Dust (4 page)

Robert breathed in. Again, a weight pressed on his tongue. He closed his eyes and saw the image of a truck going west, dust trailing behind it. "West," he answered, dreamily. He opened his eyes, squinted. The sun seemed brighter. He glanced from the sergeant's face to his father's, who stared as though Robert had spoken in tongues. He quickly added: "Maybe Matthew walked past town. Maybe he did."

Ramsden nodded. He steered the car onto the main road.

Robert was glad he'd chosen to speak up because he knew west was the right way to go, like a compass knows where to point. He had an inexplicable urge to look through the back window at the grain elevators.

He glanced at his mother. Her eyes were wide open, as if the car were driving through a snowstorm and she didn't dare lose track of the road. She had grown thinner in the last few minutes, the skin tight against her cheekbones. Her lips moved:
"deargodjesus I pray thealmighty-sweetlord find us and find our son and hold us close."

The road led to Maple Creek. Robert had been on it a few times, most recently last fall when his dad had taken him to the cattle sale. But it was essentially a new, unfamiliar road, straight as a railroad track for a mile or so, then twisting and weaving around some hills. They were nowhere near the majestic stature of the Cypress Hills, but they were high enough to hide things.

"The unexpected" could happen here, and that was often bad, like a sneaky bandit attack in a western novel.

But it worked the opposite way, too. The unexpected could be swell: a grand surprise. Like finding a treasure chest overflowing with gold coins in your backyard, or you could be sitting in your white tent in the middle of the Sahara and an old friend pops in and says, "Hello, partner."

Robert held his head high to see over the seat. Banks of dirt filled the ditch, and tumble-weeds—"Russian thistles" his dad called them—clung to the fence. Had they actually blown in all the way from Russia? He pictured the thistles tumbling over the North Pole, the Yukon, and landing here in Saskatchewan. The thistles struggled against the barrier like soldiers trying to scramble over barbed wire. It reminded Robert how his Uncle Edmund had gone over the trenches into No Man's Land.

A brave lad. Uncle Alden had always said his younger brother was a brave, brave lad. They'd fought side by side in France.

The car rounded a corner. Before them, the land was even flatter, the road stretching for miles. Robert's dad craned his neck, leaned ahead, blocking Robert's view.

"He couldn't have walked this far," the sergeant muttered, pressing the brakes.

Robert felt his mom tug on his shirt as she said, "Sit down and let the men do the looking."

He leaned away so that her frail hand fell to the seat, then he looked back out the window again.

They reached an approach that led into the sandhills. The sergeant turned the car onto an old trail and asked, "Do you see tracks?"

Robert gripped the edge of the seat to keep from sliding down when they hit a bump. He saw two lines in the sand. Fresh tire tracks.

The sergeant turned down the approach and followed the trail. Soon the grass became sparse and the bushes short and leafless, as though they didn't want to get too close to the sun. The wind had torn open the tops of the hills, exposing sand. It reminded Robert of Moses and the pharaoh and how God had turned Moses's staff into a snake. First the plague of locusts. Then the frogs. Then the wrath of God. That was the order in the Bible. Next the flood. But here, under the wide blue skies, the wind was the flood. Everyone drowned in it.

He thought of Matthew alone on that road, the wind swirling around, lifting him into the air, taking him away. It felt like that was what had happened.

The road lost definition, but they could still make out the tire tracks, obscured slightly by drifting sand. The sergeant inched the vehicle ahead.

Robert wondered if the sand would continue to spread like the ice once had thousands of years ago, slowly taking over the soil. A sand age. Or like the way the cancer had spread through the old milk cow's eye and into her brain.

Suddenly, the car stopped.

The sergeant craned his neck and squinted. "Hmmm. The tracks end, just like that." He used the steering wheel to pull himself up and get closer to the windshield.

"To the right, go ... go there," a voice said. Robert gawked around for the source, but then noticed everyone was looking at him. Had he said it?

"What was that?" the sergeant asked.

Robert kept his mouth shut.

The sergeant's eyes were gentle again. He clunked the car into gear and steered right. Moments later he found the tracks again, which ran between two low hills.

