Preacher's Boy

"You gave him your dinner," I whispered. I was a little in awe of Vile at that moment.

"He's my paw," she said. "How could I not?" I wanted to say, Fathers are supposed to take care of their children, not the other way around. She went into the cabin and reappeared with the cooking pot. "Where's the fish heads and things?" she asked.

"The heads?"

"I need them for the soup."

"I—I pitched them into the woods."

She sighed at the waste. "I reckon the coons had a feast," she said, then paused, a little embarrassed. "No way you can fetch us any more of those pitiful taters and carrots, is there?" She didn't wait for an answer, just sighed again and headed for the spring.

I busied myself gathering wood and twigs for the next fire. I didn't want her to think I was mooching off her. But I was, wasn't I? She'd caught two small fish, and I had gobbled down most of one of them. I was worse than her dratted pa. I wasn't even kin.

It was hours until suppertime—whatever supper could be made from rotting chicken head and feet—but I went ahead and laid a fire in the fireplace inside. Zeb was snorting and snoring. The smell of him was nauseous, so I worked fast and got out to the fresh air as soon as I could. Vile wasn't back yet. I imagined her squeezing the pot against the earth. Trying to force the spring to give up water would be worse than milking a dry cow. The North Branch was a long round trip, but in the end it might be easier. I planned to suggest it.

I wondered if I should go down to the tracks and pick some raspberries. I went back into the cabin and found two battered tin cups. They smelled of old soup. I shuddered. They hadn't even been washed clean. I took them outside and wiped them as carefully as I could with maple leaves, but the grease just smeared around the inside. Cold water wouldn't help. It was the only time in my life that I felt a longing for the smell of good strong lye soap. How could you eat raspberries that had sat in old chicken grease?

You should never run away from home unprepared, believe me. I didn't have so much as my own tin cup, and I didn't fancy sharing one of theirs. I tiptoed past the smelly body of Zeb to replace the cups on the mantel. Zeb snorted and turned over. How had he gotten liquor? I knew, if you had money, there were ways, but Zeb was dirt poor. He didn't have any money, or did he? The old scalawag. It was all I could do to keep from rolling him over and going through his pockets.

At that moment I wanted more than anything to show him up. To make myself a hero and savior to Vile. See, I'd say. You ain't so poor. Here's money. You can go down into town and buy you some proper grub. But I didn't go through Zeb's pockets. I knew Vile'd never forgive me if I made a fool of her pa. She was like Willie—loyal to the core. I'd have to think of some better way to help her.

Zeb was still asleep when Vile got back. "Might as well start the fire," she said. "It'll take eternity to make soup from this."

If she was grateful for my laying the fire, she didn't say so. Just took one of the big lucifer matches Willie and I had left on the mantel and struck it, lighting the kindling. I held my breath. I didn't want Vile to despise me for not being able to lay a proper fire. I watched the flames leap from the dried leaves and twigs, dance around the loose bark, and then envelop the larger branches.

Relieved, I went outside, leaving Vile to put the pot on to boil. When she came out, she was livid with rage. She waved a bottle at me. "Looka here!" she cried. "Can you beat this?"

The half-filled bottle she held out for my inspection was Willerton's Digestive Remedy. The drugstore sells gallons of it. Half the town, mostly the male half, fancies it has digestive problems that only Willerton's can ease. "He musta had a bellyache," I said lamely.

"Bellyache, my big toe!" She loosened the cap and jammed the bottle under my nose. "Just smell that."

"Smells like Willerton's to me," I said, my eyes smarting from the fumes. "Stomach remedies gotta be strong to work."

"You are a newborn babe, ain't you? Willerton's is nothing but booze with a fancy name. How you think he got drunk as a skunk?" She hauled back and threw the bottle straight and hard as a strike over the plate, crashing it against the rough bark of a nearby spruce. The liquid made a dark stain against the trunk. Then she did something that surprised me more than I can say. She sat down cross-legged on the ground, put her head in her hands, and burst out crying.

I didn't know what to say or do. I called her name softlike a couple of times, but she paid me no mind. She was not going to be comforted by gentle words. I needed something more powerful than Willerton's to soothe her ills. That was when I came up with my brilliant idea.

Lord, deliver me from my brilliant ideas. But at the time, on a nearly empty stomach, with Vile crying her eyes out, it seemed born of pure genius.

10. My Brilliant Scheme

THE TWO OF US WERE SITTING OUTSIDE, LEANING against the side of the cabin. Vile was staring glumly at the ashes of our dinnertime fire. Through the wall I could hear Zeb snoring away like a bear in hibernation. It was time, I thought, to tell her.

"Vile," I said, "I've got an idea."

She sniffed and turned to look at me, one eyebrow raised.

"No, really. I got an easy way for us to make money."

"Yeah?" Ha! I'd figured the word money would make her sit up and take notice.

"We write a ransom note, see?"

"A what?"

I stopped to explain to her about the Clark baby and the New York boy and how it happened all the time. She was still giving me her puzzled expression.

"See, we pretend I got kidnapped and ask for money to get me back—"