Hell Hath No Fury

by W.E. Turner


Well, the whole thing didn’t start then, but the first time I knew anything out of the ordinary was goin’ on that day back in the spring of 1972 was when Gus Traudt and his son, Gus Junior, showed up at The Beer Joint.

Gus, you see, was this big ol’ raw-boned, red-headed German fella that lived up north of the town of Caroline, there, and back off the highway about one or two mile. Gus Junior, who was just fifteen at the time, was called “Little Gus” ‘cause he was just the spittin’ image of his dad. They was both tall, broad-shouldered, carrot-topped and each one had about a million freckles specklin’ his face. Of course, we called his dad “Big Gus.” For contrast, I guess.

“Johansson,” Big Gus asked me, “you know where Jude Smith is?”

“Ain’t seen ‘im today,” I said. I was washin’ glasses at the time (somethin’ a bartender’s always doin’, seems like). There was somethin’ in the way those two looked that concerned me, though. “What’s the matter?”

“He’s been messin’ with my daughter,” Big Gus told me.

“Messin’ with.... How?”

“He tried to rape her,” Little Gus piped up.

“He what?” What them Traudt boys said took me by surprise.

Jude Smith was this dark-haired boy that lived down on the south edge of town. He wasn’t native to the town, though. Him and his dad, Frank, and his mama had moved out here from Joplin a year or so before. But it didn’t take Jude’s mama long before she got tired of life in a small town like Caroline and she went on back to Joplin.

Jude wasn’t too happy with the town, either. He was born in Joplin and lived there all his life. Bein’ here in Caroline was gallin’ to ‘im. Not that Joplin is any great shakes as far as a city goes, but I guess he thought life there was a whole lot more excitin’ than livin’ in a dinky little ol’ burg like this.

Seemed like Jude was always up here at The Beer Joint. He’d come in and play pool on the quarter table. Just practice, usually. He’d already fleeced most of the farmers around there for about ever’thing he could and they wouldn’t play pool with ‘im no more. Tina was here one night when Jude was playin’ pool, I remember. Playin’ some guy from Sarcoxie who thought he was a real pool shark. Jude proved him different. I remember the admiration I seen in her eyes for him that night. I wasn’t sure I approved of it, but I knew it wasn’t my place to say.

All this time Jude was up here hustlin’, too, he was always tryin’ to get me to sell him beer. I wouldn’t never do it. He wasn’t quite eighteen at the time but I knew he had a fake ID that said he was nineteen. But even that wasn’t old enough to buy liquor in Missouri, so I’d just tell him to go on over to Galena, on the Kansas side, where the beer age was only eighteen, if he wanted some. He’d just chuckle and tilt this little ol’ plaid wool alpine hat he liked to wear back a little farther on his head and give me a smile like to say he just knew I’d give in to him sooner or later.

Jude used to talk to me about how much he missed the friends he’d known and the things he done over in Joplin. Talked about all the things he was gonna do when he got older. Kid talk, you know. He’d talk about his dad ever’ now and then, too. Tell me about the dirt-track race cars his dad used to build and about how he thought his dad, who worked for the garage down by where the highway hits the Interstate, should have opened up his own shop back in Joplin instead of comin’ to Caroline.

“Why didn’t he?” I asked, once.

Jude shook his head. “He couldn’t,” he said. He looked down at the floor. “He just couldn’t.”

Now, Jude was a smart boy. He could have made real good grades in school and all if he had applied himself, the way Little Gus and Tina, Little Gus’s older sister, done. But, no, Jude just went along with the flow, only doin’ enough work on his lessons to get by.

But, anyway, that was why them Traudt boys came lookin’ for Jude here at The Beer Joint in the first place.

“Tried to rape her,” I said, almost like I was talkin’ to myself. Somehow, that just didn’t seem like Jude’s style.

“That’s what Tina told us,” Big Gus said.

“She all right?”

“Yeah,” Gus said. “Except for bein’ mad enough ta bite a nail in two, she’s fine.”

I was sure glad of that.

Why, I’d watched Tina Traudt grow up. Whenever me and my wife used to visit Caroline, before we moved back here and I opened up The Beer Joint, I used to see that little red-headed china doll at family reunions and such. I can still remember how she used to toddle up to me in her little stiff-frilled Sunday dress and hold up her hands, callin’ me “Wunka Jimmy,” and wantin’ to be picked up. I tell ya, I thought a lot o’ that girl.

Big Gus, you see, was a widower. Tina’s mama had died about three years before from the peritonitis brought on from a ruptured appendix. When she first started gettin’ sick, Martha (Gus’s wife) said she thought it wasn’t nothin’ but a bad stomach ache or the flu or somethin’ and Gus took her at her word when she said she was gonna be all right. Now, Gus wasn’t a stupid man by any means, but he didn’t seem to have a whole lot of imagination, or what ever you want to call it. He was just a bluff, honest man who always kept faith with ever’body. I guess he expected everybody else to be like him. It cost him, that time, but I couldn’t see that it changed ‘im any. He didn’t turn bitter or anything, like mighta happened with somebody else; he just accepted it as “God’s Will” and went on about the job of raisin’ his kids all by himself.

That’s why seein’ Big Gus actin’ so agitated and all, like he was that day, was out of the usual. But maybe he was just tryin’ to keep things from gettin’ out of hand, like what happened before with his wife.

But, anyway, I guess I’m gettin’ away from my story.



I was in shock, or somethin’, over what them Traudt boys said that afternoon and what it meant for the town of Caroline. We hadn’t had any of them types of problems in I don’t know how long. So I just stood there for a minute, then reached over for the telephone.

“Who you gonna call?” Big Gus asked me.

“The sheriff,” I said. “I think this is somethin’ he oughtta handle.” Even though the township council had made me “Constable” of Caroline several years before, I really wasn’t much more than a night watchman for the town. I knew this was somethin’ that was out of my league. But I hadn’t got but the first few numbers of the Sheriff’s number dialed before I seen this big, freckled hand reach out and pushed down on the cradle buttons of the telephone.

“Hold on a minute, there, Jim,” Big Gus said. “I think I’d just as soon the Sheriff wasn’t involved in this. At least, not yet.”

“But you said....”

“I know what I said,” Gus told me. “But I think it might be better if we just talk to the boy first. Let ‘im know we don’t ‘specially appreciate what he done.”

“Now, you ain’t gonna....”

“I ain’t a-gonna do nothin’ to ‘im,” Gus says.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Just talk to ‘im.”

“OK,” I said. “We don’t want any Pierce City justice around here.”

“Any what?”

I just looked at ‘im. I knew Gus probably never read much and wasn’t likely to be familiar with “The United States of Lyncherdom” that ol’ Sam Clemens wrote about a long time ago, even though the incident happened just a few miles down the road.

“Never mind,” I said.

Ol’ Gus just looked at me for a moment, like maybe I’d lost my mind. Then he shrugged it off. “Anyway, Jim,” he said. “If it’ll make you feel better, why don’t you come along with us?”

Well, I don’t need to tell you, I jumped at that chance. I knew Constable wasn’t much of a job, but it was still mine, and I figured I oughtta do the best I could to keep the peace. Outside of walkin’ a drunk home from The Beer Joint ever’ now an’ then, or tellin’ somebody to shut up a barkin’ dog or wherever, the job never had amounted to much.

