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Synopsis
The Voice of America's Heartland, national bestselling author Dorothy Garlock, delivers the second novel in her evocative, Depression-era trilogy.Ernie Harding may have stolen Margie Kinnard's savings, but he didn't shatter her dreams of going to California to become a movie star. Help arrives from an unexpected source: Margie's long lost father.
Release date: October 23, 2008
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Print pages: 404
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Hope's Highway
Dorothy Garlock
Prologue
1933Hilton, Kansas
BRADY STEPPED UP ONTO THE PORCH just as the door was shoved open. His brother came from the house carrying his wife, Becky. Her head lolled against his shoulder; blood covered her upper body and ran down the arm that swung limply. She was naked.
“Good Lord! What happened?” Brady croaked. Although the brothers hadn’t seen each other for six months, Brian, in his dazed state, seemed not in the least surprised to see him.
“I can’t leave her in there with … him.” Brian kissed Becky’s forehead, cuddled her body close and stepped off the porch. Without another word he headed down the path to the barn. It was then that Brady saw the butt of a gun protruding from his brother’s pocket.
“What happened?” Brady managed to say again. He took a few running steps to follow his brother, then stopped. “Oh, Lord! Anna Marie—”
He dashed back up onto the porch and into the house. “Anna!” His voice was loud, as were the sounds of his boot heels on the bare floors as he hurriedly searched the rooms. He took the stairs two at a time to reach the bedrooms. The first one was empty, but the second one—
A man, naked except for his socks, lay sprawled on the blood-soaked bed. His male sex was still in its aroused state, his face destroyed. Brady paused only briefly in the doorway, then raced down the stairs. Satisfied that Anna Marie was not in the house, he ran toward the barn.
Brian sat weeping on a pile of hay in one of the stalls, Becky on his lap.
“I killed … my … Becky! Why did she do that in our bed? Why did she want to hurt me? What did I do wrong?”
“You didn’t do anything wrong. She … Maybe he was forcing her—” Brady said the words certain they were not true.
“I killed … the son of a bitch and … I killed my Becky—” Brian lifted his right hand, the one holding the revolver, and pressed the cold tip to his head.
“Brian! For God’s sake! Don’t! Think of your little girl.” Brady almost choked on his fear.
“She’ll be better off … with you.”
The cocking of the revolver split the silence in the barn. Brady caught his breath, then willed himself to start breathing again.
“Put down the gun, brother. Put it down and let’s talk about it.” Brady forced himself to speak calmly, though every nerve in his body was screaming.
“Tell Anna Marie I love her. Tell her I loved her mama … and that I’m sorry.” In a daze of pain and confusion, Brian hugged his wife’s bloody body to him. “Go, Brady. I don’t want you to see this.”
Too frightened to think clearly, Brady struggled for words.
“Give me the gun, Brian! Please.”
Cautiously and with much trepidation Brady inched closer to his twin. His heart felt like a runaway train in his chest.
“I just went crazy.” Brian’s tear-filled eyes pleaded for understanding. “I loved her so much. It tore the heart right out of me to see her with him like that.” He rocked back and forth, cradling his wife. He was laboring just to breathe.
“We’ll go out to Colorado, Brian. We’ll leave here. Just you and I and Anna Marie,” Brady begged. “Put down the gun so we can talk.”
“The neighbors knew he was there. They tried to keep me from goin’ into the house. The sheriff will be here soon. I don’t deserve to live … don’t want to live. Take my little girl away from here … to where no one will know her daddy killed her … mama …” The words were hardly audible, scarcely more than a whisper.
“Oh, God, Brian, stop and think of what you’re doing to the child. Now, dammit to hell! Put down the gun!”
Brady had never felt so helpless in his life. O Lord, what can I do? He was afraid to make a sudden move while the barrel of the gun was pressed against his brother’s temple. He knew that there was a time when a human being has taken all that he can endure, a time when strength and logic were burned away. Was this the moment for his brother, his twin, who had been closer to him than his mother?
Snatches of scenes from their lives together flashed before Brady’s eyes.
The two of them, young boys of sixteen, standing beside the grave of their mother and then a year later beside that of their father, vowing always to take care of each other.
Working with a thrashing crew and later in the oil fields… always together.
Their first barn dance. How excited they had been! Brian had taken Becky. He had taken Lucy Waters.
Becky, her pink dress unbelted to hide her pregnancy, standing before the preacher, a proud and beaming Brian at her side.
The birth of little Anna Marie. Brian, smiling for days, blissfully unaware that Becky was not as happy with the child as he was.
Coming home from Colorado after receiving several letters from Brian and realizing that his brother was in a terrible state of depression. Arriving a day late.
Now, more terrified than he had ever been in his life, Brady moved closer to his brother, tears streaming unheeded down his cheeks. Dear God, help me do and say the right thing.
“What will I tell Anna Marie, Brian? Don’t do this to your little girl … to me.”
“You’d rather that she see me hang? I’ll not put her through that.” Brian’s eyes were those of a man who was lost, beyond hope and willing to do anything just to make the pain go away.
“You’ll not hang,” Brady argued. “You’ll still be alive in the pen and able to see Anna Marie.”
Brian seemed not to hear him, but he harkened to the sound of a motorcar. His eyes darted to the doorway.
“It’s the sheriff. Tell him to stay away! Go tell him!”
“I’ll tell him. Give me the gun first.”
“No! Do this for me, Brady. Go tell him.”
“I’ll tell him, but stay calm. Be careful with that gun. I’ll be right back.”
Brady ran to the front of the barn. The sheriff and his deputy were getting out of the car. And a small girl in a blue dress and white stockings was skipping down the street toward the house. Brady had just stepped out of the barn to tell the sheriff to head her off when he heard the cry.
“Becky! Becky!”
It was a sound Brady would remember until his dying day. It filled every crevice of the dimly lit barn and spilled over into the bright Kansas sunshine. It sent a shiver of terror all through him.
Boom!
Brady staggered. The sound of the gunshot brought physical pain so intense that it was scarcely to be borne.
“No!” he shouted, and ran back down the aisle toward his brother. “Oh, Brian, Brian—” The words burst from his throat as he gazed down at the body at his feet.
His beloved brother, his twin, was gone from him forever.
