Ghost Cave (11 page)

“I miss her, too, but why would that make him ignore me?”

“He's got something on his mind. Might be he feels guilty, feels it's his fault your mama got sick.”

“How could that be true? How could it be his fault that Mama got sick?” That didn't make any sense to Marc.

“Of course it isn't, but maybe he thinks his bringing her down here from the city made her sick.”

Marc couldn't think that Mama's moving to Pine Creek from Chicago had anything to do with her being sick. And, after all, it had been a long time ago, almost five years. What Mr. Daniels said didn't make any sense. But sometimes things adults said or did made no sense to him.

“I have to go home,” he said abruptly. He was starving. Maybe he could talk his dad into eating in the cafe tonight. Then he'd get another decent meal. “Mr. Daniels, if Howard Moon should happen by and mention he's looking for me, would you tell him you saw me on my way to Fort Smith?”

Mr. Daniels smiled. “Having trouble with Mooney, huh? I can't say that I like that boy much. I don't reckon I'd want him for a friend.”

“I don't even want him for an enemy.” Marc thanked Mr. Daniels for the cold drink, called Bluedog from under a table near a fan, and took off down the highway for home.

When Marc called Hermie and Eddie, he found that Mooney had paid them visits, too. “My mother told him I was asleep,” said Hermie, who admitted he'd slept until three o'clock. “She thought I was sick. I pretended we'd sat up all night talking, the way girls do at sleep-over parties.”

Marc laughed. Ever since the run-in with Louanne Swartzberger, Hermie had sworn off girls forever. He couldn't say anything good about them.

“Mooney came by while I was sitting on the porch with Pops,” Eddie said. “Even old Mooney didn't dare threaten me with a grownup there. Pops had his hearing aid turned off, but Mooney didn't know it. Later Pops said he was glad I had a new friend.”

Eddie and Marc laughed at that idea. Then they made up a plan to go into the cave on Thursday. Marc knew Eddie would wait if they had a definite plan to return. They also had to have a way to elude Mooney. Marc gave Hermie and Eddie that job.

Meanwhile, he kept worrying about his problem. Maybe it was wrong to disturb the Indian boy's grave.

12

R
OY
C
LEARWATER

On Wednesday Marc and his dad left in time to get to the sanatorium by mid-morning. They'd have lunch with Mama and leave soon after, since she had to rest every afternoon.

Marc hugged Mama, who looked very pretty. She had left her hair loose, maybe hoping she'd get another surprise visit. “You two are spoiling me,” she said.

“We like spoiling you, Mama,” Marc said, handing her the few flowers he'd been able to save from the weeds in the backyard.

“Oh, my bachelor's buttons. I love this blue. They must look pretty in the garden. I'd love to see them.”

Marc didn't say a word and was glad she couldn't see the mess their backyard had become. His mother looked frail and tired, now that he studied her up close.

“I had hoped I might be home by now to see them, but the doctor says I have to be patient. I'm afraid I'm not a very good patient.” She laughed at the double meanings.

“Maybe this fall?” Marc's father came alive at the idea of Mama coming home.

“Maybe.” Mama reached out and took her husband's hand. Marc looked at them and quietly sneaked away. They would never miss him.

He almost ran into a nurse outside Roy Clearwater's room. “Mr. Clearwater is having a good day, Marc,” she said. The nurse was round and pink and smiled at him, making him feel super. He didn't realize she knew his name.

“Hello, Mr. Clearwater,” Marc greeted him. “How are you?”

“I wish I could be outside.” The old Indian was nearly always staring out the window when Marc came.

“I'll take you onto the sun porch,” Marc offered. He went to get the nurse to help him get Mr. Clearwater into a wheelchair. He could walk around his room, but not all the way outside.

Mr. Clearwater grumbled, but went along with the work of getting him out onto the sun porch. Then he said, “This is fine, Marc, but I meant down in the woods, down by the river.”

“Oh. Well, I guess you'll have to imagine being there. I can tell you what it looked like the other day, and you can pretend.”

“I remember the long summer days,” Mr. Clearwater said, not waiting for Marc to remind him, but beginning a story.