I put the “Out-to-Lunch” sign in the window, like I usually do when I have to run an errand and followed Big and Little Gus out the door. I knew any of my regular customers would let themselves in and help themselves to the draught spigots and the cooler and leave the money for what they took while I was gone. Not that I expected too much business. The after-work crowd, which was usually about five or six people who’d come in for a beer or two sometime between three and five o'clock had already been there and gone. I didn’t expect the evening crowd to get there until after supper.

And, sure enough, the streets of Caroline was pretty well deserted when we went outside. The only person around was ol’ Lake Haskell. He was just one of the town loafers—well, really, the only one we had. We was a real small town, remember. Hundred Fifty-Nine in the last census before that time. But, anyway, ol’ Lake was sittin’ out front of the volunteer fire station and as the three of us walked down Main and turned south on Second Street, he followed. He figured somethin’ was up.

As we was walkin’, I started askin’ Little Gus and his dad to fill me in on exactly what happened.

“Well,” Little Gus said, “you know Jude’s had his eye on Tina for a long time now, don’t you?”

I allowed as how I heard that. I knew Jude was alway tryin’ to get Tina to ride with him in his Mercury on the way to their high school over at Mt. Vernon, but I also heard he was never quite able to pull it off. Seems like Jude was too much of a lazy-bones who would wait until the last minute before gettin’ outta bed, then he’d rush around gettin’ dressed and usually skip breakfast ‘cause he didn’t have time to eat. Then he’d grab himself a doughnut or somethin’ at the Stuckey’s on the way to the high school. So ol’ Jude never did get to give Tina a ride to school. But he kept on tryin’ to get her to ride with ‘im back home to Caroline, and ever once in a while Tina would accept his offer. Usually, Little Gus was along for the ride, too, but not ever’ time.

Little Gus told me he and Tina had accepted a ride home to Caroline that afternoon, but Little Gus stopped off in town to visit a friend in his class who hadn’t been in school that day. After droppin’ off some books and visitin’ for a bit, Little Gus walked from town back out to the farm. While he was walkin’, he said, he seen Jude drivin’ down the road, headed back to Caroline.

“I waved,” Little Gus said, “but Jude didn’t wave back. He ain’t very friendly like that, you know.”

“He was on his way back?”

“Yes, sir,” Little Gus told me. “And when I got to the house, I saw the livin’ room was messed up.”

“Messed up?” I asked. “How?”

“Well,” Little Gus shrugged. “Things was out of place. Messed up. Different.”

“You know that oak claw-leg table, Jim?” Bis Gus said. “The one Martha refinished? Sits in the livin’ room?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Bowl of glass fruit on it.”

“Uh-huh. That thing got knocked over durin’ the fight.”

“There was a fight?”

“Well, wrestlin’, really,” Big Gus told me. “Tina said it got knocked over while Jude was tryin’ to tear her clothes off.”

“You sure Tina’s OK?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Big Gus said. “That little pecker-wood don’t know how to handle a hell-cat like Tina.”

“I bet Tina just beat the livin’ shit out of him,” Little Gus said. “She told me she kicked ‘im in the balls.” He gave out a little chuckle, but the smile faded off his face quickly. “But I’m gonna knock his dick in the dirt.”

I held up and the Traudt’s stopped, too. “Now, guys,” I said, “I ain’t a-gonna take no hand in any kind of vengence. So, if that’s what you got in mind....”

“It ain’t,” Big Gus said. He looked over at his son. “We’re just gonna talk to Jude, right? That’s all.” He turned back to me. “Hell, I like the kid. Use to, anyway.”

“Yeah,” Little Gus said. “I did, too. You know, I never really thought about it. But... Well, bein’ from the same town and all.... We should stick together, like most of the other guys from Caroline do at school. It’s kinda like a betrayal, ain’t it? Like turnin’ on your own family.”

“Yeah,” Big Gus said. “It is.” He looked over at me. “But don’t you worry about Little Gus, Jim” he said. “I’ll keep between him and Jude.”

I looked at both of ‘em. “I don’t know,” I said. “I still think we oughtta call the sheriff.”

Big Gus’s mouth kind of turned down at the corners a bit as he clamped his teeth tight and stuck out that lantern jaw of his. “We’re goin’ down there, Jim,” he said, real slow and deliberate-like. “You can come along with us if you want to or you can go back to the bar and call the sheriff. But we’re goin’.”

Well, I figured I’d come too far down the street by this time, anyhow, to go back to The Beer Joint without lookin’ foolish. Beside, I knew I really needed to keep the peace, even if I didn’t know how. I shrugged. “Well, then,” I said. “Let’s go talk to ‘im. But you let me do the talkin’, OK?”


When we got to the Smith place, which was a little two-bedroom house with a garage out back that they rented from Paul Freiberg, I seen Frank’s pickup was parked in the driveway, behind Jude’s Mercury, and saw Frank was sittin’ in a chair on the porch. He got up and walked over to the porch rail as the group of us came up the board sidewalk in front of his yard.

Now, as a mechanic, Frank Smith was good. He could usually tell what was wrong with a car just by listenin’ to it run (if it would run at all, of course) and he always charged a fair price for the work he done. I know Jude didn’t think Frank had much gumption, and all, but I knew how hard it was to go into business for yourself. It’s a lot easier workin’ for somebody else.

But, hard as he worked, Frank always seemed to be strapped for money for some reason. He always had a car or two in his front yard that he was fixin’ up for resale. There was fenders and hoods and all other sorts of spare parts out in front of the house.

Frank himself was kind of smallish, five-six or so, but wiry. Dark, black-brown hair like Jude had and.... Well, I don’t know many mechanics you might know, but it seems to me like they kind of run to two types. There’s one kind that can work on a car and get all greasy and sooty and all, then can scrub their hands, go take a bath, put on clean clothes and be just like anybody else. Nobody’d ever know what he’d been doin’ all day. Then, on the other hand, there was men like Frank. Seems like Frank’s overall’s (the mechanic’s all-in-one type, not the farmer’s bib-type) was always stained and dirty. His fingernails was always gritty and black and the skin of his arms and hands and face always seemed to have ground-in stains and an overall greasy sheen to it. Like I said, his hair was a dark, brown-black and always oily-lookin’; and I don’t mean with hair tonic, neither. Then, to go with it all, there was the way Frank looked. He had a sharp-hewed little face.... Well, enough about Frank.

Anyway, when he stood up there on the porch, Frank asked me, “What the hell’s goin’ on here, Jim?”

I guess Frank centered on me to ask questions of more because he knew me better than the others. He might not of even known I was Constable. But even if he did, he might not have put any more stock in it than I did.

“Well, Frank,” I started out, kind of slow-like. I looked over my shoulders at Big Gus and Little Gus. “They say they’d like ta talk to Jude.”

“Ain’t they the same ones who just beat the boy up?” Frank asked. “Just what the hell are you....”

“We ain’t even touched that boy,” Big Gus said, tryin’ to shove past me. “Why, I only just now got home from work.”

