Chapter 10

The second day after her demeaning experience with the black, Clemson pushed his hand through the curtain drawn across his bunk and handed her a key. "This is to the storage locker, left rear. Get another case of beer for the refrigerator."

She hesitated a few minutes, bewildered by his almost fanatical seclusion. "You know, Clemson," she said softly, "you would heal just as fast if you got out of that bed and did something."

She retreated quickly under his barrage of vituperative tirade, calling her vile names and screaming at her. After she had stocked the refrigerator, she tried the key in other storage compartment locks, thinking she would rescue her clothing. But they were different.

Sitting at the small dinette, sipping a cold beer, she called to him, thinking she might taunt him out of his hermitage, "You're a nut and a coward, Clemson."

But he snarled and cursed so she left the bus to plod up the road, a little ways up the side of the closest mountain and along the river.

That evening, when she handed him a plate of food through the curtain, she said, patronizingly, though she tried to keep it from her voice, "You know, Clemson, we really should get out of here, don't you think?"

He didn't reply, but when she took his empty plate, he said, "In the morning, I'll give you the ignition key and you can crank up the engine to recharge the batteries--or else we won't have any lights or refrigeration."

"I don't know the first thing about it," she protested. "Why don't you creep out of your hole and do it?"

"Damn you," he snarled. "There's a manual in the compartment to the right of the steering wheel. It tells you how. I guess you can read."

Late that afternoon, when she was certain he was asleep, she took two bottles of cold beer from the refrigerator and strolled up the river to a small grove of willows she had found. She shed the shirt and swam and splashed in a deep, quiet pool that eddied behind a massive rock. Then she would lie naked on the cool grass and sip the beer.

She tried not to dwell on her over-all situation or brood about the ruthless attack by the Negro. Although the memory sickened her, she quietly, objectively realized that the horror of it, the trauma would pass, in time.

Liquor, too had a benefit, dulling her mind so she could sleep. But, she acknowledged, she had to be wary of it. It also deepened her depression and enhanced the idea of self-destruction. And she contemplated the prolonged effect of inactivity and boredom.

About dark, she returned to the motor home and fixed supper. "We're about out of food," she told Clemson, thinking that might stir him to leave the area. But he merely handed her another key and told her where it fit a food locker containing staples, including canned meats.

"You know, if I could get the engine started, it would charge the batteries this evening and maybe the radio would play?"

She waited hopefully, listening to his fretful tossing and muttering. Then his hand thrust peevishly through the curtain and she took the key. "Maybe we can pick up a radio skip," he mumbled.

Her heart thumped with nervousness and excitement as she scampered forward to the driver's seat. She opened the small compartment and her heart hammered. There was the small pistol with which Clemson had threatened the Negro--ineffectively. He had retrieved it and put it in there. For a moment, she considered taking it and hiding it in her sleeping area, but abandoned the idea, thinking it was enough for now to just know where it was. She found about a dozen roadmaps and the driver's manual.

For a second, her heart lurched with fear the batteries were too low. But the engine turned over laboriously, then caught with a rumble of leashed power.

As she added tap water to the whiskey in his glass, she contemplated getting the gun and shooting him right through the curtain. She paused. Yes, she could do that. It wouldn't be difficult, killing him, if she didn't have to see his face as he died.

Still undecided, she stood outside his curtained bed after he had taken the drink. Maybe, after the misery he had perpetrated for her, she wanted to watch his face when he went out.

She returned to the driver's seat, slumped into it dolefully. You're not a real man, Clemson, she thought. You can push a girl around, all right. But you're a blustering, bawling coward when you're face to face with a really tough guy. "Like that nigger," she added, bitterly, aloud.

"What's that? What about that black bastard? So, you liked what he gave you, huh? Really went -for that long, black, thick pipe rammed up your cunt and in your asshole. Yeah, I thought your face and eyes looked like you dug his fucking you and cornholing you. And the way you gobbled his fat, hard, slimy joint. You really liked his cornholing and fucking and sucking his cock!"

She turned angrily in the seat. "Ooooohhhh, shut your filthy mouth, Clemson," she screamed at him, sobs of frustration choking her.

Her hand went to the compartment with the gun, but she didn't open it. Instead, she refilled her glass and stalked to her sleeping area. "You can shut off the damned engine yourself."

Two days later, Jody was mildly surprised--and a little excited--when she awoke and found the curtains drawn back from Clemson's bunk. She used the bathroom, washed her face and hands. He wasn't in the bus. A sense of elation sent the blood coursing through her veins. Maybe they would leave this desolate area today!

With a sense of elation, she took two bottles of cold beer from the refrigerator. And went to look for him. She spotted him a ways up the side of the mountain, just sitting there. She picked her way up to him and handed him a bottle.

Puzzled, she stared at him as he sat on the ground, feet dangling into a hole about four feet deep. She moved past him, to the other side of the hole, brushed a place on the ground and sat opposite him. "What are you doing, Clemson?" she murmured.

His eyes seemed to blaze across the hole at her.

There was still a puffiness around his mouth, a scab under his left eye and the ear was still discolored and scabbed. "I told you you would pay for what you did--enjoying that nigger slamming the cock to your cunt and butt and mouth and not helping me."