“I roamed the woods day after day. I hunted and fished for my family. Once when I was just a boy I carried a deer home. I could hardly manage the weight. My mother was proud.”

“How did she make your food last through the winter?” Marc asked, although he thought he knew.

“She dried the deer meat and sometimes ground it with berries. She smoked the fish. Then we would have plenty if the winter was hard and we couldn't hunt.”

“Did you have a gun or bow and arrows?” Marc asked, remembering the single arrow in the grave they'd found. Also the perfect arrowheads, ten of them. He would like to bring both to Mr. Clearwater, who would probably be sure of the tribe.

“Oh, I had a gun. Not a very good gun, but I was proud of it.”

Mr. Clearwater drifted back into those days, roaming the forests. Marc left him there for a few minutes. It was the only way he could enjoy the woods now. Then Marc asked another question.

“How did your people feel about dying, Mr. Clearwater? I know they buried things with the person who had died, things to keep him company on his journey, even food. How would they feel about someone digging up that grave now, studying your people?”

“Misfortune will happen to the best and wisest of men,” Mr. Clearwater said, after thinking for a few minutes. “Death will come, and always out of season. A season of grief will come, then will pass away. I will not need my grave place in the spirit land. I will have my house, my tipi there, and I will be able to hunt the buffalo again.”

Marc thought about what Mr. Clearwater meant when he said death would always come out of season. Maybe that a person was never ready for it? Or his kinfolk were never ready? Mr. Clearwater sounded ready. But even though Marc knew Mr. Clearwater might die soon, and Mr. Daniels might die before too long, he wasn't ready to let his two old friends go. Was that selfish? Would Mr. Clearwater be happier hunting his buffalo again? Would Mr. Daniels rather be digging on the river bottoms for Indian relics? Mr. Clearwater sounded sure of what he'd be doing in the spirit land.

Without meaning to, Marc saw his mother's face before him. The hollows in her cheeks. How tired she looked. She was young. It wouldn't be fair for her to die. It would be out of season.

He stared at the sanatorium grounds, plants and trees budding and leafing out, getting a good hold on summer—a good hold on life. It was summer, the best time to be alive.

He thought of the Indian boy from the grave, dying so young, certainly out of season. For a moment Marc could see him playing with his dog, shooting his bow and arrows, hunting rabbits. His constant thoughts of this boy, and his talks with Mr. Clearwater, had made Marc feel as if he had known someone whose childhood might have been like Mr. Clearwater's own.

Their discussion was interrupted by the bell summoning them to lunch. Marc turned the wheelchair around and pushed Mr. Clearwater into the hall and down to the dining room.

“Mama, you remember my friend, Roy Clearwater. He's a full-blooded Osage Indian.” Marc reminded Mr. Clearwater that these were his parents, and they all sat together. They had met only one other time, since Mr. Clearwater usually ate in his room.

“Marc talks of you often, Mr. Clearwater,” Mama said. “I've been meaning to come and visit. I've stayed by myself too much.”

“Do you get lonely here, Mama?” Marc asked, not knowing if he wanted to hear her answer.

“Sometimes, Marc. But I remind myself I don't have to stay here forever, and that I have family who come to visit often.” She smiled at Marc and his dad. “Family who love me.” She reached over and patted Marc's hand.

“Marc is a fine boy,” said Mr. Clearwater. “He would have made a good Osage.”

Marc felt pride filling his chest, and he ducked his head, concentrating on eating. There was a good macaroni salad with tuna fish, and fruit salad with oranges, grapes, and shreds of coconut. His dad and Roy Clearwater talked about relics, and he listened, glad his father was interested.

“Good-bye, Mr. Clearwater,” Marc said after lunch. Marc's father had said he'd push Mr. Clearwater back to his room for his rest. “I'll visit you on Sunday.”

“Think of me when you're sitting by the river,” he said. “Soon I will be fishing there.”

“I will,” Marc promised.

“Marc,” said Mama, when they had gone, “I'm worried about your father. He seems tired and tense. I know he's worrying about me, and that's not doing any good. Have you been doing any spelunking since I left?”

