Nathaniel

CHAPTER SEVEN

Michael came into the kitchen the next morning to find his grandfather waiting for him, sitting at the kitchen table, his back ramrod straight. The old man's eyes fixed on Michael with a coldness that stopped the boy in his tracks.

"Sleep well?" Amos asked.

Uncertainly, Michael edged toward the refrigerator and began rummaging on the top shelf for the pitcher of orange juice he knew was there, well concealed by the masses of leftovers his grandmother always seemed to have on hand. "I guess," he said, finally locating the pitcher behind a bottle of milk. He edged it out of the refrigerator, picked up a glass from the drainboard, and started toward the table.

"I didn't," Amos replied. "I heard your mother moving around, and came out to see if she was all right. She was. But she was worried because you were gone."

"I-I went for a walk."

"I see." Amos stood up. "And you're about to go for another walk. March."

Michael's eyes widened, and he stared up at his grandfather. "Wh-where?"

"To the barn," Amos told him, and for the first time Michael noticed the razor strop clutched in his right hand.

"But-"

"No buts," Amos cut in. "You worried your mother last night. You worried her very much. You won't do it again. Now start walking."

Michael's eyes darted toward the door to the hallway, but there was no one in sight, no one to rescue him. Reluctantly, but knowing he had no choice, he followed his grandfather out into the morning sunshine. Only when they were behind the barn, out of sight of the house, did Amos speak again.

"Where did you go?"

Michael hesitated. This morning, what had happened the night before seemed almost to have been a dream. Indeed, as he thought about it, he was no longer sure exactly what had happened. He had gone for a walk, and he seemed to remember having started out toward old man Findley's place. But now he was no longer sure. Had he gone there? He tried hard, but all he could really remember was the forest by the river, and the pasture. And a voice. There had been a voice. Or had there?

"N-nowhere," he said at last. "Just down to the woods by the river. I-I wasn't gone long."

"Drop your pants and bend over."

Slowly, Michael unbuckled his belt and undid his jeans. He turned around, then dropped his pants and leaned over, clutching his knees. A second later he felt the first lash of the strop sting his buttocks, and a scream burst from him.

"Don't yell," Amos told him. "If you yell, it will only get worse. Now, tell me where you went."

"I didn't go anywhere," Michael wailed. "I told you, I only went down by the river."

"You were gone for over an hour."

Again the leather strop slashed across his buttocks, but this time Michael was able to choke off his scream.

"I-I didn't know," he pleaded. "I thought it was only a few minutes."

"You shouldn't have gone at all, not without telling your mother."

"I don't have to tell her everything I do-"

The strop whistled through the air this time and seemed to wrap itself around Michael's thigh like a snake.

"From now on, you ask your mother or me before you do anything. Do you understand?"

Michael said nothing, steeling himself against the next slash of the leather. In a moment, it came, and immediately afterward, the sound of his grandfather's voice.

"Did you hear me?"

"Y-yes…"

Again the strop whistled through the air and burned into his flesh. "Yes, what?"

Michael thought wildly, clenching his teeth against the pain as tears burned in his eyes. "Yes, sir," he finally cried.

And the whipping was suddenly over.

"All right," his grandfather said. Slowly, Michael straightened up and pulled his jeans up to cover his stinging buttocks. Then he turned to face his grandfather, his eyes blazing with fury and his head throbbing with a sudden ache that overpowered even the pain of the thrashing. "Wait 'til I tell my mom-" he began, but Amos knelt down and took him by the shoulders, his hands gripping him like twin vises.

"Stop that, Michael," he said. "What just happened here is between you and me. You're not to speak to your mother of this. She's been through a lot, and you're not to put her through any more. From now on, you behave yourself. If you don't, you know what will happen. And if you take your troubles to your mother, I can guarantee you they'll only get worse. You're a big boy. I expect you to behave like one."

"But-"

"No buts. Things are different now, and you'd better understand that. I don't like having to do this, but so help me, I'm going to teach you some respect, boy, so that next time you feel like going for a walk in the middle of the night, you'll think twice about it. Understand?" Michael hesitated, then nodded. But as he followed the old man back to the house, his headache grew worse, and his mind whirled with confused thoughts. It's not fair. I didn't do anything… All I did was go for a walk… It's not fair…

In the kitchen, Janet was at the table, sipping a cup of coffee and making notes on a spiral pad. She looked up as Michael and Amos came through the back door. "Hi. What have you two been up to this morning?"

