Starfish_ A Novel - James Crowley [41]
Beatrice ignored Barney, glared at Corn Poe, and continued to dance. Barney took another swig and handed it back to Tom. This continued until the bottle was empty, and Barney threw it over into the trees.
They continued to dance, and Corn Poe took to jumping over the fire, which Tom began to mimic successfully. Barney joined in, and on his fourth pass fell short, landing with a thud near the edge of the flames. He was lucky and rolled sideways, burning only some of his hair and the backside of his pants. Lionel thought about the burned leggings as Barney fell over laughing and swatting at the smoking holes in his clothes. As far as Lionel knew, Barney didn’t stand up again until morning. He just sat like a potbellied stove on the edge of the shadows, either watching the dancers or turning to stare at Ulysses.
Corn Poe danced aimlessly and fell over often. He wrestled with Tom Gunn and two of the other children, and then tried to wrestle with Lionel and Beatrice. Beatrice simply threw Corn Poe away, saying, “You’re certainly acting the fool.” Lionel thought that Beatrice might be mad at Corn Poe.
The rest of the children continued to dance, some of them until they fell over from exhaustion, sleeping where they dropped. Corn Poe was a part of this group, and Lionel watched as Beatrice made sure that he didn’t roll into the fire.
When everyone stopped dancing and the drummer stopped drumming, Beatrice drank from the rusty pail, sat down, and stared into the dying fire. Lionel did the same, as did Tom Gunn. Barney took to staring across the fire at Beatrice or the horse, his eyelids, like Lionel’s, growing heavier and heavier.
Lionel watched as Barney’s breathing got louder. His shoulders slumped forward, and he no longer looked like a potbellied stove but more resembled a bear that had somehow drifted off to sleep in a rocking chair. Lionel fell asleep staring at the fire, just after Tom Gunn nodded off, his chin on his chest.
When Lionel woke up he thought that his tongue had grown three times its size and that it no longer fit in his mouth. He was thirsty, his body was stiff from the dancing, and he had leaves and pine needles in his hair. Beatrice kneeled next to him, gently shaking his shoulder, her hand clasped over his mouth.
Lionel sat up and looked around to find everyone lying where he had been when the night ended. Barney had rolled over but continued to snore, and Beatrice rose to move Corn Poe’s foot, which was once again dangerously close to the fading embers of the previous night.
Beatrice motioned Lionel to the creek. He crawled to his feet and stumbled through the trees to the bank, where he dropped to his knees and drank. The water was good and cold, and he drank until he could no longer take the blood rushing to his head.
When Lionel looked up from the water, Beatrice was standing above him with Ulysses’s reins in her hands. She led the horse into the creek and slipped onto his back. Lionel did the same, and they walked the horse downstream. They hadn’t gone a hundred paces when Beatrice stopped the horse.
“You’re not coming with us,” Beatrice said without turning her head.
Lionel looked back, and there was Corn Poe. Like Lionel, with leaves and pine needles in his hair, black soot face paint smeared from sleep.
“I’ll bet I am,” Corn Poe said.
Beatrice pulled up the horse and growled, “No, you’re not. we can’t have ya and you don’t need to get involved in horse thievin’. You said yerself, they’re liable to hang us.”
“You best to let me come, or I’ll scream and wake up the whole damn lot of ’em.”
Beatrice thought about this. “Go ahead, wake ’em. what concern of that is mine?”
“I was just thinkin’ that if you could avoid a confrontation with Barney over that horse that you might. You sure don’t want him up and ready to follow ya wherever we’re going.”
Beatrice didn’t answer, but turned the horse and reached out to pull the boy up behind her. “Ya gonna do what I say?”
“Of course!” Corn Poe said, his face an ear-toear grin.