He laughed an old man’s cackle. Mr. Binder didn’t have a tooth in his head.
The new boy was throwing stones at grasshoppers in the vacant lot next to the store.
Rachael scraped off a row of dots with her teeth and set her lunch pail and the candy on the sidewalk. Hooking a knee over the horizontal pipe of the hitching post, she felt the sting of metal hot from the sun against her skin. Her stomach grumbled, ordering her mouth to send down the candy.
Checking to be sure the strange boy still faced the other way, she grabbed the pipe with both hands and twirled over and around and under and up – again and again – and as fast as she could so the skirt of her cotton dress wouldn’t fall over her eyes, hide the view of swirling dirt street, square stores and dazzling sky. The green-and-white-checked pattern of her dress fell across her face and she stopped upright to find the new boy in front of her. Rachael felt hot all over. He must have seen her underpants.
But he was staring at the paper roll of candy on top of her lunch pail. He hadn’t brought a lunch to school. Miss Hapscot had shared hers with him.
“Do you want some?” He and the sky and Mr. Binder’s store were still spinning. “I might give you some if you ever said anything.” She unwrapped her leg from the hitching post, aware of how long and awkward a leg it was.
“Anything,” he mumbled.
He didn’t rush to grab the candy as she thought he would but waited for her to tear off a piece.
It was embarrassing the way he cleaned away the chocolate dots. She ate two more rows and handed the rest of the roll to him.
“You giving it to me?”
“No. You owe me … a kiss someday. I’ll put it in my ledger book.”
He gave the candy a greedy look but tried to hand it back.
“I’m only teasing. It’s just a game I play with Mr. Binder. You don’t have to pay for it.”
There’d been enough candy on that paper to last her a week but it was gone in minutes. “How come you didn’t bring a lunch today?”
“My ma was sick this morning.” The dark pupils of his eyes were as big as Thora K.’s when she wore her magnifying spectacles. His cheekbones stuck out sharply like his elbow bones. Rachael wondered if he was an Indian.
He licked the paper and then seemed surprised to find it empty. “Sorry … I ate all your candy.”
“That’s okay. My mom gets mad when I eat anything with sugar in it. Says it’ll rot my teeth.”
He took a deep breath, straightened his shoulders. “I’ll kiss you for it,” he choked out.
Rachael backed against the hitching post. “No, it was just a game. I –”
But he lunged and planted wet lips on her forehead. “Now we’re even.” And he ran off as if he had to get out of sight because he was going to be sick.
Rachael was still staring after him when Remy galloped Beulah around the corner and reined up in front of the store so hard Beulah snorted and danced on her hind legs. “Come on, Squirt, we gotta break Dan’s record.”
She threw him her lunch pail, placed a foot on the toe of his boot and reached for his hand.
“Pull up your dress so we don’t split it again. Mom’ll have my hide.” He yanked her onto the saddle in front of him and they were off.
Beulah was all a-lather and wild-looking but Rachael could feel the powerful animal’s joy in the race. When her other brother, Dan, picked her up he used the truck.
She held onto the saddle horn and leaned back against Remy’s chest. As they approached the narrow bridge over the creek, Rachael let out a yell and glanced down into the startled eyes of the new boy as they passed him by. At least he wasn’t throwing up.
Her crotch still smarting from the wild ride, Rachael hurried up the slope toward the house to get away from the terrible fight in the corral. She didn’t know why, but she felt responsible for it. As if something she’d done or said was behind the anger the twins would unleash on each other. It’d been the same when her dad and Uncle Lon had a set-to on the porch last summer.
Rachael’d been sitting on the steps making dolls from old newspapers when her dad had pitched over the railing and Uncle Lon came flying after him. They’d rolled in the dirt and hit and kicked each other just like her brothers.
Her mother dragged her into the house and locked the door, reassuring Rachael the fight had nothing to do with her. “I think it’s about money. But they should realize they’re too old for this kind of thing and your father’s arthritis is getting worse.”
Grandma Sophie was right, Rachael thought now as she reached the porch. How could a girl ever learn any ladylike ways living here?
