The Goddess of Fried Okra Page 4

  Alex settled in the dirt beside Isis, and I dug into my glove box. While I unfolded it, I noticed that she’d found a leafy twig and was dragging it around for Isis. Isis had forgotten all about fish and was arching her back and leaping and pouncing like she was all that stood between us and the barbarians. I couldn’t help chuckling, and Alex’s head rose. Her eyes were shining, and she was grinning, too.

  “Never occurred to me that she needed something to chase,” I said.

  “They love this, especially when they’re kittens. It’s how they practice hunting.”

  “I don’t know anything about cats,” I admitted. “I’m allergic—or I thought I was.”

  “Oh, you’d know in a heartbeat. My stepwitch’s eyes would swell up and water like crazy.” Her voice tightened. “That’s why my dad made me get rid of Spanky.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She tried for that Whatever shrug but didn’t quite make it. “No big deal.”

  But it clearly was. “Do they hurt you? Is that why you were with Pret—um, Nicky?”

  Her head was down. I could see blond roots at the base of her black spikes. “I don’t want to talk about them.” She sounded younger than ever.

  I pressed my lips together to keep from arguing and focused on the map. “The truck stop was near San Saba,” I said aloud as I traced my finger. “I turned off the road to the right, and when we left, I . . . ” I turned the map upside down to see if it would face the right way, but then the words were upside down, too, and my head started spinning and my chest felt tight. “I don’t have the best sense of direction.”

  I reversed the map and tried to think about where the sun had been, the way Sister used to tell me to do, but . . .

  “Here.” Alex snatched the map. Spread it out on the hood and scooped up Isis. “Where were you headed?”

  “New Mexico. I thought I’d go through Lubbock.”

  Her shoulders went rigid, and I wondered if Lubbock was where I’d find her family, but I didn’t push it. She kept her head down and perused the map, then finally stabbed a finger. “I think we’re somewhere around here.”

  I bent over her shoulder. My long hair swung down and gave Isis a new toy. She latched on and started to climb. “Yow!” I leaped back, and Isis came with me, but this time Alex didn’t laugh at her antics.

  My mind was racing while I disentangled the kitten from my hair. I couldn’t keep Alex, but I couldn’t just dump her, either. What on earth was I to do?

  “This doesn’t count as a meal or air conditioning, either,” she said.

  I glanced up at the sudden demand and saw both desperation and plea. Ten months would soon be eleven and time was slipping away. Maybe I had an answer here and maybe not, but what would it hurt to let things play out a little longer? I looked at Alex, saw her twisting her t-shirt and gnawing her lip, and what else could I do? “You’re right. And I am a woman of my word.” The instant relief on her features wiped the Whatever teen right out of my head. “What’s the next town that might have a real café or such?”

  “Nowhere close, not the direction we’re going.”

  “You be the navigator,” I said.

  “I could drive.” Hope danced over her face.

  I doubted she was old enough to have a license, but even if she did, it wasn’t with her. All she had was the clothes on her back. I grimaced. “Well, thanks to me, you don’t have a purse, so I’d better drive so we’ll be legal.”

  A pause, in which I waited for some reminder of how I’d interfered in her life, but for whatever reason, she seemed to think better of it. I braced for Whatever. But she said, “Okay.”

  Our second successful negotiation concluded, she got inside, and so did I. Maybe she felt a little hopeful, too, but I wasn’t going to ask.

  “We’ll need to turn in about fifty miles or so, but until then, just stay on this road,” she advised.

  “Thank you.” Teamwork at last. Imagine that.

  About a mile down the road from the bait shop, I spotted a marker and pulled in. Alex looked at me funny. “When I’m on the road,” I explained, “I like to stop to read what they say. You learn a lot that way.” I got out and waited to see if she would follow.

  Amazingly enough, she did. She read alongside me, and I suspected she was mostly humoring me, but I didn’t care. It was one more moment of peace, and I would tiptoe through it.

  And mentally apologize to Sister. I’d still been a sweet little girl when Mama died, but Sister had been forced to endure the teenager. Doing so was harder than it looked.

