Something was wrong here, something she couldn’t put her finger on. Well, it wasn’t her problem; they would work an afternoon and take their money.
He told them to get up into the back of a dusty old pickup truck the color of canned peas. He drove them on a flat dirt road that led around the barn and behind it before heading straight up a slight incline, through an overgrown field, to another field. This was a long field of tomatoes. The plants were crowded with weeds, grasses and low vines. You could barely see the rows they had been planted in. But the tomatoes had grown red and plump. They shone out from the weeds like bulbs on a Christmas tree. At one corner of the field, a mound of bushel baskets waited. The Tillermans scrambled down.
Mr. Rudyard didn’t even get out of the truck. “I’ll be by at dark,” he said. He backed the truck around and drove off. Dicey watched it go into the distance, back to the barn, then around it and out of sight.
“Creepy,” James said.
“You can say that again,” Dicey agreed. “Maybeth, you okay?”
Maybeth nodded, wide-eyed.
“How long do we have to stay?” Sammy asked.
They all felt uneasy. Dicey tried to reassure them. “Just this afternoon. Then we’ll take our pay and get out of here. Okay?”
They got to it. Because they were hungry, Dicey decided they could each eat two tomatoes. That was fair enough, she figured. Then they all worked together, pushing or pulling weeds away from the tomato plants. One would hold back the overgrowth, and the rest would reach in for tomatoes, wresting the fruit from the stems. Their legs and hands and faces were scratched. They had bug bites on every part of their bodies. Dirt was smeared across their faces and arms and legs. They left the filled baskets where they were when they finished with them.
After an hour they had completed one row. Two to a basket, they carried the bushels down to where the pile of empty baskets waited. They had six baskets. “Three dollars,” Dicey said.
Dicey’s back ached from bending over. Her hands stung where small scratches had accumulated. She had never felt such heat before, an air that closed down over her and made it hard to breathe.
“Hot,” James said. “It’s too hot, Dicey.”
“You two take a break,” Dicey said to Sammy and Maybeth. “Go off and explore a little. Stick together though. When you’re rested, come back and help. Remember our name?”
“Verricker,” Sammy said. “What’s that?”
“Our father’s name,” Dicey said.
“That right?” James asked. “How do you know that?”
“So what,” Sammy said. “I like Tillerman better.”
Sammy and Maybeth wandered off down the edge of the field, going away from the house and the dog. Dicey and James got back to work.
This row took longer. James grew sloppy and Dicey had to nag at him to keep at it and find all the ripe tomatoes that grew on the plants and on the long vines that crawled along next to the dry earth. “My back hurts,” he protested. “I’m hot.” His face was streaked with dirt and sweat. His eyes wavered between anger and self-pity. He crouched unwilling by her side.
“It’s only for an afternoon,” Dicey snapped at him.
Sammy and Maybeth returned before they had finished the row. “There’s another field,” Sammy reported. “And a river. I wanted to go swimming but Maybeth wouldn’t.”
“The Choptank,” Dicey said.
“Could we swim across it?” James asked Sammy.
Sammy nodded. Dicey shot a triumphant glance at James. “It’s not wide,” Sammy said. “I could swim it easy.”
“Can we go now, Dicey?” Maybeth asked.
Dicey almost said yes. They all looked at her, waiting. She shook her head. “Not before we get paid,” she said grimly. “Don’t worry, we’ll be all right. As long as we’re together.”
At late afternoon, when the sun was beginning to lower and the mosquitos were beginning to rise, the green pickup truck returned. The children went eagerly to meet it.
Mr. Rudyard had the dog in the front seat with him. He climbed down and pulled on a long rope to get the dog to follow him. The Tillermans crowded together. The dog snarled at them.
“There’s a bag in the cab,” Mr. Rudyard said to Dicey. “The missus said I had to feed you something.” He walked off, down to the far end of the field.
“What’s he going to do?” Maybeth whispered.
