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“We can’t stay here, Luke,” she said softly, as if her mind were already up North.

“When we come back what’re we gonna do?”

“We’re not gonna farm. We’ll find a job in Memphis or Little Rock, and we’ll buy us a house with a television and a telephone. We’ll have a nice car in the driveway, and you can play baseball on a team with real uniforms. How does that sound?”

“Sounds pretty good.”

“We’ll always come back and visit Pappy and Gran and Ricky. It’ll be a new life, Luke, one that’s far better than this.” She nodded toward the field, toward the ruined cotton out there drowning. I thought of my Memphis cousins, the children of my father’s sisters. They rarely came to Black Oak, only for funerals and maybe for Thanksgiving, and this was fine with me because they were city kids with nicer clothes and quicker tongues. I didn’t particularly like them, but I was envious at the same time. They weren’t rude or snobbish, they were just different enough to make me ill at ease. I decided then and there that when I lived in Memphis or Little Rock I would not, under any circumstances, act like I was better than anybody else.

“I have a secret, Luke,” my mother said.

Not another one. My troubled mind could not hold another secret. “What is it?”

“I’m goin’ to have a baby,” she said and smiled at me.

I couldn’t help but smile, too. I enjoyed being the only child, but, truth was, I wanted somebody to play with.

“You are?”

“Yes. Next summer.”

“Can itbe a boy?”

“I’ll try, but no promises.”

“If you gotta have one, I’d like a little brother.”

“Are you excited?”

“Yes ma’am. Does Daddy know about it?”

“Oh yes, he’s in on the deal.”

“Is he happy, too?”

“Very much so.”

“That’s good.” It took some time to digest this, but I knew right away that it was a fine thing. All of my friends had brothers and sisters.

An idea hit, one that I couldn’t shake. Since we were on the subject of having babies, I was overcome with an urge to unload one of my secrets. It seemed like a harmless one now, and an old one, too. So much had happened since Tally and I sneaked off to the Latchers’ house that the episode was now sort of funny.

“I know all about how babies are born,” I said, a little defensively.

“Oh you do?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“How’s that?”

“Can you keep a secret, too?”

“I certainly can.”

I began the story, laying sufficient blame on Tally for everything that might get me in trouble. She’d planned it. She’d begged me to go. She’d dared me. She’d done this and that. Once my mother realized where the story was leading, her eyes began to dance, and she said every so often, “Luke, you didn’t!”

I had her. I embellished here and there, to help move the story and build tension, but for the most part I stuck to the facts. She was hooked.

“You saw me in the window?” she asked in disbelief.

“Yes ma’am. Gran, too, and Mrs. Latcher.”

“Did you see Libby?”

“No ma’am, but we sure heard her. Does it always hurt like that?”

“Well, not always. Keep going.”

I spared no detail. As Tally and I raced back to the farm, the headlights in pursuit, my mother clutched my elbow almost hard enough to break it. “We had no idea!” she said.

“Of course not. I barely beat y’all in the house. Pappy was still snorin’, and I was afraid y’all would come check on me and see that I was covered with sweat and dirt.”

“We were too tired.”

“It was a good thing. I slept about two hours, then Pappy woke me up to go to the fields. I’ve never been so sleepy in my life.”

“Luke, I can’t believe you did that.” She wanted to scold, but she was too caught up in the story. “It was fun.”

“You shouldn’t have.”

“Tally made me do it.”

“Don’t blame Tally.”

“I wouldn’t’ve done it without her.”

“I can’t believe the two of you did it,” she said, but I could tell she was impressed with the story. She grinned and shook her head in amazement. “How often did y’all go roamin’ around at night?” “I think that was it.”

“You liked Tally, didn’t you?”

“Yes ma’am. She was my friend.”

“I hope she’s happy.”

“Me too.”

I missed her, but I hated to admit it to myself “Mom, do you think we’ll see Tally up North?” She smiled and said, “No, I don’t think so. Those cities up there- St. Louis, Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati-have millions of people. We’ll never see her.”

I thought about the Cardinals and the Cubs and the Reds. I thought about Stan Musial racing around the bases in front of thirty thousand fans at Sportsman’s Park. Since the teams were up North, then that was where I was headed anyway. Why not leave a few years early?

“I guess I’ll go,” I said.

“It’ll be fun, Luke,” she said again.

