Face the Winter Naked Read online

  While blond-haired Bobby was the spitting image of his dad, six-year-old Earl was a mix of both families, having inherited her side's dark hair and the Tomelin's gentle disposition. Strong-willed Catherine was her daddy's joy. Beneath the sugar-spun curls, behind the wide hazel eyes, was a four-year-old imp who put her brothers to shame finding mischief.

  What possessed a father to abandon his children as if they didn't exist? No matter how many times LaDaisy asked herself that question, there was never an answer that made sense.

  She glanced at Daniel's old cap on the end table. Surely it wasn't true what her mother had said about him not coming back. Of course he would. She'd been around the Tomelin clan long enough to know that when they made commitments, they honored them. But what had changed in his life to cause him to leave?

  Still, she often felt nagging doubts. Daniel was different from the others in many ways, a wanderer at heart. Maybe he needed to get it out of his system and the Depression gave him an excuse. But whatever it was, she was sure he still loved his kids. She didn't want to think he'd stopped loving his wife.

  "I'm stuck with you," she whispered, "whether I want to be or not."

  She picked up the cap. Pressed it to her nose. Inhaled his scent in the material. She turned it over and saw the sweat line on the band. Had he taken his other cap? She hadn't seen it around the house, and Daniel Tomelin could not live without his flat cap.

  She closed her eyes tightly to dam the flood of tears welling for the second time that day. Drawing in a deep breath, she opened her eyes and gazed at the cap for a long time, as though his face would materialize beneath it. With a cry of anguish, she hurled it as hard as she could to the other side of the room, where it landed on top of a lamp shade.

  LaDaisy got mad and threw the cap at least once a week.

  Calmer now, she wiped her eyes, hating herself for the doubts her mother had planted in her mind. But suppose Vera was right and he never intended to come home? What would she do if it turned out he no longer loved her? Divorce? Out of the question. No matter what he was up to, she was his wife and she still loved him. LaDaisy Tomelin was still Daniel's girl. Everyone knew that.

  A short time later, Rufus arrived with a box of used children's clothing and missed Elizabeth Channing by minutes. LaDaisy watched nervously out the window, hoping she wouldn't have to explain to her stepdad about the wet-nursing. It wasn't common knowledge around Independence. Not to mention that Rufus and Mr. Channing belonged to the same men's club and were on the county election board together. No, she would keep the secret: Elizabeth produced less than a thimble of milk for Ralph.

  The heat had clearly gotten to Rufus. His pulpy cheeks were moist and red, and even his eyes appeared to sweat. Carrying the box had been an effort.

  "It's pretty warm out," he said.

  "Would you like something to drink?" Say no, please. "I have cold tea in the icebox."

  "I can't stay, LaDaisy. A glass of water will do."

  Rufus declined to sit, and she went to the kitchen and returned with a glass of water.

  "Don't drink it too fast."

  "Ah, thank you, just what I need."

  LaDaisy thought she heard a car and jerked her head toward the door.

  "Something wrong?" he asked.

  "What? Oh, no. I thought I heard something." She smiled. "So, how are things at the store?"

  "Hectic, if I must say so. Despite the poor economy, would you believe some people are still willing to spend a few dollars?"

  "Well, that's good, isn't it? For you and Mama, I mean." Leave now, Rufus, please.

  He drained the glass and handed it to her.

  "I must get home now. Much obliged for the drink."

  Ten minutes later, the Channing's Ford V-8 pulled in behind Daniel's 1925 Model T pickup. The truck was an eyesore, and LaDaisy had considered getting rid of it. But she couldn't bear to give her husband's truck away. The previous owner had replaced the truck's back wheels with tractor tires so Daniel could drag a plow through the fields. He'd never gotten around to changing them, and Elizabeth's spanking new auto put it to shame.

  Chapter 3

  The white dome of the U.S. Capitol rose majestically in the distance when Daniel climbed off the freight train a few miles from the federal grounds, realizing the longer he stayed on the train, the tighter the security would be with a bigger chance of getting arrested for vagrancy. Sweating and disheveled, he went over to a shady sycamore tree and set down his gunnysack so he could size up the situation.

