I was standing on the edge of the woods, about twenty yards away from the stream that wound down to the mine where Pa and Uncle Nick were still working. I looked up. Overhead the pine trees were tall and mostly filled up the blue of the sky. Then I looked down at my feet. Pine needles. Dead, fallen pine needles by the thousands—maybe the millions—were scattered all through the woods.
I thought about looking at them closer, like Mr. Thoreau did with the ice. So I lay down on the ground, flat, with my elbows in the grass and dirt and my head propped on my hands about six inches from the ground. And I just stared at the earth.
Then I picked up several of the pine needles and examined them. They were in little clumps of three, held together by the most curious stuff at one end that easily ground away to a tan powder when you rubbed it between your fingers.
Why did God make it so that three needles were hooked together? I wondered.
What a great notion, to have the needles die every year and fall from the tree when new ones come. And what a nice carpet they made for the forest floor! I scooped through the grass and pine needle carpet with one of my hands. The pine needle mass was two or three inches thick! To have gotten that thick, they must have been falling right in that spot for years and years—maybe hundreds, or even thousands of years. And yet probably no person, no human being had looked right there at those pine needles ever since God made the world. That little spot of ground might have been sitting there for thousands of years, just waiting for me to come along on this day and lie down and play with the ground with my fingers, and wonder about the things that came to my mind because of it!
I got up and brushed my hands off on my dress, then went back to the rock where I’d been sitting and wrote about the pine needles in my journal.
I don’t suppose I’ll ever be a Thoreau, I thought to myself as I read over what I wrote a few minutes later, but I reckon I have to start somewhere. More than likely Mr. Thoreau never figured a girl from California would be reading his words when he first wrote them in his journal either. That’s just how I felt when reading over my journal nine years later to make a book out of things I wrote. I never dreamed anyone else would ever see them. And I knew what Mr. MacPherson would say the minute he saw this chapter about ice and pine needles and my thoughts about Mr. Thoreau’s Walden. He’d say, “Get rid of that kind of stuff, Corrie! People want to hear what you did and what happened, not always what you’re thinking about. You’re too pensive for your own good!”
I had to ask him what “pensive” meant, and he said it meant a person who was always losing himself in thinking and pondering things. So I told him that’s why I kept a journal, because I liked to think to myself on paper. He just humphed and shrugged, muttering something about young women and their “unhealthy cogitations”—whatever that was. But he didn’t need to worry, because plenty was going to “happen” before long.
In the meantime, my afternoon with Thoreau and Walden and my journal was over and I walked back across the creek. I’d completely forgotten about the apprehension I’d felt a couple of hours before.
As I approached the house, I saw Katie with Becky and Emily off toward a clump of oaks that bordered the clearing where the cabin stood.
“What are you doing?” I asked, walking up.
“Watering my grass,” said Becky.
“And my moss,” added Emily.
“It’s starting to green up real nice,” said Katie. “I think it survived the trip.”
I said to myself that I’d have to make a point to come back here alone. It would be interesting to study the two little growths up close, like Mr. Thoreau would, and see if there was any difference between the green, growing things of Virginia and California.
Chapter 33
The Note
The next day at school I was more “pensive” as Mr. MacPherson would say. I was thinking about Pa and Katie and the wedding coming up just nine days away, and I suppose I was seeing lots of things through different eyes too, because my mind was full of Walden. So I wasn’t paying heed to things like I should have been.
After school I couldn’t find Becky. Pa had gone to town that morning, so when I didn’t see her around after school, I vaguely remembered Pa saying something at breakfast about “if any of you wanna ride home with me . . .”
My thoughts were occupied with other things. So when none of us could find Becky anywhere, I figured Pa had fetched her without any of us seeing him, and I loaded the other kids up in the wagon and headed home.
We rode up and there was Pa. But he’d been home for two hours and hadn’t seen anything of Becky. Then we started realizing we had something to worry about.
Pa immediately started to saddle Jester.
