I roll over. Our room is quiet now. That cricket symphony is still playing across the creek. It’s beautiful.
“Hey, Will?” I got one more question.
“What, Jack?”
“You sure whooped old Everett good, didn’t you?”
Will don’t say nothing.
“I mean, you really clobbered him ’til he couldn’t take no more.”
Will sighs.
“Not even Pete could have whooped him no better. You really laid into him.”
Will sighs. “Go to sleep, Jack.”
I quiet down, but in my mind I live it all over again. Will’s swinging fists. His beautiful cusses. It was a thing to see.
Then there was Anna May there too. She’s pretty, for sure, but there’s more important things to be thinking about. Like that old wrecked fighter jet.
Sunday morning again, and that means church.
This time we drop Frankie off at Saint Peter’s Catholic Church in town so he can pray with his people before we drive down to Main Street Lutheran. Saint Peter’s looks more like a castle than a church, with iron-colored stones and narrow stained-glass windows and a statue of old Simon Peter himself out front holding an enormous key. As Frankie passes through the arched doorway, I see what must be a thousand candles glowing softly in smoky dark inside, and it seems to me mysterious and awfully old but also very pretty. Will says something about Catholics sure liking their smells and bells, and we drive off across town to our church.
Low clouds over the cornfields look like they’re fixing up some soft summer rain when we arrive, which suits me just fine as it keeps everything that much cooler inside.
Services begin with us all singing, and from our pew I see Anna May Fenton over with the choir, in a green dress with tiny pink flowers all across it. About a minute or so later, I catch her looking at us. Let her look. I imagine she’s feeling mighty foolish about ever spending any time with Everett Scott. She’s still looking our way once the song ends, and that’s when I see she ain’t looking at us, really, but at Will, and just at Will.
I glance to Will to see if he’s taken any notice. He’s redder than a turnip.
We sit for Pastor Fenton’s sermon, and this time he’s talking about holding on to what’s true in a time of so many confusing changes and telling us to keep our eyes aimed at the Lord. I don’t think Anna May’s listening, because every time I look her eyes are aimed right at Will, who’s more focused on the white paper pamphlet in his hands than I’ve ever seen him.
When services end we all lift one last “Amen” before filing out of our pew for the front. I’m hoping to walk with Dad to Mr. Hudspeth’s, but he stays a while talking with Pastor Fenton. Ma goes to her church-lady friends, and I’m amazed to see Pete go along with her.
I turn to ask Will if he wants to go up Main Street, but he ain’t next to me no more. A minute later, I find him out front with the other kids, standing at the edge of their circle, hands in his pockets, like usual. Only this time, Anna May is standing next to him. Not right next to him, but closer to him than anybody else.
Lordy.
“Come on, Will,” I say to him. “Let’s go on down to Mr. Hudspeth’s ’fore it starts raining and we can’t.”
Will squints skyward and rocks forward a little on his toes as if that could help him see them clouds any better. He bites his lip. About five feet away, Anna May is looking at the sky too. She don’t say a word. She stands very still.
Will seems to be wrestling with a thought. He takes a big old breath of June air and blows it out through his lips.
“Well . . .”
“Well, what?” I ask.
The cornfields begin rustling. The same breeze finds its way over to us and pulls playfully at Anna May’s green dress, swishing it around her shoulders, her hips.
“. . . I guess we can.”
“’Course we can. Let’s go.”
I start off the steps, but Will stays rooted where he is.
Behind him, inside the church, Ma is coming, her church ladies following like chicks. Trailing them are Dad and Pastor Fenton.
Will’s head suddenly snaps toward Anna May.
“Hey, Anna May?”
“Yes, Will?” she says real fast.
“Do you—?”
It ain’t just a thunderclap that comes then, it’s an explosion. With it, the sky opens, and it seems like every drop of water in the county comes down over the church parking lot. The kids scatter. Ma’s church-lady friends flood on past us and let out a whoop as they make for their cars, holding the white paper pamphlets over their heads.
I watch Main Street disappear into silvery sheets.
“Damn it all,” I say, even though we’ve just gotten out of church.
Will shuts his eyes and tilts his head back. Anna May ain’t moved, but she seems to be standing farther away now than before.
“Damn it all,” Will breathes, softly.
Dad, Ma, and Pete come up, Ma telling us to come on because we’re going to pick up Frankie and warning me not to dawdle, as if there’s any place to go now. I follow my family into warm summer rain. The cracks in the pavement are already filling up with splashing water, but I still hear Anna May when she says it, her voice faint over the rain.
“Damn it all.”
Chapter 14
THE EXPEDITION
When I wake up the next morning, my mind is still so wrapped up in Will’s wonderful fight that at first I hardly hear what he says when he tells Frankie and me:
“We’re going hunting for that fighter jet today. Pack your things and be ready by high noon.”
Will heads down the stairs to the kitchen, leaving me in my bed and Frankie on his mattress, both of us dazed and sitting like fools with our mouths open.
Frankie looks at me.
“We’re actually going!” he says.
The realization comes like the boom after fireworks, after the flash and dazzle’s disappeared and it’s nothing but spidery white clouds drifting through the night. We’re going on an expedition to find that wrecked fighter jet.
“This is it, Jack!” says Frankie. “The big story! The one to really make Pete famous. Peter Elliot Discovers Wreck of Long-Lost Fighter Jet. That’s the title that saves your brother!”
I can hardly move, can hardly breathe.
“Well, come on!” Frankie says, climbing off his mattress. “Will said high noon! What do we need packed by then?”
A million items cross my mind but I can’t speak a word, and then it all comes out, and it comes out as a laugh, and it’s all I can say but somehow it says it all.
At noon we meet in the yard in front of Stairways. Everything we need is in a pile before us: walking sticks, pocketknives, a spool of fishing string, a compass, canteens, two cans of beans, a book of matches, a coil of rope, fishing hooks, a roll of tinfoil, flashlights, blankets, an old fire-blackened skillet, a cardboard box of pancake mix, and a half-dozen potatoes. Butch eases over to sniff the potatoes, and I have to push him away.
Pete sets down a giant can of grape juice so big it looks like an artillery round for a tank. No clue where he got it.
Will frowns at it, then turns back to the map he’s got splayed over one knee. It’s Dad’s map and I know he ain’t asked permission to borrow it. With a worn-down stub of a pencil, he begins drawing.
“We’ll go north along Apple Creek, past Devil’s Hole, and pitch camp tonight here.”
He draws an X. The map crinkles.
“Old Sam says the crash site’s somewhere east of there. We’ll cross the creek and start the search tomorrow morning.”
We divvy up the equipment and load our packs. Pete grunts as he lifts his; that tank-round of grape juice swishes somewhere inside.
My brothers don’t know it, but I’ve packed a little something extra too. Will may have pinched Dad’s map, but I pinched his Kodak camera—and two rolls of film.
There ain’t a doubt in my mind whose sin is greater, but I figure it’s worth it.
When Frankie submits his story to the newspaper, it’s going to have photographs.