Chapter 6
IT WAS a clear, cool morning but Hilary Hackthorne, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc., F.A.C.P. and numerous other alphabetical honors was in ill humor. At Kenton's modest airport there had been three cars for rent-two of such scrubby vintage as to repel him, the third a miniature import, that paraded euphemistically under the label of compact. It was not compact at all; it was just hardly there. But he had taken it because it was new. Now on the road, Hackthorne found it a snorting, jerking, panting undersized demon that darted hither and yon at the slightest movement of the steering wheel. Though he had cursed it steadily for the last three miles, he still could not make it behave properly.
The worst was that when he finally got the bucking import out to Dr. Fontenot's, the man was not there and would not be until afternoon. So Hackthorne decided to see the country. Unwittingly he took the road that led past Missy Blumendahl's house. When he rounded the curve just before the cattle gap leading to her place, Fahenstock struck him a physical blow sitting sedate, rich and majestic atop the hill it had occupied for more than a century.
Seeing it thus, Hackthorne forgot many things. He forgot he was on a curve. He forgot he had relaxed a little and was going too fast for off-the-road absorption. He forgot that he was driving a temperamental machine, nothing like the heavy Detroit vehicles. By the time he realized he was in danger, he was already on the edge of a deep ditch running parallel to the highway. Frantically he jerked the wheel toward the road, the act throwing the small car into a skid. It slid like a toboggan to the bottom of the ditch and flipped neatly to its top, all four wheels in the air.
At that moment Missy Blumendahl's big phaeton happened to roll across the cattle gap. She stopped with a jerk, flung open a door and stepped out.
Shaken and bruised but not seriously hurt, Hackthorne was doing a slow job of eeling himself through the window on the driver's side.
"Why'n hell don't you open the door, you simpleton," she roared helpfully.
"Madam," he said in a choked voice, "if you can't help you can at least shut up. It happens this door is stuck, irrevocably it seems. So is the other... " He strained, grunted and slid his pelvis through, then carefully drew his long legs after him.
"What happened?" yelped Missy.
He tried to stand up, failed, and winced all over. "I was looking at that house on the hill."
"Oh, blast," roared Missy. "Get the hell out of that ditch and I'll take you home and feed you. Well-what's keeping you?"
"It seems I've wrenched my back... "
"Oh, bilge. Nothin' to that." She went behind her car and opened the old-fashioned trunk that perched atop the back bumper. Dragging out a catch rope, she tossed the loop to him. "Throw that around you. I'll tie this end to the bumper and drag you out." She stooped, made a quick tie to the front bumper and faced him again. "All ready?"
"As ready as I'll ever be. Take it easy, will you?"
"Sure. You just hang on to the rope."
With her backing up slowly, Dr. Hackthorne success- fully scrambled up the side of the ditch. As soon as he was on the road and had dropped the rope, he fell full length on the macadam.
"Double damnation," bellowed Missy. "What's the matter now?"
He rolled over and sat up with great care. "I think I've slipped a disk or something," he replied. "When I try to stand, it grabs me."
She maneuvered the car close. "Grab hold of something and pull yourself erect. Don't be in such a tizzy."
Hackthorne turned bitter eyes toward her. "If I ever get into that antediluvian behemoth there, I shall try to impress upon you that I'm injured. I'm sure your house is attractive and I should love at some more appropriate date to visit it, but at the moment I prefer the X-ray room at Fontenot's office with that sawed-off old goat leaning over me making cackling references to my lineage, intelligence and whatnot." During this torrent of protest, Hackthorne managed to get in beside her. He sighed with relief when he found that he could sit with relative comfort.
"Also," he continued, "we'd better tell the owner of that miserable bucket of bolts in the ditch what has happened to his so-called vehicle." He sighed and leaned back. "Please drive carefully."
"Up your ufa," she said coarsely. "I'll drive, you sit."
"What's an ufa?" he wanted to know.
"I'm not sure. My son Ike brought it back from the Pacific. It's probably unprintable."
"You're unprintable," he said tiredly and closed his eyes.
Melody Flemming woke from her drug-induced sleep by degrees, each more painful than the one preceding it.
For a long time she lay perfectly still and stared at the ceiling. Gradually everything was taking shape as though a book were being read chapter by short chapter. Her eyes were swollen, her face was puffed and blotched, and there was an overlay of dull, pervading ache.
She made a tentative wriggle as if to test herself then went stiff and tense. Her fingers knotted and with a shrill scream she went into a hard fit, jerking the covers up and covering herself with them.
