“Thanks,” Sam said as she gave a backhanded wave and disappeared into the swarm.
Feeling hot and not a little sick to his stomach, Sam ducked inside to find a dozen cots, most of them littered with someone else’s detritus. He located the first empty bunk, topped with a coarse but neatly folded blanket and a pocket-sized Bible. He set his pack on the floor and slumped onto the makeshift bed, rubbing his head in his hands. As he pondered what the heck he was supposed to do next, two young men popped in.
“Are you with the new batch that just landed?” one asked, and Sam nodded. “Great! Come on with us, and we’ll get you started canvassing.”
Which, as Sam quickly learned, had nothing to do with art or political campaigns. Instead, it involved masses of paperwork, an endless list of refugees’ names as they flooded into the aid camp. Sam was sent around with a fellow named Theo who spoke half a dozen languages, and it was Theo’s job to pull information about family members from the displaced, translating to Sam, who did the best he could to jot everything down in some kind of order.
By nightfall, he was tired and hot and hungry. Dinner was rice and beans with bread and beer. As he lay down to try to get some sleep, he noticed that most of his tent-mates slowly disappeared. He wondered if he was missing some kind of prayer meeting or service, and he asked that of Theo the next morning.
“Are you kidding?” Theo said and laughed. “Give yourself a month of this, and you’ll be desperate for someone warm. If you can’t find a soul to connect with, you’ll go bat-shit crazy around here.”
But Sam hadn’t volunteered for the mission to meet girls, and he didn’t mind being alone. It didn’t even bother him to feel lonely. He was rather used it, having never made very many friends, having never trusted anyone completely. Well, anyone except Gretchen.
Besides, after his first two weeks in the camp, with his ears constantly filled with the buzz of people crying and shouting and talking, often in languages he didn’t know, he savored time by himself. He would take out the battered copy of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises that he’d packed, slip Gretchen’s photograph from between the pages, and gaze at her face, rubbing his thumb across the Kodachrome square, and he’d imagine he could feel the softness of her skin or the curl of her hair. She seemed so foreign to him now, someone from another world entirely. She reminded him of what he’d left behind, what was familiar. And he took comfort in that.
Sam’s long days quickly fell into a pattern: up in the morning, bright and early, using hand-dug latrines that reeked of crap and buzzed with flies; swallowing down whatever food was offered, whether military MREs or rice and beans; distributing water to those who patiently waited in long lines; helping refugees search for missing family; doling out medicine or soap or whatever the hell they had to try to make life for the thousands of displaced humans even the slightest bit easier.
Having come from a place where he’d never wanted for much, Sam felt deeply affected by the desperation of the people at the camp. He knew he’d never grow accustomed to children with bloated bellies and dysentery and malnutrition.
Though he did what he could to ease their misery, it never felt like enough.
“Why is there so little water?” he asked Theo one afternoon after two months in the camp.
“Resources are finite, buddy, you know that. All we can do is dig more wells and truck in more jugs of the stuff.” His friend removed his glasses to mop his wet forehead. “There used to be a lake just over the ridge there,” he said, pointing toward a hump of earth that looked like a camel’s back. “But it hasn’t rained in these parts for ages so the thing’s pretty much just a crater.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah,” Theo agreed, “it does.”
The more Sam thought about it, the more he began pondering an idea, one that seemed crazy at first until he convinced himself it wasn’t so crazy after all. If the stories his mother had told him about Hank Littlefoot making it rain were true, if this gift of conjuring up the weather had truly been passed down to Sam as well, why shouldn’t he use it? Surely it would do no harm to try.
Sam had always been aware that he was different from everyone else. Even as a child, he’d felt a subtle stirring inside him that connected him to the sky and the earth in a way that wasn’t typical. He had always been sensitive to changes in the air around him, and he’d realized early on that his emotions had a strange effect on the sun and the sky and the breeze. If he felt angry or sad or frustrated, the atmosphere seemed to get riled up as well, stirring up the wind and clouds, even the thunder and the rain.
