Land Sakes (16 page)

I was so nervous! And it was so noisy in there that when the usher did come back, I had to reach over the
couple and nearly yell for him to hear me. “It's for Dora Todd,” I said, poking the note toward him. “Please give it to her as soon as you can.”

He read the note by his flashlight and frowned. “I'm not allowed to go backstage.”

“Oh, but you must—how can I... she's a friend of mine—”

“Okay, after the concert, go to the stage entrance in back of the hall. All the artists come out that door. You can't miss her.”

“Are you sure you can't give her my note?”

“No, ma'am. I'm not allowed.”

“Well, who is? Is there a manager here?”

Something was happening to the lights. The usher left, and then the conductor came out on stage—his long white hair all bushy and uncombed. Everybody was clapping. The concert was about to begin.

The audience got quiet, but I was nervous and uneasy about finding Dora. I started talking a mile a minute to that lady beside me. “Dora is a wonderful girl—comes from the mountains of Tennessee—born in a holler and lived in that holler all her life. That girl can do anything—skin a deer... butcher it—”

The conductor bowed, stepped up on the podium, and raised his arms.

I rattled on. “If she likes you she'll do anything under the sun for you, but if she don't like you, you might as well hang it up. It's a miracle I'm here—we been traveling. No idea I'd see her here. Dora use to wear an old hunting coat, never took it off—”

The woman turned to the man, her husband, I guess,
and they started whispering back and forth. Somebody behind me went “Shhh,” so I shut up.

The conductor, with his arms raised over his head and holding that little stick, looked over the players from right to left, I guess to see if anybody was missing or else warning every last one of them not to miss a note. Once he commenced waving that stick this way and that, the racket commenced.

Well, to be fair, the music did start out slow and easy, but it wasn't long before every part was sounding off at once, a racket loud enough to wake the dead.

Yet when that number ended, the people clapped and shouted “Bravo!” like they enjoyed it. Land sakes, I bet half the people sitting there didn't like it any better than me but clapped because that was the thing to do. Three-sheets-to-the-wind didn't go for it; he fell asleep during the music and slept right through the clapping.

I suffered through one number after another, each one as bad as the one before, with no time to recover in between, but that would be a small price to pay if I got to see Dora.

Finally, it dawned on me to look at the program to see when she would come on. Before I counted down to where she was scheduled to play, a man walked out onstage and started introducing her. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, here is the one we've all been waiting for, Miss Dora Todd, Appalachian recording star and harmonica virtuoso.”

When I saw Dora walk out on that stage wearing that old hunting coat, I could not help myself—I jumped to my feet and commenced clapping as hard as I could. Seeing
me on my feet, the rest of that crowd started getting up out of their seats and clapping. Three-sheets-to-the-wind came to and looked around.

Finally, the clapping quieted down, and we all sat down again. The conductor took his time getting the music started, but once it began, it was slow and sweet. Even so, for me it went on too long before Dora lifted the harmonica to her lips. A hush fell over the place; she began playing softly a melody that went right to my heart. I don't know what she was playing, but it was the prettiest music I had ever heard in my whole life. It just seemed to float in the air like melodies from heaven, and I am not ashamed to say, my eyes brimmed over and tears spilled down my cheeks. I could have listened to Dora playing all night.

When she got done, the applause sounded like thunder and kept on while she bowed a lot. She tried to get offstage, but the crowd wouldn't hear to it. “Encore! Encore!” they shouted.

So she came out again and played a number that was real snappy. The crowd started clapping in time with the music, and even Three-sheets-to-the-wind sat up and took notice. I don't know when I've ever been so happy!

That was a night I will never forget as long as I live. I couldn't wait to tell Albert and Lenora I had seen Dora onstage in person. I sat through the intermission and put up with a bunch more orchestra specials, hoping each one would be the last. I couldn't wait to get out of there and get to that back entrance.

15

After the concert ended, that couple kept sitting, waiting for everybody else to get out before they would move. I looked at the other way out, but that long row of people was hardly moving at all. I saw what I had to do. I said, “Excuse me,” and crawled over them two, blocking traffic, and squeezed into the jam-packed aisle.

Moving like cold molasses toward the lobby, I was as nervous as could be about having to find that stage entrance and getting there before Dora was out the door and gone. Pushing and shoving my way, I got past a few of them snail-paced people, but it didn't help much. I was among the last to get outside into the cool night air.

Frantic, I ran around the building. Two musicians carrying their instrument cases were coming out a door.
That's it; that's the stage door
! I hurried down there, praying I hadn't missed her. I took up a position about twenty or thirty feet from the door with my back to the wall so no mugger could come at me from behind, and watched for her, praying every minute. The two musi
cians were standing on the sidewalk, trying to hail a cab. Just as I was about to ask them musicians where Dora was, they piled into a cab and were whisked away.

Nobody else came out that door; the sidewalk was deserted. My heart was sinking; I must have missed her. I was on the verge of going inside to ask somebody if she had left when a big car full of men pulled alongside the curb. One man got out, and the car sped away. I wondered about asking him but then saw he was coming straight toward me.
What's this? It don't look good
! He was a big man, dressed in a suit and tie. Before I knew what was happening, he braced his arms on either side of me, his hands flat against the wall.

“Miss Esmeralda?”

“Who are you?” I demanded, my heart pounding.

“Never mind. I won't hurt you.” He glanced over his shoulder, looking this way and that. Cars were speeding past, but I didn't see a single pedestrian—no use yelling. I was trapped; there was no way I could get free of him.
Oh Lord, help me
!

