Ben didn't waste his trip into town without stocking up on supplies. Chicken feed, nails, ax handle, sugar, coffee, beans, salt, flour, soap, and bailing wire. Even though the hay harvest was a ways off, it came in handy for a number of things and he was fresh out.
He was just fixin' to pay when the door
of the store rang open so loud both Ben and George behind the counter
looked up.
“Call the sheriff,” panted Lukas,
“someone just drove off with my truck!”
“Betty says there's no answer,”
George said putting the phone back on the hook.
“He was headed up into the pass,
fella just got in and drove her off, that truck is as good as gone,
fraid.”
“Did you see who took it?” Ben
asked.
“Stranger, odd looking man, had
silver fingers.”
“Silver what?” said George.
Ben's cheek burned where Nebraska girl
had gone and kissed him. He looked out at the wash of daylight coming
in through the door.
“Lukas, can to see to my farm for a
few days, if I get your truck back?”
“Yeah, sure I 'spose, how few?”
Lukas said.
“Week or two at the most. George,
hold my order till I get back.”
“Week or two? Hey Ben!”
The screen door of the dusty general
store had already slammed.
“That boy get deputized or sumptin?”
Lukas said. “He coulda given me a ride home before he ran off.”
Ben's truck began to sputter when the
grade in the pass got steep. The gasoline wasn't flowing up hill from
from the tank to the engine. He turned the Model T truck around and
backed up the hill as fast as he dare, his head stuck out the window
and his arm out against the door. It was already getting dark and
those headlights weren't going to do much good pointing down hill as
they were.
Not a problem we ever had in Nebraska,
especially since it wasn't too long ago, most transportation was
horse and wagon.
“What'r you lookin at, c'mon I want
to get home, I'm starving,” said Bill, my brother.
“You see that girl, the one in
white?”
We lifted his trunk into the back of
the wagon. I craned my neck to see if she had come out of the train
station.
“What girl?” Bill said.
“The one in the private car.”
“Oh my Lord, you've gone looney. You
could never even get that girl to look at you, and if she did... Hey,
where you goin'!”
“I bet I could,” I said without
looking back. I saw her leaving the station with a small army of
servants and a cart loaded with trunks and hat boxes stacked-up like
a wedding cake. I walked straight towards the procession.
I've never been a particularly brave
man, especially when it came to the fairer sex. My mouth would always
get too dry for words to come out proper and I would stammer like a
fool. I had no reason to think this time would be any different. I
was drawn, given a notion that any failure or humiliation would not
smart near as bad as if I let her go without... well I wasn't sure
what I was going to do. I didn't have any better idea when I stepped
in front of her and stopped the whole parade. Several pairs of wide
but narrowing eyes stared me down. Her's just remained wide. She was
the loveliest girl, the loveliest anything I had ever seen. No
sunset, no sunrise, no stained glass window would ever look the same
to me.
One of the servants, a butler lookin'
sort of fellow cleared his throat. I snapped out of my trance. I
removed my hat with speed that forgave its tardiness, but created a
small cloud of flour dust. She put her hanky to her face. Her eyes
shone like a sparkling lake.
“Excuse me miss,” I began. The
butler fellow fumbled for some coins, no doubt to pay a toll past my
intrusion. I held up my hand to stop him. “I would like to welcome
you to Nebraska. If there is anything, anything I can do for you to
make your stay in Omaha more pleasant, my name is...”
“Yes, yes young man, we have all the
help we need and the young lady does not desire to be bothered. Off
with you then.”
“I will be able to sleep again one
day, but only if I knew your name.”
The young woman was taken aback at my
inquiry. The butler extended his walking cane and gently brushed me
away that the entourage may proceed to their red motor car and
accompanying carriage for the overflow of personnel and baggage. I
complied but did not take my eyes from her. Her cream skin pinked at
my attention as she passed. I stood there, I expect with some sort of
fool smile on my face, ignoring the glares from her attendants. She
tried to maneuver her immense hat that she might inspect me without
my knowing, but I knew.
As the driver turned over the motor. I
stepped boldly beside where she was seated. “Please, miss, I am not
normally so offensive and forward, your name is all that desire. I
must...”
The motor sputtered and idled. The
driver took to his seat and released the brake. She looked straight
ahead like an arrow that she might be whisked away from this bold
stranger, sweat stained covered in flour dust, but her chin lowered
as the motorcar throttled up.
“Charlotte” she said.
Her voice was stronger than I had
expected. If I wasn't already smitten, I knew I would be haunted by
the memory of that beautiful sound forever.
I still am.
The place the travelers stopped to camp
was an ideal setting. A flat area not too far from the road and near
a stream that had the sweetest water Ruby had ever tasted, once the
dust from her lips had been washed away.
Mr Caleb Huette and Billy set up the
tent while Mrs. Ester Huette and Ruby prepared dinner. The Huette's
were older, almost like grandparents. Ester didn't say much besides a
yes or no to Mr Huette's many directives and suggestions on how she might carry them out.
He ended nearly every sentence with
“praise be O'Lord.” Ruby took comfort in this at first, but it
began to seem odd how he used it for everything. It seemed right
enough for: “What a glorious view this is, praise be O'Lord,” but
seemed a bit funny following: “Pass me that thermos of coffee
Ester, praise be O'Lord,” or especially when he simply passed
gas... “praise be O'Lord!”
The insects sounded a chorus outside
that was strange to Ruby's ear that night, different bugs in the
mountains than the high plains. She recalled Mr. Huette's bible
reading by the campfire later on her cot. The bible seemed different
too. She didn't know it backwards and forwards like some folks, but
what he read... well it didn't sound like any bible readin' she'd
ever heard. All that talk of wives.
She had to lie on her side, the cot she
shared with Mrs. Huette, thin and frail as she was, only offered her
that much room. She wanted to talk, she asked Ester if she had ever
been to Hollywood. The woman didn't stir. She listened hard to hear
for her breathing to be sure she hadn't died. Sleepin' on the hard
floor of a box car was easier.
Billy didn't sleep much better in the
back of the truck. Mr. Huette told him to bed down there under the
tarp.
My Billy's a good boy, minds his
elders, mostly. It wasn't manners this time that cause him to obey
without question.
The next day Mr. Huette decided it
wasn't very ladylike for Ruby to be ridin' in the back of the truck,
that she should set up between them in the front.
“That's alright Mr. Huette, I
wouldn't want Billy to get lonesome back there.” Ruby said in a
breezy tone.
The slap came out of out of nowhere.
Her cheek felt ice cold and and burning hot all at once. She made a
furious fist.
“Unclench your hand,” Mr.
Huette said.
The world was spinning around her, it
was as if the words made no sense.
“Unclench your hand willful girl, an git in the
damn truck, praise be O'Lord.”
Ruby placed her case in the back of the
truck and walked to the front where Mrs. Huette was already holding
the passenger door for her.
She flinched when Mr. Huette got in on his side
and slammed the door.
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