CHAPTER NINE

We left at six the next morning. Gas rationing was in effect and the traffic was light, but it was still a hard, eight-hour drive with only a quick stop for a hamburger in Hearn. A few miles past the little town of Buffalo the Piney Woods began. The terrain gave way to rolling hills and deep woods, a soft, gentle land a world apart from the harsh Brush Country of South Texas. Two miles east of Palestine I turned off the paved highway onto a dirt road that wound gently downward toward the Neches River. On either side loomed tall, dense forest.

“How far out in these woods does your friend live?” Madeline asked.

“Several more miles,” I said.

She shuddered. “It’s awfully remote.”

“That’s why you’ll be safe.”

“What does he do for a living?”

I looked over at her and grinned. “He’s a professional scoundrel.”

“Virgil, please … for once give me a straight answer.”

I laughed. “All right. Press runs several hundred head of cattle on land he leases from one of the timber companies. And he gambles. Craps, for the most part. Loaded dice. He’s the best dice switcher I ever saw. He’s also got a couple of colored families back in Palestine who sell whiskey for him. Which is funny, because he never touches a drop of the stuff.”

“Moonshine?”

“No, bonded stuff. Pints and half pints, mostly. This is a dry county.”

“You’re leaving me with a bootlegger?” she asked, sounding a little horrified.

“I’ll have you know some bootleggers are fine people,” I said raffishly. “Besides, gambling and bootlegging don’t really qualify as crimes in this neck of the woods. Put your worries aside. He’s an honorable man where women are concerned. And you’ll have female companionship, too. His daughter Nora and her little girl live with him.”

“How old is she?”

“Six,” I said. “Her name’s Brenda.”

“No, I mean Nora.”

I shrugged. “A couple of years younger than I am.”

“Married?”

“Not anymore. Her husband was a cop in town. Actually, he was a lot like your friend Nolan, now that I think about it. An ex-athlete who thought he could bully his way through anything. After Brenda was born, he began drinking heavy on his days off. Finally one night he and Nora were arguing, and he slapped the hell out of her. Then he went in the kitchen to get himself another drink. Nora followed him, and he told her to get her ass back in the bedroom and get undressed and ready for business. She told him to go to hell, and when he drew back to slap her again she put a thirty-eight bullet through the middle of his right palm.”

“My God!”

“Right,” I agreed with a laugh. “She packed her clothes that night and came home. About a week later he showed up sober and begged her to come back to him. She said sure, she’d give it another try, but that he needed to understand that if he ever hit her again she’d put the next bullet right in the center of his forehead. Apparently the boy didn’t trust his own self-control, because he decided divorce would be a safer course.”

“Have the two of you ever been…”

I glanced over at her and smiled. “Romantic? No. I have wished, though, and I think Nora has, too. Back when we were kids she and Press used to come down to La Rosa for a couple of weeks every summer. But she didn’t take too well to South Texas. In fact, I’ve heard her say a dozen times that she wouldn’t live there if she owned it. I knew the day would come when I’d have to move back home to run the ranch, and I saw what living in a place she hated did to my own mother.”

We passed over a rattling plank bridge that spanned a narrow creek. On either side of its banks rose great oak and gum trees, and at their bases the ground was covered in a tangle of tie vines and water myrtle. The road up out of the bottom resembled a dark tunnel. Madeline gazed out the window with an expression that approached horror. “Do they even have electricity out here?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said with a nod. “Press put in a big Delco generator right after Nora moved back home. And they’ve got a bathroom and a radio, too. So don’t worry. You’ll be as comfortable out here as you would be at home.”

I took a couple more turns and came to a fork in the road. Taking the left branch, we wound our way down another dark tunnel, then emerged into a clearing of several hundred acres. A few yards down the road a rural mailbox stood beside a well-graveled driveway. I wheeled into the driveway and topped a gentle rise. Ahead of us, nestled in a grove of pin oak trees, loomed a large, tin-roofed house that was surrounded by about an acre of yard and bordered by a tall fence of heavy wire mesh.

“We’re here,” I announced.

We’d no more than stepped from the car when a half dozen hounds boiled out from behind the house. They were fine-blooded animals, Plotts and redbones, and their baying was deafening.

“Press likes to hunt,” I explained above the din. “He’s got coon dogs and squirrel dogs and deer dogs, and I don’t know what else. He also likes the security of having some of them in the yard at night. The fence keeps them from getting loose and chasing deer.”

The front door opened and Nora Rafferty appeared on the porch looking like something out of a New York fashion magazine in a sleek pair of tan slacks and a tailored shirt of red cotton under a cream-colored cashmere sweater vest. Except that New York fashion models rarely carry double-barreled shotguns cradled in their arms. “Hush, dogs!” she yelled.

The noise slacked off and she waved at us. “Hi, Virgil.”

“Hello, Nora,” I said. “Are you planning to shoot me?”

“You mean this?” she asked, hefting the shotgun and giving me a big grin. “Nope. I thought it was you when you first drove up, but I decided to be careful and make sure. Daddy killed a twelve-point buck this morning and he’s dressing it out down in the shed. Come on in.”

