“Well, now I know your opinion of me, Dad.” Maury was snapping green beans, her fingers moving efficiently. “I’ve learned a lot, though. Look what I’ve learned about cooking. See, here’s a list I made—the menu for the week at Stuart’s Cafe.” She handed him a piece of paper with a list of meals penciled in:
Monday—macaroni with tomato sauce, apples
Tuesday—boiled fish and biscuits
Wednesday—vegetable salad and baked potatoes
Thursday—potatoes with milk
Friday—baked beans
Saturday—thick soup and corn bread
Sunday—beef hash
Amos nodded. “You’ve done a good job. Pete told me he couldn’t have made it without you.”
“It’s been a help since Violet and Ray came.”
“A help? Seems like it’s more crowded to me.”
“But Violet takes care of Stephen and Mona. She’s like a mother hen with two chicks, and now that Ray’s feeling better, he’s a big help to Pete and Dent on the rig.”
They talked for some time, Maury turning the conversation toward what was going on in the country. She was a bright, alert, highly intelligent young woman, and somehow as she sat snapping the beans, watching him, he was aware that even with all the difficulties of life at a wildcat oil rig, she had a peace about her that he had not seen in a long time. Cautiously he asked, “Have you thought of coming home again?”
Maury’s eyes lifted to him quickly and she stopped snapping the beans. “Coming home? Why, no, somebody’s still got to help take care of Leslie. She’s getting some better, but she still has a way to go till she is at full strength. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, I just wanted you to know that if it gets too hard, you can always come home.”
“Back to the nest? No, I don’t think so, Dad. Not right now, anyhow.”
That was the end of the conversation, and the next day Dent put Amos in his Model T to take him back to the airport. “Come on along, Maury,” he said. “You’ll want to tell your dad good-bye.”
Eager for a break from the monotony of the work, Maury glanced over at Violet. “Could you take care of things till I get back, Violet?”
“Of course. Take all the time you need.”
The drive to the airport was interesting. Amos had heard of Denton and was curious about him. He saw in him a free spirit and said, as Dent skillfully avoided the chuckholes in the road, “I wish I could live like you, Dent, just sort of doing what you want to. You never hang on to one job long, do you?”
“Just a professional bum,” Dent grinned cheerfully. He winked at Maury and said, “This daughter of yours is trying to reform me, but I guess I’m hopeless.”
“You never thought of getting married?”
“Well,” Dent shrugged, “I had to think of it a couple of times.” Mischief came to his eyes as he said with a straight face, “Some of the young ladies brought it up, don’t you see?”
Maury laughed abruptly. “I bet they did!” she exclaimed. “You must have spent a lot of your time running away from irate fathers and jealous boyfriends.”
“All part of the game, Miss Maury, but I’m past all that now. Just a confirmed old bachelor.”
“I don’t believe that,” Amos said. He put his arm around Maury and said, “Watch out for this fellow. Those that proclaim they’re no danger to a woman, why they’re the worst kind.”
“I watch him all the time,” Maury grinned back. “He’s a menace. A single, good-looking man on the loose somehow alerts every woman within a hundred miles. But I think it’s Violet that’s got her eye on him.”
“Why, she’s just a kid, a mere child,” Dent protested.
Maury did not answer but winked at her father. When they got to the airport, Amos shook hands with Dent and said, “Watch out for this daughter of mine. Don’t let her get into any mischief.” Then he turned and hugged Maury, kissing her, whispering, “I’m proud of you, Daughter. You’re a real Stuart.”
Dent and Maury stood watching the plane as it trundled out on the field, twin engines coughing and roaring. It lumbered into the air, and Dent said, “I don’t see how one of those things ever stays up. I think your brother must be crazy to do what he does in airplanes.”
“He loves it. Just like my uncle Gavin.”
Dent gave her a curious look and said, “How ’bout we take in a movie before we go home? It’d be a break for us.”
“All right,” Maury said, “but I get to pick it out.”
The movie she selected was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It starred Fredric March, and they sat through the feature saying almost nothing.
