Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers] (21 page)

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Authors: With Hope

BOOK: Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers]
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“Because I didn’t want to. Now shut up!”
“Were you afraid you couldn’t whip him?”
“I could’ve cut his gizzard out before he laid a hand on me.” Pete drew a switchblade knife from his pocket and shook it in her face. “I’ve got more important thin’s to do than beatin’ up on a road bum and gettin’ the sheriff down on me.”
“Because of the bootleggin’?”
Pete turned on her. “You keep your mouth shut ’bout that. Hear?”
“Henry Ann said it.”
“You ain’t Henry Ann. Don’t forget it.”
“You’re sweet on
her
!”
“Ah . . . for God’s sake! This is what I get for gettin’ mixed up with a harebrained kid.”
“Where’d you see that Mrs. Dolan? She was painted up like a slut. Reminded me of Dorene and how she flirted. At the last she put on more and more paint, tryin’ to hide how old and sick she was.”
Pete didn’t answer, and Isabel, never knowing when to keep her mouth shut, continued on.
“I’m thinkin’ that Dolan won’t put up with you screwin’ his wife, even if she is crazy as a loon. Are you screwin’ her? Are you? If you are, I’ll tell Henry Ann—”
They had reached the car where Jude waited. Pete grabbed Isabel’s arm and jerked her behind it.
“Yo’re a whinin’ brat. And I’m gettin’ sick a ya. Ya say a word to Henry Ann about anythin’ I do, and I’ll shake the stuffin’s out of ya. Hear me? I’m gettin’ tired of yore naggin’. Straighten up or I’ll send ya over to Fat’s. He’d think he’d died and gone to heaven. I bet that he ain’t had no pussy since old Rosie was sent to the nuthouse. Now get in there with Jude and drive him crazy for a while.”
Holding her arm in a tight grip, he jerked her around and flung open the car door.
“Take her home,” he snarled.
“I come to see the show and I’m seein’ it. If you want her outta here, take her yourself.” Jude was never cowed, not by Pete nor by Hardy. They usually left him alone.
“Then keep her here in the car.”
Isabel began to cry. “Pete . . . why’er ya so mad?”
“Ah . . . hell—” He stomped off to where he had tied his horse, mounted, and rode back toward town.
Isabel sniffed. Pete would change his mind when she got her part of the Henry farm. The lawyer said that if Ed Henry didn’t have a will, she was in good shape to collect something. Of course, the farm would have to be sold before she could get the money; and, as he explained, there were not many folks who had money to buy a farm, and the banks were going broke every day. Nevertheless, he would look into the matter.
Pete asked about money Ed had in the bank and if Isabel had the right to take her part of the cattle and sell them. The lawyer mulled that over and said he would look into it. After Isabel signed some papers they had left the office.
“Told you.” Jude’s voice broke into her thoughts.
“Hush up your fat mouth!”
“He’s not goin’ to marry a little pissant like you. He’s always had his sights set on Henry Ann Henry.”
“’Cause of the farm?”
“I’m not so sure. But if you get a third, he might marry up with you so Henry Ann’d have to deal with him. It’s Henry Ann he wants.”
“I don’t believe it! What’s that snooty bitch got? She thinks her shit don’t stink.”
“She’s got respect. It rankles Pete to be called Mud Creek trash.”
“It don’t seem to bother you none.”
“How do you know? You don’t know anything about me . . . or Pete, or Hardy. You’re just a snot-nosed kid who thinks she’s grown-up. If you had any sense, you’d of stayed where ya was well off.”
“And where was that? Oklahoma City?”
“And become a whore like your ma? No, stupid. The Henrys’. She’d a sent you to a school where you could’ve made somethin’ of yourself.”
“I wasn’t stayin’ there to be bossed by
her
!”
“You’re dumber than a stump. You’d fit in just fine over with Fat. He’s so dumb he don’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.”
“If you’re so damn smart, why’er you still on Mud Creek?”
“I’m a bidin’ my time, smarty. I got one more year at school. Then I’m outta there. I . . . I might get me a scholarship at a university.”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t you know anything? A scholarship is money give to someone smart enough to go to college.”
“You’re not
that
smart.”
“Not to your way of thinking. My teacher thinks I am. I’m going to study and be a doctor someday.”
“Ha, ha, ha. You’ve got about as much chance a being a doctor as I’ve got flyin’ to the moon.”
“Then you better start sprouting wings, smart-ass.”
“I want to go.”
“Go. I’m staying. I already seen one sideshow. I’m staying to see the air show.”
“What ya mean, sideshow?”
“Saw Dolan carryin’ a woman to the car. I reckon it was his wife. The talk is she’s queer-acting. She was kickin’ and screamin’ and carryin’ on. The little dude from the tent was trottin’ along with him, carryin’ her hat.”
“Where are they now?”
“He calmed her down and drove off. Folks got a good sideshow.”
“Henry Ann’s takin’ care of his kid.”
“Good of her. Man’s got his hands full with that woman.”
“He’s wantin’ to get his hands in Henry Ann’s pants.”
“How do you know that?”
“All men want it.”
“All men want to get in Henry Ann’s pants?”
“No, stupid. Dolan.”
“And Pete.”
“And you, if you got the chance.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said softly. “I respect
her.
”
“What’s that mean?”
“If you’re too dumb to know, I’m not telling you.”
“Bullshit, Jude! Bullshit!”
An airplane took off. Jude got out of the car and went to sit on the front fender. Isabel sat in the car glaring at his back and feeling that she didn’t amount to any more than a dirt clod. Jude always made her feel like that. It rankled her that he respected Henry Ann and not her. He hadn’t liked her from the start, considered her trash, and had told her so almost every day she had been on Mud Creek.
