The thick grasses rippled in the wind and the air held a tangy freshness. Jerome ran towards grazing buffalo as the light grew in intensity. Seconds later a shadow crossed the face of the sun and a golden eagle swooped towards him. His legs stilled without warning and he swallowed the water in his mouth.
Gasping for breath, he looked up cautiously. The sky was a hazy brown, the grassy plains replaced by the dustbowl the land had become.
A flutter of movement caught Jerome’s attention. Ahead, the golden eagle swooped low to land on the barren ground in front of him. Folding its massive wings, the bird observed him for long seconds, tilting his head from one side to the other. This time Jerome wasn’t sure if he dreamt or if the bird truly existed so he kept perfectly still until finally the eagle took flight. It circled back in the direction of the gully and then soared skyward to disappear into the glare of the sun.
In the eagle’s place was the figure of an Indian. Jerome dropped to one knee, stunned by the apparition before him. The man stood some three hundred feet away and wore his black hair to the shoulders with a colourful bandana tied about his head. In his hand he carried a rifle. Around the man’s waist was a glittering weapons belt that held a handgun and a knife. The man lifted the rifle as if in salute, and then disappeared.
Confused, Jerome wanted to head in the direction in which he’d seen the Indian, yet he knew the figure didn’t exist, at least not in terms of flesh and blood. Nor was it a person from the present. The man’s attire was from another age. As Jerome tried to justify what he’d seen, the unmistakeable stink of dust filled the air. Billowing dark clouds were gathering on the horizon. They swelled skyward, mushrooming out across the heavens and dwarfing the sun until the great orb was obliterated. Taking a few steps backwards, Jerome turned on his heel and began to run as the dark mass chased him. With the Blums away, the pigs needed to be caught and ushered to the safety of their stalls and the chickens locked in their roost. Animals and people had died from such black blizzards. There were stories of wayward children being caught outdoors, of townsfolk being engulfed in the street, of cars running off roads in the blackness. At the very least a person could become hopelessly lost out in the open during a dust storm, a predicament that could lead to suffocation. Jerome gritted his teeth and ran.
Abelena tugged at the tether about her waist and shushed Tess to quietness. With a quick look through the homestead door, she shut it quietly and peered around the Blums’ kitchen. She’d never broken into a house before, never stolen. Such an act wouldn’t have troubled Uncle George, he considered it a right to take what was needed, but for Abelena it showed how desperate she’d become, and how angry.
‘Why are we here?’ Tess asked.
There was a good-sized kitchen table with wooden chairs and a sink for washing and a pot-belly stove for cooking. Abelena began opening drawers, marvelling at the cooking utensils. In a drawer used to make bread in order to keep the dust out, she discovered a fresh loaf. She blanched at the uneaten food and, briefly hesitating, broke off a chunk, cramming it into her mouth.
‘Give me some,’ Tess cried.
‘Here,’ Abelena soothed, handing her a piece. ‘You’ll be good and not run away?’
‘Yes.’
Untying the tether confining the child, Tess sat at the kitchen table and waited as Abelena evened up the bread with a nearby knife. She gave the cut piece to Tess and then brushed the crumbs into her palm, eating them before closing the drawer.
There were china cups on a wooden dresser, china plates stacked neatly atop a cupboard and a big clock that sat inside a wooden case nearly as tall as a man. The windows were uncracked with faded curtains and there were pictures of people in frames hanging on the wall. A series of wooden shelves held dried herbs and canisters of sugar and salt. Glasses rested on the sink.
Abelena crossed the kitchen floor and opened a tall cupboard. Inside were cans and jars of bought food; carnation milk, flour, vanilla essence and gelatine amongst other ingredients. Selecting a tin of milk, she searched the drawers until she found a can opener and poured Tess a glass. The girl gulped at it eagerly and burped, a white circle shadowing her lips.
‘Is there more?’
‘Shush.’ Abelena drank from the tin and then poured Tess the rest of the milk. ‘Stay here and be quiet.’
