Song of the Road (9 page)

“No, they won’t. If anyone goes to jail it’ll be you,” Mary Lee said. “I’ll insist on it.”

“That jailbird’s stealin’ my radio.”

“Get up,” Jake said, nudging him with the toe of his boot. “Get back in there and keep your mouth shut. You’re just a whisker away from me kickin’ your butt up between your ears.”

“You’re on parole. I’ll tell the sheriff —”

“Frank, honey.” Dolly stood swaying in the doorway. “Ya comin’ back in?”

Mary Lee went to her. “Come to the house, Mama.”

“Ya can kiss my foot!” Dolly yelled. “You’re just like that stuffy old Scott. Ya don’t want me to have no fun.”

Frank brushed past Mary Lee and took Dolly’s arm. “Come to bed, sugar,” he said, glaring triumphantly at Mary Lee. “We’ll have us a hot time ’tween the sheets. I know a few tricks that’ll give ya a duck fit.”

Mary Lee felt a hand on her arm pulling her away from the door. “You’re shivering. Go on back to the house.” Jake walked with her back to the porch.

She couldn’t hold back the tears that filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. They were tears of humiliation, grief and anger.

“Thank you for what you did. I hope you won’t get in trouble.”

“I won’t unless the owner complains about me breaking down her door.” Jake resisted the urge to put his arms around her.

“She won’t.”

“I’ll take a couple of tubes out of the radio and leave it on the step over there so he can’t accuse me of stealing it.”

“I didn’t want to bother you.”

“It wasn’t a bother. I told Eli to come get me if Frank got smart with you.”

“The telephone is disconnected or I’d have called the sheriff.”

“Go on back to bed. You’ve got a good lookout. Eli will let me know if there’s any more trouble. I kind of wish I’d let him hit Frank with that stick.”

She felt strangely disturbed and too warm. A little laugh bubbled from her lips. “So do I.”

Chapter 6

“I
’M . . . COMING!
I’
M COMING
—” he yelled as he ran through the high meadow grass. The long blades wrapped about his feet and held him back. Mary Lee! She was holding her arms over her belly, trying to protect her unborn child. Her mouth was open in a silent scream.

Jake woke with a start and reared up in the bed. His heart was pounding. He was wet with sweat. It was dark where, seconds before, it had been bright sunlight. The cramp in his leg brought him to his feet. He put all his weight on the leg and massaged the tight muscle in his calf with strong fingers. When he was able to stand, he walked back and forth beside the bed until the muscle was relaxed.

The dream was still with him.

Lon Delano, the son of a bitch, had tried to kill Mary Lee’s baby! And when he saw Jake coming, had shot him.

The room was pitch dark, but in his mind’s eye he could see Mary Lee’s fear-filled eyes, pain in every line in her face. She had been big with his child when Lon threw her to the ground.

His child?

Jake sat down on the bed and put his face in his hands. The dream had been so real, he was still shaking. For the first time in his life he began to doubt his sanity. Mary Lee was carrying Bobby’s baby, not his. Bits and pieces of the dream kept coming back to him.

They had made love in a meadow surrounded by a thick fog. Warm and naked, she had lain on top of him so that he could feel the movement of their child. He had slipped inside her so gently she had been unaware of it. When she realized that they were joined, she laughed and laughed and kissed him again and again.

Another flash of memory presented itself. Before Lon Delano shot him, Ocie Clawson, on a big black horse, his white hair blowing in the wind, had raced toward them. At the time Jake had not known if Ocie was coming to aid Mary Lee or to help Lon Delano kill her and her baby.

Jake switched on the light long enough to see the time. It was three o’clock. He went to the small bathroom to get a drink of water. Damn, but he had to get the dream out of his mind so that he could get some sleep. He needed to be sure-footed when he climbed that girder in the morning.

It was an hour before Jake could get back to sleep, and during that time he became reconciled to the fact that any connection he had with Mary Lee Clawson had been conjured up by wishful thinking. Sure, he would like to have a woman like her. What man wouldn’t?

