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CHAPTER 22

A Little Gossip And Some More About Chili

      SURE ENOUGH, the chili was as good as Eustace Mallory had promised.

      By late afternoon, when it was ready to serve, Lucy began offering a taste to everybody who came in, to see how people liked it. Almost everyone approved, and most were so enthusiastic they ordered a bowl on the spot. And when Mr. Grosbeck came in for a beer after delivering the mail, he enjoyed his first bowl so much that he ordered a second one and finished that, too.

      "Very tasty," he said several times as he ate. And as he left, he added, "I'll tell you one thing: you people don't have to worry about competition when you're serving that chili!"

      Bertie ambled in about four-thirty to have a cup of strong tea on the house. "I'm trying out a new chili recipe," Lucy said, as soon as he was seated. "You want to test it out for me?"

      "Don't know what you always need to change things for," the old man grumbled. "Nobody's ever satisfied, nowadays." Nevertheless, he accepted a free trial bowl. He tasted it slowly, rolling the first bite around in his mouth like a wine connoisseur.

      "What do you think?"

      "Wait a little bit, Toots, I'm still considering." He took another bite. Then several more.

      "Is it okay?" She asked eagerly.

      "Well, I guess," he answered tentatively. "But it's not the same. What was wrong with your Uncle Bob's old chili?"

      "It's not that there's anything wrong with it, Bertie, I'm adding something new to the menu." His was the first negative vote, and she was a little disappointed. "You really think people won't like it?

      "Didn't say that," he countered. "Matter of fact, I guess most people will like it. Just that I don't see the need for always changing things."

      By this time, he'd finished off the last bite and was scraping the bowl for good measure. "What you youngsters need to remember is that old-fashioned ways are good enough," he continued severely. "Good old-fashioned cup of tea; good old-fashioned bowl of chili — that's always been good enough for me."

      When she took the hint and refilled his cup, he drank it down in silence and then left without a single kind word. "Probably he just wanted to be a wet blanket," Lucy thought, "As usual."

      In spite of Bertie's coolness toward Montezuma's chili, she was still in a good humor at five o'clock when Ricky came bursting in for the second time that day. This time he was dragging Cal Arthur behind him. "You see my friend Cal, here? Well, he's going to buy me a bowl of chili. And you know how come? Because he's now a man of substance. Started today at a real job, working at the Dairy Kreme. How about that."

      "Is that right, Cal? Congratulations."

      "Yep, I'm a changed man," Cal agreed. "And the best part is that Mr. Pump, that hired me, is going to let me put a doghouse right outside the back door for Wolfgang Amador, so I can visit with him when it's slow."

      "Then your dog came home again? I'm glad to hear it," Lucy said.

      "Yes, he was returned to me by a miracle," Cal nodded, his pale blue eyes gleaming. "And I want to tell you, he's a changed dog, too, Wolfgang Amador is. He's a working person now — a watch dog. He's going to keep the kids from sneaking in at the back to get free ice cream."

      "I didn't know kids ever did that," Lucy said.

      "Well, they haven't yet. But if they ever do, Wolfgang Amador's there on the job." He rubbed his hands together and sat down at the counter. "Okay now, let's try some of that chili."

      So Lucy dished out two bowls, with plenty of chips and salsa, and they fell to. But when Lucy started to draw Cal a beer to go with it, he shook his head. "Nope. Not for me. I'm a sober man from here on."

      He lifted his spoon and waved it at her. "But this chili is real good stuff. You keep on serving this, and I'll — okay, since I'll be getting up early and eating lunches from now on, I'll come in here noontimes and have a bowl or two of this every day. Ricky and me'll both come."

      Ricky nodded. "Sure, Cal. Hey Lucy, you got any fresh coffee made? And some of that pie?"

      Lucy poured two cups and gave one to Ricky, but when she offered the other to Cal, he shook his head and got up, although a little reluctantly. "I can't right now, because I got to get home for dinner. My ma's holding it for me." He paused, as if not quite knowing what else to say, then gave them a half-salute, and a half-bow, and left the lunchroom.

      "Goodness." Lucy said, giving Ricky a look. "He sure is a changed man."

      "Yes, it's true. And it's just my hope the alteration will last." Ricky spoke almost sadly, as if he were an old, wise man, instead of exactly Cal's age — and younger than Lucy by several years. Then he brightened up. "Want to know how it happened?"

      "Sure." Lucy leaned on the counter and began drinking the untouched coffee that Cal had left behind.

      "Well, it was a while ago. That day he got so drunk over losing Wolfgang Amador, you remember?"

      Lucy nodded. She remembered it all right.

      "All right, his mama finally found him and poured him in her car, and when she got him home, she put him on the downstairs sofa, to sleep it off." Ricky paused. "Listen, I do want some pie, if you got any."