Sam could only hope there was a chance he could summon up his deepest feelings and make something happen here. So he decided to give it a shot that very night. Maybe he’d fail, but no one would be the wiser.
At that point, Sam had been around the camp long enough to know how to move about without attracting unwanted attention. When the night was darkest and the camp quietest, he took a full canteen and slipped away from his tent, skirting the guard stations where the orange glow of cigarettes pierced the dark like fireflies. Once safely out of bounds, he hiked the mile or so through scrubby grasses and sandy soil to where the lake used to be. He wasn’t sure what exactly to do once he got there, but he figured he’d come up with something.
Beneath the pale light of a quarter moon, the crater yawned before him, so vast he could only imagine how far its borders reached. Drawing in a deep breath, he stood at the precipice, peering into the empty basin below, noting the cracks veining the wall beneath where he stood, so many that it looked like a broken piece of pottery.
So where did he start?
Sam knew nothing about the rain-making ceremony. He had no mantra to chant, no movements or dance that could be guaranteed to influence the clouds. What he finally did was settle down on the dirt, his legs bent and crossed at the ankles. He put his left arm on his thigh and raised his right hand to touch the turquoise stones bound to the leather strap around his throat.
“Hi, Grandfather, it’s me, Samuel Henry,” he said aloud. “Any chance you can ask the sky to make it rain and start to fill this lake with water? I hate to see people sick and dying because there’s not enough to drink.”
Yep, that was pretty much it, he decided and closed his eyes, rubbing the beads and repeating, Make it rain, make it rain, make it rain.
The repetition of the phrase coupled with his exhaustion soon had him zoning out, slipping into a netherland between alertness and sleep. He wasn’t aware of how much time had passed before he startled himself awake. He felt dizzy and dry; his lips were cracked and his throat was parched. He uncapped his canteen to take a swig of water. When he looked up at the sky, it swelled with stars, the moon as bright as before.
Damn.
It hadn’t worked. He’d done nothing but miss much-needed rest.
Disappointed, he rose from the ground, wobbling on knees that weren’t used to staying bent for so long. His muscles ached, and he stretched his arms to the heavens, whispering to the scant breeze, “I will not give up. I’ll be back to try again.”
He’d barely started back to camp when he felt the first drop on his face. Sure that he’d imagined it, he stopped and glanced up to see clouds scudding in and smothering the stars, blotting out the moon next. Around him, the dust began to dimple, a drizzle fast turning into a steady rain.
“Thank you, Grandfather!” he shouted to the heavens, hoping Hank could hear through the steady wash of water pounding the dry earth.
He ran the rest of the way back to camp, finding many of its inhabitants emerging from their tents, tipping faces to the sky and reaching out their hands, laughing and jabbering excitedly as if they’d never before seen rain.
On nearing his home away from home, he ran smack into Cate, who looked as much like a drowned rat as he.
“Can you believe this?” she exclaimed and grabbed him in an exuberant bear hug. “It’s quite amazing! A miracle, really!”
Charged with energy, Sa
m impulsively pulled her tight to his chest and soundly kissed her. When she drew back, she grinned and took his hand, drawing him inside his tent as the rain pounded steadily against the canvas.
In the morning when they awakened, entangled on his bunk, the rain had ceased.
“That might be the last storm we see for six months,” Cate said with disappointment as she pulled on her shoes before leaving.
But Sam knew the rain would come again.
He made himself wait another two weeks before going back to the crater. He had to take care, fearful of bringing too much water too fast and flooding the camp, and he couldn’t risk that, not with hundreds more people still pouring in day after day.
On that second attempt, he did everything as he had the first time. He waited until the dead of night, settled on the ground near the edge of the crater. He rubbed the turquoise beads, called to his grandfather for help, and chanted the same mantra—make it rain, make it rain, make it rain—until he fell into that trancelike state, opening his eyes hours later to raindrops pelting his skin.
