Memphis Blues Again: Book I, Chapter 7.

Copyright © 2012 Bob R Bogle



Andy didn't tell anyone when he got married the first time.  I wonder how come?

All done up in an old, gray suit that was too small for him, Joseph was sitting alone in a dark corner of Ben's and Aunt Charlotte's crowded and noisy parlor, trying not to be seen by anyone.  The reception was like a merry party, which struck him as being odd.

A light spray of freckles crossed over his nose between his light blue eyes.  Tousle-headed Joseph was a big boy ‑‑ stout, his Aunt Charlotte liked to describe him to strangers.  Joseph thought that if he were stout then owl-eyes Sam must be absolutely obese, but she never said any such thing to strangers about him.

Directly across the overcrowded room from him, in the near corner, he watched his nieces, Mary Ellen and Martha, who were sitting very close together for mutual protection in a stuffed red velvet chair.  Maybe, as Joseph had often thought, it was the finest chair in all of Iowa.  They wore the same thin, flowery dresses that they always wore, but this morning Emily had given them flowers to hold.  They had left the flowers outside.  Mary Ellen was five, and Martha was only three, and the adults talked about them as though they weren't present and couldn't understand anything being said.  Of course Mary Ellen could understand, Joseph knew.  Adults were so stupid.  They thought they were smart, but all they really were was big, so they could do as they pleased and not get punished when people got hurt.  They were always doing foolish things that only caused problems for others around them.  Mary Ellen's and Martha's eyes were downcast and they were tightly clutching hands, looking sad and glum.  Obviously Mary Ellen was wishing they could be invisible, too, just as he was.  He knew what she was thinking because it had happened to him, too.

Too soon. 

He turned his head away from them, looking around at the throng.  No one else in the county had a parlor.  What was a parlor anyway?  It was just a parlor because that's what Aunt Charlotte called it.  Ben too, but she must have started it, Joseph knew.  Par-lor.  He turned the sounds of the word over in his mind.  It was a funny word that didn't even sound like English.

He spied Ben over by the mantle talking to Bill and John.  Ben with his flat face and piggish green eyes that were not on the level, with his fancy tie that Aunt Charlotte had made him wear, and his ridiculously coiffed hair cut down below his big ears and puffing out like a girl's.  Joseph could guess what Bill would say to John about it later.  John would make that huffing sound that was his choked laugh, because he would think Ben had looked absurd too, but John would never say so out loud.  Ben Broyles was a brother Joseph had never met until his family came across the river to Clayton County.  No, Joseph checked himself:  Ben was not a brother but a half-brother, and not much of a half-brother, either.  Ben's wife was Aunt Charlotte from Wisconsin.  That's what they'd always called her so she wouldn't be mixed up with the other one.  The real one.

Joseph wondered what they would call her now.

Aunt Charlotte from Wisconsin maneuvered about the room laughing and nervous as she always did at her little social gatherings ‑‑ There's no point in having a parlor if you don't host parties within it, she periodically proclaimed to Ben when he was in one of his peevish but forceless funks.  She pressed her lips very tight and prim during those isolated moments between guests when she wasn't talking.  She had high cheeks and blue eyes, and today her blonde hair was piled high.  Joseph saw her intense eyes sharply scanning the room for any least sign of indiscretion or indecorum among her guests that she could criticize later.  She wore the best dress of all the women, a shimmering lime green crinoline, that was even better than Emily's, and it was Emily's special day.  Aunt Charlotte from Wisconsin, Joseph thought, who always made sure that everyone else recognized that she was better than they were.  Not at all like the other Aunt Charlotte from here in Clayton County.  The nice one, whom no one else wanted to remember anymore.

Joseph remembered her, though.  She'd been his first Aunt Charlotte, a very pretty girl.  A farming girl, not a city girl.  Always happy.  Always real.  She didn't pretend to be anyone but herself.  She'd always treated him nice when he was little and still living at home.  They were all happier, then.

