This was my second published short story. Even when I was young, I felt a closer bond to members of the generation ahead of mine than my own. I know Molly Dodd better than some close friends of my youth. (I came up with the name years before TV introduced The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, a character who bore no resemblance to mine.)
• • •
“A rifle!” Vernon Thickett stared up at his fellow deputy from behind a steaming hot bowl of Maud Baxter’s notorious Red River Chili and cursed.
Earl Briggs nodded. He was a lean country boy, leaner even than Thickett, and with his shock of untrained wheat-colored hair and freckle-spattered face he looked far too young to be wearing a star on his buff shirt. “That’s what I said, Verne. She’s got a rifle and Lord knows how many cartridges up there and she threatened to blow a hole in her nephew’s nice tailor-made suit if he didn’t clear off her land.”
“Did he take her advice?”
A quick grin flashed across the younger deputy’s face. “You know Leroy, Verne. What do you think?”
“I think he took her advice. Where is he now?”
“Out on Route Forty-four. He called the office from one of those free telephones the highway department put in last spring.”
“Madder’n a half-squashed bee, I expect.” Thickett made a face at his untouched meal and pushed himself to his feet. He towered over Earl by a head. “Get in touch with Luke and Dan and tell ’em to get over to Molly’s place on the double and wait for me. No sirens. We don’t want any state troopers in on this one. Then bring my car around in front of the office while I grab a gun. That’s the only thing the old girl understands.” When Earl had left to carry out his orders Thickett snatched a slice of bread from the table, spooned a quantity of chili onto it, slapped another slice on top of that and, nodding to hefty Maud Baxter behind the counter, strode toward the door of the diner with the sandwich in his mouth.
He didn’t say a word to Earl all the way out to Molly’s place. Verne Thickett was not the law in Schuylerville, Oklahoma, but as long as Sheriff Willis was in the hospital recuperating from a gall bladder operation he was the next best thing. Until now his biggest headache had been the kids who kept stealing the outhouse from behind Guy Dawson’s place and hauling it up onto the roof of whatever schoolteacher happened to be the target of their hostilities that week. As for Molly Dodd, she was trouble enough at any time, but the kind of trouble she usually caused seldom involved the law. Molly Dodd armed with a rifle was one problem he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy.
For the past two years she and her nephew, Leroy Cooper, had been engaged in a bitter legal battle over the ownership of the 160 acres she lived on up in the Osage Hills. The Great Midwestern Bank and Trust Company, of which Leroy was the Schuylerville branch manager, claimed the land in lieu of payment on the loan it had made to Molly’s late husband back in 1969, while she maintained that he had paid it off shortly before his death in 1973. Molly, now in her late seventies, had been part of Schuylerville for so long that most of the town had sided with her throughout the complex legal maneuvering, but that had come to an end three weeks before when the county court of appeals found in favor of the bank and issued an order for Molly Dodd’s eviction.
Thickett berated himself for not anticipating the present situation. The pioneer strain in Molly was too strong to allow her to give in easily. He remembered the story his father had told of the time she’d come home early from a visit to find the house dark and her best friend’s flivver parked in the driveway. Instead of going in and shooting Clyde and his lover—which, according to the moral code of the time, would have seemed the natural thing to do—she had simply climbed into the shiny new car, driven it into the next county, and sold it. The story had it that Clyde ended the affair soon afterward, and there was no record in the sheriff’s office of a car being stolen that year. True or not, the account was worthy of Molly’s reputation for audacity and ingenuity.
It was certainly a funnier story than the one currently unfolding up in the hills.
Leroy Cooper’s sedan was parked at the side of the private road that led to the house at the top of the hill. A pair of scout cars were parked across from it at different angles. Earl ground the car to a dusty halt behind the civilian vehicle and they got out.
Cooper separated himself from the two deputies with whom he’d been conversing and came forward. “I want the woman arrested, Deputy! Do you know she actually threatened to shoot me? I barely got out of there with my life!”
“Take it easy, Leroy.” Thickett slid his Stetson to the back of his head. “Do you mind telling me what you were doing up here in the first place?”
“I merely reminded her to vacate the premises before midnight tonight. That’s the deadline set by the court. The bulldozers come in tomorrow.”
“That’s our job, Leroy. Why didn’t you call us first?”
The banker looked as if Thickett had just asked him to scrub out a spittoon with his monogrammed shirt. “This is a family matter, Deputy. There seemed no reason to involve the law.”
“It’s a little late, isn’t it?—What’ve we got, Luke?”
Luke Madden, the older of the two deputies already on the scene, was a big man with a bulldog jaw and hair the color of dull steel. He had been a deputy when Wilbur Underhill stormed through the area in 1933, and his prized possession was a framed newspaper clipping that described his inconclusive shoot-out with the outlaw. He spoke with a Blue Diamond matchstick clamped between his teeth. “That cabin’s butted smack up against the side of the hill. There’s only one way in or out by car, and this here’s it. If you and Earl and Dan can keep her busy in front, Verne, I can sneak around the long way and take her from behind.”
