What Blooms from Dust

by James Markert

  Finally Wilmington, too, turned away, but he didn’t follow Josiah and Ellen into the house. Instead he moved to the place beside the house where a deep drift covered what had once been the Goodbyes’ rose garden—where Jeremiah’s mother was buried. Wilmington grabbed a shovel and started digging—slowly at first, and then faster, crunch by crunch, biting into that hill of dust that had grown the size of a tractor.

  Orion crossed the road with a shovel and joined in the effort. Jeremiah went back home, retrieved a shovel from the porch, and came back to help. A minute later Josiah stepped outside with a shovel and a garden rake. Ellen held James and watched from the porch, covering the boy’s mouth and nose to protect him from all that dust they were bringing up.

  Thirty minutes later Dr. Craven shuffled over, a half-eaten apple in one hand and a shovel in the other. Jeremiah warned the doctor not to push himself, but Dr. Craven wasn’t hearing it. He insisted on shoveling side by side with Orion and Wilmington, as if the threesome of town founders were some kind of team reunited.

  Three hours later they finished. Or at least Wilmington stopped, which was a sign that he was not only finished, but satisfied. Jeremiah wasn’t sure exactly what Wilmington had hoped to find under all that dirt, but he was thankful that bullet had never moved during all the physical activity.

  They’d more or less just leveled the area out, exposing hard-pack underneath the dust that had been gathering there for years now. They had also uncovered the rainbow-shaped slab of concrete that marked Amanda Goodbye’s resting place. But there was no trace of the rose garden that had once adorned it.

  Wilmington leaned his shovel against the side of the house and went inside, having moved a ton of weight off his shoulders.

  And the rest of them did likewise, glancing over at that lone rose in the middle of the road as they went.

  TWENTY-TWO

  When Ellen was a little girl, she had wanted to live in a castle.

  So her father, before he moved the family west to the Oklahoma panhandle in search of riches, had set out to build her one.

  It was a small castle with one turret no more than ten feet tall on the front left corner—a glorified playhouse, really, and a hurricane had knocked it over a year after it was built. That had prompted Ellen’s mother to say to her husband, “Should have built it sturdier.” To which he’d shrugged and said, “At least she got to be a princess for a year.”

  It was true. Ellen had gotten twelve months of play out of the little castle before those winds turned it to rubble. Every day she had been out there slaying dragons and felling knights—more of a warrior princess than the kind that waits up in a window for a knight in shining armor. But she had seen how long it took for that tiny castle to be built and how hard her father had worked to build it, so she was determined to make the most of it.

  “Brick by brick, Ellen. Stone by stone,” he had reminded her every day when he ventured out after a hard day’s work to add to the walls of that castle. “That’s the way anything worthwhile gets finished. And you know what every stone does, Ellen?”

  “What, Daddy?”

  “Every stone adds to the strength of that castle. It fortifies it.”

  Ellen now stood by the window staring at all the dust covering Nowhere. Such a desolate place compared to the windswept coastline of her childhood. But she held the latest letter from Peter in her hand, and in her mind she compared it to the stones her father used to build that castle.

  The letter was a brick. The letter was a stone.

  She was convinced now, especially with how peaceful and content the second letter had made her feel, that these letters circulating throughout town were, in a sense, stackable like stones in a castle wall, the effects cumulative. The first letters had opened their eyes and got their hearts beating again, and the second letters had added fuel to the fire. Moments of despair still reverberated in people’s hearts. But at least now, with each breath taken, life seemed more of an option in the midst of all this dust and misery.

  And that rose.

  With that strong green stem and those lush red petals, it was still out there in the middle of the dusty road, breeze-blown and swaying, but appearing stronger than any castle her father—God rest his soul—had ever built. She imagined clutching onto that thorny stem and pulling and pulling, the green coiling upward like rope but never ending. That’s how sturdy that rose looked, impossible as it seemed.

