Finding Esme Page 12

  What had Bee done for Harlan?

  “Does this have anything to do with the ghost lights you saw, way back when Harlan was a baby, going up and down Solace Hill?”

  She didn’t answer. She closed her eyes and fell asleep. I lingered there a long time, watching her chest go up and down before quietly slipping out.

  I rode my bike home, the gentle rain misting my face, thinking how some people say a rain means a stranger is coming. I thought about Jewell arriving, and then that dead man, and wondered who was coming next. I lifted my face up to the sky, opening my mouth to catch what I could, relishing the sweetness of it. I thought about Paps, and how he barely said a word to me but I knew he loved me just the same. I’d always been quiet, too, holding all those worries in, but I felt different now. A new me was opening up. I wasn’t sure what it all meant.

  I was hoping I could go straight up to Solace Hill, but just my luck, Bee was picking peaches. Jewell wasn’t in her enclosure; June Rain must have brought her in. I slowed down, hoping I could bike across the front lawn without Bee seeing me. She called me over without even looking up.

  “Where you been?” she asked after I leaned my bike against a tree.

  “Visiting Miss Lilah,” I said. “She had a stroke last night. Thinks she’s going to die.”

  She glanced over at me, then went back to picking. “That lady’s old, Esme. Maybe it’s her time.”

  “Doc Delaney says she should be taken to the hospital.”

  She yanked at a peach that wasn’t quite ready. Bee’d been out of sorts, more than usual, since that banker Mr. Galloway had attempted a second visit and being put in jail. “Life is unpredictable, Esme. It’s always ready to bite you in the butt when you least expect it.”

  “Are there ghosts, Bee?” I asked her. “Do ghosts come along with our gift?”

  She pursed her lips, yanking on another unripe peach. “Why you ask, honey?”

  Suddenly a jackrabbit shot by with Old Jack right on its tail. It escaped under the pasture fence, where Sugar Pie was grazing.

  “Miss Lilah said she saw Paps. In his church suit.”

  Bee clasped the peach hard, looking at me.

  Finally she said, “He was wearing that suit the day we got married, only time I ever got him in a suit, got him in a church.”

  “Do ghosts come with our gift, Bee?” I asked again.

  She leaned her head against the tree. “I was hoping you wouldn’t get one,” she said softly. “None of the others before us, none of our grandmothers did. I’ve been so worried for you, Esme. . . .”

  “It’s all right, Bee,” I said, glancing over at the henhouse, then up to Solace Hill. “I think mine just came to show me something, to help me, then it went away.”

  She looked over at me, her eyes glistening with relief. “They don’t always go easily.”

  “Bee, what happened when Harlan . . .”

  “You go on in out of the rain, Esme,” she said quietly, her head still resting on the trunk of the peach tree.

  I waited a minute for her to say something more but she didn’t.

  When I reached the screen door, I didn’t go in right away. I watched June Rain, Jewell in one arm, the other wrapped around Bo, who was leaning in to his mama as far as he could. June Rain was humming and it took me a second to realize it was another church hymn: “I go by the wayside, I go by the wayside.” I listened in wonder, knowing this would have to go under the revival tent, with Uncle Hen and the bubblegum snakebite scar and all the other things we didn’t know about her. Finally I turned and ran for Solace Hill even though the rain was coming down harder now, unleashed from the sky.

  I curled up on Bee’s quilt under the tractor. Bump was nearby munching on a worm. Paps, where are you? I was the one who’d loved him the most, who missed him more than anything in the world. Why hadn’t he come for me, then? I watched the rain as it washed down on Louella Goodbones, revealing more and more of her. It was the rain that had shown her to me in the first place. No, it was Paps, it was Paps who’d led me to her. Or had it started before?

  One small thing could lead to another. The ripple effect. Had it started with the lightning the day Paps died? Or when I followed the fireflies up the hill? Or were the answers floating around in the sweet far in-between? Bee said there were vibes out there, and that she and I just picked up more than others did, as though we had antennae. Maybe this hill put off a whole mess of signals, maybe it had since that dinosaur lay down and died millions of years ago.

  Bring her up and let her go.

