Pecos Valley Rainbow

by Alice Duncan

  “We all have to do our share, son,” said Pa, eyeing him somewhat coldly, probably knowing that if he’d been able to, Jack would have skedaddled and left all the hard work to Pa.

  “I guess,” grumbled Jack.

  “Jack Blue, straighten up in your chair and be civil during a family meal,” our mother commanded of him.

  It was unlike her to be so to-the-point with my awful brother, but I smiled inside that he got what he deserved that night. I didn’t dare allow my smile to show, or I’d have been ripped-up at, too. My mother and father believed in fair treatment of all their children. Well, except the ones who had already left the nest. They were treated like gold. Which fact might actually make me consider marrying Phil sooner rather than later.

  But no. I’d stick to my guns even if it did mean getting scolded occasionally by one or the other of my parents. I tried like a trouper to behave as a child of William and Susanna Blue should behave, unlike Jack, but every now and then I slipped up.

  Besides, I wasn’t altogether sure what Phil aimed to do with his life. He was an easygoing sort of fellow, which made sense or he’d never have stuck with me, but did he want to continue on at the Gunderson family ranch way out in the back of beyond, or did he aim to set himself up in trade in Rosedale one day? Perhaps he’d go into the hardware business with his brother Pete. That would be better for me, being a city girl and all, even if the city was Rosedale.

  But that’s beside the point. After supper, Ma and I did the dishes, Pa read a seed catalog—he’d been thinking about stocking more types of seeds in the store—and Jack read one of the yellow-back novels of which he was so fond. Every now and then Ma made him do the dishes with me, but I hated when that happened, Jack being so horrid and all. He always did something to make the duty even more onerous than it already was, like splash me with water or snap me with the dish towel or smear grease on my clothes. Really, someone ought to do something with boys when they reach a certain age. Stick them in cold storage until they turn twenty-one, maybe.

  When the dishes were all washed and dried and put away, I retired to my room to read some more in Powder and Patch. I noticed Ma had picked up her workbasket, and was pretty sure she aimed to work on a braided rug or a quilt. It’s true what they say about a woman’s work never being done—yet one more reason I aimed to put off marriage and motherhood for as long as possible. The notion of not being able to read of an evening because I had to make quilts for the family or braid rugs for the floor after cooking and serving dinner, and all this after a hard day of working in the garden and the kitchen and the store, didn’t appeal at all.

  I have to admit, however, that it was fun to look down at the braided rug in my room and see bits from my favorite woolen coat from when I was five and Ma’s old dress she’d worn to funerals for years and years until she decided to retire it. Not that it wasn’t still serving a purpose. Heck, it kept my feet from freezing to death in the wintertime. And so did my old holey flannel pajamas, which were braided into the rug somewhere. Folks in Rosedale, New Mexico, didn’t throw things out, by gum.

  Fortunately for everyone in town and out of it, although clouds lowered and loomed, no rain came that night. I prayed we’d get no more of the stuff until the appropriate dry spell—say, during spring when the winds were tearing our town to bits and mummifying its inhabitants. The citizens of Rosedale, New Mexico, probably went through more lanolin and hand cream than any other people on earth, barring those in the Sahara Desert.

  The next morning after Jack left for school—which meant I’d be free from his evil influence for several hours, bless school—we were able to walk to the store without too much mud impeding our progress. I saw what Ma meant about the garden. It looked as if a giant had stomped it flat, leading me to believe we’d not experienced mere rain and wind but hail, too, during the storm. Usually you can hear hail when it batters down on the roof, but the rain, wind and thunder had been so violent, I didn’t even notice when the hail hit. The squash leaves, which are really big, looked as if someone had poked holes in them with the points of sharpened pencils, and Ma shook her head as she passed the pumpkin patch.

  “I hope I can save those pumpkins,” she muttered, bending over to inspect a pock-marked pumpkin. “They look like someone stuck pins in them. Of course, I can always preserve them, but I was hoping to have some pretty pumpkins to sell for Thanksgiving.”

  “Careful,” I told her. “Better stay on the path.” Pa might not yet have built a bridge, but he had laid out paving stones from the house to the store. Jack had grumblingly shoveled mud from them the prior afternoon. “You’ll slip in the mud and have to go back and change clothes.”

