"Gaw, I love to walk home tired at the end of a good day with the sun in my eyes!"
Ahead, on the path, Father went on talking to the Zambus and Jerry.
"You can pack a man in ice and crisp him like celery and snap him out of sunstroke. That ought to be a useful application around here. And did I ever tell you about the advances in cryogenics?"
His voice tore through the trees and exhausted me. His confidence was something I did not want to hear now. I dreaded the thought of Father repeating his story in Jeronimo. And his lie scared me. Did you see those Indians faces? But the Indians' faces were confused, they had monkey wrinkles, and they had tried to frighten us away by showing us black teeth like their dogs. Once I had believed that Father was so much taller than me that he saw things I missed. I excused adults who disagreed with me, and blamed myself because I was so short. But this was something I could judge. I had seen it. Lies made me uncomfortable, and Father's lie, which was also a blind boast, sickened me and separated me from him.
"Charlie's back there doing the best he can, people!"
I loved this man, and he was calling me a fool and falsifying the only world I knew.
I prayed for a hitch. My prayers were answered. Things were not right in Jeronimo. It was what I had wished, but, like most wishes that are granted, more than I bargained for.
Jeronimo was struck with quietness and a thin flutter of leaves. It had always softened and collapsed in twilight: it was the way the sun was strained through the trees, the way it glanced in weak glimmers off the river. It was the dust stirring. It was the way people were round-shouldered after such a long day of light and no clouds.
But this evening it was deadened. It had an atmosphere of disappearance and hiding alarm that said something had just happened, like the silence after a howl. There was a low skreak and skrittle of lizards watching from the undergrowth, and on the branches birds locating perches for the night, their polite strut at sundown.
Father halted us and said, "Somebody's been here and gone."
Fat Boy was not alight. The Maywit's house was black — none of their normal lanterns — open windows, empty porch, no smoke.
"Allie." It was Mother — her white waiting face in the Gallery.
Father walked toward her and asked her what was going on.
She said, "I thought something had happened to you, too."
"Too?"
"The Maywits — they're gone. I couldn't stop them."
Father said "I knew it," and smiled at Francis Lungley.
But I felt responsible. I had prayed for something to happen, and it had. Anything to prevent Father from bursting into Jeronimo and lying about flabbergasted Indians and ice and you should have seen their faces.
Now Father was smiling at Clover. She had run from under the house and was hugging him and explaining.
"A motorboat came and took all the Maywits away. The man called you names. It was the missionary you sent back that day. Ma Kennywick yelled at him and Mr. Peaselee busted the pump and Ma said you were going to run wild when you hear about it. But you're not, are you? Dad, was it spooky!"
Father looked at everyone in turn and his mouth bulged with satisfaction. "Why should I go wild?" he said. "I knew it was going to happen."
Jerry said, "What about Drainy and the other kids?"
"They went away," Clover said. "All of them, in the man's motorboat."
"What did I tell you?" Father said. He was grinning at the Zambus and they were grinning back.
Mother had come down from the Gallery with April, who was moping. Mother said, "I did everything I could, but they wouldn't listen. They didn't hear, they didn't recognize me, they were so frightened."
"Don't tell me," Father said firmly. "I know all about it. The Maywits ran off with that moral sneak in some polluting pig of a boat. Figgy's friend. You don't have to spell it out. I took one look across the clearing and I knew."
Hearing "Figgy," Mr. Haddy came forward and said, "It were puppysho. Them people jump everyways and we ain't get a dum bit of peace. Ma Kennywick scared out of her skin and bellyaching ever since. Peaselee, he bawling too, about seeing some dum fool with ruckbooses. Man, we glad you here, Fadder."
Father waited, then said, "And I know something else."
He smiled and took a mouthful of the silence and swallowed it.
"Fadder know." This was Francis Lungley, telling Bucky.
"Those Maywits have got a lot to learn."
If he knew everything, why didn't he know their real name?
I said, "Maywit isn't their name. It's Roper. They're all Ropers."
"Who says?"
I told him what the kids had said, but I did not mention the Acre or that they were all afraid of him. Jerry, Clover, and April said nothing — they let me take the blame for knowing. Father was still smiling.
Mother said, "You should have said something before this, Charlie."
"I thought Dad knew."
Father said, "What else do you know?"
I was going to say — Those men you called slaves didn't look like slaves, and the Indians looked scared. The ice melted before they could see it. You wouldn't let us rest, you made Jerry cry by talking about the Holiday Inn, and it was a terrible trip, worse than the river trips and probably a failure.
But I said, "Nothing else."
"Then I still know more than you do," he said — but when had I ever doubted that? — "because I know they're coming back."
We went down to the bathhouse and stripped off our clothes. Father set the showers going — what a marvelous invention! It was like a car wash, with jets of water shooting from pipes on the walls. We were all inside, jostling in the fine spray, in the half-dark — Father, Jerry, the Zambus, and me. Fat Boy's fire was out, so there was no hot water, but no one minded. The busy harmless sting of the showers took off the mountain dust and the bad memories.
Mother said, "I wouldn't be so sure about that, Allie."
"She doesn't believe me," Father said. "Pass the soap."
He was proud of his soap. We had made it ourselves out of pig fat we had traded for ice. It was greasy yellow soap and felt like a handful of lard. "No additives," Father said. "Why, you could eat that soap!"
"You weren't here."
"Didn't have to be."
"It was horrible," Mother said. "That missionary — Struss."
Father said, "I know."
Hollering through the bathhouse walls, Mother said, "It seems he was up in Seville in his boat. I don't know what he saw there, but it must have been those ridiculous people praying. He came back accusing us all of blasphemy and spreading the lies of science."
"Soap up." Father said to the Zambus. They always washed in a squatting position, never standing up. Also, they kept their shorts on when they took baths. I couldn't see them in the dark bathhouse, but I could hear the water pelting against their heads, and their spitting and guffing.
"Could they have been on their knees, praying to the refrigerator?" Mother said. "Whatever it was, your Reverend Struss was pretty upset. He came in swinging. We were doing harm, he said, leading his people astray. He was mostly yelling at the Maywits — he called them the Ropers. He made them get down at the riverbank while he splashed water all over them. It was a service of purification, he said, washing them clean of the sins we had taught them. Mrs. Kennywick didn't know which way to turn, and Mr. Peaselee freaked out."
Father said, "I could have told you."