I threw it into the river. She turned to watch it float a moment on the surface of the water, then sink slowly as it moved with the current under the bridge. "You just can"t get s.h.i.t like that anymore," she said sorrowfully. "Why did you do that?"
*"rm not lookin" to get busted and spend the next seven weeks in some tank-town jaU."
Suddenly her eyes began to fill with tears. *"Touch me," she said.
I took her hand and she guided me to her breast. She closed her eyes, squeezing the tears from the corners of them. "G.o.d, that feels good," she whispered.
Anne came down from the abutment. We went down around the comer and under the bridge. We made it there, with the sound of the trucks roaring against the pavement over our heads drowning her moaning cries. Afterward she was very quiet and lay there looking up at me as I pulled my jeans up around my hips and snapped the b.u.t.tons. She reached over for her pack, pulled out some Kleenex and stuffed it into her c.u.n.t. Then she got up and pulled up her own jeans.
"It feels so good in there, I don"t want to lose any of it," she said. "Better than anything I can do in my head."
I didn"t answer.
She reached for my hand. "Jonathan. Do you think maybe Fm in love with you?"
I looked into her eyes. There was a bright and shining contentment in them. "No," I said shortly. "You"re not in love with me. You"re in love with my father."
U.S. 1 was already hot and dusty, and a gray-blue pall of exhaust fumes hung heavy in the air over the road. We waited for a break in the traffic, then made it to the southbound side. We stood there watching the traffic roar by.
She pushed long, damp hair back from her face. "It"s got to be over eighty akeady."
I nodded.
"Maybe we can find some shade and cool off a bit first?"
I led her over to a clump of trees and we plunked ourselves down on the ground under them. I broke out the six-pack Pete had given me. "This will help."
She took a long swallow. "Gra.s.s dehydrates me. So does f.u.c.king."
I laughed. "You"ll have to pace yourself."
She smiled at me. I pulled at my beer and looked out at the road. The early trucks had already gone, and the highway was filled with commuter traffic to New York. The big cars, air-conditioned against the heat and smell, had their windows rolled up tight. The little cars had their windows wide open, their occupants hoping to escape the heat with the speed, although in the morning crush it seemed a futile thought.
"Where are we heading?" she asked.
"West Virginia," I said, without thinking.
"Why West Virginia?"
"Good a place as any," I said. "Besides, I"ve never been there."
I didn"t tell her that that was where my father had come from. Near a town named FitchvUle, which I had once found on an A.A.A. map. I wondered what it was like, because he nfever spoke about it at all. Now, suddenly, I knew I had to go there, even though I hadn"t realized it when I left the house this morning.
I finished off my beer in a long swallow and got to my feet. I slung the pack behind my shoulders and looked down at her. "Ready?"
She reached into her pack and pulled out a floppy-brimmed felt hat, which she stuck on her head. "How does it look?"
"Beautiful."
She got to her feet. "Let"s go."
An hour later we were still hanging our thumbs on the doors of the cars going by. By now she was sitting on her pack, her face flushed and warm. I lit a cigarette and gave it to her.
"It"s not as easy as it looks in the movies," she said.
I grinned as I lit another cigarette for myself. "It never is."
"I"ve got to pee," she said.
"Over there." I gestured to the clump of trees.
She looked at me questioningly.
"Might as well get used to it," I said.
She fished some Kleenex from her pack and disappeared behind the trees. I turned to watch the road. Traffic was lighter now that the morning rush was over. Fewer pa.s.senger cars, more trucks. The road began to shimmer in the heat haze.
I heard her come up behind me as I squinted into the sun. A giant Fruehauf trailer crested the hill and came down the hill toward us. Automatically I raised my hand in the familiar signal. Then I heard the hiss of its powerful air brakes as it slowly came to a stop, its giant shadow shielding us from the sun.
I watched the door open silently outward from the cab three feet off the ground. The voice came from a man I could not see. "You kids want a ride into town?"
I felt her restraining hand on my arm, but the voice I heard was not her voice. ""Daniel. Paw toV us to walk/*
I shook her hand angrily off my arm. "We suah do, mistuh," I said.
But now his sense of caution had returned. He kept very low to the ground, his fur blending into the shadows. The bouquet of the fennel was stronger now, but since it was within reach, he was able to contain his hunger until he was sure of safety. He waited until the wild pounding of his heart returned to normal, then moved very slowly into the acacias.