John and Bill, his other brothers, used to josh Andy about his secret elopement with Aunt Charlotte, but they would never explain it to Joseph.  Little Joe, they always called him that.  He hated it.  Even John, who was always so serious about everything, used to make fun of Andy about it.  John was long and gaunt with very dark eyes and a shock of jet-black hair and a bobbing Adam's apple.  Mama had told John once to stop going about like an undertaker all the time or he would never find a wife of his own.  Joseph remembered her saying that.  He remembered the sound of her voice when she said it, and how Bill had laughed so hard at John, and John's face had turned very red.  Poor Papa never talked about Andy marrying Aunt Charlotte, and of course no one ever brought up the subject in Mama's presence.  It was one of those jokes among the four brothers and no one else.  Joseph, as a brother, felt he had a right to know what it meant, too.  But Bill would only make fun of him if he asked.  Wait a few more years, Little Joe.  Always wait a few more years for the good stuff.  They always treated him like he was a baby.

I'm not a baby.  I'm eleven years old!

Joseph recalled one day when Bill and John were giving Andy a hard time, and Andy finally got mad and said something harshly to John about Clesta.  He couldn't remember exactly what Andy had said, but afterwards no one wanted to talk about either Andy's elopement or Clesta anymore.  No one but Aunt Charlotte from Wisconsin, anyway.  Joseph didn't understand why it was important to her, or to anyone.  If Aunt Charlotte thought it was so horrible, he wondered why she kept talking about it.  He only married that poor girl because his mother lay dying!  But no one else ever even mentioned such things.  Even Ben once said as much to Aunt Charlotte, and that she ought to give it up,  too, which made her very mad.

The preacher came up to him in his darkened corner and introduced himself, extending his hand.  He looked like an ancient scarecrow dressed all in black.  Joseph shook his boney hand and explained:  "I'm Ben's half-brother.  I live here."  The preacher tried to make small talk, but Joseph did not get up out of his chair or encourage him.  Directly the old man moved on.

It was impossible to remain inconspicuous in the parlor.  There were too many laughing, happy people who had come into town for this special occasion.  At least they were laughing, but Joseph knew they weren't all happy.  They were milling about the room as though they couldn't think of anywhere else to go, drinking punch and sampling little plates of all the food that Aunt Charlotte and Aunt Jane and Aunt Mary and Emily's sisters had been preparing late last night and into the morning.  So much noise and bluster!  Incessant flurries of frantic activity had echoed through the house during the last few days, all leading up to the grand event.  Joseph had to smile because, looking at them now, he couldn't help thinking of a flock of chickens scratching in the dirt.  There was the withered old preacher with his wife and family, down from Elkader.  Friends in from the country included the Maxons, and Edwin Silver and his skittish, flighty wife, twitching at every sudden and sharp sound, and John Nogle with his wife and their daughter, Sarah, and James and Orien Williams with their New York accents like Papa's, and who'd brought their beefy, rowdy boy Silas, Joseph's old friend who was a year older than he was, and the piebald Jeremiah Adams with his short wife, Eliza.  Jeremiah Adams always smiling coolly, holding himself aloof:  he, at least, could never be one of the chickens, Joseph thought.  And there were Emily's kin whom no one knew, clustered together in a knot and spilling into the hallway toward the dining room, come all the way from Chickasaw County.  Mr Wrightsblood was skulking about and quietly muttering to himself, talking to no one, with the dark-haired girl Lorena never more than a few paces away, keeping an eye on him.  And then there was big Ben, dumb as a post, and Aunt Charlotte, who wanted to be queen of Clayton County, and big boy Sam behind his priggish hexagonal spectacles, two years younger than Joseph and fifty pounds heavier, far too studious and proper to ever be a friend to the likes of a usurping home-invader like him, and little eight-year-old Angelina, who fancied Joseph so much more than she liked her real brother, and five-year old Sarah, never far from the hem of Aunt Charlotte's skirts.  Little Mary was asleep in her crib in another room.  And with John and Aunt Jane, who was pregnant, were their girls, five-year-old Clesta and two-year-old Sarah, and with Bill and Aunt Mary was baby Cordelia.  And Lish and Cal were there, too.  And across from him were Mary Ellen and Martha, looking very miserable because their mother and baby brother were dead, trying to avoid meeting anyone's gaze.  Sometimes someone would come up to Mary Ellen and try to be nice to her, or even to congratulate her, but what could you say, really?  Their words would fumble for a minute before they excused themselves and moved on.  And finally there was Joseph's oldest brother, Andy, now twenty-six and looking quite miserable with a fake smile on his face, transformed in three months from widower to bridegroom, and very close beside him his new wife, Emily, who looked a good deal happier than he did.  Andy and Emily had wanted to keep this a small occasion, but Aunt Charlotte from Wisconsin would have none of that.  "We must let bygones be bygones, Andrew," Joseph had heard her lecturing Andy the night before.  "Let the dead bury the dead.  We must go on."

