Salem Falls by Jodi Picoult Read Free Book Online Page A

batting eyelashes as long as his pinky. Gently, he moved his shovel to one hand and traced the marbled black-and-white pattern of her hips and side. The heat and softness of it made his throat close.
Without warning, his shovel was knocked away and he found himself sprawled facedown. He felt the scratch of hay against his temple, the fetid puddle of manure beneath his cheek, and the cold bare air on his backside as his jeans were wrenched down. The deep voice of Mountain Felcher curled at the nape of his neck. “How much you know, Einstein? You know that I was gonna do this to you?”
Jack felt the meat of Mountain’s fingers close over his neck. He heard every tooth of a zipper coming undone.
“Aw, Christ, Mountain,” came a voice, “couldn’t you pick someone else?”
Mountain ground himself against Jack. “Shut up, LeGrande. This ain’t your business.”
“Sure it is. St. Bride’s got a bet going with a bunch of us. He says he can get every answer right on Jeopardy! before the brains who are playing do. There’s a can of coffee in it for each of us if he screws up.”
Jack took small, shallow breaths through his mouth. He had made no bet with Aldo or anyone else in the pod. But he’d spend his life’s savings on coffee, if that was what it took to get this monster off his back.
“We get to place our commissary order tomorrow-if he’s stuck in the infirmary tonight, thanks to you, we won’t get our coffee for another week.”
Jack’s arms were released. He scrambled upright to find Mountain buttoning his jeans and looking at him speculatively. “I seen that show. Ain’t no one smart enough to get them questions all right.” He crossed his arms. “I don’t want coffee if you lose.”
“Fine. I’ll buy you a chocolate bar instead.”
Mountain’s hands were on his shoulders in an instant, drawing him to his feet. “You get those answers right tonight, then tomorrow I’ll leave you be. But you play again next night, and the next. And the minute you fuck up, you’re mine.” He touched Jack’s jaw, the pads of his fingers soft. “You lose that game, and you come to me like you want it.”
Jack froze. He watched Mountain leave the barn, then his legs gave out beneath him. Pants still down around his knees, he sat in the straw, trying to draw in air.
“You okay?”
Until he’d spoken, Jack had completely forgotten that Aldo was standing there. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and nodded. “Thank you.”
“The only thing Mountain likes more than a piece of ass is new entertainment.” A bright flush worked its way up Jack’s neck and face as he righted his clothes. “It’s no big deal,” Aldo said, shrugging. “We’ve all been there.”
Jack felt himself begin to shake uncontrollably, a delayed reaction from what had nearly happened. In jail, you gave up everything-your possessions, your job, your home. The thought that any man might take even more from an inmate-something as irreplaceable as dignity-made Jack so angry his blood ran faster.
He could not let Mountain Felcher win.
Jack won. And like Scheherezade, he gained a reprieve for several nights. His days took on a frenetic quality: he’d work eight hours, then grab as many books as he could from the prison library and carry them to his bunk. He read before dinner, during dinner, after dinner . . . until the familiar strains of the television game show filled the common room. He went to sleep thinking of the ingredients in a Tom Collins; he woke imagining the history of the Sino-Russian War. But soon, he wasn’t doing it alone. Prisoners who at first were angry that they hadn’t gotten the coffee they’d expected had come to root for Jack, having realized that self-esteem packed just as much of a high as caffeine. Eager to help, they took books out from the library, too, and fashioned questions for him. They’d quiz Jack as he brushed his teeth, bused his cafeteria tray, made his bunk.
After a week, all of Grafton County Correctional