Blind Voices, page 9
“Daddy,” Rose said in a little-girl voice, “everyone’s leaving me alone tonight. How can I cope with my party without anyone to help me? You and Mama are going to the tent show, and Sister is going with Wash, and Lilah is spending the night with Mavis Peevey. How can I manage all alone? Can’t you make Lilah or Sister stay here and help me?”
The judge’s smile had gradually shrunk smaller and smaller until it disappeared completely. “You should have thought of that when you planned the party so suddenly this morning. You knew everyone had already made plans. Your mother did her utmost to convince you to postpone it until next Saturday.”
Kelsey Armstrong.
Was the heat showing in her face? She had to have the party tonight. Kelsey Armstrong wanted her to meet him again tonight. She had invented the party out of thin air. Now she had to have it tonight.
“But you always make Sister help me,” she whined.
“Grace Elizabeth and Wash Peacock are to be married this fall. If they want to see each other on Saturday night, I will not interfere. There is no more to be said.”
Rose turned and walked out like a wilted buttercup. “Yes, sir,” she muttered as she closed the door. She knew if the first wheedle didn’t work, a second was not only useless but dangerous.
Judge Willet looked at the closed door and sighed. How could a man be saddled with three such useless daughters? Grace Elizabeth was plain and bookish, and he was damned if he would have an old maid in the family. Lilah was delicate. Not physically; physically she had the constitution of a tractor, but emotionally. She was high-strung and suffered from frequent and opportunely timed headaches and fainting spells. Rose was high-spirited and subject to fits of temper and petulance. Why couldn’t he have had sons?
Rose wandered into the kitchen, her mind a muddle. If her father ever found out about last night, well, the consequences were beyond the limits of her imagination. Why had she lost control of herself?
She opened the door of the big wooden icebox and rummaged around. She ate a deviled egg left over from dinner. Her mother came in from the back yard as she poured a glass of milk from the crockery pitcher.
“Are you eating again? I just got the dinner dishes put away,” her mother said.
“Why shouldn’t I?” Rose grumbled. “Everything is going wrong today.” She took a swallow of milk and made a face. “This milk is blinky.”
Mrs. Willet frowned. “It shouldn’t be. I just got it yesterday.” She opened the top of the icebox and looked into the ice compartment. She groaned. “The block of ice I got yesterday is almost melted.” She shut the lid. “There’s something wrong with this old thing. Air’s getting in somewhere. And this is Saturday. They won’t deliver ice again until Monday and everything will spoil. Your father will have to go to the ice house.” She sighed. “He won’t like it. If I didn’t have enough to do today, what with your party and going to the tent show and everything. If you’re not going to help, at least get out from underfoot.” She started toward the judge’s study.
Rose went back to her room and flopped onto her bed and thought of Kelsey Armstrong. Oh, Lord, what if Harold were to find out? She had every intention of marrying Harold next year when he finished college. He was handsome and sexy and pliable and would come into a lot of money when he got the farm. She’d heard some talk about the farmers going broke, but she decided it was a lot of nonsense. The farm. That was the only drawback. Well, she’d do something about that after they were married.
Kelsey Armstrong was Harold’s fault anyway. If Harold weren’t such a damned gentleman, she wouldn’t have to sneak out to see somebody else. She compressed her lips. On their next date she would do something about that too.
She was beginning to wish she hadn’t planned the party after all. Last night on the pile of cottonseed in the gin, she had felt nothing but fear when he asked to meet her again tonight, but now her body was overruling her caution. It was too late now.
She twitched on the bed, remembering his hard arms around her and his naked body on hers. It had been wonderful, marvelous, fantastic, terrific, sensational. She knew it would be as soon as he smiled at her when he took the tickets at the tent show.
Oh, Lord, what if her father found out!
15.
Dr. Horace Latham lived in the same house he was born in. He had been weaned on the odor of carbolic and ether. He grew in the house, an only child, carefully nurtured on mumps, whooping cough, measles, diphtheria, chicken pox, hives, pregnant women, and a variety of broken bones and abrasions. He had never considered not becoming a doctor.