But to save himself the humiliation when she rejected him, he would keep his distance, help her if she needed it, the same as he would do for any other woman; but that was all.

He slept, and on awakening, his first thoughts were of Mary Lee Clawson.

Frank Pierce was gone when Mary Lee awoke. Before breakfast she went out and picked up the liquor bottles and other trash he had thrown out, and snatched off the KEEP OUT sign he had tacked up on the door.

As soon as the overnight renters had left, Mary Lee instructed Eli to strip the beds and put the sheets and towels in the washer and start the machine. She put on her straw hat and walked down the highway to Mr. Santez’s filling station to use the phone. She had to know how much of a telephone bill her mother had run up and if she had to pay it all before she could get the telephone connected again.

“Morning, Mr. Santez.”

“Mornin’, gal. What brings you down the hill so early in the mornin’?”

“I’d like to use your phone again. I need to see about getting our telephone connected. Last night I would have called the sheriff if I’d had one.”

“Someone givin’ you trouble?”

“Frank Pierce. He turned the radio up so loud I’m surprised you didn’t hear it down here.”

“I’d of bet my boots he’d cause trouble. He had hopes of marryin’ Dolly and gettin’ his hands on the court.”

“That will never happen. Oh, he might marry Mama. But he’ll not get Daddy’s court. I’ll burn it to the ground first. One of my renters broke down the door and took the radio or I’d have lost my night’s receipts.”

“Jake, huh?” Mr. Santez went on without waiting for her to confirm his question or express her surprise. “Jake’s a good man to have on your side. I’m glad he’s up there.”

“I told Mr. Ramero to break down the door, but Frank is threatening to go to the sheriff and have his parole revoked.”

“Won’t do him no good if you tell how it was. Sheriff Pleggenkuhle knows what Frank Pierce is.”

“How did a man with a name like Pleggenkuhle get elected sheriff in a county where there are so many Mexicans?”

“Wait’ll you meet him. Big man, loud voice, but straight as a string and fair to a fault. If he can’t corral ’em by talkin’ to ’em, he’ll bash heads. He’s been good for the county.”

“I hope he’ll do something about Frank.”

“Rosa sent a box for me to brin’ up to ya. It’s stuff that we pass down through the family. Both my girls and their babies has used ’em. Rosa said they didn’t need to be sittin’ around waitin’ for one of the girls to have another baby. Use whatever you want, and hand ’em back when you’re done with ’em. Rosa’ll keep ’em and pass ’em on.”

Tears came to Mary Lee’s eyes. “Tell Rosa that I appreciate it and that I’ll take good care of everything and send them back.”

“Now, now. Ain’t no need to blubber ’bout it. I’ll bring the box up sometime today. It’s too heavy for ya to be totin’ back up the hill.”

“I have a boy helping me. He’s going to fix our old coaster wagon. When he gets it fixed, I’ll have him come get the box.”

“Well, now, it’s good ya got someone to help. Tramp, is he?”

“I guess so. He’s only thirteen. He’s good help.”

“Ya got to be careful, Mary Lee. Rosa’s been helpin’ out down at the soup kitchens. Tramps and hobos are comin’ through every day. Some of ’em are good men down on their luck. But some are just as sorry as sin.”

“I’ll be careful.”

After Mary Lee used the telephone, she walked slowly back up the hill to the motor court. The company had refused to connect the phone unless she paid the back bill of twenty-two dollars. Her mother had not paid one bill after her father died.

Knowing that she needed advice on how to handle Frank Pierce, she had called the sheriff and asked him to stop by the court when he had time.

Disappointed, but determined, Mary Lee plunged into the day’s work. She had made six dollars last night and four dollars and fifty cents plus the dollar for doing Jake Ramero’s laundry the day before. She had the ten she had been saving for the baby. The water and electric bills were coming up, and she would have to buy groceries. There was no way she could have paid on the telephone bill even if they had allowed her to pay only part of it.

