PECOS VALLEY REVIVAL

by Alice Duncan

New Age Dimensions Publishing

2006

Chapter One

“Herd’s comin’ through!”

Jack, my obnoxious twelve-year-old brother, didn’t have to make that announcement twice. As I hurried to close the front door of our parents’ dry-goods store, leaving my best friend Myrtle Howell gaping after me, he raced to the windows and started slamming them closed and latching them against what we knew was coming. In those days Second Street wasn’t paved, and during October, when the fall cattle drive was on and all the ranches within hundreds of miles drove their herds to Rosedale, New Mexico, the dust the animals kicked up on their jaunt down Second would have been unbelievable if we hadn’t seen it for ourselves for so many years.

Fortunately the weather was cool, or we’d have suffocated. That’s what generally happened during the spring cattle drives, although the May drives had become somewhat less stifling since the advent of electricity to town and the rotating electrical fan we used to keep from dying during the two weeks of the spring drives. Anyhow, you could never depend on the weather. It’s been known to snow here in April and we’ve had heat waves in October (although we’ve also had snow in October and heat waves in April). Even though the Twentieth Century had rolled in some two-dozen years earlier, and we’d become a state in 1912, life was still a little on the edgy side in southeastern New Mexico back then.

As soon as we’d secured the store against the storm of dust to come, Jack, Myrtle and I, and the few customers in the store at the time, gathered around the windows to observe the action. Uncomfortable as the drives could be, they were fun to watch. It was easy to get lost in the adventure of the action, and to romanticize those men who whooped and hollered through town, riding like centaurs and keeping the cattle confined to the street when the occasional cow seemed inclined to stray onto the boardwalks in front of the stores and offices (once or twice over the years a stray had lumbered through a window or a door, much to the dismay of it, the owner of the property, and the cowboys who had to get the animal out again). I know for a fact that my idiot brother (I have another brother who isn’t an idiot) had a glorified notion of what cowboys did on a daily basis, probably because he read a lot of Zane Grey books.

For the most part, I had no sympathy for my brother. Watching the drive from behind the glass panes of the store window, however, I could understand how he’d formed his opinion, however unrealistic it was.

As you observed the cowboys working, it was easy to let your mind wander to open plains and campfires and fabulous adventures featuring bad guys, red Indians, cattle rustlers, and fainting maidens. Truly, a cowboy’s life was hard work and boredom for the most part—but that was no fun to think about.

Suddenly Myrtle cried, “Oh, Annabelle! Isn’t that Kenny Sawyer?”

“Where?”

She pointed. “There. Oh, my, doesn’t he look handsome!”

I spotted him. “Ah,” said I. “I see him now.” And he did, indeed, look handsome, mainly because he was handsome. I didn’t say so, since I liked to consider myself above such adolescent fancies, even though I wasn’t. Myrtle and I were only nineteen in 1923, after all. “So that must be the cattle from Texico.”

The Texico ranch, owned and run by a family by the name of Baldwin, straddled the border between New Mexico and Texas. The Baldwins had decided to honor both states when they named their ranch, and their brand was T-X-O, which I thought was kind of clever, although I’m not sure why. The Baldwins’ Texico ranch was about as far away from Rosedale as any of the herds were driven, so if the they’d reached town, the drive must be about over. And none too soon, if you asked me, mainly because the big party and rodeo held annually to celebrate the end-of-the-year drive was scheduled to start in only one day. Everybody in town loved rodeo days, because it meant several days of parties, sing-alongs, dances, and barbecues, not to mention competition between cowboys from various ranches to see who was the best bull rider, bronco-buster, and bull-dogger, in the area.

In 1923, rodeos weren’t the huge moneymaking operations they became a few years later, with men who considered themselves professional rodeo performers. In those days they were more in the nature of big parties, celebrations of hard work completed, during which real cowboys who worked on real ranches demonstrated their real skills to an admiring, if somewhat restricted, public.

