“Thanks for what you did,” I said, squatting next to her.
She shook her head sadly. “Those yahoos’ll shoot anything that moves.”
“You think he’ll ever let me touch him?” I asked.
She tipped her head. “Hard to tell with the wild ones, but I got a good feeling about this one. He’s already come this far, seems to know he’s getting old. In my experience, one day he’ll just decide.”
“Decide?” I asked.
“Between being alone or being befriended. The wild ones never completely tame, but I’d say he’s moving in the befriended direction.”
“His ear got better,” I said, pointing. His eyes had closed now, but his tail still swept the floor at the sound of our voices.
“I thought it might.”
“You have animals?”
“Four cats, a possum, and a crippled dog.”
“How’d he get crippled?” I asked.
“Found him by the roadside, hit by a car.”
“Oh,” I said, thinking of my daddy. Maybe she was thinking about him too. Maybe someday I could ask her what else she knew about him, but I didn’t know how to start that conversation now or if she’d mind.
“Maybe you’d like to meet them sometime,” she said as we stood and headed inside.
“Maybe I would,” I said.
We all sat down to our crazy-quilt table laden with roast turkey, pecan stuffing, buttered green peas, candied yams, and steaming cornbread with real butter, the sight of which made Franklin kiss Fred’s hands.
Bessie offered grace, saying how thankful we were for God’s beautiful wild creatures, for the sheriff and peaceful resolutions, and for the great pleasure of sharing our bounty with Ms. Booker and Mr. Jeffers. Then she looked at me and Henry, adding that it was her fond hope that our gratitude might bring out our better selves and keep all Hades from breaking loose until after dessert.
Everybody seemed to relax after that. The conversation was light during dinner, mostly about how good the food was. Harlan sat between me and Bessie, shoveling food into his mouth as fast as he could swallow it, till I kicked him under the table and he smiled, red-faced, and slowed down. He put away two good-sized platefuls, five pieces of cornbread, and two slices of pumpkin pie with whipped cream, taking the last piece under the nose of a dismayed Franklin, who’d eaten nearly as much.
“You two are a pleasure to cook for,” Fred told them, seeing Franklin’s face. “There’s another pie in the kitchen, so nobody has to be shy. I’ll go get it.”
Henry followed Fred into the kitchen and came back with a bottle of apple spirits, which he poured into small glasses for those old enough, except Harlan, who said he’d sworn off the demon in a glass.
Bessie lifted her glass and the others did the same. Harlan and I raised our chocolate milk. The candlelight made everything sparkle.
“To brave children,” she said, looking at me, and I felt blood rush to my face. “Those present and not.”
“Rash children,” Henry said, frowning.
“Fool children is more like it,” Fred said. “Could’ve been killed or got us killed. Curtis is a terrible shot. Shot off half his big toe last year hunting quail.”
Bessie reared back suddenly in her chair, her face hardening with real anger. “Why, Henry Royster and Fred Montgomery!” she snapped, slapping the table with her palm. “I can’t believe what I am hearing.”
I’d never heard Bessie raise her voice to Henry or Fred before, and by the table’s reaction I guessed nobody else had either.
Fred was truly startled. “What?”
“You especially. Calling the children fools,” she said. “Of all people.”
“What do you mean?” he said.
“Why, you old hypocrite!” Bessie stared open-mouthed at her husband as though he was an utter stranger speaking in tongues.
“What are you talking about?” I asked her.
“I’m talking about the other fool children at this table.”
“Who?” I said, looking around the table and seeing none.
“Fred Montgomery, for one. Who’s forgotten he was a fool child once himself. And you, too,” she said to Henry.
“Leave me out of this,” Henry told her.
“Don’t be digging up old dirt,” Fred said.
Bessie ignored them both and turned to me. “The reason Fred, Henry, and the sheriff are friends,” she began, “is that Fred and Henry saved Garland Bean’s life.”
“Who’s Garland Bean?” I asked.
“The sheriff, honey,” she said. “Garland’s his given name.”
“It was Henry more than me,” Fred said, dismissing the whole business with a wave of his hand.
“The heck it was,” Henry protested. “You brought him up. I couldn’t have done my part under water.”
“You dove in same as I did,” Fred said. “And I wouldn’t have seen him down there except for you pointing him out.”
“It was both of you saved that little boy,” Bessie insisted.
“What little boy?” I asked impatiently. This confused talk was making me irritable.
“Garland Bean, honey,” said Bessie. “He wasn’t but five years old when they saved him.”
“That’ll do, Bessie,” Fred said.
“Really,” Henry put in.
“Oh, tell us, Bessie,” Helen said, looking at Henry and Fred. “So many heroes in our midst. I never knew.”
“I’m not bothering to make up plots for my books anymore,” Franklin announced. “I’ll just come to Henry’s and write down what I see and hear.”
“I got first dibs,” I told him, with a cautionary glare.
“I remember that rescue,” Maud said, nodding. “Must’ve been forty years ago. But I thought the Wilson and Peters boys saved him. Didn’t they get medals?”
“That was the story in the Sugar Hill paper,” Bessie said sourly. “But that was only because the mayor’s daddy owned it. The truth was buried in the state paper a week later, where nobody saw it.”
“If I recall,” said the Padre, concentrating, “it happened right after I first came here. A group of children were playing above the basin in the old quarry, their swimming hole. They were diving into it.”
“Garland didn’t dive in,” Fred said. “He was shoved off that rock by two drunk high school boys.”
“Delray Peters was one,” Bessie said.
“Who’s that?” I said.
“The mayor,” the Padre whispered.
It was hard for me to imagine the mayor as a boy, but the