“I dunno,” Dicey said. Fear climbed up from her stomach to her throat. A sour, metallic taste was in her saliva and she swallowed it down. She made herself climb up and get the paper bag from the seat of the cab. Mr. Rudyard had left the keys in the ignition.
Mr. Rudyard tied the dog to a tree, using the end of the long rope. When he came back, Dicey had decided what to do.
“We can’t pick anymore,” she said. “We have to go now,” she said.
He looked at her out of cold eyes. Then he said, “If he runs against that sapling it’ll snap.” He got back into the truck and leaned out the window. “I keep him hungry,” he remarked. He backed the truck around and drove off.
In the silence, Dicey could hear insects humming. “What does he want?” she demanded.
Nobody could answer her.
“We might as well eat,” Dicey said. They all sat down. Mrs. Rudyard had packed a tall thermos of milk and a package of tall biscuits slathered with butter and bright strawberry jam. They passed the thermos around. The biscuits looked delicious. Dicey took a bite of one, and her stomach closed against it. She put it down on the wax paper.
Even James couldn’t eat. They looked at one another. “I’m sorry,” Dicey said.
“Well, I don’t care, I’m not picking anymore,” Sammy announced. He threw his unfinished biscuit into the pile and they scattered around, like fallen blocks. “And you can’t make me,” he said to Dicey.
Dicey couldn’t help smiling at him and that made her feel better. “I won’t try,” she said. “James? What can we do?”
“I’d like to kill him and hit him,” Sammy said. “He scares Maybeth.” Maybeth had big tears in her eyes.
“There’s the dog,” James said, “and the man.” Absentmindedly, he picked up a biscuit. He took a bite, then tossed it down again. “He’s crazy, Dicey.”
“Bad crazy,” she agreed. “Don’t get on that truck again, no matter what.”
“He wants us to be scared,” Maybeth said. “He wants to hurt us.”
Dicey nodded. Her mind was working and working, and she couldn’t think of anything. James just stared at her. She picked up her maroon bag from where she had put it beside the bushels. She took out all of the money and jammed it into her pocket, with the jackknife. (With a jackknife, if she had to, she could try to fight the man or the dog.) She stuffed the map into the waistband of her shorts.
“We’re going to have to run,” she said. “When he comes back for the dog. James, you take Maybeth. Maybeth, no matter what, you stick with James.” Sammy could take care of himself. “Go for the river.”
“What about you?” James asked.
“I’m not sure,” Dicey tried to keep her voice normal. She had gotten them into this mess, and if anyone got caught it should be her. “I’ll do something. You just keep ready to run.”
It was deep twilight, shadowy and still, when the truck returned. The Tillermans sat where Mr. Rudyard had left them. The headlights shone on them briefly. He backed the truck so that its back section was where the filled bushel baskets waited and its nose pointed almost straight down the road to the farmhouse. He got out and looked at them.
“You’re not much use,” he observed. Maybeth grabbed Dicey’s hand as his eyes rested on her. “I’ll just have to teach you. Now, load up,” he ordered. He walked down to the dog, which barked a greeting.
“How does he know we’re alone?” James wondered.
“Quiet,” Dicey said. She looked into the cab to see if the keys had been left there. They had. “Okay, now listen. When he’s to the dog, tell me. And
when I say run, you run, all of you, as fast as you can. You hear?”
They nodded. Dicey got up into the truck. She tried to forget about the man at the far corner of the field. She looked for the key and found it. She turned on the engine. Nothing happened. She looked at the transmission box. A needle pointed to D. Quickly, she shifted it to N. “Now, Dicey,” James whispered.
She turned the key again, and the engine caught.
Dicey looked back over her shoulder. Mr. Rudyard ran toward them, his mouth open in a yell. The dog ran ahead of him, at full cry, but held back by the rope that his master had looped around his shoulder.
“James,” Dicey yelled. “Now. Run.”
She shifted into D, and turned the wheel so it would head straight down the road to the barn. If she got it started, she figured, the incline would keep it going. She pushed on the accelerator and threw herself out of the cab.
