"Never mind," she yelled back. "I've got enough to do me."
She shifted gears, preparing to drive away, and Luke tried once more. "Maybe late this evening I can give you a call, and we can meet then."
"Tim will be home. I said I'll handle it myself."
She fixed him with an icy scowl before squealing tires as she tore away from the gas station. Had it been anybody else, he would have jumped in his car and hit the blue light, pulled them over, and written a ticket for reckless driving. But this was Sara, and something had her really agitated, so he let her go.
Leonard walked over to grumble about impatient women, but Luke wasn't listening. He was too engrossed in wondering what had Sara so riled up. He had never seen her like that. However, by the time he signed the charge slip for the gas and drove away, she had slipped from his mind, pushed away by thoughts of Emma Jean.
* * *
"This is what heaven must be like." Emma Jean twined a weeping willow frond about her fingers as she stood marveling at the clear, cool waters of the creek and the velvety green banks.
Luke laughed and pointed to a limb hanging out over the stream. "I doubt heaven will have any rotten ropes."
She followed his gaze. "What on earth is that? Was somebody hanged here?"
"No. It's a swing rope. We used to come here in the summer when we were kids, and we'd grab hold of it and back off for a running start and then leap from the bank to swing right about to there." He pointed to a wide spot in the creek. "And then we'd let go. But I guess kids nowadays spend all their time watching television instead of playing outside."
He had taken off his shirt. She threw herself against him, wrapping her arms about him as she pressed her cheek against his chest. "I can't think of anything in the whole world I'd rather do than play outside with you."
He cupped her chin and lowered his face to hers. "I feel the same way, honey. I've never had so much fun as I do when I'm with you."
He kissed her, leaving them both shaken when he finally let her go to quickly spread the blanket beneath the weeping willow.
"Are you sure nobody ever comes along here?" she asked nervously as she began to unbutton her blouse. She folded it carefully, along with her shorts, so she wouldn't have to explain wrinkles or grass stains.
"There's nothing to worry about," he assured, peeling out of his khaki uniform trousers and laying them neatly beside his shirt. "There used to be a little church nearby, but it burned back in the fifties. I heard the county eventually took the land over when the taxes weren't paid, so here it sits. It's so far out nobody wants it."
"I'd want it. I'd want a house right up there on that little knoll. And I wouldn't care how far out it is because, if you and me were living here, I'd never want to go anywhere, and..." She fell silent, suddenly embarrassed. They never talked about being together that way, and here she had made it sound like she was living for the day when he'd divorce Alma and marry her. Oh, Lord, why couldn't she keep her mouth shut?
Luke pulled her into his arms once more. "I'd like that, sweetheart. I really would."
They collapsed to the ground in a frenzy of heat.
Afterwards, Luke rolled to his side. Propping on an elbow as he tenderly gazed down at her, he toyed with one of her nipples, liking the feel of it rolling between his thumb and fingers. "Plump like a strawberry. I envy the baby that nurses on you, Emma Jean."
"Well, I don't reckon there'll ever be one. Not as long as I'm married to Rudy if I can help it." She stared up into the swaying fronds, the tender moment spoiled by thoughts of her wretched marriage.
Not about to let a shadow fall over their day, Luke scrambled to his feet, pulling her up with him. "How about a swim?"
She resisted. "My hair will get wet, and it might not dry by the time I get home, thick as it is, and Rudy will notice and start asking questions."
"Tell him you washed it."
"On a Wednesday? He'd never believe that. He knows I only shampoo on Saturdays. That's when we heat water on the stove for our baths."
"Then we'll just go in up to our necks."
And so they did. Afterwards, they feasted on the picnic Luke had brought, then walked along the creek bank in search of four-leaf clovers. They held hands and talked, eventually broaching the part of their lives that caused them the most grief, their marriages.
"Wasn't there ever a time when you thought you were in love with Alma?" Emma Jean asked as they sat on rocks, their feet dangling in the water. She had put her bra and panties back on, and Luke was wearing his shorts.