“Deer season ended last week, didn’t it?”

“Maybe so,” she said with a twisted little grin, “but you know Daddy.”

Nora was about five-six with a good figure, ash blond hair, and an angular Scots-Irish face that narrowly missed being beautiful and was all the more interesting for it. That afternoon she wore one of those red bandannas in her hair that were popular with women during the war—part of the Rosie the Riveter image, I suppose—and it looked great on her. Everything looked great on her.

“Nora, this is Madeline Kimbell,” I said. “She’s had a little trouble with an ex-boyfriend and needs to hide out here for a few days.”

“Pleased to meet you, Madeline,” Nora said, shifting the shotgun to her left shoulder so she could shake hands. “Glad to have you visit. It’ll be fun to have somebody to talk girl talk with.”

“I love your outfit,” Madeline said appreciatively.

Nora gave her a big grin. “Thanks. I bet you didn’t expect to find nobody dressed this stylish out here in these woods, did you? I been to town this morning is the reason I’m all dolled up. Come on inside and let’s have some coffee.”

She turned and led us back through the house toward the kitchen with a confident, almost masculine walk. It was a cozy country place with hooked rugs and heavy furniture from the past century. Bookshelves stuffed to capacity filled one wall of the sitting room.

“You must read a lot,” Madeline said in surprise.

“Yeah,” Nora replied. “It’s my character flaw, Daddy says. Of course he don’t read anything but the Palestine newspaper.”

“Haven’t you found you a guy yet?” I asked her as we took our places at the big square maple table in the kitchen.

“Hell, Virgil,” she answered with an easy laugh, “I can find all the guys I want at the dance hall in Palestine on Saturday nights. It’s just that don’t none of them seem worth the effort.”

She turned to look at me, her face full of mischief. “To tell you the truth, I’ve just about decided that I don’t want a man in my life on a permanent basis. You have to make too many compromises when you’re living with somebody.” She shook her head and turned back to the stove. “Nope, it’s better just to find you one that’s got plenty of energy over the short course. Then when you get done with him you can boot him out and go on about your business.”

“How about living with your dad?” I asked. “Aren’t there compromises there?”

She lifted a pot from the stove and poured three cups of coffee and set them on the table. “Actually, living with Daddy works out pretty good. When you’ve got a pair of anarchists like me and him under the same roof, you got two people willing to give each other plenty of latitude.”

Just then the outside door opened and Press Rafferty stepped into the room and hung his worn old Savage Model 99 lever-action rifle on a peg beside the stove. He was a tall, thin man with a prominent nose, two darting, mirth-filled eyes, and a small, closely trimmed mustache over a tiny mouth, all of which contrived to make him resemble a lively, intelligent rodent. As always in cold weather, he was dressed in a pair of faded denim overalls, a flannel shirt, and a red checked wool mackinaw. “Virgil, how you doing, boy?” he asked and stuck out his hand, obviously pleased to see me.

I introduced Madeline and gave him a quick rundown on her problems. “I’m positive nobody followed us,” I said, “and not a soul besides Aunt Carmen knows where we are.”

“Any friend of yours is welcome here,” he said, pulling a pack of Camels from the front bib pocket of his overalls. “You know that.”

“I appreciate it. But are you sure you’re up for something like this? It could be dangerous.”

“Me and Nora can handle ourselves if we have to. Don’t worry about it.”

“I know, but be careful.”

He gave me a cold smile. “I’ve got a pair of Catahoula leopard dogs out back in the kennels that will kill anything, man or beast, that comes inside my fence at night. Just to be safe I’ll turn them out into the yard after you leave. How’s that for careful?”

“You staying for supper, Virgil?” Nora asked. “Daddy killed another deer last week, and it’s aged out enough to start eating it.”

I checked my wristwatch and then nodded. “Sure. I’d love to.”

A few moments later Nora’s daughter, Brenda, came into the room and crawled up into her grandfather’s lap. She was a miniature of her mother, with the same angular pixie’s face and ash blond hair. “Did you get a good nap, baby?” Nora asked her.

The little girl nodded and regarded me gravely for a few seconds, then said, “Hi, Virgil. Who’s the redheaded lady? You gonna marry her?”

*   *   *

After a supper of fried venison, baked sweet potatoes, corn bread, and winter turnip greens fresh from the garden, I reluctantly pulled myself together to leave. “I hate to burden you this way, Press,” I said as the four of us walked out on the front porch, “but I didn’t have much other choice.”

“Hush that talk, boy,” he snorted. “I’ve told you before that if it hadn’t been for your daddy I’d never have lived through that mess down in Cuba back in ninety-eight. Besides, she’ll be good company for Nora.”

I hugged Nora, shook hands with Press, and then kissed Madeline good-bye. “Whatever you do, stay here until I come back for you,” I told her.

“When will that be?”

“Soon. A week at the outside, I think. But you stay here even if it’s longer.”

As I drove away I watched the three of them dwindle in the rearview mirror. For the first time since the meeting in the barroom of the Weilbach, I began to relax.