Blossom Promise (8 page)

She got up abruptly and began to pace.

“Why did she have to ruin everything?” she asked again. “She’s disgusting. She really makes me sick.” Maggie walked around the bed.

“And Cody Gray is disgusting too in that stupid big-time Cadillac!”

She came to the wall and stopped. She had never noticed before how small this motel room was. And there was nothing to do. You could write postcards or go out and swim in the scummy pool with a lot of drunk cowboys. That was it.

You could watch TV. She walked to the set and jabbed the On button.

The wheel of fortune was spinning. “Disgusting,” Maggie said. “Greedy, disgusting people!”

She began walking around the motel room like an animal in a zoo cage—around the bed to the bathroom, back around the bed to the desk, around the bed to the bathroom …

She was going around the bed for the fourteenth time when the phone rang.

“Pap! Pap! Wake up!”

Junior was on his knees beside Pap. He was shivering. His hands were tucked under his arms.

“Pap! Talk to me. Tell me what to do. Pap, wake up! Please!”

Pap had not moved a muscle since he fell. Junior had known when Pap wilted around the tree in that terrible way that Pap was in trouble, so much trouble that for a long time Junior had not been able to move either.

It had taken him five long minutes to get up the courage to go to Pap. He still had not touched him.

Slowly he stretched out one trembling hand. He tugged Pap’s sleeve.

“Pap?”

There was no answer. Junior took a pinch of Pap’s shirt and shook the cloth. “Are you all right?”

No answer.

Junior twisted his fingers into Pap’s overall straps. He shook the straps. They moved back and forth on Pap’s solid back.

“What can I do to help? What can I do? Listen to me, Pap. I’ll do anything you want me to do. Just tell me.”

When Pap still didn’t answer, Junior started to cry.

“You want me to go for help or what? I don’t know what to do.”

He shook the overall straps harder.

“Answer me!”

Junior yanked the straps as hard as if he were pulling reins. Pap came away from the tree trunk then. He rolled over onto his back. His arm fell loosely across Junior’s knees. His mouth fell open. He unseeing eyes looked up at Junior’s face.

Junior screamed. He covered his face with both hands. Blindly, he stumbled to his feet.

Hands over his eyes, he backed away. He lifted his hands and peeked under his fingers to see where he was. The ground looked unfamiliar, farther away than it should have been.

He felt so strange that he put his hands on his head. His head felt light, as if it were rising, as if it weren’t attached to his body anymore. Maybe that was why the ground was so far away. His head was rising like a balloon.

“Somebody, please help me,” he mumbled. “Somebody, please help me.”

His legs kept carrying him backward over the distant ground until he felt the chilling waters of Snake Creek on his bare ankles. He looked down in surprise.

He wept into his trembling hands.

“Something terrible’s happened to Pap and Vern’s gone and I’m all by myself and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I just don’t know what to do.”

He turned from side to side, wagging his head in a hopeless animal movement, beating on his forehead with his fists, trying to make his brain give him an answer.

He could hardly breathe at all now.

“What am I going to do,” he moaned, “oh, what am I going to do?”

He threw back his head, opened his eyes, and looked at the blinding blue sky. He was now gasping for breath. Each breath seemed his last. One more breath, and he would stumble up the hill, like Pap, and fall lifeless around the nearest tree.

The prospect was so real and so terrifying that Junior screamed.

He started to run. He ran up the hill, blindly, his arms flailing in the air. At the top of the hill, he stopped. He twisted from one side to the other. His eyes were wild.

Nothing looked familiar—not the house he had lived in all his life, not the barn, the trees.

He swirled around. Suddenly danger was everywhere, hiding, waiting to jump out. If you looked away for a second—like if you looked at your brother, then danger would strike your grandfather. If you looked away again, it might get you.

Junior heard a new noise, a shout. It was his own name, but Junior didn’t even recognize that.

He turned. He felt dizzy. He put his hands to his head again, holding it in place. His eyes flickered wildly over the creek, the path, the sky.

And then, at last, Junior saw something he knew, one familiar thing. It was the most beautiful sight of Junior’s life.

