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Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers] (27 page)

BOOK: Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers]
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At that time Alice Conroy’s attitude toward her daughter completely changed. She cut off all emotional ties to her child. Her main concern, then, was to get her out of their lives and as far away as possible with the least possible fuss. Marty had heard arguments between his parents as they tried to find the best way to accomplish this without causing damage to the Conroys’ standing in the community. They had thought the problem solved when Tom Dolan married Emmajean. He had not taken her back to Nebraska as the Conroys had expected, however, but had stayed in the area.
The nurse, in a starched white uniform, came out of his father’s room, interrupting his thoughts. Marty got quickly to his feet to face her.
“How is he?”
“Who are you?”
“His son, dammit. How is he?”
“I was told to report only to Mrs. Conroy, but—he’s awake.”
Marty brushed past her. He stood in the doorway of a room he’d entered only a few times in his life. It had been off-limits to him and to Emmajean for as long as he could remember. He saw nothing of the heavy walnut furnishings, only the figure of the man lying in the snow-white bed with the carved headboard that reached almost to the ceiling.
“Daddy?”
Martin Conroy lifted a hand only inches from the bed and beckoned his son to him. Marty hurried to the bedside. His father was gasping for every breath. Marty dropped to his knees beside the bed.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were sick?”
“You’re . . . the last . . . Conroy. Name and trust fund . . . goes to you. I want you to take . . . care of Emmajean. It’s not her . . . fault . . . she’s like she is. Try to get her—” Martin paused to catch his breath before speaking again.
“Daddy! Isn’t there something we can do?” Marty held his father’s hand.
“Nothing. For . . . one time . . . in your life . . . listen—”
“I will. What do you want me to do?”
“Try to get her . . . into a home . . . where they’ll be . . . kind to her. I was . . . working . . . on it.” He stopped, and minutes passed. Marty wasn’t sure his father could speak again. His mouth hung open.
“But Mama won’t like it, Daddy—”
“She’s . . . a . . . cold bitch—” he gasped. “I shouldn’t have let her . . . treat . . . Emmajean that . . . way.” His eyes closed, then opened quickly.
“Rest a minute, Daddy—”
“No time. A . . . place in Dallas. Asylum. No one . . . would know. Keep shame from . . . Conroy name.”
“I’ll take care of things . . . don’t worry—”
“Alice . . . won’t—” The words came out on a breath and were so weak that Marty wasn’t sure what he said.
“What, Daddy?”
“Alice . . . won’t—” The eyes remained on Marty’s face. The hand in Marty’s seemed to spasm.
“Daddy! Daddy!”
A minute passed, then another. The only sound in the room was the rasping as Martin Conroy struggled to breathe. Marty was not sure how long he had knelt there holding his father’s hand when he became aware that the sound had ceased. There was only deathly silence in the room. His father’s mouth sagged on one side, his eyes remained open and unblinking.
The battle for breath was over.
“Nurse!”
Marty ran from the room, down the stairs, and out onto the porch. In the few short hours since he’d received the telegram, his life had changed drastically. His daddy was gone.
He felt a stir of excitement.
He
was The Conroy.
* * *
At dusk Johnny and Grant returned from the Dolan farm. They had stayed late to finish cultivating the field and had come back through the pasture, stopping to enjoy a dip in one of the deep holes in the creek that was mostly dry.
“Dolan said to tell you that he’d try and get over tonight to see Jay,” Johnny said as soon as he came in the door. “Guess what? Tom’s brother and Frank Hamer, the famous Texas Ranger, were at Tom’s today.”
“They were here to see Jay and ate dinner with us. You can sure tell that Hod Dolan is Tom’s brother.”
“Oh, shoot! Grant, we missed eatin’ with Frank Hamer.”
“He eats like any other man,” Henry Ann said with a laugh. “My goodness, you’d think he was President Hoover the way you carry on.”
“That old Hoover won’t be president much longer. Grant thinks Roosevelt will be elected. I wish I was old enough to vote.”
