out. Boyd was always talking about him, how Bowman had the goods and would go on to play college ball and become a pro. I was never that sure.'
Art said, 'You remember the girl he married, Ava?'
Raylan's tone came alive as he said, 'Ava, yeah, she lived down the street from us.' He remembered her eyes. 'She's married to Bowman?'
'Was,' Art said. 'She ended the union the other day with a thirty-ought-six, plugged him through the heart.'
It stopped Raylan. He remembered a cute little darkhaired girl about sixteen and how she tried to act older, flirting, working her brown eyes on him. He remembered her sassy cheerleader moves on the field Friday nights, the girls in blue and gold doing their routines, and his eyes would be on Ava the whole time. Too young or he would've gone after her.
He said to Art, 'You talk to her?'
'She admits shooting him. Ava said she got tired of him getting drunk and beating her up. She was arraigned this morning. Her lawyer had her plead not guilty to first and second degree and she was released on her own recognizance. Unusual, but the prosecutor, knowing Bowman, would just as soon not bring her up. They'll work out a plea deal.'
'Where is she now?'
'Went home. I told her, you know Boyd's gonna come looking for you. She said it's none of our business. I told her it is if he shoots you. You want to talk to her?'
'I wouldn't mind,' Raylan said.
V.
She'd be fixing her face to go to work at Betty's Hair Salon, and Bowman would say, 'Who you think you are, Ava Gardner? You don't look nothing like her.'
Ava had quit trying to get it through his head no one ever said she did. The day she was born her daddy named her Ava on account of Ava Gardner saying she was a country girl at heart with a country girl's values. He had read it somewhere and believed it and would remind her as she was growing up, 'See, even a good-looking woman don't have to put on airs.'
She married Bowman a year out of high school because he was cute, because he was sure of himself and told her he'd never work in a goddamn coal mine. He'd wear the blue and white of the University of Kentucky and after that get drafted by a pro team; he wouldn't mind the Cowboys. But colleges either wouldn't accept his grades or didn't think he was good enough. He blamed her for their getting married and taking his mind off staying in shape so he could try out at some school as a walk-on. She said, 'Honey, if your grade-point average sucks . . .' Uh-unh, that had nothing to do with it, it was her fault. Everything was. It was her fault he had to dig coal. Her own fault he hit her. If she didn't nag at him he wouldn't have to. Unless he slapped her for the way she was looking at him. He'd start drinking Jim Beam and Diet Coke - ate like a hog and drank diet soda - and she'd see it coming as his disposition turned from stupid to ugly and pretty soon he'd be slapping her, hard. She ran way to Corbin and got a job at the Holiday Inn waiting tables. Bowman found her and brought her back saying he missed her and would try to tolerate her acting up. It was her fault she miscarried after he'd beat her with his belt. Her fault he didn't have a son he could take hunting with him and his creepy brother. She told Bowman there were times he wasn't home Boyd would stop by wanting a drink, and if she gave him one he'd start getting funny, 'your own brother.' Bowman whipped her for telling him, kept after her with his belt till she fell and hit her head on the stove.
This was the other night. She got up from the floor knowing he would never hit her again.
The next day, Saturday, he walked in smelling of beer and gunfire, like nothing had happened the night before. She had his supper on the table, ham and yams, cream-style corn and leftover okra fixed with tomatoes, because she wanted him sitting down. Once he'd poured his Jim Beam and Diet Coke and took his place at the table, Ava went in the kitchen closet and came out with Bowman's Winchester. He looked up and said with his mouth full of sweet potato what sounded like 'The hell you doing with that?'
Ava said, 'I'm gonna shoot you, you dummy,' and she did, blew him out of the chair.
When the prosecutor asked if she had loaded the rifle before firing it, she paused no more than a second before telling him Bowman always kept it loaded.
Raylan was told Bowman himself couldn't find his house when he was drunk. Go on up along the Clover Fork, or take the Gas Road out to the diversion tunnels and turn right down to a road bears east where a sign says JESUS SAVES, and it ain't far; start looking for a red Dodge pickup in the yard.
It was one-story with aluminum awnings set high among pines. Raylan got out of the Lincoln Town Car - one Art had taken off some convicted felon and given to Raylan to use - and crossed the yard past the Dodge pickup to the front door.
It opened and he was looking at a woman in a soiled T-shirt worn over an old housedress that hung on her, her dark hair a mess. Ava was forty now, but he knew those eyes staring at him and she knew him, saying, 'Oh my God - Raylan,' in kind of a prayerful tone.
He stepped into a room with bare walls, worn carpeting, a sofa. 'You remember me, huh?'
Ava pushed the door closed. She said, 'I never forgot you,' and went into his arms as he offered them, a girl he used to like now a woman who'd shot and killed her husband and wanted to be held. He could tell, he could feel her hands holding on to him. She raised her face to say, 'I can't believe you're here.' He kissed her on the cheek. She kept staring at him with those eyes and he kissed her on the mouth. Now they kept looking at each other until Raylan took off his hat and sailed it over to the sofa. He saw her eyes close, her hands slipping around his neck, and this time it became a serious kiss, their mouths finding the right fit and holding till finally they had to breathe. Now he didn't know what to say. He didn't know why he kissed her other than he wanted to. He could remember wanting to even when she was a teen.
'I had a crush on you,' Ava said, 'from the time I was twelve years old. I knew you liked me, but you didn't want to show it.'
'You were too young.'
'I was sixteen when you left. I heard you got married. Are you still?'
Raylan shook his head. 'Turned out to be a mistake.'
'You want to talk about mistakes . . . I told Bowman I wanted a divorce? He goes, 'You file, you'll never be seen again.' Said I'd disappear from the face of the earth.'
'I hear he used to beat you up.'
'That last time - I've still got a knot where I fell and hit my head on the stove. You want to feel it?' She was touching her scalp, fingers probing into her wild-looking hair, and her expression changed. She said, 'Oh my God, don't look at me,' pulling the T-shirt over her head, the hem of the housedress rising to show her legs hurrying away from him. 'Close your eyes, I don't want you to see me like this.' But then she stopped before going in the bedroom and looked back at him.
'Raylan, the minute you walked in I knew everything would be all right.'
The bedroom door closed and he wanted to go knock on it before she started assuming too much. Show her he was a federal marshal and tell her why he was here. But then had to ask himself, Why are you? Art had said she didn't want protection. He'd offer it anyway. No, he was here to get a lead on Boyd. Kissing her had confused his purpose there for a minute.
Raylan walked over to the table where they said Bowman was sitting. He looked in the kitchen at a pile of dishes in the sink - Ava letting her housework go, letting herself go, not knowing what was to become of her. But she had all of a sudden pulled herself together, ashamed of the way she looked, and it sounded like she was expecting him to see her through this. And if she was, what was he supposed to do? For one thing they'd better quit kissing.
It wasn't a minute later the front door banged open and a guy wearing alligator teeth walked in the house.
