Wolf Hollow

by Lauren Wolk

  “You must have enough wool by now to knit a sweater,” my grandmother said as we washed and peeled potatoes together at the sink.

  “What wool?” I sloshed a potato in the wash water until it came away white.

  “You’ve been gathering wool this whole time, Annabelle. Not a word out of you.”

  I shrugged. “Just thinking about Ruth.”

  “A terrible thing to happen to anyone, let alone a sweet girl like her.”

  “But you don’t think Toby did it, even by accident, do you?”

  By now everyone in the house knew about the conversation at the Glengarrys’ that afternoon.

  Aunt Lily had sniffed and said, “That Toby has always smelled like brimstone to me.”

  Henry had said, “Naw, Toby’s not like that.”

  James had said, “Avast, there, matey.” Which we took to mean no.

  My grandfather had shaken his head and mumbled something about a sheep in wolf’s clothing.

  I already knew how my mother felt. My father . . . I wasn’t sure. He hadn’t said a word on our way home from the Glengarrys’ house. And, once home, he’d spoken only to my mother and then gone straightaway to his chores.

  “Oh, I don’t know what I think,” my grandma said, cutting a potato so thin I could see light through the slice. Hers were the best scalloped potatoes in the county. “Toby is odd, I have to say. And those guns of his give me pause. But I’ve never seen him act rough with anyone. And I’ve never heard of him speaking ill of the Germans, including Mr. Ansel.”

  “Well, Toby doesn’t speak much about anything,” I had to admit.

  “No, he does not. But I’ve always wanted people to judge me by my actions, and I hope I can do the same for him, who has never done me wrong. Or my family, neither.”

  My father came in to supper that night pink with evening but smelling like soot.

  “I spent some time with Toby this afternoon,” he said in the middle of eating my mother’s ham, my grand-mother’s potatoes, and my cauliflower, which James referred to as “little white trees” and rarely ate.

  We all looked at my father and waited. I, especially, wondered what Toby had had to say about the goings-on of the past week.

  “I did most of the talking,” he said. “Knocked on the door, Toby answered, asked me in. There was no place to sit but on the one chair and I would not sit if he couldn’t, so we both stood there looking at each other like a couple of goats.”

  My father didn’t admire goats very much. I, if lazy, was a little goat. If stupid, a goat. If dirty, a goat. And the rest of us, too.

  We waited. He would not have mentioned the visit at all if there were not more to tell.

  “That shack of his is a hard place,” he said, “though he’s nicened it up a bit. Not much of a bed, more like a nest. Pine boughs covered with burlap. No pillow. An old army blanket. The one chair, castoff. A fire pit dug in one corner with just a hole for a vent. Odds and ends on the hooks above. But . . .” And here he stopped. Sat back in his chair. Ran a hand over his jaw. “There were pictures everywhere. On all four walls. Of the orchards. The woods. Sky all by itself in lots of them, at sundown.”

  He paused for a moment. “They were beautiful, and I wanted to see them all, but the light was going, and I didn’t want to presume. He hadn’t invited me, and he seemed a little nervous to have me there. I don’t imagine he gets many visitors.”

  I couldn’t remember my father ever saying so much in one stretch.

  “I told him about what the Glengarrys had said. What Betty had said. I asked him if he’d been on that hillside. And he said he had no reason to throw a rock at anyone, German or not.”

  My grandfather said, “If anyone had a reason to throw a rock at a German, it might be Toby.”

  “Or anyone who lost kin over there,” my mother said sharply. “Of which there are plenty.”

  “And then he said something strange,” my father said. “He said, and I think I’ve got this right, ‘They made scratches on the Turtle Stone.’ And he didn’t say anything after that, except to ask that you, Annabelle, bring him his pictures as soon as they come in.”

  Aunt Lily waggled her fork at me. “Our camera. Our film. His pictures. I like that.”

