Dorothy Garlock - [Route 66] (11 page)

“Where's your aunt?” Yates asked when he went in for supper. Leona had yet to sit down at the table and eat a meal when he was there.

“She went…somewhere,” Ruth Ann mumbled with her back to him. “Want tea?”

“I can get it.”

“No. I will.” The little girl lifted the lid on the icebox and carefully chipped chunks from the block of ice, put them in the pitcher and returned the pick to the leather holder on the side of the icebox. She stirred the tea with a long-handled spoon, filled a glass and carried it to the table.

“If Deke Bales comes on Sunday, we'll go to the city to see your daddy.” Yates waited to see the little girl's face brighten. It didn't. She sat looking down at her plate. “Don't you want to go?” he asked.

“I'm not gettin my hopes up. Mr. Bales will probably take off like a herd of buffalo when he finds out Aunt Lee won't be here.”

“Mr. Fleming said he'd be here.”

“He did?” Ruth Ann lifted her eyes. He could see the hope in her face.

“He did. He's reliable, isn't he?”

She nodded. “Aunt Lee will go. She won't let us go without her.”

“I'm planning on her going. We'll stop at the store in Elk City on the way back.”

“Store isn't open on Sunday.” Ruth Ann imparted the news as if Yates should have known.

“You're right. I didn't think about that. We'll have to go another time.”

“Will Daddy be in bed?” JoBeth crumbled cornbread into her glass of milk.

“I don't know. He'll either be in the hospital or a room nearby. We'll find him.”

Yates helped himself to a couple of deviled eggs and a slice of cornbread. If not for the breeze coming in through the wide open doors and windows the kitchen would be as hot as the bread pudding and the oven Leona used to bake it in. He glanced at the small, shiny portable oven still sitting on the kerosene stove.

“Mr. Yates said maybe we can buy our dinner when we go to see Daddy,” JoBeth said to her sister.

“You've told me that six times already,” Ruth Ann replied impatiently. “Aunt Lee said we'll pack a picnic.”

“We can do both.” Yates put a spoonful of sugar in his tea. “We'll have to leave early, and it'll be late when we get back.”

A few weeks ago if anyone had told Yates that he would be sitting in a kitchen carrying on a conversation with the two little girls and enjoying it, he would have told them that they were crazy as a bed bug.

“I need to talk to your aunt.”

“'Bout buyin our dinner?” JoBeth was spooning the cornbread from the glass and milk was running down her chin.

“No. I need to find out what your daddy did with the money he took in.”

“He had a hidey-hole,” Ruth Ann said.

“Humm. Smart of him. The banks aren't too reliable nowadays.”

“Daddy said he wasn't going to be caught with his pants down.”

“Why'd he say that, Ruth Ann?”

“You're too young to understand.” Ruth Ann answered her sister in a superior tone. Then she asked Yates, “Are you ready for the bread pudding?”

Reluctant to leave when the meal was over, Yates helped the girls clear the table. When Ruth Ann would have left the dishes in the pan, he suggested that they wash them.

“You'll have to tell me what to do. I've not washed many dishes.”

“Then I'd better wash. You can dry and JoBeth can put away.”

The task took less than a quarter of an hour and when they finished, Yates no longer had an excuse to linger until Leona returned.

“Where can I find your aunt?” He hung the wet tea towel on a line over the cookstove.

“She don't want ya to find her,” Ruth Ann said bluntly.

“Why not?”

The little girl turned and glared at him. “Don't ya know anythin'?”

“Evidently not
that
or I'd not have asked. Why doesn't she want me to find her?”

“She's shamed!”

“Shamed?” he repeated.

“Shamed …'bout what Uncle Virgil said. I hate him. I wish he'd die!”

“Mr. Yates, will you kill him for us?” JoBeth looked up at Yates. “So we won't have to ever go with him, and he won't come and make Aunt Lee cry. Will ya?”

“Ah, sweetheart.” Totally stunned by the request, Yates sat down in the kitchen chair and lifted the child up onto his lap. “Killing is something we should never even consider. If we did something like that we'd be even worse than your Uncle Virgil.”

