course. It's just what people called him.'
'Who was he?'
'Nobody. Just an odd-job man. Strong as an ox and twice as dumb. He'd work like a Chinaman for just a nickel or a sandwich. People used to play tricks on him and laugh when he made a fool of himself. And he'd laugh along too, happy for the attention.'
Matthew's voice dropped to a minor key. 'Just an odd-job man, eh?'
'Yeah, he worked a little here and a little there, and he'd-Matthew, he wasn't anything at all like you. Not a bit.'
'But nobody respected him. I mean… look what they did! They even wrote Mule on his grave, so's everybody could come and have a good laugh at the odd-job man!'
'They laughed at him because he was a fool. Not because he did odd jobs! Jeez!' She was embarrassed, but angry too. Angry with herself for accidentally saying something hurtful, and angry with him for being so sensitive about it, so she said, 'All right, maybe you're right. Maybe people didn't respect poor old Mule. Who cares?'
Matthew cared.
KERSTI BJORKVIST SNORTED MOISTLY as she climaxed. Her strong body heaved in rapture, lifting him up on her wide pelvis. Then she settled back and hugged him to her chest, hard. 'Wasn't that something! I think there's nothing better in the whole world! What do you think?'
Matthew's thoughts were in great confusion at that moment. For one thing, Kersti smelled of old sweat. For another, this was sin. Sin of the Flesh. It was the first time he'd ever… done it. And it left him feeling empty and bad and embarrassed and ashamed. But most of all he felt sad that his first time had been with Kersti Bjorkvist, when all along he'd been thinking and dreaming about Ruth Lillian.
He had been in bed reading The Ringo Kid Turns Tail. (Of course, he didn't really turn tail, but he made everyone think he had, to give himself time to figure out how to thwart the slick-talking land-grabber who was scheming to get this orphan girl's ranch.) He must have dozed off because he was falling, falling, falling… when suddenly his head snapped up and he was full awake, his heart pounding. Was that a noise at his back door? No, no it was just something left over from his bad dream. He smiled at himself for being frightened, like some scaredy-cat kid. But maybe he'd better blow out his lamp anyway, just to be sure. He remembered how in The Ringo Kid Places His Bet, Ringo had heard footsteps outside his cabin (Mr. Anthony Bradford Chumms called them 'footfalls' in his cultured English way), and Ringo immediately blew out his lamp, so he wouldn't have the disadvantage of being in the light while his enemy is in the dark. Matthew had paused over that passage and nodded with admiration at the Kid's savvy, and at how he had thought of it right off, just like that!
He heard the sound again, a scratching at the back door. Then someone whispered harshly, 'Hey? Open up!' It was a girl's voice!
He got out of bed and unlatched the back door to ask what-But suddenly she was in and everything happened at once. She gave him a big wet kiss that half missed his mouth, and she fumbled around until she had it in her hand, and he could feel it getting hard, then she was sitting on his bed, snatching her dress off over her head, and there was a strong smell of sweat when she raised her arms, and she pulled him onto her. At first he didn't really want to. But then he did want to, and pretty soon he really needed to something fierce. She sort of growled, annoyed because he was fumbling around, so she put it in for him, and she came almost immediately, then he came, but she continued heaving and pumping and he stayed hard long enough for her to climax again… snorting… and then she settled back and hugged him to her, hard, and said, 'Wasn't that something! I think there's nothing better in the whole world! What do you think?' He still lay on her thick, sweat-slippery body, feeling empty and embarrassed and sinful, but sort of wanting to do it again, and at the same time feeling disgusted with himself for wanting to. And vaguely sad, too.
She pushed him off and hugged him against her side, where he was close to the sweat smell. 'Was that the first time you ever did a girl?'
'No! No, I've done lots of… But it's been a spell. A man forgets.'
'Forgets?'
'Well, I don't mean forget so much as… well, you know…' He didn't go on with it. It wasn't going to get any better.
'I'm quick,' she boasted. 'Men like a woman who's quick.'
'Of course they do. I mean… why wouldn't they?' His eyes had adjusted to the moonlight coming through the window, and he could make out her profile, the lush hair growing low on her forehead, the long meaty nose, the thick lips. And lower down, he could see the still-erect nipple of one heavy breast.
She threaded his arm around her neck and cuddled close to him, playing idly with his penis as she talked into the darkness above them. She didn't have her parents' chanting accent, which didn't surprise Matthew because most of the kids he'd gone to school with had parents with old-country accents, but the kids talked regular American-like Ruth Lillian, who had no trace of her father's brittle consonants. The thought of Ruth Lillian made his ears tingle with shame.
While Kersti babbled on, hungry for a chance to talk to someone, his arm, trapped beneath her neck, became numb, then it began to tingle painfully, but he didn't move it because he didn't want her to think he didn't like her.
'It wouldn't surprise me if you never done a girl before. You're still a kid. Me, I'm twenty-two years old. My brother's about the same age as you, and he does himself out in the back shed. Sometimes three, four times a day. He's always at it. Maybe that's why he's so dumb. But I don't think so. If you ask me, he's just naturally dumb. But I suppose doing himself all the time don't help any. There was this drummer come through town four, five years ago? The last drummer ever to come to Twenty-Mile. He was different from most drummers. He didn't have a big smile and a bright tie and tell jokes and all. He dressed in black, like a preacher, and he talked serious and deep, like he was feeling sorry for everybody? He read to my ma out of this book that said how it was dangerous for boys to do themselves 'cause it made them stupid and blind. Me and my brother was listening from behind the door, and we had to bite our knuckles to keep from laughing out loud, 'cause my brother was already doing himself regular and his eyesight was just fine. Well, this drummer said that parents who cared about their sons ought to stop them from doing themselves by feeding them plenty of a special flour invented by a preacher named of Dr. Sylvester Graham, and this Graham flour was what the drummer sold. You paid him in advance, and he'd have the Graham flour shipped to you, but my ma told him she wasn't born yesterday, and she wasn't going to give no drummer money in advance for flour he might ship and might not, and anyway she didn't have to worry about her son abusing himself, because she'd raised us kids as God-fearing Christians, and that made my brother and me snicker even more because the reason our family got chucked out of the settlement of Swedes my folks came to America with was because my pa got caught doing the prayer-leader's wife. And that was funny because the prayer-leader had been doing me on the sly for months. Not really doing me, 'cause I was too young and small down there to be done proper. But while he was giving me Bible instruction, he'd touch me and make me touch him and that sort of stuff. That's why they run us off from the settlement and we ended up in Twenty-Mile. From that day on, my ma wouldn't let my pa do her. I know 'cause I heard them arguing about it at night. And that's why my pa sneaks out sometimes to do one of the girls at the hotel.'
Matthew was both dumbfounded and fascinated by her talk. He'd heard older boys at school talking dirty and explaining things to younger boys-mostly wrong, as any farm boy with livestock would know-but he'd never dreamt that girls thought about such things, much less talked about them. Or did them. He admired Kersti's frankness. Too bad about her looks… and the sweat.
'How do you know that your brother… does himself?' he asked.
'I watch him sometimes. You should see the stupid glazed look in his eyes, and the way his mouth hangs open when he gets close to squirting.'
'He lets you watch him?'
'Sure. When I was fourteen-fifteen and he was only ten-eleven, I used to sneak into his room late at night and have him do me-well, as best he could with his squiggly little thing. But I made him stop when he got old enough to start squirting, 'cause I don't want no baby with two heads like you get if you do your own brother. Did you know about that? About babies with two heads?'
'Ah… no. I didn't.'
'Well, it's true. And some pretty scary things can come from men doing cows and sheep, believe you me!'
