A Cowboy's Love Part 4

"And it didn't work out that way, did it?"

"Does it ever?"

"Not as I've ever seen. So what finally happened?"

For a long time, she stared into the darkness while the moon climbed higher above their heads. The crickets filled the night with their sandpaper music, and far below them, in the valley, the lights of a car moved along the highway. She didn't speak again until it disappeared into the dark.

"Things just kept getting worse between us. I knew something was going on-though to this day, I still don't know what he was up to. There were a lot of people coming and going in that little trailer, and he was making all these trips and not telling me where he'd been, just telling me to shut up and quit asking questions. He was getting nastier and meaner and, after a while, I couldn't stand to be around him. I decided to get a job, get out of the house more.

"That's when I started to work down at the feed store. I got Ray's mom to take care of Mandy during the day while I worked. I really needed to get away from Ray and I liked earning my own money. And for her part, Edna liked having Mandy under her wing, so she could be a good influence' on her and see to her spiritual life, but I figured Mandy was still too young for Edna to do her any harm or to turn her against me.

"The trouble was, the more independent I became, the madder Ray got. And the madder Ray got, the rougher he got, and the rougher he got, the more I started staying away from home whenever I could. At night, after work, I'd pick Mandy up from her Grandma's and we'd go get a hamburger or something instead of going home for dinner.

"Then, one Friday night, we got back to the trailer later than usual, maybe around eight o'clock. We came in and Ray was there and so was this girl. Tina."

It felt so strange, the whole story pouring out of her, and now she couldn't help the burning tears that came with it.

"The trailer was dark and I thought Ray was working the night s.h.i.+ft. Mandy had run on ahead of me-I can still see her, waving that little lunch box she always took to Grandma's-and I got in just behind her and turned on the light, and there they were on the sofa, Ray and Tina, and there wasn't a st.i.tch of clothes on either of them. Ray grabbed his pants and Tina was laughing like she was having high old time, looking right at me and laughing!

"That did it. I started to yell that I'd had it, that I wasn't going to take anymore. I said, I'm taking Mandy and I'm walking out of here right now!" But Ray was too fast, and as soon as I said I was taking Mandy, he grabbed her by the arm and practically threw her behind him and yelled at me like he was going to kill me. You think you're just going to up and walk out on me? No way, baby. No one walks out on me. You do any walking, it'll be when I tell you to!' Mandy was crying by then, and he yelled at her to get to her bed or he'd really whack her and she was so terrified, she ran away into the bedroom where her crib was, at the other end of the trailer.

Jamie turned her head away from Cal, shaking her head as though to rub the scene out of her memory. "She was still carrying that little lunch box."

She couldn't speak for a few moments, just holding her hand over her mouth, and Cal waited silently. Finally, she wiped her tears from her cheeks.

"I tried to run past Ray, to get to Mandy, but he threw me back against the door and I could hear the gla.s.s breaking. I punched at him and I was screaming at him to cut it out and my foot slipped and I was just grabbing at anything I could and he was yelling, Just get the h.e.l.l outta here, b.i.t.c.h! Just get the h.e.l.l outta here!' And he was dragging me to the door and I was pounding on him and I could hear Mandy crying. I managed to hit him once really hard in the mouth, so he was bleeding down onto his s.h.i.+rt"-by now the words were rus.h.i.+ng from her-"and I kept yelling Just let me get Mandy!' He kept saying, No one walks out on me!' and he kicked at the screen door so it came loose off the hinges and he threw me so hard I couldn't catch my balance, and I landed in the dirt outside the trailer.

"I was so scared, and I was bleeding, and I ran for my car and all I could hear was Mandy crying from the bedroom and Ray still yelling, You hear me, you b.i.t.c.h!' Only his language was a lot uglier than that. You ain't walking out on me 'cause I just threw you out! And I don't want to see you around here! You understand that, b.i.t.c.h?' And he was slamming the door again and again, so the rest of the gla.s.s fell out, and he was yelling, Go on! Go back to that no-good father of yours! See how much good he does you!'"

