Coot thought about the prospect of earning easy money by cheating people. And it made him sick to his stomach. He’d cheated enough people in his time. “I don’t wanna steal from folks.”
“Who said anything about stealing? We play them a game is all we do. And we make sure we win.”
“And how exactly would you do that?”
“Oh, there’re lots of ways. You got your fiddle game, pig in a poke, hot checks. Once I almost sold a man a piece of land he thought was owned by the U.S. government for three thousand bucks. And I woulda got away with it if he hadn’t been a congressman.”
“You were a thief.”
“I was a legend.”
“If you were such a legend, what made you quit?”
“I was young. I thought I was invincible. That’s when you start getting sloppy, and I almost got caught.”
“Well, I ain’t no thief,” said Coot. “I’d rather work for a living.” Coot lit a cigarette and pulled in a breath of morning to erase the smell of cattle. “I’d rather have honest money.”
“Yeah,” said Joseph. “’Course you would. Forget I mentioned it.”
“It’s forgotten.” Coot tugged the door handle of the massive rolling door and slid it with a broad sweep of his arm. It made a loud, booming noise.
Joseph squinted his eyes at the sunlight and brilliant scenery. Green hills, wildflowers of every color, ponds, live oak trees, and virgin farmland passed by. The scenery was almost as breathtaking as the smell.
“You jumping first this time,” asked Coot, “or am I?”
“Better let me go first this time,” said Joseph. “Or else I might chicken out again.”
“You want me to push you out like last time?”
“No, I can do it. Just gimme a second. My old body don’t wanna move this morning.”
Coot helped the old man onto his feet. The man lifted the large suitcase, which was almost as big as Joseph. A case so full it was wrapped with two large belts just to keep it shut.
Joseph held on to Coot with scrawny arms. He grunted. “I’m all stoved up,” said Joseph. “Let me breathe, let me breathe.”
It took several minutes to get the old man steady. Coot could tell he was trying to hide his agony, but the old man hurt from years of hard living. Joseph straightened his back and let out several more moans of discomfort. “Lord, I can hardly move anymore, Coot,” said Joseph. “What would I do without you?”
“Without me?” said Coot. “A con like you? You’d probably be rich.”
The old man gripped Coot’s shoulders, and for once, his eyes were serious instead of witty. “No, I mean it, boy. You’re the angel God sent to me. An old man like me don’t deserve you.”
“Oh, you’re just buttering me up, Joseph.”
Joseph patted Coot’s cheek. “Can’t blame an old con for trying.” He pinched Coot on the chin. “I do love you, boy. But you smell like a horse log.”
The old man kicked his suitcase from the speeding railcar and jumped.
Fifty-Two
Black and Tan
The sunshine blared onto the porch. It hit Ruth’s thighs, her chest, and her face, and made her feel warm all over. The house had become a tomb ever since Reese had left them. There was nobody left to talk to. Pete, Paul, and Vern worked all day. Miss Warner was above girlish chitchat. Ruth had lost the only sister she’d ever known.
She missed the nights they’d spent talking, carrying on about anything and everything in soft voices. Mainly they talked about boys and the day-to-day. And boys. And the things they wanted in life. And boys.
She missed braiding Reese’s hair, playing checkers, and picking out dresses for Sunday service. She missed everything. Now that Reese had moved to Birmingham, it was like she’d lost half of herself.
Ruth held Leon the lizard on her hand. It had taken her three weeks to get this particular lizard to trust her enough to let her hold him. Before that, he’d been living on the trim of her bedroom window. Now that she’d won his trust, she figured she’d better name him. So she chose the name Leon. It seemed to fit. He was lime green, with a bright red money bag that unfolded from his neck. She’d tried several names before landing on this one.
She petted Leon with her finger and spoke softly to him. He was a quiet creature. He wasn’t a very good substitute for a sister, but he was a good listener.
