Chapter 8
Mary Lee had passed the night in a coma, Jed and Lay H. passed it in each other's arms, and Billie Lee spent at least a part of it with a grateful doctor who licked champagne out of her cunt. As the new day began, they each fell into a master timetable that had them moving towards each other with all the sureness of the elements in an atomic bomb, just before the final fission.
Jed and Lay H. were up early and, as soon as they had the contented little brown heifer back on the truck they were on their way, speeding north towards Billie Lee's truck stop.
Billie Lee slept late in an expensive hotel suite and later went shopping on an unlimited expense account. She was late in leaving the city because of that, and because it had taken the good doctor a little longer than usual to get his rocks off that morning.
Before any of them appeared on the scene, Mary Lee struggled out of her sleep and lay with her first hangover. As her head was aching and her pussy burning with the aftereffects of its alcohol bath, she remembered the money, and crawled to her feet as quickly as she safely could. With an inner conviction as to what she would find, she searched Billie's room for the little tin box. When she was sure that Joel had taken it, she sat down on the John and pissed and cried at the same time. She stopped pissing before she stopped crying. Then she had five aspirins, a cup of black coffee, and soaked her fucked-out body in a bubble bath.
Jed and Lay H. kept each other awake by singing. The little heifer didn't moo a single time on the trip up.
Everybody was satisfied. Including Joel who was sacked out in a grove of pine trees not fifteen miles down the road from the diner. His cock was satisfied even if it had throbbed with a post-fuck hardness all night. His mean streak was pleased with his taunting of Mary Lee and his green was contented with the tin box he kept under the front seat.
Jed and Lay H. pulled their rig into the parking lot by the diner before Billie Lee had returned. Not knowing this, Jed had blown a long loud blast on his air horn to announce their return.
"You don't reckon on telling anybody what we ... ah, did yesterday, do you?" Lay H. inquired anxiously.
"Non of their damn business, Lay H. If I want to do it some more with you, then I guess that's for us to decide. Right now, we got us a woman to look after and it'll be right nice to have a soft fuck again." Jed grinned over to his buddy before swinging down from the cab and striding towards the still-closed diner.
"Goddamn," he said conversationally, "ain't like Billie to lie abed so long in the morning. Said she was gonna get back from the city early so no reason for this here diner not being open. We better check the trailer, Lay H."
Inside the trailer, Mary Lee watched half with fear, half with relief as the two men approached. She had heard the truck horn and knew who it was right off. What she wanted to do now was to throw herself into Lay H.'s arms and he there crying, but, of course, with her lip as a giveaway, she didn't dare. As the decision was forced upon her, she seized the same blue scarf she had tied around her mouth two night ago and arranged it in place.
"Billie, you all right?" Jed yelled when he spotted the screen door half off it's hinges. "Billie, honey, where are you?" He burst his way into Mary Lee's bedroom to find the lovely blonde girl sitting on the edge of her bed, head bowed, shoulders slumped forward.
"Get in here, Lay H.," Jed yelled as he began to search for whoever or whatever had caused the turmoil inside the trailer.
When Lay H. made his appearance, the still-silent figure sitting on the bed lept up and flew across the room into his open arms.
"There now, honey, there now, baby, don't you cry. I'm gonna look after you." Lay H. cuddled the masked figure to his mighty chest, stroking the cascades of blonde hair and hugging her quivering shoulders.
"What's the matter, honey. Cain't you tell me?" Jed asked, puzzled that his Billie Lee should go to Lay H., and a little jealous that the two people he liked best in the world were holding each other and excluding him.
Mary Lee couldn't answer, but just kept right on crying and holding onto Lay H., as if he was the last stable thing in a world shaking with earthquakes. She had no hope of an operation now, not with her money gone. She didn't want any other men, either, really. She just wanted to hang onto the one she had.
All three of them were so intent with each other that they didn't hear the running footsteps that announced the arrival of Billie Lee to the scene of tragedy.
