CHAPTER 12

TRACKING DOWN A SCOUNDREL

Goose bumps—not from the cold this time—broke out all over Cassie. Were these shells from Maybelle’s eggs? There was one way to tell. Cassie scooped up a few shells and brought them close to her face to examine them. It was just too hard to see in this light … “Are the shells speckled?”

Philip’s voice startled Cassie. She had been so intent, she hadn’t noticed him and Gus beside her. “Can’t tell for sure,” she said. “It’s too dark in here. But I think so.”

“Hey!” Gus had ventured a little farther into the cave. “Looks like there’s been a fire back here. And somebody done had himself a chicken dinner.”

Gus emerged from the darkness holding chicken bones and a handful of white chicken feathers. “Reckon there ain’t no more question ’bout what happened to your hen.”

Cassie felt something tighten inside her. “Reckon,” she said, “there ain’t no more question neither ’bout who’s been camping in this cave.”

“I don’t know,” said Philip. “I’ll allow someone’s been camping here, and it appears he stole Maybelle and had her for dinner. I don’t see how that proves it was the deserter that done it.”

Cassie knew what the proof was—the button from the thicket that matched the one dangling by Maybelle’s empty nest. As she explained, the walls of the cave seemed to catch Cassie’s words and throw them back at her, dark and grim. When she finished, the boys were silent. Cassie listened to the noises outside the cave: the gurgle of the creek, a squirrel scolding, the tapping of a woodpecker on a tree.

Finally Philip spoke. “How is it you didn’t tell us ’bout the buttons to start with?”

Cassie’s temper shot up. Is that all Philip could do? Point fingers and criticize? She opened her mouth for an angry retort, then clamped it shut. What was the use of fighting like cocks over every little thing?

She sighed. “I don’t know, Philip. Reckon I forgot.”

“How could you forget such a—”

“What does it matter?” Gus broke in. “She done told us now. And I think it all makes sense. Don’t you?”

To Cassie’s surprise, Philip nodded. “Yeah. Sounds like the old cuss is still around.” He paused. “We got to find him before he decides he’s tired of playing around and takes a notion to hurt somebody.”

“Just how we going to find him?” Gus asked.

“I don’t know,” Philip said. “Ain’t got that part figured out.”

“Well, let’s do our figuring outside,” Cassie said, suddenly cold all over. She wanted to get out of this dark, dank place where the deserter had been, only days or hours ago, feasting on their hen and plotting what he would do next to Cassie and her family.

Philip led the way out of the cave and back across the creek to the cover of the mock orange bushes, where they could talk. Here, with the sun growing stronger and the smell of honeysuckle in the air, Cassie felt warmer … but only on the outside. Inside, a cold knot of dread had formed. She knew she would soon have to face the deserter, and the prospect scared her to death.

Cassie and the boys agreed that the best way to catch the deserter was to wait for him to return to one of the places they had known him to be—this cave, the thicket, or the Willis farm.

“It’s lucky there’s three of us,” Philip said. “One to cover each spot.”

Cassie glanced uncertainly at Gus. “But he—”

“You still don’t trust me?” Gus sounded exasperated.

“No,” Cassie said, “’tain’t that. I just wasn’t sure you’d want to help us. After the way we treated you. Accusing you of stealing. Not believing you. All that.” She stared straight at Philip, hoping he knew what her “all that” really meant. “We should’ve been more decent to you, Gus. ’Tain’t your fault you’re a Yankee.”

Philip stared hard back at Cassie—he understood what she was saying—then he turned to Gus. “You don’t have to help us, Gus, but we’d be obliged if you would. We need you real bad.”

“Why, sure I’ll help you,” said Gus. “You was going to help me, weren’t you?”

Cassie glanced at Philip. Gus had trusted them. How could she and Philip have been so false? He was bothered, too; she could see it in his face. “We will help you get home,” she said, “after all this is over. Ain’t that right, Philip?”

Philip answered without a moment’s hesitation. “You can count on it.”

Gus smiled. “I’m obliged. But first we got to take care of this deserter feller, don’t we?” His tone turned serious. “I’ll stay here and watch the cave, if you want. But what do I do if he comes back?”

“Reckon you can’t do much more than watch him,” Philip said. “And follow him if he goes anywhere.”

“Keep him in sight,” Cassie said. “But don’t do nothing more. He’d as soon kill you as look at you.”

“Take my knife, just in case,” Philip said. He slipped his hunting knife from its sheath and handed it to Gus. “I’ll send Cassie to the thicket with the musket, and I’ll go back to the farm to check on Mama, then to Myron’s for help. We’ll be back to get you before nightfall. I promise.”

Cassie’s dander flew up. Who said it was going to be Philip who would check on Mama? Cassie didn’t intend for Philip to send her anywhere. If she went to the thicket, she’d go of her own accord. When was Philip going to learn he couldn’t boss her anymore?

Cassie glared at Philip. “One of us is going back to the farm—it ain’t been decided yet who. But we will be back to get you, Gus, either way.”

