Runabout (22 page)

}His father had married his mother Cherokee fashion, without real consideration or foresight. His grandmother, Miss Maimie, had been livid, and since there had been no legal ceremony, she'd threatened to withdraw her financial support, coercing Luther Sr. into abandoning his Cherokee marriage and firstborn son and taking to wife Cora, a nice, respectable white woman. Ultimately this house of cards collapsed, Miss Maimie withdrew her support anyway, and two fine women were hurt. Luther, Sr., returned to his Indian wife and Arthel was born. They had eight good years together before they died, but the years they had wasted, the years Luther had lived alone with his mother, were irrevocably lost.

}Luther vowed to himself that he would never be so foolish. He'd marry only once, for love alone. But his first responsibility was to Arthel. When he was finished with his schooling and started off in the world, then it would be time for Luther to settle down. But that was a long time off, a very long time. Too long for a woman like Tulsa May to wait. She would have half a dozen children before he'd be ready to head to the altar. No, he couldn't seriously consider marriage to Tulsa May. Not that he thought she'd consider marrying him.

}And she was far too fine a woman to trifle with. Momentarily he wondered if anyone ever had. Doc Odie? That was certainly logical, though somehow the thought of Tulsa May cuddling with Doc Odie made him feel slightly ill.

}It never happened, he assured himself. And Tulsa May was probably the prude of prudes. Of course, she'd always seemed cheerful and adventuresome, but that was in life. Could she be that way in a man's bed? He shook his head. Impossible. Then the image of her breasts beneath the diaphanous damp shirtwaist entered his mind.

}He glanced over at her and swallowed. The late afternoon was darkening quickly. Was she frightened to be alone with him on a deserted road at night? That was foolish. Tulsa May wasn't afraid of very many things. And she certainly would never be afraid of him.

}He wondered what her mother might have told her about dark, deserted roads, unchaperoned rides, and men. He wondered what Miz Constance had to say about men. He had heard the Rev's spiel.

}"What a husband and wife do in the privacy of their own bedroom is not to be speculated upon," Reverend Bruder had told him, red faced and plainly embarrassed as they sat alone and uncomfortable in the pastor's study. "When you have need to be fruitful and multiply, God will direct you in the appropriate way."

}Luther had nodded solemnly and managed to keep a straight face. Fortunately, his own father had enlightened him several years earlier.

}"It looks like the bitch and the hound or the bull and the cow," his father had told him. "But there's more to it than how it looks. People are thinking beasts, Greasy. And thinking beasts can love. Thinking beasts can also be hurt. Treat
every
woman with the respect and tenderness that you would treat
any
woman. And son"—he'd smiled sadly and tousled Luther's hair— "try not to make promises that you won't be able to keep."

}That was exactly what he had done. Luther glanced over again at his Tulsy in the seat beside him. This time she smiled back shyly and then turned her eyes to the road before them. He had promised to pretend to court her just long enough to turn the gossip. He meant to keep that promise.

}As they passed a small, almost hidden glade at the side of the road, a flash of shiny black metal caught his eye. He began to slow down.

}"What is it?"

}Luther pulled off to the side of the road about a hundred yards ahead. "It's Arthel and Maybelle," he said simply.

}"What?"

}"If my eyes don't deceive me, that's my A-2 Commercial parked back in the trees we just passed."

}Tulsa May turned in the seat and rose up on her knees to look back behind them. "Do you think they've had car trouble?"

}"No," he answered quietly. "I believe they stopped here on purpose."

}"Why?" For a moment Tulsa May's expression was puzzled. "Do you think they are ... I mean, could they ... it's—"

}"They are sparking and spooning," Luther replied as casually as he could.

}Tulsa May slipped back down in her seat staring straight ahead. "But, well, I thought they'd be a match eventually, but right now they don't even seem to like each other."

}Luther shrugged.

}Tulsa May glanced back over her shoulder nervously. "Should we ... should we ... do something?"

}Luther wondered the same thing, but shook his head. "Not yet. I'll give them a couple of minutes. Then, if they don't head out on their own, I'll go break it up."

