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Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers] (9 page)

BOOK: Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers]
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“I’m sorry about Uncle Ed, Cousin Henry Ann,” he said loudly enough for those sitting on the edge of the porch to hear. He touched her arm in a gesture of sympathy. She jerked away from his hand as if it were hot.
“Eat and go,” she said in a low voice. “You’re not welcome here.”
“I’ll be glad to,” he said loudly. “I’ll be over tomorrow to lend you a hand.” He walked away before his words soaked in and she could demand to know what he was talking about. She stood numbly while those sitting within hearing distance looked at her in puzzlement.
Henry Ann pressed her lips together and gritted her teeth. She would not make a scene in front of the neighbors, but she certainly intended to have it out with Isabel. She turned her gaze to the man standing at the edge of the porch holding his son. Her eyes were caught and held by dark intent ones that conveyed understanding.
He had overheard the conversation! What in the world was he thinking?
“Let me have dat sweet babe, Mista Dolan.” Aunt Dozie came across the porch and reached for Jay. “Come ta Aunt Dozie so yo papa can fill him a plate. Aunty fix dis babe somethin’ mighty good.” Jay went eagerly to Aunt Dozie, and they disappeared into the house.
“He’s really taken to her,” Tom observed, groping for something appropriate to say as he stepped up onto the porch.
“I've not known a child who didn’t take to Aunt Dozie,” Henry Ann murmured. “Help yourself to dinner, Mr. Dolan.”
“It was a nice service. Mr. Henry had a lot of friends.”
“Yes, he did.”
Tom searched her face for a long moment before he spoke again, noting the dark circles that ringed her eyes and lines of fatigue that bracketed her mouth.
“I’d like to talk with you . . . sometime within the next few days.”
“Talk to me? About what?” A puzzled line appeared between her brows,
“About trading work.”
“Oh. Well. I’ve not had time to think about how I’ll get the work done.”
“Then you are going to stay here.”
“Of course. This is my home.”
“I heard talk that you might lease out to an oil company.”
“You can put the rumors to rest. I intend to stay here and farm the land just like my . . . daddy.” Her voice caught, and she turned away to speak to a neighbor who had just arrived. “Hello, Mrs. Bradshaw.”
“My, my, my. I was just so sorry to hear about poor Mr. Henry. Whatever will ya do, child?” The woman’s weathered, wrinkled face was creased with lines of concern. “Yo’re alone now, ain’t ya? It’s too bad ya ain’t got ya a good man to run the place—”
“I’ll be fine.” Henry Ann straightened her shoulders. “Johnny and I will manage just fine.”
“I ain’t thinkin’ ya can depend on . . .
him.
”
“We’ll do fine, Mrs. Bradshaw. Take a plate and help yourself.” Henry Ann turned to see that Tom Dolan still stood beside her, the plate she had handed him still unfilled. She left the porch and walked out into the yard to greet Karen and her father.
Times were hard. A funeral gathering was not only a time for neighbors to get together and remember the deceased, but to catch up on the news and discuss the terrible state of the economy and what the politicans planned to do about it.
A goodly amount of time was spent discussing the upcoming presidental election. Franklin Roosevelt, former New York governor, was promising the American people a “new deal” if he was the candidate chosen to run against President Hoover. Most of the people didn’t know what the term “new deal” meant, but the majority of those present declared their intention to vote for him if he won the nomination.
“I’m thinkin’ he can’t do no worse than what Hoover’s done.” The man who spoke had lived in a sod dugout for five years, eaten beans and corn pone while waiting for a cotton crop that would allow him to build a frame shelter for his family. “Anybody been to see you fellers about a oil lease?”
“One a them slick-talkers come nosin’ round my place. Promisin’ to make me rich. Bullfoot!” Mr. Whalen snorted. “Ain’t been nothin’ come in near me but a little old piddlin’ well that pumps ’bout fifty barrels a day. Fifteen cents a barrel is all it’s goin’ for. I’d be lucky to get two bits a day. All them oil fellers do, to my way of thinkin’, is mess up the land so it ain’t no good ever again for plantin’.”
