Off to the side, farther from the road and in the shade of a tall fence, sat a couple women and three small kids. They had a blanket spread out under them like they were having a picnic. Only there wasn’t any basket of food.
Daddy walked around the back of our truck. I heard the clanking of his toolbox and him telling Ray a thing or two. Mama opened her door and got out.
“What can I do?” she asked as Daddy came around, toolbox in hand.
“Well, we have to get her jacked up so we can get another tire on,” he said. “Might take some time.”
“That’s all right.” Mama turned her head toward the women and kids. “Did you ask when they last had something to eat?”
“Sure did. Knew you’d ask.” Daddy took in a deep breath. “Fella said it’s been a good day or two.”
“Have Ray get a fire going. I’ll fix them something,” she said. “Won’t be fancy. But if they don’t mind beans and bread, I’m happy to warm them up.”
“You sure you’re up to it?” Daddy asked in a whisper.
“I’m fine, Tom.”
“I don’t want you overdoing—”
“I said I’m fine.”
Without saying so much as another word they both got moving. In no time Mama set up a makeshift kitchen. Ray and I unloaded every single can of beans she’d packed for the trip like she’d asked us to and she poured more than a couple of them into her pot to warm.
“Hand me that wooden spoon, please,” she said to me. “Then sit down and rest, hear?”
I did as she said and watched her stir the beans, watched the rich sauce bubble and pop as they cooked.
“Mama?” I said to her real soft, making sure nobody else could hear me. “What if we don’t find a store later on? What’ll we eat?”
“I won’t have you worrying about that.” She didn’t look up at me, just kept on stirring. “I reckon they’re much hungrier than we are. We’ll make out all right. Always do.”
She tapped the spoon against the edge of the pot and stood straight, stretching her back.
“Just be sure you don’t say anything to them about it, hear?” She gave me her most serious face. “I don’t want them feeling ashamed.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You never do know when you might be entertaining angels,” she said.
That was something I remembered Meemaw saying whenever the hobos would come knocking on the back door for a couple slices of bread. She never turned one of them away. Mama didn’t either.
I looked at the women, still sitting on the spread-out blanket with the kids. I’d never seen an angel aside from the ones in my picture Bible. Those angels had long, gleaming robes and fluffy yellow hair. Halos ringed round their heads and they looked stone-cold serious.
Seemed to me, if angels came to earth hoping to test the kindness of humans, they wouldn’t come dressed in white and with their wings hanging out for all creation to see.
No, I figured they’d come in everyday clothes, maybe with a little dirt under their fingernails. Their hair would be greasy and their shoes’d have a hole or two in the soles, if they had any at all. And they’d get themselves stranded in the middle of Kansas, waiting to see who might come along to patch a tire or offer a half gallon of gasoline to fill up a dried-out tank. And they’d see who might entertain them with a plate of runny beans and a cup of hot coffee.
I went back to the truck where my things were kept in a small carpet-bag. Inside was the package with the rest of Millard’s pink mints. He’d sent them along with me, knowing how much I liked them. I’d planned on saving those candies for when we crossed into Michigan as a surprise for Ray. I took them all out, putting them, bag and all, into my dress pocket.
When they finished with their beans, I gave that bag of candy to the ladies, saying they were for the children. One of the kids, a little girl with a dirty face, said thank you so nice I couldn’t help but smile.
She giggled when she popped one in her mouth. I didn’t think I’d ever heard anything in all my life that sounded so like an angel.
That night Mama said I could sit out by the fire with Daddy for a couple minutes before bed. I curled up beside him, his arm holding me near. I couldn’t take my eyes off the tongues of flame as they licked the little bits of wood Ray fed them. The heat was almost too much on my face, but I didn’t want to move away from it.
“Daddy,” I whispered.
“Hm?”
“Are we rich?”
“No, darlin’. The Rockefellers are rich,” he answered. “We’re doing all right, though.”
“Are we poor?”
“Almost. But we do fine, I guess.”
“Those folks today, they’re poor, aren’t they?”
He told me they were. Said they were real poor, indeed.
“Why does God make some people rich and some people poor?”
He shifted a little so he could see into my face.
“That’s a big question, isn’t it?” He pinched his lips together the way he often did when he was thinking real hard. “I don’t know as God makes anybody rich or poor. I think that’s just how life is.”
“Then why doesn’t He make it so everybody’s got equal?”
“Well, I don’t know the answer to that,” he said. “But what I do know is that sometimes He uses the rich to help the poor. And every once in a while He lets the poor help the rich.”
“How do the poor help the rich?” I asked, scrunching my nose.
“By giving them a chance to be kind.”
Daddy helped me up to my feet and told me I best get to sleep. He held the door of the truck until I got all the way inside and told me and Mama to sleep well.
She didn’t even look at him.
Mama settled down next to me on the seat of the truck and I pretended to fall asleep. She kept her arm draped over me like she meant to protect me. That was how I fell asleep, drawn up close to her and feeling her slow, deep breathing. Her body warmed me and I felt safe.
