Bringing Ezra Back

by Cynthia DeFelice

  “This here’s the men’s wagon,” Little Miss Mary explained. “What you were under is the women’s.”

  I glanced back and saw that Bearded Betty and the Amazing Amelia were awake, too, and watching us closely. I could see the fear on Amelia’s face.

  “Ezra’s in there?” I asked, gazing at the men’s wagon. It was all I could do not to sweep aside the canvas so I could see him.

  Little Miss Mary didn’t answer right away. In the silence I felt the eyes of all the show people on me. It made me feel prickly, and I wondered uneasily if they might be planning a trick, after all.

  “First, hear me out,” she said. “After, you may change your mind.”

  “I won’t—” I began, but she shushed me.

  “You listen now. I got to know: what do you aim to do with the savage once you have him?”

  “His name is Ezra,” I said.

  Her shrewd expression seemed to grow softer for a moment. “Ezra, then,” she said.

  “I aim to take him back home with me to our farm.”

  “And then what?” she asked.

  “Well, I don’t rightly know,” I said uncertainly. “He can do whatever he likes, I reckon, but me and Molly and Pa’d be glad to have him as long as he wants to stay.”

  She took that in, then asked, “You say you knew him before. Could he speak?”

  I shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Can’t I just see him?” I asked.

  “In a minute,” she said.

  I sighed and said, “He couldn’t talk then, either. It’s a—a long story, how he lost his tongue.”

  “There’s no time for that now,” Miss Mary said. “But tell me this, did he have some life about him back then?”

  I nodded. “He didn’t talk, but he didn’t have to. We had a way of getting on together.”

  “So, besides not talking, he was like other folks?” Miss Mary asked.

  It was a difficult question, and it took me a while to sort out the answer. Meantime, I could still feel the eyes of all the other show people, as they leaned forward to hear every word. I wondered if Ezra, inside the men’s wagon, was listening, too.

  “No, I reckon he was always different, even back then.” I blurted out the questions that were tormenting me. “What happened to him? Why didn’t he even look at me when I called his name?”

  I stopped, feeling near to tears.

  A loud groan came from the Trasks’ wagon, followed by mumbling. I nearly bolted at that, but Miss Mary held my arm and said, “That’s just the whiskey talking.”

  She sighed then. “As to your question,” she said quietly, “I don’t know. We were out in western Ohio someplace, I remember. Trask went to town and came back with this white feller dressed in tatters and animal skins, wearing his hair long like an Indian.” She made a face and added, “Hiram’s got a nose for sniffing out misfits and misfortunates.”

  After another sigh, she went on. “You heard him for yourself: Trask’s a cunning liar. I don’t know what he said to get your friend to follow him, but I don’t suppose it took much. Ezra was mighty dispirited, even then. That very night, Hiram and Lovey put him up on the stage and told their hokum story, made him open his mouth and show the crowd that gaping hole.” She paused. “And ever since, I’ve watched him die a little more every day.”

  Gesturing with her small hand to the men’s and women’s wagons, she said, “You see, Calvin, Pea-Head, Betty, Amelia, and me, we belong here. We chose to be here—well, all except for Amelia. Her parents sold her to the Trasks when she was just six years old.”

  I shook my head in wonder at such a thing.

  “Here we have a roof over our heads, and food, such as it is,” Miss Mary said. “I know that doesn’t sound like much, and maybe it isn’t. But we also have each other’s company. Out in the world, people stare and say cruel things. Of course, they do that at the show. But they have to pay for the pleasure and, to us, that makes all the difference.”

  Her keen eyes peered at me in the darkness to see if I was following. I nodded to show I got her meaning well enough. I did, too. But I was so impatient to get to Ezra, it was hard to stand and listen.

  “Your friend, he doesn’t belong here,” Miss Mary said. “Trask knows that. I figure that’s why he keeps him apart.”

  “Apart?” I repeated warily. “How do you mean?”

  Little Miss Mary hesitated, then took my hand before saying, “The rest of us, we’re not allowed to talk to him. Trask keeps him alone, in that—that cage.” She pointed with her other hand.