  But I was wondering about the Turtle Stone, a big boulder in Wolf Hollow shaped like a turtle’s shell and threaded through with quartz in something of a grid, also like a turtle’s shell. Everyone knew about the Turtle Stone. It was in a little clearing as if the trees had not dared get too close, and the ground around it was covered with ferns and flowering weeds.

  It was a pretty place but serious, too. We always figured that the Indians had used it for ceremonies. If we hadn’t had a church for our ceremonies, we probably would have chosen the Turtle Stone, too.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Church the next morning was much as it always was, except that the Glengarrys, in their pew three back from ours, did not greet us as they usually did. I was sorry about that, but not very.

  My father had been right when he’d said I’d feel better after speaking my piece, and I didn’t mind giving up a Sunday smile from the Glengarrys in the bargain.

  Betty, in a gingham shift over a white blouse with a Peter Pan collar, looked as sweet as a snap pea, but her eyes gave her away.

  I focused instead on the purple and yellow mums clustered around the altar and the empty cross above it.

  The choir warbled out the hymns as usual, Mr. Simmons through his mighty nose, Mrs. Lancaster with a bigger hitch in her voice than our flatbed, and we all sang along in our various ways.

  Reverend Kinnell spoke at great length about the changing of the seasons, but I could not for the life of me make much sense of it. I was very grateful for the tiny pencil and offerings envelope stashed next to the hymnal on the pew-back in front of me. I couldn’t draw worth a hill of beans, but trying helped me pass the time. My grandfather, sitting next to me, looked envious as I spent much of the sermon drawing a horse.

  “That’s a fine dog, Annabelle,” he whispered to me.

  When my mother took the envelope to add some coins for the collection, she smiled at the dog-horse. “I hope the reverend likes your offering, Annabelle,” she said.

  So everything was fine, I thought, and whatever problems we had could wait for us to catch up with them.

  But, as it turned out, they caught up with us when we left the church and found the constable waiting outside, the Glengarrys with him.

  The constable didn’t wear a badge or carry a weapon, but the state police barracks were in Pittsburgh and the nearest jail or courthouse was just as far away; so the constable took care of things as he could and called in the troops when they were needed, which was never, as far as I knew.

  We all liked him. Constable Oleska. He had a big face, red cheeks, not much hair, and an easy laugh. But one time at the county fair I’d seen him wrap his arms around a farmer who’d had too much hard cider and was acting stupid. Constable Oleska held him in place as if he were nothing but a corn shock, until the farmer calmed down and went home to bed. So people took the constable seriously when he chose to be stern.

  He looked stern now.

  “Good morning, folks,” he said. “I need a word, John. Sarah.”

  My father opened the door to our truck and shepherded my grandparents inside.

  To my brothers and me, he made a shooing motion and we obliged him by scrambling up into the back, but we huddled as close to the conversation as we could.

  I couldn’t hear everything they said, but I caught Toby’s name and Ruth’s and Mr. Ansel’s. Betty did some of the talking, which made me mad, but my parents were there to speak for me, and I resigned myself to that.

  My mother’s voice was most audible, since she quickly became upset with what the Glengarrys were saying.

  “Whatever happened to inn
ocent until proven guilty?” she said, a fair bit of heat in her voice. “And letting a person live however he likes?” She had her fists on her hips. “Let’s not be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”

  Which was confusing to me, since there was no baby involved in this as far as I could tell. Nor any bathwater, either.

  My father put a hand on her shoulder, but she ignored him. “Toby may be strange, but that’s the end of it. You might make him more than strange if you back him into a corner when he hasn’t done anything wrong. Besides, you can’t lock up a man because a girl says she saw him on a hillside. And a girl who’s been up to no good, at that.”

  And then everyone was talking too loudly and none of them in turn. My mother had clearly tired of the whole business and climbed into the back of the truck with us. My father got behind the wheel, starting the engine, and calling, “Lily!” out the window.

