If It Rains

by Jennifer L. Wright

  Annie shifted, the bag of supplies clinking on her shoulder. Her eyes flickered over my face before looking skyward. “Well, alright then.”

  She was doing it for the money, I reminded myself. It wasn’t as if she cared. But there was something in that passing glance. Something like sympathy, fear, and maybe even pity. Not all good. But not all bad, either. And coming from Annie Gale, it gave me hope.

  I watched her walk down the drive, heading for the fields, until she was merely a shadow in the hazy light. Then I turned and retreated into my lonely house once more.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  KATHRYN

  I heard Kansas City before I saw it.

  The thunder was such that I thought a duster must be blowing up. Weren’t nothing else I’d heard made a noise that loud. Little did I know, a duster sounds exactly like hundreds of cars itching to all get someplace at the same time. Cresting the hill and staring at the mess below, I thought maybe I’d prefer a duster. At least a duster ends.

  Mr. Hickory didn’t hesitate, though, leading Chelee into the city at a steady trot, the first time the horse made any effort to move quickly. It was as if he could taste freedom from having me on his back.

  Or maybe he just knew better how to blend in. Because once we got inside the city proper, the cars, the people, the horses—everything moved fast. This way and that way, constant, frenzied movement. Where in the world could everyone need to go in such a hurry? It made me dizzy. I closed my eyes, but the hustle still burned into my lids.

  “Hold it in and then let it out. Just breathe, Kath.”

  It was Melissa’s voice. Coming from somewhere inside my head. Tellin’ me to starve the twister again.

  “Just breathe.”

  So I tried. I really did. But closing my eyes made the smell grab hold—exhaust and rotting food and manure. I opened them again and held my breath, but the stench didn’t go away.

  The buildings around us got taller the farther we went. I tried to find the top of one, but the tower swayed as I searched, like a piece of wheat in the breeze. My eyes moved with the spinning concrete, nearly causing me to slide off Chelee’s back.

  “Whoa,” said Mr. Hickory, grabbing my arm and wrenching me back into place. “You don’t wanna be falling off here. Those streetcars are liable to cut you in two and never even slow to move the pieces off the track.”

  His hat brushed against the back of my head as he nodded toward a red-and-yellow something headed our way. It wasn’t a car. It wasn’t a train, though it ran on rails. A metal stick jutted from its roof, connecting to wires above my head I’d been too dizzy to notice. It buzzed and clacked, causing the hair on my arms to stand on end. The passengers inside didn’t even look up from their newspapers as they passed. Like it was the most normal thing in the world to be dangling from electric wires in a rolling buggy.

  Sputtering cars filled in the road behind it, swerving and honking, each one more impatient than the last. People zigzagged across the street like fire ants, all red and shouting. Every single thing in this city was trying to be heard over everything else. I stared at my hands, trying to focus only on what I could feel. The scratch of fabric on my legs. The cracked leather of the saddle horn. The sweat dripping down my back.

  Suddenly the vibrations of Chelee’s steps changed. We were no longer on a paved street. I glanced past the tips of my fingers to the ground below. Wooden planks. And between them, water. Lots and lots of water. We were on a bridge.

  I sucked in my breath. Miles of river spread out to my left and right, muddy currents flowing right through the heart of the city. “What is that?” I whispered.

  “Missouri River.”

  “Wow.”

  “What? You ain’t never seen a river before?”

  “Not like this.”

  “You wanna stop or something?”

  I craned my neck to see him. His face was neutral. Unimpressed. I instantly felt foolish. “Nah. No. Let’s just keep going.”

  We arrived on the other side. Up ahead, more buildings and cars loomed. The noise was stifled here, but it lingered on the edges. A few more steps and we’d be in it once again. To my surprise, however, Mr. Hickory tugged Chelee’s reins to the right.

  “Where are we—?”

  I didn’t have to finish. The horse maneuvered down the shallow bank until we arrived at the water’s edge. Mr. Hickory hopped off and offered me his hand. I stared at him.

  “Chelee needs a break.”

  I cocked my head to the side.