She had been just a little apprehensive on the bus ride home, guilty about being so late to leave the city, but telling herself it was all right so long as it was for Mary Lee's operation. When she got off the bus to find Jed's rig already parked by the diner, and no sign of the two men, she knew they would be with Mary Lee. Just what situation would result, she didn't know. It was enough to make her run like hell.
She hurried up to the trailer and peered in, through the ripped-open doors. In an instant, she was aware that her sister had taken time to tie a scarf around her deformed mouth and that she was crying.
"Mary, honey, baby, sweetheart, what's the matter?" she cried, ignoring the startled look that Jed shot at her and the way Lay H. pulled the crying figure tighter to him.
"Jed, what's the matter? How long have you been here? Oh hell, Mary, stop that now, and tell me what on earth has happened. Honey, baby, sweetie pie?"
Mary lifted her tear stained face from Lay H.'s chest just long enough to sob out, "Joel got me drunk, all night, your money gone!" before she burst into another flood of tears and clutched at the strong arms and mighty back that she was so afraid of losing.
"That son-of-a-bitch!" Billie cussed to herself when she came back from taking a quick look in her bedroom closet.
"Billie?" Jed asked and then stopped, confused beyond questions.
"Oh, Jed," she wailed throwing herself into his arms, surrendering herself to floods of tears like her twin.
"Sugar? Don't cry, sugar. Me and Lay H. can take care of whatever it is that happened. Baby, who's this other girl, honey? I'm downright confused." Jed hugged her close and glanced from one crying girl to the other.
Lay H. didn't bother looking beyond what he held in his arms. There was no doubt that the girl with him was the one he had made love to two nights ago. And when she had come running to him, he knew he would never let her go again.
Finally, the crying eased off into soft sobs and Billie had to face things for herself and Mary Lee, just as she had always done. Breaking away from the comfort of Jed's strong arms, she took Mary Lee out of Lay H.'s unwilling arms and led her into the other bedroom and put her to bed. When she finally came back, the two men had found one of the half-full liquor bottles Joel had left behind. They were helping themselves to it.
Billie sat down heavily between them, making them scoot over from each other so it was her legs they were touching, not each others. After a healthy pull at the bottle, she explained it all to them quickly and finished off near to tears again.
"That poor little thing, all these years like that and now she got to wait longer. How come she was holding onto you, Lay H.?" She suddenly remembered to ask.
Jed told her about the last night they had been there and how Lay H. thought he had been screwing her. When he finished, Lay H. broke in silently.
"No disrespect to you, Miss Billie, but I'm right glad now that it was Mary Lee. Now I ain't got to share her with nobody."
"Well, that explains why the poor thing's sobbing your name over and over. She's in love for the first time." Billie sighed to herself again and reached for the bottle.
"Can I go in and see her for a little?" Lay H. asked in such a begging tone that Billie Lee went in and persuaded Mary Lee to let him come in. When he came out a few minutes later, his big face was set so hard it could have been carved out of granite. He took another swig of liquor and turned to Jed.
"He can't have got far. You gonna help me find him?"
It was obvious by his tone and stance that he would have taken the truck, cow and all, with or without Jed's help. Both men got up to go while Billie rummaged around to find a picture that would give them some idea of whom they were looking for.
"Here's one of Mama and him not more'n two years back," she said. She passed over a snapshot. "He ain't changed much; most too mean, I reckon. Listen now, he's a right nasty fighter. Knows how to use his fists, but don't mind getting in with knees and feet if it'll help him out of a tight spot. You look after yourself, you hear me, Jed?"
"We'll be O.K. Save your worries for that scoundrel's worthless hide," Lay H. grimly assured her.
"Won't be much worrying going on for that, let me tell you." Billie looked after them as they left. Then she went into her sister's bedroom and sat with her for a while.
Jed wheeled the rig out of the drive, onto the main highway and headed north. As soon as they had the truck running smoothly enough to talk, Lay H. turned to him with the snapshot in his hand.
