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“That’s a crude way of putting it,” Henry Ann said coolly. “But yes, I’m Ed Henry’s daughter, and I back my brother all the way.”

“Brother, huh?”

“Yes, my brother. He’s more of a man than you’ll ever be.”

“Hee, hee, hee! Feisty, ain’t ya? Damn near feisty as Isabel. Pure Perry, that gal.”

“What a pity.”

“Mark my words, Fat. Stay away from Henry beef.” Johnny stepped on the gas. The car shot ahead, the fender brushing Fat and almost knocking him to the ground. The roar of the motor overrode the curses that followed them.

“What a disgusting man!”

“He’s stupid. He’d not do anything on his own, but if Pete told him to poke his head in the fire, he’d do it. This next place is Hardy Perry’s, where Pete lives.”

Over the barking of penned dogs, Henry Ann heard the sound of music when they stopped in front of the house. Johnny honked the horn. The music stopped and a man with a head of thick gray hair came to the door.

“What’a ya want?”

“Where’s Pete?”

“How the hell do I know? He let go a the teat a long time ago.” The man came out onto the porch. Bright blue eyes honed in on Henry Ann. “What’s Miss Rich-bitch Henry doin’ callin’ on us
poor
Perrys? Did ya come to dance, honey?”

“No.” Henry Ann looked past him to where Isabel stood in the doorway. She had cut her hair. With her painted face and short dress, her resemblance to their mother was startling. Henry Ann felt a spark of pity for the foolish girl. “Hello, Isabel.”

“You can just get on outta here. I ain’t going back there till I come to get what’s mine.” She came out to stand beside Hardy. He put his arm around her and pulled her close to his side. She snuggled against him.

“Two more of our steers have been butchered, Hardy.” Johnny ignored Isabel.

“What’er ya tellin’ me for?”

“I’m tellin’ ya because if I find a sign that you and Pete are in on the butchering that’s been going on, I’ll go to the rest of the folk that’s been losing steers, and you’ll find yourself facing a mob who won’t wait for the sheriff.”

“He ain’t goin’ to do nothin’, Hardy,” Isabel said. “He’s just talkin’ big in front of
her.
”

“Don’t be worryin’ yore pretty little head, sugar-teat. Go on in there and pick out a record for us to dance to.”

Isabel snuggled closer to Hardy and looked smugly at Henry Ann from his embrace.

“You heard from my lawyer yet, Miss Rich-bitch Henry?”

“No. He probably tucked
his tail
and went on down the road after he heard from my lawyer.” The pity Henry Ann felt for the foolhardy girl was fading.

“Tell Pete what I said.” Johnny revved the motor. “Sure ya don’t want to come in for a while?” Hardy leered at Henry Ann.

“I was never more sure of anything in my life.”

The car lurched ahead and turned around in the yard, stirring up a cloud of dust. Johnny gritted his teeth. If Henry Ann hadn’t been with him, he would have looked around for evidence of fresh meat. He promised himself that he would come back some dark night and see what he could find.

They passed Jude coming out of the pasture with a snarling dog on a leash.

“Who is that?”

“Jude Perry. The only decent Perry on Mud Creek,” Johnny gritted out angrily.

“Pete’s brother?”

“Yeah. He’ll not stay decent if he stays here.”

“You like him?”

“He’s not like the rest. He wants to make something of himself.”

“You mean he doesn’t look up to Pete and want to be like him?”

“He doesn’t want to be like him, that’s sure.”

“Isabel has settled in with the Perrys.”

“I told you she would. Her daddy was trash.” Johnny said nothing more until they were almost home. “Ed told me that even if Mama was . . . well, the way she was, I had my daddy’s blood, too. The Cherokees, he said, are proud people, and I had a choice which way I wanted to go.”

“How did he know that your daddy was a Cherokee?”

“I was too dang bullheaded to ask him and too dumb to heed his advice.”

“I wish he could know you as you are now. I was proud of you today, Johnny.”

“Yeah. Well, I wish I could tell Ed how sorry I am that I didn’t listen to him when I had a chance.”