She opened the door on the warm honey-colored room, so large and plain. The only valuable piece of furniture was the buffet Thora K. had brought from someplace called Old Cornwall. And the picture in its heavy frame hanging next to it of her parents when they were married. Her father’d worn a mustache then and didn’t look like himself and her mother’s hair was piled on top of her head like Grandma Sophie still wore hers.
But the sizzle and smell of frying meat welcomed her and the thick plates and mugs arranged on the gay tablecloth. Thora K. turned golden bread out of a loaf pan and her mother’s graying head bent over the treadle sewing machine by the window.
“The boys are fighting again.” Rachael carried her lunch pail to the metal sink, and pumped water into the washpan for her hands.
“I expect Remy got you home faster than Dan did last night. Right?” Brandy looked up from her sewing.
“Yes and Dan said we cheated by going through the trees and not keeping to the road. But Remy didn’t cheat. Beulah just went like the wind is all.” Rachael dried her hands and stood beside her mother. “It scares me when they fight. Aren’t you ever worried they might kill each other?”
Her mother pushed back her chair and drew Rachael onto her lap. “Those boys, as you call them, are twenty years old and I happen to know they’ll live to be grandparents.”
“Be ’ee that sure, Brandy?” Thora K. straightened and rubbed her back. “They do carry on so. And twins be bad luck fer –”
“I’ve told you. Dan’ll be a used-car dealer and Remy –”
“Hush, you. Not in front of the child. Do ’ee forget the troubles the twins ’ad at school?”
Brandy laid her head on Rachael’s shoulder. “You … don’t have any trouble at school because of me, do you, Puss?”
“No,” Rachael lied to reassure this woman she loved so fiercely. At times she had the uneasy feeling her mother clung to her rather than held her. “Why don’t you ever call me by my name? You gave it to me, didn’t you?” Last year it’d been “Squirt,” this year it was “Puss.”
“Ohhh … mothers are like that.” She kissed Rachael’s cheek but that odd look was in her eyes.
Were mothers really like that? No one could convince her Brandy was crazy or a witch, but she was different. Rachael knew.
In the small bedroom between her parents’ room and Thora K.’s Rachael changed out of her school dress. It was more crowded here. Her grandma had given her some furniture from the attic of the Gingerbread House – a high dresser with a mirror that she had to stand on a chair to see into, a glass-fronted cabinet with lovely old dolls to display in it, and a desk with a top that rolled down where she could do her homework.
Rachael felt snug and comfortable with the heavy pieces of dark furniture. At night when she could see them only as shadows she imagined they stood solid guard duty to keep her safe.
“Why don’t you ever bring any friends home from school?” her mother asked her when they all sat around the supper table.
“It’s too far.” Rachael chewed her tongue as she concentrated on cutting her meat.
“You could have her overnight or even just for dinner. One of the twins could take her home afterward.”
“I can’t think of anybody that –” Rachael almost felt the identical warning looks from her identical brothers.
“Must be som
ebody, Squirt,” Dan said and his boot gently nudged her shin.
Rachael stayed quiet, hoping the subject would be dropped.
Her Uncle Lon rested his forearms on the edge of the table, his fork upside down in one hand and his knife in the other. She’d been told he and her dad used to be mistaken for each other like her brothers were now, but they didn’t look like twins anymore. Uncle Lon was heavier and he still wore a mustache. It was only a thin line over his lip and he darkened it with whisker dye.
“You ought to put that steak on your eye, boy,” he said to Dan and speared a slice of bread from the middle of the table. “Stead of eating it.”
The twins were messy, even after washing up before coming to the table.
“You boys get the problem worked out?” Her dad flexed stiff hands.
“Had to stop for supper.” Remy grinned through a swelling lip. “We’ll work on it again tomorrow morning first thing.”
“Hell you will,” Hutch Maddon said. “We got cattle to move up to the west meadow.” He winked at Uncle Lon. “Then you can work out your problems.”
