Bringing Ezra Back

by Cynthia DeFelice

  “Oh, thank you, Pa!” Molly said.

  As she gave Pa a hug, my eyes caught on a pile of handbills and broadsides that had fallen out of Beckwith’s pack. Isaac had always carried such papers with him, too, so we could see the words to the latest songs, and read whatever news somebody had thought to print up. Orrin Beckwith said, “Go ahead. Have a look.”

  I paged through the stack of papers. The first ones were all songs. The titles made me laugh: “The Lawyer Outwitted” and “The Old Maid’s Last Prayer.” Then there was one called “Confession” that wasn’t music at all but the last words of a man who was about to be hanged for murder. I wondered who would want to read such a thing.

  The next sheet looked interesting. At the top, in real big letters, it said:

  Reading on, I saw it told about a traveling show.

  It said that this feller Edson was the world’s skinniest man, which I thought might be something to see.

  Next it told about Little Miss Mary, who was a grown-up lady only two feet tall. I thought I might like to see her, too, as well as the Amazing Amelia. She was only nine years old and weighed over four hundred pounds, which I reckoned was quite a lot.

  There was a person called Pea-Head Pete and another by the name of Bearded Betty. But before I could read more about them, I saw something farther down the page that made me cry out in horror.

  Pa, Molly, and Orrin Beckwith all turned to me. “What is it, son?” Pa asked quietly.

  I didn’t want to say the words I’d seen. It was like speaking them out loud would make them true. Wordlessly I put the paper on the table and pointed.

  “It’s Ezra,” I said into the terrible silence. “Who else could it be?”

  “Pa!” Molly wailed. “It isn’t Ezra, is it?” She looked at me, saying, “Ezra isn’t deaf! He has a name. And he’s not an Indian.”

  Pa had picked up the paper and was peering at it intently. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed before that he was having trouble reading. When he had finished, he put his hand on Molly’s shoulder and looked at Mr. Beckwith. “What do you know about this?” he asked.

  Orrin Beckwith looked flummoxed. “I believe I was given that in western Pennsylvania,” he said.

  “By who?” I asked.

  Orrin Beckwith gave me a wary look, likely because of the anger I could feel creeping into my heart and my voice.

  “Who gave it to you?” I insisted.

  He shrugged. “I can’t say. A man was handing them out. I can’t recall what town I was in. I’d forgotten I even had it.”

  “Where was this show headed to?”

  He shrugged again, and looked away from me, to Pa. “What’s got you folks so riled?” he asked. When no one answered right off, he said, “Who’s this fellow Ezra, anyhow?”

  Pa sighed, like the question made him feel sad.

  “Not that it’s any of my business,” Orrin Beckwith added, but it was plain he was curious to know.

  Pictures ran through my mind. I saw Ezra leading Molly and me through the forest to his we-gi-wa, a shelter made Shawnee-style with poles and sheets of elm bark, where he was healing Pa’s wounds. I saw Ezra teaching me to throw his hunting stick. I saw Ezra cleaning a turkey and making stew and blue biscuits.

  I didn’t want to tell Orrin Beckwith about Ezra, even if I could have found the words. It seemed to me that Ezra’s story belonged to him and to us. Not to Beckwith, someone we’d only just met.

  Pa said wearily, “He’s our friend. He saved my life when I was caught in a trap. He’s not Shawnee, but he took up their ways. Last we knew, he was headed out to the Indian Territory to find his wife’s kinfolk.”

  I was glad Pa didn’t say the whole truth, that Ezra’s Shawnee wife, Gives-light-as-she-walks, and her unborn baby were killed by a man named Weasel. And that Weasel cut out Ezra’s tongue for saying the Shawnees were people just as good as us white folks. I heard the story from Weasel himself, the night he had me hog-tied in his cabin, before I escaped.

  Those awful memories never went away, hard as I tried to put them behind me. Pa, Molly, and I didn’t speak about Weasel after Ezra left in the spring. Instead, we talked about how Ezra had most likely found his wife’s family. We liked to think that the Shawnees welcomed him and took him in. We pictured Ezra happy and peaceful, at last.