I woke in the middle of the night. Mama was sat up and had my head in her lap. She held something in one hand. With the other, she covered her mouth, catching her sobs. I thought she was trying not to wake me.
“Mama?” I asked, pushing myself up so I was closer to her.
She turned from me, putting her face into a shadow.
“You all right, Mama?”
Even though she didn’t answer me, I knew she wasn’t okay.
I put my arms around her, my face against her stomach that tensed with each bout of crying. Like she’d done so many times for me, I told her it was going to be all right.
After a bit she caught her breath and calmed a little. I kissed her cheek and tried looking in her eyes. She stayed in that shadow, though.
“Why don’t you lay back down?” I asked. “Get some rest?”
She did and I reached for the blanket that’d fallen off us, putting it over her.
That was when I saw what she had in her hand. It was a picture of Beanie. I asked if I could see it and she nodded, handing it to me. I put it in a beam of moonlight that shined on the dashboard.
It was a photo of my sister from before I was even born. Beanie was so small, her cheeks so round. She had on a dress with puffy sleeves. I wondered if I’d ever worn that dress once I got big enough. In the picture, she sat on a swing, holding the two ropes on either side of her. Daddy stood behind her and I imagined he was pushing her. He had his usual happy smile on.
As for Beanie, she didn’t look at the camera and she didn’t smile. She had her eyes trained on something off to the side.
Just looking at that old photograph caused an ache to spread all the way through me. Missing Beanie felt like a deep burning that wouldn’t ever go out no matter how much water I tried tossing over it.
I knew very well that the Bible was full of stories of folks dying and then coming back to life. There was a little girl and a couple grown men, even a lady named Dorcas. Meemaw’d told me they’d all been dead, and
even in the tomb. But by the power of almighty God they rose up and took fresh air into their lungs. She’d told me there were even a couple of them that wanted lunch soon as they could ask for it.
But that was the Bible and I wasn’t living in those times. No amount of begging God was bringing my sister back to me.
I cried myself back to sleep, that picture of Beanie pinched between my fingers.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Every mile took us away from the land of tan and dust to a land of green and grass. Trees spread their arms wide, bright leaves fluttering from their fingertips. Fields full of growing crops on either side of us passed in a blur of emerald as we sped by.
I’d long since lost track of where we were, but I did know one thing—we were a world away from Oklahoma.
Mama told me I could take off my mask and I breathed easy for the first in a good long time. The air was so clean, so fresh, I could already tell it was healing me with every breath. I wished so hard that I could’ve talked Mama into letting me ride in back with Ray. I didn’t dare ask, though. I knew she’d just tell me no.
I held that old mask on my lap for at least half an hour, fidgeting with the strap and feeling the weight of it. I thought of all the times Pastor said the dust was a curse, the wage of our sin. The way he’d made it sound most every Sunday of my memory was that God had sent the storms to break us to nothing so we’d have nothing left to turn to but God.
I hated that Pastor was right. The dusters had broke us. We had lost so much.
Picking up that mask, I held it close to my face. It was the last of the curse.
“I’d sure like to throw this thing out the window,” I whispered.
“What’s that, darlin’?” Daddy asked.
“I said I wanna throw this old mask out the window.”
“You best keep it,” Mama told me. “Just in case.”
I couldn’t think what might happen that would make me need that dumb old thing ever again. I sure didn’t want to keep hold of it. Mama took it from me, holding it on her own lap as if she couldn’t think of letting it go again.
Leaning my head back against the seat, I paid attention to every smooth and sweet intake of air until I fell asleep.
Hours passed with me hovering between shallow sleep and hazy waking. If any dreams came, I wasn’t aware of them. Mama and Daddy spoke seldom, but when they did it was in hushed tones so as not to wake me. I listened, keeping my eyes closed so they didn’t know I could hear.
“You feeling better?” Daddy asked.
“A little,” she answered. “It comes in waves.”
“You think you’re getting sick?”
“I don’t know,” she said, her voice sounding dull, flat. “It feels more like being sad.”
“I know it. I do.” His voice got softer. “Is there anything I can do?”
“I don’t know,” she said again.
She shuffled in her seat and I peeked to see her body turned so she was facing the window once again. I couldn’t tell if she was crying, but her shoulders did go up and down, up and down with slow and deep breaths.
Seemed to be awful hard work trying to fight off the sadness.
I was in one of those places between alert and snoozing when Daddy shook my shoulder. Blinking my eyes, I saw his face close to mine.
“You awake?” he asked. “You’ve gotta see this.”
Rubbing at my eyes, I slid off the seat of the truck and put my feet down in grass so tall it tickled my bare legs. First thing I did was work off my shoes and socks so I could wiggle my toes in the cool blades. Remembering my promise to Millard, I bent over and tugged out a handful of it. Holding it to my nose I breathed in the fresh scent of it. If green had a smell that was it.
“What are you doing?” Daddy asked, a laugh in his voice.
“I promised Millard I’d send him some.” I held my hand to Daddy and grinned. “Can I?”
“Well, you promised. I suppose you’d better.” Daddy put his hand out and put it on my elbow, pulling me away from the truck. “But I didn’t wake you up just to show you grass. Come on.”
