Jeremiah’s shoulder throbbed. Spots of red bled through the bandages. “Expecting a bombardment?”
“Just a precaution,” she said. “They’re all from your father’s house. With what happened with Josiah and that gun going off, I gathered up anything possible they could accidently harm themselves with.”
Jeremiah nodded. It was a smart thing to do. Hopeless people weren’t always careful. And if they got too hopeless?
He didn’t even want to think of it.
“What were they doing when you went in?” he asked.
“Sitting at the kitchen table, staring.”
“At each other?”
“No, not really. Just staring.” Rose finished stacking what she’d taken from the Goodbye household. “They didn’t even look at me the entire time I was in there, searching room to room. I snapped my fingers right in front of their faces, Jeremiah. And nothing. But at least at some point they’d moved from the beds.”
“Do we need to go in and get that little boy?”
“I thought of that,” she said. “But Ellen somehow still seems to be caring for him. I was afraid if I tried she’d . . . well, let’s just say I was afraid to take a mother’s child.” She stood beside him with her hands on her hips. A strand of hair had fallen loose from the bundle atop her head, so she positioned it behind her ear. “Will you be okay here tonight?”
“I’ve survived much worse than this, Rose,” he said, hoping she’d stay. “But will you be?”
“I’ll be fine. I’ve got some writing I want to do back in the room. I’ll check in on Orion.”
Jeremiah smirked.
“What?”
“Just that you’ve only been here a few days, and you already act like one of us.”
“Just trying to find my place, Jeremiah.”
“And you picked the dust bowl?”
She smiled, patted his leg. “Or maybe the dust bowl picked me.”
She was a few paces from the door when he said, “I flipped the coin on William Worst.”
She froze, then returned. “Go on.”
He nodded toward the chair. “Have a seat.”
She did.
He wasn’t sure if he was ready yet to tell the story of what happened to William, but now that she’d taken a seat, he realized how desperate he was for her not to go.
He told her about the coin-flip game Wilmington had taught them as boys on that rainy day inside the Bentley. About the power he felt as he continued to predict that coin, flip after flip, until ultimately the coin became his. But while it had been his and Josiah’s custom to spend whatever money they managed to accumulate on candy at the food store, this quarter he never spent. He’d begun to let it make his decisions for him—most of them favorable—and Wilmington had been against it from the start.
“Not so much the coin flip itself,” he told Rose. “But the power I began to feel from flipping it and always getting it right. The look in my eyes bothered him, I think. It was like he feared it. Because no one should be able to control fate, right?”
“Of course not, Jeremiah.”
“He thought there was something wrong with it, and maybe there was. But to me, everything about it felt right, necessary even. I once asked Father why he feared it so much.”
“And?”
“He wouldn’t answer. He looked away. His jaw started trembling, which is why I know he was hiding something. Otherwise he wouldn’t be so sensitive to the notion.”
“Hiding something like what?”
Jeremiah shook his head. “I don’t know for sure. But I’ve had plenty of time to reflect on it, especially of late, and I just have a feeling it all comes back to my nightmare. The recurring one.” Not the one I’ve started having of that man made of dust. “Like somehow maybe he knows about it. Knows why I have it.”
Rose didn’t have her papers in front of her, but she looked to be recording notes mentally. She blinked, and Jeremiah found himself mesmerized by how long her eyelashes were. She put her elbow on the table and rested her chin in her cupped palm. “William Worst?”
Jeremiah exhaled two puffed cheeks’ worth of air. “William was about our age but bigger and stronger. He used to beat on Josiah. Josiah would try to fight back but never had any success with it.” Jeremiah straightened in the chair, winced as pain bolted down his arm. “So I confronted William one day. We fought; I won. And I don’t know why I did it, but I cut him with a pitchfork. Just a little nick on his arm.”
“Like you did with one of those buried bodies?”
He nodded, not proud, because it sounded so irrational— trying to see what evil looked like on the inside. “Well, I had William Worst on the ground. And then I flipped the coin on him.”
