Stepping Stones Read online

  “C’mon, Seth, we’re almost there,” he hollered back, his words filled with excitement. I sighed and tried to keep him in sight.

  We finally emerged from the woods, stepping into the field we shared with Abe McClintock and his two sons. Over the years, plowed-up stones had been piled in the center, forming a rock wall that divided the acreage. The two parcels were roughly equal, with one exception: A gigantic boulder sat right in the middle of ours. The McClintock clan had been ribbing us Neumans about it for generations. Pa aimed to change that.

  Georgie and I walked to the rock. As I said, we had been plowing around it for years, but now that we were going to try digging it up, I decided to take a better look. Most rock in the valley was shale and sandstone. The boulder before me was solid granite, with large black crystals peppered throughout. One side was flattened and appeared to have been smoothed somehow, with shallow, parallel grooves cut into its polished surface. It stood about my height and was even broader at the base. Maybe Pa thought we could roll it or something, but I knew different. It wasn’t going anywhere.

  Nonetheless, we dug.

  Georgie swung the pick and I shoveled, following him around the boulder and digging out the stones and dirt that he loosened. The soil was still damp from the rains and had a rich, dark smell. Every once in a while I could see sparks fly from the pick when Georgie hit a stone. We worked steadily, cutting through the alfalfa stubble and topsoil. Deeper down it got rocky and our progress slowed.

  By eleven, with the sun now high in the sky, we were three feet down all around the boulder. It hadn’t constricted at the base as I’d hoped. If anything, it had grown broader.

  “We’re gettin’ there, huh, Seth?” Georgie asked.

  “We’re getting there,” I answered, feeling a renewed surge of anger at Pa for involving us in another of his hopeless schemes. Leaning on my shovel, I checked our progress. There wasn’t much. By then I had worked up a good sweat, so I stripped off my shirt and long john top. Georgie kept working.

  I sat on the edge of the trench, watching Georgie swing the pick. He moved with an easy rhythm, his arms and back rolling with a smooth, animal-like grace. He had a relaxed grin on his face and was clearly enjoying himself. Georgie was like that. He would get on a job and stick with it till it was done, smiling the whole time.

  “Take a break, Georgie.”

  He shook his head, never missing a stroke. “No, Seth. I want to get done before Pa gets here.”

  “Georgie, we’re never gonna move this rock.”

  He stopped swinging, a confused frown replacing his smile. “But Pa said we were.”

  “Right,” I backtracked, deciding not to get into it. Grabbing my shovel, I dropped back into the trench. “Let’s get to work.”

  We dug. The sun got hotter, the trench got deeper, and the rock got bigger. Pa showed up around noon, a jar of corn liquor in one hand. With stubborn, narrowed eyes, he surveyed the boulder. I could tell from his scowl that it was larger than he’d figured.

  “We tried to dig it up before you got here,” Georgie said from waist-deep in the trench.

  Pa stared at the boulder. “Damn,” he said, taking a pull on his jar.

  “Bigger’n you reckoned, huh?” I said.

  Pa took another pull on his jar.

  “Face it, Pa,” I went on. “It ain’t gonna happen.”

  Pa spit on the ground, and I saw that look come over his face. I had seen it plenty of times before.

  “We’ll get the goddamned thing moved if it’s the last thing we do,” he said.

  “Right, Pa,” said Georgie, nodding in agreement. “We’ll get ’er moved.”

  “Shut up,” Pa snapped. “Gimme that pick.” Shoving Georgie out of the way, he dropped into the trench, acting as if he were the only one in creation who knew how to dig. Scowling, he attacked the rocky soil. At the rate he started off, I figured he’d be good for less than an hour.

  “I’m sorry we didn’t get it done before you got here, Pa,” said Georgie. “We tried real hard.”

  Pa stopped swinging. He glared at Georgie, then resumed digging. I climbed into the trench behind him and shoveled, wondering how things had ever grown so bad between us.

  Actually, I knew, but I didn’t want to think about it. It had started when Ma died. She had been the glue that held our family together. After she’d gone, things just fell apart. Not that things had been great before that—not by a long shot. I used to hear Ma and Pa fighting late at night, long after Georgie and I were supposed to be asleep.

