What Blooms from Dust

by James Markert

  After each duster, they clung together and dug out with shovels and brooms at the ready, daring the next one to come along too, and the Bentley Hotel played music and hosted gatherings almost every night in defiance.

  Those mysterious roses eventually wilted and died, but what they represented didn’t.

  Kindness continued to permeate the daily doings.

  That seed wouldn’t be so easily plucked.

  Back in the summer of 1935, Jeremiah and Peter helped transform five more towns throughout the southern plains dust bowl with all that letter writing. But eventually, after they’d spent nearly seven months on the lam, Agent Livingston picked them up in Somewhere, Colorado.

  At least that’s where Jeremiah later said he was caught, because he couldn’t remember the name of the town. Or maybe he was just trying to be funny.

  But by then, the near showdown in Nowhere months before had garnered enough attention that half the country was rooting for Jeremiah to continue evading those lawmen.

  Rose Buchanan’s newspaper articles had made their way all over the country too, shedding light on the truth behind the notorious Coin-Flip Killer. Jeremiah Goodbye had gone from infamous to famous overnight, it seemed. After the arrest, Agent Livingston was kind enough to drop Peter back in the town of Nowhere, just as Jeremiah requested, so that he could live with Ellen and his brother, Josiah.

  Josiah Goodbye, by then, had begun to gain notoriety as a gunslinger. He never asked for it. He only wished for rain and green grass and wheat fields again so that his children could grow up in something other than dust. But rumors spread quickly about that sunny April morning when the lawmen first tried to carry Jeremiah away.

  Josiah hadn’t yet gained the status of Doc Holliday or Wyatt Earp, and he didn’t want to, but with the way he’d backed Agent Livingston down with that rifle and told him he’d make Tombstone look like a tea party, well, each story told got him closer to just that.

  Jeremiah only did six more months in jail anyway.

  Rose Buchanan and her newspaper articles had developed enough steam to drive a train right toward a new trial. With the new information those articles set forth, Jeremiah had become somewhat of a national celebrity, and he got off with time served. What he’d done burying those bodies was one thing, but killing them was another. The judge dismissed him, and told Jeremiah just before he left the courtroom that “perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad idea to give that coin a rest.”

  Jeremiah tipped his Stetson and told the judge politely that he’d consider it, but he “wasn’t sure that could be the way of things.”

  Days after Jeremiah Goodbye was declared by the judge to be a free man again, he was reunited with Peter in Nowhere. By then, Ellen was large with the twin boys she’d give birth to a few months later.

  Jeremiah and Peter took up residence in the Worst house, picking up right where they’d left off. The people of Nowhere were already calling it Jeremiah’s house anyway.

  Those magical roses didn’t come back, but Wilmington had restarted his rose garden beside the house, and he tended to it daily like he used to. With enough well water, it turned out, even ordinary roses could bloom in the dust.

  Peter kept to his letter writing, and eventually, three weeks before his eleventh birthday, he restarted the Nowhere newspaper. He called it the Desert Rose Tribune, and Deacon Sipes, who was good at fixing things, got the printing presses up and running again.

  Peter and Jeremiah delivered them to the town’s mailboxes every morning at sunup.

  After Jeremiah’s return, it was hard to find a day gone by where someone didn’t arrive in Nowhere with luggage and hole up inside the Bentley until housing could be claimed.

  “Just heard there’s no better place in the plains to be,” most of them would say, despite all the dust.

  Some came from those towns where Jeremiah and Peter had made a mark before his arrest. They’d come with saved letters Peter had written back then, hoping for more, and soon the town began to grow again.

  Large portions of the southern plains never returned; the earth had been abused and chewed up so badly. But gradually, over the years, the rains came back, and after a decade of trial and error, so did some green grass.

  Wilmington, following President Roosevelt’s big idea, planted trees fit for the climate, and after a while shade returned. He eventually put more wheat in the ground, but took care to rotate the crop, treating the land with the gentleness of holding a newborn.

  Wilmington Goodbye was seventy-seven when he died, with seven grandchildren to his name and green grass aplenty. And as far as Ellen knew, that bullet Jeremiah had accidently put in his father’s head back in the summer of 1932 had never moved. It was a heart attack that finally did Wilmington in, and Ellen, eventually a grandmother of two of her own, had been warning him about it for years. Too much meat and greasy food had thickened him.

  “Went too many years near to starving, Ellen,” he’d tell her. “I could eat until I’m ninety and still not catch up.”

  “Well, you don’t have to do it all in one day,” she’d tell her father-in-law.

  Wilmington Goodbye’s seven grandchildren didn’t all belong to Josiah and Ellen. Only four of them came from that union. They’d had a girl two years after the twin boys.

  The other three belonged to Jeremiah.

  A year and two months after the judge declared him a free man, he was up on a ladder in Nowhere cleaning dust from the gutters.

  A car puttered into town, fancy and new, and it pulled to a slow stop in front of the Bentley, where Orion stood on the porch smoking a cigar.

  Out stepped Rose Buchanan with two suitcases.

  Jeremiah was down that ladder so fast he nearly fell. He met her in the road and took the luggage from her.

  “Hello, Jeremiah.”

  He nodded with too much enthusiasm. “Rose.”