“I’ll go back in, Pa,” I said. “It’s my fault for leaving her.”
“Naw, it’s okay, Corrie.”
“We could both go,” I suggested. “It’ll make it easier. We’ll have to check all around town and one of us’ll have to ride out to Miss Stansberry’s. Becky could be anyplace.”
Pa thought for a moment. “I reckon you’re right. We’ll ride in on Snowball and Jester, then we’ll split up if she’s not still around the school someplace. You go to the Stansberrys’ and I’ll go see Mrs. Parrish. One of them’s sure to know where the little tyke is.”
Five minutes later Pa and I were galloping toward town.
Four hours later we returned, just the two of us. No one in town had seen Becky. She had disappeared.
We were silent all the way home. We’d talked to everybody we could think of. I don’t know what Pa was thinking, but I know he was worried. I was praying.
A couple of times he muttered something about what a fool he had been to think bringing Katie here would change things, and mumbling about troubles following him for the rest of his life. I suppose we were both blaming ourselves for what happened.
It was pretty silent that evening. Inside the house it might as well have been a tomb.
Katie tried to cheer everybody up, and a couple of times I thought Pa was going to yell at her to shut up and let us all be sad in peace. But finally she realized she wasn’t helping and quieted down on her own. Pa just sat there, his feet up on the table, and she didn’t even say anything about the dirt.
Just as it was getting dark, we heard a horse galloping up outside.
Pa jumped to his feet and ran out the door, leaving it wide open. Every one of us followed him.
It was Sheriff Rafferty.
“You find her?” shouted Pa as the sheriff reined in his horse.
There was no reply. Rafferty slowed to a stop, then dismounted, threw the rein over the rail, and walked toward Pa. It was clear from his face he didn’t have good news. He was holding a piece of paper.
“Sorry, Drum,” he said. “All I got’s this.” He handed Pa the paper. “Weber found it nailed to a post outside his livery in this envelope with your name on it. No one saw how it got there. He brought it to me.”
Pa grabbed it, fumbled hurriedly with the envelope, and unfolded the paper. As he read, a sickening look of dread spread over his face.
You’ll get yer daughter back, Hollister, when you fork over $50,000. The loot’s mine, I’m jist gittin’ what’s comin’ to me! An’ jist in case yer not lyin’ about not knowin’ where it is, I figure yer mine’s worth plenty. So you jist git the money, or fifty thousand in gold, or the deed to yer place. It don’t matter to me. Try to find the little girl, and I’ll kill you and her both! If there ain’t no money by next week, we’re leavin’ yer brat to the wolves. They’ll find her in less than two hours! And then I’ll grab another o’ yer kids and we’ll go through this all again. So pay up, Hollister, fer yer own good! I’ll git word to you where to take it.
“Krebbs!”
Pa’s voice held sounds of wrath and despondency and self-blame and hatred. He walked a few steps away, one hand on his head, the other at his side with fist clenched.
“We gotta do some serious talking, Drum,�
�� said Sheriff Rafferty.
Pa turned back around to face him.
“There was also this,” the sheriff went on, pulling another envelope from his pocket. “This one had my name on it. I guess they figured if they couldn’t get you one way, they’d put me on your trail.”
Again Pa slowly opened the envelope and took out a folded paper. It was an old, half-torn, yellowed and ragged warrant for Pa’s arrest.
“Well, I reckon it’s all caught up with me at last,” said Pa with a sigh. “You better come on in, Simon.”
Pa led the sheriff inside. The rest of us followed and closed the door behind us.
Chapter 34
The Refusal
The minute we were inside, Pa ordered all us kids into our rooms, but he didn’t pay much attention, and we left the doors open. We were all ears, hanging on every word that followed.
“What’s this all about, Drum?” asked the sheriff. “I know your kid’s in trouble and we’ll do what we can. But I’m a sworn lawman and I got a duty too. So I’m asking you, is this warrant on the level?”
