A Cup of Dust

by Susie Finkbeiner

Eventually, the man stood up and walked back the way he’d come, leaving the cow where it lie.

  I wished I’d gone inside when Mama had.

  The shooting started about the time I lost sight of the skinny man. One shot at a time that echoed all the way to our house. Thankfully the ranch wasn’t within sight of our porch.

  With every blast, I imagined Eddie looking down at the cattle with that sneer of his. The sneer he wore when he clubbed the rabbit, and the one he had when he punched Winnie in the mouth.

  I couldn’t sit on that porch anymore. My eyes kept falling on the cow that had stumbled and died right on the side of the road, knowing that a whole lot more of them would be laying in the field at Watsons’ old homestead. I couldn’t take the thought of it.

  Going inside wouldn’t help. Beanie was about an inch away from having a spell over all the noise, and Mama would try to feed us oatmeal that my stomach just couldn’t take that morning.

  So I started walking. Around to the back of the house and into the field. Past the old windmill that complained with each wind gust that forced it to turn. Out by the road to the sharecroppers’ cabins. I turned the other way, toward a field that had once been full of wheat. So much wheat I used to believe the crop went on forever and ever. That was before it all dried up and died.

  Had it been warmer that day, I would have kicked off my shoes, rolled off my socks, and let my feet shuffle through the sand. It had been months since I’d walked barefoot. It had been that long since I’d felt free and easy, since my daydreams weren’t laced with dark shadows.

  The toe of my shoe caught on something. I didn’t fall, I barely caught myself. Looking down, I saw a bit of rock peaking out of the dust. Grabbing at it, I pushed the dirt off until I uncovered it. It was about the size of my hand and weighed about the same as one of Mama’s good drinking glasses.

  Never before had I found the urge to throw something. But I did that morning. I threw the rock, screaming with all the yell I had in me. Just making that sound brought up a whole bucket of tears.

  I found where the rock had landed and threw it again. I chucked it as hard as I could for losing Meemaw. Running, I went where it was and threw it again. That time for Baby Rosie. Again. For all the dust that was choking us. The hungry look in Jael’s and Tamar’s wide eyes. For Ray.

  One last time I picked up the rock, tossing it up and down so it would hop against the palm of my hand. It slapped against my skin. I ran the fingers of my other hand over the rock. It was smooth and cool. I figured all the dust from the last few years had rubbed it clean, smoothed over the sharp and jagged parts. Turning it, I let the sun catch the tiny sparkles I never would have known were there unless I pulled it close to my face.

  A bit of blue gleamed on the rock. Blue as Eddie’s eyes. My hate for him soured my stomach. I hated the way he smirked and winked and how his rotten teeth stunk. I hated the way he talked to me and that Mama and Daddy didn’t realize he was bad. Hate for the way he treated Winnie, even if she was a dirty, nasty woman. Hate for how he worked his way into our home.

  But most of all, I hated how afraid I was of him.

  I pulled that rock back as far as I could, cocking my arm like I imagined a baseball pitcher would. Letting loose my hold of the ball, I threw it as hard as I could, my whole body leaping forward with the effort. A scream pushed up from my gut, through my body, and out into the air.

  Then I heard the rock hit. It clattered and banged on something metal. Looking around, I tried to figure out what had made the sound. I quieted myself, fearing that somebody else was in the field. All I could see was tan dust making mounds and valleys of the field.

  I heard something move around in the dirt.

  “Hello?” I called, my voice thin as paper.

  The rustling noise came from where the rock had hit.

  I thought my heart would stop and that the air I’d sucked into my lungs would make my chest explode.

  Some draw I didn’t understand tugged me toward the sound. I asked Jesus in a whispered prayer to keep me from evil. It didn’t make me any less afraid to ask that of Him. My heart ached, it drummed so hard.

  I took two steps closer, the moving-around sound still drawing my curiosity.

  Some kind of metal jutted up through the dust. The closer I got I realized they were cellar doors. They must have been there for near to forever, but I never knew it from the wheat and dust that hid them.

