She could hear his nasal squawk in the darkness, calling down eternal hellfire and dangnation on all around him, a voice that belonged to her old life though she could not name it, knew only that she feared and hated it, yet loved it, too, in some sad painful way. There were other voices and a distant flickering of lights in the trees like insects in grass. They had passed close by, gone on, were coming back again. Her little friend who’d been helping her all day had vanished into the night and she was alone and hungry and afraid. There was more food somewhere but she couldn’t find it, she’d torn up the forest looking for it, until the men arrived and sent her scurrying for shelter. Now she squatted there in the scratchy darkness, trembling, waiting for she knew not what, nor knowing just what she’d do when the waiting ended. As his voice drew near, she remembered that he used to tie her up and yell at her and do bad things to her, though what he did exactly was less clear than how much it hurt and where, and how she couldn’t get away no matter how she tried. And he was kind to her sometimes, too, if she did the things he liked, and sometimes he cried and hugged her and called her his little baby, though this was bad because he always got angry afterwards and hurt her all the more. She closed her eyes and sniffed the air and picked up the odor of his old leather jacket, worn and often wet, which smelled like just-turned cider, and there were other smells as well, those of tobacco and body lotions and breaths soured by drinking, and the acrid smells of the sweat of men she might have known (she could almost taste them on her tongue), others strange to her, and the smells, too, of fear and excitement and confused desire, and when she opened her eyes they were standing all together down in the trees, shining their little lights on her, hushed it seemed by what they saw. Most of them had weapons, pointed at her, and bunched together like that, they looked like a single glittering animal with quills erect. A burly little fellow who was familiar to her stepped forward and shouted up at her through a thing in front of his face: “Pauline! We don’t aim to harm you none! It ain’t your fault, but you been seriously outa line here and you got the whole town shook up!” When he said her name, it brought back something about who she was, and she looked down between her legs and scratched herself there. This got the other voices going again and focused all the lights. “Now stop that, Pauline! Listen to me! You come along peaceful-like and we’ll figure out some way to take care of you and get you covered up proper and find you something to eat!” She was still afraid but his voice through that thing soothed her like something on the radio and she thought he might help her like her other friend did and she reached down toward him. He yelped and fell backwards, trying to get away, and there was a bang and then another one and something pinched her in the arm and suddenly there were more bangs and pinches and light beams flying in all directions and all those little men falling and scurrying away like they had wasps in their pants. The burly one jumped up and cried out: “No! Don’t shoot, goddamn it! Hold your fire!” Several of them had run off, but those who’d stayed picked themselves up and chittered and laughed nervously and hid behind trees to watch. There was a very funky smell all around her now and she knew they were afraid and there was nothing she could do to make them less afraid. It was then that the one whose squawky voice she had first recognized hopped forward with his hands and feet stuck together and came right up and stood by her knee with a rifle he’d picked up off the ground and shouted out that was enough, he’d send any sinner here to hell and beyond who tried to hurt his little girl. “We ain’t fixing to hurt anyone, Duwayne,” said the burly one, coming forward. “You done your bit. Now get your ass back here before it gets shot off!” She picked the chubby little fellow up and put him in her lap so the one with the rifle wouldn’t shoot him. All the others went scrambling away again and there were more bangs and shouts: “You okay, Otis—?!” “Christ-amighty, what do we do now—?!” “Nothing!” he yelled back, hanging onto her tummy wrinkles. “Don’t shoot! It’s all right! Just gimme a minute to think!” “It ain’t all right, you miserable hind tit of the goddang Prince of Darkness! The time of the tribulation is at hand!” Ah. She remembered that. And the wide gate and the narrow gate, and the rod of wrath that always got stuck into both of them. And something else: that this was the one who’d done something bad to her mother and sister. She’d nearly forgotten that, but it came back to her now clear as a picture in a storybook when everything else in her head was slipping away. She lifted him up to have a better look. “No, I never,” he protested. “I done a lotta sinful shit in my time, Pauline, mostly on accounta demon drink, but I never done that.” He was wriggling around in her fist, so she squeezed a little harder, while cuddling the other one close against her tummy. “Now hold on, Pauline! Your momma killt your sister with her kitchen shears, and she was gonna git you, too, that whorish old gash had the devil in her, so I, you know, brought an end to her persecutions before she could do her wickedest.” An end? “Well, we got company here, Pauline. Let’s say I chased her diabolical hellhole off the premises and she ain’t been beholden since. Hey! Wait a minute! The wicked hosts is them down there! Smite them, not me! Not your own daddy! Pauline—?! Stop!”
