Hell With the Lid Blown Off (29 page)

Everybody lost something or somebody, but everybody helped their neighbors, too. Gee Dub and Charlie and me spent some time going around to neighbors to offer help with cleanup and repair. Like Gee Dub said, “I reckon I know how to lay shingles, at least.” Once I went with Ruth over to her grandma's to help gather quilts and blankets to carry out to them who needed them. I enjoyed that task. Besides getting to spend time with Ruth, I liked delivering Miz McBride's quilts. It was nice for folks to have something to wrap in that smelled good, not like an old wet dog. I knew three or four families who figured it was just too big a task to rebuild so they sold out and moved on.

The circuit judge did order an investigation into the death of Jubal Beldon, but nobody was ever charged with his murder. The county sheriff must have interviewed a hundred people, but he decided that Wallace and Miz Beckie could have been covering up for each other, Mr. Eichelberger wasn't talking, there were too many folks who benefitted from Jubal's demise, and on top of it all, it was possible that Jubal simply fell off his horse. In the end he said there just wasn't enough hard evidence to bring anybody to trial.

It was whispered around town for years that Miz Beckie MacKenzie had most likely been the one to plunge her knife into the scoundrel's thigh. Nobody seemed to hold it much against her. She kept teaching piano to the local children and lived out her life in the house she loved. The Beldons sold their farm for taxes and moved away. I don't know what happened to them.

What with all that had happened to them, I reckon the Beldons forgot all about Jubal's horse, for none of them ever claimed him from the Luckenbachs. The animal finally calmed down enough that you could ride him, but every once in a while, out of the blue, he'd remember all the injustices that had been visited on him and go off his nut. Mr. Tucker was still of a mind to shoot him, but he was a fine piece of horseflesh, so Charlie said he'd take him over. Mr. Tucker said all right, but if the roan ever come near to hurting anybody again, Charlie would have to put him down.

John Lee Day recovered, but he never did walk quite right again. For a long time, he covered the bare patches on his head by wearing hats and bandannas around his head, as well as an eye patch for his sore eye. The children teased him a lot about looking like a pirate. When his new hair grew in it stuck out stiff like black straw.

Rollo Eichelberger moved back to the farm with his daddy and with the help of the neighbors, the two of them built a nice little house. I understand that Mr. Eichelberger was able to pay cash for the materials. Must have set him back close to two hundred dollars.

Mr. Tucker's brother Charles who owned a sawmill over in Okmulgee supplied all the lumber at a discount for the folks who had been hurt by the twister, so there was a lot of building going on around Boynton for months. By the time John Lee and Phoebe Day were both well enough to look after themselves, their house and barn had been rebuilt and furnished with dribs and drabs from nearly every family in Boynton. In fact, it was about six weeks after the storm and a bunch of us were hammering away at the Days' new house when Scott showed up with a man in tow and called Kurt Lukenbach aside. Mr. Tucker and I climbed down from the roof and joined them, because Scott and the old man were both looking mighty grim.

“Kurt,” Scott said, “this here is Mr. Patrick Mitchell. He's come up from Mina, Arkansas, in response to the telegram we sent to the sheriff there about the young couple that got killed in the storm. From the description I gave him, he's pretty sure they were his son and daughter-in-law and the little gal Mary found is his granddaughter.”

Mr. Patrick Mitchell from Mina, Arkansas, was a tall, thin, leathery, old man with faded blue eyes, dressed in overalls and a homespun cotton shirt. We all stood there for the longest time without anybody saying a word. Kurt was looking at Mr. Mitchell like he was the Grim Reaper himself. I didn't blame him any. We all knew what this was going to do to Mary.

Since nobody else was going to say anything, Scott went on. “Mr. Mitchell tells me his son's family was on their way down to Texas to homestead a plot outside of Fort Worth, but they never got there. He identified most of the items we were able to save from the wreckage of the wagon as theirs. I think there's little question that the deceased were Mr. Mitchell's kin.”

After another long pause, he turned to Kurt. “I reckon we'd better head over to your place.”
I'm sorry, but best to get this over with
, his expression said.

There wasn't any reason for any of us but Kurt to go, but Mr. Tucker came for support and I tagged along because it was my fault for figuring out where to send the telegram. We all trooped over to the Lukenbach farm in silence. You'd think somebody had just died.

