Broken Ground (29 page)

Luis nods, tucks a blanket over Silvia, who is lying down now. Then, not wasting any time, he heads out the door.

“
Estoy cansada,
” Silvia groggily murmurs as she closes her eyes. Of course she is tired, given what she's just done. Of course she must sleep before she does more.

I turn back to Thomas and catch my breath. He is conscious, watching me from beneath his eyelashes, his mouth taut with pain. I go to him, kneeling so that we can better see each other. Carefully, I smooth his hair from his forehead. “Hello.” I try to smile, but then I see the tears standing in his eyes.
Tears.
I've never seen a man cry. Certainly not Daddy. Not even Charlie. I touch Thomas's cheek, and his tears spill onto my fingertips. “Oh, Thomas.”

“What kind of man—” His voice breaks with emotion; he can't speak.

I lean closer to him. “Tell me.”

“What kind of man am I?” He swallows hard, the muscles in his throat working against the tears. “What kind of man brings such hurt on himself and tries the lives of others?” He slams his hand down on his injured leg. “If
this
hadn't happened, I could have kept working in the field. I could have earned enough money to pay a doctor to care for Grace. I could have
saved
Grace.”

I shake my head. “You can't know that. It was an accident. You couldn't help—”

“That's it. I couldn't help. I couldn't help Grace then, and I can't help others now. Not in a way that makes a real difference.” He grips my arm, holding on as if for dear life. “Lupe was taken. I couldn't stop that. I couldn't stop Daniel. I couldn't save any of my friends—my family, they feel like—not to mention the people I don't even know who are deported every day. I can't help myself. If I can't help myself, how can I help others?”

“The children you teach. You're helping—”

“For how long? To what end?”

I draw in a breath, and then I say it. “You're helping me.”

“Ah.” His sigh sounds wretched. His eyes have gone muddy brown, his gaze distant, as if he's looking into the far, far away. He releases my arm and then gently traces the curve of my cheek. “My dear—” He hesitates, and I steel myself for another woman's name.

“My dear Ruth,” he says. He shakes his head restlessly and says the word
grace
; whether he's speaking to his sister, or speaking of free and unmerited favor, I don't know. His head stirs restlessly on the pillow, and I touch his forehead again. His skin holds the heat of the fire. If he's this feverish, should I wake Silvia? There is her black book on the table. I go to it. My Spanish is stronger now. I turn the pages. I find the word I'm looking for:
la fiebre
. Below that, the neat, antiquated writing says that the body temperature needs to be lowered. Wet towels and ice baths can help.

We don't have ice or a bathtub; nor would I want to move Thomas if we did. The rags are all gone. So I take some of my clothes, run out to the pump, douse them in the cold water, and return to find Thomas, unconscious again. Quickly, I drape the dripping clothes over Thomas's body, leaving dry only the bandages that cover his wounded leg.

Thomas moans, eyes still closed, and his teeth begin to chatter.

“He needs stronger medicine. He must drink it.”

I turn to see Silvia awake again, watching from her bed.

“I can make it if you direct me,” I say.

Silvia tells me to put another pot of water on to boil, then directs me toward the rows of jars and tin cans that hold dried herbs and berries. Following her guidance, I measure out correct portions, and when the water boils, I brew a foul-smelling pot.

“It will need to cool now,” Silvia says. “As soon as it does, he must drink it all.”

We sit for some time together, Silvia and I, watching over Thomas. Then Silvia again falls asleep and I watch over them both. Finally, Luis returns. He has managed to borrow a bit of everything that Silvia requested.

Soon we will have to change Thomas's dressings. But with Luis home, I realize I'm desperate for fresh air, just a gulp of it. Maybe a short walk will calm me down. So as he sets the goods out on the table, I whisper that I'll be back soon and slip out the door.

