The Ghost of Tillie Jean Cassaway (6 page)

Then he heard the dog. It was standing several yards from him, fangs bared, growling deep in its throat. It started toward him.

Willy grabbed a low-hanging limb of a tree and swung himself up, but not before the dog took a piece out of his pant leg. “Get away, you monster!” he shouted. To his astonishment, the dog stopped barking and looked around him. His body became rigid, his ears pointed upward, his nose quivered. Then he began barking loudly.

A man's voice came from somewhere up the tracks. “I see you, you mangy critter, I'll git you this time!” A shot rang out. The dog yelped and slunk away.

Through the leaves, Willy saw a man coming toward him. The rifle in his arms was aimed at the retreating dog. But the dog had disappeared into the mist. Willy, holding his breath, watched as the man turned and walked back down the hill and up the tracks toward Mauvy. He was sure it was old man Craig and that he had wounded the dog.

The sun came out suddenly and sparkled on the river and shone through pockets of mist.

Willy could now see the girl—she was on the bridge! “She must be crazy,” he thought. He climbed down and stood by the tree. “Why is she going to the island?” he asked himself. “It ain't safe and old man Craig shoots at anything he don't like. He'll likely come back and catch her over there. Somebody should warn her.”

He wondered where the girl came from. Holmans Hollow, maybe. Except, if so, she should have been in school and he had never seen her. He decided to go and tell her about old man Craig, to warn her.

The rope bridge hung between two wooden platforms that raised its ends several feet above the banks and kept its dipping center well above water even when the river was high. Bushes and trees and tall grass nearly hid the steep wooden steps which someone had tried to block with fencing. Willy had no trouble getting around it.

He stepped cautiously onto the rotting wooden boards of the bridge and held onto the rope sides. The frayed ropes attaching the bridge to the wooden posts groaned as the bridge swayed with his weight. He moved slowly, lurching at first, then more steadily. The movement under his feet made him dizzy. With every step, the bridge would move, not just from side to side, but in a diagonal way. The water below looked dark and deep. How much weight would make those old boards break?

After what seemed hours, Willy reached the middle and there looked all around. Never had he seen such beautiful views of the Willow River. If he could just stay where he was, in the warm sun … not go forward, not back … the bridge rocked him gently.

When the bridge was nearly still, he moved on, and climbed down the rickety steps to Craig's Island. He followed a path through the woods from the bridge toward the center of the island and soon came to a clearing. In its center was a substantial looking two-story house made of chinked logs. Chickens clucked in the yard and in a large vegetable garden. There was a corn patch. The front door of the house was open. Standing in the dark frame was the girl, solemnly looking at him.

CHAPTER NINE

“You ought not have come here!” she called to Willy.

“What are you doing here?” asked Willy.

“I live here.”

“Craig don't have no kids,” said Willy. “Where's your mom and dad?”

“Don't got none.”

“Never seen you at school.”

“Don't go.”

“Why not?”

“Because. I have a book, though. Want to see it?” She ran into the house.

“Hey, come back!” yelled Willy.

“Come!” she called.

Willy looked into the open door. A dark, musty, smelly room contained a fireplace, a large, round table, a rocking chair, and piled-up newspapers.

“Hey!” Willy called to the girl. “Where are you?”

“Up here! Come on!”

Willy walked through the room to a hall where stairs led upward. “Come down!” he called.

“Come up!”

Willy climbed the stairs.

“In here!” The girl was standing in a doorway, beckoning him.

“I want to show you my book,” she said as he came near.

The room they entered was large, with a high, rising ceiling, and bare of furniture except for one corner. This the girl had made hers. On the floor was a small mattress, covered with a new-looking yellow bedspread and beside it was a brown paper bag of clothing. Placed neatly on the floor at the end of the mattress was a pair of black patent leather shoes. They looked unworn.

“I don't have morning glories here,” she said. She pointed to a large book on the bed. It was propped up against the wall and opened to a picture. “There's my book. It's
Hurlbut's Story of the Bible.”
She picked it up. “My mom used to read me out of it.”

“Where is your mom now?”

“She died,” said the girl, holding the book tightly to her chest.

“Oh,” said Willy softly. The girl was looking closely at the book now, holding it open to the picture.

“Can you read it?” he asked.

She didn't answer for a moment and looked puzzled. Finally she said, “Well, there's some places in it I know what it says because Mom used to read me it. Some words I can read. Not many, though. Can you read?”

“Sure,” said Willy.

“This is a good story,” she said, thrusting the book toward him. “Will you read it to me now?”

“Well,” said Willy doubtfully, “I ain't tried to read
all
the Bible.” He knew the Bible was full of big, strange words and always hated when he had to read from it in Sunday school.

“It's about these three guys who got put in a fiery furnace but they didn't burn. They was supposed to bow down and worship this golden image, see, but they wouldn't, so the king threw them in the furnace. See?” She pointed to the picture. “They ain't on fire.”

Willy began to read:

King Neb … Nebu.…

He stumbled over the long name.

“King Nebuchadnezzar,” said the girl. Willy tried again.

