Hill Girl by Charles Williams 1951(5)

“Where’s who?” I asked, not liking it and wondering
how he was going to take the stalling. I wasn’t the one
he was after, but there was no telling just how much of
that simple-minded repartee he could handle, the way
he was feeling now and with that gun in his pocket.
“I don’t want no trouble with you, Bob. We always
got along all right I want your brother an’ I know he’s
here. Jest for his sake, in case he’s listenin’, he won’t
move that car out there right away. I fixed that.”
I guess I already had my mind made up before he
finished talking. Maybe even before he came in. There
wasn’t any other way. He’d get Lee sooner or later; he
was that kind of man. And there was a damned good
chance he’d get him tonight. And there was Mary, and
what it would do to her. There wasn’t any other way,
but I didn’t feel heroic about it. I felt like a damned
fool.
“Lee’s not here,” I said. “He went to Dallas a week
ago.” I still didn’t like it, and the hair on the back of my
neck was sticking into me like goose flesh when you
have a hard chill. I knew how he was feeling, and when
you get like that you’re not in very good condition for
cold, rational thought. And what I had to tell him was
worrying me. That was the bad part of it. There was no
way of knowing whether he was going to be in any
mood for a horse trade and I didn’t know how fast his
mind worked. He might even believe me and shoot
before he got the thing worked out in his mind.
Hill Girl — 84


“Bob, I don’t want no trouble with you if I can help it.
Ain’t no use you lyin’. His car’s right out there in
front.”
This was where I had to tell him. “Oh, the car,” I said.
“He left it with me because I’m having mine
overhauled. Brake bands are worn out. I’ve been using
it.”
I wondered how soon he would begin to catch on.
“That’s a goddamn lie!” He got that far with it and
then I could see it start to soak in. He was getting it.
He’s getting it, I thought. Brother, you’re the one
who’s getting it.
Hill Girl — 85
Eleven
He stood there for a minute before he said anything
and seemed to be trying to make up his mind. The
silence in the room was beginning to get me. I can
stand these things better when there’s more noise.
“You was usin’ that car tonight?” He wanted to be
sure we had it all straight.
I could see then that the thing was going to grow into
a beautiful understanding between us.
“Why, yes, I was using it,” I said. “I hope you didn’t
wreck it too badly, Sam.”
“No,” he said slowly. “I guess we can fix it up all
right. Why? Was you figgerin’ on usin’ it today? Goin’
somewhere, maybe?”
“Well,” I said, “I was thinking of a little trip. To
Shreveport, maybe. You see, Sam, Angelina and I have
decided we don’t want to wait any longer. That is,” I
went on quickly, “with your approval, Sam. I hope we
have your permission.”
“Why, shore, Bob.” His face began to relax a little.
“And jest to think, I didn’t even know you two was acourtin’.”
Careful now, Sam, you great big understanding sonof-
a-bitch, I thought. Let’s don’t make this too great a
surprise and spoil all this beautiful act. Surely you
Hill Girl — 86
remember me, the old faithful suitor of the fair
Angelina?
“Well, sit down, Sam,” I said. “I’ve got a bottle
around here somewhere and I think we ought to
celebrate.”
He came over and sat down at the table but I noticed
he still was careful not to have his back toward an open
door or window. I found the bottle and brought out
some glasses.
“Here’s to the two of you, Bob,” he said, raising his
glass.
I told him to have another and got out my safety
razor and brought a pan of water and propped a mirror
up on the table. I shifted the lamp around so I could
see, and shaved. My face looked funny with the lather
on it. I was burned black with the months in the sun
and my hair was bleached the color of cotton.
I wondered where Lee was. Under the porch? Or
down in the barn? He probably had heard Sam going
into the ignition wiring of the car and knew there
wasn’t any use in going around there.
I packed a bag and got a gray flannel suit out of the
clothes closet and shined my shoes. Sam and I talked
about the crops and the weather and the large number
of quail that had hatched out around his place.
We went out front together and it was beginning to
grow light in the east with a strip of pink above the
ridges the other side of Black Creek bottom. It was a
cloudless morning with no breeze, and I knew it was
going to be a scorching day. We haywired back the
ignition wiring Sam had torn out of the Buick.