The pain was too much and she needed to stop. She ducked her head against her shoulder to hide her face from Cal so he couldn't see as she brushed at the tears. He waited silently, letting her have the time she needed. A full minute pa.s.sed before she could go on.

"So I came up here, like I always do. All the way, all I could think was how Mandy was crying for me-that and the disgusting sight of Tina, laughing at us.

"I knew there was no use anymore trying to keep the marriage together. I was just sitting here-right here where we are right now-just looking out over everything-and it was a Friday night, just like tonight"-she waved a hand vaguely toward the town-"and I tried to figure out what I had to do.

"But Ray was already a couple of steps ahead of me. I stayed at my dad's house over the weekend and on Monday morning I drove over to the county seat, in Flintlock, to try to find a lawyer. That's when I found out that Ray had already filed a divorce complaint against me. Can you imagine? I never knew it, but Ray already had a lawyer, and they just got together over the weekend, and first thing Monday morning, that lawyer of his was in court, claiming I was an unfit mother."

She was staring blankly into the valley as though the whole awful memory was playing itself out there, below her.

"At first I thought he was just trying to ha.s.sle me, you know? Make me miserable. I knew he wasn't really interested in having custody of Mandy. But there was more to it than that. It was his mom, Edna, sticking her nose into the whole mess. What she really wanted was for Mandy to be with her. She never approved of me and she saw a chance to do some more of her famous good works.' His lawyer got a court order, keeping me from seeing Mandy until the divorce hearing, and that suited Ray just fine. He handed Mandy over to Edna so he wouldn't have to be bothered taking care of her and he got to drive me crazy at the same time."

"But how could he get away with that?"

"Cal, you know how things work in these small towns. Everyone knows everyone and the Nixons are the kind they call fine, upstanding people.' And the judge was Edna's sister's father-in-law. Judge Joyner. Judge Whitaker S. Joyner. Like I'll ever forget him. He's dead now. About six months ago. Too bad it didn't happen a whole lot sooner."

She sucked in her breath, ashamed of her bitterness, ashamed to realize how poisonous she sounded. But there was no taking it back. The pain was too great, and she was letting Cal see it all.

"You should have seen the order he wrote. It's right there"-she couldn't control the sarcasm-"about how a mother who's out of the home every day, working in an office, when she should be with her little child, wasn't providing a properly stable environment' or a suitable role model and moral standard'. He said I was negligent, leaving my little girl in the care of others, failing to perform my maternal duties. The whole thing is so full of that kind of stuff. h.e.l.l, I've read it over so many times, I know it by heart!"

"But what about your lawyer? Didn't he fight for you?"

"My lawyer? Now that's a laugh!" Jamie wasn't laughing. "That poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d didn't know the first thing. Almon Reed"-she made an impatient sound-"h.e.l.l, he was just a young kid himself, about two minutes out of law school. I didn't have a ton of money and I didn't know how to find someone better, someone who knew how to really be a lawyer. Someone who wouldn't be afraid to take on the Nixons and all their standing in the community.'"

She sc.r.a.ped her hand along the rock, trailing her fingertips in the dirt, dragging along fragile little bits of twigs and dried pinyon, unconsciously building up a little pile.

"Then, when it came time for the divorce hearing, Ray and Tina had me all set up." She paused for a long time, unable to bring herself to tell Cal about it, feeling the revulsion that always swept over her whenever she let herself remember.

"It was so sleazy, Cal. It's hard for me to talk about it."

Cal stayed quiet.

So she took a deep breath and braced herself to continue.

"Ray needed to set up something about me that would make me really unfit to have custody. That's where Orrin Fletcher comes in. That's the man you tangled with tonight, back at the Canyon Rim."

Orrin's showing up like that, right out of the blue, had wrenched her memories painfully. Maybe that's why she couldn't stop herself from talking about that other night, two years ago.

