Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers] (39 page)

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“Thank you, Mr. Phillips.” Henry Ann went to the car. “Good-bye, Isabel. I’m sorry it didn’t work out so that you could stay here with me and Johnny.”
“Bitch!” Isabel yelled. “Ya want me out of here so ya can have Pete. Ever’body knows yo’re screwin’ Tom Dolan. Ain’t he got enough for ya after he screws that loony wife of his?”
“Hush up,” the sheriff growled.
“Pete’ll get even with ya for this! Yo’re a shitty, son-of-a-bitchin’, stuck-up whore—”
“—Shut up that kinda talk.” The sheriff had lost his patience. “You’re a nasty-mouthed little brat. I’d not want you around either if that’s the way you talk.”
“Hardy’ll get even, too. Pete was countin’ on winnin’ that money.” Isabel insisted on having the last word. “They know yo’re messin’ with a married man, and they know how to get even with you through Dolan. They’ll do it, too.”
“Phillips,” the sheriff said, “I’ll get this nasty-talkin’ little brat out of here. I’ll have my deputy take her to Ardmore and put her on a train for Oklahoma City. Someone will go along with her to see that she gets there. I’ll bring along some paperwork later.”
“I had to wait, Sheriff, until she was doin’ somethin’ that’d hold in court before we could pick her up. Next time you’re over this way stop by. My wife’ll make us a pee-con pie and we’ll chew the fat ’bout old times.”
“Old times wasn’t bad compared to nowadays.” The sheriff tipped his hat to the ladies, and the car moved away.
“Worked out better than I thought. The girl’s got a rough road ahead if she doesn’t change her ways. At least she’ll be in school. Whether she learns anything or not will be up to her.” Mr. Phillips spoke to the group in general, then to Grant. “Are you going to hang around the area for a while, Gifford?”
“I’m planning on it.”
That Mr. Phillips knew Grant was a surprise to all of them. It wasn’t until the lawyer had left them to walk down the street to his office that Henry Ann mentioned it.
“I didn’t know you knew Mr. Phillips, Grant.”
“I don’t really
know
him. I saw a light in his office the night I brought Karen home and stopped in to asked if it was legal for a fifteen-year-old girl to enter the marathon without permission from a parent or guardian. That’s all.”
“Why did you do that?” Karen asked.
“The girl’s still wet behind the ears. Give her three more years to grow up and she just might turn out all right. Leave her down on Mud Creek with that bunch, and she’d turn out to be just like them. I thought she at least deserved another chance.”
“Don’t count on her changin’ any,” Johnny said drily.
“Would you mind taking me and Jay home, Johnny? You can come back and stay as long as you want. I’ll do the milking.” Henry Ann took several quick steps to rescue Jay’s balloon from drifting into a prickly bush.
“I’d like to stay, if it’s all right,” Grant said.
“Of course it’s all right. This is a holiday.” Henry Ann helped Jay up into the car. “’Bye, Karen. See you soon.”
As they drove slowly away, Henry Ann looked back to see Grant tuck Karen’s hand in the crook of his arm and saw her tilt her face toward his as they walked slowly along the street.

 

Chapter Twenty-one
Pete Perry was well on his way to getting rip-roaring drunk by the time Hardy stopped the car behind the house on Mud Creek. Sandy Perry, with a carload of kinfolk, came careening into the yard and skidded to a halt beside the front porch. Angry Perrys piled out.
Bootleg whiskey had flowed freely in the alley behind the vacant building that had once housed the Five and Dime after the sheriff had taken Isabel off the dance floor for being under age, and all the Perrys were a little drunk. They had come to Red Rock to see their boy, Pete, take the floor at the dance marathon, had gathered around him to discuss the injustice done to him and Isabel, and had fortified themselves with moonshine whiskey.
Some of Pete’s supporters blamed Mr. Phillips for calling the sheriff, and some thought it had been Henry Ann or Johnny. Others were sure it had been one of the contestants who had wanted to get Pete disqualified, thinking that it would give them a better chance to win.
