

#

# Praise for Benny and the Bank Robber:

"Looked like a kids book. It really surprised me with a lot of interesting twists and being deeply spiritual."

"... heart wrenching to imagine what Benny was going through, but uplifting to watch the way he grew into his faith."

"Emotionally charged front to back!"

"It deserves a ten star and recommend to everyone. Lots of valuable lessons."

"Story that readers of any age can enjoy. The adventure and excitement will keep a reader engrossed."

#

# Benny and the Bank Robber

by

Mary C. Findley

©2010 Findley Family Video Publications

Benny and the Bank Robber

© 2010 Findley Family Video Publications

Scripture quotations are from the King James Version Bible, Public Domain.

Cover and book design by Mary C. Findley

Images used herein were obtained from IMSI's MasterClips/ MasterPhotos copyrighted Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. East, San Rafael, CA 94901-5506, USA.

No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. Exception is made for short excerpts used in reviews.

Findley Family Video Publications

"Speaking the truth in love."

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to persons living or dead is coincidental.

# Table of Contents

Prologue: The Empty Look of Death

Chapter One: A Robbery

Chapter Two: Good Advice About Mr. Clancy

Chapter Three: "He'll Go Far."

Chapter Four: Testing God and Testing Benny

Chapter Five: A Joke and a Cougar Evangelist

Chapter Six: This Is My Friend

Chapter Seven: Visits of Consequence

Chapter Eight – The Star Witness
Chapter Nine: A Birthday and a Memory
Chapter Ten: A Legacy and a Letter

Chapter Eleven – Jason and Goliath

Chapter Twelve: The Power of Persuasion

Chapter Thirteen – In a Fortress

Chapter Fourteen– A Race and a Lesson

Chapter Fifteen – The Promise of Spring

Other Books and Products from Findley Family Video Publications

# Prologue: The Empty Look of Death

Ten-year-old Benny Richardson pushed his dripping brown hair out of his brown eyes and squinted into the heavy Market Street downpour in the heart of Philadelphia. A flood of people, wagons, carts and horses pressed close around them. Benny tugged the black sleeve of his tall, lean father's black coat and flung out his small arm. Benny's brown blazer sleeve became soaked almost immediately and he pulled it back under his father's huge black umbrella.

"There's mother!" Benny scuffed his toes on the curb, feeling like a racehorse impatient to begin running. He stopped himself before Jonathan Richardson's brown eyes, which rarely missed anything in spite of the thick, gold-rimmed spectacles he wore, could see what he was doing and Benny would be reminded again of how dear shoe leather was. It seemed to Benny that someone who taught at the University of Pennsylvania like his father did should be rich and not have to worry about the cost of shoes. He looked up curiously at his father's neat black beaver hat and tidy suit and his carefully tied gray and red and white striped tie.

The red and white stripes in the tie reminded him of peppermint and he wriggled a few steps away from the umbrella and his father's restraining arm to try to see better. Benny was almost jostled away from his spot on the curb beside his father. Jonathan Richardson pulled Benny back under the big black umbrella. Through the downpour they waved toward Mr. Paine's grocery store awning where stood a little blur in a dark cloak. A pale blue dress and straw bonnet just peeked out as a small, slender arm waved back.

Benny tried to squint harder but it was impossible to see his mother's brown wicker market basket at all, much less tell whether any peppermint sticks were in it. After all, she hadn't promised. His favorite sweet was a rare enough treat, and if there were any in the basket he certainly hoped they wouldn't dissolve in the rain before they got across the street.

"Father, do you think she got the peppermint sticks?" Benny asked as he pulled his coat closer around him.

"Ah! You see across that street the sweetest, prettiest, best lady on earth, my boy!" His father laughed. "How can you ask about mere candy? Aren't we lucky God gave her to us?"

"But I like peppermint sticks," grunted Benny.

"Hold on tight, Ben!" Jonathan shouted to his son as he glanced around and stepped into the street, pulling Benny after him. A crush of bodies and deafening thunder of hooves and wheels on the cobblestones swept in on them and tumbled them like twigs in a swollen river. Out of the general din Benny heard a sudden, terrible sound of horses shrieking and the tortured groan of a wheel brake slipping on wet wood. He gasped as something jerked his arm backward, hurting his shoulder, and spun him in a circle.

The busy street traffic froze. A weird silence fell, and the only sound was the driving rain. Benny looked around, rubbing his sore shoulder and trying to figure out what had halted all the people and noise and hurry. But it only stopped for an instant. Benny still stood in the middle of the street until people pulled him back to the curb as the rush and crush resumed.

"That cart was 'way overloaded!" shouted the man who had grabbed Benny's sore shoulder and hustled him out of the street. Strangers pressed around him. All of them were strange, every one. Just faces and voices making sounds, so many sounds all at once against the city noise.

The still form of a man lay on the cobblestones in a pool of dirty water, its face hidden by men lifting it and carrying it out of the street. It came to rest at his feet. Finally Benny saw something he thought he knew. Something familiar, but suddenly even stranger than the crowd of unknown faces. Something that had been bright and alive and close to him only a moment ago. Benny looked into Jonathan Richardson's face, white and streaked with red. It looked so empty.

"Where are his spectacles?" Benny asked. No one paid any attention to him.

"Never should have taken that corner so fast!" exclaimed a voice out of the confusion of voices. Benny looked around. He twisted out of the half-hearted grasp of the man who had brought him to the curb. His gaze searched the puddles and muck at the edge of the street.

"Driver musta been blind or drunk!"

Still Benny could not see what had happened to his father's spectacles. Certainly it would be hard to see a glint of gold in the driving rain, but they had to be here somewhere. Benny felt he had to find them.

"Driver's fault completely -- no question!"

Benny stared at his father. Maybe if he found the spectacles and put them on, his father's face wouldn't look like that. Maybe it wouldn't look so strange, so empty. He hardly reacted when his mother's arms snatched him up and hugged him tight against her blue dress with the tiny white polka-dots that felt like little soft bumps against his face. The bonnet she had just finished "making over" with new blue velvet ribbons and tiny pink silk roses drooped over her wet golden curls as she pulled him even closer and pressed her face against his. Her blue eyes, too, were fixed on his father's empty white and red face.

Benny thought of the Bible verse that said, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." Jonathan Richardson had quoted that verse many times. "God will always be with us, Ben," he had said. "Whatever else may change in our lives, He'll always take care of us."

"Mother, Father's lost his spectacles," Benny insisted. Men picked up his father's body, holding an umbrella over it as if Jonathan Richardson would mind getting wet.

"It doesn't matter, darling," his mother murmured, trying to lead him away. Benny buried his head against the front of his mother's dress. Then he jerked his head up again.

"But we have to find them," Benny protested. "We need to find them."

"Benny, darling, your father doesn't need them anymore," his mother said brokenly, pulling him along. Benny kept searching the gutter, the sidewalk and the street as they moved away. He didn't even notice when his mother's market basket slipped from her hand, spilling peppermint sticks, white and red, into the gutter.

*****

Benny flopped down on the front steps of their Philadelphia apartment. His eyes studied the gutter, the sidewalk, the street. They always did that, every time he went outside, since the cart accident. He had spent a lot of time sitting on the steps or walking around the street since then. Benny had not gone to school in two weeks. Pastor Souder and many of his father and mother's adult friends had filed in and out of their small apartment just off Market Street. Some of them were visiting now. They always went into the parlor to talk to Benny's mother.

Benny was seldom allowed in the parlor. Even when he was he had to sit silently in his uncomfortable best clothes and not say or do anything. He had therefore not wanted to be in on these visits. All he knew was that his mother cried a lot, people talked a lot, and many times people took away things that had belonged to his father: books, clothing, even the desk and chair from the corner of the parlor that his father had called his "study."

Lately more things had been disappearing, pieces of furniture that hadn't been just his father's, all their books except their Bibles, the fancy china and the silver tea set they used for special occasions. The apartment was becoming pretty empty. Benny wondered where the people who had come today were going to sit because the parlor furniture was all gone now.

A large cart lumbered to a halt in front of the apartment. Benny pulled his eyes slowly up to look at the powerful draft horses scuffing their great hooves restlessly against the cobblestones as the driver held them in check. The driver wore a red and white neck cloth. It looked oddly bright against his dull brown shirt collar and grimy neck. Something small, gold and shiny caught Benny's eye along the side of the cart. Benny rose slowly to his feet. He stumbled across the sidewalk and stood right in front of the driver as he jumped down from his seat on the cart.

"Those are my father's spectacles," Benny said in a dull voice, pointing at the twisted gold wire thing caught in the slats of the footrest the man had just stepped on. "Can I have them back, please?"

The man started and turned to look at the crumpled bit of metal, then at Benny. Benny had not noticed that Pastor Souder and his mother and the other visitors had come out onto the apartment steps just then. The man wrenched the ruined spectacles out of the footrest and stared at them for a moment. Then he turned pale, threw the spectacles down at Benny's feet and turned to lurch back up onto his seat. Professor Trenton, one of Benny's father's friends from the university, lunged forward and seized the man by the collar, yanking him right off the cart step and throwing him to the ground. Benny picked up his father's spectacles.

"Look, mother," he said, "I found father's spectacles."

*****

After the police had taken away the cart driver Benny' mother had made him come inside and Pastor Souder and the others had talked some more. Benny sat on his bed and stared at the wall, holding his father's spectacles. He kept them near him for the next several days, until one day his mother sat him down and told him that they were going away.

"We are going west, Benny darling," his mother had told him. "We'll live with your Aunt Caroline and Uncle Tom on their farm in Missouri."

"We're going to move?" Benny had demanded. "You just made up your mind? Shouldn't we read the Bible and pray?"

"I have prayed and read God's Word, Benny," his mother had answered. "I have talked things over with Pastor Souder and your father's friends. I believe this is what God wants us to do. We have to leave Philadelphia."

When his father had been alive there had been "family conferences." Jonathan Richardson had sat everyone down with a Bible and they had prayed, read the Scriptures, and asked God for wisdom about what to do. Even Benny had been allowed to give an opinion. But this – this thing that was going to change everything – it was already decided without him.

"God called Father to be a teacher at the University of Pennsylvania," Benny had argued. "He said it was God's will. Father said we would always be taken care of as long as we were doing God's will."

"Darling, darling," his mother had said, hugging him very tightly, "Your father isn't here to teach at the college anymore. We don't have any more money, and no way to get any."

"I don't understand!" Benny had shouted. "Pastor Souder and the others kept saying we had to find the cart, the man who hit Father. I found him, didn't I? Didn't that make any difference? They said he would have to give us a lot of money."

"It was wonderful how you found him, darling," his mother replied. "But the man didn't have a lot of money. He drank a great deal, apparently, and had caused a lot of accidents before. They took his cart and horses and sold them, but they weren't worth a great deal, and he owed many other people money. There was very little for us. Uncle Tom and Aunt Caroline have asked us to come live with them. Aunt Caroline says the country is beautiful out there. They have cows, and chickens, and pigs, and cornfields, and we'll all help take care of them."

"Cows and chickens and pigs?" Benny echoed scornfully. "We go to hear orchestras play and listen to father's friends speak at the university. We hear about paintings and books and history. We go to see plays and operas. Why would you think I would want to see cows and chickens and pigs?"

"Benny, we have to go," his mother said, her eyes brimming with tears. "We have to." She tried to embrace him but Benny pulled away.

"I don't understand why we have to. If you'd even talked to me about it once, asked me what I think, maybe together we could have thought of a plan to stay in Philadelphia."

"What plan would you have given, then?" His mother asked, standing up very straight and stepping away from him. "I'm sorry I didn't ask before, darling. If you know a way we can pay our rent, buy our food, get coal for the stove and oil for the lamps, please tell me."

"I could get work," Benny suggested. "I see lots of boys my age doing errands, working at odd jobs, delivering papers."

"But those boys don't go to school," Benny's mother said gently.

"I haven't gone to school since father died," Benny pointed out.

"That is temporary," Benny's mother said sternly. "Your father would not want you to grow up an ignorant street urchin. You know we saw those boys at the rescue mission all the time. They swear and they are dirty and disrespectful. They care nothing about God, but only come to the mission for a free meal, a bed, or to escape a cruel master. Besides, they only earn enough to keep themselves alive, and that very poorly. I want you to grow up serving and loving God. To do that you must have schooling."

"Well, it looks like God doesn't care much about us, so why should I worry about serving Him?" Benny snapped.

"God does care, my darling," his mother said. Benny was almost sorry for what he had said when he saw he had frightened his mother with his coldness. "We cannot understand his ways just now, but we will understand later. And we are going away to Missouri."

"Even if you don't care what I think, I don't want to leave Philadelphia," Benny shouted, "and I don't want to live on a farm!"

# Chapter One: A Robbery

Benny leaned against the post. He scuffed the toe of his shoe along the edge of the platform. He did it again, noting the new scratch that decorated the already well-scuffed inside edge of his right shoe. Shoe leather didn't seem to be dear anymore. It was completely beyond reach. Benny had outgrown these shoes more than a month ago but no amount of scuffing could persuade his mother that they needed replacing. He tried to wiggle his pinched toes but it was no use. He crossed his arms to hide his fraying jacket cuffs and too-short sleeves and tried to suppress his growling stomach. Benny stared at the front of the train station in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. Sixteen split boards high. People crowded past him. Eight rough-cut log posts like the one he leaned against held up the walkway cover.

He had been trying to get the number of the planks in the boardwalk beneath his feet but people kept crowding by and making him lose count. Women with crying babies, ragged, gaunt men, foreigners trying to understand what the train schedule was, impatient porters trying to finish loading the baggage cars. At one time Benny had looked forward to chances to see new people and places. But this place didn't interest him. It was just a stop to change from the horse-drawn canal barges to the railroad that went to Johnstown.

Benny had turned his back on the tiny, primitive train engine and its few pitiful cars, so unlike the real trains in Philadelphia. Hollidaysburg was just more distance between Benny and everything he had ever known or cared about. Now they were about halfway to Pittsburgh after the slow, difficult trip up the Cumberland River and the Juniata River Canal on horse-drawn barges. The train from Philadelphia to Columbia hadn't been too bad. But the barges were so slow and crowded with boxes and bales and people.

Benny had learned about canals and locks in school. But the experience of going through a hundred and eight locks was a lesson no schoolbook could have taught him. Ahead of them were ten miles of uphill and downhill train travel to Johnstown. After that they would get back on barges to Pittsburgh and on to Cleveland, Ohio. His mother had gone to buy something while they waited for the train.

A man pushed past him. He got a tighter hold on the beautiful wooden model of the U.S.S. Constitution he held. Benny saw a white and red stick of candy peeking out of the man's breast pocket and he shrank up against the post and shut his eyes. He caught a whiff of peppermint as the man breezed by.

"I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." Benny wasn't sure what had made him think of that Bible verse again. It had been such a long time since the cart accident. Such a long time since Benny had even thought of what peppermint sticks smelled or tasted like. He wondered if he could even eat one now.

"If you're with us, God, why does my mother look so sad all the time?" Benny whispered. "Where's all our furniture gone? It just disappeared piece by piece! Why did mother fire Mrs. Baggins and do all the cooking and cleaning herself? What's happened to my father's books and our black two-wheeler and Clem? Just when are You going to start taking care of us, God?"

The man who had passed Benny certainly didn't remind him much of his father. Benny guessed that a grownup would have called him handsome, shorter and more athletically-built than Jonathan Richardson, with a fine set of brown sideburns and brown eyes that looked everywhere and always seemed to be watching out for something. He walked very straight and looked as if he were proud of himself and very happy about something. He dressed like a businessman, plain and neat, but with a few little surprising and pleasing extra touches like a bright yellow silk handkerchief and a matching tie. He smiled up at the man loading baggage as he swung a fat, black leather bag up to him.

"Evenin', Mr. Carlisle," the baggage man said, tipping his flat blue cap to the young man. He had his blue uniform coat off and the sleeves of his coarse white shirt rolled up. Sweat poured off his face and he wiped his forehead against his sleeve. "More important stuff for the Pittsburgh Bank, eh?"

"Oh, very important stuff, Abe," laughed the man. His voice was nice to listen to, warm and friendly. "Careful, it's heavy this time."

"Oof!" The man almost dropped the bag. He adjusted his grip and carefully wedged the bag into place with the other luggage. "I guess it's heavy! It wouldn't be full of gold, would it?"

"If it were, Abe, I'd be riding along with it!" Mr. Carlisle laughed. "Good evening to you, my friend." He waved as he turned back the way he had come.

"Workin' late again?" Abe shook his head. "Reckon you'll end up president of that bank some day. You'll go far, anyhow."

"I sure hope to go far," Mr. Carlisle chuckled. He shook Abe's hand heartily and turned away. In spite of himself Benny watched as he crossed the rutted dirt street and disappeared into the Oppenheimer Bank and Trust Company directly across from the station. Everybody who passed him got a friendly hello and a big smile, a tip of the hat, a quick lift under the elbow for the ladies struggling to climb to the boardwalk with an armload of packages. Benny remembered how friendly his father had been to everyone. He turned away from staring at the bank doors and looked up and down the street. No blue gingham dress or straw bonnet in sight.

Where was his mother? His stomach growled again. They hadn't eaten anything all day. After a few minutes, the train whistle blew and Benny got shoved again. This time he did fall off the platform. He hit the train car with his shoulder to keep from damaging the Constitution model. People behind Benny muttered and shouted at the man in the fine black suit and top hat. As Benny climbed back onto the platform he smelled peppermint again but couldn't tell where it came from. The man pushed his way through the crowd with a silver-tipped walking stick, seemingly trying to protect his shiny black hair from getting mussed. He also had a black moustache with a little pointed black beard, a silver watch chain, and what looked like a diamond pin in his necktie. Benny noticed that he carried a big black bag. It looked a lot like the one Mr. Carlisle had put on the train.

"Outta my way!" snarled the fine gentleman. "Outta my way! I gotta getta something queek, queeek, eh? I missa da train if I no makea it back inna time!"

Everyone was already trying hard to get out of his way. He disappeared from sight and everyone sighed with relief. Finally Benny saw his mother coming. He had begun to worry about missing the train himself as the whistle blew again. His mother's dress was kind of wrinkled from all the traveling they had done. Her blond hair had slipped out from under the bonnet Mrs. Souder, the pastor's wife, had given her before they had left Philadelphia.

Benny missed the fancy little hats his mother had made for herself from little bits of ribbon and silk flowers. They hadn't cost much money, she had always said, and they had been very pretty and gotten her lots of compliments, but they too had vanished after his father died.

"Hello, darling," she said and took his hand. "Let's get on board. I got some lovely bread and cheese for supper."

"Bread and cheese again?" Benny grumbled. He freed his hand and climbed up into the train car. He flopped down by the opposite window and rubbed his shoe hard against the leg of the seat opposite him, making a big gouge in the worn leather. Suddenly he realized his mother couldn't get aboard the train with her big skirts and her basket and a man was helping her. Benny felt guilty. He should have helped her himself but it was too late now. It was still hard to remember that he was supposed to take care of his mother now.

Abe, the man who had been loading the baggage, closed the door of their car as he struggled back into his blue coat, brass buttons rippling and catching the sunlight. The steam blew out along the tracks. Benny guessed the man in black would miss his ride after all. The train started to move with a jerk. Just as quickly it jerked to a stop again with a squeal of brakes. Benny heard a lot of shouting and running outside.

"What's happening?" Benny's mother asked a man who sat next to the opposite window.

"Dunno, ma'am," he said. "There're people running inta the bank. Can't tell what they're yellin' about." The man across from him opened the door and hung out.

"Somebody's been killed ... No ... Bank's been robbed ..." He got all the way out and disappeared from view. A few minutes later he got back in. "There's stuff all tore up in the back office of the bank. An' there's – beg pardon, ma'am – there's blood all over the place." Benny closed his eyes to try to shut out the vision of a face, red and white, that still came too often to his mind. "– Pile a' gold gone too. Ten thousand dollars, they think. Stolen right here in broad daylight. Feller that works there is missin'."

Benny remembered that the train porter had said that Mr. Carlisle would be working late at the bank. Of course it was past time for the bank to be closed for the day. No one else would be there. If someone had been at the bank, alone, working, and had been attacked when the bank was robbed, there was only one person it could be.

Benny suddenly saw someone lying on the ground in the rain, a white face with red streaks. Only it wasn't his father. It was a man with fine brown sideburns and a yellow necktie. A man who had been friendly and happy and nice to everyone. Benny shuddered and shut out the thought. The train jerked again and they rumbled off. Benny wondered about the foreign man in black. He looked out the window but didn't see him anywhere as the train chugged slowly out of town. Benny pictured the man knocking poor Abe in the head with his walking stick because he had missed his train and almost made himself smile. Almost.

# Chapter Two: Good Advice About Mr. Clancy

"Bump, bounce, jerk, splat."

"What, darling?" his mother murmured wearily.

"Nothing," Benny grumbled. "Bump, bounce, jerk, splat." He just formed the words with his lips and made sure no one would hear them this time. They were back on a barge, making their way up the Conemaugh River canal toward Pittsburgh in day after day of rain. His mother looked more tired every day. It was very hard to sleep on the barge. They had only short stops when they could get off and walk a little way to loosen their stiff muscles. Benny had worn a hole in his old right shoe from scuffing it so often, and the rain came in freely. It got very late. He finally managed to fall asleep with his head on his mother's shoulder.

*****

It seemed like only a minute later before the barge jerked to a stop. Benny looked out from under the piece of canvas stretched out over the bales and boxes as a shelter from the rain. In the barge's lamplight he could see a man carrying a saddle. He talked to the pilot. Benny strained to hear what was said, glad of any distraction, but he couldn't make out any of the conversation. At last the stranger jumped aboard. He climbed up to drop his saddle onto the top of a pile of baggage. Benny saw that under his saddle he carried a big black bag. "Top o' th' evening t' everybody," the man said briskly as he sat down across from Benny under their makeshift tent. "Had a bit o' bad luck with m'horse. Broke his leg."

Two men grunted and huddled closer into themselves as if to protect their valuables from this suspicious stranger. He didn't seem dangerous to Benny. A flannel shirt and faded pants peeked out from under his flapping overcoat. A floppy brown hat half-covered his red hair and freckles.

"How do you do?" Benny's mother said politely. "I'm so sorry for your trouble."

"I appreciate yer good breedin', ma'am," the stranger said with a big smile. "It's bad enough to get bumped from Johnstown to Pittsburgh without bein' grumpy. Name's John Clancy. And what might I have the honor o' callin' you?"

"I'm Abigail Richardson," Benny's mother replied, "and this is my son Benjamin."

"That's a mighty fine boat you're totin' there, Ben me lad," John Clancy said to Benny, reaching out a hand as if to touch the model ship he still clutched to his chest. The scent of peppermint hit his nose as the man's hand brushed his own. Benny drew back sharply.

"It's not a boat, it's a ship," Benny said. "The frigate USS Constitution – "Old Ironsides." My father helped me make it. It has all forty-four guns, just like the real one."

"Well, it's a fine one, indeed," Mr. Clancy said. "Be yer father a sailor, lad?"

"My father was a teacher, but he's dead." Benny wanted the man to stop talking and let him go back to sleep.

"Beggin' yer pardon," muttered Mr. Clancy. Benny's mother spoke to him sharply and he apologized. He was still glad that the man didn't say anything more to him. Benny fell asleep again at last. He awoke to the barge rocking madly, shouts of fear and his mother crying.

"Mudslide!" someone shouted. Benny could hear rumbling and crashing. The rain was falling so heavily he could see nothing. He didn't respond at first when someone began pushing him across the barge. Both Benny and his mother were being shoved from behind. She slipped on the deck, falling hard onto the towpath. Someone pushed Benny off as well. Hands pulled them up the hillside under the shelter of an overhanging ledge.

Benny saw a shadowy figure trying to climb on top of the pile of baggage. Big rocks and mud splashed into the water. The things on the barge began to fall into the river as it tipped farther and farther over with the weight on top of it. The horses tried to break free of their harness. They screamed horribly. Men ran around. Some tried to cut the horses loose. Some tried to get away.

The shadowy figure jumped off the barge. All the cargo dumped off into the river and the barge sank out of sight. A long time passed. Benny couldn't make his mother wake up. He shouted for help. By the time the rocks and mud stopped falling, no one else seemed to be around. It was too dark to see if anyone else was alive. Benny's mother moaned and twisted around.

"I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." Benny realized that his mother had been right. You couldn't always have a family conference. But this was a problem if he had ever had one.

"Please, God, Thy will be done. Take care of my mother and me ... please."

*****

John Clancy had gotten Benny and his mother off the barge and gone for help. No one else who had been on the barge had even been seen since the terrible accident. The doctor was in the hotel room in the town of Saltsburg with Benny's mother a long time.

Benny sat out in the hall and looked at the floor, scuffing his shoe and watching the water squeeze out of the hole onto the hall carpet. Benny looked up at the red-haired man pacing around in front of the door. A big grandfather clock down at the end of the hall chimed quarter-hours, half hours, three-quarter hours. Each time the clock chimed Mr. Clancy started and it seemed to Benny that Mr. Clancy had a wrestling match with himself. He'd walk a little ways down the hall toward the stairs, then come back, then look at the clock, then walk toward the stairs again, and then come back.

Suddenly the daze Benny had been in since his father had died seemed to lift off of him. God had helped them. God had saved his mother and himself from dying in the barge accident like everyone else. He had used this stranger, this Mr. Clancy, to protect them and help them.

"Thank you, Mr. Clancy," he said. "You've been very good to us." Clancy stopped pacing and looked at him. Benny couldn't tell if he was just embarrassed, but he had a strange look on his face.

"Ten thousand ... " he started to say, but he stopped very quickly. "You take it easy, Sonny," he said, smiling. "Everything's going to be okay."

The doctor came out of the room then. He was large and seemed almost round, with a thick, bushy moustache and a bald head that he rubbed and rubbed when he was uneasy. Benny stood up quickly. The doctor looked him up and down but didn't say anything. Benny saw Mr. Clancy get very stiff and play with his floppy hat. The doctor turned very suddenly away from Benny and toward Mr. Clancy.

"I'm Josiah Marsh. Are you Mr. Clancy?" the doctor asked him. Mr. Clancy glanced at Benny, then at the doctor, as if he didn't know why he was being spoken to. Benny thought it was strange too. Wasn't the doctor going to tell him how his mother was?

"Mrs. Richardson asked to speak to you," the doctor said to Mr. Clancy. Benny stared at both of them.

"Can't I see my mother?" he asked.

"Why ... why ... yes, son, of course you can," Dr. Marsh said quickly, rubbing his head. "She's very ... tired right now, so you need to be very quiet and patient with her. She might not be ... able to speak right up like you're used to. Both of you come on in."

Even against the white sheets and coverlet Benny's mother looked pale. Her long golden hair was spread out very untidily over the pillow, hairpins sticking out here and there. Benny had never seen her look like this. He wanted to help her fix her hair. She would be very upset if she knew what it looked like. He and Mr. Clancy came slowly up to the bed and stood on one side, Mr. Clancy seeming to want to hide behind Benny.

Dr. Marsh went around to the other and rubbed his head some more. Benny reached out and pulled loose a few of the hairpins and tried to arrange his mother's hair better. It just looked worse.

"Mrs. Richardson," the doctor said quietly, patting her hand as it lay on top of the blanket, "your boy's here, and Mr. Clancy."

Benny's mother took a long time to open her eyes. They wandered from the doctor around the room and finally came to rest on Benny.

"Benny, darling," she said, her voice so soft Benny could hardly hear her. "Darling ... I've been hurt ... very badly. Dr. Marsh says ... I need an operation. It will be a ... long time ... before I can go on to Uncle Tom's. You'd be terribly bored ... just waiting around for me to ... get better." She paused and looked up at Mr. Clancy.

"I know I have no right to ... impose on you, Mr. Clancy, but you helped us so much. You saved our lives, and got us help, and you're still here, watching out for Benny ... I have no one else I can ask ... I think you were ... going on across the Mississippi ... Please ... please can you ... take care of my poor boy? The doctor has ... directions to my brother in Osage, Missouri. Thomas Laughlin ... Please ..."

John Clancy started to stammer. Benny's mother's eyes closed. Her face changed, grew even whiter. Benny felt hands on his shoulders that quickly pushed him out of the room. The doctor followed them out. He led Mr. Clancy a little way down the hall. Dr. Marsh rubbed his head a good deal and tried to whisper. Benny could see that Mr. Clancy was growing more and more upset, and his voice was becoming a loud hiss. He edged closer to find out what they were talking about.

"Yes, there's a good chance she won't live through the surgery," Dr. Marsh said. He seemed angry, but sad and tired too. "Of course the boy's not your business. But you did say you were headed west of the Mississippi, didn't you? This is almost the same thing as the poor woman's last wish."

The doctor dug in his pocket. "Look here, she gave me some money – for the boy's expenses – I know it isn't enough – don't know how she reckoned on the two of them getting to Missouri on that – But here, I'll put some with it. Just drop him off at his kinfolks' place."

"I can't take care of that boy!" Mr. Clancy hissed. "I gotta look after my own affairs. I lost practically everything I had on that barge."

"Well they did lose everything!" Dr. Marsh snapped. "The father's dead, everything of value they had was apparently sold off before they started out on this trip. Nobody's going to pay me to do this surgery. If Mrs. Richardson lives, it'll be months before she can travel. The boy can't stay here. He's got kinfolk waiting to look after him. All you have to do is to get him there."

Dr. Marsh rubbed his head one more time. "She said something about God bringing you their way when they needed help. I can't see why He'd pick a fellow like you, but maybe He did. I've got to get back in there. That room across the hall's for you and the boy. It's paid for. The hotel'll give you both breakfast in the morning."

Both men turned around and saw Benny standing right next to them. Dr. Marsh and Mr. Clancy stared at each other for a few moments. Then Mr. Clancy turned to Benny. He patted him clumsily on the shoulder.

"Come on, Sonny, we'll be seeing the sunrise before we get into bed at this rate," Mr. Clancy said as the doctor disappeared into his mother's room. Benny kept standing where he was until Mr. Clancy pushed him to get him moving. They went into the room Dr. Marsh had pointed out.

Mr. Clancy poked around the room, picking up objects and turning them over as if studying them. Benny stood in the middle of the carpet. Mr. Clancy took several minutes to study a silver inkwell on the little writing desk. He lifted the tail of his coat and made a motion as if to put the inkwell into his pocket. Then he remembered Benny was in the room and set it down hastily.

