Bringing Ezra Back (2 page)

Pa answered Molly with a nod, and looked regretfully at the ribbons. He didn't make a move to take them, though, and I knew it was because we had little money to spare for fancy things.

Then Orrin Beckwith turned to me and said, “For you, young Nathan, I have the latest in straight razors from England.”

I was twelve, and hadn't noticed even the first sign of a whisker.

“If you're not shaving already, you'll be needing to before my next visit, by the looks of you. Why, you're near as big and strong as your pa.”

I was flattered at the notion that I looked grown enough to sprout a beard like Pa's, but I didn't let on.

Beckwith eyed me close, sizing me up, it seemed like, the way Pa might look at a horse he was fixing to buy. “You hold your cards mighty close to the chest, don't you, son?” he observed. “Now that I think on it, I imagine a sensible young man like yourself is more interested in practical matters.”

He took a knife from the pack. I knew right off it was a Barlow. My friend Colin Whitefield, whose pa owned the store in town, had one.

Orrin Beckwith held it out to me. “In my humble opinion, this little beauty is the single finest tool there is. A man out here on the frontier has to be prepared to protect himself and his family, and to do the work that needs to be done. For example, you were mending fence when I showed up.”

I'd taken a break from fence-mending to play on my fiddle, as Orrin Beckwith well knew. He gave me a smile, like we shared a secret, and I scowled at him.

“This knife will notch out a fence post like cutting butter. You'll find it comes in handy for just about any chore that comes your way. Take it, see how it feels.”

The blade was so shiny I could see my own face staring back at me. I felt the blade with my fingertip. Sharp. Strong. All of a sudden I wanted it, not as much as I'd wanted a fiddle, but nearly. I looked at Pa.

“It's a fine knife, Nathan,” he said. “But I reckon for now we can make do with mine.”

I felt a stab of disappointment, and looked away so's Pa wouldn't see it in my face. I knew he'd had to trade a wheel of our homemade cheese, some dried beans, some animal pelts, and some money on top of that, to get me my fiddle. I couldn't expect to get a knife, too.

I handed it back to Orrin Beckwith without a word. But I felt like somehow he knew how much I wanted it. It unsettled me to think he could see right through my skin to the inside. I wished I could do that, instead of wondering all the time what folks might be thinking.

Then Orrin Beckwith said, “There must be something here I can tempt you folks with.” With a flourish, he opened the pack all the way up. Molly ran over, squealing with excitement. She exclaimed over each and every splendid item Beckwith took out and spread on the table for us to see.

There were cards of buttons and papers of pins, hooks and eyes, spoons, bowls, plates, rings, brooches, washboards, liniments for horses and for people, too. There were shoelaces, silk and cotton goods, Bibles, and almanacs; handkerchiefs, candles, seeds, caps, gloves, and mittens. If I hadn't seen it all come out of that pack, I'd have bet money—if I had any—that it would never fit back in.

Molly was sniffing a cake of sweet-smelling soap, and running her fingers over a shawl Orrin Beckwith said came all the way from China. Suddenly Beckwith looked at Pa, who was working a pair of scissors in the air, getting a feel for them. Pa was squinting his eyes to get a better look.

Orrin Beckwith's expression grew almost crafty. “You a reading man, Mr. Fowler?”

“Yes,” said Pa. “But now that you mention it, it's been getting harder and harder for me to make out the words.”

I looked at Pa with interest, and some worry, too. “What do you mean, Pa?” I asked.

“Well, say you used your mama's quill and ink to write something, and then a drop of water fell onto the paper.”

“The ink would spread out and make the letters all wiggly,” I said.

“That's what letters look like to me these days,” Pa explained. “I have trouble with what's right in front of my face, but I can see clear across the far pasture just fine.” He gave a little shrug.

I tried to imagine what it was like to see all wiggly.

“Mr. Fowler,” Orrin Beckwith said, breaking into a big grin, “if you'll step right over here, I believe I will be able to fit you with some spectacles that will solve this troublesome problem in the wink of an eye.” He laughed at his little joke, then untied a cloth pouch and unrolled it. Inside were about ten pairs of carefully wrapped spectacles. “There are five different strengths,” he explained.

I heard in his voice that he was proud to have such fine wares.

“It's a matter of finding the right strength as well as the proper fit. Please,” he added, gesturing for Pa to help himself.

I watched as Pa put on one pair after another. Molly handed Pa one of the Bibles from the pack, and with each new pair he moved the book closer, then farther, then closer again. “Hmmm, that's better,” he'd say, or, “These make my head spin!”

Finally he said, “Well, now, isn't that something?” He continued reading for a while. Then he took off the spectacles and said, “Mr. Beckwith, I thank you. Someday, when we've saved up a bit, I aim to get me some of those specs. In the meantime, I reckon I can see well enough.”

The cabin was real quiet for a minute, except for the snapping of a log in the fire, and I figured Molly and I were both thinking the same thing. We wanted Pa to have those spectacles. But unless every corn plant had three ears come harvesttime, I didn't see how it was going to happen.

