Pete squinted through the windshield. The pollen on the glass was so bad he could hardly see. So much yellow dust filled the air, it was obscene. The large sheets of yellow fell from the sky like an eerie rain. Some people were allergic to the dust. Others could breathe it in with no problems. But it didn’t seem to bother Pete, Reese, or Ruth. It crippled his mother.
Eulah coughed again but did not wake up.
Pete held one hand steady on the wheel, the other on his mother. He didn’t know where Paul was driving—Paul hadn’t discussed it with anyone. But ever since Louisville died, Paul had become a different man. He didn’t do much discussing.
Pete hit a bump in the highway that lifted him off his seat. Eulah shifted. She rested her hand on Pete’s hand.
The bumps on the highway were many. The old vehicles seemed as though they would rattle apart.
When the tobacco harvest ended, Mister Pettigrew had announced that he would be selling his farm and moving to Georgia. These difficult times were getting worse with each coming year. Money was a myth, Pete sometimes thought. He hardly ever saw any, but the world seemed to run on the stuff. The newspapers only talked about war and about Germany and Hitler. Not the hard times. But the hard times hadn’t gone anywhere, no matter what the papers said. Farms were collapsing. Families were falling apart. Children were going to bed hungry.
They left early in the morning. They drove all day, all night, and all day again.
Reese leaned forward and whispered, “Is Mama okay?”
Pete touched his mother. She was cold to the touch. She slept with two blankets draped over her. She coughed, and every muscle in her neck showed through the skin. The coughing woke her.
“Go back to sleep,” said Pete.
“Pete,” she said with a faint grin. “Pete, you okay?”
“I’m good, Mama.”
“You are a good boy, Pete. A very good boy.” Then she fell back into a deep sleep.
Thirty-Eight
Middle of Nowhere
It was late. Even the crickets had gone to bed. There were no sounds in the cold woods that night. Marigold and Helen stepped out of the car and heard their feet crunch on the gravel beneath them. The barn stood in the distance, tall, weathered, sheltered by pines. You could hardly see the place until you got close enough to touch it.
“Are you sure this is it?” said Marigold.
Helen pulled her coat tighter. “This is it.”
They walked toward the ugly barn and knocked on the door. It made a booming sound. There was no answer. Helen pounded her fist against the door again.
“Do you think he’s here?” said Marigold.
“Oh, he’s here.”
Then it started to rain. First small drops, then fat drops. In only a few moments, the rain was coming down hard, landing on their shoulders and wetting the fabric of their clothes.
A muffled voice came from inside the barn, shouting over the sound of the rain. “State your business.”
Helen removed a folded piece of paper from her pocket and read it aloud: “‘’Tis I, be not afraid, though dark the day, duty laid . . .’” She stopped reading and stared at the door.
There was a long pause. Finally the voice answered, “You have to finish the whole thing.”
Helen rolled her eyes and read through the words quickly. “‘Duty laid, drives fear away, safe by the Lord I stand. Amen.’”
The big door opened with a creaking sound and shot spears of orange light into the woods. Behind the door was a short man with thick eyeglasses.
The man observed Marigold with squinty eyes. Then he smiled his few teeth at her. “You’re the lady healer.”
Marigold didn’t answer him. She only directed her gaze to the floor.
“Heard what you did, straightening Bill Lorman’s back. I went to school with Bill. He’s been crooked his whole life. No doctors could help him.”
Ever since claims of the healing had spread, people had been visiting the railcar for Marigold’s touch. She obliged them, though she wasn’t sure why. Sometimes her hands got hot and people got what they were looking for. Other times nothing happened.
“My cousin came to see you about his daughter’s skin problem,” the man said. “Said it went away in two days flat.” Then he looked both directions and reduced his voice to a whisper. “What in tarnation are you doing here?”
“What do you think we’re doing here, Dale?” said Helen, stepping forward.
He pointed toward Marigold’s belly. “You . . . you mean you’re . . .”
“No,” said Helen. “Not her. Me. And I’m getting cold waiting out here. Now c’mon, let’s hurry this thing up.”
They followed him into a plain wooden room with sawdust on the floor. It was a terrible room, where terrible things happened. Marigold could feel this.
On the other side of the room was a man. He had slicked hair and sat in an easy chair, reading a newspaper. A table lamp sat beside him. He didn’t lower his paper but only said in a clear voice, “Get their money up front, Dale.”
The small man held out his hand. “You can pay me, ladies.”
Helen dug into her jacket and removed a wad of bills the size of a baseball. The small man counted it and whispered, “My cousin says her skin problem just up and disappeared. She’s had it ever since she was a toddler. Now it’s gone.”
“Well, hallelujah, brother,” said Helen. “Can we hurry this up?”
The small man showed the women to a private room. He handed Helen a white nightgown that was open in the back.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” she asked the man.
“Put it on.” Then he left the room.
“Helen,” said Marigold. “I don’t like this place.”
“Oh, pipe down,” said Helen.
“I’m serious, Helen.”
“Aw, hush. Doc Maler does all the uppity girls in town. You wouldn’t even believe how many girls visit this place if I told you.”
