between the cactus stand and the buildings disappeared left and right into the horizons.
One building still stood. Two gas pumps, obviously museum quality, stood in a battered area of asphalt. A small office, padlocked, defined the rest of the gas station. It was attached to a low building marked by a faded sign that proclaimed the property to be Maw Hawganee’s Cornbread Corners Cookhouse. Another faded sign in the window promised the place was open. Vanna put her bucket down beside the rickety porch and climbed the three steps to the door. She opened the screen, grimacing when its hinges squealed like dying rodents as she pulled on it. The door into the cookhouse stood ajar. Vanna pushed it open. The scent of frying meat and a low murmur from a radio greeted her. Her hunger increased.
The room was ill lit. Dark paneling, perhaps rescued from a mobile home, ran along the walls. The ceiling lamps had four bulbs, but only two were lit in each fixture. A row of booths lay along one wall. Their red plastic seats were roped off. Dust lay on them. A counter ran along the other wall, with stools upholstered in the same dark red plastic. At intervals a jar of sugar, a bottle of ketchup, and salt and peppershakers shaped like cactus huddled together. The counter top was an indeterminate gray.
A cash register, surrounded by gums, mints, and peanuts in grimy bags occupied the end of the counter opposite the door Vanna had entered through. Two yellowed plastic jars of jerky stood sentinel over the candy. A display case under the cash register was too dimly lit to show its wares. A life-size puppet sat in the shadows on a rocking chair staring into the corner. It appeared to be female.
“Hello, anybody here?” Vanna called out. She got no answer. The meat sizzled quietly on a grill she could not see.
“Hello?” she inquired in a louder voice.
“Hold your horses,” someone drawled in a high-pitched voice from somewhere in the diner’s back room. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
Vanna waited. She heard footsteps. She saw no one. The voice drawled again, nearer now. “My, my, aren’t we a mess. Just come in off the desert, I’d say.” Vanna looked down, since the voice seemed to come from a place near her waist.
He was only as tall as Vanna’s waist, about three feet, plus or minus a few inches. Bushy white hair surrounded his round face adorned with a great walrus moustache. He reminded Vanna of the cartoon tycoon on Monopoly cards, minus the top hat and tuxedo. This little man wore jeans and a tee shirt covered by a dirty white apron, obviously cut down to fit him.
“What can I get for you?” he asked her.
“What have you got?” she said.
“Well, today’s special is hamburger steak with mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy. Green beans, too.”
“I’ll take an order,” Vanna said. “I don’t have any money, so I’ll have to work for it, wash dishes or something.”
“I’ll have to think of something,” the little man said. “One special, coming up. Do you want coffee or soda with that?”
“Coffee, please. Black.”
“I’ll bring a cup as soon as the kettle boils,” the little man said and disappeared into the back room. Vanna heard water being drawn, and the hiss of gas in a propane burner. She heard the little man whistle as he cooked her steak. When he came out with her coffee, he brought napkins and flatware with him. He set two places on the counter, one in front of Vanna, and another, on his side of the counter, for himself. “I’ll just have my lunch while you have yours,” he said. “I was cooking it when you came in.”
He served their meals, and clambered up on a stool that had a ladder that made it easy for him to mount it. Eye to eye, Vanna could see the little man had a certain jollity about him. His brown eyes sparkled with either mischief or good will.
“What brings you to Cornbread Corners,” he asked her as he cut his hamburger steak with his fork.
“Just stumbled across it,” Vanna said. “I’ve been lost in the desert for several days. I picked up a hitchhiker, and she stole my car and clothes. Left me to die in the sand with her prison uniform.”
“I see,” the little man said. “You do need a good bath, and something decent to wear.”
“How far is it to a highway?”
“About ten miles, by road. You’ll need a ride. Once you’re there, you can hitch a ride with an eighteen-wheeler.” He appraised her with a long look. “I can provide you a change of clothes and a ride.”
“I can’t pay you. Like I said, I’ve lost all my money.”
“Well, there is a way,” he said. “I get awful lonesome out here. Not many folks stop by, these days, not since the interstate took them all over toward Barstow.” He smiled at her. She quickly gauged his intent.
“I’m not somebody who just sleeps around,” she said.
