Read Broken Ground Online

Authors: Karen Halvorsen Schreck

Broken Ground (7 page)

I hurry after Miss Berger. In a matter of moments, we stand by the train. It hisses and gusts fumy steam, readying for the journey.

“Well,” I say for something to say, “I guess this is it, then.”

Miss Berger turns abruptly and clenches my arms. With quiet urgency, she says she trusts me, but there are my parents and the rest of Alba to worry about. One misspoken word from me, and other people could suffer more than they already have. But now I'm leaving, so now she'll tell me, as she's wanted to since the other night. “Wolf's at the door,” she said in so many words to the mayor. And then he, along with the new sheriff and the two remaining officers who weren't already draped in white sheets, drove out to the Homestead, where they had a little talk with the Klan.

Miss Berger leans closer to me, and her voice becomes quieter still. “Let me be clear. The
mayor
and the
sheriff
talked, and everyone else listened, as people are apt to do when guns are pointed their way. I'm not saying it's the right way to do things—threatening violence with violence—and I don't think that's ultimately what doused the fire under the kettle. I think what did it, at least temporarily, was Botts's real threat. He promised that if there were any more such gatherings or related actions, he would go straight to the governor. He'd go higher than that, if need be. He'd contact the press out east and name names. I wouldn't put it past Botts to do something like that. He's a decent man. He knows how it is to be on the other side of the majority. So for now, at least, certain folks can sleep a little easier. I wanted you to know this before you left, Ruth. I realize it's been troubling you. I hope you can rest easier now, too.”

“Did the mayor tell you all this?”

Miss Berger gives a small shrug. “Oh, I went along for the ride. I didn't get out, mind you, didn't let those lunatics see me, the only woman there. But I rolled down the car window and got an earful, believe you me. Now.” She heaves a sigh, a mixture of relief and sadness. “It really is time for goodbye.”

I set down the picnic basket, and we hug each other close.

“Write me,” Miss Berger says, her arms still around me. “And not just postcards, either. ‘The weather is beautiful! Wish you were here!' Not that. I expect full-blown letters.”

“You'll write to me, too?”

“Of course.”

“You'll tell me if things change? For better or worse?”

“I will.” She draws away from me, her expression soft with understanding. “It's good you want to know. Keep on wanting to know as much as you can about everything you can, you hear me?”

I nod, my throat too tight to speak.

“And don't you worry, Ruth. I'll check in on your mother.”

I manage once again to thank her.

A whistle blows. “All aboard!” a conductor shouts. “Last call! All aboard the Antelope, express to Kansas City!”

Miss Berger gives me a gentle shove. Next thing I know, I'm on the train. Dazedly, I find my place by a window. The aisle seat is empty, so it is easy enough for me to sit down—collapse, really—drop the basket of food at my feet, and peer through the smudged glass. There is Miss Berger, a tall figure in bottle green, walking back to the waiting room. She pauses at the entrance, looks up and all around. She is taking in the architecture again. She isn't missing a thing.

My vision blurs.

Go,
she said, Charlie said, God said, I said. And now here I am, going.

The train lurches forward, and crying, finally crying for the first time since Charlie's death, I am gone.

IN KANSAS CITY
I have to switch trains—and quickly. Flustered, I hustle to a platform. Turns out to be the wrong one. I barely make it to the right one, where, accompanied by the screech of metal wheels, gearing up to go, and a conductor's reprimands, I jump onto the Atlantic Express. I take my seat—again by a window—as the train jolts forward. My companion for this leg of the journey, an elderly man, is already hunkered down by the aisle. He's sound asleep, grizzled chin to sunken chest, gnarled hands twitching in his lap. With some effort I manage to settle into place without awakening him.

All the way across Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, all the way to Braxton, California, the Atlantic Express has no scheduled stops. The hours stretch before me, and as they pass, the elderly man sleeps so deeply he might as well be under a spell. I, on the other hand, am wide awake, jittery with excitement and nerves. Can't focus to read or write a letter. So I watch the country roll by. After Kansas City, the towns dwindle from sparse to next to nothing—a crossing gate here, a depot there. A solitary platform flashes by. There's the occasional gas station or trading post, a few ramshackle houses. Deeper into the plains, an uneven brown line appears in the distance. Mountains, maybe? There will be canyons and deserts to come, I know, and occasional bodies of water, and always the changing sky, like nothing so much as an enormous bowl turned upside down. And there will be my memories.

