The Curse of the Buttons (12 page)

Everyone looked at the sky and then at Ike.

“Isaac?” said his mother. She never called him Isaac.

“I . . . They . . .”

“Where were you, Ike?” Susannah was back. “I looked everywhere.”

“He’s home now is all that matters,” said Aunt Betsy firmly, the soft corners gone out of her voice. “Ike?”

Ike shivered. He wanted to go to bed. His own bed. If his brothers had taken him along in the first place, he wouldn’t be in this mess now.

“They’re in a boat,” he said.

“A boat!” Mrs. Hinman cried. “Isaac Button, what have you done to my boys?”

Ike’s mother stepped in front of him. “Myrtle, Ike has not
done
anything to your boys. They find trouble enough without his assistance. Now, if you will address my son politely, I’m sure he’ll tell us their whereabouts.” She turned to Ike. “Won’t you, Isaac?”

Ike gave a brief version of their story, leaving out the part about the unseaworthiness of the boat and the fact that it was his idea. “But it wasn’t on purpose. They’re probably just camping out at Mud Island,” he said.

“Not on purpose?” Mrs. Hinman said incredulously. “No. This is the Button men all over again. Just like that ne’er-do-well Palmer you all pinned your hopes on, with his wild ideas and disastrous outcome. This one has filled my boys with wild ideas. Captain Hinman has preached grace on your debts, but no longer. We’re calling them in.” She shook her head at Ike and took Old Man Hinman by the arm and led him across the alley. Aunt Betsy shooed everyone into their houses.

Ike went to the pantry. He took the blanket off the bed and went out to the lean-to, where Barfoot was lying down. He took a bale of straw off the stack, broke it apart, and made a nest in the small space next to Barfoot. He spread his blanket on it and lay down, reaching out to rest a hand on Barfoot’s side. His insides felt empty, but he wasn’t hungry. He closed his eyes and breathed in Barfoot’s warm, rhythmic breath.

Ike woke to the sound of sharp voices arguing. He opened his eyes and looked directly up at Barfoot’s belly. He wiped sweat off his face. His shirt clung to him. A door slammed. He sat up abruptly, pulling straw from his hair, and listened.

“The moment he’s up! The moment he’s up!” It was Mrs. Hinman. He ducked down as she crossed the yard at a speed he’d never seen her achieve. When she’d gone, he curled back up in his nest, pulling the blanket over his face.

He breathed the hot straw air. The weight of his losses sat on his chest. Leon, Jim, his father, Uncle Oscar, Uncle Hugh, Palmer — even though Palmer had already been gone, he seemed more gone now. The bear, Lincoln, a mollusk, the compass. Even the compass.

A hand nudged him, and Ike peered out. Susannah.

“Well, if it isn’t our drummer boy. You are in the soup today, Ike. Aunt Betsy’s staved Milton and Morris’s mother off for now, and your own mother, too, for that matter, but you’d better fortify.” She handed him a jellied biscuit and a peeled boiled egg. “The princes must be retrieved.”

“Drummer boy?”

Susannah pulled an envelope and a crumpled paper from her pocket. She held out the paper. “I found this under the rug.” Ike ate the egg in two bites, then fed the biscuit to Barfoot and stood next to him, reading.

I have taken up drumming.
He reddened.

“I was going to write a different one,” he said.

“They wrote to us again, but it’s only what we already know from the newspaper and Mrs. Gorman. Kate got a private note from Leon, very sentimental. She let me read it.” Susannah handed Ike the family letter.

Ike stopped reading. They’d done more than fight mosquitoes. He wished he’d written. He imagined Leon and Jim walking next to General Lyon.

General Lyon would compliment his brothers on their steady nerves in the face of murderous fire. His father would be there, too. Ike was sure that the general could not have a mustache half as fine as his own father’s, nor a laugh as hearty.

Or would they be walking? He thought of the one-legged veteran at the Ellis Hotel. What if they’d been in another battle? What if they were lying hurt in a hospital, or on a battlefield? They could have gotten lost since this letter was written. Been captured by rebels.

Susannah interrupted Ike’s reverie.

“Albirdie was here looking for you, too, and I’ve got news from Kate.”

Albirdie. He’d forgotten about Albirdie.

“I’m going to help at the hospital. Not as a nurse, but I’ll help and learn. I’m going to start tomorrow. Kate says they’ll keep us busy day and night. Day
and
night. And word is, they’re going to let women muster as nurses soon. Forty cents a day, plus rations. Maybe I’ll go. Too bad you’re not a girl.”

Goldenrod and Marigold took up a furious barking just then and Ike flinched.

“Hang tight, Daddy!” they heard Mrs. Hinman holler over the dogs. “I’ve waited long enough. I’m going to fetch that Button scoundrel.”

“Run!” said Susannah. “I’ll distract her.”

Ike ran down the alley, crossed the street, and continued down the next alley.

“Hold up, there!” Mr. Box called as Ike passed. “Come help me, will you?”

Ike looked over his shoulder, then ducked into the yard, panting. Mr. Box was holding a bat house up to a fence board near his chicken coop.

“Go pump yourself a drink of water, then hold this nail steady for me, will you?”

Ike cranked the pump lever, leaned over and slurped some, then stuck his whole head under the faucet. He cupped his hands under the water and splashed his shirt.

“Don’t drain the whole Mississippi, now,” said Mr. Box.

Ike let the end of the stream dribble onto his feet, then he took his place by the chicken coop.

