"Oh, Lord," Chile's mother said, and she put aside her needles. "Bubba's woke up." She stood up and walked in the direction of the crying, her flipflops smacking the splintery floor.

"I'll feed him in a minute," Chile said.

"Naw, I'll do it. Bill's gonna be back soon, and if I was you, I'd put that ring back on. You know how crazy he gets."

"Uh-huh, do I ever." This was said under Chile's breath. Something in her eyes had darkened. She swabbed the last thorn sc.r.a.pe and capped the iodine bottle. "There you go. All done."

Chile's mother returned, holding an infant that wasn't a year old. I stood in the middle of the room, my skin screaming as Chile got off her knees and went back into the kitchen. When she came back, she was wearing a thin gold band on the third finger of her left hand. She took the baby from her mother and began to rock it and croon softly.

"He's a feisty thing," the older woman said. "Gonna be a handful, that's for sure." She went to a window and pulled aside a flimsy curtain. "Here comes Bill now. Gonna get your ride home, fella."

I heard the pickup truck clattering as it pulled up almost to the porch. A door opened and slammed. Then through the screen door came Bill, who was tall and slim and had a crew cut and was all of eighteen years old. He wore dirty jeans and a blue shirt with a grease stain on the front, and he had heavy-lidded brown eyes and was chewing on a match. "Who's he?" he asked, first thing.

"Boy needs a ride to Zephyr," Chile's mother told him. "Got hisself lost in the woods."

"I ain't gone take him to Zephyr!" Bill protested with a scowl. "It's hotter'n h.e.l.l in that truck!"

"Where'd you go?" Chile asked, her arms full of baby.

"Fixed that engine for old man Walsh. And if you think that was fun, you got another think comin'." He glanced at her as he strode past toward the kitchen. I saw him look right through her, as if she wasn't even there, and Chile's eyes had deadened.

"You get any money?" the mother called after him.

"Yeah, I got some money! You think I'm stupid, I wouldn't get no money for a job like that?"

"Bubba needs some fresh milk!" Chile said.

I heard the faucet pumping slimy water. "s.h.i.t," Bill muttered.

"You gonna take this boy home to Zephyr, or not?" Chile's mother asked.

"Not," he answered.

"Here." Chile offered the baby to her mother. "I'll drive him, then."

"The h.e.l.l you say!" Bill came back into the room, holding brown water in another Flintstones jelly gla.s.s. "You can't drive nowhere, you ain't got no license!"

"I keep tellin' you I ought to-"

"You don't need to do no drivin'," Bill said, and he looked right through her again. "Your place is in this house. Tell her, Mrs. Purcell."

"I ain't barkin' up n.o.body's tree," Chile's mother said, but she didn't take the infant. She sat down in her rocking chair, put the cigarette in her mouth, and gripped the knitting needles.

Bill drank down the brown water and made a face. "All right, then. h.e.l.l with it. I'll take him to that gas station over near the base. He can use the pay phone."

"That okay with you, Cory?" Chile asked me.

"I..." My head was still spinning, and the sight of that gold ring hurt my eyes. "I guess so."

"Well, you better take what I'm offerin' or I'll just kick your b.u.t.t out the door," Bill warned.

"I don't have any money for the phone," I said.

"Boy, you're in d.a.m.n sorry shape, ain't you?" Bill took the gla.s.s back to the kitchen. "You ain't gettin' none of my work money, that's for sure!"

Chile reached down into the pocket of her jeans. "I've got some money," she said, and her hand came out clutching a small red plastic purse in the shape of a heart. It was cracked and much-used, the kind of thing a little girl might buy at Woolworth's for ninety-nine cents. She popped it open. I saw a few coins inside it. "I just need a dime," I told her. She gave me a dime, one with Mercury's head on it, and I shoved it into my own pocket. She smiled at me, which was worth a fortune. "You'll get home all right."

"I know I will." I looked at the infant's face, and I saw he had her beautiful eyes of cornflower blue.

"Come on, if you're comin'," Bill said on his way past me to the door. He didn't spare a glance at his wife or baby. He went on out, the screen door slammed, and I heard the truck's engine snort.

I could not tear myself away from Chile Willow. In later years I would hear about the "chemistry" between two people, and what that meant; I would be told by my father about the "birds and the bees" but of course by then I would know all about it from my schoolmates. All I knew at that moment was a longing: to be older, taller, stronger, and handsome. To be able to kiss the lips of her lovely face, and crank back time so she didn't have Bill's baby in her arms. What I wanted to say to her, in that moment, was: You should've waited for me.