Someone else was coming his way, plowing through the people.  It was Silas, he saw.  Joseph had never seen him dressed up before.  Silas had grown since they'd last been together.  A slew of partial memories, long discarded, welled up unexpectedly and flicked through his mind.  Silas Williams was now at least a head taller than Joseph and looked more muscular, too.  His face was darkly tanned under a tangle of uncombable red hair.  He grinned at Joseph, who smiled back.  His twinkling eyes were deceptive, as Joseph knew very well.  They were commonly mistaken for signaling a mischievous streak by those newly introduced, but Joseph knew there was more malice than mischief in Silas Williams.

"Hey Little Joe.  You never come around no more."

Joseph stood up from his chair.  The clothes felt tight on him.  He shrugged.

"I live here now."

"So what?  It can't be more than ten miles away.  Don't your Pop have no horses?"

" Of course we got horses.  But it's closer to twelve or fifteen miles.  Anyway, he ain't my Pop."

Silas, still grinning, looked down at his feet.  "I guess I heard something about that.  Your. . . .brother?"

"Half-brother."

Silas looked up again, nodded.  He tossed his head back over his shoulder in Ben's direction.  "Looks more like a one-and-a-half brother to me."

Joseph smiled.  "Yeah."

Silas leaned slightly forward.  This time when he spoke his voice was lowered a little.

"Hey, how about we go outside awhile?  Something I want to show you."

"Sure, I guess.  Come on."

The pair cut a winding pathway through the crowd to the door.  Joseph had it no more than half open when Aunt Charlotte's voice rang out behind them in alarm.

"Wait just a minute, young man!  Where do you think you're going?"

Joseph froze, but he didn't look back.

"Just outside for a while, Aunt Charlotte."

"Not in that suit you're not."  She raised her voice to call across the room.  "Ben!"

Now Joseph did turn back.  He saw that others in the room were now dropping their conversations and turning to look at him to see what was happening.

"I'll be careful with it, Aunt Charlotte.  I promise."

"What is it, dear?" Ben said.  He was at the far end of the assembly by the cold fireplace.

"Will you please instruct Joseph that he is not to go outside in his dress-suit?"

Joseph heard Silas start to snicker, but he did not look at him.

Ben blundered toward his wife.  Frowning intently, he studied Joseph where he was standing in the doorway.

"Why Charlotte, that old rag doesn't even fit the boy."

Even though they were still at the mantle, Joseph knew John and Bill had overheard, because he heard Bill's snort of laughter.  Others in the room, their eyes now fixed on him and scrutinizing his attire, were chuckling, too.

Aunt Charlotte whirled back from her husband to look at Joseph afresh, the wide bell of her skirt making a dramatic swishing sound that kept those in her proximity peddling backwards and wary of their own footing.  A flash of heat filled her eyes, but it passed as she sized up his clothing.

"Well. . . .maybe so.  But perhaps we might put it away for some of the other boys," she said doubtfully.

"I think it's been put away for more than enough generations of the other boys already," Ben said to more chuckles.

"If you're going outside, Silas," Mrs Williams said, cutting in from a few paces away, "just you mind your suit and shoes, too."

"Alright, Ma," the boy simpered.

"He's such a boisterous boy," Mrs Williams said, turning to Mrs Nogle, who stood next to her, absentmindedly munching on a creampuff.

