Texas Cooking

Chapter 1

Food and stories go together. They have been paired since the first tribes of man gathered around campfires in caves, or tents, or crude brush shelters. They are like an ancient couple married longer than anyone can remember, bringing warmth and comfort, wisdom and laughter to those who sit with them. Many of the oldest stories are about food and where it came from-- like the Native American legends about how the People got the first seed corn, or how the buffalo came to be, or the biblical one about the Garden of Eden and how Adam and Eve brought their fall from grace by eating the forbidden fruit.

In my family, some of the best stories are about food, like the one about the time my grandmother tried to create sauerkraut in a five-gallon crock and filled the basement with a gas so noxious no one could go down there for months, or the time my great-aunt decided to try the new Mexican cooking fad on Easter Sunday, and created something so horrible even the dogs were afraid of it. Cooking talent, in my family, is like eye color. You never know who's going to get what. I got blue eyes, no cooking talent. I'm not bitter about it. I have no cooking interest, either.

My mother spotted this deficiency in me early, and gave up trying to mold me into a culinary genius. She decided that, along with my grandmother's curly red hair, I inherited Gran's non-domestic personality. Just like my grandmother, I didn't fit the traditional mold that society sets out for girls. I was scab-kneed and red-headed, tall and not the least bit refined, and determined to do everything my brother could do. I rejected all things girlish, including cooking. I spent my formative years reading about adventure, or running the fringes of the neighborhood looking for adventures, but never in the kitchen, unless my grandmother and my great aunts where gathered there, and the room was filled with wild Irish stories.

My mother, who was school-teacher prim was often scandalized by what was said at those gatherings of the Collins clan, but she let me sit and listen anyway. Perhaps she knew it was important for me to fit in somewhere, or perhaps she was just happy to see me finally in the kitchen, peeling potatoes or snapping green beans, finally learning how to cook, or so she thought. The fact was that I learned a lot about my family, and listened to some wonderful Irish stories, but I didn't absorb a teaspoonfull of cooking knowledge.

Which is why it is so strange that cooking took me on an adventure as wild as any of my great aunts' tales, and changed everything I thought I knew about myself. It all began with cooking. A story about cooking. Texas cooking.

I was so aghast when I got the offer, I just sat silently staring out the window with the phone buzzing in my ear.

"Collie?" Laura Draper's voice brought me back to reality. "Collie, are you still there?"

"Laura, are you sure you dialed the right number?" I asked. "I don't know anything about cooking. I don't know anything about Texas. I cover DC stories, remember? Washington, DC. Real stuff."

Fortunately, Laura ignored my burst of attitude. "You can't do any kind of stories sitting in bed with the covers pulled over your head, Collie." Only a really good friend can put you in your place like that and get away with it. "Now get off your butt and check your fax machine. I sent the proposal over two days ago, in case you hadn't noticed."

"I hadn't," I muttered.

"I'm not surprised," she fired back. "It's an eight-story run, and the pay isn't bad. eight-thousand plus expenses."

A huge sigh trembled through me, and the sound of it made my eyes burn. It was filled with the sense of hopelessness that had become the biggest part of me. "It just isn't my kind of story..."

"Damnit, Collie!" The volume made me hold the phone away from my ear. After so many weeks of quiet, her voice seemed like thunder rolling through my brain. "You're going to have to face the fact that you're out of luck in DC, at least until this lawsuit thing is old news. I know you've got bills to pay. Go to the damned fax machine, pick up the damned assignment, and get on the damned plane. I need the first article by the fifteenth."

"Of June?" Swinging my feet around, I stood up like a coma patient finally wobbling out of bed.

My joke bombed. "Very funny. The fifteenth of April. One week. Don't miss deadline. Enjoy the warm weather." Click.

So there I stood in a darkened room full of unwashed clothes and empty food containers, staring at the papers in the fax machine, wondering how I had come to this point. It's a long way down from award-winning Washington correspondent to unemployed freelance writer. The bottom of the pit is filled with dirty laundry and dried-up Chinese food. Testify in a lawsuit against your employer, and this is where you end up.

