Chapter 3

Jane fell, then was half-dragged by Buck and Silas into the front room, where they threw her roughly down onto the cot.

"Well, lookee what we got here," Josh scowled at the others. "A little girl come right outta the woods. What ya doin' way out here in no where, honey?"

Jane gazed up fearfully at the tall mustached man in front of her, remembering the rough treatment Buck and Silas had given her outside. She said nothing, but clenched her teeth and pursed her lips tightly, vaguely hoping that all of this would dissolve like a bad dream and that she would awake in the arms of her husband back in the lodge.

"I asked you a direct question, M'am, and I 'spect you to answer it," Josh demanded again.

The others laughed behind Josh, and like twins they thrust their thumbs into their denim pockets. Jane remained quiet on the bed, knowing that whatever she said would make no difference to the men; she had witnessed their animal-like performance earlier and knew how they treated women and what they desired of them. But now Josh drew closer, the large palm of his hand drawn out lengthwise and moving in a slow-motion gesture towards her face.

"I-I--don't know what to say. I was lost," she gasped, turning out her hands in supplication toward him. "I wandered away from the lake and saw your cabin."

"Goddam," Buck spat out. "How do ya figure her gettin' up here from Clear Lake?"

Josh turned to Silas and Buck and shook his head. Then he moved to the table and picked up the almost empty bottle of liquor and gulped it to the dregs. He was clearly angered by her presence and, as Jane had heard from stories of "Furreners" wandering into these hills, he was intimidated by the idea that she had the nerve to approach them.

"Now, lady, there ain't no reason for ya to be out walkin' around at five o'clock in the mornin'," Josh said, running a long thick finger across the edge of his mustache. "This here is what ya might call 'trespassin', and us mountain folk got real strict ideas about that kinda thing."

Jane sat up with more certainty on the bed. She felt a bit more at ease now that she knew she wouldn't be manhandled by the three men at least for the moment--and she wanted to prove to Josh that she had no intentions of bothering them. The sun had risen over the hills behind the shack and she sensed a feeling of hope in the new day even though she knew she was in ominous danger at this moment. She had watched these men for nearly four hours before and she knew what they were capable of--in fact, she had an awareness of them that was deeper in many ways than her understanding of her own husband.

"If you would be so kind," she said with a sense of surety in her voice. "I would appreciate you showing me the way back to Lakeview Lodge. My husband is waiting for me there, and I hate to cause you any more trouble."

"Ya hear what she said, boys? She hates to cause us any more--trouble," Josh said, wiping his face off in a sneer of irritation. "Well, lady, ya have caused us trouble, and we can't let ya go directly."

Jane stood up from the cot and faced Josh. Her long blonde hair hung down over her thin white dress, accenting her little girl pout and bringing out the soft protuberance of her full well- rounded breasts.

"There's no reason you can't let me leave immediately," she said in indignation. "Besides, there are probably people out looking for me."

Then she took a long step half-way past the large man in front of her, only to be seized and thrown down on the couch by Silas and Buck.

"Let me go, I say, let me out of here," she screamed, her face contorted in fear and frustration.

"Lady, ain't nobody goin' to find you in these hills," Josh snapped impatiently. "And if you wandered from as far as Lakeview Lodge, like you say, they ain't even goin' to be lookin' for you way up here."

Josh moved back to Silas and Buck and stood in a huddle with the other two men for a moment. They were obviously discussing her and Jane's fears now returned that she wouldn't be permitted to leave the shack. The image of the young girl, Peggy, sucking Josh's cock ran through her mind for a fleeting instant, and she trembled when she thought of these men forcing her to do the same thing to them. But her own sense of outrage got the best of her, and she tightened her fists as Josh moved from Silas and Buck and grew close to her.

"We got what ya might call a little operation goin' on out here, and right now we can't take no chances. Ya stay with us for a day or so, and everything'll be all right."

"I can't stay for any amount of time," Jane rose and shouted. "Why are you treating me like this?" "Damn, Josh," Buck said. "Why don't ya tell her?"