  Wilmington and Josiah sat at the kitchen table, exhausted from all that shoveling beside the house. Josiah ate beans with James on his lap, while Wilmington just sat there grinning. A minute ago he’d reread the letter he’d pulled from the mailbox earlier.

  Stone by stone. Letter by letter.

  She told the two men that she was going out for a walk.

  They nodded. James said, “Bye, Mommy.”

  Outside, she walked slowly past the rose, eyeing it like it might jump out and grab her. Jeremiah’s door was closed, but there was light inside. She wondered what he was doing in there and if the reporter was with him. The air was crisp, and many of the windows in town were now open, so sounds carried. Peter Cotton was inside that house clacking away on his typewriter. Brooms whisked across floorboards in other houses, and somebody, a woman, was singing. Typewriter sounds came from the Bentley Hotel as well, which was where Rose was probably holed up now, punching those keys as if in competition with Peter across the way.

  Ellen’s eyes wandered as she walked. To the blue sky and floating white clouds. To the clear horizon that seemed endless, pretty now but always on the brink of peeling up and lifting away. To her fellow town folk who, like herself, were venturing forth.

  Richard Klamp waved as he shoveled out hills of dirt in front of his clothing store. Philip Jansen was out there with him, helping move the dirt with a garden hoe. Sheriff McKinney cleaned off his patrol car, which was buried in the courthouse lot. He called out and asked Ellen to wait, so she halted as the chubby man huffed over the dirt toward the road. Although he tried, he couldn’t seem to look her in the eyes, so he watched the ground as he spoke.

  “That rose,” he said. “Something else, ain’t it?”

  “It sure is, Sheriff.” She waited through the lull. “What is it I can do for you?”

  He scratched his head and chuckled. “Just something I need to get off my chest is all. It’s no secret that I’ve always thought of you as quite a looker. And I’ve always secretly carried a torch for you, Ellen, which I know ain’t right, you being a married woman and all and me being a somewhat ugly man. I believe in times past I’ve said some things I shouldn’t or probably stared to the point of making you uncomfortable, and for all that I am sorry.” He offered his hand, and after a moment’s hesitation to get over the suddenness of it all, she shook it.

  “Good day, Sheriff McKinney.”

  “Good day, Mrs. Goodbye.”

  He returned to his car, and she went on her way, wondering what could have possibly been written in his letters to make him apologize like that. Either way, the warm feeling inside her was welcome. “Stone by stone,” she whispered, walking on, hoping that the sheriff’s change of heart meant he was no longer intent on turning Jeremiah over to the authorities.

  Then again, maybe that was why he was cleaning off the car in the first place—so that he could put a handcuffed Jeremiah Goodbye in it and drive him back to prison like he was a prized turkey. But something in the way Sheriff McKinney was now whistling as he worked told her that wouldn’t be the way of it.

  Letter by letter.

  Ellen hadn’t set out with a conscious destination in mind. But seeing as how she ended up standing on the Rochesters’ front porch and knocking on their door, perhaps subconsciously she’d had one. After all, in today’s letter, Peter had mentioned that Emory Rochester was sad and in need of reassurance. He hadn’t needed to add any more. Ever since Emory’s arrival in Nowhere, she and Ellen had been best of friends, and their relationship had only solidified once they decided to r
un the Nowhere schoolhouse together. The two women had been a team for years, joined by their shared goals of educating every boy and girl in town, until times had gotten tough and the Rochesters had up and went and Ellen had said what she said.

  She couldn’t even remember exactly what she had said to Emory, but it had been something about being a coward, and it had made Emory cry right there in her living room as Reginald loaded the final suitcase into their overstuffed car.

  Ellen knocked again. When the door finally opened and Emory stood there on the threshold, the words were out of Ellen’s mouth even before she’d properly formulated what to say. “I’m sorry, Emory. And I still love you like a sister.”

  Emory put a shaky hand to her mouth. Her eyes melted, and out came tears. The two women hugged right there in the doorway and held on long enough for Reginald to walk by and ask if somebody had just died.

