Silver Rain (7 page)
Elsie moved closer to the shuttered storefronts. She looked straight ahead as she hurried on. Dog Bob kept up most of the time. When he strayed, she clicked her tongue, and he came back right away.
They were alone on the street now. Elsie really wished Scoop was with her, whistling and talking a mile a minute. But she was not such a chicken that she couldn't go alone to find her father.
E
lsie stepped across the train tracks, kicking through the litter and old cans that drifted between the rails in the squally wind. The air was smoky; the stink of something sweet mixed with something bitter hung in the air.
Dog Bob followed the trail of garbage, his nose down low so he didn't miss a single smell. Soon he looked as small as a cat in the distance. He'd come back in a minute, Elsie thought. She pulled her hat down tight and buttoned her jacket all the way. She tried to walk with a Scoop-like swagger, but she needed her hands out now in case she tripped over the rubble. Her knees felt soft, as if there were no bones in them.
“What are you doing here?” A man had come out of nowhere. He stared down at her with damp red-rimmed eyes. His shoulders were tucked up high, almost to his ears. A tattered brown scarf was wrapped across his body.
“I'm looking for my father,” said Elsie. She shoved her hands in her jacket pocket.
The man spat a long stream of tobacco juice onto the ground and stared at her.
“His name is Joe Miller,” she told him.
“Half the guys here are called Joe. I don't know about no Miller.”
“He's not very tall and not very short. He's a bit round. But not fat. He's got dark hair and brown eyes⦔
“Hey, fellas!” When the man yelled, more hoboes emerged from nowhere. One of them almost tripped as he came toward them. They shuffled to stand around her in a circle.
“I'mâ¦I'm justâ¦I just wanted to know if you have seen my father,” said Elsie.
“His name is Joe,” said the first hobo. One side of his lip slid up higher than the other in an unfriendly smile.
Another man laughed, a harsh laugh that turned into a cough. He spat onto the ground and coughed again. “Joe! That should make it easy,” he said.
When Elsie looked closer, she could see that one of the hoboes wasn't much older than Scoop. Even though his skin was not as bristly as the others', his face was just as red and chapped. Freckles ran all the way up his forehead and disappeared under his cap. He scratched his neck and stared back at her. “Seen enough?” he asked.
“I'm looking for my father.” Her voice sounded thin.
“If he's here, he prob'ly don't want to be found,” said the man who had tripped. He picked up a plank from the ground and leaned on it. “And if he's not here, you're in the wrong place.” Before Elsie could step away, he reached forward and flipped her hat off her head.
“Hey!” She barely managed to grab it before the man did. She grazed her fingers as she pulled it up off the ground, getting a whiff of his dirty body as she did so. She turned her hat around in her hand to straighten it. She smacked it hard against her coat to get the dust off, then pulled it down hard on her head. “That's mine,” she said, almost to herself.
The men still stood around her, not speaking.
Elsie's chest felt as if it had filled with ice. She knew she would cry if she stayed here much longer, surrounded by these dirty, unfriendly men. She didn't like the look in their eyes. Or their smiles. And she didn't like their silence.
She was just wondering how she was going to get away, when, in the distance, a man walked between the rows of shacks, pulling a dog along on a rope.
“Dog Bob!” Elsie took one step to run toward the man. “Hey! That's my dog!”
The other hoboes shuffled together to form a wall of smelly tweed and stained raincoats.
Peering between them, she could see Dog Bob pulling against the rope. “Here, boy!”
He pulled even harder when he heard her voice. But the man holding him yanked on the rope until Dog Bob's front legs were off the ground, his legs pedaling the air as if he was riding a bicycle.
Elsie looked from her dog to the men standing around her. Staring down at her, they eased closer together, not saying anything, making a barrier between Elsie and Dog Bob's kidnapper. Their hands were in their pockets, their chins tucked down into their chests.
“Give him back.” Elsie's voice wobbled. “That's my dog.”
One of the men leaned forward and stared right into her eyes. “Says who?” He spat. She stepped back as a slimy gob landed on her jacket. She wanted to say,
Elsie says. That's who
. That's what Scoop would have done.
The hobo who spat was still peering at her. And the others weren't lifting a finger to help her. She felt very small, and her legs were starting to get shaky. She took one step backward.
The men took one step toward her.
As Elsie took another step back, her foot caught on a chunk of stone. She felt her ankle twist as she stumbled to catch her balance.
The men stepped forward again. Bigger steps this time.
Elsie could smell smoke and sweat and a stink like rotten potatoes. In a sliver of light between the hoboes, she saw Dog Bob being hauled away by the man. But she felt frozen in place, with a chill creeping down her legs and up into her collar. The Reverend had been right. She shouldn't have come. With or without Scoop.
But then she thought of Dog Bob, always running back and forth trying to keep track of everyone. It was her turn now. If she didn't get Dog Bob back now, he might never come home. And what would she tell Uncle Dannell?
Elsie longed to be holding her uncle's meaty hand. She wished Scoop was here, jumping up and down with bright ideas and daring plans. But there was only her, with a bunch of dirty men staring at her, waiting to see what she would do next.
When a car horn suddenly blared from the road behind her, it was as if someone had poked Elsie with a sharp stick. “I want my dog!” she yelled. She looked into each man's face and hung onto her jacket lapels with both hands as she tried to make herself bigger and taller. “That's my dog. That's Dog Bob. And I want him back.”
One man stepped away from the group. Another looked down at the ground and scuffed at something that wasn't there. The one who reminded her of Scoop muttered, “She's just a kid.”
