The boy paddled toward her.
She paddled away.
He got close, and she turned her naked butt to him.
She found herself in a little rocky elbow hidden under a jutting mossy boulder. The sunlight broke and scattered like ticker tape above her, and she reached up with her long, skinny arms to hold on to the rock’s point, shaking her head and telling that boy he better find his own real estate, mister.
“Scaredy-cat.”
“I ain’t scared of you.”
“How come you’re shaking?”
“I ain’t shaking.”
“Scaredy-cat.”
“I ain’t scared.”
He paddled to where he could stand and moved close, his long fingers reaching for her boobies like a fella trying to test the ripeness of fruit.
“Hey,” she said.
“That’s okay, sugarpie.”
“That ain’t how you touch a woman.”
“You ain’t no woman,” he said. “You’re a girl. And my brother tole me that a girl gets real excited when you touch her parts.”
“Cut it out.”
“Hold on, sugarpie.”
“See how you like it,” she said, laughing, and reached out and grabbed his pecker like she was trying for first prize in a tug-of-war, and the boy’s eyes got real big, and he toppled over into the water, and stupid old Cleo Brooks didn’t run but had to be bold and not a scaredy-cat and found herself on top of the boulder without a stitch, sunning herself from where the light broke out and warmed the stone. She rested on her elbows and closed her eyes, and figured that boy would run off with his sore pecker in his hand, but instead when she blinked in the dimming sun- thinking maybe a cloud had passed-she saw him standing over her, dripping and smiling, kneeling down and grabbing for her ankles.
“Close your eyes, sugarpie.”
“I ain’t your sugarpie,” she said, but let him lay flat on top of her and kiss her hard on the mouth, feeling for his crooked ole pecker and mumbling things he’d probably learned in romance stories from his mama’s ragged copies of
And so Cleo Brooks took a big breath, closed her eyes, and puffed out her cheeks, as the preacher’s son rode her like he was high on an old-fashioned bicycle going down a rocky path.
The whole meeting on the rock didn’t take ten seconds.
When he finished, her not feeling a thing, he crawled off her and walked over to his clothes and got dressed. Not looking at her till he knotted his tie tight at the throat. He tossed down a crumpled dollar she knew he’d stolen from the collection plate.
He shook his head and sat, saying, “You tricked me. You got the devil in you. Like all women. You tricked me.”
And that was the story that all Saltillo and part of Tupelo heard as her little white belly had grown large and she’d stood before his father on the front steps of the church, the preacher not willing to dirty the sanctuary with the likes of a tricky little girl like Cleo Brooks.
She had a daughter. The dumb boy went off to Bible college.
When Ora said let’s pack up and leave Mississippi, Kathryn didn’t hesitate. They bundled up the baby, packed two suitcases, and got on the train to Memphis and then onto Fort Worth. She took on the name Kathryn after a fancy woman who used to tip big at the Bon-Ton after a manicure.
Kathryn finished the cigarette on blind Ma Coleman’s porch, letting the wind take the ash and scatter it everywhere. She thought about how things mighta been different if she could have stayed in Saltillo, but none of the paths seemed that appealing to her.
She spotted the truck from a ways off, coming down the dirt road, kicking up the grit and the dust, and she stood from the wooden steps and walked blind, shielding the sun with her hand over her eyes until the truck stopped down by that beaten mailbox and out walked George R. Kelly, lugging two suitcases, his fine hat crushed and crooked on his head and sweat rings around his neck and dress shirt.
“Son of a bitch,” he said, walking. “Son of a bitch.”
Kathryn walked to meet him, not caring if her bare feet tore on the gravel, and stepped halfway up the road. “Where you been, you dumb ape?”
“You’re sore at me? If that doesn’t beat all.”
“Yeah, I’m sore. Took you long enough.”
“You and Louise took the car and ten thousand dollars.”
“I told you I’d be here.”
“You’re sore.”
“I’m sore.”
George let out all his breath, slipping his hat down over his eyes. He shook his head like she was the one who’d gone plain nuts.
“We got to bury the loot.”
“Grandma won’t be too pleased.”
“Grandma doesn’t have to know,” he said. “She’s blind.”
“She knows everything.”
George shook his head, as if contemplating a hell of an arithmetic problem. “Do you at least have a drink for me?”
“YOU KNOW WHY I CALLED,” CHARLIE URSCHEL SAID.
“Yes, sir,” Bruce Colvin said. “We got within a few hours of catching them in Des Moines. Their coffee wasn’t even cold. Their car was spotted in Buffalo. Yes, sir, we’re onto them.”
Charlie shook his head. “Not that.”
“Yes, sir,” young Bruce Colvin said. The young boy always looked spit-polished and clean, suit creased to a knife-edge. Hair neatly parted and oiled, a Phi Beta Kappa key hanging loose from a watch chain. “I see.”
“Figured you hadn’t had time for a proper meal.”
“No, sir.”
“Is your steak good?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So you know what I want to discuss?”
“May I say something first?”
“Of course.”
“She’s a fine girl.”
“Oh,” Charlie said.
The young man had met Charlie at the Cattlemen’s steak house right in the heart of the warehouse district, the cows so damned close it wasn’t but a few minutes between them taking a breath and sizzling on your plate. He cut a fat slab off the porterhouse and pointed the end of the bloody fork at Bruce Colvin.
“You are an impressive young man,” Charlie said. “I know you have the best of intentions.”
“Yes, sir,” Colvin said. The federal agent had yet to touch his steak, a buzzing conversation of cowboys and roughnecks all around them. A waiter stopped by the table and refilled their glasses of sweet tea and then disappeared. Colvin used his napkin to wipe some nervous sweat from his forehead. “I thought you and Mrs. Urschel might not be pleased, and there are some complications you should know about.”
“Because of the ongoing legal matters.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Isn’t this a private matter?”
