Margie’s grandmother died the previous spring and left her a small inheritance. One hundred eighteen dollars seemed like a fortune, and Margie could see her dream of going to Hollywood becoming a reality. The dream, however, turned into a nightmare when the man she hired to take her stole her money, and she had to return to her old job at the diner in Conway. Because she was a good worker and the customers liked her, the owner was glad to have her back.
Bertha, the cook and wife of the owner, leaned in through the window that fronted the kitchen. “You’re goin’, ain’t ya?”
“I want to.”
“Then go, honey. There ain’t nothin’ here for ya. Go and see the sights before yo’re tied down with babies and didies.”
“Not much chance of that ’round here.”
“Gettin’ babies? Flitter! Let it be known ya want one and ever’ horny man in the county would be here eatin’ three squares a day and pinchin’ yore cute little butt ever’ time ya passed by.”
“You and Harry have been awfully good to me. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t given me my job back.”
“You thinkin’ Elmer wouldn’ta helped ya?”
“He never has.”
“You’ve been good for us too, hon. It’s why I don’t want to see ya slingin’ hash for the rest of yore life.”
“I’ve always dreamed of going to Hollywood to see the stars.”
“Yo’re pretty enough to be one. Now, you’d better not tell Harry yo’re leavin’ until you know for sure Elmer’s goin’. Be just like that rascal to get yore hopes up, then fizzle out.”
“Rosemary wants to come back to work.”
“Her old man broke her arm is the main reason ya got yore job back. She was good help.”
“If I give notice and Papa changes his mind about going, I’d be out of a job.”
“I heard he sold the icehouse.”
“You did? Who’d he sell it to?”
“The bank. Who else has any money?”
“What do they want with it?”
“Who knows? I’d bet my bottom dollar that Goldie Kinnard didn’t leave town broke. She might of got the bank to loan her money against the icehouse, and Elmer has to turn it over or pay the debt.”
“He’d come out all right. One thing about my father, he knows how to hold on to his money. Grandma used to say that he saved ninety cents out of every dollar he made.”
“Yeah, he’s a skinflint. Ain’t no doubt about that.”
An hour before sunset Margie had walked the six blocks from the café to the icehouse. She was not a tall girl and was so slender as to appear fragile, yet she walked with her head up and back straight as if she were used to walking long distances. Her face was an oval frame for large light brown eyes, a straight nose and full, expressive lips. A barrette held her thick dark blond hair at the side. On first glance she did not seem a beautiful girl. But with a chin held high, bright interested eyes and lips that tilted at the corners in an almost constant smile, she nearly always got second and third glances.
As she approached the icehouse, her father came out onto the loading platform carrying a block of ice on his back, protected by his heavy leather shield. He eased the ice into a coaster wagon pulled by a barefoot boy, collected the money and stood waiting for her to say something.
“What car are you going in? Are you going to camp along the way?” Margie asked the questions as if continuing their earlier conversation.
“I’m goin’ in my truck and I’m sure as hell not payin’ the price for lodgin’ from here to California. You figure you’re too good to camp out?”
Margie ignored his sarcasm. “What do you expect of me?”
“I expect you to cook, tend the camp and keep your mouth shut.”
“Where will I sleep?”
“In the truck.”
You’re so stingy even with your words. Is that why Goldie left you?
Pretending indifference so that he’d not know how eager she was to go with him, she let a long time elapse before she said anything more. As she waited, she thought about the times when she was younger that she had stood down the street and looked with longing at this building and wondered why her father didn’t want her. She had dropped in on him once when she was twelve years old. His harsh words had sent her scurrying back to her grandmother, and she had never ventured near him again … until now.
“I heard you sold the icehouse.”
“This is my last day.”
“Will you miss it?”
“What do you care?”
“I don’t.”
There was silence while Elmer removed the leather shield from his back and emptied the water from the pocket on the bottom.
“All right. I’ll go with you.” Margie blurted the words.
