Dorothy Garlock - [Route 66] (9 page)

“It isn't mine, Mr. Oliver. And it couldn't belong to the garage. Believe me, if we'd lost five dollars we'd know it. It was probably lost by one of the gas customers and belongs to whoever found it.”

“It's what Mr. Yates said. I'd hate to keep it if somebody needs it worse than me.” He put the bill back in the bib pocket of his overalls.

“Maybe you were meant to have it.”

Leona took a piece of dried cornbread from her pocket, crumbled it, threw it out on the drive and waited for the sparrows to come down off the electric line. The swarm of small birds settled near where Leona stood and began eating the crumbs.

“Were you waiting for me?” she asked the fluttery little birds. “I bring them a few crumbs each day about this time,” she explained to Mr. Oliver.

Leona stood still, and the little birds came closer and closer to her feet. Watching small wild creatures gave her a great deal of pleasure.

“They aren't shy. They can't afford to be or the bigger birds will swoop down and gobble up the food.” She spoke with a tinge of regret in her voice.

“Yes, ma'am. It's the way of things—the big swallow up the little.”

Chapter 8

S
TAY ON THE PORCH OR UNDER THE SHADE TREE
, Leona said to JoBeth. “It's too hot for you out here in the garden.”

“Mr. Yates gave me a chip of ice. He gave some to the camper kids, too.”

Leona grunted a reply and continued to chop weeds from between the rows of green beans.

“He gave us all a peppermint stick.” JoBeth was dancing up and down to keep the hot dirt from burning her bare feet.

“Go back to the porch,” Leona said again. “You don't have anything on your head.”

“If I put on my sunbonnet can I play on the swing?”

“Why don't you spread a quilt on the porch and look at your books?”

“I don't want to. Can I take the camper kids in to hear the radio?”

“I'd rather you didn't. You can ask them when I come in. I'll be in as soon as I pick beans.”

“Can I go talk to Mr. Yates?” JoBeth whined.

“No.” Leona spoke sharply. “Mind me, JoBeth, and go to the porch.”

“You don't let me do anythin'.” The child ran toward the porch.

Leona went down the row of beans being careful not to knock off any blooms and to pick only the ones that were three inches or longer. Her bucket was full by the time she reached the end of the first row. She stood to ease her back and looked over the two additional rows to be picked. This was the best garden she'd ever had, and she was proud of it. At this rate they would have all the beans they could eat and all that she could possibly can.

Picking up the bucket, she went to the house. After setting the bucket on the porch she headed for the campground. She removed her sunbonnet when she reached the shade, where Mrs. Oliver was nursing her baby.

“It's cooler here in the shade,” she said and fanned her face with the brim of the bonnet.

“I saw you working in your garden.” The woman stood and lifted her baby to her shoulder. “Made me homesick.”

“I'm hoping for some rain, so that I don't have to water again soon.”

“It's a pretty garden,” Mrs. Oliver said wistfully.

“I just picked a row of beans. You are welcome to pick the other two rows. According to the blooms still coming on, we are going to have plenty.”

“Ah …ma'am—”

“I only pick them if they're three inches long,” Leona rushed on. “I'll not get to the other two rows this week. By then they'll be old and tough.”

“I sure do thank ya.”

“No thanks are necessary, Mrs. Oliver. There's some green onions and radishes on the end of the rows. I planted them as an afterthought. Take some of those, too. My, I don't know why I get so carried away when I plant a garden.”

“I'll take the boys. They'll pull weeds while I pick the beans. We'll be careful of the plants.”

“If there's anything I hate to do it's pull or chop weeds, and the girls are too young yet to turn loose in the garden. I'd better get back to the house and snap the beans I picked if we're going to have them for supper.” Leona lifted her hand in farewell and hurried away.

She went through the house to the washstand on the back porch, splashed water on her face and blotted it with the slightly damp towel that hung on the nail above the stand. She held it to her face for a hazy, unreal moment, inhaling the sharp, unfamiliar masculine scent, and couldn't really define how it made her feel.

“Aunt Lee, Uncle Virgil is here.”

Leona froze. Guilt at being caught smelling the towel Yates had used was replaced quickly by apprehension.

Oh, no! Not today!
A confrontation with her brother was always unpleasant.

“Uncle Virgil is here,” JoBeth said again.