}"That sounds like a good idea." Tulsa May nervously cleared her throat and became suddenly very concerned with the slant of her hat. Removing the long steel pin, she reset the angle and pinned it again, before adjusting the ribbon and straightening the ties.

}The two sat stiffly and silently in the car for several minutes. Luther looked down at his tanned fingers, ostensibly checking for grease under his nails. There was none.

}Tulsa May, her hat now readjusted, tucked in her hair, straightened the brooch at her throat, and picked imaginary lint from her brown poplin skirt.

}In the distance the setting sun was turning the clouds bright pink, coloring the evening sky. It was beautiful, inspiring, romantic.

}"Do young couples regularly do this sort of thing?" she asked finally.

}Luther gave her only the most cursory of glances. "Yes, I guess most do. Arthel and Maybelle are a little young."

}Tulsa May nodded. It was quiet again.

}"Didn't you and Doc Odie—?" Luther wanted to kick himself as soon as the question was out of his mouth. It was none of his business, and he certainly didn't want to know.

}He heard her clear her throat. "He kissed me many times," she answered. "But he would certainly never try anything out alone and unchaperoned like this."

}Luther nodded.

}"Doc Odie is a gentleman," she said quietly.

}"Doc Odie is an idiot," he replied under his breath.

}"What?"

}"Nothing."

}"You said something."

}"I said Doc Odie was an idiot."

}"Why do you say that?"

}"If I had a chance to get you alone out in the country, I'd sure try to kiss you."

}Tulsa May stared at him for a moment in disbelief, her face fiery red. Then she shrugged off his words as mere flattery. "Well, you
are
alone out in the country with me!" she said.

}He turned toward her, his vivid blue eyes dark with an emotion that she didn't immediately recognize. When she did, she covered her face with her hands in shame and turned away.

}"I didn't mean that as it sounded," she assured him quickly. "I was merely making a joke."

}Luther no longer cared what she meant. Leaning forward, he laid an arm along the back of the seat behind her and gently pulled her hands from her face.

}"This is silly, I—"

}"Shhh," Luther whispered as he drew her closer. "It's just a little kiss, Tulsy. Aren't we good enough friends to share just a little kiss?"

}Tulsa May's heart was pounding like the bass drum at the Fourth of July Parade. He was close. Very close. Too close.

}"Luther, I—"

}He didn't let her finish. With a tenderness that surprised even himself, Luther brought his mouth to hers. It was the gentlest of kisses. A mere touching of one pair of lips to another. A kiss that might have been considered brotherly. But no brother's heart ever pounded like his.

}He could have smiled and pulled away and let it go at that. But he did not. Tulsa May brought her hands to his shoulders. He felt her heart beating against his chest, the softness of her bosom against him, and he opened his mouth over hers.

}She was sweet and tender and warm. He allowed his tongue to wander the soft pink territory of her lips. The taste of her was heaven. It was home.

}Luther's blood was pumping faster through his veins now, and he tightened his grip around her. She felt so good.

}"Oh!"

}Her little breathless exclamation as she pulled herself away from him brought Luther to his senses. He looked into her familiar face, surprised. She was
his Tulsy,
orange-haired, freckled, and gap-toothed, still. Yet the word that rushed to his lips as he gazed at her was "beautiful." He left it unuttered.

}Glancing away, he laid his right wrist across the top of the steering wheel. She also stared straight ahead. The moment was uncomfortable. Tulsa May needlessly straightened her clothes. He was embarrassed. He had lost a small portion of control. And with Tulsy. He was nearly tempted to whistle. Instead, he stared across the horizon.

}"Tulsy, I'm sorry," Luther said, finally. "Honestly, I hope you don't think that I stopped here because I thought..." He hesitated. "You know that I have the highest respect for you and—"

}"I know." Tulsa May's reply sounded small and distant.

}Luther turned toward her again. Her expression was one of abject misery.

}"Oh, Tulsy, please don't cry," he said soothingly. "I was wrong to take advantage. But I couldn't stand it if I thought I'd cut you to the quick."

}Tulsa May's eyes looked suspiciously watery, but he saw her visibly mustering her courage and blinking hard against the tears. "I'm sorry, Tulsy. I didn't mean to offend."

