Slim Pickings in Fat Chance, Texas Read online

  Pappy’s words seemed to hit home.

  “OK,” Fernando said. “You may be right. I’m willing to try to find out what you see here that I don’t.”

  “I’ll be happy to show you the—”

  “No, Pappy,” Fernando said, looking a little uncomfortable calling a complete stranger “Pappy.” “I don’t want you to show me. I want to go find it. You know, the unvarnished truth.”

  “Unvarnished is pretty much business as usual around here,” Pappy said. “As a matter of fact, you’ll be hard-pressed to find anything varnished.”

  Fernando put his new hat back on his head, adjusting the angle just slightly until he felt it was doing its best for him. “I guess I’ll mosey around,” he said.

  “Just watch out for the snakes and—” Pappy stopped abruptly. “Right. Get on with you.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Fernando looked up and down Main Street, hands on hips, as if daring the place.

  OK, Fat Chance, show me something.

  He took a few steps and dust kicked up all around him. He lifted one foot and rubbed his boot on his jeans—hadn’t anyone around here in the last hundred years heard of asphalt? This dirt was killing his new boots. He rubbed his other boot clean and was relieved to see the dust didn’t seem to have caused any permanent damage. He took a few more steps, then looked down at his boots once again—they were as dusty as before he’d tried to clean them.

  Whatever!

  He stumbled, but righted himself quickly, glowering at the ground where a large rock had deliberately found its way into his path. He kicked the offending rock with all the pent-up frustration he’d been feeling.

  “Damn,” he said, as pain shot up his ankle.

  The rock was unmoved by the activity. Even the ground in this backwater town was against him. He looked around again. Fernando wanted to figure out his best approach to this scouting expedition and, more importantly, to make sure that his futile fight with a boulder hadn’t been witnessed by any of the other inhabitants.

  From the look of things, it appeared the café was pretty much in the center of the town. Any way he walked he would see—what? More dirt surrounded by a bunch of falling-down buildings?

  He jumped up on the weathered boardwalk, which was smooth from years of sunshine and footsteps. Most of the buildings were on the boardwalk, but as he looked back toward the trail he and Pappy had managed to climb down, he remembered seeing an intriguing building on the other side of Main Street. He looked at the other end of town, where another building stood apart from the others. He flipped a coin—the far end of town won.

  At least this way I’ll be closer to the trailhead after I’ve looked around.

  Eyeing the loose dust of Main Street, he headed back down the boardwalk toward the far end of town. Dymphna and Pappy said a handful of people lived and worked here, but there wasn’t a soul moving in the whole town as far as he could see. He reached the end of the boardwalk and realized he’d have to walk through the deep dust to reach the building that sat defiantly apart from the other buildings. He saw a creek peeking out from behind the buildings on the boardwalk, meandering gracefully in front of a two-story building and babbling brightly in the sun. Fernando tiptoed through the dust and stood, studying the front porch. He was a sucker for front porches. This one looked directly down Main Street. If the porch wasn’t so battered, if the building wasn’t so precariously leaning to one side, and if there was anything to see down Main Street, this would be a great spot.

  He started across the little bridge that spanned the creek. He shielded his eyes and looked up at the sign hung over the eves.

  The Creakside Inn.

  He let out a laugh.

  “What’s so damn funny?” came a dry voice from a corner of the porch.

  Fernando jumped. An old woman with the most unruly white hair he’d seen since—well, since Pappy took off his hat—walked out of the shadows.

  Startled that he was actually face-to-face with another human being, Fernando continued up the path.

  “Hold up there, city boy,” the old woman said. “This is my place and you weren’t invited in. Now, unless you are looking to rent a room, I suggest you get on about whatever business brought you here, and get off my property. And rumor has it you are not interested in renting a room.”

  “Rumor has it?” Fernando said. “There are enough people in this place to start a rumor? I’ve only been here a few minutes.”

  “We’re a well-oiled machine.”

  “Sorry, ma’am,” he said in what he felt was a calm, reassuring tone. “I’m just lookin’ around your li’l place here, makin’ m’self familiar. . . y’know.”

