A Cup of Dust

by Susie Finkbeiner

  I didn’t know why I’d asked him. I knew full well that his father had done it.

  I’d known other kids who got split lips and black eyes from their fathers. Sometimes they even had marks from their mothers. But this was Ray. My Ray. It hurt harder that he was the one getting beat up at home.

  Ray scowled at the game board and waited, pulling at his sleeves to hide the wounds.

  “It’s nothin’,” he mumbled.

  “Does it hurt?” I stared at the top of his head, wishing he’d look up at me.

  “I said it was nothing.” He scratched his scalp. “You gonna play or not?”

  “Sure I’m gonna.” I grabbed an extra checker and stacked it on his piece.

  We didn’t talk anymore. We just finished our game and checked the floor before putting our feet down. Then we tiptoed to Millard’s office to put the set away.

  Millard stayed in a room that was built as an office. Bookshelves lined the walls, and there was no closet to hang up his shirts. He made do, though.

  I wandered around the room. He’d told me he didn’t mind so long as I didn’t get into anything, which took all my strength to obey. He had plenty of small boxes and drawers that begged me to explore them. I put my hands behind my back to keep the temptation away.

  Millard had a dozen or so pictures hanging on the walls that I liked to look at. One of him and his wife, who had died long before I was born. She wasn’t the prettiest woman, but they looked happy. Another picture was of Main Street in Red River before everything shut down. Folks walked up and down the sidewalks in fine clothes, and cars were parked on either side of the clean street. It must have been something to see.

  Last, I looked at the picture he had of Beanie and me. In the photo, we were on the porch. Beanie looked off to the side and held her hands in her lap. I was next to her, my chubby feet dangling from the steps. It made me feel special that he kept that picture where he would see it every day.

  Millard was the closest thing to a grandfather I had.

  Ray reached up to the top shelf and slid the box of checkers next to a couple old notebooks. A book on the shelf below caught my eye.

  “What’s that book?” I asked, pointing.

  Ray touched the spine. “This one?” he asked.

  I nodded, and he took it off the shelf, handing it to me. He went to the window and looked out, his hands stuffed in his pockets.

  The book was old—I could tell by how brownish yellow the edges of the pages were. I wondered if it was even older than Millard.

  On the brown cover was stamped a picture of a gold-colored cow. Like the cow the Israelites made for themselves to worship. Boy, I wished I had been there to see Moses pitch his snit fit over that idol. Closing my eyes, I imagined him throwing down the tablets of God’s law on the ground, breaking them into a million little pieces.

  The golden cow under my fingertips bumped and grooved on the cover. The words beneath it were stamped in the same gold, but most of the sparkle had been worn off, leaving just the valley of the words on the brown.

  How to Get Rich on the Plains, it read.

  Careful not to flip too hard, I opened the front cover. On the inside was swirling, penciled handwriting. It recorded rainfall and crops and how much wheat had sold for.

  The years from 1930 through 1933 had been labeled as “bumper crop” years. The old timers in town still talked about those times and the mountains of wheat they’d harvested. I remembered how everybody had money then. They bought new cars and had suits made and put a fresh coat of paint on their houses.

  I closed the book, looking at the golden cow, knowing that wheat had been what we had danced around, the dust of the busted commandments under our fingernails.

  “What was it?” Ray asked, still looking out the window.

  “Just an old book,” I told him before putting it back on the shelf.

  Mrs. Jones was waiting for us to come back from Millard’s office. She stood next to the pew we had been sitting on. She didn’t say anything to either of us, just waited.

  One of her eyes was black, and her cheek was bruised. Her bottom lip was swollen, and I reckoned it must have hurt to talk.

  She pulled the neck of the sweater together, turning her face toward the door of the courthouse. That sweater was the color of butter, creamy and yellow. Little rose shapes had been knitted around the collar that she held onto so tight. It had been one of Mama’s favorites until Beanie splattered bleach all along the bottom of it. Mrs. Jones didn’t seem to mind the white spots so much.