I let him lead me to the front of the truck and lifted my eyes to see when he told me to look. In my surprise I dropped all of Millard’s grass. It didn’t matter. I figured there was plenty more where that came from.
“Is it real?” I asked.
“Sure it is,” Daddy told me.
I had never seen so much water in all my life. Wide and long and beautiful it rolled, lazy and brown. The damp air filled me all the way up, soothing me like a balm. I wanted to put my feet and hands and head—all of me—into that water. Seemed it would feel like a miracle to let it soak up into my bone-dry skin.
“Is it the ocean?” I asked, only managing a whisper.
“Nah. Just the Mississippi River.” Daddy stood behind me and rested both hands on my shoulders. “Big, isn’t she?”
Mama stood to the right of me, her hands held to her chest and it rising and falling. Ray was on the other side of her, a step or two ahead. He let his mouth hang wide open.
“Can we go in?” he asked, bending down and folding his pant legs up.
“I don’t think we better. It’s deeper than you might think,” Daddy answered. “We can go to the edge, though.”
We did, Mama staying put by the truck, calling after us to be careful and not to fall in. Daddy kept me steady so I wouldn’t stumble. I didn’t tell him I could manage on my own on account it was real gentlemanly of him to help me.
We didn’t go too close, really. Just near enough to watch the river travel like a slow-poke turtle moseying along a path. I didn’t think I could ever tire of looking at it moving along. I only wished I could collect a little of it in a bottle to send back home to Millard. He sure would have liked that, I knew it.
“What state are we in now?” I asked.
“Missouri,” Ray answered.
“That’s right.” Daddy nodded.
I didn’t have to so much as look at Ray to know he stood taller just then.
“See that bridge over there?” Daddy asked, pointing. “We gotta cross over that. Then we’ll be in Illinois.”
Closing my eyes I tried to think of where that was on the big map of Daddy’s. I couldn’t picture it, though. All I could do was listen to the splashing of water.
I’d never once in my life heard anything like it.
Mama spread a blanket on the ground so we could have ourselves a little picnic up by the truck. I found I was so hungry, I almost ate as much as Ray. The dried meat and slices of cheese Mama had gotten at the store earlier in the day tasted as good as anything ever had.
Daddy finished eating and lit himself a cigarette, resting his elbow on his bent knee. The ribbon of smoke danced into the warm Missouri air. If I’d had a camera I would’ve made a picture of him just like that. How he looked was content, nearly happy.
“You know,” Daddy said, nodding at the river. “It runs all the way out to the ocean.”
“If I had me a boat I’d go all up and down it,” Ray said. He was laying on his stomach and watching the river. “I’d just live on that old boat. Bet there’s good fish for eatin’ in there.”
“Guess you’re right about that,” Daddy said.
“I could live the rest of my life on the river, I think.” Ray picked a long piece of grass and stuck it between his teeth. “I’d be real happy, I reckon.”
“Doesn’t sound so bad.” Daddy squinted as he dragged on his cigarette. “Sure would be an adventure.”
Ray smiled but kept his eyes on the Mississippi.
“Was Red River ever this big?” I asked. “When it had water still?”
“No. It never was.” Daddy took a pull of his cigarette. “This here’s ten times as big. It goes on a couple thousand miles, I reckon.”
Ray made a hum of agreement like he already knew so much, so I didn’t let myself show how amazed I was.
“There’s bridges all along it so folks can cross over whenever the
y want.”
“How’d they get to the other side before the bridges?” I asked, imagining Indians on horseback, crossing with the river up to their knees.
“By raft,” Daddy said. “That’s what I’d guess at least. Wasn’t the safest way, though. I imagine they’d sink pretty easy, especially when taking over a wagon or any kind of heavy load.”
“Bridges are safer,” Ray said. “Ain’t they?”
“That’s right.” Daddy looked at his cigarette and took one last draw on it before tossing it in the grass. “They build them real strong. Put the legs of the bridges all the way into the river bottom, real deep, to support a lot of weight.”
“How’d they do that?” I peered at the water and wondered how deep it was. Seemed to me it went all the way to the middle of the earth.
“Well, darlin’, they had men swim all the way to the muddy floor.”
“Didn’t they have to breathe?”
“Nah. They’d just take a good breath before going down,” Daddy said with a dead serious look on his face. “They’d take in air, filling up their arms and legs with enough to keep them going all day long.”
“Is that true?” I asked, turning to Mama. She’d never lied once in all her life, far as I knew.
She shrugged and kept her eyes fixed on the water.
“Took them years to build even one of them. I read that whenever the river froze over, they’d have to stop working until it thawed all the way out. Sometimes the water would ice over so fast the men wouldn’t get out in time.”
“Did they die?”
“Not that I ever heard of. Didn’t I say they were good at holding their breath?” He puffed out his cheeks and made his eyes cross.
I gave him my sideways, I-don’t-know-if-I-believe-you look, but smiled anyway.
“Weren’t they cold?” I asked.
“I’ll bet anything they got half-froze themselves. Can’t imagine how glad they were for a hot bath after they got out of all that ice.”
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