  But that picture was shattered now. I saw Ezra standing in the bed of a wagon, a sign over his head calling him the White Injun. I imagined people pointing and staring, laughing and poking at him, trying to get him to open his mouth.

  “Pa,” I said, “I’ve got to find him.”

  2

  MOLLY STARTED TO CRY then, and Pa’s face grew grave. “I understand your feeling, Nathan,” he said, “but—”

  I interrupted him, something I didn’t usually do. “Pa, I want to go.”

  Pa gave me a tired smile. “I know that. But you’re still a boy. And you’ve already seen more of the hard and ugly side of life than any boy should.”

  “Pa—”

  “Nathan, you heard Mr. Beckwith. He doesn’t remember where he was when he learned of the show. It could be anywhere by now.”

  “I could find it, Pa. I know I could.”

  Pa sighed. “We don’t know that the man in the show is Ezra.”

  I knew in my heart it was Ezra and, looking Pa in the eye, I could tell he knew it, too. I was sure Molly did, also. She raised her tear-streaked face and whispered, “Ezra helped us, Pa. We have to help him. He doesn’t have anybody else.”

  Pa closed his eyes, like he had a pain someplace and was waiting for it to pass. Orrin Beckwith was looking back and forth from one of us to the other, a real interested expression on his face.

  “I’d like to help Ezra, too. But just how do you propose I do that?” Pa asked. “Am I going to up and leave the farm with the crop about to come in? Leave you and Molly and the animals? To head off—where?” He spread his hands out to include the whole wide world.

  I was trying hard to think of a good answer when Orrin Beckwith spoke up and surprised me. “I might be able to offer a solution to your dilemma,” he said.

  I looked at him, waiting for him to go on.

  “A man can’t leave his farm at fall harvesttime, Mr. Fowler. And I’m sure you count on the boy here to help. But if you could spare him for a spell, he could travel with me. I will be passing through the vicinity of western Pennsylvania again, and I’ve no doubt we could pick up word of this show and where it was headed. It’s quite possible he could be back in time to help bring in the crops.”

  Pa looked startled, then seemed to be thinking it over.

  For my part, I had a question. “What do you stand to gain from such an arrangement, Mr. Beckwith?”

  Molly gasped at my rudeness. I reckon it was a right bold question, but I had to know. Anyhow, Beckwith didn’t appear to be insulted. He was pulling on his chin whiskers and looking squinty-eyed, like he was working something out in his head.

  “When I heard you sawing on that fiddle, it got me thinking.”

  I glanced at Pa, but he didn’t seem to notice Beckwith had let slip that I was fiddling instead of working. That, or he didn’t mind too much.

  “You see,” Beckwith went on, “I’ve discovered I’m not really cut out for this rough traveling. I’d rather do my peddling in bigger towns than the ones you got out here, places where a man can find an inn or a tavern, have a meal, and sleep in a bed. Truth to tell, my plan is to make a stake so I can have my own inn someday.”

  Here Orrin Beckwith paused and sat himself down. I wondered what his problem had to do with me and my fiddle.

  “Now, out here at the edge of civilization, all I have to do is open my pack and folks line up like pigs at the trough, if you’ll pardon the expression. But in your larger towns, folks see merchandise like mine all the time. A man needs something to make him stand out in a crowd, make folks want to buy from him and not the other fellow, if you see what I mean.”

  He was taking a long
time getting to it, but I was beginning to see what his point might be. Sure enough, next he said, “If you was to start playing that fiddle when we first pulled into a town, people would gather to listen. That’s all I need, is to get ’em close. Once I got ’em in earshot range, I can pull ’em the rest of the way in with my powers of persuasion. I’ve been told by many a lady that I possess a silver tongue.”

  Beckwith sat back, looking mighty pleased with himself, at least until he saw Pa’s face, and Molly’s, and mine, too, I reckon.

  “Did I hear right?” I asked. “Did you just call us pigs for wanting to see in your pack?”

  Beckwith pushed himself up straight in the chair and mumbled, “No offense meant, you understand. It was merely a manner of speaking.”

