On Shifting Sand (35 page)

“What’d you do to him, Pa? What happened to Jim?”

“Thought you’d know better than to speak that name.”

“Where is he?”

He takes a sip of water and wipes his mouth on his sleeve. “Decide you want him sniffin’ ’round here now that your husband’s outta the way?”

“No.”

“Then don’t ask.”

“But he’s—”

“A drifter. Worthless as anythin’ driftin’ out there. An’ that’s what I left him to do.”

“So he’s alive.” It’s the first I’ve allowed myself to contemplate the contrary.

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it does.”

“Seems to me you’re set on mournin’ him or missin’ him, and ain’t either one of them proper for a wife.”

“I don’t miss him. I’ve just . . . wondered.”

“If I left him for dead at the side of the road? Or popped him a little persuasion to leave my little girl alone?” This he says with his hands clutching an imaginary shotgun aimed at an invisible enemy.

“And I’ve worried. About him as much as you, Pa. If something happened . . . if you did something—”

“Worryin’ ain’t gonna add one day to your life, girl. Nor mine neither. An’ here I am with naught but days left, looks like.”

“Don’t say that. When Russ comes home, he can take you back to the hospital with him.”

Pa shakes his head. “Got no use for them places.”

“Well, that’s obvious enough,” I say. “Maybe if you’d taken my mother to a hospital . . .” I leave the thought unfinished.

“You think I didn’t try? Wouldn’t none take her, Denola. An’ her not welcome at the reservation, neither, half-breed that she was.” He speaks with the usual irritation that accompanies all conversation about my mother, but I can hear the regret buried within. “I never could do fully right by her.”

He’s coughing again. Not explosive like before but a rumbling chain like traveling thunder.

“I have to go to the post office,” I say, leaving him to his spasm.

Before I go, I rinse his glass and refill it, and ask him to stay upstairs for a time while the kids are out. I tie a bright floral scarf over my head to protect my hair from the dust and our neighbors from the sight of seeing me with the pins still in.

It’s a teasing day, the smell of rain drifting in from somewhere, without a hint of it on any horizon. Head down against friendly salutations, I run across the street and down the half block to the Browns’ house. We’ve given up our telephone since Russ’s pastoral duties have so greatly diminished, but the Browns are kind enough to let us use theirs when we need to.

“Well, such a surprise,” Merrilou says when she opens the door. “And what a pretty scarf. The colors suit you.”

I thank her and ask, in a manner I hope is not too abrupt, if I could please use her telephone. “I need to call Western Union.”

“Well, of course.”

She responds without any overt sign of curiosity or concern, but I feel I owe her some form of reassurance.

“I need to send a telegram to my brother.”

“Is everything all right, dear?”

“For now, yes. I know it’ll be charged to your number.” I produced the small handful of coins in my apron pocket. “I’ll leave you the money today, but you’ll let me know if it’s enough?”

Merrilou waves off my concern saying, “Pshaw!” My impatience, though, is palpable, and she allows me to the little nook where a telephone sits on a table, both in shining perfection. There’s a notepad and pencil nearby, and I use them to draft my words. Explanation will be too pricey, and vagueness ineffective. I write my message on the pad and tap the lead of the pencil on each word, counting the cost.

PA SICK. COME HOME.

  CHAPTER 22
  

T
HE FACT THAT MY BROTHER
returns to me looking like a man aged from a decade in battle comes not from the years spent away, but as a direct result of the seven-hour drive with Russ from Boise City—four of those hours spent pulled to the side, with chains anchoring them against the electric charges from the sky and water-soaked rags tied around their faces.

“Every politician in Washington should live through this,” Greg says later at dinner. He’s showered by then and is making a good effort not to be too obvious in inspecting his fork, his plate, his food as we sit around the meager feast I was able to put together while Russ briefly met with our church family, promising them an introduction the following day.

“That’s all we need. ’Nother load of filth blown in,” Pa says. We’ve set up a table and chairs down in the abandoned shop so that he won’t have to climb the stairs anymore. Doing so takes a toll on his weakening breath.

Greg laughs. “That’s one I’m going to tell at the next committee meeting when I get back.”

“Should go over well,” I say, sitting up a little taller, trying to match my brother in posture, if not position.

“They already call me the Okie. It’s expected.”

Looking at Greg, I can’t imagine anyone calling him an Okie. He inherited few of our mother’s features, leaving him with her prominent cheekbones but my father’s narrow nose. He also has Pa’s slate-gray eyes, and hair at least three shades lighter than mine. He wears it short and neat, and though he is shy of forty years old, the first signs of thinning are obvious at his temples. He doesn’t even sound like one of us; in fact, I find myself slowing his speech in my head, stretching out the syllables to match them to our Oklahoma pace. Pa has no such patience, and already in the few hours Greg has been home, he’s been told repeatedly not to talk like a rabbit is chasin’ his thoughts.