"They all are at that age," Mrs Nogle replied agreeably.  "Try one of these?  They're delicious!"

Aunt Charlotte, who had overheard the compliment, brightened and turned quickly to the women.  "Do you like them?  That's a recipe I had from a lady friend of mine from Chicago."  She launched into the provenance of the recipe, how the woman from Chicago had learnt it from her mother, who was Irish, as was her first husband, but he had died, and luckily enough she had next married a Greek sailor, of all things, who was on his way to America.

"Come on," Silas hissed to Joseph.  "It's now or never."

They slipped out the door, which banged a little behind them, but with all the noise inside Joseph doubted anyone had heard or noticed or cared.  Already they were forgotten.

 It was mid-afternoon and hot outside without any clouds.  He looked to the right toward the low, grassy mound that rippled up on that side of town, broken up by several dozen small, thin trees and a few ruts of wagon tracks that were gradually becoming roads through persistent reuse.  The sun dangled there, a little white ball that seemed uselessly remote and dumb to him.  All was quiet.  Six or seven other similar two-storey houses were dotted in among the trees, and a few neighbors were out in their yards and gardens, but most of the town was on the back side of Ben's and Aunt Charlotte's house.  It was a small community with a store and a tack supplier and a waggoner and a blacksmith and a saw mill and a flouring mill and a church and a few handfuls of families wedged into a pocket-sized bend in the river.  He felt Silas standing next to him.  "Well," Joseph said, "what do you want to do?"

"I don't know.  What's to do in the big city?"

"We could go to the barn."

"Why don't we go to the river?  Is it far away?"

"No, not far.  But it's easiest to go through the barn on the way."

"Alright."

They turned away from the sun.  All the traps were parked in the yard.  Past the end of the house they came down to the main white dirt lane that went into town.  They came down and crossed.  The barn was before them, just a little to the left, a large brown wooden building surrounded by a very long run of white picket fencing.  Joseph led the way to the gate and they went into the tiny pasture.  A pair of brown cows were trying to munch at grass beyond the fence, their eyes rolled back and their long tongues stretching far out in vain.  Some of the horses that the party guests had brought were out in the pasture, too.  The big barn doors were pushed open.  They walked inside and it was immediately much cooler sheltered in from the sun.  A warm, musty smell filled their senses.

"Here's the horses," Joseph said, lingering a few minutes at the barn stalls where Ben's three animals were kept.  The horses came over to the boys and rubbed their long heads against their hands.

"They look alright," Silas said.

"They are.  They're fine horses."

Silas laughed.  "Hey," he said, "do you remember that time when your Pop asked mine to bring his stallion over to your place to service that mare you had?"

"Pauline."

"Yeah.  Pauline.  Remember?  You and your Pop and Mom were outside when we came over.  It was a day just like this one.  Your Mom went back inside the house.  And your mare started trotting back and forth nickering along the fence, and our stallion was getting excited and hard for my Pop to hold onto his lead.  Then my Pop let him into the pasture.  You and me were leaning on the fence watching them.  The stallion got great big, with them two horses nipping at each other, kind of fighting, and it hanging down below him like a big black springy thing.  And then after a while they did it.  Those big animals.  Remember?"

"Yeah."

"But the funny part was when the horses were going at it, and I think I pulled your sleeve so the old guys didn't notice.  Remember?  I was pointing at the window of your house, because there was your Mom peeking out from the edge of the curtains, watching, because she also wanted to see them doing it."  Silas snickered some more.

Joseph was still rubbing one of the horses which was watching him.  He was looking into its dark brown eye with its black bar of a pupil looking all fluffy.  The horse raised and lowered its head sharply, once, twice.  He wondered what the horse was thinking.  What it thought of this stranger boy, Silas, intruding in his barn.

"Remember?" Silas prodded him.

"Yeah."

They were silent a moment.

"Girls are always funny about horses," Silas said.  "Even your Mom."

"Horses are big animals.  I think they're smart in a different way than we're smart."

"Smart!" the boy snorted.  "They're just big brutes.  Big, dumb brutes."

