I Will Send Rain (12 page)

She fought her way through the men and scooped him up, the rabbit jumping from his arms, dashing away toward the mesa. When she tried to walk she buckled under his weight until Samuel lifted him from her arms. The dreadful sound that was still coming from his son pierced him with awful precision.

“I'm here, Fred,” he said. “We're here.”

Fred's whispered breath barely lifted his chest. His lips were blue.

 

CHAPTER 7

The first contraction had brought Annie to her knees and the labor barreled along fast and unwavering. Three weeks too soon. The midwife had barely arrived from Herman in time, ushering Samuel out of the room, away from the groans of his wife. Annie pushed just three times and, without a sound, out came the baby girl. She slipped from the midwife's grasp and slid out onto the floor like a greased melon, tethered by the cord. Only then had the baby made a sound, more like an animal mew than a cry, until the woman got ahold of her and she went silent. She was bluish, too much so, Annie knew, and they rubbed that little body with hands and towels until the pink came in. Give her to me, Annie said. She was so much smaller than Birdie had been. Almost weightless. That little warm head in the palm of her hand.

They didn't have electricity then, only those dirty kerosene lamps that gave off dim yellow light. Shadows like ghosts on the walls.

Birdie was five. The commotion woke her. She rose from bed and stood in the dark corner pie-eyed as the placenta came out, the sheets soaked in blood. Annie looked over and smiled to reassure her. Everything is all right, she said. Come see your new sister. It's a girl, Mama? Birdie asked, peering over. Eleanor, Annie said. She's beautiful, isn't she? But even then she knew, from the baby's weak suck and floppy arms and legs, that something was not right. The warm spring breeze raised the curtains. The sun was coming up. They had all the grass then, and it had rained through the night and the smell of green took away the smell of blood and she had willed away the worry by counting Eleanor's perfect fingers over and over.

Annie still felt carved out when she remembered, when she woke at night or cleaned the turnips or set the table or shoveled out the dust. She felt replaced by some other version of herself, roughly stitched together. Time will heal, everyone said, but time had merely deepened the feeling that something was missing. She and Samuel never talked about the baby. A few years ago, on Eleanor's birthday, Annie had said, “She would have been seven years old today,” and he had said, “Who?” and she knew that it was different for him. People lost babies all the time out here. Mourning was a luxury. There was work to be done.

But when she touched Jack Lily, when she thought of him, the sadness receded for the sweetest of moments. For an instant, half of one, believing she could have what could never be hers.

Fred had a fever of 104 and sipped air like a sparrow. Small, quick breaths. She packed flour sacks of ice chips—a large block of ice sent over from Ruth's—around his body and told him everything would be all right even though she knew it meant nothing, even though everything was not all right. The doctor from Herman had met them at the house with another shot, but its effects hadn't lasted. Get him to the clinic, he had said. She'd wanted to kick him and say, “You said it was all in his head. What about now?”

It was two o'clock in the morning and the only sounds from outside were the shake and hiss of the katydids. The wind was mercifully quiet. Fred's eyelids fluttered and he smiled at her and it squeezed her heart. The sound of his strangled wail as he had closed his eyes against the rabbits. A child should never make a noise like that. They would drive to Beauville at the first light and wait until they unlocked the clinic door.

In Genesis, God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son on the mountaintop in Moriah. Abraham did as God asked. He bound Isaac on the altar and took a knife in his hand to slay him when God called to Abraham.

Here I am, Abraham answered.

Do not kill him, God said. Now I know you fear God.

Annie had known this story her whole life, understood its message of faith and abidance. When she became a mother, though, she no longer accepted it. What kind of God would ask this?

I am not here, she thought. It is a vengeful God to come after my boy.

*   *   *

D
UST PNEUMONIA.
T
HE
doctor at the clinic said he'd seen three cases in the last week.

“They're calling it the brown plague,” he said. “I'm afraid there's little we can do.” He was a stooped older man, his white hair ruffled, and he looked at them through thick lenses with gentle, watery eyes. Fred's eyes were closed, his mouth open. “Keep up the fluids and rest. Make him wear one of these outside.” The doctor opened a drawer and handed Samuel a mask. “The Red Cross just gave us these. Call me if things get worse.”

