by Orrie Hitt
“Why not? You’ve never brought one in.”
“Not because I didn’t have them in my traps. I let them go.” He began searching for a couple of strong sticks. “Go ahead and tell your father. I don’t care. The beavers put up dams, flooding land — I grant you that — but in case there’s a forest fire their ponds are about the only decent water supply. If you’d ever carried an Indian tank on your back in a forest fire you’d know what I mean. Most of the time trucks can’t get to you, and the streams are too low.”
He didn’t have much trouble letting the beaver out, pressing the springs of the trap down with the sticks he had found, and the animal swam away, slapping its tail once and then disappearing under the water.
“I won’t say anything to my father,” Carole assured him.
“Thanks, but I’d have done the same thing if I had known that you would.”
“I believe you.”
“I don’t believe in this senseless killing. That’s why I say, there’s some wheel inside him that’s going in the wrong direction. Killing some things, turtles and the like, is all right. But when you want to slaughter off the whole animal population you’re pretty mixed up. When I was a kid, trapping so I could buy clothes for myself, if I found a den, say for raccoon, I never trapped them all out. I always left enough to breed for the next year. There can’t be any little animals if there aren’t any big animals.”
“My father doesn’t want any at all.”
“I’m well aware of that.”
“What’s the difference if you kill animals in the summer or in the winter when the fur is good?”
“None, I suppose. But I can’t say I ever liked it, even when I had to do it to buy pants or a pair of shoes. If we hadn’t been so poor I wouldn’t have killed anything. And if I had money I certainly wouldn’t hire somebody else to do it. I’d plow up the fields and plant grain, and in the winter when the snow is deep I’d put out feed. If somebody wanted to hunt I might let him but I’d hope he didn’t get anything.”
“You’ve got a kind heart,” she said as they moved on, away from the beaver dam. “For a big man who looks brutal you’re very kind.”
“Not kind. Sensible.”
He picked up two more foxes in the valley, both in dry sets on land, and when he reset the traps in other locations she asked a lot of questions. He answered her as well as he could.
“They won’t produce anything for almost a week now,” he said of the new sets. “There’s fox smell about the traps but there’s human smell, too, and you have to wait until it goes away. Once in a while you’ll come across a fox that doesn’t seem to care, but not often. Any human odor drives them away.”
“There’s a lot to it,” she said. “It’s obvious that you know what you’re doing. I don’t think Jim did. But my father put up with him because it isn’t easy to get a trapper. You’d think every kid born and raised on a farm would know how to trap but they don’t.”
“You have to have the knack,” he admitted. “Some people couldn’t catch daylight in a bag.”
At the extreme end of the valley there was a cliff they had to climb to reach the ridge and he got behind her in case she should fall.
“Take it easy,” he said, as she started up the rocks.
“You do this every day?”
“Yes. I could go back a quarter of a mile, but it means a lot of extra walking. In the winter you’d have to do that — the rocks would be covered with ice.”
“I — I think you have to push me some, Eddie.”
Her hips were right in front of him, and he shoved against one with his free hand, almost lifting her up into the air. He could feel the softness of her flesh beneath his hand, the warmth of it through the thin material of her shorts, and the sweat came out of him worse than ever. He saw her again as she had been on the beach with Roger, and he wanted her that way with him. He wanted to put her down on the ground and show her what a man could do to a girl, how he could make her cry and moan and really live. His feelings had nothing to do with love. It was sex, raw sex, the powerful urge of the ages welling up in him.
“Made it,” she said as she scrambled over the top. As she stood up she turned her head to smile at him. “God, you’re strong. I’ll bet you don’t know how strong you are.”
The patch of grass was up ahead, and he suggested that they eat. She was all for it, and when they got to the grass she sank down upon it, breathing heavily from the climb up the rocks, the action of her lungs thrusting her breasts far forward, the twin cones straining against the fabric.
“Mary makes a good lunch,” he said as he slid out of the pack basket harness and sat down beside her. “The trouble is she always puts in too much.”