“Well, somebody sure as hell beat ‘im up,” Frank went on. “Here. I’ll let ‘im show you.” He called out, “Jude. Get yer ass out here, boy.” Then he turned back toward us and pointed at Big Gus and Little Gus. “He told me it was you two done it.”

“That’s a lie.” This was Little Gus talkin’. “I ain’t never touched him, neither.”

“An’ I wanna tell ya, too,” Frank said, “I done called the Sheriff. I was sittin’ out here waitin’ for ‘im.”

Well, that was sure a relief to me.

“I might be new in this town an’ all,” Frank went on, “and I might not know all the ways you folks go about doin’ things around here. But I do know me and my boy got some rights. And one of them rights is not to get beat up by hooligans like you two.

“Just what the hell are you talkin’ about, Smith,” Big Gus said. “I tell you, we ain’t even touched that boy.”

While he was talkin’ like this, Gus was movin’ forward and another step woulda put him into the yard of Frank’s house. Up to this time, you see, me and Big Gus and Little Gus was all on the board sidewalk there along the dirt surface of Second Street and Lake was behind us, out in the street itself. There was about fifteen, twenty feet or so between us and Frank. The three of us there on the sidewalk all knew it wasn’t mannerly to set foot in another man’s yard if he ain’t invited you in or unless you had some legitimate business there, even if it was just somebody’s rented house. We was respectin’ that. Enterin’ that yard might have even been trespassin’, too, but not doin’ it was just good manners. So when Gus started to step forward, I put my hand up to hold ‘im back and Gus stopped.

About that time, Jude come out the door of the house. We could see a welt was comin’ up on his cheek and that his upper lip was kind of puffy.

When Little Gus seen ‘im, the younger boy commenced to kind of chuckle. “Why, Jude,” he said. “It looks like you done come out on the short end of a fight.”

“You oughtta know,” Jude says. “It was you done it. You and your dad.”

“That’s a lie,” Little Gus said, again. Then he chuckled one more time, but I could tell there wasn’t any mirth behind that sound. It sounded more like disgust.

“You wanna know who’s been beatin’ up on Jude, Mr. Smith?” Little Gus asked. “Well, I’ll tell ya. It was my sister. Tina. A girl.”

I seen a bit of a question come into Frank’s eyes as he glanced over at Jude, then he looked back at us.

“And do you know why she hit him?” It was Big Gus talkin’, this time. “‘Cause he tried to rape her.”

“Like hell I did,” Jude hollered out.

“Fellas, fellas,” I said. “Why don’t we all just calm down a bit.”

“Shut up, Johansson,” Frank said. “Nobody asked you to get involved in this.”

“But I am involved in it,” I said. “I’m the Constable in this town.”

“Well, the way I hear it, Constable,” Frank said, gettin’ real sarcastic and all with that last word, “was that Tina invited Jude inta their house, and then they started doin’ things there on the couch. ‘Bout that time these two busted in on ‘em and that little bitch started yellin’ ‘Rape.’”

“That’s a goddam lie,” Big Gus said.

But Frank just kept on. “Then you two started beatin’ up on my boy and he run out, jumped in his car’n came on back here.”

“That ain’t the way it was,” Little Gus said, at just about the same time. “Why, Jude passed me on the road when I was walkin’ home.”

“No, I never,” Jude hollered out.

“Now, now,” I says. “Why don’t we all just calm down and let the Sheriff sort this thing out when he gets here.” This thing with ever’body disagreein’ with each other and ever’body tryin’ to talk at once was gettin’ to be a little too much.

Well, what I said didn’t seem to have no effect on the situation at all. They all just stood there hollerin’ back and forth at each other.

“Don’t you be callin’ my daughter a bitch, Smith. I won’t have it.”

“Why, I see that little slut sashayin’ ‘round town all the time. Always givin’ ever’ man she sees a ‘come and get it’ look. Hell, if my boy here didn’t already have ‘er on a string, I mightta even tried ‘er myself.”

“Fellas, fellas,” I said again. “Just calm down.”

They never done it. In fact, both Big Gus and Little Gus started off the sidewalk about this time and I turned around in front of ‘em and spread my arms to try and keep ‘em back.

“You better just watch your mouth, Smith,” Big Gus said.

“That Tina ain’t nothin’ but a goddam little prick-teaser.”

“Watch your mouth, too, Jude.”

Finally, I looked around and seen Lake Haskell was still standin’ there in the street. “Lake,” I called out to ‘im. “Go get Paul Freiberg. Hurry. And if you see that Sheriff, tell him to hurry up, too. This thing’s liable to get ugly.” Paul, you see, was the mayor of Caroline (even though it wasn’t an official title)—president of the town council. He owned the grocery and the feed-and-hardware store on the north side of Main Street.

Lake started off up Second Street; reluctant-like—afraid he was gonna miss out on the excitement, I reckon. And about that time, things did get ugly. When I turned back, I seen Jude vault over the rail of the porch, goin’ straight for Little Gus. The two of ‘em crashed together there in the middle of the yard and commenced to punchin’, kickin’ and each one tryin’ to wrestle the other one to the ground.

Big Gus started over toward the two boys and then Frank came down the steps of the porch, goin’ for Big Gus. He lowered his shoulder and hit the big man right in the middle, tryin’ to tackle ‘im.

Now it was my turn to wade in. But do you know how hard it is to bust up two fights at the same time? Why, it’s damn’ near impossible.

I went over to where the two boys were wrestlin’ and punchin’ each other and kind of prized ‘em apart, shovin’ Little Gus back, but about the same time, Frank come in between me and the boys and I could feel, rather than see, that Big Gus was right behind me. Frank, you see, was tryin’ to use me as a shield and Big Gus was at my back, tryin’ to get at Frank. Well, still wantin’ to be the peacemaker and all, I just reached out in front of me and grabbed ol’ Frank in a bear hug, pinnin’ his arms to his side. But then, I seen this fist just comin’ outta nowhere (I think it was Jude’s, but I ain’t sure) and I felt and heard it go “crack” up against the left side of my jaw.

“Mercy,” I hollered out, and let go of ol’ Frank.

Well, right away, I decided this wasn’t no place for a fat old man like me, so I got out of there and went back over to the sidewalk.

“Stop it! Stop it,” I kept yellin’ out, but it didn’t do no good. My jaw was achin’ like thunder and I kept swingin’ it back and forth, tryin’ to get it back inta the socket. “Stop it! Stop it!”

Really, as a fights go, these was pretty good ones; for a while, at least. Little Gus and Jude were a pretty even match. Even though Little Gus was big for his age and strong, Jude was three years older—about the same size, really—and just as quick as a cat. And Frank, even though he was a heck of a lot smaller than Big Gus, evidently had done some boxin’ in his day. He’d dart in, give ol’ Gus a couple of quick jabs in the ribs or in the face, then back out again. In the meantime, Gus was like a big ol’ lumberin’ bear. He’d swing at Frank and usually miss, but ever once in a while a punch would connect and Frank’d go flyin’. They was kickin’ up considerable dust there in the yard; it had been a dry spring, you know, and there wasn’t much grass there to start with, and then the oil and grease from the cars had pretty well killed off what was left. Anyway, dirt and grunts and punches and the sound of flesh gettin’ smacked was fillin’ up the air pretty good.

