When the store owner got near, the big man looked at Marigold with kind eyes. “If you behave, honey, I’ll let you go,” he said. “You promise to behave?”

Marigold could feel the sweetness in him. She could tell things about people that they didn’t even know about themselves. It was a talent from her birth.

She nodded her head. “I swear I’ll behave.”

“Okay, then.” The man let his weight off her and wore a sheepish look on his face. “I’m sorry if I hurt you, honey. Are you alright?”

She hit the man hard enough to break his ribs.

And that’s how Marigold landed in jail for the night.

Four
Child of the Plains

The Kansas prairie was wide and gold. And dry. The acres stretched for miles and miles, uninterrupted by even the smallest tree. The plains were hot and dusty. It was beautiful in some parts, but most areas were not. The scenery could be boring enough to drive a man nuts. The Kansan skies could get so blue they looked purple, and that was all a boy could see. Sky. Sky. And what’s that in the distance? More sky.

Unless the dust storms were in the air. Then you couldn’t see sky at all. In fact, you couldn’t do anything but lock yourself in a closet with a wet rag over your face and pray. The dust could get so bad it killed young children. Child-size caskets were common in this world. Dust pneumonia was killing kids, animals, and old people.

Fourteen-year-old Coot waited behind the canvas tent while the dust swirled in little drifts. It wasn’t a bad storm. Only a minor sandstorm. He thumbed through a pack of baseball cards. The last storm had been worse. It had destroyed parts of Deerfield. The wind was so hard it turned a car over on its side and ate the paint off the doors. Since then, the sky had been light blue, without clouds. But such pleasant skies never lasted for long.

The baseball cards came from Blake. It didn’t matter which town they were preaching in, Blake always had a radio going or a newspaper unfolded in front of him. He was a baseball man, inside and out. He passed this weakness on to Coot.

Coot carried these cards everywhere. The grainy photos of men in wool caps wearing heroic looks on their stone faces. On the reverse sides were all sorts of numbers. Batting averages is what they were, Blake had told him.