Sarah Zettel - Dust girl

Hot, dusty wind blew across the windowsill into our faces as we stood there, panting and shaking and staring out at the unbroken Kansas desert.

Jack wiped his dusty sleeve across his mouth. “You swear to me you didn’t do that on purpose?”

I shook my head. “It started to close on its own. I couldn’t hold it. I tried, I promise I did.”

He took off his hat and rubbed his head. “What do we do, then?”

“Start walking, I guess.”

So we climbed out into our own time to trudge hungry and thirsty over the blowing dunes. We kept our eyes straight ahead so we both had something like privacy while we cried for the smell of growing grass and baking bread.

It took me and Jack three days to get to the town of Constantinople. And I’ll tell you this-Jack was lucky to be alive by that time. Not because the walking was so hard, which it was, but because I was ready to kill him stone dead.

The whole three days we walked, Jack Holland would not shut up. He kept after me and after me to sing something so he could see what would happen. It was like he’d forgotten all about the Hoppers and how he’d almost gotten stuck in that railroad work camp out of the olden days. He kept trying to tell me all these stupid, baby fairy stories he’d heard from some crazy Irish guy, or some crazy Negro, and even this extra-special crazy Eye-talian. Kept trying to tell me I must be all fairy magic and everything. He thought it was so exciting. He didn’t get it. It was bad enough when I had to hide being half black. Now I might not even be human at all. How was I supposed to hide that ?

Pretty soon I found out the only way to shut him up at all was to ask what happened to his little sister, Hannah. But then we’d go maybe another mile, and he’d start right in again. And every night, before it got too dark to see, he’d pull out this little notebook and stubby pencil he carried and write stuff down. Stuff about me, I just knew it.

I lay awake nights, listening to the wind until my head hurt. But there were no more voices. That didn’t make me feel any better. That could just mean whatever was out there was keeping quiet, and waiting.

Jack woke up sweating and staring every night, calling out for Hannah to stop whatever it was she was doing.

Even with my special dust eyes to see the way, it was hard to keep to the road buried under drifts of blow dirt and tumbleweeds. We passed people working their way out from under the storm. We saw a farmer hauling his wife and kids out of the second-story window to stand on the roof. The dust had buried the rest of the house. We saw another man sitting on the hood of his tractor, his head in his hands. We stopped and helped a woman and her three little kids pull their cow out of a drift. She shared their supper of fatback meat and beans, and let us sleep on their roof with them that night. We stopped again and helped a man and a pregnant woman dig out their Model T. They gave us some water from their canteens and let us ride with them toward Constantinople, until we got stopped by more drifts over the road. They said they’d wait for the plow trucks. We wished them luck and started walking again.

The third night we stayed in a cellar hole. We lit a fire from the timber pile that used to be the house overhead and took turns sleeping, in case a duster came up.

By the time we stumbled to the edge of Constantinople, I was ready to drink the Mississippi dry and then fall down and sleep for a year.

I’d been to Constantinople before, but not for a long time. It was bigger than Slow Run. They had a clothing store as well as a general store, along with five saloons, but only four churches. As if to make up for this, the churches were all built of brick, with steeples sticking high and proud into the dusty sky. There was even a real movie theater-the Bijoux-with a big, flashy marquee out front announcing they were showing The Man Who Knew Too Much starring Peter Lorre, along with a SECOND BRAND-NEW FEATURE.

Constantinople had people too. They came and went from those stores and churches, or stood on the board walkways talking with each other. They glanced at me and Jack as we stumbled up the street, but just as quickly looked back to their own troubles. A group of men clustered around the curving bumpers of a Packard car all leaned in so close to the radio that their hat brims touched.

“Colorado’s governor has authorized the mobilization of National Guard troops to help Denver in the aftermath of what may have been the biggest dust storm ever to hit…”

The problem was, there we were, walking into town all filthy and hungry, our feet burning from the hot dust, and we had nothing but the crumbs of a dead leaf in our pockets. I turned to Jack. “Now what?”

But Jack didn’t answer right away. He just kind of faded into the shadow beside Morrison’s Hardware Store. As he surveyed the main street with its battered cars, rickety wagons, and starving mules, Jack’s face changed. He tightened up. The “gosh wow” dreamer with his big grin who could believe in magic and fairies without blinking was gone. This was the hobo kid who could hot-wire a car and drive it like a bootlegger.

“Won’t be no trains yet today,” he said. I knew that much. On the way in, we’d skirted the rail yard and saw the men fighting the wind to get the tracks cleared. “So we’re gonna need to find food, and maybe a place to bed down.” His narrow gaze flickered this way and that, taking the measure of the whole town. “Callie, you just go stand in front of the window of that lunch counter and look hungry.”

I’d tried to get ready for the idea we’d have to bum something, but now that I was actually faced with begging, I balked. “Why me?”

“ ’Cause you’re a girl,” Jack said, really slowly like I wasn’t too bright. “Folks’ll give a meal faster to a girl than a boy.”

“Why?”

“Just will, that’s all. Besides, you’re smaller than me. That always helps.”

I looked out onto the main street. Men in overalls and women in dungarees or worn dresses went in and out of stores with dusty windows. They stopped to talk with each other. A dented, lopsided truck rattled by. Away on the other side stood the lunch counter. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t beg with all these people around to see.

Then the wind twisted until it was blowing straight from across the street. The smell of hot grease went right to my stomach and kicked out my pride. I could do anything if it meant I could get one mouthful of whatever was making that smell.

“So I just stand there?”

“That’s about it.” Jack kept his eyes on the street. I didn’t know what he was looking for, but he looked for it hard. “If a customer sees you and offers to buy you a meal, you take it. If the waitress or the fry cook comes out, you offer to sweep up or do any kind of work they got. Be sure to tell ’em you been walking all day and your brother’s out looking for work.”

“My brother?”

“Me.”

I eyed him up and down, from his bright blue eyes and brown hair to his knobby knees. “Nobody’s going to believe you’re my brother.”

“Most people believe what you tell ’em. Oh, and one thing to remember.”

“What?”

“Don’t go nowhere with nobody unless you take me with you. Some people ain’t safe.”

“I knew that one.”

“Just makin’ sure. Now go on.” Jack gave me a shove on the shoulder. He could smell the cooking too, and he’d been hungry longer than I had.

I didn’t like it, but what was I gonna do? We weren’t going to get any farther without something to eat. My throat felt like it had been sunburned, and my legs felt like rubber bands. I wasn’t sure I was even going to make it across the street.