Josh looked across at Buck and Silas. Whatever had happened in their huddle, Jane thought, hadn't solved anything. Something had been going on here in the shack that either couldn't be disclosed or was unclear to all three of the men.

"All right. We's makin' us some moonshine," Josh stated sharply. "And we can't have no interference. You stay with us for a few days, and it'll be OK."

Jane felt a heavy weight in her stomach as she realized what the tall man in front of her was saying. It was no longer a matter of leaving or staying, as she had stumbled onto something far more serious than midnight bawdry. She had grown up near these hills and she knew how 'moonshiners', with their stills and their strange customs feared and hated the inquisitive stranger. There was the constant fear of the 'revenuer', and there was the boredom and frustration that had no outlet except in blind outraged violence.

Jane had been through so much in the past eight hours; the vile assault on her by her husband and the hysteria of being lost in the woods and the vision of the girl's abandoned pleasures had dulled her consciousness to the immediacy of her danger from the men. But now she watched in growing terror as the three men surveyed the entire length of her body until it felt as though every inch of her were exposed and naked. She recalled her own lewd excitement at the obscene performance last night and her heart jumped with a new fear. Had she really desired the same kind of complete debasement that other girl had gone through? She sensed that her body ached to know, despite the rebellion of her mind and the knowledge that those feelings were a breach of promise to her husband and, especially, to her firmly set values that had held her in good stead for so long.

"So you'll just stay here for awhile, ain't that right?" Josh said, standing with a naked fist directed toward her.

"I-I don't know," she said softly, half-expecting a vicious blow if she refused.

"Yeah, she'll stay," Buck said, swaying up alongside Josh and peering down at Jane with a glint of sadistic enjoyment in his eyes. "There ain't nothin' else she can do."

Josh turned back to the men. "We'll just have to take the chance of someone findin' her here, though I don't see much chance of it. Can't let her go back to town before they pick up the stuff, that's for sure."

Silas, standing tall and idiot-like behind Buck, inched forward almost bashfully, turning his face toward Jane limply and lowering his eyes to her young close-set breasts. "Gee, Josh, she sure is pretty," he said, drawing out the syllables.

"Yeah, she is," Josh said. "But you had enough for one night."

"I didn't mean nothin'. I just wanted to touch her," Silas said, moping like a child behind Josh.

"May I have something to eat?" Jane said quickly in an attempt to change the subject.

To her dismay, a sly lewd smile swept over the faces of the three men.

"Honey, you'll get more than enough to eat tonight. When it gets dark and cool, we'll all just set down and have us a big feast together. Course, like everyone else, you'll have to work for your bread," he said with a knowing sneer that sent Silas and Buck into a peal of laughter behind her.

"Please give me something to eat now," Jane pleaded. "I'm sick. I haven't eaten for two days."

"Honey, this ain't no Lakeview Lodge," Josh waved her away and moved to the table. "Oh, give the spoiled little bitch a plate of grits," he said after a long moment as though on second thought. "But not a thing more and I mean that definite. I ain't runnin' no hotel."

It was completely daylight. Buck brought Jane a small dish of cold grits and then remained to guard her while Silas cleaned up the shack and Josh sat drinking in the corner of the room. Jane lay back on the cot, lost in her fear and hunger, and watched Silas move slow-faced about the cabin, picking up empty bottles and butts of thrown cigarettes. Outside, the cool North Carolina morning appeared magnificent in pale greys and yellows over the tops of nearby hills; a light mist drifted off treetops and settled in the meadow and, despite her resolve to protect herself constantly from the men, Jane fell into an exhausted deep sleep that was awakened by Buck standing in front of her.

"You been sleepin' for near two hours. Get outta bed and start helpin' us," he said.

Jane stretched, then suddenly came to life when she saw the dark glaring face of Buck in front of her. It took a moment until she realized where she was and who she was with to bring her to frightened consciousness.

"I have to go. I can't stay here any longer," she said with renewed desperation and raised herself weakly off the bed.

"You ain't goin' nowhere," the sharp voice of Josh reminded her from the other side of the room.

