A Trail of Crumbs

by Finkbeiner, Susie;

  They called back and forth to each other. Back and forth. Eventually Daddy and Millard got closer until we huddled together, the four of us. I grabbed onto Daddy, my arms holding him tight as I could, and I had no intention of letting go.

  “I got bandanas,” Daddy said, feeling in the dark to tie one around my face, covering my mouth and nose. His knot pulled at my hair, tangling it with the fabric, but I didn’t care. “Ray, I got one for you, too.”

  “Beanie came,” I said. “She’s gone.”

  “She ain’t too far off,” Ray added. “Over to your right, I think.”

  “She was coming for us.” I started crying and I didn’t think my words made a lick of sense. “She knew.”

  “All right,” Daddy said. “It’s gonna be all right, darlin’. She’ll find her way back to us.”

  “What if she doesn’t?” I asked.

  Nobody answered.

  “We’d best get ’em home,” Millard said.

  “Would you take them?” Daddy asked.

  “Course I will.”

  “Can’t you come?” Panic rose from deep in my guts. “Daddy, please?”

  “I gotta find your sister.”

  “I’ll stay,” I said. “I can help.”

  “Darlin’, you’ll be helping me by getting home to your mama. She’s real worried.” His voice was stern. Not mad, but serious. I knew I’d best mind, much as I didn’t want to leave him there. “Go on home with Millard, hear?”

  I didn’t answer him because my crying clamped my throat shut.

  Ray put both his hands on my shoulders, and I took Millard by a couple of his fingers. We walked the direction I imagined was the way home. Three blind mice walking one after the other, leaving Daddy and Beanie behind.

  If I shook all the way down to my fingers Millard didn’t say anything about it. He did, though, rub his rough-padded thumb against the back of my hand now and then and say, “Gettin’ closer. We’re findin’ our way just fine.”

  Daddy’s voice, calling for Beanie, got fainter and fainter the more we made strides away from them.

  “Now, no matter what, don’t you touch that barbed wire,” Millard said, turning his head toward us. “See it?”

  The dark was thinning, even if the dust still thickened the air. I turned and looked at the wire Millard pointed at. It was a small comfort that I could see, even if it wasn’t very much.

  “Don’t want ya to get shocked. Don’t know if it still would, but it ain’t worth the chance,” he went on.

  Over the years of dust, I’d gotten my share of pokes from the charge the storms caused. Daddy’d tried explaining it to me one time, but it seemed like nothing more than an awful sort of magic to me. The kind of magic used by evil queens to change crops into dust, blue days into inky nights, and barbed wire into blazing threads of fire.

  As we walked on, the haze cleared inch by inch. We moved slowly, step after step after step, for what seemed like the remainder of eternity. The more we walked, the clearer the air got.

  Out of the corner of my eye I spied a lump on top of a pile of dirt. It jerked and flicked its feathers and beak. Brown wings tried to move, tried to get the body set to fly off. The most it could manage, though, was a frantic, scared flapping.

  Letting go of Millard’s hand, I leaned over to look at the bird. Feathers the color of earth were rumpled, full of dust. I could see, even through my sore and scratched eyes, it was nothing but a sparrow.

  “Come on,” Ray said, tapping my shoulder. “Let’s keep on.”

  “It’s hurt.” I reached out one finger to touch the bird. It made a scratchy, squeaking sound and struggled away from my hand.

  “Looks like it’s got a broke wing,” Millard said, squatting on his haunches beside me. “Probably got downed in the storm. I imagine there’s lots of critters took a beatin’.”

  “We gotta help it,” I said, hearing the begging in my own voice. “Don’t know what we can do.” Millard made his voice quiet and gentle. “It’s more scared of us than anything just now. Might do it more hurt if we tried pickin’ it up.”

  “I don’t wanna leave it here alone.” I tried touching it again. Millard wrapped his fingers around my wrist, staying my hand. “Please, Millard. I don’t wanna let it die. Not here.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ else we can do, much as I wish there was.” He spoke right to me. The tenderness in his eyes made me want to cry. “We gotta keep movin’. I gotta get you outta this dust. All right, darlin’?”

