Burkett magnanimously allowed the woman to retain ten percent of the business, and was also allowing her to continue to run it, on the condition that she turn John Burkett away each time he tried to make use of the establishment.
To aide her in this he had hired two bouncers who ostensibly worked for Louise, keeping her girls safe.
Lincoln Burkett smiled. He wished he could be on hand the first time young John met those bouncers.
That night Dude Miller locked up early and walked to the home of his friend Ed Collins. There was a bite in the air and he pulled the collar of his topcoat close around his neck.
Miller and Collins were trying to find more people to oppose Lincoln Burkett and his attempt to own everything he could see. They had some supporters, but not enough to make a difference. Burkett seemed to have won over the people who counted in Vengeance Creek, including the mayor and the president of the bank. Three months ago a new sheriff had been appointed, and it wasthe opinion of both Miller and Collins that the man had been handpicked by Lincoln Burkett.
When Ed Collins admitted Dude Miller to his house he offered his friend a drink, and Miller accepted.
“Have you had dinner?” Collins asked.
“Serena is waiting dinner for me, I’m sure.”
“She’s a good girl, your daughter,” Collins said, handing Miller a glass of sherry. “I wish Ada and I had been able to have children.”
Miller and Collins were roughly the same age, early sixties, and had been widowed within the past ten years. Both men sorely missed their wives, but Miller had his daughter, Serena, to keep him company. At twenty-eight she was the spitting image of her mother, a true beauty. Collins envied Miller unabashedly, and Miller felt sorry for Collins. All he had was his gunsmith shop, and he spent as much time there as possible.
Sitting together on the sofa Collins asked, “So, how do we stand?”
“As we did yesterday, last week, and last month,” Miller said.
“Then Burkett will go on,” Collins said, “and absorb everything around him, until he owns everything…and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“I’ve done something about it, don’t forget.”
Collins made a face.
“Those damned telegrams. Do you really expect Sam McCall to ride in here to the rescue?”
“I expect Sam and his brothers to ride in here to find out what happened to their parents,” Miller said.
“Those boys have long ago forgotten they even had parents.” Collins’ distaste for such sons was plain in his voice.
“You’re wrong, Ed,” Miller said. “They’ll be here, all right.”
“It’s been months…”
“Two months,” Miller said, “but don’t forget, Sam would have to find both Evan and Jubal and then they’d all have to find their way back here. They’ll be here, don’t you worry.”
“Come on, Dude,” Collins said, “give it up. What makes you so sure they’ll come?”
“Serena.”
“What? What about Serena?”
“She says that no child could let the death of their parents go uninvestigated,” Miller said. “She says the bond between child and parent is too strong, too deep to ignore even if the child wanted to—in this case, three children.”
“That may be,” Collins said, “but the McCall boys are not children any longer, Dude—especially Sam.”
“Serena says they’ll be here,” Miller said, “and I believe her.”
“Well,” Ed Collins said, grudgingly, “both you and she would know more about this subject than I would, wouldn’t you?”
Dude Miller laid his empty glass aside and stood up. His friend was about to descend into a well of self pity, and he had no desire to stay and watch.
“I’ve got to get home to Serena, Ed,” Miller said. “We’ll talk again.”
“Sure,” Collins said, “when the McCall boys get here.”
“Goodnight, Ed.”
Dude Miller left the Collins house. Even though he knew Ed Collins was inside, he felt as if he were leaving an empty house behind.
He wondered how it must feel from the inside.
As Dude Miller entered the wood-frame, two-story house he shared with his daughter Serena his nostrils Texas Iron were assailed—no, rewarded—With the smells of Serena’s wonderful cooking. If she had succeeded in replacing her dead mother in no other way, Serena was almost as fine a cook as her mother was.
Actually, Miller wished that Serena would stop trying to replace her mother. At twenty-eight she was much too old to be living at home with her father. True, at that age she was considered something of an old maid in Vengeance Creek, but to Miller she was still a beautiful young woman who should be married and giving him grandchildren.
“Father?” Her voice came from the kitchen.
“It’s me,” Miller said, removing his top coat and hanging it on a wall rack that he had built.
Serena came from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. A tall woman, she needed only to lift her chin slightly to kiss her father, who was six feet tall. Along with being tall she was slender, almost rangy. To his prejudiced father’s eye she was a beauty, with hair the color of corn, smooth, unblemished skin, naturally rosy lips and very white, even teeth. He was glad that he made enough money at the store that she didn’t have to work unless she wanted to, and then it was not work that would weather her skins or her hands, or give her a weary look. Her mother, God rest her, as beautiful as she was, had to work hard almost all her life, and paid for it. When she died she was tired looking, and slightly stooped; her hair had lost its natural luster and her flesh its resiliency. A finer woman had never lived, though, and Miller loved her with all his heart to the day she died—and more that day than ever before.
“What smells so wonderful?”
“You should be able to tell,” she said, smiling. “It’s your favorite.”
“Yes,” he said, sniffing the air, “it is’meat loaf!”
“It’s ready,” she said. “Just go upstairs and clean up and I’ll put dinner on the table.”
“Have you eaten?”
“Not yet.”
“You should have.”
“I knew you’d be home soon. Go and clean up.”
“All right, all right,” he said. “Next you’ll want to check behind my ears.”
“I’m not trying to be your mother.”
“No,” he said, “you’re trying to be yours.”
Her smile disappeared and she said, “Let’s not go through that again, please?”
“You’re right,” he said, raising his hands in a gesture of supplication. “I’m sorry. I’ll wash up.”
While cleaning up he chided himself for the remark. They had had many hours of arguments over her staying to live with him, and he should have known by this time that further argument was futile. Just like her mother, Serena was doggedly stubborn when she set her mind to something.
At sixty-three Miller felt he still had many years on this earth. He despaired at the thought of Serena staying with him for every one of them. Once he was gone she’d be in her late forties or early fifties, and it would be she who was alone. The thought of his beautiful daughter wasting her youth and then living the final thirty or forty years of her life alone made him shake his head. If only he could think of a convincing argument.
If only she’d fall in love…and all right, old man, he told himself, that’s another reason you want the McCall boys to come home. None of them would remember Serena as anything but a little girl. Maybe when they met her now, all grown up, she’d fall in love with one of them. Lord knew they were strong men and would certainly not beunattractive at this point in their lives. Sam had to be in his early forties, Evan in his late thirties. Jubal, the youngest, would only be several years younger than Serena; it was certainly not an insurmountable age difference.