Pecos Valley Revival Page 2

  “It’s very kind of you to say so, Miss Howell.” Esther’s fabulous blue eyes scanned the store. She wore a pretty brown-checked dress with three-quarter sleeves, a white lacy collar and a dropped waist that tied behind with a big puffy bow, and she was wearing a pretty brown hat with a bow that matched the one on her dress. You’d have thought she was going to a tea party.

  For some reason, just her being in Blue’s Dry Goods and Mercantile made the place look dumpy. I’d never thought of the family business as lacking in any way before the advent of this woman, probably because she looked as if she ought to be perched on a throne somewhere. Heaven would be nice—and it would get her out of my hair and away from my special gentleman friend.

  “What a wonderful store,” she purred. Her speaking voice was as lovely as her person, blast it. There wasn’t a nasal twang or a lisp or anything else in it that a person might find objectionable. Smiling at me—and, although I hate to admit it, her smile seemed to hold nothing but honest admiration—she said, “It’s so . . . so precious.”

  Precious? My parents’ store was precious? The store my Grandpa Blue had established in 1892 was precious? For some reason I resented that, perhaps because the word made it sound as if she considered us quaint and old fashioned. And heck, maybe we were—but I preferred to think of us as up to date and modern. We weren’t back-country hicks, after all, even though we did sort of live at the edge of the universe.

  “Really?” I said, in a fairly icy tone of voice. “I’ve never thought of it as particularly precious.”

  “Oh, I meant no disparagement,” Esther hurried to say, her voice conveying honest worry lest I take offense. “Your store is utterly charming. It preserves the atmosphere of the Old West to perfection; don’t you think so?” She didn’t wait for me to answer what had probably been meant as a rhetorical question, but turned to Phil. “Did you say there were some fabrics here somewhere, Mr. Gunderson?”

  Oh, brother. Why didn’t she just ask me, who worked there? But, then, I knew why. Boy, did I ever.

  Phil gulped. He would. “Yeah, sure. Over here.” And, with Esther holding onto him with both hands—you’d have thought she needed to be anchored to this earth in order not to float up into the ether (I pictured her there, her head bumping against the ceiling, but I was probably only bitter)—he moved over to where Ma kept the fabrics and sewing notions. Esther wafted along beside him as if she were treading on clouds. Myrtle and I exchanged a glance. I hated seeing the sympathy in Myrtle’s eyes.

  That being the case, and because I absolutely detested having people feel sorry for me, I spoke brightly to Myrtle. “Well, whatever we both wear, I’m really looking forward to the rodeo. I can’t wait to see the bulldogging.”

  “Me, too,” said Myrtle, giving herself a little shake, I presume to help her stop staring at Miss Strickland and refocus her attention on our conversation. I could tell she wanted to be Esther Strickland. I considered it a great pity that I could hardly blame her. I mean, how often does one run across perfection, you know?

  “And Ma said I can drive the car to the Gundersons’ ranch every day, so I don’t have to stay with my aunt Minnie.” Minnie’s place is close to the Gundersons, and I hate staying there.

  There weren’t a whole lot of automobiles in Rosedale, since the roads were rough and most of the folks in and surrounding the town still carried out their business on horseback or via horse and buggy (or, more commonly, mule and wagon). Most of the cars that did tootle around in the area were Model T Fords. My family had a Model T that we’d acquired a couple of years earlier. I thought it was the height of wonderfulness, although I’m sure Miss Strickland would disagree. After all, I lived in the Old West, and she was only visiting. Grumble.

  “Thank God for that,” Myrtle said piously.

  Internally, I echoed the sentiment, although I didn’t say so aloud since I didn’t want Myrtle to think I was as lost in religion as she. However, I’d spent several perfectly awful days at Minnie’s house during the summer that had just passed, and I never wanted to stay with Aunt Minnie again. I loved her a lot, but not only did Minnie believe in ghosts and spirits, with whom she liked to communicate—she’d forced me to participate in her little sessions, too, and even though I don’t believe in ghosts, I got the jitters—but her cook and best friend, Libby Powell, is probably one of the meanest people in the entire world. Libby didn’t like me one little bit, and I returned the sentiment with interest.

