The House of Dies Drear (20 page)

Pluto continued. “A slave might twist and turn, west, south, many times, but always heading for the same place. And it was the last hiding place after a slave left the Drear house.”

“What place?” Thomas wanted to know. “What place would they all go to?”

Mr. Pluto stared at him. So did Mayhew.

“Why, the Negro church, son,” said Mr. Small. “The freeman’s church. A slave might hide among its congregation, and no hunter could find him. Wherever the church was, the pieces of the cross would lead him to it.”

“Father, it’s getting late …” said Mayhew.

“You trying to hurry me?” Pluto said. He looked hard at Mayhew. The talk of the cross, and the fact that he could read its meaning when not even Mr. Small could, had seemed to strengthen Pluto.

“What was I speaking about?” he asked them. “Where was I?”

“You were talking about painting that cave wall,” said Thomas, “and then I think you said you lay down.”

“That’s right,” Pluto said. “I did lay down and I did sleep. I don’t think I dreamed about a thing that whole night. You don’t know what rest that was for me—I was plagued by nightmares. Old Drear, he used to visit me there in my sleep. Sometimes, oh, in the dead of winter, sometimes he would come and even wake me up with his noise. Scare me so. But not lately. No, it’s like he knows I am old and tired.”

“Father …”

Pluto waved his hand impatiently at Mayhew. “So then I slept good that night and woke up the next morning ready to work with whatever came to my mind to do. Sometimes I had to make my own work. But the first thing I saw was that wall. It was like I never even painted it. The color, that grayness of dye the shade of shale or seeping limestone, it just bled right through my white paint. And then I knew. I touched the wall, and it came off gray, dirt colored, onto my hand.

“But there was no way to move that wall,” Pluto said. “There was no trick to it. No. I had to build me a hammer made of iron and I had to pound that wall down. I pounded it down and carried its chunks and bits away by the bushel basket. And I buried that wall so no one would know. It took me a long time. I used to work at it only at night, only when I was sure I was safe. When it was done, I found that other wall where there was still a few strands of rope hanging in the corner. I fitted another rope in, oh, ever so carefully, and when that was done, I pulled down on it and I found all this.”

“All this,” Mayhew said quietly to Mr. Small. “And it
is
his. It is.”

The splendor of the cavern made them remote and separate within it. Mr. Small gazed around, taking it all in as though he would breathe it into his lungs.

“You understand that you can never claim it,” he said to Pluto and Mayhew. “You do know, don’t you, that no court of law I know of would ever honor the last will and testament of a dead abolitionist to the great-great-grandson of an unnamed slave.”

Mayhew smiled. There was that look of sadness, of loneliness absolute in his eyes. “We would fare worse than any Indian tribe trying to make honest claim to a legitimate treaty,” he said.

“Oh yes, we know,” said Pluto. “We know. We know.”

Thomas couldn’t translate all he felt now into any kind of thought. Standing there in the quiet, splendid beauty of the cavern, he was speechless. He was awe-struck by this old Pluto, who was king after all, who lived only to keep a treasure he couldn’t bear to part with, which would never belong to him.

Mr. Small sighed. “I’m afraid I don’t have much heart for scaring Darrows,” he said. “It all seems so foolish now.”

“Foolish?” said Mayhew. “No, not foolish. You feel that way because you have stood in this unreal place—this unnatural house which doesn’t exist—listening to a story that shouldn’t have happened, told by a man whose steadfastness is not believable.”

“But we are here,” said Mr. Small. “The story is true, and the man is true.”

“It’s all a dream,” Mayhew said. There was that mocking look in his eyes, the look of stage magic. “The Darrows are the point, and fooling them is the game. Don’t forget our actual world out there of silly deeds and simple wants.”

“But does Mr. Pluto have to go to a hospital?” Thomas asked. “Can’t he just stay right here where he is?”

“I’m not going to any hospital,” Pluto said. “You can’t make me go!”

“He could stay here,” said Mr. Small, “right here. Sleep here until we are finished with the Darrows.”

“Father, will you do it? Will you sleep here and not come out until we are finished with them?”

“Until you do the stage magic,” said Mr. Pluto to his son. “Like you explained to me this morning.”

“That’s right,” said Mayhew.

“Now why is it you think you can play me better than I can play myself?”

