Three by Cain: Serenade, Love's Lovely Counterfeit, the Butterfly by James M. Cain Read Free Book Online Page A

other, so deep you couldn’t see the bottom. The drop was on my side, and I had my eyes glued to the road, crawling three feet at a time, because if we took a skid there it was the end. There was a chock overhead, all the top braces strained, and something went bouncing down the gully the size of a five-gallon jug. I was on the brake before it hit the ground, and after a long time I heard her breathe. The engine was still running and I went on. It must have been a minute before I figured out what that was. The rain had loosened a rock above us, and it came down. But instead of coming through and killing us, it had hit the end of the mat roll and glanced off.
    It cut the fabric, though, and as soon as we rounded the knob that was the end of the top. The wind got under it, and it ripped and the rain poured down on me. It was coming frommy side now. Then the mats began to roll, and there came another rip, and it poured down on her.
    “Very bad.”
    “Not so good.”
    We passed the church, and started down the hill. I had to use brake and motor to hold her, but down at the bottom it looked a little better ahead, so I lifted my foot to give her the gun. Then I stamped on the brake so hard we stalled cold. What lay ahead, in the rain, looked like a wet sand flat where I could make pretty good time. What it was was yellow water, boiling down the arroyo so fast that it hardly made a ripple. Two more feet and we would have been in, up to the radiator. I got out, went around the car and found I had a few feet clear behind. I got in, started, and backed. When I could turn around I did, and went sliding up the hill again, the way we had come. Where we were going I didn’t know. We couldn’t get to Tierra Colorado, or Acapulco, or any place we wanted to go, that was a cinch. We were cut off. And whether we could make Mamma’s hut, or any hut, was plenty doubtful. With the top flapping in ribbons, and all that water beating in, that motor was due to short any minute, and where that would leave us I hated to think.
    We got to the top of the hill and started down the other side, past the church. Then I woke up. “All right, get in the church there, out of the wet. I’ll be right after you.”
    “Yes, yes.”
    She jumped out and ran down there. I pulled off to one side, set the brake, and fished out my knife. I was going to cut those mats loose and use some of them to blanket the motor, and some of them to protect the seat and stuff in back until I could carry it in there. But the main thing I thought about was the car. If that didn’t go, we were sunk. While I was still trying to get the knife open with my wet fingernail she was back. “Is close.”
    “What was that?”
    “The church, is close. Is lock. Now we go on, yes. We go back to Mamma.”
    “We will like hell.”
    I ran over to the doors, shook them and kicked them. They were big double doors and they were locked all right. I tried to think of some way I could get them open. If I had a jack handle I could have shoved it in the crack and pried, but there wasn’t any jack handle. I beat on the doors and cursed them, and then I went back to the car. The engine was still running and she was sitting in it. I jumped in, turned, and pointed it straight at the church. The steps didn’t bother me. The church was below the road and they went down, instead of up, and anyway they were just low tile risers, about three inches high, and pretty wide. When she saw what I was going to do, she began to whimper, and beg me not to, and grabbed the wheel to make me stop. “No, no! Not the Casa de Dios , please, no! We go back! We go back to Mamma.”
    I pushed her away and eased the front wheels down the first step. I bumped them down the next two steps, and then the back wheels came down with a slam. But I was still rolling. I kept on until the front bumper was against the doors. I stayed in first, spun the motor, and little by little let in the clutch. For three or four seconds nothing