She stared at him, the words registering. She almost laughed. They weren’t going to hurt the old man. She hadn’t thought of anything so simple — only a prank, really. She was so relieved that even the pain in her arm was nothing, but then almost as quickly as her relief had come, it was leaving her. She had lost the argument.
There was nothing else she could say now that would keep him from going. She was left only with the hope that everything would go all right, that when dawn came tomorrow she would wake and he would be beside her and it would be all over and done with. And when the Christmas holidays came two months from now she could look back and smile at all her fears — the money Jack would make on the deal would enable them to leave the bleak winter prairie for a couple of weeks and drive south into Mexico, seeking the sun.
She let her imagination float with the fantasy, needing it to blot out the terrifying alternative. When they would recross the border back into the States, the border guards would check again and again, as they had last year; but they’d find nothing, because there would be nothing to find. They might question the stack of Mexican newspapers on the floor of the trunk compartment, but discovering that’s all they were — newspapers — they would not even be interested in Jack’s explanation that he was doing a paper on Mexican journalism for a college course. Who would suspect that the destiny of the Zaragoza and San Pedro papers would be to wrap prairie-grown marijuana — so it could pass for the higher-priced Mexican variety.
A cold wind tore at their jackets when they left the apartment a few hours later. The sun had almost set and the sky was streaked with dark clouds. They walked to the car together, paused, exchanged a silent glance, then Sheila turned and rounded the corner where she could get a bus to another part of town.
The envelope of census material was under her arm. She didn’t know if she’d make any calls, but she might try. The temporary census job didn’t pay badly and she could fit the interviews in when it was convenient. Like now, if she wanted. She would go out of her mind if she stayed in the apartment alone, waiting.
Usually the questions and answers went easily. But sometimes not. Like when she had gone out to the Purdy farm two weeks ago where Brewster Purdy and his sister Elizabeth lived. It had been chance that she’d been given the group of five farms to do. If it hadn’t been that she had Jack’s car to use she’d have had to turn it down. It was a long drive, more than an hour in a direction out of town they rarely went.
You really couldn’t call the Purdy place a farm any more. The last hog had been slaughtered years ago. Purdy still planted a garden — beans, potatoes, corn — but most of his land had been let go. Wheat and cornfields had been overrun by what the old farmers still called locoweed.
It was Elizabeth Purdy who answered the doorbell the day Sheila pulled up to the farmhouse in Jack’s old beat-up car.
“No one’s rung that bell in years,” the gray-haired woman said with a hesitant smile. “It’s a wonder it works. Most people use the knocker.”
Sheila had smiled. “I’m from the city. There aren’t many knockers there. I guess I’m used to ringing doorbells. Are you Miss Purdy?”
The woman nodded.
“My name is Sheila Evans. I’m helping out with the census.” She showed her identification card.
“Who’s that?” a voice bellowed from somewhere inside the house.
The small gray woman colored and leaned toward Sheila. “That’s my brother. He’s in a ornery mood today. Worse than usual. He’s been like that ever since the Federal government took away his subsidy. It never made no sense to me for the government to pay him for not plantin’. It didn’t seem right, but then Brewster said I never had a head for such things. It’s hard, though, when you’re used to havin’ money come in and then suddenly it stops. It’s worse on people like the Stocktons down the road with all those little kids to feed. — It’s a young lady,” Elizabeth Purdy called over her shoulder. “She’s come about the census.”
A small wiry man appeared in the doorway. He was an inch or so shorter than his sister. It was hard for Sheila to believe that such a small body could house such a loud voice. His hostile gray eyes studied her and she knew it had not been worth her trouble to change out of her shirt and jeans. His scrutiny declared that her beige wool suit and brown pumps didn’t make her any more acceptable to him than if she were barefoot and bikini-clad.
“You say you’ve come about the census?”
“Yes, there are just a few questions I have to ask.”
“Well, I’ve got one to ask you. When’s the government goin’ to give me back my subsidy?”
Sheila shook her head and tried a small smile. “I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about that.”
“You don’t? Why not? You work for the government, don’t you?”
“Well, not really. I’m just—”
He wouldn’t let her finish. “If you don’t work for the government then you have no business cornin’ here askin’ us questions. I’ve a mind to call the police.”
Sheila suppressed a sigh and decided it would be best to ignore the old man. She turned to his sister. “Does anyone else live here besides you and your brother?”
She got her answer and left, with the old man yelling out the door, threatening that she wouldn’t get far, that he would have the police after her.
The Stockton place was the next on her list and she drove the two miles slowly, thinking about the old pair she had just left, wondering if there had ever been any happy times in their lives, wondering if the harsh life of the prairie had squeezed all the joy out of them — or maybe there had never been any joy to begin with.
October can be a pretty time in some farming areas, particularly in the northeast, with pumpkins and squash stacked in spilling hills of greens and golds, and farm stands tapestried with the rich colors of apples and pears. But not in the prairie states, Sheila thought to herself as she looked at the flat land, stubbled and browning. Any farm stand would become weathered and deserted, a wind catch on a blustery plain.
She turned into a rutted driveway marked by a mailbox whose black letters were chipped and faded. The name Stockton was barely distinguishable.
A brown and white spotted dog leaped playfully at her heels when she got out of the car. As she leaned down to pat its head, she heard the wail of a siren and turned to see a black and white police car, its red domelight flashing, turn into the driveway and screech to a halt, showering dust. The occupants of the farmhouse spilled out into the yard — a half dozen children and a thin woman in a faded blue print dress. The gaunt wind-burned man beside her was dressed in a pair of ragged coveralls.
“What’s the trouble, George?” he asked with a curious glance at Sheila.
“Don’t know yet. Just answering a call from Purdy.” The patrolman turned to Sheila. “You the little lady who’s just been to the Purdy place?”
She nodded. “He said he’d have the police after me, but I didn’t think he meant it. I’m a census taker, but I don’t think Mr. Purdy believed that.” She unclipped the identification card from the folder under her arm.
The policeman looked at it and frowned. “Have to satisfy a man like Purdy. He makes a lot of noise. Sometimes what he has to say is worth listening to.”
He left then and Mrs. Stockton took Sheila’s arm. “I bet you could use a cup of coffee after that scare. Come on into the house. No need for George to have used his siren like that. You’d think he was chasing some criminal. Gave me a fright the way he pulled into the driveway, throwing dust all over the place. Smart aleck, that’s what he is, uniform or no.”