“And then there is, of course, the escape itself,
marked by one of the most brutal crimes to occur in
the state in a long time. Apparently Neely in some
way managed to get hold of the steering wheel or slug
the driver while the car was traveling at a high rate of
speed and wrecked it, rolling it over and over down a
steep embankment. The officer who was driving was
instantly killed with a broken neck, but the other, to
whom Neely was shackled, apparently survived, only
to be murdered with his own gun. And this is the part
of it that has horrified thousands and united the lawenforcement
agencies of the whole state into one
large armed posse determined to track Neely down
and bring him to account at all costs. For, apparently
unable to find the key to the handcuffs, he callously
severed the hand of the dead officer to free himself of
the encumbrance of his body.
“In the sixty hours since then, concerted efforts by
law-enforcement agencies throughout the eastern half
of the state have not unearthed a single clue as to his
whereabouts. In a matter of hours after the discovery
of the wrecked car and the bodies, road blocks were
set up on every highway within a radius of a hundred
miles. Railway and bus terminals were watched.
There have been no holdups by anyone even remotely
answering to his description. Dogs were brought up
from a state prison farm to the scene of the wreck,
Big City Girl — 48
but proved to be of no value, as Neely apparently took
to the highway after leaving the car, and his trail
became lost in the overpowering oily smells along the
pavement. Police think it likely he was picked up in a
car along the road somewhere, though intensive
questioning of persons in adjacent towns has revealed
nothing to substantiate this theory.
“It is not even known whether or not he was injured
in the wreck, but it would appear that if he was not it
was nothing short of miraculous in view of the way
the automobile was demolished. Officers do know,
however, that he was dressed in a blue serge suit and
white shirt with no tie, tan shoes, and tan-colored
tooled-leather cowboy belt with a silver buckle. He
was not wearing a hat. And, of course, at the time of
the escape he was still wearing the handcuffs
attached to his right wrist. He’s armed, and all police
officers have been cautioned that he is extremely
dangerous.
“One interesting development has come to light in
past few hours, however. This is the discovery of the
key that Neely had been unable to find to free himself
of the handcuffs. It was found in the mud near the
car, where it had apparently been thrown by Harvey
Denham, the officer to whom Neely had been
shackled. Officers state that the only possible way the
key could have got there was for Denham, at the time
he was shot or just before, have thrown it through the
window of the car into the darkness to prevent
Neely’s escape, in a selfless act of heroism and
devotion to duty that will be long remembered in the
annals of law enforcement.
“At a late hour last night officers were still unable
to understand how Neely could have evaded for this
long the far-reaching dragnet set for him. They cited
the fact that it is nearly impossible for a man whose
description is as widely known as Neely’s, and who is
under the handicap of forever having to keep his right
hand hidden because of the handcuffs, to travel
anywhere without being recognized. They predicted
that he would be picked up within hours.
Big City Girl — 49
“And now to the other news. In Washington last
night? Senator Connally, Democrat, of Texas, said
that in his opinion—”
Cass reached over and snapped the little button
turned the light off. Had to be awful careful, the man
had said, and not leave it turned on, because it would
run the batteries down, especially since they didn’t
have any place to plug in the AC-DC. When the
batteries were dead, the man said, they’d have to buy
new ones, He wondered how they were going to do
that. Oh, well, they’d cross that bridge when they
came to it. Probably have the crop in then, with
plenty of money to buy batteries. Wasn’t much new.
About the same as last night. Well, when there is
something new, he thought, they’ll put it n the air.
Just got to be listening for it when it comes through.
He rubbed the shiny blue leatherette case with a
loving hand and thought how pretty it looked and
tried to remember what the man had said was the full
price, shouldn’t have been too much, though, for the
down payment was only ten dollars.
It was a hot, clear morning, with the sun just
clearing he treetops along the crest of the ridge, and
the red-gold rays splashing against the wall of the,
front room reminded him of the bad time he’d had the
past two days with miseries in his legs, and that a few
more days of hot sunshine ought to bake it all out so
he’d be able to get round.
He got up stiffly and hobbled out into the kitchen,
where Jessie was putting breakfast on the table. She
looked through him and went on pouring Mitch’s
coffee. Mitch did not even bother to glance in his
direction at all. Joy looked up and smiled.
“Good morning, Cass,” she said.
Only one cares whether I live or die with the
miseries is Joy, he thought, and she’s just marrying
kin. Ingratitude is sharper than the serpent’s tooth,
the Scripture lays. Only true child I got is Joy.