He went to Kansas City, finished college, became a doctor, got married, had a baby, and established a nice little practice.
Then his father died. He brought his wife, his baby, and his practice to Hawley, to the house he thought he had left forever. It was a fairly old house, built a block from the courthouse in 1887, just three years after the courthouse itself was built. It reared up rather grandly, but it wasn’t as big as it seemed. The wide veranda on three sides gave it a deceptive appearance of size. The high peaked roof,crowned with gingerbread and lightning rods, added to the illusion.
But there was more than enough room for Dr. Latham and Francine. They were the only ones left. His mother had died within a year after his return; his wife and newborn son, both from influenza, in 1916 when Francine was four. Now the two of them rattled around in the old house, even with his office and small clinic sharing the downstairs with the kitchen, parlor, and dining room.
He stood at the front door, watching Francine through the closed screen, and wondered if she ever felt the same lack he had as a child. He hadn’t really put a name to it until he was grown, but the vague uneasiness had always been there. The lack of a refuge, of a hiding place. The lack of a home where strangers didn’t wander in and out all day.
Francine sat in the glider on the porch, swinging lightly, her mind a thousand miles away. The chain squeaked a little, almost like a cricket. Dr. Latham opened the screen and sat beside his daughter, putting his arm around her shoulders. She looked up at him and smiled faintly.
“What’s the matter, Francine?” he asked gently.
“Nothing, Daddy.” She looked back at her hands in her lap.
“Are you sure? You can tell me if there is, you know.”
“I know.”
“Well?”
“I don’t know, Daddy. I just feel kinda sad.”
“Sad? Did you have an argument with Billy Sullivan?”
“Oh, Billy,” she dismissed him completely.
“Well, whatever it is, I’m sure you’ll get over it when you go to Rose’s party tonight.”
“I don’t really want to go to Rose’s party.”
“If you don’t want to go, don’t go.”
“I don’t know how to get out of it.”
“Just tell her you don’t want to go.”
“I couldn’t do that.” Francine sighed. “She’s already called twice to make sure I’d be there. She’s acting like a real witch.”
“Well, do whatever you want to do.” He gave her shoulder a pat and went back in the house.
She looked after him without expression for a moment, and began to swing slowly again. The clock in the courthouse tower struck three.
16.
Louis Ortiz stretched his arm and shoulder from the bed and retrieved his fancy bracelet watch from where it lay on his neatly folded suit. He brought it to his face, squinted, blinked the sleep from his eyes. It was after five o’clock. He wound the watch and yawned, baring his large, even, white teeth. He put the watch back and stretched his arms over his head. His hands bumped against the brass bedstead. He looked up and watched the muscles play under his brown skin.
He let his arms drop back and scratched his chest, rubbing his fingers over his nipples. He slid his hands under the sheet, across his flat stomach, over his pelvis, down his hard thighs, and back up between his legs. He felt dry and crusty; he should have washed but he had been too sleepy.
He slid his legs from under the sheet and sat on the edge of the bed, yawning again. He stood up and stretched, then ran his hands over his buttocks, enjoying the feel of the tight muscles.
Louis looked at the woman still sleeping in the bed. He had dragged the sheet down to her waist when he stood up. She lay on her side, facing him, her large breasts drooping grotesquely sideways. She slept with her mouth open slightly. Spittle had made a damp spot on the pillow. Her marcelled brown hair had become frizzy with her squirming. Louis smiled. He could really make them squirm.
Shirley Ann Waldrop.
Tiny vertical creases appeared between his eyes. Why had he thought of Shirley Ann Waldrop? He hadn’t thought of her or the farm or El Paso in years.
The beautiful, beautiful, golden Shirley Ann; Mr. Waldrop’s youngest girl; nineteen years old; the daughter of El Patron.
Her long skirts sweeping the ground; her lace parasol keeping her skin soft and pale; her corseted waist cinched so small he could, even at fourteen, almost close his hands around it.