I never guessed the way out would be through Texas.

I pondered the idea as I sat on the plane reading the outline for the article series-- quirky stuff about summer food festivals and bed-and-breakfast inns with famous recipes. Touchy-feely stuff. Not at all my kind of thing. It would have been more suited to any number of feature writers who were actually from Texas, and I'm sure Laura knew that. The fact that she'd given it to me only pointed out what a good friend she was, and what a charity case I had become.

"So, you never did tell me why you were headed to Texas in the first place." The guy beside me was an engineering consultant from DC. Earlier on, we had been commiserating about being sent to Texas on business.

"I have an series of articles to do there." I hoped I was sounding cordial but romantically uninterested. Three months of wallowing in self-pity had left me a little rusty on social niceties.

He smiled, looking interested in more than just my work. "In Dallas? It sure would be nice to have someone from DC to talk to while I'm stuck there."

"In San Saba," I interjected before things could go any further. I could force myself to go to Texas and write articles about cooking, but romance was out of the question. Not now. Probably never again. "I guess that's a suburb of Dallas."

He laughed so loudly the lady across the aisle stopped her needlepoint to look at us. "Not quite. San Saba's in Central Texas, an hour or so west of Waco. You're headed to the middle of nowhere." He gave a rueful snort that made my stomach drop. "You've got a lot to learn about Texas." Leaning back in his seat, he crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes, still grinning like a Cheshire cat. "There's nothing out there but jackrabbits and goat farms. Like the commercial says-- It's like a whole other country."

"Oh," I muttered, and that was the end of the conversation for the rest of the plane ride. He fell asleep with his glasses askew and his mouth hanging open, and I sat reading my papers, having a waking nightmare about dropping off the edge of the world.

I was trying to find it on the map as the plane landed. Beside me, my seatmate woke up and straightened his glasses.

"Down here." He pointed over my shoulder to a small dot with a tiny name beside it.

"Oh," I said, folding up the map as the plane stopped in the gate. "Thanks."

"No problem." Standing up, he pulled his carry-on from the luggage bin. "So, are you in Dallas overnight?"

My mind quickly made the decision not to be in Dallas overnight as I grabbed my luggage and followed him from the plane. "No. I'm going to pick up my rental car and get going."

"Can I buy you supper before you take off?"

"No... really... but thanks."

For a moment, we stood pinned together in uncomfortable silence at the end of the gateway, waiting for a group of reuniting relatives to finish hugging and move out of the path. It reminded me that I hadn't even called my mother to tell her I was going to Texas. I'd have to think of some way to explain what I was doing here. Anything but the truth. I couldn't possibly tell my parents that the prodigal daughter, the one they were so proud of, was now largely unemployed and writing recipes for a women's magazine. I hadn't even worked up the guts to tell them that I had been fired from my job, and why. Lies beget more lies, my grandmother would have said.

The crowd finally cleared, and my traveling partner followed me across the hall to the rental car counter. I had the uncomfortable feeling he was going to ask for a ride somewhere, but as the agent handed me my keys, he seemed to give up the idea.

"Well, have a good trip," he said, turning toward the baggage claim area.

"Thanks." Clutching my rental car keys, I watched him disappear into a sea of blue jeans, boots, ball caps and cowboy hats, then I took a deep breath and dove in myself. One girl from DC, heading for Nowhere, Texas.

The drive turned out to be prettier than I expected. As I traveled west out of Dallas-Fort Worth, the countryside opened into an ocean of rolling grass-covered hills dotted with pink and white poppy-like flowers. In places, the ground was carpeted with thick blue wildflowers, blanketing the roots of gnarled trees that looked like crooked old men yawning after a hundred-year nap.

"This isn't so bad," I muttered, watching old farm houses and metal tractor sheds pass. All-in-all, it was serene, peaceful. Not too crowded, not too empty. Just what I needed to break out of my rut. It didn't look like the middle of nowhere. Except for the details of vegetation, it looked a lot like Maryland, where my family had vacationed for years on a guest farm. That picture made me think of my parents again, and I spent the next forty miles pondering what to say to them, and how much to tell. There was something surreal, and definitely not right about the fact that I had concealed from them everything that had happened in the past three months. Actually, a couple of skilled performances over the phone were all that had been required. Thirty-six years old, and I was still hiding from my parents...

