Chapter Ten

 

Baltimore, Maryland

Wednesday, September 27, 1995

 

“You can’t just leave me hanging. What happened? Did Uncle Ron ever find out you shot Brownie?” Lillianna finished combing his hair, the last step of their daily ritual, and settled into the new easy chair the nurse had mercifully pushed into the room for her long visits.

 

Rising Sun, Maryland

April 1935

 

Calvin was in the barn, doing his nightly chores when Grandmaw came storming in, madder than a hornet. “How could you be so stupid? You dang fool. How could you just leave that black and yeller dog laying there for little Ron to find? Ain’t you got a lick of sense? You’re gonna kill that little boy,” she screamed. “So help me God, Calvin, you’re gonna kill `im.’”

Grandmaw reached out and grabbed Calvin by the front of his shirt, ripping the buttons off. She yanked at the back until his arms slipped out and he stood naked from the waist up. Pausing to draw the willow branch back between her accusations, Grandmaw’s eyes flashed as the whip flew forward, striking Calvin’s back and arms. The branch bit into his skin, like a wasp sting, before the welts rose, and he knew, without looking, that tiny red droplets of blood spotted his flesh.

“You old bitch.” Calvin raised his chin. “I didn’t do a thing ‘cept what you made me do. I’m gonna tell Ron that, too. Tell ‘im you made me kill his old shepherd dog.”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind. You hear me, and I mean it. I’ll... I’ll... kill you first.” Grandmaw spat out the words.

Hearing the racket, Grandpaw rushed into the barn. He grabbed Grandmaw by the arm and sat her down on a bale of hay near the door. “That’s a nuff, Myrtle. The boy’s had a nuff.” Grandpaw wrestled the willow switch out of his wife’s hand and bent it across his knee. “The boy’s right, Myrtle. He only done what you tole him to. You didn’t say nothing about burying the dog, did ya?”

“I thought he had a nuff sense to figure that out for hisself.” She jerked away from Grandpaw and stood, bouncing her weight from one leg to the other. Then she turned on her heels and marched back toward the house. Calvin knew she’d go inside and comfort Ron who’d found Brownie’s partially decomposed body in the woods.

Calvin pivoted to face his grandpaw. “I reckon it’s time for me to be moving on. There’s not enough room for both me and Grandmaw here anymore.”

Grandpa drew his eyebrows together, the way he did when he had something serious to say. “Don’t be so hasty, son. You still got some growing up to do.”

Too angry to listen, Calvin hurried on with his speech. “I’m pretty much grown up now, and I’m not gonna take any more beatin’s from her, and that’s a fact.”

“Suit yourself, boy,” Grandpaw said softly. “You’re stubborn, just like your pa. But you’re pretty young to be out on your own. These are hard times. There’s a depression out there. And it ain’t so easy as you might think.”

Later that afternoon, Calvin headed off on foot, down the dirt road toward Oxford, Pennsylvania. He carted his star book, an extra pair of overalls, some clean socks, underwear and shirts in a burlap bag slung over his shoulder. The small, framed picture of his mother was tucked inside one of the socks so it wouldn’t get broken. His front pocket jingled with two dollars in change. Grandpaw had been sitting on the old wooden rocker cleaning his fingernails with his pocket knife when Calvin rushed through the door.

“Ya may need this, boy, to tide you over till you find some work.”

“I don’t want your money, Grandpaw.”

“Don’t worry about it, son. You earned it and more, too, if the truth be knowed. I keep wishing you’d change your mind though. You’re a good worker, and I’m a gonna miss ya.” He paused, gazed into the determined face of his grandson. “Ya can always come back, Cal. And your grandmaw, she ain’t as mean as she seems. She’s just a worrying you’re gonna be like your pa. Figures we was too easy on ‘im, and she just boils up when she gets to thinking about it.”

Calvin had nowhere to go and maybe he never had, but that didn’t keep him from walking. If he didn’t, he feared he would turn to stone. It was an April evening, the long, narrow clouds hung over the sunset and caught themselves on fire at the edges. The flowering spring lingered so sharp and clear, it hurt him to breathe. He could have cried if he had anything left inside him.

Occasionally he’d pass other farms, and tenant houses and the smoke from their chimneys hung low to the ground. When he caught the scent of chickens frying, the sour smell of buttermilk biscuits in the oven, a hollowness welled up inside. The memory of his mama. It blasted a hole in his chest big enough for the wind to swirl right through him.

The kerosene lamps in the farmhouses threw golden pictures of families through the windows and in the nearby fields the dark chunks of hay stacks hunkered in the starlight. A slender edge of moon hung low in the sky toward the center, and the long trail of The Milky Way traced itself clearly over his head.

Calvin’s feet sounded soft on the dusty road, a dark patch moving slowly on top of the silver-tinted dirt. He tucked the burlap bag under his arm, shoved his hands in his overall pockets and plodded along toward a clearing in the woods beside the road. Water from a nearby stream whispered against the grass. Climbing down the bank, he stopped to stare at reflections of the stars on the dark water’s surface.

I should be happy. I’m on my own. I’m a man, at last. I’m free to go out into the world and find myself a place in it.

These were the thoughts of Calvin Miller that night. Almost nothing of the past survived, only the picture of his mother, a tattered childrens’ book of stars, and his dream of reuniting his family.

In this place, in the middle of the night, he was light years away from the causes of his condition. With only the pure and star-filled sky stretching out in front of him, the steady sound of his breathing, and the beat of his own pulse in his wrist for comfort, Calvin didn’t fathom enough about the world to be afraid. Hell, he’d always been on his own, so what difference did it make now?

