Chapter 2 - The Stranger Who Knew Their Names
“Don't go in there,” Ruth said.
The stranger had already taken three steps toward the corn. He stopped and looked back, not annoyed by her warning. Walter sat in the ditch, his jaw clenched so tightly Ruth could see the muscles working beneath his skin. A rat watched them from the fence, its tail curled around June's silver bracelet.
“The rats,” Ruth managed. “There's something behind them.”
“I know.”
He returned to Walter and knelt in the dirt. The little monkey slipped down his arm and sat on the fence, carefully keeping its distance from the rat. The stranger placed one hand beneath Walter's elbow and the other against his shoulder.
“On three,” he said. “You still have enough strength to help me.”
Walter, who despised being pitied, gave him a startled look. Together they got him upright. The knee trembled but held. Ruth grabbed the cane the stranger retrieved from the row, and the three of them made it to the porch while the rats remained as still as stones.
Inside, Ruth shut the screen door and threw the old brass bolt. She knew how foolish that looked. Their windows were open, and half the kitchen wall had gaps wide enough for a mouse. Still, the familiar click steadied her.
“Coffee?” she asked.
Walter stared. “Ruth, the field—”
“I'm asking our guest if he wants coffee.”
“Yes, please,” the stranger said. “If there's enough.”
Ruth had two spoonfuls of grounds left. She used both. The stranger sat at their worn kitchen table, leaving his sandals by the door without being asked. His companion perched on the windowsill, holding an unripe pecan it had somehow found. On the refrigerator, June's picture fluttered beneath a magnet advertising Pike Feed and Grain.
The stranger studied the drawing. “She used a different shade of yellow for every stalk.”
“Our granddaughter,” Ruth said. “June.”
“I know her name.”
Walter leaned forward. “Who are you?”
The man met his eyes. Ruth felt the answer before he gave it, the way she'd recognized Walter's voice on the telephone after they had been apart only a week during his surgery. She looked at his hands. There were marks on them, faint yet unmistakable, and the room seemed to become both unbearably quiet and impossibly full.
“Jesus?” she whispered.
He did not demand that she believe what she was seeing. He simply reached across the table and turned her injured glove palm up.
“You were bitten. We should wash that.”
Ruth laughed once, a broken sound. “We haven't got enough money to save the farm, and you're worried about my hand?”
“Your hand matters.”
He helped her peel off the glove. The bite had broken the skin. He washed it at the sink with soap and clean water while Walter fetched their first-aid tin. It was such an ordinary act that Ruth began to cry. She had expected a thunderclap or a command. Instead, someone was checking whether she had bandages.
“Please tell me you can save the corn,” she said.
“I can confront what is destroying it. But you will still have decisions to make when it is gone.”
“Gone?” Walter echoed.
Jesus looked through the window. Beyond the yard, every corn tassel pointed toward the house. “There are things feeding out there that have been invited by more than hunger.”
Walter opened his mouth, then closed it. Ruth knew the expression. It was the same look he'd worn yesterday when she found the second notice from the bank folded inside his tractor manual.
“What haven't you told me?” she asked.
He glanced down. “I tried to buy us time.”
“How?”
“Silas Pike offered an advance on the harvest. We signed a delivery agreement in July.”
Ruth's chair scraped backward. “You told me you refused him.”
“I told him no at first. Then the irrigation pump broke. The money paid to fix it.”
“And what happens if we can't deliver?”
Walter didn't answer.
Jesus waited while the silence made room for the truth.
“Pike can charge a penalty,” Walter said. “Enough to make Friday worse.”
Ruth thought of all the evenings she'd counted dollars at this table while Walter assured her they had a plan. Anger rose through her fear. “You let me think we were safe.”
“I wanted you to sleep.”
“I wanted to know the truth.”
A thud struck the kitchen wall. Then another. The monkey abandoned its pecan and climbed onto the stranger's shoulder. Outside, rats were throwing half-eaten corn at the siding. Their bodies formed a dark ring around the house.
A voice drifted from the field. It was deep, amused, and horribly clear.
“Tell her the rest, Walter.”
Ruth gripped the table. Walter stood so suddenly his chair fell.
“Who said that?” he demanded.
The voice laughed. “The part about her daughter. The part about the offer you hid.”
Ruth turned to her husband. He looked twenty years older.
“Caroline came by Monday,” he admitted. “She asked me to take Pike's offer. Said she'd help us move closer to her and June. I told her she cared more about the money than about this family.”
“She wasn't asking for money,” Ruth said. “She was asking us to come home to her.”
“I know that now.”
Outside, the voice became a low growl. The house windows rattled. Jesus rose, steadying his coffee cup so it would not tip.
“Someone wanted you frightened and divided,” he said. “Someone human made a choice. Something else is using it.”
He lifted the screen-door latch. Ruth caught his sleeve.
“What do we do?”
“First, call Caroline. Tell her exactly what's happening. Tell her you love her before you explain anything else.”
“And then?”
“Stay together. Whatever speaks from that field will try to make each of you stand alone.”
Ruth reached for the phone, but an incoming call lit the screen first. Caroline's name appeared above a short voice message.
Mom, June's gone. She left a note saying she's coming to save the corn. I can't find her anywhere.
May you like
From the far edge of the farm came a child's voice, calling through the stalks.
“Grandma? I found your blue ribbon!”
