Bringing Ezra Back

by Cynthia DeFelice

  “I don’t reckon I’m any good yet,” I went on. “But Eli says I will be one day, if I work hard. He says I’ve got a good ear. What do you say to that?”

  I began with the tunes I knew, the ones I’d played to draw customers for Beckwith. I played until I was plumb wore out from it, and even then I kept on going.

  Finally I put the fiddle away, saying, “That’s all for now, Ezra. We got to get some sleep. But I’ll play again in the morning, and every night and every morning till we get home, I promise. I reckon if you get tired of it, you’ll just have to let me know.”

  We spent the next few days traveling, and I could see Ezra growing stronger every day. I didn’t have to force him to eat anymore. I reckon he got hungry from walking, same as I did. But I told myself it also meant he cared whether he lived or died, and I took that as a good sign.

  On the trip east with Beckwith, I’d paid close attention to the rivers we’d crossed and the terrain we’d passed through. I knew to use the sun to travel nearly straight west till we reached the river the Shawnees called the Big Turkey and we called the Ohio. Then I’d shift northwest to the country where our farm was.

  I avoided the towns, unlike when I’d traveled with Beckwith. The less we saw of civilization, the better off we were, as I figured it. Ezra had always been wary of folks, even before Trask got hold of him. Now he reminded me even more of a wild creature, and I tried to gentle him same as I would any one of ’em that needed it.

  I’d taken to touching Ezra in small ways, patting his shoulder when I handed him his food, or putting my hand on his when I said good night. He didn’t flinch from me anymore, and I didn’t want any strangers scaring him off.

  I played my fiddle for him each morning and evening, and I got to thinking he looked forward to it. One night, when we’d finished eating from a pot of squirrel stew I’d fixed, I’d taken out my fiddle and commenced tuning.

  A voice from the forest said, “I hope you’re working up to playing a tune, Nathan Fowler, because that racket surely isn’t what’s commonly known as music.”

  Out of the shadows stepped Joseph R. Honeywell, his dandylion hair standing out from his head and his easel and quiver of brushes sticking out of his pack. “Mr. Honeywell!” I exclaimed. I was so glad to see him! Only then did I realize how lonely and scared I’d felt with just the empty husk of Ezra for company.

  I was worried how Ezra would take to having a stranger show up so sudden. A quick glance showed him to be staring into the fire, but I could see he’d froze up, and hunkered himself down, the way wild creatures do when they hope not to be noticed.

  “This here’s my friend,” I said. “The one I was looking for.” I said it kind of slow and meaningful, hoping Honeywell might remember some of our conversation and go easy.

  “Ah, yes,” he said quietly. “I am glad to see you’ve been reunited.” He stood where he was, and I was grateful to him for it.

  “Ezra,” I said, “this here’s Joseph Honeywell. He’s a portrait maker I met on the way out to find you. I’ll ask him to set a spell with us, if you don’t mind.”

  Ezra sat still and quiet, and I gestured for Honeywell to come on over. He did, after setting his pack down. His movements were slow and deliberate as he took a seat on the side of the fire away from Ezra.

  “How have you been?” I asked after a moment or two.

  “Far as I know, I ain’t died since you saw me last, and that’s something,” he said.

  I laughed.

  “How’d you get shed of that no-account peddler?” he asked. “Did he finally get strung up for a thief and a liar?”

  “Should have, I reckon,” I said darkly. “He stole my half eagle and told me you were the one did it.”

  To my surprise, Honeywell let out a guffaw, like that was about the funniest thing he’d heard in days.

  I scowled, not getting the joke.

  “I wondered how long it’d take him to relieve you of whatever it was you had hanging round your neck,” Honeywell said.

  I felt my mouth drop open. “You knew about it, too, then?” I asked.

  “Well, sure,” he said cheerfully. “I told you I ain’t dead yet, and I reckon I ain’t blind or stupid, either. It’s a nice twist, I have to admit, him pinning it on me. When you caught him at it, I imagine he told you it was for your own good, so’s you’d learn a lesson.”

  I shook my head in amazement. He read people like books, same as Beckwith did.

