Chapter 13

Before dawn had begun to show at her window, Billie-Ann had already decided to leave her stepmother's house. Quietly she packed what few clothes she owned into an old duffel bag, stuffed in her daddy's old bone-handled hunting knife and the naughty pictures she'd gotten from Jed and slipped out of the house while Nora still snored in bed.

As she cut into the woods and found the path down out of the hills, she knew she didn't have a plan at all... no place to go... no place to hide. She thought of waiting for Hanson at Basset's Pond, but by then Nora might be looking for her and it would be just that much harder to get out of Dooberville without being taken back... maybe even put in the reform school. No, she had to leave the county if she could. Maybe even leave Missouri.

If she could get to town and pay the dollar or two it cost to take the bus to Louiston, her chances would be better. Especially if she was out of town before Nora could trudge through the woods to the Crumper house to use their phone to call the sheriff. In Louiston she might get a job as a waitress until she had enough scraped together to put more distance between her and her stepmother.

A longing to see Hanson one more time brought an empty ache to her chest, but she kept on walking. At Basset's Pond she didn't dare stop to rest. Waiting to meet Hanson now wouldn't do her any good. He'd just want to hug and kiss her until she couldn't think straight any more. A tear burned her eye, but she brushed it away and switched her duffel bag to the other hand. Maybe she could write him a letter someday... tell him where she was. Maybe. In another minute, Basset's Pond was behind her.

It was about ten o'clock by the time Billie'd made her way through the woods to where the fork was. It would be easier walking next to the road until she got to town and anyway someone might stop and give her a lift. She'd be safe from suspicion for another two or three hours at least before Nora could spread the word. She was about to step out of the brush and cross the culvert when the noise of a car startled her. It was heading up into the hills and Billie decided to duck down behind a bush, just to be safe. She saw it was the sheriff's car and when it swung left at the fork and disappeared in the direction of her stepmother's place, Billie felt a little tug of fear. It was impossible for anyone to know of her running away yet and old man Allen had never been in any trouble. Besides that, the last whiskey still in the county had been broken up three years before and she was positive there weren't any working in that neck of the woods any more.

For a while, Billie walked along the side of the road, keeping her ears peeled for the sheriff coming back. Sure enough, not half an hour had passed when she heard the big sedan somewhere behind. Billie watched it pass from behind a huge stump. The deputy was in the car, his jaw poked out ahead as he drove. Whatever the reason for the law to be nosing through the hills, she couldn't take any chances. She'd have to stay out of sight as much as possible when she got to town. Until she was on that bus and heading away from Dooberville.

Billie-Ann was almost to the stop sign at the highway when she spotted Jed Judson's pickup making the turn and heading down the road toward her. For a minute she felt like hiding, but the woods were behind her now and there were only a few tall weeds to squat behind. Then Jed honked his horn and swerved her way. Billie frowned and kept walking. She'd just have to put up with him for a minute or two.

"Hey, I'm glad I found you!" Jed said, leaning out the window. "Why don't ya get in?"

Billie squinted suspiciously at him. "You don't know nothin' about me running away from Nora?"

"Hell, no!" Jed swore, shaking his head harder than he had to.

"All I want is a ride to town," she said.

"Sure, sure. Come on." He reached over and opened the other door while Billie walked around the truck. It was the first time she'd been with him since she'd traded her panties for the dirty pictures, and there was something about his manner she didn't like. But Billie had to admit that it was safer than being out in plain sight on the highway, especially if the deputy was looking to bring her back to Nora. When Jed backed the truck around and headed down the blacktop again, he smiled at Billie and nodded toward her duffel.

"So you really are running away."

"Yeah."

"Listen, Billie, there's something I been wanting to talk to you about." Jed swallowed and scratched a pimple on his chin. "What I mean... about what happened the other day. I sure hope you don't think I'm crazy or something."

Billie looked at him. "I guess not. It don't matter none."

"Yeah, but it does matter. To me it matters. Ever since I had those pants of yours I can't get you off my mind I love you, Billie, I..."

"Stop it, Jed!" Billie frowned hard at him "You just stop talking like that." There was a strange cast to his eyes that frightened her.

"I know you need lovin'," he rambled on. "I know it after I saw what you done with that nigger last night..."

Billie tightened her fingers around the cloth handle of her duffel. "What are you talking about, Jed?"

He looked at her surprised, pale-blue eyes. "Why, you remember last night, when you was eaten out by that boy Hanson. I was hidin' in the bushes and saw everything. I knew you was drunk or something by the way you carried on. He got you drunk, didn't he? So he could do that to you."

With a little gasp of anger, Billie turned to stare out the side window, but she was sure her face was crimson.

