Devil Storm Page 5

  “Why, to find out about the treasure! We could throw him the food, to keep him friendly, and then just kinda ease up a little closer.…”

  “For cryin’ out loud, Alice, you make it sound like tamin’ a jackrabbit!”

  Alice looked at her brother in surprise. “You’re not scared, are you, Walter?”

  “Shoot, no,” he muttered. “Who said anything about bein’ scared?”

  “Well then, let’s go talk to him,” said Alice. “We can always run if he gets mean. We’re bound to be able to run faster than him.”

  “It ain’t a question of who can run faster,” Walter explained. “With Papa gone, you’re my responsibility, and I cain’t take any chances on you gettin’ hurt or somethin’.”

  “Why, Walter Carroll, I believe you are scared!”

  “I am not either scared.”

  “Y’all gonna set up there all mornin’ whisperin’?” It was the tramp. He was leaning on the handle of his shovel, staring straight at them across the sand.

  “Now you done it,” Walter breathed. For a moment he was frozen. He wanted to run, to get out of there, but he knew that if he did, Alice would never, ever let him forget it. He stood up tall and threw his shoulders back.

  “Mornin’,” he called out, making his voice as deep as he could.

  Tom nodded. “Mornin’.”

  Now Alice piped up. “Whatchya diggin’ for—arsters?” Walter shot her a disbelieving look.

  “Guess I got more sense than that,” said Tom. “Speck I’d go on over bayside if I’s wantin’ arsters. Speck I’d try a little water, too.”

  “Aw, Alice was only jokin’,” Walter tried. “Ever’body knows you cain’t find arsters in the sand.”

  Tom didn’t say anything to that. He started digging again. Walter’s palms began to sweat.

  “You hungry?” Alice blurted out. “We brought lots of food.” She rose and held out the bowl.

  Tom stood up straight again and cocked his head suspiciously. “You want to feed me? Why’s that?”

  “No reason,” Walter said quickly. “We just—just thought you might feel like eatin’—”

  “And talkin’,” Alice added.

  “Talkin’?” Tom rubbed his gray-whiskered chin and considered the matter for a moment or two. “Ain’t nobody ever offered to feed old Tom just so’s they could hear him flap his jaw,” he said at last, and he grinned a crooked grin. He had a gold tooth right in front, on top; it glinted in the sunlight. “But I guess I ain’t got no objection. What you got there?” He eyed the bowl with considerable interest.

  “All kinda nice things,” said Alice, darting down and handing him the food, then darting back again to Walter’s side.

  Tom sat in the sand and started to eat. Warily, Walter and Alice inched down the sand hill, over the tracks, and sat across from him, wide-eyed, watching his every move.… Walter had expected him to eat greedily, but he took his time, savoring each bite, making little clucking noises with his tongue. Every now and again he’d share a morsel or two with Crockett.

  “Mighty good, mighty good,” he said, once he had polished off every last crumb from the bowl and licked his fingers like a cat. “Now, what you want me to talk about?”

  Walter gulped. “If you please, sir”—he wasn’t sure if it was proper to address a tramp as sir, but he figured he wouldn’t take any chances—“is your name Tom?”

  “They calls me Tom,” the old man said. “What of it?”

  “Oh, nothin’, nothin’ atall … but, well, we heard stories—”

  “What kinda stories?”

  Walter took a deep breath. “Is it true you’re lookin’ for treasure?”

  Tom snorted. “Ain’t met the man yet who weren’t.”

  “Yes, sir. But what I mean is—” Walter hesitated, then plunged on. “Was your father’s name Lafitte?”

  Tom’s eyes became narrow slits. “Who wants to know?”

  “Why, just us. I’m Walter Carroll, and this here’s Alice.”

  Tom leaned forward confidingly. “Can y’all be trusted?”

  “Well, yes, sir,” said Walter.

  “Both of you?” Tom looked at Alice.

  “I’m nine years old,” she said indignantly, as if that answered his question.

  “Well …” The old man paused. Then he grinned. “Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies.”

  “Teacher says if you don’t ask questions, you never learn anything,” said Alice.

