Devil Storm Page 7

  For a moment the word seemed to hang in the air. Then it was swallowed by the sound of the rain. Alice began to cry softly.

  “Shh,” Walter murmured, patting her back without knowing he was doing it, “shh …”

  Tom opened his eyes. “What you cryin’ for, Missy? All happened long time ago, ain’t no never mind now.”

  Alice didn’t answer. She couldn’t stop crying.

  Dimly, Walter realized that the silver heart was still lying open in his hand. He closed it carefully and gave it to Tom. “We cain’t keep this,” he said. “Wouldn’t be right.”

  “No”—Tom shook his head slowly—“wouldn’t be right.…” He sat looking at the necklace for a minute or two. The chain was snarled. Carefully, almost tenderly, it seemed to Walter, the old man untangled it and put it in his shirt pocket. He stood up. “I best be goin’. Your papa gonna be comin’ in here after a while, lookin’ for y’all. He don’t want to find Tom.”

  Alice looked up at him through her tears. “How do you know?”

  There was a shadow of the old grin. “I know, that’s all.” Tom cocked his head. “Looka here, Missy, cain’t leave you seemin’ so sad, me with my belly full of your food. Lessee, now …” He peered into the gunnysack again, then pulled out a string of white shell beads and handed them to Alice, who wiped her nose on her sleeve.

  “They’re real pretty,” she said, looking them over with drying eyes.

  “Indians used to wear ’em,” said Tom.

  Walter’s pulse, which had slowed to the lulling rhythm of the story of the silver heart, began to pick up speed again. “What Indians would that be?” he asked.

  “Attacapa,” said Tom. “It was the Attacapa that lived ’round here, mostly.” A sly look crept back into the old eyes. “You all know what Attacapa mean?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Eaters of men,” said Tom, and now he really was grinning. “Choctaw call ’em that. Beach is full of they leavin’s—arrowheads, broke-up pots, bones …”

  Walter swallowed hard. “Bones?”

  “Don’t you like bones, boy?” Tom chuckled. “Whole history of the world writ in bones. All of us ends up bones sooner or later.… Y’all ever visit the Injun graveyard?”

  The children shuddered and shook their heads. They knew that there was an old Indian graveyard some miles up the beach near Caplen. Everybody knew that, but no one in his right mind would consider visiting it. It was common knowledge that the graveyard was haunted by the spirits of two old chiefs who had died from eating the flesh of children, then taken on the form of snow-white owls. When Lester Barrett was a schoolboy, he used to claim that he had actually seen and spoken with them and just barely escaped with his life. There were those who tended to doubt this story, but nobody had ever felt inclined to put it to the test.

  “Mighty int’resting place,” Tom continued, “mighty int’resting. Them old Injuns buried there all dressed up, just like they goin’ to a party. Buried with all they pots and pans, dried-up food, too, case they wakes up hungry, toys for the chirren, case they wants to play. But they don’t never wake up; they all just dead as sticks, same’s we gonna be someday. Sometimes I sleeps over there, so’s I can get used to how it feel.”

  Alice’s mouth dropped open in horror.

  Walter laughed nervously. “Aw, he’s just kiddin’ us, Sister—ain’t you, Tom?”

  Tom winked. “Maybe …” He picked up his shovel and slung the gunnysack over his shoulder. “Y’all take it easy, now.”

  And he was gone.

  Chapter 9

  The first chance they got, the children hid Alice’s shell beads under Walter’s mattress, with the piece of driftwood. Old Tom was on their minds most all the time now. In the dark of the night, while the rest of the family lay sleeping, they would speak of him in whispers.

  “Seems like he’s more than just one old man,” Walter told Alice. “Soon’s you get him figured out one way, he turns ’round and says somethin’ that knocks your eyes out, gets you all confused again, till you don’t know if you’re comin’ or goin’.”

  “You think he tells the truth?”

  “Some of the time, maybe—maybe never—who knows? Maybe he don’t even know.”

  “Sometimes he scares me,” said Alice, shivering and drawing the covers up around her chin.

  “I know,” said Walter.

  “But I like him.”

