by Martha Hix
He felt good about their tomorrows. What a prize he had in Sweetness. His young, dimpled darling to be cherished and protected. His lovely lady, mature in judgment, so clever in his own profession, ready to form a partnership. He had no doubt that she would become Texas’s best First Lady—past, present, and future.
Yet… they had left El Paso abruptly. Between then and now, Grant concluded that his reaction to seeing the wanted poster for Chet Merkel had been overblown.
He was right to be concerned. Crime involving a new law—the Mann Act—would focus scandal on Lubbock County. Then again, with Merkel not being a local, and with no mention of Patience in the broadside, it would be easy enough to have the charges dropped and/or the scandal glossed over. Besides which, what were the odds that Merkel would even be apprehended?
“Okay, dear one,” Patience said, sitting at the table, drawing his attention to her. “Let’s make sure I have this right.”
He looked over her shoulder. In her neat and precise handwriting, she’d laid it all out and spoke of it, too. “We marry as soon as we can make arrangements, with Jewel Craig and Sam Kincaid standing up for us. I’ll stay with the Craigs, if they’ll have me, until the wedding. It’s my wish to work with you at your office, as your assistant. If this type of work appeals to me, I will choose a law school to attend.”
He prayed he hadn’t laid out an impossible dream—law school when women couldn’t even vote.
A big jolt—the final connection—caused a bounce that broke the pencil lead. She paused to sharpen the tip with Grant’s pocketknife. “Hopefully, I will be blessed with impending motherhood in no time at all.” She smiled widely. “Then I’ll have no wish to leave town.”
“You left out the part about the camera and setting up a darkroom.”
“There is that.” She set the pencil aside. “Camera, darkrooms, law school, babies—any and everything—I do want to help you with your law firm. And we both want you to have your own dream. Your own property. Your own horses. Austin.”
“Nothing grand. Except Austin.”
“I’d like to use my half of my father’s money to buy the Allen property. What will it take to get those Morgan horses?”
Jethro Sweet had bought off his women with six-thousand dollars. That meant three-thousand for Patty, the other half into an account to hold for her mother, until they could locate her. “I can buy my own ranch, and I will. Save your money, Sweetness, or spend it on yourself. Or save it for our children.”
“I’ll save for whatever need arises.”
“Good girl. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, though. I’d like to buy the property, but we should hold off on the horses, until we settle in with our law partnership, particularly if you decide to attend law school. First things first, in other words.”
“That makes sense.”
“Here’s the direction I’d like for us to take. I’m weary of working with criminals and broken families. It’s gut-wrenching what people do to the people they supposedly love. And what they do to their children—it’s an abomination.”
“I think about those kids in El Paso. They were ragged and desperate, ready to do anything for a penny or two.”
“Yes. That’s why I’m ready for a different sort of law. I’d like to concentrate on property law. That would dovetail into the strength you already have.”
She didn’t say anything, just stared out the window, as the train began to move along more miles of tan Texas miles. Her silence began to concern Grant, but then she turned back to him. “My father never enjoyed Oklahoma. He disliked oil. Says it’s nasty, dirty business. That there’s no fun to drill for it. He prefers solids. Rocks. If we’re going to work with Lubbock County property, then you and I need to keep something in mind. My father has a sixth sense about minerals. He told me one time—when it comes to Oklahoma and West Texas, never bet against oil. This swatch of land was once a sea bottom. At the bottom is a fossil pit, now a pit of oil.”
Grant wanted to say, If he’s so damned smart, why doesn’t he invest in it? But he didn’t.
“When you buy that ranch of your dreams, Grant Kincaid, buy land and the minerals beneath it.”
“Exactly.”
That was where the attorney for Mike E. Baker had gone wrong in 1901, buying property from Dan A. Armstrong. The wording on the minerals had been shaky, as he’d known and planned to correct. Patience beat him to it by clearing it up that first morning. Of course, it might never come to anything, minerals. A mineral’s worth is established after it’s brought from its hiding place.
“Wes Alington claims the land around Lubbock has the potential to become another Oklahoma,” Grant told his fiancée.
“Where does he get his information?”
“He reads. He listens to people. He sizes up places and situations.”
“Your sheriff sounds like a good person to have on one’s side. Especially when it comes to borrowing his nice Pullman.”
“I’ll say.”
“Let me say, oil money helping needy children would be money well spent.”
“That’s something to think about.”
That was when Grant heard a knock on the compartment hatch. It was the conductor, come to check on the passengers. The elderly man opened the doorway to say, “Good afternoon, folks. How you doin’, ma’am? Sylvester Rogers here. Got a telegram for you, Cap’n. We had it waitin’ for you.”
He handed a goldenrod-colored envelope to Grant.
“We have ice done brought down from the north. We can make some sweet tea, or I can bring you a fresh pot o’ coffee or tea. What else can I bring you?”
Grant opened the envelope, scanning the message from Sheriff Alington. “If you’ve got some whiskey, bring it.”
“I do, I do.”
Once the conductor brought the drink, Grant asked, “Please lower that shade, Sylvester. I’ve got a powerful need for quiet.”
