by Leisha Kelly
He hurried straight through the kitchen and into the sitting room. The girls were in there, just like I knew they’d be, looking wide-eyed and scared at this big man rushing toward them. He grabbed Katie’s arm, and she cringed, bursting immediately into tears.
“Let her go!” I demanded.
He turned to me with his eyes blazing. “I’m not going to hurt her. I’m not going to hurt anybody. All I want to do is talk. So you get these other kids and you get yourself clear out of here. I’ll be done soon enough.”
It had to be from God, the strength I felt. “No.” I told Sarah and Rorey to leave the room. They went, but not far—into the bedroom with Franky and the baby.
I stood my ground. “You’re scaring her. You’re scaring all of us. I will not leave.”
“Fine,” he said. “Keep your mouth shut.”
He turned his face to Katie, and the poor girl crumbled. She tried her best to shield her face from him, but he still held one of her arms.
“Please let her go,” I begged.
“Shut up.” He shook her, just a little, making her look up at his face. “I want you to tell me just exactly what you said about a picture. Tell me about your daddy, girl. Tell me what he looks like.”
She could barely breathe, she was so terrified. But with quick little gasps, she managed to find her voice. “H-he looks like Mr. Wortham, except . . . except real tired and . . . and tall and dark hair and—”
“I know about the hair! What else?”
“I—I think he’s mean. Like you. I—I think he’s scary.”
I thought he was going to hit her. I almost grabbed for her, to pull her away, but he suddenly dropped his hands and let her go. She ran. Straight to me, burying her face in my skirt.
But he wasn’t done. “Sit down, Mrs. Wortham. Just sit down.”
I did. I took her with me to a chair and held her in my arms. “Please,” I started. “Can’t you see—”
“Shut up.” He tried turning her face toward him again, but she held me tight and resisted, leaning into my shoulder and my mussed-up hair. “Now, listen, Katie,” he told her. “We best finish our talking before your crazy Mr. Wortham shows up again. I’ll hurt him. If I see him again right now, I’ll hurt him, and I don’t want to do that, do you understand?”
Katie was crying, and I couldn’t blame her. “Please go,” I told him.
“Shut up,” he said again. “Can’t you see I’m asking for help? Katie, I need to know. Was there anything else? I need to know!”
He was different, somehow. Shaken. I couldn’t understand it. Katie looked up at him, perhaps as puzzled as I was.
“About your daddy. About that picture. Was there anything else?”
“He had a big bird on his arm,” she said. “It kind of looked at me a little.”
I could see Edward swallowing down a deep breath. “Right side up?”
“Yes, sir. Because he had his arm up on the tree. This Mr. Wortham doesn’t have any bird, and I wished he did, but . . . but the sheriff said I could stay anyway.”
“Who told you?”
Katie didn’t answer.
“Who told you, girl? About the blasted bird on his arm! Did Samuel put you up to this? Did he tell you you had to say that if you wanted him to keep you?”
She shook her head. She burst into tears.
“Tell me the truth. Did he tell you what to say?”
“You’re like him,” Katie cried, shaking her head again. “You’re like my daddy was in my dream! All scary and mean. He hit people. He hit my mama.”
Edward stared. First at her. Then at me.
He stood and backed up a step. “Did your mama ever say your daddy’s middle name?”
“No,” Katie whispered. “No.”
He laughed, nervously, strangely. “They’re both Eddies. Did you know that? Samuel Edward Wortham. And he called his second son Samuel Edwin. Why do you figure he did that? Huh? After calling his firstborn Edward Charles? Why is that? Why’d he give his second son his name?”
I swallowed hard. He wasn’t rational. “There’s no way we can answer that,” I told him. “Please. Go.”
“You’re afraid of me.” He shook his head. “Every one of you. Even Samuel. You’re all afraid of me.”
“I’m not.” It was just a little voice from the next room, weaker than I was used to hearing. Oh, Franky, no! My heart thumped immediately. There’s just no telling what this man could do.
Edward turned toward the bedroom. “It’s the hammer boy.”