Out the back door and to the right was the house cellar. She slid the crossbar to one side and, flinging open the door, stepped down into the shallow basement built beneath the farmhouse. A minute or so after her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, Abelena found herself standing in the middle of the small space. The cellar was lined with wooden shelves filled with hundreds of jars of food. She stared at this hoard of quart jars that were sealed with rubber and zinc. There were tomatoes and beans, onions and corn and other fruits and vegetables she’d not seen for a number of years. Mrs Blum had ensured she’d canned a plentiful supply of food for the winter months from the vegetable garden before it died out. The jars’ neat labels dated back to 1931. There were also wooden kegs containing salted meat and bags of flour, sugar and potatoes.
She reached for a folded cloth sack sitting on one of the shelves. By the time Abelena closed the cellar door she’d stuffed the sack with two quart jars of tomatoes, six large potatoes, a jar of coffee and enough flour to make a loaf of bread. She hoped Mrs Blum wouldn’t notice anything missing.
Inside the house there was no sign of Tess. Abelena checked the bedrooms, calling the girl’s name as she searched, but there was no response. Rinsing out the milk glass in the sink she placed it back with the other glasses, straightened the chair Tess had sat in and cleaned up any crumbs, before dropping the empty milk tin in the sack with the goods from the cellar. Certain the house showed no signs of their visit, Abelena swung the bag over her shoulder and walked out the back door.
‘Tess?’ Abelena frowned. She’d planned on a dinner of warm tomatoes on slices of fresh bread. This was not the time for hide-go-seek.
‘There is a reason you are always tied to my belt, Tess.’ Her annoyance grew as she walked around the side of the house past the well, hand-pump and the chopping block. Abelena scanned the space between the Blums’ house, the barn and chicken pen. Two hundred feet of dirt lay between these buildings, while further off was the corn shed and the pigsty. The dust blew up so quickly Abelena clutched at the side of the barn for support. She squinted at the gathering clouds. The land was darkening and, as far as she knew, none of the children were safely inside the house. She checked the pigsty and chicken pen, her voice lost in the billowing dust. Dipping her head against the wind and grit Abelena began walking home, all the while calling out Tess’s name. It was less than a mile to their house but already the structure was being obliterated by dust. When she could no longer see through the swirling dirt she dropped to the ground and began to crawl, but the wind was too strong, the waves of dirt like a battering ram. Abelena tucked the sack of food between her legs and buried her face in the folds of her skirt. The world went black.
Chapter 24
April, 1935 – The Panhandle, Oklahoma
Jerome crawled on his hands and knees as the dust raged around him. He’d run on through the swirling dirt until he could no longer see and then walked what he guessed was another couple of miles before dropping to the ground. The dust was so thick he could barely breathe. It filled his ears, gathered on his neck and back, and his eyes, although tightly shut, watered continually. He concentrated on placing one hand after another, on focusing on the direction he was travelling in, towards the barn. All the time he kept thinking of Abelena, Tess and the twins. By now they would be in the house, the worst of the ill-fitting timber plugged with wet scraps of material. Jerome hoped Abelena had dampened the sheets they owned and thrown them over the heads of the children. They’d never experienced a storm as bad as this one and it would be the best way to keep the dust out.
What seemed like hours later, Jerome’s head hit something. He felt railings against his palms an
d with a sigh of relief he tumbled into the hog pen and searched around until he came to the covered part of the sty. He pushed at the dirt that had accumulated in the entrance and then crawled inside and turned his back against the gale. The wind moaned and hissed as the dirt rained down. It was as if buckets of dust were being thrown at the sty. Jerome huddled against the far corner of the structure as the dirt piled up against his back and finally fell asleep, exhausted.
With the storm’s gradual easing, a new world was revealed. Visibility had improved to about five feet. Jerome could see the outline of two of the smaller pigs beneath mounded dirt, a third was clearly having problems breathing. He left the sty quickly, heading in the direction of the barn. The wind had died down, yet the air was still heavy with powdery dirt. He trailed the wall of the barn, stumbling against the fresh mounds of earth piled against the building’s walls until his hand struck the latch on the door. He tugged it open and stepped inside.
