The Buried Book

by D. M. Pulley

  Pride over his achievement was short-lived as he read the words again and thought of his mother sitting on Old Mr. Hoyt’s lap with his pale face and sagging frown.

  August 14, 1928

  Well, that was unexpected. I showed up at Mr. Hoyt’s farm today just as planned to go and help his wife, Alice. I expected to do dishes, wash clothes, and other horrible hand-cracking things. Instead, Mr. Hoyt met me at the front door and led me straight away into the barn.

  “You seem like a real bright girl, Althea,” he said as he closed the door.

  “I do? I was just thinking the opposite,” I said. Mrs. Hoyt was nowhere to be seen and Mr. Hoyt had on that strange smile again.

  “How’d you like to make some real money?” he asked and put an arm around my shoulder. “Pretty girl like you can go far.”

  “What do you mean?” Being a girl has never been anything but a burden to me on the farm, and something told me that wasn’t about to change.

  “You ever tried giggle water?” he asked. He went over to a corner of his barn and pulled out a big brown jug. He bit the cork out and waved it under my nose. Whatever was inside burned my nostrils.

  “No, sir.” I took a big step back and eyed the door. Whatever he was suggesting was sounding pretty bad to me.

  “Good. I don’t want you sampling the wares.” He rammed the cork back into the neck of the jug. “I need you to make deliveries.”

  “Deliveries?” I felt the squirrels in my stomach quiet down. I could make deliveries.

  “Can you drive a horse cart?”

  “Of course. Papa’s been having me drive since I was six.”

  “Excellent. I’ll load up a cart, and you’ll drive it to the places I say. Understand?”

  “Is that all?” No washing, no chopping wood. Just driving. It was too good to be true. I would just have to ignore what Papa says about those types of things. Papa and I don’t agree on much anyhow.

  “Yep. Got my first delivery tomorrow. Can you be here at three?” he asked.

  I agreed and followed him out of the barn past that pathetic little horse of his. I paused to look at the colt. I don’t know why I asked, “What’s his racing name going to be?”

  Mr. Hoyt started laughing that hot-air laugh again and said, “You wanna name it?”

  I shook my head and told him I didn’t. I’ve always been bad luck.

  “Hey, kid. Get your nose out of that book before someone sees you.” Wayne smacked it out of Jasper’s hand and handed him a shovel. “We have to clean out the stalls today. You know, I really don’t think you should be reading that.”

  “I thought you said it didn’t matter since she’s not here.” Jasper scowled at his cousin and snatched the book off the dirt.

  “Well, maybe I was wrong. Maybe this stuff isn’t for a little kid to read. Ever think of that?” Wayne grabbed the diary and shoved it back between the siding boards. “Just don’t let Pop find you reading it.”

  Jasper’s eyes widened at how easily his cousin had crept up on him. He made a mental note to be more careful. It also occurred to him that Wayne with the disapproving look in his eye might just take the book away himself. He’d have to find a new hiding spot.

  The two boys spent that Saturday morning shoveling manure out of the barn and laying down fresh straw. Every time a car rolled down Harris Road, Jasper would stop in his tracks and wait for that rusted pickup to appear. It never did.

  After lunch came and went, Jasper realized his dad probably wasn’t coming.

  Around three o’clock that afternoon, Wayne came and found him sitting under a tree by Sally’s well. The stone cap was back in its place, and the ground no longer stank of bile and blood. The tree where he sat still had scars from where the tieback ropes had broken the bark.

  “Hey. You alright?” Wayne kicked his boot.

  Jasper shrugged. His first week of school had been relatively uneventful. He’d learned the names of everyone in all the grades but hadn’t made any real friends yet, except Miss Babcock. But she didn’t really count.

  “Say, I know what’ll cheer you up. I think I just convinced the old man to take us into Burtchville after supper. Want to go try roller-skating?”

  “Do you really think your pop will let me go?” Jasper leapt to his feet with only one thing on his mind. According to that sheriff at the Tally Ho, Big Bill knew his mother.

  “Sure. Go get changed.”

