Papa met me as I walked across the yard toward the road. “Going to see Clarence off? Here,” he muttered, drawing a creased and much handled five-dollar note from his pocket and smoothing it flat. “Hide this in there somewhere he won’t find it until he’s too far out of town to think of turning around to bring it back. Put it under the napkin. Clarence doesn’t use napkins much, I noticed. Likes his sleeve better. He won’t find it until he’s out of the county.”
Papa reached for the box, but I took the bill out of his hand before he could open the lid and find Mama’s secret bottle. “Don’t worry,” I assured him, “ I know just where to hide it.”
“Just let’s not mention this to your mama,” he whispered conspiratorially. “We’re short ourselves. But five dollars one way or another won’t ward off a sheriff’s sale if it comes down to it.” He winked.
I smiled at the little charades of married people. “It’ll be our secret, Papa. Do you want to come with me to say good-bye to Clarence?”
“No. Better not. I think he’d rather not have an audience, but tell him I said good luck and not to worry about Ruby. Morgan and I’ll be over every day to make sure there’s wood cut and the place is kept up.”
“I’ll tell him. Papa,” I asked, “Is it going to get that bad? Sheriff’s auctions and such?”
“No, nothing like that.” He waved off my question with practiced unconcern. “Of course, it’s tough on young couples like Ruby and Clarence. They didn’t have any time to get a nest egg before the storms hit. It’s too bad. But things will get better soon. Maybe not like they were, but once we get some rain we’ll be all right. It’s just hard coming up with cash right now. Speaking of which”—Papa shoved his hands in his overall pockets and sighed—“I hate to ask you, but I’m a little short for the taxes, sixty dollars, but I was wondering if, maybe ...”
“I’ve got some money in the bank, Papa. Why don’t you let me pay the taxes this year?”
Papa’s face broke into a relieved grin. “Oh no. Not all of them, but if you could lend me that extra sixty, it would sure help. It’s just a loan, you understand. I’ll pay you back as soon as the wheat comes in, don’t you worry.”
“I’m not worried, Papa.”
“Good,” he said, smiling. “You’ll see. It’s bound to rain soon. It’s bound to. Nobody ever heard of a five-year drought now, did they?”
By the time I got to Ruby’s, Clarence was already a good piece down the road, though the sun had been up barely half an hour. I ran after him as best I could, raising a cloud of dust as my foot and cane stirred up the grainy dirt of the road.
“Clay!” I hollered. “Wait up a minute!” He turned and walked back toward me until we met in the gray morning light. “Whew,” I puffed, “a hundred feet more and I’d have kicked up enough dust to start a storm of my own.” He smiled at my poor joke.
“Here, “ I said handing him the battered shoebox. “Some food for the road. Mama thought you’d need something to keep up your strength. Hope you can carry it. I think she must have packed half a steer in there. You know Mama, ‘Feed a cold, feed a fever, feed the neighbors.’” I rattled on awkwardly, feeling a perfect fool but helpless to stop the flow of useless words that spilled from me.
Clarence cleared his throat. “That’s nice. Tell your mama I said thanks.” He looked down at his feet for a moment before expending the effort to lift his head and settle his gaze somewhere between my nose and my chin. “Eva ... I ... I don’t know when I’ll see you again,” he stammered, “and I just wanted to say that ... I did something awful mean to you a long time back. That kiss, I mean. I shouldn’t have done that, and I wanted to tell you I’m sorry. It was so stupid of me. Partly, I was just a dumb kid showing off for my friends, and partly, I wanted to kiss you. You were so pretty and smart. I figured you’d never notice a clod like me, so I made it into a joke. Here you been so good to Ruby and me, even after I was so mean to you.” He paused, and his forehead wrinkled as he worked to find the right words. “Well, I’m sorry. I really am, and I just wanted you to know. In case I don’t see you again.”
