Chapter 54
MAGGIE
Dust doesn't fall off. It works its way into everything and stays there, and you don't sweep it so much as relocate it.
Every surface you clear sends up a cloud that resettles on the surface you just did.
We started with the animals — let the pigs back out into the open air, checked eyes and noses because dust does damage if it sits in them.
The emus, released from the goat shed, conducted a furious inspection of the changed world and drummed at it for a while.
Then the troughs. Every water trough on the property was a bowl of sludge, so we tipped them, scrubbed them, and refilled them. The pig pool was a write-off so we drained it and left it to refill.
The porch was in a bad state and Sloane swept while I hosed down the boards and the kitchen windows. Then we spent a good hour wiping the table, chairs, and the bench until they were something a person could sit on.
The seating area out back was the same job over again. It's slow, stupid work and there's no skill to any of it, just repetition, but Sloane did it without a word of complaint, which is not the woman who turned up at my gate on her first day, crying about a thirty-minute walk.
It's almost five now and the light's gone normal again. The farm looks less like a disaster and more like a place that's had a very bad day.
I'm just about to suggest we call it a day when Ruthie's Buick pulls up, crawling up through the settling dust. She climbs out in a housedress and a pair of rubber boots and surveys the farm with her hands on her hips.
"Well," she says. "He had a go, didn't he?"
"Who did?"
"The Lord's opponent." She jerks her chin at the brown world. "You don't get a day like this without help from below, Maggie. That was not natural weather. That was a message."
"It was a wind advisory, Ruthie."
"It was a wind advisory," she agrees, "doing the Devil's work." She shakes her head. "I just wanted to make sure you were in one piece and the animals weren't hurt."
"Thanks for checking, they're fine. Sloane's here and we got everyone in before it hit." I shrug. "Bit shaken. No harm."
"Good. Good." She nods, satisfied, and then her eyes go to Sloane, who's come over to join us. Ruthie takes in the state of her. "Look at you. Nothing like a hard day's work, huh?"
"I've found dust in places I didn't know I had," Sloane says, wiping her brow.
"Well, doesn't that just—" Ruthie stops, like she's overcome, and pats Sloane's filthy arm. "There's a girl. There's a girl who came to us with nothing but designer handbags and now look. The Lord moves, is all I'll say. The Lord moves."
"He sure does," I say, and avoid looking at Sloane while trying to keep a straight face.
"The main road's clear, by the way," Ruthie goes on.
"County had the graders out on the highway by three — they don't mess around, on account of the pileups.
But the church—" She breaks off and presses a hand to her chest. "Oh, the church, Maggie.
You wouldn't believe it. The whole front of it is buried.
The wind came across the Hendersons' field and drove every speck of it straight at our doors, and now there's a drift up the front steps higher than my knee, and the windows on the north side are packed solid with dust, just packed, you can't see a thing through them.
It's dark as a cellar in there. Doris went to open up for choir practice and couldn't get in. "
"Can't the county clear it?" Sloane asks.
"The county won't touch it." Ruthie's voice goes flat with grievance.
"Private ground, place of worship. We're on our own out there, so a few volunteers are heading over now to clear the Devil's mess by hand, and I'll be supervising and making sure nobody puts their back out, and then—" she brightens "—then I'm opening up the diner for everyone. Coffee and cake, on the house."
"That's kind of you," I say.
"It's the least I can do. He sent the dark over, Maggie, but he is not getting his claws into my church. Not today."
I'm already composing the polite version of no — we're exhausted, we've got our own mess, another time — when Sloane speaks.
"I'll come and help."
I turn and look at her. She glances at me, then back at Ruthie. "If you need an extra pair of hands."
"If we—" Ruthie presses both hands to her chest now, fully overcome. "Thank you, Sloane. Oh, the others will be beside themselves."
Sloane laughs it off, but I'm still processing. She's shaking with exhaustion — I can see the slight tremor in her, she's running on nothing. And now she's just volunteered to go and shovel sand off a church she has no reason to care about.
She turns to me. "We're done here, aren't we? The worst of it's done."
"Yeah," I manage. "The worst of it's done." And what comes out of my mouth next surprises me. "I'll come too." I'm not sure if Sloane's just inspired me or if I just want to be near her, but either way I'm not letting her go and do this alone.
Ruthie claps her hands together. "Well, glory. Look at the pair of you." She's already turning back toward the Buick, talking over her shoulder. "I'll see you there! Bring gloves and water — it'll be hot work even when the sun's going."
She gets in, fires up the Buick, and rolls back down the drive.
"You don't have to come," Sloane says. "You're dead on your feet. I can go on my own."
"You're just as exhausted," I say. "Besides. Somebody has to keep you away from Dennis Hurley."