That’s what they’d become to Gavin, too—until this afternoon.
That young woman. He couldn’t get her out of his mind. Was it because she’d finally put a face, a real face, to the anonymous rubes and the jokes at their expense?
All he knew was that after seeing her, his previous empty promises filled him with shame. Because to this living, breathing—yearning—young woman, and the others like her, this land that Gavin had falsely described was a land that stole not just their hearts but their very lives. It taunted and teased, sure, with its golden sunsets in the summer, the new wheat looking abundant, life-giving. Until the next day when either hail or grasshoppers or both tumbled from the sky, trampling that wheat to the earth, breaking the hearts of those who gazed at it, desperately, from the door of a miserable soddie.
Today, Gavin had finally seen their faces. The mother’s face—a promise, or more precisely, a threat, of what the girl would look like in a few years: weathered lines, rough skin, a mouth turned down at the corners. Her shoulders stooped from carrying and fetching. And worrying. And they were out there on the prairie, still, in this storm.
Dropping back into his seat, Gavin rubbed his face with his hands, over and over—the actions of a man just one act shy of the asylum, he realized. Then he began to jiggle his left knee. He was ignited with the need to do something, anything—anything but write a joke. Or tell another lie. He needed to do something true, something heroic. Gavin rose, dropping his pen, scattering the blank pages; he hitched up his pants, filled with purpose.
But then he saw his reflection in the window—the soft jowls of his face, the expansive gut straining his suspenders to capacity. He plopped back down in his chair, stumped. What on earth could he do?
His only worth lay in his pen and his imagination. And for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out how to use them for anything heroic, not while the storm was still raging.
Christ, he sure could use a snort. Maybe the Lily was still open, for what did a man like Ol’ Lieutenant have to do but keep his doors open for poor sons of bitches with no real use in the world—
Like himself.
CHAPTER 12
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OLLIE TENNANT, COATED IN SNOW, his long lashes beaded with ice, pushed the door open to the little storefront where his children attended school. He nearly fell inside, given a mighty shove by the bullying wind.
He had to take a few minutes to catch his breath, let his lungs expand in the dry, marginally warmer air, blink his glazed eyes until he could see again. The journey to the north side of town from the Lily, even for a giant of a man like him, had taken its toll. He’d never lost his way, but for damn sure, the storm had played every trick it could on him, obscuring street crossings, muffling the sound of horses and wagons, tickling up the back of his coat with its icy fingers, kicking at him from all sides so that he had to inch his way, holding on to every available hitching post, streetlamp, street sign, and doorway.
But he’d made it, and now he was aware that he was being gaped at by a handful of children, including the two who resembled him and bore his last name. And by a young white woman who was cowering in a far corner, away from the colored children; she seemed to press herself into the very wall, her eyes wide with horror, as she registered his presence.
Finally his two children broke into a grin and shouted joyfully, “Papa!” as they ran to pull him farther into the room, closer to the small potbellied stove that radiated some heat.
“Papa! You’ve come!”
“Hasn’t anybody else?” Ollie’s coat and gloves began to thaw, dripping water on the floor; he went over to the row of empty pegs—the children all had on their coats and scarves or jackets and shawls—and hung up his ponderous coat. Returning to the stove, rubbing his hands together, he counted the children—there were six, including his own. Plus the teacher.
“Grayson’s papa came and got him and his sister and then Jenny and Charles went home because they live down the street but the rest of us stayed put even though Teacher told us we could leave if we wanted to but we didn’t and now you’re here!” Little Francis, Ollie’s boy of nine, finally paused to take a breath. Ollie rubbed his son’s head and tugged gently on his ear, his sign to tell him to be quiet for now. Francis was well known for his ability to produce great quantities of speech on very little air.