When they got outside, it was still daylight and they blinked at the bright sunshine. Dent helped Maury into the car and then cranked it up. As they pulled out, he said little for a time, but when they were in the open country, he said, “Why’d you want to see a thing like that? Awfullest mess I ever saw!”
“Oh, I don’t know. I thought it was interesting.”
Dent thought of the movie for some time. He had been baffled by the story of how a man could turn into a monster. “Well, I think we should have gone to see Shirley Temple! That would have made more sense.” He looked at her and admired her windblown red hair, which she had loosened. “What do you see in a thing like that?”
“Oh, I guess it just reminds me of how in good people there’s some bad somehow or other.”
“I’d rather look at it the other way,” he said. “In bad people there’s some good.”
“I suppose that’s true, too. I don’t know,” she said finally, shaking her head with a helpless gesture. “I just like to think about things like that.”
“How come you haven’t got married, Maury?” Dent said abruptly.
His question seemed to silence her. She pressed her hair down and finally began putting it up with hairpins that she took out of her purse. “I don’t know,” she said, then abruptly turned to look at him stating, “I was in love and it didn’t work out. I guess that’s why.”
“He let you down?”
“Yes, he did.”
The bleakness of her brief reply caught at Dent. He was perceptive and now wondered about how far he could press into her private life. He admired all the Stuarts and was aware of some of their problems from being close to the family. He had heard talk about Maury’s brief romance, but had never pried into it. He said quietly, “You can’t run all men off because one of them turned out to be no good,” he said.
“I suppose that’s true. But you also can’t turn love on and off like you can a light, can you?”
He thought that over for a while, then blew the horn at a mustard-colored dog that ambled out in front of the Model T. When he got control of the car, after swerving wildly, he said under his breath, “Stupid dog! He won’t last long!” He remained quiet for a while, then said, “I don’t know much about love. I know what it means to love the Lord, but it looks like to me a lot of people make a mistake—man and woman thing, that is.”
“What do you mean, Dent?”
“I mean, I see a lot of people get married and they’re miserable.”
“I suppose that’s so.”
“Well, it shouldn’t be like that. I’ve seen your uncle Owen and his wife. They never get tired of one another. You notice that? Even when they’re just sittin’ together, he just has to hold her hand or touch her arm.”
“I know. I think that’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen.” She hesitated, then bit her full lower lip. “I’d like to have a marriage like that. But most of them aren’t that way.”
“What happened to you and the man?”
At the abrupt question, Maury suddenly put her hands together and squeezed them tightly. For a moment Dent thought she wouldn’t answer. Then she said, “He wanted too much of me.”
“Why, I thought that was what a woman wanted. A man that loved her so much he wanted her—all of her.”
“No, it wasn’t like that. He wanted all of me, Dent. A
ll of my private life. I loved him, but I think there’s a part of all of us that’s very private, no matter how much we’re in love. There’s that part of us that responds to God, part of us that’s our past. Somehow he wanted all of that, and I couldn’t give it to him.”
“Sounds like a selfish cuss.”
“I don’t know.” The Ford bumped over a rock, shaking their teeth, then she said finally, “I miss not having a family. I know that’s what part of a woman is for, to have a man, to love him, and to be loved, but there’s a part of me that will always be a little separate.”
Dent had never seen this side of Maury and said no more. When they got to the house and walked inside, Violet was brushing Mona’s blond hair. She gave them an odd look with a glint in her eyes. “You took a long time to take Uncle Amos to the airport,” she said shortly.
“Well,” Dent said, “we stopped and took in a movie. Let me tell you about it.” He straddled a chair and pulled it over in front of Violet and Bailey, who was sitting across from her. As he told the story of the movie, he saw that Violet was not meeting his eyes.
Finally he got up and left, and Bailey followed him outside. “Something wrong with Violet?” Dent asked. “She doesn’t seem like herself.”
