by Orrie Hitt
On the third afternoon Eddie and Carole were stretched out on the patch of grass up above the valley. She kissed him on the cheek and he twisted his head so that he could meet her mouth with his lips. It was a short kiss, their passion drained from them for the moment, and she lay back on the grass again.
“Some people would say this is wrong, wouldn’t they, Eddie?”
“You could bet your last dollar on that.”
“I don’t think it’s wrong. I think it’s only wrong when you fight down what you feel inside of you. You could marry me six times in the same day and I wouldn’t feel any better than I do right now. Just because you have a scrap of paper that says you’re man and wife doesn’t change it.”
“Maybe not but the law says you should have one.”
“But how do you know that you’re physically suited to each other if you don’t try first?”
“That’s a chance you take.”
“Many countries have a trial marriage for engaged couples, and they have a lower divorce rate than we do. When people get divorced they give a lot of different reasons, but I think most of it starts right in the bedroom, don’t you?”
“Perhaps. It could.”
“Take me, for instance. Supposing I married Roger and lived with him? It would be a sexless marriage for me, and although I might have babies I’d never know all of the thrills of creating them. I — well, I couldn’t be like Kitty, going to a doctor and having him make me pregnant. It’s — I think it’s dirty, even dirtier than if you went out and found a man you like and told him to give you a child. And how does my father know that isn’t what Kitty is doing?”
“I suppose he doesn’t.”
“That’s why we have to stop her before it’s too late, Eddie. I — well, I don’t guess you even have to sleep with her. You could say that you did and she couldn’t prove that you hadn’t. You could go to my father tomorrow and tell him that you’d had your way with her. We could only hope that he would believe you. If he didn’t I could always say that I’d found you with her. We — ”
“I won’t lie about it,” Eddie said. “You may hate Kitty, but she doesn’t deserve that.”
“Sometimes I think you like her, Eddie.”
“She never hurt me.”
Finally they dressed and moved on toward Goose Lake, luckily getting a fox in one of the traps on the ridge and picking up two mink in sets in the swamp at the head of the lake. The swamp was good territory and a lot of mink lived in it, dark-furred animals that would have brought decent money during the winter. It seemed such a waste to Eddie to kill them and throw the hides away.
“I’ll go with you tomorrow,” she said as they parted.
Jennings was down in the woods, and Eddie left his catch near the little shack so that he could show Jennings his take before he buried it. The day before he had buried the game first, merely reporting to Jennings before supper, and the man had been furious.
“Godammit, I’m paying you,” Jennings had roared drunkenly. “How can I tell that you aren’t lying to me unless I see what you’ve got?”
“I won’t do it again.”
“You know what’s good for you, you won’t.”
Upstairs in the garage, Eddie took a cold shower and then lay down on the bed. He ought to be out setting hawk and owl traps but he didn’t feel like it. He felt drained and spent.
He was almost asleep when he heard someone coming up the stairs. He was sure it wasn’t Kitty — she was down in the woods running her fanny off — and Carole wouldn’t venture up to his room.
It had to be Joan.
She closed the door after her as she came into the room, and he made no effort to cover himself.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.
“How else can I talk to you?”
“What’s there to talk about? You know what the trouble is and so do I. Things have to work themselves out.”
“Nothing works itself out if you don’t do anything about it.”
“It’s a cinch I can’t marry you, can I?”
“No, but you can give me something to hope for, something to believe in.” She sat down on the edge of the bed. “I’m all alone in this, Eddie, and I don’t like it. If you were the one who was sick every morning you wouldn’t take it so lightly.”
He reached for his cigarettes, his elbow brushing against the side of one of her breasts.
“Who says I’m taking it lightly?”
“I do. Nights you could see me but you don’t. There are other times that you could see me, talk to me, but you don’t. You’re off all day long with that Carole, and I can guess what the two of you do together.”
“Now your mind is in the gutter.”
“No, it isn’t. She’s a pretty girl and I know you, Eddie. I know you almost better than you know yourself. You’re playing around with Kitty and you’re playing around with Carole. I don’t like it. You belong to me and to nobody else. You’ve got no right to belong to anybody else. After a man gives a girl a baby they’re in it together. I’m not an old shoe that you can throw away, Eddie. I’m your girl and you can’t change it. You should be closer to me than ever, but instead of that you’re drifting away. Nights I think about it and I can’t help but cry. I hear Kitty go out at night and I hear her come in. Don’t lie to me, Eddie. I know where she’s been. She’s been up here with you when she should be with her husband. She married him, didn’t she?”
Eddie sat up, rolling around her, and got to his feet, standing naked and big in front of her. “Why do you have to make it complicated?” he demanded. “I know you’re going to have a kid, and I’m not going to let you down. You think I’d do that?”
“See that you don’t, Eddie.”
