“Good.”
There followed a strained silence while everyone seemed to contemplate the contents of their glasses. Finally, Angus said, “Something else on your mind, Reede?”
“He came out here to warn you about what you say to me,” Alex said. “The same way he did Judge Wallace earlier this afternoon.”
“When somebody asks me a direct question, I’ll do my own answering, Counselor,” he said testily. He threw back his drink and set down the glass. “See y’all later. Thanks for the drink.” He stamped from the room, pausing only long enough to pick up his hat and coat.
Surprisingly, it was Sarah Jo who filled the silence once Reede had slammed out the front door. “I see his manners haven’t improved any.”
“You know Reede, Mother,” Junior said with a casual shrug. “Another glass of wine?”
“Please.”
“Have another drink together,” Angus said. “I want to speak to Alex in private. Bring your wine if you want,” he told her.
She had been helped out of her chair and escorted into the hallway before she quite knew how it had come about. As they moved down the hall, she looked around.
The walls were covered with red flocked wallpaper and held framed photographs of racehorses. A massive Spanish chandelier loomed threateningly overhead. The furniture was dark and bulky.
“Like my house?” Angus asked, noticing that she was dawdling to take in her surroundings.
“Very much,” she lied.
“Designed and built it myself when Junior was still in diapers.”
Without being told, Alex knew that Angus had not only built but decorated the house. Nothing in it reflected Sarah Jo’s personality. Doubtless she countenanced it because she’d been given no choice.
The house was atrociously ugly, but it was in such appalling and unapologetic bad taste that it had a crude charm all its own, much like Angus.
“Before this house was here, Sarah Jo and I lived in a lineman’s shack. You could see daylight through the walls of that damn thing. Nearly froze us out in the winter, and in the summer, we’d wake up with an inch of dust covering our bed.”
Alex’s initial reaction to Mrs. Minton had been dislike. She seemed distracted and self-absorbed. Alex could, however, sympathize with a younger Sarah Jo who had been plucked like an exotic flower out of a gracious, refined culture and replanted into one so harsh and radically different that she had withered. She could never adapt here, and it was a mystery to Alex why either Angus or Sarah Jo thought she could.
He preceded her into a paneled den that was even more masculine than the rest of the house. From their mountings on the walls, elk and deer gazed into space with resigned brown eyes. What space they didn’t take up was filled with photographs of racehorses wearing the Minton colors standing in the winners’ circles of racetracks all over the country. Some were fairly current; others appeared to be decades old.
There were several gun racks with a firearm in each slot. A flagpole with the state flag had been propped in one corner. A framed cartoon read: “Tho I walk through the valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil…’cause I’m the meanest son of a bitch in the valley.”
The moment they entered the room, he pointed her toward a corner. “Come over here. I want to show you something.”
She followed him to a table that was draped with what looked like an ordinary white bed sheet. Angus unfurled it.
“My goodness!”
It was an architectural model of a racetrack. Not a single detail had been overlooked, from the color-coded seating in the stands, to the movable starting gate, to the diagonal stripes painted in the parking lot.
“Purcell Downs,” Angus boasted with the chest-expanding pride of a new father. “I realize you’re only doing what you feel like you’ve got to do, Alex. I can respect that.” His expression was belligerent. “But you don’t realize how much is at stake here.”
Alex defensively folded her arms across her midriff. “Why don’t you tell me?”
Needing no more encouragement, Angus launched into a full explanation of how he wanted the track to be built, enumerating its various features. There would be no corners cut, no scrimping. The entire complex was to be a first-class facility from the stables to the ladies’ restrooms.
“We’ll be the only full-scale track between Dallas/Fort Worth and El Paso, and three hundred or so miles from each. It will be a good stopover for travelers. I can envision Purcell becoming another Las Vegas in twenty years, springing up out of the desert like a gusher.”
“Isn’t that being a little optimistic?” Alex asked skeptically.
“Well, maybe a bit. But that’s what folks said when I started this place. That’s what they said when I built my practice track and drew up plans for an indoor swimming pool for the horses. I don’t let skepticism bother me. You gotta dream big if you want big things to happen. Mark my words,” he said, jabbing the air between them for emphasis. “If we get that license to build this track, the town of Purcell will explode.”
“Not everybody would like that, would they? Some might want to keep the community small.”