The Magic of Ordinary Days (12 page)

I slumped back. “I never said you were stupid.”

Now Ray looked at his dessert instead of eating it. “And I never said I disliked them. I just said they were Japanese, is all.”

“And you keep your distance.”

“I have a lot to do around here.” Ray wiped his face with a napkin. “I got to keep this farm going pretty much on my own. I don't go into the fields to socialize.”

Eating with him now was out of the question. I got up from the table and went outside to the porch without slamming the screen door. I sat in my chair and listened to the sounds made by crickets in the night while I tried to slow my breathing. He left me alone for close to an hour, then before he went to bed, he stepped outside.

The breeze that night came in from the direction of the creekbed, and although it ran dry, the ditch always held a pocket of cold air that chilled me each time I walked the bridge that crossed it. Ray's looming, boxy shape blocked the moonlight but not the cold air coming up from the creekbed. A chill ran up my bare forearms, and I wished I had brought out a sweater.

“You should eat something,” he said.

But I couldn't even look his way.

Eleven

The work of the harvest continued, the fields full of workers, the roads run up and down with piled-high trucks. One day as I was driving to La Junta to buy groceries, I saw some of the German POWs at work on one of the farms near us. The enlisted men were watched over by guards, Army MPs stationed at each end of the field and one in the middle. But other POWs weren't guarded at all. Ray told me later it was because they were officers and could be trusted pretty much on their own.

During long days around the house, however, all was quiet. I had no visitors except for the bulk gasoline agent who drove out one day with a tanker truck to fill Ray's storage tank. When I saw him, I wandered outside, yearning for conversation. But as he filled the tank, all we talked about was the war and both of his sons who were off fighting in Europe.

Everyone on all the surrounding farms and in the communities was busy; however, I still had few chores to make myself feel productive. Often I wondered how my itching feet had landed on such a stationary plot. I had already planted the bulbs in the front flower garden, cleaned the house numerous times, and thumbed through cookbooks so many times I thought I might memorize the recipes. I gathered eggs in the morning and separated the cream from the raw milk, and every couple of days I started taking eggs and cream into La Junta to sell for Ray. I read Susan Shelby Magoffin's diary,
Down the Santa Fe Trail and into Mexico,
over the course of one long day.

One morning, I decided to go in search of the dugout. Even though Martha had warned me not to go alone, I couldn't wait any longer. And if I took Franklin along with me, technically, I said to myself, I wouldn't be going alone.

Outside it was warm, and the sun was a butterscotch disk on a blue paper sky. After making myself a sandwich, I headed out the front door toward the bridge, calling after Franklin to join me. He came shuffling up with tongue hanging out to one side. Following Martha's directions, I went to the creek and carefully scrambled down one side of the bank until I found myself on the ditch bottom. The bed was sandy, flat, and easy to walk, the only impediments occasional smooth stones. Franklin was sniffing up behind me.

We walked south. I saw one carved-out, semi-cave a few feet up on the bank about a hundred yards south. But it was too small. I continued walking down the creekbed until I arrived at a bend filled with tangled branches and debris that blocked my way. The creekbed dropped away at that point and began a rocky descent. I stood and thought. The indention I had seen earlier must have been the right place after all. Soon I had made my way back to it.

Looking up, I saw that the dugout was only about five feet deep and no more than ten feet across. None of the willows and reeds that had most likely been used to extend the roof and walls remained. Probably on one of the occasions when water ran high through this bed, it had all been swept away, or else the winds had taken it. I climbed up to the front of the cavelike opening, and leaning over, I went inside with Franklin on my heels. When I looked up and saw the earthen and stone roof at the back of the dugout still stained black with the smoke from fires, I knew I had discovered the right place. And for just a second, I thought I smelled something cooking.

Franklin went off to explore on his own while I sat on the cool dirt floor of a place that had once been a home. I pulled out my sandwich and bit in as I took in the same view that Ray's ancestors must have studied, day after day of their lives. Opposite from me, the far bank cut a swath of blond color across the sky. A stunted tree along the rim became a woman dancing in a long, flowing skirt. Dark stones strewn about on the pale sand of the creekbed stood out like buttons on a white dress.

I closed my eyes. After a couple of B-25 trainers passed overhead, near silence returned. From far away came the call of a hawk, hunting. I could hear the scuff of critters in the underbrush below me and a sigh of wind sailing through nearby juniper trees. When I opened my eyes and took another bite, I wondered about those early pioneers' lives. What had they thought about? What of their hopes and dreams? And how did they handle the solitude and not lose their minds?

After I finished eating, I searched the ground around me. Any fabric or paper would've long since deteriorated, but pieces of broken china or tools might have survived. I found droppings indicating coyotes had at one time or another used the dugout as a den, but nothing else until I arrived in the far corner. There, I pulled something long and stiff out of the dirt. It was a tarnished black fork with two missing tines, a piece of civilization that had probably been brought out as a prized possession by the first Mrs. Singleton. Not long after her arrival, she had most likely discovered how little use she had for such niceties as silverware, and when the tines broke off, she had probably just tossed this treasure away.

Back at the house, I found silver polish underneath the kitchen sink cupboard, and then I went to work on that fork. By the time Ray returned home, I had it shining mirror-silver again.

“Look what I found,” I told Ray when he came in.

He took a look, then said, “It's broken.”

“That's not the point,” I said. “It came from what's left of the dugout, where your grandparents first lived on this land. I found it in the corner. Isn't that amazing?”

