Chapter 5

WHEN FRIDAY MORNING CAME, ZOE WAS beside herself. She was not going to take on half of Clitey's men, or a fourth or even one of them, tonight; not if she had to kill herself to get out of it. Clitey had been saying all week that the sex-and-games would be a breeze this time, since she had Zoe to help her. They would run the men through twice as fast in bed as Clitey had been able to do alone, and they'd have a happy, happy spree of games afterward. They'd bank a wad on Saturday morning, she told Zoe.

Zoe told Clitey, every time the subject came up-which it did in every conversation between them-that she did not want Clitey's men, and she did not intend to accommodate them. One rape had been all she could stand. It had worked out all right because she had married the boy the same night. But that could not happen again. So she wanted no more rapes. And that was what sex would be to her, until she went to Jock.

As for Jock, he had not yet sent any word to Zoe.

She was frantic for some kind of message from him, and she was beginning to be afraid that there would never be one. Had he gone through a marriage cere-mony, for the sake of a night's pleasure, without intending it to be real? Had he known that Link would annul the wedding and thus free him of any responsibility toward Zoe? Or had he honestly wanted to marry Zoe, felt a true love for her, really meant to live with her as his wife at the Feather Farm, and been prevented from carrying out his hopes, by Link? God, oh God, when would she hear? When?

Friday afternoon Clitey bustled about, checking everything for the big night of the week. A few men had come to the house during the week and spent an hour or so in Clitey's bedroom, no doubt paying her more than well for the joy of her crotch, but they had been singles, far apart. Friday was wholesale sex-and-games night.

At lunch Clitey said to Zoe, "Wear your red dress, Little Sis-the one with the goldish spangles on it. The top is only a strap down the middle of the front, and the miniskirt is so short that the men can flip it up real easy. Too, it unzips on the side and you can hop out of it real quick. Some of the fellows just can't wait, and they tear your clothes off if you don't undress in a minute. You'll tease them to death in that topless red outfit."

Zoe protested, "Clitey, I've tried to tell you that I don't want-"

"You can pick the men you want to take on, darling. You had a chance to look over my regulars last week, and you probably already have a preference among them. Since Link and Jock won't be here this time-Link just comes down every three or four months, sometimes not that often-I've invited four new men who were recommended to me by the regulars. You know I have to be careful that a cop doesn't slip in here, so I'm real choosy. You can be choosy too about the men you want to screw you. I'll always let you take your pick of the men-expect when Link comes again, of course. He's mine, always mine."

Zoe didn't answer. What was the use? She had argued all week, and made no progress with Clitey. This time she would keep still, and make her own private plans for avoiding tonight's men.

She changed the subject, asking, "Clitey, have you heard anything from the Tawnleys? Have you gotten any letter that you haven't told me about?"

Her sister shook her head. "God, no, Little Sis. You always pick up the mail, you know." She patted Zoe's hand. "I know how you feel about that divine handful, Jock. I feel the same way about Link. I'd marry that man and forget I'd ever known any other male anywhere, if he'd ask me. I'd go anywhere, do anything, even scrub his floors and his boots, if he'd give me the chance ... But, God, Little Sis, we haven't a damn prayer with the Tawnleys. They're woman-loose. Link's been that way for years and he's making Jock into his image, and they'll always be like that. We'd might as well enjoy them when they come here, and forget them between their visits."

Zoe wanted to say, But I've got a right to Jock. I'm his wife. Only she didn't dare to. Clitey might rush right out and annul the marriage-if Link hadn't already attended to that chore. And Clitey wouldn't want Zoe to leave this house; she'd certainly figure that if "Little Sis" didn't cooperate in the sex-and-games tonight, she would next week or the next or, later.

Clitey said, "Don't cry over Jock, darling. Put on your red dress and have yourself a big time with the men who are available. Remember that every time you go to bed with a man, you're getting him happy so he'll invest in our games-and those games are where we haul in our dough. So make yourself have fun tonight, whether you feel like it or not. Be-fore you know it, you'll be having the time of your life, every Friday night."

With that gay speech trailing behind her, Clitey rushed on to her duties. Zoe sat down in her room to make her plans.

This time she would play sick, she decided. She would lock her door too, of course. But when Clitey wanted in, she would say she was dreadfully ill-too sick to take part in any of the goings-on tonight. It ought to work at least once.

It did. When Zoe did not come out of her room for dinner, Clitey came running to her door. Finding it locked, she screamed, "Zoe, for Christ's sake, what do you think you're doing, locking this damn door? Open it this minute!"

