Booker turned around slowly. He looked at Maud’s face and then at the item she held in her hand. He stretched his hand out to hers, brushed it slightly, and said, “Let me see.” He turned the bar over and found 5 C marked on the back. He said, “A nickel, normally, but for you, two cents.” He touched the rim of his bowler and smiled. Then he turned to Billy. “Howdy. Are you Maud’s brother?”
Maud spoke quickly. “No, a friend. This is William Watie Walkingstick. He goes by Billy.”
Billy brought the fingers of his left hand to the rim of his cowboy hat and inserted his right hand into his front pocket. “I’ll pay full price for that.” He drew out a nickel.
Booker took the coin with one hand and delivered the bar to Billy with the other. “Glad to do business with you, Mr. Walkingstick. Fancy anything else for your girl?”
Maud made a noise that was more of a catfish growl than a word. Both men jerked a little and looked to the source. Maud knew she was turning red. She hoped the dark of the night and the dark of her skin were combining to protect her. “Thank you, Billy.” She held her hand out for the bar. To Booker, she said, “He’s one of my oldest friends. Fishes with my brother.”
Booker said, “I see.” Maud hoped that he both did see and didn’t. And she was trying to sort out some kind of response that would straighten things out but not give her away when Billy said, “You sell soft drinks?”
“No, they’re not in my line.” Booker shook his head.
Maud said, “He mostly trucks in books. Booker, would you show Billy your books?”
Booker held out his arm toward the side of the wagon facing the back of the stage. “What kinds of books do you like to read?”
“Whatchya got?”
Booker, in a singsong cadence that spoke of practice, recited a litany of books, and Billy’s eyes took on a glassy gaze. But shortly into that, to insert herself back into Booker’s attention and also to get Billy off the hook, Maud said, “My uncle was telling me about a book that escaped the fire. Did you hear about that?”
“Heard about the fire. Hard not to.” Booker had a smile on his face.
“I meant did you hear about the book?”
“No. I assumed all the books were burnt. I went by there the day afterwards. It was a mess if I ever saw one. You can even see the pile from the bridge.”
“You’ve been over the bridge?”
“Went to Muskogee. Had to pick up more goods at the railway station.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t stay over there.”
“I did for a couple of days. But I wasn’t having much luck competing against the stores.”
Billy said, “How much will ya take fer this book here?”
Maud had forgotten about Billy. And she’d never known him to read a lick. She said, “What is it?”
“Lasso tricks. See here?” He held out a page illustrated with several pair of hands and ropes in different positions. “It shows all the angles.”
Maud pretended interest in the pictures, and Booker named a price. Billy pulled more coins out to pay and then stuffed the book into his right hip pocket. Maud couldn’t see a graceful way back to the original conversation. Worse, she didn’t see any way to dump Billy without looking heartless, and she knew males sometimes sided with each other in their sympathies even if they were rivals. She didn’t want to look cruel, but she didn’t want to leave. So she was stuck. And she was fishing around for something to remark on when a commotion arose on the other side of the wagon. Booker said, “Excuse me,” and stepped away.
Maud was still on the book side of the rig, her view blocked by the pyramid, when she heard an official-sounding voice: “Are you Mr. Booker Wakefield?”
Both she and Billy moved toward the voice, and Booker said, “Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”
“You can come with me.”
Maud knew the sheriff. And she was about to say, “That’s just stupid gossip,” when Booker said, “What for?”
“It’s about the school burning.”
Booker rubbed the back of his neck. Then he laid his hand on the edge of his wagon and gripped it, his elbow stiff. “Do you have probable cause?”
The sheriff said, “Do ya want to come peacefully, or should I persuade you?” He put his hand on the butt of his gun.
The crowd had grown thicker. The faces were lit by lanterns. Most were women of childbearing age with little ones at their skirts. Husbands were sprinkled around in groups behind their wives. The deputy was at the sheriff’s right shoulder. Booker said, “I need to close up. I can’t leave my wares.”