“Leave him alone. You know he’s hurt.”
He looked at me for a moment and then turned his eyes away. “Yeah. I know.”
The baby started crying. Edward walked into the room. Sarah and Rorey were there by the bed, both of them leaned over Emma Grace, trying to calm her.
Franky was sitting up, away from the pillows, pale, sweating, and angry. “You better leave that girl alone,” he said. “And Mrs. Wortham too.”
Edward just stood for a moment, suddenly seeming paler himself. “What do you think I’m gonna do?”
“God prob’ly thinks you oughta say you’re sorry,” Franky told him.
I was amazed, but no more than Edward was. I saw something crumble in the man. I saw all the anger fall away. He stood for a second, looking confused, not seeming near so large as he had just moments before. “I just come . . .” he said, stammering over the words. “I just come to find out . . .”
He stopped. He looked at Katie. He looked at me. “Just . . . just go back to doin’ whatever . . . whatever you were doin’ . . .”
He backed out of the room, and then we heard him leave the house. After a while, his car started, and we could hear him drive away. Only then did Franky lay back down again. I touched his forehead, but he brushed my hand away.
“I’m okay,” he insisted. “But I’m sure glad he left, ’cause I’m not sure I coulda got no farther up.”
“I hope he don’t never come back,” Rorey said.
Sarah looked up at me, her big eyes brimming with tears just as much as Katie’s were. Baby Emmie just lay there looking at us, as if she were trying to figure out what in the world was wrong.
“I think he’ll have to,” Franky said before closing his eyes. “He’ll have to come back ’least once. ’Cause he knew, when I said he oughta say he’s sorry. He knew.”
Katie was still clinging to me moments later when Samuel came in the door. He found us there by the bed, Katie and Sarah just drying their tears. It was all I could do to hold back a flood of my own. “Oh, Samuel.”
He was a mess—dirty, disheveled, the way Edward had been. His shirt was torn. But the look in his eyes was so much softer. Wounded. “He stopped here. Didn’t he?”
Suddenly I was afraid again. Of Samuel’s reaction. Of what had already happened that I didn’t know about. “He didn’t hurt anyone, Samuel. He seemed confused—”
Sarah jumped forward, taking her father by the waist. “He was scary, Daddy. I was afraid he was going to take Katie away.”
Samuel hugged our little girl, lifted her up in his arms and squeezed her tight. “I’ll have to tell the sheriff. We can’t have him . . . we can’t have him terrorizing you every time I have to go away for something.”
I didn’t like the idea. I don’t know why. Surely Edward would just get tired and go away on his own. We weren’t holding him here. Nothing was holding him.
We tried to get back to the day’s activities. I started dinner. Franky slept. Emmie was up and running, pulling dish towels out of the cupboard and throwing them on the floor. Robert and Willy came home, and Samuel told them to stay by the house the rest of the day. He’d promised to work field with George, but he was going to have to ask Barrett Post for the use of his truck and go into town to talk to the sheriff.
He told me a little about the fight. But not much. Not in front of the kids. He didn’t say much when I told him how Edward had been. He sat and put his face in his hands. He didn’t want to go i
nto town. Not yet. But he didn’t think he had a choice now.
We were just finishing up dinner when Joe came running through the timber to our yard. He came straight to the house all out of breath and burst in without knocking. “Did Harry and Berty eat with you?” he asked, looking around quickly.
We all stared up at him. The little boys had gone home with Lizbeth and had not been back. We told him that.
“They was playin’. We figured they was in the shed.” He looked at Samuel. “They didn’t come in when Lizbeth rung the bell to eat. We ain’t seen ’em since about the time your brother left.”
Those boys. They were so fearless, thinking they were more grown up than they were. More than once I’d thought how easy it would be to lose them in the middle of a day’s tumult.
“Where have you looked?” Samuel asked Joe.
“Everywhere over to home. That’s why I come here. Can I look in your barn? Maybe they’s playin’ with Whiskers somewhere.”