She thought about Pete. She always thought about Pete. Sometimes she could think about him for three or four days without even thinking of other things. Sometimes she noticed him staring at her, and it would send her heart soaring. She looked at him the same way and hoped it made his heart feel the same way. But then he wouldn’t even talk to her. She couldn’t understand him. Long ago they had been best friends. Now they were people leading separate lives on the same farm.
Pete had changed. He’d become so painfully quiet around her that sometimes he’d blush when she spoke to him. She was seventeen, and that was practically old enough to vote. But sometimes he treated her like a child.
She wondered if Pete ever thought about her. She sighed. She wished for things. And she wished against things too. She wished against the possibility that he would one day find some beautiful girl and leave the Warner farm, just like Reese did. If that were to happen, she would never recover from such heartbreak. It would surely kill her. But every day she feared it. She worried that he didn’t care for her.
At the sound of a vehicle, she opened her eyes and saw a truck in the distance, loping up Miss Warner’s long dirt driveway. A trail of dust followed behind. It was Paul’s truck. It circled the long driveway and parked before the porch.
Ruth wandered toward the porch edge.
Vern stepped out of the passenger side first. His face was lit up like a flame. “You gonna wanna see this, Ruthie,” he said, big teeth showing.
Ruth placed Leon on the ground and leapt off the porch.
“See what?”
“Just come here, right over here.”
“What . . . what?”
“Just come on.”
She ran toward Vern, barefoot in the dust. Vern reached into the flatbed of the truck, beneath a tarp. With both hands, he lifted something that yelped. He brought out a puppy in his arms. He balanced the animal against his chest. “We got us some new friends,” he said.
She shouted, “Ohboypuppiespuppiespuppies! Ohboypuppies!”
This made Paul and Vern erupt with laughter. After only a few moments, she’d touched each and every puppy they’d brought home. Ruth bathed herself in puppies. She let them crawl on her and nibble her ears. She pressed her nose into their puppy fur and smelled their silky coats. She let them lick her face until they’d made her skin raw.
Pete ran his hand along the smooth fur of a black-and-tan puppy Ruth held against her shoulder. Pete was close enough that she could smell the sweat on his hair. He touched the puppy with such gentleness it made her heart hurt.
“This one’s Stringbean,” Pete told her.
“Oh,” Ruth said. “You’ve already named them?”
“No,” said Paul. “Just the one you’re holding. We tried to name the rest, but Pete here wouldn’t let us name ’em.”
“He wouldn’t?” said Ruth. “Why didn’t you let anyone else name them?”
Vern smiled big at Ruth. “Pete wanted you to name them.”
Fifty-Three
Girls of the Day
There was a small gathering near the porch of Cowikee’s. Seven people waited. A woman with her elderly husband. A middle-aged man holding a toddler. Two teenage blonde girls wearing rag dresses. And a man in a black overcoat and a white collar. They were waiting for Marigold to touch them.
And she obliged them. Over time, Marigold had learned how to make her hands become hot whenever she concentrated. And she had learned how to understand the feelings and signals she felt within the people who visited her. To her, those who visited had entire stories within them. Myriads of images, memories, and scenes from a life lived.
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Sometimes she could see these stories in her mind. Sometimes people didn’t want her to see them, and then she couldn’t see anything. Some people wanted to be touched. Others were skeptics with hard faces. Marigold touched them all.
People came to her daily. Some came from as far away as Birmingham or Huntsville. One man came all the way from Atlanta to see her about a cancer in his stomach.
A woman came from Virginia whose husband was dying of consumption. Marigold touched her, and the woman went home. Weeks later, a letter came in the mail. The man’s health was improving, the letter read.
Hardly a day went by without at least one person coming to visit Marigold the Magnificent in the woods. Some tried to pay her. Others brought gifts in the form of food, jams, or baskets filled with dry goods.
