Installment #1
Chapters 1 & 2
1
The pain in her tooth waking her before the sun was even up.
Rolling from the damp sheets, sticking her face up close to the box fan, its blades slicing and stirring the hot air inside the old farmhouse. Sweat feeling cool as it dried on her forehead.
Rubbing her sore jaw, she made her way to the kitchen, noting the sun rising through the trees outside the window. Opening the freezer, cramming her head inside it.
After a long moment, grabbing the nearest tub of peanut butter ice cream as she pulled her head from the freezer. It was a full pint standing between two other half-eaten containers of the same flavor.
Sliding into a chair at the kitchen table. The slick linoleum floor cool under the high arches of her bare feet. The vinyl of the chair cold against the backs of her freckled, pale thighs. The frozen ice cream softening quickly in her hand.
All this, but still she was hot.
And in pain.
The first bite of ice cream numbed the pain a little. But as the ice cream melted, the sugar worked its way down into her rotting tooth. In a heartbeat the pain returned, sharper and deeper.
Slamming her fist on the table. Pressing her tongue against the cavity.
“Dis fahker’s comin’ oup!” she yelled.
Gaining control of herself. Listening to the quiet. No one around to hear anyway.
One of the benefits of laying low, hiding out. Giving herself permission to yell again and did. A litany of profanity streaming out of her mouth.
Her tooth feeling like it was trying to kill her. Deciding she’d had about enough.
Flipping the spoon around in her fingers. She began working the thin edge of the spoon’s handle under her offending molar. Her mouth tasting of metal.
A current of pain shooting through her skull as the spoon touched the tender root under her tooth.
She stopped. Took a breath.
Then gently dug the spoon handle deeper between her tooth and gum.
Now and again pausing in her work when the pain won out.
But after a few breaths, she went right back at it, working the handle until it was far enough under the tooth that she could use her gum as a fulcrum.
Ignoring the blood on her fingers. The taste of it in her mouth. She tugged down on the spoon, feeling pain as her tooth separated slightly from her gum.
Again slamming her fist on the table and swearing.
Then right back at it. Coaching herself: Not slow. Do it fast. Jerk it.
She jerked it.
The pain she expected. It was the loud pop of it that surprised her. Hearing it explode in her ears, in her head.
Almost swallowing the tooth but catching it in the back of her throat.
She stood, moved to the kitchen sink. Taking a breath through her nose, sweat dripping off it.
Hocking up the tooth. The tooth landing with a clink in the porcelain basin, all bloody and wet with saliva.
She spit, then rinsed her mouth with the Jack Daniels that sat on top of the fridge. More pain, but better.
Rinsing the spoon under the faucet. Sitting down at the table again, she dried her eyes and face with a dishtowel. Then she dug back into the ice cream.
Cool. Soothing. Sweet.
2
Kiss her or kill her?
Walt McKinley, at twenty-seven, couldn’t make up his mind.
His pickup weaving down the highway, barely avoiding the white line running down the right edge before sliding over to skirt along the yellow centerline.
A hungover cowboy riding off into the sunrise.
The drive up from Tulsa had turned out to be an all-night ride. An impulse road trip fueled by booze and curiosity and anger.
The day before – which still felt to Walt like today – he’d learned his ex, Geri, was living up in this part of Kansas. The lonely drive through the night had given him plenty of time to ponder.
Why’d she leave?
Why didn’t she come back like she said she would?
And what to do when he finally caught up to her?
“Kiss her or kill her?” Walt said aloud.
Yawning, Walt blinked hard to clear the clouds from his eyes. He focused on the empty whiskey bottle rolling around the floorboard on the passenger side. The bottle clinking against his pistol. A short-barreled .38.
His gun had worked its way out from under the seat where he’d stashed it. With each sideways lunge of the truck the bottle rolling into the gun—clink.
Kiss her or kill her?
Walt cussing himself. All night to make up his mind. Even sober now. Sort of. More tired than—
—Clink.
The truck rolling up and down the low hills of the Kansas plains as Walt tried to ignore his suspicion: In the light of day, the trip was beginning to look like a bad idea.
