He got out, grumbling to himself. She closed and locked the gate, switching about with a bright, excited insouciance, as though her pants were crawling with seventeen thousand queen ants.
“Now we’ll just go upstairs and wait,” she said, moving as though all the ants were biting her lightly.
The upstairs was one room. There were sets of windows at both back and front, the panes covered with oiled brown paper. In the center, on one side, was a coal-burning, pot-bellied stove. The nearest corner was filled by a double bed with a chipped, white-enameled iron frame. The opposite corner was curtained off for a clothes closet. On the other side of the stove was a chest of drawers with a cracked marble top, on which sat a two-burner gas plate. A square table with dirty dishes occupied the center of the floor. Before the inside windows was a third table with a cracked white porcelain washbowl and pitcher. Water was supplied by a hose coming from a single tap at the level of the baseboards. The toilet was outside, behind the carriage house. The only covering for the bare wooden floor was a variety of men’s garments.
In addition to a single drop light in the center of the room, hanging from one of the uncovered beams were several tiny wall lamps from the ten-cent stores.
Sassafras turned on the bright drop light and flung her coat across the unmade bed. She was wearing a red knitted dress to match her cap, and black lace stockings.
It was so cold in the room their breath made vapor.
“I’m going to make a fire,” she said. “You just set down and make yourself comfortable.”
He gave her an evil and suspicious look, but she didn’t notice it.
She bent over and looked into the potbellied stove, her duck-shaped bottom tightening the seat of her dress.
He put his coonskin cap on the table beside a dirty plate and placed the rusty pistol on top of it.
“There’s a trap already laid,” she said, and got a box of kitchen matches from the chest of drawers.
“You don’t know where he keeps his money, too, do you?” he asked.
She lit the fire and opened the draft, then turned around and looked at him. “What’re you grumbling about to yourself?”
“You’re acting more at home here than a hen in a nest,” he said. “You’re sure your business with this man ain’t what I’m thinking?”
She took off her cap and shook loose her short, straightened hair.
“Oh, don’t be so jealous,” she said. “You’re frowning up enough to scare out the fire.”
“I ain’t jealous,” he denied. “I’m just thinking.”
She began clearing the dirty dishes from the table and stacking them beside the gas hot plate.
“You sailors is all just alike,” she said. “If you had your way you’d handcuff a girl’s legs together and take the key to sea.”
“You ain’t just saying it,” he admitted, growing more and more angry as he watched her domestic activity.
The fire began roaring up the chimney, and she half-closed the damper. Then she turned and looked at him; her sloe eyes glittered like brilliants.
“Take off those Mother Hubbard clothes so I can kiss you,” she said, shaking the kinks out of her muscles.
“This place sure is making you kissified,” he complained.
“What’s wrong with that?” she said. “You can’t expect a cow to chew her cud when she got a field full of grass.”
He glared at her. “If you make eyes at this man, there’s going to be asses whipped,” he said threateningly.
She moved into him and snatched off the turban with the third eye.
“That thing is galling your brains,” she said.
“It ain’t my brains,” he denied.
“Don’t I know it,” she said, groping at him.
“Let me get off these womanish things,” he said, and began pulling the robe up over his head. “I feels like a rooster trying to lay an egg.”
“You is sure got chickens on your mind,” she said, tickling him in the stomach while the robe covered his face.
He jumped back, laughing like a big tickled goon, hit his calves against the edge of the bed and fell sprawling across it on his back.
She jumped on top of him and tried to smother him with the folds of colored cloth. He tore open a hole for his head to come through, and she jumped backward to her feet and bent double laughing.
He got his feet on the floor and his legs underneath him, and pushed from the bed like a young bull starting a charge. His lips were stretched, his tongue lolled from one corner; he looked as though he might be panting, but his breath was held. The frown still knotted his forehead, but his gray eyes were lit, the right one focused on her and the left one ranging off in the direction of the stove. His head peered from the folds of colored cloth hanging across his leather jacket and down his back.
He lunged for her.
She let his hands touch her, then twisted out of his grip, spinning on her toes, and went half across the room.
He put his big shoulders low, long arms outstretched like a grappling wrestler, and charged toward her. She got the table in between them. She was panting with laughter.
“Butterfingers,” she taunted, kicking off her shoes.
“I’ll get you,” he panted.
He knocked over a chair trying to circle the table, but she kept just beyond his reach. Then, with a quick unexpected motion, he gripped the table by the edge, lifted it inches from the floor and threw it to one side.
Now nothing stood between them.
She shrieked and turned, but he got hold of her waist from behind and rode her face down across the bed. She was lithe, quick and strong, and she twisted from beneath him, coming face up at the foot of the bed. He jumped like a big cat and straddled her, gripping her upper arms with both hands.
She went limp for a moment and looked up at him from burning black challenging eyes. An effluvium of hot- bodied woman and dime-store perfume came up from her in a blast. It filled his mouth with tongue floating in a hot spring of saliva. Her lips were swollen, and her throat was corded. He could feel the hardness of her nipples through his leather jacket and woolen shirt.
“Take it and you can have it,” she said.
Abruptly his mind began to work. His body went lax, his grip relaxed and his frown deepened.
“All this trouble I’m in and that’s all you can think of,” he said.
“If this won’t cure your troubles nothing will,” she murmured.
“We ain’t got much time,” he complained.
“If you’re scared, go home!” she hissed, and balled herself up to jump from the bed.
He went taut again before she got away and flattened her shoulders back.
“I’m going to cool you off,” he said.
She put her knees against his chest and pushed. He let go her arms and grabbed her stockinged legs just above the knees and began to open them. Her legs were strong enough to break a young man’s back, and she put all of her strength into keeping them closed. But he hunched his overgrown muscles and began bearing down. They locked in a test of strength. Their breath came in gasps.
Slowly her legs began to open. They stared into one another’s eyes. The stove had begun to smoke, and their eyes smarted.
Suddenly she gave way. Her legs went wide so quickly he fell on top of her. He clutched at flimsy cloth, and there was a tearing sound. He flung something from his hand. Buttons sailed in all directions, like corn popping.
“Now!” she screamed.
