Bringing Ezra Back Page 5

  “Let’s search ’em, see if they got our money,” a man close to us cried.

  “Yeah, search ’em!” others agreed.

  I looked at Beckwith. He wasn’t laughing anymore, but he didn’t look near as scared as I felt. “Gentlemen, please,” he said, “if you’ll allow me to explain, I assure you—”

  But a man with a tangled black and gray beard wasn’t having any of it. He busted in, saying, “Enough with the fancy talk, mister. We’ll do the assurin’ around here from now on.”

  Two other men drew their pistols and pointed them, one at me and one at Beckwith. It wasn’t the first time I’d had a gun trained on me; Weasel had done the same with a rifle the night he captured me. But I don’t reckon it’s a feeling you ever quite get used to. I put my hands in the air before anybody even said to do it, and stood still as a rabbit that’s seen the shadow of a hawk passing overhead.

  “You,” the man who was covering Beckwith said, “hands up, like the boy’s.”

  From the corner of my eye I could see Beckwith give a little shrug, then obey the command.

  “Let’s see what they got on ’em,” the bearded man said. He stepped closer to Beckwith and nodded to a littler man with bushy red hair who was standing near me. “You search the boy, Frank,” he said.

  “There’s no need for that,” Beckwith said. “We’ll turn our pockets out for you, and you’ll find no treasure trove of dimes, I assure—” He gasped and doubled over in pain as the bearded man kicked him in the leg.

  “What did I say about assurin’?” the bearded man asked.

  Without moving my head, I glanced over and saw a little flicker of satisfaction cross his face. It wasn’t new to me that some folks found pleasure in causing pain to another human being, though I didn’t think I’d ever understand it. I didn’t have time to ponder it right then, though. I was too busy trying to look harmless and follow orders. I wanted to get myself and Beckwith out of the mess we were in and out of Tullyville altogether as soon as possible. I didn’t favor the idea of being searched at gunpoint by a stranger, but I wasn’t going to argue about it, either.

  First the red-haired man reached out and took my hat, the one Ezra had given me, and after looking inside threw it down in the dirt of the road. I bit my lip, hard, and kept quiet. Then the man started at my neck, searching for what I might have hidden under my clothes. Right off he felt the bone locket Ezra had made with the likeness of Molly’s face. He yanked it hard enough that the leather string broke. He examined it, scowled, and threw it to the ground beside the hat.

  I was plenty mad about that, but I didn’t let my anger make me stupid. I kept my wits about me, as Pa had taught me to do. I stood cold and still while the man patted me all over my chest, my arms, and my legs. He felt in my pockets and made me untie my boots and take them off.

  When he’d finished, his voice was harsh with disappointment as he announced to the others, “He ain’t got nothin’ but the clothes on his back.”

  The bearded man was still working on Beckwith. He found the leather purse where Beckwith had put the money we’d made that afternoon. He dumped it into his hand and peered at it. There were lots of coins there, but not near as many as the little man with greasy hair had taken in at the show. The bearded man seemed angry as he motioned to Beckwith to take off his boots.

  Beckwith bent down, untied the laces, and pulled off one boot, then the other. He turned each one upside down and shook it to show there was nothing inside. Then he stood in the street in his stocking feet, his none-too-clean big toe poking out the end of his right sock. His expression said, plain as if he spoke out loud, I told you so.

  But the bearded man wasn’t giving up. “Take off the socks, too,” he said.

  Beckwith’s little smile wavered for a moment. He pulled his mouth back into a grin and said, “My socks? Surely you don’t believe there could be a passel of dimes hidden in these wretched garments?”

  The bearded man moved his foot as if he meant to give Beckwith another kick to the shins, and I felt myself wince. I wanted to tell him to take off the socks so’s they’d be satisfied and leave us alone.

  Slowly Beckwith reached down and pulled off his right sock, the one that needed darning, and handed it to the bearded man. It appeared fairly stiff with sweat and grime, and the man made a face when he touched it, then dropped it to the ground. A month of Sundays seemed to pass before Beckwith got the other sock off and handed it over. This one hung heavier from his hand, and when the bearded man took it, a smile spread across his face.