  This road he was on ran parallel to a river, laid out in the general direction of the Capital. Easy enough to find his way. But when he got there, then what? Most towns had laws forbidding vagrants from assembling, and he definitely looked the part: grubby, whiskered, reeking of sweat; scuffed, rundown shoes and baggy bib overalls about six times too big, and his flat cap had seen better days. After bumming around the country for the past year, he looked older than his thirty-four years.

  Summer's relentless heat was taking its toll on him, but his lack of food since leaving the Kimballs' was a bigger worry. The supper Frankie's mother had packed had consisted of two meatloaf sandwiches on homemade bread, a deviled egg, and chocolate cake with butter-cream icing. He'd bolted down the meal almost around the next bend in the road. Now his empty stomach complained.

  He pulled off his cap and exposed his naked head to the air, his thoughts turning to his family. If he had any sense, he'd go home, beg LaDaisy's forgiveness and hope she wouldn't kill him for deserting them. How would he explain the nightmares? He was surprised she hadn't figured it out all by herself after a few years of marriage. Would she understand those horrible experiences stole a man's pride and sanity? And how could he admit his shame for being unable to provide for them? It was a hurtful situation for a proud family man. I promised you a vine-covered cottage, girl, not a ramshackle house with a yard full of weeds. You at least deserve someone who can pay the rent.

  He put his cap back on, picked up his sack and started walking again. He hadn't gone far when a dusty truck pulled up beside him, and one glance told him he needn't have worried about his appearance. Men with unshaven, tired faces rode standing up in the back of the truck. A few sat at the rear with their legs dangling over the tailgate. A large sign hung from the side of the truck: BONUS ARMY. He would not have described any of those pathetic men as a bonus to the Army.

  The driver stuck his head out the window and waved him over.

  "I reckon you're headed our way." He motioned behind him to the truck bed. "Hop in, if you can find an empty spot."

  Daniel tipped his cap and nodded. "Much obliged, mister."

  He handed his pack up to one of the men, then grabbed an outstretched hand and clambered aboard. The men wedged him between them as the truck started up and continued down the road.

  He got his breath and turned to the man beside him.

  "My poor ol' feet are killing me."

  "Been walking long?"

  "Nope. Got off a train a ways back. But the longer I walk, the heavier my pack and tools get. Miserable weather, ain't it? I feel like a toad that got run over by a car and been laying out in the sun for a week."

  He closed his aching eyes, thinking how good it would be to collect his bonus and head for home.

  The truck rolled past the mansions of the rich, and a short time later, Daniel joined the throngs of veterans of the Bonus Expeditionary Force, which had descended on Washington, D.C., and demanded immediate payment of their cash bonuses. Like himself, many were unemployed victims of the Depression—ragged, sad, hungry, and mighty pissed off at the crooked politicians who'd let the country sink into such a sorry state.

  After leaving his long-faced companions, he toured the area for a few blocks, marveling at the stately homes, and grimacing at the hovels springing up within spitting distance of them. He stopped not far from the Capitol, appraised the building's handiwork but cursed the men who worked inside. This is where all our misery comes from. D
amn politicians sitting on their asses. Refusing to help the poor, starving citizens buy a loaf of bread or a few lumps of coal to heat their houses.

  The sun was already down by the time he found a secluded spot to park his weary body. He lay on the hard ground with his head on his pack—for comfort and safe-keeping. Frankie's catcher's mitt made a decent pillow, cradling his head in the soft leather.

  Early next morning, Daniel awakened to the smell of coffee and followed his nose to a shack built from corrugated sheet metal and scraps of old lumber.

  "Howdy," he said to a squat little man tending a kerosene burner outside his building. "My name's Daniel. Can you can tell me where I can find a privy? I can't hold it much longer."

  "I'm Chester." The man glanced up a dirt road with one eye, while the other looked in a different direction. "You can't miss it, but you might have to wait in line at this hour."