We checked everywhere. Samuel took Willy and Joe with him to double-check the path through the timber, the pond, and our creek.
An anxious hour later, Joe was back to tell me Samuel had sent him to get the Posts and the Muellers to help search the woods. There was no trace of the boys.
I prayed. Sarah wanted to go help them look. When I told her she was just too young, she went upstairs to look out all the high windows. Rorey went outside and climbed a tree.
Franky couldn’t rest now. His mind was working on the problem of his little brothers. “Maybe they decided to go to the school,” he suggested. “They’s anxious to be big enough to go. Or maybe they figgered on walkin’ all the way to Georgie Dixon’s house. They sure like playin’ with him, but the only chance they ever get is on Sunday.”
“I’m sure they’ll think of all that,” I told him. “Try to relax.”
“I don’t wanna relax. Ain’t there somethin’ I can do?”
I brought him beans to snap. Seemed silly, but busy hands make for less worry on the mind.
It was hard waiting and not knowing any way to help. Robert was having an especially hard time, because he thought he was big enough to help search, but Samuel had told him to stay with me.
“It’s because of Uncle Edward,” he complained. “He’s afraid Uncle Edward’ll come back stirrin’ up more trouble. Maybe he took ’em, even. You think he’d take ’em?”
“Not very likely. They weren’t with him when he came by here.”
“Well, maybe he went back over there, Mom. Maybe he done it for spite.”
“Lizbeth or George or somebody’d see him,” I said. “Besides, it’s your father who he’s spiteful toward. If he was going to do anything, he would do it to one of us.”
“I think he’s hateful. The poorest brother I ever heard of. Why can’t he just be like normal folks?”
Two hours passed, maybe more. Kirk came by to see if the boys might have showed up at our place. They still weren’t home. And they must be getting mighty hungry by now, I figured. I prayed some more.
Mr. Mueller and his son stopped at our well for water and then went back to searching. Samuel hadn’t been home. Maybe he wouldn’t be until they were found.
“Is this a bad day?” Katie asked me as I was drawing water to wash Emma Grace’s diapers.
“I guess it is, compared to most.”
“It was a bad day when Mr. Eddie hit that boy with his car too, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. It was. Very bad.”
I lifted the heavy bucket and started back to the house.
“Is most days good days here?”
I had to stop. “Oh, honey. We’ve had some bad things lately, that’s for sure. But it’s not always like this. And it won’t stay this way. They’ll find those little boys soon, and they’ll be just fine. They’re a bit big for their britches, that’s all, thinking they can do whatever they set their minds to. Took to wandering this time, a little too far, I’m sure. They’ll be found.”
She didn’t say much more, just looked at me a little uncertainly. Sarah came up beside us and helped me lift the water bucket. Rorey was still in the tree. And Robert was in the barn, busying himself at something.
Suddenly I heard a car. More searchers, I thought. Maybe somebody’s found them.
“It’s Uncle Edward back,” Sarah said, her face all serious.
“Surely not. Not now.” I looked, hoping to see Barrett or Clement Post or someone else I knew coming to bring us some word.
But Sarah was right. It was Edward again. Katie clung to my skirt in a sudden panic, but Sarah remained strangely calm. “What should we do, Mommy? Should I take Katie in the house and sit with Franky again?”
“Yes. Thank you, honey. You do that.”
I didn’t yell for Robert. He was only a boy. And he’d hear soon enough, anyway. I didn’t wait for Edward to get his car into our drive. Just seeing him come up the lane made something hard well up inside me. Maybe he wanted to frighten us again. Maybe he enjoyed that. But we had enough to think about. And I didn’t want him here, causing my family grief. I’d make him leave. I’d do something.
Seventy times seven.
The words jumped into my skull, but I could hardly bear them. No, Lord. He’s dangerous. Just seeing him’s scaring Katie out of her wits.
I ran toward the road, not knowing for sure what I’d say or what I’d do but knowing I had to get him to leave before he troubled the girls any further. And before Robert got out here, because who knew what might happen then.
I stood at the head of our drive as he pulled up and stopped, still in the roadway.