  The rustling noises started again, telling me that I was not alone in that field.

  Everything in me screamed for me to run, but I didn’t obey. I couldn’t seem to. My curiosity was stronger than fear.

  Hardly able to breathe for the nerves tightening my chest, I stepped nearer to the cellar doors. It was then that the noises stopped.

  I’d been spotted.

  “Hello?” I said, my voice still not my own, still weak and pinched. “Anybody out there?”

  Gasping, almost screaming, I jumped back and pulled my hands up, clenching my face.

  Right from next to the cellar doors, a rat hissed at me before darting out. It got past me before I could kick it. If I could have, I would have sent that thing clear to the other side of the county.

  “Stupid rat,” I muttered, hoping he didn’t have any friends hiding nearby, waiting to sprint at me.

  I turned toward my house to see if all my screaming and carrying on had gotten Mama’s attention. It was then I realized how far I’d wandered from my back porch. Far enough away that nobody would even know where I was.

  That was all right. I didn’t need Mama or anybody else seeing me sneak into a hidden cellar, which I fully intended to do. I only wished I’d had Ray with me. He had a way of building up my courage. I was sure he was helping out at the cattle drive, though.

  It took all my muscle to pull up one of the cellar doors. Dirt slid on the rusty metal before I dropped the door and looked down into the hole in the ground. Without giving myself a chance to turn back, I climbed down the steps to the dirt floor.

  Inside it smelled musty like rat droppings and unwashed armpits. I wished I’d had a light of some sort so I could better see what was around me. The wide-open door let in a little light, but not enough to see into the corners. Luckily my eyes adjusted pretty quick to the dark.

  Someone was living in that cellar, and whoever it was traveled light, as Millard would have said. All that was kept down in that hole was a bedroll and a plate with a cup sitting dead center on top.

  Nothing too interesting, really. I decided I should climb my way back up the steps and out and go back home so Mama wouldn’t worry about me. Turning around, though, my eye caught the sight of something pushed all the way up against the wall. A beam of sun touched half of it, making me wonder what ever it could be.

  That old curiosity of mine got the better of me again.

  Taking a step or two closer, I recognized the object as a box. Mama would have whupped me into next Tuesday for being in that cellar. Oh, but she would have made me real sorry for picking up the box and lifting its hinged lid. Still, I did just that.

  At first glance it looked like nothing more than a collection of old newspaper clippings. Meemaw’d had a pile like that of death notices and wedding announcements. I figured that was all that box was full of. Still, something pulled at me to look at it all.

  I backed up to the steps and took a seat so as to have better light.

  Holding the first paper clipping close to my face I saw it was the article about Jimmy DuPre getting himself shot to death by Daddy. I unfolded the paper to see that the story of the abandoned baby was still attached. Someone had circled the article about the baby and drawn a line up to the picture of Jimmy.

  The handwriting was smudged and I couldn’t make out what the note next to Jimmy’s head said.

  Folding the newspaper, I put it to one side. I shuffled through a half-dozen envelopes, not bothering to read what was inside them, figuring they were just somebody’s old love letters. Mama liked to read old l
ove stories, but I did not. They bored me to no end.

  As I sorted through the pile, a photograph dropped, upside-down, on my lap. It had been torn out of an album, I could tell from the black paper still glued to the back of the picture.

  Right away I recognized Mama’s handwriting on it.

  “Pearl Louise Spence. Ten years old. 1934.”

  The photo fluttered my hand trembled so. Flipping it over, I saw an image of my face filling most of the space between the border. It was a picture Daddy had pasted in an album that sat on his desk at the courthouse. I couldn’t make sense of why that picture would be in a stack of letters in that makeshift cellar home.

  Sticking it back into the papers and not wanting to think of what it meant, I hoped it had found its way there on accident.

  My whole body shaking, I continued through the box. More and more letters. Then more newspaper clippings. I felt of the last paper. It was stiff, crisp. I feared that if I wasn’t very careful, it would crumble in my fingers and I’d be found out for the snoop I was.