  “That’s so, that’s so.” Tom nodded. “But if you tells all you know, you ain’t got no secrets left. Now me,” he continued, “I got a whole sackful of secrets.” He closed one eye and held out his gunnysack. “I got dreams to sell—fourteen-carat mysteries, better than gold.… Anything you ever want, right here in this old sack. Naw, now, no fair peekin’—you ain’t paid yet. Nobody gonna get his heart’s desire without he pay first. Come on, now, who got a nickel? Nickel buy you a smile, silver dime for twice as many, two bits have you laughin’ right out loud.…”

  Walter was taken aback. “We got no money, Mister.”

  The old man gave a low laugh. “Nobody ever do. Never mind, just habit.… Y’all fed me a fine meal; I s’pose I owes you least one secret.”

  Walter leaned forward breathlessly, forgetting to be afraid, while Tom groped about in the sack and muttered to himself. “Lessee, now, how’s that? Naw, not that one … that don’t do atall … maybe this? Naw, we can do better … hmmm …” Finally he held out the sack to Alice. “Look like I need some help, Missy. What say you reach in and pull somethin’ out—anything atall—and if it’s a secret worth tellin’, I’ll tell it.”

  “All right,” Alice began, and reached her hand out, but then she stopped. “You—you ain’t got nothin’ in there that bites?” she asked doubtfully.

  Tom scratched his head. “Not last I looked.… But if you’re scared—”

  “I’m not scared!” Alice jutted out her chin and put her hand in all the way. When she drew it out again, she was holding an oddly shaped piece of wood.

  “Why, it’s just some old driftwood,” she said. “That don’t count, does it? Cain’t I try again?”

  “Up to you,” said Tom, and he held the sack open for her to drop the thing back inside. “I guess if you don’t care to hear ’bout it …”

  “Wait—please,” said Walter. “Does it have a story?”

  “Ever’thing have a story, boy. Stories hangin’ ’round all over the place, if you got eyes to see, ears to hear. Trouble is, most folks is blind and deaf.”

  “Tell us, please.”

  The old man looked at Alice. “Missy?”

  Alice hesitated. Walter elbowed her. She gave him a disgusted look, then turned back to Tom. “Yes, please.”

  Tom grinned again. “Y’all look it over,” he said. “See what kinda eyes you got.”

  Alice studied it one way, then leaned her head to the side and studied it another. She shrugged and handed it to Walter. “Just some old driftwood,” she muttered.

  Walter ran his fingers over the wood.

  “How’s it feel?” asked Tom.

  “Smooth,” said Walter. “Heavier than you’d think.” He held it up before his eyes.

  “What you see?” Tom asked.

  “Looks like—oh, I don’t know—a horseshoe, maybe, or a broke-off wishbone.”

  “Turn it over.”

  Walter did. On this side there was a big crack running through the wood, a long, skinny squiggle that started on one leg of the thing and curved up around the middle, ending up in a larger, hollowed-out place that was roughly heart-shaped. He looked at it long and hard.

  “Is it—a face?” he asked finally.

  The old man winked. “You got good eyes, boy.” He lowered his voice. “Got a man’s whole life trapped right inside this here wood. You can read it, same as readin’ a hand, or tea leaves in a cup. Conjure woman show me how.”

  “Whose life?” asked Walter.

  Tom just g
rinned. “Looka here,” he said, “this where he’s born, slap in the middle of a old herrycane—devil storm outa the Gulf—see there? Devil blow in with it, want to gobble him up, but his mama, she ain’t afraid of nothin’. She say, ‘Go on, y’ole devil—this child mine!’ So the devil, he go ’way—but not for long. He mad; he bide his time. First chance he get, he carry off the mama instead.”

  “You mean she died?” Alice asked sympathetically.

  Tom shrugged. “You tell me, Missy—look like that what the wood say.… Now the line go straight for a little while—child grow up to be a man. But he a fool—he say, ‘Come on, devil, I fight you now.’ But the devil, he just laugh—see them old crossways gulleys? That’s the devil, laughin’ his head off. Then he say, ‘Come on, fool, let’s play us a game.’ The devil, he like games, but he all the time cheat. Fool say, ‘What you mean?’ Devil say, ‘I done hid a treasure, fool. If you find it, you a free man. Rich, too. But if you cain’t, you mine.’ The fool, he say, ‘That ain’t no kinda game. How I’m gonna find that treasure?’ He a fool, you see, but he ain’t ignorant. Devil say, ‘Here your clue, fool—this treasure’s hid upside my bathtub.’ So the fool, he go to the conjure woman, ask what that mean. She say old Gulf’s the devil’s bathtub, ever’body know that. Fool say, ‘What should I do?’ Conjure woman, she pick up this here piece of driftwood and conjure over it, then she point right here, boy—in that face you seen—and shake her head and tell the fool he might as well go on and play the devil’s game. She say, ‘Look like it’s the onliest chance you got, fool. They’s dead man’s bones, showin’ through that face … that’s the mark of the devil, sure ’nough. He gonna come crawlin’ outa the Gulf again someday, make another herrycane, carry ever’body off this time—old fool, too.…”

