Dusty

Dusty was what we called her because her hair was just like dust--everywhere and no where at all.  Her eyes were that way, too. 

The folks in the Holla named her ‘cause her pappy didn’t bother and her mammy just up and disappeared before Christening time.  (It was just after a big fight with Dusty’s pappy.  Folks were suspicious, but they never found a body.)

It didn’t seem like that little one was born properways anyhow.  It seemed she was kicked right on out of a dust storm--the dog-day summer kind.  You know, the ones that make you feared God’s angry--the kind that scares even the fireflies away.

But Dusty could love those fireflies right back into being.  And she did, just for her little sister, Baby Sue.  Because there sure wasn’t nothing that Baby Sue liked more than chasing fireflies with a Mason Jar.

Any day of the year--even in the dead of winter--you could find Baby Sue chasing fireflies down along Prospect Peak.  It always made a fellow blink to see those fireflies flickering like glitter thrown over the new fallen snow.  But folks in the Holla knew it was Dusty’s doing.  Like I said, she could love those fireflies into being.  The only thing Dusty loved more than fireflies was Baby Sue.

She loved that child like it were her own (Which could have been true--a lot of folks thought so but were too frightened of her pappy Jesse to let on.).  They stayed mostly to themselves, Dusty and Baby Sue.  Seemed they didn’t need much more than each other--and all those darn fireflies.

One Valentine’s Day Baby Sue went missing.  They found her body crumpled like a fallen angel at the bottom of Prospect Peak.  The coroner said she must have fallen while chasing after fireflies, but most in Holla knew better.  Fully clothed young-uns don’t go falling off a cliff and land on the ground naked, and naked young-uns don’t go outside chasing fireflies in the snow.  Those that knew better kept their mouths clamped ‘cause they knew Jesse, too.  In the Hollas we value our lives more than the truth.

We gathered at Weeping Meadows to put Baby Sue back to ground.  Most everyone in the Hollas was there--except the two who really should have been there:  Dusty and her pappy Jesse were missing.

The preacher was muttering “Dust unto dust” when all those fireflies appeared.  At first it was hard to see them clearly.  They were winking in and out between the falling flakes of snow.  Then they gathered like a firestorm and headed on down the valley--straight toward Jesse’s house.

They found Jesse’s body the next day.  Well, it wasn’t really a body--just a pile of ashes.

Guess Dusty could hate those fireflies into being, too.