“Don’t wish your life away.”
“I’ll wash and go milk.” Grant ladled water into the washpan.
“I thought you might be late, Grant. I went ahead and milked.”
“I’d sure like to a seen Mr. Hamer,” Johnny said later, while placing a slab of corn bread on his plate and spooning pinto beans cooked with tomatoes and hot peppers over it. It was his second helping.
“Land o’ Goshen! What’a yo do with dat bucket a grub I fix for noonin’?”
“Ate it.” Johnny grinned. There was real affection between him and Aunt Dozie. “This is better’n good, Aunt Dozie. I ain’t marryin’ till I find a woman who cooks as good as you.”
“Den yo goin’ be without one till yo’re old and toothless and can’t eat nothin’ but mush! Hee, hee, hee! Yo wantin’ me to make ya a sweet-tater pie, is what yo is wantin’ wid all dat sweet talk.”
“Well, now that you mention it, I reckon I’ve not had a sweet-tater pie in a month of Sundays.”
Henry Ann watched Johnny’s eyes flash as he teased Aunt Dozie. He had changed so much from the silent, sullen boy who had come here four years before. He was so different from Isabel. He seemed to be happy, and she had to credit some of it to Grant. Grant, on the other hand, appeared to be genuinely fond of her brother. She hoped that Frank Hamer and Hod Dolan didn’t find out anything bad about Grant.
“Bet Tom’s not eatin’ corn bread and pinto beans,” Johnny remarked.
“He be eatin’ ’em when he get here, lessin’ yo eat ’em up.”
“That woman a his is—” Johnny glanced at Jay and let his words trail off.
Henry Ann noticed that Grant had been quiet during the meal and assumed that he was just tired from a hard day’s work.
“I wish you and Johnny had been here to meet Hod and Mr. Hamer. Vern Neal, at the gas station, said Mr. Hamer’s picture is in the paper sometimes.”
“Yes, it is. I’ve seen it there,” he said. “Johnny and I think we’d better take a water wagon out to the steers. The creek will be stone-dry in a week if we don’t get a rain.”
“To the north the sky is dark with dust clouds.”
“The ground is so hard now, if we get a gully washer, it’ll wash out the plants before the water can soak in.”
“Let’s hope for a nice gentle rain.” Henry Ann carried the dishes from the table to the counter.
“And as long as we’re at it, let’s hope the country can get turned around so that there’s jobs for people.”
“How can that possibly happen?”
It wasn’t logical that that was what worried Grant.
“If we elect Franklin Roosevelt. I think that he’d be good for the country.”
Later, Jay went to the porch with Grant and Johnny, while Henry Ann and Aunt Dozie tidied the kitchen.
“I’d not had to make no corn bread if’n dem fellers hadn’t a gone down so hard on dat light bread. Hee, hee, hee. Dey sure ’nuff did fill demselves up. I’s puttin’ what’s left of dis corn bread in de warmin’ oven. Mistah Tom might be hungry.”
“I wonder if Tom’s . . . if Mrs. Dolan cooks at all.” Henry Ann couldn’t bring herself to say
wife.
“I ain’t knowing dat, honey. A woman sittin’ ’round, doin’ nothin’ ain’t needin’ to be eatin’ much as a workin’ man.”
When Henry Ann went to the porch, she found Jay asleep in Johnny’s lap. He carried him to bed. Henry Ann glanced at the clock ticking on her bureau after tucking Jay in. Nine o’clock. It had been dark for almost an hour. Tom would have been here by now if he was coming, she thought. Henry Ann leaned across the bed and kissed his son on the forehead, turned out the light, and went through the darkened house to stand at the back door.
Aunt Dozie was on the porch with Johnny and Grant and was no doubt waiting for her to join them. All her life she and her daddy had spent evenings on the porch when the weather permited. He had told her stories about the olden days: about the Alamo and when the large herds of cattle were driven up the Chisholm Trail, a few miles west of their farm, to the railroads in Kansas.
