All the Old Lions (A Thea Barlow Mystery, Book One) Page 6

  “Oh no,” I groaned. “Is that why Potts wanted to save my soul? Did he think I was going to be the first filly in Minnie’s stable?”

  “Probably, but I don’t think anybody else does. Not really. It’s just the favorite joke in town.”

  But I remembered the sheriff and the others in the cafe. No wonder they eyed me strangely. I squirmed, not happy at being the butt of a stupid joke. Even Jim Enright had gotten a chuckle at my expense, I thought, remembering how amused he was when I said I was here for work. Max’s grin didn’t help.

  I felt him watching me with those veiled, knowing eyes. Looking for my reaction to reality, no doubt. This was bound to be one of those small occasions of his that were so revealing of character. I bit my tongue, then said, “Minnie told me she hadn’t been welcomed here, but I didn’t realize they’d sicced the sheriff on her. How embarrassing.”

  “Yeah, and when she tried to interview the old-timers for her book it just gave them something more to get riled up about. Minnie’s sister was in a position to know everything that went on in her day and to hear about all the events before her time as well, usually directly from the horse’s mouth. Those were wild days even for Hijax. A lot went on that people figure is best forgotten, or if it were chronicled for posterity they’d rather it be by someone other than the sister of the town’s madam. So they refused to talk with her, or socialize. Except for a few independent old guys like Helby and the Parson. And of course, Potts thinks he has to disguise his interest as proselytizing.”

  Helby, my talisman from the past. Such a marvelous-looking old man. I was glad he was being decent to Minnie. Still, he hadn’t been all that pleased to see me. He’d acted as if my presence were a nasty intrusion. Or like Potts, did he take me for a whore? A humiliating thought. I’d like to fry them all!

  Max drove up the final incline and pulled to a stop between the house and barn. I started to open the door.

  “Don’t,” Max said, and leaned across me to remove my hand from the handle. “It will hurt, let me.”

  I’d forgotten my sore palms. He was very close. The hollow beneath his cheekbone begged to be touched and a tiny scar etched the corner of his mouth with laser clarity. I breathed in the earthy scent of his sun-warmed skin. Our eyes met with a spark charged as much by challenge as attraction. The door clicked open and he drew away.

  “Thanks,” I said, “for telling me about Minnie. I…” But I couldn’t think what I wanted to say, so left it, scooting out of the truck and into the house.

  Minnie was in her office typing on the old Selectric. I’d have to try to talk her into a computer. She looked up and noticed my hands right away.

  “Land, girl, what have you been doing?”

  “We found some fence down and I helped fix it,” I explained.

  “You better clean those cuts out good. You should have worn gloves.”

  “I know, I know.” I didn’t need anyone else telling me how ignorant I was. But Minnie said nothing more, just fixed a basin of warm water and sat me at the kitchen table to soak while she puttered around the sink preparing lunch. I dabbled in the water letting it soothe my scraped skin. It seemed as good a time as any to bring up the subject.

  “Max doesn’t think you should be writing your book,” I said.

  “What does he know about it?”

  “He says there’s talk around town, rumors and such. People are frightened about what you’re going to write.”

  “Max’s job is the outside work. He has no call worrying about anything else.”

  “He thinks it could be dangerous.”

  She made a disparaging sound, dried her fingers meticulously and headed towards her office. “Come in here now.”

  Reluctantly, I removed my throbbing hands from the bowl and followed her.

  Minnie’s office was strictly utilitarian. An unpleasant room that looked as if it had simply been cleared out and the furniture set at random; every year of abandonment showed. The tall ceiling dwarfed a roll top desk in the corner. A typewriter on a stand was next to it, with a well-sprung sofa against the adjacent wall. Two metal filing cabinets and a pile of boxes filled another corner. A white oak library table stood in the center of the room littered with books, magazines and newspapers. Minnie pulled a chair up to the table, motioning me to do the same.