“I leave on Thursday.”
“Do you need help getting the truck ready?”
“No. It’s ready.”
“Then why are you waiting until Thursday to go?”
“I got my reasons.”
“Are you waiting to see if Goldie comes back so you won’t have to take me?”
“I don’t have to take you, girlie,” he answered sharply.
“I’m not a girlie. I’m a grown woman, in case you haven’t noticed. I’m twenty-three years old.” Margie couldn’t keep the bite out of her voice.
“Then you’re old enough to keep your nose out of things that ain’t none of your business,” he said in the harsh voice she remembered from her childhood.
“I’m not foolish enough to quit my job until I’m sure that you’re going. If I don’t work, I don’t eat.” And I sure can’t depend on you for any help.
“Quit. I’m leaving Thursday,” he barked. Then he added, “Sunup.” He went back into the icehouse before she could say anything more.
Margie couldn’t remember ever having had a civil conversation with her father, and she was not upset over this one. She was too excited. She hardly felt her feet hitting the rough roadbed as she walked back to her rooming house to get ready for the trip and dream of Hollywood.
At sunup on Thursday Margie waited in front of the rooming house with everything she owned in a suitcase and a cardboard box.
It was the talk of the town that Elmer Kinnard was pulling up stakes and going to California. But the big news, a surprise to all, was that he was taking Margie with him. Nearly all the citizens of Conway knew Elmer and had done business with him. Most of them had watched his daughter grow up and wondered why it was that Elmer didn’t seem to know that she was alive.
In a little corner of Margie’s mind, as she waited, was the fear that her father might change his mind about taking her. As far as she knew, he had never been more than a hundred miles from Conway.
“Your papa not here yet?” The man who came out of the rooming house was the printer at the newspaper.
“Not yet. But he’ll be along.”
“Good-bye and good luck in California.”
“Thank you.”
A few minutes later a truck rounded the corner and stopped. It was the truck Elmer used to haul ice. The sturdy sides rose up a foot higher than the cab. A heavy tarp was stretched across the top and tied down. Extra tires were secured to the sides.
Elmer came to the back and, without a greeting of any kind, let down the tailgate and waited for Margie to lift her suitcase and then her box into the truck. He shoved them back under the tarp, raised the tailgate and fastened it.
“Let’s go.”
Now as the truck moved smoothly along the newly paved highway, Margie reflected on how little she knew about her father. She was reasonably sure that he wouldn’t harm her, but she was also sure that she couldn’t rely on him for protection. Harry and Bertha had seen to it that she would be able to protect herself. Before she left the café, Harry had given her a little pistol and taught her to load and shoot it.
“Ya can be sure of one thing, girl. If a man pushes himself on ya, he’s goin’ to do his damnedest to get
in yore pants. Shoot the fucker, ’cause he won’t leave ya alive to tell about it!” The pistol was tucked in her box, where it would be easy to get if she needed it.
Elmer Kinnard had never been an easy man to live with, and Margie wondered how he had managed to marry three women in his less than fifty years. His first wife died shortly after giving birth to Robert. Elmer turned the boy over to his wife’s parents, which was understandable: He couldn’t work and care for an infant. What was not understandable, however, was that after he had given the child away, he showed no more interest in him. In the early 1920s Robert went to California with his widowed grandmother, to live with her brother and his wife.
When Elmer was left with Margie, he turned her over to her grandmother. After he married Goldie, it was easy to see that he was fascinated with his new young wife. For a few months he was rather jovial in his quiet way, but it didn’t last.
Now he was alone again.
Was he going to California thinking Goldie was there? Did he expect Robert’s family to welcome him?
Miles passed in silence. Margie was content to gaze out the window and daydream. She was on her way again … to Hollywood. It was too good to be true. For years she had collected Silver Screen and several other movie magazines and thumbed through the pages until they were dog-eared.
