“How come?” I look hard at Silas to see if he’s teasing. As much as I miss Queenie already, I can’t imagine being away from your mama on purpose.
“She married a fella that liked drinkin’ whiskey and handin’ out whippin’s. I took me a year of that, and I figured I was better off makin’ my own way.” The sparkle leaves his eyes for a minute, and there’s nothing left but dark. But quick as it’s there, he shrugs and smiles, and the little dents come back in his cheeks. “I struck off with a harvest crew that was movin’ through. Went clear up to Canada, pickin’ apples and combinin’ wheat. After that was over, worked my way back south again.”
“When you was just ten?” Camellia smacks her lips to let him know she’s not believing a word of it. “You done all that? I just bet.”
Smooth as a cat, he turns in his chair, lifts up the tail of his faded-out shirt, and shows us the scars across his back. All five of us jerk away from the table. Even Camellia hasn’t got a smart-mouthed answer now.
“Be glad if you got a nice mama and daddy.” Silas looks hard at her. “Don’t ever get it in your head to leave them behind, if they’re good to you. Some sure enough ain’t.”
We all go quiet for a minute, and tears build in Lark’s eyes. Silas sops up the last of his egg and drinks a swig of water. He looks at us over the rim of the tin cup and frowns like he can’t figure what we’re so long faced about. “Say, li’l bit”—he reaches out and tweaks Lark’s nose, and her lashes flutter like butterfly wings—“did I ever tell you about the night I met Banjo Bill and his dancin’ dog Henry?”
Just like that, he’s off on another story and then another. Time goes by in a wink while we finish the last of the food and then clean up the mess.
“Your cookin’ ain’t half bad.” Silas licks his lips after we’re done washing dishes in the pail on the porch. By then, Fern’s got her dress on wrong side out, because she’s changed herself out of her nighty, and Gabion’s running around half-naked, looking for somebody to clean him up after he sneaked to the outhouse off the back of the shanty all by himself. It’s a good thing he didn’t fall right through into the river. There’s no bottom on a shantyboat outhouse, just the water.
I tell Camellia to take him on the porch and dunk his rear in the river and then dry him off. It’ll be easiest.
Camellia’s nostrils flare. The only thing that scares her in the whole wide world is poop. Which is exactly the reason I’m making her go clean Gabby. She deserves it. She hasn’t helped with a thing all morning.
“Mellia! Mellia!” our baby brother cheers as his fat little legs wobble him toward the door, bare bottomed. “I metsy!”
My sister sneers at me, then whips open the screen and drags Gabion out, pulling him up by one arm, so that he stands on his tippy-toes.
“I’ll do it,” Lark whispers, hoping to end the fight.
“You let Camellia see after it. You’re not big enough.”
Silas and I look at each other, and he smiles a little. “Ain’t you ever gonna get dressed?”
I look down and realize I never did change and never even thought about it, I was so caught up in Silas’s stories. “Guess I better,” I say, and laugh at myself and get my dress down from the hook, then stand there holding it. “You gotta go outside, though. And no peeking.”
There’s been a funny little thought in my head while Silas and me been cooking and taking care of the babies. I’ve been play-pretending like I was the mama and Silas was the daddy and this was our house. It’s helped me not think about Queenie and Briny still being gone.
But there’s no way I’d get undressed in front of him, or anybody. I’ve come up big enough this past year that I dress behind the curtain in the shanty, like Queenie does. I wouldn’t stand still for somebody seeing me in the altogether any more than I’d let somebody whip me across my back and leave scars.
“Heck,” Silas says, and rolls his eyes, “why’d I be lookin’? You ain’t nothin’ but a kid.”
My skin goes hot from head to toe, and my cheeks boil.
Outside the screen door, Camellia laughs.
I blush harder. If I could, I’d knock her and Silas both off into the water right now. “And take the little kids out with you,” I snap. “A woman needs privacy.”
“How would you know anythin’ about that? You ain’t no woman. You ain’t nothin’ but a li’l curly-headed Kewpie doll,” Silas teases, but I don’t think it’s funny, especially when Camellia can hear. On the porch, she’s lined up with Fern and Lark, enjoying the show.
Every muscle in my body goes stiff. I don’t get mad easy, but when I do, it’s like a fire inside me. “Well, you ain’t nothin’ but a…a stick! A stick boy. The wind don’t even have to slow down to blow around you. That’s how skinny you are.” I square up on him, hateful as I can, and poke my fists into my hips.
“Least I don’t got hair that’d do to mop a floor with.” He grabs his hat off the hook and stomps out the door. From someplace near the gangplank, he yells, “You oughta join the circus. That’s what you oughta do. You could be a clown!”
I get a look at myself in the mirror on the wall, and there’s blond curls flying everywhere, and my face is red as a woodpecker’s head. Before I can even catch hold of how I look, I’m running to the door to holler out, “Well, you can just keep walkin’, Silas…Silas…whatever your last name is, if you got one. We don’t need you anyhow, and…”
Onshore, he drops down to a squat all of a sudden and bats a hand at me. I can’t make out his face under the hat, but it’s clear enough there’s trouble. He’s seen something in the woods.
The heat in my skin changes direction and sucks inward.
“Yeah, you can just keep walkin’!” Camellia shouts, jumping into the wrangle. “Git off our boat, stick boy!”
Silas glances over, shoves his palm at us again. The brush closes around him as he scoots in.
“You ain’t hidin’! I see you there!”
“Hush, Camellia!” I whip open the screen door and yank Fern and Lark inside.
Camellia gives me a crosswise frown. She’s bent over the rail, dangling Gabion by his arms. His bottom swirls in the water while he kicks and giggles. Camellia pretends to drop him, then catches his arms again, and he lets out a squeal before I can get to them.
“Come on inside.” Leaning out, I reach for my brother’s arm, but Camellia swats me away and lets Gabby dangle by one hand.
“He’s havin’ fun. And it’s hot inside.” Her thick, dark hair falls forward, the tips reaching to the water, touching it like a spill of ink. “You wanna go swimmin’?” she asks Gabby. For a minute, I think she’s gonna climb into the water with him.
Onshore, Silas pokes out of the brush and puts a finger to his lips, trying to throw quiet our way.
“Somethin’s wrong.” I catch Gabion’s hand and swing him up like a wishbone, bringing my sister with him.
“Owww!” She’s mad when her elbow hits the rail.
“Get inside!” Down shore, the leaves shiver apart, and I see black—a man’s hat maybe. “Somebody’s out there.”
Camellia snorts. “You just want that boy to come back.” She can’t see Silas, but he’s probably not ten feet from where a branch snaps and a raven takes off, cawing out complaints.
“There. See?”
Camellia catches sight of the black. It’s somebody coming, for sure, but instead of going in the door, Camellia slips around toward the other side of the boat. “I’ll sneak off the back and check who it is.”
“No,” I hiss, but the truth is I’m not sure what to do. I want to toss off the lines, and push the Arcadia out of the sand, and take to the river. The water’s still and calm this morning, so it’d be easy for us to put her out, except I wouldn’t dare try it. With nobody but Camellia and me and maybe Silas to keep the Arcadia from hitting a bar or getting plowed through by a barge or a paddle-wheeler, there’s no telling what could happen to us on the river.