Billy Creekmore Read online

  Rufus went on talking about the clubhouse we were gonna build off in the woods and how each of us had to scavenge something in order to become a full member. It could be an animal pelt or a hawk’s feather, an arrowhead, or something washed up on the riverbank, but whatever it was we had to find it on our own without no help from anyone in the club. He said we had a week to find something to contribute, then we adjourned our meeting.

  For some reason, everyone but me was having luck finding things. Willis Dawson found a turtle shell, and Rufus found a dead falcon. He cut off the talons and fixed one set on a string to wear around his neck like an Indian and donated the other to the club. I walked everywhere with my eyes to the ground looking for flint or a rock with a vein of crystal, but I warn’t having no luck at all. Once when I was milking the cow, I thought I saw a blue butterfly wing, but when I cleared the straw it was just a piece of broken glass. Daylight warn’t proving any good for me, so I promised myself I’d try searching the next night with a full moon. Things turn up in the moonlight.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A VOICE CRIES OUT,

  and I Do My Best to Help

  A RUNAWAY

  in

  THE MIDDLE OF

  THE NIGHT

  The full moon warn’t more than a few days later. I waited till everyone was asleep, then I took a wander out behind the dormitory, thinking that maybe I’d find a snakeskin draped across a fallen branch. Puffy clouds collected here and there, then stretched thin across other parts of the sky. I headed off through a clump of bushes and slinked between trees. Wind rustled the bare branches. I searched in the tree roots, but I warn’t feeling lucky. I was ready to turn back, when all of a sudden, somebody jumped out from the bushes and grabbed me around my neck.

  “Don’t yell or I’ll kill you, I swear I will,” cried a terrible voice. He was yelling in a whisper, and if you’ve ever been attacked at night, you know what I mean. “Do you promise not to yell? Do you promise? If you do I’ll let you go.”

  “I promise,” I said, choking out the words.

  “Okay then. Now, put your hands on your head and turn round slowly.”

  I did just what he said, but when I turned around and saw who it was I couldn’t help breaking my word. It was Meek Jones, and he was holding a broken branch in one hand like he was ready to hit me.

  “For land’s sake, Meek!”

  “Billy!” he said, dropping the branch. “I didn’t know it was you. I wouldn’t have grabbed you like that if I’d a known. Don’t hold it against me none. I’m awful desperate.” The moon come away from the clouds and poured some light on us, just enough for me to get a good look at him. He was ragged and bone thin, and his right hand was wrapped up in a dirty bandage.

  “Why, what’s happened to you, Meek? You look like a beggar.”

  “I expect I am a beggar. I got burned. I lost most of my hand in the glass factory.” He unwrapped some of the bandage for me to see.

  Oh, it was awful! There warn’t nothing left of his fingers but little stumps covered over with thin shiny skin. “How’d a fire do that?”

  “It warn’t a fire that burned me. It was molten glass. The boy next to me dropped the rod he was blowing, and melted glass splattered on my hand. Now I can’t apprentice no more, and the only job I’m good for is sweeping the floor.”

  “Does it hurt you?”

  “Oh, yes. It throbs and burns something terrible, but they don’t care. I’m no use to ‘em now, since I can’t learn to blow glass with one hand. Why, they won’t even let me sleep in the boardinghouse with the rest of the boys since I’m not making enough money to pay for my bed. They make me sleep on the factory floor. There ain’t no future for me there, Billy, so I run off. I ain’t got no money or food, so I thought I’d come here first and see what I can take from the kitchen.”

  “But you’ve been workin’ there over three months now. Didn’t you save up any money?”

  Meek shook his head, staring at the ground. “No, Billy, it ain’t nothing like we thought. You got to buy your own blowing rods, then pay for your bed and your meals. And, if you break anything, you pay for it. Seems like all you do is break things when you’re first learning. At least I did, especially since it’s so hot and crowded in the furnace room. Plus, after a couple of hours of staring into the furnace firing the glass, my eyes wouldn’t see right. It seemed like I was going blind, so I bumped into people and dropped my rod and broke things. If you’re lucky you make sixty-five cents a day, but once they deduct the price of your meals and bed and your breakages, all you get is a few pennies. The factory took all the money I saved up to pay for the doctor when I got burned. So, I ain’t got a penny, and I’m hungry…. You’ll help me, won’t you, Billy?”