“Okay. Okay. Your number came up one night and I was there to punch your card. You aren’t the only girl who ever got in a family way. It happens every day, and people work things out. But you have to give me a little time.”
“Promise me you’ll marry me.” There were tears in her eyes.
“Don’t worry so much,” he said, not making any promise. “You go back to the house and do your work and leave it up to me. It was a bad break for us, but something can be done.”
“Kitty saw me when I was sick this morning,” she confided. That was bad.
“I see,” he murmured.
“She didn’t say anything, but I know she was thinking a lot.”
“Probably.”
“Later she had a fight with her husband in his bedroom. They were shouting at each other. As soon as he came out he started right in on scotch.”
“He’s a drunken slob.”
“He’s our boss and he pays us. We both need our jobs, Eddie. Let’s not do anything to ruin what we have.”
She didn’t stay long after that, and he was glad when she left. He moved to the window and watched her as she rounded the building. It seemed almost impossible that she was pregnant, and that they were in such a mess.
Eddie returned to the bed, sitting down. He knew that the easiest way, abortion, wasn’t any answer for Joan’s trouble. She was in love with him, and she wanted his child.
Dinner time came and went, but he didn’t go down to eat. Kitty had brought over a fifth of rye one night, and he got it out, making a face with the first drink but feeling better on the second one.
There wasn’t much liquor in the bottle and it didn’t take him long to finish it. He wished that he had some beer, good and cold, and that he could just sit there in the room alone and get so drunk he wouldn’t know what was going on. He had told Joan that she complicated things, but he guessed he had complicated them for himself and that they would become more complicated before they got better. It wasn’t possible to lead the life he had been leading and not make a mistake. He was making love to Kitty and Carole every day and every night, and it was wearing him down.
He had to tell Kitty the truth about Joan and the quicker he did it the better it would be for him. He didn’t expect her to be please
d — what woman would be? — but he did hope she would forgive him. After all, it happened before he met her.
Kitty came about the usual time, and she slid into his arms immediately. He could feel in the darkness that she was wearing a dress and that wasn’t usual.
“I was dying for you,” she breathed as she kissed him. “God, what a day.”
“He run you ragged?”
“He did more than that.”
“What?”
“Later. I’ll tell you later.”
He melted against her and his hand slid between them to find her breasts. She pulled away from him for a second, her breath uneven.
“Don’t, Eddie.”
He took his hand away from her. She was funny that way sometimes, and her request didn’t surprise him. He reached behind her with his hand, his palm flat against her back, and he strained toward her, their lips pressing together wildly, their mouths open and eager for each other.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said, breaking off the kiss.
She was silent for a moment.
“What do you mean, Eddie?”
“Just what I said. This sneaking around to be together at night isn’t any good. We’re in love with each other and we can get along. You may not be able to drive a Bentley but we’ll get a car of some kind. There are some jobs opening up around the county seat, and I could land one of them.”
“I think you’re trying to run from something, Eddie.”
“Does it have to be that?”
“Most generally it does.” She gave him a long, lingering kiss. “It’s Joan, isn’t it?”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because she was sick this morning — I’ve heard her other mornings, too — and she’s probably pregnant. My guess is that it’s your baby.”
“Well — ”
“It’s yours, isn’t it?”
He licked his lips witth his tongue.
“Yes, it’s mine.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“What can I do?”
Kitty stirred in his arms.
“Are you in love with her?”
“I’m in love with you.”
“And she’s carrying your baby?”
“That’s about the size of it”
“I wish I were.”
Her lips found his mouth again. “I hope I am. I want it that way. If I am I’ll go to a doctor, real quick, and let him take care of me once. That way, Frank can’t ever have any doubts.”
He found one of her breasts again but she took his hand away.
“Nuts to Frank,” he said desperately. “If you love me we don’t belong here. As for Joan, I’ll do something for her. I don’t know what, but I’ll do it.”
“We might be able to adopt the baby.”
“You’d be willing to do that for me?”
“Yes, I’d be willing to do that for you and your child.”
He wanted to make love to her then but he felt her resist him, her head back on the pillow and her lips barely returning his kisses.
“Turn the light on,” she said.
“Why?”
“There’s something you should see.”
“You haven’t got anything I haven’t seen before.”
“I have now.”
He crawled across her and pulled the light chain.
She was on her feet and she was getting out of the dress, pulling it over her head.
“You’re going to see why I didn’t want you to touch me,” she said, something very dark and serious about her eyes. “You don’t know what I went through this morning.”
She was out of the dress, casting it aside, and her graceful body was naked in front of him.
“Christ Almighty!” he said as he stepped near her.
The light wasn’t very strong, but he could see all that was necessary. Her breasts were a mass of bruises, and in several places, up high, it looked as though she had been bitten.
