Hard Twisted Read Online Free Page A

to river. Will camp for the nite. Make yorself to home. H.P.
    She stared at the scribbled words until the words vibrated and blurred and she felt a hot streak on her cheek. At this the vague shape of him rose from the stove and crossed to where she stood, and she felt his strong hands on her shoulders.
    Come on, Bonnie Parker. Don’t go bawlin now. It ain’t the end of the world. We can ride with ’em some other time, and that’s a promise. Meanwhile, we got the place all to ourselves, and we can have us a swell time. Come on now.
    She nodded, leaning away to look at him.
    I’m sorry, she said, sniffling. I know it’s the Lord’s will.
    The slap was swift and sharp, the force of it spinning her sideways into the table.
    What did I tell you about that nonsense?
    She raised a hand to her face. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. She turned and ran for the door.
    He caught her in the front parlor and pulled her backward, kicking and squirming, and he wrestled her onto the sofa.
    Hold on now. I said stop, dammit, and settle down.
    His hands gripped her wrists, straitjacketing her in his lap.
    I hate you!
    You listen to me for one second. Just listen.
    She struggled again, and then was still.
    I done fed you, and I drove you all the way down here so’s you could have a little fun for yourself, and all I ast in return was one little thing. All I ast was for you to quit your mealymouthed holy-rollin for one goddamn day. Now is that so much? Huh? Is it?
    He leaned and tried to turn her, but she wouldn’t turn.
    Come on, Lucile. Where’s that other cheek I keep hearin about?
    She tried to stand, and he hugged her tighter.
    Let go!
    Come on, darlin. This ain’t no way to be.
    She looked away, turning her face to the door and the porch beyond. Don’t you never hit me again.
    Don’t you never give me no cause again. How’s that for a square deal?
    On the porch the angled sunlight quartered the floorplanks. Houseflies jumbled noisily beyond the screen.
    All right.
    All right then.
    He released his grip, and she slid quietly from his lap.
    I got to start us a fire. And then I got to feed and water them nags. Then we can play some dominoes or take us a little walk, all right?
    She nodded.
    Will you help me with them horses?
    Can’t they be rid?
    Well. These ones ain’t exactly saddle broke is the thing. Unless you’re some kinda buckaroo cowgirl and me not knowin it.
    Not hardly.
    Well then, maybe we’d best just feed ’em and leave ’em be. Herose from the sofa. Course if anyone asks, we can always say we grabbed apple and marked ’em up the side. How does that sound?
    All right.
    All right then. Are we still friends? She shrugged. I guess.
    He lit the woodstove with the paper sack and fanned it with his hat and stood back to consider the result.
    All right then. Let’s get after it.
    The air outside was cooler now, the shadows longer. She trailed behind him as he threw feed to the chickens and pumped water into buckets and carried sack oats and water to the mirrored horses nickering in the pasture. In the side yard she set firewood for him to quarter, and when he’d split the last of it, he squatted and held his arms out like a surgeon while she stacked it and ran ahead and held the door for him to stagger through.
    They lingered on the front porch watching the horses, the road, the fallow field. They walked the wire fenceline for a distance as Palmer narrated. He showed her the spot where a wolf took his 4-H heifer, and the spot where he broke his leg roping, and the spot where his best bluetick dog ate a copperhead snake and dropped stone dead at his feet.
    At the top of a low rise he stood akimbo, surveying the landscape of his childhood; the joys and sorrows etched upon the weathered barnwood and the hardened turnrows and the dying play of sunlight on the roof shakes.
    When I was a kid, he told her, I couldn’t wait to get quit