But Zoe moaned from her bed, "Clitey, I-I can't! I'm sick, real bad sick. I can't hold up my head. Just leave me alone, won't you?"

Clitey's voice was unconvinced, but not unkind. "Well, okay, Little Sis. If you're really sick, I'll have to make your excuses. But, God, I've been telling the men, when they called, that I had a gorgeous sister, lots prettier than I was, and that they might get to screw her instead of me. I don't know how I'll get out of-"

"Well, you'll have to get out of it, Clitey. I'd--Why, I'd throw up all over them!"

"Oh, God, I don't want you doing that ... All right, get yourself well, so you'll be in good shape for next week."

That was how Zoe managed to stay alone that night. No man even knocked on her door. She got hungry before the evening was over. She had only a candy bar in her room and was afraid to sneak out to the kitchen; she knew she'd rather be hungry than raped. So she drank water to ease her empty stomach, and went to sleep undisturbed.

But the next Friday night things were different. Clitey harangued at the locked door when Zoe skipped dinner. Zoe told her that she was not entertaining m en, no matter how loudly Clitey shouted-or what she threatened. Zoe's crotch was her own, she said, and she intended to keep it that way.

Clitey vowed she would get men to break down the door, or she might smash the window; she'd get into Zoe's room somehow, before the night was done, she declared. And she'd bring the men with her. No high-and-mighty teenage prude was going to refuse to open up to the men who made the living for this house.

But, for reasons Zoe didn't know, Clitey did not carry out any of her threats. Probably it was because she wanted to give the impression of being charming, debonair, sophisticated-and she couldn't do that if she smashed doors and broke windows. And more than-likely Clitey expected to have the matter out with Zoe before another week went by.

Maybe Zoe had better leave Clitey's house before then! There wasn't much chance that she could avoid Clitey's demands, and her men in bed, a third time.

And it now seemed certain that Jock-either because of his own inclination or because of Link's pressure on him-did not intend to send for her at all. If her marriage had not already been annulled, it probably would be soon. There was no reason to think that the Tawnleys intended ever contacting her again.

And if Jock didn't want her, then, damn it, she didn't want him either! She didn't truly love him anyway; not the thrilling, enthralling way she had always hoped to love the man she married. His adoration, his claiming of her crotch after their marriage, the tender way he kissed her and forced himself into her a little at a time without hurting her-all those things had been sweet, heady, exciting. And she had been ready to go to him, to spend the rest of her life on the feather farm beside him.

But that dream was gone now. He had reneged on all his glowing promises; he had run out on her as surely as ever a man deserted a woman. She would forget his warm eyes-and Link's icy ones that had pounded such terror through her. The Tawnleys would be nonexistent to her from now on ...

And she tried to put them onto that kind of shelf, back in the dark places of her heart. She slipped out of bed while the games were going on, that second Friday night, taking only as much as she could cram into two tote bags and a purse that she carried under her arm. She had a little money that Clitey had given her as her share of the take on the night the Tawnleys were there. That money would tide her over until she could get a job, either in this town or some other place. She would find work of some kind, and she would take care of herself. There would be no illegal gambling in her livelihood, and no unwanted sex

She didn't want to squander money on plane fare, so she went to the bus station. There she bought a ticket to Dallas. It ought to be a big enough city that she could hide in it as long as she wanted to, she told herself ...

And she did exactly that. At the bus station in Dallas, she asked at the desk for the closest employment agency. She was thankful that jobs were plentiful, that help was needed almost everywhere. The agency sent her to a grocery store that had been asking for checkers and sackers. She qualified as a checker after the manager of the supermarket tested her, and she started working there the next day. It was a suburban store, one that Clitey wouldn't be-likely to find if she happened to look in Dallas for Zoe. And Zoe was reasonably sure that Clitey wouldn't bother to hunt for her, at least not long. She would probably say good riddance and forget her little sister.

That seemed to be what happened. As long as Zoe worked at the supermarket in Dallas, she heard no word from anyone in her past. She was lonely every moment of every day and night; desperately she wished for some friend, some relative, even some casual acquaintance who would exchange joys and sorrows with her, would let her believe that somebody somewhere cared what happened to her.

Yet she was afraid to let herself become a part of the camaraderie of the store. Girls asked her to lunch, men invited her on dates, customers commented on her beauty and asked her to their homes-but she refused them all. Lonesome as she was, she did not dare to become involved anywhere. Not until she had had time to recover from the hurt that Jock, and Clitey, and, yes, Link too-had forced upon her. She must be heart-whole, able to enter into the gaiety of life, when she sought new friends.