  The Crash at Crush

  A head-on collision between two locomotives was staged on Sept. 15, 1896, as a publicity stunt for the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad. Over 30,000 spectators gathered at the crash site, named “Crush” for MKT passenger agent William G. Crush, who conceived the idea. About 4 p.m. the trains were sent speeding toward each other. Contrary to mechanics' predictions, the steam boilers exploded on impact, propelling pieces of metal into the crowd. Two persons were killed and many others injured, including Jarvis Deane of Waco, who was photographing the event.

  EVERYONE NEEDS A LITTLE ADVENTURE

  A semi blew past with such force that Valentine Bonham reconsidered his new resolve to go straight. He’d been sweaty before—broke, too—but never for this long. In the past he would have been in the bed of some sweet thing whose house was air-conditioned to a sub-Arctic degree.

  At least until her husband was due home.

  The sweet thing would have a big smile on her face—Val never left a woman any other way—and she would insist on making plans for the next day. He’d tell her that he had to leave town on business. There’d be a request for him to call when he returned, a promise he would duly make because it wasn’t really a lie. He seldom revisited any town.

  Then he’d spend a few more minutes putting that smile right back on her face before he left.

  With one on his own.

  Along with a piece or two of her jewelry—plus maybe some of her cash—in his pocket. A fair trade, he’d always thought, for services rendered. He never picked a woman who couldn’t afford him. He didn’t take anything of sentimental value to her. He was careful to give her time to get presentable before her husband came home.

  He never, ever, got his heart—or hers—involved.

  The Valentine Bonham Code of Ethics.

  Not the commonly accepted standards of proper behavior, maybe, but far beyond those of the uncle who’d raised him. Who’d first used a small boy to slip into places an adult couldn’t fit and open the doors from inside. Uncle Paul—who’d turned out not to be related at all—had gone on to tutor Val in all the finer arts of thievery and cons: picking a pocket with small, nimble fingers; garnering sympathy, when needed as a distraction, as the poor child separated from his mother; disabling a security system in ten seconds flat.

  Uncle Paul had no scruples about whom he preyed upon. Val, raised outside the mainstream and now with no way to enter without raising suspicion, had developed stricter standards. As a child, he’d been terrified of the officials who could part him from the only safety he knew, so he’d cooperated with Uncle Paul’s demands.

  He’d never been to school, never left the tracks of his existence others took for granted—no drivers license, no Social Security number. If there was a birth certificate with his name on it, he hadn’t seen it. He had vague memories of a gentle older woman rocking him against her soft bosom, but the only life he’d known had been with the man who called himself Uncle Paul, who’d been kind to Val, in his own manner.

  But Paul Armstrong was long gone, and Valentine had made his own way, mostly content with the life he led.

  Until last week’s mistake. A husband home early. With a gun in his truck.

  So here he was, after a hasty retreat from East Texas, out on the wrong road in hotter-than-Hades temperatures, already regretting his impulsive decision to Go and Sin No More.

  Not a car had passed for two hours.
The next one he saw would stop if he had to lie down on the road to accomplish that.

  Val used his forearm to wipe the sweat off his brow.

  And smiled when he heard the sound of an engine approaching.

  I was really feeling the effects of the lousy night’s sleep and the events of the day, so all my efforts went to staying awake. Alex hugged the door and stared outside, tucked into a shell of silence and pretending to be asleep so well that she fell right into the real thing. The dark circles under her eyes made me believe the best plan was just to keep driving as long as possible.

  That was all right with me. It wasn’t a big stretch for me to imagine how scared and alone Alex must feel. Or to see a crack in my blessed assurance about Mama and Sister. I’d wished many a time to be the one with the steering wheel in her hand, positive I would make better choices than either of them. Things didn’t look quite so simple on this side of the front seat.