  Mostly they fought about Georgie.

  “It ain’t right, a boy being able to do what he does,” I heard Pa say one night. “If anybody was to find out, it wouldn’t go easy on us. They’d probably burn us out. Maybe worse.”

  “What do you want to do, John?” Ma asked softly. “Turn him in?”

  “No, nothin’ like that,” Pa answered quickly. “But for the life of me, I don’t understand why God saw fit to burden us with an abomination.”

  Ma wasn’t partial to the beliefs some folks held—especially if those beliefs led to somebody getting hurt—and that kind of talk got her riled. Ma and Pa went at it in earnest after that.

  I was eight at the time, but old enough to know they weren’t fighting about Georgie’s being slow. It was because he could make things move.

  Ma said it wasn’t God or Satan that caused it. It was the poison. After the war it seeped into the ground and got carried by the water till it was just about everywhere—not just the big cities, but everywhere—and odd things began to happen. I’ve seen pictures in Grandpa’s books of two-headed babies and the like. Some of the livestock births were even stranger, and there were other things as well. You’d hear rumors every once in a while about happenings that most of our neighbors considered against God and nature. Things like what Georgie could do.

  One day Pa caught Georgie and me playing a game down by the creek. We were winging mud clods at an empty whiskey jug on the opposite bank. Georgie had it floating unsupported a couple feet over the ground. He was making it jump back and forth so no matter where we threw, we almost always scored a hit. We were laughing so hard we didn’t hear Pa approaching.

  Pa came out of the woods and saw what we were doing. He put the belt to both of us, then dragged us crying back to Ma.

  After sending Pa away, Ma sat us down on the hearth. Sitting didn’t feel especially good after the licking Pa had just given us, but we sat anyway. I was mad. Georgie was crying. He didn’t understand what we had done wrong.

  Ma put her arm around him. I remember she didn’t seem angry, just concerned. It was as though she had been expecting it. “I’m going to tell you boys a story,” she said, speaking softly like she always did when she had something important to say. We leaned closer to hear.

  “Georgie, do you know what a monkey is?” she asked.

  “You mean like the picture in Grandpa’s book?” Georgie sniffed, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

  “Right. A monkey’s an animal that lived a long time ago, long before the Change.”

  “Are there any left?” I asked, glad the conversation seemed to have veered from our game on the bank.

  “I don’t know, honey,” Ma answered. “Maybe somewhere. Anyway, monkeys used to live together in groups. Each group was big, like our family and all our neighbors put together. Understand, Georgie?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Good. Now, all the monkeys in the group knew one other, and they all got along fine, like a big family. Then one day some men caught one of the younger monkeys in a trap. They poked and teased him. When they tired of that, they decided to play a trick. They mixed up a big bucket of green dye and dumped it on him. They left him in the trap all day. When the monkey was finally dry, his fur had turned bright green. Then the men let him go, laughing at him as he ran back into the forest to rejoin his group.

  “Can you guess what happened next, Georgie? No? Well, the other monkeys wouldn’t let him come back.
Even his own brothers and sisters wouldn’t accept him. They drove him out.”

  By then Georgie had stopped crying. “Why, Mama?” he asked. “Didn’t they know him?”

  “Oh, they knew him,” Ma said slowly. “It was just that now he looked different. He was different from them, and they didn’t want him anymore.”

  “But why?”

  “Because they were afraid, I guess. He was different from them, and they were afraid. That’s just the way things are. People around here are that way, too.”

  “I don’t like this story, Mama.”

  “You don’t have to like it, honey, as long as you learn something from it. Besides, the story’s not done yet.”

  Ma was mostly speaking to Georgie, but every now and then she would gaze over at me. I’ll never forget her eyes. They were deep, deep blue shot through with tiny flecks of gold. Sometimes, like then, I felt they could see right through me and straight into my heart. Suddenly I realized her story was also meant for me. She knew Georgie wasn’t the only one who was different. Even back then, even before I learned what I could do, she knew.

