“You can’t unflip a coin,” said Josiah.
Life drained from Boo’s face. “Then that’s it? I’m just gonna die?”
Josiah raised the bottle. “Never met a man that could undo that eventuality.”
EIGHT
Sunlight woke Jeremiah Goodbye.
After a few blinks he remembered where he was—on the floor of a recently abandoned dugout. Only thing the family had left behind was a table they’d probably been unable to fit on their jalopy or truck or whatever had made those getaway tracks in the dust the day prior.
He hoped they found what they were looking for out west, or wherever it was they’d gone. Many of the Okies returned home, unwanted, quickly learning that while there may be greener pastures elsewhere—as in actual grass—the rest of the country was still living on the nut.
Jeremiah pulled himself up from the floor and brushed dust from his shirt. He retrieved his hat from where he’d left it on the table last night before deciding to stay until morning. He still had the coin Josiah had given him in his pocket. He’d need it to see where he’d go next.
Sunlight cut a path across the wooden tabletop, and right in the middle of it was the satchel he’d noticed last night. The dugout had been too dark then to open it up and see what it held. Jeremiah lifted it from the sunlight, and dust motes scattered. He took the satchel outside with him. The morning was warm, the sky as blue as freshly spread paint, the air so clear and clean it reminded him of when Nowhere was alive and fancy, when there was color on the ground and smiles on faces.
“Pinch me,” he said, something Ellen used to say on picturesque mornings such as this, when together they’d stare up into the sky and wonder if the blue ever ended.
He opened the satchel and looked inside. It had clearly been packed for whoever purchased the boy, and evidently Peter had left it behind. There was a toothbrush and a neatly folded shirt he assumed was Peter’s. A dog-eared book of nursery rhymes rested at the bottom, next to a five-inch-tall wooden statue carved to look like a cowboy with a lasso and a pocket watch with a busted face and no arms for time telling. A red candle burned down to a two-inch nub rested beside a stained brass holder that must have once enclosed it. A smooth rock tucked in a corner would have been perfect for skipping had there been any water anymore.
All personal items, seemingly, packed more thoughtfully than Jeremiah would have supposed from that mother, who’d been so eager to rid herself of the boy in the first place. He was better off with Ellen, anyway, so maybe taking him had been the right thing to do.
Wouldn’t doubt if the boy had packed the satchel himself.
Jeremiah inhaled the pure air, and his brain cleared. There was no wind to move the dust. He gave the satchel one last glance and pulled out the nursery-rhyme book. On the inside of the front cover was an inscription: “For Peter Cotton, on the day of his birth—August 29, 1926.” Which would make the boy almost nine. Jeremiah paused to let the significance of that date sink in, and then he slid the old book into the satchel.
“Pinch me,” he said again, although now for a different reason, the date on that page still buzzing inside his head like a bee would.
No need to flip the coin now. He knew where he had to go.
“Pinch me,” Ellen said as she stared up into the endless blue sky.
James was restless in her arms. Even he had woken with more energy. She set him down on the porch. He walked toward the steps, and she didn’t speak out to stop him as he navigated his way down. The wind wasn’t blowing, so the dust stayed put. He wouldn’t even need a damp rag to cover his mouth and nose.
“Morning, Ellen!” Across the street Orion stood in the dust that buried the front lawn of his hotel, which at one time had been manicured with grass and trimmed bushes and a colorful flower bed. He was dressed to the nines in a tuxedo and top hat, gazing up at the sky with his head tilted back so far she feared he’d topple over like a turtle. “Glorious,” he said, puffing his cigar. “It’s a sign, Ellen. I do believe the worst may be over.”
Ellen nodded with a grin. It wasn’t the first time he’d said it, although this morning did seem to hold more optimism than she could remember feeling since the boom. “Morning, Orion.”
She didn’t know if the worst was over or not, but what she saw in that sky was a calmness she hadn’t seen in years, not months.