  “Come on,” Mrs. Jones finally said to Ray. “Say good-bye to Pearl.”

  Ray nodded at me, not meeting my eyes. “Bye.”

  The two of them walked out the big courthouse doors. Ray turned and gave me a quick, slight smile.

  It was the kind of smile that said everything was going to be okay.

  Daddy and Millard sat on either side of Daddy’s big desk. Daddy reclined all the way back in his chair, with his boots resting on a pile of old newspapers that Mrs. Jones had stacked for him. Millard sat straight with his arms crossed and a toothpick moving up and down between his lips.

  Neither of them spoke, which was a normal occurrence between them. Mama had told me once that two men could sit in a room for days without saying so much as a single word to one another.

  That was the closest thing to crazy I could think of.

  “You finished with the checkers?” Millard asked, keeping the toothpick between his teeth.

  “Yes, sir,” I answered, studying that toothpick, hoping to figure out how he talked without it falling.

  “Who won?”

  “Ray did.”

  “Well, you don’t gotta be modest. I know you let him win.” Millard gave me a wink. “You put the set away?”

  I nodded.

  “Good girl.”

  “Ray and Mrs. Jones leave already?” Daddy lowered his feet and yawned into his hand.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “Daddy?”

  “Yes, darlin’?” He smiled at me with his eyes half open.

  “Can’t you do anything about Mr. Jones?” I leaned my hip into the desk, right by where his feet had been on the newspapers.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He hurts his family,” I whispered.

  “Yes.” Daddy leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. “We’ve talked about this before, darlin’.”

  “Can’t you make him stop it?”

  “I wish I could.” Daddy turned to Millard and shrugged. He licked his lips and smoothed his mustache with his fingers.

  Finally, he sat back in his chair and let out a long breath, reaching for his tobacco and rolling papers. I let him put together a cigarette and light it up.

  “You don’t hurt us like that,” I said.

  “You’re right. I don’t.” He breathed in through his cigarette. “A man shouldn’t hurt his family.”

  “Mr. Jones hurts Mrs. Jones.” I leaned toward him. “Did you see her face? Her lip was swelled up.”

  “I seen it.”

  “And he hurt Ray, too.”

  Daddy leaned forward again and grabbed my hand, pulling me closer to him.

  “Darlin’,” he said, “there ain’t a single thing I can do.”

  Millard’s chair complained as he got up from it. “I best go.” He nodded at Daddy. “Good luck, Tom.”

  I waited to be alone with Daddy before going on.

  “Daddy, I don’t want Ray getting hurt.”

  “I know it.” He sighed and stubbed out his cigarette, even though it was only about half burned down. “But a man’s got a right to privacy in his own home. It ain’t none of our concern, Pearl.”

  “Couldn’t you go talk to him? Tell him to stop?”

  He rubbed over his whole face with his hand, pulling the skin of his cheeks down to make jowls at his jaw. “I wish with all my might I could do that.”

  “Isn’t it the right thi
ng to do?”

  “It ain’t that simple.”

  “It’s right to protect kids, isn’t it?” I felt my insides get warm and soft as the sadness flooded all the way up and out of my eyes.

  “It is.”

  “You always do the right thing, Daddy.” My voice shook. “Always.”

  He rubbed the back of my hand with his thumb and didn’t meet my eyes. “Nah. I don’t. I don’t always do the right thing.”

  Something heavy and hard as a rock dropped from my heart all the way to my feet, threatening to knock me right over. But Daddy had a good hold of my hand.

  “I don’t understand,” I sputtered.

  “Pearl, your mama and me, well, we haven’t done everything right.” He let his eyes flick up to mine for only a moment before he looked back at my hand. “I’m the one who done the wrong. It’s on me. I should have been more honest with you. But I was scared for me and for you.”

  “What do you mean, Daddy?” I asked, my head feeling light and swimmy.