After the cabins were cleaned and while the sheets were drying on the line, she mixed a bucket of water and vinegar, and she and Eli washed the windows in the cabins. She was standing on a chair washing the outside of the windows in number six when the sheriff drove in. She got down off the chair and went to meet him.

“Hello, Sheriff. I’m Mary Lee Clawson, Scott Finley’s daughter.”

“Howdy, young lady. I heard that you were back running the place.”

“I left the message for you to come by because I’m having trouble with one of the renters. Frank Pierce and my mother claim that she rented him the number one cabin. One time she said she’d rented it for a year, and one time he said for a month. He claims to have given her money, but so far he hasn’t produced a receipt.”

“Your mother was in charge of the court when she rented it?”

“Yes, sir. I’d like to get him out.”

“I don’t see how you can do that unless you give him his money back.”

“Last night he turned his radio up so loud my other renters threatened to leave —”

“I heard about it. He said Jake Ramero broke down his door, assaulted him, then stole his radio.”

“You believed him?”

“Let’s just say I keep an open mind where Frank is concerned.”

“When I asked him to turn down the radio, he pushed me, almost shoving me down. Mr. Ramero came to help me, and I asked him to break down the door and take the radio before my other renters demanded their money back.”

“Jake’s on parole, you know. Assaulting Frank, if he pressed charges, would be enough to get Jake sent back to serve the rest of his sentence.”

“He was protecting me, Sheriff. I swear it.”

“Frank said that he was held down and threatened —”

“By a thirteen-year-old boy with a stick! I need to get Frank out of here so I can clean up that cabin and rent it.”

“Where does your mother stand on this?”

Embarrassed, Mary Lee looked away from the big man. “Mama has been either drunk or with a hangover ever since I came home. More than likely she’ll say he paid her for a year.”

“I can’t see that I can do anything for you unless he causes another disturbance and I’m called.”

“You can’t make him move?”

“Not if Mrs. Finley says he paid her rent.”

“What about Mr. Ramero?”

“I’ll have to have witnesses before I make a report to his parole officer.” Sheriff Pleggenkuhle grinned.

“You’ll not get any witnesses from here,” Mary Lee said stiffly.

“I didn’t think so. Tell you what: I’ll have my deputy swing by here a couple times a night for a while.”

“Couldn’t you put Frank in jail or something?” Mary Lee asked desperately.

“Not unless I have something to charge him with.”

“I could file charges saying he’s wrecked one of the cabins. He has. It’s filthy.”

“Has he broken any windows?”

“No.”

“Well, tell Jake to be careful. I’d hate like hell to have to take him in. If you have any trouble, call me.”

“I don’t have a phone, Sheriff. But I have a boy helping me. He can run up to the telephone office.”

Mary Lee’s shoulders slumped as she watched the sheriff drive away. She couldn’t get rid of Frank Pierce, but she had set the sheriff straight on Jake’s involvement. Lord, she’d hate it if he had to go back to prison because of her.

It was late in the afternoon when Eli proudly showed her the coaster wagon. He had nailed a board across the front and attached the wagon tongue. Mary Lee made a big to-do about how handy he was, then asked him to go to Mr. Santez’s gas station and get a box.

She washed, combed her hair, put on one of her daddy’s clean shirts and sat on the front steps. Her mind wandered as she watched the cars go by on the highway, listened to the sound of the rubber tires meeting the concrete and the purr of passing engines. Route 66, the Mother Road, was carrying thousands of families fleeing the dust bowls of Oklahoma and the arid lands of Kansas and Texas westward to the fertile fields of California.

Had things been different, Mary Lee would have reveled in the adventure of traveling the road through the wind-blown plains, deep forests and high mountain passes. But her place was here, beside the road, watching those who passed by and wishing them Godspeed.

Eli returned with a cardboard box in the wagon bed. She followed him around to the back of the house.