  “I know.” Walter sighed helplessly. “Me too. Guess he’s got us hypnotized, same’s he does old Crockett.”

  “Walter?”

  “What?”

  “You think that girl in the story—the one that died—you think that was his mama?”

  “I was sure thinkin’ she was. Looks like that’s what he wants us to think.… But then, I don’t know, looks like he wants us to think he sleeps in graveyards, too.”

  “Well, maybe he does.”

  “Aw, Sister—”

  “Well, maybe …”

  “Well, he’ll prob’ly be back ’fore long, and you can ask him yourself. ’Pears to me he’s mighty fond of Mama’s cookin’.”

  But a whole week plodded by, and there was no further sign of Tom.

  By the following Saturday the new field was nearly cleared. Walter and Papa were trying to convince Dowling that he really did want to haul away one last load of trash, when Rupert Bland and Frank Buvens came by on horseback. They were carrying their shotguns. Walter felt, more than saw, his father stiffen. Papa didn’t care much for guns.

  “What say, Rupert, Frank?” he called out pleasantly enough. “Hot day for a ride.”

  “It’s hot, all right,” Mr. Bland agreed, “but we got some business to attend to that we thought you might be interested in.”

  “Well, why don’t y’all come on in the house and cool off? Have a glass of lemonade—”

  “No, thank you, Richard,” said Mr. Bland. “Wouldn’t want to put Miss Lillie to any trouble; we’re just stopping for a minute. Wanted to warn you about that old black tramp. Looks like he’s stealing chickens now.”

  “Old Tom?” Papa looked surprised. “Somebody see him?”

  “Well, sure. You remember Lester said he saw him over’t the old Peterson place a few weeks back. And several others have seen him since.”

  “Seen him stealing chickens?”

  “Well, not exactly,” Mr. Bland admitted, “but it comes to the same thing. Frank and me have both had chickens disappear lately, and to our way of thinkin’ it’s mighty suspicious-lookin’ for that to happen just when that old darky’s in the neighborhood.”

  Papa scratched his neck. “Well, I don’t know, Rupert. Might have been an animal that got ’em—muskrat, maybe, or even a dog.”

  “Well, don’t you see, that’s just it,” said Frank Buvens, putting in his two cents. “If it had been somethin’ like that, our own dogs would have chased it off or at least barked and woke us up. But they never made a sound”—Here he leaned over his horse’s neck and lowered his voice, as if afraid the wrong ears might hear what he had to say—“and everybody knows old Tom has some kind of power over animals that can keep ’em quiet if he wants it that way.”

  Walter thought of Crockett.

  “So what are you all planning to do about it?” Papa asked.

  “We’re gonna catch him—that’s what we’re gonna do,” said Mr. Bland. “Lester ought to be the one to do it; he’s the deputy. But he’s always off on that boat, so looks like it’s up to us. We’ll catch him and take him over to High Island. They can lock him up over there, or hang him, either one—we don’t much care, long as we’re rid of him.”

  Papa coughed. “I don’t believe they hang men for chicken stealing, Rupert.”

  “More’s the pity,” said Mr. Bland. “Well, we got to be going. Just wanted to let you know how things stand.…”

  “You all haven’t seen old Tom on your property, have you?” Mr. Buvens asked.

  “No, we haven’t,” Papa replied.

  Th
e men looked at Walter. He could feel the purple splotches beating their accustomed path up his neck. “No, sir,” he said, hoping that no one would notice his peculiar color.

  The men didn’t pay him any mind. Mr. Bland was looking at his father again. “You, uh, you don’t own a gun, do you, Richard?”

  “Never had any use for one, Rupert,” he answered calmly.

  Walter felt half-proud, half-embarrassed. He knew he shouldn’t care, but it galled him to see Mr. Bland sitting there looking so high and mighty.

  “Well, if you should happen to see the tramp, don’t let him out of your sight, and let us know soon as possible. You could send your boy, here.”

  “We’ll keep our eyes peeled,” Papa said.

  “We’d appreciate it,” said Mr. Bland. He turned his horse around.

  Mr. Buvens tipped his hat and followed. “Give our regards to Miss Lillie and the little girls.”