The night air cooled with the first sting of a late frost, as he lay on his back near the stream and fell asleep beneath an old army blanket, his head pillowed against the burlap bag holding his possessions.

The next thing he knew, the colorless pale light of early morning circled the trees over his head. He lay still taking it all in while a shower of wild dogwood blossoms coasted down to the ground around him. Spring filled him with something akin to hope in spite of the summer with its heat and humidity that would soon settle over the land like a steam bath.

Calvin folded his blanket, stuffed it into his bag and stepped into the wind. The coming morning made his face warm and shiny. His free arm swept the air beside him, flicked itself into the light and out again. Above him, the high gray clouds moved over the sky toward the rising sun. A brand-new day stretched itself out into a future with a job and a place to live. And when he found them, he’d look for his pa and bring him home.

He spent twenty-five cents of the money Grandpaw gave him for breakfast at a nearby store and trudged on until late in the day when he arrived at the Lyncroft dairy farm in Kemblesville, Pennsylvania. He was a shy boy and not sure how he got the courage to stop or what pushed him to that front door. He lifted his knuckles and knocked.

A tall, handsome farmer answered, his head covered with thick, brown hair. His face was so open Calvin knew it could hide nothing. He was young, with muscular arms beneath his short-sleeved shirt and you could tell he was a no-nonsense kind of man. Two small boys darted in and out behind his pant legs, giggling and poking at each other.

“Evenin’. I’m Calvin Lee Miller. Sorry to be troubling you, but I’m a hard worker, and I’m needing me a job. Been on the farm all my life. You got any work here?”

“So happens I am looking for some help.” He thrust out his hand, and Calvin shook it. “Name’s Tom Lyncroft. Room and board plus a dollar a day is all we can offer ya, boy. These is hard times. You ain’t very big. How old is you, anyways?”

“I’m eighteen, sir,” Calvin lied. “Just small for my age. But I’m strong as an ox. You’ll see.”

The boys scrambled out from behind their father and stood on either side of him. “This here’s Tobin and Marshall. They’re my boys. Tobin’s four and Marshall’s almost six. They ain’t big enough yet to help out much.”

“How do you do?” Calvin smiled and looked down at the boys. They stepped forward with a little prompting from their father and shook Calvin’s outstretched hand.

He stole glances at them while Mr. Lyncroft talked. Trying to snatch a look or gesture that would remind him of himself or little Ron, Cal searched for something to lessen the distance that had grown so wide between his present and his past.

“Ya can bunk out behind the barn with Billy and take your meals with the rest of the family. We’ve done ate our supper, but can rustle up a little something for ya, if you’re hungry.”

Calvin believed he could eat a horse, but he wasn’t quite ready to take a place at this family’s table. He needed to be alone for a while and think about his life and where to go next. “No, sir. I’m not hungry. What time do we start in the mornin’?”

“The missus rings for breakfast about five o’clock. We start in right after that. You had any experience with dairy cows?”

“Yeah. My pa used to raise ‘em. I been milking since I was six years old.”

“Good. See you in the morning then. Goodnight.”

Calvin wandered out behind the house. It was near dusk, and the sun was setting in vibrant shades of orange, violet, and pink. The worn pathway leading to the barn shone like a mirror.

“Who’s there?” A voice grumbled from inside the bunkhouse.

“I’m Calvin Miller. The new hired hand. Who are you?” Calvin opened the door to a lean young man, stretched out on one of the bunks. His light brown hair curled over the tops of his ears. He wore a pair of stained bibbed overalls and a plaid shirt, ribbed at the shoulder.

“Billy VanDyke. I been working for the Lyncrofts better part of a year now, I reckon.” He leaped up, thrust out his hand and shook Calvin’s in a firm and friendly way.

“Is it a good place?”

“’Bout as good as you’re gonna find these days. Where you from?”

“Over by Rising Sun. Lived with my grandmaw and grandpaw till I couldn’t take it anymore.” Calvin stared at his shoes, at the worn spot over his big toe.

“Comes a time when a man’s gotta move on, that’s for sure. Welcome,” Billy said, his blue eyes sparkling. “I’m proud to know ya, Calvin Miller, and it’ll be good to have some company. How old are ya, anyway?”

“I’m thirteen. But I told Lyncroft I was eighteen. Feared he wouldn’t hire me if I didn’t.”

“Don’t be worrying none,” Billy said. “I done the same thing, so I won’t be telling him otherwise.”

Billy lit the kerosene lantern and hung it on a nail near the door. In the dim and shadowy yellow light, Cal realized Billy couldn’t be more than fourteen or fifteen himself. Two bunks filled the sparsely-furnished room and Billy had already claimed the one under the window. Calvin took a deep breath and dumped his things in front of the other. He stretched out on top of the blanket and stared up at the cracks in the ceiling.

“What brought you here, Billy?”

“Reckon ‘bout the same as you. Couldn’t get along with my old man no more.”

Billy pulled a pint of whiskey from beneath the mattress and dropped his lean body back onto the bed. “Here.” He thrust the bottle into the space between their bunks. “Have a swig. It’ll help you sleep.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” Calvin gulped the amber liquid that burned like hot coals all the way down his throat. His eyes wet and burning too, he was suddenly grateful for the dim light of the lantern.

The two boys gabbed long into the night, and when Calvin awakened to the sound of the breakfast bell, he already knew he had a lifelong friend in Billy VanDyke.