I Will Send Rain (19 page)

“I'm pregnant,” she said.

Snatches of images ricocheted in his head, piling up in a confused collage: pregnant, baby, animals, mating, Cy, nakedness, darkness, sweating, thrilling, strange, awful, the end. His sister was not his sister. She was something else, separate. Someone who could swell with a child in her belly. The secret felt hot in his head.

“There. I said it,” she said. “I guess that makes it so.”

“Take it back,” Fred thought. “I don't want it to be so.”

“It'll come in the spring,” Birdie said. “If we haven't blown away by then.” She turned to him. “You'll be an uncle. Can you believe it?”

Fred couldn't believe it. He kind of liked the sound of it, though. He could teach the baby things, like how the crows talk to each other with caws and warning cries and the soft chittering of affection. But his thoughts were stalled by one cough and then another, and he spat dark goo into the piece of flannel he kept in his pocket.

“You okay?” Birdie asked.

He nodded. He was going to be an uncle. And an uncle needed to be strong.

 

CHAPTER 11

It wasn't Samuel who got to Pastor Hardy first. It was the man McGuiness, who blundered into the church half drunk, his boots crunching on broken glass, cursing God and the state of Oklahoma, which had treated him like shit since the day he was born. He'd been kicked out of Ruth's, tottering toward where he thought he'd left his truck, when he got caught, shoved around by the storm. The church had been the closest door, and now that he was inside, he scanned the place for anything of value. The collection plate was empty, but it was made of silver maybe. He stuffed it into the front pocket of his overalls. He wedged his face into the crook of his elbow to catch a breath.

“I'm here,” the pastor said, in a wheezy shout. “Who's there?” Hardy turned in the pew, roused from his thoughts, and scrunched his face at the large figure coming toward him.

“Well. McGuiness. Looking to fleece me too?”

“Bet you got some whiskey at your place. Get up, will you?”

“I'm not going anywhere.”

“Suit yourself.”

Samuel pushed through the door with a towel over his face, disoriented by the swirling dirt.

“Pastor?”

“Go home to your family, Samuel,” Hardy said.

But Samuel knew Hardy wasn't quite right, and could see now the cuts on his face.

“Help me get him over to the house,” Samuel said to McGuiness.

“I know, you,” McGuiness said. “You're Noah.” He laughed and coughed. “You're goddamn Noah. Did you ride in on your ark?”

“Get his other arm!” Samuel shouted.

McGuiness complied, nudged by the hope of a drink, and they trundled the docile pastor out into the fury of the wind, feeling their way along the side of the church until the small clapboard house came hazily into view. The three men squeezed through the door, slamming it behind them.

Samuel helped the pastor over to a chair, rinsed out a dirty glass, and filled it.

“Thank you,” Hardy said.

“You weren't yourself today in church,” Samuel said.

“What, no thanks for me?” McGuiness flung open cabinets, shoving aside plates and tins of salt and sugar. His gut knocked a jar of jam from the counter to the floor.

“It's in the one above the icebox,” Hardy said.

Samuel recognized McGuiness, one of a handful of scavengers who roamed the county. He was as big as a bear, his hands broad and filthy. He smelled of beer and sweat.

“I won't ask you to leave, on account of the storm,” Samuel said. “But I'll ask you to show some respect.”

“Oh, okay, sure, Noah.” He laughed and grabbed the whiskey by the neck and sat down at the table. “I haven't seen you in a while, Pastor. You've gotten old.”

“Yes, well. It happens. The collection plate.” The pastor held out his hand to McGuiness.

“In the spirit of this fine gathering.” McGuiness pulled it from his overalls and set it on the table.

The wind whistled through cracks in the house. Samuel felt dislocated and uneasy. He'd have to wait for the storm to pass before he could leave. He'd had experience with men like McGuiness before, but he was out of practice, and wished only to disperse the tinder of tension that might set him off. Back in Kansas, before Annie, he'd held his own twice with his fists, numbed by drink and youth. Once he'd awoken behind his shack on Gramlin's place to find his nose broken and his knuckle split, no memory of whom he'd fought or why. He'd lain there with the wet spring earth against his cheek and felt the sun on his back as it rose. He knew he ought to get up and hitch up the plow, but he felt small and petty and breakable. There was the earth and there was God. And he knew then that that was everything.