He scoffed at the question. "No, there wasn't. Like I said, it was a quickie in the back seat that made a baby, and I had to do right by her, at least, that's what my momma made me believe."
"You loved her a lot, didn't you, your momma?"
"Yes, I did, because she was the only person I ever felt loved me. She was all I had."
"But what about your little girl? Aren't you close to her?"
"Alma's done a good job of making her think all our problems are my fault. I gave up on her long ago."
Emma Jean's heart went out to him, and, as she placed her hand on his knee in a gesture of comfort, longed to tell him he was wrong, that his mother wasn't the only person who had ever loved him. But she said nothing, keeping her secret. They had agreed only to have fun together, not to get serious, which could lead to complications. She feared if he realized she had fallen for him, he would stop seeing her, and she could not bear the thoughts of that. He was the only reason she had to live in an otherwise cruel and lonely world.
Luke looked at his watch. It was nearly three o'clock, and Emma Jean cried, "Oh, God, Luke, I'll never make it home before Rudy. I've got to walk home from where you drop me off, and then wash off, and..."
"And you'll make it." He grabbed her arm and steered her along the creek to where he'd left the car. She laid down in the seat, her head in his lap so she would not be seen by anyone they passed as he drove as fast as he dared on the curving roads. Reaching her driveway and making sure Rudy's truck wasn't there, he let her out. No time for a kiss, just a hurried promise to be in touch when he could. Emma Jean scrambled from the car and ran all the way to the house.
The stove clock read 3:10, which meant she had about ten minutes to get herself looking normal and start supper. Rudy liked to eat early when the days were warm and getting longer. It gave him more time afterwards to spend at the grill with his drinking buddies. With cold water from the sink, she quickly soaped and rinsed and had just pulled on clean shorts and a top when Rudy drove his truck into the yard. A few seconds later, he walked in, set his metal lunch box on the table with a thud, glanced around, then snarled, "You ain't started my supper yet, woman? I shoulda known you wouldn't do nothin' on your day off 'cept sit on your ass."
"I'm sorry, Rudy." Frantically, she looked in the refrigerator for something to fix. She had been looking forward to seeing Luke so much she'd forgotten all about grocery shopping.
"You gonna stand there with the refrigerator door open and let all the cold air out? Don't you know that runs up the light bill? But you don't care about that, do you?" He gave her a hard slap on her backsides. "You don't pay the damn light bill, so why should you give a shit?"
"I... I help with the bills," she could not resist reminding. "I give you my pay every week, Rudy."
"And anything else I want." He hit her bottom again, then squeezed. "Gettin' a little fat, ain't you? But in the wrong place. I want to see some fat here." He moved his hand to her flat stomach. "Only you ain't gettin' knocked up, and you know why?"
He spun her around to face him, and she smelled his sour breath and knew he'd had a beer on the way home.
"Cause I don't never get any, that's why."
Ordinarily, Emma Jean would not dare protest, but in the afterglow of being with Luke, the thought of doing it with Rudy just then swept her with revulsion.
Pushing him away, she said, "I need to go to the store. I'll get some pork chops, and..."
"Rudy, don't..."
"Rudy, don't..."he mimicked, grabbing a handful of her hair and twisting to make her scream.
Maneuvering her to the table, he turned her around and shoved her, face forward, across it. "You don't never tell me don't do nothin', you hear me, bitch? You're my wife, and I take what I want, when I want, and I reckon I want it now..."
As he was talking, he had unzipped his jeans and yanked down her shorts and panties. She bit her lip to keep from screaming again because it only made him all the rougher when she did. She tasted blood and closed her eyes and ground her teeth together and prayed it would soon be over.
When he was done, he yanked her up and gave her a shove. "Now you fix my supper and then get ready for prayer meetin'. Me and Ma have decided it's time you got saved. She says then you'll get pregnant."
He took a beer from the refrigerator, and Emma Jean watched, trembling, till he'd drunk nearly half of it in one long gulp before she dared to say, "I don't like that church, Rudy. They do crazy things, talking in tongue and rolling around on the floor, and..."
