The Boy Orator Read online

  He dragged his sack, eight or nine feet long, through the field toward the water-wagon and the weighing scale. Sunlight hammered his face. Little green bugs peppered his forehead and cheeks. A small girl, happy to be helping the adults, very serious and self-important, dipped a tin cup into a barrel of water and handed it to him. While he drank, two men lifted his sack onto the scale, a shiny metal pan hung on a chain attached to a raised wagon tongue; it dangled six or seven feet in the air. “Forty-five and …one-half pounds,” said one of the men.

  He’d have to do better than that if he was going to beat Randy Olin. He reached toward the little girl who was standing in the wagon and gave her the cup, a small movement that seemed to tear every muscle in his back. He limped into the field. Children walked steadily along the rows, carrying dripping water dippers to several of the pickers. The white kids were fascinated by the big black men. They tried to catch rides on their sacks, trailing the ground as the quiet workers moved up and down in a line. Harry could see the frustration, pain, and annoyance on the faces of the men; they couldn’t snap at the kids for fear of upsetting the whites and losing their jobs.

  Randy Olin was laughing at Jimmie. “That’s right, there are snakes here too, all over this field!” he said. Jimmie had been telling his snake story to everyone. “You can try to kill them, simpleton, grab a hoe from one of those wagons and chop them in two, but you know what happens then? Both halves jump to life! So you chop and chop and chop. Pretty soon there’s ten snakes slithering after you, rattling their tails and gnashing their fangs!” Jimmie screamed.

  “Shut up, Olin,” Harry said. “You’re the simpleton. That buttermilk on your face has seeped through your skin and into your brain, and there’s nothing left in there but a soggy mess of cereal.” He grabbed Jimmie’s arm and led him away.

  “Ith that true, Harry? The ten thnaketh?”

  “No, Jimmie. Randy Olin’s a liar. Don’t believe anything he tells you.”

  “Hey Shaughnessy!” Olin called across the field. “You pick like a girl! End of the day, I’ll have you beat by a mile!”

  Harry’s jaw clenched. He dropped to his knees and began to tug at the cotton. Right away, his joints burned again. Tears streamed down his face with every pluck and pull. Jimmie noticed his distress. “Harry, you all right?”

  “Just exhausted, that’s all.”

  “Let me help.”

  Harry shook his head but Jimmie said, “It’th okay, my thack’th full. Take it in. I’ll finith yourth.”

  Jimmie was big and seemed not to tire. Too dumb to know he was hurting, Harry thought: the kind of thing Olin would say. He smiled, then carried Jimmie’s sack to the wagon. “This is Blaine’s,” he whispered to the weighers. Olin, in the field, stared at him, astonished. Harry took a drink, watched several women, including his mother, in the shade of two maples weave ducking for extra sacks. She waved at him.

  By the time he returned to his spot in the field, Jimmie had nearly filled his sack. “Take a break, Harry,” Jimmie said merrily. Harry sat behind a thick clump of stalks, out of sight of the foreman and Randy Olin, kneading his muscles, catching his breath. He rolled himself a cigarette. Twenty minutes later he hauled his sack to the scale. Olin had a fit, his face as red as a sting. Harry could see him squint from several yards away, and pound his thighs with his fists.

  Back in the field, Harry said, “Jimmie, I appreciate your help, but—”

  “It’th okay, Harry. You’re a good friend to me.”

  So the rest of that afternoon Jimmie regularly spelled Harry; by sunset, he’d picked enough for each of them to top three hundred pounds. The weighers counted out the money. Olin accused Harry of cheating but no one listened to him. People were tired and ready to leave for the day. “It’s politics, Olin,” Harry told the boy. “Expediency. Finding, and appealing to, the proper constituency.”

  “Huh?”

  “Exactly the response I expected from you. Which is why you’ll never beat me.”

  He turned for home. There, against the sky, surprising him, was Avram’s dark profile, the big black hat and flowing shirt. The peddler passed in his noisy hack, nodding hello to the pickers. Harry tasted lemonade deep in the back of his throat, remembering the flask Avram had given him the day they’d moved the wagon. Thin clouds, purple and gold, streaked the yellow horizon behind the salesman’s head. Watching him all alone in his seat, bobbing, flicking the reins, Harry was overcome by loneliness, the ache and the loss he’d felt since parting with Mollie. Did Avram have a wife? A child? How did anyone survive this windy, rocky world on his own? Avram turned a corner at the edge of the field before Harry could say anything to him. The weighers called good-night. Harry brushed dark seeds from his sleeves, tried to shake the sadness from his mind. He folded up his sack, and followed the ruts in the road.