I hope the old cluck goes to work today so I can get
a chance to turn on that radio and listen to some
music, Joy thought. Way he watches it, you’d think we
Big City Girl — 50
wanted to steal it. Must be me he’s afraid’ll get at it,
because Mitch was down in the field from sunup to
dark and he knows Jessie wouldn’t touch it with a tenfoot
pole.
“Sure feel stove up in the legs,” Cass said wearily.
“Just can’t hardly get around at all.”
No one answered him. Mitch went on eating. Jessie
stood by the stove, impassive, still-faced, looking out
the back door at the sunlight spilling into the yard.
“Was hoping I’d be able to get around today, we got
so much to do, but I just don’t know.”
The silence continued, broken only by the popping
of fire in the cookstove.
”Ain’t found hide or hair of Sewell. They’s a statewide
man hunt.” He was beginning to parrot the
cliches of the news broadcasts alter nearly two days
of listening to them.
Jessie put the plate of fried salt pork on the table
and went out the back door, walking erect and rigid
like an Indian down the single step into the yard.
“I wish she’d eat some breakfast,” Cass said
fretfully. “Ain’t right for a youngun not have an
appetite.”
‘When she gets hungry she’ll eat,” Mitch said.
“Leave her alone.”
“You ought to have more compassion for others.
Jessie’s your sister, same as Sewell’s your brother,
and you don’t think about neither one of ‘em. All you
got time for is tearing into the crop like a man killing
snakes. She ought to come and listen to the radio
some. It’d get her in a better frame of mind.”
“I wouldn’t wait till she did,” Mitch said.
“You think maybe she’s still upset about the dawg?”
“No,” Mitch said coldly. “The dawg’s only been
around here for about nine years, since she was six
years old. And he’s been gone for two days now. She’s
all over that.”
Cass was silent for a few minutes, then he asked,
“You think maybe Sewell will get away from “em?”
Big City Girl — 51
“No,” Mitch said. “He won’t get away.”
“Well, they ain’t found no sign of him yet.”
“They will.”
“How can you say that?” Cass complained. “Don’t
nobody know. He might.”
“Ain’t nobody can get away from ‘em when they
want him bad enough.”
Cass sighed. “Well, it’s easy enough to say if you
just don’t care, I reckon.”
Mitch pushed back his chair and got up.
“Sure wish I could get around,” Cass said
plaintively, “It’s saddening to a man not to be able to
do his part when there’s so much to be done.”
Mitch did not answer. He went on out into the back
yard. Jessie was building a fire under the big sootblackened
washpot, fanning the blaze with an old
straw hat to get it started.
Mitch stopped and looked down at her. “You ought
to eat some breakfast.”
“I didn’t want any.”
“You ought to eat something anyway. It ain’t good
for you, doing without.”
“I’m just not hungry, Mitch.”
“You’re going to be sick if you keep this up.”
“I’m all right.”
What can you tell her? he thought. He stood there
for a moment looking down at her forlorn pretense of
industry with the fire, wishing he could think of
something to say that would help, and then he turned
and strode down toward the barn.
Big City Girl — 52
Eight
Grass was something you could fight. It was an enemy
you could see and touch and could come to grips with
when the rain stood back and gave you a chance. It
was waiting for you there in the cotton, long-leaved
and rank and wet with the dew, sucking the food out
of the ground and growing fat while it robbed you of
your living. It was an arrogant enemy and hard to kill
and there never seemed to be any end to it, but at
least it was out in the open waiting for you, and when
you slid the steel of the heel sweeps under it and
turned it roots up to the burning anger of the sun it
died and you had won a little something. There was
nothing evasive about it and it was no will-o’-the-wisp
you were chasing in the dark. It was rooted in the
ground, as in a way you were rooted in it, and it
would stand there and fight you for the ground and
for survival, and when you brought your violence to it
it didn’t change shape on you and fade away like
water slipping through your fingers.
You saw Sewell going away, and Jessie’s sadness,
and when you tried to fight it there was nothing you
could hit. You tried to reason with Cass about the
crop and about the dog and it was like chasing smoke
with a minnow seine. There was nothing solid about
any of it that you could get your hands on. You lay
Big City Girl — 53
awake when you were dead tired and needed the
sleep, lying there on the cot in the darkness thinking
of hunting squirrels with Sewell and running the
setlines at night along the river’s banks with the pine
torch blazing and sputtering and throwing your longlegged
shadows against the trees, hunting coons with
him to the baying of hounds on frosty, starlit winter
nights a long time ago before he began to get in
trouble, and all the other things you used to do with
him and the way you always had to run to keep up
with the endless vitality of him. You thought of him
then and you thought of him now, and it was like a
sickness eating at you from the inside where you
couldn’t get at it.