“How are you going to get in, through the chimney?” The chief deputy squinted up at the gabled structure atop the hill. “I reckon we’ll just go on up and give her the chance to surrender.”
The four-car caravan took off with Earl and Thickett in the lead and Leroy Cooper timidly bringing up the rear in his gleaming sedan. They were rounding the final turn before the house when a shot rang out and a bullet starred the windshield between the two deputies in front. Earl yanked the wheel hard to the right. The unmarked cruiser jumped the bank and came to a jarring stop in a bed of weeds at the side of the road. They both spilled out Thickett’s side of the car and crouched there, guns drawn.
“Verne! Earl! You boys all right?” The voice was Luke Madden’s, shouting from behind his car parked perpendicularly across the road. The way beyond it was completely blocked by the other two vehicles.
“We’re fine!” Thickett shouted back. “Stay down!”
“She means business,” said Earl. “Maybe I ought to radio the state troopers.”
“No need. If Molly had meant to hit us, she’d have hit us. I’ve seen her pick nails off a fencepost at thirty yards. She’s just trying to scare us.”
“She’s awful good at it.”
No more shots came, and for a long time the only sound belonged to an occasional breeze whistling through the upper branches of the towering pines that surrounded the house on three sides. The house itself appeared deserted. All but one of the tall front windows were shaded. The one to the left of the front door was wide open. Five full minutes passed before a voice like a bull’s bellow called out through the open window.
“You boys just get back into your automobiles and drive on out of here,” it said. “I don’t want to hurt nobody, but I will if I have to!”
Thickett cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted. “Molly, this here’s Vernon Thickett! Put down that rifle and let us come in! You’re not a criminal! Don’t act like one!”
There was a short silence. Then, from the house: “I’ve knowed you since you was a baby, Vernon, and you know I don’t want to harm you none! But you know I will if it means keepin’ what’s mine!”
“That’s what I want to talk to you about, Molly! I—” Vernon had started to rise when another shot sounded, the bullet zinging along the roof of the unmarked scout car, missing his right ear by a couple of inches. He dove to the ground. “She hasn’t lost a thing in the marksmanship department,” he said to Earl. “This is going to take more than just words.”
“You think?”
Six more reports came in rapid succession. Thickett turned his head as Luke Madden ran toward him in a crouch, bullets kicking up dirt at his heels. “Luke, what in hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded, when the older deputy was sprawled beside him, panting like an old hound-dog. “I told you to stay put!”
“Look!” Luke gasped for breath. “If I can get around to the other side of the hill without her seeing me, I can drop down onto the roof and climb in through one of them gabled windows. With you laying down a steady pattern of fire out here she won’t suspect a thing till I grab her and take away the rifle.”
“No! There’s no telling what she’ll do if you startle her. Go back. I’ll call you when I need you.”
“Verne—”
“You heard me. Get back there and help Dan keep an eye on Leroy in case he tries anything dumb.”
The other muttered something unintelligible and sprinted back to his car as more shots barked from the house.
“She’s got to run out of ammo sometime,” Earl said.
“Around Easter, I expect. Old Clyde bought out the sporting goods when Khrushchev got in.”
“Luke might be right, you know. That may be the only way to get her out of there without bloodshed.”
“Forget it. The trouble with Luke Madden is he can’t forget he’s the one who almost got Wilbur Underhill. I’m not going to let him play hero at the expense of that frightened old woman.”
“You got a better plan?”
Thickett thought. Suddenly he turned to Earl. “What’s the name of that salesman from Tulsa, the one who retired and came here to live about five years ago? You know, the one Molly’s sweet on?”
“Luther Briscoe?”
“Right. Ever since Clyde’s death nobody’s seen ’em apart, not even when she went to court. They do everything together. There’s that telephone down by the highway; get hold of him and see if you can get him up here. If anybody can talk her out of there, it’s Briscoe.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“He left town yesterday to visit his sister in Kansas. He asked me to keep an eye on his house while he was gone. Said he wouldn’t be back till Monday.”
“Seems we can’t catch a break. Well, that just leaves Plan B.” Thickett jammed his pistol into his holster and unbuckled the belt.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going in.” He laid the gunbelt on the ground.
“Come again?”
“Molly and I go back. I’m counting on that to keep her from shooting me.”
“Now who’s playing hero? You can’t be sure of—”
“Hold your fire, Molly!” Thickett shouted through cupped hands. “I’m coming in and I’m unarmed!”
“Don’t, Vernon!” The answering bellow held a desperate edge. “I mean what I say! I’ll scatter your brains all over these hills!”
“I don’t think you will, Molly.” Slowly he rose to his feet. A bullet spanged against the roof of the scout car.
Thickett signaled the other deputies to hold their fire and stepped clear of the car. He could see Molly’s rifle pointing through the window. He took a step forward.
The second shot snatched his hat off his head. He hesitated, then moved on. A third slug whined past his ear but he kept walking. The next three shots were snapped off so rapidly they might have come from a machine gun. They struck the ground at his feet and spat gravel onto his pantlegs. By this time he was almost to the door. Two more steps and he was inside. He closed the door behind him.