"Oh, shut up. They do what they believe in. Besides, it don't look good for me to have a wife that ain't saved. All women get saved. Ma says God gives 'em babies then."
"You... you don't really believe that, do you?" she asked cautiously.
"No, but if it makes Ma happy, I'm not gonna say different. You just make sure when the preacher gives the altar call tonight you march your ass up there and get born again, understand? 'Cause if you don't, I'm gonna give you a beatin' you'll never forget."
"Rudy..."
He had started from the room but spun about, one hand clenched in a fist of warning. "You gonna talk back to me, woman?"
She shook her head wildly from side to side. "No. No. If that's what you want, Rudy, I'll do it for you. It's just that..."
"Just what?"
She swallowed hard. "When you get born again in that church, they make you handle the snakes."
"So? If you haven't done nothin' wrong, you got nothin' to worry about. The snakes won't bite." He took a step forward and she instantly cowered. "But if you do something, like run around on me, it won't matter 'cause I'll kill you myself. You hear me?"
She heard, all right, and when he left the kitchen, she closed her eyes and tried to fill herself with the solace of remembering how Luke had held her and kissed her. He had to care something about her to be so tender, and if he did, then he'd find a way to save her from the snakes. She had to think that way... or go crazy worrying.
Chapter 20
November, 1969
Alma was bored stiff. Shifting in her chair in hopes of finding a more comfortable position, she wished she were anywhere but the hospital.
Luke had survived the ambulance ride to Birmingham, as well as the delicate surgery to remove the bullet from his brain. But he had been in a coma ever since, and the doctors had no idea when, or if, he'd come out of it. So all anybody could do was wait and see what happened.
Well, she wouldn't have to be keeping such a vigil, Alma angrily thought, if not for Sara. No matter how many times Alma had cussed her out and told her to stay away, Sara kept trying to sneak in to see Luke. The hussy just wouldn't give up.
The door opened, and Alma frowned as a nurse came in carrying a pan of water and the fixings for Luke's bath. "Don't ask me to give it to him," Alma was quick to say. "Like I told all them other nurses, I'm not washing him."
The nurse regarded her coldly. "They told me you refused, but it seems to me since he's your husband, you'd rather bathe him than have a stranger do it. And we are terribly busy today."
Alma returned her glare, not about to be put down by her or anybody else. "I don't care. You're getting paid to bathe him. I'm not. So you do it. I'm gonna go have me some lunch."
The nurse stared after her, then shifted her gaze to Luke in pity. If that was all he had to wake up to, she thought, then maybe he'd be better off if he just kept on sleeping.
Chapter 21
Spring, 1969
Billy Saulston's country store was like hundreds of others that dotted the rural back roads of the south in the sixties. A square wood building, the covered porch was a gathering place for farmers to wile away summer nights complaining about crops or sharing idle talk, till winter drove them inside to the warmth of the pot-bellied stove.
Out back on Friday nights someone usually cooked a stew in a big black cauldron over an open fire—turtle, squirrel, but mostly fish, with potatoes, onions, eggs, and catsup.
Nearby, at the edge of the corn field bordering the store, an outhouse leaned precariously to one side. Inside the store, the floor was rarely swept, red clay thickly imbedded between the worn planks. Wood shelves, buckling from the weight of dusty cans, lined the walls from floor to ceiling. No one ever bought real groceries, but Billy kept a small selection anyway, just in case. His primary stock was in cigarettes, chewing tobacco, snuff, sodas, candy bars, and peanut butter crackers called "Nabs" because a company called Nabisco made them. Billy also sold ice cream bars, sandwich bread, hoop cheese, penny cookies, pickled eggs and pickled pig's feet, along with small cans of pork and beans, sardines, and Vienna sausage.
Normally, during the farming months, the store was deserted during the day, except for people rushing in to buy sodas and sacks of candy and Nabs for the field hands' mid-morning break. It could get crowded quickly, as Sara discovered when she drove up in Dewey's truck to fetch treats for his workers. She had to park in the rear and went in the back door.
