Ruby Holler Read online

  Dallas dreamed of the leafy tree with the low-hanging branches. Nearby was a stream so clear he could see every rock and every pebble on its bottom. He could see every stray leaf, every little minnow swimming along. In his dream, Dallas crawled out from under the tree and went to the edge of the stream, where a spectacular silver bird hopped along the bank.

  The silver bird stopped in front of Dallas, cocked its head, and said, “There is a place where you can go, where everything is—”

  “Is what?” Dallas asked. “Where everything is—what?”

  But the bird never finished its sentence.

  CHAPTER 16

  THE AXE

  “Where are those kids?” Tiller asked.

  “Outside someplace,” Sairy said. “Probably climbing trees or exploring the creek.” She patted his shoulder. “You missing them?”

  “Rubbish,” he said. “What’s that noise?”

  “I don’t hear anything.”

  “That—that hacking, whacking noise—there—hear it? I heard it from down in the cellar. There—hear that?”

  “Don’t hear a thing,” Sairy said. “Guess my ears are going bad, or else you’re losing your marbles.”

  “I’m not losing my marbles.”

  “Well, then, Mr. Full of Marbles, give me a hand here. Can you reach that top shelf?”

  As Tiller reached up, he heard a thunk, thunk, followed by a sharp crack, followed by a long whoosh and crunch and a voice shouting, “Tim-berrr!” He raced for the door, reaching it in time to see his favorite young maple tree crash to the ground. Nearby stood Florida with her hands over her ears, and Dallas, with the axe.

  Tiller turned to Sairy, who had followed him to the door. “My favorite maple,” he whimpered. “They’ve chopped down my favorite maple.”

  “Oh my,” Sairy said.

  “Hey Tiller! Sairy!” Dallas called. “Lookee here—we chopped down that tree that was in the way—did it all by ourselves—and you didn’t even have to waste your time teaching us how to use this thing.” Dallas held the axe aloft, triumphantly.

  “Restrain me, Sairy,” Tiller said, “before I build a snake pit and dump a couple kids in it.”

  “Come with me,” she said, “and keep your mouth closed, if you can manage that, you hear?”

  “So,” Sairy said, after she’d explained that Tiller had planted that tree when their children had left, and he’d worried over it and cared for it and took pleasure from seeing it every day, “you obviously did not know that was a special tree. But we’ve got lots of old dead trees that could use some chopping. Maybe you could help Tiller do that sometime.”

  Florida grabbed the axe from Dallas and threw it on the ground. “Maggoty axe. Maggoty stupid axe.” She glared at Dallas. “Bet they’re not going to like what we did in the barn, either.”

  Tiller’s mouth fell open. “The barn? My barn?”

  “Might as well get it over with,” Florida grumbled at Dallas. “But get ready for the hog pen.”

  Sairy was patting at both of her cheeks. “The barn? What’s this about the barn?”

  “Follow us!” Dallas said. “It was supposed to be a surprise—we’re not quite done yet, but—”

  “Shut up,” Florida said.

  Dallas, oblivious to Florida’s warnings, raced up to the barn. “Come on! It’s so cool!”

  Tiller clutched Sairy’s arm as they followed Dallas. Florida trailed them, kicking at rocks and tree trunks as she went. “Oughta just run away right now,” Florida mumbled. “Oughta just bury us alive.”

  Dallas stood in the middle of the barn. “There! Presto! Light!”

  Tiller and Sairy gaped at the ragged hole chopped in the side of the barn. Tiller pressed his hand to his chest and sank onto a hay bale. Sairy’s hands were clasped tightly together, as if she were praying.

  “You chopped a hole in the barn?” Sairy said.

  “It’s a window!” Dallas said. “To give you some light in here.”

  “A window in my barn?” Tiller said.

  “Now, now, Tiller,” Sairy said.

  Florida was standing at the barn entrance. “Listen, old man,” she yelled. “You are always complaining about how blasted dark it is in here and how you can’t hardly see to work on that putrid boat. We were trying to do you a favor, but we can see you don’t appreciate it. Come on, Dallas, let’s get out of here.”