I had an idea that after we got the wiring back Sam
wouldn’t leave the car, and he didn’t. He knew Lee was
still around somewhere and he wasn’t taking any
chances. I guess he was afraid we’d both get the jump
on him and light out together. He sat in the car and I
went back in the house, saying I had to get my bag and
the car keys.
I ducked out back and went down to the barn on the
run. I was pretty sure Lee would head in that direction
Hill Girl — 87
when it became too light for him to hide out around the
house.
He was up in the loft, sitting in the hay and smoking
a cigarette.
“For God’s sake, throw that cigarette out,” I said. “Do
you want to burn the barn down with the mules in
here?”
He sullenly pitched it out the door. “Where is he?”
“Out front in the car. Give me the keys.”
“Where you going?”
“To a wedding,” I said.
He looked down at his feet. “I’m sorry, Bob.”
“You’re sorry?” I said. “Give me the keys.”
He fished them out and handed them over. “How’m I
going to get back to town?”
“I don’t give a God damn how you get back to town.
You can walk if you want to. Or use my car. It’s in the
tool shed.”
“Why don’t you go in yours and leave the Buick
here?”
“And tell Sam it drove itself out here? He knows
you’re here, all right, but do you want to slap him in
the face with it while he’s carrying that gun?”
“All right”
“And don’t forget I’m going to a wedding. Nothing
but the best for the young bride. She’ll probably feel
more a’ home in the Buick.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re making me cry,” I said. I went down the
ladder and he looked after me, not saying anything.
When I got back out front Jake and Helen were
coming across the road from the little house to start
breakfast. When they came up everybody said, “Good
mawnin’” all around and looked embarrassed and I
could see the concern in their eyes. They knew
something serious had happened and Jake was pretty
sure what it was.

Hill Girl — 88
“Jake,” I said, “I’ll be gone for a few days. If you’ll
finish plowing out those middles I’ll make it right with
you for my half when I get back.”
“Oh, that’s all right, Bob,” he said reassuringly. “Ain’t
but about three days’ work for one man.”
They went on into the house, turning when they went
through the door to look curiously back at us. Helen’s
eyes were troubled and I knew she was worried that I’d
got into some kind of jam.
“Well, let’s get started,” I said. Sam got out of the
roadster.
“I’ll go ahead, Bob. An’ you follow me in the Buick.”
“Like hell I’ll follow you. I’ve told you I was going
over there and that’ll have to be good enough for you.”
I was a little sick of being shoved around. And I’d be
damned if I was going in there after that girl with Papa
at my heels with the gun.
“I’ll be there when you get there,” I went on, getting
into the car. I got it into gear and shot out onto the
road, looking at the bullet hole in the windshield and
not finding it very comforting.
I gunned it all the way, raging inside and getting
some relief from the fast driving and the powerful
smoothness of the big car. And I wanted to have it out
with that damned girl before Sam arrived. There was
no telling what the little fool would do or say.
The sun was just clearing the tops of the pines when I
drove in through the gate into the clearing. The front
door of the house was open and smoke was coming out
of the stovepipe from the kitchen. There was the clear,
hot smell of a summer morning and I wished I were
going out to work in the fields or going fishing with
Jake, the way we had planned it, when the work was
done.
I went up on the front porch and knocked and then
went on in. Mrs. Harley and the two little girls were
eating breakfast. There was no sign of Angelina. They
looked up at me apprehensively as I walked in and
suddenly I felt sorry for them. The little girls were so
obviously scared with all this mysterious business of
Hill Girl — 89
Papa going off somewhere mad in the middle of the
night, and this big man they didn’t know coming in like
this. Their big brown eyes regarded me fearfully and
they forgot to eat.
“Good morning, Mrs. Harley,” I said.
“Howdy, Mr. Crane,” she replied timidly, and you
could see what it had been like with her all night. The
last four or five hours must have been hell for her. I
wondered what it was like to be a woman and know
your man was gone to commit a murder that would
probably land him in the pen for the rest of his life and
know that you were going to live the rest of yours with
the disgrace and the shamed daughter and the children
without a I father to support them.