That was an understatement.
Chet Merkel had been apprehended in Ropesville, Texas and been returned to Lubbock, where the sheriff had him under lock and key. He had been charged under a new law, the Mann Act, for the interstate transportation of a minor across a state line for immoral purposes, particularly human trafficking.
Evidently it had done no good to crumble those charges and throw them in the trash.
Grant fully anticipated Patience would be relieved, if not jubilant, to learn her tormentor would face prosecution. Trouble was, he didn’t want her to know how much it bothered him, what the scandal would do to all their plans. It would be impossible to quell the story. Lubbock would feed on this for a long, long time.
* * * *
“White slavery? Mann Act?” Patty spun the office chair from her fiancé toward the sheriff. “What is that? Who did Chet do that to?”
Sheriff Alington had met Patty and Grant at the train depot, had driven them in his Model T to the Kincaid law office, catercorner from the courthouse. It was a typical law office, she supposed. Desks, chairs, lamps, law books. This one even had a typewriter. Not that she cared one whit about furnishings. “White slavery? I can’t imagine what happened to send Chet into such criminal behavior.”
“For pity’s sake, Patience, Merkel did it to you.”
Again she looked at her fiancé. Everything seemed surreal, even Grant. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
“He sold your services,” Alington put in, drawing her attention. “That constitutes white slavery.”
She swiveled back toward her man. He stood by the wooden file cabinet, his brow knit, his face troubled. His arms were locked over his chest. “He transported a minor across the state line from Oklahoma to Texas for immoral purposes.”
“No. It was a card game. A simple game.”
“On the contrary, Miss Sweet. He made a contract for five-hundred dollars. And he sold you for that amount. He is
clearly in violation of the newly instituted Mann Act.”
“No, no. You’re making too much of it. Please drop the charges.”
Grant walked over to stand behind her. He put his hands on her shoulders, squeezing with assurance. “At this point, we just have to live with the consequences.”
Suddenly, his touch became heavy. “Who filed these charges against Chet?”
No one spoke for a long moment, but Grant finally answered, “I did.”
“At what point did it become your business to do such a thing?”
He dropped his hands. “When I saw that you had been wronged, that’s when.”
“When did you do this?”
“Before we left Lubbock.”
“Why did you say nothing?” she demanded to know.
“I thought I’d stopped the order.”
“How is that?”
“I took them out of A.J. Hanson’s basket, crumpled them up, and threw the papers in the dustbin.”
The sheriff spoke. “My deputy had filed the charges before then. He’d returned the original for filing. I found them crumpled in the trash. You were out of line, Kincaid, to touch official records.”
In a way, she appreciated Grant’s concern. In another way, she saw it for what it was. He wielded total control over situations, without asking permission. Was that protecting her, or controlling her? And who was she to cast stones?
Suddenly, it became less about her and more about what this would do to others.
She asked the sheriff, “What is the punishment for white slavery?”
“It’s a federal offense, a felony. It wouldn’t surprise me if Merkel is sent to Leavenworth or McNeil Island for twenty, maybe thirty years.”
“Oh my God. No!”
How could this have happened? It happened because of greed. It happened because Patty listened to the advice of a streetwalker and added her own devious touches to it. It happened because she wanted a damn Brownie camera and a father who didn’t give two figs about her.
Into it, Grant came into her life. Grant, dear Grant who had ambitions. He yearned to own horses and become governor. Those were the kinds of things highfalutin folks went after. Desperate folks did reckless, dangerous things out of their need for money; they lived on a different plane.
One of the many Jethro Sweet life lessons had been on the subject of public servants. “Folks don’t require good in their public servants, but they demand they come across as good.” If word got around that Grant married or was even engaged to someone involved in a scandal of this kind, it would ruin his chance at such an office.
Grant brought this problem on, but did he deserve to pay such a high price?
“I need fresh air,” she announced to no one. “And a moment with Chet Merkel.”
“No.” That was Grant.
She got to her feet and spun around to glare at him. “I think it’s time you learned something. You don’t tell me what to do. And don’t follow me, either!”
With that, she rushed from his office and made her way down this street and the next, headed for the jail. Once inside the brick building, she surged past a young deputy, who got up from a desk. “Ma’am, ma’am. You can’t—”
“It’s all right, A.J.” The sheriff had interrupted. Evidently he followed behind her.
Two of the cells were empty, she noticed.
Chet sat on a cot in the middle cell. He stood upon seeing her. His beard seemed longer, more straggly. He looked terribly thin. “Pat Pat?”
He’d always called her Pat Pat.
She went to the cell and held on to a bar with one hand and reached between them with the other. “Chet, I just found out about this. This isn’t my doing. It’s not.”
He walked up to her, taking the offered hand between his palms. “I suspected someone else had to be behind it.”
She felt tears welling, and it was becoming hard to talk, but she had to. “Chet, I’m not without guilt in the reason behind it. I have wronged you. I have wronged myself.” And I’ve wronged the man I love. “I’m going to find a way to get you out of here.”
