Bringing Ezra Back (14 page)

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.

“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.

I wished I could explain it all to Molly. “Ezra's gone to his we-gi-wa,” I told her. “He's got it all fixed up again. I followed him there, the day when I was gone and didn't get back till after dark.”

“But
why?
” she wailed.

“I think it's because it's where he lived with his wife,” I said. “They were happy there. I reckon he's going back to try to be happy there again.”

Molly sniffled, appearing to be thinking about it.

“Maybe he'll find another wife,” I said, adding, “same as Pa might do.”

She smiled a little bit at that.

“He's not gone for good, Molly. He'll come back to see us, I bet, and I'm sure Pa will let us visit him sometimes.”

“But it's so far away,” she said sadly.

I thought of something Orrin Beckwith said to Honeywell one day. It had made me grin like a roast possum at the time, and I smiled, remembering it. I hoped it would make Molly smile, too.

“It seems farther than it is, Molly,” I told her. “But once you get there, you'll find it ain't.”

Also by Cynthia DeFelice

The Apprenticeship of Lucas Whitaker

Death at Devil's Bridge

The Ghost and Mrs. Hobbs

The Ghost of Cutler Creek

The Ghost of Fossil Glen

The Missing Manatee

Nowhere to Call Home

Under the Same Sky

Casey in the Bath,

illustrated by Chris L. Demarest

Old Granny and the Bean Thief,

illustrated by Cat Bowman Smith

One Potato, Two Potato,

illustrated by Andrea U'Ren

The Real, True Dulcie Campbell,

illustrated by R. W. Alley

Copyright © 2006 by Cynthia C. DeFelice

All rights reserved

First edition, 2006

www.fsgkidsbooks.com

eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].

eISBN 9781466893580

First eBook edition: March 2015