by Orrie Hitt
It took him about half an hour to bury his take, and then he went into the kitchen for lunch.
“You shouldn’t go without breakfast,” Mary told him. “It’ll ruin your stomach.”
“I was in a hurry.”
She served him a generous portion of a crisp chef’s salad which hit the spot perfectly in his hot, excited state. During his first trip around the property he had visited Goose Lake once, and he remembered a clump of bushes where a man could hide and watch the narrow beach. He had thought about those bushes and the beach a lot.
After lunch he got some traps from the shed and started through the woods toward Goose Lake. He doubted that Carole had left the house yet. The family didn’t eat until one, and it wasn’t reasonable to assume that she would go swimming without eating. Joan had told him the girl never missed a meal.
There was a path through the woods, much of it overgrown, and he kept to it. He climbed a short hill and a rabbit ran in front of him. He often saw rabbits and deer during his travels on the estate, and once in a while a game bird, a grouse, or, very rarely, a pheasant. Jennings blamed the dearth of game birds on the animals and birds of prey, but Eddie knew that wasn’t the only reason. Some of the fields should be plowed and planted with grain so that the birds would have something to eat. A lot of hunting clubs did that. A hungry grouse or pheasant is like a hungry person — if it can’t find food in one place it moves on. It was too bad, he decided, that he couldn’t sit down and talk to Jennings in a rational way. The estate had so much to offer, yet no effort was made to improve it. Jennings shelled out three hundred dollars a month for a needless slaughter. What about the little animals that starved because a mother had been killed? Didn’t Jennings ever think of that? Eddie guessed that he didn’t or, if he did, that he drowned it in a bottle of booze. What normal man would sit in the woods and blast the life out of a harmless song bird? A man had to have a warped mind to do that
He approached the lake and made his way in the direction of the beach. This was crazy and he knew he shouldn’t be doing it. If a girl wanted some privacy she should be left alone. Then he remembered how she had looked at the bus station, and the pounding in his head started again.
He chose his cover near the beach, out of sight, and he settled down to wait, piling the traps beside him and lighting a cigarette.
He sat there, getting hotter by the second — he was only partly in shade — and the deer flies attacked his sweat-damp skin fiercely. While he waited, smoking and swatting the flies, he studied the lake. Smaller than Moon Lake, it was about three-quarters of a mile long and half a mile wide, bordered mostly by pines and oak, with a few hemlocks thrown in. The extreme end was mostly cranberry bogs. He wondered whether anyone picked the berries when they were ready for market.
It might have been about an hour later — he was almost asleep — when he heard someone coming along the path. Hastily he put out his cigarette, blinked his eyes to clear them and hunched as low as he could, elbows resting on his knees.
She passed within a few feet, her blonde hair reflecting the sunlight. She was wearing a two-piece bathing suit, Bikini style and briefer, if possible, than Kitty’s. He sucked in his breath. The suit was black, and it clung to her body like paint.
At the beach she wasted no time but dove into the water, fast and smooth. When she broke surface he saw that she was an excellent swimmer, using an overhand stroke that knifed cleanly through the water with hardly a splash.
She came out in a little while and sat on the sand, her back to him, letting the sun dry her. The pounding was all through him now and he leaned further forward, his hands shaking as though he had been on a drunk for a week. More than anything else, he wished he weren’t there. This was wrong, like the time he had peeped in through a woman’s bedroom window. She hadn’t been much to look at, except that she had been a woman, and he had been disgusted with himself for days afterward. Now he was doing almost the same thing again, and the disgust was as strong as the longing.
Somewhat later she got up and walked back along the path. When she came opposite him she stopped and spoke.
“Too bad you got cheated,” she said. “Better luck next time.”
Eddie didn’t know what to say, what to do. He felt like a criminal who had just heard a death sentence pronounced. The face turned cold. Slowly, uncertainly he got to his feet.
“I didn’t mean anything,” he protested. “I was just taking a rest and the next thing I knew you were in the water. There didn’t seem to be anything to do but wait.”
Her laugh stung, telling him she knew he was lying.
“Wait in the hope that I would take my suit off?”
“No, not that.” His stomach felt hollow as he bent over to pick up the traps. “You think I’m that kind of guy?”
She shrugged, “There isn’t a man alive who wouldn’t give a quart of his blood to see a naked woman. It’s funny. We’re all pretty much the same — maybe a few inches difference here and there — and it really shouldn’t be so interesting. I go to a nudist camp every summer — my father doesn’t know that — and there isn’t anything cheap about sex in a nudist camp. Sex isn’t important there. It’s what you are that counts.”
Eddie couldn’t imagine himself ever going to a nudist camp. It would be too much for him to bear, playing volleyball and swimming with pretty young girls in all their naked loveliness. He simply couldn’t believe that there were men who could do it and not get all worked up.
“I suppose you’ll tell your father?” he asked anxiously, walking out to her.
She pretended to debate the question, but her face wasn’t serious. She was smiling up at him.
“Would you rather I didn’t?”
“Well, he told me to stay away from here and, well, I need the job. I — aw, I didn’t mean no harm.”
