Dorothy Garlock (3 page)

“My sister goes where I go.” It was a flat statement.

“I’ve taken your sister into consideration, and also the fact that she is expecting a child.”

Surprise flickered across Johanna’s face, and her lips narrowed.

“I know quite a lot about you and your sister. I watched you get off the stage a few weeks ago. I went to Fort Stockton and talked to the banker. He told me you were asked to leave your teaching job, asked to leave town and take your sister with you.”

Johanna drew herself up rigidly. Sparks flared in her eyes.

“Did they tell you,” she snapped, “that the renegades who murdered my mother and father also carried off my seventeen-year-old sister and kept her for three days? Did they tell you that she is mute; that she hasn’t uttered a single word since she was found wandering on the prairie?” Johanna paused to collect herself but could not still her temper. “The good people of Fort Stockton turned us out. They wouldn’t believe Jacy’s pregnancy was the result of her ordeal.”

“I believe it.”

Johanna was, for a moment, taken aback by the statement. “Why would you believe it when practically every person in town did not?”

“Because I took the trouble to find out why you left San Angelo. You wanted to get your sister away from the place where your parents were killed, where she suffered . . . violation. You left San Angelo and found the teaching job in Fort Stockton, but the Mrs. Scheetzes of Fort Stockton didn’t believe your sister had been raped. You were too honest, Miss Doan. You should have said she was a widow.” He waited for her to speak, and when she did not, he continued, “It will be difficult for you to find decent lodgings here, and your money must be almost gone.” He added the last apologetically.

Her mind was racing. No use pretending; the money was nearly gone and the landlady had given her two days to find another room.

Johanna’s wide, candid eyes looked directly into his. The straightforwardness of her stare slightly unnerved the lawyer and he felt a pang of indecision about offering her the job in Macklin Valley, but he shrugged it off. He had looked too long for the right woman to go soft over this girl.

“My office is above the dry goods store, just west of the bank. Will you come there in the morning? I may have an answer to your . . . problem.”

“I’ll be there.” She started to turn away, then turned back and thrust out her hand. “Thank you,” she said softly.

The lawyer looked into the young woman’s face, so open, so beautiful, and felt again a slight twinge of conscience. He shoved it aside.

“See you in the morning, miss. Good night,” he said in his most professional tone and quickly walked away.

Johanna felt her way up the darkened stairway and down the hall to the small room in the back of the house. Quietly she opened the door and let herself in. She frowned when she saw that the oil lamp was still on. Mrs. Scheetz would have considered that still another reason to complain, had she known. She set her instrument in a corner and walked over to the bed where her sister lay sleeping, brown hair spread over the pillow, dark lashes shadowing her pale cheeks. Her face was so young, so stirringly beautiful, and for the moment relaxed. Her body was so slight that it seemed hardly to make a depression in the big bed.

“What a cruel twist of fate.” Johanna said the words softly, her mind racing down a well-traveled path. Usually she tried to block the memory of the raid from surfacing, as if it had all been a bad dream; but it was real, it had happened, and she would never forget a second of it.

She sighed in introspection and let her mind probe once again for a reason for the tragedy that had befallen her family. If only her father hadn’t wanted to come west, if only they hadn’t taken the house so far out of town, perhaps her father wouldn’t have been surprised by the band of Mexican renegades and they could have held them off until help arrived.

The calamity of Jacy’s pregnancy had driven the girl into an even deeper depression. Knowing that she carried the child of one of her parents’ murderers wiped out any progress she had made since being found and returned to Johanna. She sat for hours staring into space. She seldom smiled, and at times Johanna found her pounding her small fist on her slightly protruding abdomen.

Johanna blew out the light, undressed in the dark, and slipped into bed beside her sister. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep, to forget for a while the problems that faced her. But there was no relief. Her thoughts continued to flow. It was plain now that the biddies in this town were no different from those in Fort Stockton, only this time their prejudices were directed toward her, for she had, indeed, told Mrs. Scheetz that Jacy was a widow. Perhaps, Johanna reasoned, Mr. Cash would provide the solution. Whatever he offered would be better than attempting to stay on here at Fort Davis.

*  *  *

Johanna was up and dressed by the time Jacy awakened. “Get up, sleepyhead. Get up and get dressed. We have an appointment to see about a new job.”