  “Just because this is a ghost town in Texas, there’s no reason to be dropping your Gs,” the old woman said.

  He stayed where he was on the bridge, but put his hands on his hips. “So, tell me more about this rumor.”

  “I heard you came to look over the café, but you didn’t like it.”

  “I never said I didn’t like it.”

  “Did you?”

  “Did I what?”

  “Like the café?”

  “No, it’s a train wreck!”

  “OK, well, at least you’re not crazy,” the old woman said. “You can come up on the porch now.”

  As Fernando made his way up the rickety steps, the old woman approached him. He noticed she was wearing a faded gingham dress with a double ruffle at the hem. Her hands were shoved into the pockets. He tried to sneak a peek at her hands—what if she had a pistol in there? The old woman noticed.

  “And what are you looking at?” she asked.

  “Your apron,” he said quickly.

  “What about it?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.

  “You didn’t strike me as the ruffle type.”

  She stared at him through a mass of wrinkles, which suddenly broke into a grin.

  “You got that right,” she said, putting out her hand. “I’m Bertha. They call me Old Bertha behind my back, but never to my face.”

  Fernando suspected that was a wise move on the part of the townspeople. Old Bertha offered him a seat, indicating the porch swing. Now that both of her hands were out of her pockets and he could see there was no gun, Fernando relaxed. He took the seat offered him. Bertha perched her ample bottom on the porch railing. Fernando held his breath, but the wood didn’t splinter under her.

  “I guess this is your place?” he asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Anybody ever rent a room?”

  “I bet you’d be surprised if I said yes,” she said.

  “I won’t lie,” he said, looking around. “I’d be very surprised.”

  “I don’t like your tone, city boy. You’re making some pretty rash judgments about what’s happening in Fat Chance, based on not much of anything but a sore foot!”

  “I was hoping no one was looking.”

  She glanced up at him and giggled like a little girl. “Oh yeah, I saw it. You sure did put that rock in its place.”

  “Not my finest hour,” Fernando admitted, then softened his tone. “So, tell me about you.”

  Old Bertha stared hard at him. “I’ll bet you say that to all the old ladies, don’t you? I’ll make a deal with you, city boy. You play straight with me, I’ll play straight with you.”

  “I never play straight,” Fernando said in his most flamboyant voice.

  “Oh, you are good,” she said, putting her hand up for a high five.

  Fernando smacked her hand. They were going to get along just fine.

  Old Bertha told him she had two lodgers. One was Powderkeg, who was a carpenter and leather worker. His shop was at the other end of town. He was also the ex-husband of Cleo, the billionaire’s daughter who left town so quickly. Old Bertha suspected that Powderkeg was still in love with his ex-wife, but even though the old woman was pretty sure there was “some hanky-panky going on” while Cleo had been in town, he hadn’t been enough to hold her.

  The secon
d lodger was Polly, who, at twenty-three, was the youngest person in Fat Chance. Fernando noticed that Old Bertha lit up when talking about the young woman—almost like a mother bragging about her daughter—or in this case, a grandmother bragging about her granddaughter. Polly ran a millinery shop on the boardwalk called Polly’s Tops, Hats and Tails, and made dazzling hat confections that she sold online and in a gift shop in the nearest “big town”—Dripping Springs, with its population of nearly 1,800. Powderkeg also sold his leather crafts there, as did Titan.

  “I thought you only had two lodgers,” Fernando said.

  “Did I say anything about Titan living here?” Bertha asked testily. “He lives over at the forge.”

  “The forge? You mean that glorified lean-to over by the trailhead? What does he sell, horseshoes?”

  “He does sell horseshoes, but mostly to the local cowboys,” Old Bertha said.

  “Local cowboys?” Fernando brightened, looking around as if waiting for them to materialize.

  “Not local-local,” Old Bertha said. “We’ve got a few ranches nearby. Apparently he’s a real artist when it comes to horseshoes. But he also makes jewelry and bowls out of metal. He sells them over in Dripping Springs. They get a tourist trade over there that we can’t seem to get going here.”