  “That Beckwith’s a right scoundrel,” Honeywell said, chuckling to himself all the while. I could see that, in spite of all the smart remarks and insults they traded back and forth, Honeywell was fond of Beckwith.

  At first I was surprised, but then I realized I felt no real gripe with the peddler myself. He’d gotten me to Ezra, which was just what he’d said he would do. I’d got my coin back, and though I didn’t like to admit it, he had taught me a thing or two.

  “How’d you happen upon your friend here?” Honeywell asked.

  I told him the story of finding Ezra in Milltown, and how we escaped from the Trasks. Honeywell was a good audience, and his admiring remarks made me feel that I’d done something awful brave.

  Then he looked at Ezra and said, “I wonder about your experiences before you met up with Trask.”

  He didn’t say it like he expected an answer, more like he was just talking to himself. Ezra stared into the fire.

  “You left us a letter in the stone wall, Ezra, remember?” I asked. “It said you were going to find your wife’s kinfolk.”

  I wasn’t sure if talking about his murdered wife would bring him happy memories or sad ones, but I figured he’d feel something. If he did, I couldn’t tell.

  To Honeywell, I added, “They’re Shawnees, removed by the government to the territories out west.”

  Honeywell nodded. “I heard about that,” he said. Then he shook his head. “It wasn’t a pretty story.”

  I glanced at Ezra. He didn’t look up, but his back stiffened, and he seemed alert in a way he hadn’t before.

  “What did you hear?” I asked.

  “Well, I ran into some traders who’d been to the territories,” Honeywell began. “As they told it, the Shawnees were led out there by agents from the War Department. The idea was they’d leave early enough in the spring so’s they’d get to their new home in time to start out fresh, planting and so on. But one thing and another came up to delay them. Government bungling, mostly. Supplies that were promised didn’t show up or got stolen. Word was, some of the government agents were the ones did the stealing.”

  Honeywell lifted one eyebrow and gave me a little smile. “I hope that doesn’t shock you, young Nathan.”

  I shook my head.

  He went on. “Well, anyhow, the Shawnees were told to sell their cattle and hogs and all their property that was considered too burdensome to take with them. So they did.

  “And the word got out, as it will, that they had money. All sorts of unscrupulous tradesmen showed up to sell the Injuns whiskey, with the idea that, once they were drunk, it’d be easy to fleece ’em out of their money. Which it was.

  “Like I said, they’d sold their livestock, so they had no meat. The government rations of flour and meal never showed, so they were living on pumpkins and potatoes. It got to be late in the year before they actually set out, and they ran into rain and snow and real bad cold. Lots died of dysentery and other sicknesses. The ones who got there were in pretty bad shape.”

  Honeywell sighed, and picked up a stick to stir the fire. “Time will tell, I reckon, how they manage.”

  During Honeywell’s telling, Ezra hadn’t moved. But this was a different kind of stillness. I could tell he’d been listening.

  “Were you there, Ezra?” I asked quietly. “Is that really how it happened?”

  In the light from the fire I saw the track of a single tear make its way slowly down his sunken cheek.

  We didn’t talk anymore after that. I put my fiddle away without play
ing, and lay on my back thinking for a long time before I fell asleep. It was an ugly tale Honeywell had told, and I was sorry that Ezra’s memory of it had been stirred. It had pained me to see that tear run down his face. But that tear meant Ezra could hear and understand and feel things. And that meant he was coming back from the dark place he’d gone to, didn’t it?

  18

  I AWOKE TO HONEYWELL wrestling with his boots.

  “I can never get my feet into these things till after I’ve had ’em on for a while,” he said, giving me a toothy grin.

  I laughed, and it seemed a fine way to start out the day. Ezra stirred soon after that. There was nothing I could point to that was different about the way he acted as we ate and prepared to leave. But something had changed. For the first time, he seemed mindful of the things going on around him.

  It came time to part company with Honeywell, and I didn’t want to say good-bye. “Where you headed?” I asked him.

  “Don’t know exactly,” he said. “But I reckon I’m on my way there.”

  I said, “I wish you’d come along with us.”

  “I’d like that, too, Nathan,” he said kindly, “but in my line of work, I have to go where there’s people whose portraits need making.”

