by Rilla Askew
“Misty Dawn’s. She’s not a little baby-baby, we just call her that. She’s a little girl.”
“And who’s Misty Dawn again?”
“My niece in Tulsa.”
“She’s in Tulsa.”
“No, she’s here. At the coal mine.”
“The coal mine?”
“On Daddy’s land!” Sweet stopped herself. Brother Oren wasn’t ordinarily this dense. Maybe he was just tired. He looked tired. “Out there on the ridge behind the house,” she said more reasonably.
The preacher nodded again, but his face didn’t show much comprehension. “And her husband’s illegal, I take it.”
“I don’t know. I guess. Yes.”
“He’s been deported.”
“Well, he was. But he’s back. He’s out at the mine with her and the baby, that’s the whole point! I mean, that’s what I’m saying.”
“What about Dustin?”
“What about him?”
“He’s with them?”
“No! Where’d you get that idea? Good grief, we wouldn’t be in this mess if we knew where Dustin is! Half the state wouldn’t be camped out at my daddy’s farm, and the other half wouldn’t be parked in their dadgum news vans across the street from my house!”
The preacher began to draw on the butcher paper with his finger. “And what you’re asking is . . .”
“If they can stay here.”
“Here? At the church?” Brother Oren looked scared—not quick, startled scared, like when she tapped on the car window, but slow, fathoming scared, like he knew this was coming. Like he’d been dreading this moment his entire short middle-aged life.
Sweet waved her arms around. “Look, here’s a kitchen. There’s a bathroom. It’s warm. I’ll fix them a pallet. Just for tonight. Just till the bad weather is past.” She saw the faintest movement of his head, the beginnings of a tiny side-to-side wag. “Brother Oren,” she whispered, “that little girl’s only three years old.”
The preacher was silent a beat too long, and when he spoke, it seemed like he was changing the subject. “They called a special deacons’ meeting for tonight. Clyde Herrington came by this afternoon to tell me.” Sweet frowned. What did this have to do with anything? “Ken Spears called it.”
“Kenneth Spears?” The chairman of the deacons, that old bachelor retired schoolteacher, and a retired marine before that—a time-and-rules-stickler who, in Sweet’s opinion, would have been a whole lot better off if he’d ever had a wife to keep him from sticking his nose in everybody’s business. Then she realized what Brother Oren was saying. “You mean they called a deacons’ meeting without you?” The preacher nodded. “Oh,” Sweet said. “They’re fixing to fire you.”
“Deacons can’t fire the pastor, you know that. But some of them want to call for a vote of confidence from the church body.”
“Oh. That’s bad.”
Brother Oren went back to tracing invisible lines on the table. He wouldn’t meet her gaze. “I got to explain something to you, Sweet. I’m not just only your family’s pastor. I’ve got a whole flock to consider. I got my own family.”
A cold spitty rain was falling. Her wiper blades were shot. Sweet hunched forward to peer through the arc of smeared road film, working hard to hold to the unmarked blacktop. She wanted to be mad, she just couldn’t. That was so strange. Oh, she could get her hackles up at that woman politician easily enough, but right now it was the preacher Sweet wanted to be mad at, and somehow all she could dredge up was disappointment, and pity, and fear. What was she going to do now? She’d had a more or less workable plan, but the preacher had nixed it, so, well. Just go. That’s all she knew. Go out to the mine where the kids were waiting. She would get past all the people in the barnyard somehow.
Not that she’d figured out how to do that yesterday, or this morning, or this afternoon. Her daddy’s yard had looked like a tribal casino parking lot for two days now, and Sweet hadn’t yet finagled a way past all the vehicles and the people milling. When she took the supplies out there yesterday, she’d found them waiting fretfully inside the pickup the baby whining, the kids frowning. She had explained everything to a sulky Misty Dawn—searchers headquartering at the farm now, the sheriff due back soon—but when she told her they were going to have to wait inside the mine till the coast was clear, the girl snapped, “No way! We’re not doing that!” Sweet said, “Suit yourself. If you want to take a chance on the sheriff finding your husband . . .” and Misty Dawn had immediately climbed out of the truck and started helping her lug the black trash bags up the ridge toward the mine mouth. Juanito drove the Ram in under a cedar thicket to hide it, where Sweet showed him, and then she’d lit the lamps, gotten the kids settled, told them she’d be back for them as quick as she could. She’d never dreamed it would take this long.