  “Tell them not to worry about a thing,” Mr. Bland called over his shoulder. “I’m sure we’ll have this whole situation taken care of in no time.”

  “I’ll do that.” Papa nodded.

  He and Walter watched silently as the men rode away. “Rupert Bland always did want to be a Texas Ranger,” he said, once they were out of earshot. “I guess old Tom’s the closest thing to a criminal he can find on Bolivar Peninsula.”

  “Why does Mr. Bland hate him so, Papa?”

  “Tom scares him, son. Any man’s liable to hate what scares him.”

  “You think he really stole the chickens?”

  “I wouldn’t know about that one way or the other. But there’s no sense in us worrying about it. Isn’t any of our business, as far as I can tell.…”

  But Walter did worry. He couldn’t stop worrying. Rupert Bland and Frank Buvens had been carrying guns. No telling what might happen if they found Tom. Even if they didn’t shoot him, they’d take him over to High Island and have him locked up, and Walter had an idea that, for Tom, that would be every bit as bad, maybe even worse.…

  “Goodness, Walter,” Mama said at breakfast on Sunday, “you have circles under your eyes ’most down to your drawers! Didn’t you sleep well last night?”

  “Yes’m, pretty well,” Walter said evenly. All night long the thought of the tramp had hovered on the edge of his brain like a mosquito that buzzes and buzzes and won’t be swatted away. No matter how tightly he closed his eyes, he could see the old man grinning at him, hear Tom’s crazy talk spilling around his ears like pieces of a puzzle—dreams to sell … you after my treasure?… she so pretty it hurt your eyes … eaters of men … that’s the mark of the devil … dead as sticks, same’s we gonna be … It had seemed to Walter that he’d just barely drifted off when Sam Houston crowed and woke him again.

  His father looked up. “You sure you’re all right, son?” He lifted his chin. “You do look a little peaked. Have I been working you too hard?”

  “No, sir, I’m just fine.”

  Papa shook his head. “Boy your age oughtn’t have to work like a man. Couple more hauls as good as our last and maybe we can afford to hire some help. How’d you like that?”

  “That’d be fine, Papa,” Walter answered. Not that he believed it for one minute. “But I don’t mind the work.”

  “Course you got school starting in October; things ought to be easing up around then, anyway.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mama was bustling about, filling a spoon with some foul-looking concoction. “Here you are, son. Just take a little of this and you’ll feel made over. My father used to have low blood now and again, you know, but he always swore that a dose of sulfur and molasses would do the trick every time.”

  “But, Mama, he died!”

  “Don’t be silly, Walter. It was old age killed your grandfather, not this medicine. Now, open your mouth—”

  The sulfur and molasses tasted even worse than they looked. “I don’t know what everybody’s fussin’ about,” Walter muttered. “I’m not a bit tired.”

  He fell asleep with his mouth hanging open during the church service. Dr. Croombs’s sermons were guaranteed to have half the congregation nodding at the best of times; as it was, today Walter slept so soundly that he drooled. When Alice poked him in the ribs, it startled him so that he jerked awake and gave himself a crick in the neck. That was bad enough; what was worse still was that he felt dead certain both Lester Barrett and Fanny Kate Vaughan had seen. He turned red as a beet. It was beginning to feel like his natural complexion.

  The church wasn’t truly a church. The peninsula’s permanent population was too sparse to warrant the building of a real one. Instead, the faithful gathered weekly in the dining room of the Patton Beach Hotel to doze through the doctor’s words of wisdom, clench their teeth through Leola Sparks’s hymn-singing, and check up on their neighbors afterward. With the distance between farms, Sundays were sometimes the only opportunity for socializing. At Mama’s insistence, Walter and Alice and their father attended regularly, although Mama herself stayed home with the baby. She said it was because Emily was too young for church, but Walter suspected that the real reason was that she wouldn’t have to listen to Mrs. Sparks sing. Walter himself felt reasonably certain that the pangs of hell would be easier to sit through than some of those high notes.

