Hidden Places (9 page)

Johnny started bawling. ‘‘Go get it for me or I’ll tell Pa what you did!’’

‘‘Get it yourself.’’

I knew Johnny was terrified of falling through the ice. He wouldn’t even lace up his skates until Simon and I had skated around the whole pond a couple of times to make sure it was safe. He was afraid of the pond in the summertime, too, because he couldn’t swim very well. He never could get up the nerve to jump off the rope swing. Now I saw him looking back and forth from me to his sled and I knew he was scared spitless. ‘‘You’re a scaredy-cat!’’ I taunted. ‘‘A lily-livered baby!’’

‘‘I am not!’’ His voice grated on me the way fingernails on a blackboard grate on other people.

‘‘Are too! You’ve got a yellow stripe down your back a mile wide! You’re scared stiff to step one foot out onto that ice and fetch your stupid sled.’’

‘‘I am not!’’

‘‘Then prove it! I dare you!’’ I crossed my arms and glared at him. ‘‘I
double
dare you!’’ I loved to make Johnny squirm. I watched him walk a few steps out past the shoreline and stop.

‘‘Is it safe?’’

The truth was, I didn’t know. The weather hadn’t turned really cold yet. But hatred makes you say all kinds of things that aren’t true. ‘‘What do you think, dummy? Your sled didn’t sink, did it?’’

He took a few more tentative steps. The snow made an odd crunching sound beneath his feet. I laughed cruelly.

‘‘You’re such a chicken!’’

‘‘I am not!’’ His voice sounded shaky, like he was riding in the back of a wagon down a bumpy road.

‘‘Then why don’t you walk out there and get your sled?’’ I turned my back and strode away. He would dither around for who knows how long before making up his mind. Meanwhile, I could disappear and be rid of him.

I heard that strange snow-crunching sound behind me as I started up the hill. I didn’t know if Johnny was walking farther out onto the pond or retracing his steps. I didn’t care.

Suddenly the sound changed. I heard an eerie creaking noise, like an old wooden floor in a haunted house. It was the most horrifying sound I’ve ever heard. The creaking grew louder and faster, like kindling catching fire. Johnny screamed.

I whirled in time to see the ice give way. Johnny went under, his arms flailing uselessly. Then his scream was extinguished as he vanished beneath the fractured surface, disappearing into the coal black water.

It was the most horrible moment of my life—one I’ve relived a thousand times since that day. I wished I could go back and do things differently, wished it had been me that had died instead of Johnny.

My father doesn’t know the truth about his death. Only one other person knows, and I don’t think she’ll ever tell. But I’ve been cursed like Cain—condemned to wander the earth for killing my brother.

I stopped reading as a chill shivered through me. Was this a true story? Was this the reason Gabriel Harper wandered all over the country like a tramp?

I felt guilty for reading his private journal. It seemed like I was reading Gabe’s mind and his heart. But I just couldn’t help myself. I skipped ahead to another place and continued to read:

My father always held the standards of the Bible over our heads, demanding we live up to them, but he never judged himself in the same light. He was really two different men. To folks in town he was the most successful farmer in the county, a respected elder at our church, a benefactor to missionaries in China and Africa. But to his family he was another man altogether. We felt the flames of his terrible temper, as hot and swift as a brush fire, sweeping down out of nowhere and raging out of control in a flash, reducing what was green and sweet just moments earlier into blackened ash and stubble.

I observed the difference his presence made on my mother. The only time I heard her gentle laughter or saw her beautiful smile was when he wasn’t around—then she would sometimes swing me up into her arms and dance with me, humming popular songs as we waltzed around the parlor. But as soon as my father appeared she became wary and furtive, cowering like a beaten dog, though I never saw him lay a hand on her.

When I discovered that my own temper was just as swift and deadly as his, it terrified me. I hated the thought that I was like him in any way. I hated my father, and so I hated myself for being his son.

The night I found out that I wasn’t his son, that he wasn’t my real father, I felt born again—alive and free, knowing that not one drop of his despised blood flowed in my veins.

