Stars of Alabama

by Sean Dietrich

  She collapsed beside an oak. Her legs refused to move. They were numb. She looked at the leaves above her that formed a crisscross design, blocking out the sunlight. She could see clouds through the little openings between the leaves.

  “Please,” she said to the clouds.

  She didn’t know who she was talking to or what she was saying. Whoever it was, up there behind the clouds, they certainly weren’t concerned with her.

  When she had given birth to Maggie in the middle of the woods, screaming at pine trees, squeezing a low branch with both hands, there had been no heavenly help. Not even a ray of sunlight. No flicker from the sky. Nothing. She decided in those moments of labor that she didn’t believe in God—whatever he was. And even if she had, she wouldn’t have liked the Old Man anyway.

  But old habits die hard.

  “Help,” she whispered.

  Behind the white clapboard house, she saw birds drinking from a white bowl beneath a tin gutter spout. Starlings stood perched on the rim. They ducked their heads into the water, then shook it from their feathers.

  Then a bird jumped into the bowl, breast-deep. It ruffled its feathers like a dog drying its coat. Marigold wandered toward the birds on weak knees. Her thirst was so bad it made her lips feel sore.

  The birds did not flutter away when they saw her. One unfearing starling looked at her with curious eyes. It tilted its head. Marigold’s arms and legs gave out. She collapsed on her stomach. When she fell, the birds leapt into the air and spread their wings outward in the open sunlight. And they were gone.

  She held the rim to her mouth and drank the water. She became dizzy. Her vision dimmed, and she saw a million sparks swimming in her eyes. She sat down and her dress was covered in dirt.

  She passed out.

  Then she awoke. To her surprise, she awoke on her feet—she was running again. It was almost like sleep-running. She was unaware of what she was doing. She was following some sort of motherly instinct she didn’t know she had.

  Marigold was a fast girl. Her large thighs might’ve been ridiculed by her brothers—just before she sacrificed their ribs—but her legs were strong. She could beat any boy her age in a footrace and still have the strength left to wrestle.

  Marigold ran so fast it made her lungs hurt. The water had given her a surge of energy. She ran the dirt road until her heart felt like it was going to pop. Then her strength left her. All at once.

  She stopped and fell in the dust again. Her leg muscles throbbed and her stomach was sour.

  “I’m coming, Maggie.”

  She forced herself upright but only made it a few feet. She fell face-first onto the road. Dust got in her mouth. There was nothing she could do. She could not will her legs to move. The hunger had finally caught up with her. And she believed this would kill her.

  She cried. But no tears came out. She was too dehydrated. Through some kind of stubbornness, she’d hoped she was wrong about God. She hoped something heavenly would watch over her baby—whether she believed in it or not.

  “Please,” she whispered. “You can kill me, but take care of Maggie.”

  And in her haze, she thought she saw someone. He was tall, lanky. His hair was red on top, white on the sides. She could see him. She’d never seen him before.

  “Brave girl,” he said. “Such a brave girl. Rest right here, brave girl.”

  She was not brave. She knew that.

  “I’m stupid!” Marigold shouted through tears. “Not brave. I’m so stupid!”

  “Rest, brave girl,” he said. “You’re such a brave girl.” He stooped beside her and patted her hair.

  Then he disappeared.

  So this is how it will happen, she thought. She would die from exhaustion and starvation and there would be no coming back. Then a feeling overwhelmed her.

  “I’m sorry, Maggie!” she forced out. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.”

  But the hateful sky didn’t care how sorry she was. It only laughed at her.

  The redheaded man disappeared.

  She was alone.

  And her world went black.

  Seven

  Wonder Boy

  The caravan of vehicles rode the dark highway outside Greensburg. The flat fields were so big and long it was like riding on a light-colored sea. Coot had never seen the sea. All he’d ever known were dry fields, water shortages, hacking dust coughs, malnourished cattle, and poverty.

  And storm clouds that were made entirely of dirt. Storms so black they shut out the sun and only left a lightless hell behind them.

  But tonight wasn’t dusty. In fact, he could see the stars in the violet sky. That was a rarity in this part of the world. Often, dust clouds blocked out the stars so that the night sky looked like muddy pond water. He’d forgotten how magnificent the stars were.

