Clare Vanderpool - Moon Over Manifest

But time wore on, and as the dirt mingled with the sweat on my body, I felt strangely comforted by the chunk, chunk, chunk of the hoe digging into the ground. I let the rhythm of it take me back to many a dusty ride in a freight car with Gideon. The two of us, listening to the chunk, chunk, chunk of the track joints, lost in our own thoughts.

I continued with my list of what I knew about Gideon. He could start a campfire quicker than most. He always let out a contented breath after a first sip of coffee. And he liked to flip flapjacks high into the air.

I smiled at the thought, but a worried frown took over as I wondered what Gideon was doing right then. Maybe unloading twenty-pound sacks of flour from a boxcar. What if he’d been let go from his railroad job? Was he sidling his way into a diner, offering to work for food? He’d know that the man behind the cash box would turn him down, but on a good day, a man eating at the counter might buy him a sandwich and a cup of coffee. It always helped to have a little girl in tow. He needed me.

Or so I thought. What had changed? If there was ever a part of Gideon’s life that needed divining, it was this. Why had he sent me away? As Miss Sadie liked to say, I’d have to dig deeper.

It had only been a scratch on my leg the day Gideon had started turning in on himself. It was April 12. I remembered because it was Easter and the day after my twelfth birthday, just two months earlier. We were in Shreveport, Louisiana. The Shreveport Gospel Mission Church was having an Easter supper for anyone who would come and listen to the preacher’s sermon. The way he went on for two hours about sitting down to the Lord’s great banquet and eating manna from heaven, we had our hopes set a little on the high side. So when they ran us through the chow line for a bowl of watery onion soup and stale bread, it was a disappointment. One weathered old hobo told the preacher that if he wanted more pilgrims on that road to heaven, they should pave it with pork and beans instead of onion soup.

That night we hopped the Southern bound for St. Louis. We were both in a mood. Hungry and tired, I sat with my legs dangling out the boxcar, catching a breeze, when a tree branch caught me on the leg. It nearly flung me from the car but I managed to stay on. Still, it gave me a good gash on the leg and we had to find a doctor.

Chunking up the dirt in Miss Sadie’s yard, I could feel it grinding into the scar above my knee. The infection and fever had lasted three days. I didn’t remember much other than frightful dreams and sweating clear through my nightgown and sheets. And Gideon’s worried face beside my bed. When I finally came out of it, he looked at me like I was a different person from the little girl he’d known before. He kept saying I was growing up. I was becoming a young lady and other nonsense. I told him I hadn’t seen the branch coming and it was just a scratch, but I guess he figured it would be easier traveling without me along to get into trouble.

“He thinks it is his fault,” Miss Sadie said in her out-of-the-blue way.

The hoe nearly struck my foot. “Why would he think that?” I asked, not even bothering to wonder how Miss Sadie could know the thoughts swimming in my head.

“To see Ned get on the train and leave Manifest and the people who love him. Jinx thinks it is his fault.”

“Oh,” I said. “Yeah, I suppose it was Jinx’s fireworks scheme that got Ned the twenty-five dollars he used to bribe that recruitment officer into letting him enlist underage. But Ned’s the one who was so anxious to leave.”

“When there is suffering, we look for a reason. That reason is easiest found within oneself.” Miss Sadie held up her hand, shielding herself from the stark light of day.

I thought of Jinx saying goodbye to Ned at the train station. Watching him until he was out of sight, then watching some more. Wondering why one had to leave while the other stayed behind.

For some reason, my face flushed, and it wasn’t from the heat. “So let me guess. Jinx skipped town. He ran away. Isn’t that what people do when things get tough? They move on to the next town and leave all their troubles behind? And everyone they care about?” My words came out in such a rush I wasn’t sure if I was talking about Gideon or Jinx.

“You speak of a town of immigrants. People who already left everything behind.” Miss Sadie spat. “Yes, there is plenty of blame to go around and much of it ended up in Manifest.” Her words trailed off and she fixed her stare ahead.

Somehow, I felt we weren’t talking about Gideon or Jinx anymore, but about Miss Sadie. It was in that moment, when I saw the weight of age and pain weighing down on her, every creak of the rocking chair sounding as if it was coming from her very bones, that I had a revelation. As much as I had a need to hear her story, she had a need to tell it. It was as if the story was the only balm that provided any comfort.

“So what happened after Ned left?”

Miss Sadie drew a breath and seemed to hold it forever. Finally, she exhaled and her breath carried the words.

“After Ned left, the troubles we had all run away from came and found us.…”

Elixir of Life

JULY 12, 1918

Ned had been gone for months, and for Jinx the warm summer days dragged. After Ned had enlisted, he’d been able to come home once or twice a month on leave from Camp Funston, but now that he’d shipped out overseas, there would be no more visits until he came home for good. Most of the troops were figuring they’d be home before Christmas. Jinx wasn’t so sure.

He occupied his time doing odd jobs. Shady thought Jinx needed to learn a trade, so he set about doing some welding. He was even commissioned to make a wrought iron gate. With helmet down and torch blazing, he practiced to his heart’s content, welding all manner of metal objects—forks, shovels, horseshoes, even the grate off a potbelly stove—right into the gate. His highly unusual work did not spark any great demand and that was his one and only paying job.

His next assignment was working chemistry boot camp at Velma T.’s house to make up for blowing out the chemistry room windows during science class. And, of course, Sister Redempta kept after him about his studies, assigning him extra reading to do over the summer to get him caught up with the rest of his class. Still, fishing was his favorite pastime and he had great luck with Ned’s Wiggle King fishing lure. In these long summer days, his uncle Finn, Junior Haskell, and Joplin, Missouri, all seemed like a faint memory that was no longer nipping at his heels.

“You think it’s a ten-pounder, Shady?” Jinx stood in the doorway of Shady’s place, holding up a catfish still dripping from the creek.

Shady wiped a wet rag across the bar top. “If he’s not, he ought to be. There’s a scale in back.”

Jinx made his way through a cramped maze of tables, chairs, and empty whiskey glasses, past a frayed curtain. He found the scale, filled with stubbed-out cigar butts, in the back room.

“Did you have a good crowd last night?”

“It was kind of slow,” Shady said, following Jinx to the back room. “All the Germans were having a miners’ meeting at the German Fraternal Hall.”

“Miners’ meeting? I’d think they’d have enough of mining when they’re working. Why do they want to meet about it?”

“They’re trying to get organized enough that they can have some say in their working conditions. You know, when they work, how long their shifts are. Anyhow, it’s kind of empty here without them. And the ones that were here seemed kind of puny. Lots of aches and coughs.” He dumped the cigars onto the floor and flopped the fish onto the tray. The arrow teetered, then stopped just under ten pounds.