One True Love (Cupid, Texas 0.5) (3 page)

“Tell
him
that,” Daddy said.

“What?”

Daddy nodded to someone behind me.

I turned around and there stood John at the top of the steps. He wore a black tuxedo with a single red rosebud tucked in the lapel. His eyes were full of love for me.

My heart started beating crazy fast.

“John?” I whispered.

“I’m here to give you away, sissy-babe,” Daddy said. “You sure picked a good ’un.”

John smiled and held out his hand.

I ran to him.

He scooped me up into his embrace, the long train of my gown swirling around us. I’d never ever in my life been so happy. Daddy was alive and I was marrying John Fant!

Then I woke up and realized it was all a foolish dream.

Chapter Three

I
GOT
S
UNDAYS
off, and after church the day was mine. The first month, I’d been busy settling in, but by the second month, I was ready to explore the town of Cupid. I’d met another maid at the First Methodist Church. Her name was Rosalie Smithe and she worked for the Farnsworths, who lived right next door to the McClearys. She was nineteen and from Pecos County. Just like me, she was the oldest of a big brood of kids, and we got on like a house afire.

As we were leaving church services the first Sunday in July, Rosalie asked me if I’d like to go with her to visit the Cupid Caverns.

“What’s that?” I asked.

Her eyes grew wide like I was the dumbest thing she’d ever seen. “You’ve never heard of the Cupid Caverns?”

I shook my head.

“Oh, then you must come.” She took my arm. “Go home and change. I’ll pack us a picnic basket and meet you in the town square in thirty minutes.”

I was all excited to have made a new friend. Back home, there wasn’t much time for idle activities and Mama had been real strict about what you could and couldn’t do on the Lord’s Day, but here there was no one to lecture me for not spending the day reading the Bible and reflecting on the grace of God. I felt a bit sinful as I put on my everyday clothes and ran to meet Rosalie.

Rosalie was a chatterbox, with long blond hair she kept plaited in a single braid down her back, just like I did. Her face was long, almost horsey, and her teeth seemed too big for her mouth, but she had a lively brown eyes and a pert little nose.

“You ever consider getting your hair cut like those flapper girls?” Rosalie asked, making scissor motions around her head.

I shrugged. “Never gave it much thought.”

“Everybody back East is cutting their hair. Seems like it would be easier than plaiting up this mess every day. I’m thinkin’ about doin’ it. Whack it all off. Snip. Snip.”

Suddenly, she had me wondering what it would be like to have short hair. “My mama says flappers are loose women.”

“Your mama sounds judgmental.”

That made me mad for a minute, but I didn’t want to ruin the day, so I didn’t say anything.

“Maybe she’s just scared of her own womanly power.” Rosalie tossed her head. “Women can vote now. We have rights.”

“Not me,” I said. “I just turned eighteen.”

“Soon enough you can vote.”

It seemed like an overwhelming responsibility. I knew nothing about politics. Maybe when the time came, if I was still working for Penelope, I’d ask John his opinion.

The day was hot as a firecracker and it wasn’t long before we were sweating pretty good as we toiled up the incline leading from Cupid to the caverns. We took turns carrying the basket, first Rosalie, then me.

“It’ll be cool in the caverns,” Rosalie promised.

It took us almost an hour and a half to walk the six miles, and Rosalie prattled the whole time, filled me in on who was who in Cupid. All the rich folks lived on Stone Street, which fronted Lake Cupid. They had names like Fant and Van Zandt and Nielson and Farnsworth and McCleary.

The town had sprung up around the railroad as most West Texas towns had done. The small lake was an extra draw, a sweet oasis tucked in the valley of the Davis Mountains that jutted eight thousand feet above the town. The climate, cool misty mornings that burned off hot by afternoon, made for perfect wine growing, but because of Prohibition, the local vineyards had been forced to change to making grape juice instead of wine. Although Rosalie giggled and told me about rumors of bootleggers hiding the wine in a secret room inside the caverns.

I stared at her bug-eyed. “Is it safe to go into the caverns?”

“Aw sure.” She waved a hand. “If there’s bootleggers about, they’re gonna know we’re not revenuers.”

Feeling excited by the prospect of meeting real bootleggers, but uneasy all the same, I cast a furtive glance over my shoulders, on the lookout for the criminal element, but saw nothing except the town of Cupid lying below.

We reached the entrance to the caverns, and immediately a blast of cool air greeted us.

“Do we just walk right on in?” I asked.