Near Waco, I stopped for a snack and a drink at the exit where I was to leave the interstate for a two-lane highway that led due west into what, on the map, was a section with nothing but towns in microscopic print.

The cashier, who underneath his John Deere cap didn't look a day over fifteen, cocked a brow at my roasted soy beans and bottled water. "Health nut?" He drawled.

I laughed, thinking of the mountain of pizza boxes and greasy egg-roll containers I'd put in the dumpster before leaving home. "Trying to get back in the habit. Is this state highway 84?"

He drew back, looking at me as if I were a leper. "Man, you from New York or some place?"

"DC," Not that it's any of your business. "Why?"

"You talk like a Yankee." He grinned an impishly charming grin that made me forgive his ignorance. "Yeah, that's highway 84, right out front."

"Is it the road to San Saba?"

Craning his neck again, he squinted at me. "Well... it eventually goes to San Saba. It's like three hours that way."

"Oh." I tried not to make obvious my dismay. "Is there a better way to go?"

"Well, you can go on farm road..." He paused, looked me over carefully, then shook his head with resignation. "No ma'am. You better stick to the highway," as if to say a Yankee couldn't possibly be trusted with the more complicated short cut.

"All right. Thanks for the information."

"We've got a huntin' lease in San Saba county," he went on as I tucked my change into my wallet. "We go down there a lot during deer season, and in the spring to get rattlers."

"Rattlers?" I repeated absently, fumbling with the latch on my purse.

My hesitation turned out to be a mistake. Shutting the cash drawer, he leaned on the counter and made himself comfortable. "Yeah, rattle snakes. You know. Diamondbacks? They're all over the place down there. I mean, we've got ‘em here, too, but down there you can catch ‘em and get lots of money for the big ones at the snake days."

"Snake days?" I was half mortified, half fascinated, like Buck Rogers landing on a new planet.

"Like a... fair?" He said it slowly, as if maybe I didn't speak English. "All the towns down there have one. If you bring in the biggest snake, or the most pounds all-told, you can get five-hundred dollars."

In pure amazement, I said, "Oh. What do they do with the snakes after?"

"Fry ‘em up and serve ‘em with gravy. Usually hundreds of pounds of ‘em."

"And people eat that?" My stomach rolled over at the concept.

"Uh-huh."

"They do this every year?"

"Uh-huh."

"Don't they ever run out of snakes?"

He laughed so hard tears came to the corners of his eyes, and it took a long time for him to answer. "Not hardly. Rattlers are like weeds around here. They're every place."

That wasn't comforting news, considering my present destination. "Yuck. You're kidding."

"No ma'am. Last year my uncle and me caught one eight foot long and over six pounds. It was the biggest one at the Lometa Diamondback Jubilee. That's the skin on the wall." He pointed to a long piece of wood overhead with an enormous snake skin shellacked to it.

He went on as I stared at the skin. "We were drivin' through this pasture just south of Lampassas, and we stopped to open the gate by this cattle guard. They aren't supposed to shut those gates on the county roads, but..."

And the story went on for another ten minutes before another customer came in and saved me from hearing any more. Taking one last glance at the record-setting snake skin, I hurried out the door, into the car, and onto the highway, having learned my first three lessons about Texas: Stay off the farm roads if you're a Yankee. Snakes are everywhere. And everyone has a story. If you pause for more than an instant, they'll tell it to you -- whether you want to hear it or not.

I kept a watch for eight-foot rattle snakes as I left Waco and traveled into hilly country, which gradually grew more and more unpopulated, ceased to look anything like Maryland, and started to look more like the edge of the world-- at least the edge of the populated world. Miles passed with the only sign of humans being one or two cars passing and a smattering of gateways with ranch names on them. Occasionally, houses and barns were visible at the ends of the driveways, but mostly there were just gates and dirt driveways, winding off into nowhere like the wagon trails of old.

