The Homecoming of Samuel Lake by Jenny Wingfield Read Free Book Online Page B

him back a little of his own, he just got worse. Nothing made Ras worse quite so fast as knowing he had the upper hand.
    “Well, there wasn’t nothin’ to see,” she snapped.
    Ras spat a rusty stream of tobacco juice out the window and wiped his mouth on his shirtsleeve. “I reckon I know when I see a woman askin’ for it.”
    “You better quit accusin’ me of things, Ras Ballenger.” She made her voice go high and haughty. “You sure are somebody to go accusin’ people of things. Why, I don’t even know that man.”
    “Not as well as you’d like, is that it?”
    In fact, Geraldine did not know Toy Moses, had never even seen him except for times like today when he had happened to be keeping the store and she had stopped by with her husband and kids. Always with her husband and kids. She was not allowed to go anywhere alone. She knew the stories, though. About how Toy had lost his leg to save a life, and had taken a life to save his wife’s honor. These things she had heard and taken note of. Toy Moses looked out for those who couldn’t protect themselves. It was this realization that had been dancing through her mind like a will-o’-the-wisp a few minutes ago.
    She’d met and married Ras when she was only fourteen. Fourteen! Just a little split-tailed girl, and there he’d come along, a soldier back from the war, and he wasn’t bad-looking, even if he wasn’t any bigger than a mess of minutes.
    He had come strutting into her life, all quick moves and jaunty airs, and he had fair turned her head. After all, not many girls her age got courted by men who’d been everywhere and seen everything and sent more of the enemy than they could count to meet their Maker. Back then, the killing Ras had done hadn’t bothered her. Wasn’t that what soldiers are supposed to do? The only reason it bothered her now was that now she knew how much he’d enjoyed it. For Ras Ballenger, war had been a once in a lifetime opportunity.
    Oh, she had learned things about him, all right.
    Their courtship had lasted barely long enough for him to ascertain her virginity. This he had done by testing it, rather roughly. As soon as he had convinced himself on that one point he had brushed away her tears and told her there wasn’t anything to cry about. It was her fault, really, for making him so crazy, plus, he had had to know. He could never have loved a woman who had been used by another man.
    That word used should have tipped her off. Should have. But then he started talking about getting married, and she more or less forgot about everything else. She hadn’t known what she was getting into. She’d been finding out ever since.
    This upset her more at some times than at others. The first time that it had upset her badly—which was the first time Ras took a strap to her—she had begged her folks to let her come home, but they said she’d made her bed, she could wallow in it. After that, leaving never seemed to be an option.
    Actually (and Geraldine didn’t understand this herself), she didn’t always want to leave. Sure, Ras was rough with her, but he made up for it, afterward. After a while, it got to where the roughness just made everything more intense. There was a part of her that had come to believe nothing else could match that intensity. Even when she did want to get away, it was hard to imagine life without—that.
    Ras reached over now, across the bigger baby, another boy, who was staring off, exploring his nose and mouth with his fingers. Ras ran his hand under his wife’s skirt, and up the inside of her thigh, and gave the tender flesh a vicious squeeze. Geraldine was still patting the baby (her only girl) on the back, and she stopped, just for a second, gritting her teeth.
    “You wimmen are all alike,” Ras said. “Always wantin’ whatever you ain’t had. We’ll be to the house in a minute, and I’ll give you something you ain’t never had.”
    That laugh again. Edging higher, threatening to go out of