"Go on home where you belong, boy," Mrs. Purcell said. She was watching me intently, her needles paused, and I wondered if she knew what was in my head.

I would never set foot in this house again. I would never again see Chile Willow. I knew this, and I drank her in while I could.

Outside, Bill leaned on the horn. Bubba started crying again.

"Thank you," I told Chile, and I took my wet shirt and walked out into the sunlight. The truck was painted bilious green, its sides dented up, its body sagging to the left. A pair of red velvet dice dangled from the rearview mirror. I climbed into the pa.s.senger seat, a spring jabbing my b.u.t.t. On the floorboard was a toolbox and coils of wires, and though the windows were rolled down, the interior smelled like sweat and a sickly sweet odor I later came to connect with miserable poverty. I looked at the house's doorway and saw Chile emerge into the light, cradling her baby. "Stop and get him some milk, Bill!" she called. I could see her mother standing behind her, in the musty gloom. It occurred to me that their faces were very much alike, though one had already been weathered by time and circ.u.mstance, probably a lot of disappointment and bitterness, too. I hoped Chile would be spared such a journey. I hoped she would never lock her smile away, and forget where she'd put the key.

"'Bye, now!" she said to me.

I waved. Bill pulled the pickup truck away from the house, and dust boiled up off the road between Chile Willow and me.

It was a mile or more until the pavement started. Bill drove in silence, and let me off at a gas station on the edge of the air force base. As I was getting out, he said, "Hey, boy! Better watch where you put your p.e.c.k.e.r." Then he drove away, and I stood alone on the hot concrete.

Pain was nothing to a man like me.

The gas station's owner showed me where the pay phone was. I started to put the Mercury-head dime into the slot, but I couldn't let go of it. It had come from Chile Willow's purse. I just couldn't. I asked the owner to let me borrow a dime, telling him my dad would pay him back. "I ain't no bank," he huffed, but he took a dime out of the cash register anyway. In another moment it was tinkling down into the pay phone. I dialed the number, and Mom picked up on the second ring.

My folks were there to pick me up in about half an hour. I expected the worst, but I got a rib-busting squeeze from my mother and my dad grinned and cuffed me on the back of my head and I knew I was in high cotton. On the drive home, I learned that Davy Ray and Ben had reached Zephyr together about seven this morning and Sheriff Amory knew the whole story, that two masked men had bought something in a wooden box from Biggun Blaylock and then the Blaylocks had chased us through the forest. "The men with the masks were Mr. Hargison and Mr. Moultry," I said. I felt bad about this, because I recalled that Mr. Hargison had saved our skins from the Branlins. Still and all, the sheriff needed to know.

We pa.s.sed the Air Force base, its runways and barracks and buildings enclosed by a high mesh fence topped with barbed wire. We drove along the forest road, pa.s.sing the turnoff to the house of bad girls. Dad slowed almost imperceptibly as we drove past Saxon's Lake, but he didn't look at it. The exact place where I'd seen the figure in the flapping coat was lost in summer growth. As soon as the lake was behind us, Dad picked up speed again.

I was lavished with attention when I got home. I got a big bowl of chocolate ice cream and all the Oreos I could eat. Dad called me "pal" and "partner" with just about every breath. Even Rebel almost licked my face off. I had been delivered from the wilderness, and I was okay.

Of course they wanted to hear about my adventure, and they pressed me to tell them more about the girl who had treated my thorn sc.r.a.pes. I told them her name, that she was sixteen years old, and that she was as beautiful as Cinderella in that Walt Disney movie. "I do believe our pal's got himself a crush on her," Dad said to Mom, and he grinned. I said, "Awww, I don't have time for any old girl!"

But I fell asleep on the sofa with a dime in my hand.

Before the sun set on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, Sheriff Amory dropped by. He had been to see Davy Ray and Ben; now it was my turn to be questioned. We sat on the front porch, Rebel sprawled beside my chair and occasionally lifting his head to lick my hand, while in the distance thunder grumbled amid the darkening clouds. He listened to my story about the wooden box, and when I came to the part about the masked men being Mr. d.i.c.k Moultry and Mr. Gerald Hargison, he said, "Why do you think it was them, Cory, if you couldn't see their faces?"