The winter had been the worst in a long time. February had been the coldest in four decades, with dwindling supplies of cow chips to heat the homes and winds so frigid the town folks were like to never find warmth. In January a duster had piggybacked a snowstorm, and the precipitation had fallen like globs of mud—Orion had called it a snuster instead of a duster, always trying to find some solace in the dreary. March had brought warmer temperatures but stronger winds that knocked men down and nearly toppled Jeremiah’s old grain silo. Then there’d been dusters for thirty straight days, many of them blotting out the sun, the static electricity zipping and zapping day and night. They’d had to wrap the doorknobs with rags to protect them from the jolt.
Josiah had sworn the world was coming to an end, and he was in the majority.
To which Orion had responded with a smile, “Nothing in the Bible says the world will end in dust, Josiah. Hardship breeds the strongest of men.”
Josiah had found no answer for that, unless a grunt could be construed as talking.
The door opened, and out walked Peter with his hands in his pockets. He must have kicked the screen open with his knee or foot, or maybe he’d done it with his head, which was reddened just over the brow.
“Morning, Peter,” said Ellen.
“Morning, Peter.” He walked on past her without even a glance, heading for the stairs James had just descended and then following in the younger boy’s footsteps. The two of them walked in a circle that would have made Ellen dizzy.
“Walking in the dust,” said James, in that rare moment free from the cough.
“Walking in the dust,” said Peter, his shadow casting long across the yard and catching his attention as he walked.
Something rustled behind Ellen. She looked over her shoulder. Wilmington waved from the window. He’d just yanked a sheet from the glass. He came out a second later, inhaling the air so deeply his chest expanded.
“You sense a duster coming this morning?”
“Can’t say I do, Ellen.” He tipped his hat toward Orion across the street.
Moses Yearling, the man claimed to be a rainmaker and cloudbuster, had emerged from the hotel and was standing next to Orion with a box of TNT and rockets in his arms. The man’s orange hair and mustache glistened in the sunlight and looked aflame.
“What’s he doing with all that?” asked Wilmington.
“Suppose he’s going to give his rockets another chance to bring down rain.”
“No clouds in the sky, Ellen. What’s he gonna shoot into?”
She shrugged, didn’t much care. The sun felt too good on her cheeks.
By the second, more and more of the town folk stepped from their homes and places of business to take in the air and stare at the sky. No goggles or masks or anything, just their faces fresh in the daylight. The brooms got to whisking across porches. People unsealed doors and windows and opened them to the air. That man who called himself Boo was still in town, sitting on an exposed patch of roadside curb, elbows propped on his knees, his face tilted skyward like the rest of them. Must be still waiting for Jeremiah to return so he could unflip that coin.
William “Windmill” Trainer walked outside with a baseball and glove, and three more boys followed like ducklings, one of them with a bat dragging through the dust and eyes glued to the sky. Compared to the other boys, William was the size of a windmill, especially next to little Nicholas Draper, who looked up to Windmill more than any of them.
Windmill waved and said good morning, and so Nicholas did too.
Ellen chuckled. “Morning, boys. Enjoy the day.”
“Oh, we will, Miss Goodbye.” W
indmill tipped his ball cap. Nicholas did likewise.
Wilmington sidled up to his daughter-in-law. “Haven’t seen that smile in a while, Ellen.”
“The day is pretty as a painting, and the first thing I imagine doing is washing all our dusty sheets. Let ’em air dry on the line and snap and ruffle in the wind like I remember as a kid.”
“Suit yourself, Ellen. I might go for a walk.”
Don’t walk far, she nearly said. But it wasn’t the day to play mother hen.
Where had Jeremiah gone to? Was he looking up into the same sky even now? She assumed he’d survived yesterday’s duster, figuring she would have felt a tug somewhere had he not. Josiah certainly would have. Twins just had that connection.
The door opened behind them, and out came Josiah. She imagined his hair askew and his clothes rumpled from sleeping one off on the couch, but he didn’t look hungover at all. He wore a clean white shirt rolled to the elbows and his Sunday trousers from back when they used to go to church. His hair was slicked back with pomade, and for once his cheeks weren’t sagging from the weight of everything they’d had to endure.