      Lucy got him the last piece of lemon. "Go on."

      "Okay then, in the middle of the night, Cal woke up. And by this time, he was r-e-e-eeal hung over. Says he was suffering so bad he thought maybe he'd already died and his brains had started to rot!" Ricky took a bite of pie, nodded appreciatively, and continued his story.

      "Just picture it: there's Cal, sitting on the sofa in the dark, sick and miserable, and still with no dog to call his own." He took another bite. "So he starts feeling more and more desperate. And just about the time he was thinking pretty seriously about dying, right there on the downstairs sofa — his mama gets up out of her bed, and comes down to see how he's doing. You visualizing all this now?"

      Lucy nodded. "I got it."

      "Right. But once Mrs. Arthur got downstairs and found him in that pitiful condition, crying over losing Wolfgang Amador, she started to cry herself — and that touched Cal quite a bit. He told me that in her white nightgown, with her gray hair hanging down her back, she looked like a sorrowing angel, grieving over his sins. Must have been very touching."

      "I guess!" Lucy had trouble picturing sharp-tongued Mrs. Arthur in the role of an angel, but she supposed that Cal, being her son, would have no trouble with it.

      "So the two of them cried together a while," Ricky continued, finishing off his last bite of pie and giving a good lick to both sides of his fork, "But then Mrs. Arthur began to think that now, while he was weak, was a good time to give him a lecture on his wicked ways. So she started in on him and talked a good while — and finally polished him off by saying that she thought Wolfgang Amador took off at last, because he was tired of having such a worthless slacker as Cal for a master.

      "Now you know and I know that Cal believes his dog to be capable of as much serious thought as any human being — so that last part really hit him where he lived, and he started weeping again. And then, seeing she was getting to him, his mama got down on her knees and begged that God would return his dog to him if made a genuine effort to change his ways and become a better man."

      Ricky took a gulp of his coffee. He getting excited by his own story. "She persuaded him to go to church with her, right then in the middle of the night, and pray with her for his own redemption, and for Wolfgang Amador's return. And you know — Cal did it. Hung over though he was, he got up off the sofa and went with her. And then — you know what happened then?"

      "No, what!" Lucy actually felt her heart beating faster.

      "After they'd prayed together, when they came out of the church — there was that fool dog, sitting on the steps in the snow, just like he'd been waiting for them. How about that!"

      "My goodness." Lucy exclaimed, "Did that really happen, Ricky?"

      "Yes it did. And when Cal saw Wolfgang Amador waiting for him, he fell on his knees on the church steps, and embraced religion. He really did, Lucy. He's already told me so himself three or four times — with tears in his eyes. And on the strength of his conversion, Mr. Pump, who for some reason happened to be right there in the church at the time — in spite of the fact that it was the middle of the night and snowing — Mr. Pump offered him his job at the Dairy Kreme."

      Ricky was on his feet now. "And all this while, Mrs. Arthur was crying and hugging Cal. And hugging Mr. Pump. And Mr Pump was hugging them all back. And the snow was falling, and Wolfgang Amador was barking and jumping all around them, just like the end of a movie."

      "Good gracious!"

      Ricky heaved big sigh and sat down again. He looked into his coffee cup, which was empty, and then found a broken tortilla chip and meditatively scooped up the last of the salsa with it. "I don't know though, because . . . I myself keep thinking it's almost too much like a movie ending to be true. The way Wolfgang Amador appeared out of nowhere like that, just at the same time Mrs. Arthur had dragged Cal to church? Makes me wonder."

      He looked up at her, head cocked to one side. "How come Mr. Pump happened to be there on the spot at exactly the right time? In a snowstorm. Just in time to offer Cal that job when he wanted it."

      "What are you driving at, Ricky?"

      "Just that our Cal is kind of a simple soul, when all's said and done. And it does make me wonder if the two of them might've . . . you know — set it up."

      "Joseph Pump and Mrs. Arthur?" Lucy was astonished. "I don't think they'd do a thing like that."

      "Maybe not. But it does seem kind of funny." He got up and stood looking at the empty dishes. "That was real good chili, Lucy. You got a winner in this one. At least I think."

      When Ricky left, Lucy went into the kitchen and called home to see how things were doing there. Normalade sounded sulky over the phone, but she said Uncle Bob had been sleeping most of the day and had been, as she put it, "not too much trouble."

      Bobby and Swan came in together about six. As soon as they arrived, Lucy told Bobby about the conversation she'd had with Eustace Mallory, and how he'd given her the recipe for Montezuma's chili. "And it's really good," she said. "Taste it and see what you think."

      He took two or three bites and then fed a bite to Swan. "Hey," he said, "This is good! Far as I'm concerned, you can forget the old stuff and just serve this from now on."