"Is my mother going to die?" Benny asked finally. Mr. Clancy walked over to the washbasin. He splashed some water on his face. He dried himself off before he looked around.

"The doctor said she might, but we don't know for sure," Mr. Clancy replied. "She'll probably pull through fine. But the doctor said it'll be a long time before she gets better. She was right about there being no reason for you to hang around. Might as well get yourself off to Uncle Tom's and help feed the chickens."

"I hate farming," Benny said sharply. To his surprise, Mr. Clancy laughed.

"City boy, are you?" he asked. "Guess this'll be a big change for you. You'll like sloppin' hogs, shovelin'..."

"Can't you take me back to Philadelphia? There are friends of my father's who'd take me in. I know they would."

"Look, kid, we're not going to Philadelphia. I got one little side trip to make, and then I'm heading west. If you don't want me to drop you off in a gully somewhere, don't give me any trouble."

"Why don't you talk funny anymore?" Benny asked suddenly. Mr. Clancy got very stiff and looked at him without saying anything for a minute.

"Now, what might ye be meanin' about me talkin' funny, me lad?" Mr. Clancy asked with a nervous laugh.

"You're faking that," Benny scowled. "Besides, you washed off all your freckles. Why are you pretending to be somebody you're not?"

Mr. Clancy looked as if he were going to take off running straight out of the hotel. He even went to the door and put his hand on the knob. Then he turned back around and smiled broadly a t Benny.

"Oh, well, it's just a little game I like to play," Clancy chuckled. He showed Benny a flat bag he carried on a belt under his shirt that had some false moustaches, wigs, and makeup in it. "I used to be an actor. I just do this every once in a while for fun, and to keep in practice. Come on, now, you need to get to bed. We don't want to keep the cows waiting down on the farm."

Benny glared at him. Mr. Clancy laughed and crawled into the big double bed. Benny stood looking at him. Finally Clancy sat up and threw a pillow at him.

"There's an extra blanket on the settee," he growled. "Go sleep there if you don't feel like bunking down with me. But quit staring like a broken-hearted vulture."

*****

Benny woke up early. He wondered at first where he was. He blinked in the dim light and stumbled off the settee, lighting a candle on the mantle from a spill by the fireplace and looking dazedly around. Seeing Mr. Clancy in the bed sleeping made him remember. Benny wondered why it seemed like he'd seen Mr. Clancy before. He liked the way he looked without those funny freckles and the red wig, which lay like a big hairy red spider on the bedside table. When the friendly moods came over him Mr. Clancy reminded Benny a little of his father. Mr. Clancy acted friendly enough sometimes. But he wasn't good like Jonathan Richardson.

"He doesn't know God," Benny said to himself. "That makes all the difference in the world. I can't go away with him. How can God take care of me? Mr. Clancy won't know what God wants us to do."

Benny went quietly out of the room into the hotel hall. He saw Dr. Marsh come up the stairs.

"You're up early," the doctor said.

"I need to talk to my mother," Benny said.

"She needs her rest, son," Dr. Marsh answered. "So do you. Best crawl back in bed for another hour or two."

"I can't go to Missouri with that man," Benny said. "My father always said God would take care of us, but Mr. Clancy doesn't even know God. He won't do what God wants."

The doctor looked uncomfortable. "I guess you're real religious folks," he said. "Haven't been to church in years myself. It's all right for women and children ...."

"My father always went to church with us," Benny interrupted. "He loved God and he prayed and read the Bible all the time. Father said religion means practicing what you believe. We believe Jesus Christ died for our sins and wants us to live for Him."

"Well ... well, that's good, son. But your father, he's gone now, and your mama can't be with you right now. This Clancy fellow, he's promised to look after you. I reckon the good Lord will keep on bein' with you just like He always has. Doesn't the Good Book say He cares for widows and orphans and all that?"

"Well ... Yes... it does," Benny said thoughtfully. "You think God can make things go right even with people who don't believe in Him?"

"Look here, boy," said Dr. Marsh, kneeling down and putting a hand on Benny's shoulder, "you're a fine young fellow. You make me ashamed, talking about how important God is to you. I'll tell you what I think. Suppose I don't believe there's a floor here under me. Does that mean it'll stop holding me up?"

"Of course not. It doesn't make any difference whether you believe in it or not. It just does what it's supposed to do."

"Well, then, I think God's the same way," Dr. Marsh replied. "He'll be there whether that Mr. Clancy believes in him or not. And maybe there'll come a time when Mr. Clancy'll have to believe in Him. Maybe you can help him along. Maybe that's why God's hitched you up with him. Maybe he needs someone to preach at him and get him converted."

The doctor rose stiffly and patted Benny's shoulder. "Maybe I needed it too," he said, half to himself.

"I lost my Bible when the barge sank," Benny said. "Could I just go in to my mother's room? She had hers in her bag, and I think it's still there. I just need to borrow it."

"Certainly," Dr. Marsh said. He let Benny in. His mother's Bible was on the stand beside the bed. The doctor chased out the old woman sleeping in a chair on the other side of the bed and checked Benny's mother.

"Stay in here and do your reading, if you like," the doctor said gruffly. "There's enough light from the window. I'll be doing the surgery a little later. Maybe you'll say a prayer for your mother ... and for me, eh?"

"Yes, sir, I sure will," Benny smiled.

Dr. Marsh left, and Benny started reading in the book of Psalms. His father had said that the Psalms were good for people who were sad or sick or in trouble. Benny read for a long time, then suddenly felt someone looking at him. He saw his mother smiling at him.

"I haven't seen you read the Bible since your father died, darling," she said softly. "These are such hard...times, aren't they? But hard times...should bring us closer to the Lord, not...make us bitter or angry. That's why...they come. We have to be faithful. We have...to be...."

"Mother, there's something strange about Mr. Clancy," Benny said uneasily. "He's ...."

Benny stopped. His mother had gone back to sleep. Benny wondered if he should tell the doctor about Mr. Clancy's disguises. But maybe it was just something he did for fun. Dr. Marsh returned with some other people and lots of boxes and bags. Benny kissed his mother and said a quick good-bye.

"I wish you well, young man," the doctor said.

# Chapter Three: "He'll Go Far."

Mr. Clancy was just getting up when Benny returned to the room they shared.

"Aahh, I thought it was all a nightmare," he groaned. "Don't tell me that barge is really at the bottom of the river, and I really have to take you to Missouri?"

Benny didn't answer. He fingered the Bible, which his mother had insisted he take with him. Mr. Clancy looked at it and curled his lip. "Oh, no, not a religious nut," he said. "Worse and worse. It's got to be a nightmare. I won't stand for any preaching. No, sir. You can save your pearls for the swine down on the farm. Don't waste 'em on me." Benny remembered what the doctor had said about Mr. Clancy needing someone to preach to him. But how could he, if Mr. Clancy was going to refuse to listen?

Benny sat watching while the man put his freckles and red wig back on. The difference it made in his looks was amazing. Mr. Clancy talked in his funny Irish accent while they ate breakfast in the hotel dining room. He was friendly to everyone, and got lots of praise for helping a poor orphan boy out of his troubles. Some people got together old clothes for Benny and some outfits for Mr. Clancy too in a battered suitcase. Men gave him money for the trip, and women brought baskets of food to eat along the way. Everyone treated Mr. Clancy like a hero and he loved all the attention. He patted Benny on the head and called him, "me poor boy." He even got some of the women crying with his promises to be good to the poor orphan. He made a speech about honoring his mother's dying wish. Benny liked him less and less. He sounded so phony.

After breakfast Mr. Clancy led him quickly away from town and out into the countryside. Soon they came alongside of the Conemaugh River.

"Aren't we headed back east?" Benny asked. "The hotel manager said to go the other way."

"I told you not to give me trouble, boy, and that means don't ask a lot of questions," Mr. Clancy growled. His friendly, happy Irish ways had vanished. It was like a thunderstorm coming up suddenly over a sunny blue sky.

It was pretty, green, and quiet out in the country, Benny had to admit. They walked a long time, though, far into the afternoon, before Mr. Clancy even stopped for a quick lunch. Benny knew Mr. Clancy was brooding about being stuck taking him to Missouri, and he didn't want to make him more angry, but he was getting awfully tired and thirsty. Mr. Clancy didn't even answer when he asked where they were going.

*****

It was almost dark when Mr. Clancy startled Benny by whistling. He was even more surprised to hear a horse whinny off in the distance somewhere. Mr. Clancy smiled and began to walk even faster. Benny could hardly keep up with him. At last Mr. Clancy led him into a little clearing and Benny saw a beautiful black stallion tied to a fallen log. The horse tossed his head and rubbed his nose under Mr. Clancy's hand as he came up to him. Mr. Clancy gave him a piece of a peppermint stick and patted his neck.

"Hello, Black Switch," he said. "I know I promised you —"

"I thought you said your horse broke its leg," Benny interrupted. Mr. Clancy looked at him.

"Don't think so much," he warned. "Just take what comes and be thankful." He took a step away from the horse. Suddenly the stallion plunged forward and reared into the air. He screamed and struck at Benny. If Mr. Clancy had not held him back he could easily have killed Benny.

"The horse trader didn't want to sell me that mean-tempered black stallion of his that nobody could ride. I got him cheap because nobody knew I'd been sneaking into the stable every night and training him so no one could ride him but me. This horse is just full of tricks," Mr. Clancy warned. "Most of them aren't nice. So mind your manners."

Benny watched as Mr. Clancy began to load their things onto the horse. His heart pounded when he remembered the stallion's terrifying lunge. Suddenly his earlier question came back to him.

"How come you stopped the barge if you already had a good horse? And why were you hiding that black bag under your saddle?" He kept talking, so fast that Mr. Clancy couldn't have answered his questions if he had wanted to. And he certainly didn't seem to want to.

"It looked just like the bag Mr. Carlisle put on the train – and the one that man in the black suit was carrying. What was in all those bags? Or – was that you pretending to be somebody else again? Were you the one that killed that man at the bank and stole the money?"

Mr. Clancy had been staring at him all this time without moving. Suddenly he jumped forward and grabbed Benny. He covered Benny's mouth with one hand and with the other pulled out a big, long knife. Holding Benny so tight it hurt, he laid the knife up against his throat and whispered in his ear.

"I guess you do get to go along with me, after all, Benny my boy," he hissed. "But somehow I don't think we'll make it to Uncle Tom's. The chickens'll be so disappointed."

*****

Benny woke up feeling cramped and cold. He lay on some dry grass at the bottom of a kind of canyon. He was really only half-awake and wondered why something seemed to be pressing against his mouth. But when he tried to move and found his hands and feet tied, he quickly came wide awake.

He was bound and gagged, and he remembered that Mr. Clancy, who was supposed to be taking him to his uncle's farm, had done it. Benny was alone in the canyon, completely helpless, surrounded by a circle of stickers and brush. Dawn was just breaking.

Benny tried to work himself free, but the ropes hurt too much and he had to stop. He wondered if the piles of briars were to keep him from getting away, or to keep animals from getting at him. Neither thought was very comforting. He couldn't shout for help, and dirt and grit got into his clothes, as well as stickers, when he tried again to free himself. Sore and tired, he lay still. The sound of a horse's hooves roused him after some time, and he tried to make his muffled cries loud enough to be heard.

"Hang on, Sonny, I'll be right down," called a voice. Benny was so relieved he started to cry. The man got off his horse and cleared the brush piles out of the way. Benny saw a tan hat and a droopy brown moustache. His tears made it hard to see, and it took a moment before he realized that the man was Mr. Clancy.

"Hope you haven't been too uncomfortable," chuckled Mr. Clancy, pulling Benny roughly up into a sitting position. He took the bandanna off Benny's mouth, but the cocky smile faded off his face when he saw that Benny was crying.

"Oh, come on, now, Kid, I couldn't take a chance on you running away while I was off in Blairsville, could I?" He took out his long knife. Benny tried to scoot away from him, but fell over.

"I'm not going to hurt you," exclaimed Mr. Clancy. He grabbed Benny and cut his hands free. "Now sit up, and I'll fix some breakfast."

Benny felt full of pain and fear. Mr. Clancy was silent as he built a campfire and got out a coffeepot and frying pan from the saddlebags on his horse. After the coffee and bacon were on the fire, he handed Benny a piece of bread. Automatically, Benny bowed his head to pray.

"What're you doing?" Mr. Clancy asked sharply.

"Thanking God for the food," Benny answered.

"You better thank me for the food, Sonny," snorted Mr. Clancy. "And thank me that you're even alive. I wish I had the nerve to cut your throat. You're going to be big trouble for me. What am I supposed to do with you?"

He turned away to look after the food and Benny noticed a newspaper lying beside him. The headline said, "Mystery Bank Robber Steals Ten Thousand in Gold, Murders Bank Employee." The story was about the bank in Hollidaysburg. On the page was a drawing that Benny recognized as being Mr. Jeremy Carlisle from the bank. The article said that he had been killed in the bank robbery, though his body hadn't been found.

Benny scooted over to try to read more. Mr. Clancy turned around then and Benny took a deep, sharp breath. His hair was brown now, as it had been in the hotel room. He wore that fake moustache and hadn't shaved. But there was no doubt in Benny's mind.

"You're that Mr. Carlisle from the bank! I saw you put that big bag on the train."

Mr. Clancy – Jeremy Carlisle – burst out laughing. "Are you sure your daddy wasn't a detective? Let me make sure you've got it all straight." He handed Benny a cup of coffee and a tin plate with bacon on it, then settled back comfortably with his own breakfast. "Yes, my name is Jeremy Carlisle. For five years I worked at Oppenheimer's Bank as a faithful and trusted employee. I was friends with most everybody in town. 'There's that nice, honest, hardworking young Carlisle fellow. He'll go far in life,'" he said in a cracked, wheezy voice, and laughed again.

"I told you I used to be an actor, right? Well, these last five years were my greatest performance. I fooled everyone. On that day you saw me I put ten thousand dollars in gold into my fat black bag. I took it out in plain sight of everyone to give it to the baggage man on the train. No one thought anything about it, because I'd put black bags on the train lots of times."

He paused for a few moments to eat, glancing at Benny to see what his reaction was to his story and seeming to enjoy his amazement. "Then I went back into the bank, messed things up, and sprinkled some chicken blood around. I changed myself into a fine Italian gentleman who missed the train, also carrying a big black bag.

"If anybody started looking for the murderer of poor Mr. Carlisle, there was that mysterious foreigner who was in such a hurry to get out of town. Funny thing, though, how he disappeared into the woods on that pretty black horse he'd stolen from his victim. I hid Black Switch and changed into John Clancy to catch the barge with my empty saddle. The bag I had was full of rocks, and I meant to switch it with the one with the money and be on my way."

Jeremy stopped smiling suddenly, and Benny was afraid of the look on his face. He threw his last bit of coffee into the fire and made it hiss. "But the bag of gold and the bag of rocks are both at the bottom of this river with the barge now. Ten thousand dollars sunk in the mud. And my great performance got me nothing but a fancy horse and a boy who's a whole lot smarter than is good for him." He scowled at Benny. "What am I going to do with you?"

"You took my mother's money," Benny said in a very small voice. "You took the doctor's money too. All those people in town gave you money and food and clothes. You were supposed to take care of me." Even going to Uncle Tom's didn't seem like such a bad thing right at the moment.

"What did she have to say that for?"

"S-say what?" Benny stammered. "Who do you mean?"

"That mother of yours. Dr. Marsh said she told him God brought me your way when you needed help. Why'd she say that? God never bothered me before, and I never bothered Him. I was going out west to start a gambling casino. I was going to be rich for the rest of my life. Look what comes of being a hero! Why couldn't God just leave me alone?"

"Maybe He wanted you to know that you were sinning," Benny said, still afraid, but feeling he ought to say what he believed. "God wants people to repent of their sin and ask Jesus to save them."

"You sure your daddy was a teacher? I think he must've been a preacher. I guess I'm supposed to tell God I'm sorry now. Well, I'm not. I'm real sorry about losing the money. And I sure wish you hadn't got messed up in this."

"Well, what are you going to do about me, then?" snapped Benny. "Aren't you going to kill me? If I get away I'll have to tell people the truth about what you did. It would be just like lying if I didn't."

"I've never killed anybody." Jeremy looked away. "I've stolen things lots of times, but I don't think I could kill anybody. I guess you'll just have to come along with me for now."

# 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 practiced 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."

# Chapter Five: A Joke and a Cougar Evangelist

The day they reached the Mississippi River in Cairo, Illinois, Benny just stood and stared. He had seen the Atlantic Ocean, of course, but here people, riverboats and barges were everywhere. Traffic flowed up and down the river day and night with hardly a pause. Jeremy and Benny had talked very little since the incident at the farm. Benny had struggled to learn about woodcraft without asking Jeremy a lot of questions.

It was very difficult, but he finally began to feel like he was doing his share of the work, getting firewood before Jeremy awakened in the mornings, hurrying to wash dishes before Jeremy was finished eating and cleaning up most of their things while Jeremy was away from the camp washing up or setting traps. Benny's attitude toward Jeremy had changed from fearful to angry and resentful. For a time Jeremy seemed to accept Benny's sullen silence and let him do as much of the work as he could. But on the day that they stepped onto a boat to head up the river, Jeremy cleared his throat.

"It's about time you realized that God isn't going to strike me dead with a clap of thunder and a bolt of lightning just because you hate me, Ben. Maybe God isn't quite as interested in your life or mine as you've been taught to think."

"God hates your drinking, lying, stealing, and gambling," Benny said coldly. "He hates everything you do."

"Everything I do? And so do you, I suppose. You hate my feeding you, and singing you silly songs, and pulling you out of the poison ivy, and picking leeches off you ...."

"You know what I mean!" Benny interrupted.

"I'm not sure I do. I know you're a self-righteous little son of a so-and-so, who says God's always with him, but can't show a smile of gratitude or lend a hand without grudging everything you do that helps me. Things just haven't turned out the way you seem to think God ought to make them go. Doesn't it occur to you that maybe they aren't going to? Maybe you're the one who's going to have to change how you think."

"I'll never think what you do is right." Benny turned away from Jeremy. He bumped into a short, broad-shouldered man who grabbed hold of him.

"Boy for sale?" he demanded of Jeremy in a thick, strange accent. Benny tried to pull free, but the man held him fast. Jeremy calmed Black Switch, who had begun to start and stamp, but made no move to help Benny.

"You need boy?" Jeremy asked with a slight smile. "You should be honored, Ben. This is the captain of this sorry scow."

"Yah. Odder boy die," the man said, spitting into the water. "Too liddle, too veak. Dis vun look priddy strong."

"He works pretty good," Jeremy shrugged. "Stubborn though."

"Eh?"

"Lazy," Jeremy said. "Argues too much."

"I fix dat," the man said with an evil smile. "How much for boy?" He had begun to poke and prod Benny, feeling his arms, looking in his mouth.

"How much you offer?" Jeremy asked.

"Tventy dollar," the man said

"Forty," Jeremy countered.

"Nah! Tventy-fife."

"Thirty-five."

The man spat into the river again and said something Benny couldn't understand. Benny had been too stunned to react at first, but he was beginning to believe Jeremy was actually going to sell him to the man. He looked at Jeremy and saw a wicked gleam of amusement in his eyes.

"T'irty." the man said.

"Thirty-five," Jeremy repeated.

"T'irty!" the man roared.

"Thirty-five."

The man shoved Benny away and turned to go. But suddenly he turned back.

"Yah, t'irty-fife." He reached into his pocket.

Jeremy pulled Benny close to him. "No, I've changed my mind," he said. "I think I'll keep him."

"Hah?" snarled the man, stopping with his hand half-out of his pocket. "Vat you say?"

"Not sell boy," Jeremy answered, turning and pulling Benny along with him.

"You sell boy to me! T'irty-fife dollar!" The man pulled out a wicked, curved knife and grabbed at Benny again. The sudden jerk made Benny drop his mother's Bible and it fell into the deep, murky river.

Black Switch thrust his head forward and grabbed the man by the shoulder. He lifted him almost completely off the deck. Jeremy thrust Benny safely behind him and stepped up to the screaming man.

"Not sell boy. No trouble. We go quick, or you go in river," Jeremy said in a low, firm voice. He nodded and Switch's head began to turn toward the low railing. The man turned white.

"No trouble," he repeated. "You find 'nodder boat. No trouble." Jeremy grabbed him and set him down on the deck. The captain clutched his bleeding shoulder and staggered away on wobbly legs.

Jeremy hustled Benny and Switch off the boat onto the dock again. Benny sank down on the dock. He covered his face with his hands and burst into tears.

"Ben, Ben, I'm sorry." Jeremy knelt beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. "It was just a joke. I never would have let him have you. He'd have beaten you to death. Ben, please forgive me."

"You don't care about me!" Benny cried. He shook Jeremy off and started to stumble away. Black Switch blocked his path and he stopped, not knowing where to go. He turned back to face the bank robber and rubbed his eyes angrily. "You've stuck a knife in my face and said you wanted to kill me. You've called me a liar and made everyone believe you. You've tried to sell me!"

"Ben, I do care about what happens to you," Jeremy said earnestly. "I certainly don't want to kill you anymore. All right, so I've done some things that hurt you. I was trying to stay alive. Some of the time I was trying to keep you alive. That boat captain wasn't the first fellow who wanted to take you away from me. As God is my witness, I wouldn't let anything happen to you."

"Maybe you're smart and strong and you've kept me alive when I would have died out here on my own. But you'd better not ask God to be your witness because He's seen everything you've done and you know it isn't all right!"

"Let's call a truce," Jeremy said finally, after a long silence. "I'll swear off drinking and gambling and anything else you don't like. You help out with the camp chores and talk about God all you want. I'll even take you to your Uncle Tom's if that's what it takes to get you to stop hating me. I don't want you to hate me, Ben."

*****

"Well, it's around here somewhere. Have you made up your mind yet?" Jeremy and Benny had finished straightening up their camp for the night and were about to go to sleep.

"What's around here somewhere?" Benny asked.

"Uncle Tom's farm," Jeremy said casually. "You didn't realize we were getting that close, did you? We've been following the Missouri River quite a while now. I figure if we strike south we'll probably trip over Osage and Laughlin Estates in a day or two. Are you going to tell me what you've decided?"

Benny lay staring up at the stars. He had been with Jeremy a long time. He wasn't even sure how long but he knew it was now late summer and he and his mother had started from Philadelphia in May. The trip up the Mississippi from Cairo to St. Louis had been endless, going from one boat to another, sometimes working themselves to exhaustion polling, sometimes lounging on a steamboat.

Jeremy had not taken a drink or gambled since they had crossed the Mississippi. Benny had stuck close to him, fearing the hard, rough men who crowded the boats and the shore towns more than the bank robber. In fact, he had become closer to Jeremy all the time. Jeremy had taught him some of the tricks he used to train Black Switch, and the horse seemed very fond of Benny.

Jeremy had also taught Benny to protect himself from the brawlers and drunks and thieves they encountered everywhere. Benny had enjoyed learning a strange kind of fighting called Jujutsu, which Jeremy had picked up from some Japanese acrobats he had traveled with. It was a little like wrestling, and allowed a smaller, lighter person to surprise and catch a bigger man off-balance and sometimes send him flying. Benny had seen Jeremy leave a tough hoodlum with a broken arm, screaming on the dock as they poled away.

They had left St. Louis behind long ago, but the river travel wasn't very much different as they headed in the general direction of Independence. Benny and Jeremy were getting along fairly well. But the loss of his mother's Bible had hurt Benny more than he had realized at the time.

"'I will never leave thee nor forsake thee,'" Jeremy had mocked him. "Is that the only Bible verse you know? The Bible must not be a very important Book to you if you don't know any more of it than that!"

Benny wished he had learned more Scripture. The few verses he knew he had said to himself over and over again until he was tired of saying them.

"Stop moping around wishing God would do something, Ben," Jeremy had told him. Jeremy put on his wigs and makeup and made Benny howl with laughter. He sang wonderful, funny, sad songs.

"Let me guess what you're thinking right now," Jeremy said. Benny had almost forgotten Jeremy had asked him a question. "You're trying to figure out why everything's gone wrong in your life. Do you think you're the only one who's had that happen?

"Imagine being born in a cheap theater right after your mother and father got off the stage from doing a sleazy little play. Imagine all your friends being horse trainers and clowns and magicians. I learned card tricks instead of playing with blocks. I was a target for a trick knife-thrower when I was littler than you.

"My mother died of Cholera when I was fifteen. I bet you never saw anyone die from that, did you, little Benny boy? My older brother drank himself to death. Ricky was only nineteen. My dear old pa taught him how, but pa lasted till he was almost fifty."

Jeremy took a deep breath. "I had a pretty face and could always lie to anyone about anything, so I managed to get schooling that got me out of the show circuit and into some good jobs. What good has God ever done you or me?

"Your father's dead, your pretty little mother's probably dead too. You've got nothing to look forward to but a farm boy's life. Ben, what if you just kept on traveling with me? We'd have some high times. You'd never be bored."

Benny still didn't answer. They had made out very well living off the wilderness. Benny had learned to set traps, to find wild plants and berries to eat, to build fires and shelters. Jeremy had finally quit calling him a "city boy."

On this night as he lay out under the stars, Benny was surprised to discover that he no longer wanted to return to the city at all. Was it wrong to think of Jeremy as his friend and to want to stay with him? If he stayed with Jeremy, it would mean accepting his belief that God simply wasn't there. Everything that had happened had seemed to prove Jeremy right.

But Benny still couldn't shake the few Scriptures he did know. They reminded him of God's presence, His love, His promise to take care of those who knew Him. Even though Jeremy had changed some of his sinful ways, Benny was sure it was wrong to want to stay with him. He had never admitted to Jeremy how much he had grown to like the bank robber. He was sure that once he did so, it would be the same as rejecting the Lord.

Black Switch pawed the ground and snorted. He began to pull at the rope that held him to a fallen log just outside their camp. Benny heard a kind of snuffling sound. Leaves rustled, and a shadow moved in the bushes. A big shadow.

Benny sat up slowly. A round, pale head thrust itself out of the bushes beside him, topped by dark, laid-back ears above two catlike eyes that stared at Benny.

"Jeremy!" Benny shrieked. Jeremy sat up very quickly. The cougar, startled by the shout and sudden movement, pulled back and snarled. Black Switch gave a scream that frightened Benny as much as the cat had. He remembered the draft horses dragged into the river with the barge.

"Throw that pack beside you at him, Ben," Jeremy said softly. "He's just hungry. Maybe we can get away if we can distract him."

Jeremy drew his knife and inched forward. Benny twisted around to grab to pack. At that moment the cougar sprang on top of Jeremy. Benny got a glimpse of the great open mouth and long yellow teeth – so many teeth –

Jeremy screamed and tried to fight off the cat. It paid no attention when Benny threw the pack. Black Switch broke the branch off the dead tree to which he was tied and galloped off.

Benny pulled a long stick out of the fire and beat at the cat's humped shoulders. His tawny fur smoldered and sparks flew from him, but he only became angrier and more fierce. Benny saw Jeremy's blood dark on the fire-lit grass, but he could do nothing to stop the cougar's attack, nothing to stop Jeremy's terrified, pain-filled screams.

"Oh, God, please don't let him die! He needs to believe in Jesus! Please help him somehow! Please!" Benny cried out loud.

An explosion right behind Benny made him jump. Another sounded, and another. Benny realized that a giant man with a long rifle stood at the edge of the clearing, pumping shot after shot into the cat as fast as he could reload. At last the cougar's grunts and snarls died away. He lay still beside Jeremy.

The man and Benny got to Jeremy at the same time. The man first checked to be sure the cougar was dead then turned to Jeremy. Benny stared in horror. Blood covered Jeremy. His clothes were rags. His face was terrible to see. The man shook his head.

"Reckon he's dead, son," he muttered.

"But I prayed ..." Benny said in a low voice. "And you even came. Doesn't God care about anything?"

" 'Course God cares, boy," the man said in a rough voice. He put a hand on Jeremy's chest. "See that? He is alive." Jeremy gave a short, sharp gasp and moaned. "Come on, my cabin's not far away. If you asked God to save this fellow's life, we'd better not be hindering Him from doing His work."

The man was so big he picked Jeremy up easily and carried him over to the tall brown and white horse that waited patiently nearby. Benny followed him to a rough cabin at the edge of a meadow and opened the door for him to carry Jeremy in.

The man laid Jeremy on a bed in the corner of the single room. It was made of notched logs, with a straw-filled canvas bag slung on crossed ropes. Benny looked around at the fieldstone fireplace, small table, two chairs, some rough-cut benches, and cupboards that furnished the room.

Then his eyes fell on the walls, which were crowded with books. Every open space had books packed on crude shelves. The man wore fringed deerskin, a big black felt hat with an owl feather, and his beard and hair were long and white. He looked like a trapper or a mountain man, not a book-lover.

"Come on, son, let's do what we can for him. 'Be not weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.'" The man gave orders as he removed Jeremy's tattered shirt.

"Get that pitcher and bowl from beside the fire, and then stir up the coals and fill the pot with water from the well. Bucket's by the door. There's cloth in that cupboard –" he pointed " – to tear up for bandages."

Benny helped all he could, but he felt like he was walking in his sleep. Nothing seemed real. Jeremy struggled and moaned and cried out so much that it was hard to clean and dress his wounds. The old man was very strong as well as very big. After a long time he poured the last bowl of bloody water out the door, washed his hands, and threw himself down into one of the chairs by the table.

"Sit down and rest yourself, son," the man said kindly. "You must be about worn out between being up in the middle of the night and nursing your pa."

"He's not my father." Benny was surprised that he would think that.

"Your brother?"

"No."

"But you were trying to help him – praying for him. What is he to you?"

"I-I'm not sure," Benny said slowly. "I think he's my friend."

# Chapter Six: This Is My Friend

For a long time Jeremy didn't know what went on around him. Sometimes he was as hot as the black cooking pot over the fire. Sometimes he shivered as if it were winter. He flung his arms and legs around and mumbled all kinds of things. "Four aces beats a full house," he muttered. Sometimes he cursed loudly. "Ten thousand dollars in gold," he whispered. "I finally got it!" Benny hoped Daniel Connors, the man who owned the cabin, wouldn't understand. Mr. Connors would listen to Jeremy with a funny expression on his face.

Benny hardly talked to Mr. Connors at all. He was so mixed up in his feelings about God and toward Jeremy that he didn't know what to say. He wanted to tell Mr. Connors that Jeremy was a bank robber, but he kept thinking of how Jeremy had taken care of him all this time. He had been so sure that Benny was wrong about God. Events had seemed to prove Jeremy right. Benny didn't know what was right anymore. Jeremy was a thief, but he had been kind to Benny.