Rachael realized her mother had grown silent during this exchange. It was a different silence than Thora K.’s disapproval of the twins’ fighting. Remy’s eyes still pleaded across the table.…
“There is somebody I might ask,” she blurted out and then wished she’d thought about it longer first. “But just for dinner.”
Brandy straightened. “Who? Dorothy Kinshelow or –”
“No, it’s … it’s a boy.”
Dan and Uncle Lon hooted in unison. Thora K. sucked in on her store-bought teeth. Why didn’t Mr. Binder buy himself some teeth?
Remy looked surprised and helpless.
Well, I’m trying, Rem, aren’t I?
“What boy? Who?” Brandy asked with her mouth full. And she never did that.
“Uhhh … he’s a new boy. I forget his name. He just came to school today for the first time.”
“I ain’t ’eard of no new families. Where do him live?”
“I don’t know. I think he might be an Indian.”
“Ooooee, Rachael’s got eyes for an Indian.”
“I do not either, Uncle Lon.” Rachael watched everyone enjoy her embarrassment. She wished she hadn’t started this.
“Is that why you want to ask him out? Because he’s an Indian?” Her mother gave her dad a questioning look but he just shrugged and smiled at Rachael.
“No …” She was thinking fast now. “It’s because … because he’s hungry.”
“Young boys are always hungry.” But Remy sounded uncomfortable.
Everyone had stopped eating to stare at her. The taste of the food in her mouth went flat. She drank some milk to avoid their eyes. Tell one little lie and look what happened. Mrs. Bonnet had warned her about this in Sunday school. Mrs. Bonnet was right.
The silence lasted forever. It was the kind of fear and attention everyone gave the subject of “hard times.” Rachael didn’t think the times were hard. Even though the twins couldn’t find jobs and strike out on their own. Why would they want to leave home anyway? And her dad couldn’t hire extra hands, but to Rachael the ranch seemed crowded with men.
Thora K. cleared her throat. “Might be they’s from the city. Them do say people stand in line there just fer soup. But I never did ’ear of a body going ’ungry round ’ere.”
“How do you know he’s hungry?” Brandy asked.
Rachael didn’t know and she certainly wasn’t anxious to have him out for supper. She could hardly remember what he looked like. “He didn’t bring any lunch to school. Teacher had to share hers with him. And he’s all bony and … he ate all my candy after school.” It felt good to confess the truth after lying so much.
“Candy! I’ve warned you about –”
“Oh, leave her be, Bran. Kid’s got to have some fun even in a depression,” Hutch Maddon said. “Damn few have money these days to buy any.”
Rachael could always count on her dad to help her out when she was cornered. When he looked at her she never felt he was trying to find something wrong. And his glance was rarely teasing like that of her brothers or Uncle Lon. Hutch Maddon’s eyes told Rachael he just enjoyed looking at her and he was proud to have her for his daughter.…
Except during the scary times, of course, when he was too troubled to notice her because his wife was acting so strangely.
2
Jerry Garrett straddled the hitching post in front of the general store and watched Rachael hop from the sidewalk to the street on one foot.
“You keep that up and you’ll break your face.”
“Are you coming or aren’t you?”
“Do I have to kiss you for it?”
Rachael turned suddenly and pushed him off his perch to the dirt below.
“You just try it and I’ll have one of my brothers knock your teeth down your throat and out your elbow.” She stood with one polished brown toe tapping the sidewalk and her hands on her waist. Her petticoat was whiter than anything he’d ever seen.
Jerry considered hitting her but that would probably mean he’d miss a real meal.
An old stock truck rumbled around the corner, its gears whining.
“That’ll be Dan. Are you coming or aren’t you?”
“I’m coming.”
“Don’t you have to tell your mom?”
“She won’t care.” And he’d have a chance to ask someone else about Christine, as his mother was so anxious that he do. He’d gotten up the courage to ask his teacher and Mr. Binder, but they couldn’t help him.
Rachael crawled in beside her brother, and Jerry beside her. “How come he didn’t bring his horse like last time?”
“That was my other brother. This is Dan. They’re twins.”
