Dorothy Garlock (11 page)

“Excuse me and I’ll ask that they serve us the chicken pie family-style.”

When Corbin left the table, Annabel watched him limp away. He was a tall man and lean yet muscular, with broad shoulders. He appeared to be confident, capable of handling himself in most situations.

“What’s the matter with his leg?”

Boone shrugged. “Ask him.”

“Are you going to pout because I wanted to come here and you didn’t?”

“No, I’m not goin’ to pout. I’m goin’ to eat ever’ dang bite I can hold, long’s he’s payin’ for it.”

“He’s real nice, Boone,” Jack said. “Folks back home thought the world of him. My brother and I thought he might be interested in Julie, our sister. When he saw that she only had eyes for Evan, he backed off.”

“I’m not sayin’ he ain’t
nice.
” He looked directly at Annabel. “I’m sayin’ we know nothin’ ’bout him.”

Annabel narrowed her eyes when she looked at Boone. She had seen Corbin coming back to the table.

“You … behave,” she whispered.

During the meal Jack brought up the subject of Corbin’s love of running.

“It was a shock to some of our neighbors when they saw Mr. Appleby running down the road. They thought he didn’t have any sense at all. Nobody in Fertile runs if they’re not going to a fire. Then they just walk fast.” Jack grinned at Corbin.

“He won’t be doin’ much runnin’ for a while,” Boone said dryly.

“You’re right. I’m going to spend some time sitting on the porch here letting my leg and shoulder heal.”

“Are you a runner like in the Boston Marathon?” Annabel asked.

“Not at all. I started running while I was in school, then continued while I was in France during the war. It’s something I like to do.”

“What happened to your leg and your shoulder? Were you in an accident?” Annabel asked.

“I guess you could say that. Someone took me for a deer and shot me.”

Corbin smiled at her. His skin was bronze: He had obviously spent long hours in the sun. His eyes had little creases at the corners. She wondered what had caused the scar that ran down the side of his cheek.

“Is that true? Are you making it up? At times I can’t believe a word Boone says. He loves to make up tall tales and get me riled up.”

“It’s true. Boone found me and … saw to it that I was taken care of.” His gaze was fully directed on her. It was unnerving, penetrating. She was determined not to appear rattled.

Annabel turned to Boone, who was eating calmly. “You never said anything about that.”

“I didn’t think it was that all-fired important. Pass the butter.”

“So much has happened already this morning. This certainly has been an exciting day, and it’s only noon.” She lifted her fork to her mouth and realized the three men at the table were waiting for her to explain.

“What’s happened?” Boone broke the silence.

“Mr. Potter asked me to play a solo at the concert on Sunday.”

“Harrumpt! Ya goin’ to?”

“No! I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“She plays the violin,” Jack said when he realized that Corbin didn’t know what they were talking about.

“Yes, I play the violin, but I’m not a concert violinist.” She could feel herself blushing. She wished that she hadn’t brought it up. He would think her a braggart.

“I’d like to hear you play. During the war a fellow in our company played the violin and entertained us when possible. It was like a little bit of home. We all made sure that nothing happened to that violin. Do you attend the concerts they have here in the park?”

“I haven’t yet, but I’d like to come … sometime, if I can talk Boone into bringing me.”

“I could come for you. I can drive … short distances.”

“I’ll bring her if she wants to come,” Boone said gruffly without looking up from his plate.

To change the subject, Annabel said, “Meeting Mr. Potter wasn’t the only exciting thing that happened to me this morning. One of our neighbors asked me out on a date tonight. He didn’t really ask me, he told me to be ready at sundown. Can you beat that for arrogance?”

“Who?” Boone spit out the one word.

“One of the Carters.” Annabel spoke matter-of-factly as she split a biscuit and buttered it. “The oldest one, I think. He had blond hair and wasn’t … too bad-looking. He’d been to the barbershop and reeked of hair tonic.”

Boone dropped his fork beside his plate. “Ya … didn’t … ?”

“Didn’t what? Talk to him? How could I help it?”

“That ain’t what I meant. Ya ain’t goin’, and that’s that.”

“Flitter, Boone. I never said I was going. I thought it downright funny that he told me to be ready at sundown.”

“The stinkin’ polecat! I’ll bust his damn head!”

“Why are you getting riled up? You know that I’d not go out with him.” She laughed a little. “He was mad as a drunk hoot owl when he left.”

