The Personal History of Rachel DuPree_ A Novel - Ann Weisgarber [35]
“I can just imagine. But come winter, all those suns will do a world of good.”
Inez said, “It never gets cold in California.”
Mrs. Fills the Pipe ignored this. “The nurse at the clinic gave my sister-in-law cream for the dryness in her skin. It helps in the winter.”
“That’d come in handy.” I ran the tip of my tongue over my cracked lips. “That reminds me. For Christmas my sister Sue—she lives in Chicago—she sent me a big bottle of something called aspirin. It’s a little white pill. It takes the heat out of a fever. Do you know it?”
“Yes. Cures headaches too.”
“Is that right?”
“So many good medicines,” Mrs. Fills the Pipes said. “But . . . then there is my cousin, Margaret Two Bulls, old enough to know better, looking for the fountain of youth. Thinks it comes in a bottle. Keeps ordering tonics from big-city catalogs.”
“The fountain of youth, mercy. Has she found it?”
Mrs. Fills the Pipe flapped her hand in the air. “A younger man, that is the fountain she needs.”
Inez laughed, and then I did too. How good it was to talk woman talk.
By the cottonwood, Mary was spinning the lariat now. She was a good roper and would practice for hours on end if it weren’t for chores. She threw the rope and caught Liz around the waist. Liz squealed, untangled herself, and then everyone took off running before Mary could rope the next person. It lightened my heart to see Liz play.
“Please,” I said, holding out the china plate. “Have another biscuit.”
Mrs. Fills the Pipe shook her head no, but Inez helped herself to another piece. Mrs. Fills the Pipe shot her a warning look.
I said, “The drought’s something else again, isn’t it?”
“Bad,” Mrs. Fills the Pipe said.
“I miss the meadowlarks. Can’t hardly wake up without their singing.”
“One of the elders claims they are all at the Missouri.”
“Is that right? I wondered what happened to them. I was afraid they were all dead.”
Franklin, the older boy, had the rope now. He spun it fast. It whipped through the air and lassoed Mary. Franklin reeled her in. Mary laughed.
I said, “How’s the water table at your place?”
“Low, but still filling the bucket.”
I almost told Mrs. Fills the Pipe about our well and how two times now we’d had to send Liz down. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It wasn’t the kind of thing a person talked about. I said, “Sometimes I think about moving to the city.” I stopped, embarrassed by what I’d just said. “I mean to Interior. Or maybe Scenic.”
Mrs. Fills the Pipe glanced at my belly. “Neighbors,” she said.
“I could stand a few.” Then, because that sounded like a complaint against my home, I said, “As soon as it rains, I’m doing my wash. I’m going to let my wash soak for days. Get all this grit out. Scrub down the house, my hair too.”
Mrs. Fills the Pipe agreed. “Half the Badlands is in my house.”
“The wind never stops.”
“This is a hard place. Hard to take, hard to like.”
I looked at her in surprise. I said, “But aren’t you from here?”
“No.”
“Oh.” I waited for her to tell me where she’d been born and bred. When she didn’t, I said, “I was born in Louisiana.”
Mrs. Fills the Pipe put her hand to her chest. “The Platte,” she said.
“The Platte River?”
“In Nebraska,” she said. “That’s my home.”
“My goodness,” I said. “My husband soldiered there.”
There was a small hesitation, then, “Did he?”
“At Fort Robinson.”
Mrs. Fills the Pipe’s rocker went still.
“Mother,” Inez said. “Don’t.”
Startled, I looked at the two of them. Mrs. Fills the Pipe stared straight ahead, her mouth set in a hard line. Inez’s hand was on her mother’s arm. Wind whipped around the house, making a shrieking sound. At the cottonwood, the children laughed as Rounder barked and pounced on the rope that Little Luther flicked back and forth in the dried grass. But on the porch a sudden heavy tension wrapped itself around the three of