From back at the house Joseph heard the door banging again.  He glanced that way back through the open barn door.  In a minute he saw Angelina come around the corner of the house.  Behind her traipsed Andy's two young daughters.

Silas looked back and saw them coming, too.  "Now everybody's gonna want to come outside," he muttered.

"What did you want to show me?"

Silas looked back at Joseph, catching his eye.

"Not here.  Let's go down to the river."

"Okay."

The smaller back door of the barn was propped open, too, and they went out that way.  Silas was trying to hurry him along.  They went through the back of the little pasture and climbed over the fence because there was no gate in back.  The grassy ground sloped down steadily here to the trees, which grew thickly along the river.  They were older trees than the ones the people had planted in their yards on the hill, with thick old gray trunks, and the undergrowth all tangled with briars and cobwebs except along the path they followed.  They were walking fast and Silas kept looking back over his shoulder.  Joseph knew he was trying to look through the two open doors on either end of the barn and across the road beyond.

"Are they following us?"

"No.  They're almost at the barn."

"We'll reach the trees before they can see where we've gone."

"They'll guess where we are."

"Yes.  But probably they won't come this far.  Mary Ellen and Martha are too small.  Angelina will keep them with the horses."

Silas laughed.  "Girls and horses."

They came down into the tangle and out of the hot sunlight again.  A lot of birds twittered and flickered high up in the trees, which were also thick with cobwebs.  The net of vegetation closed over them and then it was cool again.  Joseph felt the dampness of the air on his skin from the water ahead.  When it was so hot in the sun it was harder to think.  It was funny to be walking again with Silas as if all the time apart hadn't happened.  Only it wasn't exactly the same as it had been because they were older now and they were different.  At least Joseph felt that he himself was different because of the things that had happened to him.  But Silas still lived on the same farm with his same parents, so maybe he hadn't changed much.  He thought of when they were friends, the Williams farm right next to his Papa's farm.  Bill and Aunt Mary lived in the old house now.  And John and Aunt Jane lived on the other side of the road, and Andy lived beyond the hill on the other side of them.  Now Emily Cheever would live there too, and he would have to think of her as Aunt Emily.  She seemed nice, but it was strange to think of her taking the place of Aunt Charlotte, because they were not alike.  Nice Aunt Charlotte.

The trail slanted right down to the water's edge.  The water was clear and only a few feet deep in the summer, about four or five feet across.  It ran along burbly here well below the bend, spilling over a series of rocks farther upstream.  In the summer Joseph liked to come here by himself and walk along the river, all the way up to the bend and then back around the other side of the hill.  It was like being alone in some ancient, unexplored forest with the sunlight sparkling down through the leaves and glittering the water.

"You should take one of them horses and come down to see us," Silas said.

Joseph turned.  Silas had found a big rock in the shade sticking out like a long white wedge into the water.  He brushed off a little patch and sat down there.  He looked out of place sitting by the running water under the brambles and trees in his suit, Joseph thought.  Silas had picked up a stick somewhere in the tangle and he was poking the end of it in the water.  Joseph came back and sat down on the rock next to him.

"I told you.  Ben doesn't like--"

"Ben?  Oh, your Pop.  Or. . . .brother."

"Half-brother."

"Half-brother, right.  It's hard to keep your family straight."

"It's hard for me, too."

"What's it like living up here?"

He thought about it and shrugged.  "It ain't like nothing.  It's just a place."

"I know that.  But I mean with your folks dead and all.  They keep dying, don't they.  First your Pop and Mom, and now Charlotte and the baby. "

He didn't reply.

Silas hesitated, and then, peering closely at Joseph, he asked:  "Is it true about her and the baby?"

"Is what true?"

"You know.  That the baby died, and then she. . . ."  Silas shrugged.  "She went and killed herself."

"No, that's not true!  Who said that?"

"I don't know.  Somebody."

"Well, somebody don't know what they're talking about.  It was the grippe.  And anyway, Aunt Charlotte got it first."

"Okay, don't get excited about it.  I was just asking."

"Well. . . .You just watch what you say."