“Hey, Noah. Why don't you sit down and join the party. Bring over some glasses while you're at it.”

The chair creaked under McGuiness's weight. He took a swig from the bottle, then absently rubbed his thumb along his half front tooth. Hardy slouched and his jowls hung. His face was dirt-smeared and defeated, a crusted cut above his eye. Samuel imagined he didn't look so well himself, thin as he was now and wind-whipped. He sighed and pulled two cloudy glasses and a jelly jar down from the shelf. The lamp cast a low yellow light on the table, the electricity surprisingly still on.

“You okay, Pastor?” he asked.

Hardy nodded with a grunt. “I lost myself for a moment in there, I'm afraid. I'm obliged to you.” He sipped his drink. “How's the boat coming?”

“Got the ribs setting up. Fred's a good helper.”

“I'm cheap labor,” McGuiness said, a hint of challenge in his voice. “I don't know shit about boats, but you don't either, I suspect.”

Samuel laughed. “I think I can make her float.”

“That's what I said about that whore over in Beauville,” McGuiness said.

The men drank. As he tipped his glass back again and again, McGuiness grew jovial, punching the others in the arms, telling tales of his exploits—“You ever wrestle a cougar? I didn't think so. Yeah, I did once. Breath smelled like dead fish. I won.”

Hardy sank back, his Southern drawl softening his words, and Samuel felt the fire in his belly work loose his tongue.

“Let me ask you something,” Samuel said. “Do you believe in God?”

“Oh, come on, Noah. Don't get all Bible-clutcher on me,” McGuiness said.

“Do you?”

“I don't know. I mean, sure. But I have my doubts. Like the whole unfairness of life, for starters.”

“I have had my own doubts,” Samuel said.

“Faith in God is faith in the truth despite the doubt,” Hardy said. “And truth is freedom. Jesus says it in John 8. I'll show you the passage.”

“I'll take your word on it.” McGuiness poured Hardy another drink.

“It's frightening,” Samuel said quietly. Both men turned to him. “That kind of freedom.”

“I'd never build a fool boat,” McGuiness said into the silence that followed.

“You're a good man,” Hardy said to Samuel, ignoring McGuiness.

“Am I? Maybe I'm as crazy as old man Dean.”

“Elmer Dean thought the Germans were sending him messages through his teeth.”

“Maybe they were,” McGuiness said. “Maybe they told him to do a swan dive off the roof of the Fitzroy Hotel.”

By now they were all good and drunk. McGuiness grabbed a tin of saltines from the counter and pulled down a plate of butter from the icebox. He used his finger to smear butter across a cracker, fitting another on top.

“Snack, anyone?”

The pastor held out his hand and McGuiness dropped the sandwich into his palm.

“My daddy loved saltines but we only had them when he was flush and we could actually go to the mercantile,” McGuiness said. “One time my brother and me thought it would be funny to fill an old tin with cow pies and leave it in the kitchen so he would think it was his lucky day. We hid. He came through the door with two squirrels in his hand. His nose red and hair all crazy. We knew we were fucking dead.” He laughed. “He whipped us, of course. Broke Jerry's arm. Never did set quite right. Made us eat the cow shit until we barfed.”

Samuel and Pastor Hardy grimaced but McGuiness was chuckling.

“Christ, you are a pair of sad Sarahs. It's funny! To have to actually eat shit.”

“My father used to make me pick out the switch I wanted to get beaten with,” Hardy said. “‘Get your blade, boy, you're cutting it, too.'”

“Could you forgive him?” Samuel asked.

“He couldn't read or write and he was swindled out of his little piece of ground so he had to sharecrop alongside former slaves. He couldn't abide it. We ate corn porridge once for a month. He was a broken man. I forgave him before he passed on. But he comes back to me sometimes and I feel that anger all over again. I still want to smash his mouth with my fist.”

“Shit,” McGuiness said. “You-all are wrecking my drunk. So you taking two by two, Noah?”

“Maybe a cow. A hen or two.”

“Who you letting on?”

“If you're worried,” Hardy said, “you better get building your own.”

“I ain't too worried.”