  The roller rink was called Mr. G’s Skating Club. Uncle Leo dropped the two boys off with fifty cents each. “Be back in a couple hours. You two better stay out of trouble. Understood?”

  Both boys nodded as they scrambled out of the truck. Wayne went racing to the door, but Jasper stopped and turned to his uncle. “Thank you, sir. I’m . . .” He couldn’t find the words for what he wanted to say. It was somewhere between a sorry and a thank-you. He was still a guest in his uncle’s house and didn’t know when either of his parents might come back for him.

  Uncle Leo waved a hand at him. “Try to have some fun. Go on and git.”

  Jasper nodded and ran after Wayne.

  The roller rink looked like a big blue barn from the outside, but inside it was like nothing Jasper had ever seen. Big flashing lights of every color lit up the walls and the polished wood floor. Music blared over the loudspeaker, and what seemed like hundreds of kids were racing by in a squealing blur. There were food stands lining the edges of the rink, selling hot dogs, soda pop, and penny candy. The smell of fresh popcorn hung in a buttery fog over everything.

  Wayne was over at the main counter getting a pair of roller skates. Each pair cost fifty cents to rent for two hours. Jasper had never skated before in his life and watched with fascination as his cousin traded his filthy work boots for a pair of green-and-red shoes with shiny black wheels on the bottom.

  “Ain’t nothin’ to it!” Wayne said, lacing up the skates. He stood up and spun around Jasper in a tight circle. “Go get yourself a pair. I’ll be out there.”

  With that, Wayne flew off to the rink to join the other boys and girls circling the floor. A clinking piano rang out over the PA. A brassy woman’s voice belted out a song about candy.

  A grizzled giant stood behind the counter, oiling up skates. He had gray stubble all over his fat cheeks and a half-chewed cigar hanging from his mouth. He tested the roll of a skate with a hand that looked tough enough to crush stone. His name tag read “Bill.” From his enormous belly, Jasper could only assume this was the Big Bill that might know where his mother had gone.

  “Ex—excuse me?” Jasper stepped up to the counter.

  “Can I help you?” the man barked.

  “Um . . . I—I don’t know.”

  “You’re gonna have to speak up, kid.” Bill pointed to his ear.

  “Are you . . . are you Big Bill? From Steamboat’s?” Jasper shouted as loud as he dared.

  The man dropped the rag in his hand and let the skate roll down the counter. “What the hell you know about Steamboat’s?”

  “Not . . . nothin’ really. I heard my dad talkin’ about it.”

  “Who?” The man seemed angry. He snatched the skate and stuffed it back in a cubby below the counter.

  Jasper’s feet wanted to run, but he forced them to stay put. This might be his only chance. “I think . . . I think you knew my mom?”

  “Did I?” Bill lowered his elbows to the counter and glowered over the edge at Jasper, who was feeling shorter by the second.

  “Her name is Althea. Althea . . . Williams.” Jasper guessed Bill wouldn’t know her married name.

  The man’s hard face softened into a grin. He straightened up and laughed. “Althea Williams. Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch. You’re Althea’s boy? Let me look at ya.” Bill grabbed him by the chin and studied his face. “Yep. You sure are, aren’t ya?”

  He stubbed out his cigar and lumbered out from behind the rental desk. Clapping Jasper hard on the shoulder, he led him to a bench and sat him down.

  “What’s your
name, boy?”

  “Jasper. Jasper Leary.”

  “What’s your pop’s name?”

  All the questions were making him nervous, but he answered, “Wendell Leary.”

  “Don’t know him. Hmm. Your mom was really somethin’, kid. Used to turn heads and then some. What’s she up to now?” Big Bill craned his neck and scanned the walls, looking for her.

  “I—I don’t know.” He didn’t want to say any more, he realized. He’d probably already said too much. Jasper’s heart tightened thinking about her car hidden away in the woods. What if she was hiding too?

  The consternation must have been written all over his face, because Bill nodded ever so slightly. “You don’t know.”

  Jasper didn’t say a word.

  “Huh. Wish I could say that surprises me. Althea had a way of finding trouble. Or letting trouble find her.”

