“Found it!”
At the same moment Mr. Milne stood up, also holding something.
“No, I found it.”
Miss Sadie pushed Stanley out of the way and knelt by Thomas’s side. Her dress billowed into the dirt, coloring the hem red.
“Are you okay?”
The question seemed so ludicrous that he could only cough out a laugh. It hurt, adding to his already considerable pain as he watched his family.
Charles snatched the object out of Mr. Milne's hand. Then he grabbed the bumblebee from Papa. Everyone gathered around him, peering at the two objects. Even Stanley, drawn by their excitement, joined them, his tail wagging.
“Two bumblebees?” Clara May said. “She had two of them?”
Charles looked over at Thomas. “No. One is his.”
He stalked through the dirt toward Thomas, whose arms trembled beneath the weight of his torso. If he’d had the strength, he would have stood to face Charles afoot. He even would have turned over, to lie on his back. But he could only prop himself up. The others followed Charles, who threw one of the bumblebees down into the dirt in front of Thomas.
“You make that?” Charles asked. “To try and please Mama?”
Thomas couldn’t answer. He wouldn’t have explained it, anyway. A week after Mama had caught him with her bumblebee again, she gave him his own bumblebee, and from time to time asked him where it was. If he couldn’t take it out of his pocket, she’d chastised him or beat him with the spoon. Apparently she wanted him to keep it with him at all times—a bizarre punishment for something so minor from fourteen years before.
He tried to push himself up, but his arms gave and he collapsed into the soil. His body shuddered. He would’ve liked to pass out.
“Pitiful,” Charles said. "Nothing you did could ever make her love you. You can't trick people into loving you. You can't force it. Fool."
He stepped over to his horse, grabbed the reins, and strode down the hill toward the house. The others followed. Even Stanley. All except for Franky and Miss Sadie, who still had one hand on his back. It hurt where she touched, but he didn’t dare say anything for fear he would scare her off.
He lifted his head and watched as the others descended the field toward the house. Mama had disappeared from the wash basin. With any luck, she'd run while she had the chance.
“Stanley!” Thomas called. It hurt to talk. “Get back here!”
The dog turned to look at him, glanced back at the rest of the family, and came back up the hill.
Thomas fell forward again, into the dirt. It struck him as funny that he kept doing that, kept kissing dirt. And he laughed. He laughed and he laughed even though it hurt his head and neck and back.
Because if he didn’t laugh, he would cry. Blackness billowed near the edge of his vision.
And Miss Sadie rescued him.
* * *
Still sitting in the dirt, smearing it all over her immaculate dress, Miss Sadie rolled him over and pulled his torso up onto her lap, so he looked at her face against the blue morning sky. She cradled his head in the crook of her arm, and lifted his face close to hers. His eyes had filled with water, and so she just looked like a blur. A beautiful, graceful blur. Her gloved hand caressed his cheeks.
“Thomas,” she said. “Why did you do it? Why did you do it?”
The dog sniffed around Miss Sadie and Thomas, tried to nuzzle his nose in against Thomas’s ear.
“He’s my brother,” Franky said. He stood above. “He does what’s right. That’s Thomas. He done what’s right.”
She shook her head and stared at Thomas as if trying to penetrate through his brain and into his heart and soul.
“Why did you do it?”
He tried to speak, but no words came. He couldn’t have answered, anyway. Not knowing if what he said was truth or not. Why did he want to keep Mama dead?
“Thomas, Thomas,” she said, still shaking her head. She took her gloves off and dropped them next to her in the red dirt. “I wish I could make you better.”
She touched his cheek with the tips of her fingers. He focused on that softness, let it consume his attention so that pain seemed to fade away, out of his field of consciousness. Did she have the healer's blessing, or was it simply the warmth of her skin?
She leaned in close. For a moment he thought she would touch her slightly parted lips to his. But instead she pulled his head up so that his face buried in her neck. Warm and smooth. Electric.
