Last Summer Boys(58)

Chapter 18


THE WAR COUNCIL





When I show my family Kemper’s letter, everybody has something different to say. Will explodes with nasty names for him. Dad takes the letter and reads it over and over again, not saying anything, just reading. But it’s Ma who finally tells us what it is we’re going to do.

“Everyone kneel down right now and pray.”

And we do, right there in our kitchen: Ma and Dad, Pete, Will, Frankie, and me.

Closing her eyes, Ma leads us. “Dear Lord, if it’s in your plan, help us find a way to keep our home.” She draws a deep breath. “Teach us to fight.”

We all say amen and stand up. But then Ma surprises us all again.

“We are going to call a meeting,” she says.

“Of who?” Pete asks.

“Of everyone in this valley who might be affected by what’s in this letter,” Ma says, holding it up. “All the neighbors still left. And anybody who wants to help.”

“Even the Madliners?” I ask.

“Everyone, John Thomas,” says Ma. “There’s strength in numbers, and many minds are better than a few.”

Ma holds that letter tight. Her face is like stone. My mother is going to war.

Dad goes to her, kisses her on the head.

Suddenly I feel better than I have felt in ages. Looking about the room, I see the fire’s spread to each of us.

“When we having this meeting?” Will asks.

“Tonight,” Ma says. “With as many as will come.”





From my bedroom window, Frankie and me watch them come.

Sam is first. He arrives on foot, swinging the .22 over his shoulder. Butch runs to greet him as he lumbers up the lane, and Sam passes him something from the pocket of his overalls.

Next is a farm family from a few miles east of us, the Glattfelders. Most other families have sold out. Not them. Their boys are older than us, and one was drafted to Vietnam last autumn. Still in his work boots, Mr. Glattfelder has come straight from his fields.

Dad comes off the porch to greet both, taking their hands in his, looking them in the eyes, and thanking them for coming. He’s still doing that when a long black Cadillac grumbles up our lane. The men watch as the shiny black automobile purrs its way up to our barn. For one awful moment, I think it’s Kemper, that he’s somehow found out about our meeting and has come to put a stop to it. But then an old wiry man rises from the sleek metal, dressed in a linen suit. Puffs of cottony white hair ring his head like clouds, and he carries a long cane with a handle of whittled deer bone. He is just about the exact opposite of Mr. Glattfelder.

“Well, I’ll be.” I whistle as below, my father greets the old man.

“Who’s he?” Frankie asks.

“That’s Mr. Halleck. That’s the man Dad works for. What on earth is he doing here?”

Mr. Halleck is richer than God, or so Will always says. He’s pleasant enough when we see him at his estate, usually only ever at Christmastime. He’s never come to our house before. We don’t hear what passes between him and Dad, but there’s a certain look on my father’s face when they turn for the house, something like a mix of pride and relief.

More cars. Ma’s church-lady friends come bearing gifts—corn pudding from the looks of it, covered in tinfoil. And now Pastor Fenton. When he opens the passenger door, a pair of long legs, white as cream, slide out and Anna May rises into the summer evening.

“Ho-lee smokes,” Frankie says, and now he whistles.

Her pretty eyes take in our house of stone, our old dusty barn, the pines ringing our hill, and I realize that she ain’t ever seen Stairways before. She follows her father in and there’s something about the way she moves, the way her dress sways around her willowy body, that makes me catch my breath. Don’t know what it is, but I get to thinking just then that my brother Will is one of the luckiest boys I know.

Mr. Madliner comes last, and he comes alone. His scarecrow shape lowers itself out of a rust-colored truck and crosses the yard on thin legs that seem not to want to work together. I shudder. We have not told Ma or Dad about what happened with Caleb that night in the cave. I don’t care to, neither. Just so long as I never have to see Caleb ever again.

When Mr. Madliner slips under the porch roof and out of our sight, I turn to Frankie.

“We’d better get down there. I don’t want to miss one word of this.”





Dad gathers everyone in the parlor and tells them we’ll eat first and talk later. Seems to me the talking’s the more important part, but then the tinfoil comes off those plates, and I smell the corn pudding, mashed potatoes, pork roast with herbs and seasonings, and fresh-baked blueberry pie, and I change my mind real quick.

Pastor Fenton asks the blessing, and this time the amen is loud on account of all the people packed in our parlor. They’re piled on our couch and the kitchen chairs that Pete and Will have brought in, and along the hearth in front of the fireplace. Mr. Glattfelder and Mr. Madliner stand against the wall, holding their plates and resting their glasses on the windowsill. Will and Anna May sit on the floor by the screen door. Frankie and me perch ourselves on the stairs so we can see, and Pete joins us, a mountain of pork roast and mashed potatoes on his plate.