The Curse of the Buttons (14 page)

He opened the door and ran up to his old room and back down. The house was empty. He stood just inside the door, watching as Barfoot pulled the cart up to the porch. “Hurry, hurry,” Ike urged quietly.

Albirdie slid off Barfoot and stood behind the cart. She shrugged at Ike. He nodded. She threw back the blanket. David slid past her out of the cart, then put Johnny on his back. He ran into the house and followed Ike up the stairs and into his room.

Ike closed the door and leaned against it, holding a finger up to his mouth.

Johnny whimpered and David set him down.

Ike took a step toward the window. A floorboard creaked and he froze, then he started again, cautiously. Aunt Sue was at the yard table with Susannah. Barfoot wandered into view, pulling the empty cart. No Albirdie.

“Barfoot!” Susannah exclaimed. “You old fool.”

“How in Sam Hill did that old nag wander off with the cart?” said Aunt Sue.

“He’s a he,” Ike whispered as he pulled the window mostly shut.

The room was hot, and with the window closed, it would be stifling.

David set Johnny on the bed and sat next to him.

“This is all yours?” Johnny ventured.

“Mine and my brothers’,” Ike said quietly.

Johnny curled up in a ball, one hand on his reddened foot. David rubbed his back. Johnny took a few long shuddering breaths, then fell asleep. David sat upright, staring past Ike.

Ike peered out the window again, then sat on the floor underneath it, watching David.

“You can sleep, too, if you’re tired,” Ike said.

David shook his head.

Ike glanced outside, then stepped gingerly over to his shelf, where he picked up the picture of the men, set it down, laid his slingshot next to it, and ran his hand along the rest of the empty surface. He opened the door a crack, listened, then closed it and sat on the floor, leaning back. How could David be so perfectly still when Ike’s insides were scooting around like river bugs?

“David,” he said. “Are you afraid?”

David looked at Ike sharply and shook his head.

Ike picked at the scab on his arm. He picked at the dirt under his fingernails. He watched David.

“Why did you leave where you were?” Ike asked. “Isn’t it dangerous?”

“Of course it’s dangerous. But staying? We couldn’t stay. Our master was going to sell us farther south. Mama heard him say so. Already sent my daddy south.”

“Mine is south, too.”

“That’s different,” said David. “Your daddy can come back.”

They listened to the little girls sing “Ring Around the Rosy” in the backyard.

“All fall down,” David whispered along with them as their squeals erupted.

“What difference does south or farther south make?” Ike asked.

“Farther south . . .”

Johnny rustled.

“I’m not going to say in front of Johnny,” said David. “Even if he is sleeping.”

“How long have you been traveling?”

David paused. “We left thirteen days ago.”

Ike whistled. “That’s as long as my brothers have been gone. Where do you sleep?”

“Outside, mostly, in fields, empty barns. We stayed two nights in the cellar of someone’s house. It was filled with apples and potatoes. They let us take some when we left, but we ate ’em all.”

“How did you get separated from your mother?”

“Was a man said he was helping us. Said we’d be less conspicuous traveling separate for a day. His wife took our mother, and we were supposed to meet again in the morning, but it started to feel like they were really going to turn us in. Me and Johnny, we ran. I hoped our mother did, too. Sometimes it’s hard to tell who you can trust. Who you can’t. Sometimes you just get a feeling.”

They sat for a bit.

“Have you helped before?” David asked.

Like this?
“No,” said Ike.

“How did you know what to do?”

“I didn’t. I don’t.”

It was hot and Ike’s shirt clung to him. When Aunt Betsy called for the girls to go inside, he raised the window again and sat under his shelf, hoping for a breeze to come through.

They sat silently for a long time then. Ike’s own eyes drooped. He caught his head as it fell to his chest. He looked up at David, who was still awake, but taking long blinks.

“Who’s that?” David asked, pointing above Ike’s head.

“The Button men.” Ike brought the picture over and sat on the bed next to David. “My dad, Uncle Hugh, Uncle Oscar, Uncle Palmer.”