  “Well, come on now,” he huffed. “We ain’t got all day. That horse is thirsty.”

  I stepped onto the bank carefully, allowing time for the blood to return to my foot. Just a few feet ahead, the river slapped against the shore, waving at me, inviting me closer.

  There was so much water. From down here, it was all I could see. No buildings. No cars. No people. Just water that kept coming and coming. Bits of wood and leaves floated by, never stopping, for new water was coming in right behind it. Busy water, in a hurry to get somewhere. It gurgled, like Melissa used to do in her sleep when the dust got bad. It was cloudy and smelled of fish.

  It was beautiful.

  I reached down to touch it, hesitating only a second before plunging my hand into the brown depths. It was cold, much colder than I’d expected in the glare of the sun, sending chills down my arms as it raced over my fingertips. My skin soaked up the moisture quickly, as if it hadn’t felt anything wet for years. Despite having just emptied the canteen not an hour before, I suddenly felt dry. Suffocated, even. I resisted the urge to plunge my face into the oncoming wave. Shoot, if Mr. Hickory hadn’t been standing behind me, I might’ve stripped naked and dove right in.

  With Chelee at his side, he scanned the currents with the look only someone who’s known drought can wear. “Lotta water.”

  “Yep.”

  “Funny how there can be so much nature right in the middle of something completely man-made.”

  I looked at him. He didn’t look back.

  “Now, I don’t right understand city slickers. Don’t want to. But these people here? They done got it right. They knew they needed the river. But they also knew they couldn’t move it or tame it. They worked with it, not trying to change it to make it fit them.” He opened his mouth like he had more to say but didn’t. He simply licked his cracked lips and closed them again, never taking his eyes off the river.

  He didn’t have to say it. The truth was sitting there right underneath his words. We’d done it the wrong way. In Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma. All of us. We hadn’t just let it be, tried to work with the land. We’d tried to make it into something it was never supposed to be. And we were paying the price. The drought, the dusters, the disease—we’d tried to fight nature. And nature would always win.

  Suddenly I didn’t want to look at the river no more. I stood and wiped my hands on my dress, turning the dust into streaks of mud. Climbing up toward the road, I waited with my back turned until Chelee finished his libation.

  The Kansas City train yard was even darker and dirtier than the rest of the city. Everything smelled like oil. Belches of black smoke poured from impatient engines waiting to be filled with impatient people, who pushed and shoved in and out of the station. I shrank into Mr. Hickory as we approached, feeling very small and very sick.

  He didn’t notice. Instead, he hopped from Chelee’s back, tied him to the nearest post, and gave him a pat on the head. “Be right back,” he said to the horse. “You coming?” he said to me.

  I’d been waiting for this moment for days, but it still took every ounce of strength I could muster to get off that horse. I followed Mr. Hickory into the station on shaky legs, and not just because of my foot, which had cramped terribly during the last part of the ride. There were more people inside the station than I’d ever seen in my life, and everyone seemed to be staring at me. Or ignoring me. I couldn’t tell.

  Mr. Hickory made quick, deliberate strides to the nearest window. He wa
s certainly ready to be rid of me. “You got your money?”

  “Money?”

  “For your ticket.”

  Of course. Tickets cost money. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? “I never said I had money.”

  He stopped abruptly, causing me to crash into him. “What?”

  “I ain’t got no money.”

  He grabbed my arm roughly, making me yelp. “What do you mean you ain’t got no money?” His voice was sharp enough for people to look in our direction. Noticing their stares, Mr. Hickory dropped my arm. “You told me you did,” he growled.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “You mean to tell me I brought you all the way to Kansas City, and you don’t even have money to get on the train?”

  His gray skin was flushed, his nostrils flared. Even his eyes, normally cold and drooping, seemed to be on fire. His fists opened and closed at his sides.

  I took a step backward, my fingers fluttering against my dress.

  “Hey, watch it!” An overweight man in a pin-striped suit bent down and examined his feet. “You stepped on my shoe, you little brat.”

  “I’m sor—” I tried to step the other way but got a face full of pink cotton instead.