Rex, though invited to the party, missed all this, his odor not among those that Pauline sniffed out, nor would she have recognized it had it been, for he was not of this place. He of those mighty pecs, traps, and dorsals that Nevada so admired was at the moment jogging toward the road out to his motel, mission accomplished (not of this place, not yet, but soon), not exactly as he’d scored it, but close enough that the original tune could still be heard. He’d been surprised when the scrawny dweeb who’d stolen the truck turned up in old Stu’s office out of nowhere like that, but he’d struck him a quick blow with the rifle butt that had caved his wispy-haired conk in like an overripe melon. Okay, so forget the old vendetta against John, my man, play the changes, improvise: put the rifle in the dingaling’s hands and let Stu shoot him with the pistol, the perfect crime. He’d pulled the door closed, arranged both bodies, turned to load Stu’s handgun, and when he’d turned back the door was still closed but the dingaling was gone. The next thing he’d heard: a van driving away. Hey, more to think about, but no sweat, back to the main theme. The head. Get John. He’d been tempted to speed things up with a car off the lot, why not, the place was half his now, he could take a new Connie for a spin, for example, but, no, play it like it’s written, man, save the joyrides for your fat tomorrows. More problems at the airport where he’d intended to return the murder weapon to John’s gun cabinet, but this time found the office door locked. He was just resolving that when the police showed up with some drunken tourists, and he thought for a bad moment he might have to waste all these people, few of whom seemed armed, but none friendly. Not a pretty thought, but life was like that sometimes. When the ancient bumpkin with the long snout reached for his rifle, he figured he’d have to be the first to go, but then it leaked through to his hyped-up nut that these yoyos thought he was on their side. So he was. Cool, man. What’s your story? They had to go shoot a woman. Sounded like a dead moose hunt to Rex, not his scene, but he went along with them until he could find a chance to break away. The redneck copper made it easy for him by posting him as a rearguard tailgunner, the only witnesses to his stealthy withdrawal being the preacher’s kid and some buddy, sitting by themselves in a ditch he was cutting through on his way out of the woods. He recognized the little dumbfuck more by his sudden panic than by his plastered-up face, which looked like a hockey mask glowing faintly in the dark. By now he’d shed the ax, so Rex just grinned as he loped past and chanted out an “Our Father,” his retreat marred only by the shit he had to slop through at the bottom of the ditch. Speaking of slopping in shit, he had a score to settle with old Daph next time he saw her: the bitch had lost her nerve, her tip-off meaning the body’d been found much too soon to suit him. But not tonight, she could sweat this one out on her own. Tonight, after this long run: a good shower, a joint, some jazz, and then, never know, Nevada might drop by, they could celebrate their latest business successes together. A pair of real tycoons, they were. A Porsche came bombing up from behind, roared past, making his sweats flap, then screeched to a spitting fishtailing halt a few hundred yards ahead. Rex knew this wet dream machine. He’d had to bathe and pamper it for John when he worked out at the airport, and had had a run or two in it himself at times when John was up balling some bird in the sky, being careful to set the speedometer back and top up from the airport tanks afterwards, John being touchy about people playing with his toys. So what did the abusive shit want now? Too late to switch tracks; Rex trotted up to the car, ready to punch him out if it came to that, and John’s barebreasted daughter opened the door and stepped out and asked him, leaning back and stroking her crotch, if he wanted a ride. It was like Christmas: his alibi, his shot at John, and a hot lick or two to top off the night, all handed to him gift-wrapped. The kid was fried to a crisp, her eyes like stones: her pinpoint-nippled tits showed more expression. Sure, baby, he said. What kind of ride can you give me? Get ready to fly, mister, she said. But, first, off with the sweats. Off—? Take them off! They stink, I don’t want them in the car! Come on! Is there nothing but blushing wimps around here? She whipped off her own shorts as a challenge and flung them over the hood into the weeds beyond, glared at him for a moment while he took in the lightning-illuminated sights, then she popped back in the driver’s seat and slammed the door. You coming or not, ace? Wouldn’t miss it for anything. He kicked off his shit-stained runners, peeled his socks away, stripped off the sweats, the jockstrap. Took his time about it. She watched him all the while but he wasn’t sure she could actually see anything, so ripped was she. He wasn’t hard but didn’t want to be. That’s pretty good, she said. You do that in front of a mirror every day? The little ball-buster. Every day, all day, he said, just waiting for you to come along. He dropped his bare ass onto the soft leather. You blow a pretty mean horn for such a scrawny little snotnose. Let’s see if you know shit about driving this mother. She hit the floorboard and they spun out of there, popping gravel, hit fifty at the first crossing, were doing better than eighty when she ran the first light. She had a lean adolescent shape with a prominent ass, a little slack, sinewy thighs, breasts like small muffins, was probably still a cherry; should be fun, he figured, in a fragile kiddiefuck sort of way. She stayed on the back roads, not all paved, doing over a hundred on straights and not much less on turns, took intersections without a slowdown, left the ground more than once, then hit rock bottom, never taking her bare foot off the pedal. Okay, mister, she said. Eat me. Sure thing, doll, but that wheel cramps my table manners. I got a—Now! she demanded, lifting her left foot off the brake pedal and up on the seat, knee against the door. Get to it, asshole, or get out! He figured this was not the moment to slap the little mink and so instead worked his fingers into her pussy, trying to open up a groove, but it was tight as a green walnut down there. This was going to be like blowing a stoppered sweet potato. As he leaned down to search out a mouthpiece with his tongue, he glimpsed something looming up ahead of them in the road. It was that old humpback bridge out by the selfsame woods he’d just departed, coming at them out of the heavy night at a hundred and fifty miles an hour. “Now! “ she yelled, and jammed his head down under the wheel between her trembling thighs.