Sweetwater (51 page)

Melt large spoonful lard in heavy skillet. Make a
well
in large bowl of flour. Add lard, size of an egg, two pinches of baking soda, salt, and a cup of buttermilk. Stir with spoon until enough flour is worked in to make the dough. With your hands, fold dough until well floured. Pinch off dough the size you want your biscuits, pat in both hands, dip top in hot grease before putting in the skillet. They will brown nicely.

Homeplace
(Warner Books—1991)

1885 Iowa

Ana Fairfax was a stranger in the lonely farmhouse. She had come there at the urging of her stepdaughter, Harriet, and stayed to raise her child when she died. The farmhouse was filled with danger for Ana and the child. Esther, the child’s crazed aunt, didn’t want her there. Owen, the child’s father was a silent, brooding Norwegian, hiding dark family secrets from her. Ana had married the first time without love in order to survive. Would she be forced to do so again in order to raise the child and protect him from the strange Jamison family?

WATERMELON PICKLES

Peel and remove pink pulp from 4 pounds watermelon rind. Cut rind in one-inch cubes. Soak in cold water with a large spoonful of lime for an hour. Drain. Cover with fresh water and simmer until tender. (about 1½ hr.) Combine 1 quart cider vinegar with 4 pounds sugar. Heat until sugar dissolves. Tie 2 large spoonfuls whole allspice and 10 sticks of cinnamon in a cloth and add along with rind to hot vinegar mixture. Simmer two hours. Pack rind in clean hot jars. Fill jars with boiling syrup. Seal. Makes about 6 quarts.

GINGER BEER

Put a pint of molasses and two large spoonfuls of ginger in a 2-gallon pail. Fill half full with boiling water. When well stirred, fill with cold water, leaving room for a pint of liquid yeast which is added when mixture is lukewarm. Place pail on warm hearth for the night. It will be in good condition to drink the next morning.

Dear Reader,

I hope you enjoyed reading SWEETWATER.

In it, as in so many of my previous books, the hero and heroine triumph over the hardships of a westward-expanding America. I’ve enjoyed writing my Western romances, hope you’ve enjoyed reading them, and still intend to write more of them.

Yet lately I’ve been longing to tell a story from a more recent time in our history, the period between World Wars I and II, years when young lovers faced a different kind of hardship: the Great Depression. Drama and romance flowered then as well. Gangsters, every bit as nefarious as western outlaws, made violent headlines while young people danced to new jazz rhythms that shocked their elders. As always, strong family ties were the keys to survival.

With Hope
is the first of at least three novels I’m writing set in the 1930s. It tells the story of a woman trying to keep her farm and misfit siblings together after her parents’ deaths, and of the strong, kind-hearted man who helps her but can’t offer her the one thing he wants to give her the most.

On the pages that follow you’ll find a chapter from this new book. I hope you’ll enjoy it and enjoy reading all of
With Hope
when it comes your way in the fall of 1998.

With thanks to all my loyal readers,

Dorothy Garlock

CHAPTER 1

1920

Busbee, Oklahoma

“How’er ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm after they’ve seen Pa-ree? How’er ya gonna keep ’em away from Broadway? Paintin’the town—da-da-da-da—de-de-de-de—”

Dorene gazed into the mirror as she sang, adjusted the neckline of the thin sleeveless dress she wore, then licked her fingers and flattened the spit curl on her forehead.

“Are you leaving … again?” The small girl who stood in the doorway watched her young, pretty mother preen in front of the mirror.

“Uh-huh.”

“Why’d you come?”

“To pay you a visit.” Dorene turned from one side to the other so that the long fringe at the bottom of her dress would swirl around her knees.

“Daddy said you came ’cause you needed money.”

“That’s right. Your daddy owes me. I’m still his wife and he has a legal obligation to support me. But I wanted to see you, too.”

“But mostly you came for the money,” the child said. “Will you be back?”

Dorene turned from the mirror. “Maybe. Do you care, Henry Ann?”

The child shrugged indifferently. “I guess so. Will you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. Depends on my luck.” Dorene gave the girl a casual pat on the head and closed the packed suitcase that lay on the bed. “You won’t miss me. You’ve got your …
precious
daddy and your …
precious
horse, and this …
precious
dirt farm.”

“Daddy’ll get you a horse … if you stay.”

“Good Lord!” Dorene rolled her eyes. “I want a lot of things, snookums, but a horse isn’t one of them.”

“Don’t call me that. My name is Henry Ann.”

Dorene rolled her eyes again. “How could I possibly forget? Where’s your daddy now?”

“In the field. Are you goin’ to tell him good-bye?”

“Why should I traipse way out there and get all hot and sweaty? He knows I’m going.”

The deep felt hat Dorene put on her head fit like a cap. She was careful not to disturb the spit curls on her cheeks.

“You could thank him for the money.”

“He had to give it to me. I’m his wife. Your daddy don’t like me much or he’d not have made me live out here in the sticks where I was lucky if I saw a motor car go by once a week. Work is all he thinks about.
You …
and work, I should add.”

“He likes you too. He just didn’t want you to cut off your hair like a … like a flapper, rouge your cheeks and wear dresses that show your legs. Daddy says it’s trashy.”

“Oh, yeah, he likes me,” Dorene said sarcastically. “He likes me so much he wants me to walk behind a plow, hoe cotton, slop hogs, and have younguns. I’m not doin’ it. I’m goin’ places and seein’ thin’s. And that’s that.”

“I like it here. I’m never going to leave,” the child said defiantly.