  Daniel waited for Chester's eye to refocus. He didn't want to stare, but he couldn't help wishing he could fix the eyeball so it wouldn't roam all over the place. A moment later, he felt ashamed of himself. This was undoubtedly an old war injury.

  "Maybe I'll just find me a tree somewhere. Standing in line don't sound like a good idea." Daniel cracked a grin, but hesitated, tasting the smell of fresh coffee in his mouth. "Any chance of finding work here?" He looked around, noting the enormous crowd gathering on this side of the river, surprised to see women and children in the group. "What are all these poor folks going to eat?"

  "Your guess is good as mine." Chester paused, his eye turning outward again. "I think some steal their food."

  "Can't say I'd blame them none, 'specially hard-up folks with youngins to feed." He nodded at the coffee that smelled so good. "What would you take for a cup of that coffee?"

  "What have you got?"

  Daniel chuckled, though his stomach rumbled. "Not much."

  "Everybody's in the same boat. When's the last time you ate?"

  "Couple days ago."

  "I'll show you where to find work," Chester said. "What kind of work you looking for?"

  "Most anything," Daniel replied. "I'm a cabinetmaker by trade, but I can be a farmhand or a dowser."

  "Dowser, huh? A real specialty. One of a kind."

  "Well, I come by it naturally," Daniel said. "But I can't dig a well by myself. It's hard work. There's many odd jobs I can do, like sharpen knives and stuff. Fixing things."

  A few cents earned here and there—it all went into the small leather purse he carried in his shirt pocket beneath the bib of his carpenter overalls, over his heart. These pennies he hoarded, guarded with his life if necessary. Someday he'd hand over the pouch to LaDaisy—if she was still speaking to him.

  "You're welcome to share my shack while you're here," Chester said. "I can use the company."

  Daniel thanked him and hurried off to find the privy. When he returned, Chester explained he needed to register and prove he had an honorable discharge.

  "Got your service papers?" He handed Daniel a cup of steaming coffee and a dry biscuit.

  "Yep. I had sense enough to bring them along."

  He drank the coffee, then found his way to the group leader's tent, spread his military documents on the table, and waited for Walter Waters, a former Sergeant, to examine them.

  "Honorable discharge." Waters added Daniel's name to a list. "I see you have tools. Good. We need shelters and streets built. Latrines dug. We'll hold formations daily, just like when you were in the Army."

  "Yes, sir."

  "One more thing," Waters said. "We're here for the duration and we're not going to starve, and we're going to keep ourselves a simon-pure veterans' organization."

  "I understand, sir."

  "Discipline has been good so far, but some of the residents don't trust us. I intend to see that nobody does anything to bring us shame." Waters glanced at the men waiting in line behind Daniel. "If we get our bonuses, our economic conditions will be relieved. You're in, Tomelin. Move along."

  "Thank you kindly, sir."

  Daniel saluted before realizing the man was no longer an Army officer, causing an outburst of laughter from the men behind him.

  But Waters returned a full salute with a smile.

  "Good luck, soldier."

  As the population of veterans swelled, Daniel put his tools to work, erecting shelters from old boards, corrugated boxes, scrap metal, and whatever materials could be dragged from the junk piles. At Anacostia Flats—a swampy, muddy area across the Anacostia River from the Capital—the largest camp housed tens of thousands of veterans and their families.

  Daniel worked in the shantytowns through the end of May and into June. On Massachusetts Avenue, ragged hikers in scraps of old uniforms mingled with Washington's elite. A sullen-looking group, they'd swarmed across the continent from every part of the country, descending on the city like hordes of locusts and chewing up every available inch of space.

  One morning, the wife of the owner of the Washington Post approached him as he erected a wall for a new shack.

  "My name's Evalyn McLean," she said. "Have you eaten?"

  He laid his hammer down and removed his cap. "I ate some beans and a corn fritter last night, ma'am, but my poor ol' stomach's never satisfied."

  She nodded. "I thought as much. You must be famished."

  "Yes, I am," Daniel said. "But I survived this long, and I can last a little longer if I put my mind to it."