Obediently Jacy rose from the bed, but she remained expressionless and showed no interest in what Johanna had said. She dressed, washed her face and hands, brushed her hair, and coiled it into two buns over her ears.

Johanna chattered on as though Jacy were eager to hear what she had to say. “There was a crowd at the saloon last night, Jacy. The same man asked me to sing, ‘Rosewood Casket.’ You could have heard a pin drop in that saloon while I was singing that song. Oh, how those big, rough cowmen like a sad song! It’s hard to believe unless you see it. Big men with guns strapped at their waists, whiskey in their hands, and tears in their eyes over a sad song.” Johanna’s voice trailed away. Once again, she had failed to engage Jacy’s interest. She tucked a handkerchief into her sister’s pocket. “Come along—we’ve got to get down to breakfast before Mrs. Scheetz clears it away.”

Johanna put a protective arm around Jacy’s shoulders as they entered the dining room. Mrs. Scheetz was sitting at the head of the table, her grim mouth pressed into a tight line of disapproval. The other two occupants at the table—middle-aged male store clerks—acknowledged the young women’s entrance by half-rising from their chairs, but upon seeing their landlady’s disdain they quickly sat down. Soon they finished their meal and left.

The three women sat in silence, the tension gradually building. Finally Mrs. Scheetz pushed herself from the table and stood up.

“Be out of that room this afternoon.” The words were hissed at Johanna. “I run a respectable house. This is the last meal you’ll have at my table. The idea . . . a saloon singer living in my house and eating at my table. I’ll never be able to hold my head up in this town again!”

Johanna calmly continued to eat. “Our rent is paid until tomorrow. We’ll not be leaving until then.”

“You’ll leave today!” The words burst from the woman’s tight mouth and reverberated in the small room.

Johanna wanted to laugh. The woman’s face had turned a plum red, and she suddenly felt a vengeful need to further antagonize her.

“We’ll stay until tomorrow, and if you make any trouble for us,” she said softly, “I’ll tell the men at the saloon you’re sleeping with Mr. Rutledge.” She glanced up to meet the woman’s astonished eyes. “I know it isn’t true, but they won’t know, will they?”

Mrs. Scheetz seemed to swell up, her face took on an even deeper color, and her eyes rolled back in her head. For a moment Johanna almost regretted what she had said. Perhaps she had gone too far and the woman would have a seizure.

“But . . . but . . . you, you . . .”

“I was sure you would allow us to stay, Mrs. Scheetz. Thank you.”

The woman gasped and walked unsteadily from the room.

Johanna turned and saw Jacy looking straight at her, an unmistakable glint of amusement in her eyes. Johanna could have cried with joy. Jacy had finally reacted.

*  *  *

A few minutes before nine o’clock the girls left the boardinghouse. Johanna had dressed carefully for the meeting with the lawyer. She wore a demurely styled, light-blue cotton dress that fitted snugly over her tiny waist and full breasts. Her one and only hat, a stiff, natural-colored straw decorated with a pink satin rose, sat squarely atop her soft piled hair. Jacy wore a dark brown dress attractively brightened by a white collar and cuffs and a light shawl that she draped about her shoulders.

Satisfied that they were presentable, Johanna looked around the street with interest. Several wagons were standing in front of the mercantile store. The horses, with blinders attached to their bridles, stood patiently, their long tails swishing at the pesky flies that tormented them. Two cowboys rolled toward the young women, their high-heeled boots beating a hollow tattoo on the boardwalk. They lifted their wide-brimmed hats and murmured, “Mornin’.”

Jacy turned her eyes away, but Johanna nodded a greeting.

They walked to the corner and across the dusty street, dodging a tumbleweed whirling on the gentle breeze, and went past the bank, then stopped under the sign that read:
SIMON CASH
,
ATTORNEY AT LAW
. Johanna took Jacy’s hand and they climbed the wooden stairway that clung to the side of the building.

Simon Cash rose from the chair and stood before his massive rolltop desk.

“Good morning, ladies.”

“Morning. This is my sister, Mr. Cash. Miss Jacy Doan.”

“Morning, miss.”

Jacy ignored the greeting and turned away. The man gave her a puzzled glance.

“Is there someplace where my sister can wait for me?”

“Certainly. My living quarters are in the next room. She can sit by the window and look down on the street.”

Johanna took Jacy by the hand and they followed the lawyer into the next room.