He told her about the oil boom at Healdton in 1913. Looking for his father, he had visited the tent city set up to house oil-field workers. It was called Rag Town and was a haven for bootleggers, gamblers, and prostitutes. By that time she had known what a prostitute was and was reasonably sure that her mother was one, although her father never even hinted that it was true.
Later Ed Henry had learned that his father had been killed when a wooden derrick collapsed. The only relative he had left was the uncle who left him the farm.
Henry Ann’s thoughts were interrupted when she heard Aunt Dozie coming in from the porch to go to bed. She slipped out onto the back porch and stood with her arm around the porch post. It was a dark night. Only a few stars twinkled through the clouds that hovered with the promise of rain.
He was only a few feet away when his voice came out of the darkness.
“Henry Ann? It’s me, Tom.”
“Oh, goodness! You . . . scared me.”
“I was afraid I might.”
“It’s awfully dark . . . tonight.” Suddenly she was breathless and her stupid heart was thumping like a tom-tom. She could see his outline. He was hatless, his shirt a light color and open at the neck.
“When the clouds came up, I thought we might get rain. But they’re thinning out now.”
“Jay’s asleep.”
“I figured he would be. Can I just look at him? I’ve missed the little rascal.”
“Sure, come on in. I’ll turn on the light.”
Henry Ann fumbled around until she found the lightbulb hanging in the middle of the kitchen. The sudden light blinded her for a few seconds, then she looked at Tom. He was clean-shaven, and his hair was wet. He was big, strong, yet standing there beside the kitchen door, holding her eyes with his, he appeared to be as uncertain as she. Henry Ann’s stomach pitched, and panic that somehow he was able to read her thoughts rose up to nearly suffocate her.
She went through the parlor to the bedroom, aware that he was following close behind her. The room was faintly lit by the bulb in the kitchen.
“No need to turn on the light. I can see him,” Tom whispered. He stood beside the bed and looked down at his son. Jay was sleeping on his side, his palm under his cheek. Tom bent down and stroked his hair.
Henry Ann quietly left the room. Her feet felt as if they were embedded in cement blocks. She tried to shake off her nervousness. Heavens! She’d was acting like a frustrated old maid! She waited in the kitchen until he came silently to the doorway.
“Have you had supper?” she blurted as soon as she saw him. “Aunt Dozie put back some pintos and corn bread when Johnny said you might be coming over.”
“Thanks, but I’ve eaten.”
“Are you sure you don’t want something more?” She lifted the lid on the pot of beans and the aroma of onions and peppers and tomatoes wafted up.
“Smells good, but I shouldn’t be eating off you . . . too. Besides, I’d better be getting back.” They stared at each other for a second of suspended time.
“If Aunt Dozie were still up”—she drew in a shallow breath—“she’d not take no for an answer.”
He smiled at that. “She wouldn’t, would she?”
“She’ll be disappointed,” she coaxed.
“I’d hate to disappoint Aunt Dozie.” He grinned, and to her amazement, a dimple popped into his cheek.
She’d not noticed it before.
She gazed at it for the space of a dozen heartbeats before she was able to pick up her train of thought.
“If you don’t want to take the time to eat here, you can take it with you.”
“I’ll take time. My stomach would never forgive me if I didn’t.”
She busied herself dishing up the food, then sat across from him while he ate.
“Your brother came by to see Jay.”
“I’m glad he got to see him.” Pride in his son lightened his expression. “Did he take to Hod?”
“Oh, yes. Hod told him about the two of you when you were kids. Jay finally opened up and talked to him. He told him that he was his daddy’s big boy.”
“He said that?” A pleased smile tilted Tom’s lips.
“Hod looks a lot like you—”
“Hod has a way of making people trust him.”
“No more than you do,” she said with spirit, then wished it hadn’t sounded as if she were defending him. “How long has it been since you’ve seen him?” she added quickly.
“Five years. I saw him just before I left Nebraska to come down here.”
BOOK: Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers]
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