If I shut my eyes, I can transport
myself back to my grandmother’s kitchen.
I can smell the sweet sachet powder she liked to wear, inhale the aroma
of strong coffee kept warm on the back of the huge gas stove, and catch a whiff
of the Mule Team Borax powder she used to wash dishes. I can imagine her in one of her favorite
housedresses, maybe the yellow and brown plaid or perhaps one with a paisley
print, with a clean apron tied around her waist. She always wore an apron unless she went out
of the house and to town. Although she
lived in an urban neighborhood, she always called her trips to the store or
downtown ‘going to town’.
Granny handled my care while my
parents both worked and so, by some curious sort of almost magic, I grew up
with my head in the 1930’s, my physical body in the 1960’s. My grandparents ‘kept me’, as Granny called
it, from the age of two months until shortly before I began school so their
influence on me proved significant.
Although I went home each evening and slept, most of the time, in my own
bed in my parents’ house, my grandparents raised me the same way they raised
their own children, back in the 1930’s and 1940’s. I ended up with a different view than many of
my own generation and listening to tales about the Depression years were
something I absorbed along with my Little Golden Books.
My latest release, out September 17
from Rebel Ink Press, is set in the 1930’s era.
Dust Bowl Dreams is a love
story but it’s also a portrait of the times.
It’s set in Oklahoma and it owes a little homage to Charley Floyd, my
favorite outlaw. Here’s the blurb and an
excerpt:
Life’s never easy
for a good-hearted man who decides crime is the answer to his troubles.
No rain in the
summer of 1933 is bad news for Oklahoma farmer Henry Mink. The local banker
wants the mortgage on the farm paid and unless Henry comes up with the dough,
his widowed mother and four young siblings won’t have a home. Jobs are scarce so he decides to rob a
bank. His sweetheart, school teacher
Mamie Logan, doesn’t like the idea and neither does Henry’s kid brother Eddie
but Henry’s out of options.
He leaves home and
robs a bank at nearby Ponca City. When he returns home, he pays off the
mortgage but new troubles show up. Mamie is his greatest joy and they become
engaged but by fall, Henry has no options left but to rob another bank. If he can pull off one another big job, he
figures he’ll be set until the hard times are over but few things in life go as
planned. His desperate efforts will
either secure his future or destroy it forever.
If Henry’s family
survives and Mamie’s love endures, he’ll need a miracle.
With any luck he’d hit the farm just
after dinner time. There’d be plenty of
time for hugs and greetings, a chance for Mama to make over the groceries, and
time to take the whole bunch to town for a hamburger out and maybe the picture
show. Henry would head over to Mamie’s
and invite her along. He spun daydreams
about the moment he’d see his girl again and imagined what everyone would do
and say when he showed up with full pockets.
It’d be like the prodigal son, he figured, but in reverse – they
wouldn’t kill a fatted calf for him, but by God, he’d provide something similar.
Sunday morning he’d be proud to escort
his family to church and sit in a pew with Mamie at his side. Come Monday he’d be at the bank when it
opened and pay the remaining sum on the mortgage. Imagining Richardson’s face when he
delivered the cash gave him pleasure and he chuckled out loud. Henry couldn’t recall when he’d been so
happy, probably not since before his daddy died, the rain quit, and the economy
went to hell in a hand basket.
As he drove, he admired the wide
blue sky sweeping from one horizon to the other like a giant bowl and the way
the prairies stretched out in every direction.
He did his best to ignore the foreclosure signs tacked up on some farms,
the dry clouds of dust wafting across the empty fields when the wind blew, and
the sad eyed children hanging around broken gates at some farms.
Until Henry rolled down the lane to
his home, he’d forgotten how stark the farm looked. What paint once covered the boards of the
farmhouse vanished long ago under the relentless assault of Oklahoma weather
and he noticed the barn seemed to lean left as if it might collapse into a
heap. Dobbin stood in the makeshift
corral, head down as if he hadn’t been fed or wanted water. He expected the kids to run outside when they
heard the car, but no one came and when he parked in the bare yard, he heard
nothing but the whir of the windmill, the grinding of the worn blades.
Henry stepped out and called out,
but no answer came. He reached into the car and honked the horn several times,
sharp and loud. Although he waited,
Mama didn’t emerge from the back door drying her hands on her worn apron, Eddie
didn’t bolt out of the barn, and the gals didn’t come from the shade at the far
edges of the yard. Unease crept into
his pleasant mood and he wondered where his family might have gone. Henry couldn’t figure out how they left
either, not with the horse present and the car in his possession.
He carried the wooden boxes of
groceries into the house and left them on the kitchen table. Henry removed his bandanas from the inside of
his overall legs and reached up for the old Eight O’Clock coffee can Mama kept
on a high shelf. When there was money
in the house, she stashed it there so he put some money into it. The remainder he carried into the bedroom and
stuck beneath the worn mattress. He
made sure his wallet had plenty and went outside.
“Hello?” he shouted again.
Even
if they were down at the river, they should’ve heard the car horn. He smoked a tailor made cigarette, the
tobacco smooth and rich against his tongue.
He’d been certain something must be wrong, but he refused to believe
it. They’d gone off to visit Uncle Ed or
something, he decided. There’d be a
reason and it wouldn’t be anything bad. When he finished the smoke, he decided
he’d head over to the Logan farm. Maybe
Mamie would know where his folks were and he wanted to see her anyway.
Before he could bring the Ford to a
full stop, Mamie flew out of the house and ran toward him, black curls
flying. Her beauty smote him until he
forgot everything else but Mamie. Henry
stopped and got out to meet her. He
swept her into his arms, marveling at the sweet line of her pink lips, the way
her small snub nose wrinkled with joy, and how her eyes sparkled like morning
dew.
“Henry, you came home, you’re back,”
Mamie cried as she hugged him tight.
He
inhaled the sweet fragrance of some simple sachet powder she wore. Her body against his evoked both a tenderness
and a sensual interest so strong he couldn’t even put it into words. All Henry knew was how much he desired
her. Her starched blue calico dress
rustled against him, the full skirt sweeping against his legs and manhood. He couldn’t have resisted if he tried, so he
kissed her, tempted to pull the pins from her hair to set it free.
Her mouth tasted sweet and full,
more intoxicating than Muscat wine.
Sensation flooded his senses, a physical delight making every nerve
ending in his body light up with electricity and emotional connection. The heady mix flared up until he all but lost
his head, kissing his girl until they both gasped for air. When they broke apart, Mamie hugged him
again and he put an arm around her shoulders as they strolled toward the
house. Maybe she’d have some fresh
lemonade, Henry hoped, or maybe a tasty little biscuit or something. He didn’t bother stopping for lunch and now
his stomach ached with hunger.
He’d meant to eat something at home
because he figured Mama would have something around to eat even if it wasn’t
any more than cold cornbread. But he
didn’t get to eat because no one’d been home and reminded, he turned to Mamie.
“Say, honey, you wouldn’t happen to
know where my folks went, would you?” he asked.
Her brilliant smile wilted and some
of the sparkle faded out of her eyes.
Anxiety replaced joy and Henry held his breath. His first impression nailed it – something
must be wrong, some awful thing must’ve happened.
“I forgot you wouldn’t know,” Mamie
said, her voice dropping lower the way people did when they delivered bad
news. He remembered the tone too well
from when his daddy died back three years ago.
“What is it?” he demanded. “What
happened? Just tell me.”
She looked down, eyelashes brushing
her cheek. “It’s Eddie.”
Dust Bowl Dreams can be purchased at
the following e-book retail outlets: Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble.com,
BookStrand.com and AllRomanceebooks.com
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