“Keep going,” I told him. “You’re not touching one of these children again. You’re not welcome here.”
He looked strange, but even so, my hard words didn’t seem to faze him much. “Where’s Samuel?” he asked.
“He’s not here,” I said, making sure I was blocking the drive. “Just go.”
“I need to talk to him.”
“No, you don’t. You’ve already talked to him. You’ve beat him black and blue and spread all kinds of lies. Just go!” I was serious. Furious. But way down in my heart a persistent little voice repeated, Seventy times seven.
I stood my ground, shaking my head and not budging to give him any opportunity to turn in—unless he drove right through the daylilies.
“You can hate me all you want,” Edward said. “That’s fine, and I don’t care. But I mean to find Samuel. Where is he?”
Hate him? The words struck me hard. I couldn’t really hate him, or anybody. Could I? I didn’t want to. It went against all I was taught and all I believed. It went against that still, small voice urging me again and again to forgive.
“I don’t hate you,” I said. “I can’t. But I’m angry. You’ve hurt and frightened innocent children. You’ve attacked my husband when he doesn’t deserve it. But God loves you. I know he does. And I can try to do the same, even though I haven’t seen you do anything but mock and destroy.”
“Just tell me where Samuel is,” he said in a quieter voice.
“I can’t. He’s in these woods somewhere, doing his very best to help his neighbors, something I’m not sure you’ve ever done in your entire life. He’s trying to find two lost little boys, and that’s what you’d be doing if you cared an ounce for anyone besides yourself!”
“Didn’t know nothing about it,” he said without batting an eye. “Besides, there’s boys all over this countryside. I wouldn’t know which ones you’re looking for if they stared me in the face.”
“I don’t suppose you’d care to know. I guess that’s the way you are. But Samuel’s got to help. Because he cares! So he doesn’t have time for you to be hitting him again, or for any more of your accusations. If you’ve got anything new to say, just tell me now, and I’ll tell him when he gets home. Whenever that’ll be.”
I couldn’t help it. Tears were running down my cheeks. I tried to stop them, but they wouldn’t be stopped. Out of the corner of my eye, I
could see Robert coming toward us. Please, God, I prayed. Make Edward leave. Make him leave now, before there’s any tussle between them. I don’t want my little boy hurt.
Edward didn’t say anything. Not another word. He looked at me, he nodded just a bit. Then he turned his car around in the road and drove away, on toward the Posts’ house. And I didn’t care where he went, so long as he was gone.
Robert came up beside me, and I hugged him with a prayer in my heart. Thank you, God, for helping me tell Edward one more time that you love him. Thank you for helping me, that he left so peacefully. And forgive me, Lord. Because I’m trying to forgive. But I never want to see him again.
TWENTY - SIX
Samuel
I didn’t know how long I’d been out, calling and calling those boys’ names. I was getting more sore with every step, but I wasn’t about to go back and bellyache about it now. I just kept trudging on, circling through our timber and then following the creek beyond it. I’d found one track. One tiny little bare footprint in the creek mud, and that was enough to keep me going this direction.
I knew how Harry loved to play Indian. Maybe he’d just taken it a little too far and decided to make camp in the trees somewhere. I could relate to that, though when I was a boy the woods where we played had been barely a fraction of the size of this one.
Strange how the memories circled through my mind as I walked. Dewey and I balancing branches against a low-hanging limb to make ourselves a little lean-to. We’d made a ring of rocks and filled it with sticks too, though we never managed to get a real fire going. I’d pretended to really live there. I’d pretended we were Wampanoag Indians with a bear paws symbol. And nobody could find us if they didn’t understand our password and the way we marked a trail. A child’s foolishness. A child’s escape.
A flock of birds burst into flight in front of me, but I went on, wishing that all of us had ways of letting each other know if we found anything significant. The Posts had had their hunting rifles with them, and Joe Hammond had grabbed his squirrel rifle too. They would fire a shot in the air if the boys were found. But I didn’t own a gun, to the amusement of some of my neighbors.