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This is Chapter 4 in a series of ten stories.

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Everyone expected Duke De Kalb to come to his senses and surrender his daughter to her maternal grandparents who’d taken care of her since birth.  Everyone was wrong.

He certainly didn’t deny them every opportunity to see their granddaughter, but he never considered even once that the girl would be raised by anyone other than himself.  After settling back into a routine in Fort Stockton and dealing with a more surgeries, as soon as he was physically on his feet he bought a bungalow about halfway between his parents’ home and that of his in-laws.  He and Abigail moved into the house when she was still a toddler.

And thus began the life that the two of them would enjoy together.  Only two things were important in Duke’s life.  His daughter and his work.  “And the only reason he gives a damn about his work is because that’s what funds the life with his daughter,” someone noted.

He’d gone to work in the family business and started preparing almost from the day he went to work to take over for his father when the time came.  While profits remained slim during the war years – they were slim for everyone – once the conflict was concluded business boomed.  And with it, the fortunes of Duke and his family.

It was his aim to expose young Abigail to everything he could so to be sure she grew up well rounded and able to seize every opportunity that her mother was never able to enjoy.  The older the girl got, the more she looked like the mother she’d never met.  And the more determined Duke was to be the best parent he could be, making up for the one his daughter had lost.

Though not Catholic, Duke enrolled Abigail in Our Lady of Immeasurable Concern thinking that would be the very best education she could get in Fort Stockton.  “The sisters say we should be going to church where I go to school,” she announced over breakfast one morning as she prepared for school.

“We go to church at Almost United Methodist.”  Duke seemed slightly put off.  “Tell them we have all the bases covered with God and to concern themselves more with the fundamentals of English, History, Math, and Science and leave the remaining efforts to me.”

Of course he hadn’t expected her to really say those things, it was more of a hypothetical answer to his daughter’s question.  When he received a phone call requesting a conference to discuss the topic as a result of Abigail’s reply to Sister Florentine, he realized he would have to be more careful in the future with his wording.

All of that time, Duke didn’t date.  He was an attractive war hero, and one who was well to do, at that.  There were plenty of opportunities.  In fact, women would nearly throw themselves at him, as much as they could back then.  He showed no interest.  He was laser-focused on his daughter.

Abigail was provided dance lessons, voice lessons, piano and violin lessons.  She was a trooper.  But when it was clear that whatever endeavor was being offered no longer suited her taste for it, she was never made to continue.  “I want her to be exposed to the options,” he told his mother one day.  “It is not my intent to force anything on her she does not enjoy.” His mother thought the girl might be spoiled, but kept those opinions to herself. For all she was provided, Abigail never actually seemed like a spoiled child.

The one thing he exposed her to that took precedence above everything else was horses.  He’d arranged for her to have lessons out at Post & Paddock Riding Stables.  Once she’d been on top of a horse, she never wanted to get off.  The lessons became somewhat of an obsession and after a year Duke decided to build a place outside of town on a few hundred acres he’d purchased so she could fully engage in her passion.  

As construction drew to a close on the main house and the horse stables, he made his way to Buckboard Buick for a new car that would be helpful in hauling supplies, as well as groups of friends from school out to the new place for cookouts, trail rides, and sleep overs.

Knowing Duke well, as their daughters attended school together, Clive pointed him straight over to the 1948 Buick Super Estate Wagon just outside the showroom.  “The car finished in gray over patterned gray upholstery and powered by a 248 cubic inch Fireball straight-eight linked to a column-shifted three-speed manual transmission.”  Clive knew his product, and knew Duke could afford the best. “Features include exterior wood paneling, a vinyl roof covering, rear fender skirts, whitewall tires, a Venti-heater, a Borg electric clock, and a push-button AM radio.”

“The Super rides on an independent front suspension, a solid rear axle, and coil springs at all four corners. Braking is provided by hydraulically assisted four-wheel drums.”  The two men walked around the outside of the car as Clive pointed out the features.

Opening the driver’s door, Clive noted, “The cabin features two rows of bench seating trimmed in gray vinyl with patterned cloth inserts. Additional features include a stained-wood roof, door trim panels, and pillars as well as a Venti-heater, a Borg electric clock, a windshield-mounted compass, lap belts, and a push-button AM radio.”