"In a million years, I wouldn't have seen what was coming. My mind just doesn't work that way, I guess. Anyway, it was only three weeks before the divorce hearing, and I was pretty wound up. I could see my lawyer didn't know what he was doing. You could tell, just walking into his office. It was in a row of cinderblock offices, down by that strip mall out the other side of Flintlock-that's the county seat-where it runs into the interstate. The windows had these metal blinds that were always a little c.o.c.keyed and a poor old dusty tree in a pot, standing up in a corner, trying to decorate the place. And he had this desk all covered with manila folders and papers and yellow pads and about a million pieces of pink slips with telephone messages. And these books from law school sitting on shelves nailed to the wall, looking so hopeful. Poor kid, you could see it was all too much for him. I knew I'd made a mistake, getting a kid like Almon to represent me, but I had no money and by then I thought it was too late to change.

"I don't know why I feel so sorry for the poor guy. If he'd known his business, my life might have turned out a lot happier. And if I'd known what was coming, I sure would have found a way to get a different lawyer. But Almon was all I could afford and anyway, I just couldn't believe that the judge wouldn't finally give Mandy back to me. Almon kept telling me there was always a presumption in favor of the mother of a child of tender years'-doesn't that sound fancy?-and I believed him.

"So I figured I just had to get through those last weeks before the trial without losing my mind, and that's when I made my really big mistake. Though honest, there was no way I could have known-"

Now Jamie was talking out into the night, as though Cal wasn't there at all. The sound of her own voice seemed remote, as though it was someone else talking about the disaster of her divorce.

"By that time, I was working for Gordon. We were doing a job up near Salina, cutting a frontage road through the ranch country just north of the Koosharem Reservoir. Most of the crew, me included, were staying in trailers that were parked in a camp near the town, but there was this one fellow, Orrin Fletcher-didn't mean a thing to me at the time-who had signed on just a couple of days earlier, said he was staying in a motel. No one knew anything about him, and no one cared much. Gordon needed a flagman for a couple of weeks, and Orrin was pa.s.sing through town and said he wanted to pick up a few bucks before he moved on.

"It wasn't till later I found out the whole thing had been set up between Ray and Orrin-and Tina, of course. She'd known Orrin from long ago when she'd been working in California.

"The way they'd done it, Orrin had gotten to my car while I was working and seen to it that the distributor cap got cracked. Well, you've seen that old wreck-it had been giving me problems for months, so I never suspected it had been deliberately messed with. It had happened so many times, and I'd needed a lift back from the job site so often, I didn't give it a thought when this new guy said he'd take me down to the service station. But when we got there, it was too late for the mechanic to get to it that night, but he said first thing in the morning he'd send someone out to pick it up.

"Orrin seemed okay and anyway my mind was on other things. The hearing was coming up soon, and I was supposed to drive down here to Sharperville the next day to see Mandy-that d.a.m.ned judge's preliminary order allowed me to see Mandy only every other Sat.u.r.day-and now it looked like that stupid old car wouldn't be ready in time to make the trip. So, with everything else, I just wasn't paying much attention to this guy."

Another pause. She lifted her head and squared her shoulders as though trying to settle a great burden more comfortably on her back.

"I know. I should have been paying attention. I should have noticed, down at the service station, how he acted real friendly, like we were heading out for a big evening on the town, but I thought he was just kidding around and I didn't realize how it looked to the guys who were working there.

"And I should have been paying attention when Orrin wanted to stop-just for a minute, he said-at the Silver Saddle. There's this fellow I need to see,' he said to me, just as cool as could be. It'll only take a minute. Why don't you come on in, have a c.o.ke or something. '

"And I didn't give it a thought. I mean, it wasn't a big deal. Most nights all of us in the crew would go out together for a drink after work. So I went into the Silver Saddle with Orrin and we sat at the bar together, for just a few minutes, and I had that d.a.m.ned c.o.ke and he went off for another couple of minutes with a man who'd come in a little bit after we did. And then Orrin and I left together. That was all. I wasn't there more than maybe twenty minutes. Just long enough to be seen with Orrin, having a drink, apparently friendly. Seen by about two dozen people."