“Sam will be along in a minute,” I said.
“Is he—I mean, did he—” She couldn’t get it out.
“Everything is all right,” I said. “There wasn’t any
trouble.”
I could see the relief go through her in a big swell
and there were tears in her eyes.
“Maybe you would like to have a bite with us, Mr.
Crane?”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m not very hungry, but I’d sure
like a cup of that coffee in a minute. But could I see
Angelina for a second first?”
“Why, yes, she’s in her room. It’s the front one, on
the right as you come in.”
I knocked on the door. “Who is it?” Angelina called
out.
“Bob Crane.”
“What do you want?”
“Never mind. I want to come in. Are you dressed?”
“Yes. But I don’t want to talk to you.”
I went in and closed the door so they wouldn’t hear
me in the kitchen. She was sitting on her bed in a white
bathrobe and looked at me sullenly.
“Get dressed,” I said. “And start packing your stuff.”
“Why?”
Hill Girl — 90
“We’re going to Shreveport this morning. This is our
happy wedding day.”
“You think I’m going to marry you?” she spat at me.
“Yes. Now put your clothes on and shut up.”
“Why, I wouldn’t marry you if—if— Get out of here!”
I sat down on a big trunk and lit a cigarette and
looked at her. She was pretty, all right, with the blonde
hair mussed up and her brown eyes shooting fire at me.
Her room was nicely fixed up, with fluffy white-andgreen
curtains across the windows and handmade rag
rugs on the floor. There were pictures cut from
magazines on the walls, and from somewhere she had
picked up printed copies of three of Frederic
Remington’s pictures. They had been stuck on the wall
with frames of brown paper.
I took a drag on the cigarette and threw the ashes on
one of the rugs.
“Now get this through your fat head once and for
all,” I told her. “You started this thing and now we’re
going to finish it in the only way that’s left. I don’t give
a God damn what you think or want or anything else. I
don’t know what goes on in that so-called mind of
yours, but I’d think that you would understand after the
shape Sam caught you in last night that your position is
pretty thin around here. He may beat you to death or
throw you out yet. Not that I give a damn what he does
to you, but there are some innocent people that are
going to get hurt if Sam isn’t pacified pretty shortly.”
“What have you got to do with it?” she asked, giving
me a surly look.
“Never mind. Sam’ll be here in about ten minutes.
You’d better be packing when he shows up. I don’t
think this thing has sunk into your skull yet; you don’t
seem to realize what kind of spot you and Lee are in.
Sam catches you out there in the bushes flat on your
calloused back and you think he’s going to write a
letter to the Times about it? Get wise to yourself. We
get married today or Sam is going to kill Lee. And don’t
fool yourself that the sheriff or a peace bond or
something else is going to stop him.”

Hill Girl — 91
“If he thinks it was you, why would he shoot Lee?”
“He doesn’t think it was me. He knows who it was.
But I’m not married, and he’d rather have a
bridegroom than a corpse.”
She hitched around on the bed until her back was
toward me and she was looking out the window. “All
right,” she said bitterly. “I’ll do it. But, I wouldn’t live
with you if you paid me.”
“Write me about it sometime,” I said. I went out and
closed the door.
The children were gone outside but Mrs. Harley was
still sitting at the table. She poured me a cup of coffee.
“Mrs. Harley,” I said, “I don’t know exactly how to go
about telling you this, but Angelina and I are going to
Shreveport this morning to be married.”
“Yes, I kinda guessed that was it.” She flushed and
looked away, and I felt uncomfortable.
It took a long time for her to get it out and she
started several times only to break down in confusion,
but finally she said it.
“I know it wasn’t you. I mean, last night, Sam said—”
I didn’t say anything. There didn’t seem to be any
answer to that. There wasn’t any use in lying to her, for
she knew the whole thing, and there wasn’t anything to
be gained by confirming the fact that her daughter had
been lying with a married man.
She started to cry then, with her face buried in the
crook of her arm on the table, and I felt worse than
ever. There was such a beaten hopelessness about her
grief that you knew there wasn’t anything you could do
for her.
