Stealing home, p.24
Stealing Home, page 24
Ellie Jane was stirring the oatmeal when she heard the knock on the door. Well, knock might not be the best word for the sound emanating from the parlor.
Pop sat at the table, reading his paper. “Who in the world?” He slammed it on the table as he stood.
Whoever was on the front porch seemed determined to pound on wood and glass equally until someone from the Voyant house— or anyone from the Voyant neighborhood—saw fit to let him in.
Ellie Jane dropped the spoon into the pot, turned the flame down under the burner, and ran out of the kitchen, close on her father's heels. The two of them collided with Duke at the foot of the stairs. He was already fully dressed—unusual for this time of the morning.
When they reached the door, Duke and Ellie Jane stepped back and allowed her father to do the honors. He'd barely turned the knob when the door burst open, and a familiar person spilled inside.
It was that man Darnell, the one who had made such a scene at the town's first game, every bit as wild-eyed as he'd been that evening.
“Where's the boy?” He tried to push past Pop, but the older man held his ground and kept Darnell at bay with little more than an outstretched hand.
“Now you just hold on there a minute.”
“You!”
Ignoring, or oblivious to, her father's stature, Darnell lunged for Duke, grabbing his shirt front and hauling him close to his dark, worn face.
Pop wedged himself between the two while Ellie Jane stood back, unable to be angry with this intrusion.
“Darnell,” her father spoke with authority, “you need to calm yourself down and tell us what this is all about, or you're going to find yourself in trouble again.”
“Ask him.” He practically spat in Duke's direction.
All eyes turned to Duke, and Ellie Jane watched his face change from surprise, to realization, to something that looked like fear.
“He's not here,” Duke said. “Yet.”
“You a liar!”
Ellie Jane moved to close the front door, lest Darnell's shouts wake whoever might still be sleeping in the neighborhood. Pop continued to stand between the two men, like a schoolmaster holding two scrapping boys at bay. “Now, Duke? What do you mean yet ?”
“This fool say he's goin'ta take Morris away.”
“Take him away?” Ellie Jane spoke up, feeling compelled to speak on Morris's behalf. “What is he talking about?”
“Back to Chicago,” Duke said simply. “With me. Today.”
She wasn't sure what part of Duke's statement was most shocking. “Today?”
Even her father seemed surprised, and that didn't happen often.
Duke avoided their eyes, busying himself straightening his cufflinks and sleeves. “I checked with Coleman at the station. There's an eight-o'clock train.”
“And you thinkin' he's yo' boy now, ain't you?”
“I never thought—”
“Well, he done tol' his mama last night he wasn't goin'to go wit' you. She cried and cried and he swore he wouldn't never leave. So, sorry, Mr. Duke man. Looks like you lost your own personal nig—”
“Stop it!” Ellie Jane could have slapped him. “Don't you say such things about that child. Or about him.” She came along Duke's side. “Now, Mr. Dennison, this man is simply worried about Morris. Where do you think he might be?”
“Maybe at the station?” Pop's deep voice offered a soothing touch of calm.
“I asked him to come by here first,” Duke said. “But maybe—”
“Nope,” Darnell said, keeping his eyes narrowed on Duke. “Just came by there. Besides, he ain't goin' away, so he got no need to go to the station.”
Her father reached for his hat on the rack by the door. “Still, Darnell, let's you and I go look for him.” He turned to Ellie Jane. “You two stay here in case he shows up.”
As he was being hustled out the door, Darnell turned and pointed a long, dark finger at Duke. “If anythin' happens to that boy, so help me I'll—”
“I'm sure he's fine,” Pop said. “Now let's go find him.”
After the door closed behind them, the room seemed doubly silent. Ellie Jane and Duke stood deep within it for a few minutes before Ellie Jane said, “Come on. Let's wait in the kitchen.”
“Might as well. Doesn't look like I'm going to make that train.”