"'Cause Biggun Blaylock called the fat one d.i.c.k and I saw the cheroot Mr. Hargison threw away and that's what he smokes, the kind with the white plastic tip."

"I see." He nodded, his long-jawed face betraying no emotion. "You know, there are probably a lot of fellas around here who smoke cheroots like that. And just 'cause Biggun Blaylock called a man by his first name doesn't mean it was d.i.c.k Moultry."

"It was them," I said. "Both of them."

"Davy Ray and Ben told me they didn't know who the masked men were."

"Maybe they don't, sir, but I do."

"All right, then, I'll make sure I find out where d.i.c.k and Gerald were 'round about eleven last night. I asked Davy Ray and Ben if they could take me to where this thing happened, but they said they couldn't find it again. Could you?"

"No sir. It was near a trail, though."

"Uh-huh. Trouble is, there are an awful lot of old loggin' roads and trails cut through those hills. You didn't happen to see what was inside that box, did you?"

"No sir. Whatever it was, Mr. Hargison said it was gonna make some people tap-dance in h.e.l.l."

Sheriff Amory's brow furrowed. His black eyes held a spark of renewed interest. "Now, why do you think he'd say somethin' like that?"

"I don't know. But Biggun Blaylock would. He said he threw an extra one into the box."

"An extra what?"

"I don't know that, either." I watched lightning flicker on the horizon from sky to earth. "Are you gonna find Biggun Blaylock and ask him?"

"Biggun Blaylock," the sheriff said, "is an invisible man. I hear about him, and I know the things he and his sons do, but I never see him. I think he's got a hideout somewhere in the woods, probably pretty close to where you boys were." He watched the lightning, too, and he wound the fingers of his big hands together and worked his knuckles. "If I could ever catch one of his sons at some mischief, maybe I could smoke Biggun out. But to tell you the truth, Cory, the sheriff's office in Zephyr is pretty much a one-man operation. I don't get a whole lot of money from the county. Heck," he said, and he smiled thinly, "I only got this job 'cause n.o.body else would have it. My wife's on me all the time to give it up, says I oughta go back into the house-paintin' business." He shrugged. "Well," he said, dismissing those thoughts, "a whole lot of people around here are scared of the Blaylocks. Especially of Biggun. I doubt I could deputize more than five or six men to help me comb the woods for him. And by the time we found him-if we ever did-he'd have known we were comin' long before we got there. See my problem, Cory?"

"Yes sir. The Blaylocks are bigger than the law."

"Not bigger than the law," he corrected me. "Just a whole lot meaner."

A storm was coming. The wind was in the trees. Rebel got up and sniffed the air.

Sheriff Amory stood up. "I'll be goin' now," he said. "Thanks for helpin' me." In the fading light he looked old and burdened, his shoulders slightly stooped. He called good-bye to Mom and Dad through the screen door, and Dad came out to see him off. "You take care of yourself, Cory," he told me, then he and Dad walked together to his car. I stayed on the porch, stroking Rebel, as Sheriff Amory and Dad talked a few minutes more. When the sheriff had driven off and Dad returned to the porch, it was he who appeared burdened. "Come on in, partner," he said, and held the door open for me. "It's gonna get bad out."

The wind roared that night. The rain pounded down, and the lightning was scrawled like the track of a mysterious finger over my hometown.

That was the night I first dreamed about the four black girls, all dressed up and with their shoes shined, who stood beneath a leafless tree calling my name again and again and again.

XVI Summer Winds Up AUGUST WAS DYING. So WAS SUMMER. SCHOOLDAYS, GOLDEN rule days; those lay ahead, on the gilded rim of autumn.

These things happened in the last days of summer: I learned that Sheriff Amory had indeed visited Mr. Hargison and Mr. Moultry. Their wives had told the sheriff that both men were home all night that particular night, that they hadn't even set one foot outside their front doors. The sheriff couldn't do anything else; after all, I hadn't seen the faces of the two men who'd accepted that wooden box from Biggun Blaylock.

The September issue of Famous Monsters came to my mailbox. On the envelope that bore my name there was a long green smear of snot.

Mom answered the telephone one morning, and said, "Cory! It's for you!"

I came to the phone. On the other end was Mrs. Evelyn Prathmore, who informed me that I had won third place in the short-story division of the Zephyr Art Council's Writing Contest. I was to be given a plaque with my name on it, she told me. Would I be prepared to read my story during a program at the library the second Sat.u.r.day of September?