Jane peered at the bulky form of Josh hunched in a chair in the corner. He was a large powerfully built man with a ruddy face that exuded brute viciousness and a kind of animal cunning. She knew there was no hope of appealing to his better instincts for her own survival, yet she still sought a way to reach him.

"It doesn't matter to me what you're doing here," Jane began honestly.

"Yeah, but ya gotta stay," he cut her off immediately and stood looking at her. "We got some liquor that needs packing. A truck's comin' to pick up the stuff, and we can't take no chances with you runnin' around loose before we get it out."

Jane fell back down on the bed despondent. A few minutes later Buck and Silas returned to the cabin, carrying boxes they brought into the back room.

"Get back in there with Buck," Josh commanded after a moment. "He needs help cleanin' them bottles."

Jane stood up, a feeling of total helplessness sweeping over her. She was not only being held in the backwoods shack against her will, but now she was being ordered by the men to help them with their preparation of the shipment of illegal whisky. Josh directed her into a small back room where Buck stood over a pump and several buckets of water boiling on a wood stove. Dirty bottles were stacked on all the available table space and she watched as Buck plunged one empty container after another into the boiling water, setting the bottle on a table beside the sink.

"I-I don't understand. What do you want me to do?" she said half-heartedly.

"You just watch me for awhile," Buck said and pointed to the buckets. "You'll pick it up real quick."

Within a few minutes she was busy beside Buck at the sink, rinsing out bottles in hot water, then drying them and setting them on the table. She felt somewhat relieved by the monotonous activity and she put herself into the work completely, trying to forget where she was and whom she was with. Yet a constant nagging at the back of her consciousness made her increasingly uncomfortable as she thought of the coming night, and she began to think of escape. Buck would leave the room from time to time, and she saw several chances where it might have been possible to leap out the back window. A new fear added to her worries as she realized that her husband, Bob, was probably searching for her and she was afraid that he would come on the shack unaware; the men, who were armed, would certainly revert to violence if he appeared and she knew it would be best if she could get to him before he arrived.

Buck appeared with another batch of bottles. After setting them down, he looked at Jane bent over the sink and handed her a slice of ham between two pieces of bread. Jane turned to thank him, but the gruff look on his face seemed to preclude that, and she began to eat hurriedly without any comment.

"You like a cigarette?" he said afterwards and withdrew a pack from his shirt pocket.

Jane nodded her head and the stocky blonde man handed her a cigarette and lit hers and then his own. He was tired. Sweat ran down his face and dampened his work shirt over his chest and for the first time she saw him as a human being and not another backwoods criminal. She felt an odd sense of compassion for him that she couldn't quite explain to herself. Perhaps it was the fact that he was young and ignorant, and had been forced into his way of life by economic and social circumstances beyond his control. He had been kind to her during the last hour, and she knew that she needed at least one of these men to stand behind her when it came time for them to decide when she should be released.

"It's damn hot in here," Buck said, fanning himself. "Let's you and me sit out on the stoop for awhile."

It was hot. She enjoyed slipping out of the confines of the back room even for a moment as this gave her an opportunity to survey the terrain and decide her chances for escape. It would be difficult for her to maneuver, she knew; the stand of trees around the buildings were a good hundred yards off, and the men would have to be diverted from her before she could even consider making an attempt. Buck leaned down and lit another cigarette.

"It's very peaceful," she offered, trying to make pleasant conversation. "It must be lovely living out here away from the city."

Buck snorted, then looked at her quizzically. "I ain't never lived in the city. Ain't never thought about it, as a matter of fact."

His face changed expression for a moment, as though Jane's question had brought a reality to mind that he had thought about but rejected for some reason a long time ago. Then he stood up and said, "We send this stuff to the city. Big money in the syndicate. Not that ya know anything about that."