  But my aunt stayed another moment, talking to the constable, nodding her birdlike head to what he replied, before heading for her own car. I did not like the look on her face. Something too close to happy, which was rare enough for Aunt Lily and odder still, given the circumstances.

  Sunday dinner was usually a matter of saying grace and eating what we were served. Little conversation. Redding up afterward (while Aunt Lily went to her room to spend the afternoon in prayer and reflection . . . though sometimes a dance tune drifted from under her door).

  People occasionally came to call on Sundays. More often, we spent the day slowly, quietly. Glad for a little peace and rest.

  But this Sunday was not like that.

  “I want you to stay far away from Betty Glengarry at school tomorrow,” my mother said to my brothers and me after dinner as she dished out apple pie and poured cream over it. “Don’t go near her. Don’t talk to her. And tell Mrs. Taylor if Betty does anything worrisome. Anything at all.”

  “And us, too,” my father said, “when you get home. No more secrets.”

  “Well, honestly,” Aunt Lily said. “Annabelle, don’t you think you might have been exaggerating a bit? Betty seems like a sweet, God-fearing girl to me, and she’s brave enough to let us know what Toby’s done, even though he’s the most frightening thing in this county.”

  “She hit me hard enough to leave a black bruise the size of a cucumber,” I said. “No way I could exaggerate black.”

  Aunt Lily sat up straighter. “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor,” she said sharply.

  But though it had been some time since Betty had swung that stick, I stood up and bared my hip right there in front of everyone and let them see the mark that was still visible. Still ugly enough.

  Aunt Lily looked away. She didn’t say another word for the rest of the meal.

  After dinner was over and the redding-up was done, my mother gathered the fixings for a poultice and made it while I watched. A handful of Russian comfrey leaves from her kitchen garden and boiling water, mashed into a hot paste, spooned into a clean rag, folded up into a neat square. She took me to my room, laid me down on my side, and arranged the poultice on my bruise.

  “It doesn’t hurt anymore,” I said.

  “Well, it hurts me to know it’s there,” she said. “This will clear it up altogether.”

  What felt best was having my mother sit on the edge of my bed, her hand over the poultice to keep it warm.

  “I didn’t bear false witness,” I said. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Oh, I know, Annabelle. Aunt Lily thinks she knows more than she does. Enough about that now.”

  We sat quietly, and I felt a great distance between us and the sound of my brothers downstairs, their Sunday pitch imperfect, noisy as any weekday.

  “What’s going to happen to Toby?” I asked.

  My mother sighed. “Well, Constable Oleska doesn’t have enough information to call the troopers and have Toby arrested, which is what the Glengarrys want him to do. He can’t dismiss what Betty said, but he can’t arrest Toby on the strength of that alone. Can’t arrest him in any event, since that’s for the troopers to decide and do. So he said he’s going to talk to Andy about Betty’s story, about being in the belfry. And he’s going down to see Toby, too. And maybe come talk to you a little, about that other business with Betty. And try to figure out who strung that wire across the path. All that, though I don’t know in what order. Maybe talk to Toby tonight, even, or early tomorrow. I just don’t know, Annabelle. But for now all he wants is to talk to people, find out what’s what.”

  I tucked my hands under my cheek, tried to picture the constable knocking on the door to Toby’s smokehouse, imagined the look on Toby’s face when he opened the door and found trouble on the other side.

  “I don’t believe what they’re saying about Toby. He’s not like that.”

  “Nor do I, Annabelle. But Constable Oleska is a fair man. I don’t think he’ll do anything but talk for now.”

  Which, I feared, might itself be too much. Toby had been a wanderer. I expected he might right now be thinking about leaving our hills for somewhere new.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Monday came.

  There was no sign of Toby as the boys and I walked to school. It was raining lightly, threatening more, and blowing cold, but I had still hoped to see him on a hilltop, just to know he hadn’t left.

