Devils Unto Dust(3)
I boil some water with a small scoop of coffee so I can think straight, then get to work on the bread. I mix flour and a pinch of our precious salt with the sourdough starter I’ve kept going for almost a year. I take out my anger at the unfairness of this life on my dough, beating it viciously. When my arms are tired I cover the bread with a worn and holey cloth and leave it on the table by the grimy window. The bread rises with the sun, the symmetry relaxing me. Sunrise is a glorious thing in the desert, the way the light breaks and spreads over the flatlands, a beacon of safety. The shakes are sluggish during the day, and easier to spot. They don’t have their minds anymore, and I think the heat makes them tired, just as it does with the rest of us.
There are bits of flour on my hands and I realize that I am still wearing my nightgown as I wipe my fingers on the scratchy thing. I pull on a pair of worn trousers, the pant legs rolled up to fit and the waist held up by a snakeskin belt Pa made for my thirteenth birthday. That was back when he still had Ma to remind him of birthdays, and I’ve had to punch new holes in it twice. The pants were Micah’s until he outgrew them; it annoys me that my little brother is already taller than me at fourteen, or at least it would if it didn’t embarrass him so much. Micah is shy around strangers, though he talks back to me often enough.
I glance at where he sits at the table, tinkering with a penny knife with a loose catch. He’s forever trying to figure out how to take things apart and put them back together. When he was eight he stole Pa’s pocket watch, the one with his initials engraved, and pried all the gears out. He never figured out how to repair it, but Pa let him keep it and he still wears it, for show I guess. Since then Micah’s gotten much better at the fixing part, which is helpful, seeing as how the twins destroy everything in their path.
“Can you watch the twins later?” I ask him. “I have to go to the Homestead. We need flour, and I need to pay our dues.”
That gets his attention. “Aw, do I have to? Can’t you just tie ’em to a post somewhere?”
“If you want to go, I’ll stay here instead.”
Micah makes a face at me. The Homestead’s where the shake hunters convene and drink and fight and generally make a loud nuisance of themselves. It’s where the Judge sits and collects his fees, where my father gambles away whatever money he makes. I’d be happy never to step foot in that place again, but Ma always said you need to pick your battles.
I give him a crooked smile. “It’s only for a couple hours. If I have to suffer, you have to suffer.”
By midmorning, the temperature is starting to climb. I tie back my hair, but pieces of it come loose and plaster to my face. I haven’t cut my hair in more than a year, not since my mother died. She always cut it for me, and I can’t quite bring myself to do it without her. It seems wrong, like a final admission that she’s not coming back.
Once the dough has risen, I divide it into fat round biscuits to bake. Half I’ll leave for my siblings to argue over and the rest I’ll take to trade at the Homestead. I rummage around the tins on the shelf until I find the empty coffee can we hide our money in. I pull out the bills and I sit at the table and count it three times while Micah watches.
“Ninety-eight,” I say, setting the bills down on the table. “Minus twenty for the fee . . .”
“Seventy-eight,” Micah says, always quicker than me. “That won’t last long.”
“It will get us through next month.” It amazes me that all we have in the world can be held in one hand.
I count out twenty dollars and put the rest of the money back in the can. I fold the bills and stuff them into a pocket sewn into my belt, where no one will see them. I don’t trust the kind of people that frequent the Homestead. It’s not much money all told, but there are hunters who would easily kill me for it.
“And after next month?” Micah asks quietly.
“I don’t know. Maybe Elsie has work for me at the bar, or repairs need doing. Pa might send something.”
Micah scoffs at me, and I hold up a hand to silence him.
“The twins are awake,” I say quickly. I can hear tentative footsteps, and I don’t want them to overhear. Catherine has taken to hiding around corners and eavesdropping. She is too much like Micah; she understands too much for a seven-year-old. Calvin I do not worry about; he is more interested in lizards than conversation.
“You’re up already,” Cal says grumpily as he pulls out a chair. The twins like to jump on me to wake me up, and the crosser I get the more they laugh.
“You’re going to hurt me one day, and then you’ll be sorry.”
“Prob’ly not,” Cath says seriously, and I try to smile. The twins have our mother’s coloring, sandy blond hair and light blue eyes. Micah and I take after our father, dark eyes and brown hair streaked light from days in the sun. We all have the same look about us, though, and it’s easy to see we’re related.
“I made biscuits, you ingrates. Clean your hands.”
They ignore me as usual, knowing I won’t press too hard. Breakfast is hardly a feast, but they eat the biscuits and some dried apricots with gusto. The twins try to see who can make Micah laugh first, which gets more difficult every day. They’re happy; it’s such a simple thing to please them. I watch the three of them, a smile frozen on my face. I love my brothers and sister, I do, but there is another part of me that wishes I could leave them all behind. It’s selfish, but this isn’t the life I wanted for myself. Some days it’s all I can do to drag myself out of bed to face the washing and cooking and mending, the walls of this house slowly closing in on me, trapping me here forever.