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Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers] (49 page)

BOOK: Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers]
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Set in Kansas in 1934, WITH SONG is the story of Federal Marshal Hod Dolan, Tom Dolan’s brother. The Great Depression is in full swing. Outlaw gangs are terrorizing the country. Fresh from participating in the demise of the Clyde Barrow gang, the marshal is sent to Kansas to search for two cold-blooded killers who have a desperate need to eliminate a witness. The witness is a pretty, spunky country girl, who is as anxious as the marshal to catch the pair. If you would like to sample the book, an excerpt follows.
I would be pleased to hear from you.
Dorothy Garlock
Prologue
“My baby don’t care for shows. My baby don’t care for clothes. My baby just cares for me—”
1934 S
EWARD
C
OUNTY
, K
ANSAS
The long-legged girl sang in a loud clear voice as she came into the back of the store with an armload of sun-dried clothes.
“What kinda song is that?” her father asked.
“A good one. Wanna hear more?”
“Not if I don’t have to.” A mock frown covered his usually smiling face.
“You don’t know good music when you hear it. All you listen to is that old Doc Brinkley down in Del Rio playing cowboy music,” she teased.
“Don’t be knockin’ old Doc. If his goat glands can do what he says they can, I’m thinkin’ of makin’ a trip down to Texas to get me some before the crowd gets there and they run out of goats.”
“You’d better not let Mama hear you say that. She’ll take you to the woodshed.”
“I’ll woodshed him all right if he shoots off any more of those blasted firecrackers.” Molly’s mother set a basket of clothes on the floor beside a table and began folding towels.
“You’re in trouble now.” Molly danced up to her father and kissed his cheek.
“I wanna be loved by you, nobody else but you—Boop Boop A Doo!”
She laughed gaily when he made an attempt to avoid a second kiss and ran up the stairs to the living quarters.
Roy McKenzie shook his head. It was good to have his girl home again. She brightened the place like an electric lightbulb.
* * *
The driver stopped the big Oldsmobile a hundred yards down the road from the store and slipped the gearshift into neutral. The engine purred impatiently.
“Just sittin’ there. Ripe for pickin’, ain’t it?” He glanced at the man who lounged beside him holding the butt end of a cigar between his teeth. “I could use a orange soda pop right about now.”
Didn’t the bastard ever sweat? He looks cool as a cucumber, while I’m sweating like a nigger at an election.
Eyes, so light a blue that they appeared to be colorless and as cold as a chunk of ice, turned to the driver.
“What ya waitin’ for? Get on down there before we sit here and use up what gas we got left.” He took the butt from his mouth and held it between his thumb and forefinger as he leaned forward to scrutinize the building they were approaching.
The store was typical of many scattered over the Kansas plains. Painted above the slanting roof on the porch that stretched across the front of the two-story frame building a sign read:
MCKENZIE GENERAL STORE
. And in smaller letters beneath it: G
ROCERIES
-F
EED
-G
AS
.
The lone Phillips 66 gasoline pump had a post sunk into the ground on each side of it to protect it from careless drivers. Tin signs advertising everything from Garrett’s snuff to P&G soap were tacked to the front of the store. On the screen door a big white one outlined in red advertised
NeHi SODA POP
. A few shade trees were scattered to the side and behind the building. All was still except for the clothes that fluttered gently from a clothesline situated to catch the southern breeze and the bees buzzing around a clump of honeysuckle bushes.
The cold eyes took in everything about the place. When the car stopped beside the tall gas pump in front of the store, the man stepped out and looked back through the cloud of dust that hung over the long flat road. He saw no sign of another car approaching. He dropped the butt of his cigar on the ground and smashed it into the dirt with the sole of his highly polished shoe.
“Need gas?” The words followed the slamming of the screened door.
A plump man with sparse gray hair and a white apron tied about his waist waited at the top of the steps.
“Yeah.”
Roy McKenzie crossed the dirt drive to the pump. The tank that held the gas was a round glass cylinder. It was empty, and the side of the glass was marked like a measuring beaker. Roy, his hands on a lever, started pumping. The gas poured in and rose up the sides of the tank. When he’d pumped it full, he unscrewed the cap on the car tank and let the gas run down the hose and into the car.
“I ’spect it’s pretty hot travelin’. ’Fraid it’s goin’ to be a scorchin’ summer.”
As he waited for the tank to fill, he glanced into the backseat of the car. The double-barreled muzzle of a shotgun protruded out from under a blanket. His eyes shifted to the men. They stood at the end of the car watching him.
City men. A fast car. A shotgun.
Apprehension rose in him as he began to hand-pump the gas into the tank.
“How much?” he asked, pulling the handle back and forth.
“Much as it’ll take. Holds eighteen gallons. Was damn near empty.”
“These big cars have a way of eatin’ gas.” When the pump registered the seventeen gallons, the storekeeper hung the hose back on the pump and put the cap back on the tank. “That’ll be three dollars and six cents. Gas goin’ up every day. I’m still holdin’ at eighteen cents.”
“Got any cold soda pop?”
“Sure do. Iceman was here yesterday.”
Roy’s feeling of apprehension escalated. The hair seemed to stand on the back of his neck as the two men followed him out of the bright sunshine and into the store. His eyes met those of his wife in the back of the store where she was folding clothes she had brought in from the line.