  In the back of the covered trailer, Coot sat on a cot. A lantern on a hook above his bed rocked, making the shadows inside the trailer move from side to side. The wagon bounced with the curves and bumps in the road.

  Coot stared at the headlights of the cars that were following them. The car directly behind the trailer was E. P.’s Hudson—a vehicle with chrome fenders and hand-painted letters on the door that read E. P. Willard’s Gospel Troop.

  Blake pulled the canvas flap closed.

  “Gotta keep it shut,” said Blake. “You’ll let the dust in.”

  “But there ain’t no dust tonight.”

  “Well, I don’t want it open in case there is.”

  He pressed a slab of beef over Coot’s neck. “How’s that feeling?”

  Coot shrugged. It hurt to shrug.

  Coot stared at the baseball cards he’d retrieved from the dirt. He admired the stoic faces in the glow of the lantern light. They looked like fearless soldiers . . . almost. Coot was the exact opposite. He was not fearless. Coot didn’t know how to stand up for himself. He was quiet and soft-spoken when he wasn’t onstage preaching. He wanted to be like one of the men on the cards.

  The baseball players all had strong nicknames. Not dumb names like Coot, a name that was short for an even dumber name: Cooter. Who names their kid Cooter? Who would ever take him seriously with a name that sounded like an inappropriate body part?

  Ballplayers had real nicknames like “Big Jim” or “Little General” or “Georgia Lightning” or “Old Hoss.” Coot wondered what it would feel like for someone to call him “Old Hoss.” Now that was a name that didn’t sound like a dangling participle on the human body.

  For a moment he tried on that name for size. “Old Hoss,” he said aloud. The name seemed a little big for him, he thought. But it did make him feel taller. A boy could get used to being an Old Hoss instead of a Cooter.

  Coot knew that E. P. hadn’t meant for the buckle to hit his neck like it did. It was an accident. But when the metal struck, it felt like someone had stabbed him. When the beating was over, Coot had touched his neck expecting blood. But there was no blood. Only a burning neck.

  When Blake found Coot crying, he stormed after E. P. He removed his own belt and flung it at E. P. like a whip, screaming at him. He landed several good licks before E. P. tackled the old man. The choir stood outside E. P.’s tent watching Blake blow a gasket. Blake was wiry but tough. His thick handlebar mustache was bigger than he was, and his limbs were lanky. He’d done horse tricks and lasso tricks in a traveling Wild West show before he took up revival work. And he was fast.

  After their brief fight, Blake pinned E. P. on the ground and forced the big man to offer a grand apology in front of everyone. And E. P. did just that. He even worked up tears. Coot forgave him publicly, but Coot knew it was only theatrics.

  The lantern swung in the dark and made Coot dizzy.

  “Feeling any better?” asked Blake.

  Coot wasn’t feeling better. He felt like someone had lit a campfire on his neck.

  “Yeah,” said Coot. “I feel much better.”

  “You sure?” said Blake, placing an unlit cigar in his mouth. “You ain’t just
telling me what I wanna hear? You always tell me what I wanna hear.”

  “No. I’m better.”

  “You are not. I can tell.”

  “No. I’m fine, Blake. I swear.”

  Blake let out a laugh. Then he chewed on his cigar so hard, it started to splinter in his mouth. “You’re a liar.”

  “Why don’t you never light them cigars?” asked Coot.

  “Cost too much to light ’em, and in case you ain’t noticed, we’s poor.”

  Blake removed the meat from Coot’s neck. He inspected the patch of skin and touched it gently. “Is the pain right here?” asked Blake.

  “To the left a little.”

  “E. P. deserves to rot in a shallow grave.”

  “He didn’t mean for the buckle to hit me.”

  “Well, ain’t he the humanitarian of the year?”

  Blake flipped the meat so the cool side rested on Coot’s neck. The coolness felt good but did little to ease the burn.

  Coot stared at the cards and imagined his own face beneath the ball caps the men wore. He would’ve made a good ballplayer. If God were real—and he wasn’t sure about this—he wished he would’ve seen fit to make him a ballplayer instead of a Cooter.