Then I heard this female voice behind me, yellin’, “Daddy! Gussie! Leave ‘em alone. Get away. Let me do it.”

Well, I turned and looked back over my shoulder at this, and there was Tina out in the street, comin’ toward us. But what really made my eyes bug out when I seen her was this big ol’ pistol in her hand. It was the Smith-and-Wesson .44 Magnum that belonged to her dad. She had the thing leveled out in front of her in the direction of where those four boys was a-fightin’ there in the yard.

I stood back a little when I seen her and when I did, Tina came rushin’ past me with that gun out in front. But as she went by, I reached over and snatched that pistol out of her hand.

That’s when Tina looked up and, for the first time, I think, realized who I was. Before that, I don’t think she even noticed me. She only had eyes for her brother and dad and the other two guys.

“Uncle Jimmy,” Tina yelled. “You give that back.”

Well, I held the gun up higher than she could reach right off, and turned back toward where the fight was. I fired the pistol up into the air; once, twice, then a third time.

They all left off punchin’ and wrestlin’ and such but by this time, the fight was pretty well over, anyway. Big Gus had done finally caught Frank with a round-house left hand that fetched the littler man up against the big elm tree that stood there in the yard and ol’ Frank was slumped down to the ground. Little Gus had Jude pinned up against one of the supports for the front porch and had hold of what was left of the boy’s shirt with one hand while the other hand’d been punchin’ Jude in the face.

Little Gus’s shirt was pretty well tore off, too, and I could see big red welts and scratches and grease stains all over his back and shoulders from where he’d been rollin’ around over the rocks and sticks and car parts in the yard. His face was pretty well beat up and it was caked with mud and blood and sweat; so was Jude’s and Frank’s and Big Gus’s. I tell you, they was one sorry-lookin’ bunch as they all stared up at me, standin’ there with that gun in my hand.

“That’s enough,” I told ‘em. Then I just stood there, wonderin’ what it was I should do now.

I was saved by the arrival of the Sheriff’s deputy. He come drivin’ down Second Street about that time. I could see L.T. Green, the deputy who patrolled our side of Lawrence County sittin’ behind the wheel. I watched his black-and white patrol car as it pulled up and stopped. Lake Haskell and Paul Freiberg and a lot of other people was trailin’ along behind.

I glanced around, then. It seemed like that fight and the shootin’ had done attracted ever’ person in town. There was a whole passel of ‘em standin’ out there in the street and more of ‘em was comin’.

“Who the hell’s doin’ all that shootin’?” was the first thing L.T. said as he got out of the patrol car and put on his brown felt “Smoky Bear” campaign hat. “Was that you, Jim?”

Of course, L.T. knew me pretty good. He’d been patrollin’ our side of Lawrence County in the evenings for the last four years or so. And after all, I was still holdin’ that gun.

“Uhhhhhh... Yeah,” I said, lookin’ down at the thing in my hand. “I was, uh,... Tryin’ to bust up a fight here. Fired up in the air.”

L.T. took off his mirrored sunglasses and stuck one ear piece through the button hole of his Sheriff’s patrol uniform shirt. He looked at me and the gun and I could see his eyes was narrowed out, causin’ his eyebrows to come together to form just one. That’s what usually happened when L.T. was thinkin’ about something or was confused.

“That your gun?” he asked me.

Well, L.T. knew I did a lot of huntin’ and all, and that I had me a bunch of different shotguns and rifles, but he also knew I wasn’t never much on handguns. They ain’t no good for huntin’. He was surprised to see that big ol’ hogleg .44 I was holdin’, I guess.

“Uhhhhhh.... Yes, it is,” I said.

I looked over at Big Gus. Of course, he was eyein’ the gun, too, now that L.T. and called ever’body’s attention to it, and I’m sure he probably recognized it. And from the fact that Tina was in front of him, now, huggin’ ‘im and lookin’ fit to cry, he mighta even put two-and-two together on how the gun got there.

Well, L.T. must of been satisfied with what I said. “What’s goin’ on?” he asked. “We got a call sayin’ somebody got beat up.”

At this, there was quite a spate of murmurin’ back behind us. “Well, yeah, Sheriff,” someone said. “I reckon you could say somebody did.”

This kind of set that crowd to twitterin’ but L.T. shut ‘em up with a stern look. Ever’body knew L.T. was a good man but they also knew he didn’t brook no foolishness. He’d been a drill sergeant in the Marine Corps, a career soldier, and only joined the Sheriff’s patrol after he retired from the military. He still looked like he could take a take a Marine recruit and break him in two, though. He turned back to the Traudts and Smiths.

Little Gus was standin’ up in the yard by this time and Jude was sittin’ up over by the porch. Frank was still sittin’ by the elm tree, shakin’ his head like he was tryin’ to clear things up a little and Big Gus was standin’ there, lookin’ at me and L.T.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see L.T. was lookin’ over the people in the yard and then lookin’ hard at the house.

“Is this 401 South Second?” he asked.

Now, only four or five houses in Caroline had house numbers on the outside of ‘em. Because we was such a small place, we didn’t have no mailman for the town. We all just had post office boxes, so it was odd to think of houses in terms of address.

“Well, yeah,” I said. “Reckon it is.”

“That’s the address the person who called gave us,” L.T. said. “Do you have any idea what that’s about?”

That’s when I took L.T. aside and told ‘im about what Tina said Jude done and about how Big Gus and Little Gus had come down here to talk about it and about how Jude was sayin’ how the whole thing happened different.

L.T. didn’t look too happy when I told him that. I guess he had been hopin’ for a nice, quiet evening of givin’ out speeding tickets, or somethin’. But now he knew he was gonna have to spend it takin’ statements and such.

“Oh,” he said, chewin’ at his lower lip. “I guess it’d probably be better if we didn’t have ‘em all together in the same room, then.” He looked over at me. “Well. Looks like we got us some police work to do, Constable.”

The first thing we had to do was to get them four “combatants,” I guess you could call ‘em, cleaned up and find out for sure if any of ‘em needed medical attention. We found out it was mostly cuts and scrapes and bruises and such. Jude’s nose was broke and he was bleedin’ pretty good from it. Little Gus had a loose tooth in front and was gonna end up with a real shiner on one eye, but Jude was gonna be black and blue on both of his. Frank had lost a couple of teeth (not that he had that many teeth to start with) and had a good-sized knot comin’ up on one side of his forehead. Big Gus was about the only one who didn’t seem much the worse for wear, but there was a couple or three places on his face that was startin’ to turn a little dark and he said his ribs was pretty sore. My jaw was sore as all get-out, too, but nobody paid no never-mind to that.

I walked the two Traudt boys up to The Beer Joint (all this accordin’ to L.T.’s plan) to get ‘em cleaned up while he was talkin’ to the Smiths. I run out the two people who was sittin’ up at the bar when we got to The Beer Joint, tellin’ ‘em this was police business and that the place would be closed for an hour or so. They looked a little peak-ed at that, just like I knew the rest of the townfolk would be, but they went on out.

Of course, Tina was there, too. L.T. needed to talk to her. She sat down at one of the tables while her dad and brother went into the restroom to wash up. She sat there, all huddled forward, like she was tryin’ to make herself small enough no one would notice her.

