Doobie had seen Sheriff Jekyll looking at her that way once or twice, that way men looked at women. It was part of being a woman, she supposed. Men just would look at you, that way.
Susanna Slack, her best friend, told her it was merely the way of the world. Men looked at Susanna that way too, although she was an older woman. Doobie hoped that Sheriff Jekyll and the men of Laredo in general might be a little more respectful in their manner of looking, once it became obvious that she was enceinte; they should not be casting disrespectful looks at a woman who was soon to have a baby.
When Doobie realized that Bob Jekyll was looking at her that way more intently than usual, and was even moving toward her, she tried to dart back out the door of the jail to safety, but she was a step too slow. Bob Jekyll caught her arm and started dragging her toward a cell with a cot in it. The jail was completely empty, too; there was not a single prisoner, not a soul for Doobie to cry out to.
'You keep coming here--now, shut up!' Bob Jekyll said, as he dragged Doobie toward the cell. When Doobie opened her mouth to scream, Bob Jekyll punched her so hard it stunned her. He had been standing right by the door, looking at her with that look, when she stepped inside the jailhouse, full of hope that there might be some news of Ted.
Doobie didn't want to be punched again.
She was afraid Bob Jekyll might hit her in the stomach and injure her baby. She was inside the cell, pinned to the cot, before she started fighting again. She had never hoped to see any man on earth except her husband with his pants pulled down, but Sheriff Jekyll had his pants down, and he was pulling at her drawers. Doobie tried to claw him, but when she did, he punched her so hard again that she lost consciousness for a minute. When her head cleared a little, Sheriff Jekyll was there, doing what only her husband had the right to do.
Doobie gave up then. A sorrow came to her as deep as the bone, for everything was lost now; even her baby was lost. Sheriff Bob Jekyll had destroyed her virtue, and her future, too. It wouldn't even matter if Ted came back now, for he would never forgive her.
Perhaps he would not even believe her when she said she only went to the jail hoping for news of him.
Even if he did come back, their happiness was lost.
Doobie became so hopeless that the sheriff grew disgusted with her. As soon as he had pleased himself, he told her to get out of his jail and stay out. He went over to his desk and didn't look at Doobie again.
He hadn't torn her dress; only her drawers had been ripped. Doobie didn't know what his punches had done to her face, but at least she could walk the few blocks home dressed respectably. One or two people even spoke to her, as she hurried up the street. Doobie managed a good morning to them, though it wasn't a good morning. What it had turned out to be, in the course of a few minutes, was the last morning of her life.
Doobie loved Ted Plunkert with all her heart and would never have done anything to bring dishonor to him. The knowledge that she mustn't let dishonor stain their marriage helped her keep a firm resolve.
She wanted to die as quickly as possible, before she weakened. She thought about writing Ted a note, but dismissed that notion at once. She would never be able to explain; it would be better to let Ted think she had just gone crazy from loneliness, from missing him.
She wasn't going to burden her husband with the awful truth.
Doobie couldn't help but cry. Now she knew how swiftly all the good things of life could be lost. Her marriage was lost, and her baby; compared to those griefs, the loss of her own physical life seemed minor. She only wanted to hurry with dying. She didn't want someone to come and interrupt her before she could do what she had to do. She ran to her kitchen and quickly dug out the rat poison.
Laredo was overrun with giant brown pack rats that lived under houses and also under the giant piles of prickly pear. Sometimes the Mexicans stuffed the ratholes and set the piles of prickly pear afire. Once the fire burned down, they dug out the rats and ate them.
Doobie thought that was a horrible practice. She hated the rats, and considered that one of her own duties as a housewife was to keep their little house free of them. She spread the rat poison carefully around all the places a rat might get in. Once in a while, a rat would die under the house, and she and Ted would smell it, but mainly, the rats ran off to the river to die.
Doobie felt very calm about what she had to do, until she started trying to eat the rat poison.
She got a big spoon and tried to eat it straight down, like the oatmeal she sometimes made Ted in the mornings. But rat poison wouldn't go down like oatmeal, and it only made her gag.
When it got moist, it stuck to her teeth and to the roof of her mouth, and became very hard to swallow.
Doobie stopped being calm and became frantic.
What if she failed to die and Ted had to come home to a wife who was no longer worthy, a wife who had carelessly let her virtue be lost to the lust of Sheriff Bob Jekyll? Ted Plunkert would never get over such a thing.
Doobie knew she mustn't let him know. It would be a terrible failure if she let Ted find out the truth. She thought about hanging herself, but that was chancy, since she had never been very good at tying knots. If she tried to hang herself, somebody might find her while she was still alive.
Ted had explained to her that water helped the rat poison work. When the rats ate the poison, it made them thirsty and they ran off to the river to drink. Then the water made the poison work, and the rats died.
The minute she remembered what Ted had told her, Doobie took the big can of rat poison and a cup and went out her back door. The river was only two streets away. She walked toward it swiftly, hoping no one would see her or speak to her. She made it to the river unobserved, and began to stuff poison in her mouth and then drink water. Then, it occurred to her that she could mix the poison with water. She began to scoop water into the cup and mix it with poison. After that, the whole business went more quickly. It was working, too --Doobie began to feel a pain inside, down in her belly. It was as if something with sharp claws was pulling on her guts. She cried at the thought that her baby might be feeling the clawing too. But she kept scooping poison into the cup and filling it with water. She drank and scooped poison and drank. It was her way of doing right by Ted. The worse the clawing hurt, the more sure Doobie was that she would triumph. Ted would be sad when he found out that she was dead, but he wouldn't have to try to live down the terrible thing that had happened. He would get over her death, in time, but neither of them would ever be able to put right what had happened in the jail.
Doobie's hand got shaky. She began to spill the poison when she tried to scoop it into her cup. Some of it spilled into the river. It was yellow, and it flowed away with the brown water.