We in Rosedale got to host the party because Rosedale was the hub of the ranching world for an area almost 200 miles in diameter. Once in the spring and once in the fall ranchers drove their cattle through Rosedale to the cattle pens a little bit east of town, where the beasts were rounded up and guided onto railroad cars and chugged up to Kansas City. There the poor animals would be slaughtered and distributed—I guess to the entire nation. Which made us pretty darned important, even though I’m sure few people outside of the town itself had ever heard of Rosedale, New Mexico, much less thought about Rosedale as they ate their pot roasts or beef stews.

That particular October was an unusually interesting one for us, because not only did we have the cattle drive going on, which was a big deal in itself, but a tent revivalist had also come to our town, thereby giving the citizens of Rosedale two forms of entertainment. I don’t think I’m supposed to look upon tent revivals as entertainment, but I do. Those revivalist preachers can get folks more stirred up than anything else I know of.

Not that I’m a heathen or anything. I’m a good, church-going, Christian girl, and I sing alto in the choir at the Methodist-Episcopal Church (North) in town. But, darn it, I don’t like people telling me I’m going to hell if I don’t believe exactly as they do. From everything I’ve read in the Bible, Jesus Himself didn’t consign people to hell as often as did most of the revivalist preachers who’ve come through town.

Unfortunately Myrtle, who, as I already mentioned, is my best friend, and my other best friend, Phil Gunderson, had both gone to some of the revival meetings, been “saved,” and ever since, then they’d been begging me to go to a meeting or three. Worse, my mother thought it would be a good idea for my obnoxious brother Jack and me both to go. I guess she thought we were sliding into sin or something, unless she just wanted to get rid of us for a couple of hours in the evening. I guess I couldn’t blame her for that, but I still didn’t want to go.

This was especially true since the preacher, Reverend Milo Strickland, had the world’s most beautiful sister, a young woman named Esther, about whom Phil had been waxing ecstatic for several days. I found this very trying on Phil’s part, since for years now he’d been sweet on my own personal self and, while I didn’t want to wed him any time soon, desiring to experience an adventure or two before I got married and faded into obscurity, I sure as heck didn’t want to lose him to some female revivalist. Or any other kind of female, for that matter.

Mind you, I’m not ugly or anything. But my plain brown hair and blue eyes are no match for Esther Strickland’s beautiful blond hair and ethereally lovely azure eyes. And I was a normal-sized person. Esther was tiny and fairy-like. I didn’t even know the woman, and I hated her. Which maybe indicates that I should go to the next tent revival that hits town. But I didn’t want to go to the one conducted by Reverend Strickland and his gorgeous darned sister.

“The party begins tomorrow night, Annabelle,” Myrtle said, excitement shimmering in her voice. “What are you going to wear?”

I looked at her slanty-eyed. “Wear? What do you mean?” I glanced down at my plain old shirtwaist and blue skirt, covered by a big, more-or-less white apron, my usual costume when I was minding the store. “I guess I’ll wear trousers and a shirt. And I’ll take a sweater in case it gets cold.”

“You’re going to wear trousers?” she all but shrieked.

“Well … yeah. Why not? I always wear trousers to the rodeo. You do, too.”

She tilted her head to one side and pursed her lips. “I used to.”

“Used to?” I didn’t like the sound of that.

Myrtle lowered her eyelashes and fluttered them slightly. I considered this an alarming sign and anticipated what was coming next. Lousy revivalists. “But Reverend Strickland believes women should be feminine at all times.”

“He would,” I muttered, wishing Reverend Strickland and his blasted sister to the devil. Evil of me, I know.

Myrtle turned on me with a frown. “You know it’s true, Annabelle. The Bible says that men should act like men and women should act like women.”

“Yeah? Where?”

I knew it had been a mistake to ask when Myrtle smirked at me. Darn it, she’d been listening to the stupid preacher too closely if she had a reference handy. “Titus. Chapter two. Read it, if you don’t believe me.” She sniffed. “It might do you some good.”

“Nuts. Anyhow, back then everybody wore skirts,” I reminded her. “Including the men. Wouldn’t you just love to see Kenny Sawyer in a dress?”