}"Please don't apologize anymore." She was staring down at her hands, which were covered with the beautiful peach taffeta silk gloves that he had given her.

}With his eyes focused on the rutted dirt road, he reached a hand across to her and laid it circumspectly upon her own. The touch was tender, reassuring, but also familiar.

}"I swear that I will never let that happen again."

}"I know." Her answer was a whisper. A long moment passed. Then slowly, tentatively, she took his hand that lay so gently upon her own and brought it up to the side of her face. Gently, she pressed the strong masculine palm against her cheek. She sighed before giving a self-depreciating little laugh. "I know it will never happen again," she said, forcing ironic humor into her tone. "Why on earth do you think I'm about to cry? I'm twenty-four years old, and no one has ever kissed me like that. Not Odie, not anyone. I don't expect that it
will
ever happen again. These tears aren't virtue. They're an old maid's disappointment."

}Luther listened to her words as he felt the warmth of her cheek against his hand. She was so soft. Had there ever been a woman so soft? Was all her skin as smooth and silken as the curve of her jaw?

}"Tulsy?" It was a quiet question.

}Pressing his hand one last time against her face, she pulled away from him. He once again gripped the shiny brass steering wheel; he sat up straighter.

}"Tulsy?" It was the same question, though his voice was an octave lower.

}"It's getting late. We should go."

}His expression didn't change.

}"Don't you think you'd better check on Arthel and Maybelle?"

}He shrugged. "My little brother is on his own."

}She was looking straight ahead. He clasped her chin between his fingers and turned her head to look at her. Her eyes were as bright and shiny as new copper pennies. But he couldn't hold her gaze. She lowered her lashes, unwilling to let him see her heart.

}Pulling away, she gave a tense little laugh. "Don't pay any attention to me. I guess a deserted country road at sunset can turn the head of even your addle-brained best friend."

}"Tulsy, do you want to kiss me?"

}"I suppose I'm as guilty as half the girls in this town." She tried to make it a joke, but her nervous giggle and the somewhat flustered wave of her hand didn't seem quite steady.

}Again, he reached for her. This time, his arm that had stretched so benignly., along the seat back slipped down. He grasped her shoulder and pulled her closer. He felt her trembling against him.

}"Now, Greasy," she said with a forced cheerfulness that was only a shadow of the real Tulsa May. "You're being as silly as I am."

}He scanned her face. Her penny-brown eyes so bright... her lightly freckled cheeks, pretty with the pink blush of embarrassment... her lips, so soft and warm and sweet.. . and so very close.

}"Tulsy," he whispered. "If I want to kiss you and you want to kiss me, the only thing silly would be for us not to do it."

}With that he brought his lips down to hers. He heard as well as felt the nervous intake of her breath. "Let's not be silly."

}Gently, he opened his mouth over her own for another taste. He almost moaned aloud.

}"Luther, I—"

}"Open your mouth a little, Tulsy."

}Carefully, as if he feared she might bolt, he brought his lips against hers once more. With only the slightest pressure he sealed her to him.

}She started. "What's that?"

}"It's just kissing, Tulsy."

}She swallowed nervously. "It's a strange kind of kissing, with our mouths all open like that."

}He was only inches away from her. He could feel the warm sweetness of her breath against his cheek.

}"It's the
best
kind of kissing. Not the little-sister kind or the maiden-aunt kind. If we're best friends and going to be kissing, we ought to be doing the best kind."

}"I don't know if we really ought—"

}She had no opportunity to finish her statement. He hushed her mouth with his own, inhaling whatever protest she might have made into the sweet sensation of the best kind of kissing.

}She was skittish and fluttery against him for only a moment. Then Luther felt her relax against him, her arms snaked around his neck to hold him closer. He almost smiled at her unguarded enthusiasm. Reluctantly, they parted.

}"I think it
must
be the best kind of kissing," Tulsa May whispered breathlessly against his cheek.