"Chores," Amos replied before Michael could say anything. He went to the sink and washed his hands; then, drying them on a dish towel, he went around to peer over Janet's shoulder. "What's all this?"

"Things to be done," Janet sighed. "There's so much, and I haven't any idea of where to start. But here're the colors I want for the farm." She tore off the top sheet and handed it to Amos, who studied it for a moment, then passed it to Michael.

"Some imagination your mother's got, huh?"

Michael stared at the old man. It was as if his grandfather had never been angry at all. He was smiling as if the thrashing behind the barn had never happened. And his voice was calm. He was even trying to make a joke: "White paint for the house, red for the barn, with white trim. Now, how do you suppose she came up with something so radical?" His expression turned serious, and he studied Janet's face. "Any problems this morning?"

"You mean morning sickness? Not a trace." Though her stomach was still queasy from that morning's session in the bathroom, she put on what she hoped was a bright smile and rapped the wooden tabletop a couple of times. "I'm hoping it's over with. It was probably just-well, the last few days." She took a deep breath and emphatically returned to her lists. "The problem's going to be the furniture."

"What's wrong with our furniture?" Michael asked, easing himself carefully onto one of the hard kitchen chairs. "I like it."

"There's nothing wrong with it," Janet tried to explain.

"It just doesn't seem practical for a farmhouse in Prairie Bend, that's all."

"Farmhouse furniture is ugly," Michael pronounced; then, realizing what he had said, his eyes filled with fright and shifted to his grandfather.

But the old man only nodded in agreement. "It may be ugly, but it's comfortable," he said just as Anna rolled her chair into the kitchen and brought it to a stop between the sink and the range. Janet started to get up, but Anna waved her back to her chair. She dropped an apron over her lap, then pulled a skillet from a low cupboard and placed it on the stove. "What were you talking about?" she asked of no one in particular. "What's ugly but comfortable?"

"Farmer's furniture," Amos told her.

"According to whom?" Anna demanded, suddenly taking on the look of a ruffled hen.

"According to your grandson."

"Oh," Anna said. She hesitated only a second, then shrugged. "Well, of course he's right. But don't you worry about it," she said, addressing Janet, as she began scrambling a dozen eggs in the enormous cast-iron skillet. "I can furnish that house with a couple of phone calls. Every barn and attic in Prairie Bend is full of furniture, and it won't cost a cent. Besides, you'll spend more money shipping your stuff out here than you'd get if you sold it, so you'll be money ahead even if you have to give it away. Bring me the plates, Michael."

As Michael hesitated, Anna watched him. There was something in his eyes-a hurt-that she had seen before, years ago, in her son's eyes. She had hoped never to see it again. "Michael, are you all right?"

Michael's gaze met his grandmother's, and for a quick moment there was an unspoken communication between the two of them. But then Michael nodded, turning away to move toward the cupboard where the china was kept. Anna's eyes followed the boy, then shifted toward her husband. But if Amos noticed the concealed fury in his wife's eyes, he gave no sign.

As Michael began putting the breakfast plates on the table, Janet thought over what her mother-in-law had just said. It did make sense. Still, there was a faint twinge at the feeling that by leaving her belongings behind, she would be shedding still another piece of her old life. But she quickly shook off her misgivings. After all, she had made up her mind to start all over again in Prairie Bend.

The sun was high in the sky as Michael carried the pail of garbage around the corner of the barn. The pigs, milling around in their pen, immediately began grunting and snorting in anticipation of their midmorning snack. Michael climbed the sturdy metal bars of the small enclosure, using only one, hand to haul himself up, while he clutched the bucket with his free hand. The pigs clustered around, snuffling at the toes of his sneakers, shoving each other aside in their eagerness to be first at the trough. Finally, when he was perched on the top rail, Michael grinned down at the churning animals.

"Okay," he said. "Here it comes!" He upended the bucket, and the garbage cascaded into the feeding trough. A boar, the largest of the herd, immediately shouldered his way between two sows, one of which promptly nipped him on the ear. The boar squealed in surprise and quickly backed off. The sight of the immense hog giving way to the smaller female struck Michael as funny, and he began to laugh, shouting encouragement to the big pig. "Come on, don't let her get it all. Get in there and fight for it!"

