The Whipping Boy by Speer Morgan

Author:Speer Morgan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

16

TOM’S SURVIVAL INSTINCT told him to tell no one about finding Mr. Dekker, to do nothing, to disappear into the walls. A half-breed, a newcomer to this town, someone who worked for the store and who had gone to Mr. Dekker’s house at night—if he went to the authorities, they’d ask him questions and decide that he was a suspicious character, someone who knew more than he was telling. And in fact he did know more. He knew that Ernest Dekker had usurped his father (surely everyone knew this) and that Ernest was taking apart the store. He knew that Jake strongly supported Ralph Dekker and opposed his son, and that someone named Miller had tried to kill Jake. But for Tom to speak of these things would only make him more suspect. Lying low was the only thing he could do. He could not report the death. Someone else would have to find Ralph Dekker.

Jake would surely come when he heard. He hoped that would be soon.

All day Tuesday, he waited for the shock to run through the building: Ralph Dekker has been found dead! But it didn’t happen, and by the end of the day he was exhausted by the sheer burden of what he knew, and of waiting. He couldn’t tell Hack. He couldn’t even tell Edgar, because if he reported it, the authorities would wonder why Tom hadn’t. He was stuck with the bad news until somebody else uncovered it.

Late Tuesday afternoon, Jim, the carrot-haired man who’d brandished his knife at Tom the previous day, approached him in the shipping room with a lame smile. “It happened just like I fig-gered. They fired me. Done fired about everybody. I don’t give a hoot about this place anyway. I’m moving back to the hills. Decided to clear up my accounts.” He frowned, looking up at Tom with his chin jutted out. “Yessir, I don’t mean for you to take it bad, me jumpin you. It weren’t your fault.” This sounded like an apology for starting the fight, and Tom had the crazy impulse to tell him about Ralph Dekker. Go ahead, something inside him urged, tell him, tell someone, get rid of this secret; but common sense prevailed. He wished Jim good luck and left.

He ate supper at the boarding house that evening but was bad company at the table—he knew that he was—and the bachelors sensed his mood and treated him gingerly. He wondered if perhaps he could confess his secret to Mr. Haskell, who was a very decent man, but he didn’t think it would be wise. One way or another, Mr. Dekker would soon be found. He just had to keep his mouth shut.

Everything had become muddled, confused, dangerous. The mysterious firing of Joel, the clearing out of the merchandise, the fact that he was supposed to go to Enid but probably shouldn’t, since as soon as Jake heard about Mr. Dekker’s death he would surely come to town. He was beginning to feel that he had never left his past.

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