But with the crop, thank God, it was different. You
could still lose because the rain could whip you and
the boll weevils could whip you and any one of a halfdozen
other things could do it too, but at least you
were fighting something you could see and when you
hit it you could feel something solid under your hand.
It was an elemental problem, with nothing fancy
about it. The crop was there, and if you didn’t save it
you went hungry. It had rained far too much already
and there wasn’t much chance now of that big crop
you were always going to make next year, that fifteen
bales or more when you would come out at the end of
the year with money ahead and Jessie could go back
to school and you could buy some of your own
equipment again and not go on farming on the halves
all your life. That was probably just a dream for
another year. What you were fighting for now was
survival. You had to pay off the credit to get credit
for another year to go on eating to make another
crop.
The cotton on the hillside fields wasn’t going to
amount to anything. It still looked bad. The color was
all wrong, too pale and with too much yellow in it. If
the rain held off and they could get the grass out of it,
it would still take four acres of it to make a bale. He
could see that as he went up and down the long,
curving hillside rows with the cultivator, fighting to
save what he could of it and waiting for the bottom
Big City Girl — 54
ground to dry. The twenty-five acres in the bottom
could still make ten or twelve bales if they could get
in there to work it in time, but the grass was terrible
in it and time was crowding them. It would be another
two or three days before the ground would be dry
enough to plow down there, and he watched the skies
for signs of weather change as he fought the endless
rows along the hill.
From sunup to sundown he urged the mules along
with the slap of plowlines across their sweaty backs
and the stinging lash of curses when they lagged. The
halt at noon was a brief impatient moment of lost time
while he bolted unnoticed food and went back out into
the field before his sweat-drenched clothes had begun
to dry. All day yesterday, today, and then tomorrow,
and then another day, and the hillside would be
plowed and the bottom dry so he could go on with the
battle there in the field where the issue would be lost
or won. He came in at night sweaty and sunblackened
and tired clear down to the bone, to eat
supper by lamplight and pray for the weather to
continue clear. Cass was a complaining voice at the
head of the table, bemoaning the miseries in his legs
that kept him from the field, and full of the mounting
tension of the hunt for Sewell. Jessie was a slender,
still-face figure standing silently by the stove and
waiting for Cass to leave the table before she would
come and eat, and Joy was always there across from
him, a blonde head under the lamplight and a hint of
fragrance in the still, hot air of night, sliding the
silken sheet of bitchery across the shackled and halfsleeping
maleness in him while he hated her.
The next day was hot and clear, and then the next
while he fought his way down the hillside and started
out across the bottom, driving the mules and the
cultivator ahead of him like a lank and bitter-faced
avenging angel in pursuit of devils. Cass sat by the
radio through the long hours drawn by the secret and
magic ecstasy of hearing his name broadcast over the
air, but they had not found Sewell. Neely has
disappeared, the radio said, carrying his name into
millions of homes along with Truman’s and Stalin’s.
Big City Girl — 55
Neely has disappeared into air.
* * *
In the long, bright afternoon Joy lay on her bed and
tried to sleep. Jessie was ironing clothes in the
kitchen and she could hear the rattle of irons on the
cookstove and on beyond, in the front room, the
droning voice of the radio where Cass waited for the
news. It was hot in the room and she had taken off
her dress and slip and lay there in the brief and
fragmentary covering of her under-things with the
door out into the kitchen partly open to catch any
passing current of air. I hope Cass don’t take a notion
to go out in the kitchen, she thought. Oh, to hell with
him. I’m not going to lie here and roast in a lot of
clothes just because he might be snooping around.
Let him look if he wants to. What the hell do I care?
She put an arm up across her face to shut out the
light and the barren harshness of the room, but took
it away in a minute because it was too hot to touch
herself. There was no ceiling, and as she lay on her
back with her bare arms and legs stretched out to
keep from touching herself she could see the dusty
rafters and the hot underside of the corrugated sheetmetal
roofing fastened down to the lath with long
nails that came through and splintered the wood. The
walls were unpapered, constructed of rough one-bytwelves
running vertically from floor to roof with
battens nailed over the cracks on the outside. One of
the battens had been torn off, and as the sun moved
down in the west a lengthening shaft of golden light
came through the exposed crack and across the room.
