by With Heart
“He came up here a couple of years ago and tried to correct my wayward ways.” Isabel’s laugh was dry and scornful. “He wanted me to come to his ranch and keep house for him. Can you beat that? I’d rather be dead than stuck out there on the prairie. I had enough of the sticks when Henry Ann dragged me back to the farm after Dorene died. ’Cause I demanded my rights, she sent me to the orphan’s home. That damn Johnny let her! When I got out, I dropped the Henry name and took Dorene’s maiden name.”
And that’s why it cost me five hundred dollars to find you.
“What’a ya want to find Johnny for? Good-lookin’ as ya are, bet ya got by-blows all over Oklahoma. Looks like ya got money, too.” Isabel plucked at the fringe on his leather coat. “Half the women out there”—she jerked her head toward the noisy tavern—“includin’ me, would drop and spread for ya the minute ya took off yore hat.”
Barker laughed, but he wanted to slap her face. “That’s very flattering. My time’s about up. I don’t want to get you in trouble with . . . Bud.” He took his wallet out of his inside pocket and gave her a bill.
“Wow! Twenty big ones. Thanks, Chief. That’s the most money I ever made in half a hour. Anytime ya want’a talk again . . . or if ya get a itch that needs scratchin’, look me up. I could show ya a trick or two that’d even cause old Dorene’s eyes to bug out.” She winked at him as she pulled down the neck of her dress and tucked the bill in her bra.
Barker Fleming waited until Isabel disappeared inside, then went quickly down the steps and around the building to his car. Johnny Henry. Johnny Henry. Johnny Henry, Rawlings, Oklahoma.
• • •
Kathleen and Johnny turned down the darkened street leading to Mrs. Ramsey’s house. Kathleen wished that they still had miles to go. She had never spent a more pleasant evening. Her hand was snugly in his, their steps matched, as they walked in companionable silence. Johnny’s voice broke the silence between them.
“You’ll not forget what I told you about driving your car to work in the morning?”
“Do you think it’s really necessary? It’s only a few blocks.”
“It’ll be dark when you leave the office. You’ll be safer in the car.”
“The jugheads may have just been letting off steam.”
“I don’t think so. They didn’t know Mrs. Wilson was listening.”
“I’ll have to start carrying a long hatpin.” Kathleen laughed softly. “My grandma insisted that I carry one when I went to Des Moines to business school. She said that there was nothing that would get a masher’s attention like a good poke with a hatpin.”
“I think I’d like your grandma.”
“She’d have loved you if you ate a lot. She liked to set what she called a generous table, and she liked to see a hearty eater. It’s a wonder I wasn’t as big as a moose by the time I grew up.”
“I wouldn’t have disappointed her when it came to eating. Henry Ann always said that she had to put plenty on the table, or I’d start in on the table legs.”
A minute or two passed, then Kathleen said, “I don’t like being afraid, Johnny.”
“You’ll be all right during the day. I’ll worry about you at night.” He drew her hand up into the crook of his arm and covered it with his. “If Webb and Krome had any brains, they’d get out of town and drop the matter.”
“They’ll not leave if they’re getting paid to hang around.”
“That’s what I don’t know . . . yet. I want you to be careful. Tomorrow I have to go down to the McCabe ranch and help drive the stock up for the rodeo. I can’t be here tomorrow night.”
“You don’t have to feel responsible for me, Johnny. I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time.”
“Maybe so. But you were not living in Rawlings, Oklahoma.”
When they reached the house, it was completely dark. Johnny stopped near the porch steps.
“Thank you for dinner and for walking me home. I enjoyed it.”
“Likewise. I’ll be back in town in a—”
“Hi, Johnny.” The voice came out of the darkness just as Clara stepped up onto the end of the porch. “Is this the wonderful Miss Dolan I’ve heard so much about? Well, kiss her good night. It’s what she’s waitin’ for. Then we can go honky-tonkin’.”
Johnny’s throat clogged with anger, making it impossible to speak. Kathleen had no such problem.
