Maybe he would’ve told Coot, “You don’t want nothing to do with girls who got white hair.” Or maybe he would’ve said, “You don’t wanna go fight a dumb old war nohow.”
Coot stared upward. He thought how different the stars looked over this country than they did over the prairie. Memories came back to him by the boatload. He remembered what it was like, speaking to audiences in big tents, with real energy to his voice. He remembered feeling like he could do no wrong, waving a Bible in the air. He remembered what if felt like to be beautiful.
The music in the distance had stopped. People were leaving the party. Young men had girls hooked on their arms. William Oswalt had Judy Bronson on his. His service cap sat uneven on his head, like a movie star might have worn it. He was only toying with Judy, just like he did with all the girls. A wealthy young officer like him would not be seen in broad daylight with a mill worker’s daughter like Judy. But she didn’t seem to know this.
“Hey, Coot,” said Baby Joe, with a brunette around his arm. “Come go swimming with us.”
“Swimming?” one young man shouted. “The water wouldn’t even come up to Coot’s knees.”
Everyone laughed.
Coot pressed his hands farther into his pockets and said, “No thanks. Got an early day tomorrow at the mill.”
“We all got early days tomorrow, Coot,” said another young man. “We’re going to Europe to show old Hitler who’s boss!” He screamed it at the top of his lungs.
Other boys joined in and howled at the sky like a pack of coyotes.
They piled into an automobile that was brand-new. The engine roared to life. Will sat behind the wheel, revving the motor for the enjoyment of those nearby. The car sped off. Coot watched its taillights bounce away in the night.
Before they were all out of sight, he reached his right hand into the sky. Then he closed his eyes and made a tight fist, just like he used to do for tents filled with farmers and grain elevator workers. He held it high, to create the drama that tent preaching required. Then, in a quick motion, he waved his hand, like he’d once done, at the taillights. Long ago, when he was somebody, one wave of the hand would make people fall over and start mumbling gibberish. But this time, nothing happened.
Thirty-Five
Louisville
Vern brought a load of leaves into the barn and laid them in neat piles. The women came behind him, carrying leaves in their carts. They sang while they worked. It reminded Paul of his mother, who used to sing made-up songs when she worked cotton fields.
An elderly, dark-skinned woman came with a wheelbarrow. On her way, she was cut off by a screaming toddler with no pants on. The toddler’s name was Baker.
“Aaaaaahhhh!” said Baker, which represented every word he knew.
It had been a monumental day when Baker took his first steps. The whole farm knew about it.
“Careful,” said Paul to the screaming child.
“Baah aahh aahhhh,” said Baker.
“Watch out for people. You gonna run into someone.”
“Aaaah.” Then Baker paused and made a face. It was a serious face, accompanied by a few grunts.
“I got better things to do than be watching a young’un mess in his pants,” Paul said. He stabbed the fire from where he sat. “Go find your mama, Baker.”
“Aaaah baah aaaah.”
“Make sure you tell her you have a present for her.”
Baker ran out of the barn, a child on a mission.
Above Paul, the tobacco strings hung from the rafters like vampire bats. The smoke from Paul’s smoldering fire rose through the leaves, then out through the tin-metal chimney gap in the roof. Rows upon rows of leaves dried above the fire Paul was tending.
Paul’s job was one of the most important on the whole farm. If one spark escaped his curing fire, it would cost an entire harvest.
Only months earlier, a drying barn on the Harrison farm had burned to the ground. And after the fire, the Harrison tobacco had no place to be stored. Nearby farm owners bought Mister Harrison’s leaves below market price. It was highway robbery, but Paul couldn’t think of a man who deserved robbery more than wicked Mister Harrison.
Paul was older than the other workers—though there was one woman who was older than he was. Her name was Chula. Chula strung the wide leaves onto long poles, singing a rhythmic song. Her skin looked like rawhide. She only had three teeth in her smile.
The women sewed leaves onto long pine sticks. Then quick, lean young black men climbed the rafters and hung the pole skewers of leaves in the drying racks above the small fire. It was a glorified dance. Stringing. Singing. Climbing. Stringing. Singing. Climbing.
“Hey, Paul,” said Vern from a distance. His baritone voice interrupted Paul from a daze.
“Water, Paul,” said Vern. “Lou needs water, quick.” His voice was laced with anxiety, and Vern was never anxious.
“What?” said Paul.
“Lou needs water.”
Paul exited the barn. He saw Vern carrying the furry black-and-tan body in his arms. Vern walked through long rows of green, keeping the dog close to his chest.
“Get out the way,” said Vern to the others. “Out the way.” The dog’s body lay limp in Vern’s arms, lanky limbs swaying with each step.
Paul felt his chest tighten. He’d known a moment like this was coming—for a long time, he’d known. But the old girl just kept on living and defying the odds of her species.
He pushed back tears. He touched Louisville’s face. The old girl was panting. Her tongue was out of her mouth. Her chest moved in rapid rhythm.
“What happened?” asked Paul.
“Found her behind the tractor, panting. She didn’t look right. Reckon she needs water.”