“I'm a businessman,” he told me, “and I have your best interest at heart.”
No way
, I thought.
Pinning me to the wall—he's dangerous
. He was right up in my face, I tell you, and the smell of garlic nearly knocked me over. “Miss Esmeralda, I understand you are a widow and no doubt hard up financially or you would not have taken this job as companion to Mrs. Winchester.”

My head was spinning, my heart racing.
How does he know—what's back of this
?

“I have a proposition for you,” he said. “It will make
it possible for you to retire and live on easy street the rest of your life. How does that sound to you?”

Fishy
, I thought, praying somebody would show up to help me, I kept him talking. “What do you want me to do?” I asked.

Before he could answer, I saw Dora coming out the stage entrance. “Dora!” I yelled.

She stopped and looked around but not in my direction. The man saw that and grinned. “You might as well save your breath, Esmeralda. That lady don't give autographs.”

I didn't yell again; out the corner of my eye I could see Dora looking my way. Seeing me, she put her finger to her lips.

The man bore down on me. “Now, Miss Esmeralda, all you have to do is keep in touch with us. We picked up the Winchester trail some miles back, and, of course, it isn't hard to track a Rolls, but we need your help.”

“What kind of help?” I asked to hold his attention.

Dora was moving toward us in back of him.

“It's very simple,” he was saying just as Dora reached us and dropped down on hands and knees behind him. I saw my chance; I shoved him as hard as I could, knocking him over backwards. Dora jumped up and grabbed my hand, and we lit out running to get across the street.

The light had changed, and the cars were stopped bumper to bumper. That man scrambled to his feet and was coming after us hot and heavy. Dora held on to me as we were climbing across one set of bumpers, but then our way was blocked by a cab with no passengers. I glanced back and saw the man was still coming. Dora
yanked open the backseat door of the cab and pulled me in behind her. “Slam it!” she yelled. I reached back, grabbed the handle, and shut it, and she dragged me out the door on the other side.

The light changed and all the cars were spurting ahead, but one driver saw the pickle we were in and waited for us to reach the curb. Running for our lives, we kept looking back. That creep was not in sight. I don't know how or if we lost him. We kept running and didn't stop until we came to a parking garage.

As we got on the elevator, I was all out of breath and so weak my legs were about to give way. “My truck's on third,” Dora said.

“How'd you know it was me?” I managed to ask.

“I thought it was you stood up when I come out on stage. I wasn't sure, because it was dark in there, but after it was all over I went a-lookin' for you but couldn't find you nowhere.”

The elevator stopped; the door rolled open. “Where's your truck?”

“Third row over.”

Them indoor parking lots make my skin crawl; there's all kinds of creeps lurking about waiting to waylay a body. Even that goon chasing us might somehow have got there ahead of us. As jumpy as I was, I kept looking every whichaway.

Dora opened the door for me, and I climbed into the truck. It smelled brand new.

She slid in on the other side but didn't start the engine. “Where're you stayin', Miss E.?”

I told her and explained why I was in Salt Lake City.
She had heard from Albert that I had been asked to resign, but I was too nervous to talk about that. Dora asked me what the mugger said to me.

“Oh, Dora, he wasn't just a mugger. He knew who I was and all about me and her—Mrs. Winchester.”

I told her everything that had happened—so nervous I kept repeating myself. She made no comment other than to say, “You watch out, Miss E. Man like that be bound to keep on a-comin' a'ter you. You want a gun?” She reached over me to open the glove compartment. She took out a gun and laid it in her lap.

“No, Dora. I don't know nothing about guns. Chances are, before I could fire it, they'd grab it away from me.” Suddenly I remembered that Percival was supposed to pick me up. I looked at my watch. It was 11:30. Too late; he would not still be waiting for me.

“Somebody gonna pick you up?”

“Yes, but I've missed him.”

“I'll take you back to the hotel. Let's go back over this thing.”

So we talked through the whole story again, and I was remembering little details I had left out. By the time I had went through it the second time, I was beginning to calm down a little. Dora is strong, and it helped settle my nerves being with her, having her listen. I asked her to turn on the overhead light. “Let me look at you, Dora.” And in that pale light I saw a face that was far different from the careworn one she had brought to Priscilla Home. She looked ten years younger.

I told her how proud we were of her and asked about the business she was in. She told me about her agent,
how he got her gigs all over the country. “He likes to arrange flights for me, but I only fly when there's not time to get there in my pickup.”

Then she wanted to hear about Priscilla Home—and I was careful to put my resignation in the best light so she wouldn't stop supporting the place. There was a lot to tell her about the women she had known at the home, and we took a trip down memory lane, remembering the happy times we had there. The time slipped up on me—it was 1:00 in the morning. “I better get back, Dora. If Mrs. Winchester ain't dead to the world, she might be worried sick something's happened to me.”

“Well, something did happen, now, didn't it?” she said. “Don't you fret none, Miss E. The Lord's a-lookin' out fer you.” She got out the truck and looked all around the parking lot before she got back in. “I'm a-headin' out tonight for New Orleans,” she told me. “Next week I'm a-gonna play in that Orpheum theater they got thar, and a'ter that I'm a-headin' back home.”

“You still live the same place?”

“Same place.”

We both got quiet then, hating that this visit was ending, that we would part as soon as we got back to the hotel.

“We better pray,” I said, and we did—me first, then her.