  The print on the old paper was so faint, I inched up another step or two so the sunlight would make it easier to read.

  “Man Kills Wife, Then Self,” the headline reported.

  I read the story, my already-soured stomach churning.

  In some town I had never heard of, police came to an old farmhouse after one of the children was caught stealing food from a market in town. What they found in that house was a woman who’d been strangled to death and a man with a gunshot wound to the head. A small boy was hiding under a bed.

  Both children had said that their father had killed their mother and then put a gun to his own head.

  “The children, James and Edward DuPre, have been moved to the home of an aunt,” the article said.

  James DuPre. Jimmy.

  The sun glinted on something at the very bottom of the box. At first glance, I thought it was a quarter. When I looked closer, I saw that it was a dog tag.

  “Edward P. DuPre. U.S.A.” The letters had been stamped into the metal disc. They were just like the ones Ray showed me that had belonged to his father. On the backside somebody had etched “Eddie.”

  I found it difficult to breathe, and not because of the dust or the musty smell. Panic reached its hands around my neck and squeezed, strangling me sure as the woman in the old newspaper article.

  Pushing all the letters back into the box, I lowered the lid and settled the whole thing back against the wall.

  I ran away from the cellar, knowing that Eddie DuPre had come to Red River for one reason. He’d come for revenge.

  He’d come for Daddy.

  It wasn’t until I got to the back porch of my house that I realized I still clutched the old, crisp newspaper in my hand. I decided I needed to show it to Daddy.

  But then Eddie’s voice came to me, “I’ll kill you. I will.”

  I crumpled the paper and shoved it into my pocket.

  Mama stood at the stove, frying lumps of dough. Using a spoon, she turned them in the pan, filling the house with the rich smell. She jumped with another gun blast.

  “How many of them are they going to shoot?” she asked, more to herself than me, I thought. “I swear, there must be no cows worth keeping.”

  “Mama?” I said, still standing by the door, my hand on the knob.

  “Yes, Pearl?”

  She looked over her shoulder at me. Her eyes were red like she had been crying all morning. I didn’t doubt she had been. When Mama cried, her hazel eyes looked more green than brown.

  Sticking a hand into my pocket, I fingered the balled-up newspaper. I couldn’t help but picture the scene of a man choking his wife and then shooting himself. The ugly pictures in my head made me dizzy. I wondered if Eddie was the little boy who’d gone out to steal food or if he’d been hiding under the bed.

  Hiding in a room with his dead parents.

  I wouldn’t allow myself to feel sorry for Eddie DuPre. I just plain refused.

  “Did you want to ask me something?” Mama asked.

  “Would you like me to set the table?” I took my hand off the doorknob.

  “Wash up first, please.” She went back to turning the dough. “Just four places. Daddy won’t be home until later.”

  She stopped and sighed.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Only three plates. I forgot.”

  She’d forgotten that Meemaw was gone. Sorrow had a way of piling up on my heart.

  By the time Daddy got home that evening, we had all gotten so used to the shooting that we didn’t even notice that it had stopped.

  Daddy went straight to the kitchen sink and washed all the way up to his elbows. Then he splashed water on his face. Mama stood behind him with a fresh hand towel ready.

  “Thank you,” he said, drying his face before kissing her lips. “What a day.”

  “Are you hungry?” Mama asked, reaching for him and pulling him to her by the shoulder.

  “You don’t want to get too close, darlin’.” He tossed the rumpled towel on the counter. “I’m a mess. And pretty ripe.”

  “I don’t mind.” But she let go of his arm. “I fixed a plate for you. I could heat it up.”

  “I don’t believe I could eat right now even if I was starving to death.” Daddy got busy unbuttoning his denim shirt, showing his sweated-through undershirt. “I’m dead tired.”

  “How about you go sit down a spell?” Mama moved the towel from the counter to the sink, rinsing it.

  “I want to get cleaned up.”

