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'That goddam Tom, for example! The son-of-a-bitch just wouldn't leave me alone until I gave in to him, and then he goes out and screws everything that can't outrun him!'

'Tsk, tsk,' I said. 'I just can't understand fellas like that.'

Rose squeezed me and kissed me on the ear. She gave me a little nibble on the ear, and whispered to me. Talking about what-all she was going to do to me when we got to her house.

'Myra wants you to stay a while, and make sure I'm all right. Isn't that nice, mm? We can take our time, just you and me together for hours and hours. And, honey, we won't waste a minute of it!'

'Oh, boy,' I said.

'It'll be like it never was before, darling!' She shivered against me. 'Oh, honey, I'm going to be something special for you tonight!'

'Goll-ee,' I said. 'Goody, gosh-dang.'

She went on whispering and shivering against me, saying that this was one night I'd never forget. I said I bet I wouldn't neither, and I meant every word of it. Because the way I was feeling, as hollow as a tree bark whistle and like my back was broken in six places, there wasn't going to be no party when we got to Rose's house. Which meant that she'd know she'd been right about Amy. Which also meant that she'd probably take that gun she'd got today and shoot me right through the offendin' part. And with a memento like that, I sure wouldn't forget the night.

I tried to think of some way of stalling her. I looked up at the sky, which was clouding over again for a rain, and I saw a streak or two of lightning, and I thought, well, maybe a bolt would strike me, coldcocking me for the night, so that Rose would excuse me. Then I thought, well, maybe the horse would run away and throw me into a bob-wire fence, and Rose would have to let me off then, too. Or maybe a water moccasin would climb up in the buggy and fang me. Or-

But nothing like that happened. A fella never gets lucky that way when he really needs to.

We reached the farm. I drove on into the barn, wondering how much it would handicap a fella having a hole where! was going to have one. It seemed to me it would mess him up pretty bad in the things he needed to do most, and I climbed down from the buggy, feeling mighty glum.

I helped Rose down, giving her a smack on the bottom by way of habit. Then, I bent down behind the splashboard to unhitch the singletree, and the horse was fidgeting and switching his tail and I was saying, 'Sooo, boy, soo, now.' And then I thought of an idea.

I gave the horse a goose and made him jump. I drove my shoulder against the splashboard, making a heck of a racket like the horse had kicked it. Then I jumped out in the clear again, groaning and clutching myself.

Rose came running up, clinging to me by one arm as I staggered around doubled over. 'Oh, honey! Darling! Did that goddam nag kick you?'

'Right in the you-know-what,' I groaned. 'I never had nothin' hurt so bad in my life.'

'Goddam him to hell, anyway! I'll get a pitchfork and gut the brindle bastard!'

'Naw, don't do nothin' like that,' I said. 'The horse didn't go to do it. Just help me get him hitched up again, so's I can get home.'

'Home? You're not going anywhere in your condition,' she said. 'I'm taking you in the house, and don't you argue about it.'

I said, but, looky, now, it wasn't necessary to go to all that trouble. 'I'll just go home and lay down with some cold towels on it, and-'

'You'll lie down here, and we'll see about the towels after I see what the damage is. It might be you need something else.'

'But, looky, looky here, now, honey,' I said. 'It's kind of private, a thing like that. It ain't hardly something a woman should deal with.'

'Since when?' Rose said. 'Now, come on and stop arguing with me. Just lean on me and we'll go real slow.'

I did what she said. There just wasn't anything else I could do.

We got to the house. She helped me back into the bedroom, made me lay down on the bed and started taking off my clothes. I told her she didn't need to take them all off, because the pain was just in the part that my pants covered. She said it wasn't any trouble at all, and I could relax better if I was all undressed instead of partways, and to stop butting into her business.

I said that it was my business that got hurt, and she said, well, my business was her business, and right now she was running the store.

She leaned down over the place where I was hurt, or supposed to be hurt, turning the lamp this way and that so that she could make a proper inspection.

'Hmmm,' she said. 'I don't see any bruises, honey. No breaks in the skin.'

I said, well, it sure hurt, that's all I knew. 'Of course a fella don't have to get hit very hard in that area to make him hurt to beat heck.'

She said, 'Let's see, now, you tell me here it hurts. Does it hurt there, or here, or here…'

She was awful gentle, so gentle that it wouldn't have hurt me in any of the places even if I had been hurt. I told her that maybe she'd better be a little more firm about it so I could make sure of where the pain was. So she pushed and pressed a little harder, asking if it hurt there or here and so on. And I let out an 'Ooh' or an 'Aah' now and then. But what I was feeling wasn't pain.

It didn't matter any more about Amy; me being with her that night, I mean. I was as ready and rarin' as I'd ever been, and, of course, Rose wasn't long in noticing the fact.

'Hey, now!' she said. 'Just what's going on here, mister?'

'What does it look like?' I said.

'It looks to me like a big business recovery.'

'Well, god-dang, gee-whillikins!' I said. 'And right after a severe blow to the economy! You reckon we ought to celebrate the occasion?'

'What the hell you think?' she said. 'Just let me get these goddam clothes off!'

I snoozed a little while afterwards. No more than fifteen minutes, probably, because I'd rested quite a bit that day and wasn't really tired.

I came awake with Rose's hand biting into my arm, her voice a scary whisper. 'Nick!, Nick, wake up! Someone's outside!'

'What?' I mumbled, starting to roll over on my side again. 'Well, leave 'em out there. Sure don't want 'em in here.'

'Nick! They're on the porch, Nick! What-who do you suppose it-'

'I don't hear nothin',' I said. 'Maybe it's just the wind'.

'No, it-listen! There it is again!'

I heard it then; faint, careful footsteps, like someone moving on tiptoe. And along with them, a dull draggy sound, as if something heavy was being dragged upon the stoop.

'N-Nick. What do you think we'd better do, Nick?'

I swung my legs off the bed, and said I'd get my gun and have a look. She started to nod, and then she put out her hand and stopped me.

'No, honey, it won't look right your being here this time of night. Not with the lights all off and your horse put away.'

'But I'll just take a little peek out,' I said. 'I won't show myself to no one.'

'You might have to. You just stay here and keep quiet, and I'll go.'