“Who did that?” he managed to ask.
“Frank. This morning.”
“The bastard!”
How, he asked himself, could a man do that to such a lovely creature? Sure he had kissed them, maybe he had hurt her a couple of times, but he had never hurt her this way. Those were the marks of some beast, not of a man. A man had to be a sadist to do a thing like that, a form of animal that should be locked up in a cage.
“I have to get away from him after this,” Kitty said, touching her breasts lightly with the tips of her fingers, even the light touch bringing anguish into her eyes. “I can’t go on, Eddie.”
He wanted to take them in his big hands, to bring them relief from pain, but he couldn’t do that.
“I wouldn’t think so. I don’t know how you’ve lived with him as long as you have.”
“He doesn’t deserve to live, Eddie.”
“Why did he do it?”
“Because he heard me coming in late the other night — I guess he wasn’t as drunk as I thought he was — and he accused me of going to bed with someone. We had an awful row this morning, and then he did this. He said he would mark me up so that no man would want me.”
Eddie felt his blood running cold, the coldness of the sweat all over him matching the coldness in his blood. All his hate for Jennings came to a head in a wave of fury. He found himself wishing that the no-good slob were planted six feet under the ground. No, not under the ground. Leave him out in the woods for the buzzards to pick over, the same buzzards that were always hanging around the field where he buried the animals.
“We have to get out of here,” Eddie said tightly.
“On what?”
“What difference does it make?”
“A lot,” she said patiently. “If you’d only calm down you’d see that. We can’t go out of here with just the clothes on our backs. When I leave with you I’m leaving with a couple of million dollars. Make no mistake about that. I’ve earned every damned cent of it, caring for him, putting up with stuff like this — oh, it isn’t the first time. Think of it, Eddie. A couple of million just for the two of us. There wouldn’t be anything that we couldn’t do, any place we couldn’t go. And our babies — your babies and mine — would have all of the things that neither one of us ever had.”
“I know how we can get some money,” Eddie said.
“How? And how much?”
“Five thousand.”
“Where — off the trees?”
“No. From Carole. She’d pay that if he divorced you. All I have to do is say we’ve been playing house together and she’ll pay it to me.”
“The little bitch!”
“Well, it’s no fortune but it’s five thousand. And I might be able to get her up to ten. We wouldn’t be able to live the way you live now, but we’d be able to get along.”
“Until the money was gone, yes.”
“All right. Your husband could live for years. Look how long we’d have to wait.”
Kitty found a cigarette and lit it. She breathed deeply and those bruised and bitten breasts of hers rose to their fullest.
“Now I know why Carole has been going into the woods with you every day.”
“She’s going to look at my traps for me when I’m off. I won’t take a day off unless somebody does. All she has to do is take a long walk and shoot whatever is in the traps.”
Kitty’s lips curled.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t had her.”
“What do you think I am anyhow? You’re enough woman for any two men.”
“I think she is, too.”
“Have it your own way.”
The curl on Kitty’s lips turned into a smile.
“I don’t care, Eddie. If you did I don’t blame you — but I do blame her. There hasn’t been anything that I’ve had since my marriage to Frank that she hasn’t tried to ruin.”
“This is getting us nowhere fast,” Eddie said, his head feeling like a hollow drum when he looked at where she had been hurt by Jennings.
“We’re only talking and that solves nothing.”
She thought about that for a moment and nodded her head.
“We don’t have to just talk,” she agreed. “We can do something about it.”
“Yeah, go away together. Forget the past. Start over again.”
“With a couple of million bucks, Eddie. A couple of million bucks in the bank. Rich. Filthy rich.”
“Hell, you’re dreaming.”
She sat down on the bed and rubbed her breasts with her free hand.
“Not as much as you think. It’s dangerous down there in the woods where he goes every afternoon. Even Wilson says it’s dangerous with all those kids around, shooting just to shoot and aiming anywhere they feel like.”
“They won’t kill him,” Eddie said. “A bastard like that has got nine lives.”
She moved her legs wide apart and leaned down to look at the bottle on the floor beside the bed. When she saw that it was empty she put it down again.
“I wasn’t thinking of them killing him,” she said finally. “There would be too much luck for a thing like that to happen.”
“Well, you were thinking of something, weren’t you?”
Her glance lifted to his face and their eyes locked, held for a long moment.
“One of us could do it,” she said simply.
Eddie almost threw up. He guessed he had seen it all along, right in front of him, and yet he hadn’t had the sense really to see it. She was a beautiful girl, married to a cripple. She wanted his dough, as much of it as she could get, and she wasn’t willing to settle for less. In a way he couldn’t blame her. Life belonged to those who were worthy of it, and certainly Jennings wasn’t worthy of taking another breath. Weakly, Eddie walked to the bed and sat down beside her.