“Now, Father …”

“You answer me,” Pluto said. “You just go ahead and tell me how it is. I been the devil Pluto for more years than I can remember, and you think you can do him better than me!”

“I don’t want you to get sick,” Mayhew said. “I know you can do it, but it will be dark—we might have to wait half the night.”

“He’s going to play me better than I can,” mused Mr. Pluto. He turned his old, angry eyes on each one of them. “No, I won’t do it. I’m going to sleep in my own bed tonight.”

Mayhew heaved a deep sigh. Once he opened his mouth as though to argue further with his father. But then he shrugged and shook his head.

“You are stubborn, mean and the devil for sure,” he said to Pluto. “All right. You play Pluto, but on one condition.”

“What one?” asked Pluto.

“That you see a doctor as soon as this is over. This week for sure.”

“I don’t have to go to any hospital?”

“Not as long as you see a doctor, but you will do whatever the doctor says when you see him. Will you agree to that?”

“Oh, I don’t suppose it will hurt,” Pluto said. “There’s nothing wrong with me that a little more rest won’t cure. I’ve got some good medicine I fixed myself only last month. I’ll go see some doctor, let me see, about Friday or maybe Saturday. Does that suit you, boy?”

“That will be fine,” said Mayhew. “I’m going to tell Mrs. Small of your promise. She will see you get to the doctor on time.”

“Now,” said Mr. Small, “I would guess you will need to take my place in our play for the Darrows.”

“I’d better,” said Mayhew. “I’ll have to be there to make sure Father doesn’t terrify them too much. You can be a slave with Thomas, Mr. Small.”

“What about my mother?” said Thomas. “She won’t have a part.”

“Maybe we can give her the job of getting us ready,” said Mayhew. “Maybe that will satisfy her.”

“It will have to,” Mr. Small said. “I’m rather glad she’s not going to be in it. If I know her, she’d give it all away.”

“So then,” said Mayhew, “we are ready to begin. It’s almost afternoon. Father, we’ll leave you for now. I have to get my stage magic together.”

“What makes you so sure you can fool Darrow with it?” said Pluto. “You didn’t much fool Mr. Small here.”

“He fooled me for a longer time than we’ll need to fool the Darrows,” Mr. Small said.

“Anyway,” added Thomas, “he didn’t have me to help him, Mayhew didn’t. With me to help him, we’ll fool them good.”

“Let’s go to the cave,” Mayhew told them. “I have some materials there. I’ll tell you of my plan.”

Thomas was so excited, he could hardly think. It was going to be scary, what they would do to the Darrows. He had no idea what the scaring of them would be like, what Mayhew had in mind.

But I’m going to be an actor, he thought. Maybe I’ll be good at it, too!

Chapter 18

IT SEEMED TO THOMAS
as though they had waited for hours. He couldn’t see a foot in front of him where he lay in the trees surrounding the clearing. He was not to talk, nor could he move very much. This scaring of the Darrows wasn’t at all like he had imagined it earlier, when it was still day. Now he was chilled through to the bone, lying low on his stomach in the pitch black night. He couldn’t see his father where he, too, lay in wait, a short distance away. He couldn’t see Mayhew or Mr. Pluto, nor hear them either. All was so silent, so mysterious, he had to clench his fists to keep his teeth from chattering.

Why don’t they come? he thought. What are the Darrows waiting for?

Thomas could feel small insects crawling over his ankles, where the chains were locked. He wanted to sit up and slap the bugs, but he dared not.

“Don’t you think of moving,” Mayhew had warned him. “They might wait in the trees for an hour or two just to make sure no one’s around. If they spot us before they hit that clearing, the game will be over.”

Thomas heard the slightest movement. He buried his head in the pine needles. He had phosphorous tape over his eyebrows and around his eyes. The same tape outlined his jaw and his cheekbones. He had to keep his head always down, so as not to glow there in the weeds and bushes.

He thought, I’m getting scared. I’m going to be just scared awful if one of them happens to step on me.

Think about something else, he told himself. Think about today.