In the two hours she had been watching it she had
seen it crawl across the old ironbound trunk against
the wall and then onto the bed, and now it stretched
across her thigh like a thin gold band. Her imitationleather
Gladstone bag lay open atop the trunk, and as
she turned her head wearily in the heat she could see
the shaft of light probing into the piled and
disordered jumble of sleazy underthings and shoddy
dresses with powder spilled over them, the bottle of
Big City Girl — 56
cheap perfume, and her last pair of unsnagged
nylons, and she wanted to scream.
She could feel the scream welling up from
somewhere deep inside her like some bloating,
nauseous pressure that had to escape somehow, and
she put a hand across her mouth to hold it in. Oh,
Christ, why can’t I die and get it over with? Do I have
to lie here in this goddamned heat and look at what
I’ve got left to show for twenty-eight years? A paper
suitcase full of cheap clothes a whore wouldn’t be
found dead in, and a cheap marriage to a cheap
gangster, and before that a cheaper one to a cheap
tout selling tip sheets to a bunch of cheap suckers at
racetracks, and before that . . . But, Jesus Christ,
what’s the use in going any further back than that—to
all the cheap, greasy hash houses and all the cheap
bastards. Cheap! Cheap! Cheap! She put her hands
up alongside her face to keep it from flying apart with
the pounding repetition of the word through her
brain.
Imagine trying to kid myself I’m only twenty-five
and I that I look just the same as ever. That’s a laugh.
That’s a hot one, all right! That’s good. Jesus, but
that’s rich! With the lousy cold-blooded ape laughing
right in my face in a stinking county jail like I was
some slut asking him for a dollar. Twenty-eight years
old and stranded without a nickel in a God-forsaken
hole like this with everything I own in a paper
suitcase, and beginning to droop like a sharecropper’s
wife who’s had eleven brats and I’m trying
to kid myself I’ve still got it and can go on from here.
I couldn’t get a job in a Congress Avenue burlesque
show taking off my clothes for a bunch of baldheaded
stew bums. Lying about my first husband
connected with racing and the dances at the
Roosevelt Hotel when the nearest ever got to the
Roosevelt was tending bar in a broken-down beer
joint while my precious husband bet the rent money
on his own stupid tips out at the Fairgrounds. The
glamorous Joyce Gavin Broussard Neely! I’m a cheap,
lousy bitch who never had anything but looks, and
now they’re gone and I’ve got a paper suitcase full of
Big City Girl — 57
trashy clothes to show for it. For all twenty-eight
years of it. Oh, God, if that ain’t a scream!
She began to cry. Why do I go on trying to kid
myself, looking in a mirror? I look like an old bag, and
I know it. No woman ever knew whether she was
beautiful or not by looking in a mirror. They don’t tell
you anything. Men tell you, not mirrors. And when
they laugh in your face . . . Oh, Jesus, I wish I could
die.
Her shoulders shook with the crying and she turned
wretchedly on her side and gave way to the storm of
self-pity. In a moment, however, she became aware
there, was someone else in the room and looked up
through the tears to see Jessie standing inside the
door and watching her with anxiety.
“Joy, what is it?” Jessie asked. “Are you all right?”
Joy choked down the sobs and drew a hand across
her eyes. She nodded dumbly. Jessie went over to the
suitcase and found a handkerchief and took it to her,
feeling shy and self-conscious because of her
nakedness and looking only at her face. Joy reached
for it and dabbed forlornly at her eyes.
“What is it, Joy?” Jessie asked again. “Can I help?”
She stood very straight beside the bed, like a graveeyed
and worried child being introduced for the first
time to the sickbed and the ills of adults.
“I—I got to thinking about Sewell,” Joy said. Well, in
a way I was, she thought defensively. “I’m sorry I’m
such a mess, honey.”
“Poor Joy,” Jessie said, her own eyes beginning to
grow misty. “I’m sorry, Joy.”
Joy began to cry again and Jessie sat down on the
side of the bed with her back toward the foot because
she was still embarrassed about the other’s almost
nude body. She shyly placed a hand on her head and
Joy moved convulsively toward her and threw an arm
across her lap while she shook with sobs and pressed
her face into the bed.
Big City Girl — 58
“Oh, Jessie, I’m so alone,” she wailed. “I haven’t got
anybody and I’m not pretty any more and I’m such a
mess.”
Big City Girl — 59
Nine
Jessie stroked her head soothingly. “Joy! That’s no
way to talk. You know it’s not so. You’ve got us. And I
don’t know anybody as pretty as you are.”