But she was never able to do that, because she was surprised by a new fear, a bitterness greater than any she had ever known before.

She was pregnant!

She tried not to believe it the first month. But she knew she had always been as regular as sunup, and that skipping this period meant something was wrong with her. She argued with her mind that one night with a man did not often result in pregnancy, and yet she knew that one night was enough if it was the right night for the woman.

When she skipped the second month, she knew she was in trouble. She hurried to a doctor, and learned the truth of her fears. She would bear Jock Tawnley's baby in seven months.

She was awake the whole night, after her visit to the doctor, trying to decide what she should do. Her child would be legitimate-at least as much so as the child of any unsanctioned teen-age marriage could be. She had a wife's right to her husband, his support, his provision of shelter and board for herself and the baby she carried.

The next morning she got up and called her boss at the supermarket, telling him she was leaving Dallas. She packed her tote bags and her purse, and went to the bus depot. She bought a ticket to the Panhandle town of Wayside Corners, the place that Jock had told her was closest to the Tawnley Feather Farm.

It was late afternoon when she got off the bus in a wind-blown town on the high plains of northwest Texas, in the square called the Panhandle. She stood watching the bus pull out, and studied the landscape, which was unlike anything she had ever seen before. She had never imagined that any country could be so endless and seemingly unpeopled, or that pastures could ever be so flat and treeless-nor that a settlement could be so lost in the boundlessness of the great open spaces as this one was. A sign at the edge of town, swaying in the brisk and chilling breeze read, Wayside Corners.

She went into the cubbyhole of a bus station and asked the only man there, "Can you tell me how to get out to the Tawnley Feather Farm?"

The man's eyes narrowed, and she saw his shoulders tighten as if in disapproval-or perhaps fear. He avoided her question, asking one of his own, "Are you a relative of someone there, miss?"

"Yes."

"Well, all right then. They don't let nobody in there that don't belong to their clan. Now then, lemme see. No bus goes that way, and twenty miles is too far to pay a cab to take you. Tell you what, miss. Ranchers take that road once in a while. If I can catch somebody going that way, I'll get you a ride.

The man's interest, and his kindness, lent warmth to the iciness that had settled over her since she had arrived here. Having made the trip, she was now wondering whether she should have-whether it might have been better if she had stayed away from Jock, bore her baby alone, gotten a divorce if Jock didn't and made herself a life that was completely separate from his.

In the next breath, the man added, "That is, if you're sure you want to go traipsin' off out there. I wouldn't if I was you, alone and all."

Zoe froze tight again. He was shaking his head so sadly that she asked, "Why wouldn't you go to the Tawnley place? What's wrong with the people there? Are they criminals of some kind?"

The man's bushy brows flew up and his eyes widened apologetically. "Now it ain't my business to talk too much about folks, miss. And if you're related to the Tawnleys, you-likely know more about what goes on out at their place than I do."

She swallowed hard, clearing her throat. "I-I've never been to the feather farm. And I'd like to know what to ... to expect."

The man leaned across the counter between them and dropped a plump hand on her trembling shoulder. "Will you take the first bus back to Dallas if you don't like what I tell you?'

She dropped her eyes, shaking her head in her growing misery. "No, I-can't. I'm ... Jock Tawnley's wife."

His eyes bulged. Then, just audibly, he gasped, "Oh, Lord help you, ma'am!" They stood in silence for a moment before he asked, "Did you marry the boy without knowin' anything about his father's activities?"

She nodded. There was no need to go into what she had known and what she hadn't. Certainly she had not known enough. She begged, "Tell me about Link Tawnley. Please tell me all you know!"

The man came away from the ticket booth and guided her to a chair by the window. He sat down beside her.

"It's an odd thing about the Tawnleys, ma'am. Can't nobody in Wayside put their finger on any crime they know for sure and can prove in a court of law, that the Tawnleys-Link, I mean, and his manager, Mendez-have done. But the things we think they're guilty of would fill a gully. Almost every kind of crime-but mostly smugglin' and maybe murder."

"My God! What do they smuggle?"

He frowned. "People. Wetbacks-or, rather, rich Mexes who don't want to wait their turn on the immigration lists to get into the ll.S. Mendez takes a load, of them high-falutin' fightin' cocks down to Juarez or Laredo or somewheres, and brings back a load of Mexes."