“Perhaps not, but I knew you’d get around to it sooner or later,” she said. “Jim did and that clump of bushes was his favorite place to hide. I saw a cigarette and knew somebody was there. I’d have bet my last dollar it was you.”
He felt like a kid who had been caught stealing apples. The cold sweat on his forehead felt as though someone were pressing an ice bag against it.
“I won’t come here again,” he assured her. “I promise you that if you don’t say anything.”
“I — Eddie, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
She hitched at the top of her suit, spoiling the view.
“You might have tried something else, Eddie.”
He knew what she meant.
“No. Not me.”
“Well, Jim did and he was normal enough. He waited until I was stretched out on the sand and then he tried to rape me. But you’ve probably heard about that, haven’t you?”
“Not that much. Something was said that he got fresh with you and Mrs. Jennings.”
Carole made a face.
“No man would have to rape Kitty. She’s as cheap as they come. Before she married my father she was just a bum who worked the clubs. She only married him for his money. Sometimes the way she looks at him I get the feeling that she’d kill him if she had the nerve. I wouldn’t spend a day here if it weren’t for my father. He’s an old man and he’s tired and sick, and he needs someone around him who cares. The worst part is that he’s in love with her, or he thinks he is, and he can’t see down inside of her and find out what she is.” Carole paused. “Maybe they’re right when they say there’s no fool like an old fool.”
“She told me she was partly responsible for Jim being fired,” Eddie said. “He drove her into town and he made improper advances to her on the way back.”
“That was her story.”
“Well?”
“I think there was more to it than that. What really got Jim fired was what he did to me. Roger — he’s my boyfriend — was sick that afternoon, and I thought Jim was out tending his traps. I didn’t see anything wrong about stretching out nude on the beach and just resting. Then, out of nowhere,
he was here and he tried to attack me. It was — horrible.”
“No man should do a thing like that.”
“I ran all the way back to the house without a stitch of clothes on me. My father was sitting out on the lawn where he usually does — he drinks too much, doesn’t he? — and he was furious. Then Kitty got into the act, claiming that Jim had tried to molest her the day before, and that was the end of Jim. My father wouldn’t even see him before he left. I guess Jim was just as well satisfied.”
Eddie reached into his pocket for a package of cigarettes and she took one. He struck a match and held it for them.
“No use me setting these traps,” he said.
“Why?”
She pulled the smoke into her lungs and her breasts grew at least another inch, pushing forward against the fabric with such pressure that their centers were clearly outlined. Her waist was small — Eddie was sure he could encircle her with his hands — and that made her bust appear even larger.
“I had no right being here,” he said. “All you have to do is say I stepped out of line and I’m done. I — how did you explain it to your father that you were naked that day?”
“I said that Jim ripped the suit off of me.”
“Wasn’t that a lie?”
“Isn’t a girl entitled to one lie once in a while? I didn’t want my father to know I had taken the suit off myself. And Jim did try to take advantage of me.”
“You could tell your father the same thing about me and he’d believe you.”
“I won’t unless I have to. That depends on you.”
“Nothing depends on me.”
Her lips curved in a secret smile.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” she said. “You’re big and handsome and Kitty could go for someone like you. All you need do is have an affair with her, and be willing to get up in court and swear that you have had physical relationships with her. It could be worth a lot of money to you.”
He shifted the traps from one hand to the other.
“How much?” he inquired.
“I’d be willing to pay five thousand dollars.”
“You really hate her, don’t you?”
She shook her head, her eyes serious.
“No, I love my father. I know what she is and I want him to know it, too. She’s just waiting for him to die so she can collect her share of his money. That isn’t marriage. Marriage means a home and children and all the other good things that go with them. Am I wrong?”
“Well — ”
She laughed.
“You might enjoy your work, Eddie. How do you know? She could be a pleasant memory, and if it faded you’d still have the five thousand dollars. A lot of men who work for three hundred dollars a month would go for that combination.”
He ground the cigarette out. Five thousand could get him going on a farm of his own, or set him up in a small business.
“I’ll have to think about it,” he said.
“For how long?”
“Give me a couple of days.”
“One day, and if you don’t see things my way I’ll lie to my father about you. You’ll be out five thousand dollars and a job.”
“You don’t give me much choice,” he said as they started up the path. “But I’m still going to think about it.”
“You can meet me here at the lake tomorrow afternoon.”
They had gone only a short distance when she twisted one ankle on a stone and fell, rolling on the ground and crying out with pain. Quickly he threw the traps aside and bent over her. She was lying face up, her legs stretched out on the leaves. He examined her ankle carefully. There was nothing broken, but it must have been painful from the way she was whimpering.
“Don’t,” she pleaded as he moved the ankle. “Oh, please don’t. I — ”
“It’s okay, but I may have to carry you.” His hand moved from her ankle up along her bare leg, the thrill of touching her flooding through him. “You should wear something besides sneakers. They aren’t worth much in the woods.”
She sat up and he took his hand away.
“I think I can walk,” she said.
“It won’t cost you anything to try.”