It all came back to him, all the old bad memories, sweeping over him like tepid syrup. He remembered how she drove her buggy past the adobe shack, waving cheerfully at the dirty little brown children playing in the sand under the hot Texas sun. There was no shade in the Mexican quarter, no trees but scrubby salt cedars. The big house, the house of El Patron, sat in green gloom under giant poplars and cottonwoods. To the Mexican children the temperature seemed to drop twenty degrees as soon as they walked into the yard, something that was not done lightly.
Shirley Ann driving her buggy in the bright, bright sun; her golden curls shining even though she always kept the top up to protect her milky skin. He remembered her riding with her father in his automobile, the only one for miles on either side of the Rio Grande, waving at him and his father and his brothers as they worked in the sandy fields.
His younger brothers and sisters: he couldn’t even remember their names or how many there were. He could only remember the three older ones. Inez was sixteen, Magdalena was fifteen. They and his mother worked in the big house.
And the oldest: seventeen-year-old Raphaelo. Dark, handsome Raphaelo. Proud Raphaelo. Proud as a fighting cock. The handsome, proud, smiling, doomed Raphaelo.
Louis had heard a noise in the loft and climbed up to investigate. They were both there, both of them naked. Raphaelo’s dark body covering Shirley Ann, Raphelo breathing heavily as he moved, Shirley Ann’s soft ivory body moving with him. She moane^ and squirmed and turned her head from side to side—and saw Louis watching them.
She made a noise and Raphaelo jumped to his feet like a cornered tiger. Louis ran, but Raphaelo ran after him, too frightened to care that he was naked, and caught him and dragged him back to the loft and threatened to cut out his liver if he told. But Shirley Ann smiled and caressed Louis, telling him that she trusted him, rubbing her breasts against him.
She had turned back to Raphaelo, but Raphaelo was a flower wilted by fright. He sat in a black shame as Shirley Ann coaxed and fondled him. She moaned and squirmed and turned to Louis. She undressed him, touched him, complimented him, guided him, taught him.
Louis’s own pride, his pride at besting Raphaelo even temporarily, overrode his fear. And the next six months were the most glorious he had ever known, better than anything he could have imagined. He had the beautiful, beautiful, golden Shirley Ann Waldrop nearly every day, sometimes twice a day, sometimes only he, sometimes only Raphaelo, but mostly both of them at the same time.
Then, one day, she didn’t meet them. Louis and Raphaelo never saw her after that. She stayed in the big house all the time and suddenly married a junior clerk in Mr. Waldrop’s bank. The junior clerk moved into the big house and they saw him only twice a day as he rode with Mr. Waldrop to and from the bank.
When the brown baby was born, Mr. Waldrop tied Raphaelo to a wagon wheel and whipped him with a silver-studded bridle until the leather was jellied with blood. His mother had screamed and wailed and prayed to the Virgin, and his father had watched, white-lipped, but he hadn’t interfered. Mr. Waldrop was El Patron, and Sancho Ortiz was only a peon, even on the north side of the river.
Louis hadn’t waited to find out if Shirley Ann had accused him as well. He sneaked into the big house, stole thirty dollars, rode one of the plow horses to town, and caught the first train out. He hadn’t been within a hundred miles of El Paso since.
Shirley Ann Waldrop. Why had he thought of her now?
He looked at the woman sleeping on the bed. She had looked a lot better with her clothes on. They were scattered on the floor, where she had flung them in her haste: a boned corset to keep her hips flat, with a tangle of straps, clamps, and hooks to keep her stockings up, a bandeau to keep her breasts flat, enough undergarments to conceal anything.
But the Minotaur didn’t care. He had never turned away anyone Louis had brought him, and some of them had been recruited in desperation. Louis always waited until the second day to hunt a partner for the Minotaur, giving them a chance to get a look at him. He usually didn’t have much trouble, though Haverstock might be unhappy if he knew that Louis sampled the presentable ones ahead of time. But then he might know and not care. Louis had discovered over the years that Haverstock found out about everything sooner or later.
This one had seen the Minotaur in the show last night, and when Louis had brought it up, her eyes had suddenly sparkled. But the sparkle had quickly changed to craftiness.
