Dorothy Garlock - [Route 66]
Read Dorothy Garlock - [Route 66] Online
Authors: Mother Road
This book is a work of historical fiction. In order to give a sense of the times, some names of real people or places have been included in the book. However, the events depicted in this book are imaginary, and the names of nonhistorical persons or events are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance of such nonhistorical persons or events to actual ones is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2003 by Dorothy Garlock
All rights reserved.
Warner Books, Inc.
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Visit our Web site at
www.HachetteBookGroup.com
The Warner Books name and logo are registered trademarks of Hachette Book Group
First eBook Edition: June 2003
ISBN: 978-0-446-54900-4
Contents
BOOKS BY DOROTHY GARLOCK
After the Parade
Almost Eden
Annie Lash
Dream River
The Edge of Town
Forever Victoria
A Gentle Giving
Glorious Dawn
High on a Hill
Homeplace
Larkspur
The Listening Sky
Lonesome River
Love and Cherish
Midnight Blue
More than Memory
Nightrose
A Place Called Rainwater
Restless Wind
Ribbon in the Sky
River of Tomorrow
The Searching Hearts
Sins of Summer
Sweetwater
Tenderness
This Loving Land
Wayward Wind
Wild Sweet Wilderness
Wind of Promise
With Heart
With Hope
With Song
Yesteryear
With love to my grandson ADAM MIX, whose claim to fame is that he advertised
Larkspur
on his underwear.
“Oklahoma Route 66”
Route 66. It is a symbol of American ingenuity, spirit and determination. For millions, it represents a treasure chest of memories, a direct link to the days of two-lane highways, family vacations, and picnic lunches at roadside tables. It brings up all the images of going somewhere, of souvenir shops, reptile pits, and cozy motor courts, of looking forward to the next stop—a slice of breezy shade, an Orange Crush, a two-cent deposit.
Route 66. It's a winding grade, a rusty steel bridge, and flickering neon at a late-night diner. It is mountains and desert, plains and forest. American's Mother Road, all of this and more, is today the world's most famous highway, even though officially it no longer exists. And it all began, simply enough, with the ordinary needs of a growing nation and in 1924 the vision of one man, Oklahoma Highway Commissioner Cyrus Avery.
Jim Ross, author of
Oklahoma Route 66
SONG OF THE ROAD
The dust took my land and nothing grew
I took off with my brood. Was all I could do.
On Route 66, some folks was kind.
Andy Connors is one who comes to my mind.
At his garage he gassed up my heap,
Gave me 'n my family somewheres to sleep.
Then that rabid skunk give him such a bite!
He needed them shots that could fix him up right.
A stranger drove in and took him to get 'em,
Then took over the place. Guess Andy let him.
Stranger tended the store, daughters and farm
And the woman who lived there; kept 'em from harm.
Quite a story begun there, something to tell.
You can read all about it if you set fer a spell.
Me—I'm off in the mornin', me and my kin,
On Route 66 where big dreams begin.
Mother Road, take me west.
Lead the way to where the chances are best.
Rough or smooth, paved or gravel,
You're the pathway to hope that I'm aimin' to travel.
—F.S.I
1932
Route 66
Sayre, Oklahoma
T
HE POWERFUL AUTOMOBILE, RACING ALONG
the newly paved Route 66, slowed as it crossed the bridge over the north fork of the Red River, then picked up speed. At the top of the grade, the Hudson was pulled to the side of the road and stopped. For the last ten miles the driver had been reading signs attached to fence posts:
CAR TROUBLE? NEED GAS? ANDY'S GARAGE AHEAD
.
Close to the paved ribbon of highway were a small building with large doors folded back and a single gas pump at the side. In big black letters across the peaked roof of the building was another sign:
ANDYS GARAGE—GAS—CAMPING
.
A short distance away, woods surrounded the campground on two sides. A dirty-white, low-pitched canvas tent flapped in the breeze, near it a stacked brick fireplace and a crude wooden table. A woman sat on a stool in front of the tent. A child played at her feet.
To the side of the garage and set slightly back was a small frame house with a sloped roof, which covered the porch that stretched across the front. Hanging from a branch of the tree that stood between the house and a garage was a child's swing. Flowers bloomed in beds beside the porch.
A woman wearing a sunbonnet worked in a large, neat vegetable garden. Behind the house were a privy, a chicken house and a small barn with a lean-to shed attached. Out from the barn a cow and a horse grazed in a pasture made green by the spring rains.
The buildings that sprawled along the highway were the only ones in sight. A mile down the road was the town of Sayre, Oklahoma. When the driver of the Hudson was last there, the town had hardly warranted the dot it made on the map. It had consisted of little more than a gas station, grocery store and a greasy-spoon diner. Now situated along the busy Route 66, it was likely, he thought, to have a cafe, a rooming house or a hotel.
Guilt had been eating a hole in Yates's gut for the last few years. He owed a debt to Andy Connors and had never as much as said “Thank you.” He intended to do something about it, so that he could get on with his life and, when the time came, leave Oklahoma with nothing still to be done.
Yates pulled back onto the highway, newly paved with portland cement, and drove slowly down the hill. On reaching Andy's garage, he pulled in and stopped beside the gas pump.