  The highway was so hot the pavement was doing that shimmering oasis-just-ahead trick. Even the trees seemed to droop under the assault. I saw a bunch of cows gathered in a patch of shade, and I couldn’t help thinking they’d probably change places with me in a heartbeat, especially since the A/C had gone North Pole again. I cast a glance at Isis and Alex, now all curled up together, and saw goosebumps on Alex’s arm. I reached across her to adjust the vents so she and Isis wouldn’t turn into popsicles—

  Something popped into my side vision. I jerked back, yanked the wheel and swerved hard to miss it, but—

  An unmistakable thump. Not likely my heart.

  Which had stopped flat. “No—” I moaned. It’s an animal. A really big one. Not a person, oh please God not a person. Little scatter-shots of terror pelted my brain.

  “Wha—” Alex jerked up to sitting. “What happened?” Isis yowled in protest.

  I couldn’t speak. Could barely hear over the clamor inside my head. How hard was the thump? Not bad. I don’t think it was bad. Somehow I managed to shift the car to Park and shut off the engine before yanking the door open. “Stay here,” I hollered to Alex and charged outside.

  It was a man. Oh, mercy, a man. Lying very, very still.

  “What’s going on?” Alex asked through the window.

  “Don’t get out of the car,” I ordered. If I’d killed him, I didn’t want her to see a dead body. No telling what that would do to someone so young, to say nothing of marking her baby.

  I dropped to my knees, shaking and more scared than I’d ever been in my life. “Oh, lordy, mister, I’m so sorry. Please be okay. Please . . . ” Frantically, I searched for blood and tried to recall the first aid tips in the manual under the front counter of my last job.

  Before I could think of a single one, he groaned.

  Then his eyelids twitched.

  And finally opened. “Wha—?”

  Relief burst through me so hard my whole body rocked.

  Then he stirred.

  “Oh, no, don’t move!” I started to clamp him down, but I was terrified I’d injure him worse. “Where do you hurt?”

  “Everywhere.” He grimaced. “What happened?” He began to rise to his elbows, and pain chased over his features.

  “Please don’t.” My hands wanted to flutter, but I forced them to still. “Please just—” Then I realized that he was lying on asphalt that was egg-frying hot. “Oh! Oh, let me—but wait—try your legs. Wiggle your feet.”

  “Lady, what the hell—”

  “If you’ve got a spinal injury, we can’t move you.”

  “If I don’t move, my spine’s going to melt to the pavement. Get out of my way—unh!” He gasped as he rose to sitting, but his legs stirred, thank goodness.

  “Here, let me help you.” I wrapped his left arm around my neck and grasped his waist. “Alex,” I called to her as she stood wide-eyed next to the headlight. “Open the back door and take everything out.” I turned back. “Ready?”

  “I guess.”

  I let my knees rest on the scorching pavement just an instant before I shoved myself upward. He threw his own muscles into the task. We rocked to a stop.

  Then his eyelids plummeted. He swayed on his feet.

  “Easy there. Just rest a second.” The sun beat down on us, but I didn’t see any choice but to pause. Sunstroke wouldn’t help him, though. “If I hold on, can you walk?”

  “I think so.” He straightened, and he was an inch or two taller than me.

  “Are you positive nothing feels broken? I can’t see any bleeding, but inside do you . . . ”

  “I don’t know. Maybe if I just rest for a minute.”

  “I better take you to a hospital, but I’m not sure how far it is to the next one.”

  His eyes flared wide. “No hospital.”

  “But—”

  “It’s not that bad,” he said, but his expression didn’t reassure me. I’d have liked to believe him—my six hundred dollars wouldn’t go far at a hospital, if I could even find one here in the back of beyond. I had no idea if my car insurance would cover his expenses.

  “Oh dear mercy!” I blurted as realization hit. “I have to wait for the cops.”

  He tensed. “Cops? Why?”

  “To turn myself in, of course. Vehicular homicide or manslaughter or . . . ”

  His lips curved. “I’m not dead.” His eyes slanted toward me. “Unless you’re an angel?” He wasn’t model gorgeous like Pretty Boy, but that smile, faint though it was, had definite potential.

  “I don’t think angels run down innocent strangers on the road.”