With a smile, he said, “You bet.”

But once he had finished eating, he went to work again. After raking the sweaty hair off his forehead, he pulled out some ledgers and started scratching figures on the pages with a stubbed pencil. Every so often, he'd stop and rub his eyes with both fists, then resume working. Finally, he went to bed without ever touching the treasure.

For long days at a time, I managed on my own. Once Ray disappeared out into the harvesting fields, he never returned, all day. He arrived home in late evening, only after the sunlight no longer lit his workplace. But Rose and Lorelei were able to get away. Often they came by for lemonade or Cokes and a rest on the porch steps. One day I glimpsed them through the screen door before they knocked, and then I saw how they managed to stay looking so neat. They were taking turns brushing each other off, taking great pains to remove every fleck of grass and dirt that had landed on their clothes.

After I answered the door, they handed over a sack containing the maternity dress made of polka-dot jersey that already they had managed to sew.

“It's wonderful,” I told them and held it up to get a better look. The tailoring was excellent; all the seams were perfectly smooth and flat, and the handwork, just as they had claimed, was imperceptible. The finished product looked more professional than the picture on the front of the pattern. “I'll wear it soon.”

Both girls barely smiled. Rose said a shy, “Thank you.”

“You did an outstanding job.”

Rose looked away, and Lorelei toyed with her hair. “It's nothing.”

“Really,” said Rose.

Perhaps I had praised too much, embarrassing them. I refolded the dress and stared at the truck sitting on the dirt drive. Ray had told me over breakfast that he would be spending the afternoon cleaning up and collecting garbage that had accumulated from the harvest. And he would be working with the tractor that day, not the truck. A few minutes later, I suggested to Rose and Lorelei that we go for a drive.

As we headed out, Rose said, “Father worries that his customers won't dress so well anymore, now that he's gone.”

Lorelei said, “They're certain to miss his attention to detail.”

I paused for a moment, then curiosity overcame me. “What became of the business?”

At first they didn't answer, and I feared I had pried too much, gone too far again. But then Rose replied, “We were forced to close it before evacuating. But it was just as well. Even my father's most loyal customers no longer came in.”

“What of your home?”

“We had to sell it, too. Our bank accounts had been frozen, and we didn't want to come out here without any of our own money.”

Lorelei blurted out, “We cleaned it for them.”

“You what?”

“We had to sell our house for half its worth, yet my parents insisted we clean it for the new owners. We even waxed the floors.”

Rose sighed at her sister. “I still don't understand why the cleaning angers you so. We had to leave it clean. For our own sakes.”

Lorelei snickered. “I would've invited everyone I knew over for a dance and left it filthy.”

“Lorelei!” Rose snapped, then turned away.

Lately I'd been reading everything I could put my hands on about Japanese American internment. Our former governor, Ralph Carr, was one of the only politicians who had been bold enough to welcome and defend Americans of Japanese descent. It hadn't been a popular stance, and some people even thought it had cost him the last election. The
Denver Post
expressed bigotry toward anyone of Japanese descent. One of their editors constructed a large effigy of a Japanese man complete with monkey face, whereas the
Rocky Mountain News
had been more open-minded, even pointing out to readers that Americans of German descent hadn't been singled out. In truth, I think the common man and woman in Denver had given little thought to the struggle of Japanese Americans. As long as large numbers of Japanese hadn't moved into their own neighborhoods, as long as nothing suspicious occurred, the average citizen went on with his or her life unaffected.

I drove on, swerving past trucks that rumbled up and down the roads, past fields swarmed with workers. With the harvest in full swing, most everyone was engaged in the effort to provide food for others. I remembered what Ray had said to me about pleasure driving, and a bit of guilt pinched me. Of course it was wrong of me. Perhaps if I could conduct some business along the way? I couldn't give up this time with Rose and Lorelei. I wanted to learn as much as I could about them, and without driving, how would I continue to get to know them?

I told the girls I needed to stop at the grocery store, but in the end, I bought only a loaf of bread. Most farmers' wives considered it lazy to buy bread in the store, but the opposite logic appealed to me. Why bake something that could so easily be bought? My preferences in shopping leaned toward ease of preparation, and already my blue point coupons for buying canned and processed foods were running low.

We drove on to Rocky Ford, a farming community that looked huge compared to Wilson. Named for the safe crossing point on the Arkansas River it had provided pioneers, it had become well-known for cantaloupes, watermelons, and honeydews. We managed to buy some of the last of the fall crop at a roadside stand. Later, we stopped for gasoline and sodas in the town of Swink, and as the girls and I relaxed around the truck in the sunshine, a conversation nearby caught my attention.

I saw a man talking to the attendant while a woman waited for him inside their car. I thought I recognized the couple from church, but wasn't altogether certain. The man glanced up at me once, but he seemed unsure if he recognized me, too. A minute later, he showed his R coupon card to the attendant and paid him, then he began to walk in my direction. He kept moving my way until his expression changed. He stopped walking.

At first I thought he was reacting to the slacks that all three of us wore. Not long ago, even some men in Denver wouldn't give women wearing slacks a seat on the streetcar. But then I saw the true reason for his displeasure. As he looked over Rose and Lorelei, something not kind crossed his face, the same look I had often seen when Negroes entered a nice restaurant in downtown Denver. The man apparently changed his mind about coming over to speak to me. Instead, he turned on a stiff heel and walked the other way.