“I think she would like to have went with you,” Bailey said simply. His uncomplicated mind put things in starkly basic terms. “She likes you, Dent, and when she sees you go off with Maury it hurts her feelings.”
Dent stared at the big man, then shook his head. “No way to tell about how a woman feels,” he said. “No matter what a man does, he’s always putting the wrong foot forward. Just no way to handle a woman.”
“Is that right?” Bailey asked with interest.
“No, it ain’t right but that’s the way it is!”
The attack came so suddenly that there was no time for Pete to respond. Pete had been driven into town by Ray, who had wandered off while Pete made his way to the doctor to have his cast removed. Ray met Pete outside the doctor’s office when Pete was finished. The two spent an hour in town and loaded the car with a few supplies and started back. On the way, a large car had suddenly appeared and pulled up beside Pete’s truck. Ray, who was driving, yelled, “Hey! Look out!” but his cry was futile. The big car had swerved, crashing against the pickup, and Ray struggled to maintain control of the vehicle. He drove off the road and managed to slam on the brakes, avoiding a large gully.
“It’s the Kingman goons—watch out for yourself, Ray.” Pete looked over at the young man saying, “If we give them an excuse, they’ll beat us half to death.”
Ollie Bean got out of the car and moved over to say, “Get out of there, Stuart. We’ve gotta have a talk.”
“We’ve got nothin’ to talk about,” Pete said. He maneuvered himself out of the car, using his crutches. His leg was out of the cast, but he would still need to use crutches for a while. Pete watched Bean’s face carefully. There was a cruelty in the big man, as he well knew. Pete said, “We don’t have any business with you.”
“We’re going on a little trip, you and me.” He looked over at Ray and said, “You run along, Sonny Boy.”
“We’ll both go,” Ray said. His face was pale and he looked around to see that the three other men had gotten out of the car and had circled the pickup. He swallowed hard saying, “I’m staying here.”
Instantly, Pete said, “You go on, Ray. I’ll be all right.”
“Sure, he’ll be all right. Now get on your way!”
Ray hesitated, then gave the pickup gas. He drove quickly and furiously until he got back to the shack. Slamming the brakes on, he came out of the truck hollering, “Dent!”
When DeForge saw Ray’s pale face, he came down at once, leaping off the oil rig. “What’s wrong, Ray?”
“It’s Pete! Bean and three of his toughs stopped us on the road. They took him off. I would have stayed, but I couldn’t do any good there.”
Dent said, “Where’d they take him?” His eyes were glinting with anger.
“I didn’t stay to see but it’d have to be their camp, wouldn’t it?”
“All right!” Dent stood there silently, thinking hard. “I’ve been afraid something like this might happen.”
“What’re they gonna do to him?”
“Make him sign his lease over to them, what else?”
Ray hesitated, then said, “We’ve got to do something! We’ve got to get him back! They might kill him!”
“I wouldn’t put it past ’em.” Dent looked up at the sky and said, “We’ll have to wait until after dark and then sneak up on ’em. Come on.” He walked toward the house and stepped inside. He saw that Maury and Violet were fixing supper. Leslie was sitting in a chair watching, her face pale with the sickness that had drained her. “Miz Stuart, we’ve got a problem,” Dent said carefully. As he explained what had happened, he saw Leslie’s face grow tense. Quickly he said, “Don’t you worry, Ma’am. We’ll get him back.” He walked over to the wall and picked up Pete’s shotgun and got a handful of shells from the drawer. When he turned, his face was hard and there was a purpose in him that none of them had seen before.
“What’re you going to do, Dent?” Violet whispered.
“Do? Why, I’m gonna get Pete back.” There was a finality in his words that none of them could miss. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the .38 that he always carried now, checked the loads, then carefully lowered the hammer. “I think it’s time Mr. Kingman Oil Company had a visit.” He looked around and said, “Bailey, you take care of things here. Ray and I have got a little job to do.”
Bailey had been listening carefully. “Are they gonna hurt Mr. Pete?” he asked.
“They might.”
“Then I’ll come, too.”