  But I wasn’t ready. She was all I had. Maybe it was true that our sorrows were interlinked like the honeycombs, one after the other like Bee said. But I had to believe that somehow, some way, eventually a joy would follow. I’d already helped people like Dovie, and Rose, and maybe I could do more.

  And then I heard a voice. It sounded strange and sad, and so, so far away like a ship’s foghorn calling to its port. I was imagining it, wasn’t I?

  I crawled out from under the tractor, muddying my knees and hands. I slipped as I tried to stand up, and slid down the hill a little bit. Through the rain I could see a tall figure—a man— and a child next to him. Paps?

  “Here I am!” I called, waving my hands in the rain, squinting to keep the water out of my eyes.

  “Esme?” It was Bo next to the man, waving at me excitedly.

  He was a tall man dressed in khaki wearing a safari hat. A safari hat. Something tiny and small crawled across my heart then, and I couldn’t breathe. He wore a special belt with brushes and picks dangling from it.

  I stood there blinking, staring at that belt, knowing I’d somehow unleashed something, and that belt and that man were here because of me. I looked at Bo.

  “Bee said he could find you up on the hill,” he said, smiling big. “He’s a dinosaur man,” Bo said. “T-R-E-X.”

  The man smiled and reached out his hand to shake mine, but my legs were trembling and I couldn’t move. Then I slowly pulled my hands behind my back, maybe hoping that by not taking his extended hand he would go away.

  “Esme McCauley, you sent me a letter,” he said. His voice had a strange light accent to it.

  My heart fell to my feet. I had not sent the letter. Finch had done this, I knew it. My best friend in the world had done this. I looked back up the hill toward the tractor that thankfully blocked the view of what we’d uncovered. “I’m sorry Louella Goodbones,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  Chapter 15

  The man pushed his hat back slightly. He had long sandy brown hair that was tucked behind his ears, and his face was tanned, almost leathery. He was handsome in a strange sort of way.

  I could see Bee in the distance, under the peach trees, holding an umbrella. I could hear Old Jack barking at the screen door, and somehow I knew that June Rain was standing at the window with Jewell.

  The man pulled something from his back pocket. He unfolded it and held it out to me. I stared down at Finch’s drawing of Louella Goodbones. It looked like it had been taken straight from a science book except for the cartoony eyes I’d drawn, which Finch had gussied up. My stomach dropped. I couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe it. All that time he’d been asking me if I was ready to send the letter and he’d already done it.

  “I’m Professor Abramanov and I teach paleontology in Dallas,” the man said. “I received this letter from an Esme McCauley and it very much intrigued me. So much so, I got in my car and drove to Hollis. Inquired about you at the library. Miss Ferriday gave me directions to your farm.”

  “What’s paleon—” asked Bo

  “He’s a paleontologist,” I said. “He’s interested in my dinosaur.”

  “If you please, Miss McCauley, I’d like to know where you’ve seen this.” He nodded at Finch’s drawing. He was someone who didn’t seem to practice the niceties of small talk, not like everyone in Hollis who danced like chickens around everything.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “B
ecause I’ve never in all my years seen a skull like this. It’s similar to a sauropod but not quite. The eye sockets are more rounded, and the snout more elongated. The eyes, well, they look pretty silly.” He laughed. “Did you make this up? Please tell me you didn’t.”

  I couldn’t lie. He’d driven all the way out here. Bo knew, and Miss Ferriday might have let something slip when he’d gone by the library, and of course Finch had given everything away. My secret was no longer mine. “No, I didn’t make it up. She’s up there, up on the hill.”

  Bo let go of the man’s hand and ran through the mud up Solace Hill.

  “It’s a she, is it?” the professor asked, chuckling. “Are you sure?”

  “Sure as daylight,” I said. I was soaked now, my toes squishy in my moccasins.

  “We’ll see about that. How did you find her?” he asked.

  “Paps found her for me,” I whispered.

  “Can I see her?” But he was already following Bo up the hill, slipping a little in the mud, his tools clinking like wind chimes. Finally I snapped out of my daze and ran after him.

