Creation Ranch 12

Chapter 12:  Moving to Dacica

 

 

“You really don’t know how many times that bum made me do that very thing before … well it doesn’t matter now.  He’s history thanks to my little boy!” Hap’s mother said as she showered him with affection and he tried hard not to let it have any effect on him.

But as they neared Dacica Hap’s mother began to reminisce about a woman she had met once that was from there or thereabouts.  “She’s just like me, except she’s strictly a prostitute; she’s had too many names.  I think I’ll call myself, Fancy, just for Dacica.  I’ve never had it before and I am fancy … too fancy for a hick town like Dacica and it’ll confuse folks who knew the queer.  That woman is from Ghalb back there but she’s living hereabouts now, she has a kid following her around sometimes that folks say is her kid.  You know what she said to me about it?  ‘I ain’t ever had a kid.  I poke them with bailing wire.  It’s the best way.  I can barely feed myself let alone some little snot that would screw up my business just because a real man doesn’t want any kids around while I’m working.’  That’s what she said.  The heartless old soul!  She keeps telling the little kid to go away and most times the people of the towns she goes to take care of her.”

“How old is she, Ma?”

“Don’t call me that!  Call me, Fancy.”

“Okay, Ma.  Anything you say … um … Fancy?”

“Thank you,” Fancy said and fanned herself with a fan Hap had never seen before.  “She’s about a year younger than you I suppose.  If you want we can take her in, you can pretend you’re married to the little waif if you want to?”

Hap looked very much to the embarrassed and unwilling side of things.

“You could take her in, but I ain’t marrying no waif that’s a given, Ma!”

“Don’t call me, Ma!” she screamed at the boy, “Never.  You call me Fancy from now on!  You hear?”

“Okay, Fancy,” he said, “okay?”

“Maybe the folks at Creation Ranch …”

“What kind of ranch?” Hap giggled.

“It used to be called Havoll’s Ranch and before that Zola’s Ranch before they built the fort on it.”

“Man!  This could be fun in this … this Dacica!”

“I wouldn’t get so fired up, Hap.  They are real hoity-toity there.  If you ain’t family you don’t even get to go there to work most of the time.  You get caught in a con there and it’s your last.  I heard in Ghalb that Eli is one of them, but he’s a b*****d or something and therefore not good enough for them ether.  Can you imagine that, not even good enough for your own Ma, just like that … Lois … that’s the waif’s name, Lois!”

Hap screwed up his nose and made out he had crossed eyes permanently, crossing and holding them much longer than need be to make his point.

“I hope you stay like that!” Fancy shouted at him and then turned to a little girl in shabby clothes on the street for they were already in the little town outside what looked like a great fort.  “Are you Lois by any chance?” she asked.

“Folks call me that?”

“What does your mother call you then darling?” 

She was silent and pouty.

“Well then Lois, where might I find the woman, you call your mother?”

Her eyes lit up and then went soft with disappointment.

“She doesn’t work for women any longer,” she said.

“Well, thank God for that!” Fancy shouted, “Where can I find her anyway?  She’s an old friend of mine, sort of, I mean I talked to her once, I mean she beat the hell out of me when I got sore over the way she was treating my husband?”

“I don’t care anything about her, but are you here to kill her?”

“Heaven’s no, child!  My name is Fancy.  And I’ve come to do you a big favor!”

“Like what?”

“Do you need a place to stay and seven meals a week?”

“Seven?  Why just seven?  Why not three squares a day even?” Lois asked, being very skeptical and sarcastic.

“You are on, Lois.”

“Wait a minute.  What do I have to do to get them?”

“Do you cook?” Fancy asked.  “I hate to cook.  If you cook you get 21 meals a week.  If I have to teach you, you only get seven; fair enough?”

Hap poked his head out to see what his mother had done and was stunned by Lois’ beauty even at that age.

“I am not a prostitute!” she yelled and began walking faster than the wagon.

“Did I say you had to be?  That’s between you and Hap.  But the way he looks you’ll never count as his sister?  Maybe you better scrounge your meals.  You mightn’t do well with a brother like Hap?”

Lois slowed her walk and swung up into the front of the wagon.

“Just remember from now on we are brother and sister!” she ordered Hap without looking back.

“Yeah, right, like that makes a difference to me?” he said.

“Just like his daddy, that one,” Fancy said and shook her head.

“It does to me,” Lois said and took the rains from Fancy.  “I cook,” she said seeming very angry instead of grateful she didn’t have to scrounge her meals from then on again.

“What besides Hap has your b***s on the burner?” Fancy said, and then turning saw her, her friend of sorts and stared mercilessly at her until she said, “You do remember me don’t you?”

“What would make you think I cared to, if I did?  You can go back to Ewodo’s camp as far as I’m concerned.”

“Fine,” Fancy said and climbed back into the back of the wagon with Hap.  “Take me to the bank, Lois.”

Lois stopped the wagon and in a short while Fancy got out, and standing right in front of the bank spit on the woman Lois thought was her mother.

The woman slugged her in the abdomen and Fancy doubled over.  Lois’ mother watched her writhe in pain a moment and then walked on, while Fancy slowly straightened herself and went into the bank.

While in the bank Fancy made a huge deposit and immediately bought a nice big house for her and Hap to live in, in style and coming back out of the bank said to Lois, “Do you know where I can find the biggest house in town?  Thank the Lord Deag it was for sale and we had more than enough to buy, Hap; way more than enough.”