The sun slid slowly toward the horizon ahead, dimming the landscape, making it seem even emptier. Or maybe it was growing emptier. It was hard to say. All I knew for sure was that it was the least populated place I'd ever been.

The car lurched suddenly, the tires making an ominous clump-clump as they ran over something I couldn't see. My heart hammered upward as I glanced in the rearview and watched a fragment of wood fly airborne in the car's wake, then tumble end-over-end and disappear beyond the glow of the tail lights. I started wondering whether there were any nails in it, and what I was going to do if a tire went flat, and if I could get the spare on alone, and how far I might have to walk to get help, and whether rattlesnakes came out at night, and how I would explain it to my mother if something happened to me in the middle of nowhere Texas when I wasn't even supposed to be here.

I was relieved when I crested a hill and saw the lights of a town nestled in a valley in the distance. Civilization. At last. I would get a hotel room and travel on in the morning.

As I came closer and exited the highway, my hopes evaporated like a mirage in the desert. The town wasn't much more than a highway crossing with a feed mill and a tractor dealership on one side and a crumbling mainstreet on the other. The sidewalks had clearly been rolled up for the night. Not a light was on, anywhere. No motel. No convenience store. No restaurant. Nothing but darkened buildings, locked-up churches, and what looked like a smattering of houses squatting among the trees on a hillside. The lights I had seen were nothing more than a few yard lamps, three flickering streetlights, and a dim neon sign in front of the tractor dealership.

Stopped in the middle of mainstreet, I stared blankly at the flickering green neon outline of a tractor. Friendly's Tractors, the words said in faded black paint. Home of True, The Tractor Man.

"Save me, True The Tractor Man," I muttered, and a comic- book image came into my mind-- greasy ballcap, worn-out coveralls, a cross between Barney Fife and Gomer Pyle. I could practically see his silhouette in the dirty window glass of the tractor showroom...

Shaking my head at myself, I put the car in drive again and stretched in my seat. I was more exhausted and food-deprived than I thought. I was starting to hallucinate. I needed a bed, a meal... and some gas. The gauge was below a quarter tank. The highway sign said San Saba 58.

My mind did a little mental algebra. Ten gallon tank, maybe... three gallons left, maybe... Thirty miles per gallon, maybe... thirty goes into fifty-eight...

No problem. Straightening my shoulders, I stepped on the gas, and the car went. Nowhere. The needle sank past empty with Titanic speed. The engine coughed, wheezed, then died, and the car coasted slowly downhill to come to an unholy rest beneath the flashing neon sign of True The Tractor Man. Saying a silent prayer, I tried to start the car again, but nothing happened.

All at once, I was marooned in Nowhere, Texas.

Cursing my luck, I dug my cell phone out of my purse and flipped it open. A tow truck, I'd just call a tow truck and this would all be...

The phone flashed two little words that told me otherwise. No signal. No signal. No signal.

"Oh, I can't believe this!" Slamming my hands on the steering wheel, I let my head fall against the headrest, and closed my eyes. Think, Collie, think. Think of something.

No good ideas came to mind. Walk the half mile or so to the lights on the hillside and hope there were houses. Sit where I was and wait for a car to come along. Lock the doors, curl up in the back seat and wait for morning. The soy nuts were gone. I might starve to death before then...

A knock on the window made me jerk upright. Clutching a hand over my exploding heart, I looked sideways into a pair of coveralls and slowly upward into a face hidden from the neon glow by the shadow of a ballcap. Alarm bells zinged through my head as I rolled the window down a crack. It was well after dark. I was a female alone on a deserted street. A man was knocking on my window...

"Are you True the Tractor Man?" Came out of my mouth. In spite of my fear, I flushed from head to toe at the stupid remark.

A warm, friendly laugh rose from beneath the ball cap, and I felt better instantly. "Are you lost?"

"I'm out of gas and my cell phone won't work," I blurted. Stupid, stupid, stupid. If he was a psychotic killer, he would now know I was helpless. "I mean, I don't... No. I'm all right. Can you call a tow truck for me?"

