If There Be Thorns Read online

  Wonder how it got there? I retraced my crawl with my eyes. That board with the rusty nail--had I driven that in my knee? I crawled over to the board and felt the blood sticky on its end. Daddy called nail holes in skin "punctures," and I guess I had one. "Now it's very important that a puncture bleeds freely," he explained. Mine wasn't bleeding freely.

  I put my finger in the puncture and stirred up the blood so it would run. Freaky people like me could do awful things like that, while sissy people like Momma would look sick. Blood in my wound felt hot and thick, just like that pudding stuff Apple had made and I had squeezed through my fingers because it not only made him more mine, but it felt good too.

  Maybe I wasn't so freaky after all, for all of a sudden I was beginning to feel real pain. Mean pain.

  "BART!" bellowed Daddy from the back veranda. "You get in this house instantly! Unless you want a spanking!"

  When they were in the dining room they couldn't see me sneak in the family room sliding door, and that's just what I did. In the bathroom I washed my hands, put on my PJs to hide my bad knee and, quiet and meek, joined my family at the table.

  "Well, it's about time," said Momma, who looked pretty.

  "Bart, why do you insist on causing trouble every time we sit down to eat?" asked Daddy. I hung my head, not feeling sorry, just not feeling well. Knee was really throbbing with pain, and what John Amos said about God punishing those who disobeyed must be right. I was being judged, and a knee puncture was my own hellfire.

  Next day I was back in the garden, hiding in one of my special places. All day I sat there and enjoyed my pain, which meant I was normal, not a freak. I was being punished like all other sinners who'd always felt pain. Wanted to miss dinner. Had to go and see Apple. Couldn't remember if I'd been over there or not. Drank a little water from the fishpond. Lap, lap, lap, like a cat.

  Momma had been packing all day, smiling even early this morning when she put my clothes in a suitcase first. "Bart, try to be a good boy today for a change. Come to your meals on time and then Daddy won't have to spank you before bedtime. He doesn't like punishing you, but he does have to have a way to discipline you. And do try to eat more. You won't enjoy Disneyland if you feel sick."

  Sunset changed the blue sky to pretty colors. Jory ran outdoors to watch the colors he said were like music. Jory could also "feel" colors; they made him glad, sad, lonely and "mystical." Momma was another one who could "feel" colors. Now that I was getting the knack of feeling pain, maybe soon I'd learn to feel colors too.

  Real night started coming. Darkness could bring out the ghosts. Emma tinkled her little crystal bell to call me in to dinner. Wanted so badly to go, but couldn't do it.

  Something rotting was in the hollow tree behind me. I turned and crawled out of my cave and peeked into the dark hole in the tree. Rotten eggs inside! Phew! I put my hand in slowly, feeling around for what I couldn't see. Something stiff and cold and covered with fur! Dead thing had a collar around its neck with points that cut my hand--was that barbed wire? Was that rotten dead thing Clover?

  I sobbed, wild with fear.

  They'd think I did it.

  They were always thinking I did everything that was bad. And I'd loved Clover, I had. Always wanted him to like me more than Jory. Now poor Clover would never live in that wonderful doghouse I'd finish someday.

  Jory came down the main garden path, calling and searching for me. "Come out from where you are, Bart! Don't make waves now that we're all ready to leave."

  Found me a new place he didn't know about and lay flat on my stomach.

  Jory left. Next came my mother. "Bart," she called, "if you don't come inside . . . Please, Bart. I'm sorry I slapped you this morning." I sniffed away my tears of self-pity. I had only accidently dumped a whole box of detergent in the dishwasher thinking I could help. How was I to know one small box could make a whole ocean of suds? Foamy suds that filled the kitchen. This time it was Daddy. "Bart," he called in a normal voice, "come in and eat your dinner. No need to sulk. We know what you did was an accident. You are forgiven. We realize you were trying to help Emma. So come in."

  On and on I sat, feeling guilty for making them suffer more. Panic had been in Momma's voice, as if she really did love me, and how could she when I never did anything right? Wasn't fit for her to love.