Jane laughed nervously and stubbed her cigarette out on the ground next to the stoop. Smoke rose from the brick chimney of the stone building in front of them, and beyond lazy summer clouds piled up over blue-green mountains. Yes, it was idyllic here, Jane thought to herself; with her husband here, in a completely different situation, she could see how she might be able to completely relax, but now, with Buck pacing anxiously in the yard in front of her, she was unable to release her mind from the immediate task of running away for even one instant. The other men were off somewhere and she felt relieved that she wasn't working with Silas whom she feared most of all three men. With his open-hanging mouth and bulging eyes, he was the most repulsive looking creature she had ever encountered and just remembering the crude interest he had already expressed in her body sent shivers of repugnance down her spine.

"What ya thinkin' about?" Buck said harshly. He was standing in the sunlight with a bottle in his hand, and suddenly Jane realized he was drinking again. "I don't want ya gettin' crazy ideas while them others is gone."

"I was just wondering how long it will be before they pick up your liquor," she said, looking across at him. "My husband must be worrying."

"Josh's the boss," Buck shrugged, drawing the bottle to his lips. "They'll probably come in a day or two, and he'll tell ya how soon ya can leave."

Jane turned on the stoop and looked with mounting tension back into the house. The rooms were empty. She gazed back across the muddied space and watched Buck, who stood with his head cocked and his eyes clouded with liquor, and then the thought came to her as she realized all that could happen to her alone with those men for several days: yes, she must make an escape. She would get him drunk; she would drink a little along with him until he was completely inebriated and then she would make her escape. But it would have to be quick since there was no telling how long Josh and Silas would be out of the house.

"Yes, I would like something to drink," she responded. "I'm quite thirsty."

Buck slid up on the back stairs to the shack beside her. "I see I ain't got no glass for ya. Ya better just sip it outta the bottle."

He wiped off the lip on his shirt and handed the bottle to Jane. "It ain't bad moonshine when ya figure we make it all out here," he remarked. "Downright good-tasting when ya drink the crap them boys is makin' on the other side of them hills."

Buck pointed off to the mountains but Jane was looking to a high bluff to the right of the cabin. She could see a wisp of smoke rising behind the hill and she supposed that was where Silas and Josh had gone earlier. It was a very large operation that she had imagined: the amount of bottles they had scalded testified to that, and the syndicate that Buck had mentioned pointed to the fact that much of the illegal liquor was being exported to the larger towns and cities in the area.

"Ain't ya gonna drink it?" Buck said anxiously. "Goddamn, it ain't gonna kill ya."

She raised the bottle to her lips, letting her mouth get accustomed to the metallic taste of the liquor. The whisky slid down her throat smoothly at first, then she felt a burning sensation as it struck her stomach and the aftertaste caught in her throat.

"God, it--it's s-strong," she coughed and leaned away from him. "It could kill a person."

"Hundred an' fifty proof! Takes awhile for city folks to get used to it."

Buck smiled, flashing a pair of white teeth, and for a moment Jane thought him almost handsome. He had green twinkling eyes and a chiseled face tanned by years in the sun. His forearms extending from rolled up shirt sleeves showed long sinewy muscles with not an inch of spare flesh below coarse sunbleached hairs that gave him a strong masculine appearance.

"Sure hate to go back into that heat," he said, thrusting his elbow towards the back room. "Sometimes it gets unbelievable hot workin' on the still. There ain't nothin' ya can do about it, though."

Jane sensed herself slowly warming to Buck sitting beside her. The gulp of whisky she had taken and the arduous work inside had lowered her defenses somewhat and for the first time in many hours she wasn't nervous. Through the slight daze that first taste of the strong alcohol had given her, she knew she must escape before Josh and Silas returned, yet she almost enjoyed this moment sitting in the sun with Buck. It seemed strange that they had both grown up within fifty miles of each other, had shared in many of the same southern traditions, and yet were as different as two people from opposite sides of the globe.

Buck stood up and raised the bottle to his lips. He closed his eyes and took several long gulps, then he lowered it down again and breathed a long deep sigh. "Whew, them fellas'll be back shortly. Why don't you and me finish this off before they come?"

Jane smiled to herself. It would only be a matter of time before he had drunk enough to be less aware of her moves; yet, the alcohol she had drank was already affecting her and she was less than certain that she could pretend she was drinking when she actually wasn't.

