Free The Widows of Eden by George Shaffner Page B

his fork. “That was question number four,” he remarked, and then he plopped an orange slice into his mouth.
    Like my goddaughter said, it was darned frusterating. But after four years of nothing, a country girl will take three of something.

Chapter 9
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    T HE D ROUGHT C YCLE
    I DON ’ T KNOW HOW it was in the old days, but there is a cycle to modern drought that is defined by the constant, up-to-the-minute availability of bad news. At night, right before bedtime, you turn on the Weather Channel to see if the forecast has changed. It never does in a drought — that’s why they call it a drought — so you say a little prayer and go to bed depressed. In the morning, you turn the Weather Channel on again to see if the forecast was revised overnight. After you learn that it wasn’t, you head downstairs to get the newspaper. When you open the front door, you are hit by a blast of tepid morning air and you see nothing but a translucent yellow haze stretching across an empty, cloudless horizon, so you take the paper to the kitchen and open it to the weather page, where you hope for a change in the long-range forecast. When there isn’t any, you say another little prayer, and then you hunker down for another day of relentless heat.
    It couldn’t have been an hour after sunup on day one hundred and nineteen, but Mr. Moore’s car was already gone by the time I got downstairs. After I fixed myself a cup of coffee and read the same-old, same-old weather report in the newspaper, I moseyed into the den fearing the worst. For the second day in a row, I hadmore e-mails than spam, which is a mite depressing when the spammers only want to steal you blind but the e-mailers want miracles. I found the official Buzzword from Hail Mary Wade about halfway down the screen. It read:
    Dear Bees:
    As you have no doubt heard, Mr. Vernon Moore is visiting us in Ebb this week. I want everyone to know that he is aware of the drought and working closely with your board of governors. You can help by routing any requests for a visit with Mr. Moore to Wilma Porter, but by e-mail only .
    You can also show our support for Mr. Moore by stopping at Millet’s after noon today to pick up a free umbrella, courtesy of the Quilting Circle. Please carry your official Quilting Circle umbrella everywhere you go. It could rain at any time.
    Mary Wade, Queen Bee
    I thought it was well written, all in all, and it gave me hope that I could turn on my telephone again some day. Just as I was beginning to feel better about our prospects, I noticed a second Buzzword at the bottom of the screen:
    Dear Bees:
    On a day when we have so many reasons to be hopeful, I’m sorry to report that Herb and Barb Knepper disappeared from their farm last night. They will be sorely missed. Let’s keep them in our prayers.
    Mary Wade, Queen Bee
    The Kneppers owned a small bean and alfalfa spread that had been in the family for more than a century, and Barb had been a member of the Circle for fifteen years. She must have gottenthe word that Mr. Moore was in town, but they didn’t try to stick it out.
    Maybe they were worn out; maybe the Bowes were, too. A lot of farmers in this neck of the woods were on the brink long before the drought — from year after year of being battered by dry weather, deaf banks, dumb government, greedy commodities traders, and bottom-dollar foreign competition, all at once. Even when they succeeded in getting a crop to market, only a few made more than a living wage. That’s not much upside for backbreaking, fifteen-hour days, especially when the downside is next door to poor.
    I’m all for capitalism, I really am, but I will never understand why we pay the people who feed us so little and the people who entertain us so much. That can’t be smart in the long run.

Chapter 10
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    T HE S COREKEEPER ’ S L OT
    L OUISE N ELSON , THE TOWN NURSE , met Mr. Moore at the door of the River House that