Rorey's Secret (7 page)

With a sudden jerk we started moving. Robert hurried faster than the truck ought to go, and we left the awful chaos behind us.

“Sarah?” Emmie called. “Why’d God make this happen?” “It wasn’t God,” I answered her. But that was all I could say.

I sat there for a minute, feeling the wind on my wet cheeks and thinking of Daddy carrying me on his shoulders the way he used to do.

Suddenly I remembered hearing somewhere that people who get hurt need to be kept extra warm. I didn’t have nothing else to cover him with, so I took off my sweater and stretched it across his chest as best I could.

“Please wake up,” I whispered.

I knew we weren’t far from home. It shouldn’t take long to get there. But it seemed like forever, even with how fast Robert was driving.

“You okay, Bert?” I yelled, ’cause he had gotten quiet too.

“I think so,” he answered softly. “It’s just my ankle. I think I turned it. But Mr. Wortham—I’m awful sorry . . .”

I couldn’t say anything at all. I couldn’t blame Berty. I should’ve stopped him from going in. I should’ve been quicker. But more than that, I should’ve told on Rorey before any of this ever got started.

“Is Mr. Wortham gonna die?” Emmie asked.

“No!” I yelled at her. “No, he’s not, and don’t you say it again! He’ll be just fine. You’ll see.”

Emmie and Bert looked at me, and neither of them said a word. I knew I shouldn’t have yelled. And I knew I should probably say something now to make them feel better. Only I couldn’t think what.

Daddy moved just a little, and I held tight to his hand.
Please, God,
I begged inside my head.
Please, please, let him wake up and be okay.

“Pumpkin . . .”

Daddy’s voice was low just as we were turning down our lane. And I got excited. I could hardly believe my prayer would get answered so fast as that.

“Oh, Daddy!” I smiled and squeezed his hand, glad to be hearing him call me “pumpkin” again, just like when I was a little kid. I thought he’d sit up, but he just looked at me. And I guessed that was enough for right then.

He was coughing some, and Emmie scooted closer. Robert drove us up between the barn and the house and then stopped the truck and came flying around to the back. “How is he?”

Daddy tried to sit up. Using my arm to pull against, he got halfway, and Robert jumped up beside us. “Maybe you oughta lay still, Dad. I’ll get Mom.”

But Daddy wouldn’t hear it. “I’m all right, son. I just want to get in the house.”

Light from the oil lamps spread across the yard as the back door opened, and I could see Mom standing there looking out, surely wondering who it was and why we were back so soon. She would know the fire wasn’t spent. Anyone could tell that by the glow in the sky, in the wrong place to be the sunrise.

“Samuel?” she called.

“Right here,” he answered her, sitting forward despite Robert’s protest.

Mom must’ve thought it strange that none of us were hurrying toward the house. She came running.

“He’s hurt, Mom,” Robert told her before she even got close.

“I think I’m all right,” Daddy said again. “Just help me inside.”

“But, Dad—” Robert started to say, just as Mom got to the truck.

“What is it? What’s happened?”

“Juli, I’m all right—”

“Part of the barn fell,” I tried to explain. “He was in there getting Berty out.”

For a minute Mom just stood there. “Oh . . . Lord, have mercy . . . oh, Samuel.” She climbed right up in the truck and started hugging on him, and then she saw Berty and hugged him too. “Thank God you’re both . . . you’re all right, aren’t you?”

For a second, nobody said anything.

“It’s not bad, Juli,” Daddy told her. “It could’ve been worse.”

“He wasn’t awake when we pulled him out, Mom,” Robert said. “And we were pretty worried when he—” “Just help me into the house,” Dad interrupted. “I just need to rest a while.”

“I’ll go fetch the doctor,” Robert persisted.

“No,” Dad told him. “Not now. I’m all right. Go help George.” He started scooting toward the back of the truck. I went with him.

“What about Bert?” Mom asked. “Are you all right, Bert?”

“Yeah,” he answered her. “It’s just my ankle twisted. But I’m sure glad Mr. Wortham pushed me out. I couldn’t find the door. And I’m awful sorry . . .”

Mom reached to help Dad as he got to the open back end.

“Dad,” Robert persisted. “I’m not so sure you oughta be—”

“Help us inside, Rob,” Dad insisted. “Then hurry back over there. They need you. It’s bad enough that I can’t—”

“Mom!” Robert protested again.