Whatever sound Thomas had heard was no longer separate from the subtle sounds of night. Thomas let himself become full of the day and all the preparations they had made. They’d run into the Darrows once, Mr. Small and Thomas, and it had been a tense meeting. It had happened after Thomas and Mr. Small returned from Columbus, where they’d spent a lot of Mayhew’s money in a theater supplies store. Never had Thomas been in such a place. There were costumes and masks, some of which they bought. There were trunks full of drapery material, and shelves of cosmetic paints and dyes. There were whole stage sets, with fake platters of food and crystal glasses painted to look as though they were filled with red wine. Mayhew had asked them to find gossamer wings. And they had been lucky to find a huge, feather-light pair, which they purchased at a fair price.

Thomas was still talking about the store when Mr. Small stopped the car downtown to do more shopping. They bought groceries and dishes to replace temporarily those which had been broken. When later they were coming out of the hardware store, their arms full of paint-mixing pails and such, they saw three of the Darrows coming toward them.

Thomas stopped in his tracks.

“Keep yourself moving away from the car,” Mr. Small had said out of the side of his mouth to Thomas. They had not bothered to cover up any of their purchases from the theater supplies store.

The Darrows appeared to be just as surprised to see Thomas and Mr. Small. One of them stopped in the street, looking around at the other two, but the two biggest ones came on ahead.

Mr. Small said good day to them in a matter-of-fact tone, since it was the custom always in a small town to speak to everyone. The Darrows looked hard at them, and then one said good day. He tried to smile and did manage a weak one.

“You be Mr. Small?” the one Darrow had said. Thomas remembered it all.

“That’s right,” said Mr. Small. “I don’t believe I know your name.”

But the Darrow man wouldn’t say who he was. He went on talking, looking not at Thomas or at Mr. Small but at the store wrapping paper that partially covered the paint pails and mixing sticks.

“Getting ready to paint things,” Thomas couldn’t help saying with a broad grin. “Going to paint the whole inside of the house.”

Mr. Small had given him a sharp glance, telling him not to say anything else.

“Hear you folks had some excitement over there in the big house,” said another one of the Darrows to no one in particular.

The Darrow who had spoken first looked menacingly at his brother.

Mr. Small smiled at them. “Oh, you mean old Pluto,” he had said. “Yes, he took real sick in the night. We had to bring him to Columbus, where there is a good doctor I know. We left him there with a colleague of mine, since he wouldn’t go into the hospital. He has to have a thorough going over, but I suspect he will be coming back home tomorrow morning.”

Then Mr. Small avoided looking at them, giving the impression he was hiding something.

Thomas began to hum significantly.

The Darrows fidgeted nervously. “That’s all?” one of them couldn’t help asking.

“Why, what more could there be?” said Mr. Small. “Everything has been so peaceful and quiet, even with Mr. Pluto becoming ill.” And then he bid them good-by. He and Thomas left the Darrow men gawking there in the middle of the street.

Now Thomas grinned at the dark, his mouth pressed against pine needles. He opened and closed his hands resting at his sides, trying not to rattle the chains attached to his wrists. By now, he was cold and stiff in every muscle. He shivered from head to foot, for he wore only a flimsy tatter of a shirt and trousers that were mostly rags. The fronts of both had been brushed with phosphorous paint. He still lay in the position Mayhew had placed him a few hours before to hide the glow of his clothing.

I can’t stand it much longer, he thought. I’m going to have to move in another five minutes, I can’t help it. I just can’t!

Mr. Small, close by Thomas, was having similar thoughts. They had waited three, maybe four hours. The time had to be well after midnight, and he wondered how Thomas was faring there, hidden in the weeds and bushes.

He won’t be able to stay still much longer, Mr. Small thought. He must be cold with so little on. We’ll all be at the doctor’s before this is over.

Mr. Small was dressed much like Thomas, in tatters and rags, with chains about his wrists and ankles. The chains were real and quite heavy; Mr. Small hugged the ground in the way Thomas did. During the long period of time he lay there, he began to feel as though he
were
a slave hiding and running. Somewhere in the back of his mind was emptiness and fear; loneliness, the way a desperate slave would feel. At the same time, Mr. Small felt slightly ridiculous. The whole business of the night, having to lie so still, hardly breathing, was a bit mad. But Mayhew Skinner had a way of making the unreal and the unaccustomed seem normal.

He’s a magician, pure and simple, thought Mr. Small. I wouldn’t have believed a week ago that anyone could get me out here, catching pneumonia just to perform an elaborate practical joke. What have we come to, acting like fools!