Behind them, Dog Bob was still pulling on the rope, his feet scrabbling in the dirt. He whimpered, and his nose was glistening.
Elsie used her elbows as if they were pointy and dangerous, like Scoop's, to shove past the men. She was surprised when they shifted away to make room for her. As she kept walking on her cold shaky legs, she sensed the men standing behind her, watching to see what she would do.
As Elsie got closer, the man holding Dog Bob's rope did not let go. But he didn't keep dragging the dog away either. He just stood there, looking over her head at the men behind her. She ran toward Dog Bob and dropped to her knees, gathering him into her arms. He trembled as he lapped her neck with his tongue.
“You are
my
dog,” she said into his warm side. “And I won't go home without you.” Then she lifted her head and looked at the hobo holding him. “This is
my
dog. I want him back.” The man only had one eye. The other was just a big bulgy lump under a flap of skin that went all the way down to his nose. Elsie looked away from him to where the men all stood in a silent huddle, waiting for her to do something.
She rubbed her chin in Dog Bob's bristly fur. Then she lifted her face and heard herself say something that Nan said all the time. Something she had never imagined coming out of her own mouth. “You should be ashamed of yourself,” she told the man.
His good eye blinked.
Elsie liked the voice that had come out of her mouth. She sounded like someone who meant business. Even Dog Bob was listening to her, his head cocked to one side. “You should be ashamed of yourselves,” she said again. This time when she yanked on the rope, it came loose in her hand.
The one-eyed man who'd stolen Dog Bob stepped back. He looked at the other men, who were all looking anywhere but at her, lighting cigarettes, mumbling to each other.
As Elsie stood up, Dog Bob was so close to her, she could feel his warmth against her leg. Holding his rope tightly in one hand, she turned to the men who were slowly moving away, their backs to her now, as if nothing had happened. “You should ALL be ashamed of yourselves!” she yelled. Her voice echoed through the alleys between the shacks.
These men, with their stubbly cheeks and grubby hands and trembling chins and shiny eyes, were all the things that the Reverend had said they were. They were angry and defeated and desperate. And the shantytown was not a safe place to be. She should not be here.
Elsie knew it now.
She held on tightly to Dog Bob's rope as she headed back toward the railroad tracks and the street beyond. If she let go, he would follow her home to make sure she got there safe and sound, because that was his job. He was so close to her, he could almost have shared her shoes.
But Elsie held on tight to her uncle's dog as she stumbled away on her rubbery legs.
Scoop had once told her that heroes show they are brave by walking away from their enemies without looking back. But Elsie knew the reason heroes don't look back
â
it's because they don't want anyone to know they're afraid.
She was so scared, she couldn't stop her teeth chattering.
But she had saved Dog Bob from the one-eyed man. She had got herself out of the scrape. And she still had her hat.
Elsie kept her back straight as, very carefully, watching every step, she put one foot in front of the other until she knew the shantytown was well behind her. Until she and Dog Bob had crossed the railway tracks. Until they had made it back onto the other side of the road.
Her breath was so hot in her chest, it felt like knives poking at her. Her ankle hummed with pain. Holding the rope tightly, with Dog Bob trotting along beside her, Elsie started toward home.
Because even heroes knew that home is always the safest place to be.
S
till panting, her foot aching, Elsie slowed down to walk the last few blocks. She rubbed the front of her coat with a piece of newspaper she found stuck to a fence, and stamped her feet to get the shantytown dust off her boots.
When she got home, it was not even lunchtime. On the table were two soup bowls and spoons, with a cup and saucer at Nan's place and a glass at Elsie's. She gave Nan a long hug and waited until her grandmother let go of her before she stepped out of her arms.
“You sickening for something?” Nan touched Elsie's cheek with the back of her hand. “You are a bit flushed.”
“I'm fine,” she said. But she wasn't. She felt like a slice of bread with the middle chewed out. All empty and hollow, with her crust folding in on her.
“There's soup,” said Nan. “But perhaps you should have some corn mush and hot milk.” This was her cure for almost everything. Usually Elsie hated the feel of gummy cornmeal behind her teeth, the wrinkled skin on the warm milk. But suddenly that's what she wanted more than almost anything in the world. “Do we have currants?” she asked. “Can I have it in bed?”
Nan stood back and set her fists against her waist. “You do look peaky. You and Scoop been up to something?”
“No.” It was the truth. Elsie had been up to something. But not Scoop.
“I thought he was with you. He gone home already?” asked Nan.
“Mmm.” That wasn't a lie either. He must be at home. Or he'd have been at the shantytown with her.
Nan patted her apron. “All right then. You go tuck down. I'll be in with your bowl in a bit.”
On her way to the bedroom, Elsie bent down to put her hand against Dog Bob's side. His heart thumped against her fingers, and his coat was damp and twitchy. He gave her a long, doggy look and dropped his head onto his front paws.
Elsie shucked off her coat and laid it across the foot of her bed. She took off her pants and sweater and climbed into bed in her underwear and socks. She pulled the cold covers up to her chin. At night, the room was almost cozy with the flowery curtain down the middle of the room and the lantern on the dresser. In the daytime, with only two grimy windows, it was always dark and chilly.
From the kitchen she could hear the rasp of the pan across the stove, the shuffle of cornmeal as Nan scooped it out of the bag. She listened to the rattle of crockery and the rustling paper as Nan rooted around for some currants.
Elsie shivered, wondering if she would ever be warm again.
When she woke up, Elsie could just make out the bowl on the chair next to the bed. She pulled on her sweater and settled the bowl in the blankets between her legs. By now it was just one cold soggy lump, with a scattering of currants dotted through it like bugs.