“You don’t have to say that, honey,” Joy said
miserably. “It’s sweet of you to try to cheer me up,
but you don’t have to say things like that.”
“But I mean it, Joy.”
Maybe she does, at that, Joy thought. She’s a funny
kid. She wouldn’t lie to a bear that was going to eat
her.
“You’ve got to quit worrying so much about Sewell,”
Jessie went on. “I know how it tears you up, but it
can’t help things to worry about it. Now, you just wait
here a minute.”
Maybe fixing herself up would take her mind off
things, she thought. She went out in the kitchen and
returned in a moment with a basin of water and a
washcloth. “Now, Joy, you sponge your face off and
I’ll get your purse for you. And while you’re fixing up
I’m going to iron a dress for you. Not pretty! The
idea!”
Joy sat up and began washing away the tear
streaks. Jessie set the basin down carefully beside her
Big City Girl — 60
on the bed and went over to the suitcase again for her
purse.
“Which dress would you like pressed?” she asked.
“They’re all a mess,” Joy said dully. “They’re
terrible.”
“They’re not, either. You have the prettiest things.
How about this print one you haven’t worn?”
Joy nodded listlessly. “All right.”
She went on sponging her face. The water was cool
and it made her face feel better, and without too
much interest at first she bathed her eyes to take
away the redness and puffiness of crying. Jessie came
back in a minute with a towel and she rubbed her
face dry and began combing her hair. This improved
her spirits, as it always did, for she loved the feel of
running the comb through it and shaking it back until
the ends just touched her shoulders. But it was the
honest admiration in Jessie’s eyes that did the most
for her.
Jessie came in carrying the dress she had ironed.
She smiled and held it out at arm’s length, admiring
it. “Are you ready for it, Joy? Can I get you a slip?”
”It’s too hot to wear a slip, honey,” Joy said. She
wiggled up through the dress, mussing her hair a
little. It was a short-sleeved dress with big bows on
the shoulders. “Do you want to tie the bows?”
“Do you think I could do it right?” Jessie asked
eagerly.
“Of course you can, baby. It’s just a bowknot.” She
sat still on the bed while Jessie tied them, making the
bows large and fluffy. Then she started combing her
hair again.
“Would you be an angel, honey, and bring me the
mirror? The one on the back porch.”
Jessie brought the mirror and held it for her while
she finished with her hair and made up her face. She
studied her reflection appraisingly. Her hair looked
nice, coming down in a long golden sweep across the
tops of the blue bows riding so jauntily on her
Big City Girl — 61
shoulders, and her eyes showed very little aftereffect
of the crying.
“You look so wonderful,”-Jessie said. It made her
feel good to be doing something for Joy and it helped
to take her mind off the awful thing Sewell had done.
“Do you really think so, honey?” Joy asked. She
tilted her head back a little and narrowed her eyes.
What am I afraid of? she thought. I can see I haven’t
changed any. But the minute I put the mirror away I
start getting scared again. Look at the moon-eyed
way the kid watches me. She thinks I look wonderful
and says so, but somehow it’s not the same as a man
saying it. Why does it always have to be a man? But
they’d still turn and look at me. I know they would. I
get scared too easy, that’s all, just because I’m broke
and down on my luck. And just because that stupid,
cold-blooded gorilla laughed at me, and that dumb,
stuck-up Mitch pretends he don’t even see me. You’d
think there wasn’t any other men. What about Harve?
And that photographer? Oh, I could show that Mitch,
all right. But, for God’s sake, why do I care? What do I
want him following me around for? I wouldn’t have
him on a bet. God, you’d think he was Gable, the way
I stew about it. The lousy share-cropper, what do I
want him looking at me for? If I was one of those
women that just has to have one in bed with her all
the time it’d be different and I could understand it
maybe, but I’m not like that. I don’t care anything
about that, one way or the other. They muss you up
so, especially the wild ones like that damn Sewell.
I know what’s the matter with that Mitch. He’s just
afraid of me, that’s all. Trying to pretend like I’m an
old bag that nobody’d want, and he’s just afraid of
me. I could twist him around my finger any time I
wanted to. And I’ll do it, too.
“My, but you look pretty,” Jessie was saying. “Don’t
you feel better now?”
Joy smiled. “Honey, I feel like a new woman.”