After a while she stopped and said quietly, “It ain’t all
like you think, Mr. Crane. It ain’t all her fault or your
brother’s fault. She hasn’t had—Well, Sam has always
been so strict with her, and she ain’t never had no fun
like other girls. He was so stern with her.”
I heard Sam driving up in front then, and Angelina
came out of her room with a small imitation-leather
handbag. She was wearing a poorly made cheap dress
and lisle stockings and her shoes were half-soled and
Hill Girl — 92
clumsily repaired. Her clothes were a mess, but they
couldn’t completely cover up what she really looked
like.
She didn’t even say good-by to her mother and only
stared coldly at Sam as we went out the front door.
Sam shook my hand with embarrassment and Mrs.
Harley tried to say something and then her face broke
up and she turned and ran back into the room and I
could hear the heavy weight of her fall onto the bed
and the muffled crying into the blankets.
Hill Girl — 93
Twelve
She sat in silence way over on her side of the seat,
staring straight ahead and ignoring me. It wasn’t until
we were almost in town that she spoke.
“Where are you going to drop me off?”
“Drop you off?” I asked. “Where’d you get that idea?”
“You’re not really going to go through with it, are
you?”
“Of course we are.”
“Why? I didn’t think you liked me.”
I lit a cigarette. “I don’t.”
“Then why, for God’s sake?”
“I thought we went over all of that a while ago.”
‘’But if it was just on account of Lee, he’s had a
chance to get away by now. And if Papa’s fool enough
to let us go off alone—”
“It was a horse trade and he kept his end of it, and
I’m not going to double-cross him. Maybe you don’t
know what you’re fooling with, but I do.”
She sniffed. I started to go on and tell her the rest of
it and then I thought, Oh, what the hell? Why try to get
anything through her thick skull? Why try to explain to
her that it didn’t make any difference if Lee did get
away this morning? He still had to live in this country
Hill Girl — 94
and he’d never be able to do it with Sam Harley after
him. And neither would I if I crossed him up now. And
why try to get it through her head how important it was
that Mary didn’t find out about it?
We drove up South Street in silence and I stopped
the car in the alley behind the bank and got out.
“I’ve got to cash a check,” I said. “It’ll be a half hour
or more before the bank opens. Do you want to buy
anything or have some breakfast or something?”
“No,” she said curtly. “I don’t want anything.”
“Suit yourself,” I said.
When the bank opened I went in and wrote a check
for three hundred dollars. Julian Creed raised his prim
eyebrows at the amount. “What are you doing, Bob?
Buying more mules?” he asked in his high-pitched
voice.
“You might call it that,” I said.
I went back out in the alley. It was getting hot
already, and I took off the flannel coat and pitched it
across the shelf behind the seat and got in.
“We’re off,” I said. “How’s the panting bride?”
Her eyes were smoldering. “To hell with you.”

When we came to a stop at the mouth of the alley I
saw Mary and another girl walking along the other side
of the street. She was in fresh white linen and had on
white shoes and she was going the other way and
hadn’t seen us, walking slowly along with that longlegged
grace it was so delightful to watch. She waved
at someone across the street I couldn’t see and I
slammed into low and rubber burned as we shot out of
the alley and swung east.
“You drive like you was crazy,” Angelina said.
When I didn’t say anything, she went on, “Who was
that girl?”
“Was there a girl?” I asked. “Where?”
“The one you were looking at. The redheaded girl in
white. You must know her, you stared at her hard
enough.”
“You mean you don’t know her?”
Hill Girl — 95
“Well, I wouldn’t have asked you if I did.”
“You should get acquainted. You’ve been doing
enough of her work. That was Mrs. Leland Crane.”
“Oh,” she said and was silent for a minute. Then, “I
don’t think she’s so pretty. Do you?”
“Am I supposed to?”
“I don’t give a damn what you do. I just asked you a
question.”
“Ask me another one. We’ll make a game out of it. Go
on, ask me the capital of Omaha.”
“Oh, go to hell.”
“Don’t we want to be a well-rounded girl? Or do you
think just your heels are enough?”