}Luther chuckled lightly and pulled her tightly to his chest. He felt the shape of her against him. A tiny thread of memory wove through his concentration. He remembered vividly their dancing embrace. Her body had been pressed against him then, but now somehow her body felt different. But the sensation of her lips trembling against him was too tantalizing to hold his thought a moment longer. He brought his mouth to hers eagerly once more.

}Luther meant only to please her. But when he both heard and felt the tiny, luscious moan at the back of her throat, he himself was enticed. Without deliberation, he twisted in the seat to bring her closer. Their kissing became more wild.

}Her tidy little straw hat had been knocked askew, its pin missing and its ribbons partially undone. Finally, Luther jerked it from her head and cast it aside. A moment later, his hands were in her thick carrot-colored hair, scattering pins and combs. He suddenly wanted to caress those bright orange-colored curls that he knew embarrassed her and that she kept hidden from the world.

}"Luther?" Her voice was breathy. "What are you doing?"

}"Tulsy, I love your hair," Luther whispered as he buried his face in it. It smelled fresh and clean with a light scent of gardenia. "It's beautiful," he said as he loosened her braid, allowing huge handfuls of the bright orange silkiness to drift through his fingers and spread across her shoulders. Even in the dim light of dusk, her hair seemed to shine from its own inner glow. Luther twisted the long curls in his hands, placing gentle kisses upon them before pulling her almost prone upon him and allowing those shiny curls to cascade down over him.

}Her breath was hot in his mouth and his hands were eager. Luther felt his control slipping perilously close to the danger zone. That sweet-smelling hair, that soft, soft skin, that warm, beloved, and ardent body pressed against his own. It was so good. It was so right.

}"Oh, Tulsy," he whispered only a moment before he gave her the best type of kiss again.

}She sighed deeply. Their embrace was as much emotional as physical. There was something that—

}The loud honk of a Buick A-2 Commercial had them jumping from each other as if a bomb had exploded.

}As the truck pulled up beside the Runabout, Arthel and Maybelle stared, both wide-eyed in disbelief.

}Luther glared at his brother, a look of fury on his face. "We were waiting on you," he snarled.

}Tulsa May was frantically attempting to straighten her hair and find her hat.

}"Well, we're on our way back to town, so there's no need to
wait
much longer." With a short nod, Arthel slipped the A-2 Commercial in gear and headed down the road.

}GORE WOULD RELY ON MORAL FORCE

}The "Blind Orator" Speaks in Philadelphia

}Oklahoma Senator Thomas P. Gore spoke last night before the American Academy of Political and Social Science in Philadelphia. Gore, known as the "blind orator," declared to those present that the United States should rely upon moral, rather than military, force and should dedicate itself to the principles of humanity and the ideals of peace, arbitration, and international justice.

}Chapter 12

}Willie Dix, pale and quiet, lay on the small cot in the front parlor. Doc Odie had stopped in to listen to the harsh rasps in his chest and leave a bottle of paregoric. The doctor removed the profusion of wool blankets that covered him and unbuttoned the shirt of the gray flannel union suit that the old man wore. Placing the cold metal horn of his stethoscope against Willie's chest, he listened expressionlessly to the draw and flow of his breath. Silently Willie let the doctor examine him. But when he saw his daughter leave the room, he spoke.

}"Are you working on that scheme I come up with?" He whispered the question.

}The doctor looked down at him, only momentarily puzzled. "What scheme is that?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

}The old man's expression was frank. He knew the doctor had not forgotten. "My Emma is going to need a man to take care of her when I'm gone."

}"Hopefully, that won't be too soon," Doc Odie replied in an even professional voice.

}"It's going to be soon enough that I best set my house in order. Emma is all I've got and I can't leave her nothing 'cept a memory of me."

}The doctor nodded thoughtfully, but didn't reply.

}"She's a good, loving woman," he said. "Kind in ways her mother never could be. It'll be a lucky man who's got the sense to look past her mistakes and take her for the woman that she is."

}Doc Odie glanced toward the kitchen, where the young lady was making dinner.

}"You needn't convince me, Willie," he said quietly. "I've seen how she takes care of you." Gently, he probed the old man's chest with his fingers. "But I don't think your idea about Luther Briggs will work."