She seldom had the chance to see a movie, but when she had, it had provided her with dreams for weeks. She was enchanted by the glamour of the stars. She imagined herself wearing the slinky evening gowns, feathery boas, beaded slippers and sparkling jewelry.
Most of all she dreamed of meeting a man like John Gilbert, George Raft or Ronald Colman who would sweep her off her feet and carry her away to a mansion surrounded by a big stone fence with an iron gate. There he would keep her for days and days making passionate love to her.
Back in 1926 she cried along with thousands of other fifteen-year-old girls when Rudolph Valentino died, and devoured all the news about the funeral and the mysterious woman who visited his tomb daily. Was she his secret lover, the love of his life? Had he loved—
“You got any money, girl?” Elmer asked, breaking into her daydreams.
“A little—and my name is Margie.”
“I know what your name is. How much you got?”
“How much do you have?” she countered in the same tone of voice.
They were on their way. There was not much chance he would take her back. And if he stopped to put her out, she would reach for the pistol!
“If you got cash money, you’d best not carry it on you.”
“It’s safer on me than in my suitcase or my box.”
“Do you think I’m goin’ to steal it?”
“It was taken out of my suitcase before. I’m taking no chances this time.”
Silence.
The pavement ended. They drove onto the gravel road and into the dust stirred up by a car ahead. Margie cranked up the window. She kept her nose pressed to the glass and watched the landscape go by. When they passed men working on the road, they slowed until they were barely creeping along, and Margie waved. Several of the men waved back.
It seemed to her that they traveled miles and miles before they came to the pavement again. What a relief it was to be off the gravel road and away from the dust. She rolled down the window again and breathed in the warm clean air.
Elmer resumed a speed of between twenty-five and thirty miles per hour. Her father was a good driver; she had to give him that. But how was she going to endure weeks of confinement in this truck with this silent, cynical man?
The sun was directly overhead when Elmer pulled the truck into a grove beside the road and stopped. Margie got out, stretched her arms and legs and looked around for a place to relieve herself. She found cover in a heavy stand of bushes amid the trees.
On the way back to the truck she stopped and watched her father pouring water from a bucket into the radiator. He was a puzzle to her and had been since she was old enough to know that he was not in the least like other girls’ fathers. He was a neat-appearing man: clean-shaven, and he’d recently had a haircut. His overalls and shirt looked to be new. She knew that she would never love him, but she wished that she could like him.
Elmer dropped the tailgate, reached for a wooden box and dropped it on the ground. She took it to be an invitation to step up into the back of the truck. She was surprised at how compact and efficiently arranged it was. Close to the end on one side was a water barrel and next to it a cabinet with two doors. Tight against the cabinet was a small upright icebox fastened to the side of the truck. She didn’t look, but was reasonably sure a small hole had been drilled in the bed of the truck beneath the icebox because there was no pan underneath to empty.
On the other side was a long bench piled high with bedding and boxes. Beneath it, she could see a camp stove and what appeared to be a small rolled-up pup tent. Across the front, next to the cab, her father had built in a heavy wooden box with a padlocked lid. On this was a thin pad.
Every foot of space in the truck bed had been utilized.
Margie looked at her father standing at the end of the truck and smiled to let him know how pleased she was with what he had done.
He grunted and walked away.
Chapter 2
FORTIFIED WITH A MEAT SANDWICH and with a fruit jar of water on the seat beside her, Margie silently watched the fields and farms they passed. She laughed aloud when she read the Burma-Shave sign: IF WIFEY SHUNS YOUR FOND EMBRACE—DON’T SHOOT THE ICEMAN—FEEL YOUR FACE. She glanced at Elmer, thinking that the jingle would surely bring a smile to his face, but he was staring straight ahead.
He appeared to be a bit nervous driving in the Springfield traffic. It made Margie wonder how he would handle the traffic in places like Oklahoma City and Amarillo.
In late afternoon she became aware that he was searching for something as they approached a side road. When they came to a corner where a three-sided log shed sat back from the road, he turned. They traveled for several minutes down a rutted path before pulling into a cleared area amid a stand of blackjack trees.