  “Only thing to die is old grudges,” said Ellen.

  Josiah cooked a meal that evening.

  He made the same thing they’d been eating for months now— rabbit. But a meal was a meal, and back when things were better they’d done most of their talking over supper.

  Wilmington was tired and went to bed early. The sun was going down, and so, Ellen noticed, were people’s spirits. It was like the power the letters held waned at dusk, right about the time darkness took over. She could feel it herself, that urge to close her eyes and let the lethargy take over.

  It’s like a tug-of-war, Ellen thought as she chewed through tough meat. She hoped for another letter in the morning. It’d been awhile since she’d sat alone with Josiah like this, and the air between them felt stilted.

  And then all of a sudden, without looking at her, Josiah said, “I’m sorry, Ellen.”

  He didn’t need to say what for, because she already knew. There were years of gunk backed up to that apology. And after another bite and swallow of salt-flavored rabbit meat, she said, “I’m sorry too, Josiah.”

  They ate in silence for another minute.

  Josiah wiped his hands on a cloth napkin he’d set beside their plates before they’d started. “Envy has been the downturn of plenty of men, Ellen. And unfortunately I am not immune to the nuances of that particular sin.” He balled up the napkin and placed it on his plate, his eyes focused on the whorls in the wooden table. “I called the authorities in on my own kin. I spied Jeremiah burying those bodies in the silo, and I assumed the worst. I also saw an opportunity to get him out of our way, and I took it. I feared he’d turn you crooked. I loved you then and I love you still, Ellen. If I need to apologize for that, then I’m sorry twice in one night.” He finally looked at her. “But some things I need to know.”

  “Like what?”

  “Would you have married him if he’d asked?”

  Ellen blinked. “Does it matter?”

  “I’d like to think it does.”

  “I don’t know, Josiah.”

  He nodded, looked around as if contemplating something, and then nodded again. He stood from his chair and wiped a weathered hand across his mouth. He made as if to walk into the other room, but then he moved around the table and gently kissed the top of Ellen’s head.

  “I think it might be Easter,” he said. “I’m not sure of the days anymore. But I know how much you like Easter. That’s how come I cooked dinner.”

  “Thank you, Josiah.”

  He walked back around the table and stopped before the entry to the living room. “The other day, you asked me about Jeremiah’s nightmares. How I used to hold his hand every night when he’d have them, you know, to help get him through. You asked me when I stopped doing that.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, it was the day you moved into town.”

  Ellen lay in bed, listening to her son’s subtle snore across the room.

  She was tired but couldn’t sleep.

  Josiah had stopped holding Jeremiah’s hand during those nightmares because of her. It had been more than two hours since he’d said those words before retiring to bed on the living room couch, but the pain from them still lingered. Those words had hurt her, as the truth sometimes does. But even now as she dwelled on them and on the monotone way Josiah had said them, she honestly didn’t know if it had been the dust making him mean again or Peter’s letters luring out what needed cleansing. Or maybe it was just Josiah being Josiah—kind of monotone by nature and a little cryptic.

  Safety and contentment. She had known what she was getting when she took Josiah’s hand, and if she’d expected that to change, then it was on her head. But choosing between them, between those two brothers that she loved, had not been easy, because they were so different, and each had offered her something she craved.

  Jeremiah, of course, was anything but safe. She knew him as a confident young man who backed down from nothing. A daring young man who was never afraid to spill blood if that’s what it took to protect those he loved. A young man who drank a lot—too much, she’d soon realize—and even more so the longer she knew him, in order to mask the pain he kept hidden. A young man so tough no one dared challenge him, yet so fragile the nighttime could melt him like butter. A young man, despite all, who when he’d kiss her left her trembling until her knees went weak. That was the only Jeremiah she knew.