“Sure enough,” Rosalie said.

“Who owns the property? Aren’t we trespassing?”

“It’s Fant land and you work for the Fants. Besides, it’s in the works to turn the caverns over to the town to make it a city park. Everyone comes up here anyway. Might as well make it official.”

Sounded reasonable to me.

Rosalie paused to take a flashlight from the picnic basket and switch it on. We both drank water from the Mason jar she’d packed, quenching our thirst after the long walk.

“Ready?” she asked.

A thrill ran through me. This was the most exciting thing I’d ever done. “Uh-huh.”

We entered the cave.

It was darker than night, and without the flashlight I would have been scared to death. Rosalie shone the beam over the cavern walls. Wicked-looking rock formations spiked down from the ceiling like monster’s teeth. At our feet were more daggered rocks, these sticking straight up. They were all different colors—orange, green, purple, white.

“Stalactites hang tight to the ceiling, stalagmites rise from the ground,” Rosalie explained the difference.

“They look sharp and jabby.”

“Keep to the path,” Rosalie instructed. “And you don’t have to worry about getting poked.”

I gathered my skirt around me and stayed close behind her. Eerie silence surrounded us, broken only by sounds of stalactites dripping water onto the stalagmites and our tandem breathing echoing off the cave walls. The farther we went, the narrower the passages grew, the more my stomach churned. Was this what it was like to go down into the silver mine? Had my father felt this same edge of loneliness every single day of his life?

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“You’ll see.”

We twisted and turned as the path snaked through the crop of stalagmites, maneuvering through cave after cave until finally, we entered the last one. Rosalie paused and pushed the flashlight under her chin so that the beam spookily illuminated her face.

I shivered.

“Got the heebie-jeebies?”

“You look scary.”

“You are about to see a miracle of the natural world,” she said in a Barnum and Bailey voice. “Are you ready, Millie Greenwood?”

I nodded.

“I now give you . . .” Rosalie swung the beam of the flashlight away from her face and toward her left. “Cupid, the Roman god of erotic love.”

I gasped at her shocking use of the word “erotic,” but that was only the beginning of my surprise.

The stalagmite was over seven feet tall and almost touched the top of the ceiling of the small cave. The rock formation looked so much like Cupid standing on one leg, the other leg bent as if he were running, a quiver attached to his back and a cocked bow held in his hands loaded with an arrow ready to be flung.

I pressed a hand to my chest, awed beyond words.

“Ain’t he somethin’?” Rosalie breathed.

He was indeed something, even though he didn’t have a face, just a blob of greenish stone. I couldn’t stop staring at it. “I can see where the town got its name.”

“Worth the walk, wasn’t it?”

It was.

“Wanna hear how Cupid got discovered?”

“Sure,” I said, mesmerized past the point of being scared.

“Once upon a time, way back just after the Civil War, there was an outlaw on the run for horse thievin’.”

“Sounds like an unsavory character.”

“Oh no, Mingus Dill was a looker. Handsomer than John Fant.”

“No one is handsomer than John Fant,” I said staunchly.

“Mingus
was
.”

“You can’t prove that.”

“Don’t get all high behind about it.”

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “Go on about Mingus Dill.”

“Legend has it he weren’t really a horse thief, rather he got caught barneymuggin’ a sheriff’s wife up in Fort Worth.”

“Barneymugging?” I asked. “What’s that?”

Rosalie let out a long-suffering sigh. “Don’t you know anything?”

“I know a lot of stuff. Just not that.”

“Barneymugging, you know . . . making love.”

“Oh.” My cheeks heated.

“Anyway, Mingus had to hightail it out the sheriff’s bedroom window and stole his horse to get away. The sheriff got a posse together and they chased poor Mingus all the way to Jeff Davis County.”

“That’s a long way.”

“Now about this same time,” Rosalie went on. “This was before Cupid was founded, mind you, there were more women than men in Jeff Davis County, ’cause most every man of fightin’ age had gone off to the Civil War.”

“Except for outlaws.”

“That’s exactly right,” Rosalie said. “So because of that, they made a rule around here that if any single woman in the county wanted to claim one of those outlaws, they could marry them and save them from being hung.”

“That sounds like a strange custom.”

“Nonetheless, it’s true.”

“The women must have been pretty desperate.”

“Oh, they were. Especially Miss Louisa Hendricks. She was plain as an old mud fence, but she wanted a baby real bad.”

“Poor Louisa.”

