Carlisle flipped three more cards to a king he couldn’t play, then whistled a single descending note to emphasize his displeasure with either the game or the plan. Dr. Stober wondered how frequently, if ever, Carlisle put a washcloth to his face.
“Five hours to get there,” Carlisle said, flipping another set of three cards. “Five hours back. Minimum.”
“Which makes it fortunate that I came at a slow time,” Dr. Stober said.
“Might get a customer, though,” Carlisle said. “Been known to happen.”
“I’ll pay for the gas, and I’ll pay you by the hour,” Dr. Stober said.
“Whether the car’s there or not,” Carlisle said, not as a question but as a contractual clarification.
“That’s correct,” Stober said. He wanted to say that he knew the car would be there, but it had occurred to him that if the Scottish girl and the runaway husband could steal a car, they could sell it, too. Or just keep driving it to destinations unknown.
“Alrighty then,” Carlisle said, standing and leaving the cards where they lay.
100
Ansel held tight to the post in the center of the barn for the strength to keep upright. To cough as he coughed was like being made to turn himself inside out, lung by lung, and the liquid that was rising was not bile or water but blood, and more of it than he would have thought possible. But in time the bleeding stopped, and he was grateful, as he lay down on a horse blanket, that the blood was not bright red on the bedroom floor or on the sheets, like childbirth blood, because that would terrify Aldine. He would tell her what had happened later, after he had gathered strength to drive the tractor one more time to Sonia’s house, for more provisions. He would tell her what they needed to do to keep her and the baby safe: separate this, separate that, he remembered. Separate forks, separate plates, separate beds.
101
Will Cooper stepped off the Santa Fe–Topeka in Emporia and wondered in which direction he should go to find his wife’s sister, the one he had not saved. A porter provided directions to the police department office, where a sturdy middle-aged woman in a blue dress asked if she could help him in any way.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I’ve come here to look for my sister-in-law,” and when he said her name was Aldine McKenna, he could tell that something serious was already known, that the name was familiar, the way her eyes flicked and she stood up and said, without smiling, “Just a minute, sir. Why don’t you have a seat and I’ll go have a word with the deputy.”
102
Carlisle had just driven over the Loam County line and Dr. Stober was sucking on a clove-flavored Necco Wafer to keep himself awake when he saw, in the distance, a yellowish bank of clouds. They were driving straight toward it, so he guessed they’d be getting wet. Or maybe snowed upon. He didn’t mind snow, especially if he was watching it from a warm quarter, could in fact be lulled by the hush of it falling. But he knew the dangers of a heavy snow, out driving in unfamiliar territory, down unmarked and unpaved roads. It was a curious color for a snow cloud, though, and the air didn’t feel wet when Dr. Stober rolled down the window and stuck out a tentative hand.
“Jesus,” Carlisle said. “It’s one of them dust blizzards. Roll that window back up and hang on.”
103
Aldine didn’t see the growing bank of clouds because for once the baby had fallen asleep after nursing and she had fallen asleep, too, curled around her like the pod around a pea. She didn’t wake up until Ansel stood in the bedroom at an unusual distance from the bed, his face stricken and strange, his manner odd.
“What is it?” she asked, talking low because Vivien was still asleep in her warm arms.
“I’m going now,” he said.
“To Sonia’s?”
“Yes.”
“What’s wrong? Don’t you feel well?”
“A little fever’s all. I’ll rest when I get back.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t go. We still have cornmeal and coffee and syrup. You can go tomorrow.”
“I think I should go now. The weather looks like it could get bad.”
“Then you shouldn’t go. Or you should take the car. You’d have no protection from the wind on the tractor.”
“I can’t drive the car until I take it back to Emporia. We decided that.” His voice was strained and he sounded so tired.
“Give me a kiss then.”
He didn’t come any closer.
“Not even on the cheek?”
“I’d better not,” he said, his voice almost a whisper. “I’ll kiss you when I’m better.”
“All right,” she said. “When you’re better. But take the car, please?”
He gave a little wave, then nodded and went down the stairs.
When she woke up again, the house was completely dark and she thought she must have slept the whole day, but then she heard the hurled grit of the wind, and when she looked out the windows, she knew what she would see. She tried to nurse Vivien in the darkness but Vivien howled; Aldine rocked and rocked her and tried to remember how long ago Ansel had left for Sonia’s, and if that were long enough for him to be safe inside Sonia’s house, where the walls would form a shelter against the wind.
104
Carlisle speeded up as if to get someplace before it hit. The clouds got higher and darker, and the few grasses that survived on either side of the road seemed to be trying to bury themselves. A bird swooped in front of their windshield so suddenly that Carlisle touched the brakes, and then they felt the thump of a rabbit under the wheels. Dr. Stober placed a smooth gray Necco Wafer on his tongue and checked the window again. It was tight. “Hang on,” Carlisle said, and he pulled off the road and into a parking lot, where he snugged up close to the sheltered side of an abandoned building.
Like a living mountain the dust traveled toward them, and Dr. Stober was startled by the changing colors of the light within the car: pale yellow, then smoky gray, then no color at all: darkness in midafternoon, like an eclipse. The smell of the dust was overpowering and he coughed through the fingers he had instinctively used to cover his mouth and nose. It tasted like the dirt he’d eaten once when he was too small to know better, the same moldy, rusty taste and bony grit. He kept on breathing and swallowing. He took out the last handkerchief Lucy had ironed and wiped his tongue on it, and then touched its other side to his tearing eyes. He wondered calmly if he could suffocate in the car. He coughed, he cleaned his tongue, and he thought of Lucy.
It seemed longer, but by his pocket watch, it didn’t last more than fifteen minutes. The blackness grayed, then browned, then turned a kind of brown-orange until the world was merely dingy. It was like opening your eyes in dirty water. He sat still in the car and waited to see what would happen. The dust remained in the air, but it was no longer buffeting the car. The wind had either died or moved on.