"Are you sure?"

"No. like I say, a feller can't prove nothin'. But folks here in Wayside have seen a powerful lot of new Mex faces in this part of the country for a few days after 'most every trip that Mendez makes. And if he's smuggling ain't Link Tawnley got to be helpin' him?"

Zoe nodded. "Sure he has," she said heavily. "For damn sure."

The man went on, "And that ain't all, ma'am. That Link Tawnley is so surly that you know he'd as soon knock you down as look at you."

"I ... know that."

"He's got guards to keep out anybody he don't want on his land, and he don't want many. The feather farm covers six sections of the wildest land anywheres around, the kind where you couldn't find a dead body in ten years of lookin' for it."

"You spoke of ... murder. Has ... anybody ... ever been ... "

"Well, I've known of several fellers that went pokin' around out there, and never came back. It don't look right to me." Then his manner changed, warming to kindness. "I'm powerful sorry to have upset you with all this talk, ma'am. But I felt you needed to know-and you said you wanted to. Now do you still think you got to go out to that place?"

"Y-yes."

"Then I'll see if I can catch you a ride."

He went out into the street and looked both ways. After a while he was back and told her, "Found you a rancher goin' out that way in an hour or so."

Sometime later she was heading north out of town with a couple by the name of Plummer. She sensed their curiosity, their veiled glances, but she skirted their queries about her connection with the Tawnleys. She didn't want to confide in anybody else; the bus man had been one too many. He had made her a thousand times more afraid of Link and his infamous ranch, than she had been before. God only knew what she was getting into, barging into Link's domain!

The Plummers let her out at a cattle-guard entrance, beneath a sign that read, Tawnley Feather Farm. They told her it was at least five miles to any building, maybe even ten miles; she said she was used to walking and would make it fine.

When they had driven on, she Wasn't so sure that she'd make it anywhere. The wind seemed to be rising, and it was getting so cold that she felt sure it must be growing into one of the dreaded "blue northers" that she had heard the Panhandle was famous for. Daddy used to visit a cousin here, years ago, and he'd said that you could walk less than a mile in a blue norther and freeze to death in your tracks. Any time from October to May, you could expect this kind of sudden wind, and you'd better keep out of its way. No native ever walked into the teeth of it.

Zoe buttoned her coat tightly about her, thankful that it was as heavy as it was, but still wishing it were a lot heavier. She dug her hands into her pockets, clutching a tote bag in each hand, and holding her packed purse under her arm. She wished desperately for a cup of coffee or a bowl of soup, anything to take the gnawing ache from her stomach. She hadn't thought of food when she was in the bus station, and now she was terribly hungry. She hadn't had any nausea from her pregnancy yet, but she knew she could expect it at any time, and a five-or-ten-mile hike in a Panhandle norther would be the worst possible place for her to develop a spell of that kind of sickness.

There was nothing for her to do now, but start plodding up the wide caliche road that wound toward the plains and canyons. She might die on the way; but she'd certainly die if she stayed here. Walking as long as she could would be better than lying down and freezing to death slowly.

Besides, now that she had come, she had to find Jock. Even if he had been intending to desert her, surely he'd change his mind when he found out about the baby. He would know that he had put that baby into her, and he'd feel responsible for it. Maybe Link would too, since it would be his grandchild.

She had to hope it would work out that way. She had to-God, it was cold, almost too bitter cold to stand it. She had ... to ... hope!

She had walked at least a mile-a dragging, chilling mile that seemed like twenty-when she saw a man with a gun on the top of a distant hill. He was there only an instant, and then he was gone, leaving only the memory of his silhouette. Zoe shivered as she stared at the place where he'd been. Then she plodded on, stumbling like a wooden woman, short of breath and shorter of courage.

All at once, as if out of nowhere, a pickup came swooshing up beside her. She hoped it would be Jock, but she saw that it wasn't. The man behind the wheel was steely eyed, straight-lipped, leathery-faced, Link Tawnley.

He said sternly, "You must be lost, girl. Hop in and I'll take you back to town."

He got out and helped her into the truck. She appraised him swiftly, taking in the olive-green western suit with the shirt of the same hue, and a bright green tie. Diamond links clasped his cuffs, and his tie pin was the biggest diamond she had ever seen. The boots were plainly expensive, and his initials were sewed into them; they gleamed in the afternoon sunlight. If Zoe hadn't known him to be a scoundrel, she would have thought he was the most romantic man she had ever laid eyes on. The magnetism of him was as strong, and disconcerting, to her as it had been in their other meetings.