"Don't worry 'bout it none, though," Jed giggled shrilly. "If you just give me a chance with you there ain't nobody need know any details about what you did with that nigger 'cept me and you and Deputy Sheriff Goodlin."

"Deputy Goodlin!" Billie cried.

"Why, shore," he said nodding. "It's against the law for a nigger to touch a white girl like Hanson Allen touched you." Jed shrugged. "Actually, it's because he's a grown man and you're so young, but seems to me him being black makes it worse."

They were nearing the town limits now and Billie's heart pounded frantically in her chest. What was Jed trying to tell her anyway? And what had they done to Hanson?

"We caught that black bastard early this morning," he went on, "me and the deputy. They put a fifty-dollar bail on his head." Jed laughed in a loony, loose way. "Take all the niggers in niggertown to raise that much."

Billie tried to make her voice as calm as possible. "Jed, let me out... now."

"Oh, I can't do that. Deputy Sheriff Goodlin has been lookin' for you. He went up to your house a little bit ago but you was gone so I came lookin' myself." Jed reached over to pat her shoulder but Billie jerked away. "You're not in any trouble; they just want you to write down what that perverted nigger did last night, and that oughta keep him in a cage for a while."

"Jed," Billie said, aware of the quaver in her voice, "let me out!"

"Won't take you but a little bit at the jail," Jed said eagerly. "Then I'm gonna show you how much I really care for you, Billie-Ann. I won't do nothin' so nasty as that nigger done, but if you help I bet I can satisfy you real good. I just know when I see you stripped buck naked that I can..."

Billie had waited until the truck was just starting out from the first stop light in town before she jerked the door handle and kicked her duffel bag out. Then she jumped to the road after it, hooked her hand through the handle and ran as fast as she could.

"You, Billie! Come back here now!"

She heard the truck's engine racing and then the gears grind noisily as Jed tried to get turned around. But before he could swing around the block, Billie ducked through an alley and when she didn't see the pickup, crossed the street and headed for the big glass doors of the Dooberville Community Bank. The remodeled front looked a little too modern for the other stores around it, but because it didn't have many windows, Billie thought she'd feel safe inside.

Once through the doors she stopped and looked around. The refrigerated air was cool on her legs and the thick carpet made the adding machines an typewriters sound muted and far away. And that was when the idea struck her. Hanson was in trouble... maybe bad trouble unless she could get him out. Fifty dollars was what Jed had said it would cost. Behind the teller's cage the gigantic thick steel door of the safe shined back at her. With all the money the bank had in there, surely they'd let her borrow enough to get her friend out of jail.

A woman with jeweled glasses smiled from a nearby desk and Billie went over. "I need to borrow fifty dollars," she said. "It's an emergency."

"Then you'd have to see Mister Butler's son Jerrold." The woman rolled a fresh piece of paper into her typewriter. "Unfortunately, he's out for the afternoon and won't be in again till Monday."

"But I need it now!" Billie cried. "Could you tell me where he is?"

The woman pursed her lips and frowned.

"Jerrold lives with his father." She gave a smug nod. "Jerrold's father is president of the bank. I'm sure the Butlers wouldn't want to be disturbed at home."

"Maybe if I talked to him..."

"It would be much better if you wait till Monday."

Billie found some courage somewhere. "I know somebody will tell me where to find Jerrold Butler. Won't you please?"

The woman behind the desk looked uncomfortable. "Oh, all right. But it won't do you any good. It's the big white house on Maple, two blocks from the corner of the park." She shrugged.

"Please don't tell the Butlers I gave you their address."

After Billie had looked up and down the street and made sure it was safe to leave the bank, she crossed into the alley again and headed for the municipal park. It was the only place in town she was sure she could find and if the deputy or Jed Judson didn't catch her first, maybe she could get to the Butler place. But of course she still didn't have a plan or even the faintest idea of what she'd say to Jerrold Butler... if she found him.

Billie was almost across the grassy park when she saw the white patrol car cruising up a side street. She dropped her duffel bag behind a trash can and slid into the wooden seat of a swing until the car had turned the corner and headed back towards the business district. Jed had probably told them that she'd slipped away from him and Billie knew that her chances of helping Hanson would grow smaller with each passing hour.

Halfway down Maple she spotted the white house and hurried on. It looked to her like the kind of place a banker would live in. She was relieved to find the wrought-iron gate open and in a moment Billie had slipped inside the high hedged yard. For a while at least she'd be safe from the searching eyes of the Dooberville police.

