Page 99 of The Reformatory

“Yessuh, boss.”

Haddock tilted the test tube and the dust seemed to spark in the sun. The hairs on Haddock’s neck stood tall. Overhead, pine needles hissed and swayed as if an army of squirrels were marching across the treetops. Boone looked up at the racket too. Haddock nearly warned him to watch for flying branches but thought better of spooking him. Still, Boone wrapped his arms around himself as if he were cold. He could feel those angry spirits too.

“Stephens seemed at peace with it?” Haddock said. “What he’s done?”

“Seemed real proud of himself,” Boone said. “He was tellin’ all about it at dinner. Boys was sayin’ where to find haints under their beds and whatnot. He was laughin’ and grinnin’.”

Haddock nodded, more at ease. That was typical of the boys: Give them special privileges and attention and they would betray anyone, much less the dead. Stephens hadn’t seemed at peace in his office, but maybe he’d told Boone the truth about needing to rest. Or…

“You don’t think one of ’em got to him, do you?” Haddock asked Boone. “A haint?” Lucy’s spirit was just a baby, but she knocked picture frames off his dresser and made his bed’s headboard shake. A haint or two might have given Stephens a sleepless night.

From Boone’s blank face, he hadn’t considered it.

“Every action, Boone, has an equal and opposite reaction,” Haddock said. “That’s science. And that’s haints too. They ain’t gonna just sit still for it. They won’t be idle. If I was a haint, I wouldn’t let the new haint catcher sleep another wink.”

Worry crept across Boone’s face. “You right. Nana used to say spirits she crossed bedeviled her sometimes.”

“He might not tell you, so watch him real close. Pay attention to everything.”

“You know I already do that, boss.”

Out of the blue, Haddock thought of Kendall Sweeting. Almost as if the young man he’d been—the one who’d set the fire—had whispered in his ear. If any haint was troubling Stephens, it was Kendall Sweeting.

“Does Stephens have friends yet?” Haddock said.

“He stays close to Redbone—I mean August Montgomery. That’s about the only one.” Of course. Stephens and the bright-skinned one they called Redbone had gone to the Funhouse together on Stephens’s first night. They were blood brothers now.

“That’s the one we’ll use, then,” Haddock said. “They’ll do things for friends they won’t do for themselves. As long as Stephens chases haints like he’s supposed to, hands off Redbone. Otherwise, Redbone pays. And if Stephens tries to cross you or con you… Redbone really pays.”

Haddock could devise a number of punishments for Redbone beyond the Funhouse or more time on his sentence, especially if he used a broomstick. Or he could give Redbone to Cleo, who was happy to do anything to avoid another night with Haddock in the shed. And Cleo was good with a knife. He could rip a hog’s belly from end to end without blinking.

“Only if it comes to that,” Haddock said for clarity. “Don’t jump ahead of me, Boone.”

“Gotcha, boss,” Boone said. He scratched the bridge of his nose, glancing toward the pitted soil without headstones. That was another thing about Boone: nothing that should remain unspoken needed to be said. If Haddock were still a drinking man, he’d rather share a beer with Boone over at Pixie’s than the swamp scum he’d hired as dorm masters for the white campus, Negro or not. Any damn day.

“You’ve done real good with this one, Boone.”

“Yessuh, I pegged him,” Boone bragged. “He’s part bloodhound. Saw that right off.”

Just when you thought you understood Negroes and their place in the world, a special one came along and made you rethink everything you knew. Haddock had seen how scared McCormack and those Juniper Street blowhards looked when they heard reports of Robert Stephens and his union meetings right under their noses. That was power. As Gramps used to say, once you saw a talking dog, you never looked at a dog the same way again.

Robert Junior had a different kind of power. Haddock had felt an odd pull to him right away. He wanted to tell him things. He’d wanted to open his heart to this boy who stood one step closer to God’s mysteries the way Catholics confessed sins to their parish priests. Haddock was mostly Baptist, and Baptists only liked telling other people’s secrets, but Haddock had felt unburdened when he showed the Stephens boy the photo of Kendall Sweeting and the fire. He wanted to show him more—so much more. Because what could Stephens say or do? Even if he had the foolish courage to try to tell, who would believe him?

But someone might. And even if they didn’t, any wild claims from Robert Stephens Jr. might give fuel to those who wanted to shut down his school or run Haddock away from his duty to his boys. Telling Stephens about Lucy had been an indulgence, a moral and rational weakness, like keeping the photos close in his drawer. Grief and shame stirred and tightened beneath Haddock’s breastbone, the way he’d felt when he stared at the photograph of the broomstick his conscience had compelled him to burn.

Boone had his own ugly secrets from the hunts after boys ran, but Haddock didn’t want to air out his new plans at this restless graveyard. He didn’t want to hear his plans with his own ears. He’d told Stephens he could get an early release, and Stephens had sat there with wide, believing eyes despite Haddock spelling out to him how he’d killed Lucy—not all of the words, but enough. Stephens had seemed to know as soon as he’d seen Haddock’s photo with his dead baby sister on the wall, his confession in plain sight.

Haddock had come close to confessing the first time Stephens had set foot in his office with those scrawny arms and knobby knees, pissing in his pants. On Stephens’s next visit, after he did confess, Haddock’s hand had itched with the desire to spread his entire photo collection across the desk and show each one to this boy who saw haints. If Stephens had the wisdom of a grown man, he would have blubbered, Don’t tell me no more. Please don’t tell me. A grown man would have expected to be shot on sight.

How many ghosts would Robert Stephens catch before he would have to die?

27

Robert waited all night for Blue to appear and tell him which haint he could point out for Boone, but Blue never came—unless he was the tree branch scraping against the dormitory window in the wind or the shadow that flew across the ceiling once, but it was probably an owl hunting in the moonlight. When the sky grew lighter and Redbone finally stirred and sat up in his bed, Robert gestured a shrug: Did he come? Redbone shook his head. Blue was right: he’d come up with his first haint too fast, and Boone would expect him to catch one right away. He might go to the Funhouse again if he didn’t catch another one today.

It was Sunday, church day. Could he ask God to help him find a haint who deserved to go in the jar? Was it a sin to ask? The church bell tolled as if to answer him, and Robert could have sworn he felt Mama say, It’ll be all right, Robbie, or his ears only wanted to hear her. Robert looked out for Boone, nervous, but only Crutcher came to snap his ruler against the wall to get them out of bed. After he and the other boys were in button shirts and ties—which hardly dressed up stained pants and scuffed shoes—Crutcher lined them up for the walk to the church.

“Superintendent Haddock believes the house of God belongs to everyone,” Crutcher said, overhearing them as they marched two by two. “Today he’ll preach the Word to you boys himself. That’s the kind of man he is.”