  Besides, Minnie lived even more in the middle of absolutely nowhere than I did. I was a town girl. Maybe Rosedale wasn’t a big metropolis, but I was used to being able to see my friends and go to the library or visit the Pecos Theater to see a flicker when I wanted to. I didn’t like being so isolated and out of the way. I don’t know how Minnie stood it. I’m sure all that vast expanse of nothingness contributed to her many oddities. Add to that her only close neighbor, a strange little old man named Olin Burgess, who was a nice fellow but who’d been horribly mutilated in the Civil War about a billion years previously and gave everyone who looked at him the creeps, and you can probably understand my feelings on the matter of staying with Aunt Minnie. Never again. Well, unless my mother made me.

  “Ma’s making a couple of apple pies, and I’m bringing some yeast rolls to the barbecue Friday,” Myrtle said. “What about you?”

  “We’re making up a big batch of beans with ham hocks and onions and chilies.” My mouth watered, even thinking about all the wonderful food we’d have at the feast. We Old Westerners loved our barbecues.”

  “Oh, yum. I suppose the Gundersons will be contributing a steer.”

  “I expect.” It was a tradition in Rosedale for the ranch family that hosted the rodeo to dig a big pit and roast a steer in it. Generally they added a goat or two, also, for those of us who liked the meat therefrom. The other attendees brought covered dishes, salads, desserts, pickles, etc. “I hope Libby makes a batch of her potato salad and brings that. I’m sure she’ll bring pickles.”

  She’d darned well better bring pickles. I’d almost killed myself during the summer helping her with those stupid pickles. I didn’t like Libby any more than she liked me, but she was one of the best cooks in the area. Maybe even the world. It was great to eat her cooking when she wasn’t around while you were eating it. I mean, who cares how food tastes if the person who cooked it hangs around while you’re eating it, carping and criticizing and giving you a stomachache?

  I’d been trying very hard not to watch Miss Priss and Phil as Myrtle and I chatted about the rodeo. After all, I didn’t want Phil to think I gave a rap if he wanted to transfer his affections from me to her (even though I did give a rap—several, even), so I was kind of surprised when Miss Strickland wafted back into view after only a couple of minutes. She smiled at me. “What a sweet store you have, Miss Blue.”

  First it was precious, and now it was sweet. I’d have to tell my mother. She might be amused. I wasn’t. “Thank you. Did you see anything you liked?”

  “Well . . . yes, indeed. You have a fine selection of fabrics. And I’m sure the materials in stock are most suitable for the rugged life you live here in Rosedale.” She gave me a smile that would have looked right at home on one of the archangels. Except that the archangels are men, aren’t they? I’m not sure about that.

  I think my mouth fell open, which was a big mistake because words spewed forth. Which, of course, meant that she’d won this round. I was as certain as I was of anything that she was hoping to rile me by her supposedly kind comments that were, in reality, thinly veiled barbs. “Rugged? I’ll have you know my mother orders fabrics from the best warehouses in the country!”

  Her azure eyes opened wide, and her dark eyelashes—I’d bet money she used mascara, which I’m sure her brother would condemn as ungodly—fluttered. “Oh, of course. I’m sure that’s so.” She looked so innocent, I didn’t believe her. “You have a perfectly wonderful selection of merchandise.”

  “We stock the best merchand
ise,” I averred mulishly.

  “Of course you do, dear.”

  Dear? I must have looked as if I aimed to throw something at her, because Phil said hastily, “You coming to the opening of the rodeo tomorrow night, Annabelle?”

  “Of course, I am.” I glared at him. “Don’t I always?”

  “Um . . . yeah.” Phil shuffled his feet. He looked mighty uncomfortable, which was only fair under the circumstances. “Well, good, then. Reckon I’ll see you there.”

  “I reckon.” My voice was hard as flint (if that’s the stuff that’s hard. Maybe it’s steel). But I was angry, darn it, mainly because I’d reacted to Miss Holier-Than-Thou Strickland’s attempt to make me feel like a backwater bumpkin instead of bearing up under her attack and remaining aloof, thereby proving to her that I was not merely immune to her snide innuendoes, but better than she.

