Their name was Baum, but he thought at first they said “Bomb,” which struck him as a funny kind of name. Later his father corrected him, saying their name was like Balm in the Bible — “The Balm of Gilead,” Papa said.
By the next night, his father was awake, but groggy, still not really communicating very well. Michael sat beside him and fed him soup with a spoon that was a little too small for the job; he would have to wipe Papa’s mouth with a frayed napkin Mrs. Bomb had provided. It was as if Papa were the child, and Michael the father, and the change felt good, made the boy feel older, that he was somehow paying his Papa back for all the wonderful things his father had done for him.
When the Bombs had gone off to their own bedroom, Michael settled on the threadbare sofa opposite his father’s cot — Papa was still feverish, but not as bad, not near as bad — and the boy was settling his head on a pillow Mrs. Bomb had given him, when he noticed the gun in the holster under his father’s jacket, on a chair where Mr. Bomb had draped it.
Papa was asleep, and so was the farm couple. The boy crept off the sofa, carefully removed the gun from the holster, and he stood and looked down at the weapon, huge in his small hand — rough and cold, not smooth and warm, like you’d imagine, from Tom Mix and the Lone Ranger.
But the longer he held it, the more natural it felt — he stood at the cracked mirror of a dresser off to one side of the room and pretended to be Tom Mix, drawing his gun at himself — looking fierce, a bad, bad man...
Then he pretended he was the Lone Ranger, and at some point, in his imaginings, he was his father...
O’Sullivan was not exactly sure how many days had passed. Three at least; probably no more than five. Unshaven, topcoat over his tieless white shirt, he sat in an old wicker chair on the porch of the timeworn farmhouse, feeling not bad, a tin cup of coffee steaming, cradled nicely in his hands. In the world around him, green was overtaking brown, and snow was nowhere. When had spring crept up on them? It had been winter, an eye blink ago.
Yet somehow it was not a surprise. They had been on the road together, he and Michael, forever — and yet there was no way to put enough time and space between them and the taking of Annie and Peter to give any solace, to make it seem anything but terrible and fresh in his memory. Out in the field — what a hard life these people had, but it was a life, wasn’t it, better than their own — Bill was allowing Michael to help in the planting, the boy doing the digging with energy and enthusiasm, while the warmly amused farmer followed along, dropping seeds.
Mrs. Baum, a grizzled goddess in a frayed checkered dress, peeling potatoes, was watching the boy, too. Then she glanced toward the ramshackle barn, where the maroon Ford could be glimpsed, since the door was half off its hinges.
“’spect you’ll be leavin’, soon,” she said.
O’Sullivan knew what she meant.
“We’ve enjoyed our visit,” he said. “I should be strong enough, by tomorrow... Don’t want to cause you any trouble.”
“No trouble a’tall.”
“Thank you for not asking questions.”
“Our own business is enough to keep us occupied.”
“But you took us in — strangers. Bullet holes in our car... bullet in me.”
A smile grooved her face, a thousand smile lines joining it. “This is Oklahoma, mister. We don’t like the banks much.”
O’Sullivan didn’t correct her false assumption.
“You know,” she said, “that boy Choctaw’s from around these parts.”
“Pardon?”
“That Floyd fella.”
Now O’Sullivan knew: Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd.
“He’s a wild one,” she continued, “but he helps folks out. Law says we oughta give him up — so far nobody has. Sayin’ is around these parts, sometimes a person’s got to sift the law.”
O’Sullivan said nothing.
Then Mrs. Baum, her smile almost glowing, said, “Boy of yours — he’s a good worker.”
Nodding, O’Sullivan felt a smile of his own blossom — he was enjoying his son’s antics out in the field. He asked the woman, “Any children of your own?”
“No... Bill and me hooked up a little late in life, for that. This is a family farm, though, Bill’s people — once was right somethin’ to see. No, no children... Can’t have everything.”
These people had next to nothing, O’Sullivan thought; and yet they were grateful for their lot in life...
Almost too casually, the woman said, “Dotes on you, you know.”
“Pardon?”
She turned her smile on the confused O’Sullivan. “Boy of yours! Worships the ground you walk on... Don’t you see it?”
Frankly, he didn’t, and just shrugged by way of response; but the next moment, his eyes caught Michael’s, the boy looking up from his work, joy in his face, and he threw a casual wave at his father, before returning to his digging.
O’Sullivan did not understand the rush of emotion. It came up somewhere deep inside of him, rolling with an awful warmth up his chest into his face and moisture welled behind his eyes, overtaking him. He excused himself and went back into the house.
He did not want these kind people to see him weep, nor did he want his son to witness that shameful action.
Michael awoke on the sofa, startled out of sleep by a dreadful dream.
In the dream — the nightmare — he’d been in the Looney mansion, and he and his father were kneeling at the coffin again, like at the wake. But when Michael peeked inside the box, his father was inside — with pennies on his eyes! And when Michael looked to his side, where a moment before Papa had been kneeling, too — it was Mr. Looney now, smiling in that grandfatherly way, his arm around him. Then the boy ran away and Mr. Looney started to chase him; at some point Mr. Looney turned into Connor Looney and then Michael ran into a room and it was the bathroom of their own house, white tile and red blood and dead Peter and dead Mama and he made himself wake up.
He stumbled over in his pajamas to where his father sat at a table, going over books and records in the light of a kerosene lamp. Papa was in his T-shirt and suspenders and trousers, his bandaged arm showing, blood dried there, a reddish brown.
Papa looked like he was having trouble — it reminded the boy of himself, trying to do his schoolwork, really struggling.
When Michael approached, Papa looked up — the boy had been expecting reproval, for not being asleep, but instead his father’s expression was warm, the man obviously pleased to see him.
That really helped, after the bad dream.
“Hello,” Papa said. “What are you doing up? It’s the middle of the night.”
“Nightmare.”
“Want to tell me about it?”
The boy shook his head.
His father pulled out the chair next to him at the table. “Come. Sit with me... if you want.”
Michael sat. The papers his father was going over were figures, numbers in columns and rows.
“Math, huh?” the boy said, making a face.
Papa smiled at him. “Yeah — I always hated that subject, in school.”
Michael had never thought about his father ever having been a kid at all — let alone in school. This was a minor revelation... and sudden common ground.
“Me, too,” Michael said, and grinned.
Then his father stopped and he had a funny look — almost like he felt guilty about something. “I... I guess I never took time to find that out, son. What, uh, subjects did you like?”