‘Uncle George!’ he yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth. Jerome walked the length of the building as a weak light filtered through the walls of the barn, changing the dark interior to brown. ‘Uncle George!’ he called again. A wracking cough rose up from his chest and he spat up a stream of dirt. His chest felt tight and he rubbed at it, loosening more of the filth he’d swallowed. He didn’t know how much time had passed since the storm had hit. It could be late afternoon or morning. He walked forward, a terrible thirst burning his throat. At the far end of the barn he knelt and crawled. His uncle was lying on his side, a blanket over his head, dirt spilled in through the loosened board partially covering the old man. Expecting the worst, Jerome gingerly lifted the blanket, careful not to dislodge too much of the settled dust.
‘I still live?’ George’s voice was hoarse.
‘Yes, old man. Come sit up.’ Helping his great-uncle to a sitting position, he searched for the water bottle. It was wrapped securely in a blanket. ‘Here.’ Both men drank.
‘The storm came and I heard Abelena calling, but she couldn’t hear me,’ Uncle George told him.
Jerome coughed up another wad of black muck and spat it out.
In the half-light Uncle George appeared to have aged ten years. ‘Who would have thought such blackness could come of the white man’s doings?’
Jerome moved to sit beside his uncle, resting his back against the wall. ‘I can barely see outside. I hope the others are all right.’
‘Then you must wait, Jerome,’ the older man advised. ‘Abelena is strong. She will have protected the others.’
Exhausted, Jerome closed his eyes. In the darkness he listened to their laboured breathing as the spray of grit sounded against the barn’s walls.
Abelena crawled in the direction of the house, dragging the sack of stolen goods. She didn’t know how far she’d managed to get before the storm hit in earnest, half a mile perhaps. She felt sick and couldn’t stop coughing and more than once she rushed to pull the face scarf clear of her nose and mouth to vomit up a mix of blood and dirt. As she moved, the storm lessened and eventually she rose to her feet and stumbled on. When the hazy outline of a building grew in shape, she began to sob. All through the blizzard, as she lay curled on the ground, Abelena had worried for Tess. If anything happened to the little girl she would never forgive herself. Her only hope was that one of the other children or perhaps Jerome had found her.
Finally their house came into view. The front door was wide open. With shaking legs, Abelena stepped over the hill of dirt in the doorway, her hand grasping the frame for support. She tried to call out but her voice caught in her throat. The room was layered with dirt and a brown haze hung in the air. She couldn’t understand where everyone was. They should have been safely inside.
In the adjoining room mattresses were propped against the wall, a sheet draped over them like a tent. Sighing gratefully, she lifted a corner of the sheet. The red-headed twins were lying inside and they sat up with a yelp of surprise.
‘Are you all right? Where are the others?’ she asked hoarsely.
Mathew rubbed at his eyes, his face plastered with grime. ‘Dunno.’ He had a quart jar filled with water. Unscrewing the lid he gulped at it and then gave some to his brother. ‘Nobody came back,’ he said angrily.
‘What about Tess?’ Abelena asked. She took the water from his hands and drank thirstily, before wiping a hand across her mouth, savouring the liquid as it washed some of the grit from her throat. Dampening the hem of her skirt Abelena rubbed at the dust crusting her weeping eyes.
Mark turned his dropped eye on Abelena. ‘She’s dead,’ he said simply.
‘What do you mean “she’s dead”? Where is she?’ Abelena wanted to cry but the tears wouldn’t come.
Mathew pointed to the far corner of the room.
At first Abelena couldn’t see anything, then gradually she made out a shape slumped on the ground and rushed to where little Tess lay. A brown stream of gluey liquid stained the girl’s mouth, chin and shirt. She knelt and placed a tentative hand on Tess’s cheek.
Mathew came and stood beside her. ‘Mark went out and got her when we heard her crying but she wouldn’t get in the tent with us. Later, when the door blew open we told her to get under the sheet with us but she wouldn’t, she just sat there coughing and crying. She coughed and coughed until she stopped.’