He found the cl.u.s.ter of fennel a few yards from the slowly trickling brook. Quickly he began to scratch at the earth to loosen the juicier, more tender shoots. A moment later he had a long stalk in his front paws and sat up on his haunches, holding it in front of his nose. Tentatively, almost delicately, he nibbled at the shoot. It was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted. It was also the last. For just at that moment, he saw the boy standing almost fifteen yards away. Their eyes met for a brief second; then, before he could react to the explosion of fear within him, the .22 bullet ripped into the cortex at the base of his neck, shattering his spine. He flipped backward into the air, dead before he touched the ground.
Daniel Boone Huggins let the echo of the gunshot and the faint wisp of smoke from the rifle fade before moving forward to pick up the dead rabbit. He lifted it by the ears. Already the eyes were glazed and empty. Carefully he tied it to a leather loop around his waist; then he knelt carefully and studied the creature"s tracks.
Quickly he grabbed a handful of the fennel shoots and began to retrace the rabbit"s trail. A few minutes later he was in the field on the side of the hill opposite the clump of bushes from which the rabbit had come. He found the small hole in the ground. Carefully, soundlessly, he loosened the thong and placed the rabbit in front of the hole with the fennel shoots around him.
A moment later he was on his haunches about twenty yards away, waiting. It would be only a question of time before the smell of the fennel and the rabbit would bring his mate up from the ground to investigate.
Jeb Stuart Huggins sat on the rickety wooden front steps of his house, his jug of evening squeezin"s beside him, watching his eldest son come toward him. ""Any luck?" His voice was rusty from lack of use.
"Two rabbits," Daniel answered.
"Let"s see "em," his father commanded.
Daniel loosened the thong around his waist and held them out to his father. The older man hefted them for a moment, then returned them.
"A mite scrawny," he said. "Fittin" only for stew."
"The drought ain"t been much good for the game either," Daniel said defensively.
"I"m not complainin"," his father said. "We take what the Good Lord sees fittin" to give us."
Daniel nodded. It would be the first meat they would have had in more than a week.
"Take it roun" to your maw an" tell her to make it ready fer the pot."
Daniel nodded and started to walk away.
"How many bullets did you use?" his father asked.
Daniel stopped. "Two."
Jeb nodded approvingly. "Don"t fergit to clean the gun real good, now."
"I won"t, Paw."
Jeb watched his son walk around the comer of the house. Daniel was getting to be a big boy now. Almost fourteen and as tall as he was, and beginning to swell out his britches. It was time to move him out of the room he shared with his brother and sisters. It wouldn"t do at all to have the young ones seeing things like that. It put wrong thoughts in their heads, and he had enough trouble with Molly Ann as it was.
Molly Ann was his oldest child, a little more than a year older than Daniel and a full woman already, bleeding for more than two years now. Time to be thinking of getting her married. But there were no young men around. AH the young ones had gone down from the hills to work in the gla.s.s and textile mills in town.
He sighed and picked up the jug and took a sip. The white-hot liquor burned its way into his stomach and warmed him. Problems; there were always problems with seven children. And there would have been ten if three hadn"t been stillborn. The Good Lord had known what he was doing. He"d figured out that Jeb Stuart Huggins would have a hard enough job providing for those he had. But still, it wasn"t fair. Especially since Maw had crossed her legs and closed him out. No more children. It wasn"t easy on a man. Especially a man like himself who was used to getting it. And now with Molly Ann walking around with those ripe young t.i.tties and chunky fat a.s.s, he was getting all kinds of sinful thoughts. He took another sip of the squeezin"s and wondered when the circuit preacher would come by. A good old-fashioned revival meeting would do a lot to dispel the sinful sacrilegious notions the Devil was planting in his mind. He sighed again. It wasn"t easy being a family man in these hard times.
Marylou Huggins stared into the fire-blackened iron pot sitting on the ancient wood-burning stove. The water was simmering and bubbling, and there were great yellow fat blobs swelling and breaking on its surface. With a long-handled fork she rescued the square of fatback from its watery grave. She studied it, dripping from the edge of the fork. With satisfaction she placed it on a plate. It should be good for at least two more cookings before it was used up. Quickly she dumped a heap of scrubbed potatoes, turnips and greens into the boiling stock and began stirring. She sensed rather than heard Daniel come through the kitchen door. She did not turn around.
