That same morning Tallasy and her mother were at breakfast, each gently scolding the other. Mrs. Tynan was complaining about her daughter traipsing all over the country with that camera of hers instead of marrying and having children as a woman should, and Tallasy was nagging her mother about taking her pills for her heart. Outside the new minister was pacing up and down the lawn barefooted, practicing his sermon with many gesticulations and checking of his notes. Tallasy snapped a couple experimental pictures of him, and watched what had become a morning ritual. The paper boy rode by and tossed the paper into the air; Perry took off at a run, gathered himself, leapt high, caught the paper, and landed in a neat roll on the lawn. The paper boy grinned and saluted.
"That boy should have been a football player," Tallasy said.
"Don't be irreverent," her mother snapped. "Football instead of the church? What an idea."
There was a great commotion as Perry ran into the house hollering, "Hallelujah! It's my sign! I asked for a sign, and He sent it! Look at this! 'Weevils Bigger Than God. Dicky Devil of the British rock group called the Weevils states that he is more important than Jesus Christ'!" He rolled up the newspaper and smacked his hand. "It hurts just to read it. Burn them, I say! We'll build a bonfire and burn the records!"
"Oh, he is good!" Mrs. Tynan murmured.
"Don't you think cremation is a little dramatic?" Tallasy asked.
Tolliver peered out of the bathroom with a speculative look on his shaving-creamed face.
Perry presented his idea to the congregation the next day, and it was met with approval. The moral adults thought it fitting to burn all these blasphemous records. The youth thought it an exciting idea for dull Barrington. The children loved the idea of a bonfire, no matter what was being burnt. And Tolliver Tynan knew he could use the opportunity for his own gain. He talked it over with Percy after church.
"It'll be a great opportunity for us, Perce!"
Percy was still worried about the insurance. "Our underwriters are on my back, Tolliver. They want a premium check now! Cash!"
"You want cash, Percy? This bonfire'll draw hundreds of people. New congregation members. Collection plates overflowing! We're talking cash here!"
"We're talking about eating meals from a tray, Tolliver. Taking showers in groups of a hundred!"
"All right, all right! Stop worrying. I'll make some calls. The Tynan name is still good for something in this town."
The Tynan name, maybe, but Tolliver was beginning to find out that the Tolliver Tynan name wasn't as highly respected. As he made phone calls the next evening, he discovered that no one would lend him money. He'd lost too much already. He flew into a rage and made a lot of threats that were all based on the day that he'd come into his daddy's money. He was still in a rage when he came out of his office and found Sammy fixing a light in the hallway. Sammy was a good person to take it all out on—but aggravating at times, like now, because he'd just look at you with a completely uncomprehending expression. What use was it to verbally abuse a deaf man? Tolliver stormed out to the sanctuary leaving Sammy staring after him, completely comprehending.
"Hey, you can't come in here!" Tolliver's voice rang in the hollow recesses of the sanctuary. "This is private property."
"I wanna see a priest. I gotta confess," the drunk man slurred.
"We don't have priests. Now run along."
"But I've sinned. I gotta confess. I'm Burley Masters from th' Highway Department—'cept they fired me 'cause I's drunk. But I got back at them—shtole the secret plans for the new highway interchange. I stole 'em."
Tolliver started to listen. "Just so happens I screen all confessions. New interchange, huh?"
"Yup. Top shecret. Shaint Morrey's Corner. Two hunert acres, but I'm repenting." He handed the papers to Tolliver. "I c'n trusht you, a man of the church, right? You'll get 'em back?"
Tolliver clapped him on the back. "You can trust me. Let's go talk over some coffee."
Right then and there, seeing that man victimized by Tolliver's greed, Sammy knew he had to do something—find some way to get things straightened out.
He thought about it, wondering what he could do. Meanwhile, plans for the big Weevil Burn continued. Sammy was sitting outside Lucille's Kitchen reading a newspaper when he heard his own name coming from the television in the café.
"Ironically," the newscaster was saying, "the man who has been chosen to light the bonfire is Barrington's own deaf-mute, Sammy Ayers. He may be the only man in the town who has never been exposed to the Weevils' music…"
Lucille threw up her hands. "Well, of all the—did you know they slated Sammy to do that?" she asked Norm.
"Nope, sure didn't."
"That Tolliver Tynan—thinking he can get away with anything. I am sick of the way he treats Sammy—like some trained chimp."
"Well, the chimp who laughs last laughs best," Norm said calmly.
"You know, it's useless trying to talk to you anymore! I just don't like to see Sammy made a fool of, Norm!"
"Don't you worry, Lucille." He looked at Sammy thoughtfully, through the screen door. "Do you ever wonder what's going on in his mind?"
"I imagine it's more than most," Lucille answered fondly. "He notices everything, you know. He sees more than you and I see. He's no fool, no matter how High-and-Mighty Tolliver treats him."