King Nebuchadnezzar stood in front of the furnace and looked into the open door. As he looked he was filled with wonder at what he saw; and he said to the nobles around him, “Did we not throw three men bound into the fire? How is it then that I see four men loose, walking in the furnace, and the fourth man looks as though he were a son of the gods?”

The king came near to the door of the furnace as the fire became lower, and he called out to the three men within it:

“Shad … Shad.…”

“Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego!” the girl said, pronouncing each name with delight.

Willy continued reading:

“Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, ye who serve the most high God, come out of the fire and come to me.”

They came out and stood before the king in sight of all the princes and nobles and rulers; and everyone could see that they were alive. Their garments had not been scorched nor their hair singed, nor was there even the smell of fire upon them. The king, Neb.…

“Nebuchadnezzar,” prompted the girl. Willy read on:

The king, Nebuchadnezzar, said before all his rulers:

“Blessed be the God of these men, who has sent his angel and has saved their lives. I make a law that no man in all my kingdoms shall say a word against their God, for there is no other god who can save in this manner.”

“Stop there,” said the girl. “That's all the good part.

“You sure know a lot of big words not to be able to read,” said Willy.

“That's because I made Momma read it to me so many times. I always wanted to know about the picture of the people in the fiery furnace. Will you teach me to read?”

“Uh, I ain't good at teaching myself,” said Willy. “My sister, Hilary, likes to read. She could teach you. I gotta go now. Mr. Craig don't like kids on his property.”

“I know. He don't want me to see nobody. But you already seen me. He ain't mean, though. He won't hurt you.”

“Oh, no? That crazy dog that hangs around the house where we were? It chased me up a tree. Craig didn't see me but he shot the dog.”

“What?” she almost screamed the word.

“He didn't kill it, it slunk off. But he got it and I hate to think of what he'd done if he'd seen me. And I see him now! Look!”

They could see the man out the window, coming toward the house, gun in hand.

“Tillie Jean!” the man was calling the girl in a rasping voice.

“I'll show you how to get out,” said the girl. She disappeared for a moment, then came tearing down the steps carrying the paper bag with her clothes. “I'm gonna run away,” she said. “This way!” She led Willy through the house to the kitchen but then stopped. “My shoes! My book! I have to get them!” She opened a door in the kitchen which revealed another stairway, narrow and dark. “Come on up or he'll see you!”

Morton Craig was already in the front door. “Tillie Jean!” he yelled. “Ya left the door open and the chickens are coming in!” They heard him stomping around and muttering, “Come here, you fool critter, I'll wring your neck. Get outa here. Shoo!”

Willy followed the girl upstairs again. “Shhh!” she warned. “He thinks just I'm here.” She tiptoed to her room and got her black patent leather shoes and put them in her bag, and put her book under her arm.

“Tillie Jean!” the man called, sounding angry. They heard his footsteps on the stairs they had just come up.

“Shhh!” Tillie Jean beckoned Willy to follow her. The two tiptoed down the front stairs and ran out the door, Tillie Jean leading the way.

“Tillie Jean, come back here!” called the man.

“He's seen us!” she said. “Hurry!”

“Tillie Jean! You boy! Stop!” A shot rang out. Willy crouched low and ran faster, heading for the trees and the bridge. Tillie Jean stopped, stood facing the old man and said, “I ain't coming back 'cause you shot my dog!” Then she tore after Willy.

Morton Craig lowered his rifle a moment and said to himself, “She's run off with a miserable trespassin' boy.” He took off after them, running easily.

“Maybe we should stop and talk to him,” said Willy, slowing up a little and looking back. Craig had raised his gun again and was aiming toward them. Another shot rang out. They speeded up and headed for the bridge, keeping close to the trees.

The sky, which had been white and brilliant with sun moments earlier, was now grey. A black cloud hung over the river. Morton Craig stopped his pursuit and walked to a place where he could see the bridge.

“Them crazy dumbbell kids,” he mumbled. “And there's rocks down there below.” He ran toward the place he kept his boat.

Willy was in front, the girl behind him. “We'd better not both go at once,” said the boy. “Here; I'll carry the book.”

“He'll catch us if we don't,” said the girl, handing the book to him. “He kin take his boat.”

“We should have took it,” said Willy, looking down at the sharp rocks in the dark water below. The wind made the bridge sway much more than it had when he'd come across before. They crossed quietly, inching their way, shutting their eyes as the wind blew the bridge to one side. Suddenly the girl screamed, “Help, I'll go through!” A board had given way under her feet and she'd gone down, one leg dangling below the bridge. Willy grabbed her and helped pull her up, but the paper bag which contained nearly all her possessions slipped from her fingers and dropped to the river.

“My shoes!” the girl cried as they moved forward, and she watched her clothes float down the river.

The wind died down and they concentrated on getting the rest of the way across without falling through rotten boards. Willy kept holding his breath—he had the feeling that as long as he didn't breathe the ropes wouldn't break. Perhaps it helped, because they made it across in spite of dreadful groans of the twisted, threadbare ropes.

Once on the ground, the girl stood watching as her only dress was carried out of sight by the swift current. Her shoes had already sunk.