He was so smart and so friendly. Benny did not know what he would do if Jeremy died. Every day, Doc Daniel, as the big man called himself, read aloud from the Bible. He didn't seem to mind if no one appeared to be listening. Certainly Jeremy could not hear or understand at first. Benny tried not to pay any attention. He kept busy doing chores, trying to care for Jeremy, doing anything to keep from listening. It was too hard to try to trust God again after everything that had happened.

Benny had only told Doc Daniel that he was an orphan, which he really thought must be true, and that Jeremy had been taking care of him for a long time. Doc Daniel was always kind and gentle and didn't try to force him to talk. He talked a lot himself, though. He knew so much about the Bible that every other thing he said came out as a quote from Scripture. That bothered Benny a lot.

Doc Daniel seldom left the cabin while Jeremy was so sick. People would knock on the door once in a while, but Doc Daniel would always send them quickly away. Finally Jeremy's chills and fever went away for good. Although he was very thin and weak, he began to get better. Benny stayed close to Jeremy most of the time, talking to him, encouraging him to get well.

At first Jeremy could not talk at all, and even when he found his voice returning, it was raspy and almost too soft to understand, nothing like Jeremy's old voice that Benny had liked so much. The day came when the bandages came off Jeremy's face for the last time. Benny ran outside to cry after he had seen the awful scars on Jeremy's face. All his old handsomeness was gone.

*****

A few days later Doc Daniel told them he had to go away for a day or two. Jeremy was strong enough that Benny could look after him alone. Doc Daniel took his big brown and white horse, which he called Neb. He packed his saddlebags with a few books and his Bible and departed.

Jeremy had never spoken to Doc Daniel at all. Apparently he wanted him to think he still couldn't talk. But he had been forced to sit through the Bible readings every day, and when Doc Daniel left Jeremy breathed a sigh of relief.

"We've got to get out of here, Ben," he whispered. He sat up slowly, carefully, and put his feet down on the dirt floor.

"You're not strong enough yet, Jeremy," Benny protested. He wasn't sure if that was the real reason he didn't want to go, but it was true enough. Jeremy grunted and stood on wobbly legs.

"Does that old preacher have a mirror around here someplace?"

"What do you want a mirror for?"

"What do you think?"

"I –I don't think he has one," Benny stammered.

"I think he does," said Jeremy with a scowl. "Is it that bad?"

"Well ... It's bad .... "

"I'm a big boy, Ben. Go and get the mirror. I want to know the worst."

Slowly Benny went to Doc Daniel's "odds-and-ends" cupboard and brought back a little polished metal mirror. After hesitating a moment, he handed it to Jeremy. Jeremy looked at Benny a long time, and then finally put the mirror up in front of his face.

"Well, well," Jeremy said softly. "I think that cougar and me could tie for first place in an ugly contest. And that preacher would come in second. I wish I could wipe off this face like I wiped off those freckles back when the barge went down."

"Well, you can't," Benny said. "And you shouldn't talk about Doc Daniel like that. He saved your life."

"I'd rather be dead than look like this," Jeremy snapped. "What kind of life have I got to look forward to now? Even ten thousand dollars can't fix this. I can't buy the sick, laughing, pitying looks off people's faces when they see me and hear my golden voice. I don't know if there's even anywhere I can hide."

"Well, now you know how we all look to God," Benny shouted at him." The Bible says our sin makes us look like we're covered with 'wounds and bruises and putrefying sores' to God."

Benny realized that all Doc Daniel's Bible reading had gotten through to him anyway. "God says, 'Thou sayest, "I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.' I'm going to tell Doc Daniel the truth when he comes back."

"You haven't told him yet?"

"No."

"Why not? I figured he'd left to get the law now that I'm well enough to go to jail."

"You were my friend, Jeremy, and I didn't want anything to happen to you. But your being my friend isn't more important than doing what's right. I've got to tell him."

"Ben, I'm too weak to run away, and you already know I'm too softhearted to hurt you. I guess there's no way I can stop you."

Suddenly they heard a noise outside. Hooves pounded on the turf and a shrill whinny brought them to the tiny window.

"Doc Daniel can't be back yet," Benny said.

"That's Black Switch!" Jeremy cried. "Look, there he is. Didn't the preacher say he'd been running around?"

"Yes, but he couldn't catch him." Benny stared at the black stallion pacing out by Doc Daniel's log fence. Jeremy moved slowly toward the door. He spotted his black leather bag with the gold from the bank robbery by the door and scooped it up, staggering with its weight. "He'll come to me. Then I could get away. You'll be safe here with the old man."

"Running can't keep you out of Hell, Jeremy," Benny snapped, pushing in front of Jeremy. "Not even all your money. Nobody'll care what you look like there. It's always dark, and everybody's too busy burning and suffering. It'll be worse than all you went through with that cougar. Much worse. Didn't you learn anything? Does God have to do something worse to make you listen?"

Jeremy shoved him aside. Benny raced to the cabin door. He pushed it open, burst out into the yard, and ran at Black Switch, waving his arms and shouting.

"Go on, get out of here!" Benny cried. Black Switch snorted and tossed his head.

"Switch! Come here, Switch old boy!" Jeremy coaxed. The horse advanced several hesitant steps, rolling his eyes at Benny uneasily. Suddenly he lunged and reared at Benny.

"No, Switch! No!" Jeremy shouted. The stallion's hooves caught Benny in the chest and flung him backward against the cabin.

Benny didn't feel anything at first except that it was hard to breathe. His mind was filled with a sudden thought. "Oh, Dear God," he gasped as Jeremy fell down beside him. He forced the words out so that Jeremy could not help but hear. "Forgive me. You did all this to teach me, too, and I wouldn't listen. You took my parents away. You almost took Jeremy away – He would have gone to Hell because I couldn't have faith in You when things didn't go like I thought they should. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Don't let Jeremy turn away from You forever."

*****

All of a sudden Doc Daniel was there, trying to make him drink something very bitter. Benny looked up at him in surprise and choked on the bitter stuff, but he swallowed most of it anyway.

"I thought you weren't going to be back for a day or two," Benny said. How funny his voice sounded. Almost as bad as Jeremy's.

"I wasn't," Doc Daniel said with a little smile. "But it's been a week now, Ben. Black Switch knocked you over and cracked your head open on my chimney. Fever set in and we figured we'd lost you a couple of times. Jeremy went twenty miles to find somebody who could get me back here."

Benny looked around and saw Jeremy sitting at the table, looking very funny dressed in Doc Daniel's too-big clothes. He looked much better, almost as well as ever. Benny was the one who was weak now.

"Thanks, Jeremy," Benny said. Jeremy grunted but didn't say anything. Benny wondered if he was still pretending he couldn't talk. Then he noticed that Jeremy sat with his hand on Doc Daniel's Bible. It was open, and Benny was sure Jeremy had been reading it.

"Well, Doc Daniel was busy tending you, and somebody had to keep up with the daily reading." Jeremy's voice sounded almost normal now. "Ben, I ... I learned what you said God was trying to teach me. I finally learned it. I believe in Jesus Christ now."

Benny was so tired he could only smile. "How did it happen?"

"I wanted to ride off on Switch. I thought, 'I have to get out of here. But I can't leave Ben or he might die.' Then I thought that if you were hurt really badly, and I didn't go get help, you still might die. But you always said that if God wanted you to live, you couldn't die. Then I thought maybe it was like you said, God just brought us together so I could hear the Word. Then I thought maybe God had already given me all the chances I had coming to hear the Word. That meant He could take you. And that might also mean I was all out of chances to listen.'

"I was so run down anyway I wasn't sure I could even ride," Jeremy went on after stopping to take a deep breath. "Oh, Ben, I just fell down on my knees and cried, 'God, this is what Hell is like. Being helpless and separated from You and needing You and not being able to find You. But I'm not in Hell yet, and You're still listening. Please forgive my sins. I believe in Jesus Christ. Let me find help for Ben.'"

Jeremy had to stop again after that. In a minute he went on. "Black Switch came right up to me. He was waiting 'till I got myself straightened out. I didn't know which way to go, but I kept saying that verse you always quoted: 'I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.' Switch took me straight to a farm where the people knew Doc Daniel. Guess he's the only doctor or preacher in these parts."

"That farmhouse might interest you, Ben," Doc Daniel put in. "It's right outside a town called Osage and it belongs to a fellow named Tom Laughlin and his wife Caroline. And they have a visitor by the name of Abigail Richardson."

"My mother?" Benny gasped. "She's really alive? But how – But – How did you know?" His eyes flew to Jeremy.

"Somebody had to tell him the truth, and I could see you weren't going to," Jeremy snorted. "After all, it was the right thing to do."

"The U.S. marshal happens to be over in Boonville right now," Doc Daniel said. "Was he surprised when I showed him the inside of that big black bag! I wasn't going to keep that around the house once I'd got you patched up and figured you weren't going to die. It was all there, and it was the marshal's unofficial opinion that considering everything, Jeremy should get a pretty light prison sentence."

"Why does he have to go to jail at all?" Benny protested. "He gave back the money."

"Because sin always has a price, Ben," Jeremy said, fingering the Bible under his hand. "It's still a broken law, and the penalty has got to be paid. That's why Jesus had to die on the cross. Sin's got to be paid for."

"I got the marshal to agree to let Jeremy stay in my custody until you were better," Doc Daniel explained to Benny. "But as soon as you're able, we'll take you on over to your Uncle Tom's and Jeremy will have to go to Boonville."

"What'll you do after you get out, Jeremy?" Benny asked.

"I may come back here for awhile," Jeremy shrugged. "I need to learn some more about the Word, and Doc Daniel's a good teacher. I want to learn some doctoring, and he can handle that too. After that I'll head farther west, just like I planned to all along. Only now I'd like to do what Doc Daniel does in these parts –travel around preaching and doctoring. Instead of getting rich out west, I think I'll work on laying up some treasure in heaven."

*****

Benny tried to delay his recovery as long as possible, but by the end of the second week Jeremy had called his bluff and they left Doc Daniel's cabin. When they arrived at the Laughlin's farm, Benny nervously went up and knocked at the door.

The man who opened the door couldn't be anyone but Uncle Tom. He was small and thin and had the same kind eyes that Benny's mother had. Aunt Caroline, plump and smiling, pushed past her husband and folded Benny up in her arms.

Benny looked past them and saw someone come out of a back room. She was thin, pale, and moved very slowly, but Benny's mother smiled through her tears. Benny ran to her and hugged her so tightly she gasped for breath. Finally he pulled away.

"Mother, come on outside," he said. "You have to meet someone."

Doc Daniel and Jeremy had not come inside but stood by the fence with their horses. Jeremy was trying to stay back out of sight behind Doc Daniel. Benny realized that he must feel ashamed of having played the part of Mr. Clancy and being a bank robber, and also that he must not want Benny's mother to see the scars from the cougar attack. But Benny didn't care. He grabbed Jeremy's hand and pulled him forward.

"Mother," he said, "this is Jeremy. This is my best friend."

# Chapter Seven: Visits of Consequence

Benny paused to watch the end of the sunrise over the top of his Uncle Tom Laughlin's barn. He had already finished most of his chores. The woodbox was full. The chickens were fed. The pigs would get their slops after breakfast. The eggs were all gathered, swinging gently in the bucket he carried. The town of Osage was just visible off in the distance. Benny looked around. His mother and Aunt Caroline should be still in the barn, though probably they had almost finished the milking. Uncle Tom he knew was in the dairy. Benny set the egg bucket down and walked over to the shed that thrust out between the house and the barn. He stopped just outside the door and looked around one more time. Then he lifted the latch and stepped inside.

"'Morning, Black Switch," he said softly. A dark shape moved in the makeshift stall. The sleek black stallion blew a long blast of warm air over Ben's outstretched hand as he thrust his head over the wall. He nipped the crabapple from Benny's palm, scarcely touching the boy's skin. Then he nodded his head several times in rapid succession.

"I know Jeremy usually gave you peppermint," Benny apologized. He pushed his brown hair away from his forehead and patted the horse's nose. "But Uncle Tom says sugar'll make you meaner than you already are. You're such a bad old horse, aren't you?" he said fondly. "Stop chewing up the field horse harnesses, will you? You have to behave yourself. He'll never let you out to pasture with them. You're in prison just like Jeremy is." Benny felt tears filling his eyes. He buried his face against the stallion's neck.

"Why did he have to go, Switch?" Benny grumbled. "He gave back all the money, except what he spent to buy you. And he's a Christian now. They have to see that he's different." Benny sighed.

The horse pushed him playfully and nosed around for sweets. But Benny knew better than to get caught disobeying Uncle Tom too far. His mother's brother was a good man, but he was strict about rules. "I've got no patience with fool boys and fast horses."

Black Switch had amazed Benny by becoming almost as tame and gentle with Benny as he had been with Jeremy. Now Jeremy was in the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City, waiting to find out what would happen to him. The Missouri State officials weren't sure what to do with a confessed bank robber from Pennsylvania, so they had sent letters to Philadelphia to get instructions.

Uncle Tom had reluctantly agreed to keep Black Switch, Jeremy's trick-playing stallion. It was hard being separated from Jeremy, but Benny had learned better than to question God's will.

Almost a month had gone by now, and Benny had received a couple of letters from Jeremy, brought by Doc Daniel, who kept going to the capitol to find out what was happening. The thing that really bothered Benny was Jeremy's letters. They were pretty short and didn't say much. Jeremy talked about reading the Bible and praying. Benny was glad for that. He also said the food was very bad, which made Benny laugh. Jeremy mentioned that the prisoners had a lot of work and not much free time. Benny guessed that was why Jeremy didn't write much.

Benny realized suddenly that he had been in the shed a long time. He patted Black Switch one more time and hurried out. He grabbed the egg bucket and headed into the dairy. His mother, Aunt Caroline, and Uncle Tom were all busy processing the milk in the dairy. Benny put his eggs in the springhouse to keep them cool, along with the butter his mother had churned the day before. Then everyone was ready to return to the farmhouse for breakfast.

"Hello, Laughlins and Richardsons!" called out a voice. They looked around to see Doc Daniel riding into the yard. Benny couldn't help wondering how a doctor and minister like Doctor Daniel Connors had ended up out here in the wilderness of Missouri, dressed like a mountain man in fringed buckskin, wearing a black felt hat with a big owl feather. He was a huge man, close to seven feet tall, with white hair and beard and sharp blue-gray eyes that always seemed to know the truth whatever lies a person wanted to tell.

"Doc Daniel!" Benny shouted. "Did you see Jeremy?"

"Yes, I did, Ben." Doc Daniel slid off his big horse and gave Benny the reins. "Put up this old traveler for me, will you?"

"You didn't ride all night, did you, Daniel?" demanded Aunt Caroline. "Sit down with us and have a bite of breakfast."

Of course Doc Daniel got a lot more than a bite of breakfast. Benny's mother was a very good cook and so was Aunt Caroline. Benny loved breakfast on the farm. Eggs, sausage, pancakes or biscuits or waffles, apple juice from their own orchard – Still, Benny felt he was earning his food.

The chores never really ended except when he had his school lessons with his mother and a little time in the evenings before bed when they sat together by the front room fire or on the porch.

"So how was Jeremy?" Benny asked between mouthfuls of biscuit. Doc Daniel took a look around the table before he answered. Benny saw his eyes come to rest on his mother. Benny saw that look on her face that meant she was upset about something.

"He was about like usual," Doc Daniel said with a shrug. "You come on out to the yard with me after breakfast and we'll give that horse of his a little run, eh?"

"Dr. Connors, you should rest," Benny's mother protested. "Benny, don't pester him. He's probably exhausted."

"Ma'am, it's no trouble," Doc Daniel smiled.

"You're getting to handle that horse better," Doc Daniel commented as they trotted across the pasture, Doc Daniel on his tall piebald gelding Neb and Benny on Switch.

"He's not playing as many tricks on me as he used to," Benny said modestly.

"He knows a big bagful, doesn't he? Smart as the old devil, aren't you, you beauty?" Doc Daniel grabbed Black Switch's headstall and gave it a shake, then fed him a piece of sugar.

"Don't tell your uncle I did that, Ben. Jeremy made me promise to give the old man a sweet or two."

"So what did you want to tell me about Jeremy?" Benny asked.

"Ben, I'm going to have to tell you some hard news," Doc Daniel said soberly as they dismounted in the apple orchard. "But you're not a little boy. So I know you will take it as from the Lord." Doc Daniel took a breath and sat down under a tree, making Benny sit beside him.

"My son Dan Junior is a lawyer, you know," Doc Daniel said. "I got him to come out here to try to help Jeremy. We thought maybe we could get them to let him stay here in Missouri if he's got to serve time in prison."

"Yes, you told me that," Benny nodded. "You said your son's the best lawyer in the world and he could do it if anybody could."

"Well, I guess nobody can, then," Doc Daniel said, "because Jeremy is being shipped back to Philadelphia to stand trial. If there's a prison sentence he'll have to serve his time there."

"But Doc Daniel," Benny whispered. "What's going to happen to Jeremy? Could he be there a long time?"

"Dan doesn't really know. That's for a judge to decide."

"I have to see him before he goes," Benny said. "Mother will take me to visit him. I'll ask her."

"Now, Ben, let me explain something else to you," Doc Daniel said as he got to his feet. "You mama is a fine lady – a lovely Christian. She loves you and she loves the Lord. But from what I can see, she believes she's got no reason in the world to love Mr. Jeremy Carlisle. I'd say she's got some quite different feelings about him, considering how he behaved – lying about who he was, gambling his way across the country ...."

"Jeremy's a Christian now. She'll understand that he's different."

"There isn't much time, Ben. Maybe a week at most. I'm afraid it may not be easy to convince your mother to take you to see Jeremy. In fact, I reckon it'll be mighty difficult. The Lord can do miraculous things, but for your mama to muster kind feelings toward a man who robbed a bank and held a knife to her son's throat – a man she trusted to care for the boy ... well, not many folks are that good of Christians."

Benny was moody and silent during the rest of the day following his talk with Doc Daniel. His mother chided him for not paying attention to his schoolwork. Uncle Tom complained about half-done chores. Aunt Caroline wondered what had happened to the happy, singing nephew that she used to have.

Benny slept in the open loft above Uncle Tom's front room. That night as he lay awake he heard Uncle Tom talking to his mother.

"I've got to make the trip to Jefferson City tomorrow anyway, Abigail. Seems like it'd mean a lot to the boy."

"I don't want my son to be friends with a criminal," Benny's mother said.

"The friendship's already happened," Uncle Tom replied. "If you want to break it up why have you let the boy write letters to him?"

"He didn't send a letter with Doctor Connors this time. Since Mr. – Mr. Carlisle is to be sent to Philadelphia perhaps Benny realizes that he can't continue to hope to see him."

"I think he just realized you wouldn't listen if he asked to go see him. The boy started a dozen or more letters to Carlisle today. I found them in the trash, tear-stained, crumpled. Your son's breaking his heart over this Carlisle fellow."

"I'll have to talk to him," his mother answered faintly.

"Abigail, the boy's learned to love the man. It's natural. Sure he was a thief and a drunkard and all the rest. But ask Daniel if he's not a different kind of man now. He could use some Christian friends. Come on to Jeff City with Caroline and me."

*****

"I'm sorry, ma'am, you'll have to speak up. You wanted to visit someone?"

Abigail Richardson twisted her hands and looked around the shabby office of the State Penitentiary in Jefferson City. Benny stood at her elbow. She looked down at him and cleared her throat.

"Carlisle. Mr. Jeremy Carlisle," she said firmly. "That's who we've come to see."

The guard shuffled some papers on his desk. "You his wife?"

"No!" exclaimed Jeremy's mother.

"Sister?"

"We're not related to Jeremy. We're just friends," Benny explained.

"Usually we only allow relatives to visit prisoners." The guard shuffled more papers. "I don't see anyone down..."

"He hasn't got any relatives," Benny said. "You let Doc Daniel visit him."

"Doc Daniel? You mean Dr. Daniel Connors? You ... uh ... know Doctor Connors?"

"He's our neighbor," Benny's mother said. Benny saw that the man was impressed. He wondered just how important Doc Daniel really was.

"Please have a seat," the guard said to Benny and his mother. They waited a long time on the hard chairs. At last Benny nudged his mother. "I think they've forgotten us," he whispered.

Benny's mother looked at her watch pin and suddenly stood up. "Gracious, it's getting late. We wouldn't want to keep Uncle Tom waiting. Perhaps we should try another time."

A guard stuck his head out of a side room. "Visitors for Carlisle?"

"Here!" Benny exclaimed. They followed him down a dim hallway.

"Mother, you're hurting my arm," Benny whispered. She only pushed closer to him and squeezed tighter. The guard let them into a room and closed the door behind them. Another door opened across the small room, bare except for a brick wall about waist high and two rough benches on opposite walls. Benny looked eagerly across.

He caught his breath when he saw Jeremy shuffling in wrist and leg irons, wearing a stained, threadbare prison suit. The guard who came in with him gave him a rough push with the heavy stick he held.

"G'wan, Carlisle, go welcome your company," he said with a sneer. Benny pushed his mother over to the bench on their side and made her sit. He hoped she'd loosen her grip but she didn't. Jeremy lowered himself down onto the opposite bench.

"Hi, Jeremy," Benny said eagerly.

"Hello, Ben," Jeremy said. "How do you do, Mrs. Richardson?"

"Good afternoon, Mr. Carlisle." She wasn't looking at Jeremy at all, Benny realized. Her voice was very unsteady.

"Uncle Tom said to say howdy," Benny said.

"Tell him the same for me, Ben." Jeremy was sitting stiff and straight and Benny thought he looked unhappy about something.

"Uncle Tom had some business in town. Wasn't that lucky?"

"It's good you didn't have to go out of your way."

"I – I wanted to come see you sooner," Benny stammered. "It's pretty far..."

"Of course it is," Jeremy interrupted. "Your ma's good to bring you. I can see it's not easy for her to be here."

"No one made me come!" Benny's mother said sharply.

"I'm sorry I offended you, ma'am," Jeremy said. "It wasn't my intention. I only meant I understand what a sacrifice it is for you, and I appreciate it."

"Mr. Carlisle, I would appreciate it if you would explain to my son why this – relationship he seems to think you have is not – not a good thing – under the circumstances."

"Mother, what are you talking about?" Benny demanded. Jeremy shifted in his seat, rattling his chains. He rose slowly to his feet.

"She means she wants you to forget about me, Ben," he said. "She thinks it's a disgrace for a decent Christian boy like you and a fine Christian woman like her to come to a place like this and be seen with a man like me. It's a good thing I'm going to Philadelphia so she doesn't have to dirty her pretty skirts by coming back again." Jeremy turned to go.

Benny's mother jumped to her feet. "You deceived me greatly, Mr. Carlisle," she said in a trembling voice. "I trusted you to take care of my son. He ... he was all I had in the world. Can't you understand how I feel?"

"Can't you understand how I feel, ma'am?" Jeremy burst out. "Yes, I deceived you. I deceived everybody I ever knew or met. I was a thief, a liar – I put a knife to your son's throat and told him I'd kill him."

Jeremy shuddered and breathed hard a few times. "But he just kept telling me that I needed to believe in the Lord. I'd put him in a bad spot just to frighten him. He said I needed to ask Jesus to save me. I'd try to make him do wrong. He'd pray for me and quote the Bible.

"'You don't know God,' he'd say to me. He saved my life when I was drowning in the Conemaugh River for that stinking bag of gold, and he said it was because he didn't want me to go to Hell."

Tears coursed down the scars in Jeremy's face. "I have to live with knowing what I did to your boy, when all he did was try to make me do right. I have to look at his sweet mother despising me – and rightly so – and I wish I was in a worse place than this.

"God's been so good to me. I just wish I could be more grateful. I spoke out of turn to you, ma'am, and I'm sincerely sorry. Ben, maybe it would be better if you forgot about me. It's easy for God to forgive sins, or so Doc Daniel tells me. It's not so easy for me to forgive myself, or for other people to forgive me. Thanks, ma'am, for bringing Ben."

"Jeremy!" Benny was crying too. "I missed you so much!"

"Good-bye, Ben," Jeremy said. The guard opened the door for him and he disappeared as fast as his leg irons would allow.

"Benny, let's go," his mother said, pulling him toward the other door. Benny started to say all the angry things that were boiling up in his mind. Instead he just pulled his arm out of his mother's and left the prison at a run.

Uncle Tom's wagon stood out in front of the prison. Aunt Caroline and Uncle Tom watched him fly down the steps, fiercely wiping away tears, and saw his mother hurry out after him. Benny stopped short of the wagon and looked around, but there was nowhere to go.

"I thought we'd stop at the cafe down the street and get a bite to eat before we head home," Uncle Tom suggested, his voice too loud, too hearty.

"I'm not hungry. I'm tired," Benny muttered.

"Just curl up in the back with those blankets, dear," Aunt Caroline told him.

Benny flopped down inside the canvas cover and buried himself completely in the quilts. The wagon jerked and jolted off.

# Chapter Eight – The Star Witness

Benny surprised himself by actually falling asleep. When he awoke the wagon was parked outside Kitty's Cafe and no one else was around. Benny slipped out and stood in the street. He did feel a little hungry now, but he didn't want to show up just as the others were finishing, and he also wasn't ready to face his mother yet. A light rain started to fall and Benny scooted under the awning of the shop next door. "Dear Lord, I think there's a verse that says, 'Bring my soul out of prison, so that I may praise Thy name.' Can't You do that for Jeremy? My mother won't help him. I don't know what I can do. He has to get out of there."

Benny turned his head back toward the cafe. To his horror he saw that the wagon was gone. Benny ran down the street, looking both ways as far as he could. Thunder rolled and lightning flashed. How long would it be before his mother realized he wasn't still asleep under the blankets?

"Child, what are you doing out in this storm dressed like that?" Benny almost ran into the dark-cloaked woman crossing the street in from of him. She held her umbrella over him.

"Excuse me, ma'am," Benny apologized. "My uncle came to town on business. I – I accidentally got left behind. His farm is a long way from here —"

"Come with me." She led Benny quickly down the street to a large house and hustled him into the front hallway. "Mary! Mary! Hurry and get this poor boy some dry clothes." A maid poked her head over the banister above them, nodded, and disappeared.

Shortly, Benny sat before a roaring kitchen fire dressed in baggy men's clothing. Mary brought him a big plate of cold chicken, biscuits and hominy.

"Poor Lamb," she clucked. "What kind of mother would ride off and leave her son standing in the rain?"

"It wasn't like that at all," Benny protested. He wasn't having much luck trying to drink the scalding tea Mary had given him. The lady of the house came in as he was explaining how it had happened. She had introduced herself as Mrs. Connors. She was very beautiful and elegant, with rich-looking clothes.

"But why were you coming toward the prison? Most folks are scared to death to go near the place."

"I – I don't know anybody in town. My mother took me to visit – a prisoner earlier."

"Dear child. Don't be ashamed. Be thankful your father's not dead," Mrs. Connors said.

"My father has been dead for more than a year," Benny said.

"Why, I do charity visits myself," Mrs. Connors said cheerfully, struggling to understand without wanting to pry. "We owe it to those less fortunate than ourselves. Sometimes it does a great deal of good."

Benny guessed that was how his mother thought of it. Benny didn't believe they'd done Jeremy much good.

"Oh. There's my husband coming home now," Mrs. Connors exclaimed. I'm sure he'll know what to do about getting in touch with your people, Benjamin. Thomas Laughlin, you said your uncle's name was? From Osage?"

She bustled away. Benny ate all the food Mary set in front of him. He was very hungry by now.

"Hello, there, young man," said a very tall, handsome man who somehow looked familiar to Benny, opening the kitchen door.

"Benjamin Richardson, is it?" He sounded kind enough, but his face was very stern. "All finished eating? I wonder if you'd mind coming into my study with me."

Benny followed him through the dining room and into a dark-paneled side room with a settee and two high-backed chairs. Another man, much older, with gray hair and a very grave expression sat in one of the chairs. He got up and shook Benny's hand. All of them sat down and Mr. Connors began to fill a pipe.

"My wife's told me about your little mishap, Benjamin," said Mr. Connors. "Apparently she's a little absent-minded, not to realize who you are." Benny stared at Mr. Connors but didn't know what he meant or why Mrs. Connors should know him. "We're sending a messenger to catch up to your family. This gentleman is the prison warden, Sam Calloway," Mr. Connors added.

"Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about your friend Jeremy Carlisle?"

"Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir." Benny flushed.

"Mr. Calloway," Mr. Connors said quickly, "please let me remind you that I represent Mr. Carlisle and I advise you to be careful what action you take in this matter."

Benny stared up at Mr. Connors. Connors! Of course! This was Doc Daniel's son, the lawyer.

"Carlisle confessed to that Pennsylvania bank robbery," Mr. Calloway said angrily. "We weren't aware that he ought to have been charged with kidnapping too."

"Kid-kidnapping, sir?" Mr. Connors dropped his pipe and shot a piercing look at Benny. Obviously he was just as surprised as Benny.

"One of the guards at the prison reported your conversation with Carlisle today," Mr. Calloway explained. "He took you from your mother under false pretenses? He kept you prisoner? He threatened to kill you? Is this true?"

"I – I – " Benny realized now just how much trouble their visit had made for Jeremy. "Please, sir, he never really hurt me. He was good to me most of the time. It isn't as bad as it sounds."

"Boy, you don't have to be afraid of him," Mr. Calloway said. "He can't hurt you anymore."

"No, no, it's not like that at all," Benny insisted. "Jeremy's my friend."

"You have to tell us the truth," Mr. Calloway said.

"I'm not a liar, sir," Benny said sharply.

"You're protecting him," Mr. Calloway replied. "We could deal with this just on the testimony of the guard about Carlisle's own words."

"He said that because of my mother," Benny said. "She made him angry – and sorry too."

"Was what he said untrue?"

"No, sir," Benny said in a low voice.

"Mr. Calloway, I demand a hearing on these charges," Mr. Connors said. "I can get the judge to preside in three or four days – "

"Carlisle doesn't have three or four days. He's to be shipped out tomorrow," Mr. Calloway snapped.

"Why wasn't I informed?" demanded Mr. Connors.

"He's your client. It's your job to keep up with his affairs."

"It might not be possible to arrange a hearing in that short a time. If he's leaving that soon – "

"That is, if there's any need to have him go to Philadelphia. Maybe we can just take care of him here." He stood up to go.

"I'll see the judge right away," Mr. Connors said. "In the meantime you'll take no action, Mr. Calloway."

