Page 24 of Preacher's Boy


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"Who would pay good money—?"

"Just listen, Vile. People do it. They take up a collection. All we got to do is write the note. First they collect the money and put it in the secret place we told them to in the note. Next, you and I sneak down and get it and divide it up. Then you and Zeb skedaddle out of the county and I walk down the hill and appear on Main Street, sort of half dazed. I may have amnesia"—the look on her face made me hurry to explain—"can't remember anything about what happened to me, but since I've returned unharmed otherwise, everybody's happy."

"Especially the sheriff who's on Paw's and my tail."

"What sheriff?" I asked, and then was immediately sorry I had. Her look was enough to sizzle a sausage.

"You was talking about—"

"Yeah. My amnesia. See. For weeks I can't remember anything. Then, finally, after you and Zeb is well out of Vermont, little by little I start to recall stuff. But when I do, the kidnappers don't look anything like you two."

"Yeah? And who's going to believe you?"

"Oh, they won't doubt me. I'm the preacher's boy. Besides, I'm the only witness as well as the victim. They'll believe me, all right."

"No."

"No what?"

"Just no. I don't want no part of such a fool plan."

"I'm thinking we should ask for one thousand dollars—two might seem a bit greedy."

Out of the corner of my eye I could see new interest flickering up. "Your paw got tha

t kind of money?"

"Oh, no. He's a preacher. But that's just what will make everyone feel sorry and want to help. The town will raise it, you see. Just like they did in New York when Marion Clark disappeared in the arms of her nurse. The banks, the stores, everybody will pitch in."

"But you ain't some darling little baby—"

"C'mon, Vile, they'd do it for any child in town that got lost." I was arguing with myself as well as Vile. Surely they'd do it for me. Didn't the whole town turn out when the Wilson baby wandered out on Cutter's Pond and the ice was about to break up? They risked their lives, laying a human chain across the ice to her. Course, she was a darling three-year-old with yellow curls, not some rapscallion of a boy. I looked over at Vile. She wasn't watching my face for self-doubts; she was counting the cash in her mind.

"You ask for it in small bills," I went on. "I mean, sure, if you was to show up in Tyler or even Montpelier, throwing hundred-dollar bills around—"

"They got hundred-dollar bills?"

"Sure," I said. Though I'd never actually seen one, I knew for a fact there was such a thing.

"There's some piece of paper that's worth one hundred dollars?"

"It takes ten of them to make a thousand," I said, in case her arithmetic was weak. "But you wouldn't want hundred-dollar bills. They'd look suspicious if you tried to spend one in a store."

She looked disappointed. I think she liked the idea of holding a fistful of hundred-dollar bills.

"And there's no chance we'll get caught?"

"None a-tall. They leave the money whatever place we tell them to. We already warned them that we'll kill the victim if they try to watch for us or call in the sheriff. Like I said, after we divide it, I give you and Zeb—Mr. Finch—a day's start, then I let myself be discovered wandering down Main Street in a daze. A couple of weeks later I dimly recalls these—uh—hoboes with great black beards who took me captive and threatened my life."

She gave a short laugh, picturing herself, I suppose, as a black-bearded hobo. Then she sobered. "Do we have to tell Paw about it?"

"Well, he'll sort of be in on it."

"Yeah, but if he knows about the plan, he'll turn all funny. Especially when he's liquored up. He might even brag."

"We can't have that!"

"No, we can't. So it'll have to be jest between us two, okay, Ed?"

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