She glared at me and didn’t say anything. I shut up
then and we drove for an hour in complete silence. I
pushed the car hard and kept my eyes on the road and
she sat rigidly on her side of the seat with her hands in
her lap and stared straight ahead. I kept expecting her
to cry, but she never did, and I began to be conscious
of a grudging respect for her. She was taking a lot, for
an eighteen-year-old, and she was taking it standing up
and fighting back, with no tears and no hysterics. This
thing wasn’t any more fun for her than it was for me,
and I hadn’t made it any easier for her the way I’d been
riding her. I began to be ashamed of the way I had
been acting, the way I had been wanting to take a
swing at something or somebody and had been taking
it out on her because she was here within reach. I’d
been blaming her for the whole stinking mess just
because I didn’t like her, and if anybody was to be
blamed for it, it was Lee, and I knew it.
“I’m sorry about being nasty,” I said after a while.
“What? You mean you’re not nasty all the time?” she
asked scornfully.
Now, hold onto yourself, I thought. Don’t let her get
your goat again. Maybe she is scared and all this hardshelled
antagonism is a defense. Maybe it’s just what
she does instead of crying, the way another girl would.
“Not all the time. There are moments when I’m
almost human.”
Hill Girl — 96
“Nobody would ever know it from looking at you.
You’re too big and ugly to be human.”
“You certainly are a gracious little punk,” I said,
beginning to forget some of my noble compassion.
“What you need is a good whipping.”
“You lay a hand on me, you big ape, and I’ll kick you
where you won’t forget it in a hurry.”
“Well, well, the little expert on male anatomy. Is that
what they’re teaching the girls in the tenth grade
now?”
“I wonder how anybody like Lee could have a brother
like you. I just don’t believe you’re any kin, as homely
and as mean as you are.”
What’s the use? I thought. Trying to be civil is a
waste of time.
We rolled into Shreveport a little before noon and I
parked the car and hunted up a doctor to get the
medical certificate. Then we went up and got the
license and by that time it was twelve o’clock and the
justice of the peace was out to lunch. We came out of
the building and stood there on the sidewalk in the hot
sun for a moment, undecided where to kill an hour. We
started walking slowly along the street, headed for a
drugstore for a sandwich and something to drink.
We were passing a big department store, going
slowly and aimlessly and looking in the windows. She
stopped for a moment in front of a window display of
women’s dresses. I stopped and waited for her, lighting
a cigarette, and watched the traffic going by in the
street. She started ahead again, and looked back over
her shoulder at the window full of clothes, and just for
a second I saw her eyes without that defensive
sullenness in them. They were hungry, and hopeless,
and there was heartbreak in the way she looked back
and then went slowly on.
She waited dully for me to come on. I looked at the
clothes she had on, probably actually seeing them for
the first time since she had come out of her room this
morning, and all at once acutely aware of the dowdy
shapelessness of the cheap dress and the crude way
the cracked shoes were repaired.
Hill Girl — 97
“Wait a minute,” I said. “What were you looking at?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Let’s go.”
There were four dummies in the window dressed in
different dresses and one was displaying a brown linen
skirt and a little jacket and carrying a price tag of $35.
“Was that it?” I asked.
“Well, I was just looking at it.”
“Do you like it?”
“What difference does it make?”
I took her by the arm and started toward the door. It
was dim inside after the glare of the sun and it smelled
of new cloth and floor-sweeping compound. A grayhaired
saleswoman came toward us smilingly behind
one of the glass counters.
“Could I help you?”
“Yes,” I said. “My wife would like to look at that
brown linen thing you have in the window.”
“Certainly,” she said, giving Angelina a quick glance,
“I believe we have it in just her size.” I could see the
sharp feminine appraisal in the gray eyes and the halfconcealed
envy of that terrific figure. “Right this way.
Please.” She started back toward the rear of the store.
Angelina’s face was hot. I guess the only thing she
had seen in the clerk’s scrutiny was contempt for the
clothes she had on.
“I can’t buy that,” she whispered, embarrassed and
angry. “I’ve only got about seven dollars.”
I pulled out five twenties and stuffed them into her
handbag and gave it back to her.