“I heard you, honey.”

Trying her best to prepare herself for the scene that was sure to follow, Leona hurried through the house to the porch to make sure her brother didn't come into the house. Virgil's friend Abe Patton had driven around the garage and had stopped his car just a few feet from the porch. He and Abe were getting out when Leona came through the door.

“What's goin' on out here?” Virgil demanded the instant he saw her. He was a tall, thin man with stooped shoulders and thinning hair. The voice coming from the thin, bony face was loud and belligerent. For the hundredth time Leona wondered why he never spoke in a normal tone of voice.

“Hello to you, too, Virgil. I'm fine, thank you.” Leona's voice was heavy with sarcasm.

She stepped out into the yard, not wanting to give him an excuse to even come up onto the porch. She knew why he was here. He'd been to town and heard the news about Andy, and no doubt Mr. White had spread the news about Andy's
cousin.

“What's this about Andy bein' bit by a skunk?”

“It's true. He's in Oklahoma City getting the rabies shots.”

“The Lord works in mysterious ways to punish the doers of evil.” He lifted his eyes to the heavens, then turned them on his sister, who stood with her arms crossed over her chest. “Get yore thin's. Yo're comin home. Abe'll make ya a good man. Yo're long past marryin.”

“I'll…not…go.” Leona spaced the words for emphasis.

“Mind me now. I ain't takin no sass from ya.”

“I'm not going, Virgil. I'm staying right here. You might as well go crawl back into the hole you crawled out of and take that poor excuse for a man with you.”

“Hush yore mouth! Hazel is willin' to take the girls in—”

“That's good of her …considering she's living in my mama's house and refused to even give me or Irene a picture of her or our father.”

“That's enough out of ya! I ain't havin' no backtalk from no split-tail gal who fornicates with every man that comes down the highway!” Virgil shouted. “Hazel's a good Christian woman while you're nothin' but a Jezebel livin' in sin first with that heathen and now spreadin' your legs for some other jaybird.”

Leona's temper flared. “Don't you dare say those things to me, you dirty-minded, sanctimonious pile of horse manure! You and Hazel are the heathens. Neither one of you have an ounce of compassion in your damn miserable hearts. You didn't even come to see your dying sister because she was married to Andy, who loved her with all his heart. Something you'd not understand. You hated him because he refused to be a religious fanatic like you.”

“God will strike you down for your blasphemy!” Virgil shouted.

“Maybe. But I'll tell you this—Andy is the most decent man I've ever known. Irene never regretted marrying him. He was her savior. He saved both of us from
you!”

Leona regretted that JoBeth and Ruth Ann were on the porch listening to every word that passed between her and Virgil, but they had heard most of it before. After he left she would have to assure them over and over that she would not leave them. Ruth Ann, being the older, was affected the most by Virgil's visits.

He had come periodically since Irene died to preach at Leona and demand that she give up her life of sin and return to the family home. Virgil believed that as the head of the family, he ruled all unmarried women in that family, even the disgraced ones, and it was his duty to set her feet on the path of
righteousness.
Leona was well-aware of how he enforced his rules. His own children were afraid to take a deep breath in his presence.

Leona had been ten, her sister thirteen, when their parents died within a year of each other, leaving Virgil, a religious zealot, married with two children, the head of the family. He moved into the family home and immediately took charge. It was prayer morning and night, church three times a week with prayer meetings in between and all day on Sunday. The girls spent long hours on their knees and were punished with the strop for the slightest infraction of his rules.

When Irene had run off and married Andy, Leona was forbidden even to speak to her. The last time Virgil whipped Leona was when she was fifteen. He had caught her putting her meager belongings in a pillowcase. He said it was God's punishment that Andy had lost his foot and forbade her to go to her sister. He and Hazel had overpowered her. Virgil had whipped her bare buttocks with the razor strop and locked her in a shed without her shoes. She had pried off a loose board, slipped out and walked barefoot five miles to Irene's house, crying and swearing never to return. She never did.

“Get yore thin's together,” Virgil shouted to JoBeth and Ruth Ann. “I'm takin' ya outta this den of sin 'n' shame.”

The little girls looked thunderstruck. The younger girl cowered behind her sister.