Robert swallowed. His stomach churned, as if there were worms wriggling through it. Was this
apprehension
again? He saw a brown, ancient truck. Sun glinted off the chrome, blinding him. A shadow moved beside it, then the truck vanished.

His head ached, knowing somehow, in his gut, that he'd seen the past. Matthew's past.

A semicircular ridge of hills provided little protection from the wind. The tracks ended again and the sergeant stopped the car. He lifted his hat, rubbed at his bristly hair.

"Mr. Steelgate, please come with me," the sergeant said as he got out, the door squeaking in protest. Robert's dad pushed open his own door, sand grinding in its hinges. The wind whistled in, playing a soft note. Then they shoved the doors closed, silencing the song.

His mother moaned and rocked herself back and forth, her lips slightly parted, her eyes dull.

"Nooohhh."

He grasped her hand and she closed her eyes, lowered her voice, and began humming a soft hymn. He recognized it from church.

The sergeant and his dad crept into the gully. Ramsden examined an object on the ground. Tire tracks? Robert pulled himself up higher, keeping one hand on his mother. No, it was a red clay jar about six inches high. It looked broken.

He felt the need to touch it. He let go of his mom and yanked on the door handle.

"Noooohhh,"
she moaned louder.

He swallowed and quietly said, "Sorry, I have to go." He pushed open the door and a squadron of grasshoppers leaped away. They were here too, even though the grass was mostly dead. Their dark eyes were so much larger than the rest of their heads, like little black pearls. They hopped skyward as he walked.

His mother's moaning grew softer with each step. The object was indeed a broken jar. There was a dried orange residue on the inside. The jar looked as though it had come out of a pharaoh's tomb, with images on the side that seemed like drawings and writing at the same time. Hieroglyphs—he'd read about them in a book lent to him by his uncle.

Robert touched the orange substance.

"I've lost my doll,"
a girl's sad voice echoed inside Robert's head.
"I've lost my doll. Will you find it for me?"
He leaned closer to the jar, rubbed inside. Nothing.

He watched as Ramsden searched a clump of half-grown bushes. The sergeant reached for something hanging in the barbed branches, pulled it out like he was performing a magic trick. Robert's dad staggered back.

It was Matthew's straw hat.

Four weeks later, Robert was standing on the train tracks next to the Pioneer grain elevator. The tracks stretched in a long line from his feet to forever. They looked like the spine of a dead dinosaur or giant sea snake. What were the back bones called again?
Vertebrae. That
was the word scientists used.
Archaeologists
—the guys who dig in dirt, who found Tutankhamen buried in Egypt—they would say these were
vertebrae
. Snake vertebrae.

It would have to have been a giant snake, though, like the one that wrapped itself around the world in the Viking legends. But that serpent was under the ocean. Maybe Saskatchewan had been under water once, too. And the sun had shone and shone and dried up everything, including the snake, leaving just its bleached bones.

"Robert." His dad's voice cut through his thoughts. "Get over here."

Robert jogged toward the elevator. His father had finished dealing with the agent and now sat on the wagon, his jaw set hard. It had been set hard for quite a while now.

Robert climbed to his seat. His dad flicked the reins and the horses trotted down the road, iron horseshoes
ping ping
ing as they crossed the tracks.

Main Street was almost empty; a truck sat in front of the grocer's and a wagon stood by the hotel. Robert had to count silently to figure what day it was. Saturday. He wanted to buy candy at Mr. Parson's Billiards and Barber Shop, but he had no pennies and didn't feel brave enough to ask for any.

His father parked near the grocer's and swung to the ground. "I'll be back in twenty minutes," he said, then he plodded across the wooden sidewalk.

Old Mr. Gundy sat on the bench outside the store, whittling a piece of wood. He glanced away from Robert's dad. Robert had seen that a lot lately. People didn't look at him or his mom or dad. It was like they didn't exist any more. Or maybe no one wanted to see what was in their eyes.

His dad hadn't told him to stay put, so he climbed down and walked to the pool parlor. His mom had forbidden him to go in there because the men who played pool on the long tables always took the Lord's name in vain. Swearing was a sin, he knew that much. Those ruffians would feel God's wrath, maybe even get hit by lightning while brandishing their pool cues. It'd be quite the sight to see, he decided, so long as God didn't also strike down boys who watched from the sidelines.