Philip was glaring back at Cassie, but she pretended not to notice. “Take care of yourself,” she said to Gus. She realized she meant it.

Cassie and Philip left Gus hiding in the sweet gum tree, well concealed by the grapevines.

Then they headed back through the piney woods. Not a trace of yesterday’s clouds remained in the sky. The sun was shining brightly now through the delicate green haze of new leaves. A pair of bright orange angle-wing butterflies fluttered past on a breeze. It was all in stark contrast to the way Cassie felt: too angry with Philip to talk to him, but wishing she could, wishing she could do something to relieve the heaviness of her own anxiety. She couldn’t help wondering if the deserter had passed this way just before them, underneath these very trees, on his way to the thicket or to the Willis farm.

Cassie glanced suspiciously around, as if the trees themselves were purposely keeping secrets from her. A big dead hickory tree caught her eye. On one of its limbs sat two huge turkey buzzards. At the very moment Cassie looked at them, the buzzards lifted off the limb, opened their wings, and climbed into the air.

Cassie couldn’t help raising her head and watching as the buzzards floated in long curves, without moving a feather—floated down, then up, farther and farther, until they were nothing but tiny specks in the sky. It was a sight she’d seen many times before, but it always filled her with wonder, even now. Up close, turkey buzzards were the ugliest, most ungainly looking birds you could ever see, but when they took to the air …

Philip broke into Cassie’s musing “You’d never know from looking at the critters that they was so graceful, would you?”

Cassie was so startled by Philip’s almost reading her mind, she forgot she was mad at him. “Reckon you can’t tell about too many things just from looking,” she said.

“No, you can’t,” Philip said.

Cassie walked a few steps farther before the force of her own words struck her. And she thought of Gus.

But Philip was talking again. “Reckon the same thing applies to people?”

Cassie jerked her head sharply toward Philip. He was echoing her thoughts … again. “You’re talking about Gus, ain’t you?”

Philip nodded. “We was wrong about him.”

“Yeah,” Cassie said. “He turned out to be right decent … for a Yankee.”

“Yeah.”

They both fell silent and walked on, through a beech grove and down a steep ravine. Cassie was thinking hard about Gus, how close they had come to doing him a great wrong just because they had judged him by looking at him, like most people judge buzzards. She was so engrossed in her own thoughts, she never heard Philip talking, only noticed suddenly that he had stopped walking and looked angry.

“You going to answer me or not?” he said.

Irritation pinched Cassie. Only a moment ago, the two of them had been talking like … almost like Cassie and Jacob used to. And now, here was Philip, ruining it all by lording over her again. “I might answer,” she said, “if I knew what it was you asked me.”

“I swear, Cassie, don’t you ever listen?”

Cassie struggled to contain her anger. She wasn’t going to let him draw her into another argument. “Well, I’m listening now.” She was trying to keep impatience out of her voice. “What did you say that was so all-fired important?”

Philip looked for a minute like he wasn’t going to answer.

He’s going to blow up at me, Cassie thought.

Philip glanced away, then back, and finally said, “Why’d you get riled when I told Gus I’d be going back to the farm to check on Mama?”

“’Cause,” Cassie said, “you didn’t even bother to ask my opinion. You just took for granted it’d be you going back to the farm to look out for Mama.”

Philip stared hard at Cassie. “I didn’t figure there was much choice, since I ain’t never been allowed to know exactly where your thicket is.”

“Oh.” Cassie was taken aback. She’d been so quick to jump on Philip for trying to boss her, the fact that he didn’t know where the thicket was had completely slipped her mind. “That’s right. I forgot.”

“You forgot? When all you and Jacob done for years is remind me?” There was no mistaking the pain in Philip’s voice.

Suddenly it hit Cassie what Jacob had done to Philip. Philip and Jacob were brothers, only three years apart in age; it should have been them who roamed the woods together, them who built a secret hideaway in a thicket. That was natural for brothers, wasn’t it? But Jacob had taken Cassie under his wing instead. Cassie had always relished the attention and never stopped to think about why it had happened that way. Or how it made Philip feel.

Then Cassie heard Philip’s words in her head—the words that had made her so angry before. I can see Jacob’s faults now …

All at once Cassie felt a painful tightening in her chest. She didn’t want to think this way about Jacob. Not now that he was dead and couldn’t defend himself. Not ever.

Then Cassie’s eyes rested on Philip, looking so vulnerable, and a ghost of a memory jumped into her mind. A memory of herself when she was very young, scared witless by a thunderstorm, bawling, and Philip, still in skirts himself, hunkered beside her in the trundle bed, wrapping his arms around her, soothing her: “It’ll be all right, baby. It’ll be all right.” An ache rose up from Cassie’s insides. What had happened to her and Philip in all the years between?

Then Cassie made a decision. And she knew beyond a doubt that it was right. “Philip,” she said, “the thicket’s right on the way home. Come with me now. Will you?”