She’d planned on giving him one day of silence from the way he’d spoken to her during last night’s meeting—maybe two days, depending on his response. But the way he nodded and said, “Morning, Ellen” and then “Morning, Daddy,” she just couldn’t help but say good morning back, because that’s exactly what it was.
A good morning.
Josiah bounded down the steps with more energy than she’d seen from him in months.
James yelled, “Daddy.” It looked like Peter was about to yell it, too, but he caught himself.
Part of Ellen wished he had done it, just so she could see Josiah’s reaction. A day would come soon when they’d have to discuss what to do with the boy if Jeremiah never came back. But that day wasn’t today.
Josiah patted his son’s head and fetched the shovel leaning against the house. At first Ellen thought he was going to start digging into the drift covering what used to be Wilmington’s rose garden—they’d barely made a dent in it before Jeremiah showed up yesterday, and what they dug out had already been refilled by the afternoon duster—but instead Josiah walked right past the garden and approached their Model T. The wheels were half-buried in dust, the hood nearly covered in a drift, and the ceiling looked caved-in or at least dented from having too much dust on it for too long.
Josiah crunched the shovel blade into the dirt next to the driver’s side.
Ellen said, “Where do you think you’re going, Josiah?”
He tossed dust to the side. “Just thought it’d be a nice day for a drive, Ellen.”
“By yourself?”
He paused midthrust with the shovel. “Figured we’d all go.” He nodded toward Peter. “Even him, I guess.”
It took Josiah and Wilmington ten minutes to get that Model T started, and when it did the car coughed enough dirt from the back end to get both Josiah and his daddy coughing.
They loaded inside as the car idled, every few seconds belching out more dust. Ellen volunteered to sit in the back between the two boys, but once back there James insisted on sitting next to Peter, so Ellen sat behind Wilmington. She couldn’t help staring at that hairless spot above his left ear and hoping his first car trip wouldn’t cause that bullet to move. Josiah was the last one in—he’d decided to remove the chains from the back bumper. There was no static electricity in the air, so nothing needed to be grounded. The car shook when he jumped in and closed the door, almost looking disappointed for a second as he noticed his daddy in the front with him instead of his wife.
At least that’s how Ellen perceived it.
Suits him right. I’m no easy mark.
Before clanking the car in reverse he looked over his shoulder. “Now, we can’t drive for long.”
“Can’t drive for long,” echoed Peter.
“Ain’t got too much gas, and we don’t wanna run dry.”
“Don’t wanna run dry,” said Peter.
“Run dry,” said James.
Josiah gave his son a queer look, like he was afraid Peter was rubbing off on him in a bad way, but then James said, “Daddy drive a car.”
That’s better.
Josiah rolled his window down and he and Wilmington rode with their elbows hanging out as they drove toward the town center. Out in front of the courthouse, the sheriff was currying his skinny brown horse, and though the animal’s ribs showed, its newly groomed coat shimmered in the sunlight. The horse neighed as they drove by.
Leland Cantain, who owned Nowhere’s opera house—where not a play or musical had been on stage in over a year—had taken a pause from his walk to help ruffle dust from chickens who were out scratching for bugs, and they seemed to like it.
Leland waved, and Josiah waved back.
Richard Klamp from Klamp’s Clothing was giving his dog a bath outside his closed-up store. Josiah waved. Richard returned the gesture and said, “I’m getting ol’ Harvest here ready for this afternoon.”
Josiah slowed the car. “What’s this afternoon?”
“You haven’t heard? Orion just scheduled a rabbit drive for noon or thereabouts.”
Josiah slapped the side of the car like he was excited.
Wilmington said to his son, “I was gonna tell you on the drive back. We decided today would be perfect for a rabbit drive. Get the morale in this town back up.”
“Count me out,” said Ellen. She didn’t see what was so agreeable to everyone about those rabbit drives. It gave her nightmares—the brutality of it, the horror of all those rabbits dying.
