Chapter Four: Testing God and Testing Benny
Jeremy cleared away the breakfast things quickly. "I'm going to untie your feet so you can get on the horse with me. If you try to get away I'll have to try to stop you. Steady, Black Switch. Steady." Jeremy set Benny up on the horse and jumped up behind.
"Where are we going?" Benny asked after they had ridden west along the Conemaugh riverbank for a time, back in the direction they had walked the day before. The river flowed wider and faster as they went along.
"Dunno, Ben. I'm still thinking about what to do. I've got to get farther away from Hollidaysburg, just in case somebody might be as smart as you are and realize Jeremy Carlisle didn't die in the bank robbery. Reckon we'll head west and see how far we get."
"Mr. Carlisle —"
"Jeremy. Call me Jeremy. I'm not fond of children, but very polite and respectful ones bother me even more."
"Jeremy, don't you think you ought to listen to God? He's already warned you that you need to turn away from your sin. You ought to believe in Jesus. Sometimes God lets bad things happen to people who won't listen to Him."
"Are you trying to scare me, boy?" Jeremy laughed. "God couldn't stop me from sticking this knife under your ribs if I really wanted to."
"But I think He is stopping you, Mr. – Jeremy. He's not going to let you hurt me at all, because the Bible says, 'He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.'"
"So why didn't He keep that mudslide from hitting the barge? Why'd He let your mother get hurt?"
Benny had to stop to get control of the tears that started forming, and to think of the right answer. "My father said God lets bad things happen sometimes, because we have to depend on Him or we'd get proud and forget Him. But He wants to save you from your sin, Jeremy, and not let you get deeper into sin.
"Maybe we got put together so I could tell you about Him. Now you haven't got any excuse. You'd go to Hell if you died right now."
Jeremy reined the horse up sharply. He got out his knife and held it up in front of Benny's face. "I'm not planning to die any time soon," he growled. "I'm not so sure you can say the same."
"If you do kill me, I'll go to Heaven." Benny swallowed hard. "My father's already there. Maybe my mother is too. I'll see them, and I'll see Jesus. But you probably won't see anybody in Hell. You'll be alone in the fire, remembering the chance you had to get saved. I'm glad I'm not you, Jeremy."
"Shut up, will you? There isn't any God. It's all just chance. Life's one big gambling game. You place your bets, and sometimes you win. This time I lost, but luck has a way of changing. You'll see that God doesn't have much to do with it."
Benny stopped talking after that. They went on, walking part of the time, following the river. Jeremy ate a big lunch when they stopped under some trees, but Benny didn't feel hungry.
"Where –Where's my mother's Bible?" he asked.
"What'd'you need a Bible for? Seems like you already know everything in it," snarled Jeremy. He pulled the Bible out of a saddlebag and threw it to Benny. "I should've tossed it in the river," Jeremy grumbled.
Benny read a Psalm. He prayed for his mother before he ate, and also decided to pray for Jeremy.
"Please show Jeremy how wrong he is, Lord. Show him how bad sin really is, and how much he needs Jesus. Make him pay attention to you."
Benny bent over the dried meat and bread Jeremy had given him. He was tired and saddle-sore, and his eyes had drooped shut when Jeremy suddenly cried out and jumped to his feet.
"What's the matter?" Benny asked. He followed Jeremy to the riverbank. A small wooden ship model whisked by on the swift-flowing river. It was the USS Constitution Benny had carried with him from Philadelphia.
For a second Benny thought he might try to get it, but the current was too fast and the ship too far out. He almost cried again, until he looked across to a clump of rocks in the center of the river and saw a large black leather bag snagged on a small tree branch, bobbing in and out of the water.
"The money! The money!" Jeremy hopped up and down and looked wildly around. "All I have to do is get it."
"I'll bet it's the bag of rocks," Benny snapped.
"Oh, no. It can't be. It can't be. I'll take that bet!" He grabbed the rope that he had used on Benny and tied it to a tree near the bank. "You stay here, boy, you hear? I'll see you if you try to run off. Look – see that little white spot on that tree down there?" He pointed to a tree far down the bank. His knife came into his hand so quickly Benny scarcely saw it. It flashed through the air and stuck dead in the center of the white spot.
"You're a much bigger target," Jeremy said coldly. "And that horse won't let you come near him without me. Just sit tight." He quickly got his knife. Jeremy tied a rock to the loose end of the rope. He swung it through the air toward the little tree.
