Wolf Hollow (3 page)

My mother gave me a funny look as I stood at the back door the next morning, readying myself, before setting off for school. When she said, “Something wrong, Annabelle?” I nearly told her about Betty. It would have been a relief to put the whole thing in her hands.

But although there were only apples and potatoes, beets and a few winter squash left to bring in, and although she, of all women on earth, was capable and strong, I had it in mind to spare her this particular battle. I'd thought it through: If I told her, she'd have to go to her friends, the Glengarrys, and tell them that their granddaughter was a hooligan, something they surely already knew but would not want to hear from a neighbor.

And despite the fact that she'd been able to fix nearly every broken thing in our lives, my mother could not promise me that Betty would not come at me again, even angrier—or, worse, go after my brothers—if I tattled on her.

I had learned what
incorrigible
meant. A scolding was not going to change anything, and so far Betty hadn't done anything to deserve more.

So I said, “Nothing, Mother,” and went on out the door to school, the penny from my piggy bank like an anvil in my pocket.

Henry and James were waiting in the yard for me, which made no sense at all since they took off at a run as soon as they saw me coming. Before we were even out of sight of the house, they had run well up the lane, flinging lumps of dirt at each other and stirring up a tail of dust as if they were small, unbottled genies.

Up the lane and across the spent field at the top of the hill I walked alone—all the crops here plowed under—watching for arrowheads on the crests of the furrows.

Sometimes, from this hilltop, I would be surprised by a deer. One minute, the fields below me would seem empty. The next—there, a deer—nearly invisible against the plowed dirt.

So it was with Toby that morning. One minute, the crest of the hill to my right was empty. The next, there he was, standing in the distance, still, looking toward me.

It gave me a start to see him.

I waved good morning.

I was not put out when he did not wave back. It meant nothing at all except that he wasn't like other people. Toby wasn't friendly, but he had been good to me when he didn't have to be.

Like the time I was skirting the edge of a newly planted field and stepped in a groundhog hole, spraining my ankle so badly that I couldn't walk on it. I was alone. There was no one else around. Still, I called out a couple of times as I tried to limp along. And Toby came.

I was younger then and didn't weigh all that much, but it couldn't have been easy to carry me up over the hill and down the lane to my mother, baby-style.

Close to him like that, I was most aware of his own scent and not the smokehouse's where he lived. He smelled a lot like the woods in thaw or a dog that's been out in the rain. Strong, but not really dirty.

Along the way I said a number of things:
Thank you. I'm sorry. You're nice to help me like this.
And then, at the door to the mudroom,
Will you come in for a drink of water?

He replied to none of it, though his silence didn't feel mean.

He did not come in for a drink. In fact, he left me on the step and then strode off, back up the lane, and was gone before my mother came to the door to find that I was the one knocking.

Another time, when my father hurt his back and was laid up for a couple of days in the middle of pumpkin harvest, my mother and grandpap and we small kids arrived at the patch one morning prepared to do the work without him, only to find that the flatbed we'd left empty the night before was now loaded with pumpkins, ready for market.

No one else took credit for this kindness, and I knew that it was Toby's.

I pictured him in the darkness, working by moonlight and night-eyes, lugging the pumpkins to the wagon, some of them bigger than one man should have been able to carry. It must have taken him all night.

My mother baked a pumpkin pie for him that very day and gave it to me to take to the top of the lane in the hope of seeing him nearby. The pie was still warm in my hands. I waited long enough that the pie had cooled before I left it in a crate where we sometimes put food and hand-me-downs for Toby when he wasn't around.

Two days later, I found that he'd left the clean pie plate in the crate along with a posy of bittersweet and wild asters tied with a leaf of quack grass.

I headed down the slope and took the path into the woods, not at all watchful. The boys had scared away any bear within earshot, snakes were somewhere sunny and warm, and I did not expect to see Betty until after school. But suddenly there she was, just as before, standing in the path ahead of me.

The stick in her hand was smaller than the first, which worried me. She'd chosen yesterday's to make an impression. Today's was a better size for swinging. And green, which meant hard. And I admit that I was afraid.

“Hey, Betty,” I said as I made to walk right on by her.

She stepped in front of me and put out a hand. “We'll walk to school together,” Betty said. “First you give me what you brung.”