  He grunted. “How about I go horizontal for a while first, then I’ll perform a citizen’s arrest if I don’t get to feeling better.”

  Relief duked it out with my conscience. Regardless, I needed to make amends. “Of course. Listen, I’m sorry as all get-out. It was all my fault. Wait, you’re limping.”

  “My knee. Damn, it’s hot.”

  “Sorry. Let’s get you inside.” With slow steps, we made it past the mounds of my belongings, but I couldn’t spare any concern for them. The trunk could handle more, and I wasn’t going anywhere that it would hurt if my clothes were wrinkled. I settled him on the seat. “We’d better look at your knee.”

  He shook his head. “Just a sprain, I think. The bumper—”

  Oh, God. I bit my lip. “Are you sure?”

  He nodded.

  “We’ll stop for ice as soon as possible.” His eyes were closing, but he nodded again. “I’m going to close the door now. Sorry there’s not more room for you to stretch out.”

  “Don’t worry on my account.” He paused, inhaled raggedly, and I could barely resist the urge to wring my hands. “I only need to sleep a little.”

  “Car’s getting crowded,” Alex complained. “I’ll hitch.”

  “No!” I whirled to face her. “Hitchhiking is dangerous, Alex. And you have your baby to think of.” I was ready to read her the riot act when I noticed that her hand was fisting in her shirttail, and it hit me that our passenger, being male, might make her nervous. I lowered my voice. “We can’t just leave him.” I bent closer. “Are you worried because he’s a man? I don’t see what else we can do, do you? No telling how badly he’s hurt.”

  She stared at him, then back to me more than once. “I guess not.” Her voice didn’t carry a lot of conviction, though.

  “Alex, I’ll keep you safe, I promise.”

  “I can take care of myself.” She frowned. “What’s your name, anyway?”

  Oh, good grief. In the uproar of our meeting, I guess she never asked, and I hadn’t noticed. “Pea. Pea O’Brien.” I waited for the usual snicker. “Actually, my name is Eudora, but everyone calls me Pea.” I jutted my chin, daring them to laugh at either name.

  But they didn’t. Then Alex and I both looked expectantly at him. “Val. Valentine Bonham,” he answered. “Try having a name like Valentine when you’re going out for the football team. Eudora’s a strong name. You should use it.”

  I stiffened. “My sister cal
led me Pea. For Sweetpea,” I mumbled.

  He shrugged. “Your choice, Red.” His tone made me feel foolish. Then he flashed this killer grin that probably had women of all ages slobbering.

  But not me. It was none of his business what I chose to be called. “I’m aware that Pea sounds ridiculous for someone my size,” I responded frostily, “But for this trip, I’d appreciate your cooperation. I have to go by the name that would get her attention, or I might not find her.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “You’re looking for your sister?”

  “Yes.” No need to explain more. “Where were you headed? If it turns out you don’t need a doctor, tell me where to drop you off, so I can be on my way.”

  “Where to?”

  “New Mexico.”

  “What part?”

  I resisted a sigh. “I’m not sure.”

  “Why not?”

  “That’s my business.” He’d never understand, and neither would Alex. I busied myself tucking his foot inside. “We’d better get a move on before the day turns any hotter.”

  Another shrug, then he looked past me at Alex. “What about you?”

  Alex’s mouth was tight with mutiny. Her tough act was back. “Doesn’t matter where I want to go, not to Hitler here.” She yanked open the passenger door and got in, slamming it for emphasis.

  I thought of all the times Sister probably wanted to wring my neck for sassing her. I counted to ten while carefully closing the back door.

  The counting didn’t do diddly. I marched over and yanked her door open. “Look, you deserve better than to be knocked around by a loser like Pretty Boy, no matter what he looks like. Your baby certainly deserves more. I’m only trying to help you. Needing a man too much is a recipe for disaster, Alex.” I cast a baleful glance back toward Val to put him on notice that I would be watching. “You don’t raise a hand to women, do you, Valentine?”

  “Nope. No self-respecting man would.”

  I turned back to Alex. “Exactly what do you suggest I do with you, then?”