  Jasper couldn’t help but ask more. “I heard that once she sorta . . . blew up something and that you . . . you might’ve shot her?”

  Bill raised his eyebrows but looked a little less amused. “Sounds like someone’s been listening to other people’s stories.”

  Jasper shrugged and studied his feet. The man wasn’t wrong. “Did she work for you?”

  “She worked over at the old diner for a while. Back when she was just a messed-up kid. Like I said, trouble seemed to find Althea wherever she went, but I’d have never shot her. Besides, I don’t think that fire was all her fault. She’d gone and got herself mixed up with them wild folks over at the res. Motega came in and started raising hell. I warned her to stay away from him.”

  “Motega?”

  “Hey, little snooper. Don’t get any ideas about pokin’ around over there. Black River ain’t no place for a kid. People get killed messin’ around up there. Heard a bunch of ’em just got run up for murder. That poor girl . . .”

  “What girl?”

  Big Bill shot him a warning look. “You better just start mindin’ your own business.”

  Wayne sailed by on skates and gave him a scowl. Jasper hardly noticed. What girl?

  The giant man next to him nodded like he could hear the wheels turning in Jasper’s head. “Shoot. You’re just like her, ain’t ya?”

  Jasper straightened his back. “No. I’m not.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ to be ashamed of. Not really. I always did have a soft spot for Althea. She was such a beauty. Too bad she couldn’t help stickin’ her nose where it didn’t belong. You can see where that got her.” The man patted him on the back.

  The unwanted gesture made weeks of anger boil up in Jasper’s blood. He stood up and shouted, “Have you seen her or not?”

  Big Bill chuckled and stood up from the bench. He made Jasper follow him all the way back to the counter before he answered, “Nope. Not in a while. But you tell her to come see me when you find her. She and I should talk.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The man didn’t answer. He just studied the boy’s face like he was looking for something that was missing. Two men walked up to the counter, and Big Bill turned his attention to them. “Perry! Taki! How you boys doin’ tonight?”

  “Just fine, William. Looks like business is booming.” The older man grinned. He had silver hair and thick black eyebrows. He set a briefcase down on the counter. “Who knew this roller-skating was such a gold mine?”

  “It’s these kids. What can I say? Seven days a week, they love it. The money practically prints itself.” Bill rolled a pair of skates over to Jasper. “That’ll be fifty cents, kid.”

  Jasper knew it was his cue to leave, but he couldn’t give up that easily. “What did you want to tell her?”

  The two men turned and raised their bushy eyebrows at him. The second, younger man looked like he’d been in a fight. His face was a map of cuts and bruises.

  Big Bill just laughed. “Sorry, kid. I haven’t seen your little friend. Now, go have fun.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Don’t you want to identify all potential suspects? Then answer the question.

  Jasper woke up early the next morning to the dull thump of Aunt Velma throwing fresh logs in the woodstove on the other side of the curtain. Wayne was still snoring at the other end of the bed. Jasper waited until the front door opened and shut again and the cabin went quiet before sitting up.

  Utter relief washed over him when he felt the dry mattress. He climbed out of bed in silence and pulled on his clothes in the pink morning light filtering in from the window. Wayne rolled over but kept on snoring. Jasper carried his shoes to the door, not putting them on until he was out on the porch.

  Twenty feet behind the cabin, he caught sight of his aunt disappearing into the outhouse. With the coast clear, he scuttled across the driveway and into the barn. The cows stirred in their pens as he slipped by them to the far corner under the feed bins where his mother’s book was waiting.

  August 15, 1928

  It was just as easy as he said it would be. I showed up at Mr. Hoyt’s barn at three o’clock, and he had a cart loaded with ten brown jugs like the one he’d had me smell.

  “Now, just take this up to Burtchville to a little café called Steamboat’s. It’s on Lake Road. When you get there, ask for Big Bill. Can you do that?” he asked.

  I told him I could.

  “If anybody stops you to ask, I want you to tell ’em you’re haulin’ buttermilk. Alright? And if anybody wants to check, let him sniff the last jug on the right.”