Brady turned and stumbled back to the barn door. He blinked in the brilliant sunlight as he saw his brother’s child walking toward the front porch of the house.
“Anna,” he shouted.
The little girl paused.
“Daddy! You’re home!” With a happy smile on her little face she ran to Brady. He grabbed her up in his arms. “Uncle Brady! I thought you were Daddy”—she giggled—“till I saw your boots.”
Holding her protectively close, Brady walked away from the house.
Chapter 1
1933 Route 66—Missouri
SHE WAS ON HER WAY TO CALIFORNIA.
Margie couldn’t help smiling. She would endure whatever came her way just to realize her dream of going to Hollywood, seeing the stars, and maybe, just maybe, getting a part in a movie. Not a big part. She’d never acted except in a high-school play, but everyone said she was so good she carried the performance.
Her father shifted the gears, the truck jerked and they moved down the dirt road to the highway designated as Route 66, the Mother Road, the highway that would take them all the way to California.
Margie said good-bye for the second time to Conway, Missouri, the town where she had been born and raised and where her dreams of being a movie star had made the long, lonely winter months tolerable.
She turned her thoughts to the events of the days following her father’s surprising visit to the café where she worked.
“I’m goin’ to California. You can come if you behave yourself,” he had announced.
Margie had continued to swipe at the counter with a damp cloth. She was shocked … then angry at him for implying that she was in the habit of misbehaving. He had not spoken to her since her return to Conway last fall. She hadn’t expected him to welcome her back with open arms or an offer of sympathy, but he could have come around to see if she was all right.
Now here he was inviting her to go with him to California, just weeks after his wife had run off and left him.
Irked by his remark, she couldn’t let it go. “What do you mean, behave myself?”
“I ain’t takin’ ya if you’re goin’ to run off with every Tom, Dick or Harry that comes along.”
“That wasn’t what I did, and you know it.” Margie kept her head down lest he see how much his words angered her. And how much they hurt.
“Well, are you comin’ or not?”
“When are you leaving?”
“Thursday.”
“That’s day after tomorrow. What part of California?”
“Bakersfield.” “Why Bakersfield?”
“Because I want to. Are you comin’ or not?” He inched toward the door, almost as if he couldn’t wait to get away from her.
“I’ll let you know tomorrow.”
“Goddammit! I want to know now. You were eager enough to run off with that fly-by-night last summer.”
“That’s why I’m being cautious. That fly-by-night stole my money and left me stranded down in Oklahoma.”
“I could of told you he was a no-good shyster. But you didn’t ask me. You just took the bit in your teeth like you always do. I’m surprised you had enough sense to find your way back.”
“You knew I was going with him. Everyone in town knew I was going. Why didn’t you come tell me Ernie Harding wasn’t dependable?”
“ ’Cause you’d not of paid me no mind. That’s why. You never did.” He went to the door of the café. “Sundown tonight. If you’re going, come out to the icehouse. If you’re not there, I’ll take Potter Jenkins or Mack Dertile.”
That morning Margie had watched her father get into his truck. She knew that he would not take one of the town drunks. He had nothing but contempt for them and wouldn’t give them an ice chip if they were dying of thirst.
Margie’s father, Elmer Kinnard, was a short man with broad shoulders and arms thickened by years of lifting heavy blocks of ice. His light hair was thinning on top. For all his bluster Margie knew he wanted her to go because he lacked the confidence to make the trip alone.
Was he going to see Robert’s family? He’d not cared anything for his son while he was growing up and hadn’t seen him in years. Some of Robert’s relatives on his mother’s side had reported that he had done pretty well for himself in California real estate but had died a year ago of a heart attack. Margie guessed Elmer might have heard that his own wife, Goldie, had headed out there. If she had, she would soon discover that being married to Elmer wouldn’t get her special treatment from his son’s family.
Elmer had married Goldie six months earlier, just weeks after she had come to town to visit a cousin. She had set her cap for him. He appeared to be a good catch. Brazen, with sweet smiles and soft touches, she had cooked for him and cleaned his house while the whole town of Conway watched and wondered if she was going to hook him. She had.
At first, Elmer had been generous with Goldie. She was pretty, though a little plump. He had been flattered by her attention. After they had settled into marriage, his true tight-fisted nature came to the fore. It was rumored that Goldie had become increasingly discontent with him and with their life in the small Missouri town. She left suddenly.
Elmer had never shown much interest in his only daughter. After her mother’s death, Margie had gone to live with her maternal grandmother on the other side of the small town divided right down the middle by Route 66. She had never received a Christmas or a birthday present from him in all the years that followed, nor had he come to see her act in the school play or graduate from high school. And he usually avoided the café where she worked.
Margie’s grandmother died the previous spring and left her a small inheritance. One hundred eighteen dollars seemed like a fortune, and Margie could see her dream of going to Hollywood becoming a reality. The dream, however, turned into a nightmare when the man she hired to take her stole her money, and she had to return to her old job at the diner in Conway. Because she was a good worker and the customers liked her, the owner was glad to have her back.
Bertha, the cook and wife of the owner, leaned in through the window that fronted the kitchen. “You’re goin’, ain’t ya?”
“I want to.”
“Then go, honey. There ain’t nothin’ here for ya. Go and see the sights before yo’re tied down with babies and didies.”
“Not much chance of that ’round here.”
“Gettin’ babies? Flitter! Let it be known ya want one and ever’ horny man in the county would be here eatin’ three squares a day and pinchin’ yore cute little butt ever’ time ya passed by.”
“You and Harry have been awfully good to me. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t given me my job back.”
“You thinkin’ Elmer wouldn’ta helped ya?”
“He never has.”
“You’ve been good for us too, hon. It’s why I don’t want to see ya slingin’ hash for the rest of yore life.”
“I’ve always dreamed of going to Hollywood to see the stars.”
“Yo’re pretty enough to be one. Now, you’d better not tell Harry yo’re leavin’ until you know for sure Elmer’s goin’. Be just like that rascal to get yore hopes up, then fizzle out.”
“Rosemary wants to come back to work.”
“Her old man broke her arm is the main reason ya got yore job back. She was good help.”
“If I give notice and Papa changes his mind about going, I’d be out of a job.”
“I heard he sold the icehouse.”