The hog, as if sensing that he was being mocked, suddenly turned toward Michael, his small eyes gleaming. Then, with a speed Michael wouldn't have believed possible from such a clumsy-looking animal, he reared up, grabbed Michael's foot in his mouth, and gave a quick jerk.

Michael tumbled into the pigpen, and his laughter turned to a sudden scream of fright.

The boar backed off for a moment, his front hoof scraping at the ground as his beady eyes fixed upon Michael. Then, grunting angrily, he hurled himself forward.

Michael rolled aside at the last minute and tried to get to his feet, but stumbled over a second pig. Suddenly the whole herd seemed to be on the move, their sharp hooves digging into the ground as they jockeyed for position, half of them attempting to get to the trough, the other half more interested in Michael.

"Help!" Michael screamed. "Someone help me!"

Janet heard Michael's scream and raced out of the kitchen just as Amos emerged from the barn. "What's happened?" she yelled as she dashed across the yard.

"The pigs," Amos shouted back. "He must have fallen into the pigpen." Then he disappeared around the corner of the barn.

By the time Janet reached the hog enclosure, Amos was already using a long pole to poke at the furious animals. "Get up," he yelled to Michael. "Get on your feet boy, or they'll trample you. Get up!"

Suddenly, from around the far corner of the barn, a black dog the size of a large shepherd hurtled into sight, charging straight for the pigpen. With one leap, it was over the top rail, and then it was in the midst of the pigs, snarling and barking, snapping first at one of the sows, then turning its attention to the big boar. The boar, surprised at the sudden attack at its flank, backed off for a moment, giving Michael a chance to scramble to his feet. A moment later, Amos had lifted him up and over the top rail of the enclosure.

As soon as Michael was out of the pigpen, the dog abandoned the fight and leaped out of the pen. A moment later he was next to Michael, who was clinging to his mother, sobbing with fright.

"They were going to kill me," he cried. "They were going to trample me!" The dog, as if trying to comfort the terrified child, licked at his face, his tail wagging. Suddenly one of Michael's arms left his mother to curl around the dog's neck, hugging him close.

Janet stared down at the animal. "Where'd he come from?" she asked. "Whose is he?"

Amos frowned, sure he'd never seen the dog before. If he had, he'd have remembered it. It stood two and a half feet high at the shoulder, with a broad, deep chest and heavily muscled legs. Its coat, coal black without so much as a trace of white markings, was thick, and its eyes, alert and intelligent, seemed to fix on him with a mixture of equal parts of suspicion and hostility. "Don't know," he admitted.

Michael, who had been more frightened than hurt by the pigs, hugged the dog closer. "I bet he followed me home last night," he said. Then he gazed up at his mother. "He saved my life, Mom. Can I keep him? Please?"

Janet felt dazed by what had happened, but when she had assured herself that Michael was, indeed, unhurt, she turned her attention to the dog. The animal seemed to regard her with quizzical eyes, as if awaiting her decision. "I don't know," she said at last. "He must belong to someone," she went on, though she had already seen that the dog wore no collar.

"But what if he doesn't?" Michael asked. "What if he's only a stray? Then can I keep him?"

"We'll see," Janet temporized. "Right now, though, I want you to go in and get yourself cleaned up."

Michael was about to argue, but when he saw the look in his grandfather's eyes, he changed his mind. "All right," he agreed. He started toward the house, and the big dog followed close at his heels. When Michael disappeared into the kitchen, the dog sat by the back porch.

"What do you think?" Janet asked Amos.

Amos shrugged. "I don't know. Never seen him before. But if he's still around when we get back tonight, I don't suppose there's any harm in keeping him."

A moment later, Amos wasn't so sure. As he passed the dog on his way into the house, it lifted its big head and laid back its ears. A snarl rumbled up from the depths of its throat.

Janet and Michael stared in awe at the little farm, barely able to recognize it even though it was not yet noon and the work had been under way for only three hours. Already the weeds had been cleared from the front yard; people swarmed over the house with scrapers, removing the last traces of paint from the weathered siding, and in the backyard, yet another crew was busy piling brush and weeds onto a smoldering bonfire. Still more people were at work on the barn.

The driveway, barely passable yesterday, had been scraped, and now a backhoe was working, digging drainage trenches along the shoulders of the road. Buck Shields, manipulating its controls with expert ease, brought the machine to a halt and jumped to the ground. "Want to try it?" he asked Michael. Michael immediately climbed up the caterpillar tread of the hoe and perched on its steel seat.