      Then he paused and added, "But I'm surprised Uncle Bob was willing to make the change."

      "Well . . . he doesn't exactly know about it yet. I didn't do it until today."

      "Oh." Bobby considered that for a minute. "Well, then you better duck when you tell him, Sis."

      "Oh, come on," Swan put in quickly, "If it sells better, he'd be glad."

      But would he? Lucy began to wonder what Uncle Bob really would say about it. And despite all the compliments she'd had, and all the sales she'd made, she felt uneasy.

      Still, maybe he wouldn't mind too much. And people were coming in and ordering, and there was other cooking to do. So she headed back into the kitchen.

      Shark made salads while she diced up tomatoes and onions, and roasted green chilies for fresh salsa. "And I'll need more chips, " she thought.

      But as she stood there chopping away, she continued to worry about what Uncle Bob would say. And that led her by easy stages to worrying about Bobby and Swan.

      There was certainly no doubt they were doing wrong. Swan knew it, too. She had dark circles under her eyes now, tragic-looking. But it bothered Lucy that she herself felt so much sympathy for them, even though they were in the wrong, and so little for Normalade. Normalade was the wife, after all, which put her in the right. But it was hard to maintain the right attitude when she was always so . . . difficult.

      Lucy began cutting up tortillas.

      After seeing Swan and Bobby together, she didn't doubt that what they felt was real and permanent. The way Bobby looked at Swan — well, he'd certainly never looked at Normalade that way, poor little thing.

      And Swan . . . you could sense how she was constantly noticing everything Bobby did, even when she was across the room from him. Her whole self was turned toward him all the time. Maybe that's what true love is, Lucy thought, that opening up of self to make room for another.

      Mechanically, Lucy began deep-frying tortilla chips, but she as she did so, she was looking into her own life, and it seemed very empty to her. What did she know about love, first-hand? When had she ever had a chance to love someone that way — ever?

      She'd loved Mama, or course. And even now, sometimes, she experienced a sort of open-hearted feeling when she thought of things Mama had said or done. And that first night, when she'd held Normalade's baby in her arms, there had come over her a feeling of — of wanting to pour herself out over him, and cover him all over with her love.

      But what Lucy was missing now was something else. She wanted grown-up, man-and-woman love that flowed both ways. Always in the back of her mind had been the thought and someday she could have that with Tagg. But — she had closed that door herself, today. And Gallatin? Real or not, it was only cotton-candy love. She had nothing . . . and nobody of her own.

      "Look out! You're afire!"

      "What?" Lucy jumped at the sound of Shark's voice. Then she saw the little flames licking around the outside of the pan — she'd let it get too hot, or else grease must have splashed onto the burner.

      She jerked the pan away and dashed the small fire with baking soda, kept beside the stove for that very purpose. And in seconds, it was out, leaving a veil of greasy smoke behind.

      Shark came over to look at the pan. "You all right?"

      She wiped away the tears with a dishcloth. "Smoke's making my eyes water. Open the back door a minute, will you?"

      She poured out the burnt chips and oil into the grease can and set aside the pan to cool. "How are the salads coming?"

      "Not quite done."

      "All right, I'm going outside for a breath of air."

      As she leaned against the plastered wall and looked at the desert, she wiped her eyes once more on her apron. Stupid of her to cry like that. And over what!

      But it had been a long, hard, strange day, hadn't it. Here strange dream, if had been a dream. Uncle Bob's not knowing her. And on top of that, Bobby and Swan.

      The quarrel with Tagg was a raw spot in her memory. He had not even come in this evening. Was he really finished with her? And if he was . . . what would he do? What would become of her? What would become of them all?

      She realized she was shivering violently. Well, of course,it was really cold. She went back indoors.

      As she started frying up chips again, Lucy remembered something; it had just come back to her. "Oh, I meant to ask you earlier, Shark: when you got here this morning, how'd you get in? Was the door unlocked?" She'd been wondering whether she and Bobby had been careless at closing time.

      He had his back to her. "Oh yes, but — I had my key."

      "Your key?"

      "Yeah, somebody gave me one. I forget who."

      Lucy turned around and frowned at him. "What are you talking about? You couldn't have a key to this door; there's never been but one, and it's right here." She reached into her pocket and pulled out the ring of the car-keys.

      "Oh."

      "Shark, tell me how you got in."

      He began talking to himself: "Aw, I'm so dumb; just a real dummy, that's all. Why'd I have to say that; Brother's goin' to be so pissed."

      "Shark — "

      He faced her. "All right — I picked the lock."

      "Picked the . . ." she repeated, shocked. "Where did you learn such a thing!"

      His voice was almost inaudible. "When I was in prison."