  FATHER MCCARTNEY MURMURED, “AMEN,” then gave a lesson from the Pentateuch. “Good tidings” closed the evening service: “Friends, just this morning I was contacted by Sheriff Stephens. He told me that the ‘bone-dry’ statute will be repealed as of the first of next week, and all charges against our neighbors”—he indicated Annie Mae and her three co-conspirators—“have been dismissed.”

  A burst of applause from the pews. Afterwards, on the church steps, the priest shook Annie Mae’s hand and told her she’d been very brave. He ruffled Harry’s hair as if petting a dog. The next day, when he got home from the fields, Harry saw a picture in the paper of Father McCartney shaking hands with Commissioner Boyd. The caption read “Faith in Compromise.”

  Harry tried to squelch his jealousy and his feeling that he’d been outmaneuvered by the priest, who seemed to crave celebrity of his own. His mother was free—that was the important thing—and besides, at least this was a triumph in a season of defeat. The Democrats in Oklahoma City had passed the Grandfather Clause, killing the Negro vote. The Democratic candidate, Lee Cruce, had been elected governor on a promise of attracting new investment capital to the state. In the end, J. T. Cumbie pulled over twenty-four thousand votes, an impressive showing, but not enough to change politics-as-usual. Warren Stargell had told Andrew, “Cumbie’s taking it hard, I hear, but he swears he’ll rise again to fight another day.” Harry heard little conviction in his voice. Cruce was a disastrous choice, Andrew said: a banker by trade, he was an overly cautious man, deliberate and without a shred of humor. He supported black disenfranchisement. He swore he’d block the Socialists’ attempts to distribute textbooks, free, in all the public schools. Andrew, Warren Stargell, and the other members of the league sat for hours in their meetings, barely moving or talking.

  Their lethargy affected Harry’s work in the fields. He was grateful for Jimmie’s help. Following the incident in the pond, Jimmie had decided to convert to Catholicism. He liked Harry and Harry was Catholic, he explained; priests didn’t go anywhere near muddy old swimming holes; and he enjoyed Confession. It was like telling stories, he thought, so over and over he told the story of the snake to Father McCartney, who emerged dazed from the booth each time he’d blessed and forgiven Jimmie. Harry enjoyed the priest’s annoyance.

  One afternoon in the fields Jimmie leaped into the air, wringing his arms. He called Harry’s name. “Thnake!” he said. “I think I heard a thnake!” Harry knelt. Beneath a thick clump of stalks he spotted a cinnamon-colored foot, a long, twitching ear. “Come here, Jimmie.”

  “I don’t think tho, Harry, I—”

  “It’s not a snake. Come look.”

  Jimmie crouched beside him. A waxy whisker poked from a cloud of cotton. Small squeaking sounds, muffled, rose from ribbed furrows in the dirt. “Rabbith!” Jimmie shouted. “Harry, it’th rabbith!”

  A mother cottontail had given birth beneath a flat canopy of bolls, fat and hanging close to the ground. Jimmie reached for one of the babies, sending a shower of seeds into the soil and into the animals’ fur. The mother bristled but didn’t attack. Jimmie rocked the tiny rabbit in his palm. Its eyes were barely open and i
t tried short thrusts with its stunted hind legs.

  That day, Randy Olin outpicked Harry by nearly fifty pounds. Jimmie’s production dipped considerably; he couldn’t be pulled from the rabbits. Harry loved Jimmie’s delight and didn’t mind losing the race except for Olin’s taunts. By midafternoon it was clear that Olin had established a faster rhythm. “By a mile, Shaughnessy!” he called across the rows. “I’m going to beat your Irish ass by the length of this county!”

  Harry tried to cap his anger but it swelled inside his chest, like the soft, throbbing heads of the blisters on his fingers. At one point, with the sun burning holes in everything in sight—or so it felt—he and Olin approached the weighing scale side by side. Olin’s white grin burst through streaks of buttermilk and dirt, grit and sweat. “How much did the little girl pick this time?” he said to Harry.