Mary was mighty brave about the whole thing, but she couldn't help but weep when she brought the baby into the parlor to show her to Mr. Mitchell. Phoebe followed right along behind her. She was crying, too.

The old fellow stood up to get a close look at the girl, but he didn't try to take her out of Mary's arms or touch her. He stared at little Judy for a long time, and Judy stared right back, interested and unaware that any minute her life was likely to change forever. Mr. Mitchell's gaze shifted from the baby to Mary, then back to the baby. “Looks like you've been taking good care of her, Miz Lukenbach.”

Mary's voice caught when she answered. “We love her like our own, Mr. Mitchell.”

“Is this your granddaughter?” Scott asked.

Mitchell looked back over his shoulder at Scott. “She favors my son some, but I can't be sure.”

“What is your granddaughter's name?”

“I never knew,” Mitchell admitted.

Scott persevered. “Mr. Mitchell, is this your granddaughter or not?”

The old man took a step back. “I can't rightly say. Maybe. Maybe not.”

Kurt reached out and put his hand on Mary's shoulder.

Scott wasn't satisfied with Mitchell's answer. “Mr. Mitchell, do you want to take responsibility for this child? Tell me now.”

Mr. Patrick Mitchell looked like a man who had had a tough life. Sometimes that makes you hard and sometimes that makes you wise. He turned to Kurt. “She don't need me. I reckon she's all right where she is.” Then he walked right out of the house.

We were all so dumbfounded that it took a minute to dawn on us what Mitchell had said. Phoebe finally made a squeaky noise, and Mary burst into tears of joy. We all did, to tell you the truth.

Scott shook himself and started after the old man, but Kurt grabbed his arm. “Sheriff, Mary and I want to keep the baby. Can we adopt her now? How shall we go about it?”

Scott looked like he still couldn't fathom what had just happened, but he said. “When we get back to town Mr. Mitchell and I will go see Lawyer Meriwether. I'll let you know what to do next.”

And that's how Kurt and Mary got their first one. God blew her in on the wind.

The Boynton Index
, November 12, 1918

Wallace Bruce MacKenzie III, grandson of Boynton resident Mrs. Wallace Bruce MacKenzie Sr., was severely wounded on October 20, 1918, at Meuse-Argonne, while leading a charge against a German machine gun emplacement. His commanding officer, Col. Michael Stone, reported that Lt. MacKenzie put himself between the incessant barrage and his comrades, saving the lives of the rest of the squad and allowing them to complete their mission and destroy the machine gun nest. Lt. MacKenzie had already been awarded the Bronze Star and the French
Croix de Guerre
for heroism in the field, and had recently refused a transfer to a rear position in order to remain with his unit. Col. Stone informed this reporter that he has recommended Lt. MacKenzie for the Medal of Honor.

According to Col. Stone, Lt. MacKenzie survived the battle only because of a small knife he was wearing on a leather thong around his neck, under his uniform blouse. The knife, a family heirloom which was given to him as a good luck charm by his grandmother, deflected two bullets which otherwise would have pierced his heart. Lt. MacKenzie is fighting for his life at the military hospital in Neuilly, France. His ultimate survival is in question.

The Boynton Index
joins every citizen of the town in expressing our profound gratitude to Wallace MacKenzie for his sacrifice, and offers our prayers, support, and sincere best wishes to his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Wallace Bruce MacKenzie Jr. of Muskogee.

Glossary

Blue laws—Laws created to enforce moral behavior, especially on Sunday. There have been blue laws in America since the first British settlements, and they are still on the books in many local jurisdictions in the United States. In Oklahoma in 1916, it was illegal to conduct certain types of business on Sunday, including any venue where dancing or gaming took place. Since Oklahoma came into the Union in 1907 as a “dry” state, the sale of alcoholic beverages was prohibited at all times.

fashed—
upset

feile-beag—
pronounced
FIL-uh-beg—
“Little kilt,, the modern version of the Scottish kilt, made of seven or eight yards of pleated tartan material, as opposed to the older
feile-mohr (FIL-uh-mor),
or “great kilt” made of eighteen yards of material wrapped loosely around the wearer's middle and belted, with the surplus end thrown over the shoulder like a cloak.

half a section—320 acres. One section of land equals one square mile, or 640 acres.