The ground surged up to meet her and the cab door slammed against her shoulder. It hurt, but she didn’t have time to worry about that. She rolled onto her feet and looked to see her family, waiting, watching her. “Go!” she shrieked.
Dicey led them into the middle of the tomato field, away from the man and the dog. It was harder running, especially for Sammy with his short legs, but it would be harder for Mr. Rudyard too. She let James and Maybeth pass her and slowed until she was behind Sammy too.
They weren’t going to go without her. She didn’t have time to know how she felt about that. She glanced over her shoulder.
Mr. Rudyard was already letting the dog’s rope fall from his shoulder as he ran after the truck. He would catch it easily, but how soon? The dog looked after his master for a second and then bent his head to the ground, snuffling something. Probably their scent, Dicey thought, turning her head back and making a burst of speed to catch up.
Across the tomato field, and then across the next field, where young corn made a narrow path for them to follow, they ran. Dicey tried to listen for the sound of the dog behind them, or the sound of the motor coming out of the darkness. But she could hear only their labored breathing and the stamping of their feet. She charged through the row of brush and small trees that separated the second field from the river, grabbing Sammy’s hand, pulling him with her. The earth fell away from beneath her feet and she tumbled into water.
Water closed warm over Dicey’s head. She shut her eyes. She held tight on to Sammy’s hand. How deep was it?
Her toes touched muddy river bottom and she pushed up. She shot out of the water. It was only up to her chest.
“James? Maybeth?”
“Here,” James spoke just beyond her.
“It’s warm,” Sammy said.
In the distance, a truck motor roared.
“Straight across, then right, downstream. Okay? Stay close.”
They set out into darkness, paddling quietly across. Through the gentle sounds of water, Dicey could hear their breathing. Dark water was all around them, and the dark land behind, and the dark land ahead. Every now and then she lowered a tentative foot to touch bottom.
The river was no more than fifty or sixty yards across, and it wasn’t long before Dicey saw the opposite bank rise over her head, capped by a tangle of undergrowth and trees. She put her foot down again. It sank into mud.
Dicey and James were tall enough to touch bottom, but the water was over the heads of the smaller children. So Dicey and James each carried the weight of a younger one floating beside. They made their way cautiously, silently, quickly, downstream. They didn’t speak, not even when they heard the man breaking through the bushes behind them upstream.
Sounds of someone walking hastily through underbrush across the river.
James moved doggedly on. Dicey followed him. They were near enough to get out and run, if Mr. Rudyard dove into the water to pursue them. They could hide in the bushes on this side. He didn’t have the dog with him.
The sounds ceased, as if someone were standing still to listen. James stopped too, but she pushed him on with an impatient hand.
The water gurgled around them.
The crackling sounds began again, hurrying away.
The darkness around Dicey lifted, as if a blanket had been taken off her head. There was no actual change, of course. Only, the night seemed cool and empty, and the clear dark silhouettes of bushes and trees above them seemed to move back to give her more room, and the broad river seemed to float peacefully beside them.
They kept silence for another half hour, working their way downriver. At last, Dicey spoke. “Let’s get out—James? Can you lift Sammy? Sammy? Do you mind being first?”
“’Course not,” Sammy said.
James hoisted the little boy up onto the bank. Sammy reached down to help Maybeth scramble up. Dicey pushed James from behind, and he turned around to pull her up, while her feet slipped against the muddy bank, searching for firm holds. They sat, huddling together, shivering but not from a chill.
Dicey turned to look behind them, where flat farmlands stretched off. No windows shone, but she could see a pair of headlights, far off, moving on a straight line. There must be a road.
“Not him,” Dicey said. She kept her voice low. Danger lurked all around them, always, she knew that now. “It couldn’t be him. There aren’t but two bridges over the river and they’re miles away.”
“What about the dog?” Sammy asked.
“Dogs can’t track through water,” James said.