She huffed. “You’re avoiding the issue. Wearing trousers is dressing like a man. And trousers show off your shape. According to that chapter in Titus, women are supposed to be discreet and chaste and not … not …” She struggled to find the right word. I waited, irked. “Not seductive.”

My irritation spiked. “Seductive? What’s seductive about wearing a ratty old pair of blue jeans while you’re sitting on a fence watching the rodeo? I should think having your skirts blow up around your neck would be more seductive, Myrtle Howell!”

“You’re being deliberately obtuse, Annabelle. You know what I mean.”

This conversation was really aggravating me. “Darn it, Myrtle, you wear trousers at the rodeo, too. Wearing skirts is stupid unless you’re old and can’t climb fences.”

She lifted her chin. “Nevertheless, I believe Reverend Strickland is right. And his sister never wears anything but modest, feminine clothing.”

“I bet she does.” How else could she make all the men in her congregation drool over her? I didn’t say that last part out loud.

“Well, I’m going to wear a skirt and shirtwaist,” Myrtle said firmly. “It’s modest and … and feminine and polite.”

“What’s so polite about wearing a skirt and blouse?”

“It shows a proper respect,” Myrtle said, her chin tilting ever farther upwards.

“Towards whom, exactly? The cowboys who will be rolling in the dirt? Or maybe the horses? I know! You want to impress the bulls!”

“Annabelle Blue, you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said Myrtle, as annoyed as I’d ever seen her (Myrtle being a very even-tempered girl, unlike yours truly who can be a little touchy at times). “It wouldn’t do you any harm to go to one of Reverend Strickland’s meetings, you know. Listening to the word of God might put a civil tongue in your head.”

“Oh, pooh. I don’t believe God cares what kinds of clothes young women wear to rodeos and barbecues,” said I. “In fact, anybody who’d turn water into wine so that the wedding guests could keep on slurping up booze doesn’t sound anywhere near as stuffy as your precious reverend and his silly sister.”

“That’s blasphemous, Annabelle Blue!”

“No it’s not. It’s the truth.”

The herd had passed the store by that time, although there was still a pall of dust hovering in the air outdoors. Therefore, I didn’t open the windows or the door before I stamped back to the counter and ducked under it. I rose on the other side just in time to see the front door open and Phil Gunderson stroll in. I was about to greet him with enthusiasm when I saw him step aside and hold the door open for someone else to enter.

When I saw the someone else, I felt as if God had decided to punish me for my ugly words to Myrtle. Esther Strickland, looking as delicate and waiflike and beautiful as Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella and the Princess with the stupid Pea combined into one human package, wafted into the store, smiling at Phil as if he held the key to all her happiness. I wanted to drown her. Unfortunately, I lived on a desert.

I wouldn’t allow Phil to know I was jealous of the woman for all the tea in China. Rather, I smiled brightly at the couple—the couple for Pete’s sake!—and spoke in a friendly manner. “Hello, Miss Strickland. Hi, Phil. Hope you guys didn’t get all dusty out there.” I noticed that Phil was carrying the princess’s sweater. Nuts. He never carried my sweaters. Not that I wanted or needed him to.

“We watched the herd go by from Mrs. Pruitt’s store,” said Phil, taking Esther’s arm and guiding her as if she might fall down or bump into something if he didn’t, her being so fragile and feminine and all. To give Phil credit, she did walk as if she existed in some sort of unearthly haze. Cynical creature that I am, wondered how she did that. I was pretty sure I knew why she did it.

“Is Reverend Strickland with you?” Myrtle’s voice sounded rather wistful, as if she were hoping the answer would be in the affirmative.

“No, he’s working on tonight’s sermon, Miss Howell.” Esther Strickland gave Myrtle a sickly-sweet smile. Oh, very well. It wasn’t sickly-sweet. It was just a lovely smile, and I had the dreadful suspicion that Miss Strickland was a genuinely nice person, which meant that Phil’s interest in her was probably justified, darn it. “But thank you for asking. I’ll be certain to tell him you asked after him. We’ve found the citizens of Rosedale to be truly filled with the spirit of the Lord, Miss Howell. You’re all so kind.”

