Stars of Alabama

by Sean Dietrich

  Joseph stopped. He faced the man. “What about it?”

  “That’s a lotta dough,” said the giant. “You must think you’re pretty slick, makin’ a getaway with all that money.”

  Joseph removed the slip of paper. “Why, this is nothing but paper. It’s made out to someone named George. We might as well tear it up.”

  “If it’s worthless,” said Coot, “then why’re you so quick to run off with it?”

  “Hand that check over,” said the giant.

  “Why should I give it to you?” said Joseph.

  “Because I’ll smash your head in with a brick if you don’t.”

  “Sounds reasonable to me,” said Joseph. “But do you truly think a bank will cash this to either of you?” He laughed. “You look like you fell off a hay wagon.”

  Coot and the giant exchanged a look.

  “They might,” said Coot.

  Joseph laughed even harder. “Well, good luck, lads.” He placed the check in the big man’s hand, touched the brim of his hat, and began to walk away.

  “Wait!” said the giant. “You sayin’ the bank might cash it to you?”

  Joseph shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. I am a stranger in this town. They don’t know me. Maybe.”

  The giant held the check to the light. Coot and Joseph waited for him to say something, but he remained silent. Coot could almost see his pickled brain working overtime.

  “Okay, you go cash it,” the giant said. “And I want half.”

  “Half?” Coot shouted. “You get a third!”

  Joseph stroked his chin. “Now hold on. That’s a pretty big chance I’d be taking, just so you both can collect.” He shook his head. “Sorry, gentlemen, no deal.” He turned to walk away again.

  “Wait!” the man said, reaching beneath his coveralls. He removed a money belt and unfurled a few bills from a large roll of cash. “Fifty bucks, and another fifty when you get back.”

  Joseph removed his hat and fanned himself with it. “Fifty dollars? I’m sorry, fifty bucks isn’t worth spending the night with the sheriff.”

  “Seventy-five,” said the giant.

  “Two hundred and fifty dollars,” said Joseph.

  The giant shook his head. “Eighty bucks, take it or leave it.”

  “Leave it,” said Joseph. “Have a nice day.”

  “Wait!” said Coot, jogging after Joseph. “I’ll pay it. I’ll pay the two fifty if you split the check with me.” Coot removed a wad of one-dollar bills from his shirt pocket and started to count them aloud to Joseph with his back facing the big man.

  “Who do you think you are?” said the giant. “You don’t get half, you greedy little cuss. You get a third, like we agreed on.” The big man shoved Coot out of the way and stood before Joseph. He towered over the old man by at least two feet. He glared at him without saying anything.

  “Well?” said Joseph. “You got something on your mind, then say it.”

  The big man licked his thumb, then counted out two hundred and fifty dollars. He placed the money into Joseph’s hand and said, “You’d better be quick, old man, or I’ll use that brick I was telling you about.”

  Joseph tucked the money into his breast pocket. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

  Fifty-Five

  Leaves of Grass

  Vern listened to the radio blaring in the truck. The preacher’s voice came through the speaker, saying, “There is a fountain filled with blood, flowing from Emmanuel’s veins, and sinners plunged beneath . . .”

  Ruth watched Pete hide from the dogs behind the tall grass. It was late at night, and the moon was throwing a blue glow on the world. Vern sat with his hands folded behind his head.

  “Vern, turn that stupid thing off,” said Paul. “It’s distracting.”

  “But it’s Wednesday night,” said Vern.

  “So what?”

  “It’s J. Wilbur.”

  Paul reached over Ruth and snapped off the radio. “I’ve been listening to that dummy’s sermons every Wednesday night for a hundred years, whether I want to or not. We’re working right now. Go listen somewhere else.”

  Vern crawled out of the truck and wandered toward the barn. Paul explained to Pete and Ruth that it was better to train the puppies at night than in the morning. It forced them to use their noses instead of their eyes.

  Ruth thought it was magnificent to watch the animals in the glow of the headlights. The animals were only three months old but getting long and lanky. And they seemed to know exactly what to do when it came to using their noses.

  Training the dogs to track short distances was done with an exercise. She and Paul held the dogs by the collars until they were yelping with excitement. Then Pete would walk far away, duck beneath the tall grass, and let out a single whistle.

  Then Paul and Ruth would turn the pups loose. The clumsy animals would follow the trail Pete had left in the grass, tripping on oversized paws, long ears, and each other. And Pete would praise the dogs with such sincerity that Ruth could feel his gentle spirit from where she sat, even though she could only see his tall shape in the moonlight. She could hear him sweet-talking the puppies like they were his best friends. She loved him with all her heart.

  Paul placed his arm around Ruth. He said nothing, only held her.

  “What’s on your mind, young lady?” he said to her.

  “What?”

  “Oh, nothing. You just look like you’re thinking about heavy things.”

  She leaned against him. “I wish I could’ve met my mother.”

  “Me too.”

  “I just wanna know what she looked like, that’s all.”

  “Well, I can tell you what she looked like.”

  “You can? How? You never met her.”

