Dorothy Garlock - [Route 66] (25 page)

The barber stopped clipping. “For God's sake, Frank, why'd ya have to say that?”

“It's the bald truth.”

“Well, it ain't somethin a body wants to hear when a kid is missin.”

“So long, gents. I'd appreciate it if you'd spread the word.” Yates backed out of the barber shop and headed for his car.

It was in the back of his mind that Ruth Ann could have been picked up on the highway and be out of the state by now. He decided to make another trip to the sheriff's office. He met the sheriff as he was coming out of the courthouse.

“Sheriff, I'm offering a twenty-five-dollar reward for anyone who brings Ruth Ann home. How can I spread the word?”

“I think you're a little hasty offering a reward. She's not been gone eight hours. But the size of the reward should start folks talking. If she's not home by tomorrow we can notify the federal marshal.”

“I don't intend to sit on my hands and wait until tomorrow. Where is this place where the hoboes stop when passing through here?”

“Across the railroad tracks and along the road that runs parallel with the river. Wayne checks it out once in a while.

He isn't in now, but I'll find out if he checked it this morning or not.”

“Speaking of your deputy, how did you happen to hire such a shithead? He's about as pleasant as a boil on a cowboy's butt.”

Sheriff McChesney laughed. “He does strike some folks that way, but he's a dedicated officer.”

“He's working with Virgil Dawson to get Andy's girls away from him.”

“He and Virgil are friends, but I don't think—”

“I do. And it isn't going to happen. I'll go to the state attorney general if necessary. We'll take it to court, and you might find out some things about both Virgil and your deputy that you don't want to know. Or do you?”

The sheriff pursed his lips, cocked his head and looked into Yates's cold, steel-colored eyes. He said nothing for a few seconds, then, “I heard that you're Andy's cousin.”

“I've not been around much, but I owe Andy plenty. I'm going to see that his girls are here when he comes home. You'd better make that plain to your deputy in case he gets a notion to bring crazy Virgil out to the garage again and threaten to take Andy's girls from Miss Dawson.”

“When did he do that?”

“Last night. I heard every word of it and will swear to it in court if it comes to that.”

“Hmmmm.”

“Another thing. If I ever again hear of your deputy referring to Miss Dawson as a whore, I'll go to the state attorney general and have his badge pulled. Then when he's no longer under the umbrella of the law, I'll make him wish he'd been born a jackass instead of acting like one.”

“I hope you find that the Connors girl has been hiding somewhere,” the sheriff called as Yates walked away.

He liked the sheriff and hoped that he had given him a few things to think about. Yates realized that there wasn't much McChesney could do right now about Ruth Ann. The sheriff probably had had reports of runaway kids every few weeks and most of them had come back home on their own or had gotten in touch with their folks.

Following the directions given him by the postmaster, Yates drove slowly down the road toward Virgil's house. He remembered Deke's telling him that Leona had walked barefoot five miles to where her sister lived at that time after Virgil had given her a beating.

He tamped down his anger, wanting to keep a cool head.

The doctor was driving away as Yates approached the big square house with the wrap-around porch. Yates stopped, and the doctor stopped beside him.

“The girl isn't there. Mrs. Dawson is about to go to pieces worrying about her boy. I'm sure she'd have told me if there was another child in the house.”

“How is the boy?”

“I'm afraid he won't make it. I got to him too late. Twelve hours would have made the difference. He was burning up with so high a fever that even the most ignorant fool had to know the boy needed a doctor.” The doctor was plainly frustrated. “Too bad Dawson can't be charged with murder.”

After the doctor drove on, Yates continued down the road. He paused and looked at the unkempt homestead. Lumber and an assortment of machine parts were piled on the porch. Weeds grew in the yard up to the porch, and holes were punched in some of the window screens.

Yates turned onto a lane running alongside the house and drove to the back where he could see a huge woodpile and a truck with a buzz saw mounted on the bed.

Virgil was working the saw. Abe Patton, the man who was with him when he came out to torment Leona, was helping him. A pile of cut wood was growing beside a shed. Yates sat and watched him. Virgil continued to work, ignoring Yates, until Yates opened the car door to get out. Leaving the noisy saw going, Virgil walked quickly toward the car. Abe stood silently watching.

“What'd you want here?”