I was stunned. I stammered a yes. Instantly upon putting the telephone down, I was struck first with a surge of joy that almost lifted me out of my Hush Puppies and then a crush of terror that about slammed me to the floor. Read my story? Aloud? To a roomful of people I hardly knew?

Mom calmed me down. That was part of her job, and she was good at it. She told me I had plenty of time to practice, and she said I had made her so proud, she wanted to bust. She called Dad at the dairy, and he told me he'd bring me home two cold bottles of chocolate milk. When I called Johnny, Davy Ray, and Ben to tell them the news, they thought it was great, too, and they congratulated me, but all of them quickly p.r.i.c.ked the boil of my nascent terror by reacting dolefully to the fact that I had to read my story aloud. What if your zipper breaks and it won't stay up? Davy Ray asked. What if you start shakin' so hard you can't even hold the paper? Ben asked. What if you open your mouth to talk and your voice goes and you can't even say a single word? Johnny asked.

Friends. They really know how to knock you off your pedestal, don't they?

Three days before school started, on a clear afternoon with fleecy clouds in the sky and a cool breeze blowing, we all rode our bikes to the ball field, our gloves laced to the handlebars. We took our positions around the diamond, which was cleated up and going to weed. On the scoreboard was the proof that our Little League team was not alone in agony; the men's team, the Quails, had suffered a five-to-zip loss from the Air Force base team, the High Flyers. We stood with pools of shadow around our ankles and threw a ball back and forth to each other as we talked with some sadness about the pa.s.sing of summer. We were in our secret hearts excited about the beginning of school. There comes a time when freedom becomes... well, too free. We were ready to be regulated, so we could fly again next summer.

We threw fastb.a.l.l.s and curves, fly b.a.l.l.s and dust-kickers. Ben had the best wormburner you ever saw, and Johnny could make it fishtail an instant before it smacked into your glove. Too bad we were strikeout kings, each and every one. Well, there was always next season.

We'd been there maybe forty minutes or so, working up a sweat, when Davy Ray said, "Hey, look who's comin'!" We all looked. Walking through the weeds toward us was Nemo Curliss, his hands plunged deep into the pockets of his jeans. He was still a beanpole, his skin still b.u.t.termilk white. His mother ruled that roost, for sure.

"Hi!" I said to him. "Hey, Nemo!" Davy Ray called. "Come on and throw us a few!"

"Oh, great!" Johnny said, recalling his blistered hand. "Uh... why don't you throw some to Ben instead?"

Nemo shook his head, his face downcast. He continued walking across the field, pa.s.sing Johnny and Ben, and he approached me at home plate. When he stopped and lifted his face, I saw he'd been crying. His eyes behind the thick gla.s.ses were red and swollen, the tear tracks glistening on his cheeks.

"What's wrong?" I asked. "Somebody been beatin' up on you?"

"No," he said. "I... I..."

Davy Ray came up, holding the baseball. "What is it? Nemo, you been cryin'?"

"I..." He squeezed out a small sob. He was trying to get control of himself, but it was more than he could manage. "I've gotta go," he said.

"Gotta go?" I frowned. "Go where, Nemo?"

"Away. Jutht..." He made a gesture with a skinny arm. "Jutht away."

Ben and Johnny arrived at home plate. We stood in a circle around Nemo as he sobbed and wiped his runny nose. Ben couldn't bear the sight, and he walked off a few paces and kicked a stone around. "I... went to your houth, to tell you, and your mom told me you were here," Nemo explained. "I wanted to let you know."

"Well, where do you have to go? Are you gonna go visit somebody?" I asked.

"No." Fresh tears ran down his face. It was a terrible sight to behold. "We've gotta move, Cory."

"Move? To where?"

"I don't know. Thomeblathe a long way from here."

"Gosh," Johnny said. "You hardly lived in Zephyr a whole summer!"

"We were hopin' you could play on our team next year!" Davy told him.

"Yeah," I said. "And we thought you were gonna go to our school."

"No." Nemo kept shaking his head, his puffy eyes full of torment. "No. No. I can't. We've gotta move. Gotta move tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? How come so fast?"

"Mom thez. Gotta move. Tho Dad can th.e.l.l thome shirts."

The shirts. Ah yes, the shirts. n.o.body wore tailored white shirts in Zephyr. I doubted that anybody wore tailored white shirts in any of the towns Mr. Curliss took his wife and son and his fabric swatches to. I doubted if anybody ever would.