,” said Silas. He ran his fingernail along it; flakes of rust fell to the ground. “A real old one.” We could hear running water in it, very clearly. Silas scraped out more dirt and now we could see the rounded curve of the pipe. “Judging by this segment, I’d say it’s a pretty big pipe,” Silas said. “Maybe three feet in diameter.”

  “Meaning how big around?” I said.

  “Just use the formula,” Silas told me.

  “That doesn’t come till eighth grade,” Ashanti said.

  “Is that my fault?” said Silas. “I’m in zero grade—why do I know?”

  I was on the point of finding the primo sarcastic retort when I felt a soft vibration under my feet.

  “What’s going on?” I said.

  “An earthquake?” said Ashanti.

  “That would be rare to the vanishing point in this particular—” Silas began, cutting himself off as the vibration grew, spread to the walls and ceiling, although it was strongest under the floor, and now came a rumble, growing louder. Dirt got shaken loose from the ceiling, as well as little pebbles, and rained down on us. I felt something moving in my hair. The worm! “Gah!” I cried, or some frightened nonword like that, and swept the slimy thing away with my hand.

  But no one could have heard me, the rumble now so loud. We clung to each other, the flashlight beam sweeping around wildly, our whole world shaking. The rumble built to a roar, then steadied and began to lessen, fading and fading. The tunnel grew steady again, and the dirt rain stopped falling. It grew very quiet, seemingly quieter than before, nothing to hear but the water flowing in the pipe and our own breathing.

  “The train,” Silas said. “There must be a subway line right under our feet.”

  One thing for sure, and that I’d never considered: a lot went on underground. “What about the pipe?” I said. “Is that how they diverted the spring?”

  “Makes sense,” said Silas. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it comes out under the East River somewhere, or maybe in the harbor.”

  I shone the light around: at the carpet of loose dirt now coating the floor; at the section of rusty pipe, where a thin trickle of water, almost nothing at all, had appeared, unless I’d missed it before; and down along the tunnel, where light got swallowed up by dark.

  “So, that’ll do it, right?” said Silas. “We’ve had a nice recon, and what goes down better after a nice recon than a steaming cup of hot chocolate?”

  “Don’t you want to see what else is down here?” I asked him.

  “Not desperately.”

  “Then go back up and wait,” Ashanti said.

  Silas rocked back and forth on his heels, like he was considering it.

  “Nah,” I said. “Silas doesn’t want to do that.”

  “I don’t?”

  “Not deep down.”

  Silas thought about that. “Maybe I’ll hang around a bit longer.”

  We started down the tunnel.

  “Meaning three or four minutes,” added Silas, trailing behind me. “Tops.”

  The sound of running water faded as we moved away from the pipe. At the same time, the tunnel narrowed—not just the walls, but the ceiling, too, sloping lower and lower. We all had to crouch, and were at the point of getting down on all fours when something whitish gleamed at the end of our cone of light.

  “What is that?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” said Ashanti, stopping so abruptly I bumped into her. I felt her fear, and I didn’t know anyone more fearless than Ashanti. Her fear spread to me and became my own. But then the truth hit me. I moved forward, my shadow falling on the whitish things.

  “This is the proof Mr. Wilders needs,” I said.

  The others came up and joined me. In a shallow, squarish pit, lay three skeletons, a big one, a slightly less big one, and a small one. The two big skeletons lay on their sides, facing each other—if you could say facing when talking about skulls—and the small one lay on its back in between. Rotten bits of animal skin clothing—leggings, moccasins—were scattered around, and there was also a beaded neck pouch not unlike those in the glass case at the museum.

  We stared down. After a while, the little grouping, lit by the slightly unsteady light, lost its power to shock.

  “See that?” Silas said, pointing to the biggest skull. “That’s a bullet hole.”

  The shock came back again and hit me full force.

  Silas knelt and felt a
round. “I bet if I— Yes!” He grabbed something, held it on his palm. We leaned in.

  “What’s that?” I said.

  “A musket ball,” Silas said.

  “Ball?” said Ashanti. “It’s not very round.”

  “That’s because it’s made of lead,” Silas said. “Real soft, so it would get flattened by impact with something hard. Like bone.”