Corbin could see that she was enjoying baiting Boone and he could also see the man was as protective of her as a she-bear with one cub.

“Them Carters ain’t nothin’ but trash and ya know it.”

“You didn’t seem to think Tess was trash. You were looking her over pretty well the day she came to the house.” There was a teasing light in her eyes and her mouth tilted at the corners as she tried to suppress a smile.

“She’s different. Them brothers of hers is no good. Why’d ya even talk to him?”

“He came in the store while I was there.”

“Follered ya in, did he?”

“How would I know? Stop this. Mr. Appleby will get the idea that you’re my keeper.”

“That’s what I am.” Boone looked directly at Corbin. “When her pa ain’t here, I’m her keeper.”

“Her pa must put a heap of trust in you.”

“He does. I been lookin’ out for her nigh on ten years.”

“Eight.” Annabel grinned at him.

“Ten,” Boone said stubbornly.

“It’s been eight years, Mr. Appleby. He’s known Papa ten years, but I hardly saw him for the first two years. Boone, you are like my second papa … but you are prone to be overprotective and to exaggerate at times.”

Corbin’s eyes went from one to the other and he realized that the source of their bantering was the affection they held for each other.

“And yo’re headstrong and as stubborn as yore pa.”

“Thank you, Boone. I like you too,” she said sweetly, then turned to Corbin. “This has been a delicious meal. I’ll have to cook dinner for you to pay you back.”

Corbin saw the quick way Boone looked at the girl and how his shoulders stiffened.

“Please. There’s no need. As soon as we’ve finished, they’ll serve pie. We have a choice between raisin cream and custard.”

Corbin stood on the porch of the hotel and watched the truck head out of town. One thing was certain, he thought: Boone didn’t want him to get too friendly with Miss Donovan. What was he afraid of? Did he want her for himself? Corbin didn’t think so. His interest didn’t appear to be romantic, just protective. But from what was he protecting her?

Leaning more heavily than necessary on the cane he had borrowed from the hotel, Corbin limped down the street to the barbershop. He considered it an even better place than the newspaper to find out what was going on in town.

BOB’S BARBER SHOP—SHAVE AND HAIRCUT FOUR BITS. The sign was printed in gold script on the glass window.

Corbin opened the door and went inside. It was a two-chair shop and both were occupied. A mirror covered the wall behind the barber chairs. In front of it was a shelf of shaving mugs marked with their users’ names.

“Howdy. Hang your hat and have a seat,” one of the barbers invited. He was using the clippers on the sideburns of a dark-haired man. He stopped clipping to speak and give Corbin a careful scrutiny.

Corbin hung his hat on the rack on the hall tree and eased himself down in a wooden armchair. Several newspapers and a copy of the
Saturday Evening Post
lay nearby. Corbin picked up the magazine and glanced through it. His ears were attuned to the conversation between the barber and his customer.

“He acted halfway decent for a change. He wanted the works.”

“A bath too?”

“Yeah. I told him it was thirty cents with soap and he didn’t bat an eye. Just laid down his coin and went to the back.” The barber jerked his head toward the cretonne curtains that hung on a tightly stretched string over an opening in the wall.

“Bet it was the first one he’s had this year.”

“When he came out, I shaved him and cut his hair.” The barber was a small man wearing dark trousers and a white coat. The hair on his head was sparse but thick and bushy on his upper lip.

“Law, Bob, what do you reckon got into him?”

“Courtin’. I can tell ever’ time when a man’s got courtin’ on his mind.”

A disgusted grunt came from the man reclining with a hot towel wrapped around his face so that only his nose poked out. The barber stirred up a rich lather in a cup and, after removing the towel, painted the foam all over the man’s face with a small brush. When it was thick enough to satisfy the barber, he picked up a murderous-looking razor and slapped it against a black strop until its sharpness suited him. With long strokes he cut into the lather on the man’s face, leaving a clean path of pink skin.

“You talkin’ ’bout Marvin Carter?” the man asked as soon as the whiskers were removed from his face and it was blotted with a warm towel.

“Yeah. Do you know him?” The barber splashed a spicy-smelling liquid on his hands, rubbed them briskly together and applied the bay rum to the man’s skin, slapping it smartly. He then raised the man to a sitting position.