“You did? Who’d he sell it to?”
“The bank. Who else has any money?”
“What do they want with it?”
“Who knows? I’d bet my bottom dollar that Goldie Kinnard didn’t leave town broke. She might of got the bank to loan her money against the icehouse, and Elmer has to turn it over or pay the debt.”
“He’d come out all right. One thing about my father, he knows how to hold on to his money. Grandma used to say that he saved ninety cents out of every dollar he made.”
“Yeah, he’s a skinflint. Ain’t no doubt about that.”
An hour before sunset Margie had walked the six blocks from the café to the icehouse. She was not a tall girl and was so slender as to appear fragile, yet she walked with her head up and back straight as if she were used to walking long distances. Her face was an oval frame for large light brown eyes, a straight nose and full, expressive lips. A barrette held her thick dark blond hair at the side. On first glance she did not seem a beautiful girl. But with a chin held high, bright interested eyes and lips that tilted at the corners in an almost constant smile, she nearly always got second and third glances.
As she approached the icehouse, her father came out onto the loading platform carrying a block of ice on his back, protected by his heavy leather shield. He eased the ice into a coaster wagon pulled by a barefoot boy, collected the money and stood waiting for her to say something.
“What car are you going in? Are you going to camp along the way?” Margie asked the questions as if continuing their earlier conversation.
“I’m goin’ in my truck and I’m sure as hell not payin’ the price for lodgin’ from here to California. You figure you’re too good to camp out?”
Margie ignored his sarcasm. “What do you expect of me?”
“I expect you to cook, tend the camp and keep your mouth shut.”
“Where will I sleep?”
“In the truck.”
You’re so stingy even with your words. Is that why Goldie left you?
Pretending indifference so that he’d not know how eager she was to go with him, she let a long time elapse before she said anything more. As she waited, she thought about the times when she was younger that she had stood down the street and looked with longing at this building and wondered why her father didn’t want her. She had dropped in on him once when she was twelve years old. His harsh words had sent her scurrying back to her grandmother, and she had never ventured near him again … until now.
“I heard you sold the icehouse.”
“This is my last day.”
“Will you miss it?”
“What do you care?”
“I don’t.”
There was silence while Elmer removed the leather shield from his back and emptied the water from the pocket on the bottom.
“All right. I’ll go with you.” Margie blurted the words.
“I leave on Thursday.”
“Do you need help getting the truck ready?”
“No. It’s ready.”
“Then why are you waiting until Thursday to go?”
“I got my reasons.”
“Are you waiting to see if Goldie comes back so you won’t have to take me?”
“I don’t have to take you, girlie,” he answered sharply.
“I’m not a girlie. I’m a grown woman, in case you haven’t noticed. I’m twenty-three years old.” Margie couldn’t keep the bite out of her voice.
“Then you’re old enough to keep your nose out of things that ain’t none of your business,” he said in the harsh voice she remembered from her childhood.
“I’m not foolish enough to quit my job until I’m sure that you’re going. If I don’t work, I don’t eat.” And I sure can’t depend on you for any help.
“Quit. I’m leaving Thursday,” he barked. Then he added, “Sunup.” He went back into the icehouse before she could say anything more.
Margie couldn’t remember ever having had a civil conversation with her father, and she was not upset over this one. She was too excited. She hardly felt her feet hitting the rough roadbed as she walked back to her rooming house to get ready for the trip and dream of Hollywood.
At sunup on Thursday Margie waited in front of the rooming house with everything she owned in a suitcase and a cardboard box.
It was the talk of the town that Elmer Kinnard was pulling up stakes and going to California. But the big news, a surprise to all, was that he was taking Margie with him. Nearly all the citizens of Conway knew Elmer and had done business with him. Most of them had watched his daughter grow up and wondered why it was that Elmer didn’t seem to know that she was alive.
In a little corner of Margie’s mind, as she waited, was the fear that her father might change his mind about taking her. As far as she knew, he had never been more than a hundred miles from Conway.
“Your papa not here yet?” The man who came out of the rooming house was the printer at the newspaper.
“Not yet. But he’ll be along.”
“Good-bye and good luck in California.”
“Thank you.”
A few minutes later a truck rounded the corner and stopped. It was the truck Elmer used to haul ice. The sturdy sides rose up a foot higher than the cab. A heavy tarp was stretched across the top and tied down. Extra tires were secured to the sides.
Elmer came to the back and, without a greeting of any kind, let down the tailgate and waited for Margie to lift her suitcase and then her box into the truck. He shoved them back under the tarp, raised the tailgate and fastened it.
“Let’s go.”
Now as the truck moved smoothly along the newly paved highway, Margie reflected on how little she knew about her father. She was reasonably sure that he wouldn’t harm her, but she was also sure that she couldn’t rely on him for protection. Harry and Bertha had seen to it that she would be able to protect herself. Before she left the café, Harry had given her a little pistol and taught her to load and shoot it.
“Ya can be sure of one thing, girl. If a man pushes himself on ya, he’s goin’ to do his damnedest to get in yore pants. Shoot the fucker, ’cause he won’t leave ya alive to tell about it!” The pistol was tucked in her box, where it would be easy to get if she needed it.
Elmer Kinnard had never been an easy man to live with, and Margie wondered how he had managed to marry three women in his less than fifty years. His first wife died shortly after giving birth to Robert. Elmer turned the boy over to his wife’s parents, which was understandable: He couldn’t work and care for an infant. What was not understandable, however, was that after he had given the child away, he showed no more interest in him. In the early 1920s Robert went to California with his widowed grandmother, to live with her brother and his wife.
When Elmer was left with Margie, he turned her over to her grandmother. After he married Goldie, it was easy to see that he was fascinated with his new young wife. For a few months he was rather jovial in his quiet way, but it didn’t last.
Now he was alone again.
Was he going to California thinking Goldie was there? Did he expect Robert’s family to welcome him?
Miles passed in silence. Margie was content to gaze out the window and daydream. She was on her way again … to Hollywood. It was too good to be true. For years she had collected Silver Screen and several other movie magazines and thumbed through the pages until they were dog-eared.
She seldom had the chance to see a movie, but when she had, it had provided her with dreams for weeks. She was enchanted by the glamour of the stars. She imagined herself wearing the slinky evening gowns, feathery boas, beaded slippers and sparkling jewelry.