Big City Girl — 62
Ten
Cass had left the supper table. Jessie sat down with a
plate of peas and some corn bread and went through
the motions of eating, paying less and less attention
to the food until at last she stopped altogether
without even knowing it. It was dark outside now but
still very hot in the kitchen. A gray moth fluttered its
death dance about the lamp chimney, making a
rustling sound with its wings, and down in the bottom
they could hear the whippoorwills beginning to call.
Mitch looked up from his plate to see Joy watching
him.
“How are you getting along with the plowing,
Mitch?” she asked.
“Oh. All right,” he said, surprised. It was the first
time she had ever asked about the crop, or indicated
she even knew they had one. She had on a dress with
some kind of big bowknots on the shoulders that
came up under the golden waterfall of her hair and
made her look like a movie actress or a girl on the
cover of a magazine.
“Do you think you’ll get caught up with it?” she
asked. She leaned her elbows on the oilcloth and put
her chin on her hands and watched him with
flattering attention.
Big City Girl — 63
“If it don’t rain no more, maybe,” he said. She was
very beautiful to look at whether he liked her or not,
and he felt the anger in him now that she could
disturb him.
“Isn’t he going to help you any more?” Jessie asked.
“I don’t know,” Mitch said. He would never ask help
of a man who needed asking.
“Has he really got rheumatism, or is it just the radio
that cripples him up?” Joy asked.
“I don’t know,” he answered shortly.
He did know, or was reasonably sure he did, but felt
it was a family matter and none of her business. Cass
was nothing any more but the wreckage of a man, but
he did not want to talk about it to an outsider.
“Well, it’s not fair,” Jessie protested.
”Don’t make no difference,” Mitch shrugged. “All I
want is clear weather. I can handle it if it don’t rain
no more.”
“What if it starts in again?” Joy asked.
“We’ll lose it,” he said curtly. He didn’t like to think
about the rain’s starling again.
Jessie began to scrape up the dishes. He got up and
went outside to smoke a cigarette, hoping it would be
a little cooler in the yard. Before Cass had brought
home the radio he would go sit on the front porch at
night for a smoke before going to bed, but now he
would not go near it. The sound of the radio’s
incessant jabbering came through the open front
window and the door and there was no escape from it
on the porch. The thought of Sewell was hard enough
to bear without hearing the whole brutal mess turned
into a circus for the hundreds of thousands who had
nothing better to do than listen like ghouls for the
sordid and shameful end of a man who could have
been something different. And the thought of Cass in
there in the dark keeping his macabre vigil before the
idiot mouthings of the detested box and waiting along
with all the others for the inevitable destruction of his
son was a thing to be avoided, and he kept away from
it.
Big City Girl — 64
He wandered down by the barn and leaned against
the rails of the mule lot. There was no moon, but the
sky was aflame with stars and he could make out the
faintly sway-backed silhouette of Julie standing
beyond him by the gate and the solid black mass of
Jack lying in the dust where he had rolled. The other
two were inside the barn and he could hear the
sibilant rasping of their muzzles against the bottom of
the feed trough as they searched out random grains
of corn left over from their feeding, and when one of
them kicked the ground he could hear the thudding
impact across the night.
He finished the cigarette and dropped it, grinding
out the red coal in the dirt with the toe of his shoe.
There was the sound of soft footsteps on the sand
behind him and he turned, thinking it was Jessie. The
figure was taller than Jessie’s, though, and in the
starlight he could see the faintly gleaming cascade of
soft blonde hair.
“Is that you, Mitch?” she asked softly. “I thought I
saw a cigarette.”
“Yes,” he said. Why couldn’t she stay in the house
where she belonged?
“I think I can see you now. My eyes are getting used
to the dark.” She came toward him and put out a
hand, feeling for the rails of the fence. The hand
brushed gently along his arm. “Oh. There you are. I
didn’t mean to bump into you.”
He said nothing. She leaned against the rail. “It’s so
hot in the house.”
“It ain’t very cool anywhere,” he said.
“It’s a little better out here, though. Don’t you
think? And it’s such a beautiful night. I want to look at
the stars. Do you know the name of any of them,
Mitch?”
“No. Only the North Star.”
“Do you know how to locate it? I never can
remember.”
“You sight along the two pointers on the Big
Dipper.”
Big City Girl — 65
“Isn’t it silly? I can’t even find that. Will you point it
out for me, Mitch?”
She was standing very near, and he could smell the
faint fragrance of the perfume she used. There was a
tight band pulling across his chest and he knew if he
tried to talk his voice would be thick and unnatural.
He said nothing, and swung an arm toward the north,
pointing just above the dark line of the trees around
the clearing.