Jamie wasn't looking at Cal, so she didn't see him nod his head slightly. She didn't see his anger. Cal understood already what was being done to Jamie that night.

"And I still didn't get it when he asked me, about a mile or two down the road, if I'd mind waiting for him while he stopped in at his motel to pick up something. It wasn't out of the way. He'd have me back at the trailer in no time, he said.

" Sure,' I said. No problem.' Can you believe I could be so dumb? I figured it was the least I could do-the guy was doing me a favor. So we pulled off the interstate into this sad little row of seedy motel rooms. It's such big, windswept country up there, so empty, and the way traffic moves along, usually doing eighty-five at least, you could drive past it a hundred times and never notice the place.

"The rooms were set way back from the road, in two rows facing each other, and up at the front there was this office, a separate building from the motel rooms, and it had a plate gla.s.s window facing out to the dirt parking area. I remember it had this sad little neon sign saying VACANCY, like that might stop any of the folks who were zipping by on that road. That time of the year, couldn't have been a hundred cars a day pa.s.sed through there.

"So Orrin went into the office-just for a minute,' he told me. He said, The rooms don't have any phones and my cell phone is dead. I just need to make a quick call. Will that be okay? Won't be more than a minute.' Can you believe? Just as slick as a lizard. And I said, Sure, Orrin, go right ahead.' I could see him there, behind that VACANCY sign, talking to the desk clerk, smiling, sort of waving friendly-like at me, nodding his head. I even nodded and waved back at him. I didn't realize what they were saying, until later, at the trial. The clerk was called as a witness, and then I understood what was really going on."

Jamie paused. It was a bitter memory and not easy to repeat. "He testified that Orrin came into the office and said he needed to use the phone. And he said Orrin also wanted to get some ice. He said Orrin pointed to me, waiting in the car. He said he saw this cute blonde' in the car and he identified me, of course. Said he saw me wave, like Orrin and me were real pals. He testified that Orrin said we had a bottle, and we were going to have a little party in the room. And the way he said it, you could tell what kind of party he figured Orrin was talking about. He said Orrin told him not to wait up, that it was going to be a long night-oh G.o.d, that d.a.m.n clerk was all leers and smirks and kind of locker room s.m.u.tty. And then he told the judge he looked at the clock and saw it was eight o'clock and he was about to close up for the night, turn off the VACANCY light, and go home." Jamie was quiet then, remembering. She was staring at nothing at all, and was picking at her fingernail. "And he said he told Orrin the two of us should go ahead and have a good time. There'd be no one around to bother us.

"Oh, I was just so clueless. They were setting me up. It was all so carefully worked out and I had no idea at all. I saw Orrin make his call and then he came back to the car and drove it up to his room, which was all the way at the far end of the row. He parked the car, turned out the lights and took the keys with him, and he said to me, Won't be but a minute.'

"I saw him open the door of his room, I saw him go inside, and I saw the light go on. He left the door to the room open a little, like he'd be right out. He didn't ask me to come in. Nothing at all happened to warn me, I swear. He was really so slick. And I was really so innocent.

"So, while I waited, I had plenty of time to look around at the empty parking lot and at that little collection of sad, lonely rooms. I saw that there were no other cars parked in the lot. I saw the clerk, down at the other end, turn out all the lights and come out of the office, lock the door behind him, get into his little VW and drive away. And I figured, with so little business, it made sense for him to leave early.

"And then I began to wonder what was taking Orrin so long, must have been fifteen minutes, at least, and finally-I didn't even think-I just got out of the car to go looking for him. The door was open, like I said, and the light was on, but when I looked inside, I couldn't see him so I called to him.

"I said, Orrin. Are you okay?' I was beginning to feel concerned. He couldn't have vanished into thin air and I was thinking maybe he was having some kind of problem. An accident, maybe. So I went ahead into the room. Then I heard his voice. Well, well, well. I thought you'd never get here.' And right away, I knew I was in trouble. Real trouble.

