Keep the Change Read Online Free Page B

another rat,” Otis said.
    When the time came, it came quickly. Joe went, hat in hand, to Mr. Overstreet in his office and, conscious that he was triggering the fall of his daughter’s virginity, said, “Mr. Overstreet, I’ll be going back to school soon. I think I’ll finish up and head out.” Word of his imminent departure would speed through the ranch. Awful Mrs. Overstreet would rub her daughter’s nose in it. Joe was getting ready to run up another rat.
    Overstreet stood in the door of his office, which was dim except where the old gooseneck lamp lit the desk, holding a fountain pen poised in front of his chest, and said, “We’ll send your dad a good report. You’ve been a great deal of use to him and to us. I hope we haven’t seen the last of you.”
    “In case I don’t bump into Ellen or Mrs. Overstreet, please tell them how much I have enjoyed the opportunity of being here this summer.”
    “Well, you’ll have to tell Ellen yourself,” said Mr. Overstreet. “She’s soft on you. Even an old-timer like me can see that. Do this family a favor and let Ellen hear from you oncein a while.” Joe savored the peculiarity of this departure, the old man contemplating the free labor, himself laying the fuse to carnal dynamite.
    Late that afternoon, Ellen flung herself onto the floor of the wickiup and began to weep quietly. Joe hung his head. He wasn’t really cynical. He loved Ellen. He’d had the best summer of his life with her. She was like a merry shadow to him, superb with horses, incapable of worry, able to freely get around the back country that surrounded the ranch. She knew all the wild grasses as well as she knew the flowers, and could tell before they rode over a rise if that was the day they would come upon newly bloomed shooting stars or fields of alpine asters that weren’t there the previous week. She could spot a cow humped up with illness from literally a mile off, or a horse with a ring of old wire around its foot from even farther. Every walk or ride they’d taken, every middle of the night trip to town made under the noses of her tedious parents, led to this moment.
    Joe kissed Ellen through her tears and began to undress her. With a languorous and heartbroken air, she helped him until finally she slid her jeans down over her compact hips. She was nude and Joe thought his heart would burst. There was a baffling mutual tragedy in this nudity. He got undressed. He had never known air in such cool purity. The air around them and between them had a quality it could never have again. When he took Ellen in his arms, her absolute nakedness was such a powerful thing it frightened him. He had to return to familiar kissing, familiar strokes of her hair to bring things back to dimensions he could absorb and dispel the sense that he had hit some kind of thrilling but finally overpowering wall. He had to collect himself; but when he drew back, Ellen was once again full in view, no longer even sitting up to accommodatehis movement, but remaining supine while he cleared his head of voices.
    He moved onto Ellen and simply lay atop her with his knees against hers. Gradually, the pressure of her knees gave way and one of his slid between them. She let her legs part so that his knees touched the blanket underneath them. Then he felt her spread her legs. He tried to lift up on his arms to see but she held him strongly and wouldn’t let him. He slid his hand between the points of their hips, held himself until he was started inside her, and pushed. He’d only entered a moment before he emptied himself in scalding shudders. He felt lost.
    Otis took Joe to the train in Mr. Overstreet’s truck. When they got to the station and pulled up in front of the columns, Otis let his eyes follow a porter pushing an iron-wheeled wagon along the side of the tracks. “You take care, Joe,” he said over the roar of the wagon wheels. There was a bright September sun shining down on the world.
    “I will, Otis. You