“I’m sure the sermon will be wonderful,” murmured Myrtle. “I’m looking forward to going to the meeting tonight.”

“That’s very kind of you.” Esther’s fabulous blue eyes scanned the store. She wore a pretty brown-checked dress with three-quarter sleeves, a white lacy collar, and a dropped waist that tied behind with a big puffy bow, and she was wearing a pretty brown hat with a bow that matched the one on her dress. You’d have thought she was going to a tea party.

For some reason, just her being there made the place look dumpy. I’d never thought of the family business as lacking in any way before the advent of this woman, probably because she looked as if she ought to be perched on a throne somewhere. Heaven would be nice—and it would get her out of my hair and away from my special gentleman friend.

“What a wonderful store,” she purred. Her speaking voice was as lovely as her person, confound it. Smiling at me—and, although I hate to admit it, her smile seemed to hold nothing but honest admiration—she said, “It’s so … so precious.”

Precious? My parents’ store was precious? The store my Grandpa Blue had established in 1892 was precious? For some reason I resented that, maybe because the word made it sound as if she considered us quaint and old fashioned. And heck, maybe we were—but I preferred to think of us as up to date and modern. We weren’t hicks, after all, even though we did sort of live at the edge of the universe.

“Really?” I said, fairly icily. “I’ve never thought of it as particularly precious.”

“Oh, I meant no disparagement,” Esther said, her voice conveying honest worry lest I take offense. “Your store is utterly charming. It preserves the atmosphere of the Old West to perfection, don’t you think so?” She didn’t wait for me to answer what had probably been meant as a rhetorical question, but turned Phil. “Did you say there were some fabrics here somewhere, Mr. Gunderson?”

Phil gulped. He would. “Yeah, sure. Over here.” And, with Esther holding onto him with both hands—you’d have thought she needed to be anchored to this earth in order not to float up into the ether (I pictured her there, her head bumping against the ceiling, but I was probably only bitter)—he moved over to where Ma kept the fabrics and sewing notions, Esther wafting along beside him as if she were treading on clouds. Myrtle and I exchanged a glance. I hated seeing the sympathy in Myrtle’s eyes.

That being the case, and because I absolutely detest having people feel sorry for me, I spoke brightly to Myrtle. “Well, whatever we both wear, I’m really looking forward to the rodeo.”

“Me, too,” said Myrtle, giving herself a little shake, I presume to help her stop staring at Miss Strickland and refocus her attention on our conversation.

“And Ma said I can drive the car to the Gundersons’ ranch every day, so I don’t have to stay with my aunt Minnie.”

There weren’t a whole lot of automobiles in Rosedale, since the roads were rough and most of the folks in and surrounding the town still carried out their business on horseback or via horse and buggy (or, more commonly, wagon). Most of the cars that did tootle around in the area were Model Ts. My family had one that we’d acquired a couple of years earlier. I thought it was the height of wonderfulness, although I’m sure Miss Strickland would disagree. After all, I lived in the Old West, and she didn’t. Nuts.

“Thank God for that,” Myrtle said piously.

Internally, I echoed the sentiment, although I didn’t say so aloud since I didn’t want Myrtle to think I was as lost in religion as she. However, I’d spent several perfectly awful days at Minnie’s house during the summer that had just passed, and I never wanted to stay with Aunt Minnie again. I loved her a lot, but not only did Minnie believe in ghosts and spirits, with whom she liked to communicate—and she’d forced me to participate in her little sessions, too, and even though I don’t believe in ghosts, I got the jitters—but her cook and best friend, Libby Powell, is probably one of the meanest people in the universe. Libby doesn’t like me one little bit, and I returned the sentiment with interest. Libby’s only saving grace is that she’s a wonderful cook.

