Ricky was alive and writing letters; nothing else really mattered. My father was walking toward me. I ran to meet him with the letter, and we sat in the doorway of the dry goods store and read every word. Ricky was again in a hurry, and his letter was only one page. He wrote us that his unit had seen little action, and though he seemed frustrated by this, it was music to our ears. He also said that rumors of a ceasefire were everywhere, and that there was even talk of being home by Christmas.
The last paragraph was sad and frightening. One of his buddies, a kid from Texas, had been killed by a land mine. They were the same age and had gone through boot camp together. When Ricky got home, he planned to go to Fort Worth to see his friend's mother.
My father folded the letter and stuck it in his overalls. We got in the truck and left town.
Home by Christmas. I couldn't think of a finer gift.
We parked under the pin oak, and my father went to the back of the truck to collect the paint. He stopped, counted, then looked at me.
"How'd we end up with six gallons?"
"I bought two," I said. "And I paid the tax."
He didn't seem sure what to say. "You use your pickin' money?" he finally asked.
"Yes sir."
"I wish you hadn't done that."
"I want to help."
He scratched his forehead and studied the issue for a minute or so, then said, "I reckon that's fair enough."
We hauled the paint to the back porch, and then he decided he would go to the back forty to check on Pappy and the Mexicans. If the cotton could be picked, then he'd stay there. I was given permission to start painting the west side of the house. I wanted to work alone. I wanted to seem outmatched and undermanned by the enormity of the job before me so that when the Mexicans returned, they'd feel sorry for me.
They arrived at noon, muddy and tired and with little to show for their morning. "Cotton's too wet," I heard Pappy say to Gran. We ate fried okra and biscuits, then I went back to my work.
I kept one eye on the barn, but for an eternity I labored with no relief in sight. What were they doing back there? Lunch was over, the tortillas long since put away. Surely their siestas were also complete. They knew the house was half-painted. Why wouldn't they come help?
The sky darkened in the west, but I didn't notice it until Pappy and Gran stepped onto the back porch. "Might rain, Luke," Pappy said. "Better stop paintin'."
I cleaned my brush and put the paint under a bench on the back porch as if the storm might damage it. I sat above it, with Pappy on one side and Gran on the other, and we once again listened to the low rumblings in the southwest. We waited for more rain.
Chapter 33
Our new ritual was repeated the next day after a late breakfast. We walked across the rain-soaked grass between our house and our barn, and we stood at the edge of the cotton field and saw water, not rainfall that had collected during the night, but the same thick floodwater from the creek. It stood three inches deep, and seemed ready to swell beyond the field and begin its slow march toward the barn, the tool shed, the chicken coops, and, eventually, the house.
The stalks were slanted to the east, permanently bent by the wind that had laid siege to our farm last night. The bolls were sagging under the weight of the water.
"Will it flood our house, Pappy?" I asked.
He shook his head and put his arm around my shoulders. "No, Luke, it's never got to the house. Come close a time or two, but the house is a good three feet above where we're standin' right now. Don't you worry about the house."
"It got in the barn once," my father said. "The year after Luke was born, wasn't it?"
"Forty-six," Gran said. She never missed a date. "But it was in May," she added. "Two weeks after we'd planted."
The morning was cool and windy with high, thin clouds and little chance of rain. A perfect day for painting, assuming, of course, that I could find some help. The Mexicans drifted close, but not close enough to speak.
They would be leaving soon, perhaps within hours. We'd haul them to the Co-op and wait for them to be picked up by a farmer with drier land. I heard the adults discussing this over coffee before sunrise, and I almost panicked. Nine Mexicans could paint the west side of our house in less than a day. It would take me a month. There was no time to be timid.
As we retreated, I headed for the Mexicans. "Buenos dias," I said to the group. "Como estd?"
All nine answered in some fashion. They were going back to the barn after another wasted day. I walked along with them until I was far enough away that my parents couldn't hear. "Y'all want to paint some?" I asked.
Miguel rattled the translation, and the entire group seemed to smile.
Ten minutes later three of the six paint buckets were open and there were Mexicans hanging all over the west side of our house. They fought over the three brushes. Another crew was rigging a scaffold. I was pointing here and there, giving instructions that no one seemed to hear. Miguel and Roberto were spitting forth their own commands and opinions in Spanish. Both languages were being ignored in equal measure.
My mother and Gran peeked at us through the kitchen window as they washed the breakfast dishes. Pappy went to the tool shed to fiddle with the tractor. My father was off on a long walk, probably surveying the crop damage and wondering what to do next.
There was an urgency to the painting. The Mexicans joked and laughed and badgered one another, but they worked twice as fast as two days earlier. Not a second was wasted. The brushes changed hands every half hour or so. The reinforcements were kept fresh. By mid-morning they were halfway to the front porch. It was not a large house.
I was happy to retreat and stay out of the way. The Mexicans worked so fast it seemed downright inefficient for me to take up a brush and stall the momentum. Besides, the free labor was temporary. The hour was soon approaching when I'd be left alone to finish the job.
My mother brought iced tea and cookies, but the painting did not stop. Those under the shade tree with me ate first, then three of them changed places with the painters.
"Do you have enough paint?" my mother whispered to me.
"No ma'am."
She returned to the kitchen.
Before lunch, the west side was finished, a thick, shiny coat sparkling in the intermittent sun. There was a gallon left. I took Miguel to the east side, where Trot had begun a month earlier, and pointed up to an unpainted strip that I'd been unable to reach. He barked some orders, and the crew moved to the opposite side of the house.
A new method was employed. Instead of makeshift scaffolding, Pepe and Luis, two of the smaller ones, balanced themselves on the shoulders of Pablo and Roberto, the two heaviest ones, and began painting just below the roofline. This, of course, drew an endless stream of comments and jokes from the others.
When the paint was gone, it was time to eat. I shook hands with all of them and thanked them profusely. They laughed and chattered all the way back to the barn. It was midday, the sun was out, and the temperature was rising. As I watched them walk away, I looked at the field beside the barn. The floodwaters were in sight. It seemed odd that the flood could advance when the sun was shining.
I turned and inspected the work. The back and both sides of our house looked almost new. Only the front remained unpainted, and since by now I was a veteran, I knew that I could complete the job without the Mexicans.
My mother stepped outside and said, "Lunchtime, Luke." I hesitated for a second, still admiring the accomplishment, so she walked to where I was standing, and together we looked at the house. "It's a very good job, Luke," she said.