The oatmeal had turned into something not even she could justify, so she simply poured them each a cup of coffee—real coffee, no less—and sat down, prepared to listen.
First, without a word, he handed her the telegram.
“When did you get this?”
“Yesterday.”
“This says you've got a few more days.”
“Yeah. Well, things can change pretty quickly.”
“Is it something to do with those two men?”
He wrapped both hands around his cup. “They were here looking for me.”
“Oh, my goodness. Duke, are you in trouble with the law?”
“Nothing quite so simple.”
“Then what is it?”
“What it is, is a long story.”
Ellie Jane rested her elbow on the table, her hand on her chin. “So tell me. I love a good story. Dave always tells the best, and since he's not here, it's up to you to play big brother and keep me entertained.”
When Duke looked up at her, something in his face turned him into a man she hadn't seen before. His eyes, always deep brown, were flat and dead—nearly black. And they seemed to be weighted down, pulled to the table or the coffee or his hands in front of him. Never to her. He didn't look at her once as he launched into his story.
She wasn't prepared for the outpouring to follow. Just as the man across the table from her now seemed a stranger, the tale he told revealed a man she didn't recognize. A dark, disturbed, violent man—someone so foreign to the charming, debonair stranger she'd brought into her home, he seemed almost mythical.
“That wasn't you, Duke.” She reached across the table and placed her hand on his, trying to still the shaking that reappeared after such a long absence. “That was the drink.”
“It was me, all right.” His eyes were dark. “I've been rotten all my life. The drink just set it loose.”
“You can't believe that.”
“No reason to believe anything else, Ellie.” He used her familiar name, the name her father and brother called her. “Never heard anything else.”
“Well, I'm telling you something else. You're a good man.”
He looked at their grasped hands. “How can you say that? After…what I did to you.”
“It's forgiven.” She gave his fingers one last squeeze before letting go. “And forgotten.”
Duke raised one devilish eyebrow. “Forgotten?”
“Almost completely.” She let a little bit of the devil come through her own voice, knowing the temptation was conquered and gone. Those moments locked away in a warm memory, though she knew he didn't see it in the same rosy glow. “Is that part of why you want to leave? To get away from…” She didn't want to dangle the budding love between her and Ned in front of him, especially if Duke was still burning with desire for her.
“No,” he said with a chuckle that knocked her down to a more respectable peg. “It was them two. I just had a feeling they meant trouble. And if they followed me here, they'd follow me away.”
“That's very noble of you, Mr. Dennison.”
He grinned sheepishly. “Either that or I'm a dang coward. Not wanting to face them alone.”
“Oh, you're hardly alone. I think it's safe to say you've won the affection of the entire town.”
“And you ?”
“Me?”
“Are you going to miss me?” There was no hint of flirtation in his question, none of his usual guile or conceit.
“We both will.”
“You and Ned?”
She felt herself blush. “I meant me and Pop. You've become quite a part of the family. But I think, yes, he'll miss you too.”
The parlor clock chimed the quarter hour. They sat in that certain silence that comes with waiting.
“So,” Ellie Jane ventured softly, “are you going to tell me about Morris?”
“What do you mean?”
“He's a child, Duke. He has a home and a mother.”
“And Darnell. Don't forget Darnell.”
“The point is, you can't just take him like some kind of…souvenir.”
“Is that what you think? Look, I wasn't much older than him when I left home. Alone. I just thought he's a kid with a lot of talent who could use some help.”
“Help?”
“Maybe get him a job with our club for now. Until he's older. Then maybe help get him on a team. Dave says he has some connections. I just figured if somebody could see…”
He seemed so full of pain at this moment and something near loathing. For what, she wasn't sure, until he spoke again.
“I already screwed things up for at least one guy. And who knows? I might have screwed it all up for myself.”
“What do you mean?” She held up the telegram. “They're waiting for you to get back.”
He stared into his coffee. “I'm scared, Ellie.”
“Of what?”