  “The fact that you don’t have a real road has got to be a stumbling block,” Fernando said dryly.

  Old Bertha nodded and sighed.

  “Let me get this straight,” Fernando said. “You, Pappy, and Dymphna live in this town, plus Powderkeg, Polly, and Titan. Is that right?”

  “That’s about it, yeah.”

  “Why haven’t I seen them then—Powderkeg, Titan, and Polly, I mean.”

  “Why should they put themselves out to meet you?”

  “Are they hiding?” Fernando looked around, slightly alarmed.

  “I wouldn’t say they were hiding, exactly. But, you know, rumor has it . . .”

  “OK, OK,” Fernando said, not wanting to inflame the rumor mill. “So you guys each have a business here in Fat Chance?”

  “Mostly,” Old Bertha said. “But I’ve got two. I run the grocery store. It was originally left to a kid named Wally Wasabi, but I took it over when he left. Doesn’t really take a whole lot of time running this boardinghouse, as you can imagine.”

  “Why did Wally . . .”

  “Wasabi.”

  “Why did he leave?” Fernando looked down Main Street as the town baked in the sun. “Besides the obvious.”

  “He got a deal with a publisher in New York City,” Old Bertha said. “What do you think the odds are of becoming a successful writer in New York City?”

  Probably better than becoming a successful grocer in Fat Chance, thought Fernando.

  CHAPTER 3

  As she and Thud walked up the hill, Dymphna wondered if there was anything she could have said to make Fernando stay. She thought about her conversation with Pappy. Why did it matter to her what Fernando thought of Fat Chance? No matter how much Pappy groused, the town had managed without their café for months now. If Fernando decided to walk back up the hill and never look back, nothing would really change. So that couldn’t be it. Was she worried that Fernando would tell Suzanna and her family about Dymphna’s little white lies? No, she didn’t think that was it either. As a matter of fact, that might be a relief!

  Dymphna could see Main Street from her farm. She tried not to think about Fernando or worry about his decision, but she kept sneaking peeks to the spot in the road where there was the only cell phone reception. Fernando still wasn’t standing on it. The last she saw of him, he was, improbably, sitting on the porch of the Creakside Inn with Old Bertha. Dymphna admonished herself—she had work to do, she couldn’t stand here all day worrying about something over which she had no control. She suddenly realized what was bothering her. Fat Chance was like beauty—it all depended on the eye of the beholder. And while Fernando would either see the beauty of the place or he wouldn’t, she loved this little town and she wanted him, as an impartial outsider, to love it too.

  Fat chance.

  Dymphna and Thud went into the house. Dymphna filled the bloodhound’s bowl with water and left him happily lapping, as she headed to the barnyard. She approached the goats as quietly as possible, her hands—which were hiding a large pair of scissors—behind her back. Contrary to popular belief, goats were incredibly intelligent and had memories like an Italian plotting a vendetta. Twice a year, her four Angora goats—Udderlee, Catterly, Sarilee, and Down Diego—had to be shorn. Sarilee had borne two kids, but they were still babies and wouldn’t be shorn for another season. Having been through three shearings already, if the adult goats saw the scissors, they’d hightail it into the pasture. Dymphna’s farm was fenced, but the goats only stayed inside the fence if they felt like it.

  When she first arrived at the farm, she’d kept the goats in the barn while she spent hours securing the old fence. Confident the goats would be safely corralled, she’d let them into the yard, where they played picturesquely. Pappy was visiting the first time Dymphna saw the goats leap the fence. Thud had gotten into the yard and was bounding around joyously. But the goats wanted none of him. They gracefully hopped almost vertically into the air and over the enclosure. While she stood there in shock, Pappy didn’t miss a beat of his story, a well-worn tale of how he had managed to get his Volkswagen bus up the trail before the road gave way entirely during a torrential rain. She had interrupted him.

  “My goats just took off!”

  “I see that,” Pappy said. “So, like I was saying, I felt the tire slipping and—”

  “But . . .” Dymphna watched her goats scampering toward the creek. “My goats just . . . took off.”