  “See, when you were born …” He hesitated and really concentrated on our hands. “I’ve got to tell you something—”

  The door of the courthouse opened, banging into the wall so hard I was sure it would leave a hole. Daddy’s head snapped up toward the man who’d rushed in. Standing, he turned toward the courthouse doors.

  Daddy dropped my hand and pushed me behind him as he stepped around the desk, hand on his holster.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  Peeking out from behind Daddy, I recognized the man as one who lived in a sharecropper cabin. He swallowed hard, his face whiter than any sheet I’d ever seen. He got up close to Daddy and pulled on his arm.

  “Now, hold on here,” Daddy said, stopping the man. “What’s this about?”

  “We got a emergency.” The man clenched his jaw, sinewy neck muscles stuck out under his skin. Looking at me out of the corner of his eye, he nodded. “Don’t wanna say more’n that in front of the girl.”

  Millard had come out of his office by then, his hat already on his head. “Tell us on the way.”

  “Darlin’, I’ll be back soon as I can,” Daddy said, turning to me on his way out. “Don’t you worry. Everything’s all right. Hear?”

  I nodded because I believed him. Some kid had gotten tangled in barbed wire or bit by a snake, I figured. Maybe even a roof collapsed on one of the cabins with somebody inside. Things like that happened about every day in Red River.

  I ran to the window, wiping away a smear of grime on the glass that Mrs. Jones had missed, and watched the men walk away. They talked to each other as they went.

  After just a few words, Daddy took off running.

  The courthouse had more creaking and clunking and bumping sounds when I was alone in it. I tried to pay attention to the clock keeping time, trying not to think about the ghosts that must have haunted that place.

  Not that I really believed in ghosts. It was just that Ray had told me that they used to kill the murderers and thieves in a locked room at the end of the long hallway. He’d said that if I listened close enough I’d hear them screaming from the pain of being jolted with electricity.

  I tried to remind myself that what I heard was just wind or the building settling.

  “Daddy’ll be back soon,” I whispered to myself. “Don’t be scared.”

  The big wood doors opened, and I expected Daddy and Millard to come through, talking about what had happened. The emergency would be over, and they’d both want to smoke a cigarette before calling it a day.

  I hoped Millard had one of his pink candies for me.

  It wasn’t Daddy or Millard that walked in, though. It was That Woman. She hadn’t seen me yet, on account she had pointed her eyes right at the freshly mopped floor and pushed the door closed behind her.

  She wore a pink dress, one that had to have been store bought a long time before. I could see where she’d mended it, and not too well, either. It puckered with the black thread she’d used. I wondered why her mama hadn’t taught her how to sew better than that. Her hair was silky straight. A tired attempt at a curl curved the bottoms. Really, it looked like she’d slept a good long time on her hair.

  “Hi,” I whispered, not sure if she would hear me.

  She took in a sharp gasp, finally noticing me. She raised her shoulders and touched the middle of her chest with one of her small hands. She stared at me almost a whole minute before she blinked.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Is the sheriff here?” she asked, looking right at me. It wasn’t that I minded so much, her staring at me. It was the way she did it that made me feel funny, like she knew something I didn’t.

  Adults always looked at children that way.

  I swallowed hard, trying not to be nervous about the way she eyeballed me. “Pardon?” I asked, even though I’d heard her question just fine.

  “I asked if the sheriff’s here.”

  “No, ma’am.” I paused, repeating the words to myself in a whisper.

  “You know where he’s at? I come to see him.”

  “Oh, he’s down at the sharecropper cabins. He said he’d be back real quick.” Not knowing what to do with my hands, I clasped them behind me. “Something happened down there. I don’t know what, though.”

  “Maybe I’ll just wait here.” She looked at the pew but stayed standing. “If that’s all right.”

  “Sure is.”

  “You care if I sit down?”

  I shook my head.

  That Woman lowered herself into the pew, smoothing the skirt over her thighs and crossing her ankles.

