Wolf Hollow

by Lauren Wolk

  “They’re coming this way,” my grandmother said from the mudroom window. “And John is with them.”

  My grandfather’s coat and gloves were already up in my closet.

  I would smell like them, I realized. I would smell like Toby to those hounds. At least I hoped I did. I nearly smiled at the thought. Let them come on in. Who would believe a dog that thought I was a crazy woodsman?

  Still, I was relieved to see the handlers tying the hounds up to the laundry posts.

  “Sarah, you’d better put some more coffee on,” my grandmother called over her shoulder. “We’re about to have company.”

  The handlers were as quiet as their dogs—said very little, in fact, and softly when they did—and they acted much the same, looking around the kitchen curiously, from floor to ceiling, stopping often to zoom in on a detail they found of interest.

  When my brothers came down to the kitchen, the handlers looked at them as if they were rabbits. James ducked back under the table, pulling on Henry’s pant leg, whispering, “Come on, matey,” but Henry sat next to me instead.

  I looked at him curiously. He looked back at me, unsmiling.

  My father and Constable Oleska had come in with the dog handlers.

  “We decided to wait here for the others to catch up before we go back out,” the constable said. “We already scoured the area around the smokehouse. So much scent there that we went in circles, but the dogs finally decided on this direction.”

  The men didn’t bother to take off their coats.

  “Sit down,” my mother said. “We have some news.”

  When he heard that Betty had died, the constable said, “Lord God,” and put his head in his hands.

  The dog handlers barely noticed. They must have been through such things a hundred times. Missing children. Criminals on the run. After a while, they must have become as matter-of-fact as their dogs, intent only on the chase.

  They had been denied the chance to find a missing girl. They would do what they could to find her killer.

  My father looked from my mother to me, his eyes full of questions. What should we do now? How are we supposed to know what to do now?

  I wasn’t sure, either. But I knew I couldn’t spend one more minute doing nothing. I knew I couldn’t grow up and live a long life with the knowledge that I had not done what I could. Right now. Before it once again made no difference.

  I slipped out of the kitchen and into the sitting room, leaving the rest of them to sort out their next steps.

  Mine were clear, but I sat quietly for a while and went through them in my head, watching myself do and say the only things I could think to do or say.

  I didn’t see how I could make things any worse than they were.

  I carefully shut the door between the kitchen and the sitting room.

  I picked up the telephone receiver and turned the crank as quietly as I could.

  “Mrs. Gribble?” I said softly into the mouthpiece.

  “Sarah?”

  “No, it’s Annabelle, Mrs. Gribble. Can you put me through to the Woodberrys please? It’s very important.” I knew that would whet her appetite.

  “Annabelle, does your mother know you’re using the telephone?”

  “Of course,” I said. “Do you want to speak with her? She’s helping my grandma with some chores right now, but I can get her if you want. Only we need to hurry. This is really important.”

  I held my breath.

  “That’s all right,” she said, and I could hear the anticipation in her voice. “Which Woodberry did you want?”

  I hadn’t thought about such a question. “The ones that have an Andy,” I said.

  “They all have Andys,” she said, losing patience.

  “The young Andy. The one who goes to school with me.”

  For once, I was glad that Mrs. Gribble made it her business to know everything about everyone in these hills.

  She put the call through.

  When Mrs. Woodberry answered, I willed Mrs. Gribble to stay on the line.

  “Mrs. Woodberry, this is Annabelle McBride,” I said. “May I please speak with Andy for a minute?”

  “Well, if you’re calling to tell him about Betty, he already knows,” she said. “She sure was a sweet thing, wasn’t she? What an awful shame.”

  “No, it’s not about that,” I said. Though it was.

  “All right, let me get him,” she said, putting the receiver on top of the phone with a clunk.

  I was grateful for the police order to stay inside. Surely, Andy was somewhere nearby.

  I could hear her calling for him. Once. Twice.

  And then, after a minute, he said, “Hello?” in a flat, gray voice.

  I had intended to jump right in, but at the sound of him I softened. “Andy, this is Annabelle. I’m so sorry about Betty.”

  Silence on the line. And then, “I am, too,” which surprised me, though I had never doubted his odd affection for her. The sorrow in his voice nearly stopped me in my tracks.

  “I wanted to ask you something,” I said slowly, pausing to find my way back to where I needed to be. “We just got back some pictures Toby took, and one of them has Betty in it.” Her name stopped me. This was harder than I had thought it would be.

  “What does that have to do with me?” Andy said. He sounded both curious and worried, as I could easily imagine he was.

  “It was a picture of you and Betty, on the hill across from the schoolhouse. Betty was throwing a rock at Mr. Ansel down below.”

  If Mrs. Gribble was listening, I knew she wouldn’t leave now, no matter how many or how bright the lights on her switchboard.

  I could hear Andy breathing, but he didn’t say a word.

  “Telling the truth can’t hurt Betty now,” I said.