“Now you’ve got a hundred and seven. I think you
can just about get what you need worst with that. And,
for God’s sake, when you come to stockings get some
nylons and the best ones they have. It should be a
crime for a girl with legs like yours to wear the
stockings you’ve got on.”
She flushed again. “I didn’t think you liked anything
about me.”
“Well, let’s don’t go into it. Just put me down as a
patron of the arts. I love beauty.”
Hill Girl — 98

I started for the door. “I’ll be back in about a half or
three quarters of an hour. You’d better run along. The
clerk’s waiting for you.”
She looked after me with her eyes bewildered and
confused and then she tried to smile but it didn’t quite
come off and she turned and went rapidly down the
aisle.
I suddenly remembered when I was back out in the
street again that I was trying to be married without a
ring and stopped and bought one. Then I took the bags
around to the hotel and registered. It looked strange on
the card: Mr. And Mrs. Robert E. Crane. When I got up
in the room I gave the bellboy some money and told
him to hunt up a bottle and he was back with one in
less than five minutes.
I poured a big drink and sat down in an armchair by
the window and looked out into the sun-blasted street
and thought sourly of what a sap I was. Why did I have
to give that surly little brat a hundred dollars? That
was more money than I’d spent in the past four
months. Sugar daddy from the cotton country, I
thought, taking a big drink and shuddering at the fiery
taste of it. But all the time I was calling myself a
thickheaded idiot I kept seeing again that beaten look
there had been in her eyes as she turned away from
those things beyond the plate glass.
What the hell, I thought defensively, a girl is entitled
to get something out of a wedding. Even if she is a
mule-headed little punk who doesn’t know the meaning
of civility, and even if the wedding is by courtesy of the
Winchester Repeating Arms Company, she should have
something out of it she can remember without wanting
to cut her throat. That’s right, let’s have a good cry.
Let’s build her up. You know what always happens
whenever you start feeling sorry for Angelina.
Angelina, the young bride. Nuts! I poured the rest of
the drink in the basin in the bathroom and went back to
the store.
She and the saleswoman were still hard at it and the
packages and opened boxes were scattered over the
counter. Angelina’s back was turned toward me and
Hill Girl — 99
she didn’t see me coming, but the clerk smiled and she
turned around and it was an Angelina I’d never seen
before who looked at me. She still had on the same
clothes and nothing was changed except her eyes, but
they were altogether different. I guess it wasn’t
anything, really, except that they were happy, and I
had never seen that expression in them before.
She smiled a little hesitantly and said, “Do you like
these—Bob?” It was the first time she’d ever called me
by name. She was holding up a pair of very sheer
nylons, holding them as caressingly as a mother might
a baby.
“They’re very nice,” I said, trying to overcome the
traditional male indifference toward any stocking that
doesn’t have anything in it.
“And look at the shoes I got.” She rummaged around
in the pile of merchandise and came up with a pair of
slender-heeled white shoes with practically no soles to
them. Each time she would dredge up something else
out of the confusion of stuff she would look happily at
me for some approving comment and then before I
could think of something to say she would be off after
another item.
When they were all wrapped up and we were ready
to go, I told the clerk to have them delivered to the
hotel. Angelina’s face fell slightly. “Can’t we carry
them, Bob?” she asked hopefully. “They’re not very
heavy.”
“O.K.,” I said, and we gathered them up. We went out
and when we were in the street and headed for the
hotel she looked up at me over the bundles she was
carrying, the ones she wouldn’t trust out of her own
arms, and said, simply, “Thank you. I don’t know why
you did it, but it was the nicest thing anybody has ever
done for me since I was born.”
“You’re welcome, Angelina,” I said uncomfortably.
Her eyes were beautiful, I thought, when she wasn’t
using them as weapons.
Hill Girl — 100
Thirteen
We went up to the room so she could change into her
new things before the ceremony. As soon as we were
inside she threw the bundles on the bed and began
unwrapping them excitedly.
She held up a slip and admired it and turned to me.
“I can’t get over it, Bob. But I’ll never know why you
did it.”
“I’m not very bright,” I said. “I was kicked on the
head too much playing football.”
“I don’t think you’re as mean as you pretend to be.”