  I turned to the . . . what to call them? Little family? That was what sprang to mind, maybe on account of the resemblance to my own family: dad, mom, kid. The basic model. A hole in the head, not much bigger than an M&M—that was all it took. I thought of Tut-Tut, all that remained from his basic model.

  Meanwhile I was shining the light deeper down the tunnel. It seemed to come to an end just a few feet past the skeletons, a good thing, because I didn’t like the idea of stepping over them, and there was no room to go around.

  “Why not call him right now?” Ashanti said.

  I took out my phone. No service.

  “Then let’s—” I began, but then the ground started vibrating again as another train came rumbling through, now more beside us than below us, and even closer. It shook the little family in a way I didn’t like seeing at all, and clicked and clacked their bones.

  “Five bucks says the wall of the station is less than a foot away,” Silas said.

  “You don’t have five bucks,” said Ashanti. “We’ve established that already.”

  We retraced our steps, returning to the hole in the ground that had been topped by the wooden cover.

  “Here’s a problem,” Silas said.

  No doubt about that: the lip we’d hung from was out of reach.

  “You’ll have to boost us up,” Ashanti said.

  “Try your levitating thing,” Silas said.

  “It won’t work,” Ashanti said. I knew she was right from the cold feel of the charm, refusing to pitch in. “What’s going on with it, anyway?” Ashanti went on. “Why can’t we have some normal magic? How much injustice does it need?”

  None of us had an answer.

  Silas boosted Ashanti up, and then me, grunting both times way more than necessary. She and I leaned down, each grabbing one of his upraised hands, and pulled him up. We replaced the trapdoor and spread dirt over it, filling in the depression, and then stamped around to make everything appear undisturbed, probably not a worry, because snow had started to fall.

  “Yes!” said Silas, checking his cell phone. “How will we find the exact spot, you’re probably asking? Answer—the magic of GPS! Just imagine if all the old explorers had carried this!”

  Then there would have been nothing to imagine. I kept that thought to myself.

  “Then there would have been nothing to imagine,” Ashanti said.

  Silas opened his mouth to reply, but maybe couldn’t think of anything, and ended up looking a little downcast.

  I scanned all around, saw we had the pit to ourselves, no other people but us in sight.

  “Time to call your dad,” Ashanti told Silas.

  “What for?”

  “To tell him what we found,” Ashanti said. “What else?”

  Silas shook his head. “You do it.”

  Ashanti gave Silas a look and called the museum; Mr. Wilders had gone for the day. She asked for his number, saying it was important, the kind of follow-up request I wouldn’t have had the nerve to make. The woman on the other end took Ashanti’s number instead and said she’d pass it on to the professor. Then there was nothing to do but zigzag our way back up the slope of the pit, headed for the gap under the fence. The snow made it even slipperier now, so sometimes we had to use our hands. After a while, I looked up and saw we had far to go. I also thought I saw a pair of eyes watching through one of the observation slots. When I checked again, the slot was empty.

  16

  This is working out,” Ashanti said.

  “Yeah?” I said. “Like how?”

  We’d parted with Silas—on his way to his apartment, rent-controlled but it also had a doorman—and were walking down our own street, close to home.

  Ashanti shrugged. “We did our part. Wilders can take over now.”

  That sounded right to me and led to another thought. “Maybe we should give him the charm.”

  “Why?”

  “To help him.”

  Ashanti shook her head. “We’ve been through this—the charm picked you.”

  “How come?” I said. “Just because I gave that old lady some change a couple of times? Probably not even two dollars, all together?”

  “What makes you think it’s the amount that matters?” Ashanti said.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s not get crazy.”

  “Way too late for that, girl,” Ashanti said.

  We laughed, and were still laughing when we reached Ashanti’s stoop. Her front door opened, and her dad came out, zipping up his jacket and moving the way people do when they’re in a hurry.

  “Hey, Ashanti,” he said. “How’re you doing?”

  “Good, Dad.”

  “Excellent. Hi, uh, Robbie. You guys look like you’ve been having fun. Gonna let an old guy in on the joke?”

  Ashanti’s dad didn’t appear the least bit old, actually looked even more handsome than before, his square-jawed face marred only by a fresh but tiny shaving cut under the chin.

  “We were just goofing around,” Ashanti said.