}"Why not?"

}"Luther Briggs is keeping company with Tulsa May Bruder these days." Doc Odie held open Willie's eyelids and examined the white for hints of yellow.

}"Humph," Willie replied. "I thought that little carrot-top was your gal."

}"Not anymore."

}"Yep," Willie said, eyeing the doctor critically. "Seems like I heard you left her a-waiting at the altar."

}Doc Odie stopped. The old man's words touched a nerve. "I did not leave her waiting at the altar. I just broke the engagement."

}"Splitting hairs," the old man replied, waving away his explanation. A cough from deep inside his chest halted the conversation.

}Willie's face became red with the exertion. Doc Odie raised him up to a sitting position and patted his back forcefully. Willie finally recaptured his breath.

}Doc Odie laid him back down on the bed and the old man rested again on the soft goosedown pillow, his face now almost stark white. His eyes were huge and dark and his hands trembled. He was exhausted, but he would not let the discussion rest.

}"So you jilted little carrot-top," he said with some difficulty. "You marrying-shy?"

}"No. I'm just good at keeping myself from making a mistake. I thought the Bruder girl would do for a wife."

}"But she won't."

}The doctor shook his head. "For someone she would, I suppose. But if a man's got to spend his whole life looking at one woman, don't you think it ought to be some woman he likes to look at?"

}Willie pondered his words for a moment before nodding sagely. "They say a man sees with his heart as well as his eyes."

}Doc Odie rebuttoned the old man's shirt and re-covered him with his wool blankets. "I guess one part of my eyesight is better than the other." He stood and began loading the equipment into his bag. "Well, Willie. I suspect you'll be with us a while longer." He glanced up as Emma came through the doorway. Obviously, she'd heard; she looked relieved.

}"I thought he was looking better this morning." She looked over toward her father and her affection was evident.

}"He does look better," Doc Odie agreed.

}Willie managed a hoarse chuckle. "I look better 'cause that gal of mine has got me shaved up slicker than a sinful banker on Saturday night."

}"Oh, if I let you have your way," Emma argued good-naturedly, "you'd be wearing a long gray beard like Santa Claus."

}Doc Odie picked up his bag and straightened his coat, clearly making ready to leave.

}"Would you care for tea, Doctor?" Emma asked graciously. At the end of every visit, she'd asked the same question. He always politely refused and it was on the tip of his tongue to do so today. From the corner of his eye he saw Willie watching him. He couldn't forget the help that he'd promised.

}"I'd be very pleased to take a cup of tea with you, Miss Emma," he answered.

}The young woman was visibly startled, but quickly recovered herself. "Certainly, let me just put on the water."

}As she moved back into the kitchen, Doc Odie patted Willie on the shoulder reassuringly before following her.

}"I'll just have a seat right here," he said, indicating one of the plain wooden chairs at the small table. It was recently whitewashed and scrupulously clean.

}"Doc Odie, you needn't take your tea in the kitchen!" Emma told him.

}"I like kitchens," he answered simply. "Especially this one." He looked around at the cosy, well-scrubbed, well-lit room painted in gleaming white and yellow and decorated with checked gingham curtains.

}There were several awkward moments as they waited for the water to boil. But once the tea was brewing in the pot and Emma was seated across from him, the doctor began to relax.

}"I've been talking to your father some," he said.

}"I know. And I do appreciate it. He gets so lonely with no one but me to visit with. It's very kind of you to take the time."

}Doc Odie was somewhat uncomfortable that she thought it was a strain on him.

}"I enjoy your father," he corrected her. "He's a very good and wise man. I wish I'd known him when he still had his health."

}Emma nodded. "It was too much for him. Me, running away like I did. And then losing Mama. I think he just couldn't manage anymore."

}Doc Odie placed an elbow carefully on the table and looked across at Emma. The doctor's tawny brown hair was thinning on top and graying at the sides, but his pale blue eyes were clear and youthful as he spoke calmly and with conviction. "Your father's condition has nothing to do with either you or the loss of his wife. If you had stayed home and married one of the local yokels and your mother had lived to ripe old age, your father would still be dying today."