“This must be the wandering Miss Ramsey. I’ve heard a lot about you, too, from a sweet little girl who wishes that her mother would stay at home and take care of her like other little girls’ mothers do.”
“Holy shit! The pussycat has claws.”
“Believe it, sister. You scratch me, I’ll scratch back.”
“Clara?” Hazel Ramsey’s quivery voice came from the doorway. “Please—”
“Don’t worry, Mama. I’ll not run her off. I’ve been waitin’ for Johnny.”
“It’s all right, Mrs. Ramsey. I’ve had to deal with immature adults before. I’ll not take anything she says seriously.”
“Now ain’t she just the cat’s meow? She thinks that she’s somethin’. Don’t she?”
“Of course, I think that I’m something.” Kathleen said. “I try to use common sense and good manners. I’ll say good night. Thank you for the supper, Johnny, and for walking me home.” She stepped upon the porch. “He’s all yours, Clara.”
Kathleen went into her room, paused just inside the door, and smiled when she heard Johnny’s angry voice.
“Goddammit, Clara,” he snarled. “Get in the house before I forget you’re female and knock out a few teeth.”
“Oh, goody. You’re mad! I just love it when you’re mad. That Indian face of yores—”
“—You’re damn right I’m mad. Stay away from me, hear? I’ve done what I could for you, for your mother’s and Emily’s sake, not for yours. You’re rotten, Clara. You don’t deserve to have a mother like Hazel and a little girl like Emily. You’re nothing but a millstone around their necks.”
“John . . . ny.” Clara sidled up to him and hugged his arm. “Don’t be mad. Let’s go to town and have some fun.”
“You stupid little twit! You didn’t hear a word I said!”
“You can’t like her ! God, Johnny, she must be thirty years old. Sheesh! She’s older’n you by a long shot.”
“Shut up about her! And leave her alone, or you’ll hear from me.” He shook his arm free from her grasp and started down the walk toward the street.
“Clara, please,” Mrs. Ramsey came out onto the porch. “Leave Johnny alone and come on in.”
“You go in, Mama, and stop tellin’ me what to do. John . . . ny—wait. John . . . ny—” Clara’s voice became fainter as she ran down the street trying to catch up with the angry man.
Kathleen turned on the light, pulled down the window shades, and saw for the first time the table Johnny had lent her for her typewriter. It was perfect. Books and papers that had formerly been on the floor were now stacked neatly on the table beside the typewriter. She sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled off her shoes and stockings. Her feet hurt, and she had a big hole in the toe of her stocking.
In the doorway of the bathroom, she stopped and stared in anger and disbelief. Her bath salts were on the floor beside the tub along with her towel. The bar of scented bath soap she used so sparingly floated in the half-filled sink. A pair of lacy underpants, having evidently been washed with her scented soap, hung on the line Kathleen had strung to dry her hosiery.
“Miss Dolan.” Emily’s little voice came from the doorway leading to the other bedroom. “I told her not to get in your things. Are ya mad?”
“Not at you, honey.”
“I don’t want ya to go.” Emily had tears in her voice.
“I’m not going. Don’t worry about it.” Kathleen lifted the soap out of the water and placed it in the soapdish.
“I can’t help it. Granny cried. Mama talked mean to her.”
“We’ll just have to make it up to your granny, won�
�t we?”
“How?”
“We could take her with us to the rodeo.”
“You’re still goin’ to take me?”
“’Course. I’m looking forward to it. We’ll ask your granny to go with us.”
“But not Mama?”
“I doubt that she’d want to go.”
“She don’t like it here. And . . . I don’t care!” The little girl’s lips trembled, but she held her head erect, determined not to cry. “She told me to get away and leave her stuff alone. I wasn’t goin’ to touch it.”
The door banged and Kathleen heard Clara’s angry voice in the other room.
“He ain’t nothin’ but a goddamn half-breed. He ain’t no better’n them dog-eatin’ redskins out on the reservation, but he thinks he is ’cause he’s got that little old rinky-dink ranch and a beat-up truck. He must be hard up for a woman to take that . . . that freaky thing with the dyed hair.”