Sometimes the girls at Cowikee’s would sit on the edge of the porch and watch with mouths open as Marigold touched the ones who visited. Often Helen would stand near the porch, watching Abe chase the cats through the nearby woods, while Marigold pressed her hands on any who stood before her.
She disappointed some, satisfied others. She offered no wisdom because she had none. And she always tried to make them smile, if at all possible. Marigold knew next to nothing of God, or the Bible, or his immense universe. But she knew that smiling was holy.
Claims had been surrounding Cowikee’s ever since Marigold began receiving guests. The rumors circulated around town, so that when they got back to Marigold, they were more grandiose than the truth.
Like the man who claimed he’d regained vision in his right eye that had been injured by an accident. By the time the rumor had circulated around the county, people were saying Marigold had healed a man born blind from birth.
And the woman who begged Marigold to touch the large scar on her calf muscle. The scar vanished within three days, but someone claimed Marigold had made a lame woman walk.
And the child with the stutter. Marigold only touched his throat, and the boy spoke with less trouble than he had before. People claimed she’d made a mute person speak.
But nobody could forget the man who came to them with a bloody leg and crushed body. He’d been the victim of a cattle trampling in Milton. He was a sight. The man’s friends laid his limp body on the porch. He looked like a man who was about to die. Marigold kept her hands on the man for ten minutes. His wounds finally stopped bleeding. And the man stood upright and limped home. People in town said she’d raised a man from the dead.
And the people kept coming. Like they were on this beautiful day. They had started arriving early.
The man with the toddler stepped onto the porch. He asked if Marigold could heal the child’s rash. Marigold told him what she told everyone: “I don’t do anything.”
Marigold touched the child. The rash did not change, but the man began crying happy tears and thanked her. When he left, the two girls in the ratty dresses stepped toward Marigold. They had their heads down. They didn’t want to speak, Marigold could tell. She had to drag the words out of them.
“Hello, girls,” she said.
They mumbled.
“How are you today?”
“Good,” they said in unison.
The forest was quiet except for the sounds of crickets and frogs in the distance. And the sound of Abe dragging a cat by its tail across the yard.
One girl said, “Can you take away sins?”
Marigold sat on the porch step before them. “No,” she said. “I can’t do anything.”
The girls didn’t answer, only stared at their own shoes.
“Why don’t you sit and tell me what’s wrong?” said Marigold.
The oldest girl looked at her. Her blue eyes were watering, and her jaw was quivering. “I done something, ma’am. And they gonna kill me for it.”
“Who’s gonna kill you?”
“My daddy.”
“Why?”
“’Cause it’s not good.”
“Tell me why it’s not good.”
The girl only looked at the ground.
Marigold warmed her hands. She touched the girl on the cheek. She closed her eyes. She let sensations travel across her hands and into her own heart. Then she smiled.
“What’s your name?” Marigold asked.
“My name’s Mary. And this is my sister, Lee.”
“Mary. That’s such a nice name.”
“Thank you.”
“Girls, I want you to listen to me. Will you do that? Will you listen to me if I give you some free advice?”
“Yes, ma’am,” they both answered.
Marigold moved her hand to Mary’s heart. She could feel an ache in the girl that was a familiar one.
“Mary, what you carry inside you is not the product of sin. It is a gift.”
“What?”
“The gift is life, Mary. You are about to know something you never knew before. You’re about to understand life a little bit better.”
Mary looked at Marigold and said, “What’s that mean?”
“It means you are about to become who you were always meant to be, Mary. You are about to feel the love you were always meant to feel. And when you finally meet this child in your belly, you’ll know what I’m saying is true.”
The girl began sobbing lightly. Then her face busted wide open. The girl’s sister hugged her. Marigold hugged them both.
“I once knew a girl,” said Marigold. “A girl a lot like you. She never thought she would find a place in this world, and she was as sad as you are now, sadder maybe.”
“And what happened to her?”
