Song of the Road

by Dorothy Garlock

  “I found it and it’s …” He struggled for words when he saw Dolly.

  She looked at him as if he were a worm crawling out of her sandwich.

  “Why’s that little bastard here after I told ya to get rid of him? Why’re ya wantin’ him around for? Frank said ya was screwin’ the kid. Ya screwin’ the jailbird too?”

  “Hush that filthy talk!” Anger made Mary Lee’s voice shrill and drove her to take a step toward her mother. Jake’s hand on her arm held her back. “You’re … rotten and mean!” she yelled. “You’ll do and say anything to hurt me. You don’t care about anyone but yourself.”

  “Damn right! Scott cared till ya came along. Ya ruined everythin’. I didn’t want ya. I told and told Scott I didn’t want a kid. He said he’d kill me if I got rid of ya. I shoulda done it anyhow. That righteous shithead didn’t have the guts to step on a cockroach.”

  “Don’t you dare talk about Daddy like that!” Mary Lee shouted.

  “Eli and I will go,” Jake spoke softly, close to her ear. “Will you be all right?”

  She nodded, her eyes on her mother’s ravaged face.

  “I’ll be back and empty the flour in the tin.”

  Mary Lee nodded again and watched her mother take the ice pick from the holder beside the icebox and lift the lid to chip the ice. She spoke as soon as she heard the closing of the screen door.

  “I don’t know why you talk so nasty and say things that you know are mean just to hurt and humiliate me. You’re not well, but that’s no excuse. I’ve had about all of your meanness I can take. And if it doesn’t stop you’re going to have to find another place to live.”

  Dolly’s cold, hate-filled eyes stared at her. “Ya … bitch. Ya think ya can run me outta my own house?”

  “I don’t want to. I’ve tried to get along with you, but you just won’t meet me halfway. You insulted Trudy, who came here to help. You treat Eli like dirt. He is just a boy without a home who is working for his keep. What has Jake done to you to make you take your spite out on him?”

  “How about Frank and Pearl? Ya run ’em off.”

  “They were leeches, living off you.”

  “Ah … shit. Ain’t no need to argue with ya ’cause ya know everything fit to be known. But I got news for ya, Miss Twitchy Twat, ya can’t throw me out. Frank said that it’s in Scott’s will that I can stay here long as I live — and that’s goin’ to be a long time. ’Cause I’m goin’ to stay alive as long as I can just to give ya as much hell as ya’ve given me.”

  “I can move you into the cabin with your friend, Frank.”

  “Just try it, and I’ll burn the place down.” Dolly tossed the threat over her shoulder as she left the room. The slamming of the bedroom door shook the house. Mary Lee sank down in the kitchen chair. She was too shaken to weep.

  She sat at the table until she heard a car drive in. Wiping her face on the skirt of her dress, she picked up the registry book and went out onto the porch. Eli was talking to the couple in the car. After a few minutes, he stepped back and the car drove out onto the highway.

  Eli came to the porch with a disgusted look on his face. “I don’t know what’s wrong with folks. They wanted to stay until midnight for a dollar. I told them two dollars and breakfast for the night.”

  “I’m glad you did. We don’t want or need that kind.”

  “I didn’t like their looks. They kind of reminded me of that couple that went around the country robbin’ and killin’.”

  “Bonnie and Clyde Barrow? We don’t have to worry about them anymore. Has Deke come back?”

  “Little while ago. He came in the back way and parked down behind Jake’s cabin.” Eli sat down on the edge of the porch. “Jake and Deke are goin’ uptown to eat. Jake said he’d take care of that flour when he gets back and that yo’re not to lift that bucket of lard.”

  “He’s getting pretty bossy,” Mary Lee said irritably. “I’ve got to figure out a way to pay him for the things he bought. It would take him a year to eat all the biscuits that flour and lard would make. He’ll not be here that long.” She glanced at Eli and saw the set look on his young face. “You can understand, can’t you, Eli?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s between you and Jake.”

  “I’m embarrassed that he bought groceries. Please understand … ,” she pleaded, and fought to keep the tears from her eyes.