Besides, Minnie lived in the middle of absolutely nowhere, and I was a town girl. Maybe Rosedale wasn’t a big metropolis, but I was used to being able to see my friends and go to the library or visit the Pecos Theater to see a flicker when I wanted to. I didn’t like being so isolated and out of the way. I don’t know how Minnie stood it, and I’m sure all that vast expanse of nothingness contributed to her many oddities. Add to that her only close neighbor, a little old man named Olin Burgess, who was a nice man, but who’d been horribly mutilated in the Civil War about a billion years previously and gave everyone who looked at him the creeps, and you can probably understand my feelings on the matter.

“Ma’s making a couple of apple pies, and I’m bringing some yeast rolls to the barbecue Friday,” Myrtle said. “What about you?”

“We’re making up a big batch of beans with ham hocks and onions and chilies.” My mouth watered, even thinking about all the wonderful food we’d have at the barbecue.

“Oh, yum. I suppose the Gundersons will be contributing a steer.”

“I expect.” It was a tradition in Rosedale for the ranch family who hosts the rodeo to barbecue a steer. The other attendees brought covered dishes, salads, desserts, pickles, etc. “I hope Libby makes her potato salad to bring. I’m sure she’ll bring pickles.” She’d darned well better bring pickles. I’d almost killed myself during the summer helping her with those stupid pickles. I didn’t like Libby any more than she liked me, but she was one of the best cooks in the area. Maybe even the world. It was great to eat her cooking when she wasn’t around while you were eating it. I mean, who cares how food tastes, if the person who cooked it hangs around while you’re eating it, carping and criticizing and giving you a stomachache?

I’d been trying very hard not to watch Miss Priss and Phil as Myrtle and I chatted about the rodeo because I didn’t want Phil to think I gave a rap if he wanted to transfer his affections from me to her (even though I did give a rap. Several, even), so I was kind of surprised when Miss Strickland wafted back into view after only a couple of minutes. She smiled at me. “What a sweet store you have, Miss Blue.”

First it was precious and now it was sweet. I’d have to tell my mother. She might be amused. I wasn’t. “Thank you. Did you see anything you liked?”

“Well … Yes, indeed. You have a fine selection of material. And I’m sure the fabrics in stock are most suitable for the rugged life you live here in Rosedale.” She gave me a smile that would have looked right at home on one of the archangels.

I think my mouth fell open, which was a big mistake because words spewed forth. Which, of course, meant that she’d won this round—I was as certain as I was of anything that she was hoping to rile me by her supposedly kindly comments that were, in reality, thinly veiled barbs. “Rugged? I’ll have you know my mother orders fabrics from the best warehouses in the country!”

Her azure eyes opened wide and her dark eyelashes—I’d bet money she used mascara, which I’m sure her brother would condemn as ungodly—fluttered. “Oh, of course. I’m sure that’s so.” She looked so innocent, I didn’t believe it. “You have a wonderful selection of merchandise.”

“We stock the best merchandise,” I averred mulishly.

“Of course you do, dear.”

Dear? I must have looked as if I aimed to throw something at her, because Phil said hastily, “You coming to the opening of the rodeo tomorrow night, Annabelle?”

“Of course, I am.” I glared at him. “Don’t I always?”

“Um … yeah.” Phil shuffled his feet. He looked mighty uncomfortable, which was only fair under the circumstances. “Well, good, then. Reckon I’ll see you there.”

“I reckon.” My voice was hard as flint (if that’s the stuff that’s hard. Maybe it’s steel). But I was angry, darn it, mainly because I’d reacted to Miss Holier-Than-Thou Strickland’s attempt to make me feel like a backwater hick, instead of bearing up under her attack and remaining aloof, thereby proving to her that I was not merely immune to her snide innuendoes, but better than she.

Or maybe she wasn’t trying to make me look bad. It was really hard to tell, because she appeared so utterly sincere. Her very sincerity was suspicious—to me, anyway. It didn’t seem to me as if anybody else suspected her of being anything but a lovely Christian woman. Which made her even harder for me to take. And that, no doubt, bespeaks my own lack of charitable personality characteristics. Phooey.

