The Ordways (27 page)

“They stole my thunder, so now I hope they won't mind if I take a little of theirs.

“Folks, you won't object, I'm sure,” he continued after a moment, “to giving a few minutes of your time to a poor unhappy father whose little son has been stolen from him, and who comes to you for help in finding him.”

A hush fell. Sensing the change of mood, the mayor signaled to the sheriff's men. They halted.

My grandfather introduced himself, spelling his name and Vinson's, who, however, as he pointed out, was probably going under an alias now, and briefly told his story, winding up with, “From that day to this nothing has been seen or heard of them. The law” (here a tinge of bitterness colored his tone), “the law traced them as far as Bogota—ten miles from home—and no further. I'm hoping, with the help of good people like yourselves, to pick up where the law left off.” A murmur of approval greeted this. The crowd was composed of country men like himself.

He knew only that they had come this way, headed west. He described the team, and Rex, and listed the occupants of the wagon. Unfortunately he had no photograph to show them of the man he was after. What was even more unfortunate, he himself was a tongue-tied sort of fellow with no gift of words and unable to supply the lack with any description. About all he could tell them was that Will Vinson was sandy-haired, medium-complected, had a slow grin, was sort of popeyed, and when he swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbed up and down very noticeably. “In short, to look at him, just the last man alive that you would ever expect to do such a thing. Which just goes to show you can never trust appearances.”

He did have a photograph of his little boy (he took it from his pocket, and though it was only two by three inches, the entire audience of fifteen hundred craned forward for a look) and would be glad to show it to anyone who thought they might know where to find the folks he was after. My grandfather looked down at the picture and momentarily fell silent. He swallowed and shook his head, and the audience exhaled a sigh. His voice when he spoke again was husky.

“I know,” he said, “that you folks will help me all you can, and that a father's everlasting gratitude will be all the reward that any of you would ask. However, I will insist on showing my appreciation. I am not a rich man, and needless to say, I can't put out my hard-earned money just to have somebody say, why yes, I recall some folks that looked a lot like that here on the street in town one day six months ago. But for a lead that really puts me on the trail…” Well, it was hard for a man to put a dollar sign on his own son. All he would say was, that for the man who helped him get back his boy he was going to want to do more than just shake his hand and say thank you.

Now he realized that they did not know him, and maybe somewhere among them some man was saying to himself right this minute, well, well! So that new neighbor of mine down the road is this Vinson, and that one little boy he calls Ned is not his! You'd never know: he couldn't be a better father to the child if he was his own. How was anybody to know that Vinson wasn't doing the boy a kindness? Maybe this Ordway had mistreated his boy. Who knew this Ordway? Here he was putting on a big show of wanting his boy back, but maybe what he wanted was just to lay hands on him again? Well, he was talking now to that man, if such a one there was. “I admit,” he said, “that I was not always as good a father to my boy as I might have been. But I ask you, what man can honestly say otherwise? I believe I can truthfully say I was never a bad father. And I'll be a better one if I ever get him back. A thing like this teaches you a lot.” He looked down again at the photograph in his hand, and then, looking up, said, “Did I say if? I mean
when
I get him back!” This earned him cheers.

It struck him then that by way of conclusion he ought—in as delicate a way as possible, so as not to impute cowardice—to direct a word to any in the audience who, having the information he sought, might wish to tell him, yet hesitate to come forward out of fear. He said, “By way of conclusion, I'd like to say just a word to anyone in the audience who might have the information I'm seeking, and wish to tell me, yet hesitate for fear of Will Vinson taking his revenge. Don't. I guarantee that you will have nothing to fear.”

He meant to go on and explain what a mild-mannered fellow Will really was, but that was as far as he got. They cheered him wildly, and among their mingled cries the following could be made out:

“Make him eat lead, shorty! Sic him, big boy! We're with you, fellow! You show him, Tex! Make him wish he never was born! You're the one to do it, shorty-boy! Hanging's too good for him! Yea, Clarksville!”