Most of all she dreamed of meeting a man like John Gilbert, George Raft or Ronald Colman who would sweep her off her feet and carry her away to a mansion surrounded by a big stone fence with an iron gate. There he would keep her for days and days making passionate love to her.
Back in 1926 she cried along with thousands of other fifteen-year-old girls when Rudolph Valentino died, and devoured all the news about the funeral and the mysterious woman who visited his tomb daily. Was she his secret lover, the love of his life? Had he loved—
“You got any money, girl?” Elmer asked, breaking into her daydreams.
“A little—and my name is Margie.”
“I know what your name is. How much you got?”
“How much do you have?” she countered in the same tone of voice.
They were on their way. There was not much chance he would take her back. And if he stopped to put her out, she would reach for the pistol!
“If you got cash money, you’d best not carry it on you.”
“It’s safer on me than in my suitcase or my box.”
“Do you think I’m goin’ to steal it?”
“It was taken out of my suitcase before. I’m taking no chances this time.”
Silence.
The pavement ended. They drove onto the gravel road and into the dust stirred up by a car ahead. Margie cranked up the window. She kept her nose pressed to the glass and watched the landscape go by. When they passed men working on the road, they slowed until they were barely creeping along, and Margie waved. Several of the men waved back.
It seemed to her that they traveled miles and miles before they came to the pavement again. What a relief it was to be off the gravel road and away from the dust. She rolled down the window again and breathed in the warm clean air.
Elmer resumed a speed of between twenty-five and thirty miles per hour. Her father was a good driver; she had to give him that. But how was she going to endure weeks of confinement in this truck with this silent, cynical man?
The sun was directly overhead when Elmer pulled the truck into a grove beside the road and stopped. Margie got out, stretched her arms and legs and looked around for a place to relieve herself. She found cover in a heavy stand of bushes amid the trees.
On the way back to the truck she stopped and watched her father pouring water from a bucket into the radiator. He was a puzzle to her and had been since she was old enough to know that he was not in the least like other girls’ fathers. He was a neat-appearing man: clean-shaven, and he’d recently had a haircut. His overalls and shirt looked to be new. She knew that she would never love him, but she wished that she could like him.
Elmer dropped the tailgate, reached for a wooden box and dropped it on the ground. She took it to be an invitation to step up into the back of the truck. She was surprised at how compact and efficiently arranged it was. Close to the end on one side was a water barrel and next to it a cabinet with two doors. Tight against the cabinet was a small upright icebox fastened to the side of the truck. She didn’t look, but was reasonably sure a small hole had been drilled in the bed of the truck beneath the icebox because there was no pan underneath to empty.
On the other side was a long bench piled high with bedding and boxes. Beneath it, she could see a camp stove and what appeared to be a small rolled-up pup tent. Across the front, next to the cab, her father had built in a heavy wooden box with a padlocked lid. On this was a thin pad.
Every foot of space in the truck bed had been utilized.
Margie looked at her father standing at the end of the truck and smiled to let him know how pleased she was with what he had done.
He grunted and walked away.
Chapter 2
FORTIFIED WITH A MEAT SANDWICH and with a fruit jar of water on the seat beside her, Margie silently watched the fields and farms they passed. She laughed aloud when she read the Burma-Shave sign: IF WIFEY SHUNS YOUR FOND EMBRACE—DON’T SHOOT THE ICEMAN—FEEL YOUR FACE. She glanced at Elmer, thinking that the jingle would surely bring a smile to his face, but he was staring straight ahead.
He appeared to be a bit nervous driving in the Springfield traffic. It made Margie wonder how he would handle the traffic in places like Oklahoma City and Amarillo.
In late afternoon she became aware that he was searching for something as they approached a side road. When they came to a corner where a three-sided log shed sat back from the road, he turned. They traveled for several minutes down a rutted path before pulling into a cleared area amid a stand of blackjack trees.
A truck somewhat like the one they were in was parked there. A man sat in a chair beside it with his hand on a big black dog. A woman tended a campfire. When Elmer stopped and stepped out of the cab, a man in overalls and wide-brimmed straw hat came from behind the raised hood of the truck to meet him.
“Howdy,” he called. “Did you have any trouble finding the place?”
“No.” Elmer moved away from the truck and stretched. “Came right to it.”
The man shook hands with Elmer, then looked questioningly at Margie. When it became apparent to her that Elmer wasn’t going to introduce her, Margie rounded the front of the truck and held out her hand.
“Hello. I’m Margie Kinnard. Elmer’s daughter.”
“Alvin Putman, little lady. I’ve known Elmer for a spell. Didn’t even know he had a daughter. Come meet the wife. If we’re goin’ to be travelin’ together, you’d better be gettin’ acquainted. Grace will be downright glad to have a woman to visit with. Come on, Elmer,” Alvin said when Elmer headed for the back of the truck. “You’ve not met my wife and son.”
The woman, red-faced from bending over the fire, came toward Margie while wiping her hands on the apron tied around her waist. She had a pleasant smile. Mr. Putman introduced her with pride.
“My wife, Grace. Hon, this is Mr. Kinnard and his daughter, Margie.”
Grace shook hands with Margie, then held her hand out to Elmer. “Alvin has told me about you, Mr. Kinnard, but he failed to mention that you had such a pretty daughter.”
“Howdy do, ma’am.”
“Come meet our son, Margie. Alvin and your pa will want to chew the fat. Mr. Kinnard can meet Rusty later.” Grace took her hand and pulled her toward the man who had been sitting beside the truck. He stood beside the chair now, one hand on the back.
“Son, Mr. Kinnard brought his daughter. Her name is Margie. Margie, our son, Rusty.”
“Hello, Margie,” he said softly.
“Hello.” Margie held out her hand. Grace moved to nudge the young man’s arm. He lifted his hand. Margie grasped it, suddenly realizing that Rusty was blind. Her eyes went quickly to Grace, who was watching her closely.
“She’s about your age, Rusty. Pretty too. Blond hair, brown eyes, not quite as tall as I am.”
“Don’t believe her,” Margie said with a nervous laugh. “I’m not pretty. I’m too skinny, my mouth is too big and my hair looks like a haystack after a cyclone.”