There, coming over the hill, swinging her crook—and with the sun behind her, shining like something off a Sunday school paper—was Mad Mary.

She was hurrying toward him, holding out her arms.

“Junior!” she cried again.

Mary’s ragged sleeves waved a welcome, and with a strangled cry Junior ran toward them.

“Tree! There’s a tree!” Michael screamed as they swept around a bend in the creek.

Ever since that terrible moment when they had caught the rope, thinking they were safe, and then watched Pap stumble up the creek bank and collapse, Michael and Vern had been silent. They had been in a state of shock.

Anyway, there had been no hope of anyone hearing their cries for help. The fields they passed were empty. There were no houses. It was a struggle now just to keep their heads above water.

The boards they had nailed down with such care had come loose. Most of the upper deck had been swept away. The mast had snapped off when they hit the bridge. They were now clinging to the logs. Neither of the boys thought of these logs as the Queen. The Queen was dead.

Vern’s head snapped up when Michael yelled, “Tree!” He whipped his hair from his eyes.

Ahead, a large oak tree lay across the creek. It was an old tree, its trunk was three feet thick. The high water had eroded the soil around its rotting roots, and that morning the oak had ended its ninety years of life by toppling across the muddy water.

At first the sight of the tree filled Vern with dread. It was like the bridge, only they would not be able to duck under.

Then he heard Michael yell, “Grab it!”

Michael and Vern began kicking their feet, aiming for the trunk of the tree. Their hands were out, palms up, like beggars.

When their fingers touched the first leaves, they grabbed so hard, so desperately, the water was whipped into foam. Twigs snapped. Leaves tore off in their hands.

“I got one,” Vern cried finally as his fingers curled around the first solid limb he had found. He was deep in the tree now. He couldn’t even see Michael. He began to pull himself, hand over hand, along the limb toward the shore.

There was a scary moment as he felt the logs sweep out from under him, another scary moment when his body kept floating with the current. For a moment he was on his back, looking up into the branches.

Then, deep in the leaves he saw a branch large enough to bear his weight. He scissor-kicked hard. He reached up. His hand grasped the wood. Then, wrapping his legs around the branch, he pulled himself out of the water. The limb sagged a little beneath his weight, but he knew he was safe.

“Michael, did you make it?” He waited with his heart in his throat for the answer.

“I’m here.”

“Pull yourself over where I am.”

“I can’t see you.”

“I’m on a limb.”

Michael’s head came into view below. “I see you,” Vern cried. “Come on up. I’ll move over and make room.”

“I can’t reach that high.”

“Well, wait, let me stand up and I’ll bend the limb down to you.”

Vern got to his feet. His knees were trembling. Carefully he put his weight on the limb.

“Can you get it?”

Michael grabbed the limb. Vern bent and clutched him under the arm. Slowly, with Michael climbing and Vern pulling, Michael got out of the stream.

Vern scooted aside to make room. The boys rested for a moment, hearts pumping hard, chests heaving, heads throbbing, while the creek raged beneath them.

Finally Michael said, “We made it.” Then in a louder voice, “We made it!”

“I know.”

“We made it!”

“I know.”

He threw back his head. “We made it!”

Vern said, “You ready to climb to shore?”

“Yes.”

“Follow me.”

“You don’t seem to realize. Vern, we made it!”

“I realize.” He began crawling, hand over hand, up the trunk of the tree. “You coming, Michael?”

“I’m right behind you.”

Vern reached the thickest part of the trunk, and he got to his feet and walked the rest of the way. He jumped onto the wet ground and fell forward onto his knees.

He was in a stubble field, but even the stubbles felt good. Michael dropped beside him, and then both boys lay down, embracing the earth.

“We made it,” Michael said again. He felt the back of his head with one hand. “I’ve got a knock right there,” he said. “Do you?”

Vern didn’t check. He said, “I’ve got to get home.” As he spoke the words, his teeth chattered.

“Oh, sure,” Michael answered. “I’m sorry. For a minute I forgot about your grandfather.”

“I know.”

Vern got to his feet. His clothes were plastered to his body. His hair stuck to his face. He was shivering.

