Gib Rides Home (7 page)

When Mr. Harding read off the chore assignments that morning, Gib and Bobby, just the two of them, had been assigned the job of mucking out the dairy barn and Juno’s box stall. On an ordinary day taking care of the orphanage’s buggy horse and two Jersey milk cows was Gib’s favorite chore. Of course, shoveling out old, dirty bedding and replacing it with clean straw and sawdust was a lot less fun when the temperature was way below freezing. Particularly when you were shorthanded because half the senior boys were sick with colds and fever.

“Those fakers aren’t the only sick ones,” Bobby whimpered as he and Gib shoveled endlessly at frozen clumps of cow manure and dirty straw, piled them into a wheelbarrow, and then took turns trundling the barrow way out across the frozen back pasture to the manure pile. “I got me a terrible case of the grippe coming on. I can tell.”

Gib threw another shovelful onto the load and then stopped long enough to stare at Bobby. “You getting a sore throat?” he asked.

Bobby swallowed thoughtfully. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Real raw like. And a fever too.” Yanking off a mitten, he felt his forehead with his bare fingers. “Burning up,” he confirmed.

Gib put down his shovel, took off one glove, felt Bobby’s face, and shook his head. “Feels pretty cold to me,” he said.

“No it don’t. Not inside, anyways. Inside I’m just about to burn up.”

Gib grinned. “Burning up inside, huh?” Pulling on his glove, he slapped his hands together before he picked up his shovel. “Lucky you. Might keep you from freezing solid on the outside.” He’d meant it as a joke, but it sure didn’t cheer Bobby up a whole lot. He went right on groaning and sighing as they finished the cow barn, pushed the final wheelbarrow load out of the milking stall, and started to scatter the fresh straw.

Interrupting a particularly mournful sigh, Gib said, “Look here, Bobby. I’ll dump the last load.” Actually it wasn’t his turn, and Bobby knew it. “You go ahead and finish spreading the straw, then take the lantern and shovels over to Juno’s stall. I’ll be along soon as I dump this one.” Grabbing the handles of the wheelbarrow, he headed out across the frozen field to the manure heap.

It had been bad enough in the cow barn, but outside it was worse. A lot worse. The wind-driven sleet beat against Gib’s face and seemed to cut directly to the center of his bones. But even with his eyes squinted half shut against the wind, and with a lot of slipping and sliding on the ice-crusted snow, he covered the distance to the manure heap in record time.

Actually he was hurrying for two reasons. Not only to escape from the wind, but also because Juno and her box stall came next, and he liked being around the old chestnut mare. Liked listening to her soft, eager nicker as he fetched her hay and oats, and the smell of her horsey warmth as he brushed her mane and tail and, standing on a grooming stool so he could reach, ran the currycomb down her strong, wide back. He liked the currying and he could tell that Juno did too. And he also liked knowing that for once he wouldn’t have to argue with Bobby to get the best job, because Bobby was sure that Juno, like everything else big and powerful, was out to get him.

“She’s getting ready to bite me,” he’d told Gib at least half a dozen times. “I can tell.” Just thinking about Bobby being so scared of gentle old Juno that he’d do all the shoveling while Gib did the fun part made Gib smile, even though stretching his lips made painful prickles across his half-frozen face.

Back inside, out of the storm, Gib was struggling to shove the barn door shut against the push of the wind when Bobby suddenly appeared beside him. A bulgy-eyed Bobby, whose arms flailed wildly in pointless gestures and whose mouth gasped and flapped and made senseless sounds. A threatening shiver started up Gib’s back, and something hard and heavy seemed to fall from a great distance and crash into the pit of his stomach.

“What is it?” he asked. “Bobby? What’s the matter? You seen a ghost or something?”

Bobby gulped again, grabbed Gib’s arm, and turned back to point in the direction of Juno’s stall. “Somebody’s in there,” he gasped. “In the stall. I think it’s ... He stared at Gib with wide, unbelieving eyes. “It might be—it might be Georgie and ... His voice rose to a wail. “... and I think he’s dead.”

It was Georgie Olson all right, or all that was left of him, lying in a filthy, ragged heap in a corner of Juno’s stall, where it looked like he’d tried to make a bed for himself of straw and gunnysacks and the torn scraps of an old horse blanket. Had made himself a bed, curled up in it, and was now asleep. Or dead?

“Did Juno kill him?” Bobby was whimpering from outside the stall door. “Look, she’s looking at him.”

Juno, who was standing quietly on the other side of the stall, was indeed looking at Georgie curiously, her ears pricked forward.