  The pain in my knee was much worse. Maybe I had lockjaw. Kids at school had told me all about how it made your jaws lock together so you couldn't eat, making doctors knock out your front teeth so they could put a tube in your mouth and you could suck in soup. Soon the ambulance would come screaming down our street, and, with me inside it, would sound its siren all the way to Daddy's hospital. They'd rush me to the emergency room and a masked surgeon would shout: "Off with his rotten, stinking leg!" They'd hack it off short, and I'd be left with a stump full of poison that would put me in my coffin.

  Then they'd put me in that cemetery in Clairmont, South Carolina. Aunt Carrie would be at my side, and at last she'd have someone small like her to keep her company. But I wouldn't be Cory. I was me, the black sheep of the family--so John Amos had called me once when he was mad about me playing with his "choppers."

  On my back, with my arms crossed over my chest, I lay just like Malcolm Neal Foxworth, staring upward as I waited for winter to come and go and summer to bring Mamma, Daddy, Jory, Cindy and Emma to my grave. Bet they wouldn't bring me pretty flowers. Down in my grave I'd stiffly smile, not letting them know I liked the killer Spanish moss much better than I liked the smelly roses with prickly thorns.

  My family would leave. I'd be trapped in the ground, in the dark, forever and ever. When at last I was in the cold-cold ground, and the snow lay all around, I wouldn't have to pretend to be like Malcolm Neal Foxworth. I pictured Malcolm when he was old. Frail, with thin hair and a limp like John Amos, and only a little better looking than John Amos, who was very ugly.

  Just in the nick of time, I was solving all of Momma's problems and Cindy could live on and on in peace. Now that I was dead.

  Wounds of War

  . Dinnertime came and went. Bedtime was drawing nearer and still Bart didn't show up. We had all searched, but I was the one who kept it up longest. I was the one who knew him best. "Jury," said Mom, "if you don't find him in ten more minutes I'm calling the police."

  "I'll find him," I said, not nearly as confident as I tried to sound. I didn't like what Bart was doing to our parents. They were trying to do the best they could for us. They weren't getting any big kick out of visiting Disneyland for the fourth time. That was Bart's treat, and he was too dumb to understand.

  He was bad too. Dad and Mom should punish him severely, not indulge him like they did. He'd know, at least, that they cared enough to punish him for his wicked ways.

  Yet when I'd mentioned this to them once or twice, both had explained they'd learned in the worst way about parents who were strict and cruel. I'd thought it odd at the time that both of them had come from the same kind of heartless parents, but my teacher often said that likes were attracted to one another more than opposites. All I had to do was look at them to know this was true. Both had the same shade of blonde hair, the same color blue eyes, and the same dark eyebrows and long, black, curling lashes--though Momma used mascara, which made Daddy tease her, for he didn't think she needed any.

  No, they wouldn't punish Bart severely even when he was wicked, for they had found out firsthand what harm it could do.

  Boy did Bart love to talk about wickedness and sin. A new kind of talk, like he'd been reading the Bible and taking from it the kind of ideas that some preachers screamed out behind the pulpits. He could even quote passages from the Bible--something from the Song of Solomon, and a brother's love for his sister whose breasts were like .. .

  Gee, I didn't even like to think about that kind of thing. Made me feel so uneasy, even more uneasy than when Bart spoke of how he hated graves, ole ladies, cemeteries and almost everything else. Hate was an emotion he felt often, poor kid.

&
nbsp; I checked his little cave in the shrubs and saw a bit of cloth torn from his shirt. But he wasn't there now. I picked up a board meant for the top of the doghouse Bart was building, and stared at the rusty, bloody end of the nail.

  Had he hurt himself with this nail, and crawled off somewhere to die? Dying was all he talked about lately, excluding talk of those already dead. He was always crawling around, sniffing the ground like a dog, even relieving himself like a dog. Boy, he was a mixed up little kid.

  "Bart, it's Jory. If you want to stay out all night, I'll let you, and won't tell our parents . . . just make some noise so I can know you're alive."

  Nothing.

  Our yard was big, full of shrubs and trees and blooming bushes Mom and Dad had planted. I circled a camellia bush. Oh, golly--was that Bart's bare foot?