“You may think so now. Wait until you grow up.”

“I’ll like it then, too.”

“Stay then. Eat dirt, get freckled and wrinkled so no man will have you but another dirt farmer. It’s city life for me.”

“Are you goin’ to the city in a motor car?”

“We’re goin’ to Ardmore in a motor car and take the train to Oklahoma City. I’ve … got things to do there.” Dorene put her foot on the chair and straightened the bow on the vamp of her shoe. The child watched but her mind was elsewhere.

Yeah, I know. I beard you tell Daddy that you’ve got a little boy back in the city. You’ve got to go take care of him!

Dorene picked up her suitcase and went through the house to the porch. A touring car was parked in the road in front of the house. A portly man with a handlebar mustache got out and came to take her suitcase. He wore a black suit and a shirt with a high neck collar. His felt hat tilted at a jaunty angle on his head and he smelled strongly of Bay Rum. He looked from the barefoot child to Dorene.

“This one of yours?”

“’Fraid so, lover. She’s only six. I had her when I was sixteen, for Christ’s sake.”

“I’m seven. Almost eight.”

Dorene glared at the child as if she’d like to slap her; but when she turned to the man, she was all smiles.

“This is Henry Henry. Ain’t that the most godawful name you ever heard of, Poopsy? I named her Henry Henry after her daddy. It was all my doing.”

“No doubt,” he muttered.

“I pulled one over on old Ed and got it on the birth certificate before he knew what was what. He ’bout had a calf! Lordy! He run the doctor down before he could file it and got ‘Ann’ stuck in between the Henrys. Ain’t that rich?”

The man frowned. He looked from the child to the mother thinking there was a resemblance and hoped for the child’s sake it was only skin deep.

“I like my name. No one else has one like it.”

The child spoke quietly and with such dignity that the man felt a spark of dislike for her mother. He’d dump her right now, he thought, if it were not for the favors promised when they reached Ardmore. The ride was little enough payment for a couple hours in the sack with this hot little number, especially when he was making the trip anyway.

“Let’s get goin’.”

“I’m ready, Poopsy.” Dorene failed to notice her friend’s reaction and gave him a bright smile.

He looked at the child again, then quickly away, picked up the suitcase and headed back to the car.

“Are you going to kiss me good-bye?” Dorene hesitated before stepping off the porch.

“Not this time.”

“My God!” Her musical laugh rang out. “I can’t believe I’ve got a seven-year-old kid who acts like an old woman. I hope to hell when you
do
grow up, you’ll have sense enough to kick the dust from this dirt farm off your feet.” She stooped and kissed the child’s cheek, and then hurried across the yard to the car, the fringe on the bottom of her dress dancing around her knees.

Henry Ann stood on the porch and watched her mother step up onto the running board and into the car. The man cranked the motor, detached the crank, threw it in the back, and slid behind the wheel. Dorene waved gaily as the motor car took off in a cloud of dust.

I’ll not be like YOU!
Henry Ann thought.
I’ll never go off and leave my little girl no matter how much I bate her daddy. You won’t be back this time … and you know what? I don’t care!

1932

Clay County, Oklahoma

The bus was an hour late but it didn’t matter to the man who leaned against the side of Millie’s Diner. He wasn’t meeting anyone. When the bus finally arrived, the passengers poured out and hurried into the cafe to sit on the stools along the bar for the thirty-minute supper break. Converted from an old Union Pacific railroad car that had been moved to Main Street ten years ago, the cafe, one of two in town, had only two things on the menu this time of day: chili and hamburgers.

Last to leave the bus were a woman and a skinny teenage girl who slouched along behind her. The contagion of haste seemed not to have touched the woman as she patted the top of a ridiculously small flower-trimmed hat firmly down on her head and walked behind the bus to where the driver was unloading a straw suitcase and a box tied with a rope.

Cupping the bowl of his pipe in his hand, the man watched the free swing of her legs beneath the calf-length skirt, the grace of her slender body, the tilt of her head, her curly brown hair and heavy dark brows. He noticed the brows because most women had taken to plucking them to a pencil slim line that, to him, made them look
bald-faced
. He knew who she was. She wasn’t a kid. He judged her to be at least five years younger than his own age of twenty-eight.

He shrugged her from his mind and headed for the lot behind the grocery store where he’d parked his ten-year-old Model T coupe. He kept the car in tip-top shape and when it was washed and polished, it looked as if it had just come out of the show room. He treasured it next to his two-year-old son.

Stopping, he knocked the ashes from his pipe on the sole of his boot, and put it in his pocket. Sooner or later he might have to sell the car. That would depend on whether or not he had a fairly good cotton crop and what price he could get for it. But for now he’d put off having to make the decision by offering to install a new motor in the grocer’s truck.

Henry Ann Henry thanked the bus driver and picked up the straw suitcase. The girl reached for the box.

“We can leave the box at the store and come back for it later.”

“I can carry it. How far do we go?”

“A mile after we leave town.”

“That far? Well, I’m not leavin’ my stuff. Somebody’d steal it.”

“Mr. Anderson wouldn’t let that happen. But never mind. Let’s go. I want to be home before dark.”

The few people passing them along the street nodded a greeting to Henry Ann Henry and curiously eyed the girl with her. Henrys had lived in the Busbee area since the town’s beginning. Ed Henry, Henry Ann’s father and the last male to carry the name, was a hard-working dependable man who had made the mistake of marrying Dorene Perry. According to the opinion of most folk here, the Perrys were trash then and the Perrys were trash now.