Dicey remembered the dog, snuffling at the ground for their scents. Then she began to giggle. “It was eating the biscuits!” she cried. “He couldn’t get it to chase us because it was hungry. Doesn’t that serve him right.”
This set them all giggling, even Maybeth. They kept their laughter low, and after a while they lay back on the grassy bank and slept, close together.
CHAPTER 6
At the first signs of dawn, the first pink glimmers, the first watery bird songs, Dicey opened her eyes. She lay on her back with James on one side and Maybeth curled against the other and Sammy on his belly beside James. Her eyes looked up through the delicate leaves of trees into a depthless sky. She smiled, and her eyes closed.
Later, when they opened again, the sun was fully risen. Faint voices floated to her across the fields that lay behind them. James had rolled away from her. The sky had blued above her. Dicey sat up.
The Choptank danced at her feet, deep and clear. It looked cleaner than any water she had seen. Grasses grew up its banks, and a musical silence stirred in its depths. She followed its path with her eyes to where it wound out of sight, going west.
When they were all awake, even Sammy, and when Dicey had pulled out her jackknife and dried it thoroughly on her shirt and counted her money (handling it delicately so that the damp paper wouldn’t rip apart), she gently spread the map before them.
“We’re about here,” she said. She pointed to a place on the southern bank of the Choptank. “Let’s head for that town.” Her finger traced a path to a place named Hurlock.
James protested: “Secretary’s closer.”
“Hurlock’s bigger. It’s in the right direction,” Dicey said. “If he comes after us—”
“You think he will?” Sammy asked.
“I don’t know, but I don’t want to take any chances.”
“It’ll be easier to hide in a bigger town,” James said.
That was what Dicey was thinking. She was also thinking what a long, unknown way lay between here and Crisfield; and that Crisfield too was unknown.
They cut across fields. The ground underfoot was dry and crumbly, and although they tried to hurry, it was difficult because the furrows rose up to trip them. Walking across fields was like having one leg shorter than the other.
One of the fields they had to cross was being picked. Pickers were scattered among tomato plants that rose up from the tops of furrows. Weeds had been kept down in this field, and the plants had been trained up stakes. It looked like a painting, the ridges of brown earth, the tep
ees of dark green tomato plants with their bright red fruits, the bent figures of the pickers and the blue sky overhead.
Dicey led her family single file along the edge of this field. She set a brisk pace, so that anyone who saw them would think they had someplace to be and the right to be where they were. Nobody paid them the slightest attention.
After the field they came to a road. Dicey turned right on it. She wasn’t sure of her direction, except that she wanted to go south, away from the river.
So began another morning’s march. This part of the journey was often interrupted because at the faintest sound of a motor, the Tillermans ducked into the bushes at the side of the road and hid. Dicey didn’t have to tell anybody this.
No green pickup passed them. He would have to search both sides of the river, Dicey thought. If he searched at all.
Their road made a fork with another road, and now they walked on a gravel shoulder. After an hour, they came to a crossroads that had signs. Hurlock was one and a half miles straight ahead. Dicey found herself looking at the houses they passed (whether the buildings were run down or cared for, whether they were small or large, close to the road or set far back) with questions in her mind. Every house was a secret place, a fortress, within which anything might be going on. Every house was perhaps a trap.
They bought a cantaloupe from a boy at a roadside stand. Dicey cut it up with her jackknife. They pulled the seeds out with their fingers. The juices ran down their chins as they took huge bites of the warm fruit. It was mild, sweet and chewy. When they had finished it, they heaved the rinds into an empty field and continued on.
An hour later, they reached the outskirts of Hurlock, a dusty, sprawly little town, with one stoplight at its center. The windows of the stores were crammed with notices of church suppers and house tours. One poster advertised a circus and showed a lion jumping through a hoop. Hawkins Circus, it announced. Admission, $1.50 for adults, $.75 for children. Taped to the bottom was a hand-lettered notice that said that the circus would be in town for two nights only, on the grounds of the elementary school.