* * *

Jude waited for the car to pass, then went on toward the house and put the dog in the pen. The damn Victrola was playing a song he’d heard a hundred times.

“Falling in love again. Never wanted to—”

The old man was dancing with Isabel. Jude snorted with disgust. She was so stupid that she thought she’d have a chance with Pete if she cozied up to the old man. She was playing with fire. Pete would never tie himself to a woman like her. Jude suspected that his brother liked to flaunt the young girl before Hardy, knowing Hardy would want to get her in bed. He didn’t know how much longer Hardy would hold out. It wasn’t natural for him to be around a young gal and not get in her drawers.

Jude went around to the back of the house and let himself in the kitchen. Music filled the house. He went across to the door and glanced in. Isabel was dancing with Hardy; her cheek rested on his shoulder and his hand was on her buttock.

It won’t be long, Jude mused. He went to the pan on the stove and cut himself a large slice of roasted beef and carried it to the back step and sat down. Pete and his cronies were getting bolder and bolder, killing other folks’ beef and selling the meat to stores in Wichita Falls. The last two kills were no doubt from the Henry farm. That must have been why Johnny and Miss Henry were here.

Pete rode in and tied his horse where he could reach the water tank. He wasn’t staying, or he’d have put his mount in the corral.

“I saw Henry Ann and Johnny go by. What was she doing here?” he demanded as he walked swiftly toward the house.

Jude chewed and swallowed before he answered. “Don’t know. I wasn’t here.”

“Was she in the house?”

“Told you I wasn’t here. You deaf or somethin’?”

Pete sprang up onto the porch. By the time the screen door slammed, he was passing through the kitchen and striding toward the other room. He went directly to the Victrola and lifted the needle from the record.

“What’d ya do that for?” Hardy snarled.

“You’ll not listen long as that thin’s goin’. What was Henry Ann doin’ here? Was she in the house? Did she see that slab of meat on the stove?”

“She didn’t get out of the car.”

“What’d she come here for?”

“She come ’cause Johnny thinks yo’re butcherin’ their beef. They lost two last night.” Hardy continued to dance even without music.

“Two? Shitfire! If that Sandy’s cuttin’ off on his own, I’ll stomp his ass in the ground,” Pete snarled. “What did Henry Ann say?”

“Well, now let me see. Do you remember what she said, honey?” Hardy stopped dancing, but kept his arms around Isabel.

“She said, ‘Hello, Isabel.’” Isabel giggled.

“Don’t get smart, wiggle-ass.” Pete ran forked fingers through his thick blond hair in a gesture of nervous frustration. “What’d she say, Hardy?”

“Not much. Johnny did the talking. Said that he knows you and yore cronies is rustlin’ beef, and he’ll stir folks up against ya if it don’t stop.”

“Bullshit! He
knows
nothin’.”

“Yore frettin’ for Henry Ann Henry, ain’t ya, boy? By granny! That nasty-nice filly’s got yore pecker up.” He slapped his thigh with his hand. “Now wouldn’t that just frost yore balls?”

“Keep your mouth shut about her,” Pete snarled.

“Boy, when a man’s pecker gets hard, his brain gets soft. That gal can’t see ya for dirt.”

“Shut up! And stay outta Isabel’s drawers. I ain’t wantin’ her knocked up and pukin’ durin’ the marathon. It starts in a few weeks. She’s got to eat a bunch of that beef and get lots of sleep.”

“Whose gonna make yore deliveries while yo’re marathonin’? I can’t make ’em all.”

“Jude’ll make ’em.”

“I won’t.” Jude spoke from the doorway.

“Ya will if I tell ya to.” Pete turned on his younger brother. “You’ll take my place and work with Hardy while I’m gone.”

“I’m not going to deliver your moonshine. I’ve told you that I want nothing to do with that.”

“We’ll see about
what yo’re not goin’ to do.
Yo’re gettin’ a little big for yore britches.” Pete’s voice was exceptionally quiet.