  Tom recited the tale in a kind of melancholy singsong, as if he had said it all a hundred times before, moaning a little and rocking his body from side to side. But now he paused and leaned forward, looking from one of them to the other. They sat frozen, staring at him. Alice had a death grip on Walter’s left elbow.…

  Suddenly Tom began to laugh, and then the gulls were laughing too; the air rang with the sound of laughter. The gold tooth gleamed. Tom laughed and laughed and laughed some more.…

  Why, he’s just nutty as a fruitcake, thought Walter, nothin’ but a crazy old coot, after all.…

  Tom stopped laughing. “You think I’m crazy, boy?”

  Walter colored guiltily. Good Lord, he can read minds! “No—no, sir—”

  “You lie,” said Tom, but he sounded cheerful. “Missy here, she tell the truth. You think old Tom’s crazy, Missy?”

  Alice was worthless as a liar, it was true. “Well, not—not all that much …” she stammered. Walter nudged her. “I mean, hardly atall …”

  The old man nodded. “Well, maybe I am,” he said. “Maybe I am, but then again maybe I ain’t, and if I ain’t, they all gonna be laughin’ out t’other side of they mouth one day, that’s what. I got secrets, you see.…” He patted the sack and nodded knowingly. Walter held out the driftwood, thinking Tom wanted it back.

  “Naw,” he said, getting to his feet. He was surprisingly agile. “That’s y’all’s. I got to go now.…”

  “Will you—come back again?” The words tumbled out before Walter could stop them; they surprised him more than anybody.

  The old man’s eyes gleamed for a moment with suspicion. Or was it amusement? Walter worried. “Depend on which way the wind blow,” Tom answered. “Why you want me to come back?”

  “Well … we could get you some more food—if you wanted it, that is—and maybe we could talk some more.…”

  He made a kind of growling noise. “Tell the truth, boy—you after my treasure, that it?”

  “No, sir.” Walter’s voice cracked. He cleared his throat. “I was only wonderin’—”

  “Wonderin’s next door to wantin’,” said Tom. “Believe me, I know.” He considered them for a moment longer. Then he tipped his battered hat. “I thank you for the fine breakfast.” Next thing they knew, he was walking off slowly, down the beach. Crockett followed him a little way; then Tom leaned over and spoke to him, and the dog turned around and trotted back to Walter’s side. He sat down in the sand, whimpering.

  “Hell’s Bells,” breathed Walter, when the tramp was just a shadow in the distance. “If that don’t beat all …”

  “Did you hear what he said, Walter?” Alice whispered, though there was no need to whisper. “Did you hear what he said about his treasure?”

  “I heard.”

  “Lord, I like to died when he said that! Didn’t you just like to die?”

  Walter didn’t answer. He jumped down into the hole that Tom had dug and kicked at the bottom with his foot.

  “Anything there?” asked Alice.

  Walter shook his head. There was nothing, just sand and a little water. He climbed out of the hole and squatted down by Crockett. “Not a thing,” he said thoughtfully, gazing out at the Gulf. It was still and blue again today. Everything was the same. Nothing was the same.

  “He sure had strange eyes, didn’t he, Walter?” Alice shuddered. “Mighty strange eyes …”

  “It was like he could look right into my head and read my mind,” Walter murmured.

  “Maybe he’s been drinkin’ moonwater!”

  “Naw, that was just play-like, Sister. Old Tom’s real!” There was a note of triumph in Walter’s voice. “And you saw how it was with Crockett. Why, he never even barked at him, acted just like he was an old friend, didn’t you, boy?” Walter stroked the dog’s head. “I tell you, I never seen anything like it!”