“Don’t talk about Miss Dolan like that. She’s a nice woman. You ought to be ashamed, running after Johnny like you did. I’d think that you’d—” The radio suddenly came on so loud it almost shook the rafters. A few seconds passed, and it was switched off.
“Why’d ya do that for? I want to hear it.”
“I want you to listen to me, Clara.”
“It’s all I’ve been doin’ all my life. Listen to me, Clara. Do this, Clara. Do that, Clara,” she mocked her mother’s voice. “I wish to hell I’d never come back here.”
“Why did you?” Mrs. Ramsey asked quietly.
“’Cause I need money, that’s why.”
“I don’t have any money to give you. Emily and I just barely have enough to get along.”
“I know where to get it without having to beg you for it.”
“Where, Clara?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Yes, I would. You’ll not bring any more disgrace down on Emily. She’s suffered enough.”
“What do you think I’m goin’ to do, for God’s sake? Open a whorehouse in the living room?” Clara let out a shout of laughter. “That’d jar the prissy Miss Dolan clear down to her dried-up old twat.”
“I don’t know what has happened to you. You were a sweet little girl and . . . pretty as a picture.”
“I’m still pretty, Mama. Haven’t you noticed? Men like me. Like me a lot. Rich or poor, they all like what I can do to them.” Clara laughed at the shocked look on her mother’s face. “I’ve got a rich one comin’ up to see me in a few days. His folks has got a whole town named for them. Conroy, Texas. Ain’t that somethin’? He don’t know it yet, but he’s goin’ to take me to Nashville.”
“You’re never going to change, are you, Clara?”
“Why should I change, Mama? I have me a hell of a time when I’m away from this one-horse town.”
“I’m going to bed. Keep the radio down. Miss Dolan gets up early.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I’ll come out here and bust the tubes,” Hazel said staunchly.
“Why, Mama,” Clara said in surprise, then laughed shrilly. “Don’t tell me you’re gettin’ some backbone?”
“You’ll find out if you bring any more shame down on Emily.”
“She’s mine. I might take her with me.”
“You won’t. I’ll not let you.”
“Don’t worry. You can have her. All she’s done since I got here is whine. Where I’m goin’ I don’t need a kid hangin’ around my neck. Did you hear me, Mama?” Clara shouted at her mother who had gone to the kitchen. “You can have her.”
During the conversation between Clara and Hazel, Kathleen tried to keep Emily’s attention on something else so the little girl wouldn’t hear the hurtful words coming from her mother. She told her about Johnny swinging her in the swings at the school playground.
“It was such fun, Emily. You and I will have to go there some Sunday afternoon.”
“Did you swing on the giant-strides? Marie Oden got hit in the head with one.”
“Really? Hurt her bad?”
“Cut her head. But she’s all right now.”
“What’s that big round tin thing on the side of the school?”
“The fire escape for the upstairs. We have fire practice and get to slide down it. It’s dark and scary. We have a carnival and a spook house on Halloween. You can go down the fire escape if ya got a ticket.”
“I’ll have to think about it. I’m really a coward.”
“Bet ya ain’t.”
“Bet I am.” Kathleen heard Hazel in her bedroom and steered Emily toward the door. “I’ve got to take a bath, honey. See you in the morning.”
“You ain’t goin’?” Emily asked over her shoulder.
“Only to work in the morning.”
Emily grinned a gap-toothed grin. “’Night, Miss Dolan.”
“’Night, Miss Sugarpuss.”
Chapter Nine
Before Kathleen left her room to go to breakfast, she locked her personal papers, her manuscripts and all her underwear and hosiery in her trunk, and her toilet articles, including her comb and brush, in her suitcase. All that was left in the room were her shoes, dresses, and coats.
Clara was asleep, sprawled on the couch, when Kathleen passed through the living room on her way to the kitchen. Hazel and Emily were at the table. Hazel jumped up.
“Sit down. I made your tea.”
“Thank you. Good morning, Miss Sugarpuss. How would you like a ride to school this morning?”
“In the car?” Emily smiled, showing the big gap in her front teeth.
“In the car. I’m driving uptown this morning.”