  I didn’t have any fight left in me to tell him no. The three of us moved along, staying clear of the fence that might give us a jolt and shuffling our way in the direction of home.

  I sure hated to leave that bird to die alone in that pile of dust.

  It was hard to know how long we walked. With each step I knew for sure I couldn’t take another. Millard felt me falling behind. He told me to hold him around the neck, and he hefted me up into his arms, carrying me like I weighed nothing at all.

  For an old man, he was sure strong.

  I didn’t tell him so much, of course.

  By the time we reached the main street of Red River, we could see well enough to know where we were. It was an awful sight, how that one storm dumped a whole world-full of dust right down on top of us.

  I rested my head against Millard’s chest, closing my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see more than I needed to. All I could think about was the dust covering over Beanie and fearing she was so buried nobody’d ever find her.

  After a little while more, Millard let out a sigh, and I did hope it was a relieved one.

  “We made it,” he whispered. “You’re home.”

  I opened my lids, but I couldn’t see for the flood that blurred my eyes.

  He put me down on the front porch before he opened the door.

  “Thank God!” Mama cried. “Thank God.”

  She rushed to me, putting her hands all over me, checking me from head to toe. She examined every sore and bump and gash. She pushed the hair from my face and kissed both my cheeks and used her thumbs to wipe away my tears.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, her voice shaking.

  I wasn’t sure I had a good answer for her question so I didn’t say anything.

  “And you, Ray?” she said, putting her hand out for him. “Okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he answered.

  “And Beanie? Tom?” She looked at the door. “Where’s your sister and daddy?”

  “Tom’s out lookin’ for her,” Millard answered.

  “She wasn’t with you?” Mama asked, looking right at me and touching her fingertips to her mouth.

  I shook my head. “She came looking for us,” I told her.

  Ray told Mama as best he could what’d happened.

  “Lord God.” Mama pulled me to her.

  Millard had gone back out to help Daddy. Mama’d given him a lantern and a flashlight and a thermos of water.

  It was all she could do to keep Ray in the house. He worried so about his mother.

  “She’s probably just fine,” Mama said. “I’ll bet she’s just worrying about you something awful.”

  “I gotta see she’s all right,” he said.

  “In the morning,” Mama said. “Wait until morning.”

  “But—”

  “Ray. Please don’t go.” Mama put her hand on his cheek. “Stay.”

  He did as she said but I knew he wasn’t happy about it.

  Mama walked me up to my room, where she had me undress all the way. She rubbed ointment on the sores and blisters that covered me all over. I was embarrassed, her seeing me naked like that. But the medicine soothed and I didn’t argue. She had me sip a little water. The whole time she kept the place in between her eyebrows tensed and wrinkled.

  She lowered a nightie over my head and lifted my blanket. Inches of dust slid off to the floor. I climbed onto my bed and she tucked me in under the sheet and the blanket, fretting that I’d be cold. I told her I’d be all right. I fli
pped over my pillow and then put my head down.

  Quick as could be I was sinking into sleep, deep and warm.

  Beanie stood ahead of me in the swirl of dust and sunshine. Greens and blues and yellows streaked the blacks and tans of sand. It looked like a pinwheel with my sister as the unmoving center.

  No matter how hard I ran, I couldn’t reach her. Even if I screamed with all my might I couldn’t get her to hear me.

  The dust cloud danced around her, spinning, hypnotizing. It gathered her into itself, wrapping all around her. An arm of dirt and rock reached out and knocked me to the ground, forcing all the wind out of me.

  It wanted Beanie for itself.

  By the time I managed to get up and find her, she was on a mound of earth, jerking and flapping her arms. When I reached for her, she screeched, fighting to get away from me.

  I woke in the dark. Feeling for Beanie, I touched nothing but flat sheet, empty space. Grit against the bedclothes.

  I sat up and put my feet on the floor. Bare toes wiggled in the soft-as-flour dirt. It seemed strange to me, how the storms rolled in both the grit and the fine dust.