"What do I do?"

"Hold on," his uncle replied, climbing up to stand behind Michael, his work-coarsened hands covering Michael's own softer ones. "It's real easy. This lever brings the hoe up and puts it down, and this one moves it back and forth. See?" He demonstrated the hoe's operation, and another foot was added to the drainage ditch. "We can do about three or four feet at a time, then we have to move the whole thing forward. Try it."

Michael moved one of the levers, and the hoe plunged deep into the earth. "Easy," Buck cautioned. "We want a trench, not a pit." He eased the lever back, and the hoe responded. "Now try moving the dirt to the side, and dumping it." Michael hesitated, chose a lever, and pulled. The claw of the hoe dropped downward and the earth was deposited back into the trench.

"I'm messing it up," Michael said by way of apologizing.

"Maybe we better start you out with the tractor and work up to this. Why don't you see if you can lend a hand out back?"

Michael scrambled down and disappeared around the corner of the house, while Janet walked slowly along next to Anna as she wheeled her chair up the drive. At the foot of the porch steps, the old woman came to a halt and stared silently up at the house.

"You must have a lot of memories of this place," Janet said at last. Anna's eyes flickered, then met Janet's.

"I do," she replied. "But that's all past now, isn't it? For you, maybe this house will be a good one."

Janet frowned thoughtfully. "I don't believe in good houses and bad houses. It seems to me a house is happy if the people who live in it are happy."

"I hope you're right." Sighing, Anna approached the porch steps, then came to another halt. This time, when she looked up it was to Janet, not to the house. "There's some people who can manage stairs in these things, but I'm not one of them."

"I put a ramp for you on the top of my list," Janet told her as she began working the wheelchair up the four steps to the porch, "but I don't know when we'll be able to get it built."

"I'll mention it to Amos," Anna replied. Then, as Janet pushed her through the front door, she seemed to shrink into the chair. Her eyes scanned the foyer and the stairs, then shifted to stare almost fearfully at the closed door to the small room in which she'd delivered her last child.

"If you don't want to be here, I'll understand," Janet said, putting a reassuring hand on the old woman's shoulder.

"No. No, it'll be all right. It's just that it's been so many years." A wry smile twisted her mouth, a smile that Janet had a feeling was forced. "I'm afraid we may not have done you a favor with this place. I had no idea how bad it had gotten."

"But it's not bad," Janet protested. "It's going to be wonderful. Come on. Let's go on a tour, and I'll tell you everything I'm going to do."

They went from room to room, Anna falling silent as Janet explained her plans for each area. At last they came back to the foot of the stairs. Anna gazed thoughtfully up toward the second floor. "Which rooms are you going to use?" she asked at last.

"I'm taking the big one in front. Michael wants the little one."

"The little one?" Anna frowned. "Why the little one?"

"He likes the view. You can see Mr. Findley's place from there."

Anna's expression darkened. "That place," she said. "Ben Findley should be ashamed of himself, the way he's let it go. I swear, I don't know why that man stays around here. If it wasn't for Charles Potter, he wouldn't have a friend in Prairie Bend."

"But doesn't he have family?"

Anna's eyes clouded, and a sigh escaped her lips. "Ben? Not anymore. He had a wife once-Jenny Potter. For a while they had a good marriage, but then-" She fell silent for a moment, then smiled wanly. "Things happen, I guess. Anyway, Jenny left, and ever since, Ben's just gotten stranger and stranger."

"But surely he must have some friends."

Anna shook her head. "He doesn't seem to want friends anymore. In fact, I've often wondered why he stays here at all. His life must be so lonely…" Her eyes drifted toward the staircase. After a moment, she turned back to Janet. Suddenly, she nodded her head. "Of course Michael would want the little room." A look that might have been sadness, or something else, shadowed her face. Then she said, "It was his father's."

As his mother had asked his grandmother about Ben Findley, so too had Michael asked Ryan Shields again about the man next door. They were in the barn with a third boy-Damon Hollings-whom Michael had met only today.

"How come he's not here?"

"Are you kidding?" Damon replied, though Michael had directed his question to his cousin. "He never goes out of that weird house, and he never speaks to anyone. And he wouldn't help anyone, even if they were dying on the road in front of his driveway." Damon paused, enjoying the effect his words were having on Michael. "And his place is haunted," he added, his voice dropping to a loud whisper. "There's ghosts there."

