First Family (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 4)

“Piece of advice for free, little man. That stamp collection is gonna help fund your college education. Why you think I been giving’em to you? And the old coins too?”

Gabriel looked puzzled. “I guess I never thought about that.”

“See, your brain’s not as big as you think it is, now is it?”

“Guess not.” They ate some more and the boy said, “You been flying up to the mine a lot.”

He grinned. “Trying to find me some diamonds.”

“Diamonds in the mine?” Gabriel said sharply. “Thought all those mines were in Africa.”

“Might have us some right here in Alabama.”

“I was thinking maybe I’d go with you.”

“Son, you been all over that mine with me. It’s still just dirt in a big hole.”

“I mean on the plane. We always went in the truck.”

“We always went in the truck’cause you don’t like to fly. Hell, you told me every time you watch me take off you want to crawl inside the earth and never come out.”

Gabriel smiled weakly. “I’m trying to get over that. I want to see more of this world than just Alabama, so I’ve got to get on planes, right?”

Quarry smiled at th

e boy’s spot-on logic. “That’s pretty right, yeah.”

“Let me know then. I’ll be getting on with the chores.”

“You do that.”

Gabriel put his dishes in the sink and scooted out of the kitchen.

As he headed to the barn, Gabriel was thinking hard. Thinking about what he’d heard Mr. Sam talk about when he was drunk in the library last night. He’d heard the name Willow or something like that, maybe like the weeping willow, he figured. And he’d heard Mr. Sam say the word “coal,” or at least it sounded like it, which had made Gabriel think of the mine too.

He wouldn’t ask Mr. Sam directly because he didn’t want him to know that Gabriel had been eavesdropping, even though he’d just come down for another book to read. Mr. Sam sure had been sad about something, Gabriel told himself while he was cleaning out the toolbench in the barn. And the other day he’d watched as Mr. Sam had rolled up his sleeve to help with washing the dishes. There were burn marks on his forearm. Gabriel wondered about that too.

And he’d heard Daryl and Carlos talk about things in the gunroom at night while they’d been cleaning their rifles. But none of it made much sense. Once they’d been talking about Kurt. When Gabriel had come in the room, they’d shut up real fast and then showed him how to break down and reassemble a pistol in under fifty seconds. And why go up to the mine every day? And why had Carlos and sometimes Daryl stayed up there overnight? Was there something going on up there? Gabriel didn’t think it was about diamonds.

And more than once he’d gotten out of bed in time to see Mr. Sam head down to the basement with a fat ring of keys. Gabriel had followed him all the way one time, his heart beating so hard he thought for sure Mr. Sam would hear it. He’d watched as the man had opened up a door down a long passageway that smelled foul. His ma had told him once that that was where the Quarrys used to keep their bad slaves. He hadn’t believed her at first and had asked Mr. Sam about it. But Mr. Sam had confirmed his mother’s statement.

“Your family had slaves, Mr. Sam?” he’d asked him once when they were walking the fields.

“Most folks’round here did back in the old days. Atlee was a cotton plantation then. Had to have people to work it. A lot of people.”

“But so why didn’t they just pay’em? Not keep’em as slaves just’cause they could.”

“I guess it comes down to greed. You don’t pay folks, you make more money. That and thinking one race wasn’t as good as another.”

Gabriel had stuck his hands in his trouser pockets and said, “Now that’s a damn shame.”

“Too many people think they can do anything, hurt anybody, and get away with it.”

But that didn’t explain why Mr. Sam went down into the stink of the basement where they used to keep the bad slaves. Strange things going on at Atlee for sure. But it was Gabriel’s home; he and his ma had no other, so it really wasn’t any of his business. He was just going to keep going on his way. But he was still curious. Real curious. It was just his way.

CHAPTER 45

QUARRY STOPPED the pickup truck in front of Fred’s Airstream and tapped the horn. Fred came out, a store-bought cigarette dangling from one hand and a paper bag in the other. He had on an old sweat-stained straw hat, corduroy jacket, faded jeans, and boots withered by sun and rain. His white hair hung to his shoulders and looked shiny and clean.