A truck somewhat like the one they were in was parked there. A man sat in a chair beside it with his hand on a big black dog. A woman tended a campfire. When Elmer stopped and stepped out of the cab, a man in overalls and wide-brimmed straw hat came from behind the raised hood of the truck to meet him.
“Howdy,” he called. “Did you have any trouble finding the place?”
“No.” Elmer moved away from the truck and stretched. “Came right to it.”
The man shook hands with Elmer, then looked questioningly at Margie. When it became apparent to her that Elmer wasn’t going to introduce her, Margie rounded the front of the truck and held out her hand.
“Hello. I’m Margie Kinnard. Elmer’s daughter.”
“Alvin Putman, little lady. I’ve known Elmer for a spell. Didn’t even know he had a daughter. Come meet the wife. If we’re goin’ to be travelin’ together, you’d better be gettin’ acquainted. Grace will be downright glad to have a woman to visit with. Come on, Elmer,” Alvin said when Elmer headed for the back of the truck. “You’ve not met my wife and son.”
The woman, red-faced from bending over the fire, came toward Margie while wiping her hands on the apron tied around her waist. She had a pleasant smile. Mr. Putman introduced her with pride.
“My wife, Grace. Hon, this is Mr. Kinnard and his daughter, Margie.”
Grace shook hands with Margie, then held her hand out to Elmer. “Alvin has told me about you, Mr. Kinnard, but he failed to mention that you had such a pretty daughter.”
“Howdy do, ma’am.”
“Come meet our son, Margie. Alvin and your pa will want to chew the fat. Mr. Kinnard can meet Rusty later.” Grace took her hand and pulled her toward the man who had been sitting beside the truck. He stood beside the chair now, one hand on the back.
“Son, Mr. Kinnard brought his daughter. Her name is Margie. Margie, our son, Rusty.”
&
nbsp; “Hello, Margie,” he said softly.
“Hello.” Margie held out her hand. Grace moved to nudge the young man’s arm. He lifted his hand. Margie grasped it, suddenly realizing that Rusty was blind. Her eyes went quickly to Grace, who was watching her closely.
“She’s about your age, Rusty. Pretty too. Blond hair, brown eyes, not quite as tall as I am.”
“Don’t believe her,” Margie said with a nervous laugh. “I’m not pretty. I’m too skinny, my mouth is too big and my hair looks like a haystack after a cyclone.”
Rusty had a nice smile. It was hard for Margie to believe that the eyes that were turned toward her were not seeing her. He was medium height, thin, and had on striped overalls like his father wore. His thick dark auburn hair fell across his forehead. He was clean-shaven and, although not handsome, was nice-looking in a boyish kind of way
“This is Blackie,” Rusty said, bending down to scratch the ears of a big black dog who watched her with dark intelligent eyes.
Margie laughed. “Hello, Blackie. It’s not hard to figure out how you got your name.”
“Mother wanted to call him Whitey, but he wouldn’t answer to it.”
“I don’t blame you,” Margie said to the dog. “Blackie is a perfect name for you.” She looked up to see that Rusty was still smiling. “How long have you had him?”
“Since he was a pup. About six years now.”
“I’ve always wanted a dog, but I’ve never lived in a place where I could have one. See you later, Rusty. I’d better get back and help set up camp.”
“Nice meeting you, Margie.”
Grace walked back with her. “Rusty gets lonely for someone his own age to talk to,” she said softly. “I’m glad you’ll be traveling with us.”
“Is he completely blind?”
“Almost. He sees shadows. He came down with a high fever when he was ten years old. We still don’t know what it was. He plays the violin and the guitar and is terribly smart. I tell him something or read something to him and he never forgets it.” Grace’s hand clasped Margie’s arm. “I don’t want you to think he’s a dummy.”
“I didn’t for a minute think he was a dummy.”
Dorothy Garlock - [Route 66] Page 2