Hands in his pockets, he leaned closer to the window crack, and I could just make out the neon-lit outline of a masculine chin that hadn't been shaved in few days, and a shadowed profile that told me he was younger than I had originally thought, probably in his thirties. "The nearest tow truck's an hour away."

"Oh, God," I groaned, feeling that familiar sense of despair come over me. Nothing, but nothing, went right for me anymore. "Is there a motel around here?"

"No, Ma'am." He had a slow, southern drawl that made the words sound almost like a foreign language. "Nearest motel's in San Saba." I couldn't really see his face, but I could swear he was smiling, as if the whole conversation were a little amusing. "You're not from around here, are ‘ya?"

"No." I bit out, aggravated, desperate, uncertain of what to do next. The fact that he wasn't a harmless old geezer made me more uncomfortable with the idea of getting out of the car.

"You from New York or someplace?" The second time in a day I'd been asked that question. Only this time it wasn't funny.

"DC. Why?"

"I figured, someplace like that." He nodded, his chin disappearing into the shadow, then appearing again. "Where ya headed?"

Jamming my fingers into my hair in frustration, I pulled the tired, frizzed-up mess out of my eyes. "San Saba. I have a room waiting for me there at the Hawthorne House Bed and Breakfast. Can you give me any ideas as to how I might get there tonight?"

"You need some gas." He chuckled at his own joke. The playful sound of it whittled the edge off my temper.

"You're right. Is there a gas station near here?"

"Not that's open."

"And the tow truck's an hour away?"

"Yup."

It came to me then that he was enjoying giving useless one-sentence answers to my questions, so I thought very carefully before I spoke again. "Have you any idea as to where I might get some gas at this hour, and, if so, will you tell me what it is?"

He grinned, a glimmer of straight white teeth barely visible in the shadow of his ball cap. "Sure. You just sit there, and I'll get some gas out of the tank out back."

"You will?" I breathed with the wonder of a child being told Santa just filled the Christmas stockings. "That would be just..." I realized he had already left me and was headed toward the building.

Looking out the front window, I watched him cross the dim parking lot with a long-legged, unhurried gait, then disappear behind a row of tractors. For a fleeting moment, I was given to the terrifying thought that he wasn't coming back.

Get real, Collie. Just stay in the car. He'll be back in a minute, and you'll be on the road. When you get back to Dallas, you can sue the rental car company for giving you a defective gas gauge. Yes, sue the rental car company. That would feel good...

Five minutes ticked by, and I started to worry again. Then he appeared out of the darkness like Batman coming to the rescue. Batman in baggy coveralls and a smashed ball cap. Lugging a gas can. My hero.

"Pop that gas cap cover," he called as he passed my window.

I did, listening to the vacuum-like sound as he opened the cap, then the sweet swish-swish of gas going in. Within moments, he popped the cap on and closed the cover.

"That oughta do it." He called, stepping into the shadow of the sign pole, so that I could barely see him. "See if she'll start."

I turned the key, and the car sputtered stubbornly for a moment, then roared to life. "Sounds good," I called. "What do I owe you for the gas?"

"Not a thing, Ma'am." Stepping forward, he tipped the brim of his ballcap. "It's been a pure pleasure." He turned away and headed toward the building before I had a chance to tell him thank-you.

Rolling the window down, I stuck my head out and called, "Thank you!"

He waved a hand over his shoulder as if to tell me it wasn't necessary. "Have a good trip to San Saba. Straight down this highway. You can't miss it. Watch out for deer."

Watch out for deer. Eight-foot rattlesnakes and now deer. If I ever made it to San Saba, I was going to call my friend, Laura Draper and demand hazard pay.

Even so, as I pulled onto the highway and cruised into the star-filled Texas night, I was strangely glad I came. It felt good to be out of bed, gone from my apartment, and doing something again. I had a sense of regaining myself, which was strange, considering that nothing around me was familiar. In the bright moonlight, I could see the shapes of the hills becoming steeper and sharper, the thick stands of brush changing to wispy grass, dotted here and there by thick clumps of twisted, heavy-limbed trees. Through the open window, a cool, dry breeze brought a heavy floral scent, reminding me of the blue flowers I had admired earlier. I would have to ask somebody what they were called...