"You don't have any authority over me," Mr. Calloway growled.

"The laws of the United States grant a man the right to due process," Mr. Connors said. He stood up also, towering over Mr. Calloway. "As Mr. Carlisle's lawyer it's my job to see that he gets a hearing. You are the law in this town, Mr. Calloway, but you can't set the law aside to suit your purpose."

"We'll see about that," Mr. Calloway sneered. He left without even looking at Benny. Mr. Connors slammed his hand down on the desk. He looked furiously angry. Then he remembered Benny was still sitting in front of him.

"Oh, Benjamin, I wish I'd known you were coming to visit Jeremy," he sighed.

"I'm sorry, sir," Benny whispered.

"Take it easy, son," Mr. Connors soothed. "I'm going to see the judge right now. My wife and Mary will take care of you. We'll take this up with your mother and your uncle when they get here. I'm sure your mother'd have to file a complaint against Jeremy before anything could happen to him. Would she do that?"

Benny's heart sank. "How long do they put you in prison for kidnapping?" Benny asked.

"In Missouri they don't put people in prison for kidnapping a child and threatening him with death, Benjamin. Jeremy would be hanged for it."

*****

Mr. Connors hadn't come back by ten o'clock that night. Mrs. Connors and Mary put Benny to sleep in the Connors' spare bedroom.

In the middle of the night a bright light shined in his face, then someone grabbed him in a fierce hug.

"Benny! Benny, darling! Oh, thank the Lord you're all right."

"Mother!" Benny exclaimed. He was very glad to hug her back. They stayed that way a long time without talking.

"Mother, you can't press charges against Jeremy. They'll hang him! Please promise me you won't."

"What?" his mother brushed the hair out of his eyes. "Did you have a bad dream, darling? It's all right."

"No! They want to charge Jeremy with kidnapping me. Mr. Connors says you can press charges against him. They'd hang him! Mother, please, I know you hate Jeremy, but he doesn't deserve to die. God could've let the cougar kill him, or the Conemaugh River, or any of those people he cheated at cards. You don't have to like him. But don't let them kill him."

"Oh, Benny ... " His mother held him tightly again. "Benny, we'll have to talk about this in the morning. It's so late. Uncle Tom is waiting to take me to a hotel. We'll let you stay here the night, and I'll be back first thing in the morning."

Benny didn't sleep the rest of the night. He tossed and turned and tried to think of ways he could persuade his mother to help Jeremy. What could he promise her? What could he do for her? What would make her agree?

*****

At dawn he dressed in his own clothes and crept downstairs. No one was in the front room or the dining room. He wondered if everyone was still asleep. Then he heard a noise in the kitchen and went to the door.

"Oh, there's no secret to really good biscuits," his mother was saying to Mary. She rolled out dough on the table while Mary watched, wide-eyed. "Just cut the fat in nice and fine, and don't mix too much or roll too much ... Where's your cutter? Benny, darling! Good morning. Sleep well?" She wiped the flour from her hands and took off her borrowed apron. "Mind you don't let them overbake," she admonished Mary. "Darling, let's take a walk and let Mary get on with her work.

"I pity those poor Connors. Never a decent batch of biscuits. What a gorgeous morning it is. The rain washed everything clean."

"I'm sorry about all the trouble I caused," Benny said quietly.

"Darling, we were very worried. We'd already stopped for the night because of the storm. Imagine picking up the blankets and finding you gone. I've had enough of losing you for one lifetime. Let's just try to stay together from now on, all right?" She took Benny's arm and squeezed just a little.

"Poor Mr. Connors was with the federal judge until very late last night," she said soberly. "There's a hearing this morning at ten o'clock. I'm to testify concerning the abduction of my son Benjamin Jonathan Richardson at the hands of Jeremy Gladstone Carlisle."

"I guess I know what you're going to say," Benny said flatly. "After what you said to Jeremy yesterday. I wish we'd never come here."

"Darling, can you trust me to do the right thing about Mr. Carlisle?" his mother asked. "Can you believe that I love you and want what's best for you?"

"What are you going to say?"

"I'll have to claim the verse that says the Lord will give me the words to speak when the time comes. I honestly don't know yet, Benny. I've thought and prayed a good deal since our visit yesterday. I've talked with Mr. Connors. He came to see us at the hotel this morning.

"You were right. I didn't really know Mr. Carlisle. He isn't at all what I thought he would be. But he could be deceiving us again – acting to save himself."

"How could he fool Doc Daniel and his son? Doc Daniel says Jeremy's really a believer. Mother, I – I promise you I'll do what you want – I'll never see Jeremy again, or write to him, or have anything to do with him, if you'll just help him not to be hanged."

"You've put a great burden on me, Benny," his mother said tiredly. "I hardly think it's fair or right of you. Mr. Connors says Mr. Calloway is a very powerful man in this town. It may not even matter what I say. Will you always blame me if Mr. Carlisle is hanged?"

"I – I never thought about it like that," Benny said. "Mother, I'm sorry. I was blaming you. I was trying to protect Jeremy. But only God can protect him. And only God can punish him. I need to thank the Lord that Jeremy's in his hands, don't I?"

"That's more like my son," Benny's mother smiled. "I hope Mary didn't burn those biscuits. Let's go and see."

*****

Benny and his mother sat very still and straight in their chairs at the courthouse. Dan Connors sat beside them. His mother still hadn't told him what she meant to say, but Benny knew now that Jeremy would have the Lord to take care of him. That brought Benny a lot more peace than he'd had in many days.

They heard chains rattling behind the door they faced and after a moment two guards ushered Jeremy in. Both Benny and his mother stared at him in horror.

Jeremy's face was badly bruised. He had a cut over one eye and a puffed, split lip. He seemed to be having more trouble walking than the shackles would explain. Benny's mother turned quickly to the warden, who sat behind them.

"What has happened to him?" She demanded.

"Ma'am, there're men who don't take kindly to the thought of havin' a fellow in their midst who might have kidnapped a young boy and threatened his life," the warden said. The guards pushed Jeremy roughly into a chair beside the judge's bench.

"Stop that!" Benny's mother exclaimed, starting out of her seat. "How dare you torment a helpless man?"

The two guards looked ashamed. Jeremy had seemed half-dazed when he had come in. He had groaned in pain when the guards sat him down.

Benny's mother had seated herself, but she shot to her feet again. Benny almost laughed at how the men all jumped out of their chairs every time his mother got up. Jeremy tried, but he gave it up and simply held his side.

"How does a person take action against the abuse of a prisoner in your care, warden?" she asked sharply. The warden looked startled.

"Ma'am ... I ... I have the authority to discipline prisoners however I see fit in my prison," he said, but he seemed uncertain.

"Discipline! Perhaps you should consider that you are a servant of the law and try to support its just workings, Mr. Calloway."

"Yes, Ma'am." The warden sat down meekly.

Mr. Connors went over to Jeremy and spoke quietly to him. Benny wished he could hear what they were saying. And he wished he knew what his mother was really thinking. It was one thing to be angry because Jeremy had been hurt, and quite another to be willing to say he didn't kidnap Benny. At last the judge arrived. He nodded to everyone to be seated and took his place at the bench.

"This is an informal hearing, ladies and gentlemen," the judge explained. "It's been organized in haste due to the impending transfer of the prisoner to Philadelphia. Warden, are you conducting the proceedings?"

"If it please your honor," the warden said, standing up again.

"Informal. I said informal, Sam," the judge murmured.

"Right, Abe," Mr. Calloway replied. "All right, then. First I need to call my witnesses, I guess. George Brown, please step forward."

Benny realized he was the same guard who had brought Jeremy in for their visit. He repeated what Benny's mother had said to Jeremy, and the parts of Jeremy's answer that made him sound guilty.

"I have no questions for this witness, your honor," Mr. Connors said. George Brown gripped the handle of the heavy stick he wore in his belt as he walked past Jeremy and Jeremy flinched just a little. Benny didn't wonder much who had done the beating -- at least some of it.

"My next witness is Mrs. Abigail Laughlin Richardson," the warden announced. Benny's mother squeezed his hand and stood up to take the stand.

"Ma'am, what were the circumstances of your meeting the prisoner?"

"We were passengers together on a barge on the Conemaugh River east of Saltsburg, Pennsylvania," Benny's mother answered.

"Did you know the prisoner by the name of Jeremy Gladstone Carlisle, ma'am?" the warden asked.

"No, sir. He told me his name was John Clancy," she replied, glancing at Benny.

"May I ask the warden to clarify for me the reason for this line of questioning?" Mr. Connors asked.

"Your honor, I'm trying to establish that the prisoner deceived Mrs. Richardson with a false name and a false appearance."

The judge frowned and scratched his chin. "The false name I grant you, Sam. It's already been established in this very court that he traveled under a false name because he had robbed a bank, a crime to which he confessed." The judge frowned at the Warden. "Are you planning to make a case out of this at any time soon, Sam?"

"Mrs. Richardson," the warden said, clearing his throat, "How did your son become a – shall we say traveling companion – of the prisoner?"

"I suffered a serious injury escaping from the barge when it sank in a mudslide," Benny's mother explained. "It required surgery, and the doctor was uncertain whether I would even survive. Mr. Clancy – I mean – the prisoner – saved the lives of my son and myself. I asked him to see my son safely to my brother's farm here in Missouri."

"You had known this man only a few hours," the warden protested.

"There was no one else," Benny's mother answered. "No one else on that barge lifted a hand to assist my son or me. No one else carried us to a place of safety out of the mudslide. No one else walked three or four miles to secure assistance for us."

"I ran, mostly," Jeremy murmured.

"The prisoner will have a chance to say his piece later," the judge said, but he smiled.

"For another thing," Benny's mother continued, "I felt sure that a man who would risk so much for strangers, who would even wait outside my hotel room to be sure I was being cared for, was a good man."

Jeremy looked up at Benny's mother in wonder. The warden paced nervously.

"Mrs. Richardson, this testimony you are giving now does not quite coincide with what the guard has testified you said in the prison," the judge said. "I do see the point the warden is trying to make and I'm curious to hear you reconcile these two very different statements about Mr. Carlisle's character."

"You have asked me to give a truthful report about certain events, your honor," Benny's mother answered. "As a judge, I am sure you do not allow hindsight to color your reporting of an event at the time it happened. I have told you my true knowledge and belief at the time."

"I stand corrected, Madam," the judge nodded. "Any more questions for the witness, Sam?"

"I – uh – Mrs. Richardson, what knowledge do you have of the treatment your son received from the prisoner?"

"Sir, I have no certain knowledge. It would be hearsay to report on events I did not witness."

The warden scratched his head. "In what condition did you receive your son from the prisoner's care?"

"My son had recently recovered from injuries and a fever which had almost killed him."

"Was this a result of neglect or mistreatment on the part of the prisoner?"

"Certainly not. Benjamin had frightened a high-strung horse and the animal struck at him in its own defense. The prisoner traveled twenty miles when he himself was in precarious health, recovering from the cougar attack, and secured assistance which saved my son's life. This I am certain is true because I saw the condition the man was in when he arrived at my brother's home seeking aid and heard him explain what had happened."

"Help me out here, Sam," the judge said, rubbing a hand over his broad face. "Exactly what was the charge against this prisoner again?"

"Kid-kidnapping, your honor," the warden said. "Abe, can I put the boy on the stand? He can tell us the truth!"

Benny paled. The judge studied him. Mr. Connors had been kneeling beside Jeremy to talk to him. He stood up very quickly.

"Son, how old are you?" the judge asked.

"Eleven, sir," Benny replied.

"We've had testimony from two adults," the judge grunted. "I don't think there's a need to put this child through any more than he's already endured. Any other questions for this witness?"

The warden stared at Benny's mother a long time. She faced him steadily, calmly, without a trace of fear.

"No more questions, your honor."

"Counsel for the defense, have you any questions for this witness?"

"No, your honor," Mr. Connors said.

"Anyone have anything else to say relevant to this case?" the judge asked.

"Sounds more like a hero than a kidnapper to me," muttered the second guard.

"Prisoner," said the judge, "you have the right to speak if you wish, before this court makes its determination."

"I'd just like to say that it was the goodness and power of almighty God that preserved Ben Richardson from harm while he was in my care," Jeremy said in a low but strong voice, "though I did not know it at the time. And it was the goodness and power of God that brought him safely back to his mother. I deserve no credit."

"I should retire to my chambers to deliberate this matter and give my decision in proper leisurely judicial fashion," the judge said. "But time is precious, so I will just render my ruling. The charge of kidnapping against Jeremy Gladstone Carlisle is dismissed. This court stands adjourned."

Benny jumped into the air with a wild cheer. The men all stood up as Benny's mother rose from her seat.

"Ma'am, am I supposed to understand what just happened here?" the warden asked her.

"I did not bring the charge of kidnapping, Warden, you did," Benny's mother said quietly. "Are we permitted to speak to Mr. Carlisle?"

"Yes, yes, go ahead," the warden waved them away.

"Are you really all right?" Benny's mother reached out a hand and touched Jeremy's face. "They did this to you because of me."

"The Scriptures say, 'Faithful are the wounds of a friend,'" Jeremy quipped. "This is not the same Mrs. Richardson who came to visit me yesterday. Where'd she go, that righteously indignant little woman?"

"She realized what so many people had been trying to tell her for a long time," Benny's mother replied. "That you are a good, godly man who needs the help of Christian people."

"Jeremy, I'm going to get my dad to look at you before we leave," Dan said. "And we're both going to make the trip with you."

"Dan," Jeremy said, "it wasn't necessary for you or your father to do any of this. I'm so grateful for what you've tried to do."

"I've failed in everything I've tried to do," Mr. Connors said. "Please don't thank me."

"Jeremy, I – I wish you didn't have to go," Benny said. "I'll miss you so much."

"Oh, Ben, I almost wish you hadn't come. This makes it so much harder, seeing you again."

"We shall pray for you every day, and write to you often, Mr. Carlisle," Benny's mother said suddenly. "I never did thank you for bringing Benny safely back to me. You sacrificed so much for him. How very glad I am that God brought you into our lives. I pray He will return you to us in his time."

"I didn't think you'd ever look me in the eye, ma'am," Jeremy said soberly. Benny's mother blushed.

"I'm looking through at your soul, Mr. Carlisle," she replied.

# Chapter Nine: A Birthday and a Memory

It was a long time before they heard any news about Jeremy. When they did receive a letter from Doc Daniel and Dan, it was just about the worst news Benny could possibly imagine. Jeremy was sentenced to ten years in prison for the bank robbery. Doc Daniel said both he and Dan had tried to get the judge to be more lenient, but it had done no good. The judge had spoken about "trust betrayed" and "five years of calculated deception." Benny cried himself to sleep the night he received the letter. But the work on the farm and life in general didn't stop because Benny was unhappy.

He found that working as hard as he could helped him hurt less. And he could pray while he gathered eggs and slopped hogs and fed chickens. Benny's life was so different from what it had been in Philadelphia. There he had always been learning more about the Bible and doing things to serve God. Here he read the Bible by himself or in lessons with his mother, or Uncle Tom led them in devotions. When Doc Daniel preached at the little Osage church Benny felt like he filled it up with the presence of God. If Benny had a question Doc Daniel always knew the answer. But he was the only preacher in the area. He had to go to a different church every week, so they only had church about once every six weeks. Then there were times when he traveled to other places to preach and was gone even longer. This had been one of those times. Benny wondered where Doc Daniel had gone this time. He knew he sometimes went to Kansas to preach to the Indians. He knew he had also been all the way to the Pacific Ocean and had preached in Oregon.

Even his mother admitted it was hard to keep writing letters that were cheerful and encouraging when Jeremy seemed to be beyond cheering up. Benny wondered how you could really expect to cheer someone up when he had nothing but ten years in prison to look forward to. Almost a year had passed already since they had parted last September, but Benny was sure for Jeremy the time was passing much too slowly.

Today was Benny's twelfth birthday. Benny thought about his tenth birthday party as he and his mother hurried to finish some errands in Osage. That party had been held in the faculty's lounge at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. It had been a surprise party, and Jonathan Richardson had planned the whole thing.

Benny's eleventh birthday had fallen on the day Jeremy was attacked by the cougar. There had been no celebration at all, because he hadn't told Jeremy it was his birthday. When he had finally gotten back together with his mother about a month later his birthday hadn't seemed important compared to everything else that had happened.

Benny looked at his mother as they hurried down the street. Many of the people in town called her "Mrs. Angel." She looked so pretty today. She wore a white dress with just a little blue print, her hair loosely gathered and curling around her neck, shining like an angel's halo. Well, the Bible didn't say angels had halos, of course, and angels were men. Benny knew that. But he liked to have people think of his mother as an angel in the sense of a servant of God.

She was always so busy. She made clothes for poor people and was known as a very good seamstress. She visited sick people. She helped Uncle Tom and Aunt Caroline with the farm work, and she taught Benny his school lessons every day. Benny wondered why he couldn't keep busy enough to bury the ache from missing Jeremy.

Osage was opening a small school about five miles from Uncle Tom's farm. Uncle Tom had brought them into town in his wagon and gone to do some errands. His mother took him to meet the schoolmaster.

"Good morning, Mr. Prentice," Benny's mother said to the stout, balding man with glasses that pinched his nose. "This is my son, Benjamin. I'm Abigail Richardson -- we spoke about enrolling my son in school."

"Oh, yes, of course, Mrs. Richardson. And your son is ... ten, I presume?"

"Twelve," Benny said sharply. "Twelve, sir," he corrected himself, after a sharp dig in the ribs from his mother.

"I've been attempting to keep up his instruction myself," Benny's mother said, half-apologetically. "It's been a year since he was in a regular school."

"Dear me," Mr. Prentice remarked. "Well, I suppose all of the pupils here will have some catching up to do. Well, Mrs. Richardson, I'll do my best. Thank you, Madam," he interrupted himself as Benny's mother handed him the tuition. "We shall see you on opening day of the winter session, Benjamin."

"Thank you, Mr. Prentice," Benny's mother curtseyed in response to Mr. Prentice's bow and swept out with Benny.

"I don't like him," Benny grumbled.

"God didn't ask your opinion, now did he?" his mother smiled. "Come on, Darling, you don't want to be late for your own birthday party, do you?"

"Here's the birthday boy! Many happy returns, Ben," Uncle Tom called out as the wagon rumbled up to meet them. "I can't wait to taste that cake your mother made."

*****

Benny's mother made the best cakes. And for his birthday she had made a special, secret cake that Benny hadn't been allowed to see. The cake was already set up on Aunt Caroline's long kitchen table. It was big, decorated with green leaves and purple grapes. Benny had begged his mother not to put any flowers on it. He was so glad she had listened.

"I am the vine, ye are the branches," his mother whispered in his ear. "My little branch is growing away from me. I love you, my Benny." She kissed him and Uncle Tom hooted and clapped. Benny blushed scarlet. Benny's mother took the big knife Aunt Caroline handed her.

"Wait, wait wait," Uncle Tom cried. "Close your eyes, Ben."

Uncle Tom disappeared and came back with a bushel basket full of presents. Benny was stunned when he opened his eyes.

"Where did all these come from?" he asked.

"Well, Ben, you have some surprise visitors," Uncle Tom admitted. From out of the back room came Mr. and Mrs. Connors, Doc Daniel's lawyer son and his wife. Benny was shocked. Mr. Connors lived in Virginia. Benny had never expected to see him again. They had written a few times. Mr. Connors had tried to appeal Jeremy's sentence but had failed. He had visited Jeremy a few times and Jeremy had spoken of those visits with warmth and gratitude. Their letters were very welcome to Benny. They were such intelligent, good-humored people who loved God so much.

"Hello, Ben," Dan Connors said, clapping Benny on the back. "Happy birthday."

"Happy birthday, Benny dear," Mrs. Connors said, kissing him on the cheek.

"My dad was hoping to come," Dan Connors said. "I can't think what held him up. He wanted to be here so badly."

Benny couldn't help being disappointed. Doc Daniel had bragged about a secret, special present he would bring for Benny's birthday. Benny hadn't realized how much he had looked forward to it. There were so few surprises and so little excitement in farm life.

"But having you here is wonderful!" Benny exclaimed. "I never expected it. Are all these presents from you?" He knew that Dan Connors and his wife were very wealthy but he also knew that Doc Daniel didn't take much stock in worldly goods and had taught his children the same.

"Don't pop your eyes out of your head," Mr. Connors laughed. "We brought a few things. There are gifts from your mother and Uncle Tom and Aunt Caroline too, you know."

Benny blushed. He had forgotten about his own family and what they might give him. He was ashamed for thinking that their presents would be very ordinary.

"There's a new neighbor of ours who has a boy your age, Ben," Uncle Tom said. "His father's been looking for a playmate for him, so the Owenses are bringing him over."

A neighbor? Benny wondered what that meant on a farm where acres and acres of crops separated them from anybody. The boy could live ten miles away. But Benny didn't think it would matter because he didn't hold out much hope for making friends with a farm boy. He probably couldn't even read, much less talk about the books and learning that Benny loved and missed so much.

A commotion outside sent them all to the door. Mr. Carl Owens, a small, leathery-faced man with dark red hair, came in with his son Jason. Benny stared at him. Jason was so small Benny didn't see how he could be his own age. He had flaming red hair and freckles and a very peculiar expression on his face.

"Howdy," Mr. Owens said shyly. "This is my son Jason." The two boys looked each other over and nodded coldly. Mr. Owens slapped his son between the shoulder blades and almost knocked him off his feet. Jason glowered at him.

"I'll be back about suppertime," Mr. Owens said, very loudly and heartily. "You have a good time, Jason, and remember what we talked about."

"Thank you for coming, Jason," Benny's mother said, when Jason remained rooted to the spot after his father had gone. "Won't you come and have a piece of cake?"

Jason looked up at Benny's mother, startled. "Thank you, Ma'am," he said, very politely. His strange mood seemed to vanish once he stopped staring at Benny. As they walked in Jason said in a hoarse whisper, "Your ma's the most beautiful thing I ever seen!" Benny smiled in spite of himself. Everyone went back into the kitchen. Benny's mother picked up the knife again.

"Ma'am, this is the best cake I ever tasted," Jason said. He seemed to have forgotten Benny was there. He asked for a second piece of cake and practically stuffed it into his mouth.

"Let's wait on opening the presents," Uncle Tom suggested. "Maybe Daniel will still get here. Ben, why don't you take Jason outside and show him around?"

Benny would much rather have stayed inside and talked to Dan and Mrs. Connors. But he and Jason went outside and stood in the farmyard.

"What do you want to see?" Benny asked.

"I don't wanna see nothin'," Jason replied. He thrust his hands into his pockets. "It's a farm. I live on a farm. I guess I know what it looks like."

Benny really wished he could go back inside. This was going to be hard.

"Do you like to climb trees?" Benny asked.

"Climb trees?" Jason repeated scornfully. Benny turned red. This wasn't going to be hard. It was going to be impossible.

"Well, what do you like to do?" Benny asked, exasperated.

"What do I like to do? You country boys. There ain't nothin' here I wanna do. Bobbin' for apples, Blind man's bluff – I been to two other birthdays since I been here. The stuff you do is stupid."

"Country boys?" Benny repeated. "I never played Blind Man's Bluff in my life. What's bobbing for apples?"

"You ain't lived on a stupid farm all your life?"

"I grew up in Philadelphia. We've only been here about a year."

"Wait a minute. I grew up in Philadelphia," Jason exclaimed. "We just moved here a couple'a months ago. I hate it. Them cows – don't they ever stop – you know – makin' a mess?"

"No, they never do," Benny laughed. "I have to shovel out the barn too. I can't believe you're from Philadelphia. My father was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania."

"Hoity-toity," grunted Jason. "My dad made bricks. I guess we didn't exactly run in the same crowd."

"I guess not," Benny murmured. He had thought it was possible that he and Jason had made a breakthrough, but it really was hopeless. Jason scuffed away from him and turned his back.

He started to play with something that made a clicking noise. Jason twitched his arm, and Benny heard the click. He twitched again, and the click was repeated.

"What are you doing?" Benny asked.

"What I like to do," Jason muttered. He didn't turn around. Benny felt like ignoring him, but he wanted to try to be a good host. He walked over to Jason and touched his arm.

"What--?" Benny froze as Jason spun and thrust a clasp knife toward his midsection, the blade flying out of the handle as if it were alive, stopping just short of his shirt. Jason laughed.

"That's what I like to do," Jason sneered. "My pa don't know I still got it. He bought that stupid farm 'cause he didn't like the way I was growin' up. Well, that's too bad. Just 'cause that preacher told him he had to save me from bad company doesn't mean I hafta like it out here."

"What – what preacher?" Benny faltered. He was still trying to get his heartbeat down to normal. Jason had pulled the knife back but hadn't put it away.

"There was a mission downtown that my dad made me go to. He said he heard this preacher who told him about gettin' saved. He made us all go. Well, I listened, and I wanted to get saved too, so I did. We all got saved. But then my dad started gettin' worried about the bad stuff goin' on around us in the city. He wanted ta get us out of it. So we moved out here.

"Now there ain't no bad influences. There ain't nothin'. I hate it. I don't mind bein' a Christian, but there ain't no preacher for the church, there ain't no kids that talk about anything but prize pigs an' summer squash – there ain't no way to grow here. If that preacher hadn't'a stopped comin' maybe we never woulda left Philly."

Benny suddenly had a strange feeling. His father had preached at a rescue mission on some Sundays. "What was the name of that preacher?" Benny asked.

"I dunno," Jason shrugged. "Rich – Richards – somethin' like that. I know his first name was Jonathan. My dad called him Pastor Jon."

Benny went white. Jason flipped his knife away and gripped his arm. "What's wrong with you? You ain't gonna faint, are ya? You're kinda big for me ta pick up. Look, I'm sorry if I scared ya with the knife. My dad made me promise t' behave myself. Is he ever gonna lick me if he finds out I still have this knife. You won't tell him, willya?"

"Jason, Pastor Jon was my father," Benny said.

"Your father? No foolin'? Where is he? How come he ain't here? Boy I'd like ta talk ta him."

"My father's dead, Jason," Benny said in a low voice. "He got hit by a big cart on Market Street almost two years ago. That's why we had to come out here."

"Ben, I'm sorry," Jason said. "My pa just told me there was a kid here who lived with his aunt and uncle. Listen, Ben, Pastor Jon was so great. He got my whole family saved. He was so smart about the Bible, but he was so nice, and so patient, and he – "

Benny burst into tears. Until Jeremy had been sent to Philadelphia Benny had hoped Jeremy would just get a short prison sentence in Jeff City and then they would be able to study the Bible together. When that hadn't happened, he had hoped to learn from Doc Daniel. But Doc Daniel was hardly ever around. It was like the verses in the Bible, where Habakkuk said how barren and hopeless everything was.

"Aw, Ben, don't do that," Jason begged. He pulled Benny over to a fallen log out of sight of the house. "My dad's gonna kill me. I didn't mean ta – It's just that my dad and I just talked about how many questions we had about the Bible and how much we wanted to ask somebody like Pastor Jon about them."

Jason took a small, leather-bound book out of his jacket pocket. "I carry this Bible around with me everyplace I go," Jason murmured. "He wrote notes in it an' everything. But there's still stuff I don't –"

"Who wrote notes in your Bible?" Benny asked. He finally made himself stop crying and looked at the Bible Jason held. Jason handed it to him. Inside the cover it said, "Presented to Jonathan Michael Richardson on the occasion of his graduation from Philadelphia Seminary."

"My father gave you his Bible," Benny whispered. He leafed through the pages. His father's clear, strong handwriting jumped out at him.

"C'mon, Ben, don't start cryin' again, please," Jason exclaimed. "Hey, look, somebody's comin'."

Benny looked up. Far down the road he saw a big man on a brown and white horse stop to open the gate. Benny thrust the Bible at Jason.

"Doc Daniel!" Benny cried. He ran up to the big white-haired man and threw himself into his open arms as Doc Daniel dismounted.

"Well, Happy Birthday, Ben," laughed Doc Daniel. "I wish all my parishioners missed me this much."

"You can't believe how much I missed you," Benny said.

"Ben, what's the matter?" Doc Daniel asked. "You look like you've been crying."

Benny felt too full of everything that had happened this afternoon to talk about it yet. He was afraid it would just make him cry again.

"This is Jason Owens," Benny explained, leading Doc Daniel over to where Jason stood waiting uncomfortably. Jason looked even smaller than he was when his hand disappeared into Doc Daniel's giant one. "This is Doctor Daniel Connors, our minister," Benny explained.

"You're the preacher! Boy, have we been waitin' for you! Wait'll my dad gets here! We got a buncha questions for you."

"Dad! You finally got here!" called Dan Connors as he and his wife and Benny's family hurried out to welcome Doc Daniel. Doc Daniel accepted all the hugs and kisses and handshakes, but he kept looking from Benny to Jason with a very curious look on his face. Benny watched Jason slip the Bible back into his pocket out of sight.

They all went back inside. Benny began to open his presents. Uncle Tom gave him a rope braided from many different colors of horsehair that he could use with Black Switch. Aunt Caroline had made him a big green and white patchwork quilt for his bed. It had a beautiful design she said was called a Bear Claw.

Benny's mother gave him a book called "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin," which he had wanted to read for a long time. Ben Franklin, for whom he had been named, fascinated Benny. She also had made him a set of new clothes.

Dan Connors and his wife had brought three presents. One was a book of sermons by George Whitefield. Whitefield was a preacher who had tried to witness to Ben Franklin. Benny loved to read his preaching. The second was a beautiful glass globe showing all the lands of the earth that twirled on a brass base.

Benny opened the third present. Inside lay a long, thin, glossy black box with a picture of a dragon worked in the top with mother of pearl and red inlay. Benny gasped in admiration, but when he tried to open the box he couldn't find a fastening.

"I bought it in New York," Dan Connors laughed. "It's called a Chinese puzzle box. The Chinese make these hidden clasps so people can't find out what's in the box. Here, let me show you how to open it."

Dan Connors took the box and Benny watched as he worked some flat wood squares around in the top. The case sprang open. The box was lined with soft black velvet, but it was empty.

"It's – it's very nice," Benny said. "Thanks so much. Thanks for everything." Benny couldn't think of anything he owned that was nice enough to keep in such a splendid case.

"Come on, Dad, it's your turn," Dan Connors ordered his father. Doc Daniel had been holding a bundle wrapped in fringed deerskin on his lap throughout the proceedings. He stood up and tossed it into Benny's lap.