  He pointed to a jug that looked like all the others. I must’ve looked worried, because then he said, “Don’t worry. No one’s going to stop and bother a sweet young thing like you. Just look like your papa will whup you if you’re late, and they’ll let you go.”

  “Steamboat’s. Big Bill. No problem,” I said and took off with Hoyt’s rickety old mare, Josie. The cart creaked and squeaked the whole way, and the jugs clanked and rattled as I tried to forget what Mr. Hoyt had called me. He’d called me a “thing.” I passed four carts on the road, but no one even looked at me sideways.

  Steamboat’s was a small six-table restaurant just like the others that lined Lake Road. You could only pick it out by the tiny handwritten sign hanging from two hooks over the door, but I found it. When I walked in, there was nobody there but an old lady behind the lunch counter. I begged her pardon and asked, “Is there a Big Bill here?”

  “You got a delivery? He’s in the back.” Her voice sounded like a rusty nail, and I wondered if she knew what I was delivering. Mr. Hoyt called it “giggle water,” but the lady looked like she hadn’t laughed in years.

  I pulled the cart around to the back of the restaurant and found an enormous man with black hair sitting on a stool by the grease trap. It smelled worse than any gut wagon I’d ever whiffed, and I almost lost my lunch on his splattered apron.

  “Are you Big Bill?” I asked.

  He just looked up at me with his fat, stubbled face and didn’t say a word.

  “I’ve got a delivery from um . . . Mr. Hoyt.”

  Big Bill smiled with these big yellow teeth biting a cigar and asked, “You got a name, cupcake?”

  Cupcake. How do you like that? I didn’t know if I should tell him my name. I would have given him a fake one if I could’ve thought that fast. “Althea,” I said, dumb girl that I am.

  “Nice to meet you, Althea.” Then he shook my hand like I was an actual grown-up and not a cupcake at all. “Let’s see what you got.”

  After he unloaded the jugs and placed them in the back room of the restaurant, he did something absolutely shocking. He gave me ten one-dollar bills like it was nothing. “You tell Hoyt I said hello.”

  “Yes, sir!” And then I just hightailed it out of there before Big Bill could change his mind. I had half a mind to just drive right on past Hoyt’s farm and head to the next town with the cash. I played the fantasy out in my head the whole ride home. I’d get a room in a boardinghouse. I’d say I was fifteen and looking for work. Maybe I’d get a job with a seamstress or at
a diner. If anyone asked about my family, I’d say I was an orphan.

  It was a good plan, but I couldn’t seem to keep the horse on the road to Croswell. Instead, Old Josie found her way back to Hoyt’s barn, and I gave him his ten dollars. I nearly fell out of my shoes when he handed one of the dollars to me. It was the first whole dollar of my very own.

  “See, now that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  I just stared at that green paper.

  “I’m sure you understand that I’d like to keep this little transaction between us. Don’t you, Althea? Can we make this our little secret?”

  I didn’t say nothing. I was too busy calculating. The dollar in my hand was enough to buy a new dress.

  “You keep that dollar for yourself. You earned it. Now here’s a dime for the housework you did for Alice. Go and give that to your daddy, alright?”

  And that’s just what I did.

  “Jasper? Is that you down there?” It was his aunt standing at the entrance to the barn.

  “Uh. Yeah.” Jasper turned toward her, stuffing the book down into the hay behind him.

  “What are you doing back there?” She walked over to him with an empty milk bucket in each hand.

  “Oh . . . I . . . uh,” Jasper scrambled for an answer. “I thought I heard a rat rustlin’ around. I really wanted to catch one.”

  “Good God. Why?”

  “I thought . . . it’d make a fun pet?” He didn’t mean to make it a question. It just came out that way.

  “Nuh-uh. Not in my house.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, since you’re out here, might as well make yourself useful. Here.” She handed him a bucket and pointed him to a stool near one of the cows’ gigantic pink udders. He settled down next to the animal and began pulling milk until his aunt went back to the house.

  The minute her white apron turned the corner, he rushed back to the book. He read the entry again, letting his eyes linger on the words Big Bill for a moment before tucking it back in its hiding place.