Not long after that, a Dominion Officer arrived to tell everyone to go home and lock themselves in. Bamber disappeared. Glory, Til, and Jeff got into the wagon with me, and we were just at the edge of town when we saw Billy Ray’s wagon with him and Benny Paul in it, recruiting people for search parties. They yelled at Jeff and Til to get in the wagon, and Til was over there before I could say a word. Jeff said he’d wait and go with his dad, which was quite sensible of him.
We left Jeff unhitching the horse at Maybelle’s, while Glory and I went up to my house to discuss the matter.
“I think this is another decoy,” she said. “Even if the bank really did get robbed.”
I said, “Real or not real, when a so-called robbery scatters every able-bodied man and boy from The Valley into the mountains, it makes me a little nervous, doesn’t it you?”
Falija’s eyes were as big as teacups, and her ears were back.
“There,” Glory said, stroking Falija’s head. “That’s exactly what Bamber thought, especially since Ned and Walter were telling the sheriff where the robbers went. But, Jeff isn’t gone, and neither is Bamber. His stepdaddy probably went with everyone else, but Bamber will show up here just as soon as he finds out what’s happening.”
And he did, a fairly short time later, sticking his head in the door, panting like he’d run five miles, which likely he had.
“Ned and Walter are back,” he said. “They’ve got four or five other guys with them, and they’re going house to house down the valley road, coming this way, waving fake badges and saying they’re deputized by Dominion to search every house for the bank robbers.”
“They’ll find me,” said Falija, sounding a little panicky. “They will. They’ll sniff me out.”
“Then we need to go somewhere else,” Glory said in a determined tone. “Don’t we, Falija?”
Falija looked at her, and the creases between her eyes went away. “Of course! Up the mountain! Where I took you the other evening!”
“Right,” said Bamber Joy. “Through that gate! Maybe we could even close the gate behind us. Glory and I’ll come along to keep you company.”
“Glory, and you, and I,” I said. “Unless Falija would be safer going alone.”
“Grandma,” said Falija, “there’s no time to explain now. They’re looking for me, yes, but they’re also looking for anyone who helped me, and that includes all three of you. I wouldn’t be safer alone, and I’d have failed my duty.”
Glory said, “They were asking for scent-hounds to be brought in…”
Falija said, “In that case, they’ll find me or anyone I’ve been with or anyplace I’ve been lately…”
“Should we take Lou Ellen?” Glory asked, sounding worried. I started to say something, then bit my lip.
Falija gave Glory a troubled look. “Glory, Lou Ellen will be all right. She’ll either meet us on the way or she can visit her other friends, and they’ll keep her safe.”
A few more words bubbled up among us, and we confused each other for a few minutes with ifs and buts, but the upshot was that I wrote a note saying I had the notion to go camping up the river over the next few days, and I was taking Glory and Bamber Joy along to fetch and carry. Glory took the note down to her house, put it on the kitchen table, dumped her books and stowed a few things in her backpack, grabbed her bedroll and jacket, and rejoined Bamber and me, who were making up a couple of packs and bedrolls ourselves.
I said, “Spare socks? Underwear?”
Glory said, “I brought some of Til’s clothes for Bamber, since he didn’t have time to collect anything.”
I locked my door behind us but left the curtains open so anybody could look in and see nobody was home. Just about that time, Bamber saw two cars coming along the road from the bridge. If they got to the Judson house, they’d see the note, but since we weren’t really going where the note said we were going, it didn’t matter much if Ned and Walter followed the false lead.
We went uphill, walking on rocks so as not to leave a visible trail. Bamber came last to be sure no one had made any marks or dropped anything. We reached the spire of black rock, and from there we could hear men yelling down the hill. Glory climbed halfway up the rock to get a better view and reported there were two cars in the driveway as well as her daddy’s buggy, her parents, and Jeff, along with several other people.
When we got to the slit rock, Falija told us to help her make a rock pile right beside it. Bamber and Glory fetched some bigger ones while I gathered small ones. Glory went into the slit in the rock, took my hand, and helped me over the pile. Falija and Bamber came through and reached back to arrange the stones into a teetery heap that looked as if it had fallen that way, a perfect place to break a leg. They topped it off with a few broken, dried branches that pretty well filled the crack between the stones.
This time we went straight through the watery tunnel and out the other end onto the ledge. It was daytime, and the nyzeemi weren’t there. When we looked back, a black pool filled the whole width of the ledge behind us.
Falija said, “Get up on top of the railing stones.”
“On top?” I said, shocked. We were quite high enough already.
“It’s the only way down,” said Falija, climbing onto a stone herself.
Bamber and Glory climbed up, each took hold of one of my arms and pulled me up between them. Falija said to shut our eyes and jump, and that’s what Bamber and Glory did, dragging me off the ledge with them. I thought of screaming, but