“You want a Coke or somethin’ while we’re waitin’?” I asked.

“No thanks, Uncle Jimmy,” she said.

Now, I wasn’t really Tina’s uncle. My wife was her grandma’s first cousin, which didn’t make me no more than a third cousin, once removed, but she’d always called me “Uncle Jimmy;” even before the other kids in town started doin’ the same.

“What are they gonna do?” she asked me.

“To who?”

“To daddy,” she said. “And Gussie.” She looked up at me. “Are they in any kind of trouble?”

“Oh,” I said. “Disturbin’ the peace, maybe. I don’t think ‘Assault ‘n Battery’ would stick. There was too much assaultin’ and batterin’ goin’ on on both sides.”

She just nodded.

“But what about you, honey,” I asked. “Are you OK?”

“Yeah,” she said. Then her voice got real hard. “And Jude? What are they gonna do to him?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose it all depends on if he gets charged with anything. Did he really....”

“He tried to rape me.” She practically shouted it out.

“He says he didn’t. Says you... ...invited him in. Enticed him, I guess you’d call it. Led him on.”

“Like hell I did!” She jumped up to her feet.

About this time, Big Gus came out of the restroom.

“Daddy,” Tina said when she seen ‘im. “What the hell has Jude been tellin’ you? That bastard tried to rape me.”

“I know, honey,” Gus said. “But that ain’t what he’s sayin’. He says you invited ‘im in and then.... Well,... ...then he says we beat ‘im up. Little Gus and me.”

“That’s ridiculous! Why that....” She was pacin’ up and down by this point. Her fists were clinched, down at her sides, and her face was red; ‘livid with anger’ is the way I think they say it in novels and such.

After a while, she stopped and her eyes lit on that Smith-and-Wesson .44 I had took from her earlier. When we come in The Beer Joint, I layed that pistol up on the counter behind the bar.

“Daddy, I just wish you had let me handle that son-of-a-bitch,” she said, quietly. It seemed like her anger left her as quick as it had come on and she was back to bein’ a scared little girl again. She sat back down.

Big Gus saw what Tina’d been lookin’ at. “Is that my gun, Jim?”

I nodded. “Tina had it.”

“Tina, haven’t I told you.... Just what did you figure on usin’ that thing for, anyway?”

“What do you think I was gonna use it for?” Tina asked. Her eyes were hard and her voice cold again.

“You were... You were... ...gonna shoot ‘im?” Gus asked.

“Hell, yeah,” Tina said. “I’m damned if I’m gonna let that son-of-a-bitch get away with it. I knew he’d pull some shit like this. That’s what men always say, isn’t it? That ‘she led me on.’ That ‘she was askin’ for it.’ Well, by God, I wasn’t. Jude asked if he could come in the house for a Coke or something, then the next thing you know, he was all over me. Said he wasn’t leavin’ till he got what he came for.” She crossed her arms in front of her, kind of shuddered and shook her head, lookin’ like she had a bad taste in her mouth.

“Tina. Tina,” Gus said. “I believe you, honey. But.... But, shootin’ somebody? It’s all.... Well, it’s all out of proportion to what he done.”

“Out of proportion?” Tina was practically screamin’, now. “What the hell are you talkin’ about? He tried....”

“I know. I know,” Gus said, shakin’ his head. “But he didn’t get it done. You fought ‘im off. Hell, if he had actually... ...well, you know... Hell, I mighta shot ‘im myself. But... Well, what if you had shot him, Tina? What if you’da killed him? They’d put you in jail, honey. For murder.”

“Oh, hell,” Tina said. “There’s not a jury in the world that’d convicted me. Not if it was women, anyway. That’d be justice.”

“But it wouldn’t be, Tina. Don’t you see? It wasn’t justice you was after. It was revenge. Revenge for what he done.” Gus paused for a bit and ran one hand through his hair. “Well,” he said, “Little Gus and I got that revenge for ya. Not very much, maybe, compared with what you wanted to do, but... but we avenged ya.”

“You avenged me? Did I ever ask you to avenge me? You men think you always gotta be the ones handle anything like that, don’t you? Well, I could of handled it myself, Daddy, and a hell of a lot better. You and Gussie mighta got yourselves beat up a little, but at least you got the satisfaction of beatin’ the crap outta Jude and his pa. You got satisfaction! Man-type satisfaction. But where’s the satisfaction for me?”

Nobody could give her an answer for that one. We all looked away.

“Well, I hate to tell you this, Sis,” Little Gus said, “but I ain’t gettin’ a whole lot of satisfaction out of this eye an’ this loose tooth right now.”

This caused ever’body to turn over and look at Little Gus. Heck, I hadn’t even noticed that he come out of the restroom. I watched as the boy ran his tongue underneath his lip, over his teeth. That lip was swellin’ up considerable and his eye was nearly closed.

“Let me get ya an ice bag to put on that eye,” I told the boy. As I started makin’ it up behind the bar, Big Gus came over and sat down. I gave him a beer and got out Cokes for Little Gus and Tina.

Tina stood there and looked at her brother for a bit. “No,” she said. “Not right now, maybe you aren’t getting much satisfaction. But I can just see you struttin’ around the school next Monday. You’ll be showin’ off your eye, then, braggin’ to everybody about how you beat Jude up. Braggin’ ‘bout how a Freshman beat up a Senior.” She looked at Little Gus and shook her head. She was still all fire an’ lightnin’ bolts. There warn’t no sympathy or compassion in her voice at all.


It seemed like we waited a long time, but L.T. finally come in. Paul Freiberg was right behind ‘im. Out the front window of The Beer Joint, I could see Lake Haskell and several other people millin’ around on the sidewalk.

L.T. took Tina and the two Traudt boys into the side room, where the card and domino tables were, to talk to ‘em and to get their statements. Paul, in the meantime, sat up at the bar and ordered himself a beer. This was unusual; Paul don’t usually drink nothin’ stronger than coffee or soda pop unless it’s a holiday or a special occasion like a wedding or the birth of somebody’s baby; or maybe a wake if the family is likely to serve liquor at a function like that.

“What are the Smith’s gonna do?” I asked Paul.

He shrugged. “Well, they were wanting to press charges. Assault. That sort of thing. We got them talked out of that.” He shook his head. “Old Frank was madder than a wet hen.”

“I can imagine,” I said. “How’s Jude.”

“Pretty beat up.” Paul looked over his shoulder toward the side room, where L.T. had the Traudt family off in a corner. “Jude started out talking real tough, though. Stuck to his story for a long time.” Paul took a drink of beer. “Finally, though, L.T. started asking Jude how it was he was able to get away from Big Gus and Little Gus, both. Then Jude started changing his story and contradicting himself all over. You could tell he was lying. Finally, he admitted he made up the whole thing about those two guys beating him up.” He nodded toward the side room. “Admitted it was Tina that punched him.”

“Did he admit that he... uh,... tried to....” I shrugged. Now, I know I’m kind of a prude and all, but I just couldn’t make myself say the word “rape.” Not in this case. Somehow, it seemed like it was disrespectful.