"There's no such thing as ghosts," Michael protested, but nonetheless his gaze shifted away from Damon toward the loft door. Beyond, only a few hundred yards away, lay the ramshackle buildings of the Findley farm. And in the depths of his consciousness, a memory-or was it a dream? -stirred. "What kind of a ghost?" he asked, his voice noticeably less certain than it had been a moment earlier.

"It's someone who died a long time ago," Damon told him. "And sometimes you can see it, at night, out in Potter's Field. It looks like lights moving around out there."

"Lights?" Michael asked. "What kind of lights?"

"I-I never saw it myself," Damon admitted.

"You never saw it 'cause it doesn't exist. Right, Ryan?" Michael said, turning to his cousin, but Ryan didn't answer.

Damon shrugged with exaggerated indifference and ran a hand through the tangle of blond hair that capped his mischievous face. "Well, who cares what you think?" he said to Michael. "All I'm telling you is what I heard. And what I heard, and what everybody around here knows, is that old man Findley's place is haunted. So there!"

"Well, I don't believe it," Michael shot back. "I don't believe in ghosts, and I bet there's nothing wrong with Mr. Findley. I bet nobody around here likes him 'cause he's not related to anybody," he said with sudden certainty.

"Well, why don't you go find out?" Damon challenged.

"Maybe I will," Michael replied, taking up the challenge. He turned to Ryan again. "Will you go with me?"

Ryan stared at him, then emphatically shook his head. "And you better not go, either," he said.

Michael's expression set stubbornly as the beginnings of a headache shot through his temples. "I'll do what I want," he said in a tight voice. He turned away from the other two boys and concentrated his attention on the old barn in the distance. As he stared at it, the pain in his head began to ease. From somewhere inside his head, he could almost hear a voice whispering to him. The words were unclear, but the tone was somehow familiar…

By six-thirty the heavy work was done, and only the Halls remained at the little farm.

"Doesn't look much like it did this morning, does it?" Anna Hall commented.

Indeed, it did not. Gone was the tangle of weeds that had nearly hidden the house, and the lawn, mown and trimmed, needed only water and some fertilizer to restore it to the luxuriant green that was the norm in Prairie Bend. The driveway, scraped and graveled, formed a graceful curve to the highway, and the buildings, denuded of the last remnants of their faded and peeling paint, seemed almost to be anticipating the morrow, when a coat of fresh white would restore them to their former respectability. Behind the buildings, forty acres of newly plowed earth awaited whatever plantings Amos eventually decided on. Even Michael had to admit that the place had changed.

"Maybe we really can live here," he murmured. Then his eyes shifted westward toward the sagging buildings of the Findley farm, and he fell silent.

Misunderstanding Michael's silence, Amos reached out and drew him close, his arm around the boy's shoulders. "You don't like that place?" he asked, then interpreted Michael's continued silence as assent. "Well, that's just as well. If I'd had my way, I'd have bought Ben's place long ago, but he wouldn't hear of it. Said he'd found the place where he was going to die, and he was too old to change his mind. So there he is, and if I were you, I'd leave him alone."

With an effort, Michael tore his eyes away from the old barn and looked up at his grandfather. "Is there really a ghost there?" he asked.

Janet had not been paying much attention to the conversation. Now she turned to look at her son. "A ghost?" she asked, her voice incredulous. "What on earth are you talking about?"

Michael shifted uncomfortably. "Damon Hollings says Mr. Findley's farm is haunted."

"Oh, for heaven's sake. You didn't believe him, did you, honey?" When Michael hesitated, Janet's voice lost some of its lightness. "There's no such thing as ghosts, Michael, and there never have been." She turned to Amos and Anna, expecting them to support her, but Amos seemed lost in thought, while Anna had turned away and was slowly pushing her chair toward the car. "Amos, tell him there's no such thing as ghosts."

"I'm not going to tell him something I don't know about, Janet," he said at last.

Janet stared at him. "Something you don't know about?" she repeated. "Amos, you aren't going to tell me you believe in ghosts!"

"All I can tell you is that there've been stories," Amos said at last. "So I guess I'll just have to say I don't know."

"What kind of stories?" Michael demanded.

"Things," Amos told him after a long silence. Then he smiled grimly. "Maybe, if you're good, I'll tell you all about them, just before you go to bed tonight."

Michael tried to keep his excitement from showing, tried to keep his expression disinterested. He failed completely.