  “Well, now, what have we here?” he asked. His voice was full of pretend surprise. In one hand he held the sock up for the crowd to see. Then he made a big ceremony out of emptying it into the palm of his other hand.

  Out came a pouch made of homespun cloth, tied with a leather drawstring. The bearded man made another big show of opening the pouch to see what was in it. But I didn’t have to look. I knew it was my pouch with my mama’s five-dollar gold piece inside.

  8

  MY EARS FILLED with a loud roaring. I was about knocked off my feet by the fury I felt at Beckwith’s treachery. I couldn’t believe I’d taken his word that Honeywell was the culprit. I should have known better. So much strong feeling brought me close to crying, and I tried to get ahold of myself.

  “You see?” Beckwith said, speaking to the crowd. “No ill-gotten gains. Just the hard-earned savings of a poor peddler, my protection against a rainy day or a stretch of bad luck.”

  I about choked at that, but the crowd grew quiet. Then somebody shouted, “If he’s a peddler, where’s his pack? Could be the money’s there.”

  The others grew restless again until Beckwith spoke up. “My pack is in the barn of one of your kind neighbors. You’re welcome to go search it. But surely you can see there has been no time for me to go there to hide your money. I’m sorry, folks. You have been hornswoggled, but not by us. The boy and I were victims, too. Those two scoundrels who perpetrated the hoax are no doubt on their way to a safe haven they established well ahead of time, and we are left to contemplate our own foolishness.”

  This little speech by Beckwith brought grumbles from the crowd, but at least they appeared convinced that Beckwith and I weren’t the ones who’d swindled them. The bearded man thrust the leather purse and the cloth pouch into Beckwith’s hand. Then he tried to rouse the group to chase after the two showmen, but it seemed most of the anger had given way to embarrassment and chagrin. It looked to me like they just wanted to go home and forget the whole thing. I watched them drift off until it was only Beckwith and me standing in the street.

  I made my eyes burn into him until he looked my way. To my astonishment, he smiled at me. Then he shrugged and held out the pouch. “It was too easy to pass up, son. No harm done, you agree?”

  My voice was cold as I said, “I’m no son to you, so don’t call me that. You’re nothing like my pa. You’re nothing but a low-down crook.”

  Beckwith sighed deeply. “Nathan, Nathan. Don’t get yourself in a lather over this.”

  I could scarcely believe he was talking like I was the one acting unreasonable.

  “Why, we’re lucky to be alive. It was only due to my quick thinking and fast talking that we are alive.”

  I let out a bitter laugh. “I reckon I’m supposed to forget about you stealing my money and thank you for saving my life, when it was mostly your fool snickering that put us in hot water in the first place?”

  There was a moment of silence. Beckwith, seeing that his smiles and shrugs weren’t working on me, dropped the wheedling tone. His voice grew impatient. “Nathan, you’re not a child; you said as much yourself. In this life, a man has to get what he can, however he can. You can be a lamb or you can be a wolf. Eat or get eaten. Take or get taken.

  “If you’re as smart as I think you might be, you’ve learned something tonight. If not”—he shrugged again—“well, like I always say, the wolves never have to look far for an easy meal.”

 
He picked up his socks and boots and walked off barefoot in the direction of the barn. I stood there for a while, feeling rooted as a willow tree on a riverbank. Finally I leaned down and picked up my hat, brushed it off, and put it back on my head. I was glad to see that Molly’s locket was still in one piece after the rough treatment it had gotten. I retied the leather string around my neck, then pulled on my boots and followed Beckwith.

  I didn’t plan on keeping up company with him. The way I figured it, not only didn’t I like him, I didn’t need him. I had my gold piece back. I’d be able to move faster without him slowing me down. We’d already made it to western Pennsylvania. I could go around asking about the traveling show myself.