Benny carefully untied the thongs that fastened the bundle. He slowly opened the deerskin. He stopped and stared. In his lap lay a mound of skin and amazingly soft fur – a cougar skin, beautifully tanned.

"This is the – " Benny rose slowly to his feet, trying to extend the skin to its full length. The tail hung out over Aunt Caroline's braided rug into the next room. It even had the head and claws still attached.

"The Cougar Evangelist," Benny murmured. Doc Daniel studied Benny's face anxiously.

"I couldn't think of another thing," he said. "Your ma thought you'd like it, but I – "

"I do. Oh, I do!" Benny exclaimed. Relieved, Doc Daniel grabbed him in a massive hug, skin and all, and Benny grunted.

"Thanks," he managed to say.

"You be a man for your mother," Doc Daniel said in his ear. "A man of God. I hope it doesn't bother Jeremy to see that," Doc Daniel said apologetically. "There must have been some nightmares about that cat."

"There still are," Dan Connors said. "He told me so. But I'll tell him it doesn't look half so scary now. Every time he gets the sweats, he can just think about throw rugs."

He picked up the head, looked into the empty eye-sockets, and growled at it. Everyone roared with laughter.

"There's still a gift in the basket, darling," Benny's mother prompted. "You haven't opened Jason's present."

"Oh, hey, no!" Jason exclaimed, grabbing the small lumpy parcel and hiding it behind his back. "No, really, Ben," he stammered, turning crimson as everybody stared at him in surprise. "It –it ain't – it ain't the right thing for you at all. I didn't – I didn't know ya read books and were so smart an' – an other people got you such good stuff – " Jason broke off miserably. Benny tried gently to take the package from him.

"It doesn't matter what it is, Jason," Benny insisted. "I'm really, really glad you came."

Jason surrendered the package. Benny opened it and found a small, carved wooden horse inside. Benny smiled.

"Thanks, Jason," he said. "I mean it. It's fine. I love horses. Don't I, Mother?"

"He really does, Jason." Benny's mother smiled. "Did you make it yourself?" Jason nodded. "It's a wonderful job of carving. You're very gifted."

"This is really fine," Doc Daniel said as he took the little horse in his hands. Dan Connors praised it also. Everyone passed it around and complimented Jason on its fine details and beautiful polish.

"You should see Black Switch," Benny said suddenly. "Can I show him to Jason, Uncle Tom?"

"Right now?" his uncle frowned. "What if he decides to take a chunk out of Jason? Wouldn't make a very good first impression on your new friend, or make a very good ending to your birthday party."

"Switch only bites you because you're a mean old man, Tom," laughed Doc Daniel. "Try a little sugar now and then and it'll improve both of your dispositions. Besides, ummm ... Mrs. Richardson ... there is something I'd like to talk to you about in private, if I may."

Benny took Jason back outside. He opened the shed door and Jason followed him inside. Switch tossed his head and Benny fed him a piece of sugar.

"Wow!" Jason gasped. "He's beautiful! He don't look like a farm horse. How come your Uncle Tom has a horse like that? Or is he yours?"

"He ... he belongs to a friend of mine," Benny said evasively. "Uncle Tom's boarding him."

Jason put up his hand timidly. Switch sniffed his hand and then he flicked out his tongue and started to lick his fingers. "Hey, he's trying to eat my hand!" Jason cried.

"It's the birthday cake," Benny grinned. "He loves sweet stuff. Listen, Jason," he added as they walked back to the house together, "I've been trying to carve a chess set, but it's turning out awful. Do you think you could help me some evenings after our chores are done?"

"Sure, Ben," Jason said, surprised and flattered. "An' maybe when it's done you can teach me t' play chess."

When they came into the kitchen Doc Daniel had Benny's mother's arm in his. Benny saw that his mother looked a little pale and nervous. Doc Daniel patted her arm. She looked up at him with a very uneasy expression.

"One more gift to go, Ben," Doc Daniel said. "This one's from Jeremy."

"Jeremy!" Benny shouted. "How did Jeremy know it was my birthday?"

"I told him I was coming here for your birthday," Dan Connors replied. "Oh, by the way, here's a letter from him that he sent by Connors special post. It's a long one."

"Who's Jeremy?" Jason asked.

"He's my friend, the one who owns Black Switch," Benny said. Dan Connors handed Benny a thick envelope. Benny wanted to run out and read it immediately. Then he remembered the present.

"What could Jeremy give me?" he asked, puzzled. "He lost everything when the barge sank on the Conemaugh River, just like we did. All he has is Black Switch."

"Black Switch and this," Doc Daniel said, producing another, much smaller leather-wrapped parcel. Benny felt it before he opened it. He gasped and fumbled it open as quickly as he could. Inside lay Jeremy's knife. Benny took it out and turned it over in his hands. Automatically he tested the balance as Jeremy had taught him to do.

"I – I wasn't sure how you would feel about it, Darling," Benny's mother said. "Mr. Carlisle wrote and asked me if he might give it to you. It was a hard decision for me to agree to it."

"I'm sure it was," Benny grinned. "Thanks, Mother. This is something I never expected to see again. But I'm glad." He glanced sideways at Jason, who was staring wide-eyed at the knife. "May I go outside with Jason and show him – ?"

Benny broke off, stopped by the look on his mother's face. "But Mother, I'll be careful. I promise. Please, I have to show Jason."

"Let him go, Abigail," Uncle Tom said. "He's got to have his try with it. I'd like to see him use it myself. I'm sure young Carlisle didn't mean for the thing to be locked away."

"Actually, that's why I got that Chinese box," Dan Connors smiled. "It'll at least give you pause, Ben, eh? Mind if Dad and I come out to see the show?"

"Who is this Jeremy?" Jason asked.

"He's my best friend," Benny said excitedly as he drew a chalk target on the barn door.

"What kinda friend would have a horse like that and give ya a knife like that?" Jason demanded.

Benny turned helplessly to the three men who stood by. "How can I explain Jeremy?" he asked them.

Doc Daniel and Dan Connors both burst out laughing. "Well, Ben," Dan Connors said, "I'll tell you what my father told me when he wrote and asked me to defend Jeremy. He said, 'Dan, I've got a bank-robbing, knife-throwing, card-playing, whiskey-drinking, cougar-scarred, saved by the grace of God friend who needs your help.'

"What?" Jason said blankly.

Benny paced back from the target. He looked around to make sure no one was standing too close. Then the knife flew from his hand and stuck in the center of the target.

"Wow!" Jason cried. "And ta think I –" he shut his mouth quickly and Benny smiled as he fiddled with something in his pocket. Benny guessed he wouldn't be seeing the clasp knife again anytime soon.

"Well done!" Dan Connors said, clapping his hands. "Well done."

"Hello, Jason!" called a voice.

"Oh, no! It ain't that late already, is it?" Jason's dad came up the drive in his wagon. "Pa, can't I stay a little while? Look what Ben got for his birthday!"

Jason's father looked wide-eyed at the knife sticking in the barn door. "Uh – Jason, we have to be getting home," he said, very uneasy. Benny guessed he was afraid he hadn't gotten Jason away from bad influences after all.

"But Pa, this is the preacher. Ya wanted ta meet him. Here he is."

"Doctor Connors?" Jason's dad took in Doc Daniel's buckskins. Then he looked at Dan Connors in his more formal city dress.

"I am," Doc Daniel grinned, engulfing Mr. Owens' hand in his. "Folks call me Doc Daniel. I'm glad to meet you. This dandy is my son Dan Junior visiting from Virginia. Your son's a fine woodcarver. Mighty fine. He told me you folks have been wrestling with the Word. I'd be happy to visit and talk some things over with you."

"That'd be fine," Mr. Owens said. He seemed overwhelmed.

"Pa, this is Pastor Jon's son!" Jason shouted. "I almost forgot. Ben Richardson's dad was the man who told us how to get saved! He got killed in a cart accident. That's why he never came back to the mission!"

Carl Owens had been stunned before. He seemed to need a place to sit down now. Uncle Tom, Doc Daniel and Dan Connors all looked to Benny for confirmation of this astounding news. He nodded, but felt the tears forcing their way up again and didn't dare speak.

"God works in mysterious ways," Doc Daniel said in awe. "Mr. Owens, come in and meet Ben's mother. She'd certainly want to know one of her husband's converts."

"One of his converts?" Carl Owens exclaimed. "Doctor Connors, I've got six more of them at home. My wife'd give anything to meet Pastor Jon's lady. That she would!"

"Go and get your family, then," Uncle Tom ordered him. "Go on right now. Bring them all over. We'll have a good talk. A good long talk. Jason can stay here. Get going."

# Chapter Ten: A Legacy and a Letter

Carl Owens jumped on his cart and swung around. Doc Daniel pulled Benny aside. "Ben, is that why you were crying when I came?" Doc Daniel asked in a whisper. "Jason Owens and his family really knew your father? It's too fantastic."

"It's true, though," Benny answered. "My dad gave Jason the little Bible he got when he graduated from seminary. He was always giving away Bibles. But that one was really special. It has all his notes in it. It was – really hard to see it again. We didn't know who he'd given it to."

"That must have been very hard for you," Doc Daniel said, squeezing Benny's shoulder.

"I wanted to rip it right out of his hands," Benny murmured. "We lost everything of my father's when the barge sank. Everything."

"Everything but the legacy of a fine father, a loving husband, and a great man of God," Doc Daniel smiled.

Benny looked up into Doc Daniel's eyes. "Doc Daniel, do you think Jason would mind if I went and read some of Jeremy's letter? I'll come down when his family gets here. I promise."

"We can manage to keep Jason occupied, I think," Doc Daniel chuckled. "Go on and read your letter. Take care of that knife first, though. "Benny pulled his knife out of the barn wall and shut it up in the Chinese case. He slipped the case into his jacket pocket. Doc Daniel spoke quickly to his son and Uncle Tom, and the three of them converged on Jason.

"How about another piece of birthday cake, Jason?" Doc Daniel invited. "I haven't had mine yet, and I hate to eat alone."

"That'd be swell!" Jason exclaimed.

Benny ran for the ladder around the side of the barn and threw himself into a pile of hay. Eagerly he opened the fat envelope and unfolded Jeremy's letter. Never had Jeremy written so many pages before. He wrote close and kind of untidy, and the pages were crammed with words. Obviously parts had been written and added to at many different times.

*****

"Happy Birthday, Ben," Jeremy began. "I trust Dan will be able to give you this on your birthday, and I hope most fervently that your mother will allow you to accept the gift I have authorized Doc Daniel to give you.

"My days of using it are past, and I hope that you will be able to look on it as just a memento of our friendship and realize that it is never to be used lightly. Dan showed me the fine box he got for you to keep it in. I urge you to do so, and just take it out now and then and remember me, and how much I value your friendship. I am sorry that I did not know the date of your birthday, last year, and I am sure I will never forget it now that I do. It has associations that I need only to look in a mirror to recall. Thankfully there are few mirrors here to trouble me.

"I understand that you are very worried about my well-being and state of mind. I have not spoken much of those things, and I have asked Dan to respect my silence, thinking that to tell you all that goes on here and in my mind would cause you great distress, which I wanted to spare you.

"My other correspondents have given me to understand that I have only caused you more heartache and disappointment because I have held back from confiding in you. Forgive me, Ben, for that was the last thing I wished to do.

"I have told you that the food is bad, I suppose. A chain gang of men goes out and picks up all the garbage each day. Then they bring it back and we sort it. Whatever we can, we eat. The prisoners don't get any other food except a ration of stale bread and occasionally some type of castoff grain mash. I think it is stuff the horses refused.

"Bathing is permitted once a month. One bucket half full of water with a very harsh lye soap is provided. We usually work in a chain gang. Everybody has leg irons connected to a long chain. It is real togetherness. We are leased to different employers from time to time outside the prison. Sometimes we go to a farm, sometimes to a factory, always with at least a chain around our leg after we get there, fixing us close to some immovable object like a steel girder or a hay wagon.

"The work is hard -- very hard. We are given tasks no free man in his right mind would do. Once I was shackled to a fence post in a cattle chute and had to stop bovines with fine sharp horns rampaging through and hold them while a vet gave them some type of medical treatment. I had three partners. One was trampled to death. The vet told us to hurry and pull him out of the way lest the cattle injure themselves stumbling over him.

"I had to stand inside a hydraulic press when it was turned on and coming down on top of me and brush free some sharp metal shavings trapped in the sides before it squashed me. Remember that you asked to know all this.

One more incident I will relate to you. We are sent down into the sewers periodically to clear some blockage. If a guard doesn't think someone is working hard enough, or doesn't like his attitude, well, he can sling a chain about our neck and give a jerk so that we fall into the muck. Often guards will let us lie there until we are half-suffocated because our leg chains are caught on the rim of the trough and we can get no foothold to free ourselves.

"Now you understand why I did not speak of our treatment. It is not easy even to write it. I dread the effect it will have on you as you read it and know that it really happens to me and to a thousand other men day after day. Do not ask me anymore if I am all right. All right is a concept far from my mind just now.

"I cannot but thank God that so far I have not been crippled or even seriously injured in these work details. I thank God you are not here and I do not have to let you see me after such a day. God was merciful to you and to me to put me in this faraway place, for I believe it would have been much the same for me in Jefferson City. How ignorant I was to think I would want you to visit me.

"It is bad enough that Dan Connors drops in unannounced. He has seen far more than I would willingly trouble anybody I cared for to witness. Of course we are here to be punished. But there is such a daily unremitting round of pain and terror and exhaustion that men have died in the night simply because it freed them from having to face another day of the same.

"When we are in the prison we do all the cleaning and laundry and repairs to the facility. Guards can use their clubs or chains as they see fit. If you think I suffered at the hands of those amateurs in Jeff City, I submit to you the case of one poor devil beaten so badly he could not walk for a month.

"There are prisoners here who start fights. They want to keep strong, prove how tough they are, make the other prisoners afraid of them. They're brutal men, and the guards don't always show up in time. Sometimes on purpose.

"Now you know what you have been asking to know. I hope it is sufficient. I do not intend to take on the subject again. My stomach is roiling now to think that you must read this."

*****

Indeed, Benny had to stop reading at this point. He took several deep breaths and looked out the hayloft window. Coming up the drive was the Owens family wagon. His family and the Connors hurried out to meet them. Benny stashed his letter between a beam and the wall of the barn. He checked to make sure his little lantern hung on the wall by the window so he could come back later and read by its light.

Benny's mother cried and laughed and hugged Mrs. Owens and all her children over and over. Mrs. Owens had seemed like such a stern, forbidding woman, bigger than her husband, heavy-boned and strong. Benny had seen her in town but hadn't known who she was. She cried as hard as Benny's mother and told how each of her children had sat on Pastor Jon's knee and heard the Word of God. Only the littlest had not been able to understand, and he had since been converted, too.

Benny smiled through his tears as Jason gave his testimony of how Pastor Jon had told him about his own dear boy and how he didn't want Jason to be lost any more than he would want his own son to refuse to heed God's call.

"That was enough for me," Jason said. "I didn't want Pastor Jon's boy, whoever he was, to have that wonderful smile of approval turned his way and not get one for myself. I never really thought I'd ever get to meet his son, or that he'd want to be my friend."

"Oh, Jason," Benny said with a weak laugh. "How could I not be your friend? You brought my father back to life for a day. I can see now that what he lived and believed in keeps on living after him. I thought he was gone forever. But your family is here because of him. I'm so glad you came here. I'm so glad."

*****

Dan Connors and his wife had to leave shortly after the Owenses arrived. The Owenses stayed until midnight. Uncle Tom wanted everyone to bed down in the house. Benny wanted to take the boys up into the loft and have them all sleep there. But Mr. Owens insisted they had cows to milk and a farm to take care of.

He wrung Doc Daniel's hand as they left. "Thank God you came, Doctor Connors," he said. "You'll be here for church on Sunday, won't you, Preacher?"

"My friend, I've been away too long," Doc Daniel laughed. "I'm planning to stay home awhile and disciple some very eager believers named Owens. All right?"

"All right!" Jason crowed, jumping up in the air. "Can I come over to Ben's tomorrow?"

"You have to muck out the barn tomorrow," his father reminded him. "That usually takes you half the day."

"I know! I'll do it fast," Jason insisted. "Now I got a reason to hurry."

"Maybe Ben don't want company again so quick," Mr. Owens ventured.

"I'd be glad to have Jason come," Benny grinned. "If it's all right with Mother and Uncle Tom, of course."

"Well, if you get all your work done," Uncle Tom said firmly.

"Please come, Jason," Benny's mother said. "You're more than welcome."

"Can I sleep in the hayloft tonight, Uncle Tom? Please?"

"Didn't finish that letter from Jeremy, did you?" Uncle Tom chuckled.

Benny ran up to the loft and grabbed his pillow and his new quilt. He ran out to the barn and settled back into the hay.

"Psst! Ben!" someone called. "Ben! It's me, Jason!"

Benny poked his head out of the loft. Jason scrambled up the ladder. He thrust something at Benny and scrambled back down. Benny saw him running down the road to catch up with the family wagon. Benny dug in the hay to find whatever it was that Jason had given him. He smiled when he touched his father's Bible. A note was tucked inside.

"My folks and I agreed we just couldn't keep this," Jason's scratchy writing said. "It's got to be about the only thing you've got of your father's. So here it is. Thank God we met today, Ben. And thank God for Pastor Jon. I'm gonna tell my dad about my knife. I hope he'll let me keep it 'cause a fellah needs a knife if he uses it right, not to scare away his friends. You got to tell me about this fellah Jeremy who give you that throwing knife. Thanks. Your friend, Jason."

Benny hugged his father's Bible to him. He opened it and spent some time reading verses and notes. At last he left the Bible open on his chest and pulled Jeremy's letter out again.

*****

"I have written this letter over a period of two or three weeks because my free time is in truth somewhat scarce. I fear to go back and read what I wrote in the two weeks now past lest I tear it up and break my promise to disclose to you my life here. But now I shall soften my harsh beginning with an ending happier than I had any reason to hope for.

"Our prison has both a chaplain and a doctor. The chaplain has a hard row to hoe with us disheartened men. Anyway, he has asked that I be made his assistant. He comes every day, and I am charged with preparing the chapel and leading the singing. He has said he will want me to preach sometime. I am terrified at that prospect. But working for him has reduced my exposure to outside work detail by about half. I thank God for this blessing, for now I can serve Him and escape some of the hardships.

"Well, my blessings come on fast and furious. The prison doctor had need of an assistant as well. Somehow it has come to his attention that I wished to study medicine (I cannot but blame Dan Connors, or perhaps his very persuasive father) and he has grudgingly said he will take me on trial. If I please him I will not be on outside work detail much at all.

"But that petty consideration is of no consequence Ben. Look you! I am to receive pastoral and medical training just as I hoped. How the Lord does encourage us when we most have need of it. I am glad I can give you something to perk up your spirits since I have no doubt depressed them badly. I know mine are perked almost past bearing. Pray that I do well, Ben. It would mean so much to my future, however long I must be here, if I am more fit for His service when I emerge.

"God bless you, my boy, for your faithful letters to me through this grim time. Believe me, they comforted my soul and lighted my way when I was sure I could not go on. God bless your lovely mother, who had no reason to pity me, but who has shined her radiance in my direction most sweetly.

"Share this letter with her if you feel you must. But be sure to give her a kiss before you do. Say Mr. Carlisle hopes it will be taken in the spirit of a holy kiss as the Bible says and that she will not be offended. I will close now, hopeful for the first time that I will see you again, for Christ has lightened my stupid, stubborn heart and made me see that He is still good and great and all-powerful. Farewell."

# Chapter Eleven – Jason and Goliath

Benny had not been to school since leaving Philadelphia. Mr. Prentice had moved to Osage with his wife and offered to open the small empty schoolhouse for the winter term. Benny had looked forward to getting back into regular classes after studying with his mother.

"Oh, look, it's a pretty boy! Hi, there, pretty boy."

Benny stopped. A tall, heavy-set boy, probably fifteen or sixteen, blocked the entrance. Benny glanced around at the children who had been playing in the yard a moment before. They all stood watching silently. The big blond-headed boy wrinkled his nose. His pale blue eyes squeezed shut. He gave a long, exaggerated sniff.

"Hey, he even smells good!" he shouted. "You use some a' yer mama's perfume before you come?"

"Excuse me," Benny said through clenched teeth.

"Leave him alone, Caleb," said a voice. Benny looked behind him and saw Jason Owens march up. His fists were clenched and his feet slightly spread.

"Stay out of it, short stuff," snarled the big boy. "I'm the doorkeeper today, an' everybody's gotta pay toll to get in. Whatcha got, pretty boy?"

"Nothing for you," Benny said evenly.

"Then you don't get in," Caleb retorted. "Everybody has to pay the toll. Unless you want me to take it in licks."

"Caleb Sutter, cut it out!" bristled Jason. "It's the first day a' school. You ain't gotta start right in pickin' on people."

"I just want everybody to know how things are," Caleb explained. "Pay up or I'll have to get dust on those pretty new clothes."

With a banshee scream, Jason launched himself at Caleb. The bigger boy was knocked off balance and crashed into the schoolhouse. Jason pummeled Caleb with his tiny fists, actually dragging a yelp out of the bully.

The door of the school burst open. "Jason Owens! Caleb Sutter! Fighting already? School hasn't even started yet!" Mr. Prentice, the schoolteacher, grabbed both of them by the collars. He marched them into the schoolroom and everyone else followed. Jason and Caleb had to stand up in front of the class until recess.

"We have rules in this classroom," Mr. Prentice explained after they had prayer and saluted the flag. "I expect them to be obeyed."

Benny spent the morning shooting puzzled glances at Jason. He tried to look away quickly, but Jason saw him once and grinned broadly. At recess time Jason and Caleb barreled out of the room so fast the rest of the students hadn't even gotten up yet. Benny went out cautiously and was relieved to see Caleb with two other older boys off at the edge of the playground. Then someone clapped him hard on the back.

"Uh – thanks, Jason," Benny said uncertainly. They hadn't seen each other for some time because of the harvest chores that sucked up all the time in a farming community for weeks in the fall.

"I didn't do it just to be nice. I wanted to put that guy in his place," Jason said brusquely. "If there's one thing I never could take it's a great big guy who thinks he can pick on everybody."

"Jason, that guy could kill you!"

"Don't be dumb. I can handle him and five more. Can I come over after school?"

"Yes," Benny laughed. "Sure. I mean, I'll have to ask my mother if it's okay."

"She likes me. I can tell," Jason said confidently. "How's that big black horse?"

"Black Switch is fine. How's your carving of him coming?"

"Okay. I got some nice dark wood. I'll show you when it looks a little more like somethin.' " Jason hedged.

"I'll bet it looks fine," Benny grinned.

"You still practicin' with that knife?" Jason asked, awed.

"Yes. Every day. Come with me after school and meet the wagon. I'm sure it'll be okay."

"Man, I wanna see that bank robber. Are his scars really bad?"

Benny stiffened. "You want a lot for such a little guy," he said.

"Don't you call me little!" Jason howled. "You saw what I did to Caleb Sutter!"

"Be careful how you talk about Jeremy or you'll be sorry," Benny said quietly.

Jason took a step backward. "Sorry," he said quickly. "I didn't mean to make you sore. All the kids in town been talkin' about it. You an' him are famous."

"Yeah, sure," Benny grunted. "I notice I didn't have flocks of people wanting to be my friend."

"Most of 'em told me their parents wanted 'em to wait till school started," Jason protested. "Everybody was kinda nervous-like, too. You're not a regular kid, exactly. Book-readin', house-cleanin' – I bet you even make your own bed every day."

"My mother doesn't have time to pick up after me," Benny responded, "And Jeremy's my best friend."

"Pa says – " Jason broke off.

"Pa says what?" Benny bristled.

"I don't wanna rile you again. But I do wanna meet 'im. Pa says I oughta shut up about it 'cause –"

"Because why?"

Jason scratched his toe in the dirt. "Aw, he says I'm actin' like he's a freak show."

Benny hit Jason before he could even make himself think. Jeremy had taught Benny a lot about self-defense while they traveled together. He had also taught him a little boxing. The small boy dropped like a stone. Benny bent down quickly, looking around for Mr. Prentice. He had his back to them, watching some girls play hopscotch.

"Jason! Jason! Are you okay?" Benny ran to the well, grabbed the bucket, and dashed water over Jason. He lurched up, spluttering.

"Wow! You can hit! That was great!" Jason crowed, rubbing his jaw. "You may not believe this, but you're the only kid who's ever knocked me down before I got in even one lick."

"You watch what you say about Jeremy. He's the one who taught me how to fight."

"I will, Ben. Believe me, I will."

*****

After school Benny and Jason walked toward the edge of town together. Jason never shut up for a minute. He talked even more than Jeremy, and Jeremy could 'talk a mother hen off her nest and get her to churn the butter to fry the eggs,' as Doc Daniel had put it. He also prodded Benny with questions about his "adventures."

Benny didn't volunteer much, however, being mindful of the trouble Jeremy had been in the last time someone started bringing up the past.

"You're the quiet type," Jason observed. "Not me. With a houseful of kids a man's got to stand up for himself."

"So start doin' it, squirt," snarled a voice behind them. Jason and Benny whirled as Caleb Sutter aimed a blow at them. They split and the fist swished through the air.

"Come on! This way!" Shouted Jason. He dodged through an alleyway. Benny followed. Caleb lunged after them.

"Over the fence! Hurry!" Jason barked. They scaled the board fence at the end of the alley in record time and slid down a bank to the backyard of someone's house.

"Hide in here! Quick!" Jason dived into a doghouse, pulling Benny after him. Benny looked into the gloom and saw a very large dog sitting quietly beside them.

"Thanks, Shep," Jason whispered, patting the dog, whose tail thumped slightly. "He won't look for us here."

"You stinkin' yellow punks!" Caleb's voice yelled. He seemed pretty far away. "You can't hide forever."

They stayed in the doghouse a few minutes. Jason pushed Shep out. "See if the coast is clear, boy," he ordered. Shep obediently ambled out and lifted his nose. He gave a low woof, and Jason motioned to Benny to go out.

"Thanks again, Shep!" Jason said, giving the dog a sandwich. "I tell my ma I need two sandwiches 'cause I'm a growing boy," he said matter-of-factly. "You might want to do the same. They come in handy sometimes. Oh, sorry. You make your own lunches, I bet. Maybe I should, too. I don't know about makin' my own bed, though."

Uncle Tom waited impatiently for them when they got to the wagon. Jason was always surprisingly gentlemanly with Benny's family. He extracted a promise from Benny that he would ask Jeremy to write to him. When Benny arrived home, Benny's mother said she was thankful Benny had found a nice, well-mannered friend like Jason to play with.

"I was afraid you'd end up in a fight. You never know the kind of children you're going to meet at school," his mother sighed, greatly relieved.

"You certainly don't, Mother," Benny said with a smile.

*****

Benny knew Jeremy had very little time to write letters. He was surprised one day to find an enclosure addressed to Mr. Jason Owens, Esquire, in a letter from the Philadelphia penitentiary. Benny jumped on Black Switch and rode straight over to the Owens farm. Jason was chopping wood. Benny leaned over and handed him the letter.

"What's this?"

"It's a letter from Jeremy," Ben replied. "Go ahead and read it. I want to hear what he says."

"He wrote to me?" Jason said uncertainly. "How come?"

"Because I told him you wanted him to."

Jason sat down with his back against the stump he was splitting kindling on and opened the letter. He started reading out loud.

"Dear Jason," Jeremy wrote. "I hear you're brave. Piled right into the biggest kid in the school on the first day, just to help out Ben. I appreciate courage in a man. Kind of like David and Goliath, eh? David wasn't afraid of anything, I don't reckon. He sure came out better fighting off his lion than I did mine. I should've caught it by the beard, only I'm not sure a cougar has a beard. Maybe Ben can check out the Cougar Evangelist and let us know.

"I don't think that was the problem, anyway. I think it was because I was operating in my own strength. Listen to what it says in I Samuel 17:

"'Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God? ... Let no man's heart fail because of him; thy servant will go and fight ... Thy servant kept his father's sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock: And I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth: and when he rose up against me, I caught him by his beard, and smote him, and slew him. Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God.

"'David said moreover, "The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine."

"'And Saul said unto David, "Go, and the Lord be with thee."'"

Jason kept stopping and clearing his throat. Benny realized Jason was trembling and his eyes had filled up with tears. Benny grabbed the letter from him and went on reading.

"When that cougar walked into our camp that night, I thought I was protecting Ben. I really did. But I finally realized later that it was God doing the protecting. He was taking care of Ben and me all along. I'll never forget the lesson I learned about who really fights our battles for us, and who wins them. I can see it in the mirror every day."

Benny reached out and patted Jason on the shoulder. "It's all right, Jason. You wanted to hear from the big, bad bank robber. Maybe someday you'll even get to see the mark of the cougar's claws."

"He ain't at all like I thought he'd be," Jason whispered finally.

"Disappointed?" Benny asked with a little smile.

"No, sir. I liked what he said about David. I always wanted to be like him." Jason hastily wiped his eyes on his sleeve, then snuffed and wiped his nose there, too.

"There's a little bit more," Ben said. He read on.

"Then don't forget where your confidence is, Jason. It's not in your fists or your speed or your fast thinking. It's in the Lord. Kindest Regards, Jeremy Carlisle."

*****

Jason was home sick and Benny walked to meet the wagon by himself one day about a week later. He was passing the same spot where Caleb Sutter had chased Jason and him when the big boy appeared again. He grabbed Benny by the shoulder before he could dodge.

"Come here," he rumbled. All Jeremy's lessons about self-defense had depended on Benny being able to surprise his opponent, to throw him off guard and get a chance to use his weight or strength against him. He had no chance to do any of those things when Caleb Sutter threw him down in the alley. It was a long time before Benny could even get up after Caleb had left him. There wasn't much that didn't hurt. He stood in the alley and thought.

"How can I keep mother from finding out?" he asked himself. "Uncle Tom's going to know something's wrong."

It was very hard just to walk down the street. It was the hardest thing Benny had ever done. Something hurt inside, below his ribs, every time he took a breath, or a step, or moved his right arm. He went slowly, praying all the way that no one would stop and ask if he needed help.

A funny thought occurred to him. In school they had been reading from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Benny had asked Mr. Prentice if they could act out part of it. Benny had been chosen to play the part of the hunchback. Benny took a deep breath as Mr. Carter, the owner of the dry goods shop he was passing, stuck his head out the door.

"Benjamin! Are you all right?" Benny grinned at him and scrunched up one eye.

