This Tender Land (23 page)

I knew the reason I couldn’t sleep. It was because I understood the young drunk at the healing crusade. He believed his heart was so full of badness that it could never be cleansed. I was a murderer twice over. If ever a soul was damned, it was mine.

Then I heard the voice of the angel, so soft I wasn’t sure it was actually there. I got up, climbed the riverbank, and made my way through the trees and across the railroad tracks. I stood at the edge of the meadow, where I could see the huge tent. Behind it was the town, a few lights still shining here and there among the hills. Most of the automobiles were gone, the meadow nearly deserted. A soft glow lit the tent canvas, not at all the brilliant blast from the host of electric lamps that we’d seen earlier. Maybe from just one or two. The music wasn’t the great flourish it had been but was quiet now. There was only the piano, and the horn, and that heavenly voice.

I crossed the meadow. The flap that covered the tent entrance wasn’t closed all the way, and I found that if I knelt, I could see inside.

They were gathered around the piano on the platform: the trumpet player, the piano player, and Sister Eve. A single light shone above them. Sister Eve no longer wore a white robe but was dressed in a western shirt with snap buttons. Her blue jeans were rolled up at the
ankles, and I could see that on her feet were honest-to-God cowboy boots. They were playing a song I’d heard on the radio at Cora Frost’s house, “Ten Cents a Dance,” a sad melody about a woman paid to dance with men but desperate for someone to take her away from all that. The trumpet notes were long, mournful sighs, and the beat the piano player laid down was a funeral dirge, and Sister Eve sang as if her soul was dying, and oh, did that sound speak to me.

When the song ended, they all laughed, and the trumpet player said, “Evie, baby, you oughta be on Broadway.” He was tall, with slicked black hair, and a pencil-thin mustache across the pale white skin above his upper lip.

Sister Eve pulled a cigarette from a small, silver case, and the trumpet player lifted a lighter and offered her a flame. She blew a flourish of smoke and said, “Too busy doing the Lord’s work, brother.” She took up a glass that sat near her on the piano and sipped from it.

“What next?” the piano player asked. He was as slender as a sipping straw, his skin the color of dark molasses, and he wore a black fedora tipped at a jaunty angle.

Sister Eve drew on the cigarette, then her lips formed a little O, and she puffed out two perfect smoke rings. “Gershwin really sends me. I’ve always been a sucker for ‘Embraceable You.’ ”

Which was a song I knew, though I didn’t know who’d written it. I felt the weight of my harmonica in the pocket of my shirt, and my lips twitched with eagerness. As the piano player laid down the first few bars, I moved out into the dark of the meadow, sat down, pulled out my mouth organ, and played right along with them. Oh, it was sweet, like being fed after a long hunger, but it filled me in a different way than the free soup and bread earlier that night had. Into every note, I blew out that longing deep inside me. The song was about love, but for me it was about wanting something else. Maybe home. Maybe safety. Maybe certainty. It felt good, in the way I’d sometimes imagined what prayer might feel like if you really believed and poured your heart into it.

The notes ended, and I sat in the warm glow that had come from being a part of the music. The tent flap lifted. Silhouetted against the light from inside stood Sister Eve, motionless, staring into the night.

MORNING DAWNED BRIGHT
and warm, but we all slept late. When Albert finally rolled out of his blanket, he said, “We need to get on the river, make some distance. I’m still worried about Hawk Flies at Night. But first I’m going to see if I can scrounge some food to take with us.”

“Couldn’t we stay just one more day?” Emmy said. “The soup last night was so good. And I’d like to see the town, Albert.”

“One town is pretty much like every other.” His words came out harsh, although I didn’t think he meant them that way. It was just that Albert, once he had a thing set in his mind and thought it was for the best, became a big boulder rolling downhill, and God help you if you got in his way. But he saw Emmy’s hurt look, and he knelt so that his face was level with hers. “I don’t want us to get caught, Emmy. Do you?”

“No.” Her mouth turned down and her lower lip trembled, just a little.

“You’re not going to cry, are you?”

“Probly,” she said.

Albert gave an exaggerated sigh and rolled his eyes. “Okay. You can go into town, for just a little while, then we leave, all right?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, and her whole demeanor changed in a flash.