Pete was furious at himself for believing Isabel when she said that her mama had birthed her in a little town outside Oklahoma City, and there was no record of her birth. She said she wasn’t certain how old she was and no one really knew now that her mother was dead. When he’d asked if Johnny might remember, she’d said that he hadn’t been around much. Dorene had farmed them out with other people most of their lives.
The little twitchy-twat’d had an answer for everything.
What hurt Pete the most was that he’d lost his chance to be “somebody,” to be noticed for something other than being one of the notorious Perrys from Mud Creek. And he’d lost more ground with Henry Ann. It galled him that he wanted the respect of Henry Ann Henry more than anything in the world.
Why? Why? Why?
Isabel swore that there was something going on between Dolan and Henry Ann. Pete had kept an eye on the farm after Henry Ann hired the road bum, and he had seen her and Dolan out behind the house one night. He was sure they hadn’t
done anything.
If they had, they’d had to do it standing up, he mused drily.
There were ways of getting even with Dolan for honeying up to a decent woman like Henry Ann when he already had a wife. Unlike almost all the women Pete knew, Henry Ann, he was sure, had never been with a man; and it wasn’t right that a man like Dolan would ruin her. A load of moonshine stashed in Dolan’s barn and a call to that deputy the clan had been paying off would do the trick.
The idea floated around in Pete’s mind as the Perrys gathered on Hardy’s front porch. The talk began to center on Dolan’s woman. Cousin Wally couldn’t help but brag that he’d “had some of that.”
“She’s not right in the head.” It surprised the Perrys that Pete even cared. “Hell, Wally, ya must be pretty hard up,” he continued angrily.
“Hard up! Hee, hee, hee. Ya made a funny, Pete. Yup, I was hard up! Her name’s Emmajean, and I ain’t carin’ if she’s crazy. She wanted it, and I give it to ’er.”
“Are the gals down here on Mud Creek turnin’ ya down?” Pete asked nastily.
“I seen her a time or two a dancin’ in the woods like she didn’t have no sense a’tall.” Fat Perry broke into the conversation. He was wearing his “go-to-town” overalls, and enjoying being one of the crowd.
From inside the house came the voice of Rudy Vallee singing,
“My time is your time—”
“Hardy’s at it again,” Sandy said, coming out to the porch with a jar of whiskey. He poured some of it in Pete’s glass. “Guess he figures your girl’s old enough, Oscar. Didn’t she just turn thirteen?”
“If he’s messin’ with her, I’ll whap his ass.” Oscar slid off the porch and headed for the steps.
“He ain’t feelin’ ’er up,” Sandy said hastily. “He’s just dancin’ with ’er.”
“Dancin’ with Hardy leads to screwin’ with Hardy, and she ain’t old enough yet.” Oscar stomped into the house. “What’a ya doin’ in here, Clella?” he demanded.
“Daddy! Looky! Uncle Hardy’s showin’ me how to dance.”
“That better be all he’s showin’ ya,” Oscar growled.
Imprisoned in his thoughts, Pete scarcely heard the voices of his kinfolk. He had come to realize that Henry Ann would never see him as anything except Mud Creek trash. He should have known that a long time ago. He had been just too stubborn to admit it.
He’d had a crush on Opal Hastings at one time, only because she was one of the few Mud Creek women who wanted nothing to do with him. At the time, if he’d found out who had raped her, he would have killed him—kin be damned. The crush had worn off, but he still felt kind of protective toward her. Now he was glad that she had Chris Austin to look out for her. Maybe Austin would get some guts and marry her.
There was nothing left now to hang around for. In a matter of minutes, Pete had made up his mind to leave Mud Creek, leave Oklahoma, and head out for California.
But there was something he had to do first.
* * *
The day was a long one for Tom. Emmajean remained in a state of disinterest, listless and withdrawn. Although it worried him, he admitted reluctantly that it was a relief to have her sit in a chair and stay there while he went about washing his clothes and hers in the tubs he’d set up under a shade tree, and while he hung them on the line to dry.
