King Blood(28)

Reaching the yard of the abandoned farm, Ethel drank and washed at the well, then inspected herself as best she could in her small pocket mirror.

Her face, hands and other exposed portions of her body were stained in semblance of a deep tan. Her hair was cropped short. She wore loose-fitting men's clothes – bib overalls and jumper, blue workshirt, and a battered felt hat. To all appearances, she was a casual laborer or farm hand, a role she had successfully played for weeks. A role she would continue to play, until and unless – well, no matter. She would know when the time came.

Revealing herself as a woman was tied-in with finding a satisfactory place to hole-up – plus. A place from which she could safely go about recovering that seventy-two thousand dollars. For never for a moment did she consider not recovering it. Acquiring it had cost more than thirty lives, and she was ready to gamble her own life in getting it back.

Leaving the abandoned farm, she trudged off across the prairie, steering wide of any occupied farms; thinking back on the dude who had bilked Little Sis, and gotten away.

She had seen the guy somewhere before, Ethel was sure. At one time or another, they had been in the same criminal haunt at the same time, and he had been pointed out to her. Not only that but his name had been mentioned – and naturally it wasn't Crittenden, as he had told Little Sis. But it was a similar sounding name. Something like Crissfeld or Crittenwell, or… well, a real fancy handle. Whether it was his first name or last, she couldn't remember. But the other name (whether first or last) had been fairly common; too ordinary to stick in her memory. But if she could just bring it back, associate one name with the other…

_And I will, Ethel confidently assured herself. I'll remember the bastard's right name in full. I'll catch up with him, and he'd better have that money when I do!_

The sun was almost directly overhead when she at last found the kind of place she was looking for. One that seemingly offered not only refuge, but help as well. She studied it from a distance, a farm with well-tilled fields, and substantial outbuildings, but a house that could not possibly contain more than one room. She was too far away to tell much about the farmer, except that he was bearded and somewhat heavyset. Apparently, however, he lived alone – as he had to, for her purposes. So by noontime, after some inner debate, and after he had unhitched his team from their plough and led them into the barn, she had come to a favorable decision about him.

He was in the house eating when she appeared in the doorway, a man in his middle forties with a dull Teutonic face. He stood up, blinking at her stupidly, brushing food from his mouth with a sleeve.

'Yah?' he said. 'Vot iss, mister?'

Ethel laughed, dropping her masquerade huskiness of voice. 'Not mister, honey. You got wife, woman?'

'No got. Vy iss your business?'

'Well, now, you just have a look and see,' Ethel said.

She crossed to a corner of the room, where a strawtick resting on some nailed-together two-by-fours did duty as a bed. Casually, she removed her clothes, stood naked before him.

A glazed look had come into his eyes; a trace of spittle coursed from the corner of his mouth. But he remained cautious.

'Vy?' he said; then, 'How much?'

'No money,' Ethel smiled. 'Nothing that you can't handle.'

'Yah?'

'Yah. So come on and have a sample. I'll clear out afterwards, if you don't want me to stay.'

She stretched out on the bed, opened her arms and legs to him. The farmer – his name was Gutzman – emphatically declared, after an hour's sampling, that he wanted her to stay. He wanted her to stay forever and ever, and he would say nothing of her presence to anyone (no one ever visited him, anyway). And if her brute husband from Nebraska should come looking for her, he, Gutzman, would kill him on the spot.

'Good care I take of you, little Greta,' he promised, hugging her to him. 'Vot you ask, I do.'

He meant it, although she had little to ask of him for the time being. In his attentiveness, his anxiety to please her, she became bored to the point of screaming. But she did not scream, of course, but wisely pretended to reciprocate his feelings. And tasting such wonders as he had never known, as he had believed it impossible to know, Gutzman almost sobbed in gratitude.

He had never experienced love, or even liking. Hungry for talk, he was barred from it by an inability to communicate. So always he was the mute stranger in any group, drinking in the tantalizing words of others. Always, he was the outsider, the man doomed to stand apart from those who talked and laughed. Many times he had tried to become one of them, grinning and nodding hopefully when they cast him a glance. Breathlessly wedging in on their conversation with blurted-out remarks. But his eagerness, his anxiety to please, seemed only to heighten the wall which life had built round him. People drew further away from him, leaving his statements hanging in the air unremarked. Taking little note of his existence, except for sly glances and secretive whispers.