The man who came out of the garage, wiping his hands on a greasy rag, walked easily on a peg belted to his upper leg. Beneath a soiled cap his hair was light, his eyes blue in a sun-tanned face. He had aged, but his face had been imprinted in Yates's memory. He would have been able to pick Andy Connors out in a crowd of a thousand, even though he was a smaller man than he remembered.
“Howdy. Need gas?” Andy's face was clean shaven, boyish and friendly. “Dumb question, huh? You do, or you wouldn't have stopped here next to the pump.”
“I think it'll hold about ten gallons.” Yates watched Andy pump the lever back and forth to fill the glass cylinder atop the pump. It was marked like a beaker to measure the gas.
“Warm day out there on the highway,” Andy remarked as he unscrewed the cap from the gas tank. “But it'll get hotter,” he added when the man nodded. “It's only June. By the Fourth it'll be hotter than a pistol around here.”
Andy glanced at the man, who wore a handsome tan Stetson and custom-made boots. He'd hate to tangle with this
hombre.
Everything about the tall, broad-shouldered man was big and hard, quiet and serious. Andy had met people from all walks of life as they traveled Route 66, nicknamed the
Mother Road ,
heading west to California—the promised land. This man looked as if he could plow his way through a batch of wildcats without breaking a sweat.
While the gas poured into the tank of his car, Yates's sober gaze drifted across the still and somber landscape to where a mean-looking black and brown dog lay in the shade of the garage eyeing him with skepticism.
Shiny tin signs advertising tires, tubes, spark plugs and NeHi soda pop were nailed to the side of the garage building alongside signs promoting Garret snuff and chewing tobacco. Clothes hung on a line in the space between the house and the barn. All was quiet except for the buzz of a june bug and the song of a mockingbird. Two cars passed each other on the highway not more than twenty feet away; their tires sang on the paving.
The laughter of a child caught his attention. The little girl in the campground had broken away, her chubby legs taking her toward the highway. The woman chased her, caught her up in her arms and tickled her until she squealed with laughter.
A family trying to make it to California and the promise of a better life.
“How's business?” Yates asked.
“Good enough to get by,” Andy replied. “Most of the folks coming down this highway aren't out for a joyride. I fix them up as best I can and get them on their way.” Andy removed the nozzle from the gas tank and, as he hung it back on the pump, noticed a Texas license plate on the black sedan. He didn't often see Hudsons along the highway. They were big, powerful and expensive cars. This one looked as if it had eaten up plenty of miles.
“Don't you hanker to take the road to greener pastures?” The Texan almost smiled when he asked the question.
“Naw” Andy chuckled. “As long as I can crank out a living here, I'm stayin. How about you?”
“One place is pretty much like the other. It's what a fellow makes of it.”
“I'm with you there. Ten gallons at fourteen cents. Pretty easy to figure, huh?” Andy tightened the cap on the gas tank of the car.
“I've been paying sixteen and eighteen cents all along.”
“That so? Fourteen cents gives me a profit. Living out here on the highway, I get first crack at the gas customers going west. Some of them have rolled down the hill to get here,” he said with a chuckle. “But I make most of my living in the garage. I don't pretend to be the best mechanic in the world, but I'm right handy at the small stuff.” He jerked his head toward the campground. “Folks can rest over there while their car is being fixed. Traveling is hard on the women and kids.”
“How about folks who can't pay?”
“Oh, they pay one way or the other. I've had my horse shod and the porch shingled.” Andy chuckled. “See that big pile of stove-wood over by the house and the new privy? Most folks are pretty decent and want to pay their way. Of course, there are a few you've got to look out for. I've not been robbed yet. I think they figure I don't have enough to bother with.”
Yates counted out the money. His silver-gray eyes homed in on Andy's face while he put the coins in his hand.
“Appreciate your business,” Andy said. “Stop in again if you come this way.”
Yates nodded, got into the car and watched Andy spin around on his peg and go back into the garage. When he was out of sight, Yates drove away slowly to avoid stirring up dust. As he passed the open doors of the garage, he could see Andy bending over a tub of water with an inflated tire tube, looking for bubbles that would indicate a hole, which needed to be patched. A man in overalls far too short for his long legs stood beside an old car with its backend jacked-up on one side.
Connors is just as I remember him—quick, smiling; I'm no longer the skinny, sick young kid I was back then, but somehow I had expected him to recognize me.
TWO DAYS LATER
.
“Leooonaaa! Get the gun!”
Andy tried to evade the small attacking animal that continued to run at him. He balanced himself on his leg and knocked the skunk away with his peg. The crazed animal continued to come at him. Then it sank its teeth into the rubber on the end of his peg, causing him to lose his balance and almost topple to the ground.
“Leooonaaa!”
Hearing the commotion, a shaggy dog came running from the side of the house, barking furiously.
“No! Calvin! No!”
“Andy!”
“Get the gun!” Andy shouted, trying desperately to ward off the skunk with his wooden peg.
“Andy!” The shrill voice of the girl jumping off the porch and running out into the yard came seconds before the sound of a BOOM and the whiz of the traveling bullet, which hit the skunk and threw it a dozen feet from the man who had fallen on the ground. A putrid odor immediately filled the air.
