Boomtown (32 page)

The lawyer addressed me with a patronizing tone. “You're being quite
liberal
when it comes to dispensing forgiveness, Reverend, but that's the business you're in, I suppose. But would you feel the same if you knew how this criminal had duped your
son
into helping him?”

“My son? How does my son have anything to do with this?”

“You don't know?”

“Know what?” I glanced over at Jonny, who was avoiding eye contact with me.

“That all these months, behind your back, your son and his friends have been supplying Xian with food and water. That they, in fact, could be charged with aiding and abet-ting a suspected felon.”

A loud murmur passed through the crowd.

“What are you talking about? Why would you
say
some-thing like that?”

Horatio pointed a fat, stubby finger in Jonny's direction. “Maybe we should ask your
son!
”

Every eye in the courtroom turned to look at Jonny, who was sinking lower and lower into his chair. He tried to cover up his head with his arms. I could see three or four of his friends doing the same thing up in the bleachers. I even saw Busy try to slip under the bleachers and head for the exit, but Lazy caught him by the sleeve.

“Jonny?” I asked, staring at my son in dismay. He looked back at me wide-eyed and trembling. “For heaven's sake, Jonny, what have you gone and gotten yourself into
this
time?”

CHAPTER 16

Jonny's Testimony

B
efore things could get out of hand, Judge Rodriguez took charge.

“Reverend Button, I'm going to ask you to take a seat. The prosecuting attorney reserves the right to recall you to the stand. Isn't that what you'd prefer, Mr. Hooke?” The lawyer nodded in agreement.

As I stepped down and walked over to where my family was sitting, the judge continued. “Jonny, I'm going to have you come up here for a minute. I need to ask you a few questions.”

Janice put her arm around Jonny to protect him, but he stood up and said in his bravest voice, “It's okay, Mom. I'll go.” He scooted down the row of chairs and walked toward the judge's bench. He kept his eyes down—he wouldn't look at me.

“Jonny, I want you to sit there in the witness stand. I'm not going to swear you in—you're not on trial here. But I
do
need to talk to you. Anything you say won't get you in trouble—well, maybe
some
trouble—but I'm on your side. Don't worry.”

Jonny sat down and answered nervously, “Okay. If you say so.”

“Yes, I say so. Now, I'm going to ask you something. Don't be afraid. Don't worry about your father for a minute. Don't think about the lawyers or anything else. I want you to pretend it's just you and me. Do you think you can do that?”

Jonny glanced over at me then back at the judge. “I'll try.”

“That's good. Okay. Now, is there anything you need to tell me? Something to do with Xian over there?”

“Yes.”

“I can't hear you. You need to speak a little louder.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he said.

“What can you tell me about Xian?”

“We saw him.”

“Who
saw him?”

“My friends and me. On Halloween. We
saw
him. In Town Square.”

“What do you mean?”

“We wanted to go trick-or-treating together. Busy and Lonnie wanted to meet in the square.”

“Just the three of you?”

“No,” Jonny hesitated, glancing around at the bleachers. “Sorry, guys. It was me and Busy and Lonnie and Rocky and Frank and Bobby and Steve.”

“The seven of you got together as planned. So then what happened?”

“We all had our flashlights. We were talking about where we wanted to go first, and we were shining them on the statue of Chang. That's when we saw him—I mean, Xian—standing there looking up at the statue.”

“Xian was in Town Square? Why?”

“We don't know. We just knew we were
scared
, because they looked so much alike. It was like Chang's ghost was standing there! Then he saw us looking at him and he ran down the street past the library. So we followed him.”

“You followed him. Where did he go?”

“We were sneaky about it. We stayed in the shadows and hid behind bushes so we could watch him. He went down the road and then out into Lazy Gunderson's field. He kept going until he got to the fireworks factory. That was
really
spooky 'cause Busy said it
proved
it was Chang's ghost; he was going back to haunt his factory. And then, all of a sudden, he disappeared! We didn't see where he went.”

“He disappeared?”

“Yeah, like he sort of vanished. Lonnie says that's what ghosts do. Bobby said he saw one once in their attic. It was like that.
Poof!
He was gone.”

“Was that the end of it?”

“No. The next morning we wanted to go back and look around. We didn't see anything at first, but then Rocky spotted some footprints near the river and a candy wrapper next to some trees. We decided to come back that night and see what happened. That's what we did. Me and my friends hid in the bushes and waited.

“About midnight we heard some branches moving and saw a flicker. Then here comes Chang—we thought it was Chang—right out of the dark carrying a lantern. Bobby screamed, ‘It's the ghost!' We all screamed, not just him. That's when he caught us hiding in the bushes.”

Horatio Hooke was looking at me with a smug grin on his face while Jonny was talking. I wondered how he'd figured it out—how did he know about the boys? Why hadn't
I
figured it out? I was his father. Suddenly a lot of things were starting to make sense.
How could I be so blind?
The judge prompted Jonny to continue.