Emmy’s emotions had always been up front and true, but it was clear to me that she’d played Albert. I didn’t know if this was a good thing, but I figured, given our circumstances, it was probably inevitable. You can’t hang out with outlaws and not become a bit of one yourself.

“I’ve got a lot of scrounging to do, and I don’t know where that might take me. I might have to fight off another hungry dog, so it’s best if you don’t go with me. And you can’t go by yourself.” He looked at Mose and me and made a quick decision. “You go with her, Odie.
Make sure she keeps her seed cap pulled down low. If someone from the crusade last night spots you, it won’t seem strange the two of you being together. Anybody asks, you’re two brothers, got it?”

I grinned at Emmy. “I always wanted a little brother.”

Mose signed,
What about me?

“Somebody needs to stay with the canoe,” Albert said. “Besides, you’re Indian and mute. If anybody tries to talk to you, you’ll get noticed, and we need to stay invisible.”

I could tell this galled Mose, but he grudgingly accepted Albert’s logic.

“I’ll go first,” my brother said. “You guys wait a little while, then follow.”

Albert headed up the riverbank and through the trees and was gone.

Mose sat down, picked up a rock, and threw it at the river.

“Mad?” I asked him.

Hate being Indian,
he signed.

I handed Emmy her seed cap, took her hand, and we climbed the riverbank.

We quickly learned the place was called New Bremen. The center of town was built around a square where a big courthouse stood. We strolled the sidewalks, standing in the shade of green awnings, staring into store windows. I was nervous, exposing ourselves this way, but we walked slowly and no one seemed to notice us and Emmy was delighted. We passed a Rexall drugstore, and next to it was a confectionery.

“I wish we could take Mose some licorice,” Emmy said, eyeing the sweets inside. We all knew licorice was Mose’s favorite.

We sat on a bench next to the little sweet shop and watched automobiles roll past on the square, people going in and out of the stores. New Bremen was much larger than Lincoln, the streets and sidewalks much busier. A group of boys carrying baseball gloves and bats jostled their way across the square and disappeared behind the courthouse, heading toward a ball field somewhere.

“We could live here,” Emmy said.

“Nice town,” I admitted. “But Saint Louis is where we’re going.”

“Is it nice?”

The truth was that we were heading toward a big city I barely remembered, looking for a woman I hardly knew and whose address was a mystery. But it was a chance for family, the only chance we had, and it was far better than anything we’d left behind.

“It’s real nice,” I said.

The drugstore door opened and two people came out, laughing. Right away, I recognized Sister Eve. Instead of her cowgirl outfit or the white robe, she wore a green dress with gold frill along the collar and a fashionable gold hat, the kind I’d seen in magazines. Her shoes matched her hat and had little straps around the ankles. The trumpet player was with her. He wore a white suit and a white panama hat. As he stepped out onto the sidewalk, he slipped a couple of fat cigars into the pocket of his suit coat.

They turned in our direction, and Sister Eve’s gaze fell on us. She smiled immediately.

“Well, hello there. I saw you two last night. Did you enjoy the soup?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “It was good.”

“And you?” She bent to Emmy.

“Uh-huh,” Emmy said.

I wanted to nudge Emmy, remind her to pull the bill of her seed cap low, but she lifted her face to Sister Eve, beaming.

The woman’s eyes, as green as two spring leaves, shifted from Emmy to me and back to Emmy. “You’re alone here?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“And you were alone last night. Where’s your mother?”

“Dead,” I said for both us.

“And your father?”

“Same,” I said.

“Oh, dear.”

She sat beside us on the bench. The trumpet player looked put out, folded his arms, and leaned against the drugstore window.

“What’s your name?”

“Buck,” I said. “Like Buck Jones.”

“The cowboy,” she said with a smile. “And you?” she said to Emmy.

I tried to answer, but Emmy beat me to the punch and told the truth. “Emmy.”

“Emmett,” I said quickly. “But we call him Emmy. He’s my brother.”

“Who takes care of you?”

“We take of ourselves,” I said.

“Just the two of you?”

“Just the two of us.”