When Pappy and my father returned from town, they looked as though they’d been whipped. I guess they had. Their labor was gone, their cotton was soaked. If the sun broke through and the floodwaters receded, they didn’t have enough hands to work the fields. And they weren’t sure if the cotton would dry out. This time, the sun was not to be seen, and the water was still rising. After Pappy went into the house, my father unloaded two gallons of paint and set them on the front porch. He did this without saying a word, though I was watching his every move. When he was finished, he went to the barn.

Two gallons would not paint the front of the house. I was irritated by this, then I realized why my father had not bought more. He didn’t have the money. He and Pappy had paid the Mexicans, and there was nothing left.

I suddenly felt rotten because I had kept the painting alive after Trot had gone. I had pushed the project along, and in doing so had forced my father to spend what little money he had.

I stared at the two buckets set side by side, and tears came to my eyes. I hadn’t realized how broke we were.

My father had poured his guts into the soil for six months, and now he had nothing to show for it. When the rains came, I, for some reason, had decided that the house should be painted.

My intentions had been good, I thought. So why did I feel so awful?

I got my brush, opened a can, and began the final phase of the job. As I slowly made the short strokes with my right hand, I wiped tears with my left.

Chapter 34

The first frost would kill what was left of our garden. It usually came in the middle of October, though the almanac that my father read as devoutly as he read the Bible had already missed its predicted date twice. Undaunted, he kept checking the almanac every morning with his first cup of coffee. It provided endless opportunities for worry.

Since we couldn’t pick cotton, the garden got our attention. All five of us marched to it just after breakfast. My mother was certain that the frost was coming that very night and, if not, then for sure the next night. And so on.

For a miserable hour I pulled black-eyed peas off vines. Pappy, who hated garden work more than I did, was nearby picking butter beans and doing so with commendable effort. Gran was helping my mother pick the last of the tomatoes. My father hauled baskets back and forth, under the supervision of my mother. When he walked by me, I said, “I really want to go paint.”

“Ask your mother,” he said.

I did, and she said I could after I picked one more basket of peas. The garden was getting harvested like never before. By noon there wouldn’t be a stray bean anywhere.

I soon returned to the solitude of house painting. With the clear exception of operating a road grader, it was a job I preferred over all others. The difference between the two was that I couldn’t actually operate a road grader, and it would be years before I’d be able to. But I could certainly paint. After watching the Mexicans, I’d learned even more and improved my technique. I applied the paint as thinly as possible, trying my best to stretch the two gallons.

By mid-morning one bucket was empty. My mother and Gran were now in the kitchen, washing and canning the vegetables.

I didn’t hear the man walk up behind me. But when he coughed to get my attention, I jerked around and dropped my paintbrush.

It was Mr. Latcher, wet and muddy from the waist down. He was barefoot, and his shirt was torn. He’d obviously walked from their place to ours.

“Where’s vJr. Chandler?” he asked.

I wasn’t sure which Mr. Chandler he wanted. I picked up my brush and ran to the east side of the house. I yelled for my father, who poked his head through some vines. When he saw Mr. Latcher beside me, he stood up quickly. “What is it?” he asked as he hurried toward us.

Gran heard voices and was suddenly on the front porch, my mother right behind her. A glance at Mr. Latcher told us something was very wrong.

“The water’s up in the house,” he said, unable to look my father in the eye. “We gotta get out.” My father looked at me, then at the women on the porch. Their wheels were already spinning. “Can you help us?” Mr. Latcher said. “We ain’t got no place to

go.”

I thought he was going to cry, and I felt like it myself

“Of course we’ll help,” Gran said, instantly taking charge of the situation. From that point on, my father would do precisely what his mother told him. So would the rest of us.

She sent me to find Pappy. He was in the tool shed, trying to stay busy puttering with an old tractor battery. Everyone gathered by the truck to formulate a plan.

“Can we drive up to the house?” Pappy asked.

“No sir,” Mr. Latcher said. “Water’s waist-deep down our road. It’s up on the porch now, six inches in the house.”

I couldn’t imagine all those Latcher kids in a house with half a foot of floodwater.

“How’s Libby and the baby?” Gran asked, unable to contain herself

“Libby’s fine. The baby’s sick.”

“We’ll need a boat,” my father said. “Jeter keeps one up at the Cockleburr Slough.” “He won’t mind if we borrow it,” Pappy said.

For a few minutes the men discussed the rescue-how to get the boat, how far down the road the truck could go, how many trips it would take. What was not mentioned was just exactly where the Latchers would go once they had been rescued from their house.