“I don’t care. We shouldn’t be here.”
Marigold was getting sick inside. She remembered how it felt to have Maggie in her belly. A weighty sensation beneath the heart and ribs.
“We’ve got to go,” said Marigold. “I have a bad feeling here.”
Helen looked at her. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I feel something . . . something . . . in my belly.”
“What?”
“We should go, Helen, now.”
“Would you hush? You’re starting to give me the willies.”
Marigold drew in a breath and closed her eyes. She tried to steady her nerves and forget about the sharp sting in her belly, but instead she felt like she was about to lose her insides. Her head started aching. Her ears started ringing.
“Helen,” said Marigold. “This is a mistake. If you don’t leave this place, Helen, you’ll . . . you’ll . . .”
“I’ll what?”
Marigold couldn’t bring herself to say more.
“You can’t be serious,” said Helen.
“Please, let’s just go, right now, and go far away from here.”
“Don’t be silly, not after we drove all this way.”
The small man knocked on the door. He said, “Doc will see you now.”
Helen removed her jacket and handed it to Marigold. “Now quit being ridiculous and help me change.”
But Marigold lurched forward. A burning in her gut became so hot she didn’t know if she would survive it. The pain brought Marigold to her knees.
“What’s happening to me!” screamed Marigold. She hollered loud enough to rattle the roof.
“What on earth is wrong with you?” Helen shouted.
The small man rushed into the room. “What’s wrong with this girl?” he said.
“I don’t know.”
Helen shouted again, “What’s the matter with you?”
Marigold closed her eyes tight and clenched her jaw. She could feel a quick pulse in her head. “It’s a boy,” she said in
a forced whisper. “A pretty boy.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” said Helen.
“You should see him, Helen. I wish you could see him. He’s beautiful.”
The room fell silent. The small man approached. He knelt beside Marigold and rested his hand on her back and stroked her shoulders. “You’re burning up, sweetheart. Tell us what you see.”
Marigold smiled. Eyes still closed. “I see him.”
Thirty-Nine
Bad Decision
Coot lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. It was early morning, and the sun wasn’t up yet. The world was still lit by the moon. He crawled out of bed, threw on his clothes, wandered down to the kitchen, and placed a pot of coffee on the stove. He rubbed his eyes. He stretched and looked out the window. It was dark. And bitter cold. It would be a long day at work.
When he looked out his window, he saw a shape sitting on a bench. He knew who it was even though her hair was over her face and her face was in her hands. He had to rub his eyes to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.
He opened the screen door on the back porch, careful not to let it slap shut. “Judy,” he whispered. “Judy, is that you?”
The quiet sobbing coming from the silhouette stopped.
“Judy, what’s wrong?” He could see his own breath when he said it.
No answer.
He walked near her, barefoot in the ice-hardened grass.
“Go away,” she said.
“Are you outta your mind? It’s freezing out here.”
“Go away, I said.”
It crushed him. He almost turned around and left, but he thought better of it. He sat beside her on the bench. He could sense that she wished he hadn’t. This made him hurt. She was good at hurting him. He loved this girl, even though she usually made him feel like a bumbling fool.
She was freezing, shivering from the cold. He scooted close to her and held her near him to warm her.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
She sighed at him. “You wouldn’t understand, Coot.”
There was vinegar in her voice. He felt like a child beside her, even though she was three years younger than he was. She sat staring into the coldness. Her posture told him she wanted him gone, but she was too cold to do anything about it. So they listened to the sounds of the earth.
“Maybe I would understand,” Coot said.
“You ever been in love?” she asked.
Coot was so grateful for a sincere question from her, he almost sang a hymn. “Sure I have.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Lotsa times,” he lied.
And in that moment, Judy seemed to take Coot a little more seriously. She scooted away from him and turned to face him. “You have?”
“Oh sure.”
“With who?”
Coot thought to himself about what his next words would be. He rubbed his hands together and thought very hard. It was important not to look like a complete toadstool before a girl like Judy Bronson. He wanted to appear to be a man of the world, a man who knew things.
“Her name was Evelyn,” he said.
“Evelyn. That’s a pretty name.”
“Oh yeah,” he said, mustering up the most casual-sounding voice he could. “Old Evelyn, she was a heartbreaker.”
“Really?”
“Yep,” said Coot. “She was a . . . a . . .” And Coot’s mind went blank for a moment. He was caught between his own words without a safety net. He was sinking fast. “A schoolteacher,” Coot blurted out. “She was a schoolteacher, and I was in a traveling western show.”
Judy frowned. “A western show? You?”
He was laying it on pretty thick.
“What’d you do in the show?”
“Twirled a rope, did a few horse tricks.” Coot cleared his throat and made his voice a few notes lower. “Sharpshooting.”
“Really? You’re not just putting me on?”
“Oh no. Would I lie to you?”
Judy sighed, and Coot saw the steam exit her mouth and rise upward. She seemed amused by what he’d told her. They sat in silence, watching the icy sky go from dark blue to purple.
“What happened with the girl?” Judy finally said.
