On Track for Treasure (12 page)

A
NOTHER PUNISHMENT

F
or some reason the evening prayers were canceled.

“Reverend Carey has some business to attend to,” Mrs. Carey told Frances and the other three children. She handed them a basket for supper.

Frances peered inside the basket—there was fried chicken and bread and a whole apple pie. “Thank you.”

“Just bring the basket back tomorrow as usual,” Mrs. Carey said. “You all worked so hard today I bet you'll go straight to bed after supper.”

Frances couldn't help but notice that this remark sounded almost like a command. Mrs. Carey seemed anxious somehow, too. But Frances kept these thoughts to herself as they returned to the barn.

“I'm glad Eli didn't get a licking,” Alexander said as they ate their meal.

“Me, too,” Jack said. “And maybe the Reverend will see he's a good kid and will want to help his father stop drinking.”

“Then he can come to Wanderville with us,” Harold said. He put down his chicken drumstick and looked up at Frances. “Can we go over there now?”

“Well . . .” Frances hesitated. Something about Mrs. Carey's tone had made her wonder if it was better to stay where they were. But after the uncertainty of the past couple of days, Frances longed to go back to her favorite place. “Why not?” she said finally. “We can bring the pie.”

“That's a fine idea,” Alexander said.

The sky was turning a soft pink as they stepped out the back of the barn. Frances looked down at the pie she was carrying. “We should share this with Ora and Clement and their families,” she said. The others agreed, so they turned to walk along the fence over to the sharecroppers' homes.

They came to a big shed where they heard voices. “Maybe Clement's in there,” Jack reasoned. They went in and looked around, but nobody was inside. The late-afternoon light streamed in through the wide spaces between the planks on the wall.

The voices were coming from outside—from the other side of the shed, near a back gate that led to the woods. Not Clement's voice, but other men's voices, and Frances could see silhouettes against the slatted sunlight.

“Frances?” Harold's whisper was hoarse with fear. Frances set the pie down and pulled her brother close.

The sounds of thumps and thuds and shuffling feet weren't noises from work, but from violence. At first Frances thought it was two men fighting. But the sounds of struggle were coming from only one man, she realized. A man who was being shoved and kicked and hit.

She looked over at Jack and Alexander, who looked just as scared as she did. Jack put his finger to his lips and crept over to peer through one of the cracks in the side of the shed. Alexander did the same. Frances slipped her hand over Harold's mouth to make extra sure he'd stay quiet. Then they found a spot in the wall to peer out.

The man being beaten was Moses Pike—Eli's father. He clung to one of the gateposts, his face swollen and bloody. The farmhand named O'Reilly stood before him, his sleeves rolled up and his expression cold.

Frances could feel Harold step back from the wall. She let him bury his face against her side and hugged him closer. The sight made her sick, too, but she kept watching.

Mr. Pike tried to stand taller, but he clutched his side in pain. “I . . . don't . . . understand,” he managed to say.

“Just following orders, Pike,” O'Reilly said. “Eli needs to mind his elders.”

“He's my boy,” Mr. Pike said through ragged breaths. “I'll . . . handle it myself. . . . Why won't you let me?”

O'Reilly didn't answer, and after a moment, Frances realized he wasn't the one Mr. Pike was speaking to. Someone else was there, standing off to the side just beyond Frances's field of vision. Another man.

“It's my land,” he said. “And these are my rules.”

As Reverend Carey spoke, he stepped into view. His coat was off, his shirtsleeves rolled. “I won't strike Eli,” he continued. “But someone had to take the blows for what he's done. And when he's finished with his punishment, you'd better mind that boy and keep him away from my family.”

Frances felt dizzy and stepped back from the wall. Jack and Alexander did, too. None of them wanted to see any more. But Frances couldn't blot out the image of the Reverend as he had just appeared—still rubbing his fist from the blows. She couldn't forget the blood on his shirt.

Frances hardly needed to pull Harold along as she ran out of the shed. They flew together, the two older boys right behind. Frances heard only the sound of her own panicked breathing, like terrible waves crashing in her head.

A
TALE OF TWO APPLES

T
hey ran to Wanderville. It was the only place that felt safe.

The fading daylight filtered through the trees as the four of them sat in the soft grass in the clearing. Jack knew they were all thinking the same thing he was.

Harold was the first to voice it. “Is Reverend Carey a bad man?” he asked.

Frances paused a moment before answering. “Remember how we told you the Careys had lots of rules?” she said. “Well . . . I-I guess there are some rules we didn't know about until now.” Her voice was shaky, and she picked at the grass as she spoke.

Alexander was silent, sitting with his back to the rest of them, motionless except for the deep breaths he took. Jack, meanwhile, sat with his shoulders tensed, his elbows on his knees. He wanted to curl himself up tight and block all the thoughts that were beginning to burn inside.

He remembered what Eli had said the first time they'd spoken—that the Reverend wouldn't help a black kid the way he helped others.
The problem isn't just that the Careys have rules
, Jack thought.
It's that they have different rules for different people.

“And we shouldn't break those rules, right?” Harold said. “We'll be fine as long as we follow them, right? As long as we're good?” His voice sounded hopeful. That was Harold, Jack realized—the kid was always trying to believe things were okay.

But they weren't okay.

“I suppose,” Frances told her little brother, but her tone was wary.

Alexander suddenly sprang up and started walking back and forth. “I know the Careys don't mean to be cruel. . . .”