“Oh, you have to come, Ellen,” said Wilmington. “You’re a leader in this town. Not coming would be seen as an act of defiance.”
“Which is what it is.”
“Peter here needs to see his first rabbit drive anyhow. Ain’t that right, Peter?”
“Ain’t that right, Peter?” Peter sat stoically, probably unaware of what the two men up front were talking about. “See his first rabbit drive anyhow. First rabbit drive.”
“See?” said Wilmington. “He’s looking forward to it.” He faced forward again as they coasted past a two-story brick building that had housed a tractor and farm-equipment dealership during the boom but was now Nowhere Hospital, run by Sister Moffitt and two other nuns. Most everyone in there suffered from some kind of dust ailment, which Dr. Craven attended to daily. Ten patients now sat outside in the dust, breathing in the fresh air.
“You boys probably don’t even know what today is,” said Ellen.
“What’s today?” asked Josiah.
“Your mother would be disappointed.” She gave them another few seconds to guess, but they didn’t offer any possibilities. “It’s Palm Sunday. A week before Easter. You do remember what that is, don’t you?”
“It’s when the bunny comes with candy,” said Josiah, winking at his daddy. “Ain’t that right, James? Bunny comes with a bucket of candy.”
“Not anymore he doesn’t,” Ellen said under her breath. “Perhaps a bucket of thistle.”
“Now, now, Ellen,” said Wilmington, sounding too much like his friend Orion. “There’ll be no negative talk today. Not with a glorious rabbit drive to look forward to.”
Josiah focused to make sure he was staying on the road. They’d rumbled over a couple of drifts, and the curb had disappeared. They throttled past a fence line where a dozen dead snakes hung belly-up under the sun, not doing a very good job of bringing moisture down from the sky. The locals were willing to try anything to produce rainfall.
“I’ll make you a deal then,” said Ellen. St. James’s Church stood just to the right of the road, a simple white building with stained-glass windows and a steeple. Father Steven spent most of his time inside the church nowadays, when in the past he’d been a regular in the Bentley Hotel, playing cards and bingo with the three nuns and sometimes Pastor Johnson from Nowhere First Baptist. Father Steven was out now hammering a sign into the dust. He must have j
ust painted it himself because the black letters still looked wet.
“Okay then, Ellen, what’s the deal?” asked Wilmington.
She nodded toward the sign. “I’ll go to your silly rabbit drive, but—”
Just then the sky exploded, and they all jumped. After a second they realized what the explosion was. Moses Yearling had just fired another one of his rockets into the sky.
Ellen shook her head. How much were they paying that man for producing nothing?
“You were saying?” asked Wilmington.
“I’ll go to your silly rabbit drive, but only if the two of you accompany me to Mass this evening for Palm Sunday.”
The two men glanced at one another, then each jerked a nod.
Ellen sat back in her seat, satisfied.
Then Wilmington said, “The rabbit drives aren’t silly, Ellen. It’s one of those . . . what do you call it?”
“Necessary evils,” said Josiah, finding Ellen’s eyes in the rear-view mirror.
She folded her arms and looked away.
Just as she’d figured, the entire town turned up for the massacre.
The dusty wasteland where they now stood had once been acres of golden wheat, and before that, before the earth was plowed, it had been grassland where buffalo roamed and Indians lived in teepees. Now the jackrabbits were just about the only warm-blooded creatures to be found on it. They came out of the hills and mountains out west looking for food, multiplying in numbers not thought possible. And although Ellen would never admit it out loud, they were the town’s most obvious source of food. A good rabbit drive could bring them up to ten thousand jackrabbits in only a couple of hours, and town folk could salt and can up enough rabbit meat from that to last the winter.
Orion had already announced that today’s goal was twenty thousand, to which the crowd had cheered, pumping their baseball bats and clubs and rifles in the air like a bunch of savages. Now they were already deep into the drive—so many men and their sons, and dozens of women as well, herding thousands of rabbits into the pocket created by those chain-link fences across the way.
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