He reached up, not caring about the dirt on his hands and arms, and wrapped them around her, basking in her touch and in her comfort. She gave. He received. With her arms around him, and his around her, everything else seemed to melt away. All cares and worries and fears and failures. None of it seemed to matter, and although he knew the sensation couldn’t last, for a moment he pretended that it would.
Because this girl had his attention.
I remember well the first time I saw Hurricane. Just red dirt and sagebrush against red cliffs and blue sky. Though the land was beautiful, I could not fathom living with any success in such a dry place. I thought my parents had gone insane. But I was only eighteen. I couldn’t stop them.
Chapter 7: The benefits of marriage
After a few minutes, Miss Sadie tried to lower Thomas into her lap, but couldn't until he pulled his arms from around her. The warmth of her neck's skin stayed on his face, the memory of her fingers with his cheek, her floral scent in his nose. He tried to commit the sensation to memory, but doubted anything so ethereal could stay long in his head.
Franky stood nearby, still holding his pole and fish. Stanley sat in the dirt, tongue hanging at least five inches down from his closed mouth.
These were Thomas's friends. A slower than average brother. A dumber than normal dog. And a zombie-raising belle.
"You okay?" Franky said.
Thomas rolled away from Miss Sadie. They stood at the same time. She held her hands out as if ready to catch him. He sidestepped once, but otherwise kept his balance as he turned to Franky.
"How'd that pole work out?"
Franky looked away, and held the fish out from his body. "I caught this fish with it."
"And with magic."
"I never could have caught this fish without the pole."
It would do no good to berate him. It never had. So Thomas just shook his head. He would have to find some other way to save Franky's second-life days.
"It's a big fish," Miss Sadie said.
"I'm going to show Mama."
With a guilty look at Thomas, Franky set off down the hill.
Thomas glanced at Miss Sadie, but didn't meet her gaze before looking across the field. Where everyone had walked, they'd dulled the sharp peaks of the furrows. He needed to get the field planted, but first wanted to get the field in the front plowed. Then he would plant everything.
The mere idea of work eased some tension. He could think while he worked. Figure out how to keep Mama dead once she died.
"Why don't you want her to live again?" Miss Sadie said.
"You already asked me that."
"You didn't answer."
"Would you want to come back to this family?"
"Not all of it seems bad."
"Right. She doesn't hate Charles."
"I don't believe she hates you."
"You don't know her."
“You don’t look much like Charles.”
The sudden change of topic startled him.”What?”
“You don’t look like each other. You and Charles.”
It was true. Charles had a much skinnier face, with higher cheek bones and a longer nose and darker eyes, as opposed to Thomas’s green eyes. Charles’s hair was a different color, too. Not the sandy brown of most of the family. But a darker brown. Almost black.
“Everyone says that,” he said.
She looked at him, her eyes narrow. He didn’t like it, and so turned away.
What to do, now? He could do nothing to stop his family f
or the moment. Not that he could think of. But he had work to do, and he could think while he worked. So, he turned toward the barn and started walking. After a few steps he stopped, half-looked back, and let his gaze find her feet.
"Thank you," he said.
"You're welcome, Thomas Baker."
She held out her hand. At some point she’d picked up his bumblebee, and it rested in her open palm. Her gloves still sat in the dirt. Her parasol, folded up, lay nearby. He hadn't noticed it before.
He returned to her. His fingers brushed her soft hand as he picked the bumblebee up. The touch made him shiver—not with cold, but at the memory of just a few moments before. Her arms around him, his face in her neck. So warm and comfortable. So right.
He placed the trinket into his left pocket—the one without a hole. He gave her another long look and saw the question on her face.
“It’s nothing,” he said.
“A memento?”
He shrugged. “Something like that.”
You might as well get working, Mama’s voice said. Get that field ready for planting. And while you’re at it, find a way to keep me dead when I die. No one else will do it. It’s up to you.
