Jane Smiley - Some Luck

And yet.

And yet the farm was bust. He had no money, and his land now was worth eleven dollars an acre, maybe. The cows and hogs and Jake and Elsa and the sheep were worth nothing. The tractor was worth less than he had paid for it, not because there was anything wrong with it, but because there was no one who could buy it from him. He dreaded that his father might die and leave him the big farm, even though it was paid for (or probably it was — his father was close-mouthed about all dealings with the bank). He had voted for Roosevelt, and he would vote for the Democrat in ’36 if he was any good at all, but it had all come to naught anyway, and so …

He looked down again. A single streak of sunlight shone on the surface of the water. The water could be ten feet deep. He would either let out all his breath and just sink, or he wouldn’t. He wasn’t much of a swimmer, but his father had taught him to tread water. How long could he go?

How long could he hang here? He was a strong man, especially in the shoulders and upper arms.

Would Rosanna miss him? He had to say that he didn’t know. She would be furious with him for sure — how could he do such a stupid thing, stepping on the well cover, or not fixing the well cover, or something? And how could he? As in so many things, she was right. That’s what he had married her for, wasn’t it? That she was smart and self-assured and knew what she wanted. If you didn’t have that in a farm wife, then the farm wasn’t going to make it. But maybe the farm wasn’t going to make it anyway. He looked down again. Experimentally, he let his shoulders relax. They didn’t relax. He tried again. They still didn’t relax. It was then he knew that the end really wasn’t at hand, that his body would save itself, no matter what, and it did. He used his elbows to inch his way forward until his chest was flat against the front edge of the well; then he grabbed the pump shaft below the spigot with his hand and clambered out. He wasn’t even wet. The second pail was sitting there on the ground. He stood behind the pump, holding the pail under the spigot, and when it was mostly full, he was careful to stay back from the edge of the well. He got some planks of old barn siding and placed them over the hole. He didn’t look at it again, nor did he tell Rosanna, when he went in for dinner, that he’d had a close call, but that was what he decided to name it. It was only a few days later, when he had to fill a bucket at that well again, that he felt the fear, that he didn’t want to go near the thing or step on the boards he’d laid across it, though he knew they were sturdy. Once he dreamt about it, too — not about falling into that particular well, but about sinking into a pile of straw so that he couldn’t get out, so that the straw got into his mouth and he couldn’t make a sound. He woke up in the dark and thought, so he was still afraid of death after all. But when Rosanna turned over and asked what the problem was, he said, “Nothing. Can’t remember now.”

ROSANNA RARELY LISTENED to the radio, but she did know, if only dimly, about the Labor Day hurricane down in Florida somewhere. Who in Iowa thought about Florida? People in Iowa had problems of their own — maybe not dust storms like the ones out in Nebraska and Oklahoma, and maybe not heat like in Texas, but if you got up in a sweat every morning after barely sleeping all night, and there was no rain for the crops and not much water for the animals, and the children were crying, and when Henry, so beautiful, fell and cut his lower lip and you couldn’t afford to take him to the doctor but had to boil a needle and a length of silk thread and sew it up yourself, with him lying on Lillian’s lap and screaming, and Lillian herself streaming with tears, well, you had to wonder if a slow demise was preferable to a quick one, didn’t you?

But Pastor Elmore knew all about the hurricane, and he saw it clearly as God’s will. His cousin was at the work camp there for war veterans, and was lost, presumed dead now, six days later. Pastor Elmore was sweating already before the sermon, given how hot it was, and all the ladies in the congregation were sitting there with their collars open, fanning themselves. Walter had his handkerchief on his head to keep the sweat from pouring into his eyes, and Henry was asleep on her lap — that scar was one he would have for the rest of his life, but after sewing it, she had put bag balm on it and some leaves her mother had, and it wasn’t his arm or his eye or his leg, was it? Only Lillian was neat and calm. She was a marvel. Joey and Frankie had stayed home to look after the animals — they were lost to the faith, maybe — but just as Rosanna was thinking that she was too tired to care right this very minute, Pastor Elmore roared out, “ ‘On that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened!’ And why was that, my friends? Why did the Lord see fit to destroy his own creation, like a sculptor who smashes his clay with his fist, or a painter who slashes his canvas? Why, because it wasn’t right and good! And does the pot revile its creator for this? And does the painting weep? No! And so we must accept that the Lord is getting mighty close to that state of dissatisfaction he found himself in when Noah was six hundred years old. Did you know, my friends, that there is no record of such a hurricane as struck those islands in Florida seven days ago? The first of its kind! What does that tell you? And, my friends, look around you. Are your crops thriving and your cattle fattening? No , they are not.

“Let me tell you about my cousin. My cousin was not a bad man. His name was Robert, and he was a kind and gentle boy when I first knew him. He was not a boy to tease a cat or trap a bird, but neither was he right with the Lord, and his life was on a downward path. He came home from the war a drunkard, and his mother died of the grief. Nor was he a mean drunk, my friends. If he had a dollar, after spending what he needed to on a pint, he would give it to you, and no thanks necessary. But his wife didn’t know him, and his children didn’t know him, and he wandered off, from Ohio to Missouri to Texas to California to Florida, hardly a word to his family, only a card from time to time to say where he was, and last spring he was in Florida, clearing swamp, and three weeks ago he was there, too. But the Lord was having none of it. The Lord is just about to that point he was with the Nephilim — sick and tired of the sin. And so he is sending us warning after warning. Did every single Nephilim man, woman, and child offend him? I doubt it. I am sure there were good Nephilim and kind Nephilim like my cousin. They were, it is said, the sons of God, as are you and I. But they were sensuous and irresponsible, and so God saved Noah and his sons and their families, and he saved some animals, and he smashed the rest.

“Now, you are saying that God gave Noah a promise never to do such a thing again, and that is true, but neither did he inundate the whole world — just a bit of it there in Florida. And I am telling you that this is a warning to you and to me.…”

Rosanna dabbed her upper lip with her handkerchief, then patted Henry’s forehead. Lillian was taking in every word. She was almost nine now. It occurred to Rosanna that maybe Lillian did not have to hear this — she was already careful to be good at all times and in all ways. Did she need to know that being good wasn’t good enough? When you came right down to it, Rosanna thought, being a Catholic was more reassuring for a child — it made sense to confess your sins, do your penance, and have a clean slate. Rosanna didn’t think about her childhood much — no time for it — but maybe going to St. Albans had been easier than this. If a child thought a priest or a pastor was the voice of God, then at St. Albans the priest droned on every week in the same Latin gibberish and the rules were clear. Here, the pastor was very excitable and full of inspiration — Rosanna knew that he wouldn’t have talked about the hurricane or Noah or the Nephilim if his cousin hadn’t been killed. She looked at Walter. He had his elbow on the end of the pew and his hand over his eyes. He could make it no clearer that, whatever he said, what he thought was that she had gotten them into this congregation, and it was up to her to get them out.