The quiet, as usual, caused my mind to drift. It wandered, as always, to the past three months, to the very start of everything that had gone wrong. I could see my boss of ten years, a man I trusted and thought I could count on, leaning confidently back in his chair on the other side of the conference table.

"There's no meat to this thing. They'll never bring it all the way to trial. Small out-of-court settlement and a retraction on the back page, that's all it will amount to. It'll all be over in a month." he said. He had called all of us in to be briefed by the lawyers on what we should and shouldn't say in regards to the slander lawsuit brought against the newspaper by Senator Williams.

At the time I wasn't worried. The fact that my name was even involved was purely accidental-- a slip in the editing room that gave me the byline for an article I had not written, but only edited and touched up for, J. Ross Bennett, my boss. I knew the facts behind the article had to be air tight. If Bennett had informtion that candidate Williams had taken illegal campaign contributions, then it was true. I was a little surprised to hear him even mention printing a retraction of the article. Bennett's facts were always air tight. He knew every back alley and closet in DC, and he knew where to get information. Slander suits were nothing new for him, and he always won.

It'll all be over in a month. Bennett was right. It was all over for me in a month. Job, reputation, contacts, work relationships, personal relationship. Crunch. Over me like a steam roller over Wylie Coyote. Amazing how much your life can be changed by one simple misque in editing room.

Bennett was wrong about the case settling out of court. Before I knew it, I was testifying against the paper, and when I testified, I did the one thing the paper didn't want me to do. I told the truth. I told everyone in the court that my part in the article only went as far as editing and touch-up. When I did it, the look in Bennett's eyes told me he was going to hang me out to dry. He had wanted me to accept responsibility for the article, and simply claim reporter's privilege, refusing to reveal my sources. He said that the paper's case would look cleaner that way. He promised that the paper would defend me to the fullest, and that in the end, the case would amount to nothing if I played it their way.

If I had known then what would come of telling the truth, I might have decided to lie.

Liars never prosper, my grandmother would have said. I was proof that people who tell the truth don't either. The people who prosper are the ones who keep their heads down and stay out of firing range.

Like Brett-- mister, "Collie, I think we should cool it until this deposition thing is over." Mister, "I love you, Coll, but you've got to understand..." Mister, couldn't be bothered to return my messages. Mister, too busy to come by. "You understand, don't you, Coll?" Mister, "I've met somebody else. I didn't mean for it to happen, but you've been so tied up with this lawsuit."

Thinking of it still made my blood boil. My hands kneaded the steering wheel, imagining his neck. His and my ex-boss's. Men, the two-faced shmucks. When it comes right down to it, they can't stand a woman who can compete on their ballfield.

Cut it out, Coll. This is pointless. It's over. It's over. It's done. My mantra of the past month or so. It never did any good before, but this time I felt my anger flow out the window like cigarette smoke and vaporize into the night.

Amazed, I smiled and gave myself a mental pat on the back. I was getting better-- healing, if you could call it that. Coming back from the dead.

Shaking my head, I took a deep breath of the fragrant night air and tried to think of something else. The work ahead of me was a safe subject-- depressing, but safe. First to San Saba to the Hawthorne House Bed and Breakfast, operated by the same family for one-hundred and fifty years, famous for its authentic Texas food, especially delicacies made from some kind of native fruit called the prickly pear. Then to the Bluebonnet Festival in Burnet for an annual chili cook-off. I hoped that wasn't one of those festivals that included live snakes. Then to a town farther south called Fredericksburg, a tourist destination famous for German food and antique stores. Next, to the riverwalk in San Antonio for famous Tex-Mex recipes near the Alamo-- that was to occupy the space of two articles. After that, to the Salt Creek Ranch to help prepare a chuckwagon supper for visiting ‘dudes' -- people, undoubtedly, much like myself. Following Salt Creek, I was to go to a town called Copperas Cove for a Civil War reenactment, including food of the period, particularly chess pie and caramel pie. My final assignment was another Bed and Breakfast on the way back to Dallas in a town called West, which was famous for Czechoslovakian food, especially Kolaches.