  But my pack was in the barn alongside his, and I wasn’t about to leave my fiddle for him to sell or give to some other boy to play for the crowds. Besides, there was a good bit of food left back at the barn. I aimed to get me a proper night’s sleep and fill up my belly in the morning before parting company with the peddler. A wolf wouldn’t pass up the chance for an easy meal, and I didn’t aim to be a sheep any longer.

  As I walked, I tried to puzzle out everything that had happened. I’d wanted to believe in the Devil-Beast of Borneo, and hadn’t wanted to believe Beckwith when he said it would be nothing but a trick. I’d believed Beckwith when he told me Honeywell was a thief, but it turned out Beckwith was a thief and a liar both.

  I couldn’t seem to get my feet under me when it came to people. Beckwith claimed to read folks like a book, but whenever I tried it, the words got wiggly and I read ’em all wrong.

  Pa had sent me out to open my eyes to the whole wide world, and I reckon I had. Far as I could tell, it was full of scoundrels, cheats, and liars.

  9

  WHEN I GOT BACK to the barn, Beckwith was wrapping himself in his blanket and settling down for the night. I said to him, “I don’t believe I’ll be traveling with you anymore, Mr. Beckwith. But before we part company, I’d like to buy one of those Barlow knives you got. I’ll pay with my gold coin and you can give me back the difference.”

  Beckwith nodded and said, “I’ll sell you the Barlow, but I’ve got to keep my small coins for making change.”

  I shook my head and laughed at the gall of the man. “You don’t reckon I’m going to give you my whole five dollars for a knife, do you?”

  He looked offended and answered, “Of course not.” He spoke as if he’d never think of cheating a body.

  “Simply cut off part of your precious coin equal to the value of the knife,” he said.

  I’d heard of people doing what he was talking about. Gold was gold; it didn’t matter if it was all in one piece or not. But somehow I didn’t like the idea of cutting into Mama’s coin. I’d wanted to return it whole to Pa. Still, if I was to be out on my own, I’d need the knife. I’d need it to fashion tools, to make snares to capture food, and to cut branches for firewood and roasting spits.

  And, after what had happened with the townsfolk that night, I realized how suddenly a person can find himself neck-deep in trouble. I’d need a weapon to protect myself.

  “How do you go about making a cut like that?” I asked.

  “You figure it the best you can,” Beckwith said. “I’ve got the tools for it. You can do it yourself, so’s you’ll be satisfied I’m not cheating you.”

  Then he yawned and said, “I reckon it can wait till morning, though.” He gave me his foxy grin and added, “Unless you’re figuring on cutting my throat during the night…” He let out a guffaw at that, and I could hear the insult in it, like he knew I’d never do it. He rolled over with another loud yawn and closed his eyes.

  He had me pegged for a sheep, but right then I thought I could have wrung his scrawny neck with my bare hands. Instead, I spread out my blanket as far away from him as I could get, slipped the pouch holding Mama’s coin into my boot, and lay down on the straw.

  Sleep was slow in coming. It didn’t matter how many times I told myself I was better off on my own, I was worried about setting out alone. Maybe a thief and a cheat didn’t make the best company, but Beckwith was company, and the world seemed a large and lonely place to me.

  When morning came at last, I made sure to get a bellyful of breakfast. Then Beckwith and I settled down to the matter of the knife. I said I wanted the biggest one he had and he took it from his pack, saying it would cost me an even dollar. He claimed he was giving me a bargain, making the price a nice round number so as to make it easier for me to figure where to cut.

  I was about to try and cut into Mama’s beautiful, shiny coin with my knife when Beckwith stopped me. “You’ll lose gold to shavings that way. Use these.”

  He handed me a small hammer and a chisel. I positioned the chisel carefully and hit it with the hammer, taking off what I figured to be a fifth of the coin. Beckwith watched me as I worked, talking the whole while.

  “That coin’s known as a half eagle. It’s soft and easy to cut, bein’ gold. Some coins are a lot harder.”

  I hated to ruin the pretty pictures it had on it. Beckwith’s share was part of a lady’s head on one side, and on the other, part of an eagle’s wing. When I handed it to him, he pocketed it without making any comment.