Gib shook his head. “No, ’course not,” he said, and, dropping to his knees, he grabbed Georgie’s shoulder and shook him. “Georgie,” he said, and then more loudly, “come on, Georgie, wake up.”

Georgie wasn’t dead after all. At least not quite. Suddenly awake, he cowered away from Gib, covering his head and face with his arms and making a strange squeaking noise like an injured animal.

“Hush. Stop that,” Gib whispered. “Be still, Georgie. It’s just us. Gib and Bobby. We won’t hurt you.”

The squeaking stopped. Georgie’s arms, heavily bandaged like his hands, came down slowly, away from his face. And suddenly Gib was struggling to keep his own face from showing his shock and horror. Georgie was almost unrecognizable. If it hadn’t been for his long rabbity upper lip and pale white-lashed blue eyes, Gib might have taken him for a stranger. A stranger whose face had shriveled to a sharp-edged skull except where swollen, scaly patches of frostbite blotched his nose and cheeks.

“Gib? Bobby? Oh, Gib, please help me. Help me hide.” Georgie’s high-pitched voice quavered tearfully and he reached out toward Gib with both bandaged arms.

Before Gib could respond, Bobby asked, “What happened, Georgie? What’s wrong with your hands?”

Georgie looked down at his own outstretched arms and a new kind of horror crept across his face. “They’re going to cut them off,” he whispered. “Both of them. Mister said they were going to cut off both my hands. So when he stopped at the store I jumped out and ran. I didn’t know where to go so I came here and ...

“Why?” Gib tried to keep the horror out of his voice. “Why would they cut off your hands?”

Georgie stared at his hands and tried to answer, but at first his chattering teeth and trembling lips blurred the sounds. As his voice steadied, Gib was able to make out what he was saying. “... Mister said he’d learn me to take care of my mittens. Said I always lose them, but I don’t. The dog took them. I know he did, but Mister wouldn’t believe me. He whipped me like always, and then he said I had to do the east pasture anyways. Mittens or no mittens.”

Gib shook his head in wonder. “Do the east pasture?” he asked.

Georgie nodded. “Weather like this, he sleds hay out to the stock. Four bales this time, he said. You got to harness the mule and load the hay on the sled and drive way out there and—and ... Georgie’s voice died away as he stared down at his bandaged hands. “It was so cold the hay hooks stuck to my skin. When I got back my hands was froze. Missus put water on them—it hurt real bad—and then she told Mister he had to take me to the doctor. He said naw, he wouldn’t neither. Said I was no good, and he didn’t care if I froze solid—but then, when Missus started out to get the buggy, he said, ‘All right, goddammit, I’ll do it.’

“‘You get on back in the house,’ he told Missus. ‘I’ll take him.’ But then, in the buggy, he told me he’d seen hands like mine afore and they’d have to cut them off. Both of them. So, soon as I got the chance, I ran.”

Georgie’s tears mingled with a yellowish liquid that oozed from the dark, swollen patches on his cheeks and nose. He held out his bandaged hands as if he were praying. “Don’t tell on me,” he begged. “Please don’t tell I’m here.”

Gib’s own eyes were hot and wet and he couldn’t find his voice, but Bobby was saying, “But you can’t stay here, Georgie. Someone always comes out to see if we did a good job. Buster comes mostly—but sometimes it’s Mr. Harding. He’ll see you.”

“Yeah.” Gib’s voice had suddenly returned. He looked around. “Come on, Bobby. We’ll make him a bed in the tack room while we finish up here and then—”

“And then
what
? And then what are you planning to do, Whittaker?” The voice was hard and sharp and only too familiar. It belonged to Mr. Harding.

O
F COURSE IT WAS
Mr. Harding. Gib should have known it would be. It explained why the job of cleaning the barn and stable had been given to a crew of only two boys. Harding knew they wouldn’t be able to finish in time. It usually took a three-man crew even in good weather, and during a blizzard it should have been four or five. So the job would be skimped on and that meant that Harding would have another excuse to beat the tar out of somebody. That had been his plan, sure enough, and it might have worked that way except for Georgie Olson’s showing up and changing things some. The next thing Mr. Harding said was that they were all going to Miss Offenbacher’s office, immediately. He brushed Bobby aside and opened the stall door, but when he stood over Georgie and said, “All right, kid, on your feet. Get up immediately,” nothing much happened. Nothing except that Georgie tried for a long, painful minute, heaving himself up on his elbows and then collapsing again with a pitiful groan.