  “We heard the shooting all day,” Mama said. “It about wore out my nerves.”

  “Most all the cattle had to be slaughtered. They dug a ditch and drove the cattle in before shooting them. The men from the government said they were surprised the animals lasted this long.” He rubbed his forehead. “They were all in bad shape.”

  “How did the men take it?” Mama asked.

  “Okay, I guess. Millard did a good job preparing them for what would happen. Still, they were broke up. One or two cried right there in front of everyone.” Daddy moved his head from side to side, making his neck crack. “Somebody thought we ought to cut up a couple. He said we might as well get the meat off them before they shoved the dirt over them. The government men said that was fine. When they started butchering one of them all that came out of it was a bunch of dust. All out of its stomach and lungs and heart. It was all full of dirt.”

  Mama curled her lip and shook her head. “The idea of it makes me sick to my stomach.”

  “Makes me wonder how much dust is inside us.” He sighed. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore, if that’s okay with y’all. I’d like to forget this whole day if I can.”

  “Fine by me.” Mama smiled. “I’ll go draw you a bath.”

  “That sounds like heaven.”

  Mama went about getting Daddy’s bath ready, and he sat on the floor, untying his laces. Once his feet were out of the boots and socks, he stretched out his legs.

  “That feels good,” he said. Then he looked at me. “What’s wrong, Pearlie girl?”

  “Nothing,” I answered, looking back down at my book but not reading the words.

  “You look all out of sorts.”

  “I just feel bad about the cattle,” I lied and reached in my pocket to be sure the old newspaper was still there.

  “Me too, honey.” He closed his eyes. “Me too.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I never fell asleep that night. My body jolted at every hint of a sound. Whenever I got close to sleep, I was sure I heard the banging of a gun or the moaning of a cow. My heart wouldn’t slow down its heavy beating, and my head wouldn’t stop twirling.

  It was just as well. All sleep would have done for me was give me horrible dreams.

  At some point in the darkness, I heard somebody moving around downstairs. When I smelled cigarette smoke, I knew it was Daddy.

  Getting up, I pulled my wooly sweater off its hanger and onto my body. The rest of the hous
e was quiet, just not Daddy. He never was one to move about the kitchen in a quiet way. I could tell he was warming up food in Mama’s cast-iron skillet by the way it clanged against the top of the stove.

  When I got to the bottom of the steps, I stood and watched him. He moved a wooden spoon around, stirring his food. The smoke rising from the skillet and his cigarette mixed to create a rich aroma that smelled like a campfire.

  “Daddy,” I said. “I can’t sleep.”

  “You have a bad dream?” he asked, turning toward me.

  “No. I just can’t stop thinking.” I sat in the dining-room chair Meemaw used to occupy.

  Daddy put a towel under the skillet and set it on the table. He stuck a fork into the food and stirred it around, scooping up a piping hot bite of potatoes. He hardly blew on it before putting it in his mouth.

  “You want a plate?” I asked.

  “I didn’t want to dirty one.” He took another bite. “Don’t tell your mama.”

  “I won’t.” Usually sharing a secret with Daddy would have lifted my spirits. That night, though, it seemed nothing would.

  “You hungry?” He pushed the skillet between us and got up for another fork.

  He took big, heaping bites. I only poked around at a couple potatoes, taking nibbles here and there. He’d been working all day, I hated to eat up his food. It didn’t take long for him to finish it all off.

  Daddy leaned back in his chair, lighting another cigarette. He smiled, but it wasn’t his usual happy smile.

  “What did you do today?” he asked.

  “Nothing much,” I answered, unsure how I’d tell him that I’d poked around in some hidden cellar and found proof that Eddie was bad, after all.

  “Guess there isn’t a whole lot of trouble a girl can get into around these parts.”

  I felt a glint of guilt. Sheriff’s daughters should know better than to go digging into a man’s personal things. And should know better than being in a man’s space without permission, even if he was evil. I wanted to tell Daddy that there was plenty of trouble for me to get into. I’d already gotten into enough as it was.