Rae Lynn headed for the house.
Butch called out and said, “All right. All right. I’ll give you a bit more time to think on it. I can be generous. You’ll come to your senses. It don’t matter where it happens. We can do it right here in the yard, for all I care. Either I get what I’m wanting, or I’m telling him what happened out here. Him being a lawyer and all, well, can’t imagine jail life would suit you none.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him in the hopes he was leaving, and when she did, he got the wrong message.
He grinned, and he said, “Now that’s more like it.”
She ran inside and rushed to the bedroom. The front screen door banged. He was inside.
He called out, “Yoo-hoo! Where are you? I bet I know. You’re in that bedroom already perched on the bed. Go on and take that dress off, ’cause here I come!”
She turned and faced the doorway. Butch appeared and at the sight of the pistol clenched in her hands, his face sagged in the same sad manner as an old bloodhound.
He said, “Well, darn, Rae Lynn. Being with me, is it that bad?”
She raised the weapon level to his chest. He backed up, and she followed him.
“Woman, you gone plumb nutty.”
She said, “Get outta my house.”
He said, “Ain’t gonna be yours for long. I’ll surely let him know what you done now! And here I was thinking of offering you somewheres to stay!” Rae Lynn cocked it, and he reversed course, yelling, “You gone off your rocker!”
He bolted for his truck and took off down the path, leaving a trail of dust and a bad taste in her mouth. She went out into the yard and waited, thinking he might come back. When some time had passed, and she was sure he was gone for good, she dragged the mattress from the bedroom into the yard. It had a horrible stain down the side of it when Warren had done what he’d done, and so she’d been sleeping on the couch. She soaked it with turpentine and tossed a match on it, then monitored the flames, raking back debris so nothing was around it to catch fire. She watched the flames dance over the darkened patches of dried blood, consuming it. Burning their marriage bed was purifying in a way she couldn’t describe, as if by doing this, she was also burning the memories of what happened.
That night as she laid on the couch, clutching the pistol and the pillow Warren had used, and she’d thought to keep because it still smelled of him, she talked as if he was there instead of saying her prayers.
“I miss you. You took good care of me all these years. It was only ’cause of you I finally had me a real home, first one in my life. Now, I don’t know what all’s gonna happen. Oh, Warren. I only wish you’d listened to me, because it shouldn’t’ve been this way.”
Even while she talked, her mind was on Butch. What if she let him, just the once, like he’d said? No. To consider it was absurd. Not only would it sully the memory of what she’d had with her husband, she’d have to reconcile those actions for as long as she lived. No doubt she would regret it. As to Eugene, she knew nothing about him other than what Warren had told her, but one thing was certain, he’d not seen fit to come home all these years. He’d barely ever written, never addressed her in the times he did. When it came down to it, she believed his distancing had been because Warren married her, though he’d blamed it on Eugene not caring about the land. Probably to protect her. If she refused to go along with Butch’s blackmail, and stayed, what might Eugene do once he heard what Butch had to say? All she knew was, she wasn’t about to leave her future in the hands of these two men; neither was trustworthy.
She tossed and turned until finally, she heard the clock chime five times, and got up. Sitting there at the kitchen table in the predawn hour, she stared at the chair Warren always sat in, noticing how the wooden rung at the top had a deeper finish from where he’d put his hand many times. She’d never noticed this before, and tears came, as they did so often now. After a few minutes, she wiped her face on her apron. She stared at her kitchen, at all the little things she’d done to make it hers, realizing it really never had been, when it came right down to it. The tone of that letter said it was Eugene’s. At least Warren had a little bit of money set aside, but once gone, that was it. They had some gum stores she could sell, but not much, and there was the question of time.
Rae Lynn poured herself some tea and as she was sipping on it, seemingly from nowhere, she remembered something Butch said and her pulse quickened. She’d been focused only on what she and Warren had planned together, confining herself to those ideas and not thinking beyond. With the sun barely peeking into the kitchen window she began to formulate what she needed to do. The most important part was she had to hurry. She had to be gone before Butch came again, and her intention was to disappear. She grabbed the truck key and drove into town. Luckily, Dinky Dobbins, who ran the General Mercantile, was always open early. She went in and asked for the smallest sized men’s boots.
Dinky said, “Warren, he wears a size eleven not a seven.”
“Ain’t for him.”
He stared at her long and hard.
“You wanting this money or not?” she said.
He took it. On her way home she recollected how the orphanage pinched every single penny to make do, yet even by those standards, Warren Cobb had been tighter than a tick. Once, the soles of his shoes had got so thin he’d cut his foot when he’d crossed over the railroad tracks and stepped on some random piece of metal. He’d come home bleeding while waving two thin strips of rubber at her.
He’d said, “Got these off’n them tires from that no-good piece of junk truck sitting abandoned on the side of the road. This’ll work better than ‘Hoover leather,’ don’t ya think? They’ll be good as new.”
She was glad he’d been that way, at least now, as she thought about the money still left after this purchase. Sitting in the truck, she glanced down at her feet and felt a twinge of guilt remembering what he’d been buried in. She stared at the smooth, unmarred leather, wiggled her toes, guilt surging, retreating. Well, he wouldn’t know the difference, and what was done was done, wasn’t that the way of it?