"Ernesto wishes to impress you with his reliability, Se¤or Clete."
"I'm impressed," Clete said, and raised his voice. "A little faster, Ernesto, por favor."
"S¡, Patron," Ernesto replied, and raised the speed no more than two miles per hour.
"Much faster, por favor, Ernesto."
"S¡, Patron," Ernesto said, and shoved the accelerator to the floor.
[TWO]
Big Foot Ranch
Midland, Texas
0945 16 April 1943
While it was not the custom of Mrs. Martha Williamson Howell-who was, among other things, Chairman of the Ladies' Guild of Trinity Episcopal Church-to partake of spirituous liquors often-rarely before the cocktail hour, and never before noon-today was to prove an exception.
The Old Broad, she thought as she sat down to eat her breakfast at the kitchen table, needs a little pick-me up. Martha's got a bad case of the I-Feel-Sorry-For-Poor-Old-Martha.
She had, she thought, justification for her low spirits. Primarily, of course, she missed Jim. Everybody told her-and it seemed logical-that time heals all wounds, and that her grief over the loss of her husband would pass.
It didn't pass. It changed. Though she no longer wept herself to sleep, the realization-a black weight on her heart-that Jim wouldn't be back seemed to grow by the day.
She had originally been angry, at God primarily, for doing that to Jim, tak-ing him when he was still a relatively young man, depriving him of a long and full life. Now she was angry at God for taking Jim from her, for leaving her alone. She was too young to lose her man.
And that wasn't all that was wrong with her life. Every time-this morning included-she walked into the kitchen, she was flooded with memories of the kitchen full with Jim and Clete and the girls, of spilled orange juice, pancakes laid carefully atop fresh fourteen-year-old coiffeurs, French toast seasoned with Tabasco in the maple syrup, and all the rest of it.
The girls were gone, too. Beth was twenty-one and about to graduate from Rice. There was more than that, too. The way Beth and the latest Beau behaved when she saw them just before Clete went off to South America again, Martha knew that Beth and Whatsisname were more than just good friends. Phrased delicately, Beth was now a woman, and Whatsisname, whose father was in the drilling business in East Texas, was the one to whom she had given the pearl be-yond price.
She was reasonably sure that Marjorie was still a girl, but she wouldn't have laid heavy money on that, either. Marjorie had always been precocious. If she hadn't been with some boy, it was because she hadn't met one she really liked. And one she really liked was likely to be the next one through the door.
So they were gone, too, as Clete was gone.
The family would never have breakfast again in the kitchen.
Never.
She was alone, and it looked as if she was going to be alone from now on. Getting married again seemed absurd. Jim had been one hell of a man, and it was damned unlikely that she would find anyone who came close.
So when Juanita-who didn't really have a hell of a lot to do herself any-more with everybody gone-went in the back of the house to make up the bed, Martha poured herself a tall glass of tomato juice, then added horseradish and Tabasco and salt and a large hooker of gin.
Then she went out on the porch to wait for Rural Free D
elivery. The mail would probably be all bills, she thought. Or invitations she wouldn't want to ac-cept. Or another communication from the Texas Railroad Board or the Internal Revenue Service, or more likely both, to cause her trouble. The odds against a letter from Marjorie or Beth were probably a hundred to one, and the odds against a letter from Clete were astronomical.
The astronomical long shot came in.
"Got a special-delivery letter for you, Miss Martha," Henry the Mailman announced. "From some Navy chief petty officer."
What the hell can that be ?
"Are you sure it's for me?" she asked as she took the envelope. It was in-deed addressed to her. She tore it open.
"It's from Clete," she said.
"Back in the Pacific, is he?" Henry asked, and stayed around until she had read it.