“Better than not enough.”
“Sure, but why waste it? I can remember a time when I didn’t have enough to eat.”
He unpacked the basket, spreading the wrapped sandwiches on the grass, and he was surprised to find a fifth of rye lying on the bottom.
“Who put that in there?” he wanted to know.
She smiled at him.
“I did, Eddie. I thought you might like a drink.”
“I seldom drink whiskey.”
“How was I to know? Anyway beer wouldn’t have stayed cold.”
They ate slowly. The food was good, and there was more than enough. She finished eating before he did, lit a cigarette and lay down on the grass, closing her eyes. He looked at her, his teeth locking tightly together. Her body was incredible, all breasts and hips, her little belly hardly anything at all, and the urge to take her was almost overpowering. Even if she screamed, nobody would hear her.
“Why don’t you go to sleep?” he asked her. “I always rest here a while.”
She didn’t open her eyes.
“Maybe I will. I’m not used to this sort of thing. You cover a lot of territory, don’t you?”
“Have to.”
“And I doubt if you need the rest. I sort of think that you could go for hours, no matter what you were doing.”
He knew what he wanted to do, and the sweat ran down into his eyes. He also knew that it was wrong. More an excuse for his feelings than anything else, he assured himself that any normal man would want to take care of her. their mutual desire mounting into a towering flame of delight.
He opened the fifth of rye, his hands shaking, and took a drink. The whiskey burned going down his throat, but the second drink didn’t burn quite so much, the warmth of it flooding through him. He continued to look at her, wanting her, but he was afraid to try. All he had to do was to make her sore at him and everything would be ruined. Not that it wasn’t almost ruined already. The probability of Joan being pregnant was going to hurt them all. Kitty would probably raise hell when he told her — at first he had thought she would forgive him, taking it for granted, but now he wasn’t so sure.
“It’s nice here on the grass,” Carole said.
He realized then that she hadn’t been asleep.
“Must have been an old farm here at one time and this is what’s left of it,” he said. “You see lots of stone foundations in the woods and you wonder what the people ever did for a living. How could they exist?”
She rolled over on her side and lifted herself on her elbow. The halter wasn’t so high now, and he saw the hint of a warm deep cleavage.
“You want a drink, Carole?”
“No. I brought it for you.”
He put the cap back on the bottle and returned it to the basket, along with the food which they hadn’t eaten.
“How many more traps do you have to look at, Eddie?”
“About thirty, I guess. We follow this ridge to Goose Lake and cover the swamp there. The ridge isn’t much good in summer, only in the fall when the nuts come off the trees.”
“Then there isn’t any hurry.”
“No.”
A small hawk came darting through the woods and she turned her head to follow its flight.
“You have to do something about
Kitty,” she said. “And you have to do it fast.” She was now looking into his face. “Hitch a ride into town with her and get her drunk. You’ll be able to park with her on the way back, and then all you’ll have to do is give me a statement.”
“I thought you wanted pictures.”
“It would be nice — there’s always the chance that my father wouldn’t believe you, and he’d have to believe a picture. But you have to get next to her first. Once you’ve done that she’ll come to your room.” She paused. “If she hasn’t already.”
“What makes you say that?”
She shrugged.
“I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I have. She’s been acting differently lately, like she had some secret that pleased her. And I can think of only one thing that would please her. A man.”
“I’m not the only man in the world.”
“No, but you’re the kind she would want. Big. She likes them big. Although Jim wasn’t big. I couldn’t figure that. I guess her sex must have got the better of her.”
He hated to think of Kitty ever having been with another man, but he knew it was foolish to feel that way. She could have the same feeling about him for having been with other girls. Almost any man or girl who had gone over the age of twenty had some sort of a past.
“I’m even more baffled about you and that Roger,” he said suddenly.
“We’re just friends.”
In view of what Eddie had seen on the beach, he thought they were pretty good friends.
