Rorey's Secret by Leisha Kelly Page A

just the best that anybody ever been to me.” He looked up, and even in the dim light I could see the turmoil in his silvery eyes. “E’cept you, Mrs. Wortham,” he added, lowering his head again. “I wish sometimes I could help you half as much as you been helpin’ me.”
    “Maybe you don’t see what a help you are to us,” I told him. “You are always a willing worker, something you know I appreciate.”
    He didn’t look up.
    “They’ll find out the truth soon enough,” I tried to encourage him. “They won’t keep blaming you.”
    “I ain’t so sure.”
    I didn’t know how to address that at the moment. So I put my hand on his shoulder. “Do you want to see him?”
    He raised his head with a hopeful expression. “Can I? It wouldn’t cause no problem?”
    “No. No problem. Come on.”
    He limped beside me back toward the house. I was about to ask him how his injuries happened when we heard the truck coming back. Whiskers went to meet it in joyful anticipation of Samuel as usual, but I knew it was Barrett Post, hopefully with ice for Samuel’s head and Bert’s ankle. Barrett pulled up almost beside us and stopped, holding up a burlap bag.
    “Louise wanted to come,” he said. “But I told her you had Delores here already, an’ you had greater need a’ some other kind a’ help for now. She’s cookin’ you up a feast for the midday, Mrs. Wortham, seein’s you’ve got so many here to feed.”
    “Thank you. And thank her.” I took the burlap bag as he was getting out of the truck. But I was thinking of Robert and Richard. I hope they haven’t had trouble finding that doctor. I hope he’s not already been called somewhere else.
    Franky followed me toward the house, though his limp was worse. Mr. Post passed him by easily enough. In the kitchen, I banged the ice down hard against the table and broke off a chunk separate to wrap in a dish towel. Then I hurried the bag into the sitting room. I was glad to find Thelma nursing the baby. I gave the bag to Delores and asked her to hold it against Bert’s ankle as long as he could stand. Then I went straight to Samuel’s side with the towel.
    I knew the back of his head had swollen. Not badly but enough that my touch could tell. Hopefully the ice would help. I squeezed the towel as gently as I could between the pillow and his head, trying not to disturb him but at the same time almost hoping he’d open his eyes at the movement or the cold.
    “Samuel?” Mr. Post called. “You got mornin’ waitin’ for you.”
    Samuel didn’t respond at all. My legs felt like butter, I was suddenly so weak.
    But then I heard a quiet voice in the room, speaking peaceful words of faith.
    “He that dwelleth in the secret place a’ the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge an’ my fortress: my God; in him will I trust . . .”
    At the first instant, I didn’t realize who was speaking. It could almost have been an angel, sent by God to give me strength. But it was Franky, head bowed and shoulders quivering, his hands dangling awkwardly in front of him.
    One tiny trickle of blood oozed from his wounded palm. Somewhere I’d read or I’d heard something from the Bible that now leaped into my mind: “They of my own house have turned up their heel against me . . .”
    I didn’t know what it meant or why I was thinking of it now. I only knew that for a split second the bowed figure before me hadn’t seemed like Franky.
    It made me shake. Turning back to Samuel, I still was shaking.
    But Franky didn’t look up, didn’t stop for a moment his prayerful recitation.
    “He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shal’ thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield an’ buckler. Thou shal’ not be afraid.”
    How foolish for George or anyone else to blame Franky for the fire, whether or not they had some cause to think it. I prayed for all the Hammonds then, and my own children. This situation