“You’ve always been a fixer, Jack. But sometimes you have to let things go. Let them be. Maybe they get broken. Maybe they don’t. But you don’t have to worry, because nothing stays broken forever. Nothing’s permanently lost. Knee-Deep Meadow’s burned up. It will grow back. Stairways is burned down. Dad and Ma will rebuild it. You wait and see.”
“But Pete, a person is different. Once you’re killed, you’re killed.”
Pete shakes his head.
“People are the least killable things there are. They have a piece of forever in them. And nothing can take that away. But”—and here my brother leans over and touches his shaggy head to mine—“I don’t think you need to worry about that. Because I’ll be coming back.”
I look at him.
“Do you promise?” I ask.
“I won’t promise something I can’t. I love you too much to lie to you, Jack. But I’ll tell you I believe in my bones I’ll be coming back.”
There’s flinty purpose in his green eyes. He means it. He really means it.
A few days later, we have a last supper for Pete in Mr. Halleck’s dining room. Ma prepares a real feast: sirloin steak, roasted potatoes, sweet corn, fresh salad, and applesauce. Mr. Halleck joins us. So do Anna May and old Sam Williamson. Pete sits at the head of the table, hair brushed, dressed in a button-down shirt which he’s got tucked in like it’s Sunday and he’s going to church.
After a dessert of ice cream and peach cobbler, Mr. Halleck pours everyone a glass of sweet-tasting wine from a dark green bottle and we move into the living room to listen to Anna May play on the piano. She asks me to sit next to her on the bench and sing along, and for a preacher’s daughter, she sure knows some fun ones.
Will, Ma, and old Sam stand around us and sing as she plays “Roll Out the Barrel” and “The Maid of Amsterdam.” When she switches over to “Whiskey in the Jar,” Mr. Halleck sings too, and after we sing that final verse about that poor old robber getting turned in to the police by his lover, he laughs as if he ain’t done it in years.
By this time the wine has got me feeling fuzzy and warm and sleepy, so I climb up next to Dad on the couch and listen to him tell Mr. Halleck about the new house in town he and Ma looked at. It’s brand new, part of a development that’s sprung up just beyond the railroad tracks. Square fence. Square yard. Young, short trees.
Mr. Halleck pours Dad some more of that sweet wine and listens. The old man looks thoughtful.
“Once you’re settled, let’s talk about Stairways,” he says. “The house may be gone, but such things can be rebuilt. You’ve still got the land. That’s the most important thing.”
Dad sips his wine, but then he rests his big-knuckled hand on me and gives me a pat.
“Not quite the most important.”
At the piano, Anna May plays a final song of the evening, and it’s one of Dad’s favorites: “Danny Boy.” All about a father watching his boy go off to war:
But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow,
or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow.
’Tis I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so.
I don’t think there’s a dry eye in the room when Anna May finishes it and the final notes softly fade. Ma dabs at her eyes with the hem of her skirt. Will weeps openly, crosses the room to Pete, and gives him a hug. Pete looks embarrassed, but he don’t push Will away. Next thing I know, I’m up and across the room and hugging them both.
“I’m proud of you, Pete,” I tell him.
“I love you, Jack,” he tells me.
Next morning, early, Dad drives Pete into town to the bus station. Before he goes, Pete gives Ma a kiss on the forehead and Butch a last scratch behind the ears. To Will, Frankie, and me, he just waves from the passenger seat and grins a final grin.
I watch them go until the Ford disappears through the metal gate at the end of the long drive, until there’s nothing but a cloud of gray dust hanging on the air over the road.
A couple days later, hot sunlight splashes down all around us. We stand in the middle of that concrete slab in the field of simmering butterfly weed and wait for Frankie’s train. Clouds are stacking up in the west behind us. Another storm.
Will waits in the truck in the lot. Since Pete left, he’s been the one to drive us around. He’s said his goodbyes and is giving me and Frankie a last few minutes together.
We spend them in quiet. It has been the most eventful summer of my life. From floods to fires, from Mr. Madliner’s murder to Caleb’s disappearance to Pete’s leaving for the Marines, I have never known a faster-changing time. And through all of it, our cousin Frankie was my best friend and constant companion. I know there’s something special in that. He was there with my brothers for our last summer together; he’s one of us last summer boys. And I want to tell him. I just don’t have the words.
But then Frankie sets down his suitcase. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, Jack.”
I’m grateful for that. “Shoot. Better make it quick though. I can see your train coming.”
He turns to where a streak of sunlight flashes against silvery metal on the horizon. Suddenly, more than anything, I don’t want him to go.
Frankie turns back to me. “It’s about the night of the fire.”
I flinch. Across the field, the train sounds its horn. “What about it?”
“Pete said you asked him to go get Caleb that night.”
I blink in the hot sun. “Yes.”
“Why? You spent all summer long doing little else but think of ways to keep Pete from danger. Yet you asked him to do something very dangerous. You asked him to risk his life. And for Caleb Madliner, of all people.”
I’m still. “You saying it was wrong to do that?”
Frankie shakes his head. “No. Not at all. I was just wondering why you did it.”
Below us the rails begin to rattle. The train lets loose another blast on its horn.
“Tell you the truth, I don’t know,” I begin. “No, wait, that ain’t it. I do know. But it might not make any sense.”
He looks at me. Waiting. But that train is thundering closer now. I don’t have time to think. So I do what I do best. Talk:
“It’s something Ma told me back beginning of the summer. It had to do with people who felt their life wasn’t worth anything. Like they had no value. Ma said when a human being feels trampled under, they’ll do anything to show they matter. If it’s lighting fires, they light fires. I figured Caleb was one of those people.”
Frankie watches me close. His train is coming into sight now. Getting louder. I make it quick now.
“But I think everybody matters. Whether they think so or not. Whether I like them or not. Heck, they matter even if they’ve hurt somebody else, even if they’ve hurt me. People . . . just matter. I believed Caleb Madliner mattered. And I didn’t want him to die.”
I’m done. It’s just as well. The train’s brakes squeal out in protest as it approaches our platform. With a last blast on its horn, that hulking metal creature groans up to the station.
Frankie keeps his eyes on me. At last, a slow smile spreads across his face.
“John Thomas Elliot,” he says at last, “you are the toughest, kindest, wisest boy I have ever known.” He laughs. “I’m glad we’re cousins. And friends.”
I grin. “Yeah, yeah. You’re not so bad yourself. But if you don’t get moving, you’ll miss that train.”
I give him a hug. Then he lifts his mud-brown suitcase and turns for the train.
“Come visit me in the city sometime.”
“I’d like that a lot, Frankie.”
He laughs again and steps onto the train. “No, you wouldn’t. But you’ll come anyway.”
When Frankie’s train disappears over the rim of the world and the field is empty once more, I make my way back down to the lot where the parked cars bake in late afternoon sun. Butch cocks his head and gives a puzzled look from the bed of the pickup. He’s wondering where Frankie went.
“He’s gone back to his city, Butch,” I tell him. “Won’t see him again for a while, I guess.”
I climb up next to Will in the cab, who sits fiddling with the radio. The music comes in scratchy here. The reception’s no good. I’m quiet for a bit as he twists the dial.
“Well, he’s off,” I tell him.
“Yeah,” Will says distractedly. “Going to miss him?”