“Ya hurt him and he went away.”

“I wouldn't have, but I didn't think that he'd go unless I did.”

“Could ya hurt him worser?”

“I might have to if he comes back here and talks mean to your aunt and tries to take you from your home.”

JoBeth threw her arms around his neck. “I wish you was my uncle, 'stead of that old Uncle Virgil.”

Chapter 10

A
FTER THE GIRLS HAD GONE TO BED
, Leona sat on the back porch and rhythmically moved the wooden dasher up and down through the milk in the churn. She was so keyed up from the events of the day that she knew she wouldn't sleep and decided to get this morning chore out of the way

Today had been the worst day of her life!

Calvin came out from under the porch, flopped down beside her and placed his jowls on her foot.

“You miss Andy, don't you, boy?”

Calvin's answer was a deep sigh.

Leona tied back her thick, wavy hair with a piece of twine and gazed at the bright, silent stars that blanketed the sky. She enjoyed the feel of the breeze coming from the south while listening to the fluttering of birds in the branches that extended over the roof of the porch. She also heard the faint stirrings of the horses in the corral beside the barn. At times one of them would stamp or blow dust from his nostrils. Occasionally the sound of a car going by on the highway reached her ears.

Where was it going, guided only by the headlights forging a path on the ribbon of paving? And where had it come from?

The first hours of darkness were the lonely hours for Leona. When there was no longer work to be done and her mind was free to wander, she dreamed her secret dreams of finding a man who would love her as Andy had loved her sister. He had adored her with all his heart and soul, and it had almost killed him when he lost her.

Realistically Leona knew that she would never find her life's mate in this town where ninety-eight percent of the people thought that a man could fornicate with a number of women and still be respectable; but because she, an unmarried woman, lived in this house with Andy and took care of his girls, she was considered immoral.

She would have to go away from here, but how could she leave this little family she loved? It would be hard to leave the girls even if Andy remarried. But so far he hadn't seemed to have the slightest interest in marrying again. As far as Leona knew, he had not even looked at another woman since his Irene's death almost three years before.

Her thoughts turned now and fixed firmly on Yates, as they had done at odd intervals throughout the day. She reluctantly admitted to herself that she had been unreasonable about the portable oven. Her excuse was that after being so thoroughly mortified by the things Mr. White said at the store, as well as what he implied, finding the oven sitting on the kerosene stove had seemed to her to be the final humiliation.

Through the darkness, the stern, expressionless face of the stranger who had come so suddenly into their lives emerged and hung suspended before her—so close that she could see every silver fleck in his incredible eyes and the lines that bracketed his firm unsmiling mouth. His size alone intimidated her—she was not used to such big men. That wasn't exactly true. Most of the men who stopped at the garage were larger than Andy. Some of them intimidated her, while Yates intrigued her.

She would never forget the questioning look in Yates's eyes as he listened to Virgil spewing out his vile words of abuse and hatred. She was sure the word
trash
flashed before his eyes like an electric sign on the front of a honky-tonk. Just thinking about it caused a flood of scarlet to wash up her neck and heat her face.

One thing that puzzled her greatly was that Andy had never mentioned knowing anyone named Yates. It seemed to Leona that he hadn't even known him that morning when he rode in and killed the skunk. The only reason he gave for being here was that he owed Andy. What had Andy ever done for a man like Yates that would warrant all that he was willing to do for him?

What to do? What to do with the rest of her life was the question.
Is this all I'll ever have—caring for someone else's children?

To still her thoughts she began to sing in a voice just above a whisper as she did sometimes to accompany the slush, slush, slush sound as the dasher moved up and down through the milk.

“O bury me not on the lone prairie,

The words came low and mournfully

From the pallid lips of a youth who lay

on his dying bed at the close of day.”

It was comforting to Leona to sing the sad old songs her mother used to sing while working around the house. She intended, someday, to write down the words in order to preserve them for the girls.

“In a little rosewood casket,

setting on a marble stand

Was a package of love letters—

written by her true-love's hand.”

