Page 123 of The Reformatory

“But Mister Boone,” Robert said, unable to stop his streaming tears, “I saw another one last night, in the dorm, the one—”

Boone wrenched Redbone’s arm, pulling him backward, and Redbone cried out, but he never looked away from Robert. “Shhhh,” Redbone said. “Shut up, Robert. I’m not scared.” It was a lie and it was not a lie, because although fear had pounded a fever into Redbone’s skin, his eyes were not afraid. He even smiled a little. “It’s okay. You’ll get one tomorrow. I know it.” Redbone knew Boone was taking him to the Funhouse, the Box, or maybe somewhere worse, but his eyes were unblinking on Robert’s telling him not to be afraid, that he shouldn’t tell on Blue or say anything that could mean his mama might get caught in Haddock’s jar. Robert kept staring to be sure, and Redbone nodded his head. “It’s okay,” Redbone said again.

“Oh, no it ain’t,” Boone said, pulling on him to get him walking, and Redbone stumbled with him in the direction of the horse stables. Toward the Box.

Crutcher sighed. “I don’t know what game you boys are playing with Superintendent Haddock,” he said, “but it’s a dangerous one. You’ll see that now. He’s not the sort to play games with, Robert.”

“It’s not a game.” Robert forgot to say sir and didn’t care. “We weren’t playing.”

Robert watched Redbone being led away by Boone until they were around the corner and out of sight. When Crutcher turned to leave too, Robert was left alone with the hanging hog carcass and the flapping crows landing beside it. Loneliness was so thick in the air that Robert’s lungs rattled with sand. He tried to draw in deep breaths but could not. When he sobbed so deeply that his stomach clenched, his mouth made no sound. It was the purest grief he’d felt since Mama had died—or maybe worse, since he had let down his only friend.

The crows flapped away in a sudden flurry while Robert waited in the growing shadows. At first he barely noticed Henry Jackson standing at the left corner of the cedar grove, still in his cap, as if he’d always been there. He wasn’t floating like Blue or the boy in the infirmary or a giant like the man in the church; he just looked horribly ordinary. Robert heard a low-pitched voice singing words he could not hear, a song of the dead. Even after the man was gone two seconds later, his voice carried in the breeze until it died away. Still sobbing—for Redbone, for Henry Jackson, for himself—Robert ran to the spot where the dead man had stood. He ripped a grimy shoelace from his boot and wrapped it around the trunk, wishing again he had done it sooner. Tonight had mattered.

He called for Blue all night in bed, whispering in the dark, but Blue did not come to him.

Robert never saw Redbone again.

33

Thursday

At breakfast time, Cleo was sitting in the cafeteria, eating lumpy grits at a table by himself. It was the same table where Redbone and Robert had last sat together, so at first Robert thought he was imagining Cleo—or maybe he was a haint already! Cleo raised his eyes to watch Robert approaching but didn’t acknowledge him otherwise, eating hungrily. His face was gaunt and pocked with mosquito bites. He sat in a cloud of stink. After a time, Robert decided he was real. Cleo’s fingernails were black and stained with what looked like blood, but he only seemed dirty and starving, not the way a haint might try to look to scare him.

“I’m glad they let you out,” Robert said. “We never told nobody nothin’ about you. Boone was lying to set you against us.”

“I’m eatin’,” Cleo said, irritated, his mouth half full. He picked up his fork and turned it over in his hand like a weapon, but Robert wasn’t afraid of Cleo when he saw how his hand was shaking. Cleo’s eyes were so red that he might not have slept in a week.

“They let Redbone out too?”

Cleo’s eyes turned away, glaring at the wall.

“They took him to the Box last night? You see him?”

Cleo’s cheekbones turned sharp as knives. His jaw was clenched so tightly that it looked like his teeth could break.

Robert whispered so Cleo wouldn’t get madder. “We were at the well and then—”

“Shut up,” Cleo said. He rattled his tray, so Robert became quiet. “Ask them, not me.”

The worst feeling didn’t come until Robert realized Cleo’s eyes were red from crying, his eyelids puffy with tears. All this time, Cleo had been sad, not angry. Worse than sad.

“Did something happen?” Robert heard himself speak before he felt his mouth move. Cleo’s nostrils flared slightly. His damp lashes were matted with mud. His teeth were yellowed, one of his front teeth turning brown. Details about him flooded Robert’s panicked mind while he waited for one breath, two, to hear what Cleo knew and what he did not yet know. Cleo only stared down at some ketchup hugging the corner of his plate.

“Robert! Come here!” Crutcher’s anxious voice called sharply from across the cafeteria, hushing the room. He was standing in the cafeteria doorway, waving his hand to Robert in urgency. “Don’t go near that boy.”

Mrs. Hamilton stood close behind Crutcher in the doorway. Her face, afire with alarm and grief, filled Robert’s mouth with a sourness he had never tasted. He looked back at Cleo, trying to understand before Mrs. Hamilton could tell him what she knew and he did not yet know. The story was in Cleo’s eyes, if only he knew how to read them.

“What did you do?” Robert whispered.

Cleo pinned his lips together to keep his story from spilling out. He rocked slightly back and forth. Even now, Robert wanted to feel sorry for Cleo. He didn’t want to feel the pressure rising in his chest that must be a scream.

He felt himself lifted up by his shirt collar, his feet not touching the floor. “Didn’t you hear me?” Crutcher said, pulling on Robert the way Boone had pulled on Redbone, half dragging him. His chair rocked back and forth. “Leave it alone.”

“What’d he do?” Robert said.

“I’ll tell you outside.” Crutcher looked to see if any other adults were witnesses and saw none. “Lower your voice.”

Outside, Mrs. Hamilton waved them farther away from the door. Her eyes told the same story as Cleo’s, only different details. Robert nearly gagged on the smell of rotten meat from the garbage bin. He remembered the dead hog and its ring of flies.