“I just wanted to see where a brainless idiot lived, that's all. Place looks like a pigsty, Virgil. Maybe if you prayed, the Lord would clean it up for you.”

“Get off my property.”

“And if I don't, you'll call that poor, addle-brained deputy sheriff. What do you have on him, anyway? Are the two of you running booze?”

“The law's the law. This is my property and I want ya off it right now.”

“I'll get off when I get damn good and ready. Unless you think you can run me off like I did you when you came out to Andy's.”

“I'm a God-fearin man. Yo're a heathen!”

“Yeah, I know. I'd rather be a heathen than a pious, rotten bastard like you. You're a sorry son-of-a-bitch, Virgil. So are your friends.” Yates sent an angry glance at the silent man beside the truck. He had to yell over the noise made by the buzz saw to be heard.

“Go on. Leave.” Virgil picked up a stick of wood and made a gesture as if to throw it at the car.

“Throw that and I'll be looking for you some dark night and nail your balls to a tree stump and push you over backward.”

Virgil dropped the wood and went back to the buzz saw. Yates watched him and the ignorant lout with him for a minute and wondered for the tenth time how such a stupid, mean bastard could be related to Leona. Finally, he slammed the car door and drove down the lane to the road vowing that someday soon Virgil and he were going to tangle, and he intended to use every trick he'd learned fighting in the tough dives spread along Route 66 from Tulsa to California.

Yates took the highway back to the garage after driving down the river road to take a look at the hobo camp. He tramped amid the bean cans and whiskey bottles and saw no sign of a child having been there. It had been a long shot, anyway. A bum wouldn't have had the means to get a child there without being seen.

Mr. Fleming's big black car was parked in front of the garage, as was Deke's motorcycle, when Yates pulled in off the highway and stopped. Leona, holding JoBeth, jumped up from the bench beside the garage and came to meet him. Her eyes were large, sad and questioning.

“She's not at Virgil's. His boy is bad sick with diphtheria. The house is quarantined. I talked to the doctor, and he said there wasn't a girl in the house.”

Yates reached out and took JoBeth from Leona's arms. The child went to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. Together they walked to where Barker Fleming, Deke and several other men were standing. Yates told them where he had been, what he had done and about the diphtheria epidemic.

He finished with, “We'd better keep JoBeth away from other children. There's talk of shutting down church services and other public meetings.”

Before Yates finished talking tears were streaming down Leona's face. She knew that she had to get a hold of herself. Crying wouldn't do any good.

“What…can we do?” Her tear-filled eyes went first to Yates, then to Deke and Barker Fleming.

“Don't cry, darlin'.” Deke threw his cigarette to the ground and stepped on it, before he took Leona's hand and put an arm around her shoulders. “We'll find her. Ya just got to hold on like ya've done before when bad thin's happened.”

“A dozen men are coming on horseback,” Barker Fleming said. “They can cover a lot of territory.” He looked at Yates. “Sheriff McChesney is a good man, but he doesn't have the manpower to spread out and look for a lost child.”

“He thinks she ran away and will come back.”

“I'm afraid someone picked her up in a car. …” Leona clung to Deke's hand.

“Ya better come eat somethin, darlin'. Margie's got a meal ready.”

“You all go ahead. I'll stay here … in case somebody comes.”

“Go eat, Miss Dawson. I'll be here,” Barker Fleming said. “Waiting for my men.”

It was one of the worst days in Leona's life. The uncertainty of not knowing what had happened to Ruth Ann tore at her and disabled her. She was grateful that Margie, in her quiet way, had taken over the cooking, the chores, and the care of JoBeth when the child wasn't clinging to Leona's or Yates's neck.

The poor child was totally distraught. She crawled up into Leona's lap and patted her cheek.

“Don't cry, Aunt Lee. I'll give Ruth Ann my crayons when she comes back.”

Leona hugged her tightly. “That's sweet of you, honey.”

“I just feel so bad,” Margie said as she dried a glass and placed it on the table alongside a pitcher of iced tea. “She didn't want me here. If I'd gone on, she'd not have run off.”

“We don't know that for sure. I'm glad you're here. I don't know what I'd have done without you and …Yates.”

“I'll leave as soon as she comes back. I've been thinking that maybe if I can get on over into Texas I could get a job cooking on a ranch … or something.”