Saddle skirts—two pieces of sheepskin-lined leather attached to the underside of a saddle to cushion the horse's back from the saddle bars. They also keep the rider from getting wet with horse sweat.

sgian dubh
—pronounced
skeen doo
—“Black knife,” a small knife kept in the top of a man's kilt hose or boot.

two bits—fifty cents. A ‘bit' is a quarter dollar.

Alafair's Recipes

Scratch Cooking

If you are not used to cooking from scratch, simply following a recipe is not going to get you the same results your grandmother got when she cooked. Take simple biscuits, for instance. If you throw all the ingredients together in a bowl, stir them up, cut them out and cook them, you're liable to end up with little rocks rather than the delectable, melt-in-your-mouth morsels that Alafair made for her family every day of her married life. There is a science behind it, and every home cook was a chemist.

Buttermilk Biscuits

2 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

4 tsp. baking powder* plus 1/2 tsp soda

5 Tbsp of shortening (vegetable shortening, butter,
or—let's be brave—lard.)

1 cup buttermilk

First, sift the dry ingredients together into a bowl. This will aerate the biscuits and make them lighter. One problem modern cooks often have is that unless they are professional or gourmet cooks, they may not own the same utensils Alafair would have had at hand.

Do you own a sifter, Dear Reader?

If you do, congratulations, and don't forget to use it. If you don't, you can still sift your flour, baking soda, and salt together by shaking it through a wire mesh sieve.

Second, cut the shortening into the flour until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs. If you skip this step and mix the fat and flour into one big wad before adding the liquid, you will end up with the aforementioned rocks. How about using a pastry blender? This is a utensil that looks like a letter “D”; a straight handle with four or five curved metal blades attached. However, if you don't own a pastry blender, do not despair. You can do it with two ordinary case knives or even your hands. In fact, using your hands is an intimate, loving, time-honored technique. If you work biscuits with your hands as many times as Alafair did, you will develop a magical sense in you fingertips that will tell you the instant the dough is ready for the next step.

Next, make a well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour in all the milk at once, then stir it up with a fork or a big wooden spoon just until the dough begins to follow the spoon around the bowl.

STOP!

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface (a cutting board, or your clean cabinet is fine) and knead it with your hands for about half a minute. A little kneading makes the biscuits flakier.

STOP!

Pat the dough out with your hands or roll it out with a rolling pin until it's about half an inch thick. Be gentle!

The secret is that too much handling makes the biscuits tough. This is why your grandma could mix up a batch of biscuits in five minutes flat.

Cut the biscuits out with a biscuit cutter (or with the floured mouth of a drinking glass) and place them on an ungreased cookie sheet. If you like them crusty, place them about half an inch apart. If you like them softer, place them on the sheet so they are just touching. Then bake them in a very hot oven (450 degrees) for twelve to fifteen minutes. A very hot oven will make them poof up and develop a nice crust on top. Be sure that the oven is pre-heated before you put the biscuits in.

*Alafair would have used two parts cream of tartar mixed with one part baking soda. Baking powder is basically the same thing.

Fried Green Tomatoes

Nothing is easier or tastier. Cut green tomatoes into slices about half an inch thick. Dip each slice into flour, salt and pepper, or a beaten egg then yellow cornmeal. Fry the slices slowly in a skillet in a little hot fat until they are browned to your satisfaction. Turn them over and brown them on the other side. Until the latter part of the twentieth century, “hot fat” would have been just that; the melted fat left over in the skillet after cooking meat, which your grandma saved in a grease jar that she kept next to the stove. Sometime in the 1970s or ‘80s, we got wise, and now when we say “hot fat,” we really mean “hot non-hydrogenated vegetable oil.”

Green Beans and Fatback

We denizens of the early twenty-first century are used to preparing our green beans so that they retain their snap. An early twentieth century chef would wonder what was the point of going to all the trouble of steaming or otherwise flash-cooking your green beans if you were going to eat them half raw anyway. Green beans used to be boiled in water along with a big hunk of pork fat or other fatty scrap meat for an hour or two until they were soft and limp and floating in a succulent meat and vegetable infused soup.