“No,” Paul said. “He never admitted he tried to do anything like that. Kept on saying how she led him on, then got mad when he started going too far.” He shook his head again. “He kept on calling Tina a ‘bitch.’ ‘Slut.’ ‘Prick-teaser.’ All kinds of things. Several times he used that ‘C’ word my wife won’t ever let me say.”

“Oh, you got one of them kinda wives, too, huh?” I asked.

We both smiled, like to ease the tension. But we knew this wasn’t somethin’ that we oughtta be laughin’ about.

We was silent for a long time. I could hear the Traudt family talkin’ to L.T. and ever once in a while hear Tina’s voice above the others. She sounded like she was pretty angry about the whole thing.

“Well,” I finally asked Paul, “what we gonna do?”

“With Frank and Jude?”

I shrugged. “Well, yeah,” I said. “With them and with... with everything.”

He took another drink of his beer, sat it down and just sat starin’ at it. “They’re going to get out of town,” he said, finally.

His voice was real quiet and I had to kind of strain to hear ‘im over the sound of Tina. She was shoutin’.

“I’m going to tell them I won’t rent that house to them any more,” Paul said.

I looked up at ‘im. “You cain’t do that, can ya? Ain’t they got a lease or somethin’?”

“No. They just rent it month-to-month. And they’ve been late on their rent two, three times in the last year. Heck, the rent isn’t that high, but there was always some excuse why they couldn’t pay. I can always use that as an reason if I have to. And now this other....” He shook his head. “We can’t have things like that going on in Caroline, Jim.”

“But, Paul, ain’t that a little....” I shrugged. “Well, it seems kinda drastic.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” Paul said. “They’re outsiders, Jim. They don’t belong in a place like Caroline. Outsiders. Comin’ in from other places.”

“Well, hell. I’m an outsider, too, if that’s the way you think.”

“Oh, you’re not either, Jim. You belong here.” Paul shook his head again. “The Smiths don’t. Why, I’ve been getting complaints from the neighbors, even. They’re dirty and their place is always a mess.... Junk cars all over. Filthy. You’ve seen their yard.” He shook his head again. “Place looks like a slum. I’d just as soon they moved out. They don’t fit in.”

“But, Paul,” I said, “it don’t seem to me like we really tried to help ‘em fit in. Besides, they’re the first new people we’ve had move into this town in... well, I don’t know how long. Ever’body else been movin’ out; goin’ to Joplin or Springfield or down there to Branson. I thought you wanted to make this town grow again. How we gonna do that if we throw out the only new blood we’ve got?”

“We don’t need their kind of blood,” Paul said. “We don’t need the kind of people who’ll come in here and start in dishonoring our women and starting fights and making this place look like some kind of pigsty.” He tapped on the bar for emphasis. “We don’t need their kind.”

“But,... Well,...” I said. “But it just don’t seem right, somehow. Couldn’t you talk to ‘em. Get ‘em to clean up their yard and all? Form a committee to help ‘em out? Somethin’?”

He looked at me, kind of suspicious. “Are you sticking up for them? Do you like those two assholes, or what?”

“No. No,” I said. “But.... But, they gotta live someplace, don’t they?”

“Not in our town. Not in Caroline. This here’s a good place, Jim. Good place to live. Always has been. And if we can keep it going, it always will be.” Then he said that thing again. “We don’t need their kind. Besides, you don’t want a rapist livin’ here in this town, do you?”

I shook my head and sighed. “No,” I said, kinda slow. “But ain’t nobody proved he done it, yet. I always heard a man was innocent until he got proved guilty.”

“Well, who are we going to believe? Tina, who we’ve known all her life or some outsider like Jude?”

I just looked at him, then picked up a bar towel and give the counter a wipe. Since I didn’t have no glasses to wash or anything, it was the only thing I could do. Then I stood there and looked at ‘im for a bit. “Just how old are you, Paul,” I asked.

“Fifty-six,” he said. “Why?”

“Oh,” I said. “No reason. Just curious, I guess.”

He looked at me, kind of puzzled.

“I’m seventy-seven,” I said. “But I swear, Paul, sometimes you seem like you’re older and more sought in your ways than I am.”

First, Paul looked confused, then he give me a real icy stare and the bar suddenly seemed to get real quiet.

L.T. come on out of the side room. He had his campaign hat on and looked like he was wantin’ to get out of there, but he come up to the bar where Paul was sittin’.

“Well,” L.T. said, “I talked to ‘em. Got statements and ever’thing. I told them, just like I did the Smiths, that if anything like this ever happens again, I’ll have ‘em all put under a peace bond. So I think it’d probably be best if you two guys try to keep ‘em separated if you can.”

I guess both me and Paul had puzzled looks on our faces at this.

“No,” L.T. went on as he shook his head, “don’t ask me how you’re gonna keep ‘em apart in a little-bitty town like this. That’s gonna be your look-out.”

Paul finally asked it. “But what about Tina? And Jude? She says he tried....”

“Yeah,” L.T. said. He looked down at his trooper boots for a minute, then back up at us. “I know what she says he done. But provin’ it’d be a different matter.” He took his right thumb and pushed his campaign hat back a little farther on his head. “I talked to ‘em about that, too.”

“They ain’t gonna press charges?” I asked.

L.T. sighed and shook his head. “Tina wants too. Real bad. But I told her it’d just be her word against Jude Smith’s. Besides, Jude’s a juvenile. Hell, most he’d get is maybe some time up in Chillicothe youth center. And then he’d get out when he turns eighteen this summer, anyway.” He looked down, chucklin’ and shakin’ his head. “Hell,” he said. “I told her that her dad and brother probably gave her better justice than what she’d have got from the legal system, anyway. Hill justice. Like the old days.”

“But aren’t there laws?” I asked. “Somethin’?”

“Oh, yeah. There’s laws,” L.T. said. Then he looked at me and shook his head. “But there’s also ways to get around laws. I told Tina she’d just be in for a lot of hurt and bitterness if she went on with it. Goddam defense lawyer could make her look like the culprit in somethin’ like this; make her look like the worst slut in the county. She ain’t got that good a reputation around here as it is.”

“What?” both Paul and I asked at the same time.

“Tina’s a good girl,” I put in. “One of the nicest, sweetest people you’d ever wanna meet in your life.”

“Well, hell, Jim,” L.T. said, “you think that way about everybody.”

Now, that wasn’t really true, but L.T. said it like he believed it.

“And as for her bein’ a nice person,” he went on. “Well, that might be.” He give his head a little shake. “But you sure couldn’t prove it by most of the kids or teachers over at the high school. My daughter, Cindy... she’s in the same class. I’ve heard her talk about Tina. Girls are all jealous as hell of her. Cindy’s told me so herself, in so many words. She says Tina’s stand-offish and all stuck on herself. Don’t fit in with the other kids. I think some of them gals think it’d serve her right if she was raped.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Tina said from the doorway into the side room. She was standin’ there with her arms crossed, leanin’ on the doorjamb. Her eyes were a little bit red and damp, like she’d been cryin’, but there warn’t no tears in her eyes now. I looked behind Tina and seen Big Gus had come up to the door, too. Little Gus was still sittin’ at a table, holdin’ that ice bag up to his eye.