“Ain’t it so?” Mr. Austin’s head bobbed up and down. “I see what they done up ’round Marlow. Place looks like a cyclone struck it. Ain’t nothin’ worse lookin’ than a old played-out field. Them drillers come in, tear up, and move on.
“There’s another of them outfits comin’ to Red Rock. Got some kind of connection with that feller that put on the air show down in Wichita Falls. Harrumph! Why anybody’d be such a fool as to stand on top one of them airplanes is beyond me.”
“It ain’t beyond me. Ain’t much a feller won’t do nowadays to get that jinglin’ stuff in his pockets. Hell! I’d join up with that dance marathon that’s coming to town if I wasn’t so damn old.”
“Ya can’t dance nohow, Wilbur. Heard Pete Perry’s already signed up.”
“Wal, there’s just one good thin’ about that. If he’s dancin’, he ain’t bootleggin’.”
“That dance marathon’ll bring folks to town. It’ll be somethin’ to gawk at, that’s sure.”
Tom listened to the talk. As a newcomer he didn’t have much to add to the conversation. He had heard talk in town about Pete Perry. He reckoned the man was about as sorry a sort as they come. What game was he playing with Miss Henry? She was going to be in trouble up to her neck if she didn’t put a rein on the little baggage she brought back from the city. That one had the makings of a
tramp
if he ever saw one.
A few of the women had asked him about his wife. He’d brought out the lame old excuse that she didn’t feel well. Maybe she didn’t. She’d still been in bed when he dressed himself and Jay and left the house. He would have found an excuse not to bring her even if she had wanted to come.
It seemed to Tom that Emmajean became more and more unstable as time went by. Last night she’d thrown a dipper of water in Jay’s face, then later when she tried to hold him on her lap, he had screamed. It had infuriated her. She held on to him tightly, and Tom’d had to pry her arms loose from the terrified child.
In the saner light of day, Tom usually felt as if he could cope with the problems life had dealt him. It was at night, lying on the cot in the kitchen, that he was acutely aware that not only was his son deprived of a mother, he himself was deprived of a wife.
* * *
Henry Ann thought the afternoon would never end. She had been shooed out of the kitchen by Aunt Dozie and a couple of neighbor women who were washing the empty bowls and platters and arranging them on the table so the owners could pick them up as they were leaving. When Aunt Dozie whispered that the little boy should use the chamber pot, Henry Ann lifted him from the high chair. He went with her willingly.
She took him to her room and closed the door. The minute she brought out the pot the child looked up at her and said, “Pee, pee.”
Henry Ann unbuttoned his overalls. “Can you do it by yourself?”
“I big boy.”
“Of course, you are.” She positioned him over the pot and was surprised at how well he handled himself. When he finished, he looked up at her with a pleased smile, clearly expecting praise. “You
are
a big boy.”
“I Daddy’s big boy.”
“I can see that.” She buttoned his clothes. “Shall we go outside for a while?”
The child looked at her with large dark eyes so like his father’s. The parallel between her life and that of this child suddenly came into focus. Her daddy had been both parents to her when her mother left. Mr. Dolan was trying to be both parents to his son. What in the world was the matter with the mother of this child?
If this little boy was mine, I wouldn’t let him out of my sight.
A yearning for a husband and children of her own came over her. She was twenty-four years old. Considered an old maid by some. Karen was the only girl she knew anywhere near her age who hadn’t married and had a child or two. Well, she’d never tie herself to any man unless she was absolutely sure that he was everything that she believed him to be.
* * *
“Mr. Dolan?”
Tom was jarred into awareness by the minister who had conducted the funeral services. He stood and held out his hand to the short, gray-haired man.
“Tom Dolan.”
“Reverend Wesson.” The man’s hand was soft, but his grip firm. “We haven’t met, but my daughter told me about meeting you . . . and your young son.”