"I'm in a play at school, Mr. Carter," he said in a scratchy, deep voice. "How do you like my hunchback?" He shuffled a few steps.

"Very -- uh -- realistic," Mr. Perkins said uncertainly. He watched Benny limp off down the street.

Benny crossed a street. Stepping off the boardwalk jarred him badly. He didn't see a buggy pull up behind him.

"Hi there, Ben." Dan Connors had come to visit a day or two before and apparently he had offered to come and pick Benny up. Doc Daniel sat on the seat beside him. Both of them looked Benny over.

"I'm in a play at -- " Benny began weakly, then collapsed. Dan Connors leaped out of the buggy and caught him up in his arms.

"Don't tell my mother. Please don't tell her," Benny begged.

"Who did this?" Doc Daniel knelt beside him also.

"Somebody who isn't going to change because you punish him. He'll just do something worse. Please, Doc Daniel. You can see if anything's wrong. Please."

People probably wondered why that flashy Virginia lawyer drove his horse and buggy so fast just to get out of town. Doc Daniel settled Benny in the back and began to check him over. Dan stopped about a mile outside of town.

"Dad, you're scaring me," Dan said. "Can you help him or not?"

"Wait!" Doc Daniel snapped. He continued poke and prod the still, pale boy. At last he blew out a long sigh.

"As far as I can tell, he's just banged up real bad," Doc Daniel said. "Nothing's broken. I'm sure of that. Internal injuries would mean jaundice, swelling, and more pain than he seems to have when I poke him in the right places. So I don't think there are any of those, either. He's hurting really badly, but that's all."

"You don't want to tell us what happened, Ben?" Dan Connors asked.

"I have a pretty good idea," Doc Daniel frowned. "Jason Owens has bragged all over town how many times the two of them have gotten away from Caleb Sutter. The Sutter boy must have caught up with him finally."

"Who's Caleb Sutter?" Dan asked.

"His father's a drunk who sometimes works at odd jobs," Doc Daniel explained. "His mother's just an ignorant, pathetic little wreck who takes in washing. He has a little sister, too, who's just about as cute as a baby goat and no smarter. He's the official town bully, and he's been smarting to get Ben since the day school started. None of these bruises or cuts will show under his clothes," he mused. "I think we can pull this off." Benny moaned and rolled over.

"Saft, lad," Dan soothed, affecting an Irish accent. "Faith, an' ye'll be the death a' me, scrappin' an' fightin' th' livelong day. Whin will ye learn, acushlah?"

Benny tried to giggle but he groaned again instead. Doc Daniel held up a hand as he started to speak.

"No, won't tell your mother. I can't speak for Dan, but I think since he smuggled you out of town he'll play too."

"I hope you don't think this is even-steven, though, Laddie," Dan said. "This Caleb fellow's tasted blood, you know."

"I just don't want my mother to worry," Benny said weakly. "I know it isn't over, but I'm just going to take it one step at a time." He tried to straighten up but failed. "It sure hurts."

"And it will hurt for a few days," Doc Daniel frowned. "How in the world are you going to explain to your mother that you can't straighten up? She just may suspect something's wrong, you know."

"I've got that all figured out," Benny replied. "I'm just going to do what an actor friend of mine once told me."

"Actor friend? I only know of one actor friend you ever had," Dan said quizzically.

"That's the one," Benny nodded. "He told me an actor has to immerse himself in a role. He has to live it, eat it, and sleep it. I should be really good at being a hunchback by the time we do the school play, don't you think?"

Doc Daniel shook his head. "You'll steal the show, Ben."

Benny found a certain grim satisfaction in his hunchback role. His mother was a little suspicious, but when Benny invoked Jeremy as his acting coach she laughed and dismissed it. Even Caleb lost the satisfaction of his victory, for none of the children knew he had beaten Benny up.

Mr. Prentice frowned disapprovingly when Benny reduced the class to fits of laughter as he shuffled up to recite. Jason cast many long, searching looks at Benny and wondered greatly, but Benny got him giggling with his squint-eye and garbled speech on the playground.

"Cantcha even play catch?" Jason demanded. "Ya don't hafta practice all the time."

Benny had decided he couldn't even risk telling Jason the truth, because he might let it slip. "My private acting tutor insisted I must do justice to my first thespian endeavor, however minute my role might be," Benny intoned.

"Your first what?"

*****

Eventually the pain went away. The play at school went extremely well, and Benny did, in fact, steal the show.

"I wish you could've been there, Jeremy," Benny wrote to Jeremy afterwards. "If I do say so myself, I was great. Mother says I certainly don't need to say so myself. She said she's glad it's over. She was getting very tired of having that hunchback around the house. She didn't think even you ever spent that much time preparing for a role."

"Tell your mother I spent five years preparing for the role of my life," Jeremy had written back. "Funny, the play just didn't turn out at all the way I expected. All I got out of all that work was Switch and a prison cell."

"He got me!" Benny exclaimed, looking up at his mother and Doc Daniel as he sat reading the letter to them one evening. "And Doc Daniel and Dan Connors, and he got the Lord, too."

"I'm sure he realizes that," Doc Daniel said, putting Benny in a playful headlock. He gave a good twist, and when Benny didn't cry out in pain, he satisfied himself that the boy was really recovered from his beating at the hands of Caleb Sutter.

Benny straightened himself out and scowled at Doc Daniel. But Jeremy's letter wasn't finished yet.

"But I really got far more than that," Jeremy wrote. "I got things more precious than gold." Benny glanced up again after he read the last line aloud. His mother had a funny expression on her face.

"So did we, Darling," Benny's mother said with a smile. "We got Mr. Carlisle."

# Chapter Twelve: The Power of Persuasion

"Are you Benjamin Richardson?" The man was driving in the shiniest carriage Ben had seen in a long time. He wore a fine black suit and his hair was very sleek and black. Benny had noticed him as soon as he came out of the school in Osage. The man brought his carriage up alongside Benny and stepped down.

"Yes, Sir," Benny replied.

"I am James, Mr. Horace Richardson's driver. He sent me to bring you to him at his hotel."

"Who, sir?"

"Mr. Richardson, your grandfather."

"My ... my grandfather?" Benny had only known his mother's parents when they lived in Philadelphia. Benny had never heard his father's parents mentioned. He had assumed that they had died before he was born.

"My boy, don't stand staring at me. Come along. Mr. Richardson doesn't care to be kept waiting."

"Sir, my mother wouldn't want me to go anywhere with a stranger," Benny protested. "If you could just come with me to my Uncle Tom's house, we could -- "

"I have explicit orders from my employer to have no dealings with your mother, Master Benjamin," James said. "Look, here, Mr. Richardson informed me that you might be ignorant as to your father's family. He told me to show you this."

James took out a fine, expensive gold watch. He opened the case and showed Benny a wonderful hand-painted miniature inside.

"That looks like my father," Benny gasped.

"It is your father. As I said, your grandfather and grandmother have come to claim you. Let us go to them. Come along."

James grasped Benny by the arm and pulled him up into the carriage. Benny was too astonished to resist. He kept staring at the picture of his father in the watch. It was some time before he realized the carriage was rolling quickly out of town the opposite way from the farm.

"Where are we going?" Benny shouted out the window, frightened.

"Jefferson City, of course," James informed him.

"Does my mother know you're taking me there?"

"She was informed by letter several months ago that Mr. and Mrs. Richardson would be coming to collect you."

*****

Benny couldn't think straight the whole way to Jefferson City. When they finally arrived James stopped the carriage outside the biggest hotel. He had to pull Benny out and drag him inside to a curtained sitting room.

The richly dressed, white-haired gentleman stood up as Benny entered with James. James left Benny standing beside another tall, handsomely-dressed, much younger man and went out. The older man looked like Benny's father, but with thick side-whiskers and a cold, stern expression. The woman who remained seated beside him was dressed in violet silk and a large, feathered hat. Her neck and hands sparkled with jewels. Her hair was gray as iron and stiffly piled atop her head. Neither of them smiled a welcome as Benny stopped before them.

"Look at the child's clothing, Horace," the woman murmured. "Come here, boy. Probably made them herself. Disgraceful." Benny stopped just short of the woman's outstretched hand.

"Kiss your grandmother, Benjamin," the gentleman said coldly. "We have come a long way to see you. Has that woman taught you no manners at all?"

"She has taught him nothing," the woman said. "He moves like a common tradesman's child. Of course, she has made him live on a farm. Does she cut your hair herself, too, boy? And she has you in a common school! Shocking. We shall have much to do to correct all this."

"Look at the boy. He does not even know who we are. We are your grandparents, Benjamin," said the man. "Your father married your mother against our wishes and cut off all contact with us. We were not informed of your birth. We were not told that he had been killed. We have searched for you ever since we learned the truth that woman kept from us all these years."

"Your mother poisoned your father's mind against us," Benny's grandmother went on. "She stole our only son and forced him into a life of poverty and hardship. She made him common like she was. And she tried to keep us from finding you after he died."

"Excuse me, Sir, Ma'am, but are you talking about my mother?" Benny demanded. "You must have made a mistake. My mother isn't like that at all. Maybe you have the wrong person."

"There is no mistake," his grandfather responded. "We have come to take you home with us to our estate in New York. You will live the life your father abandoned because of that scheming woman."

"You don't know the Lord, do you?" Benny asked. "I don't think you would talk this way if you did. I'll bet my father left you because he wanted to serve God and you wouldn't let him."

"How dare you?" thundered his grandfather. "We have contributed generously to the church all our lives. My wife directs all the service activities. We have always been Christians."

"Pardon me, sir, but nobody's born a Christian," Benny replied. "You have to repent of your sins and ask Christ to save you."

"We'll soon get these ridiculous notions out of your head," snapped his grandmother. "You will come back with us. That mother of yours will have no further opportunity to ruin you."

"Thank you very much for offering, but I would rather stay with my mother," Benny said as politely as he could. "It was nice of you to visit. Perhaps you can come again."

"Nonsense," his grandfather said. "Trevor, take the boy to his room and see that he stays there. No one is to visit him or interfere in any way."

Benny followed Trevor, the man who had stood beside him, up the stairs to a room. "Don't make them angry now, Master Benjamin," Trevor admonished. "There's nothing to be done. Mr. Richardson's got a proper slew of legal documents. He's going to get his way. He always does."

Benny heard a key turning in the lock as Trevor closed the door and left him alone. He sat down in a chair and stared at the wall. His grandparents couldn't just take him away from his mother, could they? Had she really gotten a letter from them? Why hadn't she told him? Did that mean it was all right with her and he really was never going to see her or Jeremy or Uncle Tom or Doc Daniel ever again? She hadn't even tried to tell him good-bye.

*****

Some time later he heard a commotion in the hall. He put his ear to the keyhole and heard Uncle Tom's voice say, "You just open up that door and let us see my nephew or I'll break it down. Whatever legal papers you got don't give you the right to kidnap him without his mother even saying good-bye."

The door swung open and Benny jumped back. Benny's mother and Uncle Tom burst in and his mother grabbed him in her arms. Wisps of hair fell down out of her lop-sided bonnet. Her face was flushed and she still wore her big work apron. Uncle Tom squeezed his shoulders and glared at Benny's grandfather, who stood in the hall.

"Benny, darling!" his mother hugged him tightly. "Mr. Carter said a strange man picked you up after school and he heard him say he was taking you to Jefferson City. I realized it must be your grandfather. Are you all right, darling?"

"I was scared, mother," Benny whispered. "You never said a word about this. I thought you were going to let them take me."

"No, no, Darling, not if I can help it," Benny's mother soothed.

"Trevor, please give the woman these documents," Benny's grandfather said icily. Trevor passed a thick sheaf of papers from his employer to Benny's mother. "I presume you can read, Madam. These papers are drawn up by my attorney and approved by the local justice. They give us the authority to take our grandson into our custody and return him with us to our estate in New York. If you resist this legal order, we shall make public facts about your unfitness as a mother that I am sure you would not want revealed in an open court. You may go now. The boy will remain with us until we can depart tomorrow afternoon."

"You – you can't just take Benny away," Benny's mother breathed. "He's my son."

"You have practiced deceit and treachery in depriving us of contact with our son and grandson. Only by hiring private detectives were we able to find your dwelling in Philadelphia. Can you imagine how we felt, learning that our son had died and we had not been informed?"

"I sent a letter ... " Benny's mother faltered. "You didn't receive it?"

"There was no letter!" snapped Benny's grandmother, joining her husband in the hall. "More lies!"

"Just when we located you, you vanished," Benny's grandfather continued. "Did you think dragging the boy off to this wilderness would keep us from finding you? Did you think hiring a criminal running from the law to spirit our grandson away would work? Oh, yes, we know about that, too. That clever rascal managed to give my detectives the slip. It's a good thing he's behind bars where he belongs. Pity you didn't join him. What judge would call you a fit mother? The boy lives in poverty and ignorance. You cannot care for him. How dare you presume to raise our grandson?"

Benny's mother took a deep breath and straightened. "Benny, darling, your grandfather has said you must stay here at the hotel tonight. Please obey him."

"But mother – "

"Benny, please, no more arguing. Stay here with Mr. and Mrs. Richardson tonight. May I come to see him before you depart, Sir?" Benny's mother asked.

"I see no reason why you should be denied time to say your good-byes," Mr. Richardson said. "Shall we say two o'clock?"

Benny's mother curtseyed. "Until then, Sir. Madam," she added, making another curtsy toward Mrs. Richardson, who simply looked away.

"Good night, then, Darling," Benny's mother said softly, stroking his hair and looking into his eyes. "Be my good, obedient son, Benny. You will, won't you?"

"Yes, Mother," Benny whispered. "I love you."

Benny's mother kissed him. "I love you, too, my Benny." She turned quickly and left the room.

*****

The rest of the day passed miserably for Benny. He spent some time in the sitting room that connected his room with his grandparents'. His grandmother scarcely spoke at all, except to complain about his handmade clothes. Mr. Richardson sent out his valet Trevor to try to find a place to buy new clothes, but nothing suited their demands. They ate in the private sitting room because his grandmother wouldn't be seen in the dining room with such a shabby grandson. Benny tried to eat, but nothing would go down. His grandfather quizzed Benny about his school studies and seemed surprised by how much Benny knew.

Benny's grandmother complained of exhaustion after doing nothing but complain all day and went to their room. His grandfather went off to mail some letters. Trevor seemed actually to be trying to make Benny feel more comfortable. He was kind and patient, and after dinner engaged Benny in a game of chess. Benny and Trevor went down into the parlor to set up their game. After they had played a few minutes Jason Owens suddenly burst into the room.

"Jason! How did you get here?" Benny asked.

"'Scuse me, Mister, are you workin' for Mr. Richardson?" Jason demanded, ignoring Benny. Trevor nodded. "He wants you upstairs right away. Better get hoppin'!"

Trevor stared at Jason in frank disbelief. "Is this young gentleman an acquaintance of yours, Benjamin?" Trevor asked with a little smile.

"Yes, Sir," Benny said. "Mr. Trevor, this is Jason Owens."

"Well, Jason Owens, I am pleased to make your acquaintance," Trevor said. "I believe if Mr. Richardson had actually required my services he would have communicated with one of the hotel staff. Is it your wish to have some private communication with Master Benjamin?"

Jason turned red. "I gotta talk to him, Mister," Jason begged. "His ma told us what – that he's leavin' – Can't I just –?"

"I shall permit you a few minutes alone, Master Jason," Trevor said as he rose. "However, I must warn you that any escape plan you concoct with Master Benjamin will surely fail, and will only make his relationship with his grandparents more strained. Please do not raise false hopes. Adieu for now." Trevor strode out of the room.

"Ben, c'mon!" Jason blurted out as soon as Trevor's coattails disappeared through the doorway. "I got two horses outside. We'll light out for the woods an' keep goin' till nobody can find us."

"Jason, I can't," Benny said. He prayed that the tears he had been choking back all evening wouldn't start pouring out now. "I promised Mother I'd stay with my grandparents. And you heard what Trevor said."

"I can't understand half a' what that beanpole spouts," Jason grumbled.

"He said I'd get caught and there'd be worse trouble if I try to get away," Benny said. "There's no way out of this, Jason. I'll have to go with them."

"Are they as awful as he is?" Jason jerked his head toward Trevor, who strolled by the door.

"Trevor's not so bad," Benny grinned, catching the valet's encouraging wink. "But my grandparents – well – Oh, it doesn't matter. Mother said I stay, and I stay."

"My ma and dad don't even know I came up here," Jason said. "C'mon, Ben, come with me. I can do that guy like I did Caleb Sutter. At least you'd get away."

"There's nothing anybody can do, Jason," Benny said, growing angry. He had thought of a hundred plans during this horrible day and he knew all of them were hopeless.

'I wish Jeremy was here," Jason said unexpectedly. "He could cook up an escape plan that'd work. He's so smart."

Benny, too, had thought that if anybody could save the day, Jeremy could. And the thought of never seeing Jeremy again made it almost impossible to stop the tears. His throat ached and he closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

"We need a lawyer and a million dollars. That's the only way we could beat my grandfather. And we haven't got either of those, so just forget it. It was nice knowing you, Jason." He shook hands with Jason.

The smaller boy seemed to be having some kind of fit. Then he burst into tears. Benny had never seen Jason actually cry. His friend tore out of the parlor and crashed headlong into a large brass urn full of umbrellas. With a horrible clang the umbrellas and urn scattered everywhere. Trevor picked him up and took a look at Jason's tear-streaked face.

"Courage, lad," he said gently. "On your way, now. I'll see to this."

Jason vanished. Benny and Trevor picked up the umbrellas together. Benny avoided Trevor's eyes, but he knew the valet was staring at him.

"Perhaps it won't be as bad as all that, Master Benjamin," Trevor ventured.

It was the wrong thing to say. Benny, too, began to sob. Trevor hastily set the umbrella stand upright and hustled Benny off, up to the sitting room. He closed the drapes and then stood by Benny while he lay on the settee and wept, choking and shuddering as he tried to get himself under control. Trevor patted his shoulder and spoke gentle words of encouragement.

"I went into service when I was about your age, Master Benjamin," Trevor said. "Left my mum behind. It all comes right with time. You adjust. Master and Madam really want to do the right thing for you. You'll feel better about them before you know it."

"They said all those terrible things about my mother," Benny said. "I hate them."

"Now, now, Master Benjamin," soothed Trevor, "you spoke of knowing the Lord. I know Him too, and I know that Master and Madam do not. But how can you hope to make them see Christ, Who loves the sinner, though he hates the sin, when they will see only your hate? We must show them Christ, you and I. We must show them Christ."

*****

Benny had not thought he would be able to sleep at all, but in fact it was broad daylight when he awoke.

"I admire you, Master Benjamin," Trevor said warmly. "I looked in on you a time or two during the night, expecting you to be restless, but you slept like Peter in prison. I hope you do not feel you are going to be executed today?"

"Well, I don't think the Lord's going to send an angel to let me out of jail," grumbled Benny. "Sorry, Trevor. I'm trying to do what you said, but it's hard. If it weren't for the way they treated mother, it would be easier. It just makes me so angry. And I – I can't say good-bye to – "

"To your friend in prison?" Trevor prompted. "I'm sorry, Master Benjamin. I'm sure things look dark to you today. 'Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy path.'"

A knock sounded at Benny's door. Trevor opened it. Benny was astonished to see Dan Connors standing in the hall, dressed in his finest suit and hat.

"I beg your pardon," Dan said. "The hotel staff must have given me the wrong room. I am looking for Mr. Horace Richardson. It is most urgent that I speak with him."

"I am Mr. Richardson's valet, Sir," Trevor said. "He has the suite next door. May I say who is calling, please?"

"Daniel Connors of Virginia," Dan answered. "I hope Mr. Richardson can spare me a few moments of his valuable time. I could not refrain from coming to pay my respects when I was informed that he had come. You may wish to tell him that I can claim a mutual acquaintance. My brother is Senator Robert Connors of New York."

"Yes, indeed, Sir, I shall tell him at once." Benny was surprised by how impressed Trevor seemed. He hurried past Dan and knocked on the door of the next room. Dan swept into the room and folded Benny up in an embrace that squeezed the breath out of him.

"Take that as coming from your mother," Dan whispered in his ear. "I am so sorry it came off like this. We knew it was coming, but I couldn't get here any sooner. If this works, you can thank that sly fox Jeremy. It was his idea."

Dan pressed an envelope into his hand. Benny heard the murmur of Trevor's voice calling Dan into his grandfather's room. Dan squeezed Benny's shoulder hard and followed Trevor out of sight.

Someone brought Benny breakfast and he realized how hungry he was. He found a note from his mother in the envelope.

"My darling Benny," it read. "I may not have an opportunity to speak freely to you again. How I love you, my boy, and how I shall miss you if you are taken from me. But I believe God is gracious and will give us strength for whatever comes. Remember all that he has brought us through in the past. 'God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.' Be obedient and dutiful, and learn to love your grandparents.

"I know this must have shocked you very much, to learn of them in this way. I did not agree with your father when he decided never to mention them, but I would not go against his wishes. It was he who broke with his parents, not I who forced him to choose between us. He had tried to make them understand their need of the Lord, and of his need to do God's will. They could not understand. They could not accept his wishes. He had to go far away from them or they would have ruined any hopes he had of ministering for the Lord. At least, that was your father's belief. Seeing how they have behaved with you I fear he was correct.

"The Scriptures say that we must separate ourselves from those who not only will not believe, but who oppose our belief in God and service to Him. This is why your father left his parents and never spoke of them. It was not for my sake, but because he believed he would not be free to serve the Lord and still live as their son, so violent was their opposition.

"Apparently they have not changed in all these years. I pray that they will not stifle your faith, Benny, if you should go to live with them. I hope that you will find a path of obedience to the Lord and also to them. The Lord will go with you. I spoke to the gentleman called Trevor. I am glad he has faith in God. He is a good man and will help you all he can. Be strong in the Lord, my Benny. Do not lose hope.

"Our dear Mr. Carlisle was just as stricken as I was when I received their letter, but you see the difference between us. While I could only despair, his busy mind made a plan that just may save the day. He sent me a note, which I was to give you if something like this happened and I enclose it herein. With all a mother's love in Christ I close for now."

Benny had found the message from Jeremy folded up inside his mother's. The paper was coarse, as Jeremy's writing paper always was, and the writing blotched with hurry. Benny almost broke down again, thinking it might be the last communication he would have with Jeremy.

"If you think for one minute we're going to let you go without a fight, Mr. Benjamin Richardson, you're sadly mistaken," (Jeremy had written). "Dan Connors has called me a fox before, but I'm not sure any fox ever had to do this much from his den before. I wish I could get out and punch Grandfather Richardson in the nose." (Benny had to laugh out loud picturing that.)

"I can imagine what he has written to your mother, judging by the state in which she wrote me. It just makes me admire the man your father must have been all the more. Dan Connors shall be the star of my little scheme to thwart this plan of your grandfather's. I shan't tell you not to cry, for I've shed some tears myself over this." (Benny understood the real reason for the blotchy paper) "But I say, as the Lord said to Joshua, 'Be strong, and of good courage, be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee, withersoever thou goest.'

"Have I ever told you that I love you, Ben, my boy? No, I think I never have, fool that I was. You led me to Christ. You have lighted my very darkest days. I love you, and I thank you with all my heart. God guard you and let me see you again. Jeremy."

"I've only been thinking about myself," Benny marveled. "I never thought how sad mother would be, or Jeremy, or even Dan Connors and Doc Daniel and Jason. They've cried and worried about losing me, and all I could think of was how bad I felt. And they've got a plan to help me. Oh, Lord God, help me to be more grateful for the wonderful people I have around me. Even if I do have to go with my grandparents, I know I don't deserve these good friends and this mother of mine."

"Benjamin?" Trevor stood in the doorway. Benny hastily stowed his letters in the envelope and stood up. "Your grandfather wishes to see you in his sitting room."

Benny followed Trevor into the next room. His grandfather and Dan Connors stood looking out the window. Benny was struck by the fact that his friend was, if anything, more elegant and gentlemanly than his stiffly formal grandfather. Benny thought of Doc Daniel and how he had seemed to be a coarse-grained mountain man when he first saw him the night of Jeremy's cougar attack, wearing buckskins and pumping shots into the big cat that had almost taken Jeremy's life. The two men turned and looked at Benny.

Neither of them spoke at first. Benny wanted to scream. What was the plan? Did it work? Am I going to get to stay?

"Benjamin, I had no idea Doctor Daniel Connors was an acquaintance of yours," his grandfather said. "I know his son Robert very well. There is hardly a man in the country so well-known and well-respected as your 'Doc Daniel.' I do not think you were aware of that, were you?"

"I didn't know about him being famous or any of that, no, Sir," Benny answered. "He's a great man, and he's been very good to my mother and me. He's taught me to love and know God a whole lot better. I was just thinking about how I haven't appreciated all the people here enough."

"And you're very much afraid of losing them all, aren't you?" his grandfather said. Benny swallowed hard and choked.

"Now, now, no tears. You're afraid of losing everyone you love and being forced to live with people you fear, and probably could hate, if it were in your nature to hate. I used to think your father hated us. Your grandmother still thinks it. But at long last I think I understand. There is a Scripture that says, 'If any man will come after me, and does not hate his father and mother, he is not worthy of me.' I thought of that verse a hundred thousand times when your father broke with us. It could not be a true part of the Word of God, I insisted. I wanted to scratch it out of my Bible.

"But we cannot pick and choose what we want to believe in the Scriptures, can we? We must take the whole. We must accept the part that says, 'It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven'. I thought my wealth gave me the ability to serve God better. But my wealth, like my righteousness, is but filthy rags. God does not want it, just as he did not want the hypocritical sacrifices of the Jews who scorned God in their hearts by having no pity for the poor and robbing God's house while they filled their storehouses and built more and bigger ones.

"Benjamin, your father made you a better boy than we could ever hope to. He consecrated you to God, and made you His child. Your grandmother and I thought only of ourselves. We reached out and grasped what belonged to God – our son's life and his duty. When that slipped through our fingers, we determined to get another child to make into our twisted image – you.

"But now I know what your father tried so hard to tell me, oh, so many times. This gentleman gained an audience with me by his handsome credentials because he knew my pride and vanity. But he did not waste time with politeness or flattery. He called me what I was, a bitter, warped sinner looking for more lives to blight. But I thank God I am such no more. I have repented, Benjamin. At last I truly know Christ."

He held out his arms, and Benny came into them without hesitation. "I'm so glad, Grandfather," Benny whispered. They held each other for a long time.

"Horace?" Grandfather Richardson straightened at the sound of his wife's shrill, complaining voice from the next room. "Horace, who is out there? What is going on?"

"Your – your grandmother is a late riser," Grandfather Richardson said uneasily. "I wonder how she will take my news."

"It'd probably be best if you see her alone, Mr. Richardson," Dan suggested.

"Indeed. I'm sure it would," Grandfather Richardson nodded. "Take Benjamin, Mr. Connors – Dan. Take him to his mother. Say that I will engage rooms here for her and her brother and I will visit that good lady after I have spoken to my wife. Let Trevor go with you, and inquire when it would be convenient for me to wait upon her – to pay my respects long overdue and shamefully neglected. And let us see you again, Dan, if your leisure serves you and you can remain. My wife will have to make some adjustments ... indeed she will ... I know not how to begin ... "

Benny marveled at the changes his grandfather had gone through. From stiff and formal to warm and smiling to worried and uncertain all in a few moments. Dan grasped his hand and drew him close in a warm embrace.

"God give you wise words, my brother in Christ," Dan said. "We will pray for you."

*****

Benny's grandparents left a few days later. Benny did not see his grandmother again, except from a distance. He heard that she had raged and wept hysterically and threatened all kinds of things. She was angry about his grandfather's conversion, she was angry that Benny wasn't leaving with them, she was angry about being in a place with few of the luxuries she was used to.

Benny felt very sorry for his grandfather. He was eager to embrace Benny's mother, eager to accept the Bible Doc Daniel gave him to study. But his wife had become more stubborn than ever. His grandfather never complained, though.

"She doesn't know the Lord, my dears," he had simply said. He had invited Benny and his mother for dinner at the hotel and his wife had leaped up from the table and stormed off to her room upon seeing Benny and his mother arrive. "She doesn't know the Lord."

"I must see your embezzler, you know, Benjamin," his grandfather said. "I feel as if I owe everything to him. I have gained so much more than I will lose by leaving you here."

Benny's grandparents left in a big carriage piled with luggage. His grandmother wore black clothes and a heavy veil as if someone had died. Trevor shook hands heartily with Benny.

"Now I've a new master, Master Benjamin," he exclaimed. "My faith was so small. I never really dreamed it would happen. Now if only Madam – "

"We'll pray for you, too, Trevor," Benny grinned. Trevor bowed to Benny's mother and climbed into the carriage. Grandfather Richardson hugged Benny and his mother both close to him.

"You will both write to me, of course?" he pleaded.

"Of course," Benny's mother said, kissing him on the cheek. "God bless you, my dear Father Horace. How we shall miss you."

"Horace! Come along! Cannot you hurry?" wailed Grandmother Richardson.

Grandfather Richardson looked sadly in at the muffled figure. "Farewell, Benjamin. Let us see what can be done about setting that young fox Jeremy free of his den so he can be about his work. He is needed badly out here."

*****

Jeremy was reluctant to meet Grandfather Richardson, but once more, Dan Connors put his powers of persuasion to work. Benny got a letter from Dan describing the meeting.

Your grandfather and I arrived at Jeremy's cell and found him about the hopeless task of making the dreary gray room fit for "his lordship," as Jeremy calls Grandfather Richardson. I am sure he was also fretting about this elegant gentleman seeing his terrible scars. He need not have worried.

"My dear Mr. Carlisle," Grandfather Richardson said, taking Jeremy's hand. "No, this won't do. Jeremy, I must greet you as befits the man who is really my father in Christ, and my dearest friend." He put his arms around Jeremy, who stared over his shoulder at me in utter astonishment.

"Sir, to say – to say that I'm honored would be – words much too poor," Jeremy stammered. "All I did was throw Dan in where I thought there might be a breach. He fought the good fight and finished the course. I take no credit."

"Ah, but Dan would never have been brought to the breach if not for you," Grandfather Richardson replied with a huge smile. I confess I was amazed, too, to see that your grandfather looked straight at Jeremy, as if the scars didn't bother him at all. Even I have a hard time doing that.

"You are such a young man to be so wise –" he went on "– to know exactly what it would take to solve a dilemma that must have seemed hopeless to everyone else. God will no doubt do great things with you. He will bring you out of this place and wherever you go, you and those you influence will plant souls that will bear fruit for Him. I pray that you will soon be free to serve God as you long to do."

