Chapter 14

"Man, them ofay motherfuckers sure didn't want to turn me loose, did they?" Hanson laughed as he slid into the front seat of Sam's Oldsmobile. He felt good, the way only getting out of jail could make him feel.

"That's a fact," Sam said, "but they can't turn down honest bail." He started the Olds and backed away from the curb. "Did you see the look on that deputy's face when you jived him about the crappy accommodations?"

Hanson slapped his friend's shoulder and laughed again. "Where'd you get the bail anyway, man? And how'd you know I was in the goddamn can in the first place?"

Hanson watched Sam smile across at him. "You 'member that little piece of ankle you brung out to Elsie's yesterday night?"

"You gotta be shittin' me, boy," Hanson said, eyes wide in disbelief.

Sam pulled a half-empty quart of whiskey from under the seat and shoved it across to Hanson. "Just drink some of this and listen. That Billie come wandering round down on Bonner Street in her short jeans this very afternoon. I'm sittin' up there in the Club Matinee messin' around half-tore up and see her out there on the sidewalk." Sam laughed and glittered his gold tooth. "Molly Gee was trying to hassle her about something', and I heard it and come out."

Hanson poured his mouth full of the hot booze and washed the jail taste down his throat. He hadn't figured on Billie-Ann Wheeler helping Him... even if she had found out he was in trouble. As much as he still made up fantasies about her, Hanson knew she was really only a country white girl so ignorant she could hardly tell one hole from the other. But what Sam was telling him now turned his head around. Could shy little Billie- Ann scrape together his bail somehow and then go find Sam to cut him loose? Maybe he didn't know her the way he thought he did. He tilted the bottle up again and slugged hard.

"How'd she know not to come down there to the jail herself? How come she knew they was lookin' for her to put the heat on me?"

"That Jed fella told her. But why don't you just ask her yourself?" Sam laughed again and hooked the bottle from Hanson's hand. "She's squattin' down behind your seat."

Hanson turned just as Billie-Ann jumped up squealing. He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her squirming into the front seat with him. "Damn it, baby, am I glad to see you!"

Billie blushed and smiled and lowered her lashes. He could feel her heat against his side and smell the heady aroma of her fourteen-year-old body on the verge of growing into sweet adolescence. Damn it to hell, maybe he could go completely insane and keep this little white rabbit for his very own. Hanson yearned for her as much as ever. His cock grew tight in his pants in its need to be buried in Billie's wet, yielding flesh.

"Hey, Sam, why don't you take' us out to Zeebee Lee's... you know, that old voodoo woman they ran out of town a long time ago." Hanson smelled Billie's hair and kissed it. "I don't know if she'll remember me but she knows my folks real good."

"Sho, man, ain't nobody gonna be botherin' you out there." Sam frowned and shook his head. "Wouldn't stay there myself, though..."

Hanson grabbed the whiskey bottle back and shoved his friend's shoulder. "Shit, that's just what you need. Little black cat bone might keep you out of trouble."

"Had a girl that did a spell on me," Sam said, sucking his gold tooth. "Couldn't get one up for three months."

Hanson laughed and looked down at Billie. She hadn't said a thing since he'd pulled her up beside him, but she was as close to his side as she could get without going through his shirt. Gently he slipped a hand down along one of her thighs and squeezed it. The pretty girl made a soft noise in her throat and pushed the side of her face against his chest.

"Why'd you get me out of jail?" he whispered, pulling her chin up so she'd have to look at him.

"I w-wanted to," she said back.

"You want to stay with me?"

"Uh-huh," Billie said, nodding; "but I'm scared."

"What you scared of?"

Billie-Ann looked away again and then rubbed a thin finger over a mole on her knee. Hanson saw the tears well up in her eyes and before he could say anything to stop her, her cheeks flooded with hot, salty streaks and she jerked, sobbing, in his arms. "I... I'm so hungry and tired and... oh, please don't fuck me Hanson... please don't."

Sam choked on a mouthful of whiskey, but Hanson paid no attention to his friend's mirth. "Don't you be worrying," he told Billie, patting the side of her sweet bottom, "you ain't gonna be fucked 'less you wanta be." Then he framed her face with a hand and made her look up at him again until a smile began to show through the tears. Suddenly Billie's eyes brightened as if she were remembering something. Hanson watched her dig some bills out of her pocket and hold them out.

"Jesus, baby, that's forty bucks!" Carefully he folded the money into his own pocket. "I'll keep this safe for you... some of it might help show Zeebee Lee that we mean to be paying customers." Hanson was wondering hard where Billie had come up with all the cash. Enough to get him out of jail and forty more left over. And she'd pushed the money at him almost as if she were relieved to be rid of it. But he figured it would be better to let the questions wait.

Hanson looked over at Sam. "What this little angel needs is a warm bath and some food in her stomach." He laughed softly and wiped a hand across his mouth. "If I don't get something to eat myself I'm gonna back myself into a weird drunk."

"I ain't breaking your arm with the bottle," Sam said with a woozy smile. "It's that jail you trying to forget."

Sam drove until they were almost to the county line and the sun had sunk in the west. It had been so long since Hanson had been there that he almost didn't recognize the rambling old rundown farmhouse Sam finally stopped in front of. As a young boy he'd played around that very same yard while his mother talked for hours to old Zeebee Lee about all manner of things. Usually his ma had come away with a charm in her pocket for something. An ailment that had been troubling her or a cow that wouldn't calve.

Hanson left Billie-Ann sitting on the big front porch and went inside to find Zeebee Lee. The silver-haired old woman didn't like it when she peeked through the window and saw that Billie was a white girl and so young, but after Hanson told her how the same little white girl had gotten him out of jail, Zeebee softened. When he pulled a ten-dollar bill from his pocket and made her take it, everything was set.

"It's just I don't abide no trouble out here," Zeebee Lee said in her raspy voice. "Had enough trouble with townspeople as it is."

"Ain't nobody even know we're here," Hanson told her. "And we won't be around long anyway. Sam's gone back to town to pick up my old man's truck and take it back to him. Then he's gonna bring all my things from home." He smiled and put his hand on Zeebee's shoulder. "We'll be leaving tomorrow for sure."

The wrinkles on the old woman's face formed into what could pass for a smile. "I go get some food cooked. That girl looks skinnier than a fence post."

"Don't fatten her up too much, Zeebee; I like 'em that way."

Zeebee Lee studied Hanson's face. "Can she love good as a black woman?"

He smiled and scuffed one of his boots back and forth on the floor. "Would you believe me if I told you I don't know yet?"

The old woman clinked her bear-claw necklace and made a clucking sound in her throat. "Zeebee Lee can help. After supper I make nice little dolls."

Hanson put out a hand. "Now hold on, Zeebee. I don't want no gris-gris spells worked on me."

Zeebee shook her head as if she already had her mind made up. "Dolls make everything fine... you see," and she turned and waddled into the kitchen.

Hanson went back out to the porch and took Billie by the hand. "Come on, honey," he said. "We'll go down to the barn and draw some water and get us a bath. Zeebee Lee gonna have us something to eat in a little while."

Still silent, Billie let him lead her across the yard. She had hardly said ten words since he'd gotten out of jail, but he knew it was only because she'd made the decision to leave home and wasn't used to it yet. Every time he looked at her she drooped her long-lashed lids and blushed a little. God, how he wanted to get her into bed with him. Somehow she looked even younger than when he'd first met her, and her forlorn little-girl-lost manner made her that much more desirable. For the first time since he'd been obsessed by the lovely fourteen-year-old, he had to admit there was something about her he loved. Yes, he was starting to love Billie.