Rose leaned forward, gripped his hands. Normally he wouldn’t let anyone do that aside from Ellen, but the touch felt right. “What happened next?”
“I just did it to scare him. But truth be told, flipping the coin—and it didn’t even have to be the same coin, you see—had started to take me over. I wanted to see how far I could go. Told him if it was heads, which I knew it was, then I’d kill him.”
“And did you?”
“No. Of course not, Rose. What kind of a question is that?”
“The kind that needs to be asked.”
“Let’s just say I took it too far.”
“He died anyway?”
Jeremiah nodded. “Two days later he was riding his father’s John Deere. Back when the town didn’t look like this, we had a run of elm trees. It was a windy day, sunny. A branch had fallen from one of the elms beside their wheat field. The wind picked it up, and it sailed across the wheat field and got stuck on the engine of that tractor. William leaned up from his seat to grab it and toss it aside. Me and Josiah were watching from our field. William hit a bump, and he went tumbling forward.” Jeremiah looked away. “The tractor, well, it . . .”
He stopped the description when Rose held her hand up and closed her eyes. When she opened them again they looked sorrowful, but Jeremiah couldn’t tell if it was for him or for William Worst, who, despite being a bully, had died before he should’ve.
“It was an accident, Rose. A freak accident. But I couldn’t help feeling responsible. That’s when my drinking started to get out of control.” She let go of his hands and leaned back in her chair, as if pondering things. He said, “I’d like to know what you know about those four men I buried. But not tonight.”
She wiped her face, which had gone a shade pale, and then stood again.
“You want to know why I cut one of those bodies before I buried them in the silo?”
“You said you wanted to see what evil looked like on the inside.”
He nodded, but showed her the scars up and down his left forearm. “I always wondered if I had that evil in me too, Rose. These cuts on me, they weren’t just to relieve the pressure.” His hands trembled now, so he didn’t even attempt to button his shirt at the wrist. “I went to jail for murdering those four men, and I think I deserved to.”
“But you didn’t murder them, Jeremiah. I can prove that.”
“Might as well have murdered them. I knew what I was doing. I knew what I’d somehow done to William Worst, and I wanted to see if it would happen again.”
“Freak accidents, Jeremiah. All of them.”
He shook his head. “I’ve come to learn one thing, Rose. The coin never lies.”
“You don’t sound convinced of that.”
“Well, ever since Old Sparky, I just don’t know anymore.”
They remained silent for a moment. She kissed the top of his head, and he gripped her forearm.
“I’ll stop by in the morning,” she said, wiping her eyes. “We’ll talk more.”
“Yes.”
She pointed toward the table, where an inch-tall stack of white paper and two spools of ribbon rested. “I forgot. While you were asleep, I went back and fetched some supplies for Peter. For his typewriter. I had extra. Thought maybe he’d like to
see his efforts produce some fruit.” She fingered one of the folds of her dress. “Good night, Jeremiah.”
“Good night, Rose.”
She closed the door. He stood from his chair with a grunt and watched her out the window. She covered her face with her hands and hunkered into the airborne dust, breeze-blown from the surface. Once she disappeared into the Bentley, he looked toward the Goodbye house for any signs of movement. The sheet covering the window shifted. It could have been the wind. Or it could have been Ellen watching.
Just in case, he waved, and then felt foolish for doing so.
“Peter,” he called. “Come in here.”
Peter walked in with his hands buried in his trouser pockets.
Jeremiah nodded toward the paper and ribbon on the table. “Rose brought you a gift. Do you know how to put the ribbon in?”
Peter nodded quickly, then tucked the supplies under his arm and headed back down the hallway. He never said a word, but something about the way he responded to the gift made it seem as if he’d been expecting it. Or at least was wondering what had taken them so long, because typewriters obviously need paper and ribbons.
“You’re welcome,” said Jeremiah to himself. He watched his childhood home some more.