Jeremy was silent for a moment. Then he said, "And here I was casting about for some words of encouragement to say to you, a new babe in Christ. Doesn't pride always knock us flat? Thank you, Horace. I'll never stop praying for your wife. It can't be easy."

"Find a woman who loves the Lord, my friend," your grandfather said soberly. Then he glanced at me. He looked back at Jeremy, who blushed suddenly.

"Well ... " Grandfather Richardson said slowly, "perhaps you already have. You could not do better. 'Hold her, and do not let her go. She will do you good, and not evil, all your days.'"

"Mother, Grandfather thinks Jeremy's already picked out a wife," Benny said. "I wonder who it is?"

Benny's mother blushed red. "Why, Darling, it's hard to say," she replied. "Mr. Carlisle doesn't confide everything to me."

"How could he meet anybody when he's in prison?" Benny persisted.

"These things happen, Darling," his mother said. "Some very odd things can happen when a person is in prison. Very unexpected, wonderful things."

# Chapter Thirteen – In a Fortress

Benny trudged to school in the snow one morning, holding his lunch bucket close. His mother had put a hot apple pie in it, and the warmth felt good. Benny hurried to get out of the cold, but he paused when he saw a man coming toward him with no coat on. He kept turning left and right as if he couldn't decide which way to go. He came closer and Benny tried to dodge as the man seemed to lunge right at him.

They both fell in a snowbank. Benny jumped right up again. The man just lay there. People had frozen to death with more clothes on than this man had. Benny turned to go to someone's house for help.

"Hello, Ben!" Called Sheriff Tanner. "Don't worry about this fellow." He hauled the man up out of the snowbank. "I'll take care of him. Been lookin' for him, anyway. Smashed a window in the hardware store and stole some stuff. Well, Hank Sutter, this time you get to come stay in a nice, warm cell. Look at you. Don't even know it's below zero."

Benny hurried on. Mr. Sutter -- Caleb's father. He wondered what Caleb would do when he found out. Probably beat somebody up. As if it were somebody else's fault that his father was a drunk. Of course, it wasn't Caleb's fault, either. But that didn't make his punches hurt any less.

Benny didn't have much time to thaw out in front of the big black stove in the schoolroom before Mr. Prentice was ready to call roll. Caleb came in late. Benny wondered if he knew his father had been arrested yet. Mr. Prentice told Caleb he had to stand up until recess for being tardy.

Caleb looked kind of sick. He stood up for a time, but in the middle of Arithmetic he said, "Mr. Prentice, I don't feel good."

"You will stand until recess, Caleb. Please don't interrupt again." Mr. Prentice turned to write something on the blackboard and Caleb crashed down between the desks and lay still.

The girls screamed. Mr. Prentice turned around. It took him a moment to realize what had happened. He took a step toward Caleb but stopped, as if he didn't know what to do if he reached him.

"I could go for the Doc," Jason Owens suggested.

"Yes ... yes, perhaps you should." Jason grabbed his things and flew out without stopping to put them on. Mr. Prentice knelt beside Caleb and put a hand on his chest.

"Finish your exercise quietly at your seats, children," Mr. Prentice ordered. He sat at his desk. Benny wished he had volunteered to go for the doctor himself. Nobody even looked at the books sitting open on their desks. They just looked at Caleb. Dr. Shepherd, a thin, frail man, finally came. He looked Caleb over.

"Seems like he just fainted." He waved something under Caleb's nose and he snorted and waved his hands. Everybody laughed, mostly because they had been still for so long.

"What happened, boy?" Dr. Shepherd asked. "Miss your breakfast?"

"Never have no breakfast," Caleb said. He tried to get up.

"Somebody give the boy something to eat and a drink of water," the doctor. Benny ran for his lunch bucket and Minnie Wilson got the dipper from the barrel in the back of the classroom.

"Sit up careful, boy," the doctor admonished. Caleb ate Benny's pie quicker than Jason could have. "What brought this on?"

"Well, I made him stand because he was tardy," Mr. Prentice said, clearing his throat. "He told me he didn't feel well, but I--"

"My ma," Caleb said suddenly, not very loudly. "My ma and my sister ... They're dead."

Dr. Shepherd's eyes widened. "Can't you take these children somewhere?" he said to Mr. Prentice.

"Class, get your coats on," Mr. Prentice said. "We'll have an early recess." In the confusion of putting coats and boots on, Benny managed to overhear that Caleb had awakened that morning to find the wood stove in their house had gone out. His mother and sister had frozen to death.

Outside Benny's toes immediately began to chill. He stamped over to Mr. Prentice, who was trying to look as if he weren't cold while standing as close to the door of the school as he could get.

"Mr. Prentice, Caleb's father got arrested this morning," Benny told him. "What will happen to Caleb?"

"I don't know, Benjamin. I suppose he'll be taken to the orphanage up in Jefferson City." The sheriff arrived at that moment.

"Where's the Sutter boy, Mr. Prentice?" he asked.

"Inside, with Dr. Shepherd," Mr. Prentice answered. "Sheriff, he just told us his mother and sister –"

"Yeah, I found them when I went over with the news about Hank," the sheriff nodded. "I guess I need to get him took care of."

"Won't you let his father out of jail since his boy has no one to take care of him?" Benny asked.

"Caleb doesn't need the kind of care his father gives him," Mr. Prentice sniffed. "He's had enough of that already. He'll get very good treatment at the orphanage." The sheriff cast a glance that seemed to Benny like he couldn't believe what Mr. Prentice had just said, but he shrugged and went inside the schoolhouse.

"Don't you think he needs a home and a good family?" Benny persisted.

"Well, yes, that would be a good thing ..." Mr. Prentice's voice trailed off. The doctor and the sheriff came out with Caleb. Caleb was screaming and crying, fighting the sheriff, who was hardly any bigger than he was.

"No! I don't wanna go! I want my pa! He's gotta be home by now! Lemme go! I wanna go home!" He kept it up until they were too far away to hear.

"Children..." Mr. Prentice had to clear his throat several times before he could say anything else. "Let's make this a holiday. All of you can go home. Just be sure you're prompt tomorrow morning." He hurried off after the departing trio without another look at his students.

Benny knew no one would expect him to come home this early. Jason grumbled as they walked toward the edge of town.

"Trust old Prenty-poo to dump us out on a day like this," he exclaimed. "We'll freeze ta death walkin' home."

Benny told Jason what Caleb had said.

"What'd he come to school for?" Jason asked. "I sure wouldn't've."

"Maybe he didn't know what else to do."

"I'd've gone for the sheriff, or told a neighbor, or--or something..." Jason exclaimed. "I bet it happened 'cause his pa got drunk and didn't come home."

Benny wondered if Jason was right about them freezing to death going home. He looked up and saw his Uncle Tom driving up behind them in his wagon.

"Ben, what are you doing out of school?" Uncle Tom demanded. Benny told him what had happened. Uncle Tom was furious.

"Prentice just dismissed all of you in this cold?" he shouted. "What was he thinking about? It's a good thing I had to stay in town after I dropped you off. I got shingles to patch the stable roof and got to talking to Lou Green. All right, climb in. I'm going to play school bus, because none of these children should be out walking in this weather."

"Do you really think they'll send Caleb to an orphanage?" Benny asked his uncle as they started for home after dropping everyone off.

"Where else would he go? Who'd take him?" Uncle Tom sighed. "That boy was born in trouble. You know Billy Smith's dad is the magistrate. Lem told me Doc Shepherd's keeping the boy at his house until they can figure out what to do with him. There's legal folderal got to be followed. It was better back when we was a territory. We just took care of stuff. Now everything's got letters to be sent and paperwork to be done. Bah. And that boy's just hangin' fire meanwhile."

"But is Mr. Sutter--?" Benny started to ask.

"Hank Sutter died in the jail right after he was brought in. Never even woke up again. I've seen men drink themselves and their whole families to death before. They can't forget about their sin. They just make it worse."

"He never had a chance to believe in the Lord," Benny murmured.

"Oh, I expect he's had chances and didn't want to listen. How many times did you tell your Jeremy?"

"I wish there was some way Caleb wouldn't have to go to the orphanage," Benny said. "I could write to Mr. Connors. He's a lawyer. He might know."

"Ben, it's simple. Some good family would have to agree to take him in. Frankly, I can't see that happening."

"Mother would take him," Benny ventured. "You'd let him stay with us, wouldn't you, Uncle Tom?"

"Now wait just a minute!" Uncle Tom said. They had just pulled into their farmyard and Uncle Tom stood straight up in his seat. "Your ma's got enough to do to raise you all by herself. She doesn't need a boy like that added on."

"Somebody's got to help Caleb and I'm going to ask her!" Benny jumped up too and ran into the farmhouse. Benny's mother was just coming out of the storeroom with a pot of potatoes.

"Mother! Mother!" Benny cried. "Caleb Sutter's going to get sent to the orphanage because his folks are dead. Uncle Tom said he wouldn't have to go if some would take him. Couldn't we?"

"Here, let me take that, Abigail," Uncle Tom offered, reaching for the pot of potatoes. "I told Ben it was a crazy idea. You're not strong enough to --"

"Thank you, Mr. Laughlin, but I can manage." Benny's mother pulled the pot away. "Not strong enough, am I? I guess I'm as strong as I need to be. But ... Benny ... I don't know ... "

"It'd be foolish to try," Uncle Tom persisted, still trying to grab the pot. "You'll break your heart over that boy and he'll probably end up just like his father."

"You don't seem to have much faith in the Lord, Tom," Benny's mother snapped. "The Scriptures tell us to care for orphans. Perhaps he wants us to care for this boy."

"Now, Abigail, I won't let you do it!" Uncle Tom shouted. Benny's mother's eyes got very big.

"You may be my older brother, Thomas Laughlin, and you may own this farm, but you cannot tell me what to do!" she snapped. She shoved the potato pot into Uncle Tom's hands. "I have money saved from my sewing and my eggs," she said sharply. "If you won't allow the boy to live here, I'll rent a room for us in town."

Uncle Tom set the pot down and caught Benny's mother's hands in his own.

"Abigail, my dear sister," he said gently, "just simmer down. All right. All right. If you're determined to get that boy of course we'll make room for him. But listen to me first. The magistrate said it'll take some time to do things the legal way. Why don't you think about this for a few days? You don't know what you're getting into with that Sutter boy."

"I don't need to think about it," Benny's mother said. "My son has told me that this boy is his schoolmate, and he needs a home desperately. That's enough for me. May I drive the wagon in to town to see what I can do?"

Uncle Tom threw up his hands and said, "Go right ahead."

"May I come, too, Mother?"

"Of course, Darling."

*****

Shivering and hiding his face from the wind on the way back to town, Benny wondered if he'd done something incredibly stupid. How could he possibly live with Caleb Sutter? God would have to work a gigantic miracle.

"Oh, yes'm, Mrs. Richardson," nodded the clerk at the magistrate's office when they came up. They had gone to Doctor Shepherd's house and found no one at home. The sheriff's office was empty too. "Caleb Sutter's here, all right."

"Good. I'd like to take custody of him ... adopt him ... whatever I need to do to be able to take him home with me."

"Well, now, I wouldn't've thought that particular boy'd be so popular. Go right through that door. Judge is about to start a hearing."

Benny followed his mother into the small courtroom. The judge was already seated. Benny saw Caleb slumped between the sheriff and Doctor Shepherd on a bench against the wall.

"Well, well, who have we here?" the magistrate asked. "Mrs. Richardson. May I ask the reason for your attending this hearing?"

"I'd -- I'd like to adopt Caleb Sutter, your honor," Benny's mother said nervously. Benny saw Caleb jump. Apparently he hadn't even noticed they had come in.

"Dear me," the judge said. "Usually in a case like this I can't find a soul to take an interest in adopting an orphaned boy. Now this is unusual." The judge studied Benny and his mother. "You are a widow, are you not, Mrs. Richardson?"

"Yes, your honor," Benny's mother nodded.

"And you do not own your own property, as I understand it. You are ... living with your brother Tom Laughlin, are you not?"

"Sir, my brother is willing to make room," Benny's mother insisted. "The boy is a schoolmate of my son's. I'm sure we would manage."

"Your willingness is commendable, Mrs. Richardson. And I don't doubt that a lady of your character could do most anything you decided was right. But I reckon Mr. and Mrs. Prentice are probably in better shape to take him. No children, plenty of room ... "

"Mr. Prentice?" Benny gasped. The schoolteacher and his wife had been sitting in front of them the whole time and Benny hadn't known it. Mr. Prentice turned around gave him an embarrassed smile.

"I thought a great deal about what you said, Benjamin," Mr. Prentice told him. "My wife and I aren't able to have children of our own. You were quite right about Caleb needing a home. We'd like to try to give him one."

"So, I thank you, Mrs. Richardson, very much," the judge said, "but I believe I will award custody of Caleb Sutter to Mr. and Mrs. Prentice, if you don't object."

"Thank you, your honor," Benny's mother said weakly. "Why don't you say hello to Caleb, darling, and then we'll go."

Benny didn't really want to say anything to Caleb. But he took a few steps toward him. The sheriff and Doctor Shepherd were talking to the judge, and Mr. and Mrs. Prentice turned to speak to Benny's mother.

"I'm glad you don't have to go to the orphanage, Caleb," Benny said awkwardly. "I'm -- I'm real sorry about your family."

Caleb stared at him as if they had just met. "Why was your ma gonna adopt me?" he asked. "Don't she know I -- "

"No, she doesn't. Nobody knows around here except Doc Daniel and he promised he'd never tell."

"You didn't even tell your mother? What is it with you, Richardson? You wanted to live with me after I beat the -- " he broke off.

"No, I didn't really want to live with you. But I wanted to show you that God loves you. You need to believe in Jesus, Caleb. I was hoping if you lived with us, you'd become a Christian."

Caleb curled his lip. "You just felt sorry for me," he growled. "I ain't your personal case, Richardson. I don't need you, or your ma, or your God." He glanced over at the Prentices. "I wish I didn't need them, either. But maybe this'll work out for some plans I got. It's lucky we didn't get stuck with each other. I don't think you'd've survived it."

Benny and his mother headed back toward home. "I'm glad God had other plans for Caleb, Mother," Benny said. "It would have been kind of hard living with him." Benny wondered how much his mother really knew about the town bully.

"Yes, Darling, I have to admit I'm glad too," his mother replied. "I felt sorry for him I wanted to help him. I'm afraid I just got angry when your Uncle Tom told me he wouldn't let me do it. That wasn't a very good reason for doing something -- trying to prove someone wrong -- was it?"

"But mother, I bet Jeremy would have told you the same thing. He's always saying in his letters that he worries about how hard you work. He cares a lot about you."

Benny's mother let go the horse's reins. Benny grabbed them. His mother pushed a stray wisp of hair back under her bonnet. "Do you really think he does, Darling?" she asked in a funny voice.

"Of course he does. You wouldn't get mad at him if he told you not to take in Caleb, would you? He's our friend."

"He's a very good and wise friend, Benny," his mother said, so softly he could hardly hear her. "A very good, very dear friend."

*****

"Life's gettin' downright dull 'round here," Jason Owens complained as he and Benny walked to school one morning in the early spring. "Ma ain't had a baby for months, Prentice is killin' us with homework, and Caleb ain't even chasin' us no more." Jason sighed as if life just weren't worth living anymore. Benny had given up trying figure Jason out. He was glad Caleb had gone to live with the Prentices. Caleb had changed completely. His clothes were always clean and neat, he never missed school – he came early with Mr. Prentice to build the fire and stayed late to clean. He never got whipped in school or had to stand. Not even Benny could claim that.

"Geography time, class," Mr. Prentice called out halfway through the morning. "Caleb, please get out the maps."

Caleb jumped up and brought the big, rolled-up maps from the storage closet. To Benny's surprise, Caleb began to teach the lesson. He handled the maps like an experienced lecturer. All the children stared at him in disbelief. He obviously knew what was talking about. He described the rivers Benny had traveled himself as he had crossed Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky with Jeremy. Benny knew that Caleb had been born in Osage. He had hardly left town. How did he know so much? And he made it interesting, too. He knew everything about the lay of the land, the weather, where people lived and where nobody could live.

"Caleb, how'd you get to know so much about Geography?" Jason demanded, going straight up to the older boy at recess. Caleb always sat on the school steps at recess. He never hung around the edge of the woods with the other older boys anymore. He never talked to anyone but Mr. Prentice.

"Like you care," Caleb growled. Then he glanced up anxiously to see where Mr. Prentice was. He was standing some distance away and hadn't heard, but he was watching Caleb closely. Caleb sat up straighter.

"I can remember everything I read about maps," Caleb answered reluctantly. "He –" he nodded his head in Mr. Prentice's direction " – he has all kinds of books. I read 'em all the time. I wanta go places an' see things. He says if I do real good maybe I can go to school to be a Cartographer or a surveyor."

"What's that, a geography teacher?" Jason asked.

"A map-maker," Benny said, poking him in the ribs.

"Sounds like a lot of work," muttered Jason as he turned to leave.

"I just know about what's in the books," Caleb said, actually seeming excited something for the first time in his life. "I want to go there. Not east – lots of people done – I mean did – that already. I want to make maps of the West – go everywhere – see everything. There are only a couple of books about it. Hardly any maps. I could make the maps."

"I guess things are a lot better for you now, even though your family died," Benny said.

Caleb took one glance across the playground. Then quick as a snake he grabbed Benny by the collar. "My father's right over there," he hissed, jerking his head in the direction of Mr. Prentice. "He's my chance to get outta this stinkin' town an' do what I want. I got maybe one, two years – As long as I'm a good boy, a respectable, hard-workin' schoolmaster's boy, I'll get someplace. But if somebody starts bringin' up stories about the town drunk's boy, that somebody's gonna get his head split."

"You let go of Ben!" Jason Owens had seen what was happening and had run to Benny's side. Caleb released Benny and stood up.

"Just stay clear of me, Richardson," he said. "You an' me, we're just too different."

"You come after Benny and I'll paste you!" Jason snapped.

"I'm shakin'," Caleb said with a sneer. "Mind what I said, Richardson. Everybody says God's lookin' out for that sweet little Benny and his sweet little mama. You better hope He keeps on."

Caleb went back into the schoolhouse. Benny wasn't sure he had the strength to stand up. All the old terror of Caleb washed back over him, and the extra realization that he had obviously rejected the Lord didn't make Benny feel any better.

"I knew he hadn't changed," Jason grunted. "It's all an act. You watch. Watch your back, I mean, Ben."

Benny shrugged. "I just wish he wouldn't turn away from God. He sounds so much like Jeremy used to be before he got saved."

"I can't imagine Jeremy doing anything like that," Jason said.

"He's doing exactly the same thing," Benny mused. "Playing a part, acting to get what he wants. I remember how scared I was when I realized what Jeremy really was – when he stuck that knife up against my throat. You look into a person's eyes, and you see cold, empty hate. You feel like even God couldn't keep him from doing what he wanted, because God's just not in there."

"Hey, God's insida you, an' He's all around you. You're lookin' at Caleb from the biggest fort in the world, with the biggest, toughest sharpshooters up on the walls, an' bodyguards standin' all around you, close as this!" Jason pushed himself tight up against Benny's back and assumed the pose of a fierce fighter. "Closer! The Bible says don't be afraid. Besides, you got me, too. I'll keep a watch on Caleb for you. Me an' God both, so you just quit worryin'."

Caleb continued to shine in school. He studied all the time, bringing books out to recess, sketching maps on the steps of the school. He hung around the records office and studied official maps of the territories. Benny heard that he had even pointed out some mistakes to the clerks, and that they had checked into it and found he was correct.

He would often see Caleb hunched over a piece of paper, studying the lay of the land around Osage, mapping it from every angle. He would go up into the hills and map the layout of the town. If surveyors ever came through Caleb would be stuck to them like a burr. Benny admired his determination, but he stayed out of his way. He also practiced harder than ever to keep up his skills with the knife Jeremy had given him. Benny tried not to connect the two.

*****

Benny got a letter from Dan Connors telling him about a special occasion. Jeremy had been asked to preach his first sermon in the prison chapel.

"I have never seen our Jeremy so unsure of himself," Dan Connors wrote. "When I arrived on the morning of his debut I found him alone in the chapel, theology books spread out everywhere, studying his Bible, nervous and distracted.

"'Jeremy, God just wants you to be faithful to preach the Word,' I told him.

"'It's a fearful thing to handle the Word of God,' Jeremy told me. 'I feel I'm just one of them. Why should they listen to me?"

"'They'd be more likely to listen to someone who's not a big saint they think they can never be like,' I told him. 'They know you, Jeremy. You live in front of them every day. They know you love God. You're always telling them about Him.'

"'This is different.' Jeremy had gone back to his books. Soon the place began to fill up with guards and prisoners. I prayed with all my heart as I sat down. Jeremy put aside his books, gripped his Bible, and seemed to turn to stone as the chaplain stood up to begin the service.

"A great many men came to the service. The chaplain's wife sang a solo and the men clapped and stomped their feet before they remembered you weren't supposed to do that in church. They were very quiet when Jeremy got up and opened his Bible on the shaky little podium.

"'Let's pray,' he said. Everyone's head bowed. We waited, but Jeremy didn't start praying. After a minute I peeked. Jeremy was clutching the podium very tightly with both hands, his eyes squeezed shut, and he was shaking. He didn't even seem to be trying to say anything.

"'Oh, Lord, help him to at least be able to pray,' I said to myself. The silence went on longer. Feet began to shuffle. Clothing rustled. A few men coughed. At last I jumped to my feet.

"'Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law,' I said. 'Amen.' Everyone looked up. Jeremy was almost smiling as he looked across the room at me. I grinned at him and sat down. He fiddled with his Bible.

"'I'm taking my text from Psalm 142, verse seven. I like the Psalms,' Jeremy said, finally relaxing a little. 'They give comfort to scared folks like me. The verse says "Bring my soul of prison, that I may praise Thy Name: the righteous shall compass me about; for Thou shalt deal bountifully with me." Here's all I want to say. I was in a prison a time long before I got to this place here. I was in the prison house of sin. God sent someone tell me about His goodness.

"'I didn't listen at first. You'd think only a crazy man would want to stay in prison, but I liked it there. God had to keep stretching out his hand, bending down, reaching out, saying, "Come out, fool! Enter into the joy of thy Lord."

"'I've always hated the sight of blood. Most of you know a cougar attacked me over in Missouri. I got to see a lot of blood then, and worse yet, it was my own. I couldn't get away from it. It was everywhere. It was in my eyes, in my throat – it covered me, it covered the cougar, it covered the ground – Blood.

"'You're all looking away now, trying to think about something else. Don't. Think about blood. Think about the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Lord of Glory, Creator of the Universe. He had blood just like me. And Roman soldiers whipped it out of him. They hammered in nails and let it ooze out. They jammed a spear into His side and it poured out. The Jews howled to see it.

"'What am I talking about all this blood for? Because it's the key to the prison house, fellows. It's your ticket out. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. It's pardon. It's forgiveness. It's exit papers. The prison is sin. Satan's trying to keep you there. He wants company. But Jesus Christ's blood poured out over the whole earth. The sentence fell on Him. He paid the price. Get out of prison. Believe in the blood of Jesus.'

"Jeremy prayed again. He prayed that the men stuck in prison there would understand the real prison they were in and get out. He thanked God for the righteous who had compassed him about and helped God to deal bountifully with him.

"After the service, a lot of the men joked and said they liked the sermon because was one of the shortest they had ever heard. Some were very sober as they left.

"'I only preached half the sermon,' Jeremy chuckled to me when only the Chaplain and I remained. 'I wanted to say a lot more about those righteous compassing me about. That's you and your father, Dan, and Ben Richardson and his mother. You were all part of the fortress God put me in to keep me from going deeper into sin. Ben and your father put me on the path to where I could see the blood of Christ. You've been my rock to cling to in times of great discouragement when I wanted to believe God wasn't there. I want you to know how grateful I am.'

"I said to him, 'Jeremy, I believe you'll make a fine preacher. Just keep speaking the Word of God from your heart. You make me think of David, and how he was a man after God's own heart.'

"'Thank you, Dan,' he said to me, so sweetly humble. 'I remember how it says in the Scriptures that David had men who protected him in battles. He needed thirty of them. I guess two mighty men, one mighty woman and one mighty boy are enough for me for now.'"

*****

It hardly even seemed as if Jeremy was in prison, except that he was still so far away. He was so busy preaching, doctoring and working as a trusty in the prison. When Benny complained about their separation in a letter Jeremy had written back, "Ben, I haven't got time to fret. There's too much to do here."

Doc Daniel took Benny on a trip to visit some of his Indian converts. They rode in a wagon so Doc Daniel could carry supplies for the villages he visited. His horse Neb and Black Switch stayed behind on Uncle Tom's farm. They had just returned from the trip. Benny took Black Switch for a long ride the afternoon after they returned. The stallion seemed to be so comfortable with Benny now. Benny wondered if he even remembered Jeremy.

Uncle Tom had always thought of horses as just work animals. He seemed to hate having to "mollycoddle" the stallion, though he refused to accept the money Benny's mother had tried to give him for the horse's care.

"He's all right, isn't he?" Aunt Caroline asked when Benny came back into the farmyard. She had come over from hanging the laundry with Benny's mother. "Tom was so worried, but I told him that horse would be fine."

"What do you mean, Aunt Caroline?" Benny asked.

"Oh, dear, I'm probably not supposed to tell you," Aunt Caroline said, glancing around to see where her husband was. Benny didn't see him anywhere. After a moment's hesitation, Aunt Caroline continued. "But then, I think you have a right to know. Black Switch went off his feed right after you left. He started losing weight, drooping, even falling down. Your uncle thought at first he was just missing you. But it wasn't that.

"Tom was beside himself. He never really hated that horse, Benny, but he hated being responsible for him. The vet said it was some kind of parasite, and he gave Tom a list of medicines to give, hot wrappings, exercises, and special food.

"Tom did everything exactly as he was told. He was up and down during the night, in and out all day -- wouldn't even let me or your mother help. The horse looked terrible. We were sure he was going to die.

"'What'll I tell the boy?' he'd ask me, pulling what little hair he had out of head, Benny, I swear. You and your mother were just full of Jeremy and how much you thought of him and Tom was sure he'd be disowned if that horse didn't make it. He took to sleeping in the horse's stall, waking up every couple of hours to force-feed him -- the Lord only knows what-all he did for that horse. And pray! He never prayed for rain in a drought like he prayed for that horse to eat."

"Switch looks wonderful," Benny said. "You'd never know he's been sick."

"Tom kept asking me, 'D'you think he'll notice? Isn't his coat a little off? Isn't he kinda bony?' He curried Switch and fed him special oats and treated him like a baby.

"And sugar! You'd never believe Tom would give him sugar, would you? But it was the only way he could get him to eat. A lump of sugar, a handful of oats. A lump of sugar, a little bran mash. That horse is spoiled rotten. But let me tell you, Tom loves him now. He'll never tell you, but he loves that horse. And Switch knows who saved his life, all right."

Benny put the horse up in the pasture as they talked and both of them stood patting Black Switch before Aunt Caroline went back to the clothesline. Uncle Tom walked by and the stallion whinnied sharply and stamped on the ground. Benny watched Uncle Tom turn slowly to look at him. Black Switch tossed his head once, twice, three times. On the fourth, Uncle Tom, guilty as a schoolboy about to get switched, sidled over with his hand in his pocket.

"Ben, why don't you go help your mother and Aunt Caroline hang out those quilts? They're too heavy for women." Benny started to follow Aunt Caroline across the yard, but looked back over his shoulder in time to see Uncle Tom taking a handful of sugar cubes out of his pocket.

"Mother, isn't it hard to believe that Jeremy's been in prison for a year and a half?" Benny asked as he helped pull Aunt Caroline's colorful bedding out of the laundry baskets.

"The time has gone quickly for us, Benny," his mother replied. "I'm sure it hasn't been that way for Mr. Carlisle. He's so anxious to get on with what the Lord wants him to do. And there are still years to go in his sentence."

"He told me he felt like David in the wilderness," Benny said. "Trapped and waiting for something to happen. It's not really that bad, anymore, is it?"

"Mr. Carlisle can never go outside those prison walls, darling," his mother, "except with a leg iron chained to a work crew. Most of the time he sees only the grass in the exercise yard. He only hears the birds on the other side of the walls. He can't walk in the woods, climb the hills, fish in the river.

"He can't go to the store, or come to our house for dinner, or put on a nice suit and go to church. He can't go hunting deer like all the men do in the fall. He can't plant a field like Uncle Tom does in the spring.

"Just because he's a trusty, don't think he doesn't still have to work hard. Sometimes he works so hard – breaking up rocks with a sledge hammer, digging trenches and hauling away the dirt by the barrow load, chopping wood till his hands are blistered and then chopping some more – I imagine some nights he is so weary he can't sleep. And then he hears those keys rattling in the lock of his cell door. He's a prisoner, Benny. You can't really imagine what it's like for him."

"He hasn't said anything to me about that in a long time," Benny said wonderingly. But then he remembered that Jeremy promised he wouldn't, either.

"Mr. Carlisle doesn't complain. He never told me any of those things, either. I worked with your father sometimes as a volunteer at that very prison before you were born. I saw how it was for those men. He's taking what the Lord gives him and trying to be grateful. It's very hard for him sometimes, though." Benny's mother wiped eyes on her apron.

"I never thought you'd get to like Jeremy so much, mother," Benny said. "When we were traveling together I had such a hard time to keep from liking him. I hated the wrong things he did, but he was so friendly, and so funny. He was such a good singer, and so smart. But he was a thief, and a liar, and I kept thinking how sad it would make you if you knew I really liked him, even before he became a Christian. I didn't want to, but I couldn't help it."

"He's an easy person to like, Darling. Especially now that he's a believer. He just fills your heart right up."

"I still wish he didn't have all those scars. He used to be really handsome," Benny sighed. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. "Jeremy showed me a newspaper right after I started to figure out the truth about him. It had the story about the robbery with his picture.

"I tore the picture out of the paper and saved it. At the time I thought maybe I'd have a chance to show it to somebody so he'd get caught. Jeremy doesn't even know I have it. Would you like to see what he looked like, mother?" He started to unfold the yellowed scrap and show it to her.

"Darling, put it away," his mother said quickly, covering it with her hand and shaking her head. "I know what he looks like now, and that isn't going to change."

"Why don't you want to see it?"