  Professor Abramanov arrived at the top of the hill a few minutes after I had. I took a step back so he could see Louella Goodbones, and just as I did the sun peeked out, shining an arc of light on her skeleton. The professor stepped forward and his mouth dropped open and his eyes grew wide. He knelt down on one knee and ran his fingers across her snout, up and up and across her head. Then he gingerly brushed off her shoulder blade. He stood up and stepped back and stood there looking like I’d first seen him in that grainy photograph. Maybe I’d known even then that he would come, that Louella would pull him here. Maybe I’d known all along. He wiped his hand across his forehead like he’d just won a marathon.

  “Well, what is she?” I asked. “Who is she?”

  The professor shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “I just don’t know. But that’s a good thing, Miss McCauley. That’s a very good thing.”

  Later we sat with the professor around the dinner table, all of us, including Sweetmaw and Jewell, her little bell tinkling as June Rain shifted her from one shoulder to another. Bee had made chicken-in-a-blanket with cornmeal dumplings, and hot rolls, and string beans with baby onions from her garden and chocolate nut angel pie. She’d even brought out Grandmother Hennessey’s gold-rimmed china which we normally only used on Thanksgiving and Christmas. She kept pouring the professor more sweet tea and serving him second helpings.

  “I haven’t had a home-cooked meal like this in years,” the professor said.

  June Rain sat across the table from him, feeding Jewell with a bottle.

  “Why do they call you T. Rex? ’Cause you found one?” asked Bo excitedly.

  Professor Abramanov wiped his mouth with his napkin and shook his head. “No, can’t say that I ever have, young man. My students nicknamed me T. Rex because my name is so hard to pronounce. They call me ‘Professor T.’ for short. You can call me that; it’s easier for everyone.”

  “Where did you say you’re from, Professor T.?” Sweetmaw asked with a giggle, her cheeks pink. She handed him the rolls at the same time Bee was handing him the chicken.

  “Dallas, at Southern Methodist University, although I’m in the field half the year. It’s usually just beans and franks and hard biscuits when I’m out working.” He hadn’t answered her question, not really. It was obvious he was originally from somewhere other than Texas even if he was nicknamed T. Rex.

  Bee narrowed her eyes at him.

  “And what is your specialty, Professor Abramanov?” Bee asked, not one for silly nicknames even if she had one herself.

  Despite the worried feeling in my stomach, I couldn’t help chomping down on the cornmeal dumplings, my favorite.

  “Carnivores from the late Cretaceous period,” he replied, then added, “That’s around sixty-five million years ago.”

  “There’s a whole lot of years gone by since then, Professor T.,” Sweetmaw said.

  June Rain shifted Jewell, who was sleeping, to her other shoulder, and I noticed that the piglet was wearing little lace bloomers that someone had embroidered Jewell on, which I thought was the strangest thing since I’d never seen a needle in June Rain’s hands before. The professor was looking at June Rain while he went on telling us about his work and using a whole bunch of big words none of us had ever heard of and would forget in five minutes. I glanced over at Bee, and she was holding the bowl of string beans in midair, her eyes narrowed on the professor.

  “So just what has Esme found up on that hill?” she interrupted him, getting right to the point. “What is it that made you get in your car and drive all the way from some college in Dallas?”

  “Southern Methodist University,” he said, smiling slightly as he sipped his sweet tea.

  “I heard you before,” said Bee gruffly. “Don’t matter where you’re from, just want to know why you’re here. And what you want from us.”

  “Why is Bee mad?” Bo whispered to me.

  It was quiet a moment, then Professor T. said, “Mrs. McCauley, I don’t know what Esme found. It’s a dinosaur, that’s for sure, and it’s a genus I’ve never seen before. I don’t think that anyone has ever seen it before. I think perhaps it might be a theropod because the snout resembles an Allosaurus, but more elongated — and it’s smaller than an Allosaurus and other theropods. The conical teeth have trailing edge serrations, which is what a carnivore needs to crush bones, and from what I can see of the shoulder musculature, it had bipedal posture.”

  Sweetmaw was giggling again, her face pinked all the way to her ears. “My, my Professor T., you sure know how to use big words!” She tried to take Jewell from June Rain then, but Jewell snorted so Sweetmaw bit into her roll with an offended look instead.