  Paul held her a few feet out from him. He observed her, then touched her cheek. “She was pale skinned, just like you.” He rested a flat hand atop Marigold’s head. “Probably about yay tall, with your eyes.” He kissed her on the hair. “And sweet.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I do.”

  “How can a mother abandon her baby? How can a mother just leave her child to . . .” She began to cry. Ruth slumped against Paul. “Oh, Paul, sometimes I just feel like I wasn’t wanted.”

  “No, no, honey. That ain’t the way it was. That ain’t how it was at all. See, the truth is, you was wanted by so many people at once that God had to sorta pick the best man for the job. And since I begged so hard, I wore him down, you could say, and he finally gave you to me, just to shut me up.”

  “Oh, stop it. That’s silly.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “You didn’t ask God for me.”

  He was silent for a few minutes, watching the dogs circle around Pete. Paul finally said, “When I was a young man, newly married, happy as I thought I’d ever be, I wanted a baby. We wanted a baby. We wanted one so bad we could taste it.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Twenty. We had a pretty little farm, a nice place, fresh eggs from the chickens in the mornings, a swing on the front porch. Was everything a man could want.”

  “What happened?”

  “We were so happy. Not just happy. We were the luckiest people on the planet. That’s how you feel when you’re in love. All our friends started having young’uns. Most my buddies wanted boys, but not me. I wanted me a girl, always wanted me a girl I could spoil. But things don’t always work out how you want.”

  He stopped talking, and Ruth could hear him sniff his nose.

  “What was her name, your wife?”

  “Her name was Delpha Ann,” he said, leaning his head backward to take in the sky.

  “Do you think my mother’s out there somewhere?”

  “I don’t know, sweetie. But if she is, I know one thing’s for certain, she’s thinking about you right now.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because we never stop thinking about the people who leave us.”

  Fifty-Six
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  Where Wildflowers Are

  The woods were filled with flowers. Little yellow flowers. Millions of them peppered the landscape beneath the tall trees near the bay. Bright, golden flashes of color, scattered among the green, stretching as far as Marigold could see.

  Abe ran ahead of Helen and Marigold, shouting. But they paid him no attention. Helen and Marigold hooked arms and walked easily. They listened to the bay water brush upon the gritty shore. Marigold got lost in the flowers surrounding them. Helen was happier than Marigold had ever seen her. They had gone for miles without speaking, just watching. Watching the world, watching the sky, watching Abe.

  “You ever think about her?” asked Helen. “Your Maggie?”

  “Always. I think about her always.”

  “What do you remember?”

  “Oh, I remember the way she felt inside me, and the way I could tell she was just like me even before I met her. And when I first held her. I think about that a lot.”

  “Do you ever wonder about where she is?”

  “Most of the time I wonder if she’s even alive. And I wonder what she thinks of me if she is.”

  “But you were so young, Marigold.”

  Marigold forced a smile. “Maybe, but I’ll never forgive that stupid young girl. I don’t think I ever could.”

  Helen said nothing, only stooped to pick flowers. She placed them in a basket with an armful of others. Marigold almost didn’t recognize this serene woman beside her.

  “I don’t forgive myself for a lotta things,” said Helen. “But that doesn’t mean I have to beat myself up for them either. I’ve done things worse than you. A lot worse.”

  “Nothing could be worse than losing your own baby.”

  “Losing yourself is almost as bad as losing a child.”

  “I just wonder how I could’ve ever been so stupid. That’s what I always think of when I think of Maggie.”

  “Everybody’s foolish sometimes, sweetie. Especially when they’re young. You’ve got to be merciful to yourself.”

  Helen was right, of course. Marigold had been holding her own personal sins against herself since she was a child. She’d been her own judge, jury, and executioner since the beginning. But it was hard to exercise mercy upon yourself.

  They stopped beside the water’s edge and looked at the grass flats in the distance. A pelican dropped from the sky and plunged into the water. He emerged with a fish in his mouth.

  “What’s it feel like?” Helen said.

  “What’s what feel like?”

  “When you touch someone. What happens?”

  Marigold shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s a thick feeling.”

  “Thick?”

  “Like being stuck in mud kinda.”

  “Being stuck in mud?”

  “You know how when you hug Abe and you feel sort of overcome? It all just swoops down on you and buries you? And you feel like you might just drown beneath it all?”

  Helen nodded.

  “It’s kinda like that. Only the feelings aren’t all happiness and love. People don’t have happiness and love in them when they’re hurting.”

  “So you feel stuck in their mud?”

  “I feel their sadness and their hurt and whatever else they’re full of.”

  Helen was quiet.

  “Why do you keep doing it if it’s so sad?”

  “I dunno. It’s kinda like how I imagine drowning would feel. It sorta feels like you can’t get your breath, and if you did take a big breath, it would kill you. But it’s so peaceful in the water, so serene in those seconds before you pass.”

  “I’ve never drowned before.”

  “Well, now you don’t have to.”

  They weaved through the woods and toward the railcar. They stopped by the creek that meandered through the grove of live oaks with wide trunks and twisting limbs. Momentarily they thought they’d lost Abe, until they heard the unmistakable sound of a ten-year-old boy making water on a flat rock.