Why should she care? She didn’t like him, either.
* * *
Jay was so tired from the exciting day in town that he was ready for bed shortly after Henry Ann and Aunt Dozie cleaned up the supper dishes. She washed him, put on his nightshirt, and tucked him in bed.
“’Night, sweetheart.” She kissed him on the forehead. He put his arms around her neck.
“Night, Mama.”
Henry Ann was so shocked that breath left her.
“Oh, honey. You shouldn’t call me that. You’ve got a mama. She’s very sick.”
“Her hurt me.”
“She didn’t know what she was doing. She won’t do it again.”
“Her will. Don’t like me.”
“I’m sure she does. Your daddy loves you, too.”
“Love my daddy. Don’t like her.”
For a long moment Henry Ann didn’t know what to say. She just stroked his hair, her mind searching for the right words.
“Your daddy will come tomorrow to see you.”
“He take me back?”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Want to stay with you . . . and Aunty . . . and Johnny.”
“We love having you. But we’ll have to wait and see what your daddy says.”
“Daddy stay here, too.”
The pleading expression on Jay’s face was so like the one on Tom’s last night that Henry Ann felt a sudden quivering in the region of her heart. She smoothed the dark hair back from the child’s face and cupped his cheek with her palm.
Oh, sweetheart, I wish with all my heart that your daddy could come stay and that you were my little boy.
She leaned down and kissed his forehead again, shocked and confused by her thoughts.
“You’d better get to sleep. Tomorrow afternoon we’re going to make a freezer of ice cream. Aunt Dozie says we have enough cream.”
“She let me churn,” Jay said sleepily.
“She calls you her good little helper.”
At the door, Henry Ann looked back at the small boy in her bed. A feeling of loneliness washed over her. All her life she had dreamed of being a part of a family where there was a mother and a daddy and brothers and sisters like many of her school friends had. That dream was what had driven her to plead with her daddy to let her go to Oklahoma City to get Johnny. She wished her daddy had lived to know how Johnny was shaping up and taking on responsibility.
On the front porch, Grant was strumming the guitar and singing in his soft husky voice.
“From this valley they say you are going.
We will miss your bright eyes and sweet smile.”
Henry Ann went through the house to the back porch and stood looking toward the Dolan farm. Somehow she had known that Tom wouldn’t come over tonight. What was he doing? Thinking? She knew that it eased his mind that his son was here with her.
“Come sit by my side if you love me—”
It was a fact of life that some women were not cut out to be mothers. Hers, for instance. Dorene hadn’t wanted her just as Mrs. Dolan didn’t want Jay—and she hadn’t had the excuse that she was crazy. Her mother had been a selfish, self-centered woman. And Isabel was just like her.
“But remember the Red River Valley—”
Little Jay needed a mother’s love. It had been a long time ago, but Henry Ann remembered how, when she was small, she had looked on with envy when one of her little friends would sit on her mother’s lap and be cuddled and loved. She’d had her daddy, but daddies were not mothers—
The screen door opened behind Henry Ann. Grant came out. She had been so deep in her thoughts that she hadn’t realized when he had stopped singing and the light had come on in Aunt Dozie’s room.
“Warm night. We could get a storm out of those clouds.” He stepped off the porch.
“We need the rain.”
“Miss Henry . . . do you mind if I butt into your business?”
“I don’t know if I mind or not until I know what business you’re planning on butting into.”
“This business about your sister’s trying to lay claim to your farm.”
“She has no claim here. The farm has been in my name for almost five years. I pay the taxes. My name is in the plat book.”
“She would have no claim to the land and the buildings, but there is the machinery, the livestock, the household furniture, and even the crop that she could say belonged to Mr. Henry. Go see a good lawyer, Miss Henry.”
“You mean . . . you mean she can lay claim to the cattle? The car? My . . . bedroom set?”
“She can file suit to get a third of everything that belonged to Mr. Henry when he died.”
“She’s only fifteen. She isn’t even of age. How could she?”
“Does she have a court-appointed guardian?”
“Not that I know of. Johnny and I are her only relatives except for Dorene’s folks. The Perrys all live down on Mud Creek. Dorene, her . . . our mother’s affairs didn’t last long. I doubt if Isabel even knows who her father is.”
“As far as the law is concerned, Miss Henry, she’s your father’s daughter. Johnny tells me that his mother and your father were never divorced. If that’s the case, he was legally married to her mother when Isabel was born.”
“That’s right. Daddy never got a divorce.”
“One of the Perrys could get himself appointed guardian and file suit on her behalf.”
“Now wouldn’t that be just dandy!”
“I just wanted you to be aware of what could happen.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Well—” His laugh was soft as the warm summer night. “I’ve been floating around for a while and picked up bits of this and that along the way.”
“Do you plan to stay on here for a while?”
“I haven’t decided. I like it here—in this area. I’ve got to land sometime—somewhere.”
“You’ve taught Johnny a lot. He . . . needs a steadying influence, and I think you’ve provided that.”
“I’m glad you think so. He’s a good kid. Guess he’s really not a kid, but compared to me he is.”
“You can move into the attic room with Johnny, if you like.”
“Thanks. I am getting tired of sleeping on a bedroll in that wagon.” He stooped to scratch the head of the shaggy dog. “Are you wondering why I don’t go to bed, Shep?” Then to Henry Ann, “He’s been sleeping with me.”
“Fine watchdog you are, Shep, sleeping on the job.”

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