“Life ain’t fair sometimes. Mingus had heard about the getting’ married rule and these caverns so he came here to hide out. He didn’t really want to get married, but if was he gonna get caught, then this was the place to get caught in.”

I hung on her every word, completely enthralled with the tale.

“He pushed as deep into the cavern as he could and he ended up in this very room.” Rosalie swung the flashlight over Cupid again for dramatic effect.

I tried to imagine it. Stumbling in here, the sheriff and his posse hot on your trail.

“Mingus heard the law crashing behind him, coming for him. There was no escape.” Rosalie moved the beam from Cupid to shine it on the back of the cave wall. “As you can see, there’s no other way out.”

“What did he do?” I whispered.

“He fell down on his knees at the Cupid statue and he prayed like he was in church. Pleaded with Cupid to touch the heart of some kind local woman so she’d agree to marry him. And that’s where he was when the sheriff found him.”

“Did they hang him?”

“ ’Course not. This is a love story. Just when they was putting the noose around his neck, Louisa Hendricks stepped up and claimed him. The preacher married them on the spot.”

“And they lived happily ever after?”

“They did indeed. They fell madly in love and it was all because of Cupid.”

I took a deep breath. It was the most amazing story I’d ever heard.

“C’mon,” Rosalie said. “It’s time to get. We gotta long walk back.”

I didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay longer and think about Mingus and Louisa and the blasphemous magic of praying to Cupid, but Rosalie was right.

We left the caverns, blinking against the brightness of the afternoon sun. We were trying to decide where to eat our picnic when a brand-new Dagmar rolled to a stop outside the cavern entrance. Behind the wheel was a slick-looking man with a thin black mustache, Charlie Chaplin eyebrows, and a gray fedora. He honked the horn.

I took one look at him and my brain lit up: BOOTLEGGER.

“Hey tomatoes, wanna lift?” he invited.

I shook my head vigorously.

But Rosalie ran to the car. She had the picnic basket and she climbed into the seat beside him. “C’mon, Millie. Let’s hitch a ride.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know this man.”

“It’s Buddy Grass, I went to school with his sister Gwynnie.”

“I didn’t.”

Rosalie scooted across the seat and Buddy slipped his arm around her shoulder. A sneaky suspicion came over me. Had Rosalie set up this rendezvous with the bootlegger? Was he her secret boyfriend? Did they engage in barneymugging?

“Forget her,” Buddy said. “We don’t need no alarm clock anyways.”

I scowled. “What’s an alarm clock?”

“A chaperone.” Rosalie tittered. “She’s kinda dumb,” she whispered loudly to Buddy.

“This isn’t a good idea, Rosalie.” I sank my hands on my hips.

“It’ll be fine,” she assured me. “We’re just going for a drive.”

“Well, doll?” Buddy Grass wriggled his Charlie Chaplin eyebrows. “You comin’ or not?”

“Not.”

“Fine by me. See ya, toots.” Buddy put the car in gear and took off down the road, Rosalie stuck a hand out the window, waved good-bye.

Leaving me in a strange place, without anything to eat or drink, to walk home all by myself.

Feeling like the country rube I obviously was, I swallowed back the tears pushing into my throat. Dumb. Why did I have to be so dumb? I’d thought Rosalie wanted my company, but she’d just been using me as an excuse to meet up with Buddy Grass away from prying eyes.

I was hungry and thirsty and I’d never felt so alone.

Stop it. No wallowing in self-pity
. I squared my shoulders and set my course for Cupid.

The sun beat down, baking my head, and I wished I’d worn a hat. My shoes kept slipping in the pebble-strewn path. I considered taking off my shoes and going barefooted, but the abundance of prickly cacti prevented me from doing that.

I’d walked no more than a quarter of a mile when there came the sounds of horse hooves trotting up behind me. Nervously, I wadded my hands into fists and cast a glance over my shoulder.

The sun was at the rider’s back, casting his face in shadows, but he sat astride a magnificent palomino and I could see that he wore a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, and batwing chaps studded with silver conchos that glinted in the light.

My heart gave an odd little thump.

He reined in the horse a few yards away and swung down from the saddle.

I shaded my eyes with the edge of my hand but I still couldn’t make out the man’s features.

Spurs jangling, he strode toward me with long-legged, purposeful strides. That’s when I spotted the gun holstered on his hips.

I gulped, swiped the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand. Who was he? What did he want with me? What should I do? Run? Hold my ground? I scanned the area—nothing but cactus, yucca, and scrub oak.

Nowhere to hide.