“I don’t see it,” she said. “I can’t see where you’re
pointing. But wait, Mitch. I’ll sight along your arm.”
She moved in very close to him, with the top of her
head just under his chin, and turned her face the way
he was pointing. One hand came up and rested lightly
on his shoulder to steady herself. Stray tendrils of
hair brushed against his throat. Then she tilted her
head back and looked up at him with her eyes very
wide and the stars reflected in them.
“Why don’t you like me, Mitch?” she asked softly.
Blood roared in his ears, the way it did when he
held his breath too long, swimming underwater, and
the weight on his chest was choking him. All the hard
ache of all the womanless nights boiled down to a
concentration of agony on a pin point of time, this
brief and exploding moment out of all time and
beyond which nothing mattered. He would have to
move his arms so little to possess the end of torment,
the sweet and silken oblivion, the dark, wild ecstasy,
and at last relief. His arms hurt and his hands were
heavy as he moved them. They shook as he put them
on her waist, and he could feel the smoothness of her
there just beyond the flimsy cloth. He brought them
on up with a rush, placed them against her shoulders,
and shoved. She shot backward, tripped over a high
heel in the sand, and fell sprawling with a pale flash
of bare arms and legs in the starlight.
Dry air burned in his throat and his mouth tasted
coppery as he stood breathing heavily and looking
down at her.
“Can’t you even wait till they kill him?” he asked
savagely. Then he turned and walked down the black
Big City Girl — 66
trail beyond the barn, not knowing or caring which
way he went.
She lay crumpled on her side like a long-stemmed
and wilted flower with her hair and the side of her
face in the dirt. Her dress had flown up about her
waist when she fell and she could feel the gritty
abrasiveness of sand under her sprawled bare legs,
and when she clenched her mouth tightly shut to keep
from screaming she could taste the sand and hear the
gritty sound of it between her teeth. She rolled her
head from side to side in a sickening agony of rage
and shame and humiliation, and she put her hand up
against her mouth and bit it until she tasted blood
while she gave birth to the second great passion of
her life. The first had always been love of herself, and
the second was hatred of Mitch Neely.
Big City Girl — 67
Eleven
In the middle of the afternoon he went out and looked
at the river again. It was the third time that day, and
now he stood by the old ford where he and Sewell had
kept their rowboat tied up and stood watching it with
a strange uneasiness. It was too high for this time of
year.
There had been no rain for nearly a week and it
should have been dropping toward midsummer level
and clearing, but instead it was higher than it had
been during the rain and had risen another inch since
noon. He stood watching it slip past, silt-laden and
flecked with foam, critically assaying the amount and
size of drift it was carrying. It was still rising, all
right.
He had seen it do that twice in his life, keep coming
up when there had been no rain, raised by heavy
downpours somewhere far upriver, and the last time
had been seven years ago when it had almost flooded
the bottom fields, the year Sewell had gone away.
He turned and went back out toward the field and
looked up at the sky when he got out of the timber.
There was something disquieting and strangely
uneasy about the whole day. It was too still, for one
thing, and sultry, with an oppressive deadness about
the air that worried him. It reminded him of the tense
Big City Girl — 68
and foreboding hush that falls over a group of men
when there is about to be a fight. But there were no
clouds. The sky was clear and it was perfectly normal
weather for late June except for the oppressive
stillness.
He was plowing out the middles. Yesterday, he had
finished with the cultivator and the field looked much
better than it had. He looked with satisfaction at the
grass dying in the hot sun. May save it now, he
thought. There’s still a lot of grass in the rows that
couldn’t be out except by hoeing it again, and it’ll be
hard to but it’ll make some cotton. Unless it rains
some more, or that river gets on a tear. It ain’t
nothing to worry about unless it gets up a lot more
than it is now, but somehow I just don’t like the looks
of it.
* * *
Up at the house Cass was asleep, with the radio
turned off for a short spell to rest the batteries, and
Joy was walking up and down in the stifling, dead
heat of the bedroom, running her fingers through her
hair and pausing now and then to dab at her eyes
with a handkerchief.
“I—I just don’t know what to do, Jessie,” she said.
“It scares me. I guess it’s silly to get scared now, but I
just don’t know what to do. Suppose he does it
again?”
Jessie sat on the bed and looked at her sister-in-law
with her eyes large and worried. “But, Joy,” she
protested unhappily, “he wouldn’t. I just can’t think
he’d do a thing like that, even once. Not Mitch.”