“You're sending him home, then?” Samuel asked.

“I'm sending him home,” the doctor said.

Samuel laid Fred down in the backseat with his head on Birdie's lap. Annie was silent, her face to the window. She twisted a handkerchief in her lap.

“It's nobody's fault,” Samuel said, reaching to calm her hands. She held them still and rigid. “We will pray for him. Ask the congregation to pray for him.” He had to say it, couldn't help himself, but she felt a barb of contempt lodge in her throat.

“You do that,” she said.

*   *   *

B
IRDIE NEEDED TO
talk to Cy. She wasn't mad he hadn't come to the rabbit hunt—she assumed it was some kind of farm trouble that rose up—but she felt let down. There was so much to say, she didn't know how she'd keep ahold of all of it. She'd woken up feeling queasy again, but kept everything down on the drive to the Beauville clinic, passing on the boiled eggs her mother had brought.

Back at home, her mother sat as a sentry with Fred, so Birdie set about tending to the cow, her udder engorged. They now had three Holstein females—two were spring calves—and one bull, bony under their black-and-white hides. The lactating female needed to be milked twice a day and she had missed the morning because Birdie had refused to stay back. She had never really worried about Fred before, but after the rabbits there was no way not to. She'd been afraid that if she didn't go with him to see the doctor, he might not come back home.

With little grass to chew, the cattle didn't roam, but instead sought out the shade of the locust grove near the house. Birdie drew a bucket from the well, then pulled Greta—named by Birdie for Greta Garbo after she'd seen the movie poster for
Romance
in Beauville—by the collar into the dark hot barn and led her to the hay in the manger. When the cow was occupied, Birdie tied her to the post and patted her side.

“Sorry for the delay,” she said. “You big nuisance.”

She soused soap in the bucket and washed the udder, red and scaly from the heat and dust, and patted it dry. Greta swished her tail in Birdie's face.

“Hey,” she said. “I'm trying to be gentle.”

The cow snuffed and went back to munching, her milk letting down from the washing.

Cy would have heard about Fred. Surely he would come by.

Birdie leaned on her stool, a clean tin pail between her knees and lanolin on her hands, and she took hold of two diagonal teats, squeezing through her fingers, bringing the milk in strong streams that pinged against the sides of the pail. Fred could only do one teat at a time, which meant he cared for the chickens and Birdie had the cows. As much as Birdie usually complained about milking, she didn't mind it all that much. It was satisfying to come away with a gallon of milk, the richest cream coming at the end. These days, though, there was less milk, Greta struggling like the rest of them.

I know he can't call, she thought. The Macks' telephone service had been cut off last month. But couldn't Cy use the truck? Her feelings smarted. Okay, she was angry.

She pumped until the milk slowed to a dribble, flexing her fingers before starting again on the remaining two teats. She imagined her own breasts filling with milk, bestial and revolting. The menstrual pad was still hopefully pinned in her underpants.

*   *   *

A
DAY AFTER
the dead rabbits had been cleared away, Jack Lily nabbed Styron as he came into the office. Ruth's was empty, and they took up their usual table near the window.

“That was a disaster,” Jack said. He hung his head over his coffee.

“The end got a little frenzied,” Styron said. “I admit that.”

“Frenzied? More like rabid.”

“It was pest control. With a helping of community bonding.”

Styron stabbed at his ham, unwilling to concede that it had been anything less than a success. Luckily Hattie had been far enough away from the mayhem so she hadn't heard Fred Bell's eerie cry.

“Jesus, Styron. I didn't know you were such a cynic.”

“Gentlemen, you okay over there?” Jeanette wiped down the counter, tucking some stray pennies into her apron.

“We're fine,” Styron said.

Jack sighed and downed what was left of his coffee.

“They're doing it in counties all over western Kansas. Using rifles even.”

He held up his hand. “Doesn't make it right.”