  Harry jumped on the wagon and drank from the barrel of water.

  “Two pounds? Three pounds?”

  “I’ve beat you every day this week,” Harry said. “My arms could fall off and still you’d never catch me.”

  “You’re a cheater, Shaughnessy, that’s why.”

  “Take it back,” Harry said.

  “Tricking the simpleton—”

  Harry flung the water dipper at him, leaped off the wagon, and grabbed Olin’s shirt. Olin’s sack slipped from his shoulders; ragged tufts of cotton sprayed the scale. “Take it back!” Harry shouted, shoving Olin to the ground.

  “Or what?” Olin spat, gasping for breath.

  “Or I’ll—” Harry stiffened. A glimmer of white. A faint, familiar scent. Pungent. Sweet. Wax myrtle leaves?

  He released the boy’s dirty shirt. Olin, lying on his side, scrambled past him, kicking at Harry’s shins. “Damn fool Irishman!”

  Harry slapped away Olin’s feet. All of a sudden he felt no trace of physical pain—not from the grueling hours of stooping in the fields, not from sunburn or Olin’s flimsy kicks. The numbness he felt spread quickly from the center of his chest, from his heart.

  She was walking down the road in the same white dress she’d always worn. Her hair was longer; she wasn’t as skinny as before. Calm, unsmiling, she held her husband’s hand.

  Take it back, Harry thought. Oh God, take it back.

  Olin, the weighers, the women weaving croker sacks, including Annie Mae, all stared at the Indian couple as they passed. Harry ran to catch them. “Mollie,” he said, ashamed of the dirt and sweat on his clothes. He tried to smile but the effort was just too much. “How are you?” he asked.

  Anko, wearing a dark hat and a striped vest, frowned and tried to move past him. Harry stood his ground. He had plenty of anger left from his collision with Olin. “I’d like to know how Mollie is,” he said in a low voice. Mollie stared at the pebbles in the road.

  “She’s fine,” Anko said. “Now get out of our way.”

  “I want to speak to your wife for a moment,” Harry said. “Excuse us.” He touched Mollie’s arm, nodded toward the edge of the field.

  “You have no right to touch her!” Anko said. From his faded khaki pants he pulled a gleaming silver object. He held it close to his body so only Harry and Mollie could see it: a thumb-sized knife.

  “Look around,” Harry said evenly, disguising his fear. “You’re surrounded by my people. You harm me in any way, they’ll be all over you. You won’t stand a chance. Now. All I want to do is speak with Mollie for a moment. That’s all.” He walked her down the road a few yards. He was keenly aware of his mother’s stare, of Olin’s taunting face, of Anko’s cold and obstinate fury. He didn’t care. He asked Mollie again how she was.

  At first she wouldn’t look at him. She folded her arms at her waist. “I’m pregnant,” she said softly.

  Harry couldn’t speak. Flies circled his sweaty hair. His fingers ached.

  “The Elder says it’s a boy.” She smiled faintly, as if to herself. “In some ways, my father’s a very modern man. He trusts the keepers of medicine, but he also insists I get up-to-date care, so Anko’s taking me to the doctor in Walters. We have an appointment. We shouldn’t be late.”

  Harry wanted to touch her hair; he closed and opened his hands at his sides. “Are you happy?” he whispered.

  She smiled again—sadly, he thought. “I’m Anko’s wife,” she said. “That’s all.”

  He nodded. His neck, his whole body, hurt. “How’s Tawha?”

  “Cured. I told you, the Elder’s never wrong.” She turned away from him and took her husband’s hand.

  “I love you,” Harry said. He didn’t care if Anko heard.

  “Good-bye, Socialist,” Mollie answered. Anko glared at him, then led her away. As Harry watched them shrink with distance, he was aware of Olin shouting, “Shaughnessy loves an Injun!” and laughing. He turned to see his mother. Annie Mae pretended to concentrate on her weaving, ignoring the other women’s stares, Olin’s chant. “Shaughnessy loves an Injun, Shaughnessy loves an Injun!” Olin was rude enough to say the awful things that occurred to everyone, Harry thought. Most people had the good sense to deplore base impulses in themselves, but that didn’t change the fact that we’re all Olin inside. He saw the faces of the weighers, the other pickers. Every last one of them felt the shock, the disgust with him for touching an Indian girl, the sneering superiority to which Olin gave voice. They wouldn’t look at Harry.