“It’s a pack of the darndest lies that—!” I heard Uncle Nick exclaim. But Pa’s voice cut him off.
“No it ain’t, Nick, and you know it.”
Then he turned to the sheriff. “I suppose you could say it’s on the level, Simon. But there’s always two sides to these things.”
“Well, I’m listening, Drum. You’re my friend, and I figure I owe you the benefit of the doubt. But if this warrant’s in effect and they’re still looking for you, then—well, then I don’t know what! It’s my job, you know, and friend or not, I gotta—”
“I understand what you’re up against, Simon,” said Pa calmly. “How about if I tell you what happened. Then if you figure you gotta take me in, I’ll go with you peaceably—as long as we get Becky back first. After that, well maybe it’s time I faced the music and quit hiding from my past. That’s what I got me a wife for, ’cause I always knew something like this might happen.”
“Sounds like a straight deal to me,” replied Sheriff Rafferty.
“And you gotta let me and Miss Kathryn get done with the wedding first too,” added Pa. “That way, I’ll know the kids are gonna be safe.”
“When is it?”
“Week from Sunday.”
“Agreed, Drum. Now get on with it.”
Pa heaved a deep sigh. The room was completely silent for a minute or so, then he started.
“Well, you know how when I first came here I didn’t let on my name was Hollister. I went by Drum plain and simple, and let folks think that was my last name.”
As Pa spoke I tiptoed to the open door so I could peek out just an inch. I saw Mr. Rafferty nodding his head.
“And Nick, too,” Pa added. “Most folks around here still call him Matthews.”
“You in this too, Nick?” said the sheriff, glancing up at Uncle Nick.
“Never mind him,” said Pa. “If you take me in, you gotta be satisfied with that. You ain’t got no warrant on Nick, and I want to know he’s around to keep the mine going, for the kids’ sake.”
The sheriff seemed to chew on his words a while, then looked over both Pa and Uncle Nick.
“For a man sitting trying to explain to a lawman why there’s a warrant out on him, you seem to be putting lots of conditions on what I can and can’t do.”
I thought at first that he was being serious, then I wondered if he was joking with Pa. But nobody laughed, and I never did know.
Pa just shrugged. “I don’t figure you got much choice,” he said. “You ain’t gonna get my story otherwise. And you and I both know that if I decide to fight, you’d never take me in. I got too many friends in these parts. So I don’t see that you got much choice.”
“Just go on with your story.”
“Well, that’s the reason when we came west, why we—why I didn’t use my real name. That’s an old warrant, before we got caught. We were part of a jailbreak, and after that the law mostly figured we were dead, which was why we thought we’d be safe. But I reckon technically, seeing as how we escaped, that warrant would still be valid.”
“What were you in for?”
“You’re not gonna like hearing it.”
“It was a bum charge—a frame-up!” said Uncle Nick.
“What was it, Drum?” said the sheriff again.
“The worst, Simon—bank robbery and murder.”
The sheriff let out a low whistle. “That’s bad,” he finally said.
“Nick’s right, though,” added Pa. “We’d been riding with the gang, that much is true. So I reckon you could say we were accomplices on the robbin’ part. But we weren’t nowhere near any killin’.”
“And you were part of a break?”
“Yeah, we busted out, along with a bunch of others. We didn’t cotton to the notion of dangling from the end of a rope for something we didn’t do, so when we had the chance we lit out and came out here.”
“And so who’s this fella Krebbs who’s been bulldoggin’ you these last couple of years? He got something to do with all this?”
“He’s part of the original gang that pulled the job. He and several of the others got away clean. Krebbs always figured we had the loot. So when he heard we’d busted out, he got a whiff of our trail, and he’s been tracking us ever since.”
“You got the money, Drum? If you do, turning it back in would go a long way toward proving to the law your intention of living straight from now on.”