“I’ve got orange, grape, and cream soda.”
“Orange.”
Wishing the men would leave, wishing his wife would go upstairs to their daughter, Roy took a bottle of pop from the chest cooler and wiped the water off it with a cloth.
“That adds another nickel to your bill.”
“Got any SenSen?”
“How many?” The storekeeper moved down the counter and took a cardboard box filled with small paper packets from a shelf.
“The whole box.”
“The . . . whole—” The bullet that cut off his words went through his chest and into a can of peaches on the shelf behind him. He was flung back, knocking over tins of baking powder before he sank to the floor.
“Take care of her.” The cold-eyed man jerked his head toward Mrs. McKenzie, who stood frozen in horror, her hand over her mouth.
“Ya . . . know I ain’t got no stomach for killin’ women.”
“Do it, goddammit, ’less ya want the Feds down on ya. She got a good look at your ugly face.” The gunman jerked open the cash drawer and pulled out a few dollar bills. “Shit! Not enough here to mess with.” He lifted the change tray and found a stack of tens and twenties. “That’s more like it, but still chicken feed.”
The sound of the shot that killed the woman filled the store. The man stuffing the bills into his pocket didn’t even bat an eye. He picked up the box of SenSen and headed for the door.
“Come on. We got business in KC.”
“I’m gettin’ me a couple more bottles of sody pop.” Keeping his distance from the dead storekeeper and his wife, he took two bottles from the cooler and hurried out of the store.
* * *
In the living quarters upstairs, Molly McKenzie was making the bed with fresh sheets she had brought in off the line. She smiled and shook her head when she heard the loud pops. Her papa was teasing her mother with the firecrackers again. He was just like a kid about the Fourth of July. The shipment of fireworks had come in that morning, and he had to try them out.
A minute or two later when she heard the screen door slam, she went through the rooms to the front, pulled back the lace panel, and looked out the window. Two men were getting into a big black car. One looked across the top of the car toward the store. His face was swarthy, his lips thick. Both men were wearing white shirts and brown felt hats.
“You’re as bad as a kid ’bout that soda pop. Let’s get outta here.” His voice was thin and reedy for such a large man.
The driver of the car slid under the wheel, started the motor, and revved the engine. The wheels skidded, stirring a cloud of dust as the car pulled out of the drive and took off down the road at a fast speed. Molly let the curtain drop. She hadn’t heard a car come in. Had it arrived while she was listening to
Ma Perkins
?
Her papa was fond of saying everyone had to eat, and as long as there were people, he would have customers. Times were hard. The dust storms had taken a toll on the wheat farmers, but if they had eggs or butter to trade, they would have flour and sugar.
Roy McKenzie enjoyed meeting strangers who came from the road as well as his regular customers. Over the past sixty-five years almost everyone within a hundred miles had come to the store her great-grandfather had opened back in 1870, and those who hadn’t come knew about it.
Molly had spent a year and a half in Wichita going to business school to learn typing and shorthand so she could get a job as a secretary. After the course, she had wanted to come home for a while before looking for the job she was sure she would hate. Her parents had insisted that she get out, spread her wings, as they had put it, see some of the world other than Seward County. She had lived here all her life. In fact, she had been born in the bed she had just made. She loved the smell of the store, the excitement of new goods, the involvement in the small community.
It was grand to be home!
Chapter One
Molly stood on the porch of the store and looked down the flat road that stretched to the horizon. The Kansas sun sent shimmering heat waves over the golden fields of wheat that bracketed the road.
The Fourth of July had come and gone.
Most of the shipment of fireworks her father had ordered for the celebration had either been sold or given away. Molly had tucked packages of sparklers in with the orders of several families who had been hit hard by the dust storms and the drought. Their children had gazed at the fireworks longingly, knowing better than to ask for them.
In the weeks since her parents had been killed Molly was asked almost daily if she was going to sell the store and move away. Her answer was always the same.
“Why would I do that? This is my home. There’s been a McKenzie here for sixty-five years. I’ll run the store as my father did.”
Bertha McKenzie, wiping the sweat from her face with a handkerchief edged with lace tatting, came out onto the porch. Roy’s elder sister had come from Wichita and announced that she was here to stay. She had never lived at the store her grandfather built, but she was as familiar with it as if she had. A saintly-looking woman, with a plump rosy face and a large bosom, Bertha had the constitution of a horse and the wisdom of Solomon. She didn’t hesitate to speak her mind and had done so since she had arrived for the double funeral of her brother and sister-in-law.
“That preacher that was just here ain’t what he’s cracked up to be. He’s got more on his mind than tryin’ to comfort one of his
flock.
He’s thinkin’ to get you to comfort
him,
and to take care of that parcel of younguns of his’n, and he’d get his hands on this store to boot.”
“For crying out loud, Aunt Bertha! He’s at least thirty years older than I am.” Molly shifted her gaze from the horizon to her aunt.
“What’d that make him? Fifty somethin’? Fiddle! He wore out his first woman and wasn’t too old to get a batch of younguns off his second one. It ain’t no wonder he don’t have any hair on top. He wore it off on the head of the bed.”
BOOK: Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers]
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