“I've never played without drinking. Never stepped onto a field completely sober.”
“You have here.”
“It's not the same.”
“Why? Because we're just a bunch of small-town nobodies?”
“Partly.” He deflected the halfhearted slap she gave to his shoulder. “But because here it didn't matter. Here it's all fun. People enjoy the game.”
“And they don't in the big leagues?”
“I didn't. Not always. I guess I just want to take all of this back with me.”
“So, you're taking Morris.”
He sighed. “I don't want to be alone.” He took a quiet sip of coffee, grimaced, and set the cup down. “But I guess you know all about that.”
It took a moment for Duke's remark to settle in, and when it did it sprouted thorns. One that pricked at the scabbed-over pain from years of loneliness. Another that pricked at his exposing it again. And somewhere, deep down, a small one at having to acknowledge the role this man at the table had in bringing it to an end.
“You know,” she said, mirroring with her own sip, “I was never entirely alone. I had Pop.”
“Yeah.”
“And I had God.”
Up went that eyebrow of his.
“Just remember,” she reached out to him again, “if you're ever feeling alone, you can always talk to Him. I spent a lot of nights—”
“Saturday nights?”
“Some, but others too. The point is, I hope you found a little bit of Him here, that you'll take Him with you when you go.”
“I went to church one time, Ellie. That doesn't mean I've found God.” Duke made a shallow, dark sound, something like a laugh. “Think He knows where Morris is?”
She smiled. “You should go. He loves you, Duke—” “That's ridiculous.”
“No, it's not. We all need somebody. And judging from that Darnell's behavior, Morris will need you there when they find him.”
NED
Ned held to the truth that all business proprietors fell into two categories: those who swept their front walk before opening, and those who swept after closing. The exception was Mr. Poplin, who could be found broom in hand throughout the day, but then his patrons were mostly ladies who appreciated the extra step taken to keep dust off of their skirts.
Ned was a morning sweeper, for the sheer reason that his father had been a morning sweeper, and probably his father before him.
And so it was that he was out in front of the feed store, lost in thought in the early morning when he saw an unlikely sight—Floyd Voyant and that man Darnell striding up his street. Darnell walked freely beside the sheriff, so it didn't seem like an official jaunt, but the two had such serious, set faces it wasn't a pleasure stroll either.
“Hey!” Ned leaned the broom against the wall, trotted over to meet the two men, and, with his face and body, asked what the two were doing at this early hour.
Looking for Morris. Floyd's face looked grim.
“He's not at your house?”
You knew?
Ned gave a curt nod and wondered if they'd lain awake most of the night thinking about it too.
He looked straight at Darnell. “Did he come home after the game?”
'Course he came home after the game. The man's face was sneering, as if insulted by the question. Why you think he wouldn't come home ?
Floyd said something to calm the other man down and communicated the rest. Apparently, Morris wasn't in his bed when his mother woke up in the morning.
Ned checked his watch. “Go to the station. He'll be there.”
He ain't leavin'. Darnell was obviously exaggerating his words, either because he knew Ned was deaf, or because he thought Ned was stupid. His mama said, “No.”
“Then he'll be here to say so.” Morris was a good kid. He wouldn't leave Duke waiting and wondering. “Let's go.”
He'd somehow assumed the role of leader as the three men made the familiar trek from the feed store to the railroad station. He didn't know if Floyd and Darnell were speaking to each other or not, but he had one constant conversation going on in his head.
Please, Lord. Let him be safe.
And the Lord replied in a voice as clear as any other Ned ever heard.
He is.
When they got to the station, they gathered on the platform, the better to survey the surrounding area. Then, off in the distance, a figure came over the horizon. Small and dark, every bit the size and color of the boy, but not the boy. The figure was still a good way off when Ned could make out the anguished face and the worn dress. The woman wasn't walking; she was marching, pumping her arms and legs like a woman headed for war.