“Come on, Simon!” said Pa in disbelief that he would even ask. “Look around! Look at my hands. Look at how hard me and Nick work up there in that mine every day. You think we’d have been bustin’ our backs all these years if we had that fifty thousand stashed someplace?”
Rafferty gave a half-shrug and nodded thoughtfully. “Probably not. But I had to ask.”
Pa settled back in his chair, waiting for what the sheriff would say next. I glanced over at Katie. She hadn’t said a word the whole time. I wondered what she was thinking—probably that she’d gotten herself mixed up with more than she’d bargained for!
“Well, Drum, your story makes sense. I’ve always figured you for a man of your word. So I’m inclined to believe you. But I think you better tell me the whole story. It’s dark now, and those varmints obviously have your young’un someplace we won’t find tonight. We got time, so I want you to start at the beginning.”
Pa let out a heavy sigh, and launched into the tale that none of the other kids but me had heard. I’d tried to explain things to them, but I was glad they were hearing it from Pa’s own lips. I wanted them to know how it had really been between Ma and Pa, and why he’d had to leave us without any word.
Twenty or twenty-five minutes later he was done. He didn’t shed tears this time, like when he’d first told me the story. But I knew it had been hard for Pa nevertheless. There were still hurts he felt from what he’d done.
There was a long quiet in the room.
Sheriff Rafferty was the first to break it. The next sound we all heard was the ripping of the warrant in half.
“I believe you, Drum,” he said. “Like I said, I figure you for a man of your word, so I’m gonna pretend I never saw this.”
I could almost feel the relief that spread over Pa’s face.
“Now we gotta get your little girl back,” said the sheriff. “What do you want me to do, Drum? You got fifty thousand?”
Pa laughed, a bitter laugh that didn’t have any joy in it.
“Are you kidding?” he said. “Fifty thousand? It might as well be a million! Me and Nick’s got maybe $3,000 in the bank. Here we figured that was real good for a year’s work, more’n most men see in their lives. Now it looks like nothin’!”
“You want me to round up some of the boys and get together a posse?”
“And do what?” said Pa. “We ain’t got a notion where they are.”
“With enough men and enough time, we could find them.”
“We ain’t g
ot time! And like he said, Krebbs’d just kill Becky, then snatch one of the others. I know him. He’s a mean one. He won’t stop till he’s got the money. The way I figure it, I gotta pay him or we’ll be runnin’ from him forever.”
“How we gonna raise fifty thousand, Drum?” said Uncle Nick. “There ain’t nobody in this town who’s got that kind of cash.”
“There’s one, Nick.”
“You don’t mean that lowdown—”
“That’s right—Royce.”
“Royce’d never give you that much money!”
“Not give . . . loan. That’s what bankers do, they loan money.”
“How would you pay him back?” asked the sheriff.
“If Nick and me put away $3,000 in a year, all we need to do is work a little harder. Zack’s getting to be a man. He can help. We can make five, maybe ten thousand a year outta that mine. We could have Royce paid back in five years!”
“Work harder!” groaned Uncle Nick.
“For Becky, we’ll put in fourteen hours a day up in that pit!” said Pa. “And you’ll be with me! Besides,” he added after a little pause, “I don’t see what choice we have. We don’t know where they are. Krebbs’ll kill Becky if we don’t give him the loot. You know him, Nick—you know he’ll do it sure as the sun shines. And the only way to get that kind of money is from Royce. It’s all we can do.”
“There’s the claim,” suggested Katie. “What about that?” For the first time since she’d come, her voice sounded timid.
Pa shook his head. “We can’t do that, Miss Kathryn. The mine and this claim’s all we got. Leastways, if we pay him, after five years the mine and the cabin and the land’s still ours. No, we’ll pay him.”
Pa’s voice had a decisive sound to it. No one said anything else for a little bit. Then Sheriff Rafferty got up out of his chair.
“Well, I reckon you’ll be coming to town in the morning to see Royce,” he said. “Come and see me when your business is settled. We still want to do our best to nab this bushwhacker.”
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