Rusty had a nice smile. It was hard for Margie to believe that the eyes that were turned toward her were not seeing her. He was medium height, thin, and had on striped overalls like his father wore. His thick dark auburn hair fell across his forehead. He was . . .
1933Hilton, Kansas
BRADY STEPPED UP ONTO THE PORCH just as the door was shoved open. His brother came from the house carrying his wife, Becky. Her head lolled against his shoulder; blood covered her upper body and ran down the arm that swung limply. She was naked.
“Good Lord! What happened?” Brady croaked. Although the brothers hadn’t seen each other for six months, Brian, in his dazed state, seemed not in the least surprised to see him.
“I can’t leave her in there with … him.” Brian kissed Becky’s forehead, cuddled her body close and stepped off the porch. Without another word he headed down the path to the barn. It was then that Brady saw the butt of a gun protruding from his brother’s pocket.
“What happened?” Brady managed to say again. He took a few running steps to follow his brother, then stopped. “Oh, Lord! Anna Marie—”
He dashed back up onto the porch and into the house. “Anna!” His voice was loud, as were the sounds of his boot heels on the bare floors as he hurriedly searched the rooms. He took the stairs two at a time to reach the bedrooms. The first one was empty, but the second one—
A man, naked except for his socks, lay sprawled on the blood-soaked bed. His male sex was still in its aroused state, his face destroyed. Brady paused only briefly in the doorway, then raced down the stairs. Satisfied that Anna Marie was not in the house, he ran toward the barn.
Brian sat weeping on a pile of hay in one of the stalls, Becky on his lap.
“I killed … my … Becky! Why did she do that in our bed? Why did she want to hurt me? What did I do wrong?”
“You didn’t do anything wrong. She … Maybe he was forcing her—” Brady said the words certain they were not true.
“I killed … the son of a bitch and … I killed my Becky—” Brian lifted his right hand, the one holding the revolver, and pressed the cold tip to his head.
“Brian! For God’s sake! Don’t! Think of your little girl.” Brady almost choked on his fear.
“She’ll be better off … with you.”
The cocking of the revolver split the silence in the barn. Brady caught his breath, then willed himself to start breathing again.
“Put down the gun, brother. Put it down and let’s talk about it.” Brady forced himself to speak calmly, though every nerve in his body was screaming.
“Tell Anna Marie I love her. Tell her I loved her mama … and that I’m sorry.” In a daze of pain and confusion, Brian hugged his wife’s bloody body to him. “Go, Brady. I don’t want you to see this.”
Too frightened to think clearly, Brady struggled for words.
“Give me the gun, Brian! Please.”
Cautiously and with much trepidation Brady inched closer to his twin. His heart felt like a runaway train in his chest.
“I just went crazy.” Brian’s tear-filled eyes pleaded for understanding. “I loved her so much. It tore the heart right out of me to see her with him like that.” He rocked back and forth, cradling his wife. He was laboring just to breathe.
“We’ll go out to Colorado, Brian. We’ll leave here. Just you and I and Anna Marie,” Brady begged. “Put down the gun so we can talk.”
“The neighbors knew he was there. They tried to keep me from goin’ into the house. The sheriff will be here soon. I don’t deserve to live … don’t want to live. Take my little girl away from here … to where no one will know her daddy killed her … mama …” The words were hardly audible, scarcely more than a whisper.
“Oh, God, Brian, stop and think of what you’re doing to the child. Now, dammit to hell! Put down the gun!”
Brady had never felt so helpless in his life. O Lord, what can I do? He was afraid to make a sudden move while the barrel of the gun was pressed against his brother’s temple. He knew that there was a time when a human being has taken all that he can endure, a time when strength and logic were burned away. Was this the moment for his brother, his twin, who had been closer to him than his mother?
Snatches of scenes from their lives together flashed before Brady’s eyes.
The two of them, young boys of sixteen, standing beside the grave of their mother and then a year later beside that of their father, vowing always to take care of each other.
Working with a thrashing crew and later in the oil fields… always together.
Their first barn dance. How excited they had been! Brian had taken Becky. He had taken Lucy Waters.
Becky, her pink dress unbelted to hide her pregnancy, standing before the preacher, a proud and beaming Brian at her side.
The birth of little Anna Marie. Brian, smiling for days, blissfully unaware that Becky was not as happy with the child as he was.
Coming home from Colorado after receiving several letters from Brian and realizing that his brother was in a terrible state of depression. Arriving a day late.
Now, more terrified than he had ever been in his life, Brady moved closer to his brother, tears streaming unheeded down his cheeks. Dear God, help me do and say the right thing.
“What will I tell Anna Marie, Brian? Don’t do this to your little girl … to me.”
“You’d rather that she see me hang? I’ll not put her through that.” Brian’s eyes were those of a man who was lost, beyond hope and willing to do anything just to make the pain go away.
“You’ll not hang,” Brady argued. “You’ll still be alive in the pen and able to see Anna Marie.”
Brian seemed not to hear him, but he harkened to the sound of a motorcar. His eyes darted to the doorway.
“It’s the sheriff. Tell him to stay away! Go tell him!”
“I’ll tell him. Give me the gun first.”
“No! Do this for me, Brady. Go tell him.”
“I’ll tell him, but stay calm. Be careful with that gun. I’ll be right back.”
Brady ran to the front of the barn. The sheriff and his deputy were getting out of the car. And a small girl in a blue dress and white stockings was skipping down the street toward the house. Brady had just stepped out of the barn to tell the sheriff to head her off when he heard the cry.
“Becky! Becky!”
It was a sound Brady would remember until his dying day. It filled every crevice of the dimly lit barn and spilled over into the bright Kansas sunshine. It sent a shiver of terror all through him.
Boom!
Brady staggered. The sound of the gunshot brought physical pain so intense that it was scarcely to be borne.
“No!” he shouted, and ran back down the aisle toward his brother. “Oh, Brian, Brian—” The words burst from his throat as he gazed down at the body at his feet.
His beloved brother, his twin, was gone from him forever.
Brady turned and stumbled back to the barn door. He blinked in the brilliant sunlight as he saw his brother’s child walking toward the front porch of the house.
“Anna,” he shouted.
The little girl paused.