This was beyond the remedy of water. Paul touched the soft fur between Louisville’s eyes. Her old, almond-colored eyes were tired. He could see weariness in them.
Vern laid the animal down before the old man who had bred and raised her. Who remembered the September morning when her mother had deposited her into this world. Who remembered when she first learned to use her throaty voice. She’d been born during the height of happiness. Long before the hard times ever hit the world. And she had lived longer than any dog Paul had ever known.
She opened her eyes to look at Paul. He stroked her snout and said, “Oh, honey.”
He closed his eyes and remembered the day he held the black-and-tan puppy in his arms. He remembered how this animal used to sleep on the pillow beside his head at night when she was still growing into herself. He remembered the moments when she peed on him. The times he would bury his face into the soft skin of her neck. He remembered how he used to hold her in his lap, even when she was a full-grown animal who believed she was a puppy.
Louisville rested her head against Paul. Paul sat beside her and lifted her body into his lap. Louisville curled her long, lanky body into a ball and breathed like a freighter.
A man wandered in from the field and said, “Could be tobacco poisoning? I seen a dog eat tobacco before.”
“No,” said Paul. “She’s too smart to eat that stuff.”
“She’s a dog,” the man said with a chuckle. “Dogs do all sortsa stupid things.”
“Not her,” Paul said.
Pete came running toward Paul with his hat in his hands. “What’s happening, Paul?”
“She’s sick,” Paul said in a half whisper.
Vern said, “She’s a tough old girl. She be alright.”
Louisville coughed, then panted again. She leaned her head into Paul and labored for air.
“Take her into the woods,” said another man. “That’s what I’d do with an old dog like her. Fast and easy.”
“No, sir,” said Paul with a smile. “This is my girlfriend. I’d never do something like that to my best girl.”
“Just how we did things on the farm,” said the man.
“Congratulations,” Paul said. “You must be proud.”
The onlookers went
back to work. Vern sat on the ground beside Paul. Pete did the same. They all touched Louisville and spoke in a whisper so quiet that nobody could hear what they said. Paul kissed Louisville on the face and held her long, floppy ears. There were few things he loved more in this life than her ears.
He held the animal until the sun dipped low behind the trees and all the children had gone to bed. He held her until Pete and Vern had fallen asleep. He held her until she exhaled a loud, whimpering breath and her body became soft. He held her until he felt the pulse inside her stop.
Paul looked at the night sky and cried. His crying turned into a deep moan. He could hear the strained sounds of his own throat. In some ways, his voice sounded like baying. He cried until the sun came up. And then some.
She was a good girl.
Thirty-Six
The Lame
Marigold washed bedsheets in the large washtub. She scrubbed them until her knuckles were red. Laundry was how she spent her life at Cowikee’s. She cooked, she cleaned, and she washed things. Hers was the only occupation at Cowikee’s that didn’t involve what the other girls referred to as “doing business.”
Marigold scrubbed the white fabric against the metal ribs of the washboard, then wrung it out. She draped it on a string between two tall pines along with a collection of delicates, nylons, and silky clothing.
Helen sat on the porch, watching her. “Pregnant,” said Helen. She pushed a chestful of blue cigarette smoke into the air. “Don’t even know what to expect. I don’t know many mothers.”
“Sickness,” said Marigold. “That’s what you can expect. Lots of it. But it goes away, sorta.”
Helen chuckled. “How would you know?”
“I know.”
“You ain’t that old. How could you know?”
“I’m older than I look.”
“You had a baby?”
“I have a baby.”
Helen said nothing, she only took another drag from her cigarette and held it in. “I’m a lot older than you,” she finally said.
“You’re young enough to be pregnant.”
“Pregnant. I hate this baby already.”
Her words didn’t fall well on Marigold’s ears. Marigold remembered when her mother took her to the preacher in the woods, once she learned Marigold was with child. The man in black had touched Marigold’s belly, squeezed her skin, and uttered odd prayers about sinful babies.
Her mother wanted the pregnancy to be over. She wanted the child to disappear, wanted to pretend it had never happened. But Marigold did not. She loved her Maggie, even before she could feel her.
The preacher rebuked the “sinful child” inside her and prayed against it. He sent Marigold away with the words, “Go and sin no more, child.” They were words that never left her, because they were all wrong somehow.
“I hate it,” Helen went on. “I wish it would just go away.”
“Don’t say things like that. It ain’t good for the baby.”
Helen laughed. “Well, I don’t care. I don’t want this child, and I ain’t gonna keep it.”
“You’re not serious.”
“’Course I am. I never asked for a child.”
“You don’t mean you’re going to go and . . .”
“Ladies in my line of work don’t raise young’uns, sweetie. Ain’t the place for ’em. I don’t know what other choice there is.”
“You could change your line of work.”
“Change? I’m too late for changes.”
“You can do something else.”
“Are you out of your mind? Men can’t find enough work to feed their families, and they actually got trades they can claim. My only trade is sin, sweetie.”
“You could start a new life. We could do it together. Two people is better than one. We could do something new, go somewhere else.”
“I am what I am, honey. That’s how it works. People are what they are. You don’t get second chances.”