  “Cage!” I gasped. I broke free of her grasp and ran past the end of the men’s wagon to where a boxlike shape stood half-hidden in the brushy undergrowth near the riverbank. It wasn’t much more than some boards nailed to a frame, with some hinges to allow for a door, and a canvas thrown over the top. I’d seen chicken coops and corncribs built better. It filled me with horror to think that this was where Trask kept Ezra. But I was confused, too. There wasn’t any lock on the door, so what was keeping Ezra there?

  “Ezra?” I whispered finally. There was no answer.

  Miss Mary appeared at my side again. Quietly she said, “Trask used to lock him in. He stopped when he saw that your friend didn’t even try to get away.”

  With a feeling of dread, I pulled the door open. I did it slowly, not knowing if the hinges might need oiling, and was grateful when they didn’t make a sound. At first it was hard to make out anything in that dark, cramped space. But then the moonlight shone in on a figure lying slumped against the wall. I stepped in, bent down, and took Ezra by the shoulders.

  “Come on, Ezra,” I whispered urgently. “We’re getting out of here.”

  His eyes opened, but there was no sign that he recognized me or even cared who I was. He closed his eyes, and his head rolled onto his chest. Altogether he put me in mind of a doll Molly had when she was a baby, made out of raggedy old clothes. I shook Ezra gently, and heard the clanking sound of metal.

  The shackles! He was still wearing them. I turned to Miss Mary in despair.

  “Trask clamped those things on that first day. Calvin and me, we talked about trying to get ’em off tonight, but we couldn’t take the risk.”

  I put my head in my hands. It was all too much.

  “Those shackles, there’s not a lot to ’em, really,” Miss Mary said. “They’re mostly for show, to convince the crowd how dangerous the savage is.” She snorted with contempt at the idea. “Calvin and me, we think you might get ’em off pretty easy. You got any tools?”

  I pointed to my Barlow hanging at my side, and she looked at it doubtfully. “Nobody here would blame you if you backed out and went on home,” she said.

  I felt too hopeless to speak.

  Little Miss Mary continued, “But, like I said, Calvin and me talked it over a good bit. We thought of a way you just might do this.”

  I looked at her. “How?”

  “Well, your friend here is weak as a newborn kitten from being shackled. He barely eats enough to keep alive. He barely is alive, if you see my meaning.”

  My feelings at that must have shown on my face, because Miss Mary went on quickly. “So you’ll need a place to hole up for a while. Someplace Trask won’t find you if he comes looking, and I expect he will. Someplace close, ’cause you won’t get far with him the way he is, even if he wasn’t shackled.”

  “I got a place,” I said. “But I don’t know if I can get him there. It’s—”

  She held out her hand to stop me. “Shhh. Don’t tell me. If Trask suspects you had help, the less we know, the better.”

  I could see the sense in what she said, and I tried to calm myself and listen.

  “Once you get to your hide, you stay there for a while. Three, four days, however long it takes for him to get his strength up,” she was saying. “It’ll give you time to figure a way to get those shackles off. Assuming Trask doesn’t find you in the meantime, of course,” she added.

  “We’d best get
started,” I said.

  She nodded. “I wanted to be sure you knew what you were getting into,” she said. Then she handed me a sack. “This here’s food.”

  She signaled to Pea-Head and Calvin, and they came over and helped me get Ezra to his feet. He didn’t raise his head, or twitch a limb. A quivery feeling, like hundreds of little fish were swimming through my insides, rose up in me. It made me feel weak, and I tried to fight it down.

  I’d been real scared before in my life, when I’d been stalked like an animal through the forest by the killer called Weasel. But I’d never felt so afraid as I did right then. Looking into the emptiness of Ezra’s face frightened me so bad I wanted to run and not stop till I got home to the farm.

  Miss Mary was staring at me with a concerned expression. “It’s not a fit job to ask of a boy,” she murmured to the others.

  I shook my head. I could do it. I would do it. Holding the sack of food in my left hand, I braced myself as Pea-Head and Calvin draped Ezra’s arm over my right shoulder. I grasped him around the waist. He flinched from my touch, like he’d been burned, and grew stiff. It made me sadder than anything that he didn’t know me, didn’t know I’d never hurt him.

