Fall Guy

guess“—Maggie smiled to herself—“because he was a daredevil, that Francis Connor, braver than the whole lot of them put together.“
    „How old was he?“
    „Twelve, like Joey, only Francis's birthday was three months earlier, so he wasn't the baby. They were the best of friends, Francis and Joseph. 'Find one, you'll find the other,' my father used to say. It was true, too. They were inseparable.“
    „Had Francis made the jump?“
    „I don't know. I'd only ever followed them that one time. How's that for the luck of the Irish?“
    „No one ever said? No one talked about it?“
    She shook her head. „No. If that was their road to manhood, they wouldn't tell a mere girl now, would they? It was something between the lot of them. They never talked about anything they did when they went off together. But I had the feeling Joey was the last to try it.“ She shook her head. „Me, even from the lowest spot, I wouldn't have done it, the water that cold, and black as the devil's heart. If you put your hand in, you wouldn't see your own fingers, and when you pulled it out, to make sure it was still there ... because in no time at all you couldn't feel it, your hand would be blue.“
    „When did you do that?“
    „Do what?“
    „Put your hand in.“
    She stared straight ahead with flat eyes. „After,“ she said, „after they took him out.“
    I nodded. „Maggie,“ I said, „you said you didn't know if Francis had made the jump.“
    „That's right.“
    „Then what made you think he was so brave?“ Thinking that love is blind, even when you're eleven. Maybe especially when you're eleven.
    „It was because of the fire, what he did then, that's where you could see how fearless he was, the second youngest of the boys, but the one to rush in and do the saving when it was necessary.“
    „What fire?“
    „It was the winter before Joey's accident. They were playing cowboys and Indians with a couple of younger kids from Nyack. And the game got out of hand.“
    „How so?“
    „They'd made themselves the Indians and the two other kids were supposed to be the cowboys. They didn't mind. It meant they'd be the good guys. But then the Indians captured one of them and tied him to a tree.“
    „And then what?“
    „They piled some dead leaves around his feet, leaves and small dry sticks. They said they were going to bum the white man at the stake. At first Freddy, he was the kid they'd captured, he thought it was all part of the adventure. It was playacting to him, the same as any other game. And I think it was meant to be. I really do.“
    She stopped and just looked at me, desperate for me to believe along with her.
    „But something changed,“ I said.
    „It was just an accident. Truly.“ She reached across the table for my hand. „One of them had stolen some cigarettes from my father's pack. They did that all the time. Cigarettes, even booze sometimes. And the match, I guess it was, started the leaves on fire. The wind was up and the fire grew too quickly for them to stamp it out. So they began running around and shouting, not knowing what to do, except for Francis. He was the one who untied the ropes and got little Freddy free. Then he took off his own jacket and wrapped it around Freddy's legs and rolled him on the ground.“
    „Was he burned badly?“
    „Not as badly as Freddy. That poor boy, he was only ten, he had a lot of damage to his legs. If not for the patches of snow, it would have been worse. The fire would have moved faster. The woods might have gone up. But after Francis got Freddy free, it seemed to wake up Timothy, Dennis, Joey and Liam. They began to throw handfuls of snow on the fire and then they were able to stamp it out.“
    „Did they ever tell your parents?“
    „They had to tell them something. Francis's jacket was ruined. Everyone had part of their clothes or shoes burned.“
    „They must have been furious.“
    „Not at all. They never knew the truth. No one ever told the truth about anything back then. You just swept it all under the rug and went on.“
    „What did they say happened?“
    „They said there was some kid from Nyack, Freddy Baker, in the woods and he was smoking and accidentally started a fire. They said he ran away and they put the fire out, that that's how they'd gotten burned. The way they told it, they were heroes.“
    „What about Freddy Baker? How did he get home? What did he tell his parents?“
    „There was no Freddy Baker. That's just a name the