It was a moment before his eyes adjusted themselves to the dim light inside the house. When they had, his first thought was that the interior hadn’t changed since he was a boy. The Victorian clutter, from the overstuffed rockers shingled with doilies to the glazed china cabinets and papered walls from which hung framed and faded prints of every conceivable shape and size, was as he remembered. The only difference was the stacks and stacks of cartridge boxes on the pedestal table beside the door, and the litter of empty brass shells twinkling on the oval braided rug. Beyond it, Molly Dodd stood in the shadows at the open front window, her dark eyes glittering like the shells above the stock of the Winchester carbine she held braced against a shoulder. Thickett was looking right down its bore.
“Say your piece and get out.” Her voice was taut. Small but wiry, she wore her black hair pulled straight back into a tight bun. Although her eyes were small above her hooked nose, they had a remarkable depth of expression. Her mouth was wide and turned down at the corners in a permanent scowl. Her print dress looked new, as did the sweater she wore buttoned at the neck like a cape. The firearm remained steady in her hands.
“Why don’t you give me the gun, Molly?” Vernon asked quietly. “You aren’t going to shoot anyone.”
“When it comes to protectin’ my property I’d shoot my own son if I had one,” she snapped.
“You want to tell me about it?”
There was an almost indiscernible change in the expression of her eyes. “This place is mine,” she said. “I know what the courts said, but they was wrong. They didn’t see that record that proved Clyde paid off that loan because it don’t exist no more. Not after that slippery nephew of mine got rid of it.”
“Why would Leroy do that?” Thickett began to breathe a little more easily. He had her talking now.
“Why do you think? He knows there’s oil on this land just like everybody else. If he can grab it for his bank he’ll make himself a big man and maybe they’ll forget about checkin’ his books like they been threatenin’ to do.”
“His books?”
She nodded jerkily. Her eyes were black diamonds behind the peepsight of the rifle.
“He’s been stealin’ money from his accounts for years. You seen that car he drives, the clothes he wears. He can’t afford them on his salary. I was in the bank once and heard a man threatenin’ to take his books to the main branch in Oklahoma City and have ’em checked out. Leroy fell all over hisself tryin’ to talk him out of it.”
Thickett found himself growing interested in spite of the situation. “You say he destroyed the record that proved Clyde repaid the loan? Don’t you have any proof of your own? What about a receipt?”
“Clyde never told me what he done with it. I been all over the house. It ain’t here.”
“What did you hope to gain by barricading yourself in the house?”
She smiled then, a bitter upturn of her cracked and pleated lips.
“I wanted to see that squirrel’s face when I stuck this here carbine under his nose. I never meant to drag you boys into it, Vernon.”
“Don’t you think it’s gone far enough? Come on, Molly. We’re old friends. Give me the rifle.”
She hesitated. Slowly the hard glitter faded from her eyes. Now she was just a tired old woman. She lowered the rifle and handed it to him.
Now that the danger was over, the deputy felt no triumph. For a long moment he regarded Molly with compassionate eyes. “What are your plans?”
“I sent my luggage on to Mexico this morning.”
That was one he hadn’t seen coming. “Mexico?”
“That’s where Clyde and me spent our honeymoon. I got a reservation on a plane leavin’ tonight from Tulsa. Don’t suppose I’ll make it now.”
“Not if Leroy decides to press charges.”
“That squirrel? Don’t you worry about him. He won’t do nothing that attracts attention.” Her eyes strayed from his for the first time. “I sure am sorry about what I done to your car.”
He laughed. “It’s insured. The experience was almost worth it.”
There was an embarrassed silence. Then: “What about Luther Briscoe, Molly? What was he going to think when he got back from Kansas and found you gone?”
“That’s his business, I expect.”
Thickett chose not to press the point. “Well,” he drawled, “I’m faced with a decision. I can either put you in jail or drive you to Tulsa in time to catch your plane. Since my duty is to the citizens of Schuylerville, I think I’d be acting in their best interest if I saved them the expense of your room and board and took you to the airport.”
She placed an affectionate hand on his arm. “You’re a good boy, Vernon. I always said that.”
It was dusk when Thickett eased the scout car he’d borrowed from Luke Madden into the parking lot in front of the sheriff’s office and went in; his damaged one was in the shop. After the long drive back from Tulsa, it felt good to be using his legs again.
Earl Briggs, on his feet behind Thickett’s desk, hung up the telephone as the chief deputy entered.
“I’m glad you’re still here, Earl,” Thickett said. “First thing tomorrow morning I want you to get in touch with the Great Midwestern Bank and Trust Company in Oklahoma City and—what is it?” The look on the boy’s face sent a wave of electricity through his limbs.
Earl inclined his head toward the telephone.
“That was Leroy Cooper; in a state. He just got back to find his head cashier tied up and gagged and the rest of his employees locked in the vault. As it works out, the bank was held up for a quarter of a million dollars while we were all out at Molly’s place. You’ll never guess who he says did it.”
Thickett felt a sinking sensation as the pieces fell into place. He tightened his grip on the doorknob. “Luther Briscoe. Molly’s sweetheart.”
Earl stared at him. “How on earth did you know that?”