"There he was, sitting in a chair over on the other side of the open door, where I couldn't see him at first. He stuck his boot up against the door and pushed it closed behind me. And before I could do anything, he was up and locked the door behind me. I tried to get at it, but he was blocking it and he was too strong for me. He was just laughing and I was yelling at him to let me out. I can still hear that nasty voice of his, every single word: Hey, darlin'. You might as well lighten up a little. We're gonna be here for a while, so you can just take it easy. No reason we can't have a little fun.' And I can still see that face of his, like a photograph stuck in my head. His crooked teeth, and no shave, and those eyes of his, so pale, like there was no life in them. I kept trying to get to the door but he had his hands digging into my arm. I remember his dirty fingernails, and I could smell the beer on his breath.

"I knew that yelling for help wasn't going to do any good. I'd already seen there wasn't anyone around. I tried to stay calm, tried to think. I made myself take a couple of deep breaths so I could stop struggling and just quietly look into those cold eyes of his. And I said as calmly as I could, Listen Orrin. I really want to get out of here. I'm a married woman and I'm not interested in fooling around. If you thought-'

"And that's as far as I got. He started laughing right out loud. He said, Hey, honey. I know all about how you're a married woman and you got a kid and everything.' He was looking down into the top of my s.h.i.+rt, and-oh! he was so disgusting-he put his arms around me and he pulled me really close against him so I could feel his hip bones. And he said Don't see how that should get in our way. Don't see why we couldn't have a little fun for ourselves here, and then you could leave whenever you want.' And I told him, Orrin, I don't want to do this.' I was trying to keep the panic out of my voice. I knew if that creep saw how scared I was, he'd make it even worse."

Jamie stopped, took a deep breath and looked long and hard at Cal. "I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I got raped that night."

Cal didn't say yes or no. He was just waiting. And looking hard at her.

"Well, I might just as well have been raped. It sure felt like it. But raping me wasn't part of the plan. Of course, I didn't figure it all out till long after."

"What did happen?"

"Well, there I am, trying my best to be cool, and trying to ease myself out of his grip"-she shuddered, still revolted by the memory-"and all of a sudden he lifts his hands off me." She made the gesture, raising her hands, palms out, fingers spread. "And he looks at his watch, and he says, Well, I was hoping there'd be a good time in this for both of us. But hey, darlin,' if you don't want to party a little, why h.e.l.l, that's your loss.'

"And I just stepped back from him, just as easy as that, and he turned and unlocked the door. If you want to leave'-he said it just as cool as could be-if you want to leave, I'm not stopping you.' Well, you better believe, I got out of there right away. There weren't any lights in that parking lot and I could hear him laughing behind me, calling after me, Just thought we might liven it up a little.'

"I walked all the way to the trailer site, I don't know how many miles, in the dark, and it was really late by then, so no one saw me get there. And anyway, I didn't want anyone to see me, I felt so slimy and so stupid. I felt I'd come real close to getting raped, and I felt so humiliated, like somehow it was all my fault, I wouldn't have talked to anyone about it. Not then, anyway. Today, maybe I'd be smarter.

"But still I didn't understand what was going on. I didn't even think to connect it with the divorce hearing. At the time, I figured Orrin was just a guy who'd guessed wrong and made a move on an unattached female and was willing to let her go when she made it clear she didn't want to play. I even congratulated myself on how cool I'd been. Like I thought any girl ought to be able to talk her way out of any ugly situation."

She paused again and sighed deeply.

"Like I said, I had other things on my mind. Next day, O.D. disappeared from the job site-no surprise there-and I made myself forget all about him.