It did not seem the moment for pointing out that what he was interested in, really, was recovering his boy, and that his pleasure in having him back would not be greatly enhanced by the knowledge that he had orphaned Will Vinson's three to get him.

In taking his leave my grandfather apologized again to the crowd, to the candidates, the mayor, and the Reverend Clevenger for butting in. He said he was sure they all had troubles enough of their own without listening to his. He announced that he was in rooms at the Ben Milam Hotel, and vowed that all communications would be held in strictest confidence. Then to loud and prolonged applause he descended the steps and made his way through the crowd, which parted for his passage.

“Mister! Hey, mister! You the man that's looking for your little boy?”

It was a freckle-faced twelve-year-old in overalls and a denim jumper, panting from his run and from excitement. His breathlessness was catching. My grandfather nodded. The boy hopped off the curb into the gutter, poked a thumb and forefinger into his mouth, and meanwhile beckoning with his free arm to someone back down the street, gave out with a long shrill whistle. “Mister,” he said, “am I glad to've found you! We must've been just missing each other going and coming—you looking for your boy and us looking for you.” He beckoned again more imperatively, and my grandfather saw coming down the street a second boy leading, or rather dragging, a small tot.

This little boy was shaped like a bowling pin and not much bigger, with sloping narrow shoulders down which the suspenders of his overlarge, obviously hand-me-down overalls were slipping, his feet lost beneath the cuffs of his trousers. He was not Ned Ordway—foolish to imagine that he might be. Yet he was about Ned's size and equally tow-headed, and if not Ned, he was still a lost boy, and that was enough to melt my grandfather's heart. He was not his, but whose he was was anybody's guess. His face was swollen from crying and so streaked and smudged with tearstains that his own mother would not have known him. He had wet his pants, that you could see now, from fright no doubt, as he was past the age of training, and had fallen down and torn them at both knees, torn the knees too, evidently, for about them, moving along with him in a little knee-high cloud, hovered a swarm of gnats. He had cried himself into the hiccups, his head bobbing regularly and his shoulders heaving. His nose was running. And that was near enough for my grandfather to have to say, “Not mine, boys.” Looks of such keen disappointment appeared on their faces that he added, “Sorry. And thanks anyhow.”

The two of them looked blankly at one another, then together looked down at their small unwanted ward. One of them said, “Are you sure, mister?”

My grandfather could not help smiling. Then a serious thought disturbed his mind. If ever he should see Ned again, would he recognize him? It was six months already, and might be that long again. And they changed so rapidly at that age. And then a still more disturbing thought: would Ned recognize him?

“Well! Now what are we going to do with him?” said one brother to the other.

“We've just got to leave him here, that's all there is to it. That's how we found him, and we got to go.”

“Aw, you can't do that, Bubba,” said the other.

“No? Then maybe you've got a better idea? You're the one that found him.”

This one looked down at the boy, lifted his shoulders, blew out his cheeks, and said, “I'm beginning to wonder if he has got any folks.”

“What's his name?” asked my grandfather.

“Sounds like he's trying to say Wayne.”

“Wayne what?”

“That's all he can say. I guess that's all he knows yet.”

Oh, dear Lord! Here was another something that he had not thought of. Had Ned known anything more than “Ned”?

“He could say more if he wanted to,” said the other brother. “He's just being contrary. Ain't you, boy? What's the matter with you? Cat got your tongue?”

“What would you do with him, mister, if you was us?”

“I told you what we're gonna do. We're gonna just leave him like we found him. We done our best and now we got to get—”

“Aw, you can't do that,” said my grandfather.

“Mister, that boy ain't nothing to me. I already done give up most of my fun in town for him. Doggone if I'm gonna spend the rest of the day dragging him around.”

“Didn't anybody know whose he was? Whereabouts did you all find him?”

“We found him in a back alley off the square, wandering around lost and bawling his eyes out.”

“Oh, poor little tyke!” my grandfather exclaimed. His pitying tone caused the child to burst out in a loud wail, terminated by a violent hiccup.