MECHANICALLY, I BEGIN
to walk the empty roads. The smell of smoke lingers in the air. Only a few blocks and my feet are dragging. The simple shacks and low buildings show themselves in a new way to me tonight. Each one is as unique as the people who inhabit it. In such extenuating circumstances, people have found ways to build window boxes and grow flowers—many are varieties I've never seen; perhaps they are from the seeds of plants indigenous to Mexico. Here is the Ramos family, their name painted on a piece of carefully carved wood and embellished with the sun, moon, and stars. Here, wind chimes clink musically in the breeze. A lush front garden, a trellis laced with thick vines, a sundial, a white picket fence. And here, a bicycle cobbled together from various sources, a fat tire swing, a hammock made of rope, a car mounted on cinder blocks for repair. Except for the fact that the shacks are assembled from cardboard, rusted tin, freight car scraps, and license plates, this could be a neighborhood anywhere, the evidence of individuals and everyday lives all around.

I stop for a moment at the outskirts of town, near the same field where the bonfire turned wild. My eyes feel like I've had sandpaper scraped across them. I bury my face in my hands and try to rest.

I hear it then—the sound of a child singing, a voice very like that of the child I heard singing on the Everlys' radio on Christmas morning. The sound seems to be coming from the field. I can't see much through the lingering haze of smoke, but that means that the child, if it is indeed a child, can't see me, either. I start toward the sound. Soon my stinging eyes are streaming. The charred grass upon which I walk has gone blurry. It is hard to be quiet; I stumble over this stone and that scorched piece of wood. The singing stops, and I hear, before I see, someone leap up. Yes, a child, not twenty feet away, standing near the smoking remains of the fire. A boy.

He bolts again—Daniel—sprinting for the line of trees at the far side of the field, which marks the end of Kirk Camp. On the other side is a road, busy by day with all the trucks bearing the camp workers to nearby and far-flung farms. The road is far less busy at night. But if that boy wants to escape for good, it is the place to go. It will be only a matter of time before he hitches a ride, or a farm boss picks him up and sets him to work, or a government official deports him.

I run clumsily after Daniel. Clearly adept at the art of survival, he moves nimbly, swiftly; already he's not much more than a speck of white shirt bobbing in the distance. He vanishes into the trees, but still I keep going, shoes slapping the ground, knees ripping through the tall grass—the fire didn't reach this far—arms churning the air. And now I am among the trees, too, roots tripping me, branches scratching. I glimpse the road, a silver ribbon in the moonlight, slashed now by a harsh yellow glare—headlights!—and then there is the squeal of tires, brakes grinding, a horrible thud, and silence but for an idling engine, a metal door creaking open, and a man shouting in fear and anger.

I burst through the trees. A wide swathe of white light spills over the road, and in the light lies a small round heap that must be Daniel. The man stands over him. He is swearing like I've never heard before. I tear across the gully that banks the road and fall on my knees by Daniel's side.

“He came out of nowhere!
Nowhere!
These migrant kids—they're everywhere! Enough already!”

Daniel is breathing. He stares at me, wide-eyed with terror. I wonder what he can see. His spectacles lie a few feet away, or what's left of them, smashed to smithereens. His arm is twisted beneath his back in a way that is simply wrong.

The man is going on and on, his words hateful. I can't see his eyes for the cap pulled down low over his forehead, but his fists are clenched, and he is spitting another string of profanity.

There's no way I can carry Daniel back to camp. There's no way I'll get him there in time. (In time for what, I don't dwell on.) So I tell the man it's all right. I know it was an accident. Clearly, he didn't aim his truck so he could hit this boy head-on. “I didn't hit him head-on!” the man barks. “I swerved and barely glanced him.” I see that the man's truck is indeed stopped at an angle, and I reassure him that, yes, I understand. “You're not in any trouble,” I say. “If you'd just drive us back into camp, that's all I ask. Then you can head out from there.”

It takes some doing, but in the end, the man agrees. I climb up into the truck bed, and the man lifts Daniel up to me, and I cradle him in my lap like a baby, not a boy, trying to support his twisted arm. We rattle into camp. Daniel won't faint, no matter how much I wish he would. In this way, Thomas had it easier. But maybe the boy will remember how I held him. Maybe he'll remember that someone tried to soothe him, tried to be gentle, and that will help him more in the long run than the sweet relief of unconsciousness. Maybe.

I direct the man to Silvia and Luis's cabin. He helps me get Daniel to the door. And here I am, kicking at the door again, two times in a handful of hours, my arms wrapped around an injured person. And here is Luis opening the door, taking the person from my arms, and Silvia, standing, as she should not. Luis has moved Thomas to my cot; through the crack in the curtains, I glimpse my wet clothes still draped over his body. Head to knees, Daniel is just the length of the table, so Luis lays him down there. I pull up a chair to support his dangling feet.