“I heard her sing this morning. She has a beautiful voice.” The men sat back down on the bench.
“Yes, she does.” There was pride in the minister’s voice. “She says you’re a mechanic.”
“Among other things.”
“I’ve got an old Whippet—”
“Whippet Six was a good car. They were among the first to have a seven-bearing crankshaft, full force-feed lubrication, and four-wheel brakes. I’m not sure they’re making them anymore.”
“I see you know your cars. This one is a 1916 model.”
“I’ve not seen that model in years. It would be hard to find parts.”
“I’d sure like to put the old girl back in running order.”
“Why? It’ll probably cost you more than you’ll ever get out of it.”
“Sentimental, I guess. She served me well. I hate to see her going to the junk pile.” His blue eyes twinkled. “Will you take a look at her and tell me what she needs?”
“I’ll be glad to take a look. It’s impossible for me, at the present time, to be away from home for any length of time—”
“I understand. If you take on the job, we could tow her out to your place.”
“All right. I’ll take a look the next time I’m in town.”
“I’d be obliged.”
The sound of happy, childish laughter reached Tom and made him turn and look back over his shoulder. His son was hugging the neck of an old shaggy dog. Miss Henry was kneeling beside him and the dog. The dog shook his head and licked Jay’s face. His son laughed and patted the dog’s face with his small hands.
Tom couldn’t tear his eyes from the woman, the child, and the dog. He was awed by the power of the feeling that washed over him. He had never before heard such spontaneous laughter from his son.
As he watched, Miss Henry stood and took Jay’s hand. The pair walked toward the chicken pen, the dog following along behind. Inside the pen a big speckled rooster, unhappy about being penned for the day, was strutting around with ruffled feathers. Suddenly, squawking and flapping his wings, he ran at a lazy hen. Jay’s childish laughter rang out. He clapped his hands.
There was a shining pain in Tom’s eyes as he watched Miss Henry and his boy.
With a mother like Emmajean, the child was missing so much.
“Henry Ann has a way with children.” Reverend Wesson followed Tom’s gaze to the pair beside the fence. “She should have been a teacher.”
“Why isn’t she?” Tom turned to look at him.
“I’m not sure. Ed would have sent her to college if she’d wanted to go. She’s going to have it rough for a while. Every single man in the county will be after her thinking to get his hands on this farm.”
“She . . . doesn’t have a regular . . . fellow?”
“No one special.”
“That’s strange. She’s a good-looking woman.”
“But an independent one. She’ll not take a man unless she loves him with all her heart.” The minister stood. “I’d better collect Karen and head back to town. There’s choir practice again tonight. Come by anytime, Mr. Dolan.”
“Thank you, I will. I need to get home, too. I’ll say good-bye to Miss Henry.”
Henry Ann watched Jay run to his father, be snatched up and tossed in the air. The child giggled happily and wrapped his arms around his father’s neck. The loving look on the man’s face as he hugged his son disturbed Henry Ann so profoundly that she felt a tingling travel down her back.
“We’ve got to get along home, son. Can you tell Miss Henry good-bye?”
“Goo-bye.”
“Good-bye, Jay. Come see us again.”
“I’d like to talk about trading work, but I’ll not bother you now—”
“I’m not sure there’s anything I could do for you.”
“If Johnny would give me a hand, I’ll pay back—”
“Johnny?”
“An able hand as far as I can see.”
“I’m not sure that he’d be willing.”
“I’ll be by one day soon, and we can ask him.” He pressed his son’s head to his shoulder. “This fellow’s had quite a day. He’ll be asleep before I get him home. If there’s anything I can do, let me know.”
His eyes locked with hers, and she knew that he was thinking of Pete Perry.
“Thank you, but I’ll be able to handle it.”
“The offer is there if you need it. I know quite a bit about car tires, and I’m still looking for the car that drove into your field and carried out the steer meat.”
BOOK: Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers]
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