“Food and shelter and clothing are commodities hard to come by in the desert,” he rejoined. Vanna stared at him a long moment.
“Done,” she said. She went back to eating her mashed potatoes. After a few moments she said, “I’m Donna, Donna D’Schuys. And you are?”
“Zachary Eustatius Napoleon Lee. He stuck out his hand, offering to shake hers. She took it. “You can call me Zach, or Zachary, or even Lee. Just don’t call me Shorty; I find that offensive.”
“Understood. How did you come to Cornbread Corners, Zach Lee?”
“I was born here. Never lived anywhere else.”
“Must be dull, to grow up in a quiet place like this.”
“Wasn’t quiet in the old days. When Maw opened the place in the late twenties, Hollywood people used to stop here. That’s why I’ve got the booths roped off, you see. Clark Gable and Carole Lombard used to sit in the center booth there. Randolph Scott and Gary Cooper used to sit in the left hand booth. They held hands a lot. Mary Pickford, Clara Bow, Joan Crawford, lots of stars.” He sighed. “That was mostly before my time, of course. My Mama, Rhea Lee, Maw’s daughter, told me all about it. I do remember the soldier boys, during the war years. They kept the place hopping. Maw and Mama made a good living here.”
Vanna ate the last of her green beans. Canned ones, she guessed, from the bland taste.
“More coffee?”
“No, not now,” Vanna said. “I need to wash up, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure. The shower’s this way.” He beckoned her behind the counter. She followed him through the door, glancing at the small grill and the propane burner where the kettle sat. He led her out the back door and into a shower room. “We used to cater to truckers and tourists, before the new roads took them all away. Soap’s in the shower, towel and washcloth are on the rack inside. I’ll go get one of Maw’s dresses for you. She was about your size. I’ll bring you a toothbrush and a comb, too, new off the rack.”
He left Vanna to her ablutions, which she performed as best she could with the meager flow of lukewarm water. When she stepped out of the shower, he had left a cotton print dress (it had blue roses in profuse bouquets) and cotton underwear for her, but no brassiere. She dressed, combed her hair, brushed her teeth, and slipped on the huaraches he had thoughtfully left for her. She went back into the diner. Zach was at the propane burner. He had lit it to heat water for another cup of coffee.
“You sure clean up pretty,” Zach said, looking her up and down.
“Thank you,” Vanna said. “It’s been a while since a man said anything nice like that to me.”
“Come meet Mama,” Zach said. “She’ll want to meet you. She wants to meet all my dates.”
“Your mother is still alive?”
“No, she passed quite some time ago. She’s still in the diner, though. Come on, Donna, come this way.” He took Vanna’s hand and led her toward the shadowy corner where the life-size puppet sat in the rocking chair. When she got close, Vanna discovered the “puppet” was a mummified corpse.
“Mama, this is Donna,” Zach said to his mummy. “Donna, this is Rhea Lee, my Mama.” He patted the body’s shoulder. Dust rose up f
rom it. “Isn’t Donna pretty, Mama?”
Vanna looked around, wondering how to escape this nutty dwarf. A large jar of dill pickles sat on a shelf. Dust covered it, too. Vanna picked it up with both hands and smashed it on Zach’s head. He crumpled in a puddle of brine; shriveled cucumbers and limp sprigs of dill bedecked his brow.
“Sorry, Mama,” Vanna muttered. “It’s too much for me.” Vanna felt in the midget’s pocket for his keys. She didn’t find them there, but when she opened the cash register to take whatever the till had, she found them. Only twenty-three dollars and change in the till. She stuffed the cash into a pocket of her borrowed dress.
She collected her prison uniform from the bathroom where she had left it. She went into the kitchen and poured cooking oil all over it. Then she went back to Zach and his Mama. She took a lighter from the display near the cash register, thumbed it several times until it produced a flame, which she touched to the greasy uniform. It flared up at once. She dropped the burning mess in the mummy’s lap.
She went out the back door where she had seen the car, an ancient Chevrolet. She got in, started it, and took off toward the west. “Goodbye, Shorty,” she said as Cornbread Corners disappeared behind her. The fire within flared in Rhea’s lap, leaped for the ceiling, and caught a rafter.
A she-coyote trotted toward the old townsite. Her pups swelled her belly, though she was a few weeks from her term. She was