  “So the young monkey was all alone,” Ma continued. “He lived outside the group and was very, very unhappy. Then one day the rains came. It rained all day and all night. It rained so hard that it washed every bit of green from the monkey’s fur. The next morning he looked normal. His fur was a nice brown color once more. When he returned to his group they were happy to see him and let him come back.”

  Georgie sat quietly, thinking about Ma’s story.

  “Georgie?”

  “Yes, Mama?”

  “Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Georgie, nobody else can make things move like you can,” she said. “You’re the only one. You’re the one who’s different.”

  All at once Georgie understood. He started crying again. “I don’t want to be the green monkey,” he sobbed.

  “Shhh, honey. You don’t have to. Nobody can tell just from looking at you, and we’re going to keep it a secret, okay? You’ll never do it anymore, and we won’t let anyone know, all right? Will you promise?”

  Georgie nodded, tears spilling down his cheeks. “I promise, Mama.”

  Georgie never made anything move again, but sometimes when we were off by ourselves and nobody could see, we played other games. Georgie learned he could wrap himself up in that power of his, wearing it like an invisible skin. When he had it on, it made him as slippery as creek-bottom mud. Nothing could touch him. He could go swimming in his clothes without getting wet, pick up a hot coal and not get burned, things like that.

  We were careful, and we never again got caught. But it was easier for me than Georgie. The things I was learning to do didn’t show . . . not on the outside, anyway.

  Ma took sick three years later. She died not long after that. Toward the end I used to sit with her in the morning before my chores, and again in the evening before going to bed. As I held her hand, I could feel the cancer spreading through her. I tried to understand how it could be a part of her and yet still destroy her. I wanted to understand, hoping I could stop it. I tried. I didn’t know how but I tried, and I kept trying until the pain grew too great and I couldn’t stand it anymore.

  Ma knew what I was doing. I never told her, but like everything else, she knew.

  After Ma died Pa took to drinking. Georgie and I handled the farm chores, and I watched out for Georgie. Pa and I got further apart. We lived together but we weren’t a family . . . not after Ma died.

  I was wrong about Pa. He only lasted twenty minutes before climbing out of the trench and reaching for his jar. By then he was dripping sweat and the skin on the back of his neck had turned an angry pink from the sun.

  Georgie and I had been taking turns shoveling while Pa swung the pick. As soon as Pa quit, Georgie grabbed the pick. I kept shoveling. Pa retired to the shade with his jar and quickly reduced its contents by half.

  While Pa rested, we kept at it. Some fair-sized rocks slowed our progress and we used the beam that Georgie had brought to lever them out. By late afternoon we were down five feet all the way around, and the base of the rock was finally beginning to cut back in. Ten feet of solid granite lay uncovered. From the looks of it, four more still remained in the dirt.

  “What the hell you dog turds doin’?”

  Squinting up, I saw Jake McClintock, the younger of the McClintock boys, gawking over the edge of the trench. He had his back to the sun, blocking it with his huge bulk. He leaned over the trench a bit more, knocking dirt on Georgie. “Sorry about that, swifty,” he laughed, his tone saying otherwise.

  “What’s it look like we’re doing, Jake?” I asked. “And his name isn’t swifty.” Jake and his brother were always teasing Georgie about being slow. I didn’t like Jake much. Fact is, I didn’t like any of the McClintocks.

  “Oh, excuse me,” said Jake with a nasty grin. “And since you ask, it looks to me like you two retards are tryin’ to dig up that boulder.

  Pa wove his way up behind Jake. “Mind your own business,” he ordered. In the backlight I could see spittle spraying from Pa’s lips. I smiled as I saw some of it land on Jake.

  “My old man already thinks you Neumans are loco,” Jake hooted, ignoring Pa’s warning. “Wait’ll he hears about this!”

  “Get off my land,” Pa hissed, stumbling as he bent for a stone to send Jake packing.

  Jake turned and sauntered off, keeping an eye on Pa’s throwing arm as he left, his laughter mocking us as he disappeared into the woods.

  “Snot-nosed McClintock whelp,” Pa called after him, his face flushed with anger.

  By then the sun was low in the sky, and cool gusts from the high plateau were spilling down the valley. I sighed, realizing from Pa’s flinty scowl that we would probably be there all night.