Michael scrambled to his feet too. “What do you think happened to him?” he asked. Vern looked so pitiful that Michael began to pull at his own clothes, to squeeze out the water, to run his hands over his hair, to make himself presentable.

“I don’t know.”

“Did he ever fall like that before?”

“No.”

“Maybe he fainted. My grandmother fainted in church one time. It was during a hymn.”

“Maybe it was a faint.” Vern began walking. He wrapped his arms around his body to control the shivering. “But I don’t think so.”

“You have got to let go of me, Junior,” Mad Mary said.

“I can’t!” Junior sobbed into her ragged clothes.

“Junior!”

“I can’t, I just can’t!”

She pushed him back so he had to look at her. He closed his eyes and shook his head blindly back and forth. He held her clothes so tightly that the old cloth ripped in his hands as he swayed.

“Junior, I have got to see to your grandfather. Now, you can either come with me or go up to the house. But let go!”

Junior did not answer so she said, “I mean it, Junior! We’re wasting time.”

Junior thought about it. “I’ll go with you.” His voice wavered. “But I can’t look.”

“That’s better. Junior, I got to make sure whether he’s dead or passed out.”

“I think he’s dead.”

“Well, don’t be too sure. I found a possum one time, took him home, got ready to skin him, and he blinked. I said, ‘Well, that blink just saved your life.’”

Junior stumbled down the hill, his face buried again in her clothes. He heard her say, “Shoo!” then, “Git!” and he knew they were passing Mud. Then they stopped, and Junior knew they were beside his grandfather.

Mad Mary knelt. Junior pulled her skirt tighter across his eyes.

“He’s not dead,” she said.

“What? What? How do you know?”

“His heart’s beating. You could have found that out, Junior, if you’d bothered to put your hand down his shirt instead of running off.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Now, listen to me real carefully, Junior. Are you listening?”

He nodded.

“Get your face out of my skirt.” She pulled the cloth away. “Junior, open your eyes.”

Junior squinted.

“You have a telephone, don’t you?”

He nodded.

“Go up to the house. Dial the operator. Tell the operator that you need the ambulance.”

Junior nodded.

“Tell her what your name is and where you live. Can you do that, Junior? This is real important.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to see if I can help your grandfather. Now go on. Hurry.”

Junior took a few backward steps, and then he turned and, once again, ran up the hill to the house.

Michael and Vern came around the bend. They were at the very spot where Pap had thrown them the rope.

“He’s still there,” Michael said, “I see his feet.”

Vern did not answer. “But there’s somebody with him,” Michael went on. “It’s that old lady.”

Michael stopped pulling at his clothes. He had been trying to prepare himself for that awful moment when his mother laid eyes on him. Now he stood still too.

“I wonder where Junior is,” he said.

Vern shook his head.

“Maybe he went for help.”

Vern lifted his shivering shoulders and let them fall.

“Anyway, I don’t think he’s dead, because she wouldn’t be working on him, would she?”

Vern didn’t answer.

“Why don’t you yell and ask if he’s all right?”

Vern shook his head.

“Want me to?”

Vern said, “No.”

All the way up the creek, Michael had been talking about how various members of his family had fainted exactly the way Pap had fainted, then they had come to and been fine. Finally Vern had allowed himself to believe that was the way it would be with Pap.

“We’ll go around the bend,” Michael said, “and Junior and Pap will be there together, perfectly all right. They’ll be the ones glad to see us!”

Now they had rounded the bend, and the dream was over. Pap lay where he had fallen, and bending over him, like an angel of darkness, was Mad Mary. The fact that she was there somehow made things worse instead of better.

And it’s my fault, Vern said to himself. This thought had been threatening like a storm for most of the walk, but Vern had allowed Michael’s hopeful tales to hold it off. Now the storm broke.

It’s my fault. If I had not made the raft, Pap wouldn’t be
… He couldn’t even think the word.

He wrapped his arms around his chest.

“You want me to come home with you?” Michael asked. “Or maybe I should go home and get my mom. Would that be better? Maybe the rescue squad. What do you think?”