Mr. Harding didn’t offer to carry him. Right at first he made as if he was thinking about it, but when he bent close and got a good look at Georgie’s swollen, oozing face and maybe got a whiff of him, he changed his mind. “Get on each side of him and put his arms over your shoulders,” he told Gib and Bobby. So they did, but hanging from his arms must have hurt Georgie a lot because by the time they got to the back hallway his head had lolled over sideways and his feet were mostly just dragging. Unconscious, Gib thought, or maybe even dead.

On the way to the office Mr. Harding went ahead, opening doors and waiting for Gib and Bobby to struggle through with the dead weight of Georgie dangling between them. The back hall was empty, but as they made their way into the entryway Gib thought he heard gasps and whispers that seemed to be coming from above, and then the rapidly fading sound of retreating footsteps on the grand stairway.

The office was empty. “Put him there in the armchair,” Mr. Harding said as he left the room. “I’ll get Miss Offenbacher.”

As Gib and Bobby lowered Georgie into the chair his head flopped back helplessly and he slumped sideways over one of the arms.

“Here, you hold him up,” Gib whispered. “I’m going—”

“Going?” Bobby wailed. “Where? Don’t leave me alone, Gib. Don’t!”

At the door Gib looked back long enough to say, “Got to. Got to find Miss Mooney.”

“Don’t go. Come back,” Bobby howled. “What can she do?”

Gib didn’t know what Miss Mooney could do. Miss Offenbacher was headmistress, so she had the last say about everything, and both she and Mr. Harding were a whole lot bigger and stronger than Miss Mooney. But Gib felt sure that if Georgie had any chance at all, it would be because of Miss Mooney. Running full speed across the entry hall and up the grand staircase, he bolted down the second floor hallway, past the entrance to Junior Hall, to the door of Miss Mooney’s private room. But no one answered his first knock or even, a moment later, his frantic pounding. He was turning away in despair when he saw her coming down the hall.

“Gib, Gib,” she said, putting out both hands to keep him from crashing into her in his headlong rush. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“It’s Georgie, Miss Mooney,” Gib gasped. “Georgie Olson. He’s back. He’s in the office. I think he’s dying.”

Without waiting to ask any more questions, Miss Mooney turned and ran toward the stairs, Gib trailing behind her. At the office door she paused only long enough to knock once before she went right on in. Mr. Harding and Miss Offenbacher were standing near the desk, and Bobby, eyes bulging and chin quivering, was still propping up the sagging Georgie.

They all spoke at once.

Mr. Harding’s furious “Where have you been, Whittaker? Who gave you permission to ... overlapped Miss Offenbacher’s stern “You may leave, Miss Mooney. Mr. Harding and I can handle ...

Miss Mooney was speaking, too, but her soft, pleading “But—But Gibson says Georgie is very ill” wasn’t nearly enough. Not enough to make them listen to her, Gib thought, and not nearly enough to make them let her help Georgie. But then, just as Gib was despairing all over again, Bobby came to the rescue by letting out a dismal wail, turning loose of Georgie, and collapsing in a useless lump of misery. Georgie, no longer supported, sank down sideways and slithered limply onto the floor. A moment later Miss Mooney was kneeling beside him, lifting his eyelids, feeling the pulse in his neck, and then beginning to unwrap his bandaged hands. And telling everyone what to do in a strong, forceful, entirely unfamiliar voice.

“Mr. Harding. Bring me a blanket and a hot-water bottle. Miss Offenbacher, please telephone the doctor immediately. And tell him to hurry.”

To Gib’s amazement, both Mr. Harding and Miss Offenbacher did what they were told. A few minutes later, as the three grown-ups clustered around Georgie’s blanket-wrapped body, Gib grabbed the back of Bobby’s coat, lifted him to his feet, and quietly dragged him backward through the door and out into the hall. Once outside the office Bobby immediately came to life and almost beat Gib up the two flights to Senior Hall.

Back in the dormitory Gib and Bobby quickly found themselves surrounded. Four or five boys at first, and then more as the seniors straggled back in from their chore assignments. It seemed that someone had seen them on their way to the office, and rumors and guesses had spread like wildfire.

Gib, and Bobby too, tried to answer their questions, but except for the stark, terrible fact that Georgie had run away and had been hiding, nearly frozen to death, in Juno’s stall, the only news Gib and Bobby could give them was just what Georgie had told them before he passed out. That the man who had adopted him had punished him by sending him out without his mittens, and then had told Georgie the doctor was going to cut off his frozen hands.