I felt my eyes tearing up but forced the tears back, knowing any display of emotion would hurt and embarrass poor Clarence. “Don’t be silly. ’Course you’ll see me again,” I declared. “And don’t worry about the other. That was all so long ago, I’d practically forgotten about it.”
He stubbed his toe in the dirt, then hitched his rucksack up to a more comfortable spot on his shoulders. “I told Ruby to stay in the house,” he mumbled. “She’s pretty broken up, and I didn’t want her standing in the road crying while I walked away. Don’t think I could leave if she did. Would you check up on her? Make sure she’s all right?”
“Of course I will. She’s my best friend, isn’t she? I’ll take good care of her. Papa said to tell you that he and Morgan will keep an eye on the place.” Clarence nodded his head and looked down the road, fresh out of words. We’d said everything that needed saying.
“Well, you’d better be on your way before the heat’s on. Good luck. Write when you can.” I touched his shoulder for a moment before stepping back, then walked back to their little house and stood on the porch, watching Clarence walk down the dirt road until he was nothing but a dust devil and a spot of blue work shirt in the distance.
Ruby’s cottage was as neat and tidy as ever, but somehow it already wore a scent of neglect, the kind of air you sense in houses that are just houses, not homes, and whose occupants are just passing through. Ruby sat on the sofa staring off into space with red-rimmed eyes, holding a pillow close, the way a mother clutches her child in moments of loss. I didn’t say anything to her, just walked over and stroked her hair for a moment to announce myself and then, thinking it was what Mama would do if she were there, I went in the kitchen to put some coffee on the stove.
Ruby sipped at it without really seeing or tasting. I sat down in a chair across from her and tried to think of what I should say, but nothing came to mind.
Ruby spoke first, but without looking at me, just staring off into the distance as though she could see farther than other people. “You remember when I told you I was getting married and you asked me if I loved him? I told you not to be so sentimental, that hardly anybody gets to marry for love. Do you remember?”
I answered yes, and Ruby continued on as though she hadn’t heard me. “I was right about that. Most people marry and get dishes and a house and some kind of life. It’s expected. But if you get love, that’s something extra, a gift. You can’t count on it as part of the deal. You marry somebody and feel lucky not to be an old maid, just grateful not to be left out of life. You wash his shirts and fix his meals and at night you lie under him and hope for babies that never come, and in all this you never ask for love because it would be too much to expect. Then one day he walks in the door, hot and tired, and you realize, my Lord! You love him! You love the way he smiles as he eats his food, eats without saying a word, but his smile lets you know better than any words how happy he is to be home with you after a long day. You love how when he goes to town he thinks to bring back a little bottle of cologne, though he can’t really afford it, and leaves it on the dressing table where you’ll be sure to find it. And when he holds you in his arms at night, so gentle, it’s the safest place in the world to be.”
She looked up from her reverie, as though noticing me there for the first time. “I love him, Eva. I was one of the lucky few, and now he’s gone and I never even got a baby so I can remember him. Lord, Eva. I miss him so much already, it feels like I’ll die.”
“Oh, Ruby!” I sprang out of the chair and went to wrap my arms around her. “I know it hurts. I know all about that, but it’s not forever. He’ll send for you soon, you’ll see. You’ll take a train out to California, and he’ll be there when you arrive. You’ll live in a house with a green yard, and your children will pick oranges and eat them, right off the trees.”
“No,” she whispered. She looked away from me again and stared o
ff into space at a place only she could see. “No, we won’t. He’s not coming back. I’m never going to see him again.”
I shushed her for talking such foolishness, but a chill ran through me as I tried to comfort her. Looking at her face, I wondered where she was, maybe in that place where I had been with Slim, where you can see the one you love as sharp and full as life and how everything will be, a cruel preview of things you cannot change.
Chapter 10
The Depression was when everyone in America learned they were alone.
Most people will tell you it started in October of 1929 when the stock market crashed, but that didn’t matter in Dillon. We couldn’t have located Wall Street on a map if we’d wanted to, and I didn’t know anyone who owned a single share of stock. The Depression started and ended on different days in different ways for everyone, but rich or poor, no one was untouched by it.