  “Well,” I said, “you could paint me and Molly and Ezra and Pa, and then you could start in on Duffy and Winston and Job and Golly. That’s our dogs and our horse and cow, and after that, there’s the chickens.”

  We both laughed at the idea.

  “Someday when a woolly-headed old coot shows up at your door, I’ll remind you I was invited.”

  “I won’t need reminding,” I told him.

  We said our good-byes after that. Honeywell shook my hand. Then he took a firm hold of Ezra’s hand and shook it, too. I did appreciate the way he treated Ezra just the same as anybody else.

  That night, after Ezra and I made camp and ate, I took out my fiddle and played as usual. I didn’t think about where to place my fingers on the strings or how to hold the bow. I just played. I was feeling sorry about taking leave of Honeywell, and sad about what Ezra had seen happen to the Shawnees, and I was longing for this journey to be over so I could see Pa and Molly and the animals, too.

  Eli had told me that one day I wouldn’t have to think about my playing, I’d just be able to feel it. I reckon maybe that’s what happened. Anyhow, I got so wrapped up in what I was doing I forgot to look at Ezra for a while.

  He was sitting cross-legged, the way he always did. When I raised my eyes from the fiddle for a moment, I saw that his foot was tapping along, ever so slightly, to the music.

  I looked away, so’s not to make him shy, and kept playing. Every once in a while I’d take a peek, and sure enough, there was that foot movin’ to the rhythm.

  It’s hard to describe how excited I felt. When I finally put away the fiddle and curled up in my blanket, I stared at the stars for the longest time, holding on to the hopeful feeling I’d got from seeing that tapping toe.

  After that, I played my fiddle with one eye on Ezra and watched as his fingers joined his toes in tapping. Then his head began nodding to the music, too.

  One evening after I finished an especially lively tune, I called out, “Whoo-ee, Ezra, what did you think of that?”

  And I could have sworn the corners of his mouth turned up just the tiniest bit.

  Late the next day, I began to recognize the look of the countryside and I knew we were getting close to home. I reckon my feet knew it, too, ’cause they started moving faster. Ezra had grown strong enough so he didn’t have any trouble keeping up with me.

  It was close to sunset when we came to a familiar ridge, and I looked down through the opening in the trees at our farm. The fields were ripe with their harvest colors. In Mama’s garden, a row of sunflowers shone bright in the last rays of daylight. Golly stood in the pen by the barn, waiting to be milked and fed. Molly and Pa were in the far field, loading squash into the wagon. Pa gazed toward the setting sun, stretched his back, and seemed to say something to Molly. Then he took Job by the harness, and they started leading him back to the barn for the night. I stood, taking it all in, and my heart swelled at the sight.

  Then, loud as I could, I whistled between my teeth the way Pa had showed me. The sound carried across our little valley. Pa and Molly both turned to look our way. Pa waved and held on to Job, who had shied a bit at the sudden noise. Molly’s hand flew to her mouth; then she began running toward us. Duffy and Winston came from behind the barn and started after her.

  The dogs reached us first, barking with excitement and jumping up to lick our hands and faces.

  “Nathan! Ezra!” Molly gasped, hardly able to speak for breathing hard and smiling so big. She threw one arm around my waist and the other around Ezra’s and hugged so hard I could barely breathe myself. When she finally let go, she stepped back and looked from me to Ezra, and there was no mistaking her joy in seeing us.

  I dreaded the moment when she would realize that, although I’d found Ezra and brought him home with me, he wasn’t really there. But I don’t reckon anyone can resist my sister, Molly. When I turned to Ezra, he was looking back at her, and his lean, worn face had cracked open in a smile that reached clear to his eyes.

  “Ezra!” she cried. “I knew you’d come back!”

  19

  I RECKON I TALKED the hind leg off a donkey all through supper and long after, too. Molly and Pa asked lots and lots of questions. For his part, Ezra listened and nodded and even smiled a bit. It was almost like before, although we could see that the effort of it tired him out.