  “Why, sure I will, Meek. You slept right next to me for almost five years. ‘Course I’ll help you.” I told him it was best if I went alone, since it’d be overall less noisy if only one person raided the kitchen. “Besides, I know it real well. Go hide among the willows and I’ll head over there when I’m through. I’ll hoot like an owl and you hoot back till we find each other.”

  The door to the kitchen was locked, but I lifted a window easy enough and climbed through. I put a wedge of cheese, some apples, and a loaf of bread in an old cloth sack. It had long straps and I figured it wouldn’t be no hindrance for Meek to carry it across his shoulder. I looked around a bit more and added a bottle of apple cider and one of the dry sausages that Mr. Beadle ate for his lunch. I moved quick and steady, as if I was used to breaking into places and stealing every day of my life. It occurred to me that Meek might need a knife and some money, so I took one of Peggy’s carving knives, and looked behind some cans in the pantry where I knew she hid a little pouch of money to pay the delivery boys. I felt a pang of guilt when I dropped it into the sack, for I knew Mr. Beadle might yell at Peggy or beat one of the boys when he found out he was robbed. But I figured that Meek needed the money more than anyone else right now. He looked so scrawny, and his hand was something awful to see.

  I left quiet as I came, then ran toward the river. I hooted a couple of times and Meek hooted back, and sure enough we met up fine. He just about grabbed the sack of food outta my hands, taking big bites of the sausage and cheese and washing ‘em down with the cider. He used the wrist of his injured hand to help him hold things on account of his fingers were too maimed to use in any way at all.

  “You’re awful hungry, Meek,” I said.

  “Yes I am.” He wiped his lips with the back of his good hand. “Mr. Colder keeps us even hungrier than the Beadles.” He reached into the sack and pulled out the pouch of coins. “What’s this? Money? Land sake’s, Billy, you’re a wonder!”

  “I thought you could use it. Where you headin’?”

  “Don’t know. Thought I’d follow the river a couple a miles into Albright. Maybe I could get a job in a store. I’m no good at fine work anymore. Can’t see myself ever being much of a carpenter, which is something I used to think I’d like to be, but I can still sweep and clean and haul things about…. I tell you, Billy, the glassworks is a terrible place, even worse than here.”

  “I believe you, Meek. I’ve never known you to lie.”

  “And I ain’t lying now. It’s awful work. The furnaces are so bright, I heard they’ll blind you by the time you’re twenty-five. And they don’t give you no water or breaks in the fresh air. You could faint away from heat exhaustion, and the foremen don’t care. I seen a boy die there once. He hadn’t worked there for more than a week, and it made him sick. He was vomiting blood all night and died the next day.”

  And then Meek dropped his head and started shaking like he was crying, but no sound came out, and there warn’t no tears. He stopped soon enough, then got up and slung the sack of food across his shoulder. “Tell the other boys what I said about Mr. Colder and the factory. Tell them I said anyone who’s sent there should figure out someplace to run off to soon as they can.”

  I told him I would. Then I wished
him good luck and told him to mind himself along the river. The current’s dreadful rough in some places. I watched him slip into the willows, and the last I saw of him was the white sack I gave him. I could see a tiny bit of it between the trees, faint in the dark like a moth.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I Share Some Secrets

  AND

  Keep Others

  Locked Up

  WHILE MR. BEADLE

  LOOKS FOR A THIEF

  All night I tossed and turned, waking up every so often, once from a bad dream I couldn’t remember, another time because of rain. I thought about telling Rufus and the boys in the Robbers Club about Meek Jones and his mangled hand, but I couldn’t see no sense in that. The more people that know a secret the more likely it is to get out. If Mr. Colder and Mr. Beadle found out he’d been here, they might set out to bring him back to the factory and the horrible life he was leading there. No, I couldn’t tell no one about Meek. The rain drummed on the roof like a thousand tiny mallets, and I don’t think I ever truly fell back asleep. Near dawn I heard Walter Barnes let out a yell. Water was coming through the roof, and he woke up cold and wet from rain falling on his face.