  “Come with me now, Ezra,” I said, soft and gentle as I could. “It’s not far.”

  We took a few slow, shuffling steps. The chain between Ezra’s shackled ankles clanked faintly. The rustle of old, dead leaves beneath our feet seemed louder, somehow, filling each step with fear of waking the Trasks.

  Miss Mary walked alongside us, looking scared and worried, too.

  “Thanks to you, Miss Mary,” I whispered. “To all of you. I wish—”

  She broke in and said, “You just get home safe, you hear?”

  I swallowed hard. “I will.” I looked back and saw Calvin, Pea-Head, Betty, and Amelia watching us, their faces full of fear and hope.

  “I will,” I said again, trying to sound like I was sure, and wishing I could be.

  Ezra and I made our slow and painful way through the night. I didn’t dare look back, or think ahead any farther than the next step.

  14

  THE SUN WAS GIVING off a pale light and I was more exhausted than I’d ever been by the time Ezra and I made it to the overturned cart. I don’t recollect much about getting there, other than being glad for every step we made without falling or getting caught by Trask.

  Somehow I pushed and rolled Ezra underneath and crawled in behind him. Then I thought to get water from the creek for what would likely be a long day hiding in that small, closed space. I worried what Ezra might do while I was gone. But when I got back, he hadn’t moved at all, far as I could tell.

  I held a cup of water to his mouth, tilted his head back, and poured slowly. In the sack of food from Miss Mary I found biscuits, cooked beans wrapped in the big leaves from wild grape vines, some chunks of cooked meat, several apples, and corn bread. I ate an apple, which was good, though sharp-tasting from being picked green. I couldn’t get Ezra to eat so much as a bite.

  All the time, I was listening for the sound of approaching footsteps. Miss Mary had figured Trask would come after us, and I didn’t doubt it was true. If he’d had dogs, we’d have been sunk. Being so close together in that small space, I could tell Ezra hadn’t been given the opportunity for a bath in a long while, and I knew I didn’t smell so good myself. I had to hope Trask didn’t know much about tracking. Pa or just about any Shawnee could have followed our trail quicker’n a fox on a rabbit.

  I didn’t mean to, but I dropped into sleep. A light rain had begun falling, drumming a rhythm on the boards overhead that lulled me. I dreamed about the night Ezra had led me and Molly through the forest to get to Pa. He’d been so quick and quiet, like a wild creature that could see in the dark. I woke up suddenly, and almost despaired again, wondering what could have happened to change Ezra into this dull, clumsy stranger.

  Then I heard voices coming our way, and realized that they must have been what woke me. The loud rustling of several people approaching through the underbrush made my heart jump into my throat. They were very close. Out of instinct or habit, I reckon, I put my finger to my lips in a signal for quiet, but Ezra wasn’t watching.

  “Even if he got the shackles off, they can’t have got far.” It was Trask. “Not with that half-wit hardly able to stand hisself upright.”

  Holding my breath, I moved my head slightly so I could see out through a space between two boards. Pea-Head Pete and Calvin Edson were walking on either side of Trask. They were moving along in a row, looking down at the ground for signs of our trail. Trask’s face was red and irritable-looking. He was shading his eyes in a pained way, and I figured maybe he was feeling the effects of all the whiskey he’d drunk the night before. He saw the cart and began heading straight for our hiding place.

  I drew my knife, imagining how he’d laugh when he tipped over the cart and knocked it from my hand with the tip of his rifle.

  “Boss!” It was Calvin Edson’s voice.

  Trask was just three or four steps away—close enough, I was sure, to hear the pounding of my heart. “What is it?” he hollered, sounding in a right ill humor.

  “Over here,” said Edson urgently. “Quick! I think I see footprints.”

  Trask turned away and headed toward where Calvin stood peering at the ground.