“We could tell he was cold and hungry. So me and my friends decided to help him. I took some food from our pan-try at home. Rocky got some from his house. Bobby rustled up a few things around town—so did some of the other guys. After that, we all took turns going out to the tunnel at night. We took out some blankets and spare clothes and whatever else we could find.”

So
that's
why things had started disappearing from around the house—little things like my coat and the food. It's why Jonny had seemed so tired all the time. I knew he was up to some-thing, but I never figured he'd been sneaking out at night.

“Was that all? Just some food and clothes?”

“At first. But then we got to know him a little bit. He told us his name was Xian. It sounded like ‘Sean' when he said it, kind of like
my
name, Jon, so I wanted to help. He didn't tell us who he was, just that he was digging for something. He said it belonged to him; it was lost a long time ago and he came to find it.”

“So you helped him
dig
?” The judge sounded shocked. I, too, found that hard to believe; I couldn't get Jonny to pick up his dirty socks; I sure couldn't imagine him digging a tunnel.

“It made the work go a lot faster,” Jonny admitted. “We took turns, two of us at a time. Xian did most of the hard work, but we helped him put up the beams to hold up the tunnel. And while we helped him, he helped us. He was the one who came up with the rope puller, the one over on Slippery Slope.”

“I see. And how long did it take to dig all these tunnels?”

“I don't know, a long time. Several months, I guess.”

“You're telling me that you and your friends helped Xian dig more than a mile's worth of tunnels in less than nine months? That hardly seems likely.”

“They weren't
all
caved in,” Jonny explained. “A long time ago, Boomtown blew itself inside out. A lot of the tunnels collapsed, but not all of them. We found one that was almost half a mile long. That was about two months ago.”

“In May?”

“Yeah. Then school let out and we had more time. It went pretty fast after that. We were worried, though.”

“Worried?”

“Sure. Sheriff Ernie had found the letter by then, and people had figured out that Chang maybe had a son. We asked Xian about that. He told us Chang was his great-grandfather. We figured it was something like that, anyway. Chang and Xian were practically twins.”

“Is that it? What about what happened on Fourth of July?”

“Xian was pretty upset. Not about the cave-in. A couple of days before that.”

“What was he upset about?”

“Because we found the chamber. You know, the one underneath the statue? That's what Xian had been looking for. But it was
empty
.”

“It wasn't supposed to be empty?”

“No. He never told us what to expect. But he found the chamber where it was supposed to be. When it was empty, Xian almost cried. We all did. All we found was some Chinese writing on the wall. Xian said it was a note written to Chang's wife, but he wouldn't tell us what it said. It sure made him sad, though. The next day the street caved in. You already know about that.”

Jonny stopped talking and glanced around the tent. As soon as he saw me looking his way, he hung his head and stared at his shoes.

The judge frowned. “Jonny, you should have
told
some-body. It's good that nobody got hurt, but they
could
have. This could have been worse. You should have told your father! Or Sheriff Ernie. You should have
trusted
them.”

Jonny answered sheepishly, “I know. But we were just trying to help.”

“
Help?
” thundered Horatio, leaping up from his seat. He had been sitting quietly, listening to Jonny's testimony and taking notes, but now he was on fire again. He'd been patient long enough. “Help a
criminal
? Help a wanted man get away with his crimes? You call that
help
?”

“We didn't know what he was doing!” Jonny cried. “He wouldn't tell us why he was hiding or what he was looking for. He said it was
his
, whatever it was.”

“He said it was his—and you
believed
him? That's
all
?” The lawyer waved his hands at the jury. “You see this boy sitting here?
All
he did was give aid to the enemy.
All
he did was hide the truth from the authorities.
All
he did was make sure that the man who was robbing you didn't get caught!
That's all!
”

He turned and pointed a shaking finger in my direction. “And what about
you
, Reverend? What do you think
now
? Now that you know how this desperate man duped your son and his friends into helping him? Isn't it obvious? Your son helped dig the tunnel—the one that nearly killed you! Are you so generous with your forgiveness
now
? What do
you
think about all of this?”

I looked at Janice. She flashed me a look of hope. I looked at the assembled townsfolk, sitting on the edge of their seats waiting for my answer. I saw Xian regarding me with sincere regret and apology in his eyes. Finally, I looked at Jonny sitting in the witness box and digging a hole in the ground with his toe. I looked into his eyes that were full of tears and fear. He was
afraid
—but not of the judge or the trouble he was in. He was afraid of
me
.

I stood up and walked over to Jonny. In that moment, I finally understood. That was
me
sitting there. Jonny was turning into
me
. Why should I be surprised?
I
was the one who was afraid all the time. I was the one who was always afraid of what people would think. I forced my family to live under that same cloud. They had to be careful about what they said and what they did. I wanted everything to be under control,
especially
my wife and kids. This was what fear did to people. Jonny had been sneaking around behind my back, but
I
was the one who put him there. I'd been sneaking around for years.

It was just like the story in the Old Testament. I was like cowardly King Saul. My boy was like courageous Prince Jonathan. The nation of Israel had been in trouble, just like Boomtown was in trouble now. It was too late for Saul and Jonathan. But maybe it wasn't too late for us.