Abelena sat heavily on the floor, placed the lifeless Tess on her lap and bashed her hard on the back several times. The child gulped and spewed up dirt and began to cry. ‘Water.’
Mark handed her the screw top jar and Tess began to drink.
Chapter 25
April, 1935 – The Panhandle, Oklahoma
When Jerome finally appeared Abelena was beyond speaking. He took one look at Tess whimpering on the dirt floor and felt his heart shrink as he carried the little girl into the kitchen and laid her on the table. ‘Come wash Tess, Abelena.’
There was nothing to do but shovel the dirt from the house, while the twins gave a running commentary as to the fierceness of the storm and Tess’s refusal to seek cover. While they talked Abelena stripped Tess, dipped a rag in water and, squeezing it out, carefully cleaned the little girl. When the haze finally began to lift some hours later, Jerome sent Mathew and Mark to fetch their uncle.
Although the worst of the storm had long passed, the air remained gritty and the dust settled on Tess as Abelena dressed her.
Uncle George sat on a kerosene tin cradling a mug of water. ‘You were lucky she didn’t die. If it happens, bury her straight away, you know how it must be for us, Jerome, otherwise it is bad medicine.’
‘She is not full-blood Apache,’ Abelena replied crossly, sitting Tess on a kerosene tin, ‘and no-one is dying. Even if they did,’ she snapped, ‘no-one will ever be buried the Apache way, dropped in a hole in the night with no words said over the body because you are too scared to be with the dead.’
Uncle George walked out of the kitchen, muttering.
‘Abelena,’ Jerome berated, ‘he has his ways. We must respect them.’
Abelena touched Tess’s forehead and kissed her cheek. ‘They are not our ways. Why do you persist in humouring him, Jerome? If I could wipe clean the Apache that clouds our blood I would, yet you cling to the part of us that has caused us nothing but misery. I’ve only ever had one dream and that is to be white, accepted as white, but all you want to do is pull us back into the past.’ Her tears left white streaks against her dirty face.
‘I’m sorry, Abelena.’
‘So am I.’ Abelena wiped her nose on the sleeve of her shirt. ‘I have food,’ she told him. ‘Don’t ask how I got it, my brother, just let me prepare it so the children can eat.’
Jerome wanted to question her, instead he kept an eye on Tess, giving her sips of water as Abelena mixed flour, water and a pinch of salt and spooned dollops of the mixture into the skillet. There would be no cow to eat today. Maybe tomorrow they would walk the animals in, depending on the weather. Until then they would have to make do with what Abele
na provided. By the time she’d boiled water for coffee there was a stack of thin pancakes on the table and the tomatoes were warming in the skillet. Everybody ate hungrily. No-one asked where the food came from. Jerome guessed and the knowledge shamed him.
‘You have done well, Abelena,’ Uncle George told her.
‘I did it because my family were hungry and the others have so much.’ Abelena sipped at the strong coffee, savouring the flavour.
The old man nodded. ‘Your mother would be proud.’
‘No, she would be sad to see that we have grown so desperate that we must steal like Indians.’
The twins licked their plates. Tess copied them.
‘Either way,’ Jerome commented, swirling the grains of coffee in the bottom of his mug, ‘we needed to eat today.’
Jerome left the others to rest and went to investigate the storm’s damage. Once again the landscape had changed, moulded by the dirt carried across the plains. There was no movement at the pigsty and the animals were stiff with death. He found three carcasses and carried them out onto the flat to lay them side by side, knowing Mr Blum would want to see his losses. One wall of the corn shed had collapsed from the weight of dirt flung against it, and there were ears scattered on the ground and protruding up through the dirt. Jerome considered restacking the ears of corn that were salvageable, yet once again hesitated. The corn shed was Mrs Blum’s domain. Instead he walked toward the Blums’ house, noticing the dirt piled at the front of the building which would have to be shovelled away before the house could be entered. The cover had blown from their well. He guessed the water would be undrinkable for a number of days, if at all in the future, depending on how much dirt was piled inside.
The Great Plains Page 22