Maud felt heat rising up beneath her dress and her slip, and with it, the urge to blurt out, “That silly woman just wants attention.” But she realized that accusation would only complicate the situation and that she didn’t have any proof except her intuition. Besides, she knew it made matters worse that she was there, that men hated to be humiliated in front of women. She felt embarrassed for Booker and wanted to back away, to disappear, and then to reappear again, maybe at the jail, to save the day. But she also recognized that was a foolish desire. Heroic moments happened only in the pages of books. She touched Billy on the arm and jerked her head as a signal to step away.
They moved outside of the ring of light, and Maud watched without speaking as Booker, in silence, rolled down the netting over his goods, rolled down the bright blue canvas, killed his lanterns’ lights, and hung the lanterns on hooks on the side of his wagon. By the time that was done, most of the crowd had dispersed and one child’s voice was yelling in the distance, “They’ve arrested the drummer!” Only the glow of the dim yellow lights of the dancing patch remained in the air. But that was light enough for Maud to see Booker look in her direction. As though they were alone in the world, he shook his head. She nodded and mouthed the words I know. Then he climbed into the seat of his wagon, picked up the reins, and after the sheriff climbed in on the other side, flapped them, and clucked at his horses.
Maud said to Billy, “There’s no justice in that. Some ignorant woman accused him and the sheriff needs someone to pin the fire on.”
“What makes you so sure he’s innocent?”
“I don’t have to be sure. They have to be. That’s how the law works.”
“Really?” Billy looked at Maud sideways.
“Well, no. But that’s the way they tell it.”
“They tell a lot of things, Maud. None true as far as I’ve ever seen.”
There was no denying he was right. So she and Billy walked in silence around the back of the stage, up the side of the dance patch, and into the light again. Billy didn’t ask Maud to dance, but a couple of other boys did. She turned them down, watched Lovely dancing with Gilda through two songs, and then she and Billy walked down Lee Street into the dark. They made a stop at the back end of a car. Then they sat on the front steps of a lawyer’s office, drank choc beer, and smoked cigarettes. Eventually, they fell to necking as, even to Maud, that seemed to be the only thing left to do.
She awoke the next morning thinking about Booker in jail. Her father had spent many a night with the sheriff and was, in her estimation, safer behind bars than out. So while still on her cot, she convinced herself that a night on a feather mattress probably hadn’t produced any hardship on Booker beyond humiliation and that the danger to him would pass for lack of evidence. Booker’s being guilty didn’t even cross Maud’s mind.
When she finally got up and let the chickens out, they scattered like shot from a barrel. She pumped water, went back in, lit the fire, and started making biscuits. Her father was still snoring. Lovely came in the kitchen door from his time outside. He slid between the wall and the table and said, “How’d you get home?”
“With Aunt Nan and Uncle Ryde.”
“Where’d you go?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you disappeared. You were dancing and never came back.”
Maud turned from the cabinet, flour on her hands. “I did come back. I watche
d you and Gilda for quite a while. Make any progress?”
Lovely looked to the other room and then back to Maud. “I think I did.”
She turned back to the counter and took up her rolling pin, thinking Lovely would keep talking. But he didn’t. So, finally, while cutting biscuits, Maud’s curiosity overtook her, and she said, “What makes you think you made progress?”
“She danced with me all night. Even when Charles Howell headed to cut in, she waved him off.”
“I thought she dated Charles in school?”
“She did.”
“What else?”
“What do you mean, ‘What else?’”
Maud was cutting the dough quite deliberately. She twisted with added pressure. “This is like pulling teeth. What else makes you think you made progress?”
Blood came up into Lovely’s ears. “Not what you think.”
“How do you know what I think?”
Lovely looked to the other room again. Then he said, “Are you gonna take forever with the biscuits?”
“You may not get any biscuits unless I get some details.”
“A decent man doesn’t tell.”