Of course, the whole time Clive was extolling the virtues of the Super Estate Wagon he was wishing they had a Roadmaster Estate Wagon on the lot.  That was the top of the line model of the whole Buick lineup for 1948 and sold for $3,433.  However, Buick only made 350 of those all year for 1948 and Buckboard wasn’t lucky enough to get one.  At $3,124, the Super Estate Wagon was the only Super model priced over $3,000, so it was still going to be a good commission for Clive.

One minute Clive was explaining, “Power is sent to the rear wheels via a column-shifted three-speed manual transmission. The 248 cubic inch Fireball inline-eight features a single downdraft carburetor and a blue-finished intake manifold and valve cover.”  The next minute Duke was writing a check.  He needed to get back out to the ranch for a Girl Scout gathering that was due to take place that afternoon.

And so it went.  At some point, probably around junior high, Abigail brought home a new friend, Eileen Parker.  By high school the two were inseparable best friends.  In fact, the two had become such fast friends that Duke finally caved in to his daughter’s pleas to transfer to Jim Bowie High School, “Home of the Fightin’ Knives,” so that Abigail could attend school with her best friend.  Abigail, with her incredible looks and untamed personality, was getting to be more than the sisters at Our Lady of Immeasurable Concern could deal with and probably were somewhat relieved at her departure.

Duke made it a point to know as much about Eileen Parker’s family as he could, no different than any of the other friends his daughter brought home.  Just like his own daughter, Eileen had lost a parent when she was young.  Her mother had remarried someone whose past seemed a bit shady, but nothing that Duke could determine was a danger.  Nonetheless, Eileen spent a lot more time out at the ranch than Abigail ever did at her friend’s house.

Perhaps it was because both girls were only children that they got on as well as they did.  And because they were both voracious readers, they seemed to have vivid imaginations.  Eileen Parker could tell stories that were real enough to be plausible, but wild enough to be entertaining.  Gifts that made her a successful author later in life, as well as a mover and shaker in Hollywood.

Duke did the dance that father’s do, making sure he was well aware enough in what was going on with his daughter to protect her from most of the things he was aware of, but giving her enough space to become her own woman over time.  His ears perked up when Eileen would share stories from home that might indicate things were not as he thought they should have been.  He overheard her mention that she was going to bring a bottle of scotch from her stepfather’s liquor cabinet with her for the pajama party she and Abigail were hosting at the ranch.

Rather than panic, Duke stayed up all night and allowed whatever was going to take place to happen with no chance of the girls getting outside the house where any real danger might exist.  The next morning, only an hour after the girls had gone to sleep, he was in the kitchen cooking a big breakfast for the group.  Few could eat.  The trail ride he had planned following breakfast with a lot of bouncing in the saddle and going up and down steep terrain resulted in a number of the girls having to dismount in order to hurl the pancakes, eggs and bacon they’d tried to down earlier.

They blamed it on a bug going around.  Duke was glad to do his part to make sure their first experience with alcohol had been safe, and ended on a soft, but memorable note. The particular shade of green most of the girls took on during the ride blended in well with the rustic countryside of the ranch.

Later that afternoon, all the other guests had gone home when Abigail and Eileen were out by the pool.  Apparently they didn’t realize that the windows were open and that their voices carried as they began to discuss Dusty, the ranch hand who Duke had hired to help out with the horses months earlier.  Hearing the terms in which the two 17-year-old girls described the young hand made Duke’s cheeks flush.

“Where in the world did these two young women ever hear words like that, or think it was allowable to discuss men in such terms?” he thought to himself.

“I’d like to get Dusty in one of the horse stalls in that barn over there, drop those Wranglers down around those Justin boots, and play Pearl Harbor with that stud,’” Eileen said.

“What in the world is Pearl Harbor?” Abigail asked.

“It’s where he lays down and I blow hell out of him.” Eileen giggled.

Duke nearly spit out his Folgers in the kitchen.  “It’s about time we take Eileen back home.  I told her mother we’d have her back by dinner,” he shouted out the window.  It never dawned on the girls he may have overheard their conversation.

Focused on her senior year ahead, and going off to college after that, Abigail never fully questioned why Dusty no longer worked out at the ranch, or why he’d been replaced by Charlie to help with the horses.  Charlie was nearly 60 years old, ornery, and as ugly as a mud fence.

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