What Blooms from Dust

by James Markert

  Jeremiah brushed dust that had settled on his trousers. “So what now?”

  “I don’t know what now.” She chuckled briefly, then wiped dry eyes. Tears probably dried up like the land these days. “But you best get back out there before Josiah gets antsy.”

  He stood. “Long past that.”

  “Go on.”

  He did, and she promised to be out soon enough.

  Peter stood in the middle of the kitchen, staring up into the hole in the ceiling, grinning. A whisper of dust filtered down from the darkness up there and he raised his arm as if to catch it. A few feet over and sitting on Wilmington’s lap, James grinned too.

  Jeremiah let them be and joined his brother out on the front porch.

  Josiah watched the town as a tumbleweed bounced by. “They’re watching us from the windows.”

  The Bentley Hotel had eight windows on its façade, and three of them showed people watching, as did many of the homes around the town square.

  “Sheriff McKinney has no choice but to lock you up.”

  “Unless I go?”

  Josiah nodded, coughed, spat brown gunk over the rail and into the dust, where another tarantula scurried. “The town’s afraid of you, Jeremiah.”

  “Are you?”

  Josiah thought on it, then said, “And they’re a little leery of that boy too.”

  “He’s nothing to be afraid of. And neither am I.”

  “They found you guilty.”

  Jeremiah stared at the massive spider. “Where’s the shovel?”

  Josiah nodded to his side, where it leaned against the wall.

  Jeremiah grabbed the tool, walked down the steps, and stood over the tarantula. Instead of smashing it, he scooped it up inside the pit of the shovel. “We should put it in Mr. Burlough’s mailbox.”

  Josiah grinned, probably at a fleeting memory of the different live things they’d put in that man’s mailbox as kids, but then his face went stoic again. “Burlough’s dead. Year ago. Got caught out in a duster and suffocated.”

  Jeremiah rotated the handle in his grip so that the shovel part was inches in front of his face, as was the tarantula.

  “Hope he bites your nose off.”

  Jeremiah grunted, then hurled the tarantula through the air. It landed in the dust across the road and skittered away. He joined Josiah on the porch again.

  “You trying to prove you’re a changed man now, ’cause you wouldn’t kill a spider?”

  “Not tryin’ to prove nothin’.”

  “Then what now?”

  Jeremiah snickered. Same thing Ellen asked me.

  “What’s funny?”

  “Nothing’s funny.”

  They stood silent for a minute as the wind blew dust. Josiah pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and covered his nose and mouth until the wind settled. He folded the handkerchief and then slid it back into his shirt pocket. “Daddy cries every night. He goes out back behind the house, next to the rubble that used to be the barn. He doesn’t think anybody can hear him, but you know how the wind carries. Started when he had to trade his John Deere for a milking cow that was mostly skin and bones. Money don’t move anymore, but as long as we got a few cows and chickens we can get by.”

  “I heard about what you did with the cattle,” said Jeremiah. “And the government officials.”

  “Did what needed to be done.”

  “It was noble, is all I’m saying.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Fine.”

  More silence. A black widow sneaked along the porch railing, and Josiah flicked it across the yard. “How’d you know?”

  “Know what?”

  “About what I done with the cows. When the government officials came.”

  “Prison walls aren’t so thick.”

  Josiah thought on it. “We were able to fatten the cow a smidge, the one he got for the tractor, but the first pail of milk came out brown. Like chocolate milk. Cow’s dead now. So we trade Mr. Mulraney fresh eggs for some of his milk. He’s somehow still got two good cows. Also gave Mulraney a nice pair of overalls that didn’t fit anymore. For some turnips.”

  “You remember the day Daddy bought that John Deere?” asked Jeremiah.

  “First time he smiled since Mother died.” Josiah coughed into his sleeve, watched his brother with curiosity. The sky bled orange over the horizon. “It wasn’t the John Deere itself. It was what it symbolized. Prosperity and wealth.”

  “The American dream.”

  “Building a town from nothing,” said Josiah. “You know, he told me one night over some hooch that during the wet years he and Orion were making more money than the professional ball players. Even Babe Ruth.”