"I said drink it. There ain't nothin' wrong with this here corn liquor," he said, waving the bottle in front of her.

Jane raised the bottle again. This time it didn't taste as bitter, and she even felt a slight lift as the whiskey settled in her stomach.

"Ya ain't drinkin' it, I can tell. I mean take a long one," he said, hitching his fingers around his belt.

"I've really had enough," she complained, but took another long gulp. She knew she was hurting herself by obliging him and drinking since it would take three times as much to get him drunk as it would herself. Slightly dizzy, she considered pouring out some of the contents of the bottle when he wasn't looking, but he never seemed to take his eyes off her.

"Ya know, ya ain't too bad looking" Buck said suddenly.

"I've been watchin' you all afternoon, and I think you're real nice."

Despite herself, Jane felt her face grow crimson. She looked down at the smoothly downed tannedness of her legs and the full rounding curve of her firm young thighs and blushed again.

"Yeah," Buck sighed deeply. "I been lookin' at ya real close. You got pretty blond hair. I like it real long like that."

Unconsciously, Jane ran her hand through her hair, pulling it from in front of her breasts and letting it fall smoothly down her back. Somehow she did not feel disturbed at what Buck was saying to her, and she attributed this to the feeling of easy confidence the liquor was giving her and the fact that he had been rather kind and understanding toward her throughout the afternoon. Still, she wanted to divert his attention. She remembered how he had acted last night with the prostitute and the last thing she wanted was to be molested.

"I've often wondered what it would be like to live alone out in these hills," she said, looking toward the green thickness of trees surrounding the shack. "I've lived in the city so long, you know."

"It ain't nothin' you'd like," Buck said after a moment.

"Oh, I think I really would. There's something about the calm, the absolute quiet that keeps bringing me back. Before I was married, I was quite anxious to live in New York. I thought life was so dull in a small town in North Carolina, do you know what I mean?"

Buck sat quiet. Jane looked at him nervously, sensing that the liquor was making her talk too much. She pushed the bottle toward his hand, hoping that he would drink from it again. Yes, she did feel at ease with Buck and the only way she could explain it was that he was lonely too and needed a companion to confide in as she did.

"I never thought about it much until now," he said, drawing deeply on the whisky and setting the bottle on the stoop in front of them. "I don't know any of them things you're talking about. Since I was a little kid, alls I ever knew was work and more work. First it was for my pa cuttin' timber, then it was in the mill for ten years. Now it ain't much easier but I got more money."

Jane frowned and looked steadily toward him. She was a little worried about the strong effect the alcohol was taking on her, but at least she had gotten the man talking and drinking, and now the next step was for her to wait until he was distracted.

"This work ain't no good either," he continued. "There's all kinda trouble with Josh. He gets drunk and goes crazy. Then we all gets drunk like we did last night and he wants to fuss with the neighbors. One of them who complained about his wife being bothered disappeared about a month ago. I don't know nothin' about it, but I 'spect he's buried out there behind them trees,"

Buck held up the bottle to Jane and she quickly took a drink. What he had just said frightened her, and her stomach seemed to sink as far as the dirt ground as she thought of Bob's possible arrival and what might happen to him if he tried to protect her from this group of mountain men. She took another swig and drew in on herself, grateful for the sensation of the liquor warming her slightly as it coursed through her veins. Yes, this was a world where the law of survival of the fittest still prevailed; there were rules, she knew, yet these rules were not those of so- called civilized society. And what frightened her most was the concept of justice these backwoods people maintained: courts of law were completely ignored in favor of the eye-for-an-eye vengeance that came out of a barrel of a gun. The outsider by his very nature was immediately condemned--as her own dilemma had profoundly demonstrated--and Bob would be brutalized as an intruder without a second thought.

"Like I was sayin'," Buck went on. "There ain't nothin' but some dirt farms and stills and lots of killin' around here. Folks get heated up and they let it come out real easy,"

She flinched inwardly at these last words. He looked at her with a violent expression that matched the darkening of the summer cumulus overhead, and she pressed herself against the side of the door, moving her leg slightly away from him. Then she felt the touch of his hand on her thigh and she moved her leg, this time more abruptly and with more certainty toward the edge of the stoop.