Again Gran was very much in charge. “You folks can stay here,” she said to Mr. Latcher. “Our loft is clean-the Mexicans just left. You’ll have a warm bed and plenty of food.”

I looked at her. Pappy looked at her. My father glanced over, then studied his feet. A horde of hungry Latchers living in our barn! A sick baby crying at all hours of the night. Our food being given away. I was horrified at the thought, and I was furious with Gran for making such an offer without first discussing it with the rest of us.

Then I looked at Mr. Latcher. His lips were trembling, and his eyes were wet. He clutched his old straw hat with both hands at his waist, and he was so ashamed that he just looked at the ground. I’d never seen a poorer, dirtier, or more broken man.

I looked at my mother. She, too, had wet eyes. I glanced at my father. I’d never seen him cry, and he wasn’t about to at that moment, but he was clearly touched by Mr. Latcher’s suffering. My hard heart melted in a flash.

“Let’s get a move on,” Gran said with authority. “We’ll get the barn ready.”

We sprang into action, the men loading into the truck, the women heading for the barn. Just as she was walking away, Gran pulled Pappy by the elbow and whispered, “You bring Libby and that baby first.” It was a direct order, and Pappy nodded.

I hopped into the back of the truck with Mr. Latcher, who squatted on his skinny legs and said nothing to me. We stopped at the bridge, where my father got out and began walking along the edge of the river. His job was to find Mr. Jeter’s boat at the Cockleburr Slough, then float it downstream to where we’d be waiting at the bridge. We crossed over, turned onto the Latchers’ road, and went less than a hundred feet before we came to a quagmire. Ahead of us was nothing but water.

“I’ll tell ‘em you’re comin’,” Mr. Latcher said, and with that he was off through the mud, then the water. Before long it was up to his knees. “Watch out for snakes!” he yelled over his shoulder. “They’re everywhere.” He was trudging through a lake of water, with flooded fields on both sides. We watched him until he disappeared, then we returned to the river and waited for my father.

We sat on a log near the bridge, the rushing water below us. Since we had nothing to say, I decided it was time to tell Pappy a story. First, I swore him to secrecy.

I began where it started, with voices in our front yard late at night. The Spruills were arguing, Hank was leaving. I followed in the shadows, and before I knew what was happening, I was trailing not only Hank but Cowboy as well. “They fought right up there,” I said, pointing to the center of the bridge.

Pappy’s mind was no longer on floods or farming or even rescuing the Latchers. He glared at me, believing every word but quite astonished. I recounted the fight in vivid detail, then pointed again. “Hank landed over there, right in the middle of the river. Never came up.”

Pappy grunted but did not speak. I was on my feet in front of him, nervous and talking rapidly. When I described my encounter with Cowboy minutes later on the road near our house, Pappy cursed under his breath. “You should’ve told me then,” he said.

“I just couldn’t. I was too scared.”

He got to his feet and walked around the log a few times. “He murdered their son and stole their daughter,” he said to himself “My oh my.”

“What’re we gonna do, Pappy?”

“Let me think about it.”

“Do you think Hank’ll float to the top somewhere?”

“Nope. That Mexican gutted him. His body sank straight to the bottom, probably got eaten by those channel cats down there. There’s nothin’ left to find.”

As sickening as this was, I was somewhat relieved to hear it. I never wanted to see Hank again. I’d thought about him every time I crossed the bridge. I’d dreamed of his bloated corpse popping up from the depths of the river and scaring the daylights out of me.

“Did I do anything wrong?” I asked.

“Are you gonna tell anybody?”

“Nope, I don’t think so. Let’s keep it quiet. We’ll talk about it later.”

We took our positions on the log and studied the water. Pappy was deep in thought. I tried to convince myself that I should feel better now that I’d finally told one of the adults about Hank’s death.

After a spell Pappy said, “Hank got what was comin’ to him. We aint tellin’ nobody. You’re the only witness, and there’s no sense in you worryin’ about it. It’ll be our secret, one we’ll take to our graves.”

“What about Mr. and Mrs. Spruill?”

“What they don’t know won’t hurt ‘em.”

“You gonna tell Gran?”

“Nope. Nobody. Just me and you.”

It was a partnership I could trust. I did indeed feel better. I’d shared my secret with a friend who could certainly carry his portion of it. And we had decided that Hank and Cowboy would be put behind us forever.