  I inspected the magazines with interest. All of a kind: True West, Frontier Times, American West and Sweeney Publishing’s own Western True Adventures. The books were western history as well, some with familiar titles and others not. Minnie pulled a leather-bound scrapbook from under a pile of newspapers. Pushing other things aside, she cleared a space and opened the scrapbook between us.

  Faded newspaper clippings jammed the crumbling manila pages along with pictures cut from various sources, and old photographs—mostly old photographs. Minnie turned the pages randomly, supporting each one with her hand before flipping it over.

  “All I ever had in my life was my sister, Lil.” Her voice drifted like moss in the heavy air, light and wispy. “Sometimes I called her Lilly, but she’d just laugh and say her name was never Lilly, only plain Lil.

  “I never had a Ma, or Pa, or grannies, except in this book.” Her fingers skipped lovingly over the pictures as if to reacquaint themselves with old friends. “When I was little, I’d sit on the floor and look through this book over and over, never got tired of it. ‘Tell me about this one, Lil,’ I’d say, ‘tell me about Ma again.’” She turned the fragile pages back to the front of the book, and stopped at an old photo of a rough, grim-faced man with a girl seated rigidly at his side, her homely features stretched taut by tightly braided hair.

  “That’s Ma and Pa,” Minnie said, fingertips tracing each stiff figure. “Pa bought this land in the eighteen-nineties; screwed some homesteader out of it, Lil said. He and Ma had a cabin out back by the dugout. Lil had plenty of chances to sell the place, but she hung on to it all those years…for me.”

  The soft whoosh of turning pages sent the musty odor of newsprint sifting through the air.

  “This book is my life, Thea.” Her simple words made me think of my family. Real flesh and blood, not crumbling photos on a page.

  Minnie pointed to a smudged snapshot of three small ragamuffins. “These are my brothers, Jud, Shep and Austin. I never knew any of them. Lil was oldest. I came way at the end when Ma shouldn’t have been having kids. Lil was already thirty.”

  “Aren’t any of your brothers still living?”

  “Don’t guess so. They left home or ran away as soon as possible, and nobody heard from them. Lil said it was good riddance; they were wild ones. This is my mother holding me.”

  I craned my neck trying to get a better look at the frail woman with scraggly hair holding a closely wrapped baby. The words “Ma and Minnie” had been written underneath.

  “Ma died shortly after I was born, worn out by Pa, Lil said. How she hated him. Pa was never any good; a drinker and worse, according to Lil.” She skipped over several pages and stopped at a sepia-toned picture of Halfway Halt.

  “Mostly Lil told me the truth, I think,” Minnie continued with a sigh. “She didn’t paint any pretty pictures, anyway. No, I figure it was mostly the truth. Except for this.” She tapped the slick surface. “Lil always called it a boarding house and I never had cause to believe otherwise. Pa built this house with gambling money, and lost it gambling. To a rich lady, Lil told me, who named it Halfway Halt and took in boarders. Pa sent Lil to work there when she was twelve.”

  Her own father? Twelve!

  “Of course, now I know it was Jersey Roo who won the house…and who Lil went to work for. By the time Lil was twenty she’d bought the place back from Jersey and was supporting Ma and Pa. She was always a sharp one with money.

  “After Lil died, I found Jersey’s diaries in Lil’s safe deposit box. When I read them I knew exactly what kind of place Halfway Halt had been. I didn’t want to believe Lil was in the same business as that woman—couldn’t imagine it—so
I did some research. Didn’t take any time at all. I found everything in the old Hijax newspapers.”

  “Oh, Minnie, how awful for you.”

  She shook her head as if it were nothing and patted my arm. “Heavens, girl, I’m over sixty.”

  But it had to have hurt. Hurt horribly. Her precious memories twisted and reshaped after so many years.

  “It bothered me some,” she admitted, “‘til I figured it was like those women’s libbers been saying—didn’t have much truck with them ‘til then. No, Lil did what she had to do in the best way she saw. She made a living, supported her folks and raised me like a mother. She wasn’t like that wild woman, Jersey Roo.”

  A flurry of knocks on the front door took us both by surprise. We stared at each other and for the briefest moment I thought I saw a flash of fear cross Minnie’s face.

