"We're going to take you to the doctor," I said. "He'll sew you up and make you better."
"Sew me up with a needle?" He wailed even more.
Lynn arrived, and I felt relieved that I was no longer in charge. I carried Sam piggyback to the blanket while Lynn directed me. "Watch out, that part's hilly." Or, "Careful, you're shaking him." It seemed to take forever, and I got exhausted. We decided to use the blanket as a gurney and head back home. Lynn took the back end. I was glad she was in back because I didn't want to look at my brother's ankle. It made me dizzy. I walked backward but kept my head turned so I could see where I was going. After just a minute I could hear Lynn panting.
We walked forever, and when we had walked forever, we did not seem to have gotten anywhere. Lynn needed to stop to adjust her grip more and more frequently, and finally, the blanket slipped out of her hands. My brother grunted as he fell. I turned to look, first at him with his shocked expression, and then at her with her expression of exhaustion.
"Can you keep going?" I said.
"Yes." Lynn picked up the blanket and we continued. But in a few steps the blanket slipped again. Sam no longer cried tears, and he no longer wailed loudly. His face was still red, but it looked almost frozen, as if he were paralyzed.
Lynn and I stared at him. His ankle had swollen like a balloon. We dripped sweat. "I'm cold," said Sam.
Lynn looked at me. "Go get help. I'll wait with him," she said.
I hesitated. I hated being alone. I loved having a brother and sister. I did not even like walking alone half a block from the house to the mailbox. When my parents asked me to mail something, I always took Sam with me.
"You have to," said Lynn. She sat down next to Sam and stroked his face. Her own face was starting to get that green look, and she was panting, but not just from fatigue. It was also as if she couldn't breathe.
"Keep him warm, then."
Lynn nodded. Sam stared at me. "Help me," he said again.
I ran off through the field, hoping I wouldn't get lost. But after awhile I couldn't figure out which way I was supposed to go. It seemed to my memory that at first we'd walked north to get to the picnic site, and then we'd turned west. That meant that I should walk east and then south. But when I walked east, it seemed to me that I was going in the wrong direction. So then I looked around and tried to remember where the sun had been when we'd first entered the field earlier. I decided the sun had been before us: east. So we'd walked east first and then south? I checked to see where the sun was starting its midday descent. Then I realized it didn't matter which way I went. I just ran.
I ended up not where we'd come from, but in an unfamiliar neighborhood that nevertheless seemed familiar because it looked so much like a neighborhood I knew my mother would want to live in. The houses were "better," though not by a lot.
All the houses were almost the same. The same old frame houses, mostly white, but a few in blue, pink, or yellow; the same gravel driveways; and even the same rich man's mansion in the distance. I was on the back side of the mansion, though. Before, we had seen it from the front. I guess that meant we'd been going west earlier. Or ... I wasn't sure. Directions were not my specialty.
I ran down the block, to the house that looked most like one my mother would have wanted, if we could have afforded it. I knocked so firmly on the door that I was surprised at the loud noise I made. Sunflowers decorated the curtains, and a plastic sunflower was stuck into the front lawn. A young white woman answered the door and was unabashedly surprised to see me.
"My goodness," she said.
"My brother! An accident! He got his foot caught in a trap." I burst into tears.
"My goodness," she said again. She thought a moment. "I think Hank Garvin is home." She turned toward the inside of her house. "Casey stay put, do you hear me!"
I followed her to a nearby house, where she didn't knock, but rather stuck her head in an open window and called out. "Hank Garvin, are you home?"
In a moment a couple of men walked into the living room as the woman and I peeked in. One of the men leered at the woman while the other man came forward. She spoke to the one who came forward, but not until she had cast a disdainful glance toward the other.
"This little girl's brother has got caught in a trap." She turned to me. "Was it on Mr. Lyndon's property?" I pointed, and she nodded. "Uh-huh, Mr. Lyndon. That idiotic son of a bitch. I hate him and his wife."
"Show me where," said Hank. He opened the door and strode to his truck. He stopped once to see if I was following. "Come on."
As we got in the other man was walking onto the front porch. I heard him saying, "Ginger, honey, you sure are looking good," but we were out of range then, and I couldn't hear her reply.
I turned to Hank and momentarily forgot why I was there. He did not look like Joe-John Abondondalarama, but he was just as handsome. He smiled at me.
"Don't worry. I got caught in a trap once when I was a kid. How old is your brother?"
"Five." Then I remembered that he was four. I blushed.
"That's how old I was. And later I ran track in high school." He smiled again. "I wasn't any good, but I made the team."
I glanced out the window, then said shyly, "Really?"
"You caught me in a lie," he said. He grinned. "It was junior varsity. Hang on!"
The truck screeched through the street and made a sharp turn. We reached the field I had just come from and jumped over the curb and onto the grass. I bounced up and hit the ceiling of the car. My teeth clattered together when I landed. For a moment I feared I'd made a big mistake by finding this crazy-driving Hank Garvin. But he was so calm, it made me calmer.
I said, "I think you go left here!"
"Here?" he said.
"Yes!"
"Hang on!"
He turned hard left while I hung on. I had never been alone like this with a grown-up white person. But I wasn't scared exactly. I felt breathless and excited. He bumped along as if he drove over fields like this every day.
'Your daddy work in the hatchery?"
"Yes. My mother works in the big plant."
"Really? My wife is helping to unionize that plant."
Lately, my mother and father sometimes talked in low voices about the attempts to unionize the plant. I'd overheard my mother say you couldn't trust anyone anymore. And Silly had told me that one of the pro-union workers had got beaten up one night. Now I felt scared. What if Hank Garvin was secretly a thug? I wasn't even sure what a thug was exactly, which was all the more reason to be scared. A thug could be anyone, anywhere.
Hank seemed to sense my fear. He drove with his knees maneuvering the steering wheel while he searched his pockets and came up with a piece of striped gum that he threw to me. He took the wheel with his hands again. I was holding on for my very life. He smiled. He was so awfully handsome. "I've never been in an accident in thirty years."
Thirty years! He was way too old for me! I put some gum into my mouth. "You go right here!" I said. "At least, I think so."
"What's your name?"
"Katie!"
"Hang on, Katie!" He veered right. I hung on tight, and then I saw my sister and brother.
chapter 11
LYNNIE AND EVEN Sam were both a little surprised to see Hank: He was that handsome. It was as if he had stepped out of a comic book. I felt rather important, since I had sort of discovered him. He picked up Sam and strode quickly to the truck.
"You girls sit in back!"
I thought I heard dogs baying in the distance, and I remembered I'd heard rumors about Mr. Lyndon owning vicious dogs. Lynn and I climbed in. Right before Hank started the truck, he leaned out the window and looked at us. He said, "Hang on!"