"Then, it was three weeks later, at the divorce hearing, I finally caught on to why he had let me go so easily. He'd enjoyed scaring the h.e.l.l out of me, but his only real purpose had been to be sure the desk clerk saw me with him and then to keep me locked in that motel room until he was sure the desk clerk had closed down for the night. That way, when the clerk was called as a witness, he could testify that he'd seen me in Orrin's car when we arrived. He told the judge he'd got a good look at me and he described me, and he said we looked real friendly. And he also testified that he saw me the next morning, waiting in the car while Orrin checked out. He said, under oath, that I was in that car. That he saw the cute blonde who came in with Orrin the night before, only now she was wearing dark gla.s.ses, and he told himself, She must have had a busy night. Guess she didn't get much sleep.' And he sort of smirked at the judge and I saw the judge was totally taken in. He looked over at me like I was so beneath him I didn't even belong in his courtroom. And I nudged Almon because I thought he'd say, "Objection," or something, like they do on TV, but Almon was so nervous, I saw he didn't know what to do. I tried to get him to say something but he didn't open his mouth-poor incompetent kid-and when I tried to speak, the judge shut me up. I knew that motel clerk was lying and I thought he must have been paid off to say he'd seen me in Orrin's car that morning. And I was sure Ray was behind this, but I had no way to prove it."

Jamie paused. It was painful for her to remember that trial, and she needed to take a couple of deep breaths before she could go on.

"After that, it was all downhill. The guys from the service station were called as witnesses and they testified how Orrin and I looked so friendly and they got from him that we were going out partying that night. He'd even made a point of going into the little convenience store they had there, buying some condoms and saying something to the clerk about how he'd be needing them later that night. And the bartender at the Silver Saddle told how we'd been drinking together, and that he saw Orrin go over and talk to someone who slipped him something that the bartender thought looked like what could have been a little packet of cocaine. And again my dopey lawyer still said nothing, and by then I was just trying to keep from crying and I knew it was all over for me.

"As for the desk clerk at the motel, it wasn't until months later that I realized he hadn't been lying. He had seen someone in the car." Jamie paused. Again, she needed to take a deep breath. She still had trouble believing what had been done. "I went to pick up Mandy for our Sat.u.r.day visit, and she was playing dress-up. And she had on a blonde wig. It looked just like my hair, light blonde and straight, same length. Mandy said she'd found it on the floor in the back seat of Ray's car and I guess he didn't see her take it. And that's when a light bulb went off in my head and I put it all together. The clerk had seen someone in that car, someone who looked like me, someone who was with Orrin that morning. Obviously, some woman joined Orrin that night, after I left, and I'd bet anything it was Tina. Ray probably left her off and she just slipped in without anyone seeing her. The place was dark, practically no traffic on the road, the rooms were empty. And then, the next morning, with the wig and dark gla.s.ses, and maybe her face turned away so the clerk couldn't get a good look, he really might have thought the woman he saw was me.

"As for the rest of the trial, on top of everything else, because I hadn't been able to get my car fixed in time to pick up Mandy the next day, that was used against me at the hearing too. I'd telephoned, of course, to explain the delay, but Edna testified that I just never showed up. But what could you expect from a tramp like that one, coming from the kind of family she does!' That's what she said, with that righteous smirk of hers. And Judge Joyner just nodded his head like he of course agreed with every single word she said."

"So Edna and Ervil were at the hearing?"

Jamie stared blankly across the valley-and across the two years, back to an orange-carpeted courtroom with wooden chairs, and the blue and gold state flag at one side of the judge and the American flag at the other.

"You bet Edna and Ervil were there. They were called as witnesses, too, and of course they had plenty to say about my family and my background, and how they never did approve of Ray's marrying me and how they were prepared-right in a minute!-to look after Mandy every day while Ray went to work and that way they could save her from my wicked influence and see to it that she was set on the path of righteousness."

The sarcasm of Jamie's little laugh was only paint-thin over her profound humiliation and loss.