By noon he had cleaned the house, killed and dressed a chicken, and cooked it with biscuit dumplings. Emmajean ate when he put the food before her. During the day he heard the fireworks from town and wished that he could be there with Henry Ann and Jay.
He looked down at the wasted shell of a woman sitting on the end of the porch humming softly to herself. The anger and resentment he had felt toward her during the past weeks, months, years vanished and in their place was nothing but pity for her—so young and so lost through no fault of her own.
In the late afternoon, thinking that perhaps he could bring her out of her depression, he suggested that they walk to the creek. Tom took her hand and walked with her across the field and to the dugout in the clay bank where she liked to go. The things she had taken there, the comb, the mirror, the glass beads, a garter, and a small blue bottle of Evening in Paris perfume, were still there. Her treasures were rolled up in the dirty quilt.
She sat down on the blanket and tried to pull Tom down beside her. When he resisted, she picked up the comb and combed her hair. Tom watched her closely. It was strange that she showed no signs of her usual distraught behavior. She hummed an unfamiliar tune and looked straight through him as if he weren’t there.
As he squatted on his heels beside her, he noticed large footprints in the loose sand beneath the overhang. The butts of a dozen or more sloppily rolled cigarettes were scattered about outside, as if the smoker had flipped them there. Tom wondered if it was the same man who had been here before and if he was the one who had been with her in Austin’s shack.
Suddenly, he realized that he shouldn’t have come here. This could be the day that Mr. Conroy would come to see about his daughter.
“Let’s go home, Emmajean.”
She rose and obediently followed him back across the pasture to the house.
Mr. Conroy didn’t come. No one came. Several cars went by, but none stopped. Tom ate the chicken and dumplings for supper and fixed a plate for Emmajean. They sat on the porch. When it was dark, Tom took her to the kitchen and washed her face and hands. He led her to the bedroom and pulled the chamber pot out from under the bed. After she used it, he took her soiled underdrawers and handed her a clean pair.
Was this to be his life, tending to this poor mind-sick woman while longing to sneak off across the field to see his love? Suddenly, his yearning for Henry Ann was like a living force. He had only to close his eyes to see her soft brown eyes, her smiling lips, and to feel her fingers caressing his face.
He looked down at the thin figure on the bed. Today she had shown none of the anger she had exhibited for the past year. Except for not saying much or volunteering to do anything for herself, she had been completely agreeable. This morning she had stayed in bed until he took her hand and pulled her to her feet. Would she be all right if he left her for an hour? Or would she get out of bed and wander off?
The temptation to leave her here and hurry across to the Henry farm to see the two people he loved was great. Tom went to the porch, leaned against a post, and looked up at the stars, indecision clouding his mind.
* * *
After bringing Henry Ann and Jay home, Johnny refused to return to town, despite Henry Ann’s urging.
“Go on back and have a good time, Johnny. It isn’t every day that a carnival comes to town.”
“There’s nothing there for me, Sis. Beside that, I’m not leaving you here alone with Pete on the loose.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. Why would he come here? I had nothing to do with the sheriff coming for Isabel.”
“He doesn’t know that.”
“He should have known better than to enter that contest with her. I told him that she was only fifteen.”
“She must have convinced him that she was older. I think that deep down inside Pete’s in love with you.”
“What?” Henry Ann couldn’t have been more astonished if Johnny had suddenly sprouted a horn in the middle of his forehead. “What?” she said again, then, “That’s laughable, Johnny. For years Pete has done everything he could do to annoy me. He tried to lure you away; and when that didn’t work after Daddy died, he turned to Isabel.”
“Pete seemed to go out of his way to get your attention. I think he preferred that you be mad at him rather than ignore him.”
“He got my attention all right. I didn’t know that you were such a deep thinker, Johnny.”
He grinned. “It didn’t take much thinking to figure that out. Pete’s a cut above that bunch on Mud Creek, even if he does do stupid things.”

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