Styron leaned back with a thud against his chair. “Dead is dead. The vermin were going out either way.”

“It was, at the very least, undignified.”

Jeanette swayed over to the table. Her stockings made a slight swish as she walked.

“I heard it was quite a thing on Saturday.” She poured the mayor more coffee.

“You could call it that,” Jack Lily said.

“Dwight sure can make that fiddle sing,” Styron said, looking Jeanette's way. “You'd never guess just meeting him.”

“No, I suppose not,” she said. “How about you, Deputy? Have any hidden talents?”

“Grandstanding?” Jack said.

Styron pointed to himself and laughed, and the other two joined in, glad to have the moment lightened.

“Well, I'll say this for you. You got people talking,” she said. “That was a nice picture in the paper.”

Pride blossomed in Styron's chest. It was a success, then.

“I'll leave you to your business,” Jeanette said, scribbling out a check.

Jack Lily looked out the window, hoping Annie might come strolling by. It was selfish, he knew, with Fred infirm, to even think about her, but he couldn't help himself. The mere sight of her zinged his body awake, galloped his breath. Who did he think he was? Annie was not free to be his. But he wanted her nonetheless, and maybe, he admitted, even more because of it. Sure, he had felt attraction before, but here was a woman who felt right, who, when he thought of her, clicked into place like a suitcase clasp. And what of her husband, building a boat in the dustiest place on earth? Jack imagined going somewhere else with Annie, back to Chicago even. It was foolish, juvenile. But there it was, and he didn't push the idea away.

“Town meeting is set for two weeks out,” Styron said.

Jack Lily squelched his musings and sipped his coffee.

“Governor's supposed to allocate FERA funds to the county but hell if any of us out here has seen anything,” he said. “They think people'll become dependent.”

“People go hungry before they go on relief,” Styron said.

“Tell that to the statehouse. Not to mention rumor has it Oklahoma City's got a surplus.”

“Who's coming?”

“Someone supposed to tell people how to apply for funds. Only three men showed up in Beaver. Afraid, I guess. Our job is to talk it up, get notices in,” Jack Lily said. It would be such a relief to leave his responsibilities, Mulehead, behind, the whole dry mess of it.

“How's the boy doing, anyway? Any word?” Styron asked.

Jack tensed his shoulders up toward his ears.

“I don't know any more than you. I'll pay a call this evening.” How Annie would react to seeing him, he couldn't say, but it would be more noticeable if he didn't visit.

Styron shook his head. “A nice kid.” He wiped toast through the grease left on his plate.

“Say, you've been holding out on me,” Jack said, changing the subject.

“Pardon?”

“Your lady friend.”

She seemed a slightly odd choice for Styron. A little matronly, a little frothy even, going on about the lemonade. And Styron had seemed sheepish in his introduction and then relieved when she'd finally stopped talking.

“Hattie. Hattie Daniels. Lives over in Herman. Yeah, well. I don't know. I didn't know if things were going to work out.”

“Have they?”

“I suppose yes. Yes,” Styron said. “I like her.”

His tone had the practical conviction of someone appraising a tractor, but Jack didn't pursue it. Styron was still young, and Jack knew he had no advice to give about women.

Jack stood. “I have a meeting with the dinosaur people. You can sit in if you want.”

“That one's a little far-fetched, even for me,” Styron said.

*   *   *

F
RED'S TEMPERATURE HAD
come down some, but when the coughing came on, spasms overtook him until he spat phlegm like mud into the bucket next to the bed. The curtains were pulled against the sun and a fan was aimed directly at the bed. As ice and sweat wet the bedclothes, Annie changed them, rolling Fred from side to side. After he had slept, she propped him up and fed him some beef broth, which he sipped eagerly. On his tablet he wrote, “Look out for birds,” and then pointed to the ceiling.

“Birds?”

“Flying low,” he wrote, and pointed again.

He was still delirious from the fever, his eyes like embers. There was a small part of her that liked taking care of him like this, as if he were still her baby boy. She ducked her head and he nodded.