Heading for the barn, he descended the field, careful to step over the furrows so as not to wreck them. Stanley and Miss Sadie went to the house. The still-low sun shone in Thomas’s face, making him squint. In just a few minutes he'd retrieved a shovel and push cart from the barn, and went to the mound of loam he'd previously piled on the east of the barn. It stood as high as his chest and more than a dozen feet wide. Facing away from the sun, and despite the soreness in his back, shoulders, and head, he forced himself to bend, slice the dirt with the spade, and toss a load into the cart.
Soon, the sound of the work lulled him to calmness. The smell of the fresh soil mollified him. The familiarity of the rhythm soothed him.
Bend the legs and back. Thrust the shovel with the arms and back. Turn and throw the dirt.
Repeat.
Repeat.
It required no thought. His mind shut down as it absorbed the pungent loam, listened to the hiss of the metal entering the dirt. The thump of the shovelfuls of soil landing in the cart. Over and over.
In previous weeks, he and Mama had reduced the pile quite a bit from its original size. Every winter they created the mound by pulling dirt out of the fields one cart-full at a time. Two weeks before, he'd used some second-life days to enrich the dirt, fill it with nutrients, turning it into what was known as loam. Not only did the dirt become more nutritious for seeds, it darkened to a deeper red, like the color normal dirt had when it was wet. In fact, it smelled like a freshly plowed field after a rain, and broke apart like he'd spent a week raking it.
Without such enhanced soil to enrich the rest of the field, the desert clay would grow almost nothing edible. But with it—accompanied by the enhanced water from the reservoir—Thomas could grow just about anything. This year he planned on beans, alfalfa, wheat, and a variety of vegetables. Especially radishes.
Two weeks before, after he'd created the loam, he and Mama had spread it out in the fields behind the house. After that, he'd softened the fields with another spell that made it easier to plow and mix in the fertilizer. That was an easy spell, one that only required a little dirt and a few second-life days. While plowing, he’d decided to work the field in front of the house, which lay fallow most years.
He wanted the gift of a green thumb, and that required a sacrifice of things he’d grown. Most years they barely had enough to live, but most years he didn’t plant the front field. If he successfully sacrificed and obtained the blessing, his spells would have greater effect, and cost fewer second-life days. If his petition failed, he could end up like Papa. Or so Papa claimed. Of course, Mama had encouraged him to seek the blessing. She'd liked the idea for years.
So, today he would start work on the front field. A few weeks before, he’d built up the sides of the push cart, so that he wouldn’t have to make as many trips from the pile to the field. Now, the cart’s sides reached up to his mid-torso. Someone could hide in there, if they wanted.
But it also took longer to fill the cart, now, and required more effort to push because the additional loam tended to make the metal wheel dig deeper into the dirt. But, he figured the trade off was worth it.
The barn offered no shade as he worked at the pile. Even before he’d filled the cart the first time, sweat gathered on his forehead and dripped into his eyes. It became gritty with grains of dirt. Ignoring it, he pushed the cart up the path toward the house, down the lane that split the front field in half, and across the field, along the barbed-wire fence to the far corner of the property, at the spot furthest from where he’d started by the barn. There, he dumped the loam out of the cart, then spread it over the ground with a rake. It covered a patch of ground perhaps ten feet by ten feet.
The entire field in front of the house ran about a hundred yards long and two hundred yards wide. Thomas wasn’t a genius at math, but knew that covering the field one push cart at a time would require a great deal of effort and several days.
He considered the patch of darker dirt in the corner of the field. He looked out across the field, at the house and barn, and to the field in back of the house. He wiped his brow with the sleeve of his shirt, and looked to the east. The sun had lifted a little off of the horizon. Layers of ridges and mountains, each higher than the one before it, stretched nearly a hundred miles to the east and lay in silhouetted shadows. Hurricane was off in that direction, a dozen miles or so. And Zion’s Canyon another thirty on.
He sighed, shook his head, and grabbed the cart’s handles. Then, whistling in time with the wheel's squeak, he returned across the front of the field, up the lane toward the house, and back across toward the pile of loam.