  But Wilmington—and Josiah sometimes too—had told her Jeremiah hadn’t always been like that. That as boys Josiah and Jeremiah had been more similar than not, both quiet and guarded in their own ways and, despite their different coloring, not easy to tell apart. Until it got easier. Until Jeremiah started to change.

  Now, after what Josiah had said, she realized that she’d unknowingly been a wedge driven between two twins who had once been, in Wilmington’s words, inseparable. She knew she wasn’t responsible for the changes in Jeremiah. Those had been due in large part to the nightmare and the drinking and what ultimately happened to William Worst. But she was part of the reason he and Josiah had lost one another. And perhaps that loss, that alienation, had been the hardest blow of all for both of them.

  Maybe a teenager was too old to do such a thing as holding a brother’s hand, even in the protected confines of their childhood room. But did Josiah let his brother down? Without the comfort of his closeness, had the nightmare become unbearable for Jeremiah? Was that the reason behind what he became?

  Josiah probably wondered too. His words to her earlier had been laced with guilt.

  He had stepped away from his brother. From his twin. Because of a girl.

  Because of me.

  TWENTY-THREE

  A duster raged through town overnight.

  Jeremiah couldn’t sleep with so much dust tapping the window, so he walked down the hall to check on Peter, who was busy at the typewriter. Jeremiah invited himself in anyway and pulled a spare chair next to the desk, wondering to whom that particular letter would go come morning.

  “Peter?”

  “Peter?” said the boy, punching the keys.

  “Can you stop for a minute?”

  “Stop for a minute.” He finished a sentence, pulled the page from the typewriter, folded it in thirds like he always did, and then looked up.

  Jeremiah had his attention, but he hadn’t thought of exactly what to say, so they stared at each other for a bit.

  Peter smiled.

  Jeremiah smiled back. “Don’t go repeating what I say, okay?”

  Peter nodded.

  “I have a question for you.”

  Another nod.

  “How do you know?”

  Peter stared at him.

  “I mean, look what you’ve done here. How do you know what to say to all these people?” He pointed to the desk. “In those letters. Do you understand what I’m saying?” Peter nodded but didn’t answer. Jeremiah scooched forward on the chair and pointed to his chest, where he could feel the rapid beating of his own heart. “You’re touching people right here. The town was on the brink of killing itself, Peter, and we had no answer. The dust turned everyone mean and ugly
and then took away their ability to care. And what you’re doing is . . .”

  He scratched his head, searching for the words, because even now it didn’t seem possible.

  That rose. Those letters.

  Peter loaded a sheet of paper into the typewriter and quickly punched out four words:

  Killing it with kindness.

  Jeremiah rub you are. That’s exactly what you’re doing. But how do you know? How dobed his chin. “Yes you know what to say to each and every person in Nowhere?”

  Peter turned in his chair, faced Jeremiah, and pointed to his eyes.

  “You watch?”

  Peter nodded, then pointed to his ears.

  “You listen.”

  Peter nodded, then pointed to his head.

  “You have hair?”

  Peter laughed, shook his head, then typed again:

  I’m a writer. I pay attention to detail.

  Jeremiah laughed and on instinct ruffled the boy’s hair. He leaned back with his arms folded and watched the boy. “I think you’ve changed me, Peter.”

  Peter shook his head, then typed,

  You changed me, Mr. Goodbye. My father left us when I was five. He always said I was strange and wouldn’t ever amount to anything.

  Jeremiah leaned over, pulled the page from the typewriter, and crumpled it into a ball.

  “Peter, your father was never more wrong about anything in his life.”

  Jeremiah awoke the next morning at the kitchen table, leaning back with his feet propped up on the seat of another chair. The sun was bright and the air summery warm.

  He vaguely remembered taking a seat at the table last night after his conversation with Peter. He’d nodded off to the sound of the boy typing his letters from down the hallway. And maybe he’d dreamed it, but at some point during the overnight duster, something had slid under the front door and into the room and taken the shape of a man who sat across the kitchen table from him—a dust man with no eyes or mouth or nose, but somehow still watching.