Late afternoon, we pass the first Hooverville, constructed beneath a bridge. Then another under a viaduct. A few hours later, one right out in the open, no shade or shelter to be found. In these places, men, women, and children squat in lean-tos, big boxes, broken-down trucks, abandoned freight cars, fashioning some semblance of safety and security. Come sunset, they huddle around ash can fires. Sometimes, when Route 66 runs parallel to the tracks, I catch sight of jalopies and pickups straining beneath the weight of more people than they should carry, plus their worldly goods. They're heading west. Okies, like me. Arkies, like the man beside me, I learn when he finally snorts himself awake around ten at night. Motivated by a handbill, or a newspaper account, or a rumor, they're escaping someplace that just might kill them if they stay. It's foolish, I know, but every time we pass one of those vehicles, burdened with tattered families, I look for Edna Faye.

I nibble at the food Mother provided—ham sandwiches, boiled eggs, a peach, two slices of watermelon, a handful of oatmeal cookies, a jug of water, and a thermos of coffee that goes from hot to cold over the course of the trip. A wealth of food, the kind of food my parents can't afford. Mother took a risk, buying such things. If Daddy finds out—well, I don't want to think about it. I offer to share the wealth with the elderly man. He politely resists until around midnight, when he accepts half a cup of cold coffee and a ham sandwich. In a heartbeat, he downs both, and then again he sleeps.

I doze off and on, too. I dream of Charlie. When the dreams are sweet, we are all tangled up together, we are reading together, riding this train together, going off to college together. But when the dreams turn bitter, more like the truth, we are falling, drowning, burning, dissolving, vanishing, gone. Charlie is so present that each time I open my eyes, I turn to the elderly man beside me, expecting my husband instead. The shock of this doesn't diminish, nor does the dismay that follows.

I am fully awake at dawn. Outside it's desert, pure and simple. How the earth has changed color over this long ride—red to brown to all the many shifting shades before me now—but always cracked and parched. The vegetation has evolved, too. Patchy, struggling farm fields have yielded to tenacious scrub, tumbleweed, and cacti. There's the occasional blooming thing as well—blurred splotches of pink, yellow, or red that must be cactus flowers.

At Braxton, the Atlantic Express finally slows to a stop. I'm considering standing, climbing over my still-sleeping seatmate, stretching my legs, when suddenly, the conductor appears, grabs the old man, and drags him down the aisle and out the door. As fast as that it happens. Then there's a scornful shout from the conductor—something about a ticket. I twist in my seat and see the old man sprawled on the cement platform, arms and legs akimbo, a look of resignation on his face. The wind lifts his battered hat and pushes it, haphazard as a tumbleweed, onto the tracks. “All aboard,” the conductor shouts, and the train lurches forward again.

There's a billboard above the platform where the man still sprawls:

JOBLESS MEN KEEP GOING!

We can't take care of our own.

BETWEEN BRAXTON AND
Los Angeles, the towns increase in size and activity. Palm trees thicken, as do other tropical plants that I cannot name, and flowers. In between the towns, lush farms spread. People of all ages work the fields—people who resemble me as much as anyone, or my previous seatmate, or Edna Faye and her family. Okies and Arkies, they look to be—probably still bone white where their skin is covered; otherwise, sunburned tender pink to harsh red—tending crops low to the ground or fruit trees in rows, too, bending and rising, reaching and plucking, gathering harvest that would be considered heaven-sent back home. In spite of that billboard, it seems to me this land is very much taking care of folks, whether they're originally its own or not. I hope that all the others I've witnessed trying to get here will find such reward. There's work if a body wants it, surely, and food to be eaten, and a place to rest.

Just outside Los Angeles, I try to pray. I pray for myself. I start there. But then I pray for the old man who accompanied me from Kansas City to Braxton. For Mother and Daddy, Miss Berger, Minah, Susan, Jubilant, and Mayor Botts, I pray. For Edna Faye. For safety and mercy. For hope in the future.