Dent looked at the big man, then a tight smile creased his lips. “All right. I won’t give you a gun, but with fists like those, you don’t need one.”
It was full dark when he walked out the door, and the two men followed him. Violet came out, too, and took his arm. “Dent! Be careful. Those men are killers.”
“Why, Violet, they couldn’t kill me but once, could they?” He smiled at her and reached out and touched her cheek. “Nice to have you worrying about me, but I’ll be all right. You take care of things here.” He hesitated a minute and thought of the movie he had taken Maury to, and what Bailey had said. “Maybe you and me ought to go play some of that min’ature golf they’ve got up in Oklahoma City. Looks like fun. That be okay? Be like old times, wouldn’t it? Like when we used to fish and go coon hunting together.”
“I’d like that, Dent.” Violet was disturbed at the thought of what lay ahead and bit her lower lip. “Be careful,” she pleaded.
“Why sure, I’ll do that. You take care of things here, and we’ll have Pete back in no time.”
Pete gritted his teeth. A trickle of blood ran down his jaw, but there was a stubbornness in him. “You can beat me to a pulp, Bean,” he said, “but it won’t do you no good. I’m not signing that paper.”
Bean stood over Pete, who was sitting with his legs stretched out. His hair was mussed up and there was a bruise on his left cheek. Bean looked around at the three men who were watching. “You better sign it. You’re gonna sooner or later. We got plenty of time.”
Pete felt a sense of helplessness sweep over him, but there was nothing he could do. He thought of his family and how their only hope was the oil that lay under that derrick. Gritting his teeth, he shook his head and said, “I won’t sign.”
Instantly, Bean moved. Lifting his meaty hand, he sent a blow into Pete’s face that drove his head backward and brought a fresh stream of blood from between his lips. There was a great pleasure in Bean’s eyes as he said, “Hold out as long as you want to. I don’t mind the work.”
Before he could say more, the door burst open and a voice said, “Hold it right there, you fellas!”
Bean whirled to see a tall man wearing overalls and holding a .38 in his hand. Instantly he said, “You’re
in trouble, fella. This is private property.”
Dent smiled frostily. “Why don’t you throw me out then, Bean?”
Bean looked down at the revolver and said, “I’m gonna make you eat that gun.” He touched the gun at his own waist and said, “You fellas get ready.”
“You’re a dead man if you try it,” Dent said.
“So are you. One of us will get you.” Bean had no lack of physical courage, and he saw four-to-one odds as being all he needed. “Get ready and we’ll take him.”
Dent lifted his voice, “Ray, break out that glass!”
Instantly there was a tinkling of glass and Ollie and his three henchmen were startled. They turned to see the double barrel of a twelve-gauge shotgun thrust through the window. It was trained right on the three men and Ray said, “I think I can get all three of ’em, Dent, with both barrels.”
The faces of the three men changed at once, and one of them turned pale. He could see the twin black tunnels of the shotgun and said, “Hey, Ollie, they got the bulge on us.”
“They ain’t got nothing,” Bean said. “We can take him.”
Dent kept his eyes fixed on Bean’s huge form, then called out, “Bailey, come in!”
He waited until Bailey stepped inside, then he said, “You see that fella? He’s been hurtin’ Pete. I think we ought’a give him a few lessons.”
Bailey’s round face was a study. He looked down at Pete, at the blood running down his cheeks and his bruised face. “Gee, they shud’na done that, Mr. Pete,” he said. His eyes lifted to Ollie Bean and he said, “You shud’na done that, Mister.”
Bean was puzzled by the big man, but he was tough to the bone. “Get him out of here and your other guy, too. We’ll lay for you and get you somewhere.” He put his hand on the .44 in the holster at his side and started to pull it.
The click of Dent’s .38 struck sharply on the silence. He said evenly, “You ready to die, Bean? You just pull that gun and you’ll find out.”
Bean was tough, but he wasn’t suicidal. “If you didn’t have that gun, I’d show you a thing or two,” he mumbled.
A Season of Dreams Page 19