“Daddy! You’re home!” With a happy smile on her little face she ran to Brady. He grabbed her up in his arms. “Uncle Brady! I thought you were Daddy”—she giggled—“till I saw your boots.”
Holding her protectively close, Brady walked away from the house.
Chapter 1
1933 Route 66—Missouri
SHE WAS ON HER WAY TO CALIFORNIA.
Margie couldn’t help smiling. She would endure whatever came her way just to realize her dream of going to Hollywood, seeing the stars, and maybe, just maybe, getting a part in a movie. Not a big part. She’d never acted except in a high-school play, but everyone said she was so good she carried the performance.
Her father shifted the gears, the truck jerked and they moved down the dirt road to the highway designated as Route 66, the Mother Road, the highway that would take them all the way to California.
Margie said good-bye for the second time to Conway, Missouri, the town where she had been born and raised and where her dreams of being a movie star had made the long, lonely winter months tolerable.
She turned her thoughts to the events of the days following her father’s surprising visit to the café where she worked.
“I’m goin’ to California. You can come if you behave yourself,” he had announced.
Margie had continued to swipe at the counter with a damp cloth. She was shocked … then angry at him for implying that she was in the habit of misbehaving. He had not spoken to her since her return to Conway last fall. She hadn’t expected him to welcome her back with open arms or an offer of sympathy, but he could have come around to see if she was all right.
Now here he was inviting her to go with him to California, just weeks after his wife had run off and left him.
Irked by his remark, she couldn’t let it go. “What do you mean, behave myself?”
“I ain’t takin’ ya if you’re goin’ to run off with every Tom, Dick or Harry that comes along.”
“That wasn’t what I did, and you know it.” Margie kept her head down lest he see how much his words angered her. And how much they hurt.
“Well, are you comin’ or not?”
“When are you leaving?”
“Thursday.”
“That’s day after tomorrow. What part of California?”
“Bakersfield.” “Why Bakersfield?”
“Because I want to. Are you comin’ or not?” He inched toward the door, almost as if he couldn’t wait to get away from her.
“I’ll let you know tomorrow.”
“Goddammit! I want to know now. You were eager enough to run off with that fly-by-night last summer.”
“That’s why I’m being cautious. That fly-by-night stole my money and left me stranded down in Oklahoma.”
“I could of told you he was a no-good shyster. But you didn’t ask me. You just took the bit in your teeth like you always do. I’m surprised you had enough sense to find your way back.”
“You knew I was going with him. Everyone in town knew I was going. Why didn’t you come tell me Ernie Harding wasn’t dependable?”
“ ’Cause you’d not of paid me no mind. That’s why. You never did.” He went to the door of the café. “Sundown tonight. If you’re going, come out to the icehouse. If you’re not there, I’ll take Potter Jenkins or Mack Dertile.”
That morning Margie had watched her father get into his truck. She knew that he would not take one of the town drunks. He had nothing but contempt for them and wouldn’t give them an ice chip if they were dying of thirst.
Margie’s father, Elmer Kinnard, was a short man with broad shoulders and arms thickened by years of lifting heavy blocks of ice. His light hair was thinning on top. For all his bluster Margie knew he wanted her to go because he lacked the confidence to make the trip alone.
Was he going to see Robert’s family? He’d not cared anything for his son while he was growing up and hadn’t seen him in years. Some of Robert’s relatives on his mother’s side had reported that he had done pretty well for himself in California real estate but had died a year ago of a heart attack. Margie guessed Elmer might have heard that his own wife, Goldie, had headed out there. If she had, she would soon discover that being married to Elmer wouldn’t get her special treatment from his son’s family.
Elmer had married Goldie six months earlier, just weeks after she had come to town to visit a cousin. She had set her cap for him. He appeared to be a good catch. Brazen, with sweet smiles and soft touches, she had cooked for him and cleaned his house while the whole town of Conway watched and wondered if she was going to hook him. She had.
At first, Elmer had been generous with Goldie. She was pretty, though a little plump. He had been flattered by her attention. After they had settled into marriage, his true tight-fisted nature came to the fore. It was rumored that Goldie had become increasingly discontent with him and with their life in the small Missouri town. She left suddenly.
Elmer had never shown much interest in his only daughter. After her mother’s death, Margie had gone to live with her maternal grandmother on the other side of the small town divided right down the middle by Route 66. She had never received a Christmas or a birthday present from him in all the years that followed, nor had he come to see her act in the school play or graduate from high school. And he usually avoided the café where she worked.
Margie’s grandmother died the previous spring and left her a small inheritance. One hundred eighteen dollars seemed like a fortune, and Margie could see her dream of going to Hollywood becoming a reality. The dream, however, turned into a nightmare when the man she hired to take her stole her money, and she had to return to her old job at the diner in Conway. Because she was a good worker and the customers liked her, the owner was glad to have her back.
Bertha, the cook and wife of the owner, leaned in through the window that fronted the kitchen. “You’re goin’, ain’t ya?”
“I want to.”
“Then go, honey. There ain’t nothin’ here for ya. Go and see the sights before yo’re tied down with babies and didies.”
“Not much chance of that ’round here.”
“Gettin’ babies? Flitter! Let it be known ya want one and ever’ horny man in the county would be here eatin’ three squares a day and pinchin’ yore cute little butt ever’ time ya passed by.”
“You and Harry have been awfully good to me. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t given me my job back.”
“You thinkin’ Elmer wouldn’ta helped ya?”
“He never has.”
“You’ve been good for us too, hon. It’s why I don’t want to see ya slingin’ hash for the rest of yore life.”
“I’ve always dreamed of going to Hollywood to see the stars.”
“Yo’re pretty enough to be one. Now, you’d better not tell Harry yo’re leavin’ until you know for sure Elmer’s goin’. Be just like that rascal to get yore hopes up, then fizzle out.”
“Rosemary wants to come back to work.”
“Her old man broke her arm is the main reason ya got yore job back. She was good help.”
“If I give notice and Papa changes his mind about going, I’d be out of a job.”
“I heard he sold the icehouse.”
“You did? Who’d he sell it to?”
“The bank. Who else has any money?”
“What do they want with it?”
“Who knows? I’d bet my bottom dollar that Goldie Kinnard didn’t leave town broke. She might of got the bank to loan her money against the icehouse, and Elmer has to turn it over or pay the debt.”