  She smiled, pretty as the day he’d first laid eyes on her. “Figured it was too awkward to tell a Goodbye good-bye for good.”

  Jeremiah didn’t know exactly what she meant, so he laughed, and she did too. All that mattered was that she was standing before him again.

  “Coin never lies,” he said.

  She grinned, playfully. “You flipped a coin on us, Jeremiah Goodbye?”

  “No. Maybe. Yes, I suppose I did.”

  “It’s a good thing too,” she said. “I knew there was a reason I was turning down all those suitors my parents were bringing by.” She slid her arm inside his as they walked toward the Bentley.

  Three months later they married inside that same hotel. Ellen and Josiah stood up with them. And a year later Rose was pregnant.

  Wilmington said she looked as big as Amanda had when they’d first arrived in town. “Liked to never fit her in that train car.”

  Josiah told his daddy it wasn’t polite to talk about how big a woman looked when she was in the family way. Besides, she wouldn’t have been that big when they arrived.

  Wilmington just shrugged that off. That bullet in his head sometimes made him say funny things. And then Wilmington leaned in and asked Rose, “Did I ever tell you about Majestic, Oklahoma?”

  She laughed.

  Jeremiah knew she’d already heard the story, but she allowed him to tell it again.

  And then, a couple of months later, Rose gave birth to triplets.

  Two boys and a girl.

  They named the girl Amanda.

  Amanda Rose Goodbye.

  And when Wilmington first held her he cried.

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1.There are some flawed characters in this story. Discuss how redemption plays a role in the novel, specifically with Jeremiah and Josiah Goodbye.

  2.The Dust Bowl was a terribly bleak time in our country’s history. I’ve always been a half-full kind of guy. Think of some instances in the story where a character shows optimism and hope when all seems lost.

  3.Discuss the aspect of fate in regard to Jeremiah flipping that coin. Discuss fate
vs chance with some examples throughout the book.

  4.As twins, in what ways are Jeremiah and Josiah Goodbye similar? In what ways are they different? How does their relationship go from broken to whole again?

  5.Peter Cotton is an observer who doesn’t verbally say much, although his actions and smile speak volumes. After he gets the paper and ribbon for the typewriter, how is his written word ultimately transformative?

  6.In the story, Peter’s letters aren’t just letters. Discuss the power of the written word.

  7.While writing this story, the phrase “killing it with kindness” popped into my head. The kindness in Nowhere ultimately trumps meanness. Can kindness really be contagious?

  8.I always try to have my characters transform throughout the course of a novel. Which character changes the most from the beginning of the novel to the end? How and why?

  9.Give examples of how forgiveness plays a role in the novel.

  10.In many of my books, beauty can be found beneath the dirt and grime of life. Only in fiction can red roses bloom from dust. In the novel, what seeds, planted now or in the past, helped bring this miracle about?

  11.The Bentley Hotel is more than just a hotel in this story. What role does the hotel play in this town?

  12.In many cases, you can’t judge a book by its cover. Discuss how Jeremiah Goodbye was often misunderstood.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I might sit at my computer and do all the typing, but books aren’t written alone. What Blooms from Dust Dust had a quick deadline, and luckily—except for the month I had to take off to sub seventh- and eighth-grade math (and I’m not good at math)—this book flowed like a rain-swollen river, practically writing itself, the first draft finished in less than three months. Because of the timing, I wasn’t able to hand the early pages out to my normal stable of readers, so I leaned heavily on Aldan Homrich, who offered to read quickly and brainstorm; he came through big time—and thank you 3rd Turn Brewing for hosting us with some mighty fine porters! Karli Jackson’s expert editorial touch on the novel was spot-on, as always—thank you for everything! And to Kimberly Carlton for championing this story to the end. Anne Buchanan for the spectacular line edit. To everyone at Thomas Nelson who had a hand in the process, from the amazing cover design to marketing—I’d attempt to name you all but would probably have nightmares of leaving someone out. I watched several videos on the Dust Bowl, from the History Channel to Ken Burns on PBS, but my go-to was the truly wonderful book, The Worst Hard Time, by Timothy Egan; it flows like a novel and was one of the most interesting history books I’ve ever read. To my wonderful agent, Dan Lazar, as always, job well done—because of you I’m still getting paid to make stuff up. To my parents and siblings, cousins and friends—you know who you are—thank you for your unflinching support. John, this would be the perfect book to use that blurb from Stephen Kang! Ryan and Molly, you continue to impress and inspire; and Tracy, your role in this entire process is more important than you’ll ever know. It’s easier to run and chase dreams when you know there’s steady ground beneath your feet. Patience is certainly a virtue. And finally to you, loyal reader, for doing what you do!

  James Markert

  Louisville, Kentucky

  November 2017

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  James Markert lives with his wife and two children in Louisville, Kentucky. He has a history degree from the University of Louisville and won an IPPY Award for The Requiem Rose, which was later published as A White Wind Blew, a story of redemption in a 1929 tuberculosis sanatorium, where a faith-tested doctor uses music therapy to heal the patients. James is also a USPTA tennis pro and has coached dozens of kids who’ve gone on to play college tennis in top conferences like the Big Ten, the Big East, and the ACC.

  Learn more at jamesmarkert.com

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  Twitter: @JamesMarkert