"You know who he is, don't you, Jed?" he asked.
"Knew soons I saw the picture," came the reply. "Me and my damn fool mouth was the one who told him how to get to the diner yesterday."
"No sense blaming yourself. You just doing Billie a good turn, you thought. Hell, you done that lots of times. Anyways, it'll make it easier for us to spot him when we do catch up with him."
It was only by chance that Lay H. spotted the rear-end of the old pickup as they hurled along the main highway. Joel Waters had pulled it off on a little dirth path, just off the road, parked it in a grove of young pine saplings and had gone off to sleep.
"Hold on there, Jed!" Lay H. shouted. "Ease this baby up and get us back down the road a couple hundred feet."
Jed checked for traffic and then slammed the big truck in reverse. Following Lay H.'s instruction, he steered them off the road, tail first, into the same little dirt road that led to the pines. As soon as they were off the highway, the motor was cut and both men lept to the ground and ran silently toward the pickup.
Joel started from his sleep at the sound of both doors to his truck being opened. Before he could move any further, Lay H. had his giant hands on his shirt and started dragging him out. The shirt tore and Lay H. took a firmer hold, this time on Joel's flesh. As the old man came tumbling out onto the ground, his anger flared at the rough treatment and he doubled up his fists, ready to fight. Then he saw there were two of them, both younger and stronger than he, and he let his hands drop again.
"What you after me for?" he demanded, half-defiantly.
"Just recovering something belongs to some friends of ours," Jed told him. "Remember yesterday I told you that Billie Lee was a special friend of mine? You should have remembered that before you started messing around with her sister and her property."
"That's a family misunderstanding. You got no right busting in." Joel tried to bluster his way through.
"'Tain't the way I heard it." Lay H. almost whispered, his voice thick with hate and anger.
Joel took one look at him and decided no more backtalk. He stood watching Lay H. warily, while Jed searched the truck and came up with the tin box of money from under the seat.
"I reckon this here is what we come after, Lay H." He motioned with his head back towards their truck.
"Hold on a minute, Jed." Lay H.'s voice was gravelly. "You got Miss Billie's property back for her, now I figure on getting back at this bastard!"
"How you aiming on doing that, Lay H.? You know I ain't about to let you do no killing."
"Not 'tending to. Got something else in mind. I want to see this bastard fixed. Best way I know is to get him back in jail."
"How you aiming to do that? The girls ain't gonna want to go to court, specially not Miss Mary Lee," Jed answered doubtfully.
"Easy enough. We gonna get him on a charge of rustling. All we gotta do is take this bastard to the sheriff claiming he was trying to steal that little heifer we got in the back of our truck."
"We can't do that, Lay H.," Jed protested.
"Hell, yes, we can. We got your word, my word, the girls word and this bastard's already a jailbird unless I miss my guess."
Jed thought for a minute and shrugged his shoulders, "I guess we can do it if you so keen on seeing him back behind bars."
"Can you think of a better place for him?" Lay H. asked angrily.
"Nope, I guess you right about that one. If ever I saw anybody who belonged behind bars, it's this one."
Joel protested, "You can't get away with that."
"You-son-of-a-bitch, if you plead anything but guilty in court, I'll take it on myself to track you down and kill you, sure enough. Jail's the easiest way out, so you better make up your mind to take it quiet," threatened Lay H.
Joel knew when he was beat and kept his mouth shut.
"Now, git in the back of that truck and in the heifer's cage!" Lay H. ordered.
"I can't go in no cage with a cow," Joel cried out.
"You better make up your mind right away to do what you told to do," Lay H. replied, advancing with his fists clenched.
Joel got the idea and quickly climbed into the back of the stock truck and let himself into the cow's cage. He watched dumbly as Lay H. threw a padlock on the floor and walked away to join Jed.
"Let's get this fucker into town, Jed," he instructed, ending the subject of Joel Walters.