  There he was, half under the hedge, with only his legs stretched out. I'd overlooked him before because this was not his usual place to hide. It was really dark now, the fog making it even more difficult to see.

  Gently I eased him out from the shrubs, wondering why he didn't complain. I stared down at his flushed hot face, his murky eyes staring dully at me. "Don't touch me," he moaned. "Almost dead now . . almost there."

  I picked him up and ran with him in my arms. He was crying, telling me his leg hurt . . . "Jory, I really don't want to die, I don't."

  By the time Dad picked him up and put him in his car, he was unconscious. "I don't believe this," said Dad. "That leg of his is swollen three times larger than it should be. I only pray he doesn't have gas gangrene."

  I knew about gangrene--it could kill people!

  In the hospital Bart was put to bed immediately, and other doctors came to check over his leg. They tried to force Dad to leave the room, since it was professional ethics for doctors not to treat someone in their own family. Too emotionally involved, I guessed.

  "No!" stormed Dad, "he's my son, and I'm staying to see what's done for him!" Mom cried all the time, kneeling and holding onto Bart's slack hand. I was sick inside too, thinking I hadn't done nearly enough to help Bart.

  "Apple, Apple," whimpered Bart whenever his eyes opened. "Gotta have Apple."

  "Chris," said Mom, "can't he have an apple?" "No. He can't eat in his condition."

  What a terrible state he was in. Sweat beaded on his forehead and his small, thin body soaked the sheets. Mom began to really sob. "Take your mother out of this room," ordered Dad. "I don't want her to watch all of this."

  As Mom cried in the waiting room down the hall, I stole back inside Bart's private room and watched Dad shoot penicillin into Bart's arm. I held my breath. "Is he allergic to penicillin?" asked another doctor. "I don't know," said Dad in a calm way. "He's never had a serious infection before. At this point there isn't much else we can do but take a chance. Get everything ready in case he reacts." He turned to see me crouched in the corner, trying to stay out of the way. "Son, go to your mother. There's nothing you can do to help here."

  I couldn't move. For some reason, perhaps guilt for neglecting my brother, I had to stay and see him through. Soon enough Bart was in worse trouble. Dad frowned, signaled a nurse, and two more doctors came. One of them inserted a tube in Bart's nostril. Next something so dreadful happened I couldn't believe my eyes. All over his body, Bart was breaking out in huge, swollen welts. Red as fire, and they itched, too, because his hands kept moving from one patch of fire to another. Then Dad was lifting Bart and putting him on a stretcher so orderlies could wheel him away.

  "Dad!" I cried, "where is that stretcher going? They're not going to take off his leg, are they?"

  "No, son," he said calmly. "Your brother is having a severe allergic reaction. We have to move fast and perform a tracheotomy before his throat tissues become inflamed and cut off his air passage."

  "Chris," called the doctor pushing one side of the stretcher, "it's okay. Tom has cleared an air passage-- no trache necessary."

  A day passed and still Bart was no better. It seemed likely Bart would scratch himself raw and die from another kind of infection. With fascinated horror I stayed very late watching his stubby, swollen fingers work convulsively in useless efforts to relieve the torment of his itching body. His entire body was scarlet. I could tell his condition was serious from Dad's face and from the attitudes of the other professionals all around his bed. Then Bart's hands were bandaged so he couldn't scratch. Next his eyes puffed up so much they looked like two huge, red goose eggs. His lips swelled and protruded three inches beyond normal.

  I couldn't believe all this could happen just on count of an allergic reaction.

  "Oh!" cried out Mom, clinging tightly to Dad, her tired eyes glued on Bart. He'd been sick forever, or so it seemed. Two days passed and still Bart was no better. He'd spent his tenth birthday on a hospital bed, delirious and raving, his fourth trip to Disneyland canceled, our trip back to South Carolina put off for another year.

  "Look," said Dad, pointing with a glow of hope on his tired face. "The hives are diminishing."

  The second hurdle cleared. I thought now Bart would get well fast. Wasn't so. His leg grew ever larger--and soon he proved allergic to every antibiotic they had. "What are we going to do now?" cried Mom with so much anxiety I feared for her health.

  "We're doing everything we can," was all Dad would say.