Rubbing the kindling ache between my eyebrows, I considered it all. The whole thing still seemed a little twilight zone-ish, as if I could not possibly really be heading off on such a pointless project, as if I were dreaming and would wake up in my bed any moment with the dirty laundry and the food containers. Glancing at the fax, barely visible in the dim light on the seat beside me, I reaffirmed the reality of my position. At the bottom of the page, Laura had scrawled, Work from the Hawthorne House in San Saba, or get rooms in other towns as you go. Your choice. Topics are flexible, fax me with any other article ideas. Everything within easy driving distance. Have a good time. Relax. Laura. And then this annoying smiley-face with a mocking, one-sided smirk, laughing at me from the bottom of the paper.

The car topped a hill, and the lights of San Saba appeared in the valley below like a shimmering oasis. Filled with something akin to euphoria, I gazed across the distance at the flickering lights nestled in the tree-lined valley ahead. Finally, I had arrived. It looked more promising than the last town-- like there might actually be a place where I could get food.

A flicker of motion crossed the bottom of my vision, and I glanced at the road just in time to see a deer bound from the ditch in front of me and bolt into my lane, then freeze in the headlights. Gritting my teeth, I hit the brake and swerved into the oncoming lane, hoping the deer would stay where it was. My heart froze in my throat, then jumped back to my chest and started beating again as I passed the deer and moved into my own lane. Slowly, I descended the remainder of the hill and entered the city limits of San Saba, where something familiar caught my eye from the roadside.

Welcome to San Saba, it said, Visit Friendly's Tractors II, Home of True The Tractor Man. Shaking my head, I thought of my encounter beneath the sign in the last town. It all seemed funny now.

Chuckling at myself, I drove slowly down the main street of San Saba, which, I was happy to see, had more to offer than my previous stop. Centered around a quaint town square with an old, German-styled courthouse, it contained several antique stores, a hardware store, a pecan shop, a resale boutique, a dollar store, a ladies dry goods store that looked like it was straight out of the 1950's, Harry's Boots-n-More, and a pizza parlor. Just off the square were a couple of churches, a cafe that looked like it was a revamped adobe cow barn, a car dealership, a Dairy Queen, and, of course, Friendly's Tractors, complete with the same flickering green sign.

Staring at it, I almost missed the driveway of the Hawthorne House Bed and Breakfast, located just past the Sale Barn Cafe and Friendly's Tractors.

Screeching to a halt, I turned into the driveway and proceeded slowly through the ivy-covered stone gateway toward the main house. Even in the darkness, it was an imposing structure, built in a two-story frontier style of white stone with tall, narrow windows and a sloping tin roof. A generous porch and second-story balcony circled the front and south side, supported by huge columns of stacked white stone cylinders that looked like they had been chipped into shape by hand. Between the center pillars hung a sign that told me I was in the right place. Hawthorne House Bed and Breakfast, Est 1867.

An ample, gray-haired woman appeared on the porch as I sat reading the sign. She stood holding a shawl around her shoulders, peering at me as if I might be someone suspicious.

Parking the car, I climbed out and limped stiffly up the walk, realizing that I hadn't stretched my legs since Waco.

"Hello?" I said. "Is this the Hawthorne House Bed and Breakfast? I... I have a reservation."

Breaking into an enormous grin, the woman descended the steps in a stiff-legged hobble and stretched out a hand, welcoming me in as if she were my grandmother. "Oh, it's you," she said. "I've been getting worried about you. You should have been here a half hour ago. You didn't hit a deer, did you?"

"No." I wondered if she had me confused with someone else. "Well, that's good. That's good." Laying a hand on my shoulder, she guided me not onto the porch, but along a pathway that led around the side of the house to a row of four cottages out back. "I'm glad you made it. I was just about to call and get the constable out of bed to go after you."