""Maw." As always, she felt a shock at the boy"s deepening voice. It seemed only yesterday that he had been a baby.
*"Yes, Dan"l.""
*"I got me two rabbits. Maw. Paw says fer you to fix "emferthepot.""
She turned to face him. She was only thirty-four, but she was thin and gaunt, and the lines on her face made her seem much older. She took the rabbits from his outstretched hand. "*Make a nice change from squir"ls,"" she said.
*"But we ain"t had no squir"ls for more"n a month," he protested.
Her lined face relaxed into a smile. Daniel was altogether too serious for a boy his age. ""I was jes" fiinnin", son.""
His eyes lightened. *"Yes, Maw."
*"Go tell Molly Ann to come an" he"p me clean the rabbits. You"ll find her out back mindin" the kids."
"Yes, Maw." He hesitated a moment, sniffing the air. "That suah smells good."
** "Tain"t nothin" but fatback and greens," she said. "You hungry?"
He nodded.
She took a piece of hard bread from the board next to the stove and wiped it with the salt pork so that all its grease was absorbed, then handed it to him.
He took a ma.s.sive bite, chewed and swallowed. "That is good. Thank you. Maw."
She smiled. "Now go git your sister."
She watched him leave, then turned and took out the cleaning knife and began to hone it gently against the sharpening stone.
Daniel walked slowly toward the back of the house. He waited a moment before turning the comer so that he could finish his piece of bread. He didn"t want the other kids to see him or they would all start hollering for some of it. When he had swallowed the last bite, he went around the comer.
The blast of noise hit him as two of the kids charged past him toward the open field. Mase, the baby, sixteen months, began squalling from his sling, which hung suspended from the bare old pine tree near the woodpile. Molly Ann straightened up, the kindling hatchet gleaming in her hand. "Richard, Jane, you come back heah this minute. If Paw hears you, you"ll get a tannin" fer sure."
The children ignored her warning. Molly Ann turned to Rachel, her ten-year-old sister, who was sitting on a block of wood, looking at a picture book. "Rachel, you go git "em and bring "em back here."
Rachel, the studious one of the family, got to her feet, after marking the place in her book, and ran after the two younger children, who were now lost in the tall gra.s.s in the field.
Molly Ann pushed her long brown hair back from her flushed face, then picked up a twig from the cut kindling and pushed it into the baby"s mouth. Inmie-diately Mase was quiet, gumming the small piece of wood.
"These kids"U drive me crazy," Molly Ann said. She stared at her brother. "Where at you been all day?"
"Huntin"."
"Git anythin"?"
"Two rabbits. Maw says fer you to come an" he"p her clean"em."
She suddenly became aware that he was staring at the top of her dress. She had opened the top b.u.t.tons across her b.r.e.a.s.t.s so that she could swing the kindling hatchet, and she was almost completely exposed. "What you starin" at?" she said, although she made no move to cover herself up.
"Nothin"." He looked away guiltily, feeling the flush creep up into his face.
"You were starin" at my t.i.tties," she said accusingly. She began to fasten the b.u.t.tons. "I could tell from the look on your face."
**I was not/" he muttered, still looking at the ground.
"You was too." She finished with her b.u.t.tons and came toward him. "You"ll have to finish the kmdlin" if n I go to he"p Maw.""
**A11 right." He still did not meet her gaze.
""Your pants is all swole," she said.
Daniel felt his face grow even hotter. He couldn"t answer.
She laughed. "You"re jes" like Paw."
Now he looked at her. "What do you mean?"
She laughed again. "I was down at the brook this afternoon washin" myself when I saw Paw outta the comer of my eye watchin" me from behin" a tree."
He couldn"t keep the wonder out of his voice. "Did he know you saw him?"
"No." She shook her head. "I made believe I didn"t know he was there, but I kep" watchin" outta the corner o" my eye. He was jackin" hisself off jes" like you do. On"y he"s bigger. His pole looked like it was a yard long."
He stared at her, open-mouthed. "Sweet Jesus!"
"Don" you go blasphemin"!" she said sharply.