“That would be good.” He let go of her hand, but only to use his thumb to get rid of her tear. “I knew you were sore at me over the crystals, but I figured you weren’t so sore that you’d do this. You’re not a mean-spirited person.”
“Chet…please tell me. Why did you think it was okay to help yourself to my money?”
“I figured it was an investment, a way to double your money and mine. I was trying to do good by us both.”
“You should have asked me.”
He nodded. “You’re exactly right. I should have. I’m sorry I didn’t, Pat Pat. I hope you can see your way clear to forgive me.”
She thought back to their rough time in Tulsa, to their friendship on the road. He had shared when no one else would. He cared when no one else cared. “Of course I forgive you. The fault lies with both of us. You for not asking. Me for not questioning.”
“I hope that we can be friends again.”
That, she couldn’t say, but… “When you do get out of here, make haste for Chihuahua. Find my father. He’s discovered the motherlode of crystals. Could be his mountain is the one you invested in.”
“You don’t say?”
“I do. And if not his, it could be there’s more than one crystal mountain down there.”
She turned around.
The sheriff, wearing black, stood by the door. Towering above him was Grant, his face somber. Watching her intently, he started toward her, obviously ready to talk, or was it to hear what she had to say? Whatever the case, she was ready to get it over with, this walk to the gallows of their relationship.
First, she had other matters to discuss.
“Sheriff Alington, you need to set Chet Merkel free. He didn’t transport a minor across the state line. Grant is under the impression that I’m going on seventeen, but I was eighteen when I left Oklahoma.”
Grant flinched. “Why did you say such a thing?”
“Actually, I did tell you I was eighteen. At first I did. I told Jewel I was sixteen, to get her sympathy. That’s my problem, you see. I’m a manipulator. Chet never sold me into white slavery. All he did was play cards and drive the getaway wagon. And he told people I was his sister, and other scripted malarkey. If he lost, then he—well, the white slavery stuff was all my idea. The beginning, the middle, and the end. Even the knockout powders. They were my ideas, too. And dressing like a little girl. That was my ploy. To keep me from getting poked by male sausages.”
“Holy sheet music! Where in the name of jumping beans did you ever get such outlandish ideas?”
“I wouldn’t call them outlandish. They were evil-minded. I got them from a streetwalker in Tulsa. We were cellmates in jail. I was there on a morals charge.”
His eyes were closing, his head shaking from side to side. “I am afraid to ask anything more.”
“What about those knockout powders?” the sheriff asked.
“Chet got the ingredients from his mother’s friend. She’s a Mexican gypsy. She lives in Ropesville. His mother lives with her. He mixed them as needed, so they’d be fresh. He’s good with that sort of thing.”
“I know the gypsy,” the sheriff put in. “She’s a harmless old lady. Crippled. We arrested Merkel at her house.”
“She gave him a large supply of ingredients when he left Texas to find his father in Oklahoma, to treat his headaches. He gets headaches a lot.”
The sheriff turned toward the prisoner. “Did you catch any of this, Merkel?”
“Yes, sir. I did. All of it.”
“You have anything to add?”
“She’s not a bad person, Patty Sweet. Pat Pat is a good girl just trying to make the best of a bad turn in life. I’d hate to see her get in trouble. I wasn’t lily white. I we
nt along with it. And I did invest her money without asking her permission.”
Alington lifted his hand. “You’ve said enough, Merkel. A.J., you go get the district attorney. We need to get these charges dropped. That going to be okay with you, Kincaid?”
There was no answer.
Patty turned to find out why. She shouldn’t have been surprised to see that Grant wasn’t there. It wasn’t surprise or even disappointment. A big hollow place started growing inside her. He was gone. Gone!
This was for the best… But it didn’t have to feel good. And it didn’t.
“Miss Sweet, I can take you wherever you’d like to go. The hotel. Or maybe you’d prefer to spend some time with the Craigs. I understand you made friends with them. We won’t have another train through here for a couple of days. There is a stagecoach, though.”
She didn’t have the first clue what to do with her life.
“You can go with me,” Chet said from the cell. “I don’t know how I’d get you to Ropesville, or myself for that matter, once I’m let out of here, but I got you to Texas, so I reckon I can get you out of here. We can make for that crystal palace.”
“What about your girl in Juarez?”
“We’ll pick her up along the way.”
“No, Chet. Mexico isn’t my dream. You go on without me.”
In the end, she hired Chet to take a message to her father. Patty had her plans and even though her mother had moved on, she would be keeping the whole six thousand dollars. Really, she hired her former partner just to have an excuse to buy him a horse and give him enough money to reach Mexico.
She went to the Antlers Hotel to await the next southbound train. She didn’t know where she would go. She just planned to leave. Money wouldn’t be a problem. She could go anywhere. Trouble was, the only place she wanted to be was here.
Late the next afternoon, she ventured out of the hotel. She knew the train would arrive in the morning. She needed, yearned to tell Grant goodbye. She couldn’t leave Lubbock—she wouldn’t leave Lubbock!—without a farewell.