"I wouldn't want to be imagining him the way he used to be ... the way we all wish he was. I'd rather not know. The Lord has changed him forever, and I want to be content with what he is. Benny, Mr. Carlisle will have people looking at him and wishing he looked different all his life.

"That is another kind of prison he's in; one he'll never be released from until God gives him a new face in heaven. Don't make that prison any harder for him than it is."

Benny looked at the folded bit of paper. Then suddenly he ripped it into tiny pieces and threw them into the wind. His mother hugged him.

"We must give Mr. Carlisle all our love, Benny," she said. "All the love that God will let us give him."

*****

"Mail call! Mail call!" shouted Tom. He turned away from the small wagon that just driven up to the gate. "Letter from the prison in Philadelphia. Must be for Black Switch, I reckon." He looked over at the horse, who had pricked up his ears. "Naw, you sorry slab of horse flesh, nobody ever writes to you. It says it's for Master Benjamin Richardson."

Benny had already grabbed it out of Uncle Tom's hand as he stood stretching out his arm to read the print. Benny ran out of the yard, jumped the fence, and crossed the field to his favorite spot in the apple orchard. He tore open the letter.

"I have discovered that I am not too busy to miss you and your sweet mother, Ben, after all. I thought about checking into the infirmary with a case of letter deprivation." (Benny was embarrassed that he hadn't written to Jeremy while he had been on his trip.)

"But I would not for the world have spoiled your trip. I hope you haven't forgotten how to muck out the barn, Ben. And I also hope that ill-tempered stallion of mine is not presuming too much upon Uncle Tom's kindness. I know it is a trial for him to be burdened with that useless creature.

"You know that I have been chided for keeping from you the life I live in prison. "'Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ,'" Dan Connors said to me. "You're not letting anybody fulfill the law of Christ." So, since I am sure you will find out about this anyway, I will tell you. But I ask that you keep it as between 'us men,' as I did your beating by Caleb Sutter. Fair is fair.

"I really am writing this letter from the prison infirmary, not as a helper but as a patient. We got in a new prisoner who had killed someone in a knife fight. He himself had been quite badly cut, and the Warden had called me in to assist Dr. Glyniss. The man wasn't properly searched. He was dragged in, blood everywhere, and the guards thought him unconscious and got careless. No sooner had they got him to the door of the infirmary than he seized Dr. Glyniss by the throat and pulled a knife from his clothing.

"For all his great size, the doctor was reduced to a quivering mass of fear. The guards were about to jump on the prisoner, but I told them that I would take him into infirmary and tend him just as I had been asked to do. I persuaded him that I was a prisoner like himself, and that he wouldn't get anywhere with his leg bleeding as it was. People have often told me that I have a persuasive way about me. I do know that I never acted a part with more sincerity than I did when I gained that fellow's confidence. He actually traded me his knife for a scalpel after I had sewn him up. I showed him some of my trick throwing, though I confess I was very rusty.

"You must remember that all this took place while this man held his arm around Dr. Glynniss' neck and threatened to cut his throat. I assure you he had no trouble with soft-heartedness and would have done it. The warden and all the guards were getting very impatient waiting outside the door. I fear I acted my part so well they suspected me of really wanting to help the fellow.

"My story goes on too long. Can you guess what I did? I managed to pin his shoulder to the wall with his own knife. Dr. Glyniss got free of him, but, alas, I suffered for my stupidity in giving him the scalpel. The wound is not bad. Dr. Glyniss says I will not even have a new scar to show for it. My conscience is clear now.

"I can proceed with my real reason for writing. I have some news to communicate to you, but my letter has gotten so long I think I will enjoy a little good-natured torturing and make you wait until I can spring it on you properly. You will find it very surprising, I think, as I did. After this spring nothing will be the same. That is enough of a hint. Give your mother a kiss for me, and be assured that I will savor the very thought it. She is the best of little women, Ben, and you must never fail to appreciate her. You know I am a poor correspondent. I would not have written at all except for the pleasure of making you wonder what my news may be, and of imagining that kiss."

"What do you think his news is, mother?' Benny asked her for the twentieth time as they got up to go to bed. "When do you think we'll find out? What can it be?"

"Darling, I don't know, I'm sure," his mother insisted. "Didn't he give any hints in letter?"

"Oh, I forgot something he asked me to do," Benny exclaimed, and kissed his mother on the cheek.

"Mr. Carlisle asked you to do that?" his mother asked, blushing very red.

"Yes, and he said he would be imagining it ... oh ... What does deprivation mean?"

Benny's mother seemed lost in a fog all of a sudden. "Mother, what does deprivation mean?"

"It means having to do without something you want very much," she said.

"Like letters?" Benny asked.

"Like kisses," his mother said, half to herself.

# Chapter Fourteen– A Race and a Lesson

Benny came out of the barn the next morning after finishing his favorite chore (anyway, it was Jeremy's favorite chore to tease him about), smelling like everything he had ever hated about farm life, when he saw a familiar wagon rumble by the front gate, and a small, familiar figure hop off and vault over the fence into the barnyard. "Jason Owens!" Benny yelled, running to meet his friend.

"Whew!" Jason held his nose and backed away. "I guess I know what you've been doin'!" Then he laughed and tackled Benny. They rolled on the grass and pummeled each other. Benny heard Black Switch neigh, loud and frantic. He looked up to see the stallion vault the pasture fence, cross the road, sail over the barnyard fence as well, and charge straight at them. With a toss of his head he sent Jason flying, and then reared up, hooves slashing the air.

"No Switch! No! It's Jason!" Benny jumped and grabbed Switch's halter. The horse reluctantly came down. He snorted and shook his head as if he didn't believe it. Benny made sure Jason was back on his feet and not hurt, then made a little sign. Switch stretched downward onto one knee and lowered his head.

"Shake hands with Jason, Switch," Benny ordered. Switch stamped and pawed the air. Jason grabbed his leg and then patted Switch's neck.

"He's unbelievable. You are so lucky! Say, it's good to have you back. Ben, can Switch race?" Jason asked excitedly. "There's a cross-country horse race over in Farmington in a week. I bet you he could win."

"Jason, Switch is Jeremy's horse." Benny shook his head. "I'd have to get permission, and I can't do that in a week. Besides, I don't know if Switch would even do it."

"C'mon, Ben. Talk to your ma and your uncle about it. At least see what they say."

"You should really have Jeremy's permission," his mother said uncertainly when he brought up the subject.

"It'd be somethin' if a horse from this farm were to win that race," Uncle Tom said thoughtfully. "I'll bet he could. There's a cash prize of five hundred dollars. Jeremy's going to need money for his trip out west when he gets to go. That'd come in real handy."

"Imagine being able to give Jeremy five hundred dollars," Benny breathed.

"Who would ride him?" Benny's mother looked as if she didn't want to hear the answer.

"There's no one else but me with Jeremy gone," Benny replied.

"Abigail, before you turn white and faint on us, I think the boy should try it. We'll take him over to Farmington today and sign him up. Then we'll go look over the race course."

"My dad's not gonna believe it!" Jason shouted. "Black Switch better win."

*****

He certainly seemed to want to, Benny had to admit. He rode over to Farmington on Switch. His aunt, uncle and mother rode in the wagon. The stallion behaved perfectly. Everyone who saw him complimented Benny on how beautiful he was.

That afternoon they went over the racecourse. Switch would have to jump stone walls and streams, climb small hills and pass through stands of trees to follow the two-mile course.

"Can you do it, boy?" Benny asked. Switch snorted and bobbed his head.

"Just remember, it's for Jeremy. You haven't forgotten Jeremy, have you?"

*****

Benny woke up nervous the day of the race. He and Switch had practiced every day, but they had only had a week to get ready. Benny fretted as he trotted along beside the wagon. He worried about leaving Switch at the tent-stalls provided at the Farmington fairgrounds. The town had set up a lot of carnival games and shows and there was a full day of activities planned, with the race in the late afternoon. What if Switch played his tricks or bit someone? What if he disliked being left alone for the few hours before the race? Benny just wasn't sure he could trust the stallion.

"Lord, I want to win that prize money for Jeremy," Benny prayed. "Let Black Switch want it too."

The day was great fun. Benny and Jason saw and did everything together. They came back to the horse tents to pick up Switch with some leftover rock candy. Switch ate the strings, too, before Benny could stop him.

"That your horse?" the man watching the horse tent asked.

"He belongs to a friend of mine," Benny answered.

"Well, he's the first stallion I've seen without a vice in him," the man said. "Usually they're bad-tempered and full of tricks. I had little children petting him and pulling his tail. He stood there like a lamb and took it all. Hope he's got enough spirit to run."

Benny grinned. "We'll see, Sir," he said.

The other horses were a rough-coated, half-wild lot for the most part. Benny cantered Switch past the milling, starting lot and up to the line. Switch pranced nervously and eyed the competition but waited quietly as the announcer described the course and listed the rules.

Just as he began to read the last rule a horse broke loose and ran off. Benny didn't hear what the announcer said in the commotion. They waited a few minutes but the runaway and his rider never returned.

Black Switch was away as soon as the starting gun cracked. Benny had heard something about pacing a horse in a race, but there was no holding Switch back. He seemed so calm and determined, as if he knew how important it was.

Switch won the race easily. He hardly even seemed tired. People flocked to the finish line, shouting congratulations, patting and praising Black Switch. He stood like a stone, leaving Benny wondering again how he could take the crowds, the noise and the groping hands so well. Benny dismounted as the judge came forward.

"It's a pleasure to see a horse like that run!" he exclaimed. You must be old pros."

"I don't know if he's ever raced before," Benny replied.

"He's so gentle, too. You've trained him well."

"He belongs to a friend of mine, sir. Whatever he knows, it wasn't me that taught him."

"Well, your friend's five hundred dollars richer," the judge chuckled. "We just need the proof of ownership."

Benny strained to hear over all the excited chatter.

"What did you say?"

"We need proof of ownership for the horse," the judge repeated. "Does your friend live nearby? The horse's owner, I mean."

"I – I –" Benny knew that Jeremy had said he had bought Switch from a horse trader and gotten him cheap. He'd never mentioned having any kind of proof or bill of sale. If there had ever been one, Benny supposed it was rotting on the bottom of the Conemaugh River back in Pennsylvania.

"What if he doesn't have one?" Benny asked miserably.

"Just a bill of sale, son," the judge said quizzically. "Or a vet's certificate. He must have something."

Benny felt trapped by the crowd. "I —I'll have to ask him," he stammered.

"We'll hold the prize a day or two," the judge said. "He wouldn't want to lose that five hundred dollars."

Benny vaulted into the saddle and touched Black Switch with his heels. His family and Jason had just made it through the crowd in time to see him gallop off.

Finally Benny cleared the last of the people and ducked into a clump of trees at the edge of the fairgrounds. He threw himself on the ground and sobbed. Black Switch nuzzled him, but he didn't move. He heard the bridle jingle as Switch's head bobbed – one, two, three, four times. Sighing, Benny rolled over and dug in his pocket for sugar. Black Switch had earned it, even if Benny couldn't claim the prize.

"Benny! What's the matter?" His family and Jason came up, gasping.

"We can't prove Jeremy owns Switch," Benny told them. "If we can't prove it, we can't claim the prize."

All of them sank down on the ground beside Benny. Black Switch dropped a sugar cube on the ground and refused to take anymore.

"Poor Switch." Benny's mother reached up to pat the horse. "He must think he's done something very bad."

"He was so good. It was like he knew he was winning for Jeremy," Benny murmured. "Nothing I do to help Jeremy works. I should've known better."

"Jeremy believed in the Lord because of you," Uncle Tom pointed out. "If not for you he'd still be a lying, gambling, drunken thief."

"Oh, he's so much better off," grunted Benny. "Now he's in prison."

*****

Benny continued to brood after they returned home that evening. "We shouldn't even tell Jeremy about it," he grumbled.

"Tell Jeremy about what?" Doc Daniel had arrived, and he entered the front room where Benny's mother sat knitting and Benny lay sprawled on the floor.

"It's good to see you, Dr. Connors," Benny's mother said to him, holding out her hand.

Doc Daniel kissed it. "Ah, I'll enjoy making Jeremy jealous over that. What's my young thundercloud brooding about?"

Benny's mother explained about the race and the lost prize money.

"Next time find out the rules before you play the game," Doc Daniel said unsympathetically. "I take it then that you didn't ask Jeremy for permission?"

"We only found out about the race last week," Uncle Tom said. "It was earlier than it's ever been, and there wasn't time to write Jeremy."

"Mother and Uncle Tom both said I should do it," Benny said.

"Well, perhaps you're right not to mention it to him at all," Doc Daniel said. Jeremy's got such a lot of good friends thinking about his welfare. That's surely worth more than five hundred dollars to him."

"Why is life so hard for Jeremy?" Benny burst out. "Doesn't God love him? He's had too much trouble already."

"Talk like that makes me think you don't know much about God," Doc Daniel observed. And I know that's not true. What's the Word say about why everybody has hard times?"

"It's like gold being refined in the furnace," Benny said reluctantly. "It makes us purer, stronger."

"And what about God's love?"

"Nothing can separate us from it. Not hard times ... not even prison walls."

"You're almost there. Now tell me about troubles."

"The Bible promises that tribulation gives us patience and patience gives us hope." Benny got up off the floor. "How come I always think God's trying to do something for Jeremy when He's really trying to change me?

"Doc Daniel, Jeremy said he had some news for us," Benny said. "Do you know what it might be?"

"I just got back from Indian country," Doc Daniel replied. "Haven't heard from Mr. Carlisle in a goodish long time. I did find a letter from my son asking me to meet him in Jefferson City in a couple of days. Suppose you two come along? If there's news to be had about Jeremy, I'm sure we can get my son to spill it."

# Chapter Fifteen – The Promise of Spring

"I want to know what Jeremy's news is," he kept saying to his mother as they got ready for the trip to Jefferson City.

"Well, Darling, we can only hope that Mr. Connors will be able to tell us," his mother said. "We're leaving as early as we can tomorrow."

"Tomorrow!" Benny cried. "Doc Daniel said he was supposed to meet Dan today!"

"'Let patience have her perfect work in you,' Master Richardson," Doc Daniel laughed as he put a bag into Uncle Tom's farm wagon. Uncle Tom and Aunt Caroline were going with them too. "Dan's letter had been waiting for me awhile when I got home. I just couldn't get turned around that fast. Dan'll wait, and Jeremy's news has kept this long, whatever it is, and it'll wait. Besides, I have an appointment first thing in the morning, and I can't leave until I get back from Doctor Shepherd's in Osage."

"Why are you going to the doctor? Are you sick?" Benny asked.

"No, I'm not sick," chuckled Doc Daniel. "Have you ever in your life known me to be sick? Doctor Shepherd is, though. He's a very sick man. Frankly, I expect him to tell me he's going to retire from practice soon. Should've done it long ago."

"But that will leave Osage without a doctor," Benny's mother said uneasily. There's no one but you in this whole area if he closes his practice."

"That's a stretch indeed to say I'm in this area, Ma'am," Doc Daniel snorted. "But Shepherd can't hang on much longer. I say that as his doctor, and his friend. He never was strong, and he's given these people everything he had to give."

"I'm taking you with me to Shepherd's, Ben," Doc Daniel announced the next morning over breakfast. "Your mother's frettin' about all the work she still has to do to get ready, and you're frettin' about Jeremy, and I'm sure you'll drive her to distraction if you hang around here. Come on."

They set off for the doctor's house. "Look, Ben, there's Caleb Sutter – I mean Caleb Prentice." They had reached the outskirts of town now, and Doc Daniel saw the tall boy sitting on a small stool in front of the dry goods store with a pad of paper, concentrating on a drawing.

"Can that be the town bully? I can't believe it," Doc Daniel exclaimed. "What's happened to him?"

"Since Mr. Prentice the schoolmaster and his wife adopted him he's been a lot different," Benny said. "I heard he'll be going east to school in a few weeks."

"That so? An up and coming young man. Never would have believed it," Doc Daniel smiled. "What do you think, Ben?"

"I hope he goes far," Benny muttered. Far from Osage, and far from me, he added to himself.

"Tell me more," Doc Daniel ordered. "I swear I'd never have known him. He must have changed some."

"Caleb hasn't changed at all," Benny spat. "He's just figured out a way to get what he wants."

"This is the fellow who knocked the stuffing out of you, isn't it?" Doc Daniel inquired mildly.

"And he'd just love to do it again," Benny replied. "Only it doesn't fit into his plans right now. He wants to be a cartographer or a surveyor. He wants to make maps of the west."

"That's an ambitious goal. Think he can really do it?"

"Yes, I'm sure he could," Benny nodded. "That is, if somebody doesn't get him so mad he forgets everything else and kills him."

"Ben, this is really fretting you. What is it between you and Caleb?"

"I don't know, Sir. I know he hates me, but I'm not sure why." Benny thought back to the day that Caleb had confessed his dreams. "Maybe it's because I brought up his past to him when he wants everyone to forget it. He's so afraid of turning out like his father that he wants to erase the memory that anybody like that ever existed."

*****

At Doctor Shepherd's, the gaunt, bent old man ushered them in to his study.

"You know Benjamin Richardson, I think," Doc Daniel said. "I hope you don't mind my bringing him along. Underfoot at home."

"Welcome, Benjamin." Doctor Shepherd lowered himself into a chair. "It just isn't fair, Daniel," he complained good-naturedly. "You must be ten years older than me if you're a day. Can't you share some of that youth and vigor that's bursting out of you?"

"If I could, you'd have it, my friend," Doc Daniel said gently. "Don't you think it's time to rest, Jonas?" Doc Daniel asked.

"Well, that's what I wanted to talk to you about," Dr. Shepherd said. "I wish I had a choice. You're sure you wouldn't consider – "

"I live more than twenty miles away, Jonas," Doc Daniel reminded him. "I can barely get here to fill the pulpit every month or six weeks, I've got so many other things going on. But I wanted to share an idea I had. If I found you a young fellow who wants to be a doctor and has had a little training but needs a little more, would you be willing to take him on as an apprentice?"

"Oh, Daniel, it is the very thing I have prayed for. The very thing. Who is he? When can he start?"

"Not so fast," Doc Daniel protested. "It isn't that simple. First you have to know that right now he's serving a prison sentence for bank robbery."

Dr. Shepherd was quiet for a moment. "Anything else?" he asked.

"He was chewed up by a cougar and he's not pretty to look at," Doc Daniel said.

Dr. Shepherd studied Doc Daniel. "What training has he had?"

"He's helped the doctor in the prison infirmary for about six months. I have a letter here from the doctor I'd like you to read."

"To whom it may concern," Dr. Shepherd read aloud. "I am Gabriel I. Glynniss, Doctor of Surgical Medicine and attending physician to inmates at the Philadelphia State Penitentiary. I have had the honor to meet a young inmate here who has volunteered his help. He shows remarkable promise, and certainly has had study and training somewhere, though he says he was a bank teller. He is not so pleasant to look at, having been attacked by a cougar and bearing the scars of that encounter on his face and upper body. But he has a gigantic heart. He is strong, patient, gentle, and so very quick. He seems to know just what needs to be done. He saved my life when it was imperiled by another prisoner. I can most heartily recommend him to any physician or college willing to complete his training. He will make a fine doctor. He is a fine man."

"Are his skills really that good already?" Dr. Shepherd asked.

"I think you'll find him rough-handed, Jonas," Doc Daniel admitted, "and rather too soft-hearted. But he thinks like a doctor. He studies people. I gave him a little test. I wrote him and described a man of your physical appearance and condition of health and he told me you probably have an aortic aneurysm. Glyniss is a good man. He's taught him well."

"He does seem to show a lot of promise, Daniel," Dr. Shepherd said. He looked at the letter again. "But what is the use of hoping if the man is in prison? Will I be here when he gets out, do you think?"

"I didn't think the Lord would keep you going this long," Doc Daniel said bluntly. "He just keeps on surprising me. You take care now, Jonas."

"What's an aneurysm?" Benny asked as they headed back to Uncle Tom's house.

"A great balloon of blood crushing his heart," Doc Daniel said. "You saw how blue he is. It's strangling him to death, in a manner of speaking. A very long, a very painful time he's had it. And it cannot get better."

"Doc Daniel, I'm sure Jeremy will be excited to hear that Dr. Shepherd thinks he can really be a doctor," Benny said.

"I see you don't value my opinion much," Doc Daniel sniffed. "I knew by the way Jeremy described your symptoms, that time you were hurt, that he'd be a doctor. Him falling down, half-dead himself, but only thinking about helping you."

"But what difference does it make? Jeremy's got eight more years to be in prison. Why didn't you tell Doctor Shepherd that? Why did you get his hopes up?"

"'Hope maketh not ashamed,'" Doc Daniel said. "It's never wrong to hope for miracles, Ben."

*****

Finally they left Osage and set off for Jefferson City. The trip seemed to take forever to Benny but finally Uncle Tom's wagon pulled up in front of the house Dan Connors had rented when he had come to Jefferson City to defend Jeremy.

"Mr. Connors has taken his house again?" Benny's mother asked. "Did Elizabeth come with him, then? Is he staying that long?"

"So many questions," laughed Doc Daniel. "All right, I didn't tell you everything that was in Dan's letter. They have a guest that they brought with them, and Dan and Lizzie wanted to give him some privacy. Too many prying eyes in that hotel."

"Prying eyes?" Benny repeated. "Doc Daniel – You don't mean – "

Benny flung himself off the wagon seat and flew up the stairs. He banged on the front door. A maid opened the door, and Dan Connors was right behind her.

"Why, Ben, hello," he said, looking very surprised. "You're late. We were about to come down to Osage looking for you."

Benny couldn't talk for a minute. He just pushed past Dan Connors and the maid. Dan laughed as he stood in the hall looking wildly around.

"In here," he said, opening the door to the room he had used as a study. Benny tiptoed in. Someone sat with his back to him, bent over the desk. Benny leaped on his back and gripped him in a stranglehold.

"Jeremy! Jeremy! I can't believe it's you!" Benny screamed.

"Whoa! Help!" Jeremy squawked, staggering up. "I should've known you'd hold a grudge, Ben. Just do it quick. Don't make me suffer!"

Then he yanked and ducked and Benny landed on the sofa, laughing. Jeremy wrapped his arms around Benny and squeezed until his bones cracked. "It's so grand to see you," he whispered in Benny's ear.

"Are you free? Are you really free?" Benny demanded. His mother and Doc Daniel followed Dan into the study and Jeremy pushed Benny aside. He shook Doc Daniel's hand like a pump handle.

"It's good to see you, Daniel," he said, beaming.

"Welcome home, Son," Doc Daniel smiled. "The Lord knows this was the hardest secret I ever had to keep."

"Yes, Ben, I'm really free. The governor of Pennsylvania gave me a pardon. That was my news. Dan offered to bring me here so we could surprise you. I guess you were surprised."

Benny hugged Jeremy again. Jeremy took a deep breath. "I missed you so much, my boy," he said in a low voice. "Oh, so much.

"Look at this, Ben," Jeremy picked up a big leather folder from Dan's desk. "This is the way west," he said, pulling some maps out and waving them under Benny's nose. "These are the newest surveys. Done just last fall. Here's my route."

Benny followed Jeremy's finger as he looked at the beautifully drawn map. Suddenly he saw the initials in the corner. C.S.P.

"Where'd you get this map, Jeremy?" he asked.

"Dan picked them up at the courthouse. Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Caleb Sutter made this copy," Benny said. "I've seen his drawings before."

"It's first-rate," Doc Daniel said. "First rate."

"Fancy that," Jeremy said. "You told me his fortunes had changed a bit. This is a beautiful map. Maybe he will amount to something. Anyway, this map will be out of date in no time. They're exploring new territory every day."

"Jeremy, you're free!" Benny screamed. He started jumping and shouting and Jeremy and Doc Daniel and Dan joined in. They carried on like idiots. Only after they had run out of steam did Benny notice that his mother sat quietly in a chair by the door, looking down at her skirt. Jeremy and Doc Daniel and Dan noticed, too, and all of them got quiet and stared at her. She realized it after a moment and blushed.

"You're taking the news very calmly, ma'am," Doc Daniel observed.

"It's quite a surprise," Benny's mother said. "Of course, we all knew it would come, but it seemed so far away. Only think of it. How wonderful that you're free, Mr. Carlisle. Now you'll be on your way out west. And we probably won't see you again."

She gave the kind of choked little laugh that Benny knew meant she wasn't happy at all. Her words echoed in his mind.

We won't see you again. We won't see you again.

"Say, what happened to the celebration?" Uncle Tom asked as he and Aunt Caroline came in with Elizabeth Connors. "This sure was a surprise, Mr. Carlisle. Glad to see you out."

"Thank you, Sir," Jeremy said shyly. He saw that even though Uncle Tom and Caroline were trying hard to join in, they still had trouble finding something to look at besides Jeremy's face.

"Well, Tom, get my men to help you bring your bags in," Dan exclaimed. "You're all staying with us tonight. My wife has been preparing food for three days."

"That she has," smiled Jeremy. Uncle Tom and Aunt Caroline followed Elizabeth Connors out to see to the things in the wagon.

"Can I help?" Jeremy started to hurry out. Dan stopped him at the door.

"We can manage. Come on, Dad. Come on, Ben." He dragged Benny out into the hall. Benny saw Jeremy turn to Benny's mother. She looked very nervous and very pretty. Jeremy looked at her without saying anything, and then finally spoke.

"Men don't always go west by themselves, Ma'am," he said in a low voice. Benny's mother rose out of her seat. "We've – we've never had a chance to talk alone..." Jeremy looked up and saw Benny hanging in the doorway. He flushed. Dan grabbed Benny and pulled him toward the front door. He could just hear words coming faintly from the study.

"Ma'am, I'm ... I'm hoping to attend a wedding soon," Jeremy said.

"Oh, yes!" Benny's mother said, so quickly Benny saw Jeremy take a step back. "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!"

"What wedding, Mother?" Benny asked. Doc Daniel and Dan Connors roared with laughter, grabbed Benny under each arm, and hustled him out the door.

#

The best gift you can give an author is an honest, thoughtful review. Please consider leaving one online. Help us understand what you liked and didn't like about the book and why. Help authors reach more readers and spread your influence and ours. If you liked the book, please recommend it to your spouse, friends, pastors, teachers, cashiers, employers, – anybody and everybody you see each day. If you don't know what to say, remember Proverb 16:3 – Commit thy works unto the Lord and thy thoughts shall be established. Thank you!

# OTHER BOOKS AND PRODUCTS FROM FINDLEY FAMILY VIDEO PUBLICATIONS

All our books (including Historical Fiction, SciFi, contemporary relationships short stories, and an Archaeological Mystery serial) are linked on our blog.

Elk Jerky for the Soul includes posts on current issues, excerpts from our fiction and nonfiction works, Bible teaching, travel and everyday observations, and more. <http://elkjerkyforthesoul.wordpress.com/>

Visit our YouTube Channel <http://www.youtube.com/user/ffvp5657>. Watch Jonah and Ruth as well as "Sojourner," part of the Space Empire Saga, in full 3D animation, book teasers, and upcoming projects related to biblical study and the Conflict of the Ages.

Science, History, Literature, and biblical worldview studies are the focus of our book and video projects.

Historical Fiction

by Michael J. Findley  
The Ephron the Hittite Series (Including boxed set of all titles)  
Ephron Son of Zohar  
Tawananna Daughter of Zohar  
Heth Son of Canaan Son of Ham, Noah  
Shelometh Daughter of Yovov Wife of Ephron  
Zita Son of Ephron and Shelometh

by Mary C. Findley  
Adult Romantic Suspense  
The Baron's Ring (Book 1 in the Men of the Realmlands series)  
The Captain's Blade (Book 2 in the Men of the Realmlands series)  
Send a White Rose  
Chasing the Texas Wind  
Carrie's Hired Hand (novella)

by Mary C. Findley  
Young Adult Historical Adventure  
Hope and the Knight of the Black Lion (plus illustrated version)  
the Benny and the Bank Robber Series  
Benny and the Bank Robber (Plus homeschool editions for student and teacher with review and vocabulary)  
Doctor Dad  
The Oregon Sentinel  
Lines in Pleasant Places

Science Fiction

by Michael J. Findley  
The Empire Saga (all six of the following books in one volume)  
City on a Hill (Novelette)  
Sojourner (Short Story)  
Nehemiah LLC  
Empire One: Humiliation  
Empire Two: Repentance  
Empire Three: Sanctification

by Sophronia Belle Lyon (pen name for Mary C. Findley)  
The Alexander Legacy Steampunk Literary Tribute Series  
Book One: A Dodge, a Twist, and a Tobacconist (including illustrated version)  
Book Two: The Pinocchio Factor  
Book Three: The Most Dangerous Game

Fantasy/Allegory

The Acolyte's Education (Allegorical clockwork novella inspired by Little Red Riding Hood)

His Sign: The Wait Is Over  
His Sign 2: The Ezra Solution

(a Paranormal Urban Fantasy serial)

Contemporary Fiction

Fall On Your Knees (Romantic Suspense Novella)

Relationships Short Stories

by Mary C. Findley  
Fifty Shades of Faithful   
Fifty Shades of Faithful 2: In Living Color

Serial Archaeological Mystery (including boxed set of all titles)  
by Mary C. Findley  
The Great Thirst Part One: Prepared  
The Great Thirst Part Two: Purified  
The Great Thirst Part Three: Pursued  
The Great Thirst Part Four: Persecuted  
The Great Thirst Part Five: Persevering  
The Great Thirst Part Six: Protected  
The Great Thirst Part Seven: Prevailing

Murder Mystery  
Mapped Out Murders

Nonfiction

Write for the King of Glory, 2nd Edition (updated, with tips on indie writing and publishing)  
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: A Readers' and Writers' Guide for Believers  
Biblical Studies (Teacher and student editions plus excerpts in OT and NT Manuscript History)  
Antidisestablishmentarianism (illustrated and plain versions)  
(serial versions, illustrated and plain)  
What Is an Establishment of Religion?  
What Is Secular Humanism?  
What Is Science?  
What Are the Results of the Establishment of Secular Humanism?  
The Conflict of the Ages series (All have teacher and student editions plus one combined teacher edition for 1-3)  
I. The Scientific History of Origins  
II. The Origin of Evil in the World that Was  
III. They Deliberately Forgot: The Flood and the Ice Age  
IV. Ice Age Civilizations  
V. The Ancient World

Disestablish: An Overview from Creation to the Ice Age

Under the Sun: The Truth about History from the Beginning

Christian Books in Multiple Genres. Join Christian Indie Author ~ Readers Group on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/groups/291215317668431/