A barber's pole, the colors faded, twirled slowly in the window. He pushed on the door; it had been hung crooked so it slid across a groove in the floor. Cigarette smoke drifted up his nose. The parlor was hazy, giving him the impression the building was quite close to that "hot place" far below. He pictured the Devil, lying under the floorboards, blowing smoke between the cracks.

Robert stood in the barbershop, which was separated from the pool parlor by a low railing. The barber's chair was a majestic, long-backed metal seat padded with red leather cushions. When Mr. Parsons cut hair he'd swivel it around so his clients could watch the games. Uncle Alden had paid so Robert could have his hair cut in that very throne. It was the grandest haircut he'd ever had. The chair smelled of hair oils and dried shaving foam. A washbasin sat on the counter, surrounded by bottles of blue and red oils.

He turned to the glass candy counter. An intricate brass cash register sat on top. Lined up behind the smudged glass were all the things he could have bought if only he'd had a few pennies. Chocolate wafers, Red Hand Chewing Gum, licorice, jawbreakers, and small sugar candies that were ten for a penny. His mouth watered. He tried to commit them to memory.

A sharp
crack
drew his attention toward the pool room. The unshaven men at the long tables were dressed in dirty work clothes, hand-rolled cigarettes dangling from their lips. A few were out-of-towners, maybe even hobos on their way east or west, trying to outrun the drought.

They glanced at him with a flick of the head, no more. It was as though a bird of ill omen were perched on his shoulder, invisible to him. If they looked too long they might miss their shots, lose their good luck.

In an attempt to be less conspicuous, he leaned against the door frame and watched as colors swirled around the tables. Each ball became a planet and the players gods, moving entire worlds.

Mike Tuppence, a boy of six or seven, sat on a chair in the corner. He wore suspenders and an oversized shirt that might have belonged to an older brother. His family lived way up on the bench, the tallest part of the Cypress Hills. Robert's mom had once said she pitied Mike because his mother had died giving birth to him. The doctor had pulled hard to get little Mike into this world and now he was being dragged through all the sinful places in Horshoe and had no chance of growing up straight. It didn't help that his father was a drinker.

Mike saw Robert. He got down from his chair one foot at a time and arched his back like a cat. He shuffled over, then leaned against the other side of the door frame, exploring his teeth with a toothpick, eyes focused on the game.

Robert glanced down. Mike's feet were bare and horribly dirty.

Mike took the toothpick out of his mouth. "They're gonna open the movie parlor again," he said.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, that new guy's gonna do it, and he'll play a film. Dad said he'd take me."

Robert had seen several talkies and a couple of five-cent silent films with Uncle Alden. When his mom found out she'd spanked Robert with the wooden stirring spoon and yelled at his uncle, swearing he'd only be allowed to visit at Christmas and Easter. She relented a month or so later, but she kept the spoon hanging on a nail in the kitchen as a reminder to Robert.

"It should be fun," Mike said.

A man cursed when his ball bounced out of the pocket. Robert looked up, expecting lightning. Nothing happened. God must be busy today, he decided. Or maybe he's out of lightning bolts.

"So's Matthew coming to town?" Mike asked.

Robert thought hard about the question. "No," he said finally. "He can't."

"Why not? Did he do something bad?"

"No."

"When will he come?"

"He can't come. He's gone."

Mike watched his father hit the cue ball and miss his target. Another curse was launched into the room and it hung in the air.

"I know he's gone away, Dad said so. But he's gonna come back, isn't he? So's we can play together?"

Robert glowered at him. "He's not coming back. Not ever. He's probably dead, okay? Dead. Like a little sparrow that falls out of the nest. Dead."

The word had a weight all its own, could be swung like a hammer. Robert still didn't know exactly what it meant.

Mike looked up at Robert, disbelieving, eyes welling up with tears. He slumped his shoulders and went back to his chair.

Robert felt sick in his gut and angry. He wished he hadn't used that word. He walked out of the hall and across the wooden sidewalk. The sun forced him to squint. He climbed into the wagon and waited for his father.