  “They raped the land, Josiah.”

  “And the government pushed them into it.”

  “I suppose they did.”

  “Well, now he cries every night. No need to cast blame.” Josiah nodded across the road. “Here he comes.”

  Sheriff McKinney walked with a straight-backed gait, forced— his typical walk was more slouched and lethargic.

  “He planning on taking me in by himself?”

  Josiah shrugged, spat. “I ain’t gonna help him. I think he covets my wife.”

  They shared a glance, and then Jeremiah grinned toward their visitor. “Afternoon, Sheriff.”

  Sheriff McKinney fingered the rimmed hat that covered his bald head. He puffed his chest out, and the dust-brown uniform nearly lost a button. “I tried telephoning the state authorities, Jeremiah, but the last duster jostled the lines. If you’ll come with me, I’ll keep you in a holding cell overnight.”

  “Until when?”

  “Until we figure out what to do with you. You’re a wanted man.”

  “And if I say no?”

  “Was hoping you wouldn’t.” McKinley unlatched the cuffs from his chubby waistline and approached the porch. “Come on now.”

  “Take another step, and I’ll whack you in that big noodle of yours.”

  “Now you’ve done added threatening a lawman to your list of offenses.” The sheriff climbed the three steps to the porch. His jowls jiggled, no doubt trying like the dickens to hold back a victory smile—there was probably some grand reward for bringing in the Coin-Flip Killer.

  Jeremiah did as he’d promised. He reared back and punched Sheriff McKinney in the forehead, knocking him down the steps into the dust.

  Josiah stepped over to get a better look. “He’s out cold.”

  Jeremiah flexed his fingers. “Wish I didn’t have to do that. He left me no choice.”

  “You could’ve obliged.”

  “Nah. Got something I gotta do.”

  “What might that be?”

  “Can’t say.” Something else stole his attention. Jeremiah pointed toward the horizon, where dark clouds had suddenly appeared. Another black duster was on the way.

  “Here we go again,” said Josiah, with no life to the words. “They come without warning.”

  The screen door opened, and out stepped Wilmington, wincing, with his fingers to his left temple. “I feel a duster coming.” He looked up, and his eyes grew large. “And there it is.” Over the Bentley Hotel, massive black clouds loomed larger than even seconds before, like a big swath of Kansas had been picked up with the wind. He finally noticed Sheriff McKinney in the dust below. “What happened to him?”

  “He fell,” said Josiah.

  “Always was clumsy, like his daddy. Let’s get him inside then.” Wilmington moved across the porch as if to help.

  Jeremiah jumped down the steps in front of Wilmington. “I got it. You shouldn’t be lifting anything. That bullet might move.”

  Wilmington grunted, waved that notion away. “Been listening to Ellen too much already.”

  Josiah said, “Well Daddy, go on in and warn her now. Get out the sheets and wet ’em down. Seal the windows. And make sure you drape a sheet over James’s crib.”

  Wilmington hurried inside, invigorated simp
ly by being of use.

  Jeremiah grabbed the sheriff’s legs, and Josiah got him under the arms.

  Josiah said, “I don’t know where you plan on going. And it’s probably not the best idea to come back. But you might as well wait out this duster.”

  “Don’t have time to wait.”

  “Seen too many people die out there, Jeremiah.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  They carried the sheriff up the steps and onto the porch before Josiah paused. McKinney was easily two hundred thirty pounds of deadweight, and Jeremiah believed he had the heavier end.

  “Why’d you stop?”

  Josiah gulped. “You know how they say twins have that connection? Well, that jolt you took in Old Sparky, I think I felt it too.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We followed the newspapers, and we knew the day they were going to put you in the chair. Knew it down to the hour. Ellen and Daddy, they tried to keep themselves real busy so as not to think about it, so I did too. We all took to cleaning. I was sweeping the kitchen floor when the pain hit and I went down on one knee. Ellen will tell you the same. I felt my arms not just shaking, but vibrating, and my heart thrummed. I looked at the clock, Jeremiah. It was twelve thirty-two. What time did they put you in that chair?”