"Alright.  But you gotta admit it's true, ain't it, that bad luck follows you around.  You gotta admit it, Little Joe.  If I was you, I'd put some pennies in my shoes, and keep knocking on wood all the time.  Otherwise you'll be killing off your brothers next."

"Knocking wood don't do nothing," he said quietly.  He was looking past Silas now across the river where the bank rose up steeply on the far side.

"But I mean, what I meant was," Silas continued after a moment, "what's it like having to live way up here away from us with your dumb half-brother and his wife?  That don't seem like no fun."

His head jerked back down to the other boy.  Joseph felt himself growing angry.

Silas was smiling at him.  His eyes were shining.  "You know what she is?" he said.

"What who is?" Joseph asked.

"His wife."

"I know she's his wife--"

"She's a bitch."

Joseph got up to his feet.  He felt his fingers curling into fists.

"What?" Silas said, still grinning.  "That gonna make you mad, too?  That's what she is, ain't she?  Everybody says so."

"She's my. . . ."

"Aw, who cares how she's related to you?  She's a bitch and you have to live with her, that's all.  Through no fault of your own."

 Silas turned his back on Joseph and threw the stick out into the river.  The water caught it and carried it rushing through the ripples at the point of the rock where he sat.  Silas was looking at the river and did not turn to look back at Joseph.  "Remember that time we took the ponies down to Deep Creek?" he continued.  "It took us all day to get there, and the sun was going down when we finally got back home.  Your Mom was hopping mad."

Joseph was staring down at him where he sat.  His fingers uncurled.  Then he heard what Silas had said.  He remembered the day that Silas was talking about.  How they had spent the whole day on the horses.  It seemed like a long time ago.  Silas had found a litter of kittens, Joseph remembered.  It had seemed funny then.

Silas looked back over his shoulder.  "Come here, Joe.  Sit down.  You know I didn't mean nothing."

Joseph hesitated for a moment before sitting down again.

"Look," Silas said.  "This is what I wanted to show you."  He reached inside his coat.  From an inside pocket he withdrew a silvery flask.

"What's that?"

"What do you think it is?  It's firewater, of course.  My Pop got two barrels up at Minona.  The Winnebagos are crazy for it.  You ought to hear him talk about them.  He keeps it stashed away in our barn.  I filched some for us."  Carefully, he unscrewed the cap.  "You wanna try some?"

"I don't know.  I never had none before."

Silas wrinkled his nose.  "Come on, Joe!  What's happened to you up here?  You turned yellow on me?"

"No, I just. . . .You try it."

"Okay.  I'll try it, and then you."

"Alright."

"Okay then."  Silas put the flask up to his lips and tipped it.  The liquid gurgled into his mouth, and he lowered it again.  His eyes screwed up in apparent pain and he swallowed it down.

"Whewee!"

"Was it that bad?" Joseph said.

The boy passed the flask over.  "Your turn."

Joseph looked at the flask in his hand.  It was engraved with a series of fancy curves and angles like a great big knot.

"I don't think--"

"Come on!  You said you'd do it if I did."

"I know, but--"

"I brought this up here for us!"

Joseph stared at him.  I said I'd do it, he thought.  He raised the flask to his own lips and tipped it back, briefly.  A very little amount went into his mouth.  He lowered the flask again.

"Aw, that's drinking like a girl!" Silas said.  He grabbed the flask away and jumped up to his feet.

"Hey, wait a minute--"

"I don't have enough time to wait on the likes of you," Silas said.  "You're different.  You've changed.  You just stay up here in your little house in town with your little horses and your dumb relatives.  Maybe I'll see you around."

Joseph got to his feet, but Silas had already turned and was crashing back through the tangled undergrowth alone.  Joseph watched unmoving as the red-headed boy disappeared into the thicket, calling back to him as he went:  "Whoever heard of naming a dumb horse Pauline, anyway?"

In a moment when he could no longer hear him ramming his way through the brush, and when the birds had resumed their twittering, and he heard the clear burbling of the river, Joseph thought:  Well, what do I care?  We are different now.  Silas can have his stupid farm and his stupid firewater.  So what?

