Sarah Zettel - Dust girl

But I did, and I stood in front of the big plate-glass window with CARMODY’S APOTHECARY written across it in fancy gold letters. It was plastered over with signs for aspirin, Pepsodent toothpaste, and food: COFFEE AND PIE, TEN CENTS. HAMBURGER, FIVE CENTS. They had the radio going too, all about the duster.

“… declaring from the floor of the United States Senate that now is the time for decisive action on the question of soil conservation and agricultural reform…”

Right behind the dust-dimmed window stood a couple of wooden booths and tables, and past them was the long counter with its red-and-silver stools. In one of the booths sat a windburned man with his shirtsleeves rolled up past his rough elbows. While I watched, he scooped up a big, fat hamburger from a nest of french fries and bit off a hunk of meat, cheese, bread, and onion. Juice dripped down onto the napkin tucked into his shirt. The waitress came by with a coffeepot and a slice of bright yellow pie topped with three inches of fluffy meringue balanced on a tray.

I thought I was going to faint dead away on the sidewalk boards.

The waitress poured a stream of black coffee into the man’s cup. She glanced up, and our eyes met. I didn’t have to try to look hungry. I felt sick just trying to stand there. The next good blast of wind would have blown me right over.

The man, still chewing, turned his head. He saw me too. He wiped his mouth with the corner of his napkin and tossed it on the table, climbed to his feet, collected some things from the seat beside him, and stumped toward the door.

The bell rang as he came out, and the smell of cooking hung all around him. The world reeled again. I’d have done anything to get some of that food. I’d have gotten down on my knees right there on Main Street.

Then I saw the gun hanging from his belt. And the nightstick. I looked around frantically for the badge, and finally saw it clipped beside the weapons. It wasn’t a sheriff’s star, though. It was a golden shield.

“What you want here, girlie?” The man smelled like onions and tobacco.

I looked the whole way up into his hard gray eyes. “P-p-please, sir. D-do you have a job of work I could do? I been walkin’ all day with my brother, and…”

He crouched down so his eyes were level with mine, and he smiled all across his broad, tanned face. “Well now, girlie, I’ll tell you what,” he began. Hope filled the hungry parts of my insides. Then he pushed his hat back on his head and went on. “I’m gonna give you exactly thirty seconds to get off this street. If you ain’t gone by then, I’m gonna take this club and crack you a good one across your backside. If you don’t run fast enough after that, you’re gonna find yourself on the chain gang choppin’ cotton for the rest of your natural-born days. How’s that sound?”

I backed up, one step, two, three. The man kept right on grinning.

“Bull Morgan don’t allow no bums on his trains, girl, or in his town.” He reached down and pulled that shiny brown club out of its holster beside the wooden-handled revolver.

Fear found the last of my strength, and I bolted like a scared rabbit. Jack caught hold of me as I ran past, and swung us both around behind the hardware store. All the while, I heard that big man-Bull Morgan-laughing.

I was shaking and I couldn’t stand anymore. I slid down the clapboard wall until I was huddled on the ground. I could still smell the grease and the onions, and tears were starting.

“It’s okay.” Jack put his hand on my shoulder. “It happens sometimes. We just wait till he’s gone. Then we try again. Back door this time. That waitress felt sorry for you, I could tell.”

I shook my head hard. “I can’t do that again.”

“You’re just not hungry enough yet. Give it another hour. You’ll go back.”

“Well,” said a new voice, “I call that an awful shame.”

A Negro woman was walking down the backstreet, swinging a little white handbag.

“A great big girl like you begging in the streets.” She stopped right in front of us and planted a fist on her hip.

She had a pretty face, with round cheeks and a wide mouth that looked like it was holding back a smile. Her skin was the color of the earth in good times. The blue flowers on her white dress made splashes of bright color against our dust-dimmed surroundings, and a wide-brimmed white hat shaded her face, making it hard to see her eyes.

Jack was on his feet. “ ’S not her fault, missus,” he said in a high, pathetic voice that sounded a lot younger than his own. “We been knockin’ and knockin’, lookin’ for a job of work, but there’s nothin’, not with the duster, and we were so hungry…”

I’d been right about Jack Holland. He had the kind of face that could make you believe. He made his eyes go all wide and puppy-dog as he twisted his cap in his hands and hunched over so he didn’t look so tall.

“Tsk-tsk.” The woman shook her head slowly. But she wasn’t paying attention to Jack. She just kept looking at me.

“Come here, girl,” she said at last.

Jack gave me a hint of a nod. So I got up and brushed myself off and walked to the woman. She was pretty, in her flower-print dress, white hat, and white gloves. Now I could see her eyes were the color of strong coffee.

She looked at me hard with those eyes, and then broke into a big smile. Unlike Bull Morgan’s, this one was full of joy.

“Well, well.” The woman clapped her hands together. “If I haven’t gone and found myself Callie LeRoux.”

“ ’Scuse me?” I said, forgetting my manners entirely. “I don’t know you.”

“No, you don’t, but I know your papa, Daniel.”

Just like that, I was struck as dumb as a dead stump. Jack slipped closer, but I couldn’t so much as turn my head away from this lady. I couldn’t have moved if the whole Hopper clan had come pouring out of the hardware store.

“You got us confused, missus,” Jack said clearly and politely. Probably to keep her attention off the fact that he was also kicking my ankle. “Our daddy’s name is Dennis, Dennis McClaren.”

She looked down her nose at him. You could tell she’d had a lot of practice doing that. “Is this… boy with you, Callie?”

I licked my lips and remembered I actually had a voice. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, all right then. You can both come with me.”

“Where to?” demanded Jack.

“Why, to lunch, of course. There won’t be talking sense to either of you if you’re half starved.”

Jack gripped my arm, and to my utter shock he said, “Thank you kindly, missus, but I don’t think so.”

She shrugged. “Suit yourselves.”

And just like that, she walked away, swinging her handbag, switching her hips, and not looking back.

I yanked my arm away from Jack. “What’re you doing?” I whispered fiercely.

“I don’t trust her.” Jack stuffed both hands in his pockets and looked after the woman with his hard hobo eyes. “How does she know your name?”

“She knows my papa!”

“How can she just be walking down the street and know your father?”

I pulled back and shook the question away. “He was a musician! He must’ve played towns all over the state. I bet we could have met somebody who knows him in Dodge, or Topeka.”

“And you should think careful about what kind of people that’d be,” Jack said. “Remember what Baya said about your papa.”

“I remember,” I snapped back. “And I remember how you’ve been jabbering on about how he was a fairy and I’m a fairy and how we’ve got to find out what that means. But when we meet somebody who might actually know, you don’t want anything to do with her!” I bit down on both lips. I’d never win if I got Jack’s back up. “Look, she said she’d feed us. Do you want to eat or not?”