From Peter’s room, after five minutes or so, he heard the sound of paper winding through the typewriter carriage. Another pause, then eight distinct clacks of the keys. And then Peter stopped typing. The paper slung through, and Peter showed himself in the hallway, holding something in his hand. One of those pages, folded in thirds.
The boy approached Jeremiah, who sat back at the kitchen table because he’d started to feel woozy again. Peter handed him the folded paper and returned to his room.
The door closed.
Jeremiah opened the folded paper, and on it were two words in black ink that still looked a bit wet:
Thank you.
Jeremiah’s eyes puddled wet. He wiped them away with his sleeve, wondering how long it had been since he last cried. He tried to remember but couldn’t. It had been long enough for him to wonder if he still could produce tears. The answer to that now trickled down the beginnings of a full beard.
Those two words, simple as they were, touched him like his mother’s hugs used to—unwavering and without judgment.
For the first time in he didn’t know how long, Jeremiah carried a smile back to bed with him.
And he slept all night, free of any nightmare.
EIGHTEEN
It took every bit of strength Ellen had to get out of bed.
Had it not been for James lying in his crib all still, she would have stayed put. Her bones ached, and her brain was heavy like a bowling ball. She found it hard to hold up lately, which was why, if a table was near, she rested it on the surface.
James was breathing. That was good, she supposed. If she wasn’t so numb, a wave of relief would have swept over her. The boy had lost weight, as she had. As they all had. James stared at the wall and didn’t blink much.
There was dust in his lashes. She left it there.
The kitchen was quiet. She wondered if Josiah and Wilmington were still alive. The front door swayed inward, got stuck in a drift, and stayed open, giving her a triangle of vision to the street, to a sliver of crooked porch on the Worst house. Jeremiah’s house now. Jeremiah and his new woman and that boy who looks just like mine should have. Well, he can have her. Even as she thought it, Ellen realized she didn’t care anymore. Exhausted from the walk down the hallway, she sat alone at the kitchen table and rested her heavy, dirt-filled head on the surface, on an inch of dust that puffed when her left cheek hit it.
Her breaths were shallow. Maybe today they’d stop altogether and put an end to all this nonsense. Her stomach cramped a little from hunger pangs. For days now it had been growling, as if begging for food, but even those sounds had waned of late. Perhaps her stomach had given up too. She thought that was funny but didn’t have the energy to smile.
A memory came and went. Her first kiss with Josiah. With Jeremiah she’d felt her body light on fire, but with Josiah she’d laughed. Not because it wasn’t good, but just because. She feared he’d taken it the wrong way, her laughing, but it hadn’t stopped them from kissing again and again, back when things were different. Now she didn’t even like him. It wasn’t anything personal against Josiah. She didn’t like anyone anymore.
“From dust to dust,” she whispered, drooling into the dirt against her cheek. Something brushed her hair, and then a long finger moved strands from her ear. But it was only the wind coming through that swaying front door. A door she didn’t have the energy to close.
Too bad that Rose woman had removed all the guns and knives from the house, along with the hammers and nails and saws and axes. How would they protect themselves? And from what? From ourselves. That made no sense.
She heard Rose’s voice in her ear, from when she’d come in early, invading their home where the front door was wide open to the elements. Wide open because Jeremiah had blown the lock clear off. “You need to eat, Ellen. Here, drink this water.” She remembered letting it trickle down her chin like she was an invalid, but truthfully she hadn’t felt like swallowing.
“You’re going to waste away to nothing.”
Rose again.
Ellen nodded against the dusty tabletop. What would it feel like to waste away? Like a dried-out cornhusk?
No, she didn’t have time to eat. Not when she needed to rest.
Josiah walked in from another room where he’d been sleeping nightly on the couch. He pulled out a chair, sat across the table from Ellen, and then let his heavy head thump to the surface, except he rested his on his forehead. She craned her neck and saw the top of his head. Looked like he hadn’t washed that hair in weeks. Almost looked bald in spots.