  “Is it because he was in prison?”

  “No! It’s because … because …” Her voice trailed.

  It’s because I’m in love with him. I don’t want him feeling sorry for me … I want him to love me — but after he heard what Mama said, all he’ll feel for me is pity! Oh, Lord! I’ll never be able to look him in the eye again.

  “You … like him, don’t ya?”

  “Of course I like him.”

  Before she could reply, two ladies in a late-model car drove in. Eli showed them the cabin. They came back, laughing and joking with the boy, to sign the register. He was grinning. Mary Lee couldn’t help but compare this Eli with the shy, tired youngster she had found in the washhouse a few weeks earlier.

  It was an unusual evening.

  The available rooms in the motor court were all rented within an hour. Before they could turn off the Vacancy sign, another car drove in off the highway. Eli directed the disappointed travelers to the hotel in town.

  As soon as Jake’s truck drove in, Mary Lee said good night to Eli and went through the dark house to her room, telling herself that she would lie down for a while, then go to the kitchen and set the table for the morning meal. After latching the doors, she eased down onto the bed. It felt so good to lie down that she almost groaned with the relief of it. She lay for a while listening for a sound to come from her mother’s room, then decided that Dolly must have gone out the back door while she was on the porch.

  Tears rolled from the corners of her eyes as her mother’s words played over in her head. How could a mother hate her child? Since she was old enough to remember, her daddy had made excuses for her mother’s cold treatment. He had known that she hadn’t wanted the baby. He had loved his daughter and had tried to make up for the lack of her mother’s love.

  Daddy, why did you have to go and leave me?

  Fatigue overcame her despair. She slept, then wakened suddenly. It was dark in the room. Someone was in the kitchen. She felt her way to the door, but Jake’s voice stopped her before she opened it.

  “Shhh … be quiet. Don’t wake her. She needs all the rest she can get.”

  “When is her baby due?” She recognized Deke’s voice. “In a couple of months.” Jake answered without a moment of hesitation. “It’s already moving around in there pretty good.”

  Mary Lee put her hands to her cheeks. It was strange hearing her pregnancy discussed by these men. Strange but sweet.

  “Where can we put this bucket of lard so it’ll be easy for her to get to?”

  “Leave it there,” Eli whispered. “Trudy will know what to do with it.”

  “Hey, Jake. Does she want to keep this cloth on the table?”

  “If it’s clean. She wants things to be nice. Put three plates on each side and one on each end. Here’s the forks and knives. Spoons are in the holder.”

  “Trudy said she’d be here by five-thirty.” Deke had to be standing close to the door for Mary Lee to hear his loud whisper.

  “You and Trudy must have got along like a house on fire,” Jake teased.

  “She can dish it out. She told me how the cow ate the cabbage right off.”

  “That’s Trudy. Cute as a button too.”

  “Not bad. I’ve not had a gal look up at me since I was in the fourth grade. And she was in first.”

  “Mary Lee don’t want Trudy to get to likin’ you too much.” Eli’s voice was too loud to suit Jake, and he shushed him.

  “Why not?” Deke was still by the door.

  “ ’Cause she don’t want her to get her heart broke.”
Eli spoke softly this time.

  “Well, doggie. I never thought of myself as a heartbreaker.” Deke sounded pleased.

  Mary Lee groaned. Does Eli tell everything he knows?

  “Are we through in here, Eli? If her mother comes back and finds us here, she’ll raise a ruckus that will be heard a mile away.”

  “The old witch is out in number one.”

  “By herself?”

  “Naw, she’s got that man with her who was here with Frank the night Mary Lee ’bout tore his pecker off.”

  “Tore his pecker off? Hell’s bells! What’s this about?” Deke asked.

  “Mary Lee had this plate in her hand and when he pulled it out to pee —”

  “It’s a long story,” Jake interrupted. “We’ll tell you later. Are we finished in here, Eli? If there’s nothing else to do, turn off the light.”

  “Trudy will help her in the morning.”

  Mary Lee leaned her forehead against the door when she heard them leave the porch. She wished that her daddy could have known Jake and Eli. She swallowed the hard lump in her throat. They were very dear to her.