He walked out to the point of rock where the stick had floated by.  Turning slightly, he looked down the river.  Now the stick was nowhere in sight.  How far would it go, he wondered.  All the way to the Mississippi?  He could not remember having seen the big river.  He had been too small when they'd crossed over into Iowa.  They said this river entered the Turkey River, and that one dumped directly into the Mississippi.  One river feeding another, and another, and the Mississippi ran away, far away to the south.  He pivoted on the rock to look farther down the river in that direction.  All the way down there it ran, all the way to the ocean.  Would he ever go there?  At night when he was in bed he almost thought sometimes that his sleeping ears could hear this river while he was dreaming.  Maybe his dreams came from the river.  Or, after he dreamt, maybe his dreams floated outside the house and, like everything else, they joined the river, to be carried away.

With your folks dead and all.  That's what Silas had said.

It made him think of Papa, whose name had been Judiah Garner, and his own name was Joseph Judiah Garner.  JJ.  Little Joe.  He'd turned eight years old and Papa had died.  Papa had not been a well man for as long as Joseph could remember.  Working the farm made him old before his time, even though he had Andy and John and Bill to help, and sometimes some of the others, too.  Because both Papa and Mama had been married to other people before they married each other.  Papa's first wife had died, and Mama's first husband.  Ben was only one of Joseph's half-brothers.  He wasn't sure how many more he had.  They'd been left scattered across the country as Papa kept moving west.  In New York, Indiana, Wisconsin, and now in Iowa.  Mama too had other children.  And then their children grew up, and they helped raise some of their little brothers and sisters in their own homes.  And then there were all the cousins and nephews and nieces moving in and out of houses and families all the time.  Even friends and their children migrating in and out of people's homes.  How could anyone keep track of them all?  The only ones who might remember now were dead.  Silas was right about that.  Papa died of his wounds; it just took a long time.  Joseph knew the story about how Papa and Uncle Routy had been ambushed fighting Black Hawk.  He'd been shot in the back with an arrow.  And Cady had been there, too.  Papa's back always bothered him.  Joseph remembered that.

Papa killed Indians, Joseph thought.  Will I ever have to kill anyone when I grow up?  He wondered whether he could do it.  If he had to he guessed he could, but he hoped he never would have to.  There had been lots of wars though.  But most of them were in Europe, not America.  If he didn't kill when he was supposed to, they might call him yellow.  Knock on wood.

They buried Papa out under the old tree, and a little while later Mama married Cyrus Pierce.  It was easy for Andy and John, because they'd already moved away.  Joseph did not like Mr Pierce, not even though some of the people said it was fortunate for Mama because after all she was still young.  She had been ten years younger than Papa.  But Joseph never liked Cyrus Pierce, and neither did Bill.  But Bill was lucky because he was old enough to marry Aunt Mary and move out into the little cabin they had in the back.  Joseph wanted to live with Bill and Aunt Mary, but they had no space for him because they'd already had to take in Lish.  But in the end it didn't matter, because only a year or so later Mama died of consumption.  Then Cyrus Pierce went away, and Ben and Aunt Charlotte came down and took Joseph away to live with them.

Was it true, he wondered, that people really used that word about her?  Aunt Charlotte from Wisconsin.  It was probably true.  He could imagine it.

He turned away from the water.  He could see the sunlight high up in the tops of the trees shining all silvery in the cobwebs.  Silently, a hawk floated in the sky above, was gone.  Silas had wanted him to go back home.  Now Joseph thought he'd never go back.

Why should I?  What's there but John and Bill, and now Andy and Aunt Emily.  Silas.  It was his idea to go to Deep Creek.  I thought it was funny.  He'd found the kittens in their barn.  Rode all the way to Deep Creek with them mewling in the flour bag.  It was fun, too, until he put the rocks in and flung the bag way out into the river.  Because you knew they were in there, afraid.  And going into the cold, swirling, dark water.  Down to the bottom.

How long had he been here by the river?  Not long.  But there was no reason to stay, either.  Time enough anyway for Silas to go back to the house.  Aunt Charlotte would just send Sam out looking for him, so he'd better go back.  He sighed and turned, walking along slowly through the trees.  He wished that when he got back to the house everyone would have packed up their things and gone back home.  But there was still a lot of food.  He imagined the parlor party would continue on into the evening and night.