  The front door opened and a voice called in, “Hello. Anyone home?” Didn’t anyone keep doors locked around here?

  I didn’t recognize the voice, but Minnie obviously did. An angry flush darkened her face, then drained and left her pale and rather sick-looking.

  I followed her brisk footsteps out to the hallway. Sheriff Beesom stood on the porch, still holding the doorknob. When he saw Minnie he opened the door wider and stepped in.

  “Hello. Hope you don’t mind me opening the door; I didn’t know if you could hear me or not in this big old pile.” He removed his Smokey the Bear hat and ran a hand over his thinning hair.

  Minnie nodded acceptance, but her mouth compressed into a thin line of disapproval. Nor did she offer a greeting. I remembered what Max had told me about the sheriff’s first visit. Evidently Minnie wasn’t about to forgive him for thinking she might be running a whorehouse.

  The sheriff skirted Minnie’s silence with ease. “Had to drive out this way, so thought I’d just stop by and say howdy. See how things were going for you.”

  His glance moved from Minnie’s stony face to mine. “I see you found your way out here okay; didn’t think you’d have any trouble.”

  Minnie cast me a sharp, questioning look.

  “I stopped at the hotel for iced tea yesterday, and the Sheriff was there,” I explained quickly. I didn’t want her to think I was somehow in cahoots with him.

  Minnie stubbornly hadn’t moved one foot from the door, but the sheriff sidestepped her easily and ambled across the entry.

  “This is some old place, isn’t it?” he said, peering first into the parlor and then the great room. “Miss Darrow has done a fine job fixing it up, now hasn’t she?”

  He chatted away as friendly as could be. And if, when he looked at me, there was a glimmer in his eye that showed his appreciation of the situation, I also sensed an air of quiet determination. This was not some rube lawman.

  Finally he held his hands out to Minnie in comic supplication. “You wouldn’t happen to have a cup of coffee would you, or even a big glass of water? I’m just dying of thirst, and I’ve got to drive clear out to old Harney Applegate’s place yet.”

  For a minute I thought she might refuse, but when he moved as if to take matters in his own hands, she led the way to the kitchen herself, saying, “Yes, I think I have some coffee back here. Come along.”

  He motioned me to precede him down the hall. I didn’t believe all this coming-to-say-howdy business any more than Minnie did. Obviously, he was here for a purpose, and I thought perhaps I should disappear discreetly and let them talk in private. But when I headed for the office, he called me back.

  “You’re not going to make me drink alone are you?”

  “No, of course not.”

  Minnie had poured him a cup of coffee, which he in turn handed to me. He smiled at her blandly and held his hand out for another. Reluctantly, she poured it. He took a big appreciative gulp, and then turned to me.

  “My apologies,” he said. “I know we introduced ourselves yesterday, but I can’t for the life of me remember what you name is.”

  Of course, we both knew I hadn’t told him my name. All of a sudden it dawned on me that I was the one the sheriff had come out to talk to, not Minnie. Well, I didn’t have any secrets.

  “Thea Barlow, Sheriff.”

  “Hank, please call me Hank. You going to be spending some time here?”

  “Don’t tell him anything, Thea.” Minnie jumped in like a bull dog. “What happened, Sheriff? The Women’s League send you out here again? It’s none of your business why Thea’s here. You’ve got no right coming out here snooping around.”

  “It’s all right, Minnie,” I said with a laugh, beginning to enjoy myself now that the sheriff was showing the first signs of being uncomfortable. “I’ve got nothing to hide. I didn’t come out here to begin work as a prostitute, if that’s what you’re wondering, Sheriff. Minnie’s a client of mine, and also a friend. I’m an editor.” I upped my job title a bit for effect. “The company I work for is going to publish a book Minnie is writing. I’m here to oversee the completion of a very worthwhile project.”