  Standing, I made my way to the window and pushed aside the curtain. It might as well have been glass painted black for all I could see. The lack of light felt like a vice tightening around me.

  But a flickering caught my eye and I turned toward it, to my bedroom door. I heard the scraping of a chair on the dining-room floor.

  Slow as I could, I made my way down the steps, a sandpaper burning stinging in my chest with every deep breath.

  Daddy sat at the table, a cigarette between his fingers. It wasn’t lit, and I didn’t think he realized that, the way he stared at the tabletop. His eyes were red and I thought they must’ve been sore.

  “Daddy?” I said.

  “It’s still nighttime, darlin’,” he answered, putting the cold cigarette to his lips. Getting no smoke he tossed it on the table. “Go on back to bed.”

  “Where’s Beanie?” I asked.

  Lifting his head, he moved his mouth like he had a whole world of words to say to me, but not the sound to make them come out. He covered over his mouth with one of his hands like he wanted to catch whatever he might say before it could make any noise.

  For the first time in my life, I saw fear in his eyes. I couldn’t look at him anymore.

  Turning, I went to the living room where Ray lay sleeping on the daven-port. His eyes twitched under closed lids. Other than that, he didn’t move.

  From Mama and Daddy’s room I heard crying. It was Mama, I knew it. I went to the door. It wasn’t closed all the way so I pushed it open. The hinges whined and Mama looked up at me, her eyes squinted and her hands held together like she was begging for something.

  She didn’t tell me to go away, and she didn’t stand up from the edge of the bed. I stood in front of her but didn’t take another step into the room.

  A black cloth covered the mirror Mama had hanging on the bedroom wall.

  It’s something we do, she’d told me months before after Meemaw’d died.

  I wanted to tear that cloth down, to throw it outside. Let it get buried deep under the dust. But I didn’t because Mama whimpered and drew my attention.

  She’d put her folded hands against her forehead and rocked back and forth, her mouth pulled out of shape and wailing mourning spilling out from it.

  There on the bed was my sister. Her hair spread out on the pillow, wild curls knotted and full of dirt. Her hair, I could stare at her hair and not know. I didn’t want to know.

  I took a step into the room, not breathing. And then I tried to have faith that it would be all right. I made myself look.

  Beanie’s face was tinged blue, her body rigid.

  “No, no, no,” I whispered, shaking my head. “No.”

  Mama reached for me, but I stepped away, pulling my hands to my chest, still shaking my head and telling Mama no.

  Beanie Jean, born blue as a violet. God had seen fit to breathe life into her then. Why wouldn’t He do it again?

  I wondered if it was a magic that could only be done once.

  I backed out of the room, ramming into the doorjamb. I kept going backward, into the living room, stumbling on my own two feet and falling to the floor.

  I pushed myself on my behind all the way until I ran into the wall clear to the other side of the living room. Right next to me was the bookcase. There, sticking out just an inch, was my fairy-tale book.

  I wanna hear a story, Beanie’d said not too many hours before. She’d had plenty breath then. She was breathing in and out without any problem, her skin the right color. Her eyes alive.

  Pulling that book off the shelf, I put it on my lap, opening the cover. I turned through the pages, not seeing a single thing on any of them, just flipping, flipping, flipping.

  I took hold of the pages and tore them, one after another. Rip and rip and rip. The paper hissed as I pulled. The paper cut into my hands, slicing the skin in thin marks that would sting later, just not then.

  All I felt was hollowed out, and it surprised me how that feeling hurt.

  Surrounded by the shreds of my book, I curled up on the floor, letting grief lull me to sleep, my hands bleeding and my heart pounding.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Mama’s face hovered over mine. She spoke to me, I knew, because her lips moved. The sound coming out of her mouth didn’t make a bit of sense to me, though. She put her hand on my forehead and it felt like it weighed a hundred pounds for how it made my head ache. Keeping her eyes locked with mine she pressed her lips closed tight and her forehead wrinkled all the way to her hair.