  “Why do you care about that?” Andy said, clearly worried still but angry, too. “You can’t punish her for throwing that stupid rock. She’s already dead. What does it matter?”

  There. That was the first part I needed Mrs. Gribble to hear. I let myself breathe.

  “Because they think Toby killed her,” I said. “That’s why. And you know he didn’t push her down that well.”

  “She said he did,” Andy said, his voice harder than before. “When they got her to the hospital, she said he did.”

  “And she said he threw that rock, too, which was a lie. You just admitted it.”

  “Because she was scared. She didn’t mean to hit Ruth.”

  I closed my eyes. Please, I thought. Please be listening.

  “Andy, I know you cared about Betty. But you’re the one who said she went down to the smokehouse to cause trouble, maybe burn Toby out. Why can’t you admit that she fell down that well by accident?”

  “What does it matter?” he said. “So what if she did? She’s the one who’s dead and he’s off scot-free.”

  “But now they think he’s a murderer!” I said, trying to keep my voice down. “And they’re going to kill him.”

  “I hope they do,” he said quietly. “I hope they kill him twice.”

  “Andy, you can’t hope that.”

  He answered by hanging up.

  A moment later, I heard Mrs. Gribble disconnect, too.

  I replaced the receiver and sat down on the floor, shaking with exhaustion.

  My mother came looking for me moments later. “Who were you talking to in here?” she said. “Annabelle, are you all right?”

  “I don’t feel good,” I said. “Can I go lie down?”

  She put her hand on my forehead. “You don’t have a fever.”

  “I’m not sick,” I said. “I just don’t feel good.”

  “Go on, then.” She reached out a hand to help me to my feet. “The men are headed back out with the hounds.”

  When I stood up, she put he
r arms around me and rested her chin on the top of my head.

  “This will soon be over,” she said softly. “One way or another.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  It didn’t take long for Mrs. Gribble to spread this second piece of news.

  People often complained about her eavesdropping and swore they didn’t listen to her gossip, but the stories she spread had always proven true (except one April Fool’s Day when someone fed her a bogus tale about a wagon train of gypsies setting up camp in Bocktown), and she was widely regarded as the county crier.

  By suppertime, everyone knew that Toby was not responsible for Ruth losing her eye. And there was now some doubt about whether he’d pushed Betty down the well. But doubt wasn’t enough.

  “A jury can have doubt if it wants to,” the constable said. “But the police still have to find the man.”

  He sat in our kitchen with my father and grandfather, even James for once at the table instead of under it.

  The dogs had led the search party into the barn and out again, across the pastures and around the house, up the lane and back down, into the woods and orchards, before finally setting a course away from our hills, west, toward Ohio, which was not so very far from here.

  They’d followed the scent for a couple of miles, maybe more, before Officer Coleman declared this a certain trail unlikely to loop back.

  “That’s when he sent us home,” my father said. “They’re still on the trail and will stay on it until they’re relieved by fresh dogs and men.”

  Constable Oleska looked worn-out and not at all sorry to be done with searching. “They’re sure to catch up with Toby in a day or two, unless he hitches a ride.”

  “Do you think they’ll go into Ohio after him?” my father said.

  “Yes, I expect they will, or hand it over to the Ohio police. But when they hear Annie’s latest bulletin—and they will, if they haven’t already—they’re apt to stand down a bit.”

  He turned to look at me. “I guess it’s a good thing Mrs. Gribble listened in on that call you made to Andy,” he said. He wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t scolding, either. “Imagine her doing that.”

  “Imagine you doing that,” my father said to me.

  “Are you angry?” I was prepared for people to be angry with me, though it didn’t matter as it once would have.

  “Not angry,” my father said.

  “Not angry at all,” my grandfather said. He smiled at me from his end of the table. “Gumption’s a good thing, if you ask me.”

  “So is industry,” my mother said as she slid a pan of pork chops into the oven. “Annabelle, those carrots aren’t going to peel themselves.”

  “I’ll do it,” Henry said, rising from his chair. He didn’t look at me as he took my customary place at the sink, but I knew he could see me anyway. We had the same hands. The same long fingers. The same way of holding a knife.

  “How come Henry gets to help and I don’t,” James said.

  “You’re absolutely right.” My mother handed him a saucepan. “You can start by putting a cup of milk into this pan.”

  Aunt Lily came home just then to the sight of Henry and James helping to get supper ready while I sat at the table with the men.

  “Am I in the right house?” she said. She took off her coat and hung it in the mudroom closet. “Annabelle, have you lost the use of your legs?”

  “Easy, Lily,” my father said, as if she were a fractious horse. “It’s been a long day.”

  “As if I don’t know it. Do you have any idea how much mail comes through that post office? It’s a wonder anything else gets done around here, with all the letters people write.”

  She helped herself to a cup of coffee and sat down at my mother’s place.

  I thought that she had somehow missed the news of Betty’s death, so I told her. “Betty Glengarry died this morning, Aunt Lily.”

