Chapter 4 #2
I set the water down in front of him, then gave Granma a withering look. She seemed not too surprised to see Raymond. We had no wheat and therefore no business with the Stanleys. Granma’s earlier thought crept into my mind like an afternoon shadow.
“Looks like we need more seating.” I turned before Granma could complain and dragged Daddy’s old bench from the back wall and shoved it next to the table.
A huge gust of wind hit the side of the house like a locomotive.
The air filled with particles. “Harvey, Sooty, this storm looks to be a big one. You might be stuck here a while.” I gestured to the bench and ran for the stack of small hooked rugs and a cup of nails we kept beneath the western facing windows.
I grabbed the hammer from the first window sill and a nail from the cup, then wrestled one of the rugs over the window.
I dropped the nail. Before I could curse it, a battered hand appeared next to mine.
Sooty gripped the rug and held his other hand out for the hammer.
I met his weary gaze and for a moment there seemed to be a real person in there.
A man who’d maybe had a life before the dust. A piece of land. A family. A living.
I knelt, found the nail, then straightened and handed it to him. I took the other side of the rug and held it while he hammered three more nails in. I let go and the rug stayed in place. It blotted out the last of the evening’s light, but it also stopped the grit.
We moved to the other windows and made short work of it.
“Come on, wash your hands and eat.” Granma waved us over. I rinsed my hands and passed a bar of soap to Sooty. He raised his hand and looked at the sudsy cake but didn’t reach for it.
I searched his ravaged face. That sign of life reignited in Sooty’s eyes. “Here.” I gently took his hand. He seemed to swallow a breath. The man looked like a mustang with a sky full of lightning above him. He was ready to bolt, but where would he go?
Slowly, I slipped my fingers under his palm and rolled the soap over his skin. I dipped his rough, cracked fingers into the water in the sink’s basin. Hesitantly, he lifted his other hand and placed it in. “There.” I gave him a small smile and placed the soap on its stand next to him.
“Mercy, bring me those plates,” Granma growled.
I dried my hands, collected two of the dishes from the table and walked them to the big wood-burning stove.
Granma hovered over the cast iron pot where the pieces of one perfectly cooked chicken waited to be scooped.
But instead of dividing the chicken into smaller pieces and spooning them onto the plates, she closed the big black lid over the pot.
Granma glanced over her shoulder, then at me.
She turned back to the covered pot and the sachet around my neck began to tingle.
She held her knobby hands dangerously close to the hot iron.
I put the plates down and reached for her hands in alarm.
“No,” she whispered. Her cold blue eyes filled with dark Appalachian shadows.
She turned back to the pot and whispered something as wriggly as snakes.
I dug under the collar of my dress for the sachet.
The familiar tingling had turned to a sharp, hot bite.
I dragged the tiny bag of herbs away from my skin and let it rest on the fabric just below my collar.
Granma had always warned to keep it hidden, but I wasn’t inclined to keep Granma’s secrets just then.
“Ready?” she barked and removed the lid. A cloud of steam escaped. When it dissipated, I saw a pot filled with enough meat to account for two chickens.
I grabbed the plates and gaped as Granma filled them with legs and thighs and breasts—all tender, and fragrant, and slipping from the bone.
“Bring the others,” she ordered as I placed the full plates in front of our guests and brought back more to fill. Was I seeing things? Had Granma plucked two chickens for dinner and I hadn’t noticed? “Applesauce.” She gestured to the covered bowl next to the stove.
I lifted the dish and brought it to the table with a small ladle. Did it feel heavier than usual? Had Granma opened two jars?
With the food served and heads already bowed, Granma blessed the food and we ate.
The howling wind outside punctuated the silence of the gathering inside. Gazes drifted around the table as spoons clinked and forks scraped.
“I pushed the tractor back in.” Harvey shattered the quiet. “The storm was getting too bad to work. I’ll come back later. I promise.”
I looked up from my dinner to see that Harvey was addressing Raymond, not Granma. I swallowed my mouthful of chicken without chewing.
“Here’s for today.” I watched in horrified silence as Raymond dug into his pocket and took out a few coins. He passed the money to Harvey. “You’ll see the rest when the job is done.”
Harvey took the money and nodded a little too aggressively. He gave me a quick glance then set about finishing his plate. I stared daggers at Granma, but she backed away from the table and headed for the stove.
“Harvey, you want a leg to take with ya?” Granma snapped. The young man jolted in his seat.
“Y—yes, mam.” He looked to the door where it rattled in its frame.
“He can’t go out in this. The storm will bury him,” I insisted.
We all knew what happened to people who tried to walk the storms. A black blizzard could erase roads, snap trees, bury cars, bury whole houses.
That much dust could fill a man’s lungs in no time.
Blind him. Cover him in a drift so deep there’d be no sign of him come morning.
I didn’t want to marry Harvey, but he deserved better than to be turned out in the storm.
Granma fished a leg from the pot as incentive for poor Harvey to brave the storm. It was a new low even for her.
“Sooty?” She waved the leg in his direction.
All eyes turned to the withered man. Wisps of his hair stuck out from his skull in shapes as wild as the wind.
Deep lines cut across his face and hands, following the tracks of toil under a careless sun.
There was something noble about his weathered countenance.
I’d bet there wasn’t an inch of Raymond that showed a trace of hard work.
Sooty might be broken in ways that couldn’t be seen, but he was the type of man who held up this land, this way of life.
If the dust ever stopped, I hoped he would find some happiness.
I scooped another spoonful of applesauce onto Harvey’s plate and scooped an extra one for Sooty too.
Just as I thought Sooty would finally speak, he pushed away from the table and turned for the door. Granma put the chicken leg back in the pot and replaced the lid.
“Sooty.” I called to the lost man. Why had he come to our home this evening?
Had the storm caught him with no shelter in sight but ours?
I knew what it felt like to be anchorless.
To belong to no one. Now that Momma was gone, I felt like the prairie grass—rootless and tumbling.
Nothing held me to this place, or to anywhere else.
“This storm…it’s worse than the others.” I wasn’t sure how I knew, but deep in my bones I felt a dread sweeping across the plains.
Something was out there…seeking the last of us.
Maybe tonight the dust will erase us all.
I looked back at Granma to see if she’d heard my thought, but her eyes were on the open front door. Sooty was gone.