Chapter 9
Arley said, "Takes a right good man to go scrabblin' for a mudcat that size."
Heather turned a fish steak in the frying pan, sweat making a little stream down her backbone and between her buttocks. At the table, eating, Honey asked. "What's scrabbling?"
Arley said, "You watch around for places where them big ol' cats likes to stay-up under a mess of roots, like, or ahint a stump stuck in the river bank. You can do it daytime, but nights is best for scrabblin'. You ease up on the bank so you can feel your hand slow and easy up under the roots, and there he is-a fat ol' mudcat, just lyin' still in the dark water. You don't make no sudden moves, just ease your hand on back and feel him under his belly. He'll hang there sleepy-like, if you tickle him light on his belly, and then you work your hand on up and slip your fingers quick into his gill, or maybe in his mouth, do you get the chance. Oh, he'll fight you then, thrashin' around and tryin' to bust loose, but a good man can jerk him out'n his hole every time."
Honey said, "Ooh. I'd be scared silly to try that. I'd be afraid I'd grab a moccasin or a turtle or something like that."
Heather slid a spatula under the cornmealed fish and lifted it to her own plate. Strength, she reminded herself, she would need all her physical strength to withstand him.
Laughing, Arley said, "Happens, I reckon, but not to ol' Arley. I been scrabblin' out'n that river all my life. Now them folks in town, they act like me and my brother ain't got no right to catfish and deer and possums, and like that, except when they say a man can fish or hunt. Which is sheepshit. Me and Artis been livin' right here since our folks died, and doin' right good, mostly. We ain't imagine like them in town, and we sure ain't high class like city people, but we make out. And we're goin' to make out a whole heap better, soon's Artis brings back all that money."
Heather sat down at the table, looking down at her fish and turnip greens. She took a piece of corn bread and began to eat, even though she felt as if she would melt with the heat inside the cabin.
"Where'd you get all the money?" Honey asked.
Arley said, "Never you mind. Folks around here said me and ol' Artis wouldn't never amount to nothin', call us woods' runners and razorbacks and try to jail us for makin' a little whiskey. But we got us some money, all right, or will have, time my brother sells them things we got." He broke off and got up to drink water from the dipper. "Never you mind."
The fish was good, Heather found, and the greens fresh. The bread had been baked from coarse ground meal and had no eggs in it, but it was surprisingly tasty. She looked over at the frying pan still hot on the wood stove, and thought that it might be possible to hit Arley with it, or to throw boiling grease in his face. Her mind recoiled from the image of such violent action, but she forced herself to think the idea through. It could be done at almost any time, after she learned how to work the rifle.
Because the dog would have to be shot. Like the vicious wild beast he was, the dog would have to be gunned down before she and her sister could get away. If she had the gun and the dog was dead, Arley probably wouldn't dare follow them to the county road. He'd run away to hide before she brought back the police for him.
That made her feel much better, just picturing Arley Santee running through the woods, no longer arrogant in his strength and his ignorance, just scared. Heather finished her meal and picked up her plate, carrying it to the pan of water on the stove. The primitive conditions of this shack were also beginning to wear on her-no running water, no indoor plumbing, so that they had to use an outhouse, with that damned hound of the Baskervilles pacing them to and from that private bodily function.
Once she had liked dogs, Heather thought, but that was before she saw this monster, before she had seen so many unnerving things here, and the hound was only a small part of it all. Never, never had it even crossed her mind that she would actually see a man doing it to a woman, much less that woman her own kid sister. And, of course, in her wildest, most erotic dreams-and sometimes she did have those-Heather had never imagined watching an act of perversion such as she had witnessed at the river: Little sixeen-year-old Honey, eating away upon a mans' thing, his penis, his-his prick.
There, she had thought the word clearly, brought it out in the open to look at it mentally, to examine it from all sides with cool logic
Prick.
That was no worse than saying penis, or thing, or sex organ, or pecker. What was the difference in calling it a prick or a cock or any other of the lewd descriptive terms? Nothing was changed by a variance in terms, except for some inexplicable reason, Heather felt more sneaky, more sort of passionate.
She shook herself and scraped table leftovers into a tin plate for the hound, thinking that there might also be some rat poison about the house, thinking she might slip some of it into Bigdog's food. Maybe she could also put some into Arley's.
Damn the man for stirring her up with such vile urgings, for tempting and luring her into debauchery, double damn him for corrupting a virginal child and turning her into a wanton. Not a wanton, a bitch. Tell it like it is, Honey would say. Okay then-bitch and prick and cock-sucker, and she was going to murder that goddamned dog. If it cost her a front seat in hell, she was going to shoot or poison or hot grease the hound and the man, who was such a son of a bitch that he must be closely related.