After several tries the rock swung around the sapling trunk and wrapped up tightly. It held when Jeremy yanked on it. Eagerly he stepped into the water and started across toward the bag. The current dragged him off his feet and under again and again, but at last he grabbed the bag. As he struggled to pull it loose, Jeremy lost his grip on the rope. The water whipped him away.
Downstream he went, the heavy bag dragging him under. Benny watched in horror. "Drop the bag!" he screamed. "It's too heavy!"
"No!" Jeremy screamed back. Benny grabbed Black Switch's reins. The horse reared and snorted a warning, but Benny grabbed a peppermint stick he saw peeking out of a saddlebag and held it under the horse's nose. Black Switch reached out for it and Benny got him to move forward. He allowed Benny to pull him along the riverbank after Jeremy. Benny gave him small bits of peppermint to keep him interested.
Jeremy slammed into a dead tree that had fallen into the river. He seized hold with his free hand, scrambling for footing, pushing himself toward the bank, but he slipped under the tree. Up he came, spluttering and flailing. Benny urged Black Switch down into the river, went up to his armpits in the water, leaning up against the horse's side to keep himself upright, and reached the reins to Jeremy.
After Jeremy got hold of them, Benny backed the horse up the bank. Jeremy finally got himself up onto the grass. He collapsed, gasping for breath. In spite of the fact that it had almost drowned him, Jeremy still clutched the black bag. At last he caught his breath and sat up.
"Why'd you save me? You could have gotten away if I'd drowned."
"You don't know Jesus yet," Benny answered. "I didn't want you to go to Hell."
Jeremy scowled at him. His eyes fell on the black bag. "If this bag's got nothing but rocks in it, I'll believe everything you've told me about God." He popped the clasp open and took out a wad of soggy papers. "I put bank documents in the top of both bags, in case anyone looked inside," he explained. He dug down deeper, and a big grin spread over his face as he drew out a small leather bag, opened it, and let the gold pieces spill out into his hand.
"No rocks, Benny my boy. Not a one. Now we head west."
Benny and Jeremy had been on the Ohio River for more than two weeks now. They had passed through the rest of Pennsylvania. Afterward they had gone on, floating along the borders of Ohio, Virginia, Indiana and Kentucky. Mostly they had ridden on keelboats, big flat boats like barges. Sometimes the current was too slow or the river too shallow. Then the passengers took big poles, pushed them into the river bottom, and walked from one end of the boat to the other to force it along. Benny did not want to think about trying to get the boats back upstream that way. He was worn out just going downstream.
Jeremy usually paid their way by gambling. Some boat owners didn't like the looks of the fierce black stallion, and sometimes Black Switch didn't take too well to river travel. No one seemed to be able to refuse Jeremy anything, though. He joked and laughed and sang songs in a wonderful, clear voice. He casually started card games, pretending to be a poor player, but beating everyone with his skill or his tricks. Even people who lost a lot to him didn't seem to be able to stay mad.
Jeremy practic
ed throwing the long, thin knife so people could see how good he was with it. Maybe some people didn't feel like laughing along with him. But they were the ones who were too afraid of him. Sometimes they went overland for a few days, if they couldn't find a keelboat or if they were tired of the river.
Jeremy knew how to make a camp outdoors and find food almost anywhere. Other times Jeremy got them a hotel room in a town and played cards and drank late into the night.
This night, outside of Smithland, Kentucky, they had stopped at a farm and Jeremy went to the house to play cards while Benny huddled in their tent and brooded. "That barn of his ain't fit fer the rats," Jeremy had confided to him when the farmer had offered them a place there. Eventually, however, Benny approached the house.
Benny took advantage of the fact that Jeremy wasn't paying too much attention to him as he sat down on the front porch of Jeb Lucas's farmhouse. Jeremy played poker with Jeb and some of his particular friends. Jeremy had colored his hair black and was pretending to be Abe Baker from Virginia at the moment.
"That man kidnapped me," Benny said to Jeb Lucas's wife, a fat, gap-toothed woman with stringy hair and a dirty dress. She sat on the steps shelling peas and didn't seem to hear.
"His name's really Jeremy Carlisle. He was supposed to take me to my uncle in Missouri," Benny tried again. "But I found out he's a bank robber, so he's making me stay with him to keep me from telling anyone." Mrs. Lucas glanced up at him for a moment, snorted, and went back to shelling peas.