When he rose from the ground, he staggered, surprised at how weak and dizzy he felt. He could hardly stand upright, much less walk. Even worse, a confusion gripped him so that he wasn’t sure where he’d come from or how to return. The rain erased his footprints on the dry earth, and it was only by luck that he made it back to his bunk by dawn, where he promptly passed out.
When he roused the next day, he found himself on a cot in the hospital tent, where one of the medics told him he must’ve caught a virus or gotten a parasite that sapped his strength. He gave Sam a shot of penicillin and told him to take it easy.
Only Sam didn’t listen.
Two weeks after, he went back to the lake, which now held at least a foot of water, enough to cover the cracked floor. The moon seemed brighter this night, and Sam looked around him at the shadows, sensing eyes on him, although he saw no one around.
Carefully, he lowered himself to the earth and performed his ritual again, knowing he would do it as many times as he could until the lake had filled, despite the toll the last two rainmakings had taken on his body and his mind. He felt older and weary with an ache in his bones that lingered.
Make it rain, make it rain, make it rain.
He was lying on his side when he came to, and it took every bit of his strength to rise to his knees. Above him, the sky seemed angry, lashing out with rumbling thunder and lightning that charged the air. A silver bolt streaked from the heavens, hitting so near Sam that it knocked him flat, burning the palms of his hands. He was in such pain that he could barely get up and stagger a hundred yards before he fell to the ground again.
At some point, he heard voices around him, speaking rapidly in a tongue he didn’t understand. Then he passed out so thoroughly that it was the next day before Theo found him and half carried, half dragged him back to camp.
“You look like hell, old man,” Sam heard his friend say before he dropped him in his bunk.
Sam drifted in and out of consciousness for several days.
“You’re not well, Missouri,” Cate told him when he opened his eyes and found her seated at the foot of his cot. “Have you seen yourself lately?”
She held a shaving mirror to his face, and Sam hardly recognized his reflection. His hair had gone from near black to gray, as had the beard smothering his jaw and cheeks.
“You should get a full medical,” Cate insisted, looking as worried as he’d ever seen her. “You might need a ticket out of here.”
But Sam disagreed. He wasn’t ready to leave, not yet.
It was three long weeks before he was remotely strong enough to go back to the lake, but, as soon as he could, he went. One more time, he told himself, and then he would quit. The crater was half filled, and surely a little more rain would be all it would take to provide for the camp for months to come.
Every step toward the lake made him wince, as did sitting down on the ground with nothing to lean on. Still, he gritted his teeth and got on with it. Then in the midst of his ritual, as he called upon his grandfather and began to chant, “Make it rain,” he realized he was not alone. A cadre of guerrilla soldiers had surrounded him, and one pushed at his shoulder with the butt of a rifle, knocking Sam hard to the dirt.
“He’s the one,” a guttural voice announced. “He is the man who makes rain.”
Even in his weakened state, Sam knew he was in trouble. He could only whisper his grandfather’s name and beg him for help.
You must be strong until we find a way to get you home, he thought he heard a voice breathe in his ear; but it was muted by the scuffle of footsteps and clicking noises of guns being cocked as the shadowed figures began to talk.
“Get up!” The steel toe of a boot pressed against Sam’s spine. “Get up now and come!”
But Sam was too exhausted to move. He felt half dead as it was, no longer the young man who had left Walnut Ridge full of vigor and hope, wanting only to do something good that would fill him up and erase the pain of a rejected heart.
“I said, get up!”
Rough hands grabbed at him, pulling and tugging, unmindful of his cries of pain, and the band of guerrillas dragged him off, capturing him as they would any spoils of war; taking away the life he had known, using him until they wrung him dry and there came a day when Sam Winston didn’t even know who he was anymore.