But then the truth of what my mother had done slowly sank in. Why had she subjected me to his cruelty all those years if I wasn’t his real son? How could she have watched him rage at me, scorn and ridicule me, beat me without mercy, when he had no right? She had assured me of her love and I had believed her. I’d trusted her with childlike faith. Now I felt betrayed by her.

I closed Gabe Harper’s notebook with shaking hands. I remembered my own mother’s betrayal and it seemed like I could hear her voice just as clear as could be:
‘‘You know I love you more than anything in the whole wide world, don’t you, Sugarbaby?’’

I was sorry I had ever opened Gabe’s book. He had stripped my heart bare beside his own. Later, as I lay in bed, a storm of feelings howled through me like the wind in the snowstorm, emotions too raw and biting to stand up against. Even with Winky alongside me for company that night, it was a long time before I fell asleep.

CHAPTER FOUR

T
he next day was the Lord’s Day. My daddy had always made sure I went to church on the Sabbath if he could find one nearby. And my father-in-law would have made us all walk to church through a blizzard rather than miss a single Sunday. But I didn’t live with my daddy anymore, and Frank Wyatt was dead. I had no reason at all to attend church.

I had enjoyed sitting in the pew beside Sam every Sunday morning, just as proud as can be of all the respect people gave the Wyatt family. But after Sam died, the white-washed walls of that little church began to feel like they were closing in on me—like it was Frank Wyatt’s church and not God’s. No one there knew my father-in-law the way I did. I thought about the words Gabe Harper had written:
My father was two different men
. Gabe might have been describing Frank Wyatt.

Aunt Batty brought her Bible with her to the breakfast table that bright Sunday morning and started leafing through it after we’d finished eating. ‘‘We need to read something special this morning in honor of the Lord’s Day,’’ she said.

I was about to put a stop to the idea, remembering the poems she’d read the night before and remembering all the stuff Grandpa Wyatt used to read from the Bible about God’s vengeance and wrath. But Aunt Batty found her place and started reading before I could stop her.

‘‘ ‘At that time Jesus answered and said, ‘‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light....’’ ’ ’’

She closed the book with a smile. ‘‘Isn’t the Lord’s Day wonderful? He gives us a day of rest.’’

I pushed my chair away from the table and stood. ‘‘I have chores to do.’’

‘‘Well, of course you do, Toots. Chores don’t go away on the Sabbath, do they? But once they’re done we can all have fun!’’

My kids looked horrified and I guess I must have, too. ‘‘Grandpa never let us play on the Sabbath,’’ Jimmy said solemnly. ‘‘We weren’t allowed.’’

Even on the hottest day of the summer, he would make those poor kids stay indoors in their Sunday clothes rather than go for a swim in the pond.

‘‘Your grandpa was wrong,’’ Aunt Batty declared. She was just a little thing, but she planted her hands on her hips and stuck out her chin like she was David taking on Goliath. ‘‘The Bible says Sunday is a day of
rest
. It doesn’t say to
stop living
! Come on, now,’’ she told the children, ‘‘let’s give your mama a hand with those chores, then we’ll find a nice, clean patch of snow and make snow angels.’’

‘‘Is that like making a snowman only with wings?’’ Jimmy asked.

‘‘Heavens, no!’’ she cried, her arms flying up in surprise. ‘‘You mean to tell me you children never made snow angels before?’’

‘‘Never,’’ Becky said.

‘‘Well, let’s hop to it then and get our work done so I can teach you how.’’

As all three kids leaped into action I wondered when, exactly, I had surrendered control to Aunt Batty. Wasn’t she
my
houseguest? And what on earth were snow angels?

By the time the boys and I finished the outside chores, Becky had helped wash the dishes and Aunt Batty had stew simmering on the back of the stove for Sunday dinner. ‘‘You coming outside to make angels with us, Toots?’’ she asked me as she and Becky bundled into their coats.

‘‘No, thanks,’’ I said. ‘‘I need to tend to Mr. Harper.’’