Maud looked around at Lovely, widening her eyes for effect. She slipped the biscuit pan into the oven and then sat down at the table. She looked to the main room, confirmed that her daddy was still asleep, and said in a whisper, “You didn’t . . . ?”
“I did not.” Lovely acted indignant.
“Don’t pretend.”
“I’m not pretending. We didn’t.”
“I didn’t think you did. But don’t pretend you didn’t want to.”
“I’m not pretending anything.” Lovely spread his hands.
“Then what was ‘A decent man doesn’t tell’ all about?”
“I was just piquing your interest. I know how you like to run your imagination.”
“I do not!”
“Then why are you asking?”
“That’s half the fun of a dance. Talking about it later.”
Lovely shook his head and swatted the air like he was going after a fly. He looked once again toward his father’s bed and then leaned into the table. “The thing is, Gilda’s a Christian. She won’t do anything but kiss.”
Maud straightened her back and looked at Lovely with a wrinkle between her eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with not being fast.” She bit her lower lip. While still on her cot, she’d begun feeling guilty about necking with Billy. Not about the necking itself, which they’d done before, but about necking when Booker had been carted off to jail, and about necking after meeting Booker at all. She told herself that had she not known Billy expected it, had she not been light-headed from the cigarettes and beer, if it hadn’t been dark, and if she hadn’t been feeling like she was ready to burst, she never would’ve done it. She was hoping that none of that showed on her face when Lovely added, “She gave me her Bible to read.”
“Her Bible? She brought it to the dance?”
Lovely put his head in his hands. “No. We walked over to her house to get it. All the Starrs are Christians.”
Maud smiled. “Not all of them. Some are outlaws. The rest have to look respectable just to live down their bank robbers and killers. Don’t worry about it.” She got up, opened their little icebox, took out some fatback, and started slicing it. After she’d slapped several pieces into a skillet, Lovely added, “I think I’m gonna read it.”
“You should. It’s got interesting stories.” Maud’s mind swam to Jonah and the whale. She’d learned the tale in school, and it had captured her imagination the same way Moby-Dick had. Maud didn’t feel any particular animosity against individual Christians as much as she was inclined to see the hypocrisy in their religion. Beyond that, she was too mixed blooded to have any truck with the Keetowahs, and there weren’t any other faiths around. So she hadn’t given religion much thought beyond recognizing that powers in the universe, like the river and the sun, were mightier than humans and had to be reckoned with. She did hope there was a force that would propel her into a better life, but she felt like that could only be a combination of pleasing looks, some education, and her wits.
About that time, a grunt came from the next room, and the conversation about the Bible died. But as soon as Mustard slid in at the table, he was eager to swap news. He’d arrived in town with some of his running buddies as the band was closing up and a fight was being organized on the dance square. He’d laid a bet on who’d win, and he reached into his pants pocket and drew out several large bills. “By damn, don’t ever bet against an Indian if he’s fighting a white man. If the Indian’s sober, you’ll lose ever’thing ya got. I’m gonna get my dog with these winnings. Lovely, after breakfast, we’re gonna build us a dog house and pen. We’ll use them boards and wire we salvaged from the roosters’ coops.”
Maud did her chores while they hauled from the barn wire and boards that had, before the flood, been fighting cocks’ pens. The posts were still standing, and as they strung the wire, she sat in her daddy’s chair holding Arrowsmith and thinking about Booker in jail. When Mustard left to ask Blue who he knew with a ready litter, Maud was so busting to talk about Booker that she blurted out even before Lovely’s butt reached the stoop, “The sheriff arrested the peddler for setting fire to the school.”
Lovely had heard that. “Does he have any evidence?”
“Only vicious gossip. And him selling kerosene.”
“He’s a stranger,” Lovely added.
That was, of course, the root cause, at least in Maud’s estimation. She knew there were strangers in No Man’s Land where, for all of her life, they’d come from every corner of the continent to make money in wheat. She also knew there were strangers in the central part of the state where oil was gushing, and in the Osage oil fields in the Outlet. But around the bottoms and Ft. Gibson, strangers came only to dig potatoes. And it was too early in the season for them to start dribbling in.