“She grew up and turned into me.” Marigold kissed the girl on the forehead. She felt a spark in her lips. “Oh my,” said Marigold, withdrawing herself from the girl’s forehead.
“What happened?” the girl said.
“You’re having a girl.”
Fifty-Four
The Game
Joseph wore a white linen suit, a necktie, and a tweed vest. He stood a full foot shorter than Coot. They leaned against the wall of the alley watching the men exit the tavern. Joseph knew what he was looking for, it seemed. And he waited until he found it.
Coot saw a man exiting the tavern across the street. A big man with overalls and a straw hat.
“That’s our man,” said Joseph. “Probably got a pocketful of cotton money and a headful of whiskey.”
Coot observed Joseph in his suit. He’d never seen the man wear this sort of thing before. “You look like you’re going to church, you know that?”
“Hush and pay attention, boy. I’m telling you, that’s our man.”
“I don’t feel right about this, Joe. It just don’t feel right.”
“You wanna eat tonight, or don’t you?”
Coot hung his head. He’d stood in work lines all week in Mobile and had been turned away from every job he’d applied for.
Joseph tugged Coot’s collar and brought him closer. “Here,” he said, filling a leather wallet with several phony hundred-dollar bills. He pressed the wallet against Coot’s chest. “Go get ’em.”
“I don’t know if I remember it all.”
“You do.”
“But . . . you’re sure he’s our guy? What if something goes wrong?”
“That man’s ripe for the picking.”
* * *
Coot watched the big man stroll past the wallet on the ground. It was splayed open with phony bills poking out, just like Coot had positioned it. The man stopped. He let his weary eyes rest on the thing. Then he bent to pick it up.
No sooner had he reached for it than Coot kicked the wallet from the man’s hand. “I saw it first!” shouted Coot, who had already clutched the wallet and made a run for it.
But the big man was faster, and stronger. He pulled Coot by the collar. “You didn’t see nothing,” he said. Then he plucked the wallet from Coot’s grip and shoved him. “Now beat it.”
Coot kicked the man’s shin. The man returned the favor by smacking Coot on the back of the head. Wh
en Coot got to his feet, he jumped onto the man’s back and held on for dear life. He swatted the man and shouted, “Mine! Mine!”
The man spun in circles, wearing Coot for a backpack. He rammed Coot against a brick wall. It knocked the wind out of Coot’s lungs and made his eyes bulge. He released his grip and fell to the ground.
The man opened the wallet and was about to count the money when he was interrupted by Joseph.
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” said Joseph in a genteel accent. “But if you keep making all this noise, you’re going to attract the police.”
“Take a hike, old man,” said the giant. “This don’t concern you.”
Coot couldn’t gather enough oxygen to speak his line, so he only nodded.
“But if the police come,” Joseph went on, “then none of us will enjoy the spoils of that purse.”
“Us?” said the big man. “This ain’t got nothing to do with you.”
“Yeah,” Coot wheezed. “Scram.”
“We all saw the wallet,” said Joseph. “Any of us could report it, maybe even collect a reward.” Joseph leaned forward and whispered, “Now, may I suggest we can work this out as gentlemen.”
Coot stood to his feet. It felt like his ribs were broken, and his head was throbbing. “Nobody asked you, mister!” said Coot.
“Shut up,” said the giant. “It’s too late now, he’s already seen it. I don’t need no more trouble with the law.”
They gathered behind a brick building. Joseph counted the money beneath the watchful eye of the big man who reeked of whiskey and sweat. “Sixty-four dollars cash,” Joseph finally announced. “And a check for twenty-two hundred dollars, which is worthless. So that comes to twenty-one dollars cash per man, and some change.”
Joseph distributed the bills, tucked the check into his coat pocket, then tipped his hat and wished them good day.
“Just wait a blamin’ minute, old man,” said the giant. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Joseph ignored him and kept walking.
“Hey!” the big man shouted. “I said get back here! What about that check you’re runnin’ off with?”
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