I was tempted to correct her poor English, but I didn't. I was tempted to try to push past her, but I was pretty sure that wouldn't work.

“We're not rich,” I said, as if to get at least that one thing straight. “I ain't got anything to give you.” The “ain't got” hurt and surprised me on its way out; some part of my brain had assumed that stooping a little might actually make me stronger, but in the next instant I could see that it hadn't.

Before I had time to think about moving, Betty had swung the stick in a small, tight arc. She'd chosen my hip, perhaps because a bruise there would not show. I worked hard not to let her see how much it hurt.

“Give me what you brung,” she said.

I hated to give her anything at all. Even the penny in my pocket.

“This is the only thing I'm going to give you,” I said, holding the penny out on a tight palm, the way I knew to feed a dog. “Don't ask me for anything more. I don't have anything else.”

Betty looked at the penny, picked it up with her fingertips, peered into my face. “A penny?”

“You can get two pieces of hard candy for that,” I said.

“I don't want two pieces of hard candy,” she said. She tossed the penny into the undergrowth. “Tomorrow you bring me something better than a penny.”

“I don't have anything else to bring you, Betty. And I think it's just mean of you to be like this. We could be friends, you know,” I said, quite aware that I sounded pretty dubious as I said it. “If you would stop being so mean.”

Betty's answer was to swing the stick again. Harder this time—hitting the same spot, which was already aching—and I was on my knees before I knew it. When I looked up, Betty was staring at me, her face slack, her mouth hanging open a little.

She made me think of the strays that wandered onto the farm now and again but were not taken up by our pack.

I saw her fingers tighten on the stick and I knew she was going to hit me again, and the tears came.

Her fingers relaxed on the stick. Her eyes cleared. “You're just a dumb baby,” she said. “Remember what I said before. If you tell anyone, that little boy will pay for it. Now git.”

I gathered myself up and let the hill take me down toward school.

At a curve in the path, I glanced back. Betty was bent low in the place where she'd thrown my penny, folding back the undergrowth with her open hands.

When I went to Aunt Lily's room that evening, she was brushing her hair. She did that a lot. And put on lipstick, then wiped it off.

“What do you want, Annabelle?” She looked at me in her mirror.

“Well.” I held my hands behind my back. “I wondered if I could borrow your sweater frog again,” I said, though I knew it was still up in my room. “The one with the glittery stones on it.” One stone was missing, which was probably why Aunt Lily had lent it to me in the first place. It was old and a little bent, too. Not worth anything.

“My sweater frog?” With a fingertip, she stirred the dish of notions she kept on her dresser. “But you already have it, Annabelle. I haven't seen it since I lent it to you, have I?”

The little question she tacked onto the end gave me some hope.

“Haven't you?” I said, which wasn't a lie. How could a question be a lie?

“No. I don't believe I have. And I don't remember you returning it.” Aunt Lily turned on her stool and looked at me from across the room. “But if I don't have it, I can't very well lend it to you again, can I? Go see if it's still up in your room somewhere.” She turned back to the mirror, a pair of tweezers in her hand.

As I turned to leave, she said, “All your sweaters have buttons on them, Annabelle. No reason on earth to bother with a frog.”

I shrugged. All of her sweaters had buttons, too. “It's just pretty,” I said.

“Pretty. Nothing less important in the eyes of God, Annabelle, than pretty.”

It was a good supper we had that night: chops fried in bacon fat, potatoes baked soft, and slaw my mother made with cream and sweet onions.

After supper, when we were clearing everything away, my mother wrapped two rolls, a chop, and an apple in a scrap of oilcloth and tied it up by its corners. “Take this up the lane,” she said. “If you don't see Toby, leave it in his box. But make sure you close the lid tight or the dogs will get into it.”

There were times when my mother told Toby he was “entirely too thin” or that he needed “some color” and she'd send me with something extra for him to eat. She didn't dare send my brothers, who would use the excuse to horse around out in the dark until there was no time left for homework, barely enough for a bath.

“Squirrel is not enough for a grown man,” she said as she handed me the bundle.

“There's plenty of culls in the orchard,” I said, “and potatoes and beets not too far from his shack. I don't know why he's so thin.”