      She stood looking at him for a moment. Then she slid the frying pan off the fire, turned off the stove and dragged a stool from the corner of the kitchen and sat down on it, facing him. "I think you'd better tell me about this. What were you in prison for?"

      He put down the knife he'd been using to chop with and wiped his hands on his apron. "Well . . ." He didn't seem to know how to get going.

      "Start at the beginning," Lucy said firmly. "Take your time and tell me all about it."

      "Well, see — " he took a big breath. "Our Ma died when I was little, and our Old Man never liked me . . . ."

      That really was the beginning, Lucy thought. But she'd let him get going before she interrupted.

      "So Brother was the one to look after me, even though he was the only boy, and he was only a kid himself. See, there was nobody else to do it, because Helena and Winnet both married early. All my sisters — Rosebud, and Pondera, and Treasure — ran off young."

      "Rosebud, Pondera, and Treasure . . " Lucy murmured.

      "We were all named after counties in Montana," he nodded. "So anyway, Gallatin got the meals, and washed the clothes, and he worked like a slave at the farm. And on top of that he looked after me. Even after he finished the regional high school."

      "He must have been a hard worker." Lucy murmured. She knew a little about that.

      "Yeah, he was the only one of us to graduate — but I think the reason he stayed in school was only to keep on with band. There was a band teacher that came to the schools once a week — and she just about loved him. She taught him to play the fiddle, and the flute, and I don't know what all."

      Lucy nodded, thinking about Gallatin. She could see him clearly in her mind, a skinny, conscientious farm boy, working from can-see to can't-see, looking after a baby brother, and waiting all week for the one day when the band teacher came, so he could learn to play the flute and the violin. Of course that band teacher would have loved him. Anybody would love a boy like that, wouldn't they?

      Shark was talking softly now, as if not to disturb her thoughts. "He could've gone off after he graduated — or long before, you know, like the others did. Because even then he wanted to make a mark for himself with his music. But he stayed on even after high school to see to me. The Old Man was so hard on me that Gallie had to stay to be sure I made it."

      Lucy nodded, not interrupting.

      "But when I was about fourteen," Shark continued, "Gallie got the offer to play in a bar over in the town of Laurel, which was not too far away from where our farm was. And when he told the Old Man he was going, he said if Gallie was going to go, I should go too, because he was sick of looking at me. So Gallie took me along."

      While Shark had been telling all this, he'd been warming to his task, his eyes earnest and bright. But now he drooped. "It was at that bar it happened."

      Lucy had gotten so interested in his story that she'd forgotten why he was telling it. But now she prodded him, "Tell me about it."

      "It was on a Saturday night when the fight broke out. And in the heat of things, one of those old farmers grabbed up Gallatin's guitar — the one he'd saved such a long time to buy — and hit him on the head with it and knocked him down. And — "

      Lucy began to get uneasy. "Go on."

      "And when I saw my brother hurt, and his guitar broken, and blood all over the place, I thought he was killed, and I just — well, I gave that old farmer a real punch. I was pretty big even then," Shark hesitated, "And he fell down . . ."

      "And then?"

      "I hit him too hard, I guess. Thinking he'd killed my brother that raised me and looked after me when nobody else would. And I — hit him so hard that I killed him."

      Lucy stared at Shark, a chill coming all over her. All this time her mind had been on Gallatin, not Shark. And now she could only look at him with mingled pity and revulsion. "You killed him?"

      Shark hung his head. "Yes'm. I hit him with my fist, and his neck broke, and he died. And while Brother was still in the hospital from being hit on the head, they came and arrested me and put me in jail for murder. Since I was still a minor, it was a prison for boys they sent me to, but it was a long time before they let me loose again. Not till I was twenty-one."

      He looked up and met her eyes. "And all that time, Brother never deserted me. Never went off to become a famous musical star like he'd always planned to, but just stayed and worked in the town where the prison was, and came to me every single visiting day. He never missed even one time."

      "That was good of him," Lucy said softly. Would she have done as much as that for Bobby, she wondered. If he'd killed a man?

      They were quiet for a few minutes, Lucy with her thoughts and Shark with his remembering. Finally Shark said timidly, "You going to fire me Miss Lucy? Because I'm a jailbird?"

      Lucy turned it over in her mind. Then she shook her head. "I don't know, Shark. It was a terrible thing you did, but from what you say, you didn't mean to do it."

      "I didn't — I truly didn't! And I swear I never been in any other trouble since then."

      She gave him a stern look. "Well, you can stay. But you must promise you won't go hitting anybody any more. And no more opening locks — not here at Cowboy Bob's, or anywhere else. You promise?"

      He nodded. "I promise. I do."

      "All right then." she said. And she got up and put the skillet back on the stove.

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