  He turned to see the couple round a bend in the road and wink out of sight. He felt a twinge, a hard spasm in his chest; he hated Kiowa customs, all Indian laws.

  A fourteen-year-old, pregnant! His Mollie!

  “Shaughnessy loves—”

  Embarrassed, ashamed, heartbroken, and revolted by his own harsh thoughts, Harry pushed Olin into the dirt. “I hate Indians,” he said. “I hate them, you understand?”

  COTTON FILLED THE WAGONS. Harry and Jimmie lay atop a swollen mound. Their arms and legs sank into soft white clouds. They’d go into town with the weighers and the foreman, to help them unload.

  No one had said anything after Olin had picked himself up, walked quietly away from the fields. Harry thought the men might shun him, but they accepted his offer of help. Work came first.

  He told Annie Mae he’d be home late. A silky strand of cotton floated in a breeze, wrapped his mother’s hair as she stood in the road.

  “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you, Ma,” he said.

  “Didn’t I tell you to stay away from that girl?”

  “You did.”

  “Then why didn’t you listen to me?”

  “I love her, Mama.”

  “Oh Harry. You’re twelve years old. How can you—?”

  Tears blurred his eyes. “I want to be with her. I want to see her every day.”

  “That’s not the same as love.”

  “How is it different?”

  Annie Mae softened, reached up and gently tugged his hair. “Your father’s pushed and pushed you, ever since you were knee-high to a cotton stalk. You’ve grown up far too fast.”

  “How old were you when you fell in love with Dad?”

  “A lot older than you are now.” Her hand left his hair and cupped his moist, gritty cheek. “I’m sorry, Harry. I know the kind of hurt you’re feeling, love or no love. It doesn’t help to hear this, but it’ll pass. I promise.”

  Harry smiled weakly. “Thanks, Ma.”

  “I’ll save you some supper.”

  The wagon pulled away. Jimmie held one of the tiny rabbits in his hand. He laughed and stroked it all the way into town. Grasshoppers ticked across the cotton, past Harry’s face. He watched a praying mantis cling to a boll, bobbing up and down, swiveling its vigilant head. It looked deeply intelligent, bored.

  “Harry, do you want to pet my rabbit?” Jimmie asked.

  “No, Jimmie, thank you.”

  “I love my rabbit, Harry.”

  “I know. Be careful with it.”

  Fireworks soon, and dances and a big market to celebrate the end of the season. The joy in finishing and the relief on ever
yone’s faces drove Harry’s sadness even deeper, so deep he couldn’t loose it with a scythe.

  Jimmie cradled the rabbit close to his chest.

  “Careful,” Harry said. “Be very, very careful, okay?”

  ALWAYS, AFTER THE FALL harvest was in, the remainder of the year seemed quick and uneventful to Harry. Classes droned on until the Thanksgiving break. His father asked him if he wanted to go with Warren Stargell to the river, to hunt a torn for the feast. At first Harry wasn’t sure; he feared he’d encounter Anko, but then he decided that wasn’t likely. The river was cold this time of year. There wasn’t much reason to go near it unless you were looking for a turkey, and Kiowas wouldn’t eat the birds. It was one of their laws, their damned, silly laws. He didn’t know how he knew that, but he did. Had Mollie told him? He’d thought he’d never forget a single word she had uttered, a single twist of her mouth. Now, memory’s bitter betrayals dismayed him daily.

  Annie Mae and Mahalie cleaned, stuffed, and basted the bird; Andrew and Warren Stargell toasted each other with cider (a concession to the ladies), bemoaned the Socialist League’s sorry luck. “We’ll get ‘em next year,” Warren Stargell said.

  He was still saying it at Christmas. “Just wait. Next year the people’s revolution will sprout like a weed.”

  A poor figure of speech, Harry thought.

  And a poor Christmas it was. His parents didn’t talk about it when he was around, but Harry knew the family was in danger of losing the farm. He saw the stack of bills on the kitchen table each night. It had mounted as the months passed and Andrew had remained idle. Harry’s income from the harvest had already dried up and blown away.

  On Christmas morning, Annie Mae took his face in her hands, warmed by the fire, and kissed him on the cheek. “I wish I had more to give you than that,” she said. “Merry Christmas.”