  Ma heaved a huge sigh. “I know. But it galls me that the storm did so much damage to everything. I have to put up the rest of the beans and squash, and I can’t do that if it’s been ruined by rain and hail.”

  I hoped there wouldn’t be too many vegetables to preserve after the ground dried out enough to investigate the garden in detail. If there were, I hoped Ma could preserve them without my help while I manned the counter in the store. We always kept tons and tons of preserved foods in our back room at the store. Ma generally made extra so that she could give some away to people who needed food during the winter months, or sometimes she sold her own preserved goods in the store. A heart of gold. That was what my mother had beating in her chest. Would that I could say the same. However, that morning, I was only eager for lunchtime to come so I could quiz Phil about matters at the bank.

  The first person to enter Blue’s that morning was Jesse Lee Wilson, who helped out his mother by delivering the newspapers in town. A cheerful redheaded boy about the same age as Jack, he seemed ever so much more responsible and mature than my rotten brother, although that might have been because his family was so poor that everyone had to work or starve. Naturally, due to the flood, no newspapers had been available the preceding day.

  “Morning, Jesse Lee. Does anyone know how much rain we got night before last?”

  “Says here that we got more than six inches overnight, Miss Annabelle. That’s a whole lot of water. No wonder it flooded the town.”

  “No wonder,” I agreed. “Is it still muddy out there?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Jesse Lee peered down at his feet, which were bare and mud-stained. “I figured it’d be easier to go barefoot than try to keep my shoes from falling apart.” That’s when I noticed his shoes tied by their laces and hanging about his neck.

  Yet another indication of the Wilsons’ general neediness, although you’d never find one of them asking anyone for help. Mrs. Wilson had originally come from Switzerland and had married her husband, an aspiring Methodist preacher, after her first husband succumbed to tuberculosis. Mr. Wilson wasn’t a young man when he died. In fact, his tombstone proclaims him to have been sixty-three years old. He’d been married to Mrs. Wilson’s best friend, who’d died, and then he’d married Mrs. Wilson, I think because he needed someone to take care of his kids from his first marriage. Therefore, when he died, two days after their fifth child was born, Mrs. Wilson was left with thirteen children to rear all by herself as a seamstress. In a three-room house. In Rosedale, New Mexico. What a life! I admired her tremendously, and most of her kids, four of whom were still at home, were really nice. Jesse Lee, for instance, who delivered newspapers before he went to school every day.

  Speaking of tuberculosis, which some folks called the white plague, Rosedale had an enormous number of doctors for a town of its size. They’d flocked to Rosedale for the dry climate (with certain notable exceptions) and set up small sanatoriums for consumptives to come for a rest treatment. I don’t think there was a true cure for the disease in 1923, although I might well be wrong. All I knew about tuberculosis was that a whole lot of folks came to Rosedale because of it, and I’d read in the newspaper that somebody, in 1882, had isolated the bacillus that caused it.

  But this isn’t a story about tuberculosis, which no one could deny is a killer, but abo
ut another kind of death. “Is there anything in the paper about Mr. Calhoun’s murder?” I asked, taking the stack of papers from Jesse Lee.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I figured lots more people would be buying newspapers today since we couldn’t put one out yesterday, so I brought you some extras to sell.”

  “Good idea. Thanks, Jesse Lee.”

  “You’re welcome. Well, see you, Miss Annabelle. I have to get these papers delivered and go to school.”

  “Good to see you, Jesse Lee.”

  “Same here, Miss Annabelle.”

  And off he went. Industrious child. Perhaps we could exchange him for Jack. It would probably do Jack a lot of good to see how truly poor people had to cope with their condition in life. But I wouldn’t inflict him on poor Mrs. Wilson, who had enough on her hands already.

  Next to enter was Mr. O’Dell, who didn’t appear happy.

  “Morning, Mr. O’Dell. Did you get your chicken coop fixed yesterday?”