The Truth
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
—OSCAR WILDE
Twenty-four
April 2010
“There’s a car coming,” Bennie announced, scurrying into the parlor. “And it doesn’t rattle like that bad muffler on the sheriff’s cruiser.”
Abby looked up from the photo album she’d spread open in her lap. She’d been sharing pictures from her past with the Man Who Might Be Sam—as her mom quietly referred to him, although Abby thought of him more as the man who could be her father. With each shot she pointed out, she described what she remembered of every birthday party and dance recital and school program he’d missed. Perhaps he was just being polite, but if he was disinterested, he didn’t show it.
“Are you sure it isn’t the sheriff?” Gretchen asked, getting up from the armchair where she’d been pretending to work on the weekly paper’s crossword puzzle, though mostly she’d been peering across the room at Abby and the Man Who Might Be Sam.
“No, it’s a small car,” Bennie remarked, “with very squeaky brakes. Reminds me of the vehicle Nathan drove when he brought Abby down last Christmas—”
Before her aunt had even finished that sentence, Abby snapped the photo album closed, shoving it aside and jumping to her feet.
Nate had come? Was it possible?
She ran to the window, trying to see into the dark despite the light reflecting on the glass from within the room.
“Abby, were you aware that Nathan was driving down?” her mother asked.
But Abby could only reply with a shrug. If he was truly carrying out his threat to come to the farm, it was as much a surprise to her as anyone.
She cupped her hands over her eyes, blocking out enough of the reflected light to make out a familiar beat-up Honda Civic pulling up in front, the brakes squealing as it came to a full stop in front of the porch.
“Oh God, it is him,” she said, finally forced to believe it. “He wasn’t bluffing.”
“Bluffing about what?” Gretchen asked.
“I think the boy’s finally made up his mind,” Trudy said over the click of her knitting needles.
“And it’s about time, too,” Bennie chimed in.
Despite how badly she wanted to play it cool, Abby couldn’t do it. She’d never been good at fudging her emotions. She smoothed her rumpled shirt as she hurried to the front door and unlocked it, throwing it wide before Nate had even made it all the way up the front steps.
“You’re here!” she gushed, stunned to see him in the flesh when she hadn’t set eyes on him in weeks and they’d been barking at each
other on the phone barely five hours earlier. She took a step out onto the welcome mat.
“I told you I’d come, didn’t I?” he grumbled, but there was something close to self-satisfaction on his face, like he couldn’t believe he’d done it either. “I drove so fast I’m surprised that old piece of crap didn’t fall apart on the highway.”
“You really meant it,” Abby said, and her heart madly thumped.
“I had to see you.” He paused, glancing uneasily toward the house as he came toward her, his hands buried in his pockets. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”
“You want to go inside?”
“Um, actually, I think I’d rather stay out here,” he said, lowering his voice. Then he cleared his throat and stared over her shoulder. “Hello, ladies, Mrs. Brink.” He jerked his chin in greeting.
“Hi, Nathan.”
“Hello, dear boy, how are you?”
Abby turned to find that her mother and aunts had come up behind her. They crowded the doorway, gazing out wide-eyed at a clearly uncomfortable Nate. She gave them a stern look and whispered, “A little privacy would be great.”
“But, sweetie, it’s getting chilly out,” Gretchen said, looking concerned, “and you’re—”
“Fine,” Abby insisted. “We’ll just be a minute, okay?”
“Of course,” her mom agreed and nudged her sisters away from the threshold.
Abby closed the door before the women could make a fuss and drag poor Nathan in. He looked unsettled enough, shifting in his sneakers, all weary eyes and unshaven cheeks.
“You want to sit on the swing?” she asked, and he nodded gratefully.
Without a word, he followed her over. They settled down, and the swing swayed beneath their weight. Abby grabbed the chain beside her, holding on to keep steady. She braced herself, waiting for the question she knew was coming, namely whether or not she was knocked up. Only, to her surprise, that was not the first thing that came out of Nate’s mouth.
The Truth About Love and Lightning Page 22