He tried to push Miss Sadie from his mind, and to forget the fight with Charles—just the latest in many—and how Franky had still used magic to catch a fish. He tried to immerse himself in the work of filling the cart.
Bend, thrust, throw.
Bend, thrust, throw.
Dozens of times until loam filled the cart. Then, across the path to the house, down the lane to the front, across the field. Dump the dirt. Spread it with the rake.
Repeat.
The tension eased out of his body as he worked. The stress slipped from his mind. He enjoyed this—the work, the making of things grow from tiny seeds. The smell of dirt. The feel of a shovel in his hands. The creating of something living where there was nothing before. He wasn’t real religious, but reckoned that was something like what God felt like when he made the earth. Made something out of nothing.
That was what farming was. Taking a spot of land not fit for anything but sage brush, taming it, improving it, and making living things come up out of it. The act of creation. That’s what it was. That’s what farming was.
It soothed Thomas. For years it was the only thing that kept him sane in the midst of a lunatic family.
And usually Mama helped him.
Except for the periodic times when she got sick and exceptionally ornery, and laid in bed for a day or two, she worked at his side when she wasn’t up at the house washing clothes or cooking dinner. She hardly said a word. Same with him. She just helped him—or maybe he helped her. He never really could decide.
But they worked together.
They both knew what had to happen, and worked on it without communicating, as if they were of one mind. With this particular task, he would fill and transport the carts, and she would spread the dirt.
It was the same with how he knew she wanted to die. She’d never said it. But he knew it. He’d learned it over the years, working at her side. Somehow, though she never said it, he understood that she did not enjoy the work like he did. She merely did it because someone had to, and Thomas couldn’t do it all alone.
Like everything else, it weighed on her soul, wore her down. And thus she would want to stay dead.
Usually, she helped h
im.
As he emptied the fourth cart of dirt out in the field, a wagon came up the road that ran in front of the farm. Two horses pulled it, which meant it was probably David. He lived on a new farm half a mile to the west. It was the nearest farm—really the only other one within about a mile.
Thomas finished spreading the dirt, then waited outside the barbed-wire fence, on the roadside, leaning on one of the fence posts and watching the land to the east. In the distance, down the steep ridge, a hawk dove down into the midst of some sagebrush, then lifted into the sky with a wriggling snake in its talons.
David reined the horses in when he came even with Thomas. He wore a white shirt beneath overalls, and a wide-brimmed straw hat like Thomas’s—only without the cloth around the crown. He had a dark tan like he’d always had, and looked older than Thomas thought right. The winter before last, he’d gone to Zion’s and obtained the blessing of a green thumb. The following season, his crops had far outgrown Thomas’s.
“Headed into Hurricane?” Thomas said.
David nodded. “Going to pick up Wendy. She’s going to spend some time out here on the farm. You should come call on her while she’s here.”
Thomas thought of Miss Sadie, of how his fingers had brushed the palm of her hand when he’d picked up the bumblebee. Such soft, white hands. Such a graceful woman. He looked to the east, at the hills that blocked the view of Hurricane.
“I might visit her. How’s Mary?” His wife. She had the blessing of needlework, and could embroider the most beautiful images Thomas had ever seen.
David shook his head and smiled. “Ah, Thomas, she’s good. Good. When are you ever going find a wife?”
Thomas looked back up toward the house, but couldn’t see Miss Sadie. The memory of how her neck felt against his face returned. The warmth and the smell of flowers and hair. The smoothness of that skin. It almost made him shudder with pleasure.
“Never—if I have any say in it.”
David had only married two years before, at age eighteen, but since then he spent about all of his time working his new farm. Building the house. Clearing the land. Thomas didn't oppose the idea of settling down anywhere near Hurricane—except for one thing. If he did, his family would probably follow him. They would want to continue living off of his work. He couldn't see it happening any other way if he stayed near Hurricane—which he didn't really want to do. He hoped to someday leave the Baker farm and head to the Midwest, where the land was actually meant for farming.
Keep Mama Dead Page 5