“Look, Jacy. You can see the whole main street from here.” Jacy sat down in the chair, her eyes reflecting a hopelessness that tore at Johanna’s heart.

Johanna and Mr. Cash returned to his office. He offered her a chair by his desk, then seated himself.

“Is your sister always like this?” he asked kindly with a glance toward the closed door.

“Yes, since we found out about her pregnancy. But this morning I was quite encouraged—she smiled at me after Mrs. Scheetz and I had a little tiff.”

Cash didn’t react. He leaned back in his chair and absently took out his gold watch, flipped open the case, glanced at the face, and returned it to his pocket. He smoothed his hair, which was already slicked down, then sat up straight in the chair and looked sternly and silently at Johanna. A wave of despair swept over her. It was obvious that he was skeptical about offering her the job.

When, to her relief, he finally spoke, Johanna leaned forward eagerly.

“I have been debating with myself. I had almost decided not to offer you the position, but knowing you are in need of work away from this town . . .” He paused. “Oh, yes, I know the ladies are going to ask you to leave. Mrs. Scheetz exercises a powerful influence over the ladies. If you were a different type of woman you would move to the other side of town and continue working in the saloon, but then if that were the case I wouldn’t be considering you for the job.”

Johanna’s hopes began to rise, not only because of what he had said but because she sensed a softening in the sharp eyes that studied her.

“Let me put the facts to you, Miss Doan, and then we’ll talk about it. My client lives in a distant valley. Over thirty years ago, when he was a young man, a determined young man, he found a valley. Out here a man has only what he can hold. He fought Indians to get that valley. He fought Indians, outlaws, and Mexican renegades to keep it. He went there before any other white man dreamed of anything but going on to California and getting rich in the gold fields. They came through here in droves, taking everything, building nothing. They wanted only to get to where the picking was easy.

“But Mack Macklin was different. He stayed. He worked—worked hard—and carved himself out an empire. He built a house, a dam, dug irrigation ditches where he wanted them. He put up bunkhouses for his drovers and houses for the Mexicans who worked his land. He drove a herd of cattle west when there were no cattle in this part of the country. It wasn’t an easy chore to drive cattle to his valley, but he did it. He turned the cattle loose, and now they’ve bred into some of the biggest herds in the Southwest.” He paused and rocked for a moment in his desk chair. “He’s old now. His foot was taken off a few years back and he gets around on his sticks. He’s ornery and cantankerous, but I figure he’s earned the right to be.”

Cash fell silent for a moment and looked directly into Johanna’s eyes. “He has asked me to find him a housekeeper. A pretty young woman with blond hair and blue eyes. It seems he knew a woman years ago who had blond hair and blue eyes, and in his old age he would like to have one around to look at and to care for his home.” His voice trailed off and he sat looking at Johanna.

Johanna sank back in the chair and her heart did a little flip-flop of relief. She closed her eyes for a second while the tension flowed out of her.

“Oh, saints be praised! You were so stern. I was afraid it was to be something I couldn’t do. A housekeeper! It’s perfect for me. I love to keep house and I’m a good cook.”

“Miss . . .” He made an effort to look stern to put force behind his words. “The valley is a long way from here. A very long way.”

Johanna didn’t allow her spirits to drop. Indeed, laughter bubbled up in her throat. “I don’t care how far it is. I’ll work hard. I’ll work very hard to pay for Jacy’s room and board. Oh, you don’t know how relieved I am.” Impulsively she reached across the desk and clasped his hand. “When do we go? How do we get there?”

The lawyer studied the young woman and a smile played about the corners of his mouth. He liked her—liked her quiet determination. She had courage. He hoped she had the stamina to cope with old Mack. The tough old man had told Cash, “By God, I don’t want no milk-and-water lass—no milksop that’ll weep and cringe. I want a strong lass with guts. Guts! Guts is what made Macklin Valley.”

Old Mack would be madder than sin when he first saw the girl. She wasn’t the big-boned, hefty type of woman he wanted, but she did have the blond hair and the blue eyes, and she wouldn’t fold up under the first attack of the old man’s wrath. The thing that bothered the lawyer was the sister, who was obviously part Mexican. Old Mack hated Mexicans with a cruel passion that Cash had never understood. That was something Johanna would have to deal with when she reached Macklin Valley, he decided.