For most people in Dillon, the Depression started when the dust whirled and crops died and they realized it wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. My hard times began when I opened Slim’s letter. His began on March 1, 1932, and, in a way, would never really end.
After his marriage to Anne, the everyday details and emotions of Slim’s life were no longer entwined with my own. Of course, I heard about the wedding and the birth of their son, Charles Jr.—the papers were full of both stories. But in general I willed myself to forget him. Still, every now and then I noticed the connection that was there, whether I wanted it to be or not. Sometimes the air would seem to crackle with his essence, and I knew something was happening, something so big that Slim couldn’t force himself to stay completely inside his own skin.
That’s what it felt like that first night of March. I woke up in the night and knew something was wrong. I got out of bed and went to the window, looking to see what it might be, but the house was quiet. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something awful was happening to Slim. Worry chased me as I paced the floor, my arms wrapped around myself to ward off the cold that suddenly seemed to chill the night air. I couldn’t think what to do, so I prayed through the night, not knowing the reason or the effect of my petitions, but pleading with the spirit of God to do the things that were needful.
The next morning, right after Morgan left for school, I heard Ruby yoo-hooing outside, running across the yard and waving a sheet of paper over her head like a white flag of surrender.
The letter from Clarence she’d been waiting for so long had finally come. Mama, Papa, and I gathered in the kitchen to hear the news. I forced myself to put Slim out of my mind for the moment and concentrate on Ruby’s news.
Clarence hadn’t gone to California after all. He’d tried, but a band of thugs, actually policeman from Los Angeles, were waiting at the state line to “persuade” immigrants from the dust bowl—Okies, they called us—not to invade their own personal paradise.
“Some persuasion.” Ruby curled her lip in disgust. “They beat him so bad he couldn’t see out of one eye. Listen, he says, ‘They hit me till my face looked like hamburger meat. One of them wore brass knuckles. After they was finished, lying in the dirt on the Nevada side of the border, I decided they was right. If that’s what California people was like, I didn’t want no part of them.’” Ruby smiled at Clarence’s dry humor even as her brow gathered with worry about his wounds, and she clucked her tongue and sighed, wondering aloud if he’d had any witch hazel to put on the cuts.
I assured her that Clarence was a big boy. “Don’t worry,” I soothed, “he can’t be too bad off or he wouldn’t have been able to write you such a long letter. What happened next? Did he stay in Nevada?”
“No, he says that he caught a freight to Oregon. Heard that there was work in the logging camps up there. Here”—she squinted at the paper—“this part is for you. ‘Tell Eva and her folks thank you for the five dollars. I was going to send it back when I got to California, but I had to use it for eating money to get to Oregon. I don’t know what I would have done otherways. I still have a dollar fourteen cents left, but it will have to last me till I get paid. Tell them I will pay them back when I get some money ahead.’”
“No need,” Papa piped in as he sat in Mama’s chair rocking and listening. “When you write, Ruby, you tell him it was a gift.”
Mama stood next to him, listening, and laid her hand on his shoulder to signal her approval of Papa’s generosity. “That’s right. You tell him we’re just happy everything worked out. He said something about getting paid,” Mama prodded. “He’s got a job, then?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ruby said. “He got a job as a high climber for a logging company. He shinnies forty or fifty feet up to the top of these trees and cuts off the highest part so they’ll be easier to fell.”
“Sounds dangerous,” said Mama.
“It is,” Ruby admitted. “That’s how he got the job. The man that did it before fell and broke his leg. Clarence was in the right place at the right time, and there wasn’t any other work, so he took it. He says I shouldn’t worry because he’s real careful, and work is work. The pay is pretty fair. Of course, he’s so far up on the mountain. There’s no place for me, only men in the camp. I’ll have to stay here until we get some savings. He gets paid in three weeks. I’ve got to figure out how to get by until then,” she mused. “The next month’s rent’s due, and I don’t have more than three dollars left myself.”