  "Well, if that isn't the greatest attitude I ever heard." She gestured to the crowd. "Last night, I saw plain evidence of hunger on their faces. Such a pity. I wanted to thank the veterans who participated in wartime parades on these very grounds. If not for them, the war might still be going on." She handed him a meat sandwich from a basket. "Take this, please, and God bless you."

  Daniel accepted the food with gratitude and watched as she worked her way through the bivouacked men, asking each one, "Have you eaten?"

  He was itching to move again, and wished he could hurry and get his money. The veterans and their families were, through no fault of their own, getting on his nerves.

  In memory, he found himself still on the battlefields in France, the horrific scenes returning full-force whenever he shut his eyes. The war was over. His common sense knew that. Yet here he was fighting it still. In his mind, shells blasted, kicking up dirt near the trenches. He woke screaming more than once, no doubt causing distress for his shantytown neighbors. They could not know how tortured he was. On the other hand, maybe they had the same nightmares.

  A veteran in uniform approached him before dusk one evening. "Hey mister, did ya hear the news?"

  "What news?" Daniel yanked a bent nail out of an old board and dropped it in a can of rusty nails.

  The man pointed toward the crowded Capital grounds, where ten thousand marchers awaited the outcome of the Senate vote.

  "They say the House already passed a bill to give us our bonuses. We're expecting the Senate's vote any minute. Pretty soon we'll all have money in our pockets and we'll go home."

  But when Walter Waters appeared a short time later, Daniel read the story on his face before he spoke.

  "The Senate defeated the bill by a vote of sixty-two to eighteen."

  Stunned silence spread through the crowd, and Waters commanded them: "Sing America and go back to your billets."

  On that day, a silent "death march" began in front of the Capitol. But some folks refused to join the march and returned to their homes empty-handed.

  Daniel wasn't sure what to do, but there was no hurry to leave now.

  "I've come this far with nothing in my pocket," he told Chester. "So I ain't losing anything."

  Yet he waited. Here were people in the same fix. There was nowhere else to go. Home? Of course he could always go home. But this late in the game he suspected his beloved wife probably hated his guts, with good reason. He'd be going home without a dime. If he walked through the front door right now, he wouldn't be able to look LaDaisy in the face.

&n
bsp; Finally, he made up his mind and joined the death marchers proudly flying Old Glory. But as he walked along, his mind tricked him into believing he was back at the front with his battery position and first artillery experience, ducking shells and diving headfirst into the ground. War planes flew overhead in the darkness, but he couldn't see them.

  His mind went blank at times. He couldn't tell one day from the next as he worked automatically at this or that job, marched with other humans on blistered soles, and took meals when he could. And when he couldn't, he didn't. The nightmares continued. In the middle of one, Mrs. McLean appeared as an angel feeding the veterans ... and when her image dissolved, LaDaisy took her place. He'd reached out to touch his wife, but his screams woke him before he could make contact. Gasping for air and drenched with sweat, he pulled Frankie's mitt from his sack, clutched it to his chest, and wept silently.

  On Thursday, July 28, the festering boil of Bonus Marchers came to a head and all hell broke loose. President Hoover ordered the Army to clear out the veterans. Infantry and cavalry supported by six tanks were dispatched, with Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur in command. Major Dwight D. Eisenhower served as his liaison with the Washington police, and Major George Patton led the cavalry. By early afternoon, troops were stationed on Pennsylvania Avenue.

  "I'll be damned," someone shouted, "would you look at that?"

  The veterans hoisted their flags higher and the crowd roared.

  "We've won! They called out the military, the generals, the whole shebang to honor us."

  More cheers arose throughout the crowd.

  But Daniel hit the ground running and screaming.

  "Take cover!"

  He grabbed a young woman dressed as an infantryman and pulled her out of harm's way just as Patton's troopers charged. Soldiers with fixed bayonets hurled tear gas into the crowd.

  Daniel fell upon the woman in a nearby ditch, shielding her body with his own. His right shoulder hurt like hell, as though it had been ripped from its socket. The woman cried and struggled as he pinned her down.