  The path to the dining hall was ankle deep in mud. For the first time ever, there warn’t no bowls or spoons waiting for us when we took our places at the table.

  “I wonder if Peggy’s sick,” whispered Rufus. A few boys muttered complaints, but those that noticed Mr. Beadle staring at us nudged ‘em to silence. There he was, glowering at us and slapping his hickory stick against the wall, priming it for a beating. Right then and there my heart shriveled up, for I knew what he was mad about.

  “Look at them, Peggy!” He pointed at us with the switch, his brow wrinkled with anger. “The most ungrateful lot of boys it has been my misfortune to know. Hungry, are you, boys? Well, there’ll be no food, not a crumb for any of you, until the thief comes forward! Isn’t it true, Peggy? Isn’t one of these boys a thief?”

  “Oh, sir, I can’t say it’s one of our boys….” answered Peggy. “Maybe a tramp broke in last night and took the things….”

  “Most unlikely! No, no, it’s one of these wretches, for sure. Tell them what’s missing, Peggy!”

  “One of my best knives, sir, some cider and a sausage, and a wedge of cheese …”

  “And what else, Peggy?”

  “Money, sir.”

  “Money!” he thundered. “Someone has stolen money from the Guardian Angels Home for Boys, the very hand that feeds him!”

  Well, I wasn’t sure if I was gonna faint or be sick. I felt right panicky as he stomped about. I longed for the earth to split open and swallow me whole, for in another moment I was sure I’d do something to give myself away. I sneaked a glance at Peggy, and her eyes sent me a fierce warning to stay silent, and I could tell she warn’t gonna give me up to Mr. Beadle.

  “I demand to know,” thundered Mr. Beadle, “who stole from this orphanage?”

  Nobody said a word.

  “I warn you, thief, I will find you out! I will not let you steal from the good work of Guardian Angels. Until then, there will be no food for any of you! To your chores then, the lot of you!”

  Out into the rain we scurried to tend the animals and shovel the mud. We worked for hours in the cold and wet, hunger gnawing at our bellies while Mr. Beadle patrolled among us, trying to unnerve someone into confessing. I was pumping water at the well when Peggy appeared on the back porch and pulled me quick into the pantry.

  “Did you do it, Billy? You’re the only one that knows where I keep the money.”

  “No, Peggy, it warn’t me,” I pleaded. “But I know who it was…. You see, I was awful restless last night, so I took a little stroll, and what did I see creepin’ about the place but a convict! An escaped one, dressed in black and white stripes, limpin’ through the mist with an iron on his leg.”

  “Stop it, Billy! Now tell me the truth. Is it you that stole from the kitchen?”

  I swallowed the rest of the lie, then told her the truth. “Yes, it was me, but I have a good reason … it warn’t a convict, it was Meek Jones. He’d run away from Mr. Colder’s glass factory, and he was hungry and injured, crippled really. He won’t ever be able to use his hand again, on account that it was almost burned off by melted glass….”

  I described his accident and how pitiful his hand looked, and in a few short moments, Peggy’s good heart prevailed, and her anger went away. She scooped me up in her arms, hugging me tight, as she cried for poor Meek and his crippled hand.

  “Oh, to be a poor hungry orphan, cold and injured wandering alone in the depths of night!” She cried a bit more, then added, “Next time you come across a hungry, injured child you wake me up. I could have put together some money and food without Mr. Beadle ever noticing it was gone….”

  I assured her that next time I found myself in such a situation, I’d do just as she said. Then she let me go, but not before cautioning me about the state of my soul and decrying the bad habit of lying I had developed. “It will get the best of you in the end, for you’ll get too easy with words. You’re taken by the power of storytelling, and if you ever use it to hurt others, you’ll be lost, Billy.” Her face was pink with emotion, and I thought she might start crying again, but she didn’t. Instead, she told me to slip back among the boys while she figured a way out of this mess.