"What ya gettin' so jumpy for?" he laughed, and placed the palm of his hand firmly on the dimpled area above her knee. "I could make things nice for ya."

Almost instinctively Jane reached for the bottle of whisky. Now she had an idea what he had been planning, but somehow she didn't really care, as long as she got him drunk enough to make her escape.

"You're just like the rest of them Yankees. Ya say you're from the South, but ya talk like a furrener to me."

The touch of his hand on her leg was disconcerting at first, but she knew she had better not protest and after some moments she found herself adjusting to the feeling of it placed warmly on her lower thigh and she did not protest. She drank when he asked her to drink, and even smiled as he related to her the details of an unhappy childhood and a broken marriage. It was amazing how much a person could endure, given the circumstances, she thought; she even admitted that she liked Buck, that she felt somehow endeared to him because of their backgrounds and especially because of his unhappy marriage. Her own relationship with her husband was nothing admirable, she knew, and Bob's vicious rape of her by the lake was in its own right no less violent than the way the men were treating her here.

Buck handed the bottle to Jane and she drank from it again.

"I don't want any more," she said with a slight slur. "It's too strong, I can't drink too much of it."

"Ya hardly made a goddam dent in the bottle," he responded. Then laughed and moved his palm softly up and down the smoothness of her thigh. The liquor she had drunk had dulled her senses somewhat, and instead of rejecting him she felt drawn to the reassuring feel of his hand against her warmly tingling skin.

"Why don't we just forget them bottles inside," he said. "I just like sitting here with you. I said I'd help you before and I meant it. You just gotta cooperate a little."

Jane jerked back startled for an instant, then she pulled closer to Buck, knowing what his words implied and how she must deal with him. Just a little more time, she thought, and he would be drunk. His hot breath caressed her shoulder and his hand slid closer to the edge of her tight dress. Yes, she must make her get away as soon as possible. She couldn't imagine herself performing with all the men like the whore the evening before.

Buck stood up abruptly and grasped Jane by the hand. "Let's you and me take a little walk," he said and smiled strongly. "You like these here woods. Let me show ya some of our property, as ya might call it."

Then they were walking across the muddied turf of the backyard, moving on past the stone house and the clump of trees. The alcohol had had some effect on her balance and once her hips swayed toward him and nudged him in the side, and she cringed as he came closer to her, slinging his arm around her back. The trees seemed to close over their heads in a slowly darkening archway and above the green ceiling of leaves she could almost feel the sky darken and a wedge of clouds press down on the hills.

Then they were in a clearing, and Buck released his hand and dropped softly on the grass. He smiled at her. He still had the whisky with him and she watched as he sucked from the bottle as though he were a child at his mother's breast. Then he gestured for her to sit down beside him. "C'mon," he said in an almost high-pitched voice. "I ain't gonna eat ya up."

Jane straightened in front of him and pressed her hands down flat on her stomach. Yes, she really liked this man even though she had watched him perform dreadful perverted acts only hours before. She felt his eyes glisten up at her and she was suddenly aware of the beauty of her own body. The way Bob had treated her, she had never sensed her own loveliness as she did now. Yes, Bob had been courtly and had tried to make her feel like a woman; but this was very much different: now she was confronted with someone who was willing to risk his own safety, as Buck had done when he fed her, just to touch her, just to show that he understood and cared.

"I said come on and sit down here. I ain't gonna bite ya," Buck laughed and turned, propping his elbow on the grass.

"I'd rather stand, thank you," Jane answered. "It looks awfully damp on the ground."

Buck stretched and smiled at her again. He began undoing the buttons to his shirt until the entire breadth of his chest and muscular belly were exposed. He pulled his shirttails from beneath his trousers and took the shirt off, placing it beside him on the ground. Then he lay his hand on the blue denim material, gesturing again for her to sit down beside him.

"No," she said, more positive in her assertion. "I just can't. Look, you're getting your shirt dirty leaving it there on the grass."