Дэвид Балдаччи - Wish You Well

The bear flashed by her line of sight first and into the hollow. Then came Jeb. The bear cut a sharp corner, and the dog skidded into the post holding the lamp and knocked it over. The lamp hit the ground and smashed. The bear careened into the still, and metal gave way under three hundred pounds of black bear and fell over, breaking open and tearing loose the copper tubing. Diamond raced into the hollow, yelling at his dog.

The bear apparently was weary of being chased and turned and rose up on its hind legs, its claws and teeth now quite prominent. Jeb stopped dead at the sight of the six-foot black wall that could bite him in half, and backed up, growling. Diamond reached the hound and pulled at his neck.

“Jeb, you fool thing!”

“Diamond!” Lou called out as she too jumped up and saw the man coming at her friend.

“What the hell!” Davis had emerged from the darkness, shotgun in hand.

“Diamond, look out!” screamed Lou again.

The bear roared, the dog barked, Diamond hollered, and Davis pointed his shotgun and swore. The gun fired twice, and bear, dog, and boy took off running like the holy hell. Lou ducked as the buckshot tore through leaves and imbedded in bark. “Run, Oz, run,” screamed Lou. Oz jumped up and ran, but the boy was confused, for he headed into the hollow instead of away from it. Davis was reloading his shotgun when Oz came upon him. The boy realized his mistake too late, and Davis snagged him by the collar. Lou ran toward them. “Diamond!” screamed Lou once more. “Help!”

Davis had Oz pinned against his leg with one hand and was trying to reload his gun with the other.

“Gawd damn you,” the man thundered at the cowering boy.

Lou flung her fists into him but didn’t do any damage, for though he was short, George Davis was hard as brick.

“You let him go,” Lou yelled. “Let him go!”

Davis did let go of Oz, but only so he could strike Lou. She crumpled to the ground, her mouth bleeding. But the man never saw Diamond. The boy picked up the fallen post, swung it, and clipped Davis’s legs out from under him, sending the man down hard. Then Diamond conked Davis on the head with the post for good measure. Lou grabbed Oz, and Diamond grabbed Lou, and the three were more than fifty yards from the hollow by the time George Davis regained his legs in a lathered fury. A few seconds after that, they heard one more shotgun blast, but they were well out of range by then.

They heard running behind them and picked up their pace. Then Diamond looked back and said that it was okay, it was only Jeb. They ran all the way back to the farmhouse, where they collapsed on the front porch, their breathing tortured, their limbs shaking from both fatigue and fright.

When they sat up, Lou considered taking up the run once more because Louisa was standing there in her nightdress looking at them and holding a kerosene lamp. She wanted to know where they’d been. Diamond tried to answer for them, but Louisa told him to hush in a tone so sharp it struck the always chatty Diamond mute.

“The truth, Lou,” ordered the woman.

And Lou told her, including the almost deadly run-in with George Davis. “But it wasn’t our fault,” she said. “That bear—”

Louisa snapped, “Get yourself to the barn, Diamond. And take that dang dog with you.”

“Yes’m,” said Diamond, and he and Jeb slunk away.

Louisa turned back to Lou and Oz. Lou could see she was trembling. “Oz, you get yourself to bed. Right now.”

Oz glanced once at Lou and fled inside. And then it was just Lou and Louisa.

Lou stood there as nervous as she had ever been.

“You could’a got yourself kilt tonight. Worse’n that you could’a got you and your brother kilt.”

“But, Louisa, it wasn’t our fault. You see—”

“Is your fault!” Louisa said fiercely, and Lou felt the tears rush to her eyes at the woman’s tone.

“I didn’t have you come to this mountain to die at the sorry hands of George Davis, girl. You gone off on your own bad enough. But taking your little brother too—and he follow you cross fire, not knowing no better—I’m ashamed of you!”

Lou bowed her head. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

Louisa stood very erect. “I ain’t never raised my hand to a child, though my patience run sore over the years. But if you ever do somethin’ like that agin, you gonna find my hand ’cross your skin, missy, and it be somethin’ you ain’t never forget. You unnerstand me?” Lou nodded dumbly. “Then get to bed,” said Louisa. “And we speak no more of it.”

The next morning George Davis rode up on his wagon pulled by a pair of mules. Louisa came outside to face him, her hands behind her back.

Davis spit chew onto the ground next to the wagon wheel. “Them devils broke up my propity. Here to get paid.”

“You mean for busting up your still .”

Lou and Oz came outside and stared at the man.

“Devils!” he roared. “Gawd damn you!”

Louisa stepped off the porch. “If you gonna talk that way, git yourself off my land. Now!”

“I want my money! And I want them beat bad for what they done!”

“You fetch the sheriff and go show him what they done to your still, and then he can tell me what’s fair.”

Davis stared at her dumbly, the mule whip clenched in one hand. “You knowed I can’t do that, woman.”

“Then you know the way off my land, George.”

“How ’bout I put the torch to your farm?”

Eugene came outside, a long stick in his big hand.

Davis held up the whip. “Hell No, you keep your nigger self right there afore I put the whip to you just like your granddaddy had ’cross his back!” Davis started to get down from the wagon. “Mebbe I’ll just do it anyway, boy. Mebbe all’a you!”

Louisa pulled the rifle from behind her back and leveled it at George Davis. The man stopped halfway off his wagon when he saw the Winchester’s long barrel pointed at him.

“Get off my land,” Louisa said quietly, as she cocked the weapon and rested its butt against her shoulder, her finger on the trigger. “Afore I lose my patience, and you lose some blood.”

“I pay you, George Davis,” Diamond called out as he came out of the barn, Jeb trailing him.

Davis visibly shook, he was so angry. “My damn head’s still ringing from where you done walloped me, boy.”

“You durn lucky then, ’cause I could’a hit you a lot harder if’n I wanted to.”

“Don’t you smartmouth me!” Davis roared.

“You want’a git your money or not?” said Diamond.

“What you got? You ain’t got nuthin’.”

Diamond put his hand in his pocket and drew out a coin. “Got me this. Silver dollar.”

“Dollar! You wreck my still, boy. Think a damn dollar gonna fix that? Fool!”

“It done come from my great-granddaddy five times removed. A hunnerd year old it is. Man down Tremont say he gimme twenty dollar for it.”

Davis’s eyes lighted up at this. “Lemme see it.”

“Naw. Take it or leave it. I telling the truth. Twenty dollar. Man named Monroe Darcy. He run the store down Tremont. You knowed him.”

Davis was silent for a bit. “Gimme it.”

“Diamond,” Lou called out, “don’t do it.”

“Man got to pay his debts,” said Diamond. He sauntered over to the wagon. When Davis reached out for the coin, Diamond pulled it back. “Look here, George Davis, this means we square. You ain’t coming round to Miss Louisa for nuthin’ if’n I give you this. You got to swear.”

Davis looked like he might put the whip to Diamond’s back instead, but he said, “I swear. Now gimme it!”

Diamond flipped the coin to Davis, who caught it, studied it, bit on it, and then stashed it in his pocket.