Chapter 2

It was two more days before a deputy knocked on Annie Jamison's door. Caleb was up on the ladder putting the last coat on the back of the house, and didn't see him arrive.

Annie stepped out on the porch and asked, "Can I help you, Deputy?" like she had no idea why he was there.

"Afternoon, Ma'am. I'm looking for a boy by the name of Caleb Jeffers. Seems he's gone missing from his aunt's place down the road. Have you seen any sign of him?"

"Why, Caleb isn't missing, deputy. He's been working for me. He's around back painting my house right now. Who says he's missing?"

"Well, yesterday we got a call from his Aunt sayin' she hadn't seen him since last Friday. He wasn't there when she got up and he hadn't done his chores either. Are you saying he's been here all this time?"

"I'm saying Meg Wilson mistreats that boy pretty badly and he came over and asked if he could stay for a couple of days. He's been working for me ever since. He's a good boy and he hasn't been any trouble."

"Hmm. Well, I guess I'm supposed to bring him in if I find him."

"You can do that, but I promise he'll just take off again as soon as you turn your back."

"Yeah, if he's being treated like you say, I reckon you're right about that, but a report has been filed with the Sheriff's Office and I have to follow up on it. Why don't we go around back and get him now?"

"If you insist, but he's not going to like it. He has no intention of living with his aunt ever again."

"Well, that'll be up to a judge and the Social Services folks, won't it?"

The deputy followed Annie around the house. The ladder was there and the paint bucket was on the ground beside it, but there was no Caleb.

"Maybe he's gone inside," the deputy suggested.

She checked all through the house and the boy was nowhere to be found. Back on the front porch, she shrugged and said, "I guess he must've seen you when you pulled up. No telling where he is now."

"Yeah, well I'll drive up and down the road and see if I can spot him. Thanks for your cooperation, Ma'am."

"You're welcome, Deputy, but I hope you don't find him. He doesn't deserve to be treated like this."

"I'm sure you're right, Ma'am. Good day to ya."

The deputy got in his Ford coupe and headed toward the highway. He didn't seem to be in any big hurry.

Annie walked around to the back of the house wondering where the boy had gone. She stepped up onto the back porch, cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, "CALEB! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?"

"Up here!" came a loud whisper.

She looked up and saw him peeping over the edge of the roof.

"My lord! Caleb Jeffers, you get your butt down here right now before you fall and break your neck!"

"Not yet!" he continued in the loud whisper, "I bet he'll come back and take another look in a few minutes to see if you was hidin' me. Them guys are tricky!"

"OK, now you're just being paranoid."

"I don't know what that is, but I bet you a dollar I'm right!"

She made the bet and lost the dollar. It wasn't five minutes before she saw the black and white coupe drive by and slow way down as it passed in front of the gate. Caleb stayed up on the roof for another half hour as the deputy cruised by three more times. When they finally felt it was safe, he finished painting the back of the house and cleaned up. It was all done but the shutters, and the hardware store hadn't delivered them yet.

Annie cooked dinner while Caleb took his bath. When he padded into the kitchen barefoot in his clean overalls, Annie set a glass of iced tea on the table for him. He sat and drank down about half of it.

"So what should I do now, Miss Jamison? That deputy's sure to come back again."

"Oh yes, he'll be back. What do you think you should do?"

He thought about it but he couldn't come up with an answer. "I don't know. I don't wanna go back to Aunt Meg's but I don't want you to get in trouble with the law, neither. Maybe I should just pack up my things and hitchhike down the highway to another town. As tall as I am, I think I could pass for sixteen, don't you?"

"You might, but that still doesn't solve your problem, Caleb. You've only got an eighth grade education, you're not old enough to sign anything legally, and you've got no real work skills other than general labor. If we don't deal with this thing here and now, it's never going to go away. You'll be looking over your shoulder every place you go. You don't want that, do you?"

She lifted the lid from the pot and tasted the gravy in the chicken and dumplings, added salt and tried it again. "It's done. You hungry?"

"Starved!" He took a deep sniff and smiled, "Sure smells good."

She heaped his plate with a double helping, knowing he'd eat every bite and ask for more. As she took her place across the table from him, she said, "I think I might have a solution, if you and your Aunt Meg can agree to go along with it."

Caleb swallowed a big mouthful and begged, "Tell me, Miss Jamison! I'd do anything to keep from goin' back there!"

"You do chores for your aunt and live here."

He put his fork down and wrinkled up his brow. "Huh? That don't make no sense, Ma'am!"

Annie giggled and said, "We really must work on your grammar, Caleb." Then she got serious. "Look, you say your Aunt Meg doesn't want you around, right?"

"That's right. Sometimes it's like she can't hardly stand to be in the same room with me."

"Well here's what I have in mind. How about I go over and talk to her tomorrow and offer your services to do the basic chores. That's all she wants anyhow, isn't it? In return, she calls the Sheriff's office and tells them they can stop looking for you."

"But I don't want to go back there!"

"I know that! Just listen to me! I'll tell her you'll come over for an hour in the morning to do morning chores, and for an hour in the afternoon to do afternoon chores, but the rest of the time, you'll be living here. Do you think she might go for that?"

Caleb took a few more bites as he thought it over. "Well, she might, but then she might not. Aunt Meg can be awful contrary sometimes. She might say 'no' just outta pure meanness."

"Yes, I thought of that. That's where I figured I might do a little blackmail. If she doesn't agree to our terms, I'll tell her I'm going to go to Social Services and file a complaint against her for willful neglect of a child in her custody. That means they're going to come out and investigate the way she's been mistreating you since you came to live with her. Doesn't she get money every month from the county to help with expenses?"

"Yeah, and she's always complainin' it ain't near enough to make up for havin' to put up with me."

"Well, I'll remind her that if they find her guilty of neglect, they'll take you away and she'll lose that money. They'll begin proceedings to place you in an orphanage and stop her monthly allotment."

Caleb got a big grin on his face and slapped the table twice. "Yeah! That'll hit her where it hurts the most; in her pocketbook! Wow! That's pretty dang smart Miss Jamison! You're such a nice woman, I didn't think you knew how to be that underhanded."

Annie smiled back and said, "I prefer to think of it as innovative."

"Um, I don't know what that is either, but could I have some more chicken an' dumplin's?"

In truth, Annie Jamison was becoming fond of the boy. He wasn't quick, not especially clever, but he had an honest natural charm that brought out her maternal and domestic instincts. It's the same feeling she had for the boy she'd been 'involved' with two years ago when she was fired from her teaching position at the high school.

Oh, there was a huge kerfuffle over it for about six months before it suddenly went away because the person who accused her turned out to be lying through her teeth. By that time, the president of the school board, in her self-righteous indignation, had pushed through a decision to demand Annie's resignation in lieu of prosecution. They were reluctant to prosecute because the boy she was supposed to have taken advantage of kept insisting she never did anything other than help him with his studies. That and the fact that Annie, in spite of her short stature and petite build wasn't a woman to be pushed around. She met every accusation with defiance, a forceful denial and an unyielding determination to stuff it down their throats.

When they finally learned the truth, they couldn't backpedal fast enough, but by then Annie was thoroughly disgusted with the whole pack of them and hired an attorney to sue for lost wages and damages to her reputation. The County Attorney, knowing they'd be crucified in a courtroom and the local newspaper, advised the board to keep their collective mouth shut and offered Annie a very nice settlement to keep her own mouth shut in return. The local newspaper printed a short blurb about all charges against her being dropped because they couldn't be substantiated. The settlement she got from the county is what she'd been comfortably living off of ever since.