“Prairie chickens,” Evie says, skipping up to Celia and pointing toward the spot where the birds disappeared.
Joining the others, Ruth nods but doesn’t seem to have the breath to answer. She places one hand on her lower back and stretches.
“You feeling okay?” Celia says, motioning to the others to stop. “Did we go too far?”
Ruth shakes her head and signals that she needs a moment to rest. Before Ruth came to live with them, Celia took her walks along the dirt road, walking as far as County Road 54 before heading home. She needed fresh air, she would tell Arthur, and some time to herself. But what she really needed was a place to cry where no one would hear, a place where she could cry so hard that she choked and hiccupped and when she was done and her nose had stopped running, she would return home, saying her allergies were acting up or the wind and dust had reddened her eyes. She never told Arthur that she cried because she missed home and her parents, even though they were both dead. She never told him she missed walking Evie to school or visiting with the other ladies at Ambrozy’s Deli. She never told him that she cried because in Kansas she is still afraid. She is afraid that he won’t need her in the same way. She is afraid she’ll never know how to be a mother in Kansas. And mostly, she is afraid of being alone. But now, she has Ruth. Thank goodness for Ruth, but having her in the family also means they must walk the pastures instead of the road where Ray might happen along in his truck.
“Hey, look,” Evie shouts, holding one mitten to her forehead to shade her eyes and pointing with the other toward the fields south of the house. “There’s Daniel. And that’s Ian with him.”
“Where do you suppose they’re going?” Celia asks, knowing that it’s Daniel not because she can see his face but because Ian’s limp gives them away.
“Out for a walk, I suppose,” Elaine says as the two silhouettes disappear over a rise in the pasture.
“Well,” Evie says, swiveling on one heel so she can march back down the hill. “I hope they’re not up to no good.”
Celia pats the small of Ruth’s back and gestures for everyone to follow Evie toward home. “I’ll tell you what,” Celia says. “No good will be had if we don’t all get warmed up soon.”
At the bottom of the hill, Evie stops, points toward the road straight ahead where a black sedan appears out of the glare of the late-day sun and shouts, “Look. It’s Father Flannery’s car.”
Celia stops midway down the hill and pulls her jacket closed. “We don’t have to go back, Ruth,” she says. The prairie chickens rise up again as the car passes, kicking up dust and gravel. “Arthur can see to him.”
Elaine nods. “Yes, we could stay out a while longer.”
“They’ll be waiting,” Ruth says, tugging on the edges of her stocking cap and continuing toward home. “Can’t hide from this forever.”
Daniel stares down at Ian and thinks that even flat on his stomach, Ian is crooked. Not as crooked as when he has to swing one leg over the bench seats in the school cafeteria, but crooked all the same. He is wearing his new black boots and even though his mother said they were only for church and school, Ian wears them all the time because they make things almost normal for him. One of the boots, the right one, has a two-inch heel while the other has a normal, flat heel. The thick heel is almost thick enough, but not quite and black boots don’t do anything about a spine that looks like a stretched-out question mark. As Ian lifts up on his elbows, pressing his cheek to the stock of Daniel’s new.22-caliber rifle, his shoulders sink under the weight of his head. Black boots don’t do anything about Ian’s oversized head, either. None of Daniel’s Detroit friends had giant heads or lopsided legs. They were regular kids with regular-shaped bodies. Not knowing why but wanting to look somewhere else, anywhere else but at Ian, Daniel turns toward the road as a black sedan drives over the hill to the north.
“That Father Flannery?” Ian asks, lifting his head up out of his shoulders for a moment before letting it sink again.
“Yeah. How’d you know?”
“Everyone knows he’s coming today.” Ian rests his right cheek against the rifle.
Pulling his jacket closed, Daniel exhales and squats next to Ian.
“Not too close,” Ian says so Daniel scoots a few feet away, flipping up his collar and wrapping his arms around his waist. “Go there, behind the grass where they won’t see you.”
Daniel waddles a few more feet to the left where he’ll be hidden by a clump of brome grass. “Won’t my folks hear the shots?” he asks, still able to see the roof of his house. “I mean, we’re not so far away.”
“No one thinks anything about a gunshot this time of year. Hush and let me get the first one. The rest are easier.” Ian inhales and lifts his head again. “There,” he whispers. “Did you see it?”
Daniel stretches enough to see beyond the grass into the pasture on the other side of the barbed-wire fence. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“It’ll be back. Sit tight.”
“How does everyone know? About Father Flannery, I mean.”
“Everyone knows everything.” Ian props the gun in his right hand and breathes short puffs of warm air into his left fist. A clump of brown hair has fallen out of his hat and across his forehead. “Everyone knows everything about everybody,” Ian says, tucking the clump of hair back under his stocking cap with his warmed-up left hand.
In Detroit, nobody knew anything about anybody. They were too busy worrying about the Negroes who wanted to work side by side with the white people. They were too busy worrying about the color of their neighborhood and kids who couldn’t play outside anymore. Nobody had time to care about someone like Father Flannery or why he was visiting on a Saturday afternoon. People in Kansas have nothing but time. That’s what Mama says whenever Grandma Reesa shows up without an invitation.
“Know what else they say?” Ian says, crawling forward a few inches on his hips and elbows. The boot with the thick heel drags behind.
Daniel shakes his head. “Got mud stuck in your shoes,” he says, pointing at the tread on the bottom of Ian’s boots. Ida Bucher will know he wore them in the field. She’ll whip him because money doesn’t grow on trees and neither do black boots with extra-thick heels. “You’ll need a nail to dig that out.”
“They say your Uncle Ray went crazy from drinking.”
Daniel stands and looks back at his house. Though he can’t see the driveway, he knows Father Flannery has parked his black car there. He will have gone inside and is probably sitting at the kitchen table. Mama will take his coat and serve him a piece of the apple pie that Aunt Ruth made after breakfast. Dad will drink a cup of coffee, cream and two sugars.
“He didn’t even get his crop planted.” Ian’s head pops up, his legs go rigid and he fires.
Daniel stumbles backward, crushing a few feet of the new winter wheat and presses his hands over his ears. Beside him, Ian lifts up on his knees and watches his target. Wondering who or what may have heard them, Daniel scans the horizon.
“Got him,” Ian says, flipping the safety and shifting the gun to the other side so he can pass it off to Daniel. “Now be real quiet. And get ready.”
Keeping low to the ground where he’ll stay out of sight, Daniel scoots toward Ian again and they switch places.
“Come on,” Ian says, pulling back the bolt action. An empty casing pops out and flies over his left shoulder and after a new bullet has dropped into place, he pushes the rifle at Daniel. “Hurry up or you’ll miss them.”
“Who didn’t plant his crop?”
“Your Uncle Ray,” Ian says, flipping off the safety and pressing Daniel’s right hand over the stock of the gun. “A lot of nice land going to waste. That’s what Dad says. My brother says Ray got sick from all the drinking and the sheriff took him to Clark City. Says it’s been coming for years. Says that’s where people go to dry out.”