  “Whoa, now,” the sheriff said. “You two have got me all wrong. I’m sorry I insulted you last time I came out, Miss Darrow, but I was just doing my job. I felt I had to answer those ladies fears. But nobody sent me out this time. Truly, I just stopped by to say hello and, well…It’s not often a new good-lookin’ woman shows up in these parts.” He even managed a slight blush. He was either honest, or a consummate actor. Minnie seemed to thaw a bit, and topped off his coffee.

  Cup in hand, he wandered the kitchen restlessly, looking out the back door, eyeing the paint and the old appliances. “I’d heard you were writing a book. I know it will be a big success. Just imagine, we’re going to have a well known author among us.” He paused in the doorway to the office. His inquisitive eyes swept the room thoroughly.

  “Boy,” he said. “That’s some collection of books you got there.” He stepped in.

  There weren’t that many books in there. I followed him, and Minnie pushed past me.

  He was bent over the scrapbook, peering intently at the pictures, ready to turn the page. Minnie stepped up to the table and closed the book in his face.

  He grinned at her sheepishly and said, “Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to be nosy.” He gave the room another quick inspection, then went through to the kitchen and placed his cup on the counter. “Thanks for the coffee, Miss Darrow. I’d better get back to work.”

  The three of us strolled into the hallway and Sheriff Beesom said, “You know, I’ve wanted to see the inside of this place ever since I was a kid. Is there a chance…? Could I possibly see the upstairs, where all the rooms were?”

  “There’s not much up there,” Minnie said. He took her hesitancy for acquiescence, and bounded up the stairs two at a time, then waited politely at the top for further escort. We followed him up like a couple of lemmings.

  “My room and a guest room is all that’s finished up here.” Minnie gestured to her closed door and my partially open one.

  “Then these must have been the girl’s rooms.” With no further invitation he started down the right side of the stairwell and opened each door.

  “There’s nothing there,” Minnie said. “I haven’t done anything to them.”

  I was curious, too. There were a bunch of packing boxes in the first room, but the others were empty. Drab, dusty and empty, with no signs of any of the agony, ecstasy or melodrama that must have gone on in them. The four on the other side of the stairwell were the same.

  I lingered a moment in the last room, oddly depressed. It seemed as if some kind of essence should have remained of the lives lived here. A pall crept over us. Silently we went back down the stairs. Even the sheriff seemed subdued.

  At the door, the sheriff took Minnie’s hand and said, “It must be very lonely living here. I’m glad you’ve got company.” His words seemed utterly heartfelt and sincere.

  On the other hand, it didn’t take much reflection to realize that in a very short visit, while being completely ingratiating, and not asking a
ny direct questions, the sheriff had probably found out everything he had wanted to know, and gotten a thorough look at every room in the house, as well.

  I didn’t know if Minnie was thinking the same thing or not, but when we were back in the office she offered apologies.

  “I’m sorry you had to go through all that.” She opened the scrapbook and began leafing through it again.

  “After I found out the truth about Halfway Halt, I wondered some myself about all those boarding houses we lived in when I was young. Then I realized that all the time we lived in Iowa we were treated like respectable folks. After I finished school both Lil and I did bookkeeping for businesses in town and we had our little Canasta club friends. No, I’m sure that part of her life was finished when she left Wyoming.”

  I couldn’t think of a thing to say. It wasn’t easy to be glib about whorehouses anymore. All I could think of was a frightened twelve-year-old sent away from her family.

  “This is one of my favorites,” Minnie said. She had turned to a page that held a studio portrait. The faint mark of a long-gone cardboard frame still rimmed the picture. It showed a woman seated in a chair holding a bare-foot young child who stood in her lap. The woman was neither pretty nor homely. The bobbed, stiffly waved hair and plain dress gave her that ordinary look so common to pictures of the era. A faint smile played across her lips as she struggled to balance the still wobbly-legged child. “Me and Minnie” was written on the bottom edge of the picture.

  “That’s Lil and me,” Minnie said unnecessarily. “Lil left Halfway Halt for good around nineteen thirty, or thereabouts. Pa had died by then and I was around two years old.”

  At least a year or more after this picture was taken, I thought.

  “We look happy, don’t we?”

  “You certainly do.”