Seventh Son Page 0,71

stayed away, he cried cause his papa didn't play with him. But if I stayed with him, then those feelings came back, again and again. Not every day, but many a day, sometimes so fast that I did it afore I even knew what I was doing. Like the day I bumped him into the river, I just took a wrong step and tripped, but I knew even as I took that step that it was a wrong step, and that I'd trip, and that I'd bump him, I knew it, but I didn't have time to stop myself. And someday I know that I won't be able to stop myself, I won't mean to do it, but someday when that boy is under my hand, I'll kill him.'"

Taleswapper could see Miller's arm move, as if to wipe tears away from his cheek.

"Ain't that the strangest thing." Miller asked. "A man having that kind of feeling for his own son."

"Does that fellow have any other sons?"

"A few. Why?"

"I just wondered if he ever felt a desire to kill them."

"Never, not a speck. I asked him that, matter of fact. I asked him, and he said not a speck."

"Well, Mr. Miller, what did you tell him?"

Miller breathed in and out a few times. "I didn't know what to tell him. Some things are just too big for a man like me to understand. I mean, the way that water is out to kill my boy Alvin. And then this Swede fellow with his son. Maybe there's some children that wasn't meant to grow up. Do you think so, Taleswapper?"

"I think there are some children that are so important, that someone - some force in the world - may want them dead. But there are always other forces, maybe stronger forces, that want them alive."

"Then why don't those forces show theirselves, Taleswapper? Why don't some power from heaven come and say - come to that poor Swedish man and say, 'Don't you fear no more, your boy is safe, even from you!'"

"Maybe those forces don't speak out loud in words. Maybe those forces just show you what they're doing."

"The only force that shows itself in this world is the one that kills."

"I don't know about that Swedish boy," said Taleswapper, "but I'd guess that there's a powerful protection on your son. From what you said, it's a miracle he isn't dead ten times over."

"That's the truth."

"I think he's being watched over."

"Not well enough."

"The water never got him, did it?"

"It came so close, Taleswapper."

"And as for that Swedish,boy, I know he's got somebody watching over him."

"Who?" asked Miller.

"Why, his own father."

"His father is the enemy," said Miller.

"I don't think so," said Taleswapper. "Do you know how many fathers kill their sons by accident? They're out hunting, and a shot goes wrong. Or a wagon crushes the boy, or he takes a fall. Happens all the time. Maybe those fathers just didn't see what was happening. But this Swedish man is sharp, he sees what's happening, and he watches himself, catches himself in time."

Miller sounded a little more hopeful. "You make it sound like maybe the father ain't all bad."

"If he were all bad, Mr. Miller, that boy would be dead and buried long ago."

"Maybe. Maybe."

Miller thought for a while more. So long, in fact, that Taleswapper dozed a little. He snapped awake with Miller already talking.

" - and it's just getting worse, not better. Harder to fight off those feelings. Not all that long ago, he was standing up in a loft in the - in his bam - and he was pitching down hay. And there below him was his boy, and all it would take is to let fly with the pitchfork, easiest thing in the world, he could say the pitchfork slipped and no one would ever know. Just let it fly, and stick that boy right through. And he was going to do it. Do you understand me? It was so hard to fight off those feelings, harder than ever before, and he just gave up. Just decided to have it done with, to give in. And in that very moment, why, a stranger appeared in the doorway, and shouted, 'No,' and I set down the pitchfork - that's what he said, 'I set down the pitchfork, but I was shaking so bad I could hardly walk, knowing that the stranger saw me with murder in my heart, he must think I'm the