  “No, wait,” Sairy said. “Wait. We’re just a little surprised, aren’t we, Tiller honey? My goodness, it’s been a long time since someone did anything so thoughtful for us, isn’t it, Tiller honey?”

  Tiller’s mouth was squeezed tightly shut, and his nose was wrinkled and his eyes squinty. “Unhh” was the only response that managed to escape his lips.

  “Yes indeedy,” Sairy said. “Now that I’m standing here, I can see what a brilliant thing that window will be when it’s finished. How about that, Tiller? All these years we’ve lived here and we never had the brains to put a window in this here barn. Isn’t that something?”

  “Unhh.”

  CHAPTER 17

  THE ROCKER

  When Tiller entered the cabin, he saw Florida standing at the door to his and Sairy’s bedroom.

  “What’s that?” Florida asked, pointing to the corner of the bedroom.

  Tiller peered into the corner, but couldn’t see anything unusual. He scanned the room. “You didn’t chop me another window, did you?”

  “No.”

  “Is there a blasted bug in there or something?” he asked.

  “No, I mean that chair thing.”

  “The rocker?” Tiller said.

  “That’s a rocker?”

  Tiller was dumbfounded. “Florida, do you mean to tell me you’ve never seen a rocker?”

  “Well, criminy, I might’ve seen a picture of one, but I haven’t ever seen a real one.”

  “Now, that’s something,” Tiller said. “That is a real shame. Here, come sit in it.”

  “Naw, I’ll just break it.”

  “You won’t break it,” he said. “Here, look, I can sit in it and it doesn’t break.” He settled himself in the chair. “This rocker has seen a lot of use. Sairy and I rocked each of our babies in this chair—”

  Florida turned, as if to leave the room.

  “Wait,” Tiller said. “Where are you going? Come and try it.”

  “You losing your ears? I said I didn’t want to.”

  Tiller sat there, rocking, overcome with memories of babies in his arms, of singing, of patting, of dreaming. It pained him to think that Florida had never seen a rocker.

  He found Florida outside, smashing a branch against the side of the well. He stood with his back to her, as if he were speaking to the trees. “Yep,” he said, “if someone wanted to sit in that old rocker, that someone could do it anytime she wanted. That someone could rock that chair to pieces. Even if that rocker fell apart, heck, we’d just put it back together.” He patted the nearest tree and sauntered off down a trail.

  Florida whacked at the well with her branch. “Maggoty old chair,” she mumbled.

  The next morning, when Sairy and Dallas were outside trying out their compass, Tiller heard a soft creak-creak coming from his and Sairy’s bedroom. He stood to one side of the doorway, looking in.

  Florida was sitting in the rocker, gently rocking, and on her lap were two of the wooden bird carvings from the mantel. Florida was stroking the birds, whispering, “There, there, it’s okay.”

  Tiller stepped away and slipped out onto the porch and stared out through the trees to the creek, and then he looked up the hill toward the barn. He sat on the porch swing, thinking about himself as a child—a skinny, clumsy boy running through the hills and climbing trees. He remembered his own children climbing those trees and racing to the barn and all piled together on the porch swing. He thought about himself in the rocking chair with his children, and he thought about his mother, sitting in that same chair. Even when he was as old as ten or twelve, sometimes his mothe
r would pull Tiller onto her lap and rock him, saying, “You’re never too old to be rocked.”

  Tiller wondered what it would be like not to have trees and creeks and barns, and what it would be like never to have been rocked.

  CHAPTER 18

  THE TREPIDS

  In the Boxton Creek Home, Mrs. Trepid sat on the edge of her bed as Mr. Trepid scooted around the room looking for his socks.

  “Listen,” Mrs. Trepid said. “Hear that?”

  Mr. Trepid stopped, alert. “What?”

  “Silence,” Mrs. Trepid said. “Blissful, peaceful, absolute silence.”

  Mr. Trepid relaxed. “Ah,” he said. “Without those trouble twins, things sure are a lot easier around here.” He glanced at his wife to see if she agreed with him.

  “Yes,” she said, “a lot less trouble.” Less shouting, she thought, less yelling, less scolding. They brought out the worst in her, made her feel so inadequate, but still she felt uneasy now, as she always did when the twins went off to a new home. Sooner or later they’d be back, and Florida would be more surly, and Dallas would be more spacey and clumsy, and all the rules would be broken, and any calm that might have been restored in their absence would be shattered.