They listened as the wind buffeted the house, the relentless sand roughing the windows. By now they were used to the whistle and moan, the droning world on the other side of the wall. Samuel closed his eyes and imagined the house being worn away. Annie and the kids seemed a faraway life, a world of darkness and dust between him and them. He was tired of seeing everything through squinted eyes, through a dirty mesh. He fell asleep, with a clunk of his head against the table.

*   *   *

S
AMUEL WAS VISITED
by the swirls of water, black like oil, the rain drops as fat as duck eggs. The voice a deep murmur in his head, so clear and strange, with the force of a thousand thundering buffalo. It filled him with awe, with humility. It filled him with terror. I am your servant, he said without speaking. I am here.

The men slept late into the morning, the sun sending knives of light through the dusty air in the house. The storm had moved on, leaving the usual mess in its wake. McGuiness, splayed out half under the table, was covered in fine gray powder. Samuel brushed off his shoulders, and wiped his face with his shirt. He could hear the pastor cough and gargle in the bathroom.

McGuiness hauled himself onto his side with a grunt.

Samuel rose and rinsed two glasses and filled them with water.

“You awake?”

“Go away,” McGuiness croaked.

Samuel cleared a windowpane with his palm. The sky was an uncanny blue.

“I'll start coffee,” Hardy said. He hobbled into the kitchen in his mended shorts and a T-shirt, the armpits stained yellow. Samuel was taken aback by the intimacy of seeing him this way. “God has given us a bright new day, hasn't he?”

The pastor's hand shook as he measured coffee grounds into a dented pot. He closed his bloodshot eyes. They were a battered bunch. Samuel's head felt hammered with each movement.

McGuiness heaved himself to his feet, ignoring Samuel's outstretched hand.

“Got sugar for the coffee, Pastor?”

“I wouldn't have pegged you for a sugar type,” Hardy said.

“You don't think I'm sweet?”

“Not sweet, no. But you're not as tough as you seem, either.”

“Says you.”

“Says me. Sugar's in the canister there.”

“What do you say, McGuiness? You should come to church sometime. Meet your neighbors,” Samuel said. “We're not so bad.”

“Darn if you ain't an earnest son of a bitch. Don't you ever drop the bullshit? I'm not looking for salvation.” McGuiness laughed and shook his head. “I got to take a piss.”

In the small, Spartan bathroom, he scratched his big belly and stretched his arms, his hands grazing the ceiling. Above the sink in the scratched mirror he looked grubby and bloated, his beard a grizzled mess. He knew what these men could never know: A man is who he is. That doesn't change. A thief is a thief. A bad man stays a bad man underneath. He'd been set at seventeen.

“You want to end up like me?” His father had raged at him for stealing from the collection plate at church. “How much you get? Give it here.”

“No.”

“No? You smartass pissant. This is my house.”

His father was ramping up, his face coloring, his eyes roaming about looking for something to settle on, someone for him to rip into. Where was Jerry? Where was his mother? McGuiness couldn't remember. In his mind he saw only his father, a bully and a brute who smelled like animal guts. For some reason, the shovel was inside the house, leaning up against the door. It was as if he had planned it, so calm and quick were his movements as his father turned to light his pipe. A clean clang from behind with a shovel to his head. Steel against soft skull. McGuiness had never understood why his mother cried—how many times had his father punched her bloody?—that poor wretch with her mousy face and whispery voice, why she had slammed his chest with her two tiny fists.

He pulled his overalls back up. At the sink he ran his wet hands through his hair. He spat. He wasn't drunk anymore, only parched and nauseated. On his way from the bathroom, he slipped into the pastor's bedroom. On the dresser was a small bowl full of coins, which he emptied into his pocket. On the bedside table, beside a Bible, was a small gold ring. He took that, too.

*   *   *

Dearest Annie,

I'm writing you in the midst of this latest abomination, the bulb flickering overhead, barely enough to see by. How will I get this letter to you without your husband seeing it? I haven't figured that out yet. But given the howling outside, I will have plenty of time to think of a delivery means as the night wears on and on. I am thinking of the time, not so long ago, that we waited out the dust in the car on First Street. Beautiful you were, even under a layer of dirt.