I don’t know how long I stayed curled up in a ball on the ground afore I started hearing Mr. Leroy over top of me. He was gasping loud whilst he waited for his breathing to catch ahold of him so’s he could do a proper job of chopping me up. I thought ’bout getting up and running again, but my legs were so tired and shake-ity that they waren’t gonna do nothing but lay there hoping it waren’t them he’d hit first.

Mr. Leroy got ahold of his breathing and said, “Boy … has you … lost your … natural mind?”

The peculiar thing was that even though he was having a powerful hard time talking, he didn’t sound atall like hisself. He sounded a whole lot like Pa.

’Stead of cleaving me like firewood he said, “Now get up!”

It was Pa!

Pa kept fighting to breathe regular and said, “All I need, you taking leave of your senses at a time like this! When you gunn stop this running nonsense and stand up to what’s in front of you?”

I said, “But, Pa, he was gonna kill me!”

He said, “What? Why on earth would Leroy want to kill you?”

“He knowed it was ’cause of me all this happened. It’s all my fault! I told him the Preacher waren’t no thief.”

Pa said, “Hush that foolishness! This ain’t none of your fault, this ain’t no one’s fault. Leroy wanted his family so bad that he waren’t thinking clear. You couldn’t’ve said nothing to change him one way or the ’nother. Let this here be a lesson to you. You caint let your wantings blind you to what’s the truth. You always got to look at things the way they is, not the way you wish ’em to be.”

I knowed what Pa was doing. Since him and Ma still think I’m so doggone fra-gile they’re always looking out for me, always trying to make it so I don’t feel bad ’bout something I did that’s total foolish. But after ’while you’re old enough and you got to own up to what you did, right or wrong, and couldn’t no one tell me that all this horribleness didn’t start with me.

Pa said, “Come on, we gotta get back to the Settlement. I’m-a call a meeting so’s we can do something ’bout catching that yellow-belly dog of a blamed thief.”

I knowed better than to say anything more. Pa don’t swear much and when he does it’s a sign that all talking from me is supposed to be through.

Pa said, “You near ’bout caused my heart to jump clean out my chest with all that running. You tearing off in one direction and Leroy tearing off in the other, I’s too old to be chasing after folks like a hound dog. Let me sit a minute so’s I can get my wind.”

Once Pa’s breathing catched up to him good, we headed back. I was sore disappointed in myself. Not for running off like I did, that only made good sense. Ain’t nothing fra-gile ’bout running when you think you’re ’bout to get axed by someone strong as Mr. Leroy. No, I was ’shamed ’cause of how far I’d got!

I reckoned I must have covered two, three miles, but once me and Pa got walking toward the road I saw I hadn’t gone no more than two, three hundred feet! This was mighty puzzling, but the only thing I could figure was I must’ve done a lot a running ’round in circles, which would probably be why Pa caught me so easy.

 

Pa and the other Elders called a meeting in the church for that night. Me and Emma Collins and Sidney and Johnny had to run through the Settlement to let folks know. Most people had heard what happened and said they’d be there.

’Bout a hour afore the meeting was supposed to commence, I finished my supper and walked onto the stoop and heard Ma say to Pa, “Then what we gunn do with ’Lijah?”

I said, “Pardon me for interrupting, Ma, but what you mean, ‘do with me’?”

Ma said, “I don’t want you coming to this meeting, Elijah. Folks likely gunn be talking a lot of bad things and it ain’t right for no child young as you to be hearing all that nonsense. Especially since you’s such a …”

I know it ain’t right, but I butted in on Ma afore she had a chance to get any words out ’bout me being a fra-gile boy. I said, “But, Ma-a-a! I caint miss this! Maybe they’re gonna need my help with something.”

Ma and Pa looked at one the ’nother and Pa said, “Well, if they do, we gunn be sure to let you know ’bout it.”

Ma said, “Is Mrs. Bixby gunn come to the meeting?”

Ma knowed most times Cooter’s ma didn’t come out of their home. Cooter’s grandma was near ’bout fifty years old and frail and ailing and Mrs. Bixby was afeared of leaving her for even a minute.

I said, “No, ma’am, Mrs. Bixby said her ma waren’t getting on too good and she was gonna stay with her.”

Ma said, “All right, then, I want you to run on over there and ax if it be all right for her to look after you whilst we’s at the meeting.”

“But, Ma-a-a-a …”

Ma held up her hand to show there waren’t no more to say.

Then she told me, “And you might as well ax if you can sleep there tonight and go to school with Cooter tomorrow ’cause ain’t no telling when this here meeting’s gunn break up, and you know how you is if you don’t get your sleep.”

She was making it sound like I was a baby in a crib! I said, “But, Ma-a-a-a …”

Pa said, “Don’t be back-talking your ma, Elijah. Go get you your school clothes so you can go tomorrow morning with Cooter.”

“Yes, sir.”

Growned folks sure never want to give no one the respect they’re suppose to get. Here I’d been working hard on not being fra-gile and Ma and Pa hadn’t even took no notice of it. I went and got my clothes for school the next day and put ’em in a tote sack ’long with my school shoes and schoolbooks.

Fair’s fair and it waren’t the littlest bit fair that I was gonna be cut out from all the deciding what to do ’bout this mess I caused.

Whilst I was toting my clothes and such to Cooter’s I started thinking on what was gonna happen at the meeting tonight. I didn’t know if they were gonna put a search party together for Mr. Leroy or if they were gonna even try to get a posse up that would go to America and try to run the Preacher down. Whatever it was they came up with, I knowed it waren’t fair that I wouldn’t get to know till tomorrow after I finished my chores at the barn. That waren’t gonna be till after eight in the evening, and it just didn’t seem right that the person that caused all this woe had to let other folks clean up behind him.