  When they neared the railcar, they saw a single-file line of people waiting on the steps. Men were holding their hats in their hands, and women stood with their children beside them.

  Helen and Marigold stopped walking. Helen touched Marigold’s arm. “I never thanked you, you know.”

  “For what?”

  Helen touched Abe’s head. “For the best thing in my life.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “You say that, but it’s not true,” said Helen. “You do something to people, and you don’t understand it, and I don’t understand. We might never understand. But it’s something.”

  Helen pinched the bloom from a yellow flower and tucked it behind Marigold’s ear, then straightened Marigold’s messy hair. “Go and make them feel what I feel.”

  “What do you feel?”

  “Glad.”

  Fifty-Seven

  Go-Getters

  “Now that little girl’s got heart,” said Paul, pointing to the bloodhound with the black body. “She’s gonna make a go-getter, that one.”

  Pete stood beside Paul watching the lanky animals chase each other through the shallow creek, splashing water in all directions. They were chasing a coon, and howling while they did it.

  “She don’t like to lose,” Paul added. “She’s a natural leader, that one.”

  “Hard to believe she was the runt,” said Pete.

  “Only in size, not in heart,” said Paul. “That one has heart.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Look at her. She’s wild and uncontrollable, and she’s one in a million. You can just tell.”

  He was right. The old man was always right when it came to the animals. It was a gift, as though he had canine in his blood. Pete had the gift too. He had become a good dog trainer, and that was a quality that couldn’t be taught. It was something a man was either born with or he wasn’t. Paul was a natural dog man. And now Pete was taking up the family business. He’d gone the first part of his life not knowing what or who he was. Now he knew. He was a dog trainer.

  “That old girl’s the pick of the litter,” said Paul. “She’ll take the highest price.”

  Pete rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know if I can sell her. She’s one of my favorites.”

  “They’re all your favorites, Pete. Just look at her. That dog was made to hunt. If you keep her, she won’t get to hunt a lick. No sir, that dog’s got heart. She was made to use it.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “All part of raising pups. You give ’em all you got, do everything you can to make them into the best, then you let ’em run.”

  The sound of a screen door slapping interrupted them. The sound echoed across the wide-open field. In the distance, Pete could see Ruth running toward them. She was long and lean, and her red hair whipped behind her like ribbons.

  Pete held his eyes on her, watching her high-step through the tall grass. She was hollering, playing with Pete’s own dog, Stringbean, the only dog of the bunch he hadn’t trained to hunt because she was too gentle.

  Paul placed a thick hand on Pete’s shoulder. “Hey, I wanna ask you something, Pete.”

  “What is it?”

  “I want you to promise me something.”

  “Huh?”

  “Promise me something, son. I want you to do me a favor.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Paul’s eyes were sharp, but the face around them was old. His hair was white, his skin crumpled. “Take care of my Ruth, will you?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means what I just said. Just promise me you’ll take care of her, Pete.”

  Pete shook Paul’s hand. Paul squeezed a little harder than he normally did.

  Paul nodded toward Ruth. “That little girl’s got a lotta heart.”

  Fifty-Eight

  Homecoming

  Joseph coughed until he couldn’t. His cough sounded like an engine in need of fuel. His chest sputtered and rattled. He leap
t out of the Model A and leaned against it, hacking until he was out of breath.

  “You okay?” asked Coot.

  “Fine, I’m fine.”

  “You sound worse than the car does.”

  Joseph laughed. “And this car’s a lot younger than I am.”

  “It’s nicer looking than you are too.”

  “Now, is that any way to talk to your meal ticket?”

  “I don’t know about this.”

  “We spent every dime we had on this here car. This is just to buy us supper is all. Think of it like picking apples off a tree that ain’t yours. No big crime, right?”

  “This is not like picking apples. This is taking advantage of innocent people.”

  “Church people, Coot. These people give their money for the cause of charity. And that’s how we plan on using it, don’t we?”

  “You shoulda been a lawyer, you know that? Or a preacher.”

  Coot wandered toward a shop window and saw his reflection in it. The six-dollar seersucker suit fit him just right. He rotated in all directions so he could get a better look. He was nothing but a stick.

  A poster hanging in the window caught his attention. In big, bold letters it read Revival Comes to Alabama.

  On the poster was the illustration of a man with a square jaw, steel-rimmed glasses, and oiled hair. The poster was decorated with crosses and drawings of angels.

  Sponsored by three hundred churches, a service for all faiths, divine healing and salvation, J. Wilbur Chaplain brings the Holy Ghost to Alabama.

  There he was. J. Wilbur Chaplain, in all his glory. Coot had only ever heard his voice, never seen his face. This man was older than Coot imagined him, and he looked like a dime-novel hero in the poster.

  Joseph leaned on his cane, gasping for wind. He stood beside Coot in front of the shop window.

  “I don’t know, Joseph,” he said. “I’d prefer not to hurt anyone.”

  “Well, that makes two of us, Coot.”

  “We coulda bought a year’s worth of suppers with that money instead of buying that ugly, run-down car.”