The Persian Pickle Club (14 page)

“Forest Ann’s resting. She went home for a while. Rita and I will stay until she gets here. I expect she’ll be along presently,” I said, getting up. I stood behind Nettie and rubbed her shoulders to soften the ache I knew was there, and to comfort her. We stayed like that for a long time, just listening to Kansas night sounds, which have their own way of giving comfort. Even I didn’t feel the need for talking.

Finally, Forest Ann drove up, apologizing for being so late. She’d lain down to rest for a few minutes and had fallen fast asleep. When Nettie told her Tyrone was sleeping, Forest Ann wasn’t in any hurry to go inside, and she leaned on the porch post while we said our good-byes to Nettie. Then Forest Ann walked Rita and me to the car and held the door open while I got in. She shut my door, and I rolled down the window to say the Massie boy would be over in the morning to do the milking and to help with chores. In their own way, the Massies liked to be neighborly, I explained, not telling her that Grover and I were paying Sonny five cents a day to help Nettie.

It was well after ten o’clock and as black as the inside of a barn when Rita and I left the Burgetts’. I told Rita I sure was glad for the fellow who invented headlights.

“I
t sure is dark,” Rita said as I turned onto the section road. “Are you sure you’ve got your brights on?” She shivered a little and asked me to roll up the window part way.

I switched the headlights to dim and back to bright again. There was no moon, and we couldn’t see the stars because of the clouds—not rain clouds, just those empties Grover talked about. The black Kansas night might bother a city person like Rita, who liked streetlamps and neon signs, but I was a country girl, so the dark was a friend to me.

I yawned. “It’ll be eleven o’clock before we get home. What will Grover say?”

Rita turned on the radio and moved the dial around until she found a Kansas City station playing “Paper Moon.” She put her head on the back of the seat and hummed along with it, then laughed. “If I live here for the rest of my life, God forbid, I’ll never get used to going to bed with the chickens. Tom and I always stayed up until two or three on Friday and Saturday nights, and slept till noon the next day. Of course, with my job, we never got to sleep before midnight even during the week. If Dad knew how late we stayed up, he’d call us slothful. You know, he’s even against playing cards. Imagine!”

“Most people around here are—cards and dancing. Graver’s dad said it was just an excuse for a boy to hold a girl in his arms.”

“Well, he’s right about that.” We both giggled.

I stopped and looked both ways when we reached the cross-roads, although I knew there wasn’t a car within five miles of us. The people who’d gone to see the picture show at the Home & Feed had been in bed for hours, and I’d be surprised if we passed a single car all the way home. As I turned onto the highway, I finished rolling up my window, thinking I was glad for the chill in the air. I wouldn’t miss this summer.

All of a sudden, Rita screamed, “My God! Look out, Queen-ie!”

I slammed on the brakes and skidded across the dirt, stopping no more than a yard in front of something big and black that was lying across the road. If Rita hadn’t spotted it in time, we’d have run into it for sure, wrecking the car. This was indeed a time for troubles, and I shuddered when I thought of Rita and me lying there on the road, dead, with Grover at home waiting for me.

“Damn it!” Rita said. “That was close. What the hell is that?”

“Darned if I know!”

We got out of the car together and walked to a log as big as a telephone pole that was lying crossways in the road. “It must have fallen off a truck,” Rita said.

I shook my head back and forth, getting madder with each shake as I thought how dangerous that log was. “Anybody who lost a load like that would have felt it roll off his truck. He should have stopped and moved it. Why, we could have been killed, Rita. Grover will find out who did it, and boy, will he be sorry!”

I leaned over to see if I could heft one end of the log and was about to ask Rita if she would pick up the other when she said under her breath, “Something’s not right here. Quick, Queenie. Get back in the car.”

I straightened up to ask her what the hurry was, and just as I did so, a man loomed up out of the ditch next to us. I opened my mouth to ask for his aid, but before I could utter a word, I knew he wasn’t there to help us. That log hadn’t fallen off a truck by accident.

“Rita ...” I said. She’d dashed for the car but stopped when she heard me call. When she turned and saw the big shape in the dark, she froze. Rita hadn’t actually seen the man until that moment. She’d just had a creepy feeling something was wrong.

I willed myself to run to the car, but my feet wouldn’t move. As if to make up for it, the rest of my body shook, a little at first, then harder as I watched the man come toward me, real deliberate, like he was walking in slow motion in the movies. He stopped just as he reached the headlight.

I could smell him as much as I could see him, a moldy smell, like rotted manure, and his breath was as foul as old onions. I didn’t smell any liquor, however, and even then, I thought it was odd that I’d notice such a thing. My mind was working even though my body wasn’t.