“He doesn’t seem to be your type.”
“And what would my type be?”
“I haven’t thought a great deal about it.”
“Somebody like you perhaps? Strong. Rugged. A horse of a man?”
“No, not me. You’ve got money and I’m lucky to manage from one pay day to the next.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“It puts us rather far apart, don’t you think? How many rich girls run around with penniless guys? The other way around might be true, though. Plenty of guys with dough go for girls without anything.”
She sat up straight and rubbed the palms of her hands across her breasts. The sweat was all over him now, as though he had been caught in a rain.
“You’re going to help me,” she said. “Aren’t you?”
“Yeah.” He had to lie to her.
“Make it so that as soon as Roger gets back we can arrange to get a picture. A picture would be better. I want her naked and I want her on the bed and I want you doing something to her.”
“That’ll be the end of the job for me.”
“It might not. I’ll do what I can for you. And, if it is, you’ll have the money.” She leaned toward him. “Eddie, you can do a lot with five thousand dollars.” She came closer, sliding across the grass.
Her face was right there, right up close, her lips parted and her teeth white and even, not a trace of her bright red lipstick on them. She was breathing deeply, heavily, each breath matching his own.
“I know what you want,” she murmured softly.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“Quit teasing me, will you?”
She reached behind her with her hands and hesitated.
“Maybe I’m not teasing you, Eddie. Maybe, when I look at you, I see a real man, a man who knows what a woman needs.”
“You’re rich,” he said, unable to think of anything else to say, unable to think of anything but this girl and the woods and the utter loneliness that surrounded them.
“Money hasn’t anything to do with it, Eddie.” She was breathing harder now, her hands still behind her, her breasts tilted and thrusting. “This is basic. This is animal. This is man and woman. This is wanting what you want, not ashamed of wanting it.”
He wished he had another drink.
“You can’t think very much of Roger,” he said.
“Forget Roger. I can.” She did something with her hands.
He couldn’t keep the sweat out of his eyes, couldn’t fight the raging turmoil that seized him. He had thought of being there on the grass with her, of Carole wanting him as much as he wanted her, but now that the moment had nearly arrived he was scared, afraid that he was going too far and too quickly.
The halter came away from her and his eyes grew wide, his mouth thick and dry. They were just as he had imagined. Soft fullness tipped with red, the area around the red shading into brown, the full, lifting beauty of her a stunning vision to behold.
“Take a look, Eddie. Take a good, long look.”
“You think I’m blind?” he demanded huskily.
She was only inches away from him and she didn’t mind when he touched her, his fingers clumsy and unsure, the pounding in his head like a machine gun. Slowly, she sank back to the grass and he followed her.
“You wanted this,” he said.
“Do you think I’d be with you if I didn’t?”
“And you lied to me before. You said — ”
“Shut up. Does a girl always tell the truth? I wanted you to want me as much as I wanted you and I think you do now. I — ”
Her lips were soft, and of the flavor of crushed strawberries, and he mashed them, grinding down, his mouth forcing hers open, all the joy of being a male on the verge of conquering the female driving into his guts like an iron wedge.
“I shouldn’t,” he said desperately.
“Why not?”
“Because.” He gulped, almost choking, staring at her blonde beauty. “Because — ”
And then she came to him, with her terrible and wonderful need, clutching him and crying out as he hurt her, hurt her as she had begged Roger to hurt her, hurt her as a savage would.
“You’re all man,” she said later as she dressed. “And it’s the first time that I ever — well, you know. The first time, Eddie. Nobody else could ever do it.”
They visited the rest of the traps, but they stopped three times on the way.
11
THE NEXT couple of days were tough on Eddie, as though he were living in another world and finding it difficult to keep up the pace. Roger Swingle phoned and said he would be gone at least ten days, and Carole went to the traps with Eddie, telling her father she was learning the locations of the sets and winning a grudging approval.
“If Father only knew,” she would say as they stretched out on the grass.