“I know, honey,” Joy went on agonizingly. “That’s
the awful part of it. That’s the reason I didn’t want to
say anything about it. He’s your brother, and I know
you think the world of him. I wouldn’t have said
anything about it for anything in the world, because I
knew how unhappy it would make you. But since you
practically caught him at it, there wasn’t any way I
could keep you from knowing any longer. If you
hadn’t come out there just then, when I was lying
Big City Girl — 69
there on the ground where I’d fallen, there’s no
telling what might have happened. He heard you, and
that scared him, I guess.
“I never did say anything about the other times and
I wouldn’t have this time because, like I said, you’re
so young and he’s your brother, but since you saw it,
or part of it—well, you just couldn’t help knowing
about it any longer. I tried to get away from him, and
I always had been able to before, but this time I
tripped when I moved back, and fell. Oh, it was awful.
“It isn’t that I blame him so much, Jessie. You have
to learn to make allowances for men. They can’t help
being like that, I guess. And when a girl is pretty . . . I
guess I still am, a little bit anyway, even if I am
getting old and don’t look like I used to. But what I
mean is you can’t blame them so much. But still, his
own sister-in-law. I mean, I am married to Sewell, and
poor Sewell is in such trouble. But please don’t
misunderstand me, honey. I’m not mad about it or
anything, it’s just that it scares me somehow. What
am I going to do, Jessie? What am I going to do?”
She threw herself on her own bed, across from
Jessie’s, and put her hands up alongside her face with
her fingers reaching up into the golden disarray of
her hair, but she was unable to sit still for more than
a few seconds and got up and started walking up and
down again. Oh, the ugly, stupid, mean-faced
sonofabitch, she thought. I could tear his eyes out. I
could kill him. Oh, God, I hate him so much it makes
my stomach turn over to think about it and I get sick.
I’ll throw up right here on the floor if I don’t stop
thinking about it. I’ve got to stop. It was almost two
days ago and I haven’t stopped thinking about it one
minute since then, and I’m going out of my mind. I’m
beginning to look like some blowzy old bag who’s
been drunk for a week, with my hair a mess and still
full of sand and my eyes red from lying awake and
from crying, and I can’t eat anything because my
stomach turns wrong side out every time I see him
and it’s all I can do to sit down at the table without
wanting to pick up everything on it and throw it in his
face and beat on it, and beat, and beat, and beat.
Big City Girl — 70
The thing that kills me is that I wouldn’t have had
him for a door prize. I wouldn’t have had him on a
bet. You couldn’t have given him to me. No woman in
her right mind would even look at him, the ugly,
skinny, sweaty, dirty, mean-faced, ignorant bastard
with whiskers all over his face and that hideous
butter-colored hair stuck down to his head with sweat
and those hard little eyes pushed way back in his
head like a couple of cold pieces of rock, and he
thinks I wanted him. That I did! Oh, my God! And he
shoved me.
“Try not to think about it, Joy,” Jessie said, feeling
sick at heart. How could Mitch? How could he do
such an awful thing? It just wasn’t like Mitch. But
still, she had seen it with her own eyes, seen Joy lying
there with her head in the sand where she had fallen.
”I am trying not to, honey,” Joy said. “I don’t like to
cause a lot of fuss over something that probably isn’t
anything, really. I mean, lots of girls have had to fight
off men who lose their heads like that. I’ve had to do
it before myself, but never— I mean—Well, you know,
my own brother-in-law.”
She broke off and smiled wanly at Jessie. “I don’t
want you to think I’m such a baby, honey,” she added.
“I don’t, Joy. I think you’re wonderful. And I’ll give
that Mitch a piece of my mind he won’t forget.”
“Oh, no, honey,” Joy broke in piteously. “No, don’t
do that, whatever you do. Don’t ever mention it to
anybody. I wouldn’t ever want to think I’d caused any
hard feelings between you and Mitch. I know how
much you think of each other, and I know how much
Mitch adores you. I couldn’t stand it if I thought I’d
done that.”
She’s so sweet, Jessie thought. I hope I can be like
that when I grow up. She’s so sort of brave, like
women in the movies. I don’t know how Mitch could
have done an awful thing like that.
Joy stopped at the window and stood looking out
into the yard. “I ought to leave, honey,” she said
sadly. “That’s what I ought to do. After all, this is
Mitch’s home and I don’t belong here, and if there’s
Big City Girl — 71
going to be trouble like that I should go. I would, too,
even though I’d hate to leave you, we’ve been such
good friends and it’s all been so nice except—except,
well, for that. Only, there’s something I haven’t told
you.”
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