  “About that same time.”

  “Is it possible?”

  Jeremiah looked off into the distance and shrugged. He supposed anything was possible.

  The duster had doubled in size. Flecks started to dance across the hardpan ground, and static electricity buzzed like lightning. They again lifted Sheriff McKinney. Jeremiah said, “For what it’s worth, before Ellen fainted, I took a peek at the coin under my hand.”

  “And?”

  “It was tails.”

  Josiah wedged the screen door open with his foot. “Guess it’s my lucky day then.”

  “Don’t think luck has anything to do with it.”

  Josiah paused. “Then what does have to do with it, brother?”

  “What’s meant to be and what isn’t.”

  Josiah scoffed, chewed on it as they carried Sheriff McKinney into the front room and lowered him to the floorboards. Ellen and Wilmington worked together securing a blanket over the kitchen window.

  Jeremiah softened his voice and said to Josiah, “Tell the boy I’ll be back. If I’m able.”

  “Bad ol’ Jeremiah, always running off. You just love to make people fret.”

  “You fretting?”

  “Of course not. Part of me hopes you die out there in the dust.”

  “And the other part?”

  Josiah sighed. “Make sure you grab one of those masks by the door on your way out.”

  SEVEN

  The duster came and went.

  It lasted less than an hour but dropped enough black dust for them to get the brooms and shovels back out.

  Most of the porches and stoops had been cleared by sundown. A bell hung down from the middle of the hotel’s parlor, where most of the congregating went on. Orion had brought the bell with him from his Catholic church back in New York City, one of the only surviving pieces from the fire that had burned it to the ground three months before he headed west toward the fictional town of Majestic. The bell had a scorch mark on it that some said looked like Tennessee if it stood on end.

  Ellen heard the bell but didn’t feel much like congregating. The fainting episode had drained her, and cleaning after the duster had all but done her in for the evening. She sipped water at the kitchen table, where the rest of them looked just as whipped—Wilmington and Josiah, James and the new boy, Peter. Sheriff McKinney had come to on the floor twenty minutes into the duster, groggy for a minute until he remembered what had happened, then red-faced, embarrassed, and irate in equal measure.

  “Where’d he go off to?”

  “Went right into the duster,” Josiah had said with an edge to his voice, still busy sealing the last window with Ellen. They hadn’t spoken since he’d told her where Jeremiah had gone. When the duster started, maybe she’d been too quick to ask. She’d heard the panic in her own voice and then the irritation in her husband’s when he told her. Had she shown too much worry? Too much fret, as Josiah would have said?

  “How could he have just taken off, right into the duster?”

  Sheriff McKinney had left as soon as the duster ended, never even offering to help with the cleanup. Said he was going to see if Jeremiah was hiding somewhere, like in the silo.

  Now Peter sat at the end of the kitchen table, fingering the typewriter keys but not really pressing them. He’d been clacking the keys minutes ago until Josiah gave him the look, that one where his eyes got big as tin plates. The boy was aware enough to read body language. He’d stopped right away and now only pretended, which, in a way, was almost funny.

  Ellen stared at the boy but then glanced away every time he looked at her. Eye contact might bring about emotions she wasn’t ready to face. It was surely him, the same boy she’d been seeing in her mind for years now. How could that even be? James sat on his father’s lap gnawing on a stale hunk of wheat bread as they all watched Peter pretend to hit typewriter keys.

  Who are you? She wanted to ask the strange boy, already feeling more connected to him than she ever should. But how could she help it after what happened during the duster, when he started screaming and bobbing, tapping his temples with clenched fists until they’d turned red enough to see even in the dark? She’d done what any mother would do and reeled him in. At first he’d screamed louder, but eventually he’d settled his head against her shoulder and even allowed her to rub his back.

  “It’s okay, Peter. It’ll pass. They always do.”