“I’m so looking forward to seeing a real rodeo,” Esther said, clutching Phil’s arm. I noticed her fingernails were extremely well manicured. Therefore, I hid my hands in a fold of my skirt and silently cursed myself for not filing and buffing them the evening before. Darn it, by her mere existence, Esther Strickland could make me feel like two cents. Didn’t seem fair somehow. “Phil says he’s going to be riding bucking broncos.”

Phil shuffled some more and his tanned cheeks turned a ruddy color. The fool was blushing, for heaven’s sake!

I said, “Yes, he’s a very good bronc rider.” It was the truth, and I felt as if I’d made up for some of my mental meanness about Miss Strickland.

Phil flashed me a shy smile, as if to thank me for making him look good in front of his new love. I felt as if I’d just handed him over to the enemy, and that, of course, made me feel like a martyr on a cross.

That being the case, I heaped ashes upon my head and added, “He’s a good bull-dagger, too, and he can rope better than anyone else in Rosedale.”

“I was sure of it.” She all but glowed at Phil, whose face was now redder than any brick I’d seen in Rosedale (primarily because any brick in Rosedale was covered in dust by that time).

The front door opened before I could say anything else, which was probably a good thing, because I didn’t have anything nice to say. Two men walked in and immediately approached Miss Strickland. One of them was about as tall as Phil, and has a long face that reminded me of pictures of a basset hound I’d seen in a magazine. The other one was shorter and balding and looked rather like Mrs. Sepulveda’s overweight Chihuahua. They were both clad in sober dark suits and reminded me of undertakers.

“Miss Strickland,” said the tall undertaker.

Esther turned, and her perfect features were marred by a frown when she spotted them. “Charles and Edward, what are you two doing here?” Although she wasn’t rude to either of the men, she was clearly not pleased to see them.

The first man said, “Reverend Strickland asked us to find you, Miss Strickland. He hadn’t expected you to … er … visit town without saying anything to him.”

The revival tent had been set up a couple of hundred yards west of the town limits. It wasn’t that far away, and I wondered why Reverend Strickland would send out a search party for his sister. Unless he didn’t trust the people in town, which made me see red for an instant before it occurred to me that he actually might not trust her for some reason or other. Hmm. That was an interesting notion. I allowed myself to speculate for a couple of seconds about why Esther Strickland needed to be followed around, but didn’t come to any conclusion other than that Milo Strickland was a loving brother who didn’t want his sister getting into trouble in a strange—and some (Esther Strickland, for instance) might say rough and ready—frontier outpost. Not that we were, of course, but I understood that’s what people back East thought about us out here in the West. That being the case, I reluctantly acquitted Esther Strickland of a mean-spirited attempt to make me feel like a country bumpkin. Almost.

The celestial blue eyes rolled. “Oh, heavenly days. Milo does worry about me, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said the shorter of the two men, sounding emphatic.

“I’m sure I’m quite safe with Mr. Gunderson,” said Esther. Then she turned toward Myrtle and me and said, “Miss Blue and Miss Howell, please allow me to introduce you to two of my brother’s most valued associates, Charles Peabody and Edward Grant.”

Was there malice in her eyes? Probably not. By that time, I’d decided I hated her guts, and I was sure I was only projecting my own distaste (my psychology teacher taught us all about projection). I smiled at the two men, who nodded, sober as a couple of judges. I decided then and there that I didn’t want any part of a religion that turned people into sticks of wood. “Happy to meet you, gentlemen,” said I.

“Likewise,” said Myrtle, a trifle flustered.

“Miss Blue. Miss Howell,” said the tall one, bowing slightly.

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Blue and Miss Howell,” said the short one, and he bowed too.

I still didn’t know which was Charles and which was Edward. Stupid people.

“Well, since Milo sent you after me, I suppose I’d best be getting back to him.” And then Esther Strickland, hanging onto Phil and gazing up at him with adoring eyes, and Phil Gunderson, his face flaming with embarrassment, left Blue’s Dry Goods and Mercantile Emporium with Charles and Edward trailing in their wake. Myrtle and I gazed after them.

I said, “I hate that woman.”

Myrtle gasped, shocked.