“And you must be the Indian.” Dan grinned at him. He had a puffy black eye and was more like a full-grown man than somebody’s brother.
Jerry was disappointed because he’d never been on a horse before but the ride in the truck didn’t lack for excitement. This brother was as crazy behind the wheel as the other one had been on a horse.
The jolting ruts didn’t smooth out till they’d swooped down into an enormous valley where horses and cattle grazed together on yellowing grass. The truck left the track and rattled across humps to stop with a sideways skid up against a corral. Dan threw open his door, raced around the edge of the corral and disappeared.
Rachael sighed and stared at the windshield.
Jerry pulled his teeth apart. “Does … does he always drive like that?”
“Yeah. Mr. Binder says he’s wild. My mom says he’s going to be a used-car dealer.”
“Well, I sure wouldn’t let him near a new one.”
Rows of cut hay divided the valley floor into jigsaw patterns and thickened the air with a sweet, dry, country smell. As they walked up the slope to the porch of a tan-colored house the aroma of cooking mingled with the scent of hay.
Rachael stopped at the door. “Would you do me a favor and be nice to my mom? Some people aren’t. I don’t want you to hurt her feelings. She thinks you’re my friend.”
They entered a long room bright with blond walls and red curtains and delicious smells. Two women stood at the far end, one old and bent with a snow-white knot of hair on top of her head. The other woman had silver streaks lacing dark hair and she wore pants like a man. She was whipping a potato masher around in a bowl and as he approached, the masher slowed. Her big eyes got bigger.
“Mom? Here’s my friend. His name’s Jerry Garrett.”
“Oh, my God,” the woman in the pants said, as if someone had knocked the breath out of her.
The bowl slid down her front and broke on the floor. Fluffy plops of mashed potatoes splattered on Jerry’s clothes.
Jerry added another bone to the pile on his plate and spread thick gravy over a biscuit, because Rachael’s mother’d ruined the potatoes. Every time he looked up, Mrs. Maddon was staring at him.
“Save room
for pie, Jerry,” she said. But Remy handed him the chicken platter and what was left of the peas. He could tell the brothers apart only because of Dan’s black eye.
Rachael’s Uncle Lon wore a white suit with a vest under it, while the rest of the men wore work shirts. Jerry wondered if he lived here or was just visiting.
“Where’d you come from, boy?” Lon Maddon asked him.
“California.” Jerry felt too sleepy to go into all the places he’d been.
“I’ve heard of people going there but never coming from. Is it a nice place?” Dan said.
“It’s all right, I guess.” Jerry’s part of California had been dusty, dirty and hot.
Jerry hid a drumstick and a biscuit under his shirt when no one was looking. It should be enough. His mother didn’t want much. He remembered to ask his question over the pie he was too full to eat. “My ma’s looking for a woman that used to live here. Name’s Christine Pintor. She wants me to ask people because she’s too sick to go out and do it herself.”
No one had heard of such a person. The same answer he always got.
“Is your father able to be home to care for your mother?” Mrs. Maddon asked.
“He left us a long time ago.” Jerry had only vague memories of the man. “It’s just me and Ma.”
Mrs. Maddon stood so quickly she startled them all. “Remy, you and Rachael do the dishes. Thora K.’s tired. Dan, bring the car up to the door. I’ll drive Jerry home.”
“But, Mom, I –”
“No buts. After all he’s eaten, the last thing he needs is to ride with you.” She ducked out the door by the stove, returned with a basket, and began filling it with loaves of bread and other food. “Jerry, get that chicken out from under your shirt and put it in here.”
Jerry soon found himself, the basket and Rachael’s mother in a car that wasn’t in much better shape than the truck.
She glanced sideways as they neared the top of the lane. The boy was already asleep. Easier to think of him as “the boy” than as Jerrold Garrett, who would grow up to become Shay’s father.
For thirty-one years she’d been so busy living Brandy’s life, she’d become Brandy, had almost forgotten the dreamlike young person named Shay Garrett. Except when Rachael would look at her a certain way and remind her of the woman she’d known as a mother rather than the girl she knew as a daughter.