  Would she be able to bear it when they left her?

  Chapter 17

  IT WAS MIDMORNING WHEN OCIE CLAWSON drove into town and parked his car on a side street. He sat for a minute and watched a motorcycle with a sidecar go by and envied the man straddling the machine. If he didn’t have the responsibility of the ranch, he’d be tempted to get on one of those things and ride down the highway to the faraway places he’d only heard about.

  Heaving a sigh, he looked around, then got out of the car and turned into the alley behind the row of buildings on Main Street. He went up the back stairs to the second floor of the Bison Theater building, then paused before pushing open the door with gold lettering on the glass. WILLIAM MILLER AND SON, ATTORNEYS.

  “Hello, Mr. Clawson.” He was greeted by the woman behind the desk. She was his age or older and had two double chins. Her plump face was framed with soft brown hair, scalloped and held in place with long bobby pins. “It’s been a while since we’ve seen you.”

  “Hello, Miss Dryden. Is Bill in?”

  “Junior or Senior?”

  “Senior.”

  “He was getting ready to go home for lunch —”

  “Who’s out there, Madge?”

  The woman shook her head. “Nothing gets by that man. It’s Mr. Clawson,” she called.

  “Did he come to see you or me?”

  Madge rolled her eyes and jerked her head toward the back office.

  “You, Bill,” Ocie said, as he came through the door.

  “Good. I’m not wanting to lose Madge to some clabber-head wanting a good cook and a warm bed. When I’m gone, Junior can get one of those flapper gals to sit out front. Sit down, Ocie. How’ve ya been?”

  “Fair to middlin’, Bill. You?”

  “Not getting any younger. Hell, I’ll be eighty my next birthday. It’s a damn good thing the body goes downhill before the mind or I’d be a bloomin’ idiot.” His laugh was dry as corn shucks.

  “Time waits for no man, Bill. That’s why I’m here. I want to make out a will.”

  “A will, huh?”

  “Yeah. You handled my father’s will. He thought a great deal of you.”

  “Temple Clawson was one of the best friends I ever had. I would have trusted him with my life.”

  “He felt the same about you.”

  “In our younger days we even liked the same girls.” A devilish glint came into the old man’s eyes. “He was a good-lookin’ son of a gun. I didn’t have a chance after they got a look at him.” He began to laugh, remembering. “There was this girl we both liked, but she had her eye on Temple. I had to think of something to get her attention, so I told her that Temple had fits about once a month. She dropped him like a hot rock. Hee, hee, hee. He was madder than a pissed-on snake when he found out. Later, he wished that I had got her. After she married, she turned to fat, and I mean fat … three hundred pounds.”

  Ocie thought about his sweet and gentle mother, so different from the sour, nagging woman he had married. His pa had been crushed when he lost her.

  “About the will: I want to be sure the ranch is left to the grandchild Bobby’s wife is carrying.”

  “Don’t you think you should wait until the child is born?”

  “No. I want to get things settled. If something happens to the kid, I want everything to go to Mary Lee. She’s a Clawson by marriage. It’s the best I can do to see that the ranch stays in the family.”

  “It’s what Temple wanted.”

  “I know that. He drummed it in my head since I was old enough to stand to pee. I don’t want anyone to know about the will or what’s in it. Especially the girl.”

  “We don’t blab what goes on in this office. You should know that.”

  “Not intentionally. Sometimes thin’s slip out.”

  His father’s old friend scowled, then said, “I heard that your daughter-in-law fell on the steps coming down from Doc Morris’s.”

  “She claims someone grabbed her foot. Hell, I don’t know if she was imaginin’ it or not.”

  “Pregnant women get fanciful notions.”

  “She’s working herself to death at that motor court.”

  “Dolly Finley is a sorry excuse for a woman if I ever saw one.”

  “She was even when Scott Finley married her. She was trash then.”

  “Her folks were hardworking. Whatever happened to them?”

  “Killed in a flash flood over near Albuquerque. If she had other kin, I’ve never heard of them.”

