This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger Page A

you ever to forget your mother or your father. So I brought you that. Keep it somewhere safe, somewhere the Brickmans will never find it. Your folks were good people. They deserve to be remembered.”
    Emmy held the photograph to her heart. Then she pleaded, “You can’t leave me with them. They’re mean. Please take me with you.”
    “We can’t, Emmy,” I said.
    It was Mose who stepped in. He tapped my shoulder and signed, Why not?
    “She’s six years old,” Albert said. “How do we take care of her?”
    Mose signed, Better off here?
    I hadn’t even considered bringing Emmy along, but now I thought, Why not? It made perfect sense. Leaving Emmy with the Black Witch and her husband was sure to give me nightmares. Could worrying about how to take care of her if we brought her along be any worse?
    “Mose is right,” I said. “We take Emmy.”
    “That’s crazy,” Albert said.
    “This is all crazy,” I shot back.
    “Please, please,” Emmy said and put her arms around Albert’s waist.
    He remained rigid for a moment, then I saw him relax. “All right,” he said and stepped away to eye her pants and shirt. “Looks like you’re already dressed for it.”
    “What’s taking so long?” Brickman called from the hallway.
    We trooped out with Emmy, and Brickman looked as if he was having a heart attack.
    “You’re not taking her,” he said.
    “We are, Clyde.”
    “That’s kidnapping.”
    “Not if she wants to go.”
    “I can’t let you take her. Thelma will have my hide, and yours.”
    “She’ll have to catch us first. Where’s the harmonica?”
    “No.” Brickman crossed his arms and stood blocking the hallway.
    “What do you think the Black Witch will give you the hardest time about?” Albert said. “Us grabbing a child who hates her anyway? Or knowing that you and Miss Stratton share a bed whenever she’s not around?”
    Brickman didn’t give a hoot about Emmy, we all knew that. But his cushy life with Mrs. Brickman? That was something else altogether. Still, he hesitated.
    “And don’t forget the moonshine, Clyde,” Albert said.
    Which was something I didn’t know about but was the final straw for Brickman. He turned on his heels and said, “This way.”
    We followed him back downstairs and into another room. He turned on a desk lamp, and I saw that we were in a study or a library. Shelves of books ran along every wall. The books in the school library were all donated, well used, spines broken, pages falling out. These looked barely touched. Brickman walked to a corner where a big safe stood. He knelt and turned the dial this way, then that, yanked the handle down, and opened the safe door. His body blocked our view of what was inside. He reached in and came up with a gun.
    I knew the Black Witch would have shot us in a heartbeat, and then shot us again. But Mr. Brickman was clearly hesitant.
    “You boys leave now and say nothing about this to anyone.”
    “Or what?”
    I turned, and there was Volz standing in the study doorway.
    “You would really shoot them, Clyde? Then you would have to shoot me, too. Them, you could explain. Me, not so much.”
    Brickman looked panicked, and I knew that wasn’t good. Even a mouse when cornered will fight back. That gun in his hand made him a lot more dangerous than a mouse.
    It was Mose who took care of the situation. On the desk sat a stack of documents held in place by a big round paperweight of some dark, polished stone. Mose grabbed it and threw a perfect pitch. The paperweight caught Brickman on the side of his head, and he crumpled to the floor. Albert jumped and grabbed the gun and trained it on Brickman. Which was unnecessary, because the man didn’t move, didn’t appear to be breathing at all.
    Dead, I thought. Another murder. I glanced at Mose and could see the devastation on his face. Even though we all hated Brickman, the thought of killing him was probably unbearable for Mose’s good heart.
    My brother put a hand to the man’s