  “Blake, you think we can go to another baseball game if we are ever in Wichita again?”

  Blake removed the crushed cigar from his mouth and spit out a few flakes. Then he touched Coot’s cheek. “Got me another idea. When we get to Wichita, me and you’s gonna part ways with old E. P.”

  Coot said nothing.

  He could hardly believe what he’d just heard. He’d been with E. P. since birth. His mother had been E. P.’s church organist. All he’d ever known was E. P. Willard’s Gospel Troop. The thought of leaving E. P. was terrifying and thrilling at the same time.

  “Leave?” said Coot. “Where would we go?”

  “Far away from that man.”

  “But he’s just upset. He’ll get over it and things will be back to normal.”

  “I heard your mother say the same thing too many times, Coot. He shoulda married her, you know . . .” Blake stopped talking.

  It was as though there was something more he wanted to say but couldn’t. Many times Coot wanted to ask if E. P. was his real father. He had suspicions that wouldn’t go away. But Coot never could build up the courage to ask anyone flat-out because he didn’t want to know. He wanted even less to be related to the big ugly man.

  “Where would we go off to, Blake?”

  The light from the moving lantern made dark shadows on Blake’s face. Blake leaned close. “You leave that to me.”

  Coot let his mind wander toward the idea of never seeing E. P. again. He thought about what it would be like to be a normal fourteen-year-old who could play baseball, or go to school, or climb trees, or maybe even have a girlfriend. E. P. did not permit climbing trees. Or baseball. And girls were considered worse than whiskey.

  “And we can go to baseball games?” asked Coot.

  “Many as you want.”

  “What if he catches us?”

  “I just hope that fool tries.”

  “He’d kill us, Blake. He’d really kill us.”

  Blake removed the meat from Coot’s neck and touched his face. In some ways, Blake was the only friend Coot had ever known.

  “Coot, you’re almost a man now. That means you gotta try to be brave, for me. Don’t mean you have to actually be brave. But being a man means you gotta try. Can you do that?”

  Coot rolled this over the coals in his mind. He nodded.

  “That’s more like it. Now, I want you to trust old Blake the Snake, Old Hoss.”

  Old Hoss. Coot liked the way that sounded.

  Eight

  The Lovable Lunatic

  Vern held the baby against him and smelled her hair. She was his favorite thing in the world. He had never seen hair so soft, so red, so thick that smelled so good. It was like somebody had rolled her in a field of daisies and let the flower smell get all over her. How could anything smell this good? he thought. Sometimes, though, the baby would make a grunting face, then poop on the person holding her. And that did not smell good.

  Vern sat beside Paul on the tailgate. They both watched Mister Dreyfus inspect the white millhouse. Only a few minutes earlier, the last board had been painted. Vern had stayed up all night. When the sun poked over the trees, the white building looked orange.

  It had taken a lot longer to build than Vern had thought it would. And even though Paul wouldn’t admit it, Vern knew it was because they were not young anymore. Vern had little streaks of white in his hair. And Paul was a full-blown old man, with the stiff walk and all.

  The millhouse was to be filled with all sorts of big machines for cutting pine. The whole world needed wood during these hard times. Paul had told Vern that Mister Dreyfus was a crook who would bleed money from anything he could get his hands on. Even trees. This millhouse, Paul said, would bring Dreyfus a lot of money.

  Vern had spent four days painting the enormous structure. Yesterday he had painted while cradling the baby in one arm, which had slowed him. He would hold a brush with his left hand and the baby in his right arm. Or maybe it was the baby in his left arm and the brush in his right hand. He wasn’t sure. Vern wasn’t good with left and right. Most times Vern had to hold both hands in front of him, sticking his thumbs and pointy fingers out, to see which hand made the correct L. Though most times he forgot which way a correct L was supposed to be facing.

  Dreyfus’s antebellum home sat on a hill behind the new millhouse. His estate looked like a castle with fat columns and big porches and tall windows. It must’ve taken years to build, Vern thought. Maybe ten years or more, depending on how many men he had.