He came through the trees and started up the rise toward the barn.  He heard cries coming from that direction.  The voices of the girls.  Beyond the barn and the pasture an unknown rider was on a horse approaching the town.  Joseph squinted, but in the sunlight he couldn't tell who it was.  It was like staring into flames, like the sky was on fire.  He saw Angelina come running out the back of the barn with her dark hair bouncing as she ran.  He could tell instantly something was wrong, and he broke into something of a sprint coming up the slope to the fence.  He clambered over it and ran to where she was.  She wasn't crying because she never cried, but he could see how shaken she was.

"What is it?" he demanded.

She shook her head.  She didn't answer.

"Silas," he said, looking past her and into the barn.  He saw the two little girls come out.  They were looking for their friend.

Angelina nodded.

He looked at her again.  "What did he do?"

"Nothing."

"Tell me!"

"He. . . .He tried to kiss me."

"What?"

"With his tongue!"

He was looking at her, trying to understand what she meant.  He looked into the barn again.  Inside he could see Silas' shadow framed in the light of the far doorway.

"I'll get him."

"Joseph, wait!"

But he left her.  He was running across the pasture with his anger burning inside him and the other girls watching him come.  He didn't look at them.  He ran into the barn.  Silas was at the far end, about to walk outside.  Joseph raced up to him and grabbed his arm, whirling him about.

"Hey!"

"What did you do?"

"What?"  Silas sounded puzzled, but he had his usual scowl on his face.

"To Angelina."

"I didn't do nothing to her."

"What's the matter with you?" Joseph said.  "She's not even eight years old!"

"She's older than that," Silas said flatly.

"No she's not."

"Well then, she looks older."

"Well, you just. . . .You leave her alone."

"I guess I'll do whatever I want to do, Little Joe," Silas said.  With his fingertips he pushed Joseph back, a little bit.

Joseph stepped back up immediately.  "I said leave her alone.  She's my sister!"

"Your sister?"  Silas wrinkled up his nose.  "And your Pop is your brother.  And your Mom is your Aunt.  Everybody in your family must sleep in a single bed."

Without thinking about what he was doing, Joseph put up his hands and shoved Silas back a few feet.

Silas looked surprised.  His face darkened.

"I ain't afraid of you, even if you are a regular angel of death.  Ain't you, Little Joe.  Your folks.  Charlotte and the baby and all.  Even Sadie.  Remember Sadie?  A bear got her, right Joe?  Ripped apart by--"

Joseph threw himself at the boy.  He was on top of him on the ground, and his fists were coming down on him, slugging into his body and his face.  From somewhere he could hear Angelina come up behind him with the other girls, and then he heard Samuel's voice yelling from somewhere up by the house, and the front door banging shut.  But Joseph only kept hitting Silas.  Silas had his own hands up over his face and was screaming as Joseph hit him.  In a moment a lot of adults had come outside and were running toward them, yelling.  He had to hit more and harder, fast, while he still could.

It was a blur when they pulled them apart.  Ben was holding him.  Aunt Charlotte was there, very upset and holding up the edge of her long skirt, saying a lot of embarrassing things while little Mary circled around her.  And fat Sam, red-faced from having trotted all the way to the barn.  His brothers were there too.

Joseph didn't care about any of it.  He didn't care about any of them.  He was breathing hard, watching Mr and Mrs Williams as they led Silas away.  He looked over and saw Angelina and the little girls.  Mary Ellen looked wide-eyed and afraid with little Martha standing behind her.  Angelina's eyes were wide too, but she didn't look afraid, but more surprised.  He looked over and saw Silas' back with his parents leading him away.  Joseph had seen the boy's tear-streaked face.  He was limping a little.  Silas' face was covered with blood, Joseph knew.  Bloody nose.  But what was best was how dirty the back of his suit jacket was.  By luck Joseph had pushed him down right into a fresh pile of horse droppings.  Right in the back.

Never going back again!