“Ssh! Hush up,” said Bubba. “Ain't nobody hurting you. Buster, hush him, can't you?”

“Me? I can't do nothing with him. Besides, it wasn't me that got him going.”

This had a barb on it, which my grandfather felt. He squatted and drew the sniveling child to him. “All right. All right, ole hoss,” he said. “Don't cry any more, hear?” He took the child's thumb from his mouth (it was quite pickled—colorless and shriveled) and right back in again it went, as if on a spring, as soon as he let go of it. He was coming round, though he still glowered up at my grandfather from under his brows, or where brows ought to have been, mistrustful, skitterish. “There now. That's better. Now let's tidy you up a bit. My gracious, just look at you! You're about the blackest white boy I ever saw.” He sucked a corner of his bandana and gave the child's face a spitbath. “Why, if we was to ask anybody if you belonged to them they would be downright insulted.” He succeeded in whitening the boy as far back as the ears; the hands would have to stay as they were: black as the paws of a coon. He held his bandana to his nose and commanded him to blow. He was a farm child, of that my grandfather was sure. Something in the countrified way he had of tucking his chin into his collarbone, something in the smell that clung to him—of homemade lye soap, was it?—in that homemade haircut that overhung his skull like a miniature thatched roof, proclaimed to my grandfather that this was one of his own kind. Indeed, now that he was visible he looked, alas, a lot like Ned.

My grandfather stood up, and he found a subtle but unmistakable change in the demeanor of the two older boys. He had earned himself a third share.

“Man! He's sure got some pair of lungs on him, ain't he!” said Buster, hopefully insinuating into his tone a note of corporate pride.

“Whoa now! Just a minute here,” said my grandfather. “I've got my own to look for. This boy ain't nothing more to me than he is to you two. Less. You're the ones who found him.”

As if sensing my grandfather's disavowal of him, the waif recommenced to blubber. It only hardened my grandfather's heart against him. Compared with his own, this boy ought to be ashamed to carry on this way after being separated from his folks for only a matter of hours. Yet as he glared impatiently at him my grandfather recognized this boy. This was the son of that man whom he had pictured, while shaving this morning, coming to his aid. Who because he was a father himself would refuse the reward money. Whose boy here was the one in whose name he, Sam Ordway, had resolved to open that savings account.

“Gee, thanks, mister!” said Buster. Then, “Say! Maybe his daddy has found yours and yawl can just swap!”

“Come on, fool!” his brother hissed.

“I spent the next two hours toting that little devil around town,” my grandfather told me. “First I went to the town constable's office. The constable was out—‘out at that political rally, I expect,' a non-voter loafing there said. Well, I just couldn't see myself going back out there and butting in again and saying, ‘Folks, here I am back again. Remember me? I have found a little boy only he ain't mine. Which of you does this little man belong to?' So I went down to the market square (I've said you could tell just by looking that he was from off the farm) where the country folks parked their wagons, but nobody much was there, they were all out at that rally too, and those that were didn't know the boy. So I started walking the streets with him. Oh, what a handful he was! It turned out he wasn't trained, and he peed on me and slobbered on me and he howled and he kicked and beat me with his fists. I bought him candy and parched peanuts and he wolfed them down and gave me a kick for thanks. I remember thinking, boy, I just wish Will Vinson had you! And people I stopped to ask if they knew whose he was said, ‘Ain't he yours?' One of two old maids that I passed in the street said, ‘They ought to take children away from any father that treats them like that!' I stopped to explain the situation to her, and the other one said, ‘Come along, Inez, before he says something rude. He's been out at that rally, drinking.'

“Along about two o'clock that afternoon I was sitting on a curb to rest my feet, the boy sitting alongside of me, when up comes two men. One of them looked faintly familiar. He was the fellow who had been lounging outside the constable's office when I went there with the boy. When I stood up he sort of worked himself around in back of me. The other one did the talking. ‘Got a proposition we think'll interest you, mister,' he said.