“Who?”
“Evelyn. What happened?”
“Oh, her?” Coot said. “She didn’t think I was good enough for her. She came from money, and I was just a lowly calf-roping stranger. We were from two different worlds.”
Lowly calf-roping stranger. That was a nice touch, he thought.
She was beginning to cry again. Her profile was so lovely she looked like a sculpture in the early daylight. “I know how you musta felt.”
Coot kept shoveling. “Yeah, she ended up getting married to a banker out in Greensburg. Broke my heart’s what she did. Broke my heart in two.”
Judy wiped her face with her hands. Coot felt bad about lying to her, but then, he would’ve jumped off a shallow bridge headfirst just to get a small shred of her attention.
The weather started to change. Tiny bits of ice began falling from the sky and covering the world. Slivers of it fell in Judy’s hair and on her eyelashes.
“He makes me feel like I’m worthless,” she said. “Will makes me feel like I’m a—”
But her words were cut off. Judy turned her head away from Coot. She covered her mouth with her hand. She leaned forward and retched, losing the contents of her stomach all over the grass.
And all at once, Coot knew why she had been crying.
She pressed her hand on her stomach. “I love him. I love Will, and he doesn’t want me.” She rubbed her belly with both hands and closed her eyes. “And now he’s messed up my whole life, Coot. My whole life.”
Coot touched her blonde hair. It was soft. She pressed her face into his shoulder and cried. She ruined his shirt with cold tears and saliva, and he was glad to sacrifice the shirt to her cause.
“He’ll never love me back,” she said in a voice that was muffled. “He’ll never love me back.”
Coot knew exactly how she felt.
Forty
Cold, Cold Hearts
It was dark. The service station off the dirt highway was empty. The windows were covered in sleet. The ice was coming from the sky in large sheets. Pete was worried about his mother. She slept so hard that she wasn’t moving.
“I love you, Mama,” said Pete. He’d been saying this to her as often as he could so that she wouldn’t forget it. “I love you, Mama,” he said again. But she made no indication she’d heard.
He glanced out the window. The sight of ice had mystified Pete. He’d never seen anything like this before. It fell like shards of crystal, then melted on the windowpanes as though it were only an illusion.
The inside of the filling station was lined with racks of canned goods, boxes, and jars. A cooler in the corner contained sliced meats and hog head souse. There were coolers full of Coca-Cola and Nehi.
Ruth and Reese were bundled in blankets, wearing turbans over their heads. They sat huddled together, their teeth chattering.
“I’m scared, Pete,” Ruth said. “What if they find us? We ain’t supposed to be in here.”
“Aw, don’t worry,” he said. “Who’s gonna find us?”
“They could find us.”
“Who’s they?”
“I don’t know, but they might not be very nice.”
“Try not to worry,” Pete said.
But the truth was, Pete was worried. They had pulled over at this vacant station late that night. And while Pete was making water on trees behind the garage, he’d heard the sound of glass breaking. Pete had gone running toward the noise only to discover that Paul had broken a window. Then Paul lifted a sleeping Eulah in his arms and announced they would be making camp for the night.
“I’m so cold, Pete,” said Ruth, tucking her hands beneath her arms.
“Come here,” he said. Pete held Ruth close and felt the coldness of her little body, even through the blanket.<
br />
Ruth said, “What if they find us?”
“Don’t worry. Paul’s smarter than all us put together. He won’t let nothing happen.”
She squeezed him. She was shaking, from either cold or fear.
“Ruth. It’ll be alright.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know.”
“What if it’s not alright?”
“Then I’ll eat my hat.”
“What?”
“You heard me, I’ll eat it all up.”
She gave a nervous laugh.
Paul whispered to Pete from across the room, “Get over here, all three of you. We gotta put our heat together for your mama. She’s freezing.”
Everyone came together and made a huddle with blankets and bodies, keeping Eulah in the center. Reese’s shoulders were bobbing back and forth. Ruth’s teeth were clicking. The only person who didn’t seem to be affected by the cold was Vern. He was wearing a T-shirt under his coveralls, nothing more.
“Mama?” said Pete. “How’re you doing?”
She only coughed.
“I love you, Mama.”
Another cough.
“Your mama’s one tough bird,” Paul said. “She’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”
Pete could see white flurries catching the moonlight through the window. Reese and Ruth watched too. It was like they were in a fairy tale. Pete had never seen it except in magazines. He’d always thought the illustrations of snow looked beautiful, but on this night the snow wasn’t. It seemed terrible somehow.
“Can’t we start a fire in the furnace?” said Reese. “For Mama?”
“No,” said Ruth. “Because someone might find us.”
“Don’t need a fire,” Paul said. “Your mama’s getting warmer with us beside her, just gotta give it time.”
“So what if we do get found out?” said Reese. “I’d rather be found than be froze to death.”
Eulah coughed. Her coughing gave way to hacking, then choking. It terrified Pete to hear his mother make that sound. Pete wrapped his scarf around Eulah’s neck and face. Her eyes began to close, and she seemed as though she were a hundred years old.
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