All the Forgivenesses by Elizabeth Hardinger

Author:Elizabeth Hardinger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2019-07-18T16:00:00+00:00

BOOK TWO

Chapter 15

When me and Sam come rolling into Wiley, Kansas—east-southeast of Augusta and pretty much straight east of Rose Hill—the sun was low, and there was dry clouds spread out along the edge of the world like wavy threads, stripes of pink and orange and purple. The last of the light flared behind the clouds, giving each one a white halo. The prairie grass took on a green-yellow glow, and the bark turned gray on the few little trees that was scattered around. The grass give off a dry, crackly smell.

A light wind come up out of the south and stirred everthing—the grass, our clothes, our hair—and I shivered inside and out. It felt like something big was about to start, like this was what my life’d been leading up to.

In the afterglow I looked over the town. There was a wide road down the middle, and to the south there was a store, a hotel, and a bank. A livery stable fronted the railroad tracks to the east. On the northeast side across the tracks was a pen with cattle, along with a small, flat building we found out later was John Naab’s sorghum mill. Roads took off both ways, and I reckon there was fifteen-twenty houses. A ways off, half a mile or less, you could see farmhouses, with barns, horses and cows, some pigs and chickens. To the north and east was the Flint Hills—wave after wave of smooth-topped, flattened bumps of earth as if a giant had spilled globs of porridge. You never seen the like.

Everwhere else was flat. You could see futher than you could in Missouri, way futher than you could in Kentucky. Miles and miles. The prairie was flatter than it had looked from the train window when we run off to Oklahoma. I never knowed there was no place so flat. I thought, how am I going to make them believe, back home, how flat this is?

A handful of horses was tied up next to the buildings, and there was a few teams and wagons, a couple motor trucks, and a half a dozen automobiles. A woman was walking along the main road, carrying a round box. Two men was setting in the back of a motor truck with a dog. They stared at us for a second and then went back to visiting.

We rolled up next to the hotel, the tallest building in town, three stories. Sam clucked, and the horses come to a stop. “Reckon this is it,” he said.

I stretched my back real hard till it popped.

He put his hand on my leg. “You’ll like it here, Bertie, I bet.”

“Nice-looking store.” The last of the sunlight slipped away.

“See there?” He grinned with his whole face, like he done, and he hopped off the wagon and put his hand up to help me. Softly he sung, just like it was a real song, “Three bucks a day, sweetheart, three bucks a day.” Seemed like Sam could always make me smile.

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