  Or maybe she wasn’t trying to make me look bad. It was really hard to tell, because she appeared so utterly earnest. Her very sincerity was suspicious—to me, anyway. It didn’t seem to me as if anybody else suspected her of being anything but a lovely, morally upright woman. Which made her even harder for me to take. And that, no doubt, bespeaks my own lack of charitable personality characteristics.

  Phooey.

  “I’m so looking forward to seeing a real rodeo,” Esther said, clutching Phil’s arm once more. I noticed her fingernails were extremely well manicured. I hid my hands in a fold of my skirt and silently cursed myself for not filing and buffing them the evening before. Darn it, by her mere existence, Esther Strickland could make me feel like two cents. Didn’t seem fair somehow. “Phil says he’s going to be riding bucking broncos.”

  Phil shuffled some more and his tanned cheeks turned a ruddy color. The fool was blushing, for heaven’s sake!

  I said, “Yes, he’s a very good bronc rider.” It was the truth, and I felt as if the comment made up for some of my mental meanness about Miss Strickland.

  Phil flashed me a shy smile, as if to thank me for making him look good in front of his new ladylove. I felt as if I’d just handed him over to the enemy, and that, of course, made me feel like a martyr on a cross.

  That being the case, I heaped ashes upon my head and added, “He’s a good bulldogger, too, and he can rope better than anyone else in Rosedale.”

  “I was sure of it.” She all but glowed at Phil, whose face was now redder than any brick I’d seen in Rosedale, primarily because any brick in Rosedale was covered in dust by that time.

  The front door opened before I could say anything else, which was probably a good thing, because I didn’t have anything nice to say. Two men walked in and immediately approached Miss Strickland. One of them was about as tall as Phil and had a long face that reminded me of pictures of a basset hound I’d seen in a magazine. The other one was shorter and balding and looked rather like Mrs. Sepulveda’s overweight Chihuahua. They were both clad in sober dark suits and reminded me of undertakers.

  “Miss Strickland,” said the tall undertaker.

  Esther turned, and her perfect features were marred by a frown when she spotted them. “Charles and Edward, what are you two doing here?” Although she wasn’t rude to either of the men, she was clearly not pleased to see them.

  The Chihuahua said, “Reverend Strickland asked us to find you, Miss Strickland. He hadn’t expected you to . . . er . . . visit town without saying anything to him.”

  The revival tent had been set up a couple of hundred yards west of the town limits. It wasn’t that far away, and I wondered why Reverend Strickland would send out a search party for his sister. Unless he didn’t trust the people in town, which made me see red for an instant before it occurred to me that he actually might not trust her for some reason or other.

  Hmm. That was an interesting notion. I allowed myself to speculate for a couple of seconds about why Esther Strickland needed to be followed around but didn’t come to any conclusion other than that Milo Strickland was a loving brother who didn’t want his sister getting into trouble in a strange—and some (Esther Strickland, for instance) might say rough and ready—frontier outpost. Not that we were, of course, but I understood that’s what people back east thought about us out here in the west. That being the case, I reluctantly acquitted Milo and Esther Strickland of a mean-spirited attempt to make me feel like a country yokel. Almost.

  The celestial blue eyes rolled. “Oh, heavenly days. Milo does worry about me, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said the shorter of the two men, sounding emphatic.

  “I’m sure I’m quite safe with Mr. Gunderson,” said Esther, endowing Phil with a look that made my stomach give a hard spasm. Then she turned toward Myrtle and me and said, “Miss Blue and Miss Howell, please allow me to introduce you to two of my brother’s most valued and trusted associates, Charles Peabody and Edward Grant.”

  Was there malice in her eyes? Probably not. By that time, I’d decided I hated her guts, and I was sure I was only projecting my own distaste (my high school psychology teacher taught us all about projection). I smiled at the two men, who nodded, sober as a couple of judges. I decided then and there that I didn’t want any part of a religion that turned people into sticks of wood. “Happy to meet you, gentlemen,” I said.

  “Likewise,” said Myrtle, who sounded a trifle flustered.

  “Miss Blue. Miss Howell,” said the tall undertaker, bowing slightly.

  “Pleased to meet you, Miss Blue and Miss Howell,” said the pudgy Chihuahua, and he bowed too.

  I still didn’t know which one of them was Charles and which one was Edward. Stupid people.