“But maybe you are something else, and you just don’t know it. Maybe this ain’t you.”
“You’ve lost your mind.”
“Maybe you were meant to be something more. Maybe I am too, and we just don’t know it. Maybe somewhere down inside us there’s more.”
“I wish you could hear yourself. This is crazy talk.”
Marigold suddenly felt foolish for saying such things to deaf ears. She twisted the water from a pillowcase and watched the foam make swirling designs in the water. Even so, she knew there truly was something inside her that was waiting to get out. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she felt it.
Helen lit another cigarette. “How about we talk about what’s for supper tonight? I could eat a horse.”
But Marigold was too lost looking at suds in the washtub. The white foam made pretty shapes in the tin basin of gray water.
Helen called from the porch, “Hey! You hear me?”
But Marigold wasn’t listening. She was thinking of Maggie. Always Maggie. She was wondering about the way Maggie talked. Could she talk? Could she walk? Was she alive?
Marigold was interrupted from her thoughts by a vehicle engine. A red car with chrome fenders and white tires pulled beside the porch. The car rolled toward the railcar slowly in the dusty driveway. The door opened. A man crawled out and stepped onto the porch. He was short, gray-haired. He stopped and paid a glance toward Marigold, then tipped his hat. He leaned forward and walked with an uneven gait. His limp was pronounced, his posture crooked.
“Evening, ladies,” he said.
Helen stamped out her cigarette. “Evening,” she said.
The man removed his hat and twisted it in his hands. He couldn’t seem to get words out. Marigold had seen this same look on most of the men who visited Cowikee’s railcar. Some were too timid to say what needed to be said.
“Y-y-you see,” he began. “I-I-I’m here because . . .”
Helen laughed. “Yeah, I know why you’re here. But we’re closed for business. Come back later.”
He replaced his hat and spun on his heel. He tipped his brim to Marigold again and started to walk away. He opened his door and crawled inside his car with great effort. Marigold watched him struggle to swing his legs into the vehicle. She heard him moan.
Marigold said, “Wait.”
He stopped, rested his head against his seat, panted.
“What’s wrong with your legs?” she asked.
“Ain’t my legs,” he said. “It’s my back.”
“What’s the matter with it?”
“Bifida. Only looks worse than it is. Just takes me a little while to get going.”
“Does it hurt?”
“It never quits hurting.”
“What’s bifida?”
“A fancy word that doctors say.”
“How did you get it?”
“My daddy gave it to me as a gift.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and chuckled. “I was born with it.”
Marigold felt something building in her chest, a buzzing inside her that made her head feel light. She almost felt as though she could see through this man somehow. Not inside him, but just beyond him. And the world changed around her. The sounds of the earth faded into nothing, and it was only her and this man, standing in a large, open place. No trees, no grass, no sky, no birds, no railcar.
She could see that he was a sad man. A man without a wife and alone, living in a large green house with white shutters. She knew he struggled to put on his clothes. She knew he ate his supper in loneliness each night. She didn’t know how she knew these things, but she knew them just the same.
“I wanna help you.”
The man wore a strange look. “I appreciate that, darling.”
“I mean it. I wanna help.”
“Help me do what?”
“I wanna make your back better.”
He furrowed his brow.
“Let her,” said Helen, who was standing on the porch, leaning on the railing. “Let her try.”
The man rem
oved a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face. He started to laugh. “Just what in the heavens is all this?”
“I just want to touch it,” Marigold said. “I won’t hurt you.”
“Now just wait a minute, darling,” he said.
“I promise.” She inched closer to him. “I just wanna touch it.”
The buzzing in her head and chest became so strong she could not feel anything but the vibration of it. Her hands became so hot she could hardly bear the pain of it. She touched him and could feel the muscles in his back popping beneath the skin. He let out a grunt, then a sigh. And it happened. He tensed his muscles and forced himself straight. His spine became erect. His shoulders aligned. His neck was no longer hunched forward.
She stepped back from him. The buzzing in her had stopped. Her hands were cold again. She fell to her knees. An exhaustion overwhelmed her, and she found it hard to breathe.
“Go,” said Marigold. “And sin no more.”
Thirty-Seven
Highwayman
Pete drove on a dusty highway, following behind Paul’s truck. They were moving again. That last time they’d been on the move, he’d been a boy. But now he was a fourteen-year-old, and that was practically the same as being an adult. His mother slept in the passenger seat. The vehicles loped along short hills, weaving through the countryside like a wagon train.
Thus far, autumn had stolen too much from them. One dog and one steady job. The tobacco farm had all but dried up since the war began. And now it was working its devilry on his mother, who didn’t seem capable of doing anything but coughing and sleeping. Eulah had developed a cough that had been with her for six months and only grown worse.
He draped his arm out the window. The whole world was dried and faded. The grass was gold; the trees were changing colors. Pete’s mother rested her head against the window. Her eyes were shut. She breathed softly. He could hear her wheezing. Sometimes during her sleep she coughed so hard she couldn’t breathe. She was getting too lean for her frame. Her skin was paler. Her body was weaker.
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