  “Which I heard from at least a dozen people today,” she said. “I don’t work in the Timbuktu post office, Annabelle. If there even is such a thing.”

  I wanted to throw something at her. “I thought you might not know.”

  “Why, because I’m not gasping and fainting like all the other ninnies?” She looked at me over her glasses. “The Lord works in mysterious ways, Annabelle. He has His reasons.”

  My grandmother came into the kitchen just in time to hear this. “Reasons for what?” she said.

  “For taking Betty home.”

  My grandmother shook her head. “I don’t know where you got such a hard heart, Lily.”

  “Not hard. But not soft, either. Plenty of those around here already.”

  I thought if I had to listen to Aunt Lily for one more minute I would turn to stone. “Since the boys are helping with supper, can I go up to my room for a while?”

  “For a little while,” my mother said. “I’ll call you when I need you.”

  “I can set the table,” James said.

  “Of course you can,” my grandmother cooed, ruffling his hair. “Whoever said you couldn’t?”

  From my bedroom, I could hear the others down below. The sound of pots and pans. Dishes and flatware. Voices. A chair scraping.

  All of which had the effect of making me feel even more lonely.

  Tricking Andy into a confession, knowing that the police might be more gentle with Toby if they caught him, did not help much.

  From my closet, I took my grandfather’s coat and slipped it on. There was room inside for two of me.

  I lay down on my bed, drew my knees up into the coat, and fell sound asleep.

  I didn’t hear my mother call me down for supper.

  I didn’t hear her open my bedroom door, turn off my light.

  I didn’t feel her pull my bedspread up over me.

  And I didn’t wake later that night at the sound of the telephone ringing.

  After such an early bedtime, I was up well before most everyone.

  I found my mother in the kitchen, brewing coffee, but no one else. The world was dark beyond the windows.

  I watched her for a moment. She looked different, not knowing that anyone was there, all of her facing inward, as I had on the path when Toby took my picture.

  An inkling told me to go back to bed before she saw me.

  Perhaps it was how sad she looked, though I couldn’t see her face, that urged me to go away, quickly, so I could have another hour—maybe two—before I found out why.

  I was still in my clothes from the day before, still wearing my grandfather’s coat.

  How silly I must have looked when she turned toward me, a mug of coffee in her hand, and stopped so suddenly that the coffee sloshed over the rim and onto the floor.

  “Annabelle, you startled me,” she said, reaching for a rag. “What are you doing up so early?”

  “I couldn’t sleep anymore.” I sat down at the table. “Did they find Toby yet?”

  “You heard the telephone ring?”

  I shook my head, my heart shrinking. “Who called?”

  My mother rinsed out the rag and sat across from me. She set her mug down carefully.

  “The constable called,” she said. “He had just heard from Officer Coleman, and he thought we’d want to know what happened.”

  I didn’t know how beautiful my mother was until I saw her in that moment as she gathered herself to tell me that Toby was dead.

  I held my hands inside the sleeves of my grandfather’s coat while she told me that they had caught up with him just before the border into Ohio, sleeping under the Mahoning River bridge.

  She told me that when the hounds reached him, they lay down in the leaves along the edge of the river and took no interest in the man himself, who stood up when the policemen called his name.

  Perhaps, she said, he wanted to be standing when the next part came, because
when they told him to lie down again on his face and put his hands behind him, he refused.

  And when they pulled out their pistols and told him a second time, he slipped one of the long guns off his back, and they shot him.

  “They didn’t know that his gun was useless,” she said quietly. “They didn’t know anything about what had happened here. They only knew that they were supposed to catch a dangerous man and take him into custody.”

  I pushed the coat’s long sleeves up my arms and dried my face with my hands.

  “Why would he do that?” I said. “Grab his gun like that? It didn’t even work. And Toby wouldn’t have shot at them anyway. He just wouldn’t.”

  My mother sighed. “I don’t think so either,” she said. “And I don’t know why he did what he did. Except maybe he had had enough of this world, Annabelle.”

  “After all this time of living with how sad he was? He decided that he couldn’t stay here anymore now? When he had us?”

  My mother shook her head. “I don’t know, Annabelle. But think about how it feels when your hands are so cold they go numb. How it’s only when they start to thaw out that you realize how much they hurt.”

  I spent some time looking at my hands, thinking about his. “He said that he would’ve liked to have had a daughter like me.”

  My mother smiled. “Anybody would,” she said.

  I remembered the night I’d taken Toby to the barn for safekeeping. “Did you know that he was afraid of heights?”

  She shook her head.

  “But I shamed him into climbing the loft ladder, and he never hesitated after that. Just did it, like it was nothing.”

  My mother got up and poured me a small cup of coffee with plenty of cream and sugar. “You knew him better than I thought you did.”

  “He knew me before I knew him.”

  And we drank our coffee in silence as the sun came in through the windows and all the colors with it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I sat at the kitchen table and waited for my family to wake, one by one. Each of them in turn, right down to James, and especially Henry, told me how sorry they were that Toby had died.