“He’d come out all right. One thing about my father, he knows how to hold on to his money. Grandma used to say that he saved ninety cents out of every dollar he made.”
“Yeah, he’s a skinflint. Ain’t no doubt about that.”
An hour before sunset Margie had walked the six blocks from the café to the icehouse. She was not a tall girl and was so slender as to appear fragile, yet she walked with her head up and back straight as if she were used to walking long distances. Her face was an oval frame for large light brown eyes, a straight nose and full, expressive lips. A barrette held her thick dark blond hair at the side. On first glance she did not seem a beautiful girl. But with a chin held high, bright interested eyes and lips that tilted at the corners in an almost constant smile, she nearly always got second and third glances.
As she approached the icehouse, her father came out onto the loading platform carrying a block of ice on his back, protected by his heavy leather shield. He eased the ice into a coaster wagon pulled by a barefoot boy, collected the money and stood waiting for her to say something.
“What car are you going in? Are you going to camp along the way?” Margie asked the questions as if continuing their earlier conversation.
“I’m goin’ in my truck and I’m sure as hell not payin’ the price for lodgin’ from here to California. You figure you’re too good to camp out?”
Margie ignored his sarcasm. “What do you expect of me?”
“I expect you to cook, tend the camp and keep your mouth shut.”
“Where will I sleep?”
“In the truck.”
You’re so stingy even with your words. Is that why Goldie left you?
Pretending indifference so that he’d not know how eager she was to go with him, she let a long time elapse before she said anything more. As she waited, she thought about the times when she was younger that she had stood down the street and looked with longing at this building and wondered why her father didn’t want her. She had dropped in on him once when she was twelve years old. His harsh words had sent her scurrying back to her grandmother, and she had never ventured near him again … until now.
“I heard you sold the icehouse.”
“This is my last day.”
“Will you miss it?”
“What do you care?”
“I don’t.”
There was silence while Elmer removed the leather shield from his back and emptied the water from the pocket on the bottom.
“All right. I’ll go with you.” Margie blurted the words.
“I leave on Thursday.”
“Do you need help getting the truck ready?”
“No. It’s ready.”
“Then why are you waiting until Thursday to go?”
“I got my reasons.”
“Are you waiting to see if Goldie comes back so you won’t have to take me?”
“I don’t have to take you, girlie,” he answered sharply.
“I’m not a girlie. I’m a grown woman, in case you haven’t noticed. I’m twenty-three years old.” Margie couldn’t keep the bite out of her voice.
“Then you’re old enough to keep your nose out of things that ain’t none of your business,” he said in the harsh voice she remembered from her childhood.
“I’m not foolish enough to quit my job until I’m sure that you’re going. If I don’t work, I don’t eat.” And I sure can’t depend on you for any help.
“Quit. I’m leaving Thursday,” he barked. Then he added, “Sunup.” He went back into the icehouse before she could say anything more.
Margie couldn’t remember ever having had a civil conversation with her father, and she was not upset over this one. She was too excited. She hardly felt her feet hitting the rough roadbed as she walked back to her rooming house to get ready for the trip and dream of Hollywood.
At sunup on Thursday Margie waited in front of the rooming house with everything she owned in a suitcase and a cardboard box.
It was the talk of the town that Elmer Kinnard was pulling up stakes and going to California. But the big news, a surprise to all, was that he was taking Margie with him. Nearly all the citizens of Conway knew Elmer and had done business with him. Most of them had watched his daughter grow up and wondered why it was that Elmer didn’t seem to know that she was alive.
In a little corner of Margie’s mind, as she waited, was the fear that her father might change his mind about taking her. As far as she knew, he had never been more than a hundred miles from Conway.
“Your papa not here yet?” The man who came out of the rooming house was the printer at the newspaper.
“Not yet. But he’ll be along.”
“Good-bye and good luck in California.”
“Thank you.”
A few minutes later a truck rounded the corner and stopped. It was the truck Elmer used to haul ice. The sturdy sides rose up a foot higher than the cab. A heavy tarp was stretched across the top and tied down. Extra tires were secured to the sides.
Elmer came to the back and, without a greeting of any kind, let down the tailgate and waited for Margie to lift her suitcase and then her box into the truck. He shoved them back under the tarp, raised the tailgate and fastened it.
“Let’s go.”
Now as the truck moved smoothly along the newly paved highway, Margie reflected on how little she knew about her father. She was reasonably sure that he wouldn’t harm her, but she was also sure that she couldn’t rely on him for protection. Harry and Bertha had seen to it that she would be able to protect herself. Before she left the café, Harry had given her a little pistol and taught her to load and shoot it.
“Ya can be sure of one thing, girl. If a man pushes himself on ya, he’s goin’ to do his damnedest to get in yore pants. Shoot the fucker, ’cause he won’t leave ya alive to tell about it!” The pistol was tucked in her box, where it would be easy to get if she needed it.
Elmer Kinnard had never been an easy man to live with, and Margie wondered how he had managed to marry three women in his less than fifty years. His first wife died shortly after giving birth to Robert. Elmer turned the boy over to his wife’s parents, which was understandable: He couldn’t work and care for an infant. What was not understandable, however, was that after he had given the child away, he showed no more interest in him. In the early 1920s Robert went to California with his widowed grandmother, to live with her brother and his wife.
When Elmer was left with Margie, he turned her over to her grandmother. After he married Goldie, it was easy to see that he was fascinated with his new young wife. For a few months he was rather jovial in his quiet way, but it didn’t last.
Now he was alone again.
Was he going to California thinking Goldie was there? Did he expect Robert’s family to welcome him?
Miles passed in silence. Margie was content to gaze out the window and daydream. She was on her way again … to Hollywood. It was too good to be true. For years she had collected Silver Screen and several other movie magazines and thumbed through the pages until they were dog-eared.
She seldom had the chance to see a movie, but when she had, it had provided her with dreams for weeks. She was enchanted by the glamour of the stars. She imagined herself wearing the slinky evening gowns, feathery boas, beaded slippers and sparkling jewelry.
Most of all she dreamed of meeting a man like John Gilbert, George Raft or Ronald Colman who would sweep her off her feet and carry her away to a mansion surrounded by a big stone fence with an iron gate. There he would keep her for days and days making passionate love to her.