Leona wasn't sure when she became aware that Calvin was sitting very still, staring at the corner of the house. She reached down and patted his head. He remained stiff and alert. She ceased the movement of the dasher so that she could listen.

“What is it, boy?”

The dog's tail began to wag. Leona stood. In the next instant Calvin was off the porch and running. He was clearly visible in the moonlight. She heard his whine of welcome as Yates came around the corner of the porch. Her first thought was to go into the house, her second thought was not to give him the satisfaction of knowing that she ran from him.

She sat back down. Her hand sought the dasher, and she began to move it rapidly up and down, subconsciously providing a reason for being there.

“Evenin.”

“Evening,” she muttered.

“I need to speak to you.”

“What about?” she asked sharply. Her voice cold and flat.

“What does Andy do with the money he takes in?”

Leona took a long time answering, then said, “He hides it.”

“He doesn't bank it?”

“No.”

“Do you know where he hides it?”

“Yes.”

After a long pause, he said, “But you don't want to tell me.”

“No. Find your own hiding place.”

“Does he keep a list of what he sells?”

“Didn't you see it? There's a Red Chief tablet on the shelf in the garage.”

“Yes, I saw it, and I've been writing down what was sold.”

“Then why did you ask me?” she retorted testily. She could feel his eyes on her, but she refused to look at him.

“Mind if I sit down?”

“Why ask me?” she muttered. “You'll do as you please.”

He sat down on the edge of the porch. Calvin went to lean against him. Yates scratched the dog's ears. Calvin whined contentedly.

Leona felt as if the air was being squeezed from her chest. She debated about getting up and going into the house without saying another word. But damned if she'd let him run her off. She had more right here than he did, she thought childishly. She continued to churn although she was sure the milk had made all the butter it was going to make.

“My mother used to sing one of the songs you were singing.”

“Eavesdropping?”

“Yeah, guess I was. I thought if I showed myself you'd stop singing.”

“You were right, I would have.” Her mouth clamped shut. Being alone with him in the dark made her nerves tingle and goose pimples swarm over her flesh.

“Could I persuade you to sing some more?”

“No. I sing only for my own pleasure.”

“I can understand that. It's the same reason I play my guitar.”

The next few minutes were filled with a strange quiet; the only sound made was by the dasher as Leona continued to move it up and down through the milk.

“What did the grocer say to you about the credit at the store?”

“Nothing much.”

“He must have said something to cause you to put down the things you were going to buy.”

For a full minute she looked at the blur that was his face while she sought to control her temper. Then she stood and reached to pick up the churn. His hand clamped down on the top and held it to the floor of the porch.

“Don't run,” he said softly. “Talk to me.”

“I'm not running, and I've nothing to say to you.”

“Sit down …please. I'm not your enemy, Leona.”

“All I've got to say to you is that I think it's rotten of you to pick information from a child.” Pride kept Leona rooted to where she stood.

“I didn't ask. She volunteered. Sit down for just a little while.”

“And you soaked up every word.” She sank down on the edge of the bench.

“Did he insult you?”

“He didn't think so.”

“Did you?”

“I'm used to it.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You can't insult a strumpet, Mr. Yates, or an immoral woman who lives out in the country with a man who isn't her husband. To make matters worse she fornicates with him with his two children in the house.”

“Is that what folks think of you?”

“You heard what Virgil had to say.”

“What do they say about Andy?”

“Andy is a man. He can't be blamed for taking what's handy.”

“Your brother is warped. I've seen fanatics like him before. There's no reasoning with them.”

“You hurt him. He won't forget it.”

“I didn't hurt him enough. I hope he gives me another chance at him.”

“He's big in the church. Half of Sayre is holy roller. You won't be so welcome the next time you go to town.”

“I've met some fine people who are holy rollers; not all of them are like your brother. Leona”—his voice was set; his eyes peering at her through the semi-darkness—“do you consider yourself a decent woman?”

“Of course!” she blurted through stiff lips.

“Because some people think otherwise, does it change you?”