Sammy smiled to himself, gazing intently into the newspaper to make it look like he was smiling at something he read. He'd always found there was a kind of odd power in making people believe what he wanted them to believe about him, in knowing far more than they thought he knew. It was that power he had felt as a small boy in a very powerless situation. But still there were times, as now, that he wished he didn't have to deceive people like Norm and Lucille—and Tallasy. It never occurred to him during all these last years just to speak and undeceive them—silence was second nature to him—but there was still that desire for honesty. Tallasy had said to him one time, "I wonder what it's like to be deaf and mute. Is it like being locked up inside your head? You have all these thoughts—I know you do; I can see them in your eyes—but you can't express them. How can you live without expressing yourself? I'd go mad. I'd pound against the walls of my mind and scream. But you seem perfectly content just to be quiet and keep everything in. Like my daddy." Sammy sometimes wondered what he'd say if he did speak. What would it be like to open his mouth and let words come out? What would it be like to have people listen to him, and speak to him like an equal? But it never occurred to him to speak.
The next day, Sammy helped unload the wood for the bonfire from Archibald Thacker's truck. Thacker and three of his sons, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah had cut and hauled all the wood and roped in Sammy to help unload in front of the church. Perry came out of his office and stared.
"That is a lot of wood!" he exclaimed unnecessarily.
"New padre, huh?" Thacker murmured to Isaac.
"Uh-huh. Still can't get anyone into his baptismal font," Isaac replied.
"Well, be thankful for small blessings," Archibald grinned. "What's he going to do here—burn someone at the stake?"
The sons laughed, and Sammy astonished himself by being unable to contain a chuckle. He covered it with a cough and went on with his work, but he didn't notice Thacker's sharp glance at him.
A couple days later, Sammy had decided what to do about Tolliver. Over the years he had saved all the money he earned and invested it through a lawyer, following Archibald Thacker's lead. He'd made a nice sum of money—not enough to turn anyone's head, but far more than anyone thought he had. Now he and his lawyer were in another lawyer's office, the lawyer of the man who owned the land Tolliver wanted to acquire.
Sammy's lawyer, Pete Heinman, said, "My client has made some modest investments over the years and wants to put in a counter bid to acquire the lease option on this land. He definitely has the financial ability to pay, and," chuckling, "I understand a hearing test isn't required to purchase land."
The other lawyer, John Greer, looked at Sammy, who sat there expressionlessly, watching their faces but showing no response to their words. "Sara, have coffee sent in," he called over the intercom. "My client is curious, you might say. He has never done business with your client, and the land was not put up for sale. Naturally he wants to know why your client suddenly wishes to buy it."
The door opened, and a white-suited figure entered with the coffee tray. Greer met his eyes and sighed. This was just the sort of thing his client would do.
A large, dark hand descended on Sammy's shoulder, and he jumped. Then he looked up into Archibald Thacker's face and jumped for real this time.
"I'd like a moment alone with your client, if I may," Thacker said.
Sammy allowed a bewildered expression on his face as the others got up. He stood up, too, but they motioned for him to stay. He pulled his pad of paper out and offered it to Thacker, who was going around to sit in Greer's seat behind the desk. Thacker ignored the pad.
"I wondered who it might be who put in the second bid. Makes sense that it's you, Sammy Ayers. You musta caught wind of those stolen plans about the same time Tolliver did, right?" He spoke this time not in the rambling, thinking-out-loud way people spoke to Sammy, but as one man speaks to another. Sammy stared at him, not sure what to think, and sat down quietly, offering the pad again. Thacker laughed. "I thought so. I figure you and I are the two biggest frauds in Barrington—me with my lawyer front man and you with your selected senses."
Sammy's eyes grew wide, and his breath caught. He knew! Not only did Thacker know what Tolliver was up to, but he knew Sammy's closely guarded secret!
Thacker laughed at the pure alarm on Sammy's face. "You checked out the property in question and found out Tolliver was about to invest in a bottomless swamp. How could that be? Well, Burley Masters wasn't fired for being drunk on the job. He was fired for drawing the map so far off the engineer's coordinates that it was in the wrong county!"
Sammy was still staring. He'd gotten over the initial shock, but it was still unnerving, being spoken to like this. And how had Thacker found out all this? By being quiet and listening, like Sammy?
"I own that two-hundred-acre mosquito swamp," Thacker chuckled. Oh, Sammy's face was something to behold. No doubt at all that he was hearing this loud and clear. "I was born on it, in fact. When I found out about the second bid on it, I knew somebody was trying to force Tolliver's ante up on his lease option. Ain't justice sweet sometimes?"
Sammy covered his mouth and began to laugh, without sound as usual, realizing that he and Archibald Thacker were an unlikely but well-matched pair. Thacker's eyes twinkled at him.
"Now then, partner, how about if Lawyer Greer calls up Tolliver and tells him it'll take another…" He scrawled a figure across the plans on the desk and held it up for Sammy to see. "…$10,000! I figure there's got to be a lesson for Tolliver in all this!"
Sammy's eyes danced, and he and Thacker shook hands. Then he seized his pad and wrote, "If a man digs a pit…"
Thacker laughed again. "'…he will fall into it. If he rolls a stone, it will roll back on him.' Exactly so, partner. So you're not ready to talk yet? That's fine. Would be kind of hard, I guess, after not speaking for so long."