No one came when she rang the front doorbell, and after she'd called through the screen and still didn't hear any movement from inside, she walked around to the back. There was a high wall around what she guessed must be the swimming pool, and before she was close enough to see the water she heard a loud splash. Keeping an eye out for dogs, she crept up to the archway in the wall and peeked around. The turquoise water in the pool was rough with waves but she couldn't see anyone. Then a blond head bobbed up somewhere near the middle and a young-looking man started swimming toward the side nearest her. Billie watched him lean his elbows on the wet tiles and squint into the sun while the water trickled from his hair. His shoulders were very tan and though he didn't look as strong as Hanson Allen, he didn't look flabby, either. He was almost handsome... in a snooty kind of way. Taking a deep breath, she stepped around the side of the wall and stood there clutching her duffel bag with both hands. "I'm looking for Jerrold Butler," she said.

The boy snapped his head around and Billie could see that he was even younger-looking than she'd first thought. Maybe twenty- one or two... it was hard to tell.

"That's me," he said, starting to smile a little. "But who in hell are you?"

Billie told him her name and that she'd gone to the bank to borrow fifty dollars.

"You must really need that money bad," he laughed, pushing wet curls back from his forehead while he studied her.

"Yes... I do need it. Awfully bad."

"Tell you what," the boy said. "You come take a dip and we'll talk about that money later."

Billie looked around at the house and then back at Jerrold Butler. She really didn't want to go swimming. Anyway, she didn't have a suit and the last time she'd gotten near water without a swimsuit...

Jerrold smiled at her hesitance. "I don't loan money to girls on Friday afternoon unless they come swimming with me."

"Mister Butler," she started, "I..."

"Call me Jerrold. And if you're trying to tell me you don't have a suit, well I don't, either." With those words, he dove, and for an instant Billie saw his white bottom flash to the surface and then slip down with the rest of him into the green depths of the pool. She picked up her bag and turned, her face hot. She was hoping that Jerrold Butler might feel sorry for her and stop her and offer to loan her the fifty dollars right there, but when she heard his head break surface again there was only a long, crazy-sounding laugh.

"Don't forget to close the gate on your way out!" he called.

Billie pressed her lips together angrily and stopped. She could almost see Hanson behind the bars of the jail... waiting for someone. Waiting for her. Suddenly angry, she whirled around and put her bag down on a nearby beach chair. "You mean you absolutely won't loan me any money unless... unless...

"In the nude," Jerrold said, smirking.

Tears of frustration welled in her eyes and Billie let them. "I think you're just... horrible!" she cried out.

Jerrold Butler laughed, obviously not bothered by her tears. "Most people would jump at a chance to swim in my father's pool with the future president of Dooberville Community Bank," he said, paddling onto his back. Billie could see the black patch of his pubic hair under the wavy water, and for the first time she noticed the half-empty whiskey bottle setting under the shade of a lawn chair.

"I bet your dad wouldn't like it... wouldn't like what you just said to me."

"My parents have gone to St. Louis for the weekend," Jerrold said, treading water just under the diving board. "No one here but me... and you, of course."

Kicking off her sandals, Billie slipped her pullover top off, then wiggled her jean shorts down. She was afraid to look up at Jerrold, but he'd stopped splashing altogether now. Finally she slipped off her panties and ran to the edge of the pool, thankful that the wall around them was too high for any neighbors to peek in. The cold water took her breath, but she went quickly down the ladder until the wavelets tickled her chin. Then she edged along the overflow gutter with her hands until she got to a place where her toes could touch.

Jerrold hadn't moved from staring at her, but now she heard him paddling across. "I didn't think you'd do it!" he said, coming up close to her. "No shit, I really didn't think you would."

When her eyes met his, she felt herself blush again, but she kept looking anyway. "I told you I need that money." The feeling of the water against her naked skin felt nice and when she moved her legs a little the currents she stirred made her fine pubic hair wave and tickle. Billie was getting ready to push Jerrold away... in case he tried anything, but he splashed off toward the deeper end of the pool.

"Come on, I'll race you!"

"I can't swim!" she called back. Even before the words were out, she knew she shouldn't have said them. In a flash Jerrold Butler was back, grinning with mischief. Then he pried her hands off the edge of the pool, holding her firmly by the wrists as she lost her grip and pulled her backward in the deep water.

"Don't... please don't; I'll drown."

"Then you'd better hang onto me, baby!" he said, laughing crazier than ever. "God, you're pretty!"

It was worse than what had happened at Basset's Pond. The strong boy was pulling her into even deeper water, and once he pretended to lose his grip on her hands. After the second mouthful of water Billie had to cough out, she threw her arms around his neck and pulled her titties tight against his chest. The sensation was exciting even though she didn't want to enjoy it, but at least she wouldn't sink. The wave's moved their bodies apart and then together again, and Billie felt the boy's stomach press up against hers.