She looked away from him to still her hands and her voice as she said, "I'm on my way to your house, Link."

He braked the car to a stop and turned her face to his with a snap. "My God, you're Clitey's 'Little Sis!'"

"Y-yes ... I mean yes, sir." Zoe squirmed under his amazed scrutiny. Would he kill her-or at least throw her off his land?

His jaw set even more tautly than before, and his voice was a bass growl, "Nobody goes to my house without an invitation, Little Sis. And I don't recall having invited you."

She felt slapped. But she braved the blow and persisted, "No, you didn't. But Jock did. He knows I'm coming, and he'll be glad to see me, if you'll take me to him."

He took his gleaming boot toe off the brake and started the car down the trail toward Wayside Corners. "I don't know who sent you here, girl-but nobody wants you here. Not me or Jock, or anybody else. I'll take you back to town at once."

She put a hand on his whipcord sleeve. "Link, I have a right to go to your house. I'm your ... your daughter-in-law, I'm Jock's wife!"

This time Link literally jumped in the seat, rising as if she'd shot him. Then he slammed down the brake, writhing the car as it screeched to a halt again. His big brown hands clamped onto her shoulders and shook her so savagely that she almost fell apart. "You're a damned liar! Jock wouldn't marry anybody I didn't know about!"

God, hadn't Jock told him?

She tried not to look as terrified as she felt. She reached into her purse and pulled out her wedding certificate, holding her left hand on top of it, let-ting her wedding ring show plainly. "If Jock hasn't let you know about us, the way he said he would, then it's time I told you. Here's my proof."

Link let go of her and grabbed the paper from her hands. She saw the red streaks that shot from under the roots of his black hair and disappeared into his shirt collar. She knew he was furious enough to tear her apart. But he didn't touch her. He just sat there beside her clinching and unclinching his weather-bronzed fists, gritting his perfect white teeth until his jaw seemed made of stone.

At least he demanded, "What's your name, Little Sis?"

"Zora ... Zoe."

"When did you marry Jock, Zoe?"

"The night that you and he were at Clitey's. We flew to Las Vegas and back."

"Good God, what you damned kids won't do to get what you want!" Then his eyes flashed brightly for a second. "But you couldn't have made Jock marry you before you let him have intercourse with you. You two kids were in bed together before Clitey's games started."

"That's right. It was because we liked the ... the intercourse that we decided we ... we were in love. We left the games, while you-all were playing, and got back while you were looking for us, the next morning."

Link raised a hand as if to strike her, but then pulled it back quickly and dropped it into his lap, making a bone-white fist. "God, you damned young nitwits! One roll in bed, and you think you're in love, just because you gave each other your virginity! How little goddamn sense can you have? "

Suddenly Zoe gathered all the courage she possessed and met his eyes without flinching? I have plenty of sense, Link, and I know my rights as a wife. How much sense have you got about your son's duty as a husband?"

"Why, you goddamned saucy little tart!" The man's hands were on her shoulders again, not shaking her this time but clamping into her flesh until she longed to scream from the pain of it. She was flinching now, cringing from his wild fury, terrified for her life. He raged on, "You and Clitey planned for you to get your first screwing from my young greenhorn, Jock, didn't you? You figured if he made you a woman, you could make him your husband. Well, damn it all to hell, you little slut, Jock doesn't give the snap of his fingers for you! If he did, he'd have told me about you, and said he wanted to bring you here as his wife. And, hell, he hasn't said a word about it."

Zoe felt anger welling up in her, such deep resentment that it gave her the strength to shout at him. "Of course he hasn't! You've got him so scared of you that he wouldn't dare ask you for the time of day I Just take me to him and give him the chance to tell us whether he loves me or not, whether he wants to be my husband. I-I dare you to let me see him!"

Link dropped her and sat back, his steel-gray eyes holding the faintest grain of respect-but not one whit more liking for her, than before. "You're goddamn sure of yourself, girl. All right, damn it all to hell, I'll drive you to the house and let you talk to Jock. I know what he'll say. I know my son a hell of a lot better, after eighteen years of living with him, than you can possibly know him after a few hours of sampling his cock!"

He turned the pickup around and headed toward the breaks again, toward the mystery-shrouded hideout that all of Wayside Corners feared-the "six sections of the wildest land anywheres around, the kind where you couldn't find a dead body in ten years of lookin' for it."