Getaway Driver

I’m in a doll museum in Shamrock, and I am not prepared to face down the hundreds of ceramic figures staring at me from every shelf and corner. I can’t believe the curator just let me in here, told me a little history of the place, then wished me luck in my research—leaving me alone to deal with the ghosts. She’s out on the porch talking to a couple old-timers, probably about the fall weather or football or whatever you talk about on porches. But I’m convinced they’re talking about that writer from Austin who was, as my grandpa used to say, raised on concrete. They’ve given no indication they think this of me. But the second I stepped out of my car, the wind grabbed my Red Sox hat off my head, as it does, as anyone from the Panhandle knows it will. I imagine they enjoyed the slapstick spectacle of a city kid who doesn’t have the sense to hold onto her hat and now must chase it down the sidewalk.

This is already one of my favorite museums, and I’ve been to my share—in London and Berlin and Osaka and Rome and Cairo, and to the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum down the road in Canyon. It’s always irked me when other tourists show up on the day I visit to block my view and laugh inappropriately and talk too loudly. It’s not that I think I’m special and should be allowed to wander freely, unperturbed by tourists. No. It’s exactly that. I enjoy history. I’m here to learn. They’re here to take a few selfies for Instagram. I should have the place to myself.

So, when Raquel Riggs, the curator of the Pioneer West Museum, gave me a quick briefing on the place and left me to explore, I couldn’t believe my luck. I was