As I thought, Daniel's arm is broken. While Luis, with Silvia's help, fashions a splint, I stand by the boy's side, smoothing his hair. He looks up at me while Silvia and Luis bind his arm. I remember the song he was singing out there in the field; I wish I knew it and could sing it to him now. Instead, I try to sing a hymn like a lullaby.

There is a balm in Gilead,

To make the wounded whole . . .

In my own plain voice, I sing the hymn once, twice, three times, until Silvia and Luis have finished binding his broken arm. Somehow, Daniel manages to keep still.

Luis holds a cup of tea out to me. I take it. The tea smells nothing like what I steeped for Thomas; it has a thick, sweet, sedative smell. There's a smokiness to it, too—some kind of alcohol, I think. I hold it to Daniel's lips so that he can drink it. When he is finished, his eyelids droop and he whispers hoarse words I can't hear. I bend closer to him. “Tell me again,” I say.

He swallows hard and speaks a bit louder. “My mother used to sing that song, the song about Gilead.”

I smile at him. “My mother used to me sing it, too.” She did, I remember now, along with other hymns, when I was a little child and sick in bed.

I miss Mother suddenly, with a vengeance. But I don't dwell on it. I can't. Daniel's black eyes have fluttered wide open, so wide that a body could fall deep down into them. Daniel's eyes are like Edna Faye's in this way—like Edna Faye, he is a child I will come to love. I know this. He stares at me, riveted on my throat. His lips part; his expression turns to one of longing. He was a troublemaker. I'd nearly forgotten, but now I remember. I fumble with the collar of my dress, concerned for my modesty, though Daniel is, at most, ten years old. He whispers something; again I can't hear him. This time when I don't respond, he repeats himself of his own accord.

“My cross. My father's cross.”

My hand flies to the slender chain given to me by Helen, to the little silver cross and my gold wedding band. “You're—”

“Yes.”

The boy beneath the bleachers.

“You have my father's cross,” he says.

Without another word, I undo the chain from my neck, slip my wedding band from the chain and then into the pocket of my dress. The gold chain, I drape across Daniel's throat so that the cross settles neatly on his chest. He strains to lift his head and see, though the tea is taking further effect, I can tell from his woozy expression. I secure the chain around his neck. It only accentuates his shoulder bones, collarbones, and sternum, which jut out painfully. This boy, like so many, hasn't eaten enough today or for many days. Tomorrow I will feed him something mild but satisfying. Rice. The clear chicken soup Silvia is able to take. I'll feed him something like that, and perhaps he will tell me his story—the one that nobody seems to have heard. For now, he'll sleep, lifted by Luis from the table to the pallet of a single blanket on the dirt floor. He'll sleep with his hand clasped around his father's cross, and I'll lie down beside him, since Thomas is on my cot, and someone needs to be close at hand should Daniel wake. Someone needs to make sure he's as comfortable as he can be, warm and safe and slowly, slowly healing. I'll be that someone—the makeshift family in his life. At least for tonight.

D
aniel stays on at Luis and Silvia's over the course of the next few days, sleeping, gradually relaxing and warming to us as meals come with regularity and fill his belly. Thomas returns to his cabin the morning after the fire, after Luis promises that he will take the prosthesis to town to be repaired. I visit Thomas every day. We are awkward and shy in each other's company; I never stay long. I simply take him a portion of a meal I've prepared and change his dressing per Silvia's instruction. She has insisted that he take a week to recover; to my surprise, he has agreed. Luis and I cover his duties overseeing the camp; if he's needed to make decisions or give advice, we know where to find him.

Thomas is wary of my returning to the field at night; he's sure the farm owners are aware there was a fire and are watching Kirk Camp now. But I insist. If they're watching, let them see the good going on. There won't be another blaze gone out of control. The children and I have stacked the ring of rocks higher, so that flames can't escape. And while they work with me during our lessons, their parents keep careful watch over our gathering—minding not only the fire but also the surrounding shadows, out of which those who do not wish well could emerge.