When they were gone, I started gathering things to make a fresh poultice. While I waited for the water to boil, my eyes fell on Gabe’s bag again. I’d vowed I wouldn’t read any more of his story, but now I was worried that I hadn’t put everything back just the way he’d had it, and that he would know I’d been snooping. When I recalled seeing a Bible amongst his things it gave me an idea. Maybe he’d want to read from it on the Sabbath. Maybe I could take it to him and admit right off that I’d looked inside his bag. He couldn’t get mad at me for doing a good deed, could he?

I found the Bible easily enough, but then my curiosity had me leafing through it to peek at the dedication page—was Gabriel Harper really his given name? He must not have wanted anyone to know because that whole page was torn right out. I leafed through the rest of the book to see what else I might learn about him, but all I found was a tiny bunch of pressed violets in the book of Exodus and an old sepia-toned photograph in the book of Acts. The woman in the picture was very beautiful, with upswept hair and large, dark eyes that seemed to draw you to her face. Her lips were parted slightly in a faint, seductive smile, as if she’d just stolen a kiss from the photographer. There was no name on the back of the photo, only a date—June 16, 1893. I couldn’t really tell how old Gabe was, but I didn’t think he was old enough for this woman to be his wife or his girlfriend. Was she his mother? I put the picture back where I found it and brought the Bible to him. I had to work hard not to act too guilty as I lied.

‘‘I was gathering up all your dirty clothes to wash tomorrow and I noticed this in your bag. I thought you might want to read it, seeing as today is the Sabbath.’’

‘‘Please leave my clothes the way they are,’’ he said. It was impossible to read his expression, hidden behind all that hair, but I could tell by the ice in his voice that he was angry. ‘‘I’m sure you have enough to do around here, ma’am, without washing my things.’’

‘‘You saying you prefer to stay dirty?’’ I asked, just as coldly.

‘‘I’m saying I can take care of my own things once I’m back on my feet.’’

‘‘Fiddlesticks! I have a load of washing to do on Monday anyway, so what’s a couple more things?’’

‘‘Ma’am—’’

‘‘Besides, they’re stinking up my house.’’

I turned and left the room before he could argue with me. When I came back with the poultice to tend to his leg, his Bible was laying on the nightstand beside the bed, unopened. Gabe was staring up at the ceiling with his hands clasped behind his head. Neither of us said a word as I folded back the bed sheet and carefully removed the old bandage.

‘‘This isn’t healing right,’’ I said when I saw the festering wound. ‘‘It needs stitching.’’

‘‘Go ahead and stitch it, then.’’

I looked up to see if he was joking but he wasn’t.

‘‘Are you crazy? A minute ago you didn’t want me washing your clothes and now you’re willing to let me sew up your leg like...like an old torn shirt?’’

‘‘I’d do it myself if I could reach that far. Don’t you sew?’’

‘‘Of course I sew. But I couldn’t...Ihaven’t the stomach for something like this.’’

‘‘Maybe Aunt Batty would—’’ ‘‘She’s a half-crazy old woman. You need a doctor.’’

‘‘No,’’ he said simply. ‘‘I already told you, no doctors.’’

‘‘Why are you being so stubborn?’’

‘‘I already explained that, too.’’

I felt my anger boiling up like a kettle on a hot stove. ‘‘And I already explained that my husband died from a cut that wasn’t nearly as bad as yours. Sam might still be alive today if he’d seen a doctor in time.’’

‘‘I’m very sorry for your loss, ma’am,’’ he said politely, ‘‘but this is my decision to make, not yours.’’

I wanted to yell at him again, tell him to get out of my house then and go on down the road and crawl under a bush to die, but he was just stubborn enough to do it. I put a lid on my anger.

‘‘Well, if you don’t get this leg looked at you’ll have a nasty scar at the very least,’’ I warned. ‘‘Maybe even a limp in your step.’’

‘‘I can live with that. It’ll be a good reminder.’’

‘‘Of what? Your mule-headed stubbornness?’’

A slight smile crossed his lips. ‘‘Of the hazards of traveling the rails without a ticket.’’