I stopped walking, certain she had me confused with someone else. "I'm sorry, but you must have me confused with someone. I'm just here to rent a room."

"Oh, no ma'am." Herding me on, she patted me on the shoulder. "You're just who we were expecting. True the Tractor Man called just after eight-thirty and said to be on the lookout for a blue car with a frizzy red-headed lady that talks like a Yankee. Said if I didn't see you in an hour and a half, I'd better call and tell the constable to go on up the highway, because you'd probably hit a deer or got lost."

"Oh," I said meekly, somewhere between insulted, grateful, and amazed. A frizzy red-headed lady that talks like a Yankee. Not exactly a flattering description. I had a feeling it wasn't meant to be. Following her onto the porch of the first stone cabin, I waited for her to unlock the front door, and said, "This is really cute. Were these cabins part of the original estate?"

Nodding, she opened the door and guided me inside. In the light, she looked younger than I had originally thought, perhaps in her sixties, round-faced, ample bodied, somewhat German looking. "This was the first structure built by my husband's great-great-great grandfather when he homesteaded the place. The other three were built later as workers' quarters, but this one is our biggest and our best. Jasper just finished re-doing it. It has a phone and a TV. We have that satellite cable here, so we get ninety-nine channels, but you have to watch the one we're watching in the big-house. If you want me to change the channel, just ring me on the phone, and I'll do it right away. We like to make our guests happy. Since you missed supper, I fixed you a basket there on the table-- bread, some chicken salad, deviled eggs, watermelon pickles, and a slice of homemade pecan pie. There's tea and lemonade in the little refrigerator. And a bowl of fruit." She paused for a breath. "Is there anything else I can get you?"

"I... uh... I can't think of anything." I wasn't used to such royal treatment. In fact, it made me uncomfortable and mildly suspicious. Where I come from, if someone treats you like that, they want something. Everyone in DC has an agenda.

"Anything special you want to watch on television tonight?"

I shook my head.

"Well, then, I'll let you alone. I work across the street at the cafe in the mornings, so our guests-- well, you're the only one we have right now-- usually take breakfast over there. That is, if you're up and about before ten-thirty. Otherwise, you'll have to take lunch."

"No, I'm not a late sleeper. I'm good on a few hours a night." Although at the moment I felt like I could sleep for a week. "Did the editors from Southern Woman explain why I'm here?"

Reaching out, she patted me on the upper arms, and for a moment I had the uncomfortable feeling I was going to be hugged, and I have never been the hugging type, especially not with strangers. "Oh, yes, and we are so excited! Having our little community in the Southern Woman is just the most exciting thing that has happened around here in years. The whole town is buzzing about it."

"Well..." I tried to think of a nice way to tell her the article was just supposed to be a small piece about her bed and breakfast and a few traditional recipes, not an advertisement for the town of San Saba. "What they really want is a little material about your establishment, some traditional recipes, and information about where they came from."

"Um-hum, um-hum." I had the distinct feeling she hadn't heard a word I said as she stepped onto the porch. "You just come by the cafe' tomorrow morning, and you'll have more stories than you can write, I can promise you that. Now, I'll leave you alone. I've got to get back to the house. I'd best get Jasper to bed before he starts snoring in his chair, or he'll be there until morning."

Standing in the doorway, I shook my head, watching her hobble down the stone path. She wasn't going to be an easy interview. I didn't have the first clue how to do pointless human-interest stuff. I wasn't very interested in humans-- not the folksy down-home kind anyway. I liked to study people with powerful secrets and dirty little lies...

But when you haven't got steak, sometimes you have to eat hot-dogs and try to pretend. Anyway, I didn't have the energy to worry about it. All I wanted was a meal and a good night's sleep in the cute iron bed on the other side of the cabin. Tomorrow morning I'd put on my reporter's cap and see if I could come up with something interesting to say about the food in Nowhere, Texas. If not, I'd just have to call and explain the problem to Laura, say thanks-but-no-thanks for the assignment offer, and get on the plane home.