Darnell hopped off the platform and met the woman as she crossed the tracks. The two engaged in an animated conversation. Hands flying, aggressive postures, faces enraged. He remembered Morris's bruised face that Sunday morning after the first game, and his heart sank thinking what fate might be in store for the boy when these two got ahold of him.
Please, Lord. Let me find him.
The pair headed toward the station. For the first time Ned noticed the paper clutched in the woman's hand. As soon as she was close enough, she thrust it out at Floyd.
What does it say?
Floyd unfolded the paper and held it out at arm's length, allowing Ned easy access to read along with him. It was a page torn from a ledger book, the same kind he'd given Morris months before. The handwriting was small and surprisingly elegant.
Dear Mama—
I know I said last night I wasn't goin to go away with Mr. Duke to Chicago. And honest I didn't want to lie. There just wasn't a way to say the truth and make you happy at the same time and I didn't want to have to remember you bein mad at me.
So I'm goin. Not just because of baseball and not because of Mr. Duke. I know no man can make a life for another. It's up to me and the Lord. I've seen what the Lord can do for me here and it ain't enough anymore.
I left you some money in the kitchen jar and I have enough to keep me from bein beholden to anyone. I love you Mama. And I'll make you proud. I'm about to do something grander than I've ever dreamed.
Your son,
Morris
Ned looked at the mother's face while Floyd read the last words of the letter. The battle mask she'd worn earlier cracked and fell away, replaced by animated anger. She snagged the letter out of Floyd's hand.
If I get my hands on that fool, I swear I'll —
Ned stepped down from the platform and bowed his head to pray again, determined more than ever to be the one to find the boy and stand between him and his irate mother. He repeated it over and over, looking up and down the tracks and across the baseball field, which looked a little less like a diamond this morning. It still had all the shape, but without the game, without the people, it seemed to lose its luster.
Its sparkle.
Or did it?
A tiny flash of light caught his attention from the overgrown grass at the edge of the outfield. It marked the official homerun territory or, as Ned liked to call it, Dukeland, because he was the only one in town who had ever hit a ball anywhere near it.
Ned abandoned the gathering at the station and made his way toward the field. The light wasn't any kind of a constant beacon, but an intermittent beckoning glint. As each step drew him nearer, he knew he was coming closer to an answer to his prayer.
And he'd do anything to turn back.
The first thing he saw was the source of the light. A piece of broken glass. Then another, and another—obviously part of what was once a jar, now shattered, with a few coins scattered in the dirt around the shards. Next to it was a battered black journal, pages open to the sun. Ned recognized the old ledger book he'd given away so many months ago. Numbers graced the top of the page showing what was labeled as a day's earnings. The rest of the page was filled with the same graceful script. A dark hand lay open across the words. One folded page had escaped and flapped listlessly.
And worst of all, a clean shirt—white with blue stripes— stained dark with blood.
Ned felt his own blood drain. Every drop of it starting from the top of his head, rushing past his ears, carrying with it any ability to make sense of the scene in front of him.
Dear God in heaven.
He closed his eyes, blocking out the scene, plunging himself into total nothing. He felt numb, cold. He put his hand to his chest and felt it rise and fall with each breath. Beneath his shirt, behind his skin, his heart pounded so strong he could almost feel it.
Then he opened his eyes and walked closer to the boy in the grass. Knelt down beside him and looked for the same signs of life. Begging God to show him a breath. Preparing his touch to feel a heartbeat.
Nothing. The boy was cold and still, his large brown eyes staring straight up into the sky. Ned reached out and touched his fingers to the lids. When he closed them, Morris looked more like a child than Ned ever remembered.
Bring him home, Lord.
He looked over his shoulder and saw that his absence had attracted the attention of the rest of the party. He stood, not so much as to face them, but to delay the inevitable. To put off the moment when the small dark woman in the faded dress would see the image of her son. Because when she did, her face contorted to a shape he'd never seen before. That was the moment Ned knew why God struck him deaf all those years ago.