But she couldn’t, or she didn’t want to, saying that her ankle hurt terribly. In the end he carried her, leaving the traps behind.
It was nice carrying her, her arms circling his neck, with his right arm around her so that his hand lay gently upon one breast. She didn’t object and once in a while he moved his fingers, feeling the fullness that was under his hand. He was sweating again, but this time it was a hot sweat, like being in a steam bath. Those red lips of hers were only inches away from his mouth.
“That was stupid of me,” she said as he climbed a small hill.
“It could happen to anybody.”
She wasn’t heavy, probably about a hundred fifteen pounds, but he pretended that he needed to rest before they got out of the woods. He put her down on a soft patch of grass.
“Don’t get fresh,” she said as he sat down beside her.
“What the hell ever gave you that idea?”
“I can just about read your mind. The mind of one man is about the same as another’s when it comes to a girl.”
“What about that Roger fellow?”
“We’re just good friends.”
“He go to those nudist camps with you?”
“You ask a lot of questions.”
“It’s the only way you ever learn anything.”
“I hope you decide to go along with me about Kitty,” she murmured. “It means a great deal to me.”
“We’ll see.”
“I might — I might even be nice to you if you did.”
The pounding in his head was like someone beating on a hollow drum and his stomach pulled up into one giant knot.
“You’re very pretty,” he said as he bent over her. “I never saw a girl with a waist so tiny.”
“Nineteen inches.”
“You’re a lot more than that where I’m looking right now.”
“I’m forty where you’re looking, forty-one on a deep breath.”
“Let’s see you do it.”
“Like this?” she teased.
The glorious mounds rose toward him and he was aware of her hand on his arm. The pounding was all through him now. He felt his legs getting numb.
“You drive me nuts,” he said as his arms went around her, fast and hard.
Her lips were warm and soft and yielding, but that was all. When he tried to slip the top of her suit off she made him stop, breaking off the kiss to bite him on the hand.
“Damn!” he shouted.
She seized the opportunity to roll away from him and spring to her feet. He cursed as he got up and watched her sprint along the path. There was very obviously nothing wrong with her ankle.
Still cursing and rubbing his hand, he plodded back along the path to find the traps.
Next time, he promised himself, would be different.
5
THERE WERE some fine locations for sets in the cranberry swamp at the upper end of Goose Lake but all Eddie did was scout the area. He put out no traps. He’d forgotten wire, staples and hatchet. Even if he had been fully equipped he guessed he wouldn’t have done anything. Carole Jennings had really twisted him apart inside.
After he had covered the swamp he sat down under a big oak tree and had a cigarette. He could still see her. All that magnificence cramming the daring black Bikini to the bursting point. The desire was still inside him, squeezing his guts, the memory of her kiss lingering on his mouth. She must be something in a nudist camp, all right. And he didn’t believe that crap about sex not being important. Hell, he wished he had ten bucks for every man who had had her. No man who was any man at all would let something like that get away without a struggle.
He finished the cigarette and got up, still carrying the traps, and walked along the shore of the lake. He saw some bass, a few trout, and if he’d had the twenty-two along h
e could have killed a rather large water snake. Jennings had told him there were rattlers in the area, that sometimes they even came up onto the lawn by the house. Eddie had watched for them but he had yet to see one. He knew enough about rattlers to know they didn’t always sound a warning before they struck. If they happened to be shedding their skins, they couldn’t.
The deer flies were as bad as before, biting savagely, but Eddie didn’t pay much attention to them. He was thinking of five thousand dollars, more money than he had ever dreamed of having all at one time. But what he would have to do to earn it made him feel sick. Even if Kitty were as cheap and mercenary as Carol believed, she didn’t deserve to be framed that way. No doubt Carole had made the same offer to Jim, and when he had turned her down she had run naked and screaming to the house. Somehow that story about the attempted rape had a hollow ring. But, then, he hadn’t known Jim. Nor, for all of that, did he know much about Carole.
He followed the path from the lake toward the house, stopping involuntarily at the spot where she had left him. She had said she might be nice to him if he would do something about Kitty. He wondered whether she had tempted Jim the same way. But mostly he thought about how his mouth had been over her lips, his hands caressing her body, of how he would have known her then and there if she hadn’t fastened her teeth into his hand.
He was almost to the house when he heard shots down in the woods. It didn’t sound like Jennings, who was so poor a shot that he preferred a shotgun. This sounded more like a twenty-two. Thinking that some kid might have wandered onto the property, he turned right into the woods to investigate.
It was no kid. It was Kitty Jennings.
“I didn’t know you went in for that sort of thing,” Eddie said as he came up to her.
She favored him with a smile.
“Oh, I’m pretty good and I like to keep my eye sharp.” She shrugged. “There wasn’t anything to do anyway. Frank is into the booze and I can’t stand that Carole. I can see the hate on her face whenever she looks at me.”
Kitty was wearing shorts and a halter, the latter the briefest he had yet seen. It barely nodded to convention by covering her nipples and about a third of her breasts. The other two-thirds were on display, and she didn’t seem to mind his taking it in.