  “And we should all of us, then, strive to be Good Samaritans likewise.…” Dr. Croombs droned on like an old bumblebee. Walter stole a glance at Fanny Kate Vaughan to keep himself awake. Lord, but she was pretty. She looked as if she had just stepped out of a bandbox, with her snow-white pinafore, her carefully combed curls, her dainty little white-gloved hands folded in her lap. Walter had tried a thousand times to imagine how it would feel to be admired—or even noticed—by such a creature; she was a year older than he was and didn’t know he existed. What would she say, he wondered, if she knew that he was on speaking terms with Tom the Tramp, old Tom himself? Maybe she’d think he was uncommonly brave, devilishly daring.… Naw, more’n likely she’d think I was uncommonly pinheaded. Shoot, that’s probably closer to the truth, anyhow.…

  “Puts me in mind of a story my mother once told me.…” Dr. Croombs’s voice was slow, soothing as a lullabye. Again Walter felt his eyelids getting heavier and heavier, the sharp edges of his consciousness beginning to blur. He stiffened the muscles in his neck and gritted his teeth, but it was no use; a great wave of sleep washed over him and he was drifting, drifting.… Now Dr. Croombs was wearing Fanny Kate’s pinafore.… No, it wasn’t Dr. Croombs, at all; it was Rupert Bland, that’s who it was—Rupert Bland, with Alice’s Indian beads around his neck and mayhaw jelly dribbling out of his mouth … no, not jelly—that was blood, wasn’t it? Somebody wipe it off, quick.… Not that Mr. Bland seemed to mind much; he was just standing there, grinning, his gold tooth gleaming.…

  Gold tooth? Since when did Rupert Bland have a gold tooth?

  “Walter, wake up!” Alice whispered. “You’re startin’ to snore!”

  Walter opened his eyes just in time to see Lester Barrett looking straight at him with a smile that stretched from one ear to the other.

  “And now, Sister Sparks, if you would be so kind as to lead us as we lift our voices in song,” Dr. Croombs was saying.

  The hymn was “The Holy City.” Lordy, Walter groaned inwardly. As if things weren’t bad enough already, now he had to listen to Leola Sparks lay waste to Jerusalem.

  Last night I lay a-sleeping,

  There came a dream so fair:

  I stood in old Jerusalem,

  Beside the temple there …

  Old Mrs. Sparks outdid herself today. There wasn’t an eardrum for miles that was left unmolested. The congregation sat in stunned silence for a good half-minute after the final hosanna.

  Well, at least church was over. Walter did his best to slip outside without drawing any more attention to himself, but Lester was waiting.

  “Catchin’ forty winks, huh, Romeo?” he teased him. “What’s the matter—stay up too late dancing with your
girl?”

  Walter grinned the especially witless grin he saved for situations such as this. He’d have given his right arm for a clever reply; he knew from experience it would come to him hours later, too late to do him any good. As it was, he just stood there like a piece of cheese.

  Lester clapped a hand on his shoulder and laughed. “Cain’t say as I blame you; always been partial to yellow hair, myself.” He lowered his voice. “Well, looka here, Romeo, it’s the woman of your dreams comin’ out the door this minute! Smile pretty, now.… Hello, Mr. Vaughan, Miz Vaughan. How are you this morning, Miss Fanny Kate? You know my friend Walter Carroll, don’t you? Walter—well, where’d he get to?”

  Walter had scooted behind an oleander bush, his heart beating furiously, his cheeks aflame. He didn’t believe he could stand to face Fanny Kate Vaughan today. What if she laughed at him? Easier to just disappear for the time being. He peered out from between the branches and located his father, deep in conversation with J. N. LeBlanc. Well. It would be a while before he could escape altogether. The hotel yard rang with the usual Sunday morning pleasantries as neighbor greeted neighbor. Walter crossed his arms, leaned up against the white clapboard building, and waited.…

  “Mornin’, Miss Annie, Timothy.… Hot, isn’t it?… You’re lookin’ well, Ashley.… Don’t believe it’s been this hot since … Hunter saw that long-tailed creature in our … especially fine sermon … Well, I was just saying to John Henry … you know that old darky’s been after our chickens!”

  Walter had been only half-listening, but now his ears perked up. He peeked through the oleander again. Rupert Bland was standing no more than two yards away, talking to Lester Barrett.