  “Well, I know—I saw him first, didn’t I?” Alice picked up a shell and threw it into the hole. “Boy, I cain’t wait for Sunday. Audie Merle Wise just won’t believe it when I tell her—”

  Walter looked up in alarm. “You cain’t tell Audie Merle Wise or anybody else, you hear me? You cain’t breathe a word about this!”

  “Well, why not?”

  “’Cause people’d start talkin’, and first thing you know somebody’d say somethin’ about it to Mama, and you know how nervous she gets.”

  “I guess you’re right.…” Alice’s forehead puckered into worried lines. “Lord, Walter, what’s Mama gonna say about all that food that’s gone?”

  “I’ll just have to say I ate it, that’s all. Well, you don’t have to look like that—it’s not the same as lyin’. I just won’t eat as much myself at dinner. Anyhow, we’re just feedin’ the hungry, same’s it says in the Bible.”

  “I guess so.…”

  The two of them sat in silence for a while. Walter turned over the smooth wood in his hand and ran his finger along the squiggly line until he touched the thing that was like a face. They’s dead man’s bones, showin’ through that face … that’s the mark of the devil, sure ’nough.

  “Lordy,” he murmured, “he sure warn’t anything like I thought he’d be.…”

  Chapter 7

  Walter hid the piece of driftwood under his mattress. He was afraid it might give him nightmares, but that night he dreamed of William, running and laughing. “You cain’t catch me, Walter!” the little boy cried. “See how fast I run!” And Walter let him get away, pretending to try his hardest, just the way he used to do.… He chased him into another day, another memory, when Papa had taken them all down to visit the lighthouse at Port Bolivar.… Now they were climbing the stairs to the top, a million trillion stairs, too steep for William’s short legs.… “Take my hand,” Walter told him, but he wouldn’t listen. “I can do it all by myself,” he insisted … and suddenly he wasn’t climbing anymore; he was flying, and Walter was flying too.… And all the time William was laughing, calling over his shoulder, “You cain’t catch me, Walter! You cain’t catch me!” Then Sam Houston crowed, and Walter woke up smiling though he couldn’t quite remember why. The dream had already slipped away.

  All that day he worked hard at his chores, even harder than he would ha
ve if Papa had been home. He wanted to earn his father’s praise, but it was more than that. He was trying to chase away a vague sense of guilt that was somehow connected with old Tom.… Walter had the uncomfortable feeling that, no matter what Papa had said about the tramp’s being harmless, he wouldn’t have been altogether pleased if he’d known what had gone on yesterday. After all, it was because of the stories about Tom that he had asked Walter to stay home and keep an eye on things. Yet at the same time, the thought of yesterday filled Walter with pride—how many other boys could say they had actually faced up to Tom the Tramp? Never mind that he had been scared stiff, that if it hadn’t been for Alice, he would never have done it. All that really mattered was that he, Walter Carroll, the heretofore chicken-livered, had not only looked old Tom in the eye but had said howdy-do and got away with it—alive, which was the best part.

  Mr. Carroll returned from Galveston that evening with presents for everybody: dusting powder for Mama, a wooden duck for Emily, and the finest surprise of all for Walter and Alice together—a genuine stereoscope with a box of slides that showed pictures of the Pyramids and the Sphinx and Queen Victoria and London Bridge, to boot. “Why, it’s not fallin’ down atall!” exclaimed Alice.

  They sat up late looking at all of them, asking their father endless questions about wonders he had actually seen in his days at sea. Those weren’t anything to sneeze at—Casablanca and Constantinople and Santo Domingo and New York City.…

  “How could you stand to give it up?” Walter asked him. “How can you sit still in Bolivar when you’ve been all over the world?”

  “Well, son, that’s just it—I’ve seen the world. Oh, it’s a fine place, I’ll grant you that. But a man needs a home and a family.…” Papa’s eyes rested for a moment on his wife’s dark head, bent over a pile of holey socks and buttonless shirts.

  Walter felt a hot flush spreading up from his collarbone to his scalp. It was for Mama that his father had given up the sea; they all knew that. Walter had heard Cousin Jack tease about it sometimes. “Oh, you wouldn’ta known your papa back then, Walter. He was quite the gentleman rover, yes, he was. Why, he broke hearts from Maine to Maracaibo—”