  Something was wrong.

  Daddy came near and spoke, too. He was fresh shaved and had pomade in his hair, making it look slick. He had on a black tie and Mama wore her black dress, the one she saved for funerals.

  Who had died? I couldn’t remember. Not Meemaw. That had been before. I opened my mouth to ask, but all that came out was a cough that curled me up into a tight ball. If I hadn’t known any better, I would’ve thought a thousand knives had somehow gotten inside me, stabbing and slicing.

  I tried to pull in breath, but there wasn’t room enough inside me to hold it. I was burning from the inside out.

  Once the wheezing fit was over Mama dabbed at my face with a cool cloth and Daddy pulled the blanket back up over my body.

  Too hot. Too cold. Not even close to just right.

  I closed my eyes against the ache in my body, against the light that seared through my eyes. Whoever it was that was dead I didn’t want to remember just then. Maybe never.

  All I wanted to do was sleep.

  When Meemaw was alive she’d sometimes let me help her pour elixir into a spoon before she’d swallow it down. That medicine gave off a smell that made me think it could strip the paint clean off Daddy’s truck.

  That same sharp smell filled my nostrils before the bitter taste of a thick syrup slid into my mouth and inched down my throat. It made me gag, made me open my eyes wide. A man stood over me, one I’d never seen before. He had glasses that were just about to fall off the tip of his nose and hair that I couldn’t tell if it was yellow or white.

  “Hello there,” he said, his voice not sounding like Oklahoma. “How are you feeling?”

  “Plain awful,” I whispered, my voice sounding like something out of a nightmare.

  His heavy hand rested on my forehead then patted my cheek. Feeling under my jaw, he pushed on tender spots of my neck that made me flinch.

  “I’m sorry if that hurt you,” he said. He fitted a tool into his ears, placing a cold metal disk on my chest. “Can you take a good breath for me?”

  I did my best, but all I could do was gasp a little sip of air. Even that made me cough. He frowned, watching as I tried to catch my breath. It made me feel bad that I couldn’t do as he wanted. I hadn’t tried to upset him.

  “Okay, okay,” he said, his voice soft. “Take it easy. Slow … slow … easy.”

 
; Once the fit passed he turned and shook his head. “She can’t stay here,” he said.

  That was when I saw Mama standing behind him. At his words she covered her mouth and cried.

  Daddy carried me out to his truck. “Easy does it,” he said when he lifted me into the seat. Mama climbed in next to me and had me rest my head on her shoulder.

  He got in on his side and started the truck, sadness in his eyes. I wanted to ask where they were taking me and I wanted to know if they’d ever let me come back.

  Before I could ask, though, I got to coughing so hard I folded in two. Mama shushed me, rubbing my back, but it didn’t ease the fit.

  Eyes tearing up I clenched my fists so hard I thought my nails would break right through the skin of my palms. I heard a crack in my side and cried out. It felt like somebody’d stuck me with a red-hot poker.

  I was dying for sure.

  I dreamed that Daddy and I walked through dark woods. Watercolor paintings of trees stood tall on every side of us, their green canopies shadowing everything below.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  Daddy just kept right on walking.

  I touched the pocket of my dress. Something was inside it. Slipping my hand in I felt a piece of crusty bread. I broke it to bits, dropping the crumbs on the ground behind me.

  “Daddy,” I called. “Where are you taking me?”

  “Your mama wanted me to take you back where you belong,” he answered, not turning around.

  “Where’s that?”

  He didn’t answer.

  We tramped on for a good many minutes, the crumbs not running out no matter how many of them I scattered. But when I looked behind me, I saw they’d gone. Birds swooped and dived to peck them from the ground. I’d never find my way without those crumbs.

  “Are we lost?” I asked.

  “I’m not,” Daddy answered.

  We came to the end of the path. At our feet were cellar doors painted red. Without pulling them open or gazing down into that hole, I knew what was at the bottom of the steps. Winnie’s and Eddie’s bodies torn by bullets, and their blood soaking into the dirt.