"The judge really liked what Edna said. Around here, churchgoing carries a lot of weight, and when Ray's lawyer questioned me, I had to admit that I hadn't had much religious upbringing." She picked up some pebbles and tossed them at her little pile of twigs. "The judge didn't like my kind of work, either. h.e.l.l, he didn't like the idea of a mother doing any kind of work. He had plenty to say about how I was contributing to the instability of the home environment and creating an unsuitable role model.' He said he didn't hold with all these working mothers'-the way he said it you'd think it was an obscene expression-and as far as he was concerned, a woman's place was at home with her children and for sure not doing work that only men should be doing, like road construction."

She peered at Cal, trying to guess at his reaction, but his face was in the deep shadow of his Stetson and the pale illumination revealed only a few small highlights of cheekbone set above the more deeply shadowed planes of his face.

What am I doing? Why am I telling him all this?

But she plunged on.

"The truth was, if I had won custody of Mandy-well, I couldn't have provided much for her. There was surely no way I could have let her live in the same house with my dad. You saw that house. You can probably guess how he is. I can handle my dad all right, but you don't want to be around him when he's had a few drinks. I couldn't have admitted it in court, but back then, I really didn't know how I was going to manage, what with having to work and all."

She picked up a long stick that lay close to her feet and as she talked she slowly stripped the dry bark down its sides, leaving only a reedy wand of green to be torn apart by her nervous fingernails. Suddenly she snapped the remnants of the stick into several pieces and tossed them away from her onto the dusty soil.

"Looking back, I realize I was just so scared. Now, I know, I'd have found a way. It wouldn't have been easy, but I'd have found a way."

"What about your husband knocking you around? Didn't the judge react to that?"

"My lawyer tried to get in some testimony about that. He called Tina to the stand, of course, and she just lied. Said she'd gone to the trailer just to help Ray take care of Mandy because I stayed out so late, and she said she'd seen how I threw things at him and attacked him. And would you believe, that stupid judge believed her? He said that he didn't see where Ray had done anything wrong. That Ray had been justified in hitting me because he'd been highly provoked.' That's what he said. Highly provoked!'

"So the judge decided I had demonstrated an improper moral standard and I was unfit to be Mandy's mother. Ray got to have custody of her, which meant, of course, that in reality, Edna and Ervil got to have custody of her, which was what they wanted from the beginning."

Cal was pinching his lower lip.

"There's one thing I don't get," he said. "Why didn't Fletcher just let you go earlier, as soon as the desk clerk left? If he wasn't going to force anything on you, and only needed for you to be seen coming in with him. Why did he come on to you at all?"

"I've thought about that lots ever since. If he just needed to delay me, there were plenty of ways he could have done it. So at first I figured he just wanted to have a little fun being mean to me, scaring me. But then I realized, the plan was slicker than that. They wanted to be sure I didn't mention anything about being with him, like to the guys on the crew, for example. They knew that if he really scared me, roughed me up even a little, then I'd shut up about him-it can be hard for women to talk about things like that. And especially me, what with the hearing coming up soon. So when it came out in court, they'd made it look like I'd been sleeping around secretly." She put a hand over her eyes and turned her head away, fighting to shut it all out, fighting not to cry again. "And every bit of it worked!"

Then suddenly, Jamie was sorry.

Sorry and angry.

Furious with herself-for having opened it all up to be seen by a man who had just appeared out of nowhere and was completely unknown to her. Like a kid, as if she'd learned nothing at all, she'd been pouring out all her secrets. She had trusted a stranger with the whole ugly mess of her life. And now, she had no way to take it all back.

He's not talking. Of course he's not talking. What can he say? Gee, you must be a jerk, getting into a mess like that.' Or maybe What a s.l.u.t-like mother, like daughter.'

Look how I just rode with him right up here into the canyon-a guy I just met tonight, a complete stranger. Jamie, don't you ever learn anything?

A sudden wind sliced through the canyon, a cold draft that blew through the trees and bent the top branches so they waved like silhouetted warning signals, black against the moonlit sky. She stiffened up, making her back as straight as a fence post, crossing her arms over her chest, clutching herself tightly.

"I'm getting cold," she said. "I want to go home now."