Suddenly, like a whiplash, his fist shot out. The blow knocked Jude to the floor. Blood spurted from his split lips. He lay there, shaking his head to clear it.

“Don’t be tellin’ me what you’ll not do.” Pete stood over him, ready to hit him again if he got up.

“Leave him be.” Hardy’s voice thundered.

Pete whirled, his fist drawn back. “Ya ready to take me on, old man?”

Hardy crouched. “If I hafta.”

“Ya never let me back-talk. Look at ’em. Big, soft daddy’s boy. He wouldn’t fight to keep from eatin’ shit.”

“What the hell’s buggin’ you?” Hardy demanded. “Yo’re like a sore-peckered bull.”

“I’m gettin’ sick a this place.”

“You got no right to be mean to Jude,” Isabel yelled.

“Shut up, whore!” Jude jumped to his feet. “I don’t need any help from you.” He headed for the door.

“Hold on, Jude.” Hardy stepped in front of his son. “You’ve got no call to talk to Isabel that way. She’s no whore.”

“Not yet,” Jude replied, stepping around his father and going out the door.

“Well, dog my cats.” Pete had the old familiar smirk on his face. “You got the hots for my girl,
Daddy
?”

Isabel looked from one big man to the other. A thrill of excitement passed through her.
Both father and son wanted her!
Not even her mama’d had a father and son after her at the same time. She looked from one to the other. Hardy was mad. She gripped his arm with both hands and looked up into his face as if he were the most important thing in the world to her.

“I like to dance with you, Hardy,” Isabel said in a pouty voice. “We have a good time together. What’s wrong with that?”

“Not a thin’, sweety.”

“Not a thin’, sweety,” Pete mimicked, and chucked Isabel under the chin with his fist. “Go ahead and rub up against my daddy all ya want. Just don’t let yore cherry get busted or I’ll bust your butt with the razor strop and the old man’s head with a two-by-four. Hear?”

Chapter Sixteen

Johnny and Grant had just finished the evening chores and reached the porch when the sky overhead opened up and released a deluge of rain. It came suddenly in wind-driven sheets out of the dark clouds that had hovered overhead since late afternoon. Old Shep whined and hugged Johnny’s legs.

“Rain at last.” Henry Ann stood on the porch and breathed in the rain-washed air.

“We sure need it. The pasture is about dried up.” Johnny followed Henry Ann into the house. He let old Shep in, and the dog, fearing the storm, crept behind the cookstove.

“Dat lightnin’ can come right down outta dat bulb,” Aunt Dozie explained, as she turned off the electric light and lit the kerosene lamp.

“That’s the way it is in southern Oklahoma.” Grant hung the towel on the rod beside the washbench. “It doesn’t rain for a month, then we have a gully washer.”

“The ground is hard. I’m afraid it’ll wash everything away before the water can soak in.” Henry Ann set a bowl of potatoes on the table.

“I don’t think it’ll hurt the cotton. The soil out there is pretty sandy. The pasture will hold the water. This is good grassland.”

“Daddy talked about giving up trying to grow cotton and turning all the fields into pasture. He said the future of this part of the country could be in beef cattle.”

“He may be right.”

“There’s a dark cloud bank in the southwest,” Johnny said from the doorway. “Looks like there’s hail in it.”

“Just what—” A loud crack of thunder, followed by a flash of lightning, drowned out Henry Ann’s words. She went to the door to look out. “Do you think we should go to the storm cellar?”

“Not yet. Let’s wait and see how much wind is in those clouds.”

“Den sit yoreselfs down and eat yore supper while I gather me up some quilts to make a bed for dis babe when we does go.”

“Sit and eat, too, Aunty.” Johnny came to the table.

“We’ll keep an eye on the clouds.”

“Ain’t nothin’ scares me like when dat wind blows and dat lightnin’ comes down. Well, guess dem whirly-winds does scare me more.”

Jay went to Johnny and climbed in his lap. He was so quiet that Henry Ann had forgotten that the child might be frightened.

BOOK: Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers]

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