"It's true. My mother paid him to take care of me, but he's keeping me prisoner. He stole ten thousand dollars from a bank in Pennsylvania."
Mrs. Lucas had quit shelling peas by the time Benny finished and was staring at him, along with her five dirty, half-dressed children.
"You tellin' whoppers agin, boy?" Jeremy laughed. Benny realized that the men had stopped playing cards and he was the center of attention. "Ah sweah Ah doan' know where he comes up wi' these stories. Whin mah sistah died -- God rest 'er soul -- she made me promise ta look aftuh him, but Ah wish he'd quit lyin' about me. Someday somebody jest might believe him."
At that point all the men started laughing. After a moment Mrs. Lucas and all her children began to laugh too. Benny stared around at all of them. Jeremy laughed harder than anyone. Benny jumped up and ran all the way back to their camp on the riverbank below the Lucas's neglected cornfield.
Jeremy came back very late, singing loudly. Benny could smell Mr. Lucas's corn whiskey as strong as a skunk's scent. He knew Jeremy seemed to drink a lot whenever he went out gambling, but that he only pretended to get drunk. Jeremy squatted down almost on top of Benny.
"Ah figger'd you'd still be awake," he drawled. Then he stopped using the fake accent he had put on for the farmer. "Are you surprised that those good people didn't believe you?" Benny didn't answer.
"It sounds like a whopper to any sensible person," Jeremy said. "We're a pretty long way from Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania now. Most of these people probably never even heard about the robbery. But if they had, they'd figure a fellow who snatched ten thousand dollars wouldn't be sitting on some farmer's back porch playing cards and sharing his corn squeezings."
Benny rolled over away from Jeremy, sick of the liquor smell, not wanting to hear any more. But Jeremy wasn't through. "Face it, Ben. Nobody will believe you."
"Then why don't you let me go?" Benny started to cry again.
"I thought you were starting to like me a little bit, Ben. It hurts my feelings to find out you want to run off. And how far do you think you'd get, little city-boy? Could you start your own fire? Can you trap rabbits?"
"I'd go to somebody's house," Benny said.
"These people live hand to mouth, Ben. I earn a place for both of us everywhere we go. I'm the newspaper, the traveling show, the fourth hand for a friendly game of cards —"
"I could write to my Uncle Tom," Benny said stubbornly.
"Sure, and in a couple of months he might even get the letter," snorted Jeremy. "If you could find anyplace to mail it." Jeremy grabbed Benny by the shoulder and forced him around. He held Benny's face up close to his and made him look into his eyes.
"And I thought you said you didn't want to go live on a farm, Ben. Starting to like the idea of shoveling manure and chopping firewood and mowing fields? I'm sure Uncle Tom knows about that Bible verse that says, 'if a man will not work, neither shall he eat,' even if you don't. I've cooked for us, cleaned up after us, and provided for our needs.
"You'll have to work for Uncle Tom. 'Farm boy Benny.' Say, I like the sound of that. Anytime you want to take off for Uncle Tom's, go ahead. By the way, do you know which way to go?"
After Jeremy went to sleep, Benny was forced to think about what he had said. He had begun to realize how dangerous and difficult this traveling west was. He and his mother could never have made this trip safely. Jeremy had indeed taken care of him. He could not imagine anyone better able to get him though the journey.
Could it be that God had actually chosen this lying, thieving, bank-robbing gambler to get him to Uncle Tom's? Benny had complained and criticized and made things more difficult all along the way. The Bible said, "Do all things without murmurings and disputings," Benny recalled. His father had told him that verse often enough.
The next morning Benny got up early. With some sticks he found beside the creek he built up the fire. The coals almost smothered under the wood and thick smoke rose from the pile. Too late Benny realized the wood was wet. Finally he got a fire going and then doused it when he tripped bringing a bucket of water for the coffee pot.
The smell of burning bacon finally woke Jeremy. He didn't say anything as he munched the black, crumbling bits, but the coffee was too much for him and he spat it out with a wry face.
"All right, thanks for trying to help," Jeremy said with a wry smile. "Want me to show you how to do it right?"
"Jeremy, I still believe you're sinning because you won't accept the Lord," Benny said, "but you were right about a lot of the things you said. I'm going to try to do my share from now on, but I'm going to keep on praying that God changes you."
"Oh, go ahead and pray," Jeremy grumbled. "God's gonna be mighty busy, though, trying to change both you and me."