"There," she said aloud, and felt better.
Honey brought in another pan of water and set it on the stove. "When it gets hot, dip the dishes in there and I'll dry."
"Thanks a lot," Heather said.
"Look," Honey said, "don't go blaming me. It was your idea to come all the way down here, when we could just as well have gone to Europe to get away from those . . . "
She stopped, but when Heather looked around, Arley Santee was staring at them with his pale green eyes. "Get away from what?" he asked.
"Relatives," Heather said quickly. "I-I was having some trouble with my husband and . . . "
"Europe," Arley mused. "Takes a heap of money to go clean off to Europe, I 'spect. You all got that kind of money?"
Heather didn't let her sister talk. She said, "It doesn't cost much to fly there from New England-a tourist class ticket costs about two hundred."
He nodded, climbed up from the table and stretched, his lean arms reaching nearly to the grimy ceiling. "And you'd spend that much run-nin' from your husband? Takin' baby sis along, too?"
"Of course," Heather said, and to Honey, "The rinse water's getting hot, suppose you lend a hand here, young lady."
Arley grunted, moved toward the porch and a possible breeze. "He mustn't be much of a man, lettin' you traipse off that away; not much of a screwer, neither. Else you wouldn'ta been so edgy about gettin' fucked."
Heather spun around, a soapy pan in one hand. "Why you-you red-neck! My husband was a good man, a decent man without perversions or-or . . . "
His lip lifted at her, not in a hound dog's snarl, but like a sneer. "Was?" he said. "Reckon you be a widow woman. Now, you tell me who you runnin' from, widow woman, and tell it true, else I'll turn that fine ass black and blue with my razor strop."
Honey said, "Oh-oh Heather, maybe you'd better. . . . "
And Heather said, "Shut up. I-well, my husband took some money from some people, and left it to me when he was killed in a freeway accident. They-they would have hurt me-and Honey, too-if we hadn't got out of townAnd that's the truth."
"Uh-huh," Arley said, speculatively.
Getting an idea, Heather said, "They're dangerous people-gangsters. They might even be chasing us all the way down here, and if they are, they'd hurt you, as well. If they find us here, that is."
Arley rummaged around on the cluttered top of his dresser, and when he turned back to them, he held a black razor strop in his hand. "How much money did your husband steal, woman? Enough for them gangsters to trace you clear down here from away up north?"
Heather watched the strap swinging back and forth, and swallowed the lump in her throat. "A -he took a thousand dollars. I have it all, in travelers' checks. I have to sign them before they can be cashed, and show identification, too."
Arley slapped the leather against his palm and Heather flinched. Beside her, Honey caught her breath. Arley said, "A thousand dollars! Now you're startin' to make some sense. Why, ol' Artisll only get two, three times that much for the old lady's stuff. But I don't know-all the way down here . . . "
"They don't like what he did," Heather said rapidly. "It made them look foolish, and it's likewell, as if they have to get the money back andand punish me for running. Like a-a feud; that's it, a feud. You can understand that, can't you?"
"Sure," he said, "like bad blood atween folks. I ain't stupid, widow woman. And soon's my brother gets back, you'll go into town and cash them travelin' checks. But sis will stay right here with Artis and Bigdog, while I follow ahint you in town."
Heather bit her lip. One more gamble lost, but at least the ploy might help keep them alive a bit longer.
Honey said, "Can we go back to the river? It's so hot and sticky here, and you can leave a note for your brother, telling him where we are."
He looked across at her. "You don't much give a hoot, sis, just so you can keep on screwin'. Got your belly full of catfish, and now you want your pussy full of meat, too."
The girl shrugged. "Your fault, you know. You started me doing it."
Arley laughed. "You was purely ripe for fuckin'. Hadn't been me, it would of been the first horny stud to lay a hand on that hot HP pussy."
Heather stacked the plates on the table, think-in that at least Honey had diverted the man's attention, although the talk was dirty. She hadn't wanted to admit the reason that had driven her down south, but Arley Santee scared her weak. He was so damned casual about violence, and certainly had no consideration whatsoever for the rights of anyone but himself and his absent brother. He'd said something about his brother selling "the old lady's stuff, and the thought of that frightened Heather more. There was no sign of a woman in the shack, no feminine touch, and there hadn't been in many years. Who, then, was the old lady, and why or how could the brothers be selling her things?