  Mister Dreyfus was a stiff man with hair the color of a raccoon, kind of silver and brown. The man ran his finger along the edge of the wet paint on the wood.

  “I wouldn’t go running my hands all over it like that,” said Paul. “Paint ain’t dry yet.”

  “I thought,” said Mister Dreyfus, “you were gonna bring this roofline farther over the doors, so rain wouldn’t fall so close to the entrance.”

  “Never agreed to that,” said Paul.

  “I distinctly remember that we did.”

  Vern watched Dreyfus’s two men go over the barn with careful eyes. They were checking every joint and surface. It made him nervous for some reason.

  He held the child against his shoulder and gave her a little bounce because she liked it when he did that. She was happier when she was moving. She liked to always be moving.

  Mister Dreyfus said, “I thought those doors were going to be wider. I ain’t sure I’ll be able to get my gang edger through that narrow opening.”

  “We measured,” said Paul. “It’ll fit.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “Sure as God made little green apples and beavers, sir.”

  Vern switched the baby to his other shoulder to give his right shoulder a rest. Or maybe it was his left.

  “Well, I must say, you do slow work, Mister Foldger,” said Dreyfus. “You’ve cost me a lot of time and money.”

  Then Mister Dreyfus pointed to Vern. “I don’t reckon that baby helped move things any faster. Your friend crawled all over this place with that baby latched onto him.”

  Paul kept his voice low like he did sometimes when he was angry. He never yelled when he got mad. Not in all the years Vern had known him. He always made his voice quiet just before he lost his mind and lost every temper he ever had.

  “We just built you a barn,” said Paul. “Without a crew, without a crane, without the two men you promised us, without proper tools. Took us ten days to finish setting those posts, just the two of us.”

  “I still think a man oughta stand by his word,” said Dreyfus. “You said you’d finish on the eighteenth; it’s the thirtieth.”

  “And without no food, neither,” Vern added. “We run outta food two nights ago.”

  Paul waved
his hands at Vern. This meant to hush. Vern knew this from lots of experience.

  Dreyfus went on. “How can a buyer expect to pay full price when the terms of his contract have been rendered inexplicably null?”

  Paul Foldger seemed to be letting those words sit in his mind for a little while. So did Vern.

  Vern wasn’t sure what “rendered inexplicably null” meant, but he knew ugly when he heard it. And he could tell Paul felt it too, because his forehead went from tense to relaxed. Paul let a smile go across his face, and his ears moved backward like a dog’s.

  “You know what?” said Paul. “You’re absolutely right. Ain’t he right, Vern?”

  Vern nodded slowly. “I think.”

  “Inexplicably right,” said Paul.

  Vern wasn’t sure what to say. So he adjusted the baby and said, “I’m real sorry about the baby, Mister Dreyfus, but I couldn’t leave her. She all alone when I found her. Couldn’t leave no baby.”

  “Quit your sorryin’, Vern,” said Paul. “Besides, ain’t nothing to be sorry for. Mister Dreyfus is right about us, and that’s all there is to it. I know when I’m licked.”

  Paul searched in a toolbox, laughing to himself softly. Finally he removed a rag. He uncorked the can of thinner and poured it on the cloth.

  “What’re you doing?” said Dreyfus.

  Paul removed his pocket lighter. He lit a cigarette first, then touched the glowing end to the rag. It turned into fire.

  “Yessir,” said Paul. “Let’s just pretend this whole thing never happened. You’ll just have to get someone else to build you another barn.” Paul walked toward the barn.

  “Hey!” shouted Dreyfus. “Are you outta your mind?”

  “Say what?” said Paul, cupping a hand over his ear. “Gotta speak up—this is my good ear.”

  “You’ve lost your mind!”

  Paul grinned, showing teeth that were a little crooked. He tossed the rag toward the wet paint beside the barn door. He put his thumbs behind the straps of his coveralls and watched the barn catch fire.

  “Dreyfus,” said Paul, touching the brim of his hat. “Have a nice day, sir.”

  Dreyfus ran to the fire. His men came running too. They filled buckets with well water and tossed them onto the side of the burning barn. They were almost too late. A large piece of the siding had been burned brown and black.