  I held back some when it came to telling about the Trasks. I didn’t want Molly to know everything about them and their show and what it had been like for Ezra. I figured Ezra had lived through it and didn’t need to hear it, either, far as that went.

  Molly and Pa carried on about how brave I’d been to sneak Ezra out of there right under the noses of the Trasks. I said I’d never have managed it without Calvin, Pea-Head Pete, Amelia, Betty, and especially Little Miss Mary. Their mouths dropped wide open as I told them about facing Trask down that night under the moon.

  Next I told about how I’d met up with Honeywell, not once, but twice. Even Ezra seemed to like hearing about how Honeywell and Beckwith carried on, joking and fooling back and forth.

  “Honeywell said he might show up here someday,” I said. “I hope he does, so’s you can see the man for your own selves.”

  Molly couldn’t get enough of hearing about the savage Devil-Beast of Borneo. She plain couldn’t believe two men fooled a whole town that way.

  “Oh, I ran into every sort of person there is,” I said, feeling pretty full of myself, what with all the attention I was getting. “There’s regular folks, sure. But there’s also clever swindlers and scoundrels most everywhere you go. Beckwith isn’t half bad, I reckon, compared to Trask. And Trask isn’t even the worst sort, when you consider he could have shot me and didn’t.

  “You see, Molly,” I said, “you got to learn to read folks, just like you read a book. I’ve been working on it. It’s how I knew to trust Miss Mary and them, and how I knew—well, hoped, anyway—Trask wasn’t a killer.”

  Molly was listening wide-eyed. Pa didn’t say anything, but he nodded at that, and I could see he was pleased.

  I reached around my neck and gave Molly back her locket.

  “I wish I could have brought home Mama’s half eagle gold piece, too,” I said to Pa. I’d already told them about how Beckwith took it and how I got it back. I’d explained how I’d had to cut it to pay for the knife, and how I’d finished off the knife using it to cut through the shackles.

  “I believe your mama would be mighty proud at how you put that coin to use,” Pa said quietly, and that made me feel real good.

  “Come spring,” I told Pa, “Beckwith will most likely show up again. I was hoping you could buy yourself those spectacles.”

  “With the good crop we had, I believe I will,” Pa answered.
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  “And some hair ribbons and combs for Miss Abigail,” I added with a grin.

  Pa’s face turned red, as it always did when Miss Abigail’s name was mentioned, and he said it was time we all got to bed.

  The weeks passed, turning the leaves red and gold, then brown. Ezra grew strong, eating Molly’s good food, and he helped us bring in the rest of the squash, beans, corn, and apples. I reckon it was his way of saying thanks for coming after him.

  Slowly, though, the knowledge grew in me that he wouldn’t stay with us in our cabin forever. Pa and Molly and me, we’d have liked it if he did. But it wasn’t Ezra’s way.

  One day, when the harvest was in and the wind carried winter on its breath, Ezra disappeared into the woods and didn’t come back until close to dark.

  It happened again, and again, and the third time I followed him. He traveled the same way he’d gone the night he’d come and led Molly and me through the darkness to where Pa lay near to dying. When after many hours he reached his we-gi-wa, I hid and watched. I saw that he’d put new sheets of bark on the sides and the roof. He was gathering firewood and piling it near the doorway.

  I knew then that he’d be leaving us soon. I turned away, not wanting him to see me or the tears that prickled my eyes, and started my long walk home.

  The day came when he left and didn’t come back. Molly cried and cried. I might have, too, if I hadn’t seen it coming and done a lot of thinking on it.

  I figured it wasn’t for me, or Molly, or Pa to decide how Ezra should live. Getting him away from Trask was different. He didn’t belong there, just like Little Miss Mary had said.

  The hard thing was, he didn’t belong with us, either. It pained me because I loved him. I believe he loved me and Molly and Pa, too, in his way. But his way was different, and I reckon a body would need to have lived his whole life inside Ezra’s skin to know what it was like being him.

  The world had given Ezra more than his share of sorrow, that was certain. But he’d fit the pieces of his broken heart back together once before, and I hoped he’d be able to do it again. He’d made a good start, by coming back from a place much farther away than Pennsylvania. There was still a ways to go, and I reckoned it might take him some time.