It waren’t till I was just up the road from Cooter and n’em’s house that another great idea started coming to me.

By the time I knocked at Cooter’s the idea was set in my head.

Mrs. Bixby answered the door.

She said, “Good evening, Elijah. How you doing?”

“Good evening, Mrs. Bixby. I’m doing good, ma’am. How’re you?”

“Just fine as can be.” She pointed at my bag and said, “You running away from home, Elijah?”

“No, ma’am, Mrs. Bixby. Ma and Pa were wondering if it’s all right if I stayed with you tonight ’cause that meeting might go on till tomorrow.”

Mrs. Bixby said, “Elijah, you tell your ma anytime she need me to look after her baby, she don’t even got to ax.”

Doggone-it-all, didn’t no one say nothing ’bout no baby! Seems to me ain’t no one over the age of five needs to be called a baby. Seems to me even the most fra-gilest child in the world wouldn’t be called a baby once he’s darn near twelve year old! I was ’bout this close to giving Cooter’s ma some back talk, but instead I said, “Thank you, ma’am.”

Then I sneaked in the lie I had to tell, “Ma wants me to walk on over to the church for ’bout a hour so I can help decide what we’re gonna do ’bout this trouble. Can Cooter walk over with me?”

I figured me and Cooter would both get to eavesdrop on the growned folks’ meeting.

“That’s fine, Elijah, but don’t be counting on Cooter to go with you. Schoolteacher Travis just come by and said the boy’s acting the dunce at school again.”

She opened the screen door and I saw Cooter standing in a corner with his nose mashed up ’gainst the walls.

She said, “Boy been standing in that corner so much these pass few years he done wore a spot out in the floorboards.”

I said, “Yes, ma’am, and now Mr. Leroy’s run off and ain’t ’round to fix it neither.”

Mrs. Bixby raised a eyebrow to let me know she was wondering if I was being smart-mouth. I said real fast, “I didn’t mean no disrespect, ma’am.”

“None taken. Here, Elijah, drink this. Your friend ain’t getting nothing to eat nor drink till he learn to act right in school, and I hate seeing this glass of milk go to waste.”

I drunk Cooter’s milk, then Mrs. Bixby made me drink two more glasses of it till there waren’t none left.

She said, “Carry your bag to Cooter’s room, Elijah. And don’t be trying to talk to that dunce neither. Another thing he gunn be doing till he turn thirty is keeping his mouth shut.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I ran my bag back to Cooter’s room and told Mrs. Bixby, “I’m gonna go back home and tell Ma you said it was fine for me to stay here tonight. Then I’m gonna go to that meeting for a while.”

She said, “You be careful and hurry back. I hear Leroy done lost his mind and is wandering ’bout. Hear he done throwed one axe a hundred feet up into a tree and throwed the next one so high it poke the man in the moon in the eye.”

“Yes, ma’am. I won’t be long.” I waren’t gonna spend one minute thinking Mr. Leroy was gonna hurt no one. I knowed him better than that. That waren’t nothing but some more gossip and story pretty-upping. I figured I was gonna have ’bout a hour to eavesdrop on the meeting afore I had to get back to Cooter’s home.

I walked toward the church but went into the woods so I could come at it from the back and no one could see me eavesdropping. It was peculiar to see the church all lit up from candles on a Thursday night. Most times it didn’t look like this ’less it was Sunday evening or ’less there was a service for someone that had gone and died.

It was also mighty peculiar ’cause there waren’t none of the regular church sounds coming out of the place. There waren’t no foot-stamping nor no hand-clapping nor no tambourine-shaking to make you happy. There waren’t even none of the choir’s singing to make the place seem so warm and comforted and cozy that afore you knowed it, some growned person was digging their elbow in your ribs to wake you up. But I knowed why the church was so different tonight, and it waren’t ’cause of the full moon neither. Tonight folks waren’t interested in nothing but straightening out my mess.

There were only a few folks there already. They were keeping their voices low inside the church and only once in the while could I understand somebody shouting out “Yessir!” or “Lord almighty!” Those were interesting things to hear but what was more important was hearing what had made folks call out so.

If I was gonna eavesdrop proper I’d have to crawl right under the church’s floorboards. I ’membered what Pa said ’bout people that use to be slaves and how they never let a chance at being late get by ’em, so I knowed I was gonna have to wait out here for a while till the church filled up and all the stragglers had made it in.

I was this close to being out of the tree line when I heard a twig snap behind me. I did what every fawn in the woods does whenever it gets come up on by surprise, I froze right where I was at.

But it was too late, afore I could turn ’round to see what was sneaking up on me, a rough hand came ’cross my face from behind and I was getting squozed ’round the middle, lifted off my feet, and toted back into the woods!

I’d seen how when a mouse gets grabbed up by a cat, it won’t fight or twitch or do nothing to try to get away. I’d seen that and never could get in my head why it happened. I use to think if it was me that got snatched like that, I’d fight and kick and make that cat earn eating me up. I always use to say that I waren’t gonna go down that cat’s throat without a fight, without at least getting me some good bites in on his tongue as I was getting swallowed. But I could see now that I was wrong, ’cause once this haint or this killer or this kidnapper or this slaver or this demon that had grabbed me lifted me up in the air light as a piece of straw and pulled me deeper into the woods, I knowed there waren’t no sense in fighting or nothing. I was feeling just what that mouse must’ve been feeling. I didn’t want to drag things out none by tussling. I just wished this getting killed would be over quick.