Walt slouching behind the wheel. As near to lying down in a grave as I can be and still see out the windshield, he thought.
“And Jesus said unto them, it is by their fruits ye shall know them.”
Somewhere in the darkness before dawn, Walt had come across a preacher on the low end of the radio dial. Left him on for company and the preacher had been ranting for more than an hour against the evils of Satan.
Walt figuring you never know when divine inspiration that might float out over God’s airwaves.
Clink.
Walt cussing, leaning over. Left hand on the wheel, right grabbing at the bottle just out of his reach.
The sun was burning at the end of an open landscape of grassland. The rolling hills stretching out around Walt were covered with tall, reedy wild grass, most of it native to the prairie.
Some of the pastures were dotted with cattle, others were untouched and overgrown. Soon ranchers would burn off the grass, setting entire fields on fire to clear them.
Failing to grab the bottle, Walt righted himself in his seat. He squinted into the red and orange clouds roiling on the horizon.
Wondering what to do with this brand new day: Kiss her or kill her?
“Pay attention to their fruits,” said the radio preacher. “For it is by these fruits you will recognize what is good and just, and what is evil in this wicked world.”
Walt saying amen to that preacher man.
Clink.
“Sonuvabitch.”
Walt leaning farther over to the floorboard, inadvertently turning the steering wheel and almost jerking the truck off the road.
He shot up straight in his seat, righting his truck.
“Satan is a deceptive demon. I tell you, our Devil is a sneaky Devil.”
Walt grabbed the coffee in a to-go cup he’d bought when yesterday was today. Sipping the lukewarm coffee.
He spat it out the window then shook his head. In his side mirror, Walt watching the coffee streak across the blue quarter panel of his truck.
Kissing was an option, definitely. Geri was kissable, he’d giver her that.
But, hell, kissing, that’s where all the trouble started if you followed everything back to the beginning.
Still, almost about every day there was the thought, the torment really, of how sweet to it would be to kiss her again. Feel the softness of her lips. The curves of her hips. The sweetness of her breath.
“If Lucifer can appear unto Eve in the form of a snake ” IN GOD’S OWN GARDEN ” then he is unrestrained in the wiles he may use and the disguises he may take to tempt us.”
Hallelujah to that, Walt said.
Clink.
Walt tried not to look at the bottle. Her breath. Just wrap his hands around Geri’s pale throat; squeeze all the breath out of her. She’s got it coming.
Clink.
Or shoot her. Walt had options.
Clink.
“Aw, damn it.”
Walt putting his left foot on the accelerator and swinging his right leg over to the passenger-side floorboard. Kicking at the bottle, missing it.
Kicking again and this time the bottle slammed against the floorboard, bouncing around. Clink-clink-clink.
Walt looked up, trying to steer straight. This time kicking blindly and wildly, anger and frustration taking over. Clink.
When the gun went off, Walt’s first thought was that the truck itself had exploded.
Ears ringing, Walt stomped on the brakes. The truck screeched, slid sideways to a stop. The smell of gunpowder filling the cab.
Clink.
The bottle rocked to a standstill. The truck idled in the road.
Walt, panting, still straddling the console, eyed the fresh bullet holes in his cowboy hat lying upside down on the passenger seat. Entrance hole through the blond straw in the front, exit hole in the rear. The bullet had then passed on through and lodged in the passenger seat.
Walt picking up his gun off the floorboard, tossing it into the glove box.
Walt thinking next time, smart guy, maybe just pull off to the side of the road.
Walt grabbed his cowboy hat from the seat, gave it a once over and placed it high on his head.
The pickup followed the road as it cut through a hill, past slobbering cattle and wildflowers bending in the wind. The morning air whipped into the truck’s cab, flushing the smell of gunpowder.
Already the temperature was heating up, having never really cooled during the night. Kansas in August. Best way to cool off? Open a hot oven and stick your head in it.
Coming up on Geri fast now. Walt thinking, She has no idea.
And neither do I.
“How about kiss her,” Walt said to himself, “then kill her?”