He took a step closer, moving across the beam of the head-light, and I saw he was big, almost as big as Grover, with mean eyes and fat lips.

For a few seconds, I tried to convince myself he’d come to help, but Rita knew better. “Get away, you,” she said. He waved a hand at her, the way a person does at a snapping little dog.

“Gimme your keys. Right now,” he ordered me. He didn’t act as if he’d been drinking, which scared me more than ever, because I’d rather humor a drunk than match wits with a sober man.

“Go to hell!” Rita said. “You go to fucking hell.” I’d never heard anybody say that word, but if it worked, I’d use it myself.

“Shut up, you,” he snarled at Rita. He was still looking at me, however.

“I don’t have any keys,” I whispered. What I meant was, I’d left the keys in the car.

The man took a step toward me and grabbed my hand, prying open my fingers to see if I was lying. The touch of his rough skin against mine felt worse than his fingernails digging into my palm.

“They’re in the car,” I said. My voice worked about as well as my feet. “The keys, I mean. I left them in the car.”

The man didn’t seem to be in such a rush now. With an ugly smile, he looked at Rita, then back at me. He held tightly to my hand, held it still while the rest of me shook so hard, I thought I’d fall down if he let go.

“Two women. Out here alone in a nice big car. Well now.” His eyes gleamed in the car lights.

I glanced at Rita, who opened her mouth to speak but licked her lips instead. I was grateful she kept silent, because cursing him hadn’t done any good.

“Our husbands are expecting us. They’ll be here any minute,” I said. “They’re following us.”

“I guess I don’t see no automobile lights coming.” His short laugh was like a coyote’s bark.

I thought if I moved real slow, I might be able to pull my hand away, but when I tried, he gripped my wrist so hard that my hand went numb.

“You can have the car. It has a radio. Grover put it in,” I said. “He’s a real fighter. You better get going before he comes, because he’ll beat you up.”

By now, I didn’t care if the man drove off and I never saw the Studebaker again. All I wanted was for him to take his dry, hard hand off my wrist and leave us, but he just held on to me.

“You got nice brown hair. I like that. I never was so partial to yellow-headed women,” he said. He reached up with his free hand and stroked my hair. His touch felt like a hot iron pressed against my skull, and I yanked my head away. He slapped me across the face with the back of his hand, then hit me again with his palm.

“No!” Rita said. “Don’t you hurt her!”

“Behave! Both of you!” he growled, rubbing his scaly fingers over my wrist. He made a fist with his free hand and shook it at Rita.

She watched him with hard little eyes. Suddenly, she yanked off her shoe and flew toward him, hitting his arm with the sharp heel. “You son of a bitch! Let her go!”

Her blows didn’t hurt him any more than a horsefly bite. Still holding onto my wrist, the man slapped Rita, knocking her down in the road. “You stay there, blondie, unless you want a good kick,” he ordered. I looked at his thick laced boots and hoped Rita would do what he said.

He turned back to me. “Okay, girlie, me and you are going for a ride now. Maybe we’ll have us some fun.”

Until that moment, I hadn’t even thought about the man taking me with him. Now my stomach churned so hard, I was afraid I would throw up. “Oh no, please,” I begged. “You can have the car. I won’t tell anybody. My purse is in there. You can have it, too. There’s four dollars in it. Take it. I won’t tell anybody. Not even Grover. I promise.”

The man didn’t reply. Instead, he moved right up next to me and rubbed his stubbly face against mine. His whiskers raked across my skin, and as he turned his mouth toward me, I felt something cold. It was drool.

He pulled away and looked at me again, licking the wet out of the corner of his mouth. Then he yanked me toward the car door. I tried to reach up so I could scratch him with my free hand, but he batted it away. “I told you, behave!” he said, stopping to look me up and down again. All of a sudden, he reached over and squeezed my breast, wringing it so hard that I cried out from the pain. I prayed for Grover to come and save me or for God to kill me before he did what I knew he would do. Rita had moved to a crouch and was ready to spring at him, but he raised his foot at her and said, “You move and I’ll hurt your friend bad.”

“Don’t,” I whimpered to him. My teeth chattered.

Now he was angry. “What’s the matter, girlie? Ain’t I good enough for you? You rich ladies think you’re better ‘n me.” He put his hand on the neck of my dress and ripped it all the way down to my waist. The tear made a sound like fingernails on glass, and it was so loud, my ears ached, so loud that surely Grover must have heard it. The man put his hand on my throat and moved it down over my body. “You’re real soft. You be nice to me, and I’ll be nice to you. Me and you’s going to have us a real good time.”