“I know all the blasted Carters. They are the beatin’est bunch you ever did see. Stupid and mean. Clannish as hell. They keep their womenfolk beat down and spitting out kids. Marvin’s brother Calvin, who lives over west of here, already has six or eight and I hear he ain’t no more’n twenty-five or -six years old.”

“He musta started young.”

“He did. Them Carters are a randy bunch. All that’s on their minds is whiskey and fornicatin’ with their woman or someone else’s.” The man got out of his chair and reached for his coat. He stopped and looked intently at Corbin. “Do I know you?”

“Might. I’ve been around.”

“Was it around St. Louis?”

“Nope. Only been through there.”

“Were you in the war?”

“Western Front. Second Division under General Omar Bundy.”

“Well, I’ll be a pissed-on polecat!” The man sprang forward with an extended hand. “I was sure I’d seen you someplace. It was in that hellhole. You fought at Belleau Wood? So did I. Name’s Sergeant Craig Travis.”

“Lieutenant Corbin Appleby.” Corbin got slowly to his feet and the two men shook hands vigorously.

“Good to see you, Lieutenant.”

“Corbin or Appleby now, Travis. That lieutenant stuff is all behind me.”

“Me too. I consider myself lucky to be alive. In three weeks of fighting we cleared the woods, but eighteen hundred of our men were killed and seven thousand wounded.”

“Whoever said that war was hell knew what he was talking about.”

“I came out with just a scratch or two. I see that you wasn’t so lucky.” Travis gestured to the cane Corbin had hung on the chair.

“I got this in the war.” Corbin drew a line down the scar that sliced his cheek. “This”—he patted his leg—“is something different. Fellow took me for a deer when I stopped along the road a few days back.”

“Hellfire! He shoot you? You sure he thought you were a deer?”

“No, I’m not sure.” Corbin saw that the two barbers and the man in the chair were hanging on every word that passed between him and Travis. “Maybe they wanted my automobile. Another fellow came along and scared them off. Now I’ve got to wait around here until the doc says I’m fit to drive several hundred miles.”

“The doc here is as good as there is.”

“I’ve found that out.”

“It was good meetin’ up with you, Appleby. Where you staying?”

“The Riverfront Hotel.”

“I run the butcher shop. Drop in anytime. I want you to come over to the house before you leave and meet my wife. She’ll cook up a big slab of beef with potatoes and carrots. She’s the best cook in town, even if I do say so.”

“Thank you, I will.”

Corbin remained standing as Craig Travis left the shop. He glanced at the barber behind the empty chair, went to it and eased himself down onto the comfortable padded seat.

The barber whirled a white cloth around him as the door opened again. A man with a brown hat smashed down over a head of thick gray hair came into the shop. Wide red suspenders held up trousers that were several inches too big around his ample middle. A gray mustache curled down on each side of a mouth that had a toothpick protruding from the corner. A big tin star was attached to his shirt.

“’Lo, Stoney.” The barber spoke to the man’s reflection in the mirror behind the chairs. “Got a
Post-Dispatch
this morning.”

“Figured ya did.” Stoney sat down, laid his hat on the seat beside him and picked up the St. Louis newspaper. He scanned the headlines. “Nothin’s been done in Washington since Harding died.”

“Things seem to be goin’ pretty good.”

“That fool Coolidge is sleepin’ at the switch. They say he takes a four-hour nap ever’ day. Sleepin’,” Stoney snorted with disgust, “while racketeers take over the country.”

“This is Henderson, Stoney. Not Chicago or St. Louis. I ain’t seen a racketeer this mornin’.” The barber winked at Corbin.

“That ain’t sayin’ they ain’t here. Think they go ‘round with a sign on their backs sayin’ they’re racketeers? They could be preachers, doctors, anybody. The college boys who killed that Frank kid in Chicago wore nice suits and ties. Their daddies was rich. They got them that rich lawyer feller to get ’em off. Didn’t do no good, though.”

“I’ve not heard that Clarence Darrow was so rich.” The barber winked at Corbin again.

“Ridin’ around in fancy cars? He’s rich. You can’t tell ‘bout folks these days. Coolidge better be doin’ somethin’ ‘bout crime in this country instead of sleepin’ and lettin’ the country run itself.”

“What do you want him to do, Stoney?”

“I want him to keep his fingers on things. Not pilin’ up in the bed sleepin’.”

“He’s had a bad time since he’s been in office. It’s not easy losin’ a boy to blood poison.”