“You're not taking them anywhere.” Leona's shout was equalIy as loud. “I'll …kill you before I let you get your hands on
my
girls.”

“Yore girls?”

“
My
girls! Make a move toward them and I'll …I'll scratch your eyes out!” Leona looked into the bright, fevered eyes of her brother and wondered how her gentle mother could have given birth to such a poor excuse for a human being.

“I'll go to the law.”

“You do that, Virgil, and I'll tell everyone in this county about the time my
God-fearing self-righteous
brother whipped his own little boy with a switch until the blood ran down his little legs and that his stupid cow-of-a-wife didn't lift a hand to help her child. Then I'll show them the scars you put on my back when I tried to stop you. They are still there, reminding me every day of how much I hate you.”

“The Lord says spare the rod and spoil the child. Pa spared the rod and …look at what ya are! Yo're a disgrace to the Dawson name. Abe'll straighten ya out.”

“Get the hell away from here, Virgil, and take that hypercritical jackass with you.” She nodded toward Abe leaning against the car.

“God is not pleased with ya. Yo're greasin' yore path to the fiery furnace. Abe is a good Christian man willin' to overlook yore swearin' and whorin' and make a decent Godfearin' woman of ya.”

“Ha! That's a laugh. You wouldn't know what was decent if it jumped up and bit you.” Leona looked at Abe Patton as if he were a cowpie covered with maggots. He was a fleshier version of her brother and about the same age.

There was a fifteen-year spread between Virgil's age and Leona's. Virgil was the oldest of their parents' living children, and Leona the youngest. Her brother had been trying to force Leona to marry Abe since she was in grade school. She didn't doubt that had she not escaped his domination, Virgil would have let Abe rape her.

“I'd rather be burned at the stake than to marry that pious mule's ass. He's cowshit, Virgil. Cowshit! Both of you are.” Leona's eyes flicked over them contemptuously.

“God ain't goin to keep on forgivin ya. I've had enough of yore backtalk! You're headed straight for hell.” Virgil's anger had carried him several steps forward. He drew back his hand to strike her.

“So are you if you touch her!” The voice came from behind her. Leona turned her head quickly to see Yates, his steely eyes on Virgil, come from around the car parked by the back door of the garage. Her brother stood frozen, his hand still raised.

“Who er you?” Virgil demanded in a tight, screeching voice, a look of pure indignation on his bony face.

“You'll pray to die if you hit her.” Yates came to stand beside Leona.

“Ya must be the so-called
cousin
I heared about. Stay out of this. It ain't no business of yores.” Virgil spoke belligerently, but lowered his hand.

Yates endured Virgil's sneering appraisal with no betrayal of the fury swirling through him.

“Keep that clap-trap going and you'll find out if it's my business or not.”

“I come to take my sister and them girls outta here.”

“And if they don't want to go?”

“They's women folks. They ain't got no say-so.”

“Are you of age, Leona?” Yates asked.

“Long past,” she answered without looking at him.

“Does he have a legal claim on you?”

“Absolutely not,” she said tersely.

“That settles the matter.” Cold gray eyes stared unblinkingly at the tall scarecrow of a man with thinning hair on top. “Get the hell out of here while you're able.”

“Yo're a sinful harlot!” Virgil turned his hate-filled eyes on his sister. “There ain't no redemption for ya. God will strike ya down as he struck down that son of Satan for leadin Irene astray.” Hatred lifted his voice to a shout, spittle leaking from the corners of his mouth. “Yo're the dung of creation! A whore, a slut, a vile sinner! Yo're the filthiest scum this side of hell, is what ya are. God hates—”

“Enough!” With lightning speed Yates's hand lashed out. Powerful fingers clamped around Virgil's throat cutting off his words. Jerking the man close to him, he grabbed the soft sack between Virgil's legs with his other hand. “Say one more word, you pious son-of-a-bitch, and I'll crush these like they were paper.”

A gurgling scream came from Virgil. He grabbed Yates's wrist to pull his hand away from his privates. For a long painful minute his feet danced in place as he attempted to get away from the punishing hands holding him.

“Hurts, doesn't it?” Yates snarled. “It would hurt more if I twisted them off.” He emphasized his words with a twist of his wrist. Virgil screeched, his eyes rolled back in his head. “I should do it, not only for what you just called Leona, but for what you did to her and that little boy.”