  “Now, let me get this straight, Ocie. You want to leave Bobby’s child everything. And should something happen to the child, to the mother. Is that how you want it?”

  “Exactly.”

  “How about Lon?”

  “How about him? He’s a distant relative I signed on to work. He hasn’t done all that good a job lately. Takin’ a little too much on himself. If I could find a good man to take his place, I’d fire him.”

  “How about Jake Ramero? Gus Quitman thinks he’s top-notch. Swears he’s the best with horses he’s ever known.”

  “He’s a jailbird, for God’s sake.” Ocie moved restlessly in his chair.

  “Some say Lon railroaded him.”

  “The judge didn’t think so.”

  “Fiddle-fart, Ocie. You and I both know how that goes. The judge had no choice with you up there siding with Lon. The boy’s took what was handed out to him and did his time. He’s back now and folks should give him a chance.”

  When Ocie refused to be drawn into a conversation about Jake Ramero, Bill changed the subject.

  “I’ll have Junior draw up the will. Come back in a day or two and sign it.”

  “Will he and Madge keep their mouths shut?”

  “I’d stake my life on it.”

  Ocie got up to leave. “It’s been good seein’ ya, Bill.”

  “Hell, boy, it’s been good seein’ you. Your pa thought a heap of ya, know that?”

  “I know that, Bill. We were both disappointed in Bobby, but that’s all water under the bridge now. We play the cards dealt to us.”

  “Come in and chat — anytime.”

  Ocie had no more than closed the door to the outer office when William Junior opened the connecting door and came into his father’s office.

  “Did you hear that, Junior?”

  “I heard. What’re you going to do?”

  “Make out the will just as he wants it.”

  “It won’t be worth the paper it’s written on.”

  “He won’t know that, but it will ease his mind.”

  The old lawyer reached for his cane, got shakily out of his chair and stomped out the door.

  Sheriff Pleggenkuhle came around the house to where Mary Lee and Trudy were hanging the morning wash on the line.

  “Morning, ladies.” He tipped his hat.

  Mary Lee answered his greeting with a smile an
d a nod.

  “And a howdy to you, Sheriff,” Trudy said cheerfully. “Did you come out to arrest me for spitting my chewing gum on the sidewalk?”

  “I’ve been looking for the culprit who did that. So you’re the one, huh?” A smile spread across his sunbaked face.

  “Guilty. You gonna lock me up?”

  “My jail is full right now. Jake around?”

  “He and his friend went out to the Quitman ranch. Is something wrong?” Mary Lee asked anxiously.

  “Not exactly. I wanted to talk to him for a little bit.”

  “About the other night?”

  “Partly, I guess. I’m going to let Frank out in a few days. He’s doin’ some mouthin’ off. I want to warn Jake to keep his nose clean.”

  “Frank won’t come back here, will he?”

  “Says he will unless you’re willing to give him back the hundred dollars he paid for a month’s rent. He claims his rent is paid up and he doesn’t have anyplace else to go.”

  “A hundred dollars? I can’t, and wouldn’t if I could, give him a hundred dollars! He didn’t pay rent. Mama is just saying that he did so she’ll have someone to bring her whiskey,” Mary Lee said heatedly.

  “He said he paid Mrs. Finley. She swears that he did. She and Yancy Hummer were down at the jail talking to him last night.”

  “She wants him to come back here?” Mary Lee’s shoulders slumped.

  “Didn’t she tell you that they’re going to get married?”

  “Married? Oh … Lord! Oh, good grief!” As soon as she could breathe easier, she said, “Why? When?”

  “The when, I don’t know. The why is so that he can live here with her. They tell me that it’s in Scott’s will, that she can live here as long as she wants, and as her husband, Frank figures that he can live here too. It might be a good idea to talk to Sidney Morales. He’s your lawyer, isn’t he?”

  It took all the strength that Mary Lee could muster to hold herself together and not break down and cry in front of the sheriff. She turned away from him and looked off down the highway. Two cars went by while she batted her eyes furiously. When she turned back, her eyes were dry and her shoulders straight.