Back in 1926 she cried along with thousands of other fifteen-year-old girls when Rudolph Valentino died, and devoured all the news about the funeral and the mysterious woman who visited his tomb daily. Was she his secret lover, the love of his life? Had he loved—
“You got any money, girl?” Elmer asked, breaking into her daydreams.
“A little—and my name is Margie.”
“I know what your name is. How much you got?”
“How much do you have?” she countered in the same tone of voice.
They were on their way. There was not much chance he would take her back. And if he stopped to put her out, she would reach for the pistol!
“If you got cash money, you’d best not carry it on you.”
“It’s safer on me than in my suitcase or my box.”
“Do you think I’m goin’ to steal it?”
“It was taken out of my suitcase before. I’m taking no chances this time.”
Silence.
The pavement ended. They drove onto the gravel road and into the dust stirred up by a car ahead. Margie cranked up the window. She kept her nose pressed to the glass and watched the landscape go by. When they passed men working on the road, they slowed until they were barely creeping along, and Margie waved. Several of the men waved back.
It seemed to her that they traveled miles and miles before they came to the pavement again. What a relief it was to be off the gravel road and away from the dust. She rolled down the window again and breathed in the warm clean air.
Elmer resumed a speed of between twenty-five and thirty miles per hour. Her father was a good driver; she had to give him that. But how was she going to endure weeks of confinement in this truck with this silent, cynical man?
The sun was directly overhead when Elmer pulled the truck into a grove beside the road and stopped. Margie got out, stretched her arms and legs and looked around for a place to relieve herself. She found cover in a heavy stand of bushes amid the trees.
On the way back to the truck she stopped and watched her father pouring water from a bucket into the radiator. He was a puzzle to her and had been since she was old enough to know that he was not in the least like other girls’ fathers. He was a neat-appearing man: clean-shaven, and he’d recently had a haircut. His overalls and shirt looked to be new. She knew that she would never love him, but she wished that she could like him.
Elmer dropped the tailgate, reached for a wooden box and dropped it on the ground. She took it to be an invitation to step up into the back of the truck. She was surprised at how compact and efficiently arranged it was. Close to the end on one side was a water barrel and next to it a cabinet with two doors. Tight against the cabinet was a small upright icebox fastened to the side of the truck. She didn’t look, but was reasonably sure a small hole had been drilled in the bed of the truck beneath the icebox because there was no pan underneath to empty.
On the other side was a long bench piled high with bedding and boxes. Beneath it, she could see a camp stove and what appeared to be a small rolled-up pup tent. Across the front, next to the cab, her father had built in a heavy wooden box with a padlocked lid. On this was a thin pad.
Every foot of space in the truck bed had been utilized.
Margie looked at her father standing at the end of the truck and smiled to let him know how pleased she was with what he had done.
He grunted and walked away.
Chapter 2
FORTIFIED WITH A MEAT SANDWICH and with a fruit jar of water on the seat beside her, Margie silently watched the fields and farms they passed. She laughed aloud when she read the Burma-Shave sign: IF WIFEY SHUNS YOUR FOND EMBRACE—DON’T SHOOT THE ICEMAN—FEEL YOUR FACE. She glanced at Elmer, thinking that the jingle would surely bring a smile to his face, but he was staring straight ahead.
He appeared to be a bit nervous driving in the Springfield traffic. It made Margie wonder how he would handle the traffic in places like Oklahoma City and Amarillo.
In late afternoon she became aware that he was searching for something as they approached a side road. When they came to a corner where a three-sided log shed sat back from the road, he turned. They traveled for several minutes down a rutted path before pulling into a cleared area amid a stand of blackjack trees.
A truck somewhat like the one they were in was parked there. A man sat in a chair beside it with his hand on a big black dog. A woman tended a campfire. When Elmer stopped and stepped out of the cab, a man in overalls and wide-brimmed straw hat came from behind the raised hood of the truck to meet him.
“Howdy,” he called. “Did you have any trouble finding the place?”
“No.” Elmer moved away from the truck and stretched. “Came right to it.”
The man shook hands with Elmer, then looked questioningly at Margie. When it became apparent to her that Elmer wasn’t going to introduce her, Margie rounded the front of the truck and held out her hand.
“Hello. I’m Margie Kinnard. Elmer’s daughter.”
“Alvin Putman, little lady. I’ve known Elmer for a spell. Didn’t even know he had a daughter. Come meet the wife. If we’re goin’ to be travelin’ together, you’d better be gettin’ acquainted. Grace will be downright glad to have a woman to visit with. Come on, Elmer,” Alvin said when Elmer headed for the back of the truck. “You’ve not met my wife and son.”
The woman, red-faced from bending over the fire, came toward Margie while wiping her hands on the apron tied around her waist. She had a pleasant smile. Mr. Putman introduced her with pride.
“My wife, Grace. Hon, this is Mr. Kinnard and his daughter, Margie.”
Grace shook hands with Margie, then held her hand out to Elmer. “Alvin has told me about you, Mr. Kinnard, but he failed to mention that you had such a pretty daughter.”
“Howdy do, ma’am.”
“Come meet our son, Margie. Alvin and your pa will want to chew the fat. Mr. Kinnard can meet Rusty later.” Grace took her hand and pulled her toward the man who had been sitting beside the truck. He stood beside the chair now, one hand on the back.
“Son, Mr. Kinnard brought his daughter. Her name is Margie. Margie, our son, Rusty.”
“Hello, Margie,” he said softly.
“Hello.” Margie held out her hand. Grace moved to nudge the young man’s arm. He lifted his hand. Margie grasped it, suddenly realizing that Rusty was blind. Her eyes went quickly to Grace, who was watching her closely.
“She’s about your age, Rusty. Pretty too. Blond hair, brown eyes, not quite as tall as I am.”
“Don’t believe her,” Margie said with a nervous laugh. “I’m not pretty. I’m too skinny, my mouth is too big and my hair looks like a haystack after a cyclone.”
Rusty had a nice smile. It was hard for Margie to believe that the eyes that were turned toward her were not seeing her. He was medium height, thin, and had on striped overalls like his father wore. His thick dark auburn hair fell across his forehead. He was . . .
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