  “Would you like to see some pictures?” I asked.

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  I carried over a shuffle of pictures I’d drawn over the last few weeks. Putting them on the pew next to her, I wished so hard she’d pick them up and give them a good study. I wanted her to admire them the way Mama never seemed to have the time to do. If she had, I would have offered to let her take them all home.

  But That Woman didn’t hardly glance at them. Instead, she folded her hands in her lap.

  “I drew those pictures.” I took a step back from the pew. “I like to draw sometimes. Miss Camp—she’s my teacher—she says I’m pretty good at it.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Did you know the sheriff is my daddy?” I shifted on my feet.

  She nodded and turned toward the door.

  “I wasn’t sure you knew,” I said.

  For a good minute or two, she sat without hardly moving except to breathe and blink. I wondered if I’d said something wrong or if she was just the kind who didn’t like talking all that much.

  “I know he’s your father,” she said. Then she turned and blinked her eyes. “Is he good to you? I always wondered if he was.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I tilted my head. “Why did you wonder that?”

  “Because not all fathers are good.”

  “I know.” I thought of Mr. Jones. “My daddy is, though. He’s real good to us. He never hits my mama.”

  She pushed her lips together and dipped her head. “I’m glad.”

  “Is your father good to you?” I asked.

  “He’s dead,” she answered, not changing the way her voice sounded. “He’s been dead a long time.”

  “That’s sad.” I felt sorry for asking the question.

  “I ain’t sad about it.” She fingered a place on her neck under her jaw. “Some people ain’t worth our sadness.”

  “Was he mean to you?”

  Mama would have grabbed me by the ear and tugged me into another room, where she would have scolded me for having asked too much. She would have told me to hush up and stop being so rude and to let That Woman be.

  She would have been sore that I’d said a word to That Woman in the first place.

  But Mama wasn’t there right then to stop me.

  “My pa drank,” That Woman answered, blinking hard so that her whole fac
e moved with it. “He treated everybody ugly. That was just how things were with him. I don’t think he knew another way.”

  “That’s too bad.” Again, I thought of Mr. Jones and wondered if he didn’t know another way.

  She lifted both her shoulders then let them slump. “I guess it don’t matter no more, does it?”

  “Guess not.” I took a seat, just the stack of drawings between us. “My name’s Pearl.”

  “I know your name.” She cocked her head when she looked at me. Something about her eyes was soft like Mama’s even though they were blue instead of dark brown. “I always did love that name.”

  “Thank you.” I flashed a smile. “What’s your name?”

  “Winnie.” She smiled small, like she was shy. “My ma called me Winifred. Guess that’s my Christian name. I never took to it, though. It sounded too much like a man’s name.”

  “I like Winnie just fine.”

  “Thanks kindly.” She turned her face to her hands and went to work on a piece of loose skin by her fingernail.

  “How do you know Eddie?” I asked.

  She turned her head away from her hands and looked at the doors. “It’s getting late.”

  “I heard you talking about Eddie to my mama.” I leaned forward. “You came to my house on Thanksgiving. Do you remember that?”

  “Sure. I remember.” Winnie sighed and faced me, her eyes had grown large. “Yeah. I know him.”

  “Is he your friend?”

  “No.” Her chest rose with a deep breath. “He’s a bad man.”

  “Then why do you talk to him?”

  “Because he’s the only one who can help me.”

  “We would help you,” I said. “We help lots of folks.”

  “Your mother don’t want nothing to do with me.”

  “I’m sorry she was so cross with you when you came over.”

  “She had a right to be.” Winnie uncrossed her ankles and smoothed her skirt again. “I best go.”

  She stood quick, her hands still touching her skirt.

  “It’s okay.” I stood, too. “Daddy’ll be back soon.”

  “This was a mistake. I don’t know why I thought this was a good idea.” She shook her head. The way she talked at the floor made me think she was saying the words more to herself than me. “Eddie was wrong.”