“Didn’t you know that, Uncle Jimmy?” Tina went on. “It’d serve me right.” She walked slowly on into the main room. Her arms was still crossed and she kept on talkin’ as she came. “I’m just too pretty,” she said. “And I’m a boy-stealer. I flirt with all the guys. I’m a tease, too. A ‘prick teaser.’ I think that’s what all the boys call me, isn’t it? I know Jude called me that today. But isn’t that what you all say?” Tina said this last part as defiantly as she could, standin’ in front of ‘im and lookin’ right at L.T.’s eyes.

“Now, I really couldn’t say about that, ma’am,” L.T. said. “I don’t know you that well. I’ve seen you around town and all,...” He stood there and looked Tina up and down. “...but I don’t really know you,” he said.

Now, you gotta realize that even though she was just wearin’ blue jeans and a kind of tight-fittin’ chambray shirt, Tina looked mighty fetchin’ in that outfit. With her red hair, which was darker and more auburn than her dad’s and brother’s and her grown-up figure, she was the type of girl that could look... well, I guess what you might call it ‘sexy’... ...she’d look that way in anything she wore. Not that I ever thought of her that way. Hell, I was too old for that kind of foolishness even then, but I could see where other fellas might think like that.

For the longest time, her and L.T. stood there and eyed each other. I couldn’t see what their eyes was sayin’ to each other, but for a while, there, one corner of L.T.’s mouth raised up. Kind of a sneer or a smirk or somethin’.

“Besides,” L.T. said, that corner of his mouth still raised up and his eyes heavy-lidded. “I got a daughter your age. Remember?” He resettled his campaign hat on his head. He put the thumb and forefinger of his hand up to the hat brim and gave his head a nod, makin’ the hat tip in Tina’s direction without ever removin’ it. “But if you’ll excuse me, ma’am. I need to get back out on patrol.”

L.T. let his hand fall away and kind of half-turned toward me and Paul. He give us a nod and headed toward the door.

“Yeah,” Tina said as L.T. started to leave, “I’m sure there’s a cup of coffee and a doughnut just callin’ your name down there at the Stuckey’s, so you better go get it. Just like the caricature cop you are”

L.T. sorta paused there in the doorway when Tina said that, but he didn’t turn or nothin’. I guess he realized right then and there that he wouldn’t never be able to get in the last word with that girl, so he just let it go. He went on out.

After L.T. left, Tina stood there, lookin’ at the door.

“Mr. Freiberg? Uncle Jimmy?” she asked, lookin’ over at us, then back at the door. “Am I a tease?”

Nobody said nothin’.

“Well, Tina,” Paul said, after the silence stretched out enough to make it awkward., “I... Well, hell... I....” He just kind of let it fall.

“Tina,” I said. “I don’t know if you know it or not, but you, honey, are... well... you’re what might be called... ...what might be called an icon.”

I got aware, real quick, that ever’body was lookin’ at me after I said that, like I was a preacher in church, fixin’ to give them folks the gospel. “You... You are about the best thing anybody ever seen around these parts.” I looked down, almost embarrassed at my own words. “I mean, you’re that beautiful. That sweet. Smart. All the other stuff.”

I seen Tina and the others. They was givin’ me them kind of stares that people gets on their faces when a preacher really gets goin’ or... Well, I don’t know. Maybe it was them kind of stares they get when some flim-flam man’s tryin’ to give ‘em a lotta hoakum. But I was just speakin’ from the heart.

“You are fine, Tina,” I said. “And if they’s anything some people cain’t stand, it’s somethin’ that’s fine. They see that fine thing and right off... Well, they want to... They want to put some tarnish on it or somethin’, cause they just cain’t stand it the way it is. It’s just too good a thing for ‘em.” I looked away, embarrassed at what I was sayin’. “It makes ‘em feel bad,” I went on. “It makes ‘em feel bad, knowin’ there’s this fine thing out there that they can’t have. And so they want to... to... to just grab aholt of it and drag it along behind ‘em. Drag it down there in the dirt. They figure if they can dirty that fine thing up... somehow, that’ll make them... well... it’ll make them not quite so dull-lookin’ by contrast. Like what Jude done today. He tried to degrade you, Tina. Tried to put you down in the dirt; down there with him.” I took in my breath and sighed. “And you, Tina.... Hangin’ around with a boy like that. It’s almost like you’re helpin’ him drag you down. I never could understand what you saw in him, anyway.”

Tina just snorted. “Who the hell else am I supposed to date in this little jerkwater town?” she asked. She looked around her. “Jude,” she said. “He really ain’t all that bad. That bad lookin’, anyway. He’s an asshole, sure. But.... But kind of handsome.”

“He isn’t that handsome any more.” Paul Freiberg said that and Tina shot him a glance that didn’t have a whole lot of kindness in it.

Tina gave out a little, snorting laugh. “No,” she said. “I guess not.” She shook her head. “But that doesn’t mean he isn’t different. Wants somethin’ different than what he’s got in this town, that’s for sure.” She kind of laughed. “Maybe that’s what I saw in ‘im. Ambition. He doesn’t want to end up in a place like this. Little dead end town. Doesn’t want to be like his Pa. He thinks his dad’s stupid, livin’ like he does, always workin’ for somebody else. Doesn’t want to end up bein’ some dumb-ass farmer, either, like most of the guys we go to school with are gonna do. He wants something different than what he has. So I thought he was different.”

“No,” we all heard Big Gus say. “He ain’t no different than any other boy. Boys’ll try to take anything they think they can get from a girl.”

“Well, he can’t get what I have,” Tina said. “Not that way, anyhow. No man can. Not that way.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t challenge ‘em so much, then,” Paul Freiberg said.

Now it Paul’s turn to have everybody look at him.

“What do you mean, Mr. Freiberg?” Tina asked.

“Well,” Paul shrugged. “It’s in the way you look at guys, Tina. It’s like you look at ‘em and say: Look at me. Look how pretty I am. Look at this body. But guess what? You can’t have it. You can’t have me. You can’t have me because you’re not good enough. Not good enough for me. I’ve seen you do it, Tina, hanging around the cooler over there in the store after school. Then you talk like you’re talking tonight. Don’t you realize what you just did? You insulted every man here. Me. Uncle Jim. Your dad. Calling him a dumb-ass farmer. Hell, Tina, you talk like there isn’t a man or boy in this county that’s good enough for you.”

“Well, they aren’t.” Tina paused and thought a bit. “So. What are you tellin” me I ought to do, Mr. Freiberg? Always go along with what a boy wants? Let him have his way with me, any time he wants to?”

“No, I’m not saying that.” Paul sat his beer down so hard it made a loud “thunk” on the bar. “I’m just saying you ought to quit acting like you’re Lady Astor’s horse or something.”

Tina walked over and stood in front of him, haughty and tall, lookin’ him straight in the eye. “So,” she said, “I guess I better never look a boy in the eye again. Never let him know he ain’t worth havin’. Well, it’s true. Most of ‘em ain’t worth havin’. So, what do you want me to do? Wear a shawl over my head all the time, like those Moslem women do? Always walk two steps behind, like Chinese women? What? Just how is it you want me to act, Mr. Freiberg?”