  “That dinosaur is on our property, Professor,” said Bee. “Get to it. Just what do you want from us?”

  “Mrs. McCauley,” he said. “I like you.”

  “Well, I don’t think I like you,” Bee said.

  “Don’t mind her,” Sweetmaw said. “She’s a little hard around the edges, Professor, that’s all.”

  “I deal with all kinds of people in my work,” said Professor T. “I can handle myself.” But he wasn’t smiling anymore.

  Bee scooted away from the table, her chair screeching across the linoleum. Everyone watched her as she went to peer out the screen door, then just stood there, her arms folded across her chest. Old Jack trotted over and sat down behind her, thumping his tail. A slight breeze wafted in, and I thought I could smell Harlan’s cigarettes. Bee just looked out into the darkness, waiting for the professor to tell her what he wanted. Suddenly two fireflies landed on the screen door, their embering tails blinking. The hairs stood up on my neck.

  “I want it, Mrs. McCauley. Whatever it is up there. I want it more than anything in the world. Something like this only comes along once in a lifetime for someone like me.” He paused, and I could see he was measuring his words, thinking it all through. “I have no doubt my department, the university even, will be willing to pay you for it.”

  Bee stood there, her back to us. I started to feel dizzy when Old Jack got up and wagged his tail, sniffing at the fireflies on the screen.

  “Once in a lifetime,” Bee mumbled. “Once in a lifetime.” She paused, then added, “Well, in that case, other people are going to want it, too, aren’t they, Professor?”

  Professor T. was smiling like a lizard. I have to admit, it made him really handsome. Really, really handsome. Movie-star handsome.

  But I could see a glimmer of fear in his eyes, too, fear that his dream was about to be snatched away from him. “I hope we don’t have to come to that. I have to talk to the higher-ups, there will have to be meetings, decisions made. But whatever we offer, it will be fair. I promise you that, Mrs. McCauley. It will be fair and I will take care of her and eventually she will be shared with the world.”

  Bee snorted. “Her. You sure it’s a her, Professor?”

  “Esme
McCauley thinks so, and I believe her.” He winked at me and I looked away.

  “But no one has asked me,” I whispered. “I found her. Maybe she wants to stay right where she is.”

  Everyone looked at me. The money from selling Louella Goodbones would save the farm. That’s what Bee wanted. And that’s what Paps would want. Perhaps that’s why he’d led me up there in the first place.

  Bee looked at me, her eyes questioning. She was leaving it all up to me, and I shook my head at her. Tears began to prick at my eyes. I didn’t want to lose her, my Louella Goodbones.

  “All right,” I whispered, then louder. “All right!” I pushed away from the table, knocking my chair over. I ran past Bee, letting the door slam in her face. I ran as fast as I could through the dark, my feet on fire, the smell of Harlan’s Salems tickling my nose. I glanced back and saw the fireflies trailing behind me like tiny stars.

  I sat under the peach trees for a good long time. Watching the goings-on in the kitchen, shadows walking to and fro as dishes were done and put away, listening to the low mumblings of conversations as decisions were made, my stomach growling when I realized I’d missed out on the chocolate nut angel pie. Then the lights went off one by one as everyone prepared for bed, and Sweetmaw drove down the drive. Professor T. never came out, so I figured Bee had invited him to stay the night. Bee’d have to put him in Paps’s room; there was no place else. I didn’t like that idea one bit.

  This was all Finch’s doing. My heart hurt thinking about it. I didn’t know if it would ever feel the same up on Solace Hill for me. A profound sadness washed through me like a warm wave.

  I got up and ran off into the darkness, not slowing down till I reached Finch’s house. I crept around to the back, tripping and falling flat on my face in the muddy grass. The dogs started barking and I leaned against the house, spitting out a big glob of mud. I waited for the dogs to quiet down.

  I rested for a while, listening to the gentle coo of a faraway dove, then I tapped on Finch’s windowsill. I waited, then tapped again. Finally he pushed up the shades and peered out. He didn’t have his glasses on.