  “Peter,” he’d said. “It’s okay, Peter. They always do.” He’d repeated her words back to her until he started into “Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater . . . had a wife but couldn’t keep her . . .” And Ellen had found herself mumbling right along with him, even as her own son started crying from his crib because the dust tapping against the house must have woken him up. At that point she’d given Josiah the look. The get-up-and-take-care-of-your-son look.

  Across the street, Orion rang the bell again, the third time in ten minutes. Out the window, half the town walked wearily across the dust toward the Bentley Hotel. Phillip Jansen, the postman back when the mail used to circulate, carried an accordion. One of the nuns from the hospital—it looked like Sister Moffitt from where Ellen sat—carried a banjo. Everyone else moved like they were half-asleep or half-dead, most of them coughing and hacking.

  She wondered how long it would take a town to starve to death. Most of the excess wheat was gone. Aside from rabbit, meat was now scarce. Most of their milk came out brown from the cow.

  Wilmington was the first to stand. He slung the suspender straps that had been hanging loose around his waist to a snap atop his shoulders. “I suppose we should go too. Orion won’t stop ringing that bell until the hotel is full. Must have something he needs to get off his chest.”

  “You suppose?” Josiah stood up with James and headed for the door.

  Peter followed with the typewriter.

  Ellen walked alongside Wilmington, who offered his arm.

  She took it and patted his hand. “You take it easy now.”

  “I’m not glass, Ellen.”

  Jeremiah’s face hurt.

  It was just as he’d heard; black-blizzard dust clipped like glass when it hit the skin.

  Maybe he should’ve listened to his brother and waited the storm out. But something told him he needed to hurry if he wanted answers.

  He was thankful for the mask. Without it he could have suffocated. For two miles he’d hunkered into the dark blow with his Stetson tilted low over his brow, knowing the way only because of the power lines in and out of town, following the static electricity as it sparked from pole to pole.

  Just when he thought his body might give in, his mind took over. The jolt of electricity had unlocked some doors once dark
ened by vice and clouded by drink, and good memories found their way to the surface. He and Josiah running through golden fields of wheat, sweating under the summer sun, finding shade from the elm trees that used to exist, and dousing themselves with water from the well. The fruit smells in the house when their mother got to cooking cobblers.

  He’d even managed to conjure up a memory of her face— blue-green eyes, hair so blond it looked sun-touched, a smile that made his heart melt. At least that’s how Wilmington had described her one day, tending to the rose garden he’d built over her grave. Jeremiah missed those days, smelling the roses as his daddy would water them, warning him not to touch those thorns.

  Jeremiah had sworn to Josiah that Daddy would touch those thorns on purpose, kind of like he enjoyed the prick and the spot of blood that followed.

  “That makes no sense, Jeremiah.”

  Jeremiah thought it did, that the blood was some kind of connection to what once was, one of those strange ways an adult has of remembering how to be close to something.

  Seeing that blood was something Jeremiah could relate to. He had enough scars on his forearm to prove it too, but he’d always made sure he kept those concealed. Wasn’t something he was proud of, and he’d yet to find a logical way to explain them away.

  As he wandered through the dust, Jeremiah imagined his mother talking to him. “You didn’t kill me, Jeremiah. I lived for three years after you were born, you know. It was my weakened lungs that got me. Not that birth.” All things he wished she’d said to him before she died in that bed, a bed that looked to have swallowed her.

  He’d been hungry and waddled in to tug on her leg, which hadn’t moved. Or maybe it was Josiah who’d gone in first and told him, “Mom don’t move.” Was it possible for Josiah to feel that jolt he’d taken in Old Sparky? Was it possible for him to have a memory that actually happened to his brother?

  Jeremiah plowed on, craving a drink. Not the kind he used to crave—those urges seemed to have been churned under like the nightmares, all because of the jolt. But his dry mouth felt desperate for a cool drink of water.

  The nightmares were why he’d begun drinking in the first place, trying that first gulp of hooch behind the barn when he was ten and never looking back, reveling in the realization that he’d found something to help him forget what the nights brought about or at least make them fuzzy. He’d figured out long ago that his ability to sense things in others was somehow related to the nightmare he’d have every night. Like the two were inseparable, one keeping balance with the other.