Eddie had pretty good luck with his traps, but he didn’t pay much attention to putting out new ones. It was frantic making love to Carole in the woods, frantic and wonderful, and he gave of himself until he thought there was no longer anything left to give. But he was wrong — when Kitty came to him late at night, sneaking upstairs into the darkness of his room, he was able to meet her demands.
“I don’t know,” Carole told him as she lay on the grass. “I always told myself that when I fell in love it would be with a man who had money. But when I’m with you, Eddie, I just think of the two of us being together always and never parting.”
He said nothing to her, knowing that this wasn’t love, only sex. She had an exciting body, all wild and eager, but he couldn’t see anything beyond that for them. There wasn’t a time that he touched her, no matter how good she was, that he didn’t wish she were Kitty. He had wanted Carole the first time he had seen her, as she got off the bus in Twenty Mile River, but now that he had accomplished his purpose he would rather have left her alone. But she was finding complete physical pleasure for the first time, and she wasn’t willing to let go any part of it.
“I’m hungry for you,” she would tell him as they walked through the woods.
“You’d be hungry for any man.”
“No, Eddie. You.”
“And what’s in it for us?”
“I don’t know what’s in it for us. I’m not asking myself a question like that. What do I care? I’m living for today and tomorrow can take care of itself. Nights I dream about you, Eddie. I wake up needing you so much that I could scream my lungs out.”
He t
ried to reason with her, pointing out the difference in their social standing, but it didn’t do any good. She said that lots of rich girls married poor men and that they got along all right.
“That would make your father happy,” Eddie observed.
“He wouldn’t stand in my way. He never stood in the way of my happiness. He doesn’t like Roger, but he puts up with him because Roger is a friend of mine.”
“Don’t tell me you never did this with Roger.”
“I won’t lie to you. Of course I have. I did it with several boys, Eddie. The first was when I was sixteen, but it scared me so much that it was almost a whole year before I did it again. The boy worked for us and we used to go swimming together. One night we went swimming after dark without suits, and when we came out of the water he pulled me off into the weeds and forced himself on me. It was the next thing to rape, because I didn’t want to, but I didn’t cause him any trouble. I just wondered why I couldn’t feel the same thing that the other girls said they felt when they were with a boy. So I tried several boys, including Roger, and I always had the same luck — nothing — until I met you. Now I know what the girls were talking about, and how glorious it can be.”
They spent long hours in the woods together, tending the traps, talking or making love. Eddie was thoroughly confused. He was in love with one girl, Kitty, had another girl pregnant, Joan, and now Carole was so set on him that he couldn’t shake her loose.
“You have to do something about Kitty,” Carole kept telling him. “You have to show her up for what she is.”
“I’m doing the best I can.”
“I heard her leave the house last night. She must have gone somewhere.”
“Probably for a walk.”
“Alone? A girl like Kitty? Don’t make me laugh.”
Each day he felt that he was coming closer to something terrible. He was safe enough in the woods with Carole, but he certainly wasn’t safe when he was with Kitty. He saw very little of Joan, only in the morning or at supper. He couldn’t be sure of what she might do. If she was carrying his baby, and if she loved him as she said she did, she was going to fight to keep him. He couldn’t blame her for that. It was bad enough for her to be stuck for paying for her divorce by herself, but it would even be worse if she had to bring a kid up alone. It would be just as wrong to marry her if he didn’t love her, and he told himself that he couldn’t be in love with Joan and Kitty at the same time. And it was Kitty he loved. The short hours he spent with her were the best hours of the day or night, and whenever he saw Jennings he seemed to hate the man more and more. Every afternoon Jennings made Kitty go down and chase game for him, as though she were a dog, and those crazy kids were always there shooting at anything they saw. Kitty kept hoping and praying that one of the kids would put a bullet through her husband’s head. Jennings gave a cash prize to the kid who shot the most birds or animals, and in the afternoon, as far away as Goose Lake, it sounded like Fourth of July down in the woods.