“They all went south?”

“Yes. Well, except Palmer.”

“Where’s Palmer?”

“California. Well, he
was
there, until he drowned.”

“How’d he get to California?”

“It’s a long story.”

“OK.”

Ike lay back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling.

“There were four brothers,” Ike began. “Hugh, Oscar, Dan, and the youngest, the greatest of the Buttons, Palmer. He was everyone’s favorite. When Palmer told a story, babies laughed and grown men cried. He could break the wildest horse and go four days without food or water. His favorite food was pie. He’d have eaten skunk if it were baked in a flaky crust.”

He looked over. David was smiling.

“What else?” David asked.

“Well, the family was traveling. All together, from Illinois, heading west to find their fortune. I wasn’t born, or maybe I was, but I don’t remember. The Button brothers and their brides and the first children to be born stopped in Keokuk. It was June, and the strawberries were ripe. There was an establishment on Main that’s not there anymore. They made every kind of pie. Strawberry pie, cheese pie, meat pie.”

“Skunk pie?”

Ike laughed. “Probably,” he said. “So, here was this town with a river and commerce and pie. The family made friends with a river captain.”

“Hinman?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“They were just going to make Keokuk a stop on their way farther west. But the river captain had them do some work. Various jobs around town, as he had various holdings. And when they were just about to move on, one night, their horses were stolen, every one, and their wagons.”

“Did they find them?”

“No,” said Ike. “
It’s a sign,
they said.
This is where we should stay.
And so they stayed.”

“Except Palmer,” said David.

“Except Palmer. Palmer got restless. Word came of gold in California. It was everywhere. A fellow could dip his cup in a stream and bring it up filled with glittering gold.”

David whistled softly.

“Palmer didn’t have a horse, so he found one roaming the street one night.”

“Stole it,” David interjected.

“No. I don’t think he stole it. Borrowed it, maybe, but the point is, he went west. He met up with men who showed him where to find the gold. He sent some back with a Keokuk man once, who’d been out there and was coming back to marry his gal. This man said Palmer had lots more. Lots more. But there was a fight and, well, seems all the gold in his pockets weighed Palmer down, and he drowned.”

The boys lay there listening to Johnny breathing.

“Palmer,” David scoffed. “You’ve got it all wrong about Palmer.”

Ike sat up. “What do you mean?”

“Your dad, your uncles, they had you and your brothers and sisters and cousins, right?”

“Yes, well, some of us, anyhow. The little girls weren’t born yet.”

“They got you all lined up in these houses, right?”

“At first just one house, but then, yes.”

“So they stuck it out with the family, stayed close, and he just left them all to go off on an adventure?”

“That’s not how it was,” said Ike. But as he spoke, the place he’d had Palmer in his head shifted. “Palmer was always the one to point everyone in the right direction.”

“Sounds like he pointed himself in the right direction and left everyone else to fend for themselves.”

“He did send gold. And a carved bear, the symbol of California, which I had and lost. I must have told the story wrong. Palmer’s like . . . well, he’s like me.”

“No, he wasn’t,” said David. “You are here with Albirdie, and your mom and sisters. And us. Johnny and me. You could be turning us in for a big fat reward, but you didn’t. You aren’t.”

Ike nodded slowly.

“You aren’t, right?”

“No!” said Ike. “I’m not.”

“OK, then.”

David lay down next to Johnny. “I may close my eyes now for just a minute. But I won’t be asleep.”

“Me too,” said Ike. He closed his eyes. “I won’t be asleep.” He listened to Johnny’s deep, nasally breathing, and David’s quick, shallow breaths. He thought about Leon and Jim and tried to imagine them here, now. He saw them as they’d been when he was small like Johnny. Jim was carrying Ike on his back. Ike was peering over Jim’s shoulder at . . .

“Isaac Button!”

Ike woke with a start. His mother stood in the wide-open door.

David sat up and grabbed Johnny, who cried out.

“Shh!” Ike and David said at once.

Mother stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.

“Isaac!” she said sharply.