  “Criminy, Miss Annabelle, it was too muddy to do anything yesterday. Damned birds—sorry, Miss Annabelle—anyhow, Mrs. O’Dell found most of the birds, but we had to lock ’em in the cellar. It was flooded too, but they roosted in the rafters. The place will have to be ploughed out, it’s such a mess of feathers, mud and chicken sh—droppings.” He shook his head in disgust. “I’ll have to rebuild the coop today, but it’s going to be a damned—uh, darned muddy job, and I’m not looking forward to it.”

  “Why don’t the city fathers build a dam?” I asked, honestly curious.

  “Beats the hell—heck out of me,” he said. “I need another can of pomade. It’s not easy to sell land when the weather doesn’t cooperate, either.”

  He continued to mutter and grumble while he found his preferred brand of pomade and slapped it on the counter. Mr. O’Dell dealt primarily with farming and ranching land, and I could imagine having the entire desert flood the way it had might interfere with his business.

  Speaking of business . . . “Say, Mr. O’Dell, did you have any dealings with Mr. Calhoun at the Farmer’s and Rancher’s Bank?”

  “Some,” he said as he counted out sixty-three cents from the change in his pocket. “When I couldn’t help it.”

  Interesting comment.

  “I hear he wasn’t always the most honest man in the world.” I tried to sound innocent.

  “Honest? Ed Calhoun? Don’t make me laugh! He was crooked as a dog’s hind leg.” He huffed to add weight to his words.

  “I’ve heard from others that he took advantage of folks. Mr. Tindall claims he swindled him out of his ranch, and another person said her father gave him money for a piece of property Mr. Calhoun didn’t even own.”

  “Huh. I remember that. The wording on the contract was so vague, it would have taken an army of lawyers to straighten it out. Well, got to get to the office. Thanks, Miss Annabelle.” He spied the stack of newspapers and grabbed one. “Here.” He handed me a nickel, and was off again.

  And, since nobody else entered the store, I grabbed a newspaper myself and decided to read all about Mr. Calhoun—although I doubted very much if the editors at the newspaper would tell the truth about him.

  Chapter Six

  Whoo boy, was I right about the editors of the Rosedale Daily Record soft-pedaling Mr. Calhoun’s dirty dealings. According to the paper, he’d been a pillar of the community, a fond father and a beloved husband, and had belonged to every civic organization Rosedale had to offer including Woodmen of the World, the Rotary Club, the Chamber of Commerce and the Freemasons. Huh. And here I’d thought all those organizations had rules and regulations and that their members were supposed to be above reproach. Shows how much I knew about anything.

  A delivery van arrived shortly before eleven o’clock. I was surprised to see it, since automobile traffic was scarce after floods. Most vehicles got bogged down in the mud, but this one didn’t even slither as it pulled up in front of the boardwalk. I recognized the delivery man, a fellow named Mr. Juarez, and greeted him as he walked into the store in sturdy boots. He was burdened with several bolts of fabric Ma must have ordered.

  “Gee, Mr. Juarez, how’d you get your truck through the mud out there?”

  He grinned. “Put chains on the tires. Works for ice. Why not mud?”

  Smart man, Mr. Juarez. “I’m surprised to see you doing deliveries today.”

  He shook his head and grunted as he plunked the bolts on the counter. “Teddy couldn’t get into town. I’m the only one available.” Years and years ago, Mr. Juarez had built his delivery company right next to the railroad yard, so that he could pick up shipments and deliver them wherever they needed to go in town. Teddy, whose family lived outside the city limits, was his primary hired worker.

  “I’ll go get Ma. Have you been all over town, or are there still places you can’t get to?”

  “Can’t go much farther east than the railroad station, but the west is clearing up pretty good.”

  “I see. I expect the mud will dry up in another day or two.”

  “Especially if the wind starts howling.” Hauling a big handkerchief from his pocket and wiping his perspiring brow, Mr. Juarez said, “Anyhow, I sure hope so, Miss Annabelle. Gonna have to work all weekend getting the deliveries made. Stuff has piled up.”

  “I don’t suppose the trains are running yet.”

  “Not yet. Probably pretty soon. Bet the tracks outside of town need repair.”

  “I’m sure they do.”

