Frankie nods again.
I can’t believe it. Will not only rescued her; he kissed her.
“What happened next?” I ask.
Frankie shrugs. “Will asked if he could walk her home. Last we saw, the two of them were walking down the trail together. Will never even looked back.”
I’m quiet for a while as I try to make sense of it all. Of all days to miss being at the creek! Will kisses Anna May at the Sucker Hole, and I’m stuck with Ma and her church-lady friends playing bridge.
Still, it is strange, to think of your older brother kissing a girl. It’s just something I ain’t ever thought of before. Anna May is pretty and all . . . but to kiss her?
Frankie don’t seem at all bothered by it. He sits with his hands behind his head and a dreamy look on his face. Over in Knee-Deep Meadow, the crickets start up.
“Do you think they’re having a good time on their walk?” I ask Frankie.
“I imagine they are, Jack.”
Will returns later that night, when the moon is low over the meadow and everything seems soft in milky light. He crosses the porch planks slowly, easily. He don’t say a word to us, just smiles kind of gentle and goes right on in.
All through breakfast next morning we wait for him to say something, anything, about it. But he doesn’t. He just eats his eggs and drinks his orange juice. Afterward he wanders off somewhere with a couple of sheets of lined paper and a pencil behind one ear. We watch him drift toward the meadow.
“I can hardly believe it,” I say. “Will Elliot writing love letters.”
Pete leans against the railing, watching him go. “I guess sometimes things work out.”
“Think we’ll ever see him again?” Frankie asks.
“He needs a stamp if he’s going to mail that thing,” Pete says. “He’ll be back.”
Next afternoon, it’s just me on the porch, sipping my lemonade and watching our valley gleam golden and beautiful under the sun.
Things are duller than ever now that Will’s in love. He disappeared early, walking toward town. Pete decided he needed some money and went to pick up a few hours at the gas station. Dad’s at the game preserve. Ma is in town. I figure I’ll ask Frankie to play another game of Battleship, but he just shakes his head and takes off across the flagstones for the barn.
“Sorry, Jack. I’ve got writing to do,” he tells me.
I got no idea why he’s even bothering anymore, but I let him go anyway. No use making Frankie miserable about our failed expedition.
Alone on the porch, I start to get mad about it all. I know I shouldn’t, but a good part of me just wants to blame it all on Caleb Madliner. If we hadn’t run into him in the creek that day, well, maybe we’d have had time enough to find that fighter after all. I’m chewing that over in my head when I hear another car coming up the lane.
It’s a police car. State trooper. But he ain’t got his lights flashing or his siren sounding. It pulls up in front of our barn, and I see there are two people in the front seat. Only one of them gets out of the car, though.
It’s Kemper.
He glances about the yard. Then when he’s certain Butch ain’t coming for him, he begins to study our house and yard with his black ferret eyes. He stands there a long time, blinking in the sun. The way he looks at our land makes the skin go tight across the back of my head.
Then he sees me. He scowls.
“Your parents here?” he calls from the drive. The voice is squeaky.
“No, they are not,” I tell him. “Whatever you’ve got to say, you can to me.”
Behind him, the police officer rises from the car and looks about. He rests his hands on his belt and there’s a sound like a little metal jingle.
Kemper crosses the drive for the porch.
“You the one threw those stones, aren’t you?” He licks his lips as he comes and looks around him again, like he’s checking to see if anybody else is here.
When he gets close, he puts one polished black shoe on the porch step. Then he looks me over. I feel his eyes on my faded shirt, the one that used to be Will’s. Those eyes jump to the patch on my pants, the one Ma sewed on after I cut up the knee running.
“You see that policeman behind me?” Kemper jerks a thumb over his shoulder so that he’s pointing to the barn, not to the police officer in the drive, but I don’t bother telling him that.
“He’s here to protect me while I deliver this to your daddy.” He draws a white envelope out of his suit and waves it at me. “It’s a notice of a public hearing to consider a proposal to create a reservoir on this land. Do you know what that means, boy?”