  “Why not? You’re on vacation. Coming inside, Robbie? Totally welcome, of course. Just so you both know, Ashanti’s mom’s napping right now, in case you planned to turn it up to eleven.”

  “Oh, Dad,” Ashanti said, “you’re hopeless.”

  “I’m headed home anyway,” I said.

  “Nice seeing you,” Ashanti’s father said. He turned to her. “I won’t be more than a couple of hours. Anything special you want me to bring back for dinner?”

  “Something warm,” Ashanti said.

  “Done,” her father said; he hurried off, one of those real fast walkers. I glanced at Ashanti, almost said something.

  “What?” she said.

  “Nothing.”

  • • •

  Dad was at the kitchen table, a stack of books in front of him.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  “Hi.” He rubbed his eyes. “Did you see Jane out there?”

  “No.”

  “She’s taking Pendleton for another walk—three today, so far.”

  More than usual? Was that the point?

  “Dickens was a great walker,” my dad said.

  “The Christmas Carol guy?”

  “Yeah. He walked for miles and miles, thinking up his stories.”

  “Mom’s thinking up a story?”

  “Thinking, anyway,” he said. “But I’m the one who’s supposed to be coming up with a story.” He nodded toward the stack of books. I checked the writing on the spines. They were all by George Gentry, the guy behind the eighty-grand ghostwriting gig, and had titles like: Scorched Earth, Blood Feud, False Witness.

  “You’re taking the job, Dad?”

  “Haven’t decided.” He made a backhand gesture at the books, full of contempt. “I’ve been reading up, if reading is the word for force-marching your eyes through miles of lifeless print.”

  “So you don’t like it?”

  My dad gave me a quick look to see if I was making fun of him, and seemed to decide that I wasn’t. “His method is to pile one cliché on top of another till he reaches a hundred thousand words.”

  “Meaning your job will be easy?”

  Now he gave me another look, much longer. Then his expression changed, and he started laughing. He laughed and laughed. Tears rolled down his face—that’s a cliché, yes, but I couldn’t think of another way to put it. Uh-oh. Did tears from laughter count as crying? I’d never seen my
dad cry before; I started to get uneasy.

  He wiped his eyes on the back of his sleeve, chuckled a few last chuckles. “You’re a great kid—know that?”

  “What did I do?”

  He didn’t answer, just gave me a big smile.

  I picked up the top book in the stack, which happened to be Dead Man’s Tale. On the front was a brightly colored picture of a pair of dice lying in a pool of blood.

  “It’s about a one-armed detective in Las Vegas?” I said.

  “And guess what?” my dad said. “He’s right-handed, and the arm he lost in Iraq was his left one.”

  “I don’t understand. That’s good, right?”

  “For the imaginary detective, maybe,” my dad said. “But not for the story. For the story, you have to push things farther than that. How much more interesting to see the bad arm forced to learn on the job.”

  Hey! I’d never heard my dad sound this way, like . . . like an expert.

  “And then,” he said, “there’s the whole problem of what kind of story to put the stupid guy in, what the mystery’s all about.” He pointed his chin at George Gentry’s books. “They’re pretty much all the same—a gorgeous but possibly double-dealing woman gets involved with dangerous Vegas types and the detective steps in.” My dad sighed and covered his face. “I’d rather die,” he said.

  “How about doing something with Native Americans?” I said. The suggestion just popped out, but not exactly from nowhere.

  He spread his fingers. Through that sort of screen I saw his eyes slowly lighting up. “Indians in Nevada? Like from one of the ancient tribes? Shoshone, say? And it turns out that the detective—”

  “The detective what, Dad?”

  But he’d picked up his phone and was punching in a number, didn’t seem aware of me at all.

  “Eleanor Stine, please,” he said, his eyes gazing into some far distance, his intensity something I could feel across the kitchen table. “Eleanor? Chas Forester here. Please tell George Gentry’s people that the answer is yes. I’ll take the job.”

  • • •

  My mom and Pendleton came home just in time for my dad to invite her out to dinner. She looked so tired and worried, big circles around her eyes, but as my dad told her the George Gentry story—putting me center stage, which felt great, even though I didn’t deserve it—her expression changed completely, the circles around her eyes just about vanishing, a transformation that amazed me. Family: yes! For a few moments, I forgot all about my secret life and the problems that came with it.