  “Get away!” the woman screamed, putting a gloved hand near her mouth. “I’ll call the police, I will!”

  “Please. No. I’m sorry.” I took another step. Mr. Hickory’s glaring face had long since disappeared into the crowd. Another bump. Another shove. Hundreds of bodies, all yelling at me. I closed my eyes and put my hands over my ears, hoping to become invisible. It didn’t work.

  “Get out of the way!”

  I stumbled to the ground as something hard pushed into my back. A suitcase. Its owner never even looked back.

  “No loitering!” A red-faced policeman stood over me, twirling his baton. “Ain’t no place for vagrants.” He nudged me with his shiny shoe. “Get a move on.”

  “I’m not a—”

  “I said scram, kid!”

  So I fled. Ignoring the pain in my foot, the cramp in my calf, I pushed. I shoved. I didn’t care who I angered. I just had to get out. I ran through the lobby and out into the hot, smelly Kansas City afternoon. On instinct, I turned toward Chelee but, realizing how ridiculous that was, turned again and headed in the opposite direction.

  “Kathryn!”

  Oh no. Mr. Hickory. He was following me!

  “Kathryn!”

  Pa’d always said some of the worst punishments were reserved for liars and cheats. I hadn’t really lied or cheated. But I was pretty sure Mr. Hickory wouldn’t let me off on a technicality.

  “Kathryn! Stop!”

  I tried to speed up, but my foot reduced me to a hobble. I’d never get away from him with this foot. I had to hide. But where? There was a fence right ahead. Not just a fence. A gate. A gate to the train yard. If only I could reach it, I could sneak inside and hide with the trains. He’d never find me.

  “Kathryn, wait!”

  Almost there. I grabbed the gate with both hands and pulled. It strained under my force but didn’t move. I pulled again. And again and again. Still, it didn’t move. A bright, shiny padlock clung to its handle. Frustrated, I tugged at it, screaming at its silver face. The lock seemed to laugh.

  “Kathryn!” He was right behind me now.

  I’d never see Melissa again. Wouldn’t get a chance to tell her about all the things I’d seen. I’d never get to Indianapolis, see Pa, tell him how sorry I was for being awful. And I’d never get my foot fixed. I’d lived as an ugly cripple and now I’d die as one. I just hoped he’d do it fast.

  I turned to see Mr. Hickory standing with his hands on his knees, breathing hard. His face was still flushed, but at least his eyes had returned to their normal gray. “Why’d you run?” he asked between wheezes.

  What a stupid question. “I ain’t got no money.”

  “So why you’d tag along in the first place?”

  I straightened my back, trying to look taller and smarter than I felt. “You offered me a ride to Kansas City. And Kansas City is whole lot closer to Indianapolis than Pratt. So I went.”

  “Even though you didn’t know what you were gonna do when you got here.”

  “I’da figured it out. Eventually.”

  Mr. Hickory’s face twisted into something I couldn’t read. He slid to the ground beside me, back against the fence, cupping his hat in his hands. “And you don’t think that ‘eventually’ should have come before we got to the station?”

  I shrugged. So he wasn’t going to kill me. Or maybe he was. Later.

  “What’s so important about Indianapolis anyway?”

  I scooted down next to him, suddenly too tired to be scared. Inside my pocket, my fingers wrapped around Melissa’s hankie. “I gotta find my pa.”

  “Your pa?”

  With a deep sigh, I told him about Melissa, about leaving Oklahoma and getting lost in the dust storm. I felt no need to mention Helen. I told him about hitchhiking and rain merchants and Frank Fleming’s failure and my own stupidity for believing him in the first place. It felt good to talk. Even if it meant Mr. Hickory would murder me when I was done. At least the words would be out of me, if not the memory of it all.

  “So all this is for your pa?” he asked after I’d finished.

  I nodded. “I gotta find my pa so him and me can go home where we belong. I done seen enough of this city stuff. But first . . .” I glanced sideways. “First I gotta fix my foot.” It came out as a whisper.

  We both glanced at it, like it could hear us gossiping.

  “Does it need fixin’?”