“I’m just a campfire girl at heart,” I said absently,
pouring another drink and pushing some of the stuff off
one end of the bed so I could lie down across it. I lay
there glumly, propped on one elbow, sipping the
whisky and water and watching her. Nobody will ever
understand them, I thought. They’re in a class by
themselves. You get one catalogued and classified and
tagged and before you can tie the tag on she’s changed
into something else. The sullen little brat who was in a
jam from rolling back on her round heels once too often
and getting caught is now the starry-eyed young girl
going to her first prom and trying to decide which of
her new dresses to wear. She didn’t look angry or
defiant now. I tried to analyze just how she did look
and watched her curiously. She was eager, and happy,
Hill Girl — 101
and her eyes shone as she unwrapped her parcels, and
I wondered if she had forgotten what we were here for.
She ran into the bathroom and turned on the water in
the tub. “Oh, it’s such a beautiful bathroom,” she said
eagerly. “Do you think I have time for a bath?”
“Sure,” I said. I went to the phone and ordered some
soda and ice and when it came up I mixed a good drink.
It was hot, even with the overhead fan running. I took
off my coat and swished the ice around in the glass. I
could hear Angelina splashing around in the bathroom
and wondered sourly what was keeping her so long. I
cursed the heat and the waiting and Shreveport. And
then I cursed Angelina and Sam Harley and Lee and
then the heat again.
What do you suppose is keeping the young bride?
Let’s get the hell out of here and get this thing over
with so I can get going. Get going to New Orleans or
somewhere. This is going to be a good one. I’d been
living out there a long time alone, too long when you’re
twenty-two, with that ache you get, and those dreams.
Living in the country and farming is fun, but you have
to take time off to relax. And you have to have the
ashes hauled once in a while or you’ll go crazy. You’re
overtrained. You get sour. You get so you want to fight
everybody. No, not everybody, you phony bastard. You
didn’t want to fight Sam Harley, did you? Not while he
was carrying that gun. It didn’t take any six or seven
men to hold you back then, did it? Now, don’t start
that. You didn’t get into this stinking mess because you
were afraid of Sam Harley. You got into it because you
didn’t want Mary to find out about Lee and this
Angelina and because you didn’t want Lee to find out
what it’s like to be shot full of .38-caliber holes. At
least, it sounds better that way. And a lot of good it’ll
do. What about the next one? And the one after that?
Are you going to marry them all? Lee is your brother
and you love him and he’s a wonderful guy, but he’s not
a husband. He’s a stallion.
I thought some more about New Orleans. It was
going to take one hell of a good binge to get the taste
of this business out of my mouth. Oh, well, I thought,
Hill Girl — 102

I’ve got that money I’ve hardly even touched, and the
time, and nothing stopping me. Except a wife, of
course. Don’t forget the young bride.
I heard a padding of bare feet behind me. The young
bride was out of the tub.
A voice said happily, “Well, aren’t you going to turn
around? I want to show you the rest of my new
clothes.”
I turned around and she was standing near where my
feet extended over the side of the bed. I dropped the
cigarette I had in my hand and it fell on the bedspread
and started to burn it and I picked it up and ground out
the coal between my fingers without feeling it.
I saw the rest of her new clothes, which weren’t
extensive. She had on a pair of very brief pants and a
thin robe of some sort and her hair was down around
her shoulders. She smiled gently at me and said, “I
think they’re awful nice, don’t you?”
I turned back to the window and said, “They’re very
nice.”; I must have said it, for there wasn’t anybody
else in the room, but it didn’t sound like my voice. It
sounded like someone being strangled.
Remember, that’s Angelina. She’s a snotty little brat
and you don’t like her and you’re just over here to
marry her to untangle a messy situation that you don’t
want to get any worse. You can’t stand the sight of her.
You can bet your life on that, brother. You can’t stand
many more sights of her like that.
“Go put your damn clothes on,” I said. I wondered
how my voice sounded to her. It didn’t sound so
promising to me.
She reached down and took hold of my ankle and
shook it. “You turn around, Bob, and tell me what you
think of them. You didn’t say a word, and you bought
them for me, and I want you to like them.”