Pork Chops and Pan Dressing

Imagine this: It's 95 degrees outside with 90% humidity. Your house has no air conditioning. On top of it all, the only way you can cook is to start an actual fire with real live flames inside a giant iron stove, the surface of which will heat up enough to brand you if you touch it with your bare hand. Now you have an inkling of why an early twentieth century family cook preferred to make dishes in the summer which either required no cooking or were cooked on top of the stove as quickly as possible.

Because it spoiled more quickly in the heat, meat served in the summer either had to be from a freshly killed animal, or preserved, like ham, sausage, and bacon. It was the availability of artificial refrigeration which expanded the “fresh meat season” into the summer. Even so, for a long time people were wary of fresh meat in the summer unless they had killed the animal themselves. Pork is especially iffy, and had to be thoroughly cooked before eating.

Alafair would have cooked her chops in a cast iron skillet, which distributes the heat evenly and when covered tightly, works like a hot oven.

The Chops

Melt some butter in the pan (or meat drippings from the jar, if you're brave). Pat the chops dry and sprinkle them with salt and pepper, then sear each side in the fat over high heat, a minute or two per side. Then when the chops are browned, lower the heat, cover the pan, and cook about five minutes on each side. Stick a knife into the middle of the chop and when the juices run clear, the meat is done.

The Dressing

This is the same sort of bread dressing that one would use as a side with turkey on Thanksgiving, except it is cooked on top of the stove instead of baked in the oven. Every family in this country has its favorite dressing recipe, so feel free to use whatever ingredients you like best. Alafair would have used whatever she had to hand, so the dressing would have been different every time. The following recipe is just a suggestion. There's no hard and fast rule about measuring ingredients, either. With scratch cooking you eyeball it, taste it, stick your finger in it to see if it feels right. When it's hot enough, has cooked long enough to kill anything that might hurt you, and delicious enough to satisfy you, it's done.

1 small minced onion

Two or three celery stalks (if in season) with the leaves, chopped. If you'd rather, two or three small summer squash, like yellow crookneck, sliced thin or cut into small cubes, are good, too.

4 cups of dry bread cut into small cubes OR a pan of dry cornbread OR a combination of both.

Salt and pepper and dried herbs to taste. Sage is traditional. Garlic is good, as is thyme, parsley, savory, and basil. Whatever you like.

1 cup chicken or beef (or veggie) broth

1/4 cup melted butter

While the chops are cooking, mix the bread, herbs, broth, and butter in a large bowl and squish around with your hands. Set aside. When the chops are done. remove them from the skillet, leaving the juices, and put them on a platter. Scrape up all the delicious brown bits from the bottom of your cast iron skillet and stir them around in the meat juice. Saute the onion and celery in the pan juices until soft, then add the rest of the dressing and mix well with the celery and onion. Heat through. If the mixture seems too dry, add more broth or butter. Return the chops to the pan on top of the dressing and simmer with the lid on for a few minutes until everything is nice and hot. Serve immediately.

This is really good with chopped apples cooked in the dressing, or sliced and pan fried in butter as an accompaniment.

Creamed Onions

If you're into onions, this is one of the most delectable side dishes ever conceived.

Here is the original recipe as handed down in the family:

Boil the onions until tender, then pour off the water and add a teacup full of milk, a piece of butter the size of an egg, pepper and salt. Stir in a heaping tablespoon of flour until it is creamy, then let it all boil up once and serve it hot in a nice dish.

Here is the recipe interpreted for those of us who don't know exactly what we're doing:

3 medium onions or half a dozen small onions
(or a couple of handfuls of pearl onions)

3 tablespoons of butter

2 tablespoons of flour

1/4 tsp salt

Pepper to taste

1 1/3 cups of milk

1 cup of shredded cheese, if desired

If you are using very small onions, cut off the top and bottom and remove the first layer of skin. If you are using large onions, peel and quarter them. Put the onions in cold salted water to cover, bring to a boil, and boil until almost tender. Length of boiling time depends on size. Usually about ten minutes for small onions. They will start to look opaque. You can stick a sharp knife into one to see if they're done. Drain off the water. In a saucepan, melt a hunk of butter, blend in flour, salt and pepper, and stir until smooth. Add the milk all at once and stir until thickened and bubbling. If you desire, you can add about a cup of shredded cheese to the roux right at the end and stir until blended. Stir in the drained onions and heat through.