Mama interrupted Ruby’s worried reverie and looked at Papa. “You know, we’ve been talking about that very thing, Ruby. Why don’t you come here and live with us until you can go out to join Clarence. We’ve got plenty of room. There’s no sense paying rent on a house that’s too big for one and land that you’re not working.”
Ruby protested that it was too much, but Mama and Papa were insistent, pointing out how nice it would be having an extra pair of hands around the place and generally making it sound as though she’d be doing them the biggest favor in the world by moving in. Finally she accepted. When she did, the relief that spread across her face was obvious, and it wasn’t just about not having enough money. I realized how lonely she must have been these past couple of months.
It was decided that an extra bed could be moved into my room. Ruby would give notice and pack up her things that very day. It would be wonderful having her so close, but I’ll confess to a moment’s hesitation about giving up my privacy. Ruby must have read my thoughts, because she leaned over and said, “Don’t worry, Eva. It’s your room. I’ll just sleep there at night and keep to the kitchen during the day.”
I scolded myself for being so selfish and told Ruby not be silly, that I’d be glad to have her there, it’d be just like the old sleepovers we had when we were girls. I squeezed her hand and she squeezed mine back. Then we went back to her house to pack up her things, few as they were.
She and Clarence didn’t have much in the way of worldly goods, just some dishes and a little furniture that we stored in one of the empty horse stalls. There was nothing of real value except an almost new Philco radio set Ruby’s folks had given her as a wedding present. We didn’t have a radio of our own. At Ruby’s insistence, Papa lugged the radio, shining wood and glass and big as a good-sized pie safe, into the parlor.
“Oh my, won’t this be wonderful,” Mama murmured, and I could see by her eyes that she truly was almost as excited as Morgan, who was already leaning up against the speaker while Papa turned the dials to pick up crackling radio waves. He finally tuned in on a strong signal from a station out of Tulsa.
The voice of the announcer interrupted the program to bring us an important news bulletin. That’s how I heard that Slim’s other son, his pink and sturdy baby boy, whom Anne called the “fat lamb,” had been stolen. Someone took him, warm and drowsy from his bed, and no one knew where he was.
“Oh my Lord!” gasped Mama. “How could they?” We stood, silent and disbelieving, as the announcer droned on.
My knees were suddenly weak, and I carefully lowered myself into a chair, my mind echoing Mama: How could they?
How could they sneak into a home and steal an innocent child from his bed, for the sake of greed?
That was the pain that had woken me in the night, Slim’s pain. His world was turned upside down. They’d stolen his child, his heart, and his last grain of trust. I knew that no matter what happened, Slim would be never be the same. He would be maimed by hatred, not just for the kidnappers but for the entire carnivorous world that consumed his life as though it were their own. In his way, he would be just as crippled as I was, but it would be worse, because his deformity would be invisible. No one would make allowances for a wound they couldn’t see, a thick but imperceptible scar tissue of suspicion. I could not think what he had done to deserve this.
The papers and radio stories continued full of recycled accounts of the kidnapping, with lurid headlines about ransoms paid and rescues attempted or achieved. People were horrified and sickened by the story, even as they demanded more of it, factual or invented. I heard where the sales of newspapers increased twenty percent during the kidnapping. I couldn’t blame people; I followed the story with the same addictive devotion as the rest of the country.
Morgan, who was only nine years old, seemed more upset than any of us. He would stop work on his latest balsa-wood airplane and listen with furrowed-brow concentration when his radio program was interrupted to announce some new development or other. He scoured the paper for updates about the kidnapping, and at night, when I tucked him in bed, he prayed fervently for the safe return of Baby Charles. It was the first time I’d heard him pray out loud for something. Usually he kept his head bowed as I voiced petitions for him while he affirmed the requests with a sleepy and disconnected “Amen” before I pulled the quilt up and he dropped off to sleep.
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