I began to sob, not just because I knew what he would do but because at that instant, I saw the shape of a second man coming out of the darkness. He would grab Rita. There was no hope that Rita and I would get away from two men. Both of us would be raped. I turned the ugly word over in my mind and felt it stick in my throat. “Please,” I cried. “Oh, please. If you need money—”

“You’ns need help?” the shape in the dark asked softly. His voice was so quiet that the man holding me didn’t even hear him.

“I asked if you’ns need help,” he said a little louder.

The man dropped my wrist as if it were a hot stove lifter and spun around. My legs gave out, and I fell into the dirt next to Rita. As I sprawled there, relief spread over me as surely as if I’d been covered up with a soft quilt. “It’s all right,” I whispered to Rita, whose face was as white as flour. “It’s Blue. Blue Massie.” Rita grabbed my hand, the one the man had held, and I winced, but I held on to her.

“Mind your business!” the man snarled at Blue, flicking his hand at him to make him go away.

“By dogies, I reckon this here is my business,” Blue replied in the same gentle voice. He talked as quietly as a person making mail-time conversation at the post office.

The man laughed at Blue, sizing him up. He must have thought because Blue was a head shorter and slight of build that he’d be as easy to overpower as Rita and I were. But Blue was wiry and strong. He was a dirty fighter, the way the hill people are. The man swung, but before he could land a single punch, Blue slammed him in the face with his fist, making a sound like a sledgehammer on a hog’s head at slaughter time. There was the crackle of bone breaking. The man howled with pain and took a step backward.

Blue wasn’t finished with him. When the man put his hands to his face, Blue kicked him in the groin. Blue was barefoot, but his foot was as hard as walnut, and the man doubled over. He dropped his hands to the front of his pants, and I saw the blood gush out of his nose. He turned to run, and Blue kicked him in the small of his back. The man made a
whoomp
sound and limped off into the dark. Blue let him go, and I was glad. I didn’t ever want to see him again.

Blue watched, making sure he was gone for good, before he turned to me, his breath coming as easy as if he’d been out for a walk. “You all right, missus?”

“Oh, Blue, I prayed somebody would help us.” I began to cry again and reached into my pocket for a handkerchief. I realized then that my dress was ripped open, so I clutched it closed. Blue looked away.

“Where did you come from?” Rita asked. Her voice was high and shaky, and she cleared her throat.

Blue took off his cap and held it in his hands, then squatted down next to us, sitting on his haunches. “Well, I tell you. Zepha, she’s been itchy all day. She didn’t know what it was, but she knowed it had something to do with you, missus. She tried to conjure it away, but it wouldn’t go, so she knowed it was powerful. We was already in bed when she says go look over the Bean place. I didn’t see nothing at the house, so I went down the edge of the field and chanced to see the lights of your car.”

“My God, what if you hadn’t come along!” Rita said.

“No such a thing.” Blue chuckled softly. “I’d a come directly. Zepha knows her signs right real good, that one.”

I got up slowly, clutching my ripped dress with one hand and holding on to the car with the other. My wrist ached from where the man had held it, and my fingers tingled. My face hurt from the slaps, and where he’d touched it, my breast felt raw. Blue helped Rita up. She’d torn her dress when she fell down, and her hose were ripped. Her shoe was still in her hand, but it took too much effort to put it on. So she carried it. We held on to each other as we went to the car, because I don’t think either of us could have stood alone.

“Thank you, Blue,” Rita whispered.

Blue nodded, shifting from one foot to the other, not sure what to do. “I’ll move that log outta the road. Then I’ll be gettin’ on.”

“No!” Rita and I cried together.

“What if he comes back?” Rita asked.

Blue shook his head. “No cause to worry. That one ain’t going to bother nobody for a long time.”

“I can’t drive, Blue. My hands are shaking too much,” I said. “Will you drive us to the Ritters’? I’ll call Grover and he’ll come and get me.”

Before Blue ducked his head, I saw he was pleased to be asked. He maneuvered the log into the ditch. Then the three of us got into the front seat of the car, with me in the middle. Rita locked all the doors and moved in close against me. Tears ran down her face as we drove to the Ritter farm, and every now and then she let out a little hiccup.

When Blue pulled up by the back door, Tom heard the motor and rushed outside. He had just phoned Nettie to ask when we’d be home, and she’d told him we’d been gone for nearly an hour. Tom was wondering whether to call Grover. Then we drove up. When he saw Blue in the driver’s seat, Tom jumped the porch rail, landing next to the car.

“What happened?” he asked.