  I almost felt sorry for him then. But I was thinking about his offer. I’d gotten myself to town as often as I could to get fiddle lessons from Eli Tanner. Eli was the best fiddler around, and he won the contest held every year at Whitefield’s store. He said I had natural talent and a good ear, and I’d already learned to play a few tunes start to finish. Still, I didn’t think I was good enough for what Orrin Beckwith had in mind. I wasn’t about to mention it, though.

  Pa stood up and said it was time for supper, and that he’d think on it while we ate. We had a somber meal, not like the merry times we used to have with Isaac. I reckon Molly, Pa, and I were all thinking about Ezra and what was going to happen next.

  While Molly and I cleaned up, Pa and Orrin Beckwith spoke quietly by the fire. Then Pa sent Molly and me to bed. We could hear Pa and Beckwith talking more as the night grew darker.

  My feet itched something awful, and it was peculiar to think I might be going on a journey, after all. I never thought I’d sleep, what with the itching and the murmur of voices, but I did. I had terrible dreams. In them Ezra was trying to call to me for help.

  Next morning, Pa told me it was settled: I was leaving that very day to go with Orrin Beckwith. Beckwith would take me back along his route into Pennsylvania, where he was sure we’d hear news of the traveling show. It all seemed so sudden-like.

  The plan, as Pa had just described it, sounded as wiggly as his eyesight. All at once, I had my doubts about it. Pa must have known, because he caught my eye and gave a sideways glance at Molly. Then I knew there was more he wanted to say to me, but not in front of her. I nodded to show I understood.

  I looked at Orrin Beckwith, who was settling up with Pa over the cost of Molly’s dyes, and felt more than a little uncertain at the prospect of heading off with him. Then I thought of Ezra again, and pushed the uneasiness out of my mind.

  Pa caught up with me when I was doing my chores. I’d fed the chickens and Job, our horse, and was milking Golly when Pa came into the barn. I kept my eyes on the stream of milk hitting the pail while he talked.

  “Nathan,” he said, “I’m of two minds about this thing. I want to help Ezra, but not if it means putting you in danger.”

  There was silence for a minute, and I looked at Pa. He was rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. His shoulders looked droopy. The worry in his mind showed all over his body.

  “I can’t think what could have happened for Ezra to end up in such a fix,” he said.

  I had been wondering about the same thing. It bothered me, too. But I’d come up with an explanation in my mind. “Here’s how I figure it,” I said. “I reckon these show folks tricked him somehow and he couldn’t speak up for himself. And since he turned his back on killing and such after he left the army, he wouldn’t fight back. That’s why he needs help, Pa.”

  Pa looked thoughtful. “Could be you’re right. There’s just no telling.”

  “I expect finding him will be the hardest part,” I said, then shrugged. “After that, I’ll bring him home with me.”

  Pa hesitated a minute. “What if he doesn’t want to come?”

  I looked at him, astonished. “Why wouldn’t he want to leave that show? You know how he is about being around people.”

  “Yes,” Pa said gently. “And that includes us, too, Nathan.”

  “But—”

  “Oh, I know Ezra cares for you and Molly and me,” Pa went on. “But he’s given up on white folks’ ways, you know that.”

  “At least I can get him away from that show, and then…” My voice trailed off. I didn’t know what would come next.

  Pa shook his head. “Say he is with the show against his will. Who’s holding him? And what’s a boy, even one near grown like yourself, going to do about it?”

  I was quiet, thinking. “I reckon I can’t know till I get there,” I said finally.

  Pa looked at me, and in his face I could see how much he wished he could do this instead of me.

  “I’m not afraid, Pa,” I lied.

  “I am,” he said, but his voice was so low I wasn’t sure I’d heard right.

  After a moment he spoke again. “I remember listening to a preacher one time. He said that when a man is faced with a decision, the hard choice is almost always the right one. But I can’t figure which is harder, turning my back on Ezra’s trouble, or sending you off after him. I keep wondering what your mama would say about all this.”

  “She’d want me to help Ezra,” I said without hesitating a minute. “You know how she was.”

  “Yes, but she’d rather have died herself than see you come to harm,” Pa said.

  My eyes blurred with sudden tears, and I tried to blink them away. “Nothing’s going to happen to me, Pa.” After a moment I added, “Though I wish it was Isaac I was going with, instead of Beckwith.”