  “What’s your point?” Pappy said, clearly annoyed that his story about his VW bus had been derailed.

  “I didn’t know they could do that,” she said.

  “Well,” Pappy said. “Now you do.”

  “Then, why . . . Why build a fence in the first place?”

  Pappy looked at her with a mixture of pity and annoyance. “You’re the one who built the fence. You tell me.”

  Dymphna watched the goats playing down by the creek.

  “Can you picture the horse pastures of Kentucky?” Pappy asked, pity finally winning out.

  “Of course,” Dymphna said. “Green rolling fields with white fences for miles.”

  “That’s right. Lots of times the fence is only four feet high. So, when you think about it, any horse worth his salt could jump over it. But he doesn’t. And do you know why?”

  “No,” Dymphna answered.

  “’Cause he doesn’t want to,” Pappy said. “Same with the goats. They’ll hang out most of the time, but if you give them a reason to scoot, they’ll scoot.”

  Dymphna smiled at the memory. She’d used a lot of energy trying to outsmart her goats. Now she quietly approached them. She scratched Udderlee’s head, feeling a little guilty trying to trick the beautiful animal into a forced separation from her hair. It suddenly occurred to Dymphna that she should put all the goats in the barn and bring them out one at a time for their shearing. One small woman against four goats just wasn’t fair. She knew she could ask any of the men who remained in town for help—Pappy, Powderkeg, and Titan were always happy to lend a hand—but she felt that this was her land and she should solve her own problems.

  If Professor Johnson were still here, a lot of things would be different, she thought. For one thing, perhaps their relationship might even have progressed to a point where she no longer called him “Professor Johnson.”

  Professor Johnson was their benefactor’s grandson. Another of the original heirs, Professor Johnson had been included in the will because Cutthroat Clarence thought his grandson’s life could use a little shaking up. Cutthroat confessed, via a DVD played for his beneficiaries after his death, that he’d ignored his grandson during his life and wanted to make it up to him. Dymphna thought back to the somber man, on sabbatical
from his university, who first boarded the RV to Fat Chance: his serious expression, his determined posture as he led Thud onto the bus that would take them all to Texas. Dymphna remembered thinking that he did not look like a man excited by the prospect of adventure. But he’d proven Dymphna wrong. Professor Johnson, solemn expression and all, embraced the possibilities of Fat Chance. He had worked day and night, determined to turn the ramshackle saloon into a museum about Fat Chance. By the time the six months imposed on the beneficiaries was up, so was his sabbatical. As much as he wanted to stay, Professor Johnson had responsibilities in the world outside their little ghost town, and he wasn’t the type to turn his back on them. Dymphna tried not to let her mind wander. She didn’t want to think about how little time the two of them actually had spent together.

  They corresponded by e-mail regularly and had a hit-or-miss phone conversation once a week. They were both shy by nature, and the fact that Dymphna had to make the call from the middle of Main Street didn’t give them much opportunity to warm up, let alone heat up, a conversation. The greatest indication that Professor Johnson harbored strong feels for her was the fact that he’d left his beloved bloodhound, Thud, to watch over her. Sometimes, when she worried that Professor Johnson might lose interest in her and never make it back to Fat Chance, she’d hug Thud—her living, breathing security blanket. The bloodhound was better than any promise or piece of jewelry. Thud was a pledge of Professor Johnson’s allegiance.

  The other goats tried to get in on the scratching action. Dymphna attempted to lean the shears against the barn without alerting the animals, but Down Diego was not fooled. He bellowed furiously and all the goats followed him over the fence. Dymphna stared after them, hands on hips.

  “Should we go get them?” she asked the chickens. “Or wait till they come back and try again tomorrow?”

  “That’s up to you,” said a deep voice.

  Startled, she looked up. Leaning against the fence stood a tall, lean man with a shock of movie-star-quality hair. His blue-white teeth glinted in the sun. He was wearing sunglasses, but she was pretty sure there had to be emerald-green eyes under them. This man was too gorgeous for plain old brown eyes.