He paused when he saw the hatchet behind the calf of her leg. Her sightless eyes seemed to burrow into his face and probe thoughts and feelings that he himself did not understand. He swallowed and felt foolish and cowardly and wiped his mouth with his hand. Then she did something he didn't expect. She rested the head of the hatchet by her foot and released the handle and let it fall sideways into the dust.
'I'm looking for Wilbur Pickett,' he said.
'He's at work. On the oil rig. He won't be home till morning,' she answered.
He waved one hand back and forth in front of her eyes, his soiled palm only ten inches from her face.
'Don't do that,' she said.
He stepped back, frightened again. He tried to think clearly before he spoke again. His tongue made a clicking sound inside his mouth. 'How you know I did anything? How come a blind woman will tell a stranger she's all alone? That ain't smart,' he said.
'You might be a violent man. But it's because others have hurt you,' she said.
His face flinched as though flies were buzzing in it. He opened and closed his palms at his sides and could hear himself breathing. He studied the flecks of whiteness in her blue eyes, the redness of her mouth, the way her black hair whipped around her cheeks in the wind. She pressed her dress down over her knees and waited for him to speak.
'I know stuff about Earl Deitrich don't nobody else know. I can bring him down,' he said.
'We don't care what you can do,' she replied.
'Don't talk to me like that. I'm here to help. We got a, what do you call it, we got a mutual interest.'
'No,' she said.
'Listen, lady, y'all got something he wants or he wouldn't be trying to send your old man to the pen. Your husband wildcatted in Mexico. It's got something to do with oil, ain't it?'
'It's not your business. There's fried rabbit and potato salad on the kitchen table. Bring it out,' she said.
'Bring food out? I didn't come out here to eat. Look, lady-'
'You hate Earl Deitrich because he treats you and someone close to you with disrespect. He's obligated to you but makes you feel worthless. You fight with him in your mind and he always wins.'
He stepped back from her, his mouth opening to speak. Her words were like cobweb that he wanted to wipe out of his face. She rose from her chair and spread newspaper on the stump that was grained with dried blood and bits of chicken feathers. She set a stone on each side of the newspaper so the wind wouldn't blow it away.
'What's your name?' she asked.
'Cholo Ramirez.'
'You're part Indian, Cholo. The spirits of all your people watch over you. Don't be frightened. Go get the food,' she said.
He walked away from her toward the house, his head twisted back toward her, his close-set eyes like those of a wolf circling a steel trap. He stepped inside the kitchen door and pressed the heel of each hand hard into his temples, opening and closing his mouth until the whirring of blood ceased in his ears. The interior of the kitchen was painted with fire from the glow of sun through the west windows. He struck the heels of his hands repeatedly against the sides of his skull but his head would not clear. For a moment he felt he was deep under the earth, inside a box of flame that had been created especially for him and that he would never escape.
Rain was falling across the sunset when Pete and I entered the stucco Catholic church where he and I attended Mass. It was cool from the electric fans that oscillated on the walls and the air smelled of stone and the water in the rain ditch outside. I lighted a candle for L.Q. Navarro in the rack of burning candle vases in front of a statue of Jesus' mother, then entered the confessional.
The priest was ten years younger than I, a thin, Mexican Franciscan named Father Paul who had once been a labor organizer for the United Farm Workers. He listened while I told him of my behavior at Peggy Jean Deitrich's cottage, the self-delusion that had put me there, the possible compromise of my clients' interest.
Then I relived the moment that had burned inside me like a hot coal. 'A little boy I should have been watching almost drowned. In another minute he would have been gone,' I said.
'I see,' the priest said. Through the screen I could see his profile, his jaw propped on two fingers, his eyes staring into the gloom. 'Is there more?'
'No.'
'I have the sense there's something you haven't mentioned. I think it has to do with anger.'
'I don't see the connection, Father.'
'You don't have to answer this question if you don't want to. But do you regret the injury done the third party, the husband?'
I could hear the rain running off the tile roof outside the confessional, the sound of someone kneeling in a pew, a car passing on the wetness of the street.
'He's an evil man,' I said.
Father Paul's profile turned toward me for just a moment, then he looked straight ahead again, as though resigning himself to an old knowledge about human behavior.
'By whatever power is vested in me, I absolve you of your sins. The peace of the Lord be with you, Billy Bob,' he said.
The light in the sky was green when Pete and I walked outside and the rain was dripping into the shadows under the pines on the lawn. Pete wore his straw hat low over his eyes and breathed in the dampness of the air as though he were taking the world's measure.
'We still gonna get them buffalo burger steaks?' he asked.
'You bet,' I said.
'That's Temple Carrol's car in front of the cafe,' he said.
'It sure is.'
'Why you stopping?'
'No reason.'
'You sure tell a mess of fibs, Billy Bob. Soon as I figure out one angle of yours, you come up with another.'
'Do me a favor, Pete.'
'What's that?'
'Stay out of my head.'
'I knew you was gonna say that.'
The inside of the cafe was brightly lit, the front window beaded with rainwater, the fans ruffling the oilcloths on the tables. I hadn't seen Temple since the incident at Peggy Jean's cottage on the Comal and my voice felt thick in my throat when we sat down at her table. The side of her face was pink from the sunset and rippled with the shadows of raindrops running down the window. She kept looking inquisitively into my eyes.
'Y'all go to church on weeknights?' she said.
'Billy Bob went to confession,' Pete said.
'Oh? Did we do something we shouldn't?' she said, looking at me strangely.
'I got pulled in a whirlpool. Billy Bob saved my life. But he blames himself 'cause I was in the whirlpool. That ain't no reason to go to confession,' Pete said, and began chewing on a breadstick.
'You were in the river? It's pretty high this time of year for swimming, Pete,' she said.
'We was at Ms. Deitrich's place in New Braunfels. That's what I was saying. Billy Bob and Ms. Deitrich was up changing at the cottage when I got pulled into the whirlpool,' Pete said.
'Oh, at Ms. Deitrich's. South Texas's angel of charity. I should have known. Did you have a good time, Billy Bob?' Temple said, her eyes peeling the skin off my face.
'It wasn't a good day. It was also the last one I'll have like it,' I said.
'Why is it I don't believe you? Why is that, please tell me?' she said. She set down her coffee cup in the saucer, picked up her check, and rose from the table.
'What ch'all talking about?' Pete asked, his face filled with confusion.
Early Wednesday morning I got the milk delivery off the porch and picked up a half dozen eggs around the chicken run and under the tractor and put them in an apple basket and began beating an omelette in the kitchen. Beau was drinking out of an aluminum tank just inside the rails of the horse lot and I saw his head lift at the sound of a car in my drive.