  "Oh, Lord, why hast thou forsaken me?" mumbled Bart in his delirium. Tears streamed down my face and fell on my shirt like rain.

  "The Lord has not forsaken you," said Dad. He knelt by Bart's bed and prayed, holding fast to his small hand while Mom slept on a cot put in the room for her to use. She didn't know the pills Dad had given her were tranquilizers, not aspirin for her headache. She'd been too upset to even notice the color.

  Dad touched my head. "Go home and sleep, son. There's only so much you can do, and you've done that." Slowly I got up, stiff from sitting for so long, and headed for the door. When I gave Bart one more long last glance, I saw him tossing restlessly as my father fitted himself on the cot behind my mother.

  The next day Mom had to rush to the hospital from ballet class, leaving me to warm up to piano music. "Life goes on, Jory. Forget your brother's problems for awhile, if you can, and join us later on." No sooner was she out of sight than something dawned on me. Apple! Of course! Bart didn't want an apple . . . he wanted his dog. His puppy-pony!

  In ten minutes I was out of my leotards and in a telephone booth calling my father. "How's Bart?" I asked.

  "Not very good. Jory, I don't know how to tell your mother, but the specialist working on Bart wants to amputate his leg before the infection has a chance to weaken him more. I can't let him do that--and yet, we don't want to lose Bart."

  "Don't you let them amputate!" I almost screamed. "You tell Bart--and make him hear--that I'm going home to take care of Apple. Please let Bart keep both his legs." God knows, Bart would feel even more inferior if he lost one.

  "Jory, your brother lies on his bed and refuses to cooperate. He isn't trying to recover. It seems he wants to die. We can't give him any kind of antibiotic and his temperature is steadily rising. But I'm with you. There must be something we can do to bring down that fever."

  For the first time in my life I hitched a ride home. A nice lady let me off at the bottom of the hill and I raced the rest of the way. Once Bart knew Apple was okay he'd get well. He was punishing himself, just the way he beat his fists against the rough bark of a tree when he broke something. I sobbed with the realization my kid brother was more important to me than I'd known before. Nutty little kid who didn't like himself very much. Hiding in his pretend games, telling tall tales so everyone would be impressed. Dad had told me a long time ago, ". . . indulge him in his pretense, Jory." But maybe we'd indulged him too much.

  I gasped when I saw Apple in the barn of the mansion. He was chained to a stake driven into the ground of the floor. A dish of moist dogfood was placed just beyond his reach.

  His thick shaggy fur told the story of his hunger. He was ragged, p
anting, looking at me with huge pleading eyes. Who had done this? He'd clawed the ground in his futile efforts to dig free, and now, still only an overgrown puppy, he lay and panted in the barn, which had been closed and shuttered cruelly.

  "It's all right, boy," I soothed, as I set about getting him fresh water. He lapped it up so thirstily I had to take it away. I knew a little about doctoring. Dogs, like people, had to drink sparingly after a long thirst. Next I set him free and went to his shelf of supplies and took what looked best to me from a long row of cans. Apple was starving in the midst of plenty. I could feel his ribs when I ran my hands over his pitiful shabby coat that had been so beautiful.

  When he'd eaten and had his fill of water, I currycombed his thick mat of hair. Then I sat on the dirt floor and held his huge head on my lap. "Bart's coming home to you, Apple. He'll have two good legs too, I promise. I don't know who did this to you and why, but you can bet I'll find out." What worried me most was the awful suspicion that the very person who loved Apple most might be the very one who'd starved and punished his pet. Bart had such an odd way of reasoning. To his way of thinking, if Apple really suffered when he was gone, Apple would be ten times more grateful to see him.

  Could Bart be that heartlessly cruel?

  Outside the July day was mildly hot. As I approached the great mansion I heard the low voices of two people. That old woman in black and the creepy old butler, both of them seated on a cool patio lush with colorful potted palms, and ferns planted in huge stone urns.

  "John, I feel I should go down again and check on Bart's puppy. He was so happy to see me this morning, I couldn't understand why he was so hungry. Really, do you have to keep him chained up like that? It seems so cruel on a beautiful day like this."