  “After the trains are running again, we’ll be really busy, what with all the delays in getting merchandise here. People will be yelling for their stuff. I just heard Gunderson’s is out of lumber, and his customers are hollering for it.”

  “Oh, dear. Poor Pete and Phil.”

  What a nonsensical place to live, this Rosedale, New Mexico, in the middle of a desert where nothing lived but cactus, coyotes, rattlesnakes and cattle. When we weren’t in danger of being blown off the face of the earth during the spring windy season, we almost always flooded in the summertime—and occasionally in November, too, as this present storm proved—we fried during the worst heat in the world, and half the time we got snow in October or April, when it spoiled the fruit on the few trees people managed to baby through the rest of the year. I could only remember two or three white Christmases. And it’s no good telling me that Jesus was probably born in a desert much like this one. I wanted my hometown to look like a Currier and Ives print at Christmas, darn it.

  Oh, well. Ma was separating sewing notions when I went into the back room and told her the fabric delivery was here.

  “So soon? I didn’t expect Mr. Juarez to be able to get around until sometime next week.”

  “He put chains on his tires. Says it works for ice, why not mud?”

  Ma laughed as she rose and shook out her skirt. “Why not, indeed?”

  By the time Ma had paid Mr. Juarez and they’d had a good jaw, it was almost time for me to meet Phil at the Cowboy Café, so I asked Ma if I could be excused for lunch a little early. She eyed me speculatively. “And why do you need to take off early for lunch, young lady? If you’re going to play detective—”

  “Ma! Phil asked me to take lunch with him at the Cowboy Café.” I tried to appear injured and I guess I succeeded, because Ma’s smile softened.

  “Isn’t that sweet of him? You know, Annabelle, you’re not likely to meet a better young man anywhere than Phil Gunderson.”

  “You’re right,” I said, bracing myself for the lecture to come.

  “I know you want to see some of the world before you marry poor Phil and settle down, but don’t you think you’re being a little unfair to him?”

  “Shoot, Ma, he can go adventuring with me, can’t he?”

  “Annabelle, a young man has to make his way in the world. He can’t be haring off to this place and that just because his wife has an itch to visit foreign climes.”

  “What if I want to make my way in the world? Who says I can’t . . . I don’t know. Be a com
panion to some old lady in New York City? At least I’d get to see Central Park and maybe go to a play on Broadway. Or at least maybe I could visit George in Alhambra once before I die.”

  Shaking her head, Ma said, “Annabelle, sometimes I despair of you.”

  Her words struck me to the heart, and I felt guilty as I left the store and walked to Gunderson’s. Luckily for Rosedale’s residents, although we didn’t have dams to prevent floods, most busy intersections had wooden bridges crossing them that city crews kept swept, so one could walk across the street via the bridge if the street happened to be caked with slippery mud. Didn’t work during the floods themselves, of course, since the bridges, too, were generally underwater, and afterwards they were too gooey to cross until the city workers cleaned them off. There weren’t bridges at every intersection, but at least I didn’t have to get myself all dirty walking to Gunderson’s, although I did have to go three blocks out of my way to get to a bridge. Stupid town.

  It was only as I walked those three extra blocks that I thought about my appearance, far too late to do anything about not having my glad rags on. I looked down at my blue checked day dress, which was fine for working in the store, but not exactly a gown suitable for sending a would-be husband ’round the bend with romantic notions. But that was probably just as well because, as Ma said, I didn’t want to give Phil false encouragement. At least I’d taken off my apron and hung it on the hook in the back room.

  Was I treating him shabbily? I hoped not.

  Too late to think about that now. I was already at Gunderson’s, where Phil waited for me just outside the door. His smile would have brightened the day, if the day hadn’t already been bright, the sun shining down upon us as if it had never allowed a cloud to sully its face.

  “Hey, Annabelle. You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

  “Hey, Phil.” I allowed him to greet me with a discreet kiss on the cheek. It wasn’t wise to do anything more than that in full daylight in the middle of town unless I wanted people telephoning my parents and tattling on me. Not that I’d ever do anything naughty. Girls who did that ended up married with babies before they were ready for either marriage or motherhood. “Mr. Juarez told me your customers are grumbling about Gunderson’s being out of lumber.”