"Well, can we?" Honey persisted, "go back down to the river where it's cooler? I could bring a quilt to spread on the sand, and you can bring some whiskey, and we might all have a lot of fun."
Arley moved around and picked up a fruit jar filled with the powerful, colorless corn whiskey, and also picked up his rifle, and dropped a handful of shells into his front overalls pocket. His eyes touched Heather's, and he showed his teeth at her, the way the hound might. "No cause not to take it easy, maybe get in some different fuck-in'. Besides, we can talk some more about that there money your old man stole."
Heather's shoulders sagged, he hadn't forgotten anything, and she had better not keep underestimating his animal cunning.
"Come on, city woman," he said, and touched her butt with the end of the gun barrel to urge her onto the porch and across the yard.
Her sister skipped ahead, skylarking, going on a picnic, and Heather wondered how much of that was false, and how much the child's natural good spirits and youthful exuberance. Heather trailed after, watching Honey's dancing feet and the slim quickness of her legs, seeing the taut shapeliness of her rear end, snugged by the cutoff jeans. If Heather didn't get the kid out of here before long, she'd be lost to herself, and to all the morality Heather had tried to instill in her. Here she was being overwhelmed by sensuousness, by the so-easy rationalizations of helplessness and, therefore, guiltlessness.
And for herself-Heather walked slowly down the winding path that led through the trees to the river bank, realizing that she too was thinking almost constantly of sex, that she was being forced to think of it through Arley Santee's obscene dialogue and insatiable appetites. Never had she been so conscious of the movement of her heavy breasts beneath the thin material of her blouse, never had she remained so constantly aware of the brushing as her thighs kissed each other in passing. And Heather could sense the curlings of her pubic hair, knew the pouting softness of her mound in warm concealment.
All because she had been raped and had reached a tremendous orgasm, her body was betraying her with its new awareness, its erotic stimulation, and since Arley Santee was the only male at hand, she could not even claim that she was in love.
He said from behind her, hissing it, "Hold up. You, sis, hunker down right where you at, and you do the same, woman. Stay right quiet. You try to holler and I'll blow a hole clean through you, then roll you off in the river."
Heather dropped to her knees. "What . . . "
"It's Bigdog," Arley said. "He heard somebody comin' to the house. You, Bigdog! Hush that growlin' now, I know what you tellin' me."
Turning her head, Heather saw him moving back up the path, his rifle at the ready. The ugly hound dog sat directly in the path, his yellow eyes fixed upon Heather, his fangs silently bared.
Arley's whisper drifted back, "Wouldn't try to run, woman."
The damned dog. Heather moved carefully around on her knees and whispered to her sister, "Go ahead, sneak on down to the river and swim across. When you get out, just keep running back toward town. Find a policeman, tell him . . . "
"No," Honey said. "I won't leave you; I won't! He-he'd kill you."
"Do as I say!"
"No, I can't, Heather, I just can't."
The hound growled low in his throat, warning them to silence. Heather crouched in the woods and waited to hear something from the direction of the shack. For the longest time all she could make out was a mockingbird trilling from the very top branch of a sweet gum tree, and, then, the murmur of the river across a sandbar below where they all crouched-she and her sister and the watchful hound.
Then the gun went off. Its echo was startlingly loud, reverberating through the pines and water oaks, bouncing noisily out across the flowing waters of the brown river. When the sound died, Heather heard Arley Santee calling to them.
"Come on back, you women! Bigdog, bring 'em on home. Home, Bigdog!"
Heather stood up and waited until Honey came to her. Then, holding to her sister's hand and walking carefully as the damned dog herded them like frightened sheep, she went back up the trail to the house.
Once into the clearing, onto the hard clay surface of the yard, they stopped, and Heather clamped hard upon Honey's fingers. There was another man sprawled upon the porch, lying face up and with his arms out flung. It wasn't Arley's brother, because he'd been shot.
There was blood over his face, over his eyes, and Heather caught her breath in a ragged gasp. The man looked dead, looked terrible in his well-scrubbed khaki shorts and pants and boots. His straw cowboy hat had fallen off to one side, and his black hair was matted with his own blood. He wore a wide black belt and a pistol holster, empty now. There was a badge pinned to his shirt, and, as Heather stared in horror, she saw his chest rise and fall. He wasn't dead then, only dying.
"Goddamned deputy sheriff," Arley grated. "Goddamned Grady Cordell that's been bother-in' us for years, but this time I got the son of a bitch!"