Paul stood up and faced her, just like L.T. done earlier. “I can’t tell you how to act, Tina. That’s something you should already know. That’s something you should have been taught a long time ago.”

Paul looked over at Big Gus, standin’ there in the doorway and that big man just dropped his eyes down to look at the floor.

“I don’t mean to be preaching to you,” Paul went on, lookin’ back at the girl, “but I feel like somebody ought to. All I’m saying, Tina, is if you keep on treating boys like you do.... You keep on letting them know, in no uncertain terms, that they aren’t good enough for you and never will be.... Man... boy... either one... Well, they have to have hope that what they are and what they have.... They have to believe they’re worth something. But you don’t ever let them have that thought.”

“But what about me?” she asked, pressin’ a closed fist up to her chest. “Ain’t I worth somethin’, too. Ain’t I worth somethin’ more than just endin’ up bein’ some farmer’s brood mare? Don’t I deserve some respect, too?”

“Of course you do, Tina. Everybody does. But if you want respect, you have to show some respect for other people, too. Especially boys.” He paused and shook his head. “I’m just afraid,” he went on, “that this same thing’s going to happen to you all over again.” He shrugged. “I hope it doesn’t. But it might.” Paul headed toward the door.

Tina didn’t get the last word in, this time. Paul paused, with his hand on the door handle and looked back. “Or, maybe it won’t. Maybe nothing else bad will ever happen to you. Maybe you’ll find a boy you think’s good enough, someday. You’re young. You have time. You don’t have to live your whole life the way it seems like you started. But maybe not. Maybe you’ll never find anyone you think's good enough. Or,... Maybe you’ll just end up as a lonely, bitter old maid.” He shrugged. “It happens.” He opened the door and went on out.

Well, Tina just stood there, starin’ at the door after Paul left. I could see what I thought was the glimmer of a tear startin’ to run down her cheek, but a swipe from the back of her hand brushed it away.

“Tina,...” Big Gus said from the doorway. “I’m sorry, honey. You know I am.” He paused and just stood there, leanin’ on the doorjamb and shakin’ his head. “I know I ain’t done a very good job raisin’ you. You know, after your mama died....” He just let it trail away.

I heard a sharp intake of breath from Tina. It came whistlin’ through her teeth and she sucked in a big lungfull of air, then let it out forcefully through her mouth.

“Tina,...” Gus started, again.

She cut him off. “Oh, shut up, daddy. I’ve had enough of this shit for one night.” She looked at him, then took a couple of steps over that way. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m just tired, that’s all. Tell Gussie to come on.” She looked back at the door, then sighed one more time. “Let’s go home,” she said.

With that, Tina walked on out. Slow.

And, you know, I don’t think I ever did see that girl smile again until years later.



Well, Paul Freiberg made good on his threat to make the Smiths move out at the end of the month. Durin’ the course of the next week or so, Frank moved his stuff to a house he found to rent over in Mt. Vernon. That would allow Jude to finish up his Senior year at the high school there and still be close enough for Frank to get back and forth to work ever’ day.

By that next Saturday, Frank had ever’thing moved and he brought the key to the house up to Paul at the grocery. Jude was along for the ride—they’d already took his Mercury over to their new place—and he stayed out in the pickup after Frank went inside.

I walked across the street and went up to the window on the passenger’s side. Jude just turned and looked at me when I got there.

The boy’s eyes was still a little puffy, but not nearly as swole up as they had been and the dark, black and blue color around the eyes was startin’ to fade out to a kind of sick-lookin’ yellow and purple. There was a bandage across his nose.

“Jude,” I said, “I just wanted to talk to you a little bit before you left.”

He looked away from me, starin’ out the windshield, and didn’t say nothin’.

“Now, I know you had yourself some problems here in Caroline and all, son,” I said. “But I just want you to know that I still think of you as a friend.”

He just kept on starin’ straight ahead.

“That thing with you and Tina and all.... Well, I don’t really know for sure what happened. But, anyway, I figure that’s all done with. It’s over. Settled.”

He finally looked at me. But all he did was give me a cold, hard stare for a minute or so, then looked away again.

“Anyway, I ain’t sayin’ who’s right or who’s wrong or anything about that. But I do know that what Paul Freiberg’s doin’ to ya’ll right now.... Well, it ain’t right.” I reached down beside me and picked up the sack I brought along. “Anyway, Jude, I wanted to give you this” I said. “It's kind of like a goodbye gift.”

Jude took the sack from me, set it down in his lap and looked inside. It was a six-pack of Budweiser.

“So, like I say, Jude,” I told ‘im, “I just don’t want there to be no hard feelin’s between us. OK?” I held my hand out for him to shake.

Well, Jude just looked over at me out of them swelled-up, ugly-lookin’ eyes he had right then. His mouth kind of curled up at one end. A sneer.

“Fuck you, old man,” he said, and he rolled up the window.

“There somethin’ I can do for you, Johannson?” Frank’s voice asked me from the other side of the pickup.

“Uh,... no. No,” I said. “Just sayin’ goodbye to Jude.”

“Well, you done told ‘im. Now get the hell away from my truck.”

I stepped back and Frank opened up the door on the driver’s side. He put one foot in, then paused and looked over at me. “I just want to thank you, Johansson,” he said with the sarcasm just as thick as could be in his voice. “Want to thank you an’ all the other people of this little piece-of-shit town of yours for all the goddam help you give me an’ my boy. You assholes really know how ta make a fella feel at home.”

And with that, Frank climbed in, started the truck and drove off down Main Street.

I watched the truck as it drove away. It stopped at the intersection with the highway for a bit, then I saw that sack I give Jude go flyin’ out the driver’s side window. It fell heavy and skidded across the bricks for a bit, then stopped. I knew the cans of beer was still in there.

I heard somebody come out of the grocery and looked over my shoulder. Paul Freiberg walked up to the edge of the sidewalk and leaned on the post supporting the metal awning over the store’s entrance. He was wearin’ a bloodstained apron and had his hands in its pockets. I figured he’d been cuttin’ and wrappin’ meat, like he usually did on Saturday mornin’. He was chewin’ on a toothpick. Like me, he looked up the road at Frank’s pickup as it accelerated away from the stop sign and went on south, headin’ toward the Interstate.

“Well, they’re gone,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “They’re gone.” I took in a breath and let it out in a sigh. “Paul,” I said, “I think I’m gonna resign as Constable. I don’t think I’m cut out to be no lawman.”

He just looked at me for a while, then reached up and took the toothpick out of his mouth. “Suit yourself,” he said. He stared at me for a long time and I knew him well enough to know he was thinkin’ of somethin’ else to say. “Got any recommendations on who we’ll get to replace you?”

I just looked back toward the highway. I saw Lake Haskell walk out from behind the empty rock building at the corner. Lake went out into the street and picked up the sack Frank throwed out. Lake looked inside, then refolded the sack’s top, tucked it up under his arm and walked on across Main Street.

“Why don’t you get Lake Haskell,” I told Paul without turnin’ around. “Heck. He knows ever’body’s business in Caroline, same as I do.”

“Besides,” I went on. “He’d prob’ly like the job.” Then I turned, walked back across the street, went into The Beer Joint and closed the door.