Song of the Road by Dorothy Garlock Page B

counter. He glanced up, then continued with his meal.
    “Howdy, Jake.” Ruby, scraping the grill, paused to greet him. “You’re late tonight.”
    “Yeah.” Jake hung his hat on the rack beside the door. “Guess I am.” He straddled a stool.
    “What’ll ya have?”
    “Your thirty-cent steak.”
    “Golly, you must be hungry tonight.”
    “I could eat the rear end out of a skunk.”
    “You’ll not have to do that.” Ruby’s large belly shook when she laughed. She took a slab of meat out of the icebox and slapped it on the grill.
    Jake liked Ruby and counted her as one of his few friends in town. She was so homely she would have to tie a pork chop around her neck to get a dog to play with her, but she was honest and fair and hardworking. She was a tall woman, almost six feet, broad, and could be an advertisement for her own cooking. Her husband had been killed on the highway right after her last son was born. She had two daughters, one of whom helped her at the diner, and a son who wasn’t worth the powder it would take to blow him up. Her other son had not been right when he was born and had needed constant care until he died at age seventeen.
    Jake figured Ruby had endured enough sorrow for two lifetimes.
    “I hear they’re about to wind up the work on the bridge.”
    “Another week or two.”
    “Are you moving on down the highway with the crew?”
    “Not planning on it. I’ve got horses to break for Quitman.” “Quitman isn’t particular ’bout who he hires,” Frank mumbled to Ruby when she passed him. “Like you ain’t particular ’bout who eats here.”
    “No, I ain’t. That’s why I serve you just like anyone else, Frank.”
    Jake ignored the conversation and spread butter on the bread Ruby had set before him.
    “You still stayin’ out at the motor court, Frank?” Ruby asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “I heard you and Dolly were goin’ to get married.”
    “That was a while ago.”
    “Before you heard that Scott Finley left everything to Mary Lee?”
    “Dolly could still get part of it if she went to court.”
    “Lawyer’s fee would eat up all she got, if anything. Isn’t that right, Jake?”
    “I wouldn’t know. How’s my steak comin’?”
    “Medium rare, huh?”
    “Yeah, and while I’m eatin’ it, stick that piece of apple pie in the oven to warm up.”
    “I hope you’re this hungry when you’re breaking horses, or do you eat out at Quitman’s?”
    “I eat at noon out there.”
    Frank put his money on the counter, slapped his hat on his head and walked out.
    “Thank you, Frank,” Ruby called, then chuckled. “Guess he got his tail over the line. Don’t matter. As soon as his ditch-diggin’ job plays out, he’ll be back wantin’ to eat on credit.”
    “Where’s he working?”
    “On the sewer lines the town’s layin’ north of town. As soon as Scott died, he was right out there playin’ up to Dolly. She’s got no more sense than a cross-eyed goose — never did have as long as I’ve known her. Frank’s just the type she’d take up with. I’m glad Mary Lee is back and takin’ over the court. Hear she’s expecting.”
    Jake listened to Ruby talk while she stirred the potatoes she was frying on the grill next to the steak.
    “Now, that girl’s had a peck of trouble. She had a time goin’ through school, bein’ shamed by the way Dolly acted and everybody in town knowin’ it. Then she married that good-for-nothin’ Bobby Clawson, but I guess you know that. She was determined to leave town and didn’t want to go by herself, is what Trudy said. My Trudy and Mary Lee were good friends in school.”
    This was news Jake had heard before, yet he was all ears and kept quiet hoping Ruby would continue to talk.
    “Did you know that when Bobby was killed, Ocie Clawson didn’t as much as telephone Mary Lee or help her bury his son? He told it himself at the pool hall, and you know that everything that’s said at that place is spread all over town. It must have