It's evening when we arrive. The Los Angeles train station proves immense—or it feels that way to me. It's something of a mess too, damaged by a recent earthquake. And it's crowded; harried people running every which way, jostling and pushing as they pass. With the help of an impatient porter, I locate the electric trestle train that will take me across something called the Arroyo Seco, then on to Pasadena's Santa Fe depot. What at other times might be a short jaunt seems nearly as long as my previous cross-country trip—I'm that anxious. I learn one thing along the way, which I will try to remember to write to Miss Berger: The Arroyo Seco is a vast canyon unlike anything I've ever seen before. Canyon crossed, the trestle train makes its way into Pasadena and the depot. And like that, I am where I will be, I imagine, for four years to come. Wobbly-legged, I step off the train and into my new life.

But I don't know which way to go. So I follow the lead of other passengers, who hurry on, familiar with these surroundings. We wind up at the baggage claim. Swiftly, the others collect their belongings, and then they're gone—out the depot's exit and off into the evening. I'd like to follow them, ask the kindest-looking of the bunch directions to Union University. But my suitcase is nowhere to be seen.

I find a young, snub-nosed attendant, who does some scrounging in the Lost and Found, then checks my ticket again and nods knowingly. This happens all the time, he says, with passengers who've switched trains over the course of a trip as long as mine. Another train from Los Angeles will pull in about an hour from now. Most likely my suitcase will be on it. “Most likely,” he repeats. “Not a promise. You'll have to wait and see.”

Suddenly, I am exhausted. The Lost and Found has gone a bit foggy. I pass my hand over my eyes, but the fog, which holds my own particular gloom, doesn't seem inclined to fade away.

The attendant points at a nearby bench, suggests I take a seat. When I don't muster myself, he takes me by the arm and escorts me there. He regards me for a moment, his brow furrowed with worry. “Where are you heading?”

“Union University. I think.”

“You think?”

“I know.”

“New student?”

I nod.

“Know how to get there?”

I shake my head.

He pulls a tablet from his pocket, rips off a piece of paper, and draws a little map. “Turn right here and then head straight down here.” He traces the way with his finger. “Can't miss it.”

“Thank you.” At least there's this: a map to follow.

“If I'm still here when you leave, I'll give you a ride.”

My skin prickles. This is the kind of situation Mother always warned me about. “No, thank you.”

The attendant shrugs. “Skittish, huh? Probably wise, country girl like you.” And then he strolls away.

I'd close my eyes, but yes, I'm skittish—so skittish that I tuck my pocketbook beneath my rump and clutch Mother's empty basket like a shield to my chest. I grow increasingly weary, and, at the same time, increasingly edgy. It's an unpleasant combination—my bones like lead, gravity pulling me down. Even as my nerves ping, I strain to glimpse any questionable stranger.

Perhaps a quarter of an hour into the waiting, a burst of activity causes me to leap to my feet. Here it is—whatever bad thing is going to happen. Several official-looking men in suits and hats stride into the depot and take up posts outside the entrance to the train platforms. They are followed by two policemen, blackjacks drawn, leading perhaps thirty people. Two other policemen bring up the rear of this group. When an elderly couple falls behind, they prod them forward. There are men and women of all ages, boys and girls, babes in arms. They fall into an uneven line, all the while remaining strangely silent. Only a few murmur exchanges, and these are shared so sporadically that it takes me awhile to realize many are speaking Spanish. The people are well dressed, well groomed, and brown-skinned, not sunburned. Mexicans, I suppose they are, given the fact that this is California. Watching them, I can't help but think of the circle of people I saw with Mother and Daddy late last spring, soon after my return to Alba. The people were gathered together in a field near the Thorne place. We heard the sound of their drums before we saw them dancing. It was Good Friday. We were driving to a nearby town where a church was presenting a reenactment of the Crucifixion. “Some kind of powwow,” Daddy said scornfully as we passed the gathering in the field. He blared the horn in an effort to disrupt their meeting. As we drove on, I watched out the rear window, unsettled by the dancing, the drums. The whole affair seemed of another time, another world altogether. When the gathering was finally out of sight, I sank back into my seat, vaguely comforted that I was me, not one of them.

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