“I . . . They . . .”

Ike reached under the bed and pulled out the poster from the day with Albirdie. She skimmed it, then looked at David and Johnny in alarm.

“Is this Albirdie’s doing?” she said.

“No,” said Ike. “Mine.”

They all watched Mother. She furrowed her brow, walked to the window, and came back to stand in front of them. She glanced at the poster again and reached out her hand to David. “David,” she said. “Pleased to know you. And John?” Johnny nodded.

Ike told her about Albirdie and the note and Mr. Jenkins.

“I see,” she said. She chewed her lip, studying them. “You boys must be hungry.”

“Yoo-hoo!” A voice came up the stairs just then. “Olive, are you up there?”

“The Aid Society will be here soon,” said Ike’s mother. “Hm.”

She opened the door. “Be right down!”

She looked out the window and back at Ike and David and Johnny.

“Seems we have a situation on our hands.”

The door opened then, and Aunt Sue burst in with Susannah and Aunt Betsy.

“They’ll be here any minute, Olive, and —”

“Close the door, Sue,” said Ike’s mother. The women and Susannah stared.

“Sue, don’t gape. Go warm a plate of food. Susannah, bring water and a washrag.”

“But I . . .” Sue gasped. “Well, I never.”

“Olive’s right, Sue,” said Aunt Betsy. “Just do what she says. I’ll go cancel the meeting.”

“Say I’m feeling delicate,” said Olive. “The ladies will believe that. Besides, Mrs. Hinman will rather have the time with her prodigal sons than the likes of us. We can’t move them until after dark.”

“Think we can keep it from the little girls that long? They’ll tell everyone they see,” said Susannah, returning with the water.

“Right,” said Ike’s mother. “Sue, don’t you have a basket of buttons that need sorting? Set them up at the yard table. That’ll buy us a little time.”

Aunt Sue and Aunt Betsy scurried out. Susannah knelt by the boys and studied their bruised and cracked feet.

Johnny showed her his swollen foot. “I stepped on something I oughtn’ta,” he said.

“I know what to do,” Susannah said. “Wait here.” She came back with her nursing book and dipped a clean rag in the pan of water.

“Now, Ike,” said his mother. “Suppose you come downstairs and tell me what’s going on.”

When Ike returned, David and Johnny were finishing the food Aunt Sue had brought up for them. “What now?” asked David.

“Are we going to see Mama today?” Johnny asked.

“I don’t know,” said Ike. “I hope so. I think so.”

There was a swift knock at the door, and Albirdie came in.

“You’ll have to eat quickly,” she said. “We’re going to have to try to get you to Mr. Jenkins.”

“But it’s not dark yet,” said Ike. “We should wait until dark.”

“It’s the men from Missouri,” she said. “They were at the river with Mr. Cutts. Milton and Morris saw us there with the cart and told, Ike. My father heard and sent me here to warn you. We have to move.”

David and Johnny huddled on the sofa in fresh clothes while three mothers, Ike, Albirdie, Susannah, and a flock of little girls buzzed around them. The drapes were drawn. Everyone talked in hushed tones. Fresh straw under the carpet rustled with every footfall.

“Susannah,” Aunt Betsy ordered. “Pack the boys a picnic lunch. A big one.”

“Ike,” said Mother. “Give your shoes to David, and find him a pair of socks. Jane, help Johnny put on these hand-me-downs.”

Johnny winced as Jane helped him pull a shoe over his swollen foot.

“Let’s not tie this one,” she said.

“Everyone knows what they are to do?” said Mother.

They all nodded.

“Good. We’d better get started.”

Ike and Susannah went to the lean-to and hitched Barfoot to the cart.

Susannah threw in more straw while Ike soothed Barfoot. They led him close to the back porch.

Albirdie kept lookout at the alley, while LouLou and Jane watched around the side of the house. Aunt Sue stood on the porch, holding the babies.

Susannah and Mother climbed onto the bench seat while Ike stood behind the cart, watching the Hinmans’ yard for any sign of movement.