Boys in the Valley(37)

Grace is smiling broadly but the first words from her mouth is a rebuke. “Peter Barlow, where are your coat and hat? Can you not see winter all around you?”

I start to respond, then close my mouth. Unsure of a reasonable excuse.

“Go fetch the boy one of my coats. And a cap, please,” John says to Grace, and I nod to him in appreciation as she runs off. John puffs his pipe, turns his attention to Andrew. “You fellas going to need a good bit of supply, Father. This storm is going to block you in for two, maybe three weeks.”

“Yes, that’s our thinking as well. It’s been a decent season of harvest for us, and the animals have remained healthy, thank goodness. But we’ll take our usual supplies . . . plus, oh, fifty percent more, I’d think.”

“I figured.” John points his pipe to the barn. “I’ve got most of your goods set aside in there, with a few things more to gather. I waited on the eggs. No good to you frozen.”

Grace returns with a pea coat draped over an arm and a black cap clutched in one hand. “Here, Peter. Papa’s coat will hang on you a bit,” she says with a critical eye, “but at least you’ll be warm.”

I put on the coat and instantly feel better. It does indeed hang on me, almost to my knees, and my thin frame swims in the coarse fabric, but I’m warm as a bug in July, and that’s what matters. I pull on the cap and Grace flashes another smile that makes blood rush to my face.

“Papa, Peter and I will gather the eggs, if you’d like.”

“In a moment,” John says absently, his sharp eyes—gray and intelligent beneath heavy brows—never leaving Andrew. “Heard you, uh, had some trouble at the orphanage the other night.”

I startle at the words, glance toward Andrew to see his response. Despite my prodding, he wouldn’t tell me all of what he knows, but seemed deeply bothered by it. I tried to bring it up again on the ride over, but he would say nothing he hasn’t previously said, which amounted to: the man was injured, and then he passed. I didn’t want to press him on the other details, such as the dead deputy and the strange laughter. The gunshot. The screams.

I’m hoping that, since there’s an adult inquiring, he may reveal more.

“Trouble?” he says, and I almost laugh at the feigned innocence on his face. Andrew is many things, most of them good, but a liar he is not.

“Well, now, I don’t mean to pry.” John scuffs his boot into the snow, revealing frosted strands of grass and packed dirt beneath. I feel Grace’s fingers clutch my elbow, as if she too had heard rumors, and is anxious to hear Andrew’s reply. “Anyway,” John continues, “Sheriff Baker came through here the other morning. Had a dead deputy in his wagon. They stopped for some food to take with them, stayed long enough for a cup of hot coffee, and we got to chatting. Heard some strange things.”

“Strange?” Andrew says, looking considerably more uncomfortable.

“What they did to that little girl, for one.”

“Papa,” Grace says, her voice small but filled with warning.

John, to his credit, looks properly abashed.

“Just rumors, I suppose,” John finishes lamely.

“Yes, well,” Andrew says, his face now having lost its mask of innocence, replaced with a hardening of his features I’ve seen many times. Mostly when I’m asking for something he knows I shouldn’t be. “It’s in man’s nature to seek knowledge.”

Hill seems to think a moment, then nods. “And Proverbs says a man who whispers separates close friends. So how about I shut my trap and get you stocked up?”

Andrew chuckles, but his features do not soften. “Fair enough.”

“Good, good. Let’s have the kids work a bit while you and I have a chat in the house, settle on numbers. I have some brandy that will put some color in those pale cheeks.”

Andrew turns to me before heading off. “Don’t load anything into the wagon just yet. Gather together what you can. We’ll want a count before we put everything in crates.”

“Yes, Father,” I say. I feel the weight of my leather satchel beneath the coat and against my hip, and I’m anxious to give Grace back her book, along with the letter tucked inside.

He gives me one last glance, one that is more worry than warning, but Grace is already taking my cold hand in her astonishingly warm one, pulling me toward the barn. “I’ll keep a close eye on him, Father Francis, don’t worry.”

Andrew scoffs once as I’m led away, as if pulled by a rope.

At the barn, Grace pulls open one of the large doors, which glides easily outward, shoveling snow away before it. She slips into the musty darkness, and I follow.

The barn interior is dim, lit only by the light coming through the bright seams of the walls and ceiling. It’s cold inside, but there’s no motion to the air so it’s less bitter. Grace pulls the door closed behind me, pulls a lantern off a peg and a tin of matches from a pocket.

“I think one light will be enough, don’t you?” she says, moving deeper into the barn.

I can smell the animals, hear the rustling cluck of the chickens, the whinny of horses. The cows, silent and stagnant, have been brought in for milking. Most of the other horses, goats, and cows remain in the pasture. A pigpen resides behind the structure, and I can hear their honking snorts. The entire barn is ripe with the smells of manure, hay, and beast.