Francie licked her lips. “Could I — read it alone, please? It means so much.”
“Read it now, honey,” Stewart said. “We want to share your pleasure with you. It means a lot to us, too, you know.”
She unfolded the letter. At first the pencil scrawl was blurred. She closed her eyes hard, turned her back to them, opened her eyes again.
“Baby, now I know they weren’t kidding when they said you’d get that other letter. I guess you’re doing all you can for me. Anyway, I seem to be a guest of honor now. Sheets, even. Baby, don’t feel bad about helping them. Maybe it’s for the best. They’ve got something I never understood before. For the first time I’m beginning to see the world the way it really is. And now, darling, that fireplace seems closer than ever. And so do you. You still got those two freckles on the bridge of your nose? When I get my hands on you, baby, we’d better turn Willy’s face to the wall.”
Francie stopped reading for a moment and took a deep breath. A breath of joy and thanksgiving. He had to be alive. Nobody else could sound like that.
“Remember that I love you and keep thinking that we’ll be together again. That’s really all that counts, isn’t it? Figure on me being back in the spring, when all the world is turning as green as Willy’s hat.”
She stared at the last words. How could Bob have made such a grotesque and incredible mistake? The figurine wore no hat! How could he possibly—?
And she read it again and saw the whole letter begin to go subtly false. This new letter and the one before it. False, contrived, artificial. Bob, under the circumstances he described, would never, never have written in such a pseudo-gay way. His other letter had been like that because he had been trying to keep her from worrying about combat wounds or combat death. Now these letters, these fake letters, sounded absurdly lighthearted.
Still looking at the letter, her back turned toward them, she saw how they had taken the most precious part of her life and twisted it to their own ends. Bob was dead. He had died during the retreat. Had any doubt existed they would have labeled it Missing In Action. She had been the gullible fool. The stupid, sentimental fool who clung to any hope, closing her eyes to its improbability.
Involuntarily she closed her hands on the letter, crumpling it, as though it were something evil.
Stewart had walked over to where he could see her face. “Why are you doing that?” he asked, his voice oddly thin.
She fought for control, masking her anger. “I... I don’t know. Excitement, I guess. To think that he’ll be back in the spring and... and we can—” But that was a spring that would never come.
In its own way this letter was far more ruthless than the original telegram. She couldn’t pretend any longer, not with the two of them watching her so carefully.
She looked at them, hating them. Such a charming, civilized couple. Stewart’s face, which had seemed so bland and jolly, was now merely porcine and vicious. Betty, with features sharpening in the moment of strain, looked menacingly cruel.
“Filth!” Francie whispered, careless now of her own safety. “Filth! Both of you.”
Stewart gave a grunt of surprise. “Now, now, after all we’ve done for—”
“Grab her, you fool!” Betty shouted. “It went wrong somewhere. Just look at her face!” Betty jumped to her feet.
Stewart hesitated a moment before lunging toward Francie, his arms outspread. In that moment of hesitation Francie started to move toward the door. His fingers brushed her shoulder, slid down her arm, clamped tightly on her wrist. The meaty touch of his hand on her bare wrist brought back all her fear.
His lunge had put him a bit off balance, and Francie’s body contracted in a spasm of fright that threw her back. Stewart was pulled against the raised hearth of the fireplace. As he tripped, his hand slipped from her wrist, and before she turned she saw him stumble forward, heard the thud his head made striking the edge of the fieldstone fireplace, saw both his hands slide toward the log fire.
As Betty cried out and ran toward Stewart, Francie found the knob and pulled the door open and ran in panic toward the trail. She went up the first slope, reached the handrail, caught it, used it to pull herself along faster. She glanced back, gasping for breath, and saw Betty, face set, strong legs driving her rapidly up the hill. Behind her Stewart stood in the doorway of the cabin, looking up the hill.
Fear gave Francie renewed strength and for a few moments the distance between them remained the same. But soon she was fighting for air, mouth wide, while a sharp pain began to knot her left side.
Now Betty’s feet were so close that she dared not look back. Her shoulder brushed a tree and then Betty’s arms locked around her thighs and they went down together, rolling across the sticky trail into the base of a small spruce.
Betty had a man’s strength. She twisted Francie over onto her back, then sat on Francie’s stomach, knees pinning Francie’s arms. Her eyes were cold and watchful.
Betty slapped her hard, using each hand alternately, slapping until Francie’s ears were full of a hard ringing, until she could taste blood inside her mouth. But she could hear the ugly words with which Betty emphasized each blow.
“Stop!” Francie cried. “Oh, stop!”
The hard slaps ceased, and Francie knew that she had learned a great deal about Betty’s motivations during those brutal moments.
“On your feet,” Betty said.
Francie rolled painfully to her hands and knees. She reached up and grasped a limb of the small spruce to help herself to her feet. The limb she grasped was only a stub, two feet long. It broke off close to the trunk as she pulled herself up. She did not realize that, in effect, she held a club until she saw Betty’s eyes narrow, saw the woman take a half-step backward.
“Drop it, Francie,” Betty said shrilly.
Francie felt her lips stretch in a meaningless smile. She stepped forward and swung the club with all her strength. It would have missed the blond woman entirely, but Betty, attempting to duck, moved directly into the path of the club. It shattered against the pale-gold head. Betty stood for a moment, bent forward from the waist, arms hanging, and then she went down with a boneless limpness. She hit on the slope, and momentum rolled her over onto her back.
Francie, laughing and crying, dropped to her knees beside the woman. She took what remained of the club in both hands and raised it high over her head, willing herself to smash it down against the unprotected face.
For a long moment she held the club high, and then, just as she let it slip out of her hands to fall behind her, Clint Reese came down the wet path, half running, slipping on the snow, hatless, topcoat fanned out behind him. When he saw Francie the tautness went out of his face. He took her arm and pulled her to her feet.
“Get off the path,” he said roughly. “They—”
He pulled her with him, forced her down, and crouched beside her.
She heard the shots then. Two that were thin and bitter. Whipcracks across the snow. Then one heavy-throated shot, and, after an interval, a second one.
She moved, and Clint said, “Stay down! I came along to see if you were getting all the protection Osborne promised.”
“Oh, Clint, they—”
“I know, darling. Hold it. Somebody’s coming.”
It was Osborne, walking alone, coming up from the house. He walked slowly and the lines in his face were deeper. They came out to meet him. Osborne looked down at Betty Jackson. The woman moaned, stirred a little.
One of the young men, a stranger, came down the trail from the road.
Betty sat up. She looked vaguely at Osborne and the young man. Then she scrambled to her feet, her eyes wild.