She demanded an extra twenty dollars. Louis was pretty sure she would have been happy to do it for nothing, but he hadn’t argued. It wasn’t his money.
His bladder felt on the point of bursting. He looked around and then under the bed. He pulled out the japanned slop jar and relieved himself.
The noise woke the woman and she lay watching him. He finished, put the lid back on, and slid it under the bed. He washed himself at the washbowl and felt her still looking at him. He turned. She was smiling. He posed, showing his body, washing erotically. He felt a hardening under the cloth and returned to the bed.
17.
Henry Collins stretched his upper lip down over his teeth and applied the powder puff vigorously, trying to cover his beard shadow. He looked in the mirror critically, twisting his mouth at different angles. He curled his lip and tossed the puff in the box of face powder. Rouge on his cheeks, Maybelline on his brows and lashes completed his Henry-etta face.
Tiny Tim stepped from his packing crate home, smoothing his doll’s suit. Henry had made it from fine batiste, but to Tim it felt as heavy as canvas. He walked across the dressing table and checked himself in the mirror.
Henry settled the orange wig on his head, tilting and tucking until it seemed secure. He stood up and tugged at the low neckline of the green satin gown, shaping the padding in the bodice. He smoothed the skirt over his ample hips, twisting around to check the back in the mirror.
“How do I look?” he asked.
Tim glanced up at him. “Not like anybody I’d take home to mother.”
“Thanks.” Henry grinned. He turned from the mirror and looked at the Minotaur sleeping naked on the other cot.
The Minotaur lay on his back, his hand on his genitals. His mouth was slightly open and he rasped faintly as he breathed. Henry frowned at the new hole the Minotaur’s horn had torn in the pillow. He kicked the leg of the cot.
The Minotaur woke instantly. He looked at Henry with his big, soft, alert eyes. No part of his body moved except his eyelids.
“Get up, you big lummox,” Henry said. “It’s nearly time.” He put Tim on his shoulder and left the wagon.
The Minotaur sat on the edge of the cot, scratching his massive chest. He stood up, stretched, and rubbed his crotch. He took his loincloth from a peg on the wall and slipped it on. He continued to rub himself through the fabric.
Outside, Henry squinted at the setting sun. The canvas of the tent looked like sheet copper. Bullbats circled in the sky, rising higher and higher on warm air currents, then dived like falling stones. They pulled out of their dives with musical bass thrums, snatching flying insects, and began their circling climbs once more.
Henry paused and looked at Haverstock’s wagon with concern. The doors and windows were closed. It sat, still and silent.
“They sure are at it a long time today,” Henry mused.
“Henry, I’m worried about Angel,” Tim said fretfully. “I gave him strict orders not to let on about the gift, not to tell him anything about what happened this morning, but I don’t know if he can keep anything from Haverstock or not.”
“What do you suppose they do in there every day?”
“I don’t know. Angel can never remember, but he’s always completely worn-out.”
“Well, come on. I’ll put you backstage so I can open up the box office.”
18.
Bess Bradley removed the kettle from the stove and poured scalding water over the dishes in the dishpan, then filled the kettle from the pump and put it back on the stove. Evelyn, Otis, and Harold finished their apple pie and brought their plates to the cabinet and put them by the dishpan.
“Do you want me to dry the dishes before I go to Rose’s?” Evelyn asked.
“You go ahead, dear. I can manage. You don’t want to be late,” Bess said, taking a clean cup towel from the cabinet drawer.
“You’re sure it’s all right?”
“Yes, dear. Go ahead.”
“Take the car,” Otis said, checking the slop bucket before going to feed the pigs.
“I can ride my bike.”
“I’d rather you didn’t. It’s already dark, and I’d feel better if you were in the car, what with that tent show in town.”
“Oh, Daddy.” Evelyn grimaced.
“He’s right, Evie,” Harold chimed in. “I never saw such a scurvy bunch in my life.”
Evelyn wrinkled her nose at him. “All right. Whatever you say… Hal.” She turned quickly to her mother before Harold’s black look could turn into a retort. “Mama, did you see Kindred of the Dust?”