  Without the twins, there were eleven children in residence at the Boxton Creek Home. On this summer Tuesday morning, ten of them were off at church camp. Remaining was a six-month-old baby, who was now brought to the Trepids’ room by their assistant, Morgan, a frail elderly woman.

  Morgan tapped at the Trepids’ door. “The baby’s dressed,” Morgan said. “What do you want me to do with her now?”

  “I don’t know,” Mrs. Trepid said, opening the door. “Here, let me see her a minute.”

  “Oh,” Morgan said, reluctantly relinquishing the baby.

  The baby stiffened at Mrs. Trepid’s touch and then squirmed, as if to release herself. “Stop that,” Mrs. Trepid whispered, looking the baby in the eye. “Stop that squirming.” The baby instantly stopped moving and stared wide-eyed at the woman holding her. Mrs. Trepid shoved the baby back into Morgan’s arms. “Take her for a walk or something.”

  As Morgan readied the buggy in the front yard, she winked at the baby. “Okey-dokey, baby, Chief Gopher is going to take you for a walky.”

  Mr. Trepid hurried down the corridors, past all the narrow rooms, to the back door. He slipped outside and scurried down the alley. About fifty yards along was a lean-to shack, which he entered.

  Once inside, he flopped into an overstuffed, musty chair and said, “Ah, peace.” As he leaned his head back against the chair and closed his eyes, a thought popped into his head: Life is a fog. He opened his eyes and glanced around the shack. Life is a fog? Did I just think that up? He liked the sound of it—Life is a fog—and wondered if maybe he should write it down. Had anyone ever said that before?

  He closed his eyes again, hoping that another interesting thought might pop into his head, but instead what drifted into his mind was an image of a boy who’d been at the Home a few years ago.

  The boy was skinny and quiet, and one summer’s night, Mr. Trepid discovered him lying listless and feverish in his bed. Mr. Trepid summoned his wife. “Do something. He’s sick. He’s going to die!” but his wife said, “Calm down. It’s just a fever. All kids get fevers.”

  Mr. Trepid had scurried up and down the long halls, uneasy, restless, ending up at the door to Dallas’s room at the back of the house. He didn’t know what made him open Dallas’s door and say, “Hurry! Come with me,” and then lead a sleepy Dallas to the sick boy’s room. “Watch him,” Mr. Trepid begged Dallas.

  Dallas sat beside the boy’s bed and touched his forehead. “He’s very hot,” Dallas said. “Burning up to bits.”

  “I know, I know,” Mr. Trepid said. “Should we call the doctor?”

  Mrs. Trepid returned to the room. “It’s just a fever,” she said. “We can’t call the doctor every time there’s a fever in this place. What’s the matter with you all of a sudden?”

  As Mr. and Mrs. Trepid stood there watching Dallas place a cool cloth on the boy’s forehead, the boy opened his eyes and said, “Who am I? Who am I?”

  “You’re Joey,” Dallas said.

  Joey stared hard at Dallas and then closed his eyes and stopped breathing.

  “He’s dead!” Mr. Trepid shouted. “Make him alive!” Mr. Trepid rushed to Joey and breathed into his mouth and pounded on his chest while Mrs. Trepid phoned the doctor. “Help me,” Mr. Trepid urged Dallas. “I don’t know what to do.”

  Dallas breathed into Joey’s mouth, paused, breathed again. Breathe, pause, breathe. He could feel Joey getting cooler and cooler.

  And then the doctor came and pulled a sheet over Joey’s head and took him away.

  The next day, Mr. Trepid went to the cemetery and stood before his own parents’ graves. What …? he asked. Who …? But beyond What? and Who? his mind was like a big empty pot, and he didn’t know why he had come to his parents’ graves, or what he wanted to ask them.

  CHAPTER 19

  UNDERSTONE FUNDS

  “You smell that?” Dallas asked. He was curled in his bed, yawning.

  Florida sniffed. “Pancakes. Maple syrup.”