“We need the doctor.” “We left word for him to come when he can, to look at the baby,” Dad said, taking a deep breath. “He can see to me and Berty then. You’ve got to help them with the fire.”

Robert looked to Mom again, and she nodded her head.

“Help me to a chair, Juli,” Dad said. “Robert, help Bert. Then go. Please.”

When Dad first got his feet on the ground, he stopped for a minute. I could feel him taking another deep breath. Mom put her arm around him, and he put his arm over her shoulder. I jumped down to his other side.

“You sure you’re all right, Samuel?” Mom asked.

He said he was, but I wondered too. At least nothing was broken, or he wouldn’t be standing up. That’s what I figured, anyway.

But we moved slowly. Dad was walking but kind of leaning on Mom, and that made me worry.
Is he okay, God? I thought he was okay.

Berty tried walking on his own and couldn’t quite manage it, so he ended up leaning on Robert. Emmie took hold of the tail of my blouse and came right alongside us as I heard what sounded like a rumble of thunder off in the distance.

“This’uns a bad night,” she said softly.

“Yeah,” I told her. “But just like Dad said, it could’ve been worse.”

That thought had my stomach in flip-flops. Daddy could’ve died. He very nearly did, or so it had seemed. And Berty could have died too.
“Lord have mercy,”
Mom had said. He must have had mercy. On Daddy and Bert, for sure.

But suddenly I couldn’t help wondering what the Lord thought of Rorey if she or Lester Turrey had somehow set that blaze. I wondered what he thought of me too, foolish friend that I was, promising to keep mum at such a horrible cost.

Forgive me,
I whispered, too quiet for anybody to hear.

Tell your father that,
something strange and ugly in my head jumped right back at me.
He’s
not
okay. And it’s all your fault.

7

Julia

Samuel was doing his best, not wanting any of us to worry, I could tell that. But I could also tell that he was weakened, and he wasn’t bearing full weight on one leg.

I was glad for Delores to meet us on the porch as we were coming up the steps. “Oh, Lordy be,” she said. “Goodness gracious.” But that was all she said. She held the door for us and then hurried to turn around the nearest kitchen chair for us to set him in. Then she quick got a chair for Berty too.

“What’s happened?” Thelma called out, coming into the kitchen with baby Rosemary in her arms.

“Just what are you doin’ up?” her mother demanded.

“Was it the house?” Thelma kept on. “Did everybody get out?”

“The barn,” Samuel managed to say. “They’re all right.”

“Imey’s lost,” Bert said sadly.

“Oh, Berty,” Thelma answered him. “Better the calf than one of you all.”

The room seemed almost chaotic then, with Thelma trying to comfort Berty, and Delores trying to shoo her back to the bedroom and look at Berty’s ankle at the same time. Sarah and Emma Grace got up close as I was trying to check Samuel over, and then Katie came from upstairs looking dreadful worried.

“Is Georgie asleep?” I asked her.

“Yes.”

“Good. Bring in fresh water and set some on to heat, will you please?”

Katie went running out, and I remembered Robert still standing in the doorway, just looking at us all. “How bad is the fire?” I asked him.

“Spreading, Mom. Looked like it might take the field.”

“Go!” Samuel demanded. “Go help them!”

For just a moment our son hesitated, and then with another glance at me he turned and disappeared. “Thank you, Robby!” I called after him. “Please be careful!”

I looked down at Samuel. “He’s just worried about you.”

Samuel shook his head. “Can’t take time for that. I ought to be over there—”

“No. You ought to be lying down. Can I move you to the bed?”

He shook his head again. “Thelma,” he said. And I knew what he meant. We’d given Thelma and the newborn our room for the night.

“Go ahead and put him in there,” Thelma said quickly. “I’m gonna rock the baby, and I can do that in the sitting room. Then we can just stay there, on your davenport. But can I be helping first?”

“No. Not tonight,” her mother answered. “Go set yourself down. Go on.”

Katie was back in before long, wiping at tears with one arm and carrying a bucket with the other. She put the water on without asking any questions, and I turned my eyes to little Emma Grace standing there watching me.

“Sarah, take Emmie to your room and see if you can get her to sleep up there with Georgie.”

“I don’ wanna sleep,” the little girl protested.

“It’s night,” I told her. “Time for you to be asleep. Don’t you worry. Everybody’ll be all right.”