Nola Pilgrim, who had been a silent witness, leaped to the bed. She grasped Melody's wrists and tried to restrain her, being only partially successful.
She was grateful when the door opened and Lora walked in. The maid was followed by Joyce, haggard and befuddled from the night's events and loss of sleep.
"She woke up and flipped," said Nola. "I was watching. She woke, began to think, then it hit her."
"And why not?" exploded Joyce, striving to focus her eyes. "After that experience... "
Melody's wild eyes rested on her mother. "Get out Get out, you." The eyes sought Lora's. "Get her out of here. I'll throw something. I'll... " She went into a screaming frenzy, whereupon Lora slapped her.
"Now, you can just cut out these here 'sterricks and ack like a human," snarled Lora. Melody crumpled and went into the colored woman's arms, there to weep with such passionate intensity that Nola ached in sympathy. Joyce, her face blank, beat a hasty exit.
When at last Melody could breathe without sobbing, Lora loosed her embrace. "All right, now. We know you had a bad time last night. You got took by a man and beat up. But since then you've had a good night's sleep and you're a strong, healthy gal. So why the big fuss?"
Melody gulped and fell back on the bed, her eyes turned to the wall. "Go away, Lora," she said woodenly.
"I ain't agoin'," said Lora. "Look, I raised you from a kitten. You don't wanta talk to your mama and I don't blame you. You ain't ever got anything from talking to her. But you can talk to me."
"I can't talk to anyone," Melody said lifelessly.
"How come you say that?"
"You know what happened to me."
"You didn't ask for it and you couldn't help it."
"That doesn't change anything. It still happened and what does that make me?"
"A gal who got in an accident. What did it make you when you flipped the car into Rogue River that time? A special sort of fool, maybe. Nothing worse."
Anguish flickered across Melody's face, anguish mingled with despair. "Oh, that-that terrible man. He was like an animal." Melody shuddered, looked from Lora to Nola and back again. "Listen, you two, I'm not sick or anything. Please go away and leave me alone. If I need anyone, I'll call."
The graduate nurse and the colored housekeeper walked out slowly. The former was twinging. A shocking idea had begun to take shape as soon as she had heard of the rape. By now it was a conviction that pierced her brain like a needle.
"You go on home, miss," said Lora. "Like she say, she ain't sick. Not in the body anyhow."
Nola took in a shuddering breath. "I hope the poor girl isn't pregnant by that beast."
Lora shrugged. "We'll see."
Her lips compressed, she turned and made her way to the kitchen.
Joyce, whose breakfast always consisted of innumerable cups of coffee laced liberally with cream and sugar, was sitting at the table and working on her fifth one. "What on earth is the matter with that girl?" she asked.
"You ever been raped?" asked Lora bluntly.
Joyce flushed. "Of course not In any case, what good does it do to have hysterics?"
"You practically had 'em last night when that ice hit you."
Joyce seemed to swell with rage. "I'll have a word or two to say to Missy about that. As for your part... "
"I helped her try to wake you. I helped her put you in the chair. That ice and water was her own idea and I must say it worked like a charm."
"But was that the only way?"
"When you sleeps, you dies."
Joyce pouted. "I sleep heavily, I'll admit... "
"You dies," insisted Lora, hammering a half-frozen hen about, trying to work the stiffness out of it preparatory to baking it for lunch. "This bird has had its share of ice, too."
Joyce sighed and lit a cigarette. "I'll have to ask Barry to come over. He can't have heard what happened."
Lora dropped the hen and turned on her. "You mean you gonna tell people?"
Joyce blinked stupidly. "Well, won't they find out anyhow?"
"Not less you tell it around. And believe me, if that gal finds out her own mama spouted she's liable to come after you with a razor or sompn'. You done lost your mind?"
Joyce was confused. People would surely know. How could they help it? "The sheriff will tell or that old doctor," she said defensively.
Lora was not foul-mouthed. She had a low opinion of anyone who "talked under people's clothes." But this time she could not help it. A solid four-letter word burst out of her mouth, shocking Joyce speechless.
"You mean to say," demanded Lora, slamming liver, gizzard and heart on the chopping board, "you think Dr. Fontenot or Mr. Townley is loose at the jaw?"
"People do talk," Joyce said darkly. "People sure do. My advice to you is not to be one of 'em." She picked up a carving knife, brandished it, then rammed it point first into the board.