Better not be going bald.
She didn’t have time for that.
Wilmington walked in a few minutes later and sat on the floor with his back to the stove. He tilted his Stetson down over his eyes and went back to sleep, his rumbling snore the only sound in the room. Ellen had never known he snored that loud, and she hated him for it.
But instead of doing anything about it, she closed her eyes and took a nap.
“Ellen.”
Her eyelids fluttered.
What was Jeremiah doing here? And snapping his fingers in her face? Yes, I can hear you. I can hear you fine.
“Say something.”
Don’t want to.
He stood straight and wiped his face like he was prone to do when he was concerned. She used to like that stubble on him but now wished he’d shave it. Made him look too much like Wilmington, and she didn’t like him anymore because he snored. And he may have had an affair with my mother.
She felt lightheaded. Where am I? Where’ d the kitchen table go? Jeremiah’s eyes grew big, like he’d just noticed something he hadn’t before. Why am I on the floor? Sideways. The chair had toppled. Where’ d all that blood come from?
“Ellen, what did you do?”
Took a nap. Must’ve fallen out of the chair.
Jeremiah motioned toward the door. “Rose, go get another sheet and rip it into bandages.”
Jeremiah studied her forehead like it was bleeding, which it probably was, hence all that concern. The reporter woman ran from the house. Ellen blinked in slow motion. Wilmington was still propped up against the stove front, staring at nothing. Josiah’s forehead was like a deadweight on the table. If he’d noticed her fall from the chair and her subsequent head knock against the floor—she assumed now that’s what had happened—he’d certainly showed no urgency in helping her up.
Jeremiah shook Josiah and called his name and then did the same to Wilmington over by the stove, but although they still breathed, neither man moved.
Jeremiah knelt in front of Ellen again. “You’re bleeding pretty good, Ellen. Stay with me now.”
But she couldn’t.
Her head felt like a heartbeat, and her ears were runny
.
Peter was there too, pressing his hands to his ears. His mouth was wide open, and his eyes were pinched closed like he was screaming.
Why can’t I hear him?
And she passed out again.
When Ellen came to, the sun had shifted in the sky, cutting a dividing line of light and shadow across the kitchen table.
Her head was bandaged, and that Rose woman was trying to pour water down her throat. Trying to kill me. Ellen swallowed some of it. Choked some of it up, as if her stomach had rejected it. Why are you still here? I told you I gave up. The thought amused her, and this time she managed a brief crooked smile that prompted Rose to ask her what was funny. Ellen ignored her, though. Her and her pretty face and pretty eyes and pretty dresses. She let the rest of the water trickle out the corners of a mouth she couldn’t seem to close all the way.
Josiah was sitting up now, grinning like a goon, his eyes following Jeremiah’s every move, probably looking at that bullet hole he’d accidently put in his shoulder. They made quite a sight—Jeremiah with his bloody shoulder, Josiah with that blown-off toe, Wilmington with the bullet in his head. And now Ellen, who somehow had fallen out of the chair and gonged her noodle and had no recollection of doing so.
Jeremiah paced like he didn’t know what to do, which wasn’t like him. Flip the coin. Her lips moved, but no words came out. But Jeremiah didn’t flip it. He acted like he didn’t even consider it an option. What’s wrong with you?
“Jeremiah.” Rose pointed out the front door. “Someone’s coming.”
Ellen could see out the window. A brown cloud approached up the far road leading into town. Not a duster, but a car—maybe two.
Jeremiah joined Rose at the doorway. “It’s the law,” he said. “They found me.”
NINETEEN
Jeremiah left the front door open a crack—just enough for an eye to show—as the police car puttered to a stop outside the Bentley Hotel. The chains behind it spun up a cloud of loose dust.
His rifle was back at home, which was where Peter had gone once he calmed down from seeing the blood running down Ellen’s cheek.
What Blooms from Dust Page 18