Sarah didn’t want to go either, I knew that. She was standing about as close to her father as she could get. But she was good to mind me and take the little girl upstairs. And almost immediately I was glad that they were gone, because Samuel was looking paler.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” I asked him again.

“Yeah,” he said, but his voice sounded kind of strange. He took another deep breath, and it seemed to take extra effort.

“Samuel, you have to tell me what’s wrong. Where do you hurt?” I knelt beside him and put my arm around his shoulder, feeling my heart suddenly pounding faster. What was it Robert had said? That he hadn’t been awake? I should’ve paid him more attention. That could mean a head injury. Robert was right to worry, if that was the case.

Samuel reached his hand to me. “Juli—it’s going to be okay.”

“Does it hurt you to breathe?”

“Some. I’m just bruised, that’s all.”

Katie was standing there by the stove looking at us. I felt bad to have all the kids scared like this, but nothing could be done about it. “Help me get him to the bed,” I asked her, and she came running to my side. Maybe we shouldn’t have sent Robert on. The Hammonds certainly needed help, far more help than they had, with the fire going wild, but it might have been better to send Robert looking for the doctor. Now we were left without the truck.

“I’m all right,” Samuel said again. Katie got on one side of him, and with me on the other we helped him out of the chair. But it was slow progress to the bed. Despite what he said, he seemed weaker than before.

We finally got him settled down, and Katie hurried to light the lamp and the pair of candles sitting on the dresser. Then she was right back at our side.

“Samuel?” I said. “Tell me everywhere you hurt.”

“My head.”

Those simple words made me feel sick to my stomach. “Is that the worst?”

He was quiet for a moment. “Yeah.”

I thought back to the time, several years ago, when he’d fallen through the pond ice and struck his head on one of the wooden beams that served as a dock. He’d been unconscious then too. Quite a while. But he’d come around and been all right. I wondered if it mattered with a head injury that there had been another one some time before.
Lord, help.

“Where else?” I pushed him. “Samuel, I’ve got to do what I can. I’ve got to know.”

He nodded. Slowly. “My side,” he said, seeming to have trouble getting the words out. “My leg.”

Looking down at my husband, I wondered where I should look first. He was so filthy with soot that I wasn’t sure I could even find anything.

“Katie, bring me some water and a cloth.”

She went, but maybe I shouldn’t have sent her out so soon. She looked scared, worse than Robert, seeing all this. And we weren’t even taking the time to give her a word of comfort.

Samuel moved his right arm against his side. “Juli, I’m sorry,” he said so softly.

“Stop,” I told him. “You have nothing to be sorry about. Do you hear? You saved that boy’s life.”

I kissed his smudged cheek, unable to stop a sudden rush of tears. “Close your eyes and rest. Please, Samuel. We need you better.”

“Is Bert all right?”

For a brief, awful moment, I wondered if he didn’t remember Berty coming in the house with us, and before that telling us it was only his ankle that was hurt. But I decided Samuel was surely just looking for an assurance that Berty was being taken care of too. “Yes, honey. Delores is seeing about his ankle. He’ll be just fine. Thank God you got him out.”

He seemed to relax a little. Katie came rushing back with a bowl in her hands and a couple of towels over her arm. I started washing Samuel’s face just as gently as I could.

“His leg is bleeding, Mom.”

Katie’s words, so quietly spoken, jarred me nonetheless. Why hadn’t I noticed?

I examined the leg more closely. It didn’t look to be bad. But I couldn’t tell for sure. I had to get my sewing scissors and cut some of the trouser out of the way to get a look. He had a gash, bleeding slowly, with plenty of blood drying around it.

“Oh, Samuel.” I knew that leg would need attention, but I was more worried about his head. I grabbed one of the towels and wrapped it around the leg wound. “Hold this, Katie,” I said. “Keep it nice and tight.”

She nodded and obeyed me stiffly. “Is he gonna be all right?”

“Yes,” I told her. “Say a prayer, but don’t you worry.” I knew she was terrified. Sarah too. And Emmie, the poor child. I reached my arm over Katie’s shoulder for a quick squeeze. Robert was scared too, I knew, and right in the middle of everything.
Lord, bless him. He’s having to be such a man tonight. Keep him safe.

“Samuel, I need to see your head,” I told him, hurrying to the business at hand. “I may lift it just a little, so I can feel the back. You just stay relaxed, and let
me
do it, all right? Don’t try to move.”