  From below came the call: “Dallas, Florida, breakfast is ready.”

  “Yum,” Dallas said, tossing his shoe at Florida. It sailed past her head and cracked the window.

  “Oh crud,” Florida said. “Just when we’d gone a whole two days without wrecking anything.”

  “Something break up there?” Sairy called.

  Dallas leaned over the railing. “The window sort of got broke,” he said. “Little bit of an accident.”

  Florida joined Dallas at the railing. “Now are you feeling like punishing us?” she asked Sairy.

  “No,” Sairy said. “I’m not. Are you feeling like punishing me?”

  “Why would we do that?” Florida asked.

  “Exactly,” Sairy said. “Let’s make a deal. If you kids won’t punish me, I won’t punish you. Okay? And Tiller will show you how to fix that window.”

  Florida elbowed Dallas. “She certainly is a goofy lady,” Florida whispered.

  At breakfast, Sairy asked, “Anyone seen my blue bowl, the one I usually put fruit in?”

  “It’s on the porch,” Dallas said.

  “You mind getting it for me, honey?” Sairy said.

  “Well, it’s got stuff in it.”

  “Like what?”

  “Just worms and stuff.”

  “Worms?” Sairy said. “In my blue bowl?”

  “With some mud, to keep ’em from drying out,” Dallas said. “Want me to get the bowl?”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Is there a rule about the bowl?” Dallas asked.

  “A rule?”

  “Maybe I broke a rule about the bowl, putting worms in it.”

  “You didn’t break a rule,” Sairy said. “Do you want a rule about the bowl?”

  “No.”

  “But most people have rules,” Florida said.

  “I see,” Sairy said. “Tiller, do we have any rules here that you know of?”

  Tiller scratched his chin. “Let me think a minute. Oh yes, I do believe we have a rule about not letting any donkeys on the roof.”

  “You goof man,” Florida said.

  Tiller was making a list of final items needed for the river journey. “One more trip to town ought to do it,” he said. “You got enough money, Sairy?”

  “Need to collect a little more from the understone funds,” she said.

  “What’s that?” Florida asked. “A bank or something?”

  Sairy laughed. “You could say that. It’s our own personal private bank. Two banks, actually. Tiller has one and I have one, and I’m using his fund for my trip and he’s using my fund for his trip.”

  Dallas added more syrup to his pancakes. “Why don’t you use your own funds for your own trips?”

  Tiller said, “This way it’s a present. From me to her and h
er to me.”

  “So where are these private banks?” Florida asked. “I didn’t see any banks around here.”

  “They’re not real banks,” Sairy said. “Just holes in the ground. Under stones. Get it?”

  “What?” Florida said. “You mean you buried a bunch of money in the ground and just put a little old stone on the top of it?”

  “Well,” Tiller said. “It’s a little more sophisticated than that.”

  “Not much, though,” Sairy said. “We’ve got these metal boxes, see? And the money goes in the box in the ground, and the stones that cover them aren’t such little stones. They’re more like … like … big stones.”

  “Erm, Sairy …” Tiller said. “I don’t think we should …”

  Florida stopped eating. “Wait. You mean to tell me you’ve got a bunch of money just sitting out there in the ground? For any old thief to come along and steal it?”

  Sairy waved her hand in the air. “Shoot, hardly anybody ever comes through this holler.”

  “Erm, Sairy—” Tiller said.

  But Sairy chattered on. “And how are they going to find our hidden stones out there?” She pushed her hand toward the window overlooking the holler. “You know how many stones are out there? About a million.” She smiled, satisfied. “So if you two don’t mind tidying up these breakfast things, Tiller and I will go to our private banks and get some money and then we’ll all go into town, okay?”

  Dallas and Florida stared out the window as Tiller and Sairy set off up the hillside.

  “I’m getting an idea,” Florida said. “Are you getting an idea?”

  Dallas nodded. “I’m getting a tiny little idea about buried treasure. Is that what your idea is about?”

  “Yep,” she said. “I’m feeling a little itchy to know where they’re going.”

  “That’s in my idea, too,” Dallas said.

  “And I’m getting another idea that maybe those two shouldn’t be out there all by themselves, hiking up those hills, you know what I mean?”