  I turned to him sharply, ready to fight, only to find nothing but honesty on his face. He wasn’t making a joke.

  “Yes?” I didn’t mean for it to come out like a question.

  “Seems to me you’re getting along just fine the way it is.”

  I pressed my lips into a scowl. “That ain’t the point.”

  We sat in silence for several minutes, watching the comings and goings of the city around us. Hundreds of people, always going somewhere but never being anywhere, trampling the concrete earth beneath their never-still feet. And off to the side, Mr. Hickory and I sat, the two of us alone together on the shore beside a sea of busyness and bodies.

  “Well,” he said finally, replacing his hat atop his head and stretching. “Let’s get you to Indianapolis then.”

  “Huh?”

  “Let’s get you to your pa.”

  “But I told you I ain’t got no money.”

  “Neither do I.” He gave me a mischievous smile, and I saw for the first time the young, dashing Texas Ranger he used to be. “So we’ll just have to find a train that don’t cost no money to ride.” He stood suddenly. “Wait here.”

  I watched with a tight chest as Mr. Hickory disappeared back into the station. After what seemed like an eternity, he reappeared. But instead of walking toward me, he continued down the fence line, hands in pockets, face shadowed beneath his hat.

  I lowered my head, following him with my eyes. He kept his hat down and did not turn around.

  The sharp whistle of a nearby engine startled me to my feet. Nearly a hundred feet away, beneath a sign advertising some fancy new Chrysler car, Mr. Hickory finally stopped. He gave a slight bob of his head, and I approached slowly, careful to keep my eyes to the ground.

  He pretended to pick something from the heel of his boot. “Go on,” he mumbled.

  “Huh?”

  He gestured to the fence. Using one hand hidden behind his back, he’d pulled open a flap. Behind it, there was a hole just large enough for a jackrabbit to fit through.

  Surely he didn’t mean . . .

  “Go on,” he said again. “Train’s leaving in ten minutes.”

  At that moment, another whistle blew, making me forget to tell him that sneaking on trains was illegal. By the time I’d wriggled through the hole, my dress was ripped even worse than before, my knees were bloodied, and Mr. Hickory was standin
g beside me.

  “How did you—?”

  He picked his hat up off the ground and shrugged. “I’m a fair jumper.”

  Of course he was. The cowboy got to jump while I was forced to slither like a snake.

  Another whistle sounded.

  “Come on. It’ll be over here.” He took off with long strides.

  I struggled to keep up, tripping over the large rocks littering the yard, not wanting to follow but more scared to be left behind.

  “Come on,” he hissed. “You can’t be seen.”

  “Mr. Hickory, I don’t know about—”

  He grabbed my arm and pulled me behind a trembling boxcar. He put one long finger to his lips and then pointed to the rails. Squatting down, we watched two sets of legs walk past, their trousers starched and black, their shoes shiny.

  “Cops?” I mouthed.

  He shook his head. “Worse. Train bulls. They’ll beat ya if they find ya. Mean sons of guns.”

  My eyes widened as my stomach dropped. This was sounding less and less like something I wanted to be doing.

  “But they ain’t gonna find you.” Mr. Hickory grabbed my hand and pulled me down the line past several cars until we came to one that was open. “This one. This is the one. Get in.”

  I shook my head.

  “Come on. Get in. You’ll be fine.”

  I cursed the tears that suddenly sprang to my eyes, hot and stinging. “I don’t want to. I’m . . . I’m scared.” The last words those of the child I’d tried so hard to pretend I wasn’t.

  Mr. Hickory sighed and looked down at his feet. When he looked up again, a quivery smile sat on his lips. “Don’t you say that. You ain’t scared of nothing. Why, if I weren’t so old and worn-out, I’d sign you up for the Texas Rangers myself.”

  “They don’t take girls.”

  He let out a short chuckle. “No. No, they don’t. But I’d be doggoned if you wouldn’t be the first.” He winked, then pressed his lips into a line. “Besides, you wanna see your pa, don’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “Then this is how you get there, scared or not.”

  Up ahead, a whistle cried out, shrill and agitated. Impatient.