  Before I had time to feel relieved, Pea-Head called, “I’ll check under that cart for you, boss.” Next I heard his footsteps approaching, and I held my breath again. I was glad it wasn’t Trask coming, but I didn’t know for sure if Pea-Head had good sense. Did he have a grasp on what was happening, or did he maybe think it was all a game, like hide-and-seek?

  I was about to find out.

  Pea-Head let out a groan as he crouched down to his knees to peer into our hiding place. Through the space between two boards our eyes met, and I felt myself stiffen as he let out a high-pitched giggle. I closed my eyes, waiting for him to call out to Trask that he’d found us.

  “Nothin’ here but a nest of mice, boss,” he yelled.

  I opened my eyes, and I could have sworn I saw him wink at me before he stood up and walked away.

  Trask called back, “Then go look sharp in the soft mud there by the creek bank, you hear?”

  After a moment Pea-Head let out his giggle again and answered, “Looks like raccoons been in the creek, that’s all.”

  “Darn rain made their tracks hard to read, boss,” said Calvin. “But I’d say it looks like we should try going this-a-way.”

  Still crouching like a cornered animal, I remained rigid, listening until there was nothing more to hear. Even then, I didn’t dare move for a long time. Thinking about it, I decided Calvin had suspected Ezra and I might be under the cart, and had led Trask off someplace else. Silently I thanked him, hoping he’d taken Trask far away.

  I’d been pretty sure Trask would get mean when he woke up and found Ezra gone, and I’d worried that Amelia’s fear of Trask would cause her to tell him about the others’ helping me. I’d also worried that one of the show folks who had been my allies in the dark of night might feel different come daylight, when faced with Trask’s anger. So far it appeared they’d been steadfast, and for that I was thankful.

  But now that Trask hadn’t found us, his temper would most likely turn even uglier. I thought about moving to a new spot, but I didn’t know if there was anything nearby that would serve as well as the cart to hide the two of us. I had to hope that if Trask continued to look for us, he wouldn’t head back where he’d already searched once.

  If only Ezra were stronger, and not shackled … I stopped myself. No sense in wishing for what might be. Better to keep my mind on what was, though it made a dreary picture.

  At least one of my worries—that Ezra might give us away—seemed foolish now. He was so still and quiet I found myself looking to see if his chest was rising and falling with breath.

  I didn’t try to talk to him. I was too afraid of Trask sneaking back to risk making a sound. But
, truth to tell, I was glad for a reason not to talk. Ezra had never been able to answer me in words, but his face and body had always been alive with his thoughts, and he’d had a way of acting out what he wanted to say. It was uncanny, Pa used to say.

  But talking to someone who didn’t give you any kind of answer was lonesome business. It scared me, the way Ezra behaved like I wasn’t even there. It made me feel hopeless, and I couldn’t let myself get discouraged. We weren’t yet free and clear of Trask and we still had a long trip ahead.

  I spent my time eyeing and feeling those shackles, thinking how I might get them off. There wasn’t much to them, just like Miss Mary had said. A thin band of metal was bent into a circle around each of Ezra’s ankles. The ends of the bands overlapped slightly.

  From the greenish color they left on his skin, I figured they were copper, and that gave me a glimmer of hope. I knew copper was soft. Well, soft for metal, anyhow. That was the reason Trask had been able to clamp them on. Still, the force of bending them around Ezra’s legs must have hurt him something terrible.

  A heavy chain hung between the bands. Unlike the bands, it looked and felt to be made of iron. Before Trask bent the bands shut around Ezra’s ankles, he must have first slipped the end links of the chain onto them.

  The skin on Ezra’s ankles was rubbed raw, and the greenish color from the copper only made it look worse. The sight fed my fury at Trask. I forced myself to think instead about how to get Ezra free.

  The chain itself would be impossible to cut through without a blacksmith’s tools, and I didn’t dare march Ezra into a town like Vestry and ask for help in setting him free. There’d be too many questions, and word might get to Trask somehow.

  I was going to have to work on the softer copper bands myself. The problem put me in mind of cutting through my half eagle coin. I wished for Orrin Beckwith’s little hammer and chisel, though I didn’t relish the idea of pounding on the bands with Ezra’s ankles inside them.