Chapter 12

Hanson was hung over the next morning and had to take a bad ribbing from his dad because of it. It finally got so bad that he loudly offered to take his father's truck to town and pick up some things they needed from the hardware store, just to prove to the elder Mr. Allen that his son could ride all right with a hangover.

"When I was young," Lucas Allen said, pouring himself a third cup of coffee, "we had to hay all day. Even if we didn't get home till dawn."

"Well, ain't nobody gonna make me hay all day." Hanson shook his head. "Not on a Friday for sho. You mighta been crazy enough to do it, but not me."

"Wasn't so crazy about it," Mr. Allen said, nodding sharply. "Man said work. We worked."

Hanson finished his toast and gulped down a glass of orange juice. "Give me them keys. If I sit here listening to you jaw all day I'll never get that stuff from the store."

As he drove towards Dooberville, Hanson let the memories of the night before soothe his booze-aching head. There was even a shiny place on the seat where some of Billie-Ann Wheeler's sweet honey had run down from her cunt and dried. To look at it gave Hanson a terrible pang of desire. But it was easier in the daylight to remember he wasn't living in New York or Boston. It was Missouri and they played the game differently here. It wasn't the first time he'd reminded himself of that, but when it came to innocent young girls his will power disappeared. The truth of the matter, of course, was that fourteen-year-old Billie-Ann had enraptured him to the point of desperation. Even after sating his appetite with lovely, hot Alicia Shelton, all he could think of was the way Billie looked in her forlorn and raggedy cotton dress.

A dove flew up from the roadside and narrowly missed hitting the front of the truck. Hanson watched it disappear into the trees, and somehow its graceful flight brought another dreamy image of Billie into his head. That lovely little cunt of hers, delicately shaped... all white from being hidden from the sun. And when he'd opened it with his tongue the smell had been a mixture of girlish piss musk and the ambrosia of her sex juices. But she was small in the hole. Hanson was pretty sure she'd never been really fucked yet... at least not by any full-grown man. No cock that was close to normal size could fit into the tight place he'd searched with his tongue-tip.

Thinking of how her loins had tasted and how she'd tossed and struggled made Hanson take another deep breath of restrained passion. "Something gotta give," he said. Ahead the stop sign at the highway came into view and he slowed the truck and pulled up. Hanson knew there wasn't any future for a black man around Dooberville. He made his mind up right then to leave the county in the next day or so... leave Missouri even. As long as he stayed he knew he'd have to see Billie again, and the longer he messed around with her the more he'd want her. She was far too young to understand how crazy a man could get. Hanson didn't want to be the one to sacrifice his sanity.

When Hanson drove the truck through town on the way to the hardware store, he hardly noticed the sheriff's big white car waiting at an intersection. But three blocks further, the revolving red light reflected in his rear-view mirror and he pulled over to the curb. A beer-bellied deputy swaggered heavily over to Hanson's side of the truck and pushed his big hat back on his head.

"Let's see your license, boy."

Hanson tightened his jaw and fished his wallet out. There would be time later to get pissed off, he told himself. When he was out of this goddamned state. The deputy glanced quickly at the small card and tapped it with the edge of his thumbnail.

"Appears to me this license is for the State of New York."

Hanson was getting mad now and the big man's sunglasses were reflecting the glaring sun right into his eyes.

"I live in New York," he said, keeping his voice easy.

"What you doin' here then?" The deputy smiled and pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose with a thick finger.

"Visiting."

"And this truck's got Missouri plates, too." The man looked at him hard. "You sure you didn't steal it?"

"It's my old man's truck... Lucas Allen. Everybody around here knows him."

"Never heard of him. You better show me some registration."

When Hanson couldn't find the papers tied around the steering column or in the glove compartment he checked behind the visor. There wasn't so much as a chewing gum wrapper anywhere.

"Look, next time I'm in town I'll bring them by your office...

Already the deputy was shaking his head, smiling a smile that Hanson wanted to shove his fist into. "I figure you better drive on down to the office right now so we can check this thing out."

Hanson stared straight ahead, gripping the steering wheel so hard his fingers ached. "Bullshit," he said, just loud enough for the man to hear.

"What you say, boy?" The deputy slipped Hanson's license into his shirt pocket and leaned on the door.