“They’ll be back! Come on.”
She was leading him toward the barn she’d come out of, gripping him by the hand. He resisted. “I’m not going to be but a minute,” he said. “They should have stayed.”
“Come on, Junior. Someone will see you!”
He gave up and followed her into the barn, which was pitch-dark once she had shut the door behind them. “Let’s go up in the loft,” she whispered.
But that didn’t feel right. You could be cornered, in a loft. “We can talk down here,” he said. “I can’t stay long. I need to get home. Are you sure the Moffats know to come for me? Why’d you tell them about us? You swore you wouldn’t tell a soul.”
“I didn’t! Just the twins. They think it’s romantic. They’re real happy for us.”
“Good God, Linnie.”
“Let’s go up in the loft, I mean it. It’s more comfortable there; it’s got hay.”
He ignored her and headed for the rear of the barn, across creaky, straw-littered floorboards. She said, “I don’t know why you’re being so contrary.” She reached out in the dark, feeling for something and then yanking, and an overhead bulb lit up and pained his eyes. These people had electricity even in their outbuildings. He saw that he was standing next to a rusted plow. A thin slant of trampled-down hay was piled in the corner beyond. Linnie’s face looked all crinkly in the sudden brightness, and his did too, he supposed. She was wearing a dress that seemed a mite low in the neck to him. He was surprised her mother had allowed it; Linnie always made out that her mother was so strict. He could see the two mounds of her breasts swelling above the fabric, but it didn’t affect him. He pulled his Camels from his shirt pocket. “What’d you want to talk about?” he asked.
“You can’t smoke in here!”
He put the Camels away.
“Go ahead and say it,” he said.
“Say what?”
“Say what you brought me here to tell me.”
She drew herself up straight. “Junior,” she said, “I know why you’ve stopped meeting me. You’re thinking I’m too young for you.”
“What? Wait.”
“But age is just a date on a calendar. You aren’t being fair. You’re going by something I can’t help. And you can see that I’m a woman. Haven’t I acted like a woman? Don’t I feel like a woman?”
She took one of his hands and laid it above the U of her neckline, where the swelling began. He said, “That’s what you wanted to tell me?”
“I want to tell you that you’re being narrow-minded.”
“Shoot, Linnie,” he said. “You’re not in trouble?”
“In trouble! No!”
He didn’t know why she sounded so shocked; they hadn’t always been careful. But he felt such a weight lifting off him that he laughed aloud, and then he bent to set his lips on hers and his hand slid lower on her neckline, down inside it, where it didn’t seem she was wearing a brassiere although she surely could have used one. He squeezed, and she drew a sharp breath, and he pressed her back toward the corner of the barn and laid her down on the hay, not once taking his lips away. He kicked his boots off, somehow. He got free of his overalls and his BVDs all in one move. Linnie was struggling out of her drawers, and just as he reached to help her he heard … not words but a sort of bellow, like the sound a bull makes, and then, “Great God Almighty!”
He rolled over and scrambled to his feet. A skinny little stick of a man was lunging toward him with both hands outstretched, but Junior stepped aside. The man landed against the plow and hastily righted himself. “Clifford!” he roared. “Brandon!”
Junior had the confused impression that the man was trying out different names on him, but then from the direction of the house he heard another voice call, “Daddy?”
“Get out here! Bring a gun!”
“Daddy, wait, you don’t understand,” Linnie said.
But he was too busy trying to clamp his hands around Junior’s throat. Junior thought he should be given a moment to get his overalls back on; it put him at a disadvantage. He pried Mr. Inman’s fingers loose without much difficulty, but when he spun toward where his clothes lay the man grabbed hold of him again. Then, “Freeze!” somebody shouted, and he turned his head to find two boys standing in the doorway training Winchesters on him.
He froze.
“Hand me that,” Mr. Inman ordered, and the younger boy stepped forward and passed him his rifle.
Mr. Inman backed up just far enough to put the length of the rifle between himself and Junior, and then he cocked the lever and told Junior, “Turn around.”
Junior turned so he was facing the two boys, who seemed more interested than angry. They had their eyes fixed on his crotch. Junior felt the cold, perfect circle of the rifle muzzle in the dead center of the back of his neck. It prodded him. “Forward,” Mr. Inman said.
“Well, if I could just—”
“Forward!”