I turned around and she was smiling teasingly. I tried
to put the drink on the window sill but I dropped it and
the glass broke and the ice skidded across the rug. I
got off the bed and caught her, roughly, as you would
any old bag, not half knowing what I was doing and not
Hill Girl — 103
caring much, heedless of anything but the wildness of
having to get my hands on her. She took the first kiss
without much more than a gasp, but the next time she
hit me and she hit me hard, with her fist doubled up,
and then she was pounding on my face with both hands
and struggling. I let go of her and she ran back and
picked up a glass off the dresser and threw it at me. It
bounced off my neck and hit the wall but it didn’t
break.
Her eyes were hot as she glared at me like a female
wildcat. “I’ll teach you,” she said. “I’ll teach you how to
grab me like that, like a crazy man.”
“O.K.,” I said. “Keep your shirt on. I ought to break
your damn little neck.” I went back and lay down
across the bed and lit another cigarette and looked out
the window.
There was a long silence, as though she hadn’t
moved, and I began to wonder what she was doing
back there, but I was so angry I didn’t care. To hell
with her.
Suddenly she was there beside me on the bed, facing
me with her head cradled across her folded arm and
looking at me contritely.
“I'm sorry,” she said. “I’m awful sorry, Bob. Will you
forgive me?”
“O.K.,” I said. “Forget it.”
“Not until you say you forgive me.” Her eyes looked
at me pleadingly and her hair was spread out across
her arm within inches of my face. It was beautiful hair,
a little darker than golden, and I was thinking it was
just the color of wild honey.
“It wasn’t anything,” I said. “And it was my fault.”
“No. It was mine. But you scared me and made me
mad, the wild way you acted. You were so rough.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She regarded me a moment, wide-eyed, and then
went on softly, “You don’t have to be that rough, do
you?”
Hill Girl — 104
She didn’t hit me this time. She put her arms up
around my neck and pulled my head down like a
swimmer who was drowning.
We lay side by side on the bed for a long time
afterward, not saying anything and just being quiet
under the cool breeze from the overhead fan. She
sighed after a while and murmured something.
“What?” I asked.
“I said it’s nice here, Bob. Don’t you like it?”
“It’s nice anywhere,” I said.
She ignored it. “You know what I mean. Our room is
nice.”
“Why did you do it?” I asked. I was beginning to think
that Angelina was something I wouldn’t ever
understand. There were too many of her.
“Do what?” she asked quietly.
“You didn’t do anything?”
“I just wanted you to see my new clothes. Because
you were so nice and bought them for me.”
“Yes, I know,” I said. “And then the strangest thing
happened. You just can’t account for it.”
She turned her face and smiled lazily.
“If you’re really interested in an unbiased and
analytical criticism of those tag ends of clothes,” I said,
“let me give you a little advice. Display them
unoccupied. When you get in there you only confuse
the issue.”
“I didn’t think you liked me.” She always got back to
that.
“It isn’t a question of liking you, any more than of
liking being hit between the eyes with a sledge
hammer. It has the same effect.”
“You know something?” she said suddenly, raising up
and resting her elbows on my chest and looking at me
with little devils of mirth in her eyes. “Someday you’re
going to slip and say something nice about me.”
“No doubt.”
“We’re getting to be better friends, aren’t we?”
Hill Girl — 105
“Sure, sure,” I said. “If we just keep on breaking the
ice with these friendly little gestures. May I call you by
your first name, now that we’re sleeping together? I
somehow feel as if I knew you.”
I could have kicked myself after I’d said it. Why did I
have to keep on riding her? But she didn’t flare up as I
expected she would.
“You think I’m pretty rotten, don’t you?” She wasn’t
angry that I could see. She was just quiet and her eyes
were a little moody. I hated the thing I had said for the
way it had driven the laughter out of her eyes, and I
hated myself for saying it.
“No,” I said. “And I apologize for that last crack. It
was just from habit, I guess. But I didn’t mean it.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “We don’t have to
pretend anything, do we?”
We were quiet for a long time and finally I said, “How
do you feel about getting married? Have you ever
thought about it before?”
“What girl hasn’t?”
“Anybody in particular?”