“How do
you
know?” Jack suddenly shot back. “Look at how awful O'Reilly is. . . . Doesn't he do the Reverend's bidding? Haven't you noticed? What are you, st—”

Jack had to stop himself just then; he had almost said
stupid
. But then he'd seen Alexander's face, and in a flash he remembered the pages that Eli had struggled to work on in that terrible schoolroom. Jack knew enough to realize it was the same way for Alexander.

“Of course I've noticed how O'Reilly is, Jack,” Alexander said. He had stopped pacing.

Jack took a deep breath. “I'm sorry,” he said. “Go on.”

The older boy squared his shoulders and resumed pacing. “What I meant about the Careys is they haven't hurt us. But that's not enough. We shouldn't have to live this way, should we?”

“Live how?” Frances asked.

“I mean . . . ,” Alexander began, but he couldn't seem to find the words. He looked to Jack. This time, Jack knew they were thinking alike.

“He means we shouldn't live in fear!” Jack said.

Alexander snapped his fingers. “Exactly! We can't go on worrying all the time about whether we're going to do something that'll get us punished or sent away. And the Reverend's supposed to believe in right and wrong, but what if he just believes in being right all the time?”

“But at least we're safe here!” Frances protested.

Jack could see the doubt in her face. “Safe for now,” he pointed out. “Until Reverend Carey catches us talking to Eli. Or until he finds out about Wanderville. Do you think he and Mrs. Carey are going to approve of us coming out here on our own?”

Nobody said anything for a moment. Then Alexander spoke up.

“I . . . I guess I thought everything was going to be better once we built Wanderville again,” he said. “I thought we'd all be back together. And then something would work out the way I planned.”

He dropped back down on the grass and sighed. All Alexander wanted, Jack knew, was for Wanderville to be as real as possible.

Alexander straightened. “The only way we can all be together again and truly rebuild Wanderville is to leave the Careys'.”

Jack grinned. For the first time in days, his friend sounded like he had back in Kansas. He looked over at Harold, who was nodding excitedly. Even Frances seemed to agree.

Then Alexander turned to him. “Right, Jack?”

“Right,” Jack said. “But first we have to help Eli. We owe him. And”—Jack hesitated—“and we should help him because we
can
. Because . . .”

Frances cut in gently. “Because you're thinking of all the children we left behind on the ranch in Kansas, aren't you, Jack?” Her voice turned even softer. “The ones we couldn't save.”

Jack looked down at his feet. Yes, he was thinking about the kids back at the Pratcherds'. His thinking about them was like the sound of the crickets this time of year. It was always there, slipping under his other thoughts, but then sometimes, like now, it was all around him.

“Yes,” he said finally. “And all the other kids, on all the orphan trains. I mean . . . helping Eli is the least we can do.”

“We'll do it,” Alexander said. “We'll get Eli out.”

And so the four of them began to devise a plan. They talked and planned until dusk fell and they had to head back to the barn. As they approached the fence, Jack grabbed one of the wild apples that grew at the edge of the clearing.

“Don't bother,” Frances said. “The Careys said those apples won't be any good. They've been growing on their own for too long.”

But Jack couldn't help it—the fruit looked ripe, and he was hungry. He took a bite, expecting the fruit to be bitter. But it wasn't. It was fine—pretty good, in fact. The Reverend wasn't right about everything.

The next day Frances wrote a note on the torn-out back flyleaf of her
Third Eclectic Reader
. Blank space in that book was becoming more and more precious, but this was important:

Dear House Kids,

The boy in the schoolroom is named Eli, and he is our friend.

He did nothing wrong. It's all a mistake, but the Rev. won't understand.

We're going to liberate Eli. Will you help us?

Write back yes or no. Then wait for instructions.

—Barn Kids

She tucked the note beneath a slat under the basket lid. Then she hid in the yard and waited.

She'd been crouching behind a tree for nearly half an hour before the door to the house opened and Sarah came out with the washtub. Frances nearly fell over with relief. Laundry was one of the few chores that brought Sarah and Anka out to the yard for any length of time, but Frances hadn't known for sure which day was wash day.

She rushed over to Sarah and held out the basket. “Mrs. Carey said to return this.”

But Sarah just hurried past her toward the water pump. “I've got to fill the tub,” she said. “You can just take it inside yourself.”

Frances leaped ahead of her and stood in front of the pump. “Um . . . I'll set it down by the steps. And then
you
should take it inside.” She looked Sarah right in the eye.

Sarah blinked, confused for a moment. But then she nodded. “Oh! Of course!” So Frances left the basket at the steps while Sarah filled the washtub.

Later that day, Mrs. Carey handed Frances the same basket at suppertime. Frances felt fluttery and anxious carrying it back over the fence to Wanderville, where Jack, Alexander, and Harold waited.

“Do you think they wrote back?” Jack asked as Frances began to pull food from the basket.

“I hope so,” said Frances. “I said in the note to write back yes or no. And I know Sarah got the note, so . . .”

She went silent as she reached the bottom of the basket. There was no note. She checked the lid. Nothing. She ran her fingers along the slats inside the basket, hoping that a piece of paper might be caught under one of them. But there wasn't.

Her heart sank.
They didn't send a message back.

At least Harold was excited about the food. “Here's an apple!” he exclaimed. Only her little brother would still be excited about apples after days of working in an orchard, Frances thought.

But that wasn't what Harold was yelling about. “Look, Frances!” he cried, holding out the apple.

And there, carved neatly into the side, were the letters
Y-E-S
.