“Your men fighting the good fight, then?” Mr. Box continued, poising his hammer over the nail and Ike’s hand.

“Yes,” Ike squeaked. He turned his head, unable to watch.

Whack!
Mr. Box hit the nail true. Ike stepped back.

“There,” said Mr. Box, admiring their work. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Ike shook his head.

“Suppose you’d rather be south with the men than here with the likes of this old coot.”

“Yes.”

“Me too. I suppose there’s the same number of women as there were before, but now that so many men are gone, I feel the presence of them all the more, and it weighs on me. Before long, besides the women, it’ll be just you youngers, us olders, and the traitors left.”

“And all the new soldiers coming to town.”

“Well, yes. Them too. Lest Lincoln can wrap up this conflict soon. And he’d better. How are we going to get a crop this year? All the farms emptying out. Men joining up. My own sons left a perfectly fine acreage up by Goodhue. No wives to run it while they’re away. Come run our farm, they say. But what’s an old man like me going to do with a farm? Just going to let it go fallow, they are, lest Lincoln can dust up this mess.”

“Yes,” said Ike. “I mean, no. I mean . . .” He shrugged.

“Where are my manners?” said Mr. Box. He went into the house and came out with a bowl of strawberries. “Tewksbury’s finest. Sit. Eat.”

Ike sat across from Mr. Box and ate strawberries one by one, making a small pile of green stems while Mr. Box continued to talk about his sons and their Goodhue farm and the need. “
You want to find someone to take over, be my everlasting guest,
Waldo says to me. As if it’s as easy as all that, persuading someone from a metropolis such as Keokuk to move to a mere hamlet to do my son’s work for him.” When the last strawberry had been eaten, he nodded and said, “Good. Good. Now, how ’bout a game of chess? You play?”

“No.”

“You a checkers man, are you?”

“Yes.”

“Either you haven’t got much of a vocabulary, or you’re afraid of me like all the rest of the ninnies ’round here.

“No matter,” said Mr. Box. “I appreciate your help. Get on, then. And come over should you want to learn the fine game of chess. A battlefield on a board, it is. A battlefield on a board.”

Mr. Box walked him to the alley. Ike glanced toward his block. No sign of Mrs. Hinman or anyone else looking for him.

He ran through the alleys to the church. He opened the door and let his eyes adjust to the dimness inside.

Albirdie’s head popped up from the back pew. “Go away.”

“Susannah said you were looking for me. I forgot to come over yesterday. I’m sorry.”

“You
forgot
?” Her head disappeared again.

Ike walked up to the back pew. She was lying on her stomach, working on her map.

“Milton and Morris will be in Hannibal by now,” she said, not looking up.

“Who told?”

“Susannah. Do you have my compass?”

“No. I . . . They . . .”

“Ike!” She dropped her pencil and stood to face him.

“I’m sorry. They took it.” He slid into the pew and pulled her map toward him. It was good. The woods were there now. She sat down and crossed her arms.

“Susannah said you were looking for me,” Ike said.

“I needed your help, but you’re too busy trying to get away from here.”

“You could have asked Susannah. Or Junior.”

“No, Ike. I needed
you.
You’re good at solving things. Like in checkers strategy. And it’s something I can’t do alone. But you have new friends now.”

“Milton and Morris aren’t my friends.” Ike was taken aback.
Good at solving things? Strategy?
Ike sat up taller.

“What happened?”

Albirdie looked around at the empty sanctuary. They could hear her father practicing his sermon in his office.

“Mr. Jenkins was here yesterday when I came back with the posters.”

“So?”

“My father was out, so Mr. Jenkins asked me to give him this note.” Albirdie held out a folded, sealed paper.

“Did you?”

“No. The sheriff came in when Mr. Jenkins left. He asked for my father, too. Tried to ask me what my father’s dealings were with Mr. Jenkins. What if my father does get arrested, like Milton and Morris said?”

“Milton and Morris are rats. You said so yourself. Did you read the note?”

She nodded and held it out for Ike to read.

“Books?” said Ike. “What’s so important about books?”

“I went to the bookstore but Mr. Ogden says he’s never heard of it. I don’t think it’s about books, Ike.”

“Then what?”

“Mary’s boys. I just know it.
Two small volumes . . .
”

They studied both sides of the paper and read it again.

“You met Mary. You know where she was. What do we do about her boys?”

“Should we tell your father?”

She shook her head. “Mr. Cutts and Mr. Simms have been lurking around. They are eager for the reward money and are already suspicious of my father.”

“So what should we do?”

“They won’t suspect children.”

“We aren’t
children.
”

“To them we are. We’re invisible.”

Ike read the note out loud.

“It’s dated June twenty-sixth. Tomorrow is today,” said Albirdie. “The boys arrive today. Or they’re already here. We need to find them and get them to Mr. Jenkins.”

“Maybe they are in the same place I found Mary. Let’s look at your map.”

Ike traced a line along the river with his finger. “There,” he said. She handed him a pencil, and he circled a small grove of trees. They read the note again.

“Please forward,”
Albirdie read. “But how?”

“So we need to get them to Mr. Jenkins,” mused Ike. “Remember when we saw Milton and Morris heading downtown in the back of that cart? We’ll bring Barfoot and his cart. But I can’t go home. Mrs. Hinman is looking for me.”

“I’ll go fetch them,” said Albirdie.

“Good. If anyone at my house asks, tell them it’s for the church. I’ll go find David and John.”