Maud and Lovely chewed on the possibilities facing Booker, and as they did, the urge grew in Maud to walk into town, go into the sheriff’s office, and testify that she . . . well, that was just it. She couldn’t provide an alibi; she couldn’t even be a character witness for someone she’d talked to only twice. But Maud knew, in the way women do, that the stranger in the bowler carrying the books on his wagon was the most interesting man she’d ever met. She had a pulling on her heart that was taking it out of her body into a space she didn’t have a name for yet. Maud was so in tow to that tug that Lovely’s attempts to bring the conversation around to Gilda felt like the irritating tap, tap, tapping of a woodpecker. But at the same time, she didn’t have anything to say about Booker that she hadn’t said ten minutes in the past, and she didn’t want to share with Lovely feelings that she couldn’t even describe to herself and that were also private beyond any she’d ever had. So not on Lovely’s first attempt, but on one soon after, she gave in, pulled her mind back to the porch, and talked over with him everything they knew about the Starrs. They were trying to work out exactly how Gilda was related to one of the Starr outlaws, Henry, when they heard the sound of a car. They turned toward the section line to see who was coming and were disappointed when they saw it was only their father.
But Mustard was in a fine mood, and he brought more news. Blue knew of someone who had a litter of three-week-old Labs and he thought there were four not spoken for. Mustard had a name and a number he was planning to call the next morning from the feed store. The three of them fell into talking about the dog and how Mustard was going to train it, and into anticipating ducks, geese, and all sorts of good birds to eat. It wasn’t until they’d finished that talking, had eaten supper, and were back on the porch that Mustard, between puffs of a cigarette, said, “Blue saw John and Claude Mount in town last night. They was selling whiskey and drinking at the fort.”
Maud said, “I didn’t know Uncle Blue still drank.”
“He don’t. He was over there sparking some woman. But when he seen the Mounts and their
gang, he came in and sparked closer to town.” Mustard took a long, last draw, crushed his cigarette beneath his boot, and added, “John Mount had already been fighting. Blue said his right hand were bandaged.”
The next morning, after Maud had done her usual chores and both of the men had left the house, she filled a tub with water, shed her clothes, and bathed with the Woodbury soap behind a corner of wood erected for privacy out next to the pump. Midmorning wasn’t her usual time for a bath, but Maud had determined she was going to put on her hat and walk into town and see what she could learn about Booker. Shortly afterward, she passed Nan’s without stopping, passed the lane that led to where her grandpa and his brood were living, and didn’t even yell to Lovely, whom she saw in the distance struggling with the mule and a tree stump. But as soon as the ruins of the school came into sight, she focused on them, and when she got up to them, she circled the mountain of rubble, found a little piece of wood that was burnt only on one end, picked it up, and carried it away in her hand. She was almost to the highway when she looked northwest toward Mr. Singer’s potato barn and house. There, as clear as smoke signals on the plains, was a bright patch of blue. She clutched her little piece of wood tighter, brought her fist to her heart, and headed toward the blue like a hard rain falls to earth.
As outbuildings go, the potato barn was the most substantial structure in the bottoms. Its two long stories of brown brick had small windows close to the roof and two tall, wide doors on either side in the center. There was a potato stand several paces in front of the building, and Maud had, on occasion, bought potatoes at that stand. But she’d never been inside the barn. It was for the storing and sacking of huge amounts of potatoes all year round, and Maud found the odor of potato multitudes overwhelming. However, potato stink was the last thing on Maud’s mind. Even the building shrank. The only thing she saw was the blue—that is, until Booker walked out of the barn with a sack thrown over his shoulder and followed a woman to her car. The woman opened the back door and Booker laid the sack in. Then he shut the door and stood next to the car, clearly in conversation. Seeing him talk like that both relieved Maud and infuriated her. How dare he be out and around and talking to some woman when she’d been worried sick about him.
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