Chapter II

8

STRANGE FISH

“Naturally.”

“Sounds mysterious.” Johnny Toms looked at her intently. “Women are liars by nature. Maybe you forgot and left out some.”

Paris shook her head. “Some day, Johnny, you are going to get married, and your wife is going to beat you to death. No, I didn't leave out anything.”

“You didn't get in anything in the war?”

Paris grimaced. “In the war, I did what my WAC duties called for. It was thrilling. There was nothing mysterious. Nothing heroic happened to me. War is mostly waiting. The rest is work, awful unending work and, sometimes, being afraid. No, Johnny, I didn't get involved in any Mata Hari work, and I wasn't a spy, and I never saw that fat man before in my life. I'm just a WAC who was in the wrong place and kept a date with a bomb.”

Johnny Toms eyed her narrowly. “Feel rocky, eh?”

“Oh, I'm not a helpless invalid, but I'll say that I've felt better in my time. Don't get ideas about my health. My brain, at least, is as healthy as a dog.”

“Oklahoma,” said Johnny, “will be good for you. Oklahoma great place. Will kill or cure you.”

“Why do you think I came here?” Paris said gratefully. “I know I'll get to feeling better. Not that I feel tough now. I don't. I feel fairly fine, only weak. But I'm scared.”

Johnny Toms made a tossing gesture. “Poof! Throw it away. Forget this fat cookie.”

“That's easier said than done.”

“Nothing to it. You try. Forget fat boy. You left him in New York.”

Johnny Toms went out flourishing the horsehair quirt he was making. Outdoors, he burst into a howling cowboy song. The one about burying him not on the lone prairie. At the end of each verse, he howled like a coyote, honked like a goose and imitated a whip−poor−will. The effect was cheering. Paris knew he was doing it to raise her spirits. She was pleased.

THE wind shifted about six o'clock. There was a bustling little wind storm which a flier would have called a cold front. Then the wind changed. It came from the north, bringing the smell of crude oil from the wells beyond the hills.

Paris sprawled in an easy chair on the porch. She grimaced at the oil odor, but not unpleasantly. Oil was Oklahoma. She didn't know when she dozed off.

Johnny Toms' “Psst!” awakened her. He whispered, “Make like an oyster. No noise.”

Paris sat up. “What is it?”

“What would it take to make you yell?”