“Hear that, Granny?” The little girl had lowered her voice to a whisper. Without waiting for a response from her grandmother, Emily leaned toward Kathleen. “We whispered so we’d not wake Mama up.”
“I wondered if there was something wrong with my ears,” Kathleen whispered back and stuck her finger in her ear.
Emily giggled. “I told Granny she could go to the rodeo with us.”
“And I told you that I can’t go.” Hazel poured Kathleen’s tea and set a plate of hot biscuits on the table.
“The Gazette has three tickets, Hazel.”
“Won’t Adelaide use one?”
“She said she’d just as soon skip it this year.”
Kathleen drank her tea hurriedly and ate a biscuit with jam. She wanted to be gone before Clara got up. Emily was excited about riding in the car to school and was waiting at the back door when Kathleen came back after repairing her lipstick and putting on a light blue turban that matched her dress.
“You look pretty, Miss Dolan,” Emily said.
“Thank you, and so do you.”
Emily giggled and took Kathleen’s hand. “’Bye, Granny.”
“’Bye, honey. See you at noon.”
Hazel stood on the back stoop and watched the car back out into the alleyway. She looked sad standing there. Kathleen had seen a tear on her cheek when they left, but Emily had been too excited about riding to school in the car to notice.
• • •
As soon as Kathleen entered the office, Adelaide wanted to know about her date with Johnny.
“It wasn’t really a date,” Kathleen said, taking off her turban and placing it on her desk.
“Looked like a date to me. He went out and bought a new shirt.”
“He probably didn’t want to go to supper in a shirt he’d worked in all day. You’re making too much of it. He’d heard that the two men who tried to hijack me were going to get even because they had to go to the sheriff’s office again. That’s why he took me home.”
“Does he think they might . . . attack you?”
“I don’t know what he thinks they’ll do, but he wanted me to drive the car up here so I’d have it to go home in.”
“Good idea. Paul says he’s got a crush on you.”
“Paul’s . . . crazy!” Kathleen felt heat on her cheeks.
“Why are you
blushing?”
“I’m not,” Kathleen protested, and rolled a sheet of paper into her typewriter. “I’m probably—Oh, never mind.”
Good Lord, she had almost said that she was probably older than Johnny. Being conscious of the age difference between herself and Paul, Adelaide would have been terribly hurt. But Kathleen’s age was what Clara had pointed out last night, and the taunt had stuck in her mind like a burr.
“How’d the big date go?”
Kathleen looked up to see Paul grinning at her.
“It wasn’t a big date!”
“Johnny bought a new shirt.”
“Paul, dear, I already mentioned that.” Adelaide and Paul exchanged conspiratorial glances.
“All right, you two. Cut out the matchmaking.”
Paul passed behind Adelaide and caressed the back of her neck.
He touches her every chance he gets, Kathleen thought as Adelaide smiled up at him. Will anyone ever love me as much?
“I told Johnny that you had a date with Leroy tonight. He didn’t seem to be too pleased about it. It doesn’t hurt to let a fellow know he’s got a little competition.” Paul winked at Adelaide and hurried into the back room.
“Oh, my gosh. I forgot all about Leroy Grandon. Sometime today I’ll have to go home and tell Hazel that I’ll not be there for supper.”
For press day, the day went fairly well. Paul had two front page stories: one about Japan declaring that they would provide arms for Germany and Italy if it became necessary. The other story was about fifty-five thousand hungry people rioting in Pittsburgh. Kathleen was impressed, but she was not sure how many people in Rawlings were interested in what went on in Japan and in Pittsburgh. But it was good journalism, causing her to wonder once again about the man’s life before he came to Rawlings.
“Paul thinks the war in Europe will spill over, and before long we’ll be involved,” Adelaide said after she had proofed the piece.
“Oh, I hope not. I don’t know how the country could fight a war when we’re having a hard time feeding our poor.”
Hannah, the Indian woman Kathleen had seen the day she arrived, came into the office. She appeared dazed. Ignoring Kathleen, she went to Adelaide’s desk.
“Hello, Hannah,” Adelaide spoke gently.