  Then he reached into his pack, took out a sheath, and gave it to me. “It won’t be any good to you wrapped up in your pack,” he said gruffly. “You got to have it where it’s handy.”

  Then he gave me a couple of eggs he’d boiled up hard that morning. The man was full of surprises. Just when I had him figured for a purebred louse, he had to go and do something nice. It was exasperating, in a way.

  “Thanks,” I said grudgingly. I cut a piece off the rope tying my pack together, put it through the loop in the sheath, and hung it from my waist. I liked the way it felt. “I reckon I’ll be going now,” I said.

  “Safe travels, Nathan. I hope you find your friend and meet with no further mishaps.”

  “Safe travels to you, too,” I mumbled. I was feeling confused by his kindness, and I had to remind myself of his lying and thieving ways.

  The sun was just coming up in the east and I headed toward it. I walked steady, telling myself how good it was to be traveling without Beckwith slowing me down. I came to a little town that wasn’t much more than a general store and a livery stable, and asked around. But no one there had heard of any such show as I described.

  I made camp that night by a stream, built myself a fire, and cooked a little ham. It was awful quiet without Beckwith’s eternal talk. I was thinking how nice it would be if Duffy and Winston were there, curled up beside me. People were altogether too shifty and unpredictable, whereas a dog was straightforward in its dealings. You could count on a dog.

  I was just warming up to this line of thinking when I heard the snap of a twig. I jumped up and reached for my knife, and there stood Beckwith with his foxy grin spread wide across his face. “You’ll find it ain’t easy to get shed of somebody when you’re both traveling by foot and going in the same general direction,” he observed.

  “I reckon not,” I said, returning my knife to its sheath. “I heard tell bad luck has a way of showing up. And here you are.”

  His grin grew bigger, and I smiled back in spite of myself. “Come on and set,” I said. “Here I was, wishing for four-legged company, and, sure enough, up walks a skunk.”

  I was pretty proud of that comment. Beckwith laughed and put down his pack with his usual groaning and carrying-on.

  So the peddler and I fell in together again, though I was warier of him than before. We stopped at a few farms along the way to do some peddling, and on the third day we came to a small village. After I’d fiddled and drawn a crowd, I stood back and watched Beckwith work. I had to admire his talent.

  Once Beckwith had made his sales, I took out the handbill featuring the show Ezra was part of. “Anybody heard tell of such a thing?” I asked.

  It turned out the show had come through town just two days before and folks were still full of talk about it. Never in
all their born days, as they told it, had they seen such peculiar sights.

  “It was enough to give a body nightmares,” one lady said with a shudder.

  My heart began to pound against my rib bones. “Did they still have a man who—who didn’t speak?” I asked. “One they called a”—I stopped, hating to say the words—“a White Injun?”

  “You mean the savage without a tongue?” a man said. “He’s part of it. He’s downright creepy, he is.”

  “He ain’t human,” another man put in.

  “Same for all of ’em,” said someone else. “Sent straight from the Devil, the whole bunch of ’em.”

  “I heard it was the Devil took that Injun’s tongue.”

  I wanted to say it was a devil who took Ezra’s tongue, a savage devil named Weasel. I wanted to say that Ezra was more human than Weasel and plenty of other folks I could point to. But I didn’t. Instead I asked, “Where were they headed?”

  “South and east toward Vestry,” someone said.

  “And after that, to Milltown.”

  “You should be able to catch ’em in a day or two or three. They move slow with them wagons, and they might spend two, three days at the same place, long as folks keep coming.”

  I’d found Ezra’s trail at last.

  10

  TIME CRAWLED ALONG slow as a centipede for the next three days, as we traveled to Vestry. Every minute we spent there was an agony to me. While Beckwith peddled his wares, the townsfolk talked about how the show had packed up and left just the day before for Milltown, after staying for two nights’ worth of performances.

  They marveled at how skinny the human skeleton feller was, and how teeny Little Miss Mary was, and how big the Amazing Amelia was for her age. But what they talked about most was “that wretched soul,” the White Injun who had no tongue. One man said it showed what savages Injuns were.