  Perhaps I would go down to his shack after school. Not to bother him, just to see if I could spy him sheltering there, out of the rain. Though he walked in all weathers and seasons and would likely do so today, too.

  First, though, I would go to school. My parents always told me that school was my most important job. I knew, with two brothers, that I would never farm this land, and I wanted and had to grow up an educated woman.

  Today, I would learn some arithmetic, no doubt, and a few state capitals, why we fought the wars we fought, what Anne of Green Gables would get up to next, and why I shouldn’t mix bleach with ammonia. But first on my list was what Andy had to say.

  My parents had told me to stay away from Betty, but they had not told me to avoid Andy. He was a bully, for sure, but I meant to ask him about the belfry and the taut-wire across the path.

  Toby had said, “They made scratches on the Turtle Stone,” and I wondered if he meant Betty and Andy . . . if that was where they’d sharpened the wire that had cut James. I pictured one of them on each side of the Turtle Stone, the ends of the wire wrapped around stick handles so they could pull it to and fro, like a two-man saw, honing it sharp.

  What I couldn’t fathom was how they had thought to do that. Or why they’d actually done the thing. Even a wolf has reasons for what it does. Even a snake makes sense when it eats a robin’s egg.

  By the time we got to the schoolhouse, it was raining in earnest. We three had worn oilcloth ponchos, hoods up, and boots, so we were plenty dry and warm, but many of the other children came in soaked and shivering. For the first time that season, Mrs. Taylor lit a fire in the stove at the front of the room and gave the wettest of her students a chance to dry out before lessons began.

  “Goodness, what happened to you?” she asked James, bending low to look at the bandage on his forehead.

  When James glanced my way, I shook my head. “Pirates,” he said.

  Mrs. Taylor nodded. “I thought so.” She returned to the front of the room.

  “Those of you who aren’t too wet, come on up here,” she called, and so my brothers and I went forward, a few others, too, and I wondered what she had in mind for such a mixed bunch.

  Not state capitals, as it turned out.

  “I want to talk to you about what happened to Ruth,” she said, glancing at the door. I turned to look, but it was shut and no one had come in. I realized, then, that both Andy and Betty were absent again.

  I wasn’t surprised about Andy. On such a rainy day he would be forgiven many of his chores at home, so why bothe
r with school? Betty, I thought, might be at this moment leading the charge against Toby. I pictured her practicing both prim and proper, aiming for innocent, and probably succeeding with those who didn’t know her.

  “Annabelle?” I turned back to Mrs. Taylor. The other children were looking at me. “I asked you how you were doing. I’m sure it wasn’t easy to see Ruth get hurt like that.”

  “It wasn’t,” I said. “But I’m okay.”

  She talked for a little while about the importance of trusting people, telling them about the things that bothered us.

  “If any of you saw Toby on that hillside, or anyone else for that matter, or anything odd that day, you should tell someone. Me, your parents, Reverend Kinnell. Someone who can help you do the right thing.”

  I raised my hand. “Who told you that Toby was on the hillside?”

  “I heard about it at church yesterday,” she said. “From the Glengarrys.”

  I thought about that for a moment. “So you know that Betty is the one saying Toby threw that rock?”

  Mrs. Taylor nodded. “Yes, I heard that.”

  “Then can I please go up to the belfry so I can see what there is to see out that window?”

  To which Mrs. Taylor, clearly baffled, said, “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Because Betty said she was in the belfry with Andy at recess when she saw Toby through the window, on the hillside.”

  Mrs. Taylor said, very slowly, “Betty claims they were up there the day Ruth got hurt?”

  I nodded. The other children listened to all this more attentively than they ever listened during lessons.

  Mrs. Taylor stood up, went to a door at the back of the room. It didn’t open when she tried it. She came back to us then, deep in thought.

  “All right,” she said. “Go on back to your seats and read the assignments I’ve written on the chalkboard.”

  She joined the children drying out around the stove. From my desk I could hear her telling them to trust people. To tell the truth.