But what could she do? There’d been even more men hanging around the barn when she went back by there, everybody waiting on the sheriff, waiting and waiting. Sweet had stayed as long as she could stand it, and then she told Terry she was leaving, she would let him know when he could bring Carl Albert home. Tee’s face was baffled at first, and then furious, but she drove off without giving him a chance to lay into her. She went home, hurried into her house past all the reporters, sat in the front room with the phones off and the blinds shut all evening, watching cable news. When she went back to her daddy’s farm this morning, that woman politician was holding a press conference in front of the barn, and the milling crowds were even worse. And it wasn’t just news people and searchers, either, but every kind of old gawker and hanger-on—now, what was that about? People’s giddiness and hunger for excitement, Sweet figured. Their ambition. How they all wanted to be on camera.
No, of course that wasn’t it. People wanted to help find Dustin. Truly they did. Why was Sweet’s spirit so mean? She tried to think nice thoughts, grateful thoughts, but somehow in her mind’s eye all she could see was that bunch of strangers milling around her daddy’s house this morning, crowding up the kitchen and the front room and both porches, jamming the narrow hallway while they waited in line to use the bathroom, and who were they, anyway? Search team leaders, somebody said. Volunteer firemen from all over eastern Oklahoma. Preachers of apparently every stripe and denomination. The Wilburton mayor and the Cedar school superintendent and that khaki-headed state representative and her froggy-eyed husband and that long drink of water Senator Langley, plus all those church women trooping in with their covered dishes and then hanging around way longer than necessary just to drop off a pan of cowboy bean casserole, not to mention more deputies than you could shake a stick at. Everybody trying to act like they didn’t see the reporters or that film crew from Disappeared! Everybody talking in those self-conscious voices, creasing their brows in those fake worried frowns.
Sweet reached up to give the fogging windshield a swipe. When we get to the end of days, she thought, we’re going to find out the video camera was actually an invention of the Devil. Something sneaky and innocent looking he dreamed up to entice folks into sinning—like line dancing or Powerball lottery. And that Monica Moorehouse was the biggest camera hog of all. Sweet found herself working up a good fury right there in the car, thinking about that woman standing in front of the barn this morning in her fake cowboy-cut jacket, drawling out her fake concern in her fake Okie accent, saying the same things to the cameras over and over, the same exact words, the same phrases—“our hearts go out to the family,” “cannot surrender to this illegal alien invasion,” “leave no stone unturned,” “despite special-interest groups and drug traffickers who want to turn our state into a sanctuary for illegal aliens,” “these heroic men,” “this tragic situation,” “very important not to confuse the two issues,” “our thoughts and prayers are with the family,” “cannot let this deter us from the fight”—all totally rehearsed, smiling that fake smile every minute—smiling!—with that mouth full of bleached teeth.
And there wasn’t a thing in the world Sweet could do about it. She couldn’t even vote against her in the next election; the woman’s district was the next one over.
Not that Sweet was much of a political person anyway, but she did vote. Usually. Most of the time. In presidential elections anyway. Terry was the one who paid attention to that stuff, and that was because he came from a political family, or anyhow his own daddy, Carter Kirkendall, had worked on the county election board practically till he’d had one foot in the grave, and Tee’s great-uncle, Gene Kirkendall, used to be a corporation commissioner right up till the time he got sent to prison for bribery and corruption when the state attorney general was sending all those commissioners to jail years ago. It had been Terry’s daddy’s idea, in fact, for them to name their son after an Oklahoma politician, and Sweet hadn’t argued. She’d figured there would be other children she’d get to pick the name for . . . a daughter, yes. Oh, how fiercely she had longed for a baby girl. How relentlessly she’d prayed.