She reached toward me, plucked the harmonica from my shirt pocket, and eyed me knowingly. “You play a nice tune. I heard you in the meadow last night.” She put the mouth organ back, then gazed long and deep into Emmy’s face. “Give me your hand, dear.” She took Emmy’s little hand into her own and closed her eyes. When her lids opened again, she gazed at Emmy as if she’d known her forever. “You’ve lost a great deal, but I can see that you’ve been given something extraordinary in return. I want you to come back for the crusade tonight. I’ll have something special for you.” She focused on me, as if I were the responsible one. “Will you promise me?”

There was no breeze, but it felt to me as if there were one, blowing fresh off Sister Eve. In her white robe the night before, with her long fox-fur hair, she’d seemed more beautiful than an angel. Now I saw that her cheeks were freckled every bit as much as Albert’s, and down the left side of her face, just in front of her ear, ran an ugly scar, which her long hair partially hid. She held me with her eyes. I couldn’t look away. Not just because they were wonderfully clear and their look gave me a feel as refreshing as mint. Gazing into them, it seemed as if I was looking into water so deep I knew it could drown me in an instant but so seductive I wanted to leap right in.

“I promise,” I heard myself say.

The trumpet player looked at his watch. “Evie, baby, we gotta run.”

“Candy first, Sid,” she said. “What would you like?”

“Lemon drops,” Emmy said immediately.

“Buck?”

I thought about Mose and said, “Licorice, please.”

Sister Eve looked up at Sid, who rolled his eyes, but nonetheless went into the confectionery and came out with the candy.

“I’ll see you tonight, Buck,” Sister Eve said. She gave Emmy a knowing smile. “And you be a good . . . boy.” She stood and walked away arm in arm with the trumpet player.

As soon as they left, I turned to Emmy and said as sternly as I could, “You can’t just go around telling everyone your real name.”

“It’ll be okay,” she said, as if she knew something I didn’t. “We can trust her.”

I watched Sister Eve walking casually away. I didn’t know why exactly, but I believed Emmy was right.

“NO,” ALBERT SAID.
“Absolutely not.”

“I promised her,” I argued.

“Big deal. We’re leaving. Now.”

When we’d returned to the river, Albert and Mose had already packed everything in the canoe. Mose was still brooding a little about not being able to go into town, but the licorice perked him up some. It was near noon, and he sat eating his black candy in the shade of a tree on the riverbank, while Albert and I battled it out. Emmy, my little ally, stood beside me.

“One more night, Albert. What harm can it do? And Sister Eve said she’d have something special for us.”

“Yeah, handcuffs.”

“She’s not like that. I could tell.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“He’s not wrong, Albert,” Emmy said. “Sister Eve is nice. She wouldn’t rat on us.”

Mose laughed and signed,
Rat on us? You sound like a gangster, Emmy.

“We’re leaving and that’s all there is to it.” Albert turned toward the canoe.

“Who died and made you God?” I shouted at his back.

He swung around. “You want to stay? Fine. Stay. The rest of us are leaving.”

Mose didn’t move from the shade, and Emmy edged even closer to my side.

“How about we take a vote?” I said.

“Vote?” As if it were a cussword.

“We live in a democracy, don’t we? Let’s take a vote. Majority wins. How many want to stay? Raise your hand.”

I lifted mine, and Emmy’s shot up, too. Albert scowled at Mose, who didn’t seem in any hurry to cast his ballot. Lazily, he raised a hand.

“Fine,” Albert said. “I’ll visit you all in the penitentiary.”

He stomped toward the canoe and made as if to get in. It was all for show. I knew my brother and knew that he would never desert us. He stood beside the broad, brown flow of the Minnesota River and shook his head.

“Mark my words. We’ll live to regret this.”

It was dusk when we headed up from the river to the crusade tent. There seemed to be a lot more automobiles parked in the meadow than there’d been the night before. Most of the benches in the tent were already filled, the result, I figured, of word getting out about the boy whose crooked spine had been straightened by Sister Eve’s healing touch. In the front row sat the young man who’d been such a beast the evening before and then had been tamed by Sister Eve. Albert and Mose sat behind me and Emmy, who had her seed cap on. The night was hot and humid. Seated next to me was a bear of a man, huge and disheveled. Judging from the way he smelled, he must have just come from mucking out his barn. He was with a woman who leaned heavily against him, her eyes closed. Sleeping, I figured. But I didn’t think she’d be sleeping once Sister Eve took the stage.