  Pa looked at me curiously. “Beckwith gave me his word he’ll stay with you until you find Ezra. He seems a decent fellow.”

  I shrugged. I didn’t want Pa to change his mind, so I decided not to say any more. But it was like Pa knew how I was feeling.

  He sighed and said, “Nathan, there’s another reason I’m going to allow you to do this, besides Ezra’s needing help.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Ever since that business with Weasel, you’ve reminded me of a horse I used to have,” he said.

  “A horse?” I repeated. “Which one?”

  “I called him Amos,” Pa said.

  Pa named all his horses out of the Bible, but I didn’t recollect one by that name.

  “It was before you were born,” Pa went on. “I don’t know what happened to old Amos before I got him, but whatever it was, it made him skittish. If I raised my hand just to scratch my nose, he’d buck or shy away. Now, you know I’d never strike an animal, but you couldn’t have convinced old Amos of that. It didn’t matter how kind and gentle I treated him.”

  Beckwith had as much as called me a pig, and now Pa was saying I reminded him of a horse. I didn’t take to being likened to a creature as foolish as the one Pa was describing. I waited to see just what he was getting at.

  “I reckon what I’m saying is, I don’t want to see that happen to you, son. A man who’s suspicious of everybody ends up in a mighty sad and narrow place.”

  I was struggling to understand. “You said this had something to do with Weasel. Are you saying I’m wrong to be wary of him and his kind?”

  “No,” Pa said softly. “The trouble comes when you can’t see the difference between him and his kind and regular, well-meaning folks.”

  I waited for him to go on.

  “That’s why I’m thinking it might do you good to go out in the world a bit. Open your eyes to all the different sorts of people out there.”

  I stood quiet, trying to let my thoughts settle. Pa was going to let me go after Ezra. That was good, even though I didn’t much hold with his reasoning, especially the part about the horse.

  Pa reached into his trouser pocket and held something out to me. It was a cloth pouch with a leather drawstring. “Take this,” he said. “If you need it, spend it.”

  I opened the pouch and stared at the five-dollar gold piece. It hardly seemed real. “But, Pa, how—I mean
to say, where did it come from?”

  “It was your mama’s. She was saving it. She always said there’d come a day when we’d have need of it. I reckon she’d want you to have it now.”

  It made me feel safer, somehow, to have Mama’s gift with me, close to my heart. I slipped the pouch over my head and hid it under my shirt so nobody, including Beckwith, would know it was there.

  “I hope not to use it,” I said. “I’d like for you to get yourself some of those spectacles.”

  Pa smiled. “Wouldn’t that be something?” After a moment he said, “Beckwith’s anxious to get on his way, Nathan, so when you’re finished here, we’ll get you packed up. And then—”

  He stopped there. I didn’t want to think about saying good-bye till I had to, and I reckon he didn’t, either.

  “I’ll be just a few more minutes,” I told him.

  When I finished milking Golly, I gave her a pat and let her into the fenced-in pasture. Then I brought Job out to join her. I patted Job’s velvety nose and buried my face in his mane for a moment. His warm, familiar smell always comforted me. I murmured in Job’s ear something about itchy feet and how I was going on a journey and how I’d see him soon, and he whinnied back, like he got my meaning.

  Job was sweet-natured, patient, and hardworking. We were lucky to have him. Weasel had come and stolen him once, along with our mule, Crabapple, and some chickens and piglets. My pet pig, Miz Tizz, had been too big for Weasel to carry off, but that hadn’t saved her from his meanness. When I’d found her lifeless body, I’d known right off it was Weasel who’d done it. The memory chilled me even now.

  I’d gotten Job back, but we never did see Crabby again. I still missed him and his stubborn ways.

  Back at the cabin, Molly took a locket strung on a strip of leather from around her neck and handed it to me. Ezra had made it for her out of bone, with a likeness of her face carved into it.

  Then she took a tall black hat from the hook on the wall and placed it on my head. It used to be Ezra’s, and I’d told him once how someday I aimed to get me a hat just like it. When he’d gone away in the spring, he’d left Molly the locket with a snip of his hair inside. And he’d left me the hat, along with a message to be happy wearing it.