Sweet sucked in her cheeks, bit down hard on the inside of her mouth. But the old familiar ache, once awakened, wouldn’t leave her. It had been a part of her life’s rhythm for too many years.
You couldn’t even call them miscarriages, not really—a few days late, enough to make her hope, then a heavier flow than usual, that was all. That was the rhythm: two or three days of hope, then one long heartsickening day of lost hope, then the low, tender ache starting, the yearning, the wait for next month. She’d tried, back then, to talk to Terry about it. But he didn’t want to talk. And so Sweet had prayed. Prayed and prayed and prayed. Then, the same month Carl Albert started second grade, Sweet had, in a great weeping emotional trip to the altar, rededicated her life at a church revival. After that she’d quit praying for what she wanted and started praying to accept the Lord’s will. And the Lord’s will must be, had to be, the fact that she was only ever going to bear the one child. The one son.
Oh, Carl Albert. Oh, honey. This was going to be so hard on him. Sweet’s chest was working. She could hear her throat making little low-pitched voiced sounds. She swiped at the windshield with her open palm again. She couldn’t see. Everything was so smeary. Maybe her defroster had quit working, too. Damn it. The gravel turnoff would be coming up soon. Damn it. Oh, honey, sweetheart, Mommy’s sorry. Carl Albert. My baby. She couldn’t see. She couldn’t see anything! Sweet stopped the car on the pitch-black road.
There was nothing. Only the faint scent of wet asphalt, the oniony odor from wadded-up food wrappers in the back. The suck swish click of her worthless wipers. The tortured, hiccupy sound of her own breaths.
Tuesday | February 26, 2008 | Evening
In the Gloss Mountains
In the cleft of the dark, glinting hills, Luis opens his coat, uses the knife the boy gave him to cut a rag from the tail of his shirt, pours cold water on it. With the damp shirt-rag he bathes the face of the boy. For one week, he reminds himself, the miracles have come without limit, one following the other following the other. Each time he believed they were lost, the way opened. Each time he grew afraid, Our Lady brought him peace. She has accompanied them every mile, every minute, until this frozen hour beneath a purpling sky in this small sheltered place on the dark plain. But this hour the boy coughs. His skin is hot. The truck is lost. Luis fears that Our Lady has abandoned them. For what reason? He cannot tell.
Please, mister, the boy says. His voice is rough and low, too rough for the voice of a child. I have thirst.
Yes, Luis says, and he opens the jar of water, holds the cold mouth for the boy to drink. In the dark cleared space around them the ground glints in the moonlight as though diamond dust has been sifted in the soil. The boy shifts again, restless. Luis touches his forehead. He is burning hot, his hair is soaked with sweat. Tomorrow they must find a town, find a doctor or hospital. The boy cannot travel the cold, gray days any longer. He cannot sleep anymore in the frozen nights, huddled inside the sleeping bag. Luis is afraid, and yet peace accompanies his fear. The peace of surrender. To have traveled so far, and still not see his sons. This is a terrible decision. But of course, there is no decision to be made. If he does not find help soon, the boy will become more sick. It is possible he will become too sick to get well. No. We must not think this. Luis presses the edges of the sleeping bag more tightly around him, says quietly, I will climb to the top of the hill to see where is the next town.
¿You return soon? the boy asks in his rasping voice.
Yes. Very soon.
The climb is not difficult. The hills have been coursed with paved walkways, steel rods for banisters—a park of some kind, though with so few trees, no tables or benches or flower beds, Luis does not know why anyone would want to come here. There are signs near the road that tell the name of this place, and also the names of plants and animals beside drawings; he recognizes the animals—a lizard, a tortoise, a rattlesnake, a mouse—but he cannot understand the english names. By the time they arrived here, the boy was already too sick to read the words aloud. Luis climbs to the top of the highest hill; at the crest is a great flat place, like a table stretching far into the darkness, but the ground is rough, broken by gashes in the rocks, mounds of stone, clumps of brush. Looking off, he can see many miles in all directions—a light here, a light there. Lone distant houses. They would have a telephone, Luis thinks. A car. He looks to the east, the flat cold plains across which he and the boy have traveled, and can see a small clutch of lights—the little gasoline store and few houses they passed in the early morning. The distance is, he remembers, very far. In the west, the sky is still violet, but on the dark earth below he sees no clustered lights indicating a town. Still, it seems better to go on than to go back.