“We'll take some of that indigo and some madder root,” Pa said. “And I expect that'll be it for this trip, Mr. Beckwith. I'm sorry you had the trouble of coming all the way out here for so paltry a sale.”

“Oh, thank you, Pa!” Molly said.

As she gave Pa a hug, my eyes caught on a pile of handbills and broadsides that had fallen out of Beckwith's pack. Isaac had always carried such papers with him, too, so we could see the words to the latest songs, and read whatever news somebody had thought to print up. Orrin Beckwith said, “Go ahead. Have a look.”

I paged through the stack of papers. The first ones were all songs. The titles made me laugh: “The Lawyer Outwitted” and “The Old Maid's Last Prayer.” Then there was one called “Confession” that wasn't music at all but the last words of a man who was about to be hanged for murder. I wondered who would want to read such a thing.

The next sheet looked interesting. At the top, in real big letters, it said:

Reading on, I saw it told about a traveling show.

It said that this feller Edson was the world's skinniest man, which I thought might be something to see.

Next it told about Little Miss Mary, who was a grown-up lady only two feet tall. I thought I might like to see her, too, as well as the Amazing Amelia. She was only nine years old and weighed over four hundred pounds, which I reckoned was quite a lot.

There was a person called Pea-Head Pete and another by the name of Bearded Betty. But before I could read more about them, I saw something farther down the page that made me cry out in horror.

Pa, Molly, and Orrin Beckwith all turned to me. “What is it, son?” Pa asked quietly.

I didn't want to say the words I'd seen. It was like speaking them out loud would make them true. Wordlessly I put the paper on the table and pointed.

“It's Ezra,” I said into the terrible silence. “Who else could it be?”

“Pa!” Molly wailed. “It isn't Ezra, is it?” She looked at me, saying, “Ezra isn't deaf! He has a name. And he's not an Indian.”

Pa had picked up the paper and was peering at it intently. I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed before that he was having trouble reading. When he had finished, he put his hand on Molly's shoulder and looked at Mr. Beckwith. “What do you know about this?” he asked.

Orrin Beckwith looked flummoxed. “I believe I was given that in western Pennsylvania,” he said.

“By who?” I asked.

Orrin Beckwith gave me a wary look, likely because of the anger I could feel creeping into my heart and my voice.

“Who gave it to you?” I insisted.

He shrugged. “I can't say. A man was handing them out. I can't recall what town I was in. I'd forgotten I even had it.”

“Where was this show headed to?”

He shrugged again, and looked away from me, to Pa. “What's got you folks so riled?” he asked. When no one answered right off, he said, “Who's this fellow Ezra, anyhow?”

Pa sighed, like the question made him feel sad.

“Not that it's any of my business,” Orrin Beckwith added, but it was plain he was curious to know.

Pictures ran through my mind. I saw Ezra leading Molly and me through the forest to his we-gi-wa, a shelter made Shawnee-style with poles and sheets of elm bark, where he was healing Pa's wounds. I saw Ezra teaching me to throw his hunting stick. I saw Ezra cleaning a turkey and making stew and blue biscuits.

I didn't want to tell Orrin Beckwith about Ezra, even if I could have found the words. It seemed to me that Ezra's story belonged to him and to us. Not to Beckwith, someone we'd only just met.

Pa said wearily, “He's our friend. He saved my life when I was caught in a trap. He's not Shawnee, but he took up their ways. Last we knew, he was headed out to the Indian Territory to find his wife's kinfolk.”

I was glad Pa didn't say the whole truth, that Ezra's Shawnee wife, Gives-light-as-she-walks, and her unborn baby were killed by a man named Weasel. And that Weasel cut out Ezra's tongue for saying the Shawnees were people just as good as us white folks. I heard the story from Weasel himself, the night he had me hog-tied in his cabin, before I escaped.

Those awful memories never went away, hard as I tried to put them behind me. Pa, Molly, and I didn't speak about Weasel after Ezra left in the spring. Instead, we talked about how Ezra had most likely found his wife's family. We liked to think that the Shawnees welcomed him and took him in. We pictured Ezra happy and peaceful, at last.

But that picture was shattered now. I saw Ezra standing in the bed of a wagon, a sign over his head calling him the White Injun. I imagined people pointing and staring, laughing and poking at him, trying to get him to open his mouth.

“Pa,” I said, “I've got to find him.”

2

MOLLY STARTED TO CRY
then, and Pa's face grew grave. “I understand your feeling, Nathan,” he said, “but—”

I interrupted him, something I didn't usually do. “Pa, I want to go.”

Pa gave me a tired smile. “I know that. But you're still a boy. And you've already seen more of the hard and ugly side of life than any boy should.”

“Pa—”

“Nathan, you heard Mr. Beckwith. He doesn't remember where he was when he learned of the show. It could be anywhere by now.”

“I could find it, Pa. I know I could.”