Richard and Ellen - Rico and El, as the family came to call them - stayed for only one harvest season, but it seemed like a lifetime to Roy and Sarah.They were mostly somber, serious and focused, disciplined about time. They were tidy with the little room they shared. It was Roy's room. Roy had to bunk up with his little sister to accommodate the hired hands, but somehow he didn't resent it. He liked the way Rico and El spoke to him directly, asked him serious questions. Rico's pale blue eyes, frightening to Sarah, were like talismans to Roy. El's raspy yet gentle voice was somehow always calming. They were like hippie apostles.
Sometimes, out on the porch at night, Roy would find himself listening intently to El as she spun Biblical-sounding stories that he had never heard in Sunday school. Often, they ended with great plagues or apocalyptic cataclysms that fascinated Roy.
The couple went from interlopers to trusted friends over night, it seemed to Roy. Although there was something about them he could never quite put his finger on. He never learned much about them, where they came from, what they had done before, where they were going. While they had fast and thorough answers to philosophical questions, they tended to give vague replies to any personal queries.
Most nights that season, long after Poppas had retired with Roy and Sarah, Margaret would stay up with Rico and El. No one really knew what they talked about.
It wasn’t long before Poppas and Margaret started arguing. -- RJ