We will go as soon as the dawn comes, he thinks. How strange. All the journey they have been hiding in the daylight, moving rapidly off the road each time they heard a car or a truck, lying down with the bicycle in a ditch or some tall grasses until the vehicle passed. Tomorrow they will travel openly on the side of the road, hoping that some person will drive near and stop. We will do this in the early morning, Luis thinks, if the boy is able to ride a little more.
Quickly he turns to feel his way with his feet across the flat hilltop. The way seems more treacherous going down than climbing; he has to hold more often to the steel bars, his feet slide on the little stones, his knees ache, refuse to bend. When he reaches the bottom, he cannot recall which of the small sheltered crevices he left the boy in. ¡Boy! he calls softly. But there is no need for silence. They are no longer hiding. It would be welcome if someone heard him calling and came in a car to arrest them. He calls again, this time with his hands cupped, very loudly: ¡Dustee!
Here, the boy answers with that choked scratchy sound.
Luis makes his way toward the voice.
The boy has pushed down the sleeping bag. He lies sweating, his face wet. ¡No, no! Luis says, pulling up the flannel. ¡You must keep warm! At first the boy fights him, pushing away his hand; then he turns on his side within the sleeping bag, whimpers, grows quiet. It is well, my son, Luis whispers. It is well. Overhead the sky is growing darker. Luis wraps the green sleeping bag across his shoulders to keep warm. The moon is high in the sky already, a little west. When they left the farm in the blue truck, Luis remembers, she was a thin white sliver in the afternoon sky.
That first day the boy showed Luis where to turn, and where to turn, until they were driving west on a rutted dirt road in the frozen winter afternoon. He talked rapidly in english and spanish, but Luis understood very little, only that the boy wished to see his mother. Then the boy grew silent. He sat leaning
forward, holding his arm, intently watching the side of the road. Luis, too, watched the road, and also the low humpbacked hills to the south and to the north. He liked seeing the blue hills in the distance. They were not majestic like the Sierra Gorda, but they were pretty.
Here, please, the boy said, and gestured for Luis to turn again. They had come to a small cemetery a short distance off the road, very ragged and rough looking, with thorny, leafless brambles crawling over the rock walls. A rusted iron sign arched across the entrance showing english words. As soon as the truck stopped, the boy jumped down, supporting his left hand with his right, and ran to the open gate. Then the boy halted, walked slowly through the cemetery till he reached a shiny black headstone near the back. Luis had never seen a black headstone; it seemed a strange thing. Was it a mark of honor in this country to have a black headstone, or was this something bad? Luis pictured the black quarry stone of the Temple of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Arroyo Seco. On the front of the unfinished temple, the black stone was something beautiful and good. Maybe here it was the same. On the far side of the cemetery the boy stood with his head bowed. Luis turned his eyes away to give the boy privacy. The other graves appeared untended, with tall yellow grasses growing on them, obscuring the markings. Some of the headstones had fallen over. They were all gray colored or white, very small. The sun was rapidly descending. Soon dark would come, and the cold would be worse. Luis sat in the quiet truck for as long as possible, but at last he returned his gaze to where the boy stood. His heart bumped. He thought the boy had disappeared. Then he saw the wine-colored sleeve peeking out from the far side of the stone. Luis reached to the floorboard for his coat, climbed down from the truck.
He found the boy sitting with his back against the black headstone, facing the fiery sun, his cap brim pulled low. After a moment Luis sat beside him, placed the coat on the ground between them. The winter sun swam low on the horizon, a fierce red circle. Luis said, The night will be coming soon. The boy said nothing. After a time Luis asked, ¿What does your mother say to you?