Greg is an object of unabashed curiosity in church the next day, as it’s been a year since our church has seen any kind of visitor. Not only does he stand out in his well-cut suit, but he is such a specimen of health and vigor. His body is not permanently bent against the wind; his eyes are wide and open, not beaten down by dust. He breathes deep and silent, no rattling from deep within his chest. When we introduce him to the church, he stands tall and looks at each person, having yet to succumb to our perpetual shame.

It is a treat, I say, to have the man himself at the Sunday dinner table, rather than a simple voice from a page, and he does not fail to entertain us with stories too complicated—and in some cases too ribald—for correspondence.

Later, in the blazing light of the afternoon, Greg and I walk the streets of Featherling arm in arm as I narrate its demise.

“People started pulling up stakes and leaving,” I say as we stand in front of a boarded-up storefront that used to be a favorite women’s boutique and hat shop.

“We see that.” Greg takes a thin cigarette case out of his shirt pocket and offers one to me, looking incredulous when I refuse.

“Russ doesn’t like it.”

“Russ ain’t here.” As if an Oklahoma inflection will change my mind.

I shake my head again. “I promised.”

Greg shrugs, lights his cigarette, and takes a long, surveying turn with the first drag. “Thing is, all those people who left? They aren’t finding anything better than what you got here. California’s got them piled up like dogs at the gate.”

I name off five families that went to California. “Wonder if they’ll come back?”

“They can’t. It takes money to move, and it doesn’t look like there’s much here to come back to. Even if the drought ends—
when
the drought ends—it’s going to take some time before this is viable country.”

We start walking again, slowly so as not to kick up too much of the dust that buried the sidewalk beneath us.

“You’ve got to get out of here, Sis.”

“And go where? Join the other dogs in California?”

“You never wanted to be here. Even when you were little, all you ever talked about was leaving.”

“You did too. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a war to take me away.”

“So what’s keeping you here now?”

“Russ. I think he feels sometimes like he’s the only anchor keeping this town from blowing off the map.”

Greg looks around. “Seems like a lightweight anchor.”

“He has his church—what’s left of it. And he wants to save what he can. The store, the building, anyway. And Pa’s land, as long as we can keep up the taxes. He calls us the remnant, faithful to stand strong in the face of obliteration.” I say this last part in Russ’s orator’s tone, not meaning to mock, but bringing a smile to Greg’s face nonetheless.

“Seems to me he’s only standing with one foot in town.”

“We need to head back.” I take his elbow and turn us toward home.
“Even if the wind’s not blowing, it’s not good to stay out too long. Air’s thick.”

“I’ve noticed.”

He takes a final puff on his cigarette and tosses it into the dirt. Despite our efforts for slow, careful steps, we walk in a perpetual cloud that will fill the cuffs of his slacks. It clings to my bare legs. We take it with us everywhere.

“Besides,” I say, picking up the conversation, “we can’t go anywhere until Pa gets better.”

“All the more reason. Get him away from here. Take him someplace where he can breathe some fresh, clean air. Money’s not a problem, at least not as big a problem as it might be for most people. I’m not a Rockefeller or anything, but I can swing a few train tickets, help set you all up in a little place.”

“Where?” With that one word, I allow myself a glimpse into his vision.

“Out in DC with me. Or Baltimore, even. Some nice places there if you think you could bring yourself to live with the snow.”

“I’ve learned to live with this, haven’t I?”

That night, as Russ prepares to return to Boise City, I ask if we shouldn’t send Pa back with him.

Russ shakes his head. “I don’t know that there’s anything they could do for him there that we can’t do here. I’ve brought home the elixir. Sit him up as much as you can, get him walking. Let him rest. It’s what I’ve seen the doctors do with the other patients.”

“But you don’t think he’d recover more quickly there? At the hospital? It seemed like everything was so much cleaner there. Even the air, I mean. Healthier.”

“You know how stubborn your father is.”

“Maybe not even to stay. Let a doctor examine him to see if there’s anything else we should be doing.”

I know Russ attributes my sense of urgency to that of a caring daughter, but my heart rings with my brother’s promise. And if Pa were to get better . . .

“Go ahead.” Russ draws me back from my reverie. “Ask your father if he wants to drive to Boise City and back just to visit a doctor about his cough. Darling, I think a whole day in the car would do more harm than good.”

“But will you try to talk to one of the doctors? Tell him everything about Pa’s symptoms. The coughing and, lately, the confusion.”

“I will. I promise. And I’ll call you if there’s anything else you should do.”

I walk with him out to the car, where he tosses his now-familiar satchel into the backseat before taking me in his arms. My cheek settled against his chest, I let myself feel the beat of his heart before lifting my face for his kiss. It is brief and sweet, as if he were only going around the block for a deacons’ meeting at the church instead of seventy miles away for a week’s time.

“I miss you when you’re gone,” I say, my finger tracing the soft edge of his jaw.