  “Bring that beam over here,” Pa commanded, dropping into the trench. “Time to get this sonofabitch out.”

  Although Georgie and I’d had a tough time levering out some of the smaller rocks we’d encountered, we went ahead and did what Pa ordered, clearing away the loose diggings and getting the beam positioned as best we could. Despite our efforts, anybody could see it was set up wrong. We couldn’t get a fulcrum low enough, and the beam was too short to be a proper lever. It was like trying to move a house with a broom handle. Nonetheless, we tried. It was easier than arguing with Pa.

  At one point, while Pa and I wrestled with the beam, Georgie went around to cut more dirt from the backside of the boulder. Unexpectedly, the boulder shifted. Georgie had undermined the rock enough to let it lurch forward, right on top of him.

  “Georgie!” I screamed. Pa and I rushed to the other side. Georgie was trapped under the boulder. But it wasn’t on him. A space showed between him and the stone.

  Suddenly I realized what had happened. At the last instant Georgie must have put on his “skin,” and it had saved him. “Hang on, Georgie,” I yelled. “We’ll get you out.”

  “I’m okay, Seth. I think I can move it.”

  “What?”

  “I can move it,” he repeated. “Watch me, Seth.”

  Speechless, Pa and I watched as Georgie shoved the boulder to the other side of the pit. But he didn’t exactly shove it. It just . . . moved.

  Georgie climbed from the hole. “I did it,” he said, grinning like a kid. “Did you see me?”

  “We saw you,” I said, staring in amazement.

  Pa remained silent, lost in thought. Then he asked, “Can you move it out of the pit?”

  Georgie frowned. “I don’t know, Pa. I promised Mama I wouldn’t make anything move. I shouldn’t have done it.”

  “The boulder was on top of you,” I pointed out. “You had to.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Listen, Georgie,” Pa interrupted. “I’m your father, and I’m telling you it’s all right. You’ve already done it once. Do it again. Ma wouldn’t mind.”

  Georgie g
lanced at me. I shrugged, thinking he couldn’t do it anyway. Shifting the boulder was one thing; lifting it was another.

  “Okay,” said Georgie. His eyes went vacant, as if he were thinking about something that had happened a long time back. A split second later Pa and I scrambled out of the way as the boulder came floating hole!

  Looking like a huge, prehistoric tooth that had somehow been ripped from the earth, it hovered three feet above the pit, the bottom third covered with dirt, my shirt and long johns still on top where I’d thrown them. Pa danced around the stone, gleefully slapping his thigh. “Over there, Georgie,” he shouted, pointing to the rock wall dividing our field from the McClintocks’ acreage. “Over there!”

  Grinning, Georgie trailed along behind the boulder, dwarfed by the giant rock as it floated toward the center of the field.

  “Set it on top,” Pa ordered. “Right on top, Georgie. Right on top!”

  Recalling Ma’s story, I stood numbly, a premonition of disaster gnawing at my insides as Georgie set the boulder atop the boundary wall. It settled onto the loose stones, thrusting them aside as it descended, shattering the larger rocks below and sending stone fragments flying in all directions. The smell of powdered rock filled my nose as the boulder continued to settle, coming to rest when it had reburied itself a couple of feet in the soft earth.

  “By God, we did it!” Pa roared, thumping Georgie on the back. “We did it! Boys, we’re celebrating tonight. Tonight you’re going to the tavern with me.”

  Georgie was beaming with pride. I’d never seen him happier. “Pa, there’s a problem,” I said, not wanting to ruin the moment but knowing I had to speak. “People will ask how we did it. What are you gonna tell them?”

  “Hell,” Pa snorted, “I’ll tell ’em we just rolled it over there!”

  That night, for the first time since Ma had died, Georgie and I ate dinner at the tavern. Oh, we had been to the Bent Pig often enough to help Pa stumble home, but not as paying customers, and definitely not to eat. Georgie and I sat beneath a kerosene lantern at a table in the back, eating from large bowls filled with pork, potato, and butter-bean stew, one of the Pig’s specialties.