  For the rest of the day I tried looking as innocent as I could, but inside I felt troubled. My mind was full of the secrets, and I was so possessed by them that I barely felt the rain falling on my face. All day long I heard the river roaring. It was swollen and angry from two days of rain. No doubt the bank would be slippery and wet, and the narrow path that wound between tree roots and boulders was probably buried in dark water. I thought of poor Meek Jones making his escape with his sore hand, and I hoped he had decided to walk some other way than along the river.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THERE IS NEWS OF MEEK JONES,

  and

  on Hearing Plans for My Future,

  I BEGIN TO BELIEVE THE PROPHECY

  of

  Bad Luck in My Life

  All of us went to bed hungry that night, hoping that a night’s sleep would change Mr. Beadle’s resolve, but this was not to be. We warn’t given nothing but weak tea for breakfast, then Mr. Beadle sent us to our chores. For an hour or so he paced back and forth on the porch, sheltered from the rain, while he watched us getting colder and wetter. Finally he left, but it hardly made no difference since hunger and rain had taken the spirit out of everyone.

  Sometime late in the afternoon, Mr. Beadle marched us into the chapel. Already I was nervous. We never went to chapel except for Sundays, and I was sick with dread, figuring that Mr. Beadle had decided to hold us there until one of us confessed to stealing from the kitchen. But I was wrong.

  In front of the altar was an open pine coffin holding the body of Meek Jones. At first all I could see was his profile, but I could tell it was him. My heart went cold, and all I could hear was the blood thumping in my ears.

  Using his preacher voice, Mr. Beadle announced that the thief had been found. It was none other than Meek Jones, former resident of Guardian Angels, who was found drowned not a mile downriver, his body tangled in the roots of a willow, his head battered against the rocks. Around his neck was a white sack filled with stolen food and money, testimony to how God punishes those who steal from the hand that feeds ‘em. The boy had run away from the glassworks factory, broken into the kitchen at Guardian Angels Home for Boys, and was on his way with the stolen goods to who knows where. Evidently, Meek had lost his footing along the riverbank, but whether he was first dashed on the rocks and knocked unconscious or strangled to a faint by the straps of the sack before he drowned, only God could say. “But let this be a warning to you boys, that your earthly acts determine the course of both this life and your everlasting soul, and if it were for me to determine, I would say that he was strangled by his sin.”

  The grown-ups were g
athered near the coffin at the front of the chapel. The preacher was there, as was Mrs. Beadle, Peggy, and Mr. Colder, standing behind poor Meek. Mr. Beadle called for each of us to walk past the coffin to see what can happen to a boy who lies and steals and runs away from his responsibilities. Until then, I must confess, I was feeling greatly relieved knowing that I’d never be caught and the blame was thrown on someone else. But seeing poor Meek made me feel most dreadful and sick. His face was terribly swollen from the water, and the bandage around his maimed hand had fallen off. Mr. Beadle and the others were very solemn and stern. They stared at us with cold faces, as if we were somehow to blame for Meek’s thievery and bad luck. Only Peggy was crying. She dabbed at her eyes with her apron and couldn’t raise her face to look at us as we walked past the open coffin.

  The preacher called upon us to look deep within our souls to humbly ask God to make us eternally grateful and forever worthy, so we’d never repeat the sins of Meek Jones. Then he gave one of his long-winded prayers asking God to forgive Meek for his many sins and wash him clean in the flames of Purgatory so he could rise up to Heaven. The way he put it, such a thing was unlikely, seeing what a low-down sinner Meek was. Afterwards he lead us in a hymn, and back we went to the dormitory, Mr. Colder and Mr. Beadle flanking us, Peggy and Mrs. Beadle bringing up the rear.

  “So it was Meek the whippoorwill was talking about!” said Frank Vickers.

  “I guess so,” I answered, wondering if spirits really were starting to infiltrate my storytelling. It was just part of my story, not even a guess or a true feeling, and it turned out to be true. I was feeling right spooked at myself, and I wondered what kind of powers I really did have.

  “Did you ever think it was gonna be Meek? And who’d have ever thought he was a thief?” said Rufus Twilly. The lights were out, but all of us was restless with the terrible vision of Meek and the sad end he came to.