  “Well, since Milo sent you after me, I suppose I’d best be getting back to him.” And then Esther Strickland, hanging onto Phil and gazing up at him with adoring eyes, and Phil Gunderson, his face flaming with embarrassment, left Blue’s Dry Goods and Mercantile Emporium with Charles and Edward trailing in their wake. Myrtle and I gazed after them.

  I said, “I hate that woman.”

  Myrtle gasped, shocked.

  Jack, the fiend, who’d been hiding behind a stack of Franco-American Spaghetti cans, snickered.

  Chapter Two

  Two days later, on Thursday, the rodeo was set to begin. The morning dawned clear and perfect, with big fluffy clouds cluttering up the sky and with almost no wind, which was something of a miracle. We could get hideous winds in Rosedale. The winds primarily tortured us in the springtime, although no season was immune. But there wasn’t a breeze to be felt that day and the temperature was probably around seventy degrees, which was great weather for a rodeo, by gum.

  I could hardly wait for the store to close so my family could all pile into our Model T and head out to the Gundersons’ ranch for opening day of the big rodeo and party. As I’d mentioned to Myrtle a couple of days before, Ma and Pa were going to let me drive, since I was nineteen and knew how because my older brother had taught me. Jack, as might be expected, objected to this arrangement.

  “I don’t know why I can’t drive,” he said, sulking. He sulked a lot. I think it’s required of twelve-year-old boys that they irritate their families in every way possible, and sulking is one of the best.

  “You can’t drive because you’re twelve,” I told him, making no bones about it. Sometimes I amused myself by thinking of ways to get back at my brother for being such a drip. My favorite so far was burying him in the desert near a red-ant hole, pouring molasses on him, and having the ants bite him until he shrieked for mercy. Sometimes I’m not very nice. But, darn it, Jack was not nice all the time.

  “Huh. Davy gets to drive his father’s truck.” Davy was Phil Gunderson’s younger brother. According to Phil, Davy was every bit as obnoxious as Jack, but he wasn’t around me all the time like Jack was, so I liked him better than I liked Jack.

  I pointed out the obvious. “Davy has to help on the ranch. Lots of farm and ranch kids drive early.”

  “And we have to own a stupid store in town,” Jack grumbled, clearly believing that Gran
dpa Blue had opened the store in the full knowledge that one day his having done so would irk my brother. Boys are really difficult to take sometimes.

  “That’s enough, both of you,” said Ma.

  I thought she was being unfair since I wasn’t the one doing the grousing, but I was used to it. The only children of William and Susanna Blue, my parents, who didn’t get ragged on were my older brother and two older sisters. George, the older brother, was a member of the U.S. Army Air Service and a war hero, so he’d have been above being scolded even if he was home, which he wasn’t. Hannah and Zilpha, my sisters, were married and out of the running. So that left Jack and me. Sometimes I wondered if marrying Phil might not be such a bad idea after all. Not that it was an option any longer, I guess, thanks to Miss Esther Strickland. The notion made my heart twang, and I told it to stop.

  However, there wasn’t anything I could do about Ma’s impartial disciplinary measures. This was mainly because if I objected, Pa would smack me and make me stay home, and I really wanted to go to the rodeo. Therefore, I shut up and drove.

  As I’ve mentioned already, the roads weren’t very good in Rosedale, and the Gunderson ranch is a good twelve miles to the west of town. Still, it didn’t take too very long to get there. This was in spite of there being more traffic than usual because the entire citizenship was going in the same direction for the same purpose. Mrs. Gunderson, who is a lovely person in spite of having to live at the back of beyond and having had to raise five sons with no daughters to help her or add brightness and joy to her life, greeted us shortly after we all tumbled out of the Model T.

  “It’s so good to see you, Susanna!” she cried, throwing her arms around my mother. I imagine she got lonely, stuck out there on the ranch all the time, with no other women to talk to. When she let Ma go, she took my hand in both of hers and beamed at me. “And Annabelle, just look at you! You’re growing prettier by the day!”

  I was? Boy, I didn’t know that, but it was nice to hear, even if it was from Mrs. Gunderson and not a young man. And this was in spite of my trousers and shirt. Take that, Myrtle Howell. “Thank you,” I said politely, wishing there were a mirror nearby so I could check this evidence of attractiveness for myself.