“Who—me?” Marc said, feeling terribly guilty.

“You and your father. He really liked those trips you took together.”

“Oh … no, he says he doesn't have time to go.”

“He always says that. Insist that he go with you.”

“Okay,” Marc said. But Mama didn't understand how hard it was for him to talk to his father lately.

“And, Marc …” She took Marc's chin in her hand and looked right into his eyes, as if she saw a lot of stuff there Marc was trying to hide. “Be careful, will you? I need my family.”

“I will, Mama.” If she'd guessed Marc was keeping something secret, she didn't pry. She was always like that, trusting Marc, not making him tell her all his thoughts or all the things he was doing. But that made him feel even more guilty. He might have told her about the cave and the Indian boy, if his dad hadn't come back.

“Mr. Clearwater sent this for you.” Marc's dad handed him something. It was the picture, the one of Mr. Clearwater.

“Why?”

“He just said he wanted you to have it.”

“Time for your nap, Alina.” His dad said Mama's name like it was part of a poem.

They walked her back to her room, and saw to it that she got into bed. “Remember when you used to try to make me take a nap?” Marc asked, laughing.

“I sure do. You needed less sleep than anyone I'd ever known. I thought all babies slept a lot.”

“I wasn't a baby then. I was four.”

“And into everything. I remember one day I found you into your father's rock collection. You were sitting there, carefully taking out each rock and looking at it. I figured you couldn't hurt them, and they were too big to swallow.”

They all laughed and the good feeling from the visit followed Marc and his father to the car. Bluedog jumped in beside Marc and licked his face, glad to be going home. Marc put Mr. Clearwater's photo on the dash where he could see it as they drove.

Then he watched the mountains and trees go by on the curvy road. About halfway to Pine Creek he blurted out his thoughts. “Even if Mama died, she'd be here watching us when we needed her, don't you think?”

“Your mother isn't going to die, boy!” His father's voice was sharp, his sudden anger filling the car.

Marc stiffened and felt Bluedog come alert under his arm. She looked at him as if to say, “
What's wrong?
” Marc realized his dad didn't even like him to suggest that Mama might die. Death was not a subject he had thought about much before she had gotten sick and they'd found the Indian boy in the grave. But any fears that were on his mind seemed to have been laid to rest by Mr. Clearwater's words:
I
will be able to hunt the buffalo again
.

Mr. Clearwater looked forward to going on to another place where he would be free of being old. Mama wasn't old, but maybe she was tired of being sick. And Marc knew her well enough to be sure that if the time came for her, she'd be ready. She never seemed to complain about bad things, things like being sick and having to leave her family. She accepted them and made the best of them.

“Is that why you're so quiet all the time, Dad?” Marc asked. “Are you afraid that Mama is going to die?”

“I told you, boy, she isn't going to die.” His father didn't look at Marc when he said that. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel. It was as if he thought if he kept saying it over and over it wouldn't happen, but Marc could tell he was afraid.

“Do you think it's your fault that she's sick?” Marc asked, remembering Mr. Daniels's idea.

“What makes you say that? That's ridiculous.” His dad kept staring straight ahead down the road.

“I know you're worried about something all the time.” It seemed to Marc that his questions were making his dad even more angry and upset. Marc squeezed Bluedog. She turned and smiled at him, then licked his face.

His dad got quiet again, but it wasn't the good quiet they'd brought from Mama and Mr. Clearwater to the car. It was the kind of silence you can reach out and touch, almost taste. It pressed against Marc, making him feel as if he couldn't breathe. Marc turned to the open window, but the air that came in was heavy and moist, clogging his nostrils.

Finally his father spoke. “Maybe—maybe if we'd stayed in Chicago …”

“Mama loves Pine Creek, Dad. She says that over and over. She loves her garden. Planting so many blue flowers around the vegetables. ‘My blue garden,' she'd say. And remember that time when she went with us to the river to hunt arrowheads? We had a picnic on the sandbar. Then we all went swimming, even though the water was shallow. I don't think she got sick because she came here to live.”

His dad's hands got even more tense on the steering wheel, then he wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of one.