“Oh, Margie, I don't want you to leave unless you have something to go to. Have you thought about going back to Conway?”

“I might have to, but I'll just die having …everyone know what a fool I'd been going off with Ernie and losing Grandma's money. It'll be hard to face …certain people.”

As the afternoon wore on, Leona sat dully on the bench in front of the garage. Yates talked to everyone who stopped, asking them to keep an eye out for an eight-year-old blondhaired girl in a blue dress. Deke roared in on his motorcycle to report the Fleming men had searched the area east of the river and were starting on the west side.

“Most of 'em, darlin', are Cherokee—the best trackers there are. Mr. Fleming phoned the sheriff over in Amarillo. I'm goin' to take a swing through the woods over by Virgil's. He could have her hid out somewhere.”

As evening approached, Leona's face was haggard with worry. She clutched Yates's hand at every opportunity, needing to feel his strength.

“By tomorrow we'll have to call and tell Andy. It'll kill him if we don't find her.”

Yates put an arm around her and drew her close. “We'll worry about that tomorrow.”

“He'll come home even if he hasn't had all his shots.”

“Of course, he will. So we'll put off telling him as long as we can.”

“I've been trying to understand why she ran away. Since her mother died, she's afraid of any change.”

“I know. She didn't want me here at first, but I think she's over that now.”

“Now it's Margie. Margie feels bad about it.”

“Ruth Ann may have a change of heart when she comes home.”

“I hope she comes home. I keep thinking what… if she doesn't.”

Yates put a finger beneath her chin and lifted her face. She knew his eyes were on her, but she kept her eyes glued to his mouth. It was such a beautiful mouth.

“She'll come home. You've got to believe that. Sweet woman, I'd give ten years of my life if I could bring her to you right now.”

She raised her eyes to his. “How could I have doubted that…you were anything but kind and good.”

His mouth quirked into a beguiling grin, and his eyes sparkled with pleasure. “I've not shown you my bad side yet.”

“I'm not sure you have one. I'm sorry for the mean things I said.”

He laughed. “You weren't mean, just sassy.”

“I'm not as trusting as Andy.”

“I can't blame you for that. I guess I was pretty highhanded.”

“You set my teeth on edge with your closed-mouthed, take-over attitude.”

“I was here to do a job, and that's all there was to it until… I met you. And you were lippy It made me like you all the more.” He cupped her face with his hands and with his thumbs wiped the tears from beneath her eyes.

“If you'd have known what all you were going to get into when you came here, would you have come?”

“On my knees, if that was the only way I could get here.” He bent his head and gently brushed his lips along her forehead.

Chapter 21

A
T DUSK ISAAC CAME INTO THE ROOM
where his mother had spent the day by Paul's bed, leaving only to get a drink of water. She was fanning him now with a newspaper

“Ma, Pa's been to the store. He went in the shed with a sack.”

“Did he leave ice on the porch?”

“Yes, ma'am. I put it in the box. How's Paul?”

Hazel's work-worn hand smoothed the hair back from her son's flushed face. The child's mouth was open, and he was gasping for every breath. Tears blurred Hazel's vision and ran down her wrinkled, sun-browned cheeks.

She said in a husky voice, “He's bad, Isaac, and there ain't nothin' I can do. I'm losin' him. I'm losin' all my boys.”

“I'm here, Mama.”

“You'll go like yore brothers when yo're old enough to make it on yore own. I shoulda stood up for all of ya more'n I done. Then maybe Joseph and Peter wouldn't'a left.”

“Joseph feared he'd kill Pa if he stayed.”

“Ah, he wouldn't of. I shoulda—”

“Ya couldn't a bucked him, Mama?”

“I tried …once.”

“I remember. Ya couldn't get out of bed for three days,” Isaac said bitterly. “Can I get ya somethin' to eat?”

“No, but ya can give the boys somethin'.”

“I already did. They've been stayin on the front porch.”

“They're good boys. Have ya been feelin' their heads like I told ya?”

“Yes, ma'am. They ain't hot like Paul was. Pa's been in back sawin' wood all day.”

“He's had that blasted saw goin' all day. Most sawin' he's done in a month.”

“Sometimes Pa is mean as a ruttin' moose. Why does he whip us so hard? Why'd he whip Paul?”