Jody felt herself wilting under his maniacal gaze. She fought against tears and crying. "What is this--hole--for?" she gasped fearfully, her gaze taking in its shape. And she thought desperately about the gun, wondering whether he had moved it. But she knew she couldn't outrace him to the Winnebago.

"You--are—going—to—kill me."

His laughter was shrill, erratic, insane, she thought.

"I can't continue to haul you around forever. And I know I won't ever get the rest of my money. So, it's just going to be a case of the little tennis star who went on vacation and just disappeared," he shrugged, puffy lips sneering.

"You're mad," Jody panted. Quickly, hopefully, she posed, "Suppose you don't kill me? Let's go to Spokane and I'll get all my money from the banks--and give it to you. Or, I'll even go along with you."

Desperately, she watched him sift coarse earth through his fingers. "I don't think you can get the money all by yourself," he said thoughtfully. "You said yourself that it's tied up in special accounts and trusts and stuff."

Reading his indecision as he hesitated, Jody pressed forward, praying it wasn't too much, "I can get it, Clemson. I know I can. It will just take a little time. We can go to Spokane and I can go to the banks--you can go with me and I'll say you're a friend of Uncle Fletcher's and we are going to advance you some money for a new business--or something. We can figure out a story on the way."

She didn't know what to do with her hands, where to look as he gazed across the trench at her. "Bullshit," he finally snorted. "I don't buy it."

It was in his pale, flashing eyes, a clarity of determination to kill her just as much as if he had spoken. "You don't have to kill me," Jody said softly, exhaustion from futility deadening her senses, weighting her arms and legs. "That won't gain you anything. And I promise--if you take me to some city, give me my clothes and luggage and stuff--I'll get some money to you somewhere, sometime."

His laughter was a frightening, ghastly, contemptible grating in her ears. "With a wagon load of cops right behind. With you alive, I'm dead. With you dead, I live awhile longer."

"Oh, Clemson," Jody managed, unable to prevent a tone of whimpering from emerging. "I don't want to die." And she knew that it was true.

"We could have some fun together," she began feebly, a chill in her as she said it, knowing what was fun to him. Booze and deviate sexual orgies. "We could, Clemson. I know that we could?"

With a feeling of final defeat, she shrunk within herself. His pale eyes still glittered. "I'm sorry I didn't help you or myself when that big black man came in."

"Give me my shirt," Clemson grated. "Right now. I want my shirt."

She hated the pleading she knew was in her eyes. "Come on, Clemson? Please?"

"GIVE-ME-THE fuckin' shirt!"

Glumly, she ripped the snaps apart, tore it from her and flung it across the hole at him. She didn't bother shielding her breasts or her crotch from his lecherous gaze. "You are a hopeless, pitiful bastard," she spat at him. "I helped you all I could. I helped you to your bunk. I cleaned your wounds and fixed you an ice pack with what I had to do with. I fixed you meals and trotted drinks to you. And what have you done for me?

"You kidnapped me, raped me and you've beaten and abused me," she sobbed, out of breath and out of words.

His movement caused her to look up and cringe. He seized the short-handled shovel, scooped up dirt and hurled it at her. "Aaaaahhhh, God, Clemson," Jody squalled, spitting dirt from her teeth and blowing her nose in her hand. She glared at him scathingly as she brushed dirt from her sweaty breasts and body.

"You hotsy-totsy little slut-bitch," Clemson sputtered. "You needn't be so damned concerned about that little bit of dirt. In a little while, I'm gonna fling you down on your back in this here trench and--see that big rock behind you?--weight you down and take my time shovelin' dirt in on top of you. First, just your feet and fancy legs. And I'll cover up those nifty bobbie jugs. And I'll keep fillin' in the hole till just your nose sticks out. Then, I'll fill in the hole and you'll have your mouth full of dirt, eatin' it. And it'll fill your nose 'til you can't breathe. And then I'll finish the job and get in the 'Bago and take off to maybe Canada or Mexico. But you'll be stayin' right here and nobody'll ever know where fancy-assed Jody Freeman is."

She couldn't help it, but she sobbed convulsively. Death was just a few feet and minutes away, if she was to believe the viciousness she saw in his eyes and the set of his bruised mouth.

"God, no, Clemson," she wept. "I'll do anything you ask, anything you want. Don't kill me?" She looked down at herself. Her tears washed down her face, through the dirt, and muddy droplets spattered on her breasts.

He was silent for a long time, but she didn't dare look at him. Finally, he laughed crudely. "You know, I kind of believe you. Yessir, I think you like the idea. I think that big buck nigger--in such a quick time--taught you to really like cock. Suckin' cock! Is that true?"

She couldn't meet his eyes, perceiving the lights of lust that blazed in them. There was a nausea in her guts and a gagging sensation in her throat. She nodded slowly. "It's a real fascinating thing," she lied, yet she kept her voice firm and intense.

"You like goin' down, on a guy and giving his hard cock a blow-job, huh?" Clemson muttered. His tone was incredulous, but Jody recognized rescue, at least momentarily.

"It's kind of strange to me," she said. "But I've thought about it a lot since--he made me do it to his--cock." That was all true. She had thought about it, but not with satisfaction, with disgust. "I think I could try that again and maybe-- probably--get to like it." She glanced at him warily. "Giving a blow-job." His eyes kindled a different kind of fire. "Not just any guy's prick," she said hastily. "Just yours, Clemson. Just suck your cock."