Standing last in line, she scanned her shopping list: twelve RC colas, seven Tabs, three root beers, a dozen Moon Pies, six Nabs, three Baby Ruths, and a Powerhouse candy bar. She only hoped Billy didn't sell out of root beer before it was her turn. The boys who wanted it could get real crabby, and she was running late. When she'd gone to get in the truck, Dewey just happened to be there, and with nobody else around to see, they'd tarried for a little kissy-kissy, touchy-feely, and she felt a delicious shiver in her tummy to think about it.
That was what was so wonderful about her and Dewey, she mused dreamily as she waited in line. They didn't have to go to bed together to be happy. All she really needed was a kiss now and then and a hug. And, oh Lord, how she loved his big, smothering bear hugs. After all, he was nearly sixty-two years old and liked to tease that he wanted sex as much as he always did, just not as much of it. So, lots of times they were content to slip off and be together without it. A warm, hand-holding kind of love. That was how she'd tried to describe what they had to Luke.
She was suddenly needled to think how strange Luke was acting lately, like he was in a world of his own. Maybe he and Alma were getting along worse than usual, but then he was always saying it just couldn't get any worse. Sara had started wondering if there might be another woman.
Besides, she was daring to hope maybe she wouldn't need his help, after all. It had been a while since Burch Cleghorn's disgusting visit, and he hadn't bothered her since. Oh, there'd been a few times when she answered the phone to hear heavy breathing and nobody would say anything. She thought it was him, but if that was all he intended to do, she could put up with that.
In those first, nerve-wracking days afterwards, she'd been tempted to tell Dewey but thought better of it and now she was glad. He'd have been so mad there was no telling what he might have done. He hadn't been feeling real good lately, either, complaining about his stomach and gobbling Turns like they were Lifesavers. If she were his wife, she knew she would get him to the doctor one way or the other, but Aunt Carrie stayed so busy around the farm and with her church work that she paid him no mind.
"What'll it be today, Sara?" Billy asked when it was finally her turn.
She handed him her order. "About the same as always."
He got everything together, except for the root beer. "Sold out five minutes ago. Sorry. Can't seem
to keep enough on hand. I substituted RCs. Hope that's okay."
"Well, they won't like it," she said as she opened her own bottle of pop to sip on the way back. Sweat was running down her face, and it felt like every stitch she had on was wet.
There were customers waiting, and Billy said, "If you can wait a minute, I'll carry all that out for you."
"It's okay. I can make a couple of trips."
"Oh, no need for that," a voice spoke from behind. "I'll carry the sodas. You take the candy and other stuff."
Sara whirled about to stare in horror.
Billy not seeing her reaction, said, "That's real nice of you, Mr. Cleghorn," then turned to the next person in line.
Not about to make a scene for everyone to wonder about, Sara picked up the sacks, the paper rattling noisily because her hand was shaking so. "Thank you," she managed to murmur, wishing she had been able to park in front of the store, where there were people coming and going. Nobody was out back except her.
Hurrying, she opened the door to the truck's cab and slid inside, tossing the bags on the seat. "Just put it in the back." She stuck the key in the ignition, turned it, and the motor sprang to life.
Burch smirked at her through the open window. "Well, now, Sara, honey," he drawled. "I'm real glad to see you. Didn't dream I would when I stopped by for a cold soda. But now that we've met up, how about you taking these drinks where they need to go and then meeting me someplace?"
"Not a chance." She gunned the motor. "Now please put them in the back. I'm in a hurry."
His smirk did not waver. "So am I, to get in your britches."
"When hell freezes, damn you. Now load those drinks before I yell for Billy."
The smirk disappeared, and his lids lowered to hood his eyes in malice. "You're going to be sorry, you little tramp." He slammed the bottles down.
She backed out with a fury, tires spinning as she switched gears to send the truck hurtling down the road toward Dewey's farm. It wasn't going to get any better, and she was a fool to think it might. Burch was going to keep after her, and sooner or later something bad would happen. She had to have Luke's help to make him stop.
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