Here in the oil country you see quite a few places like the old Branch house. They were ranch houses or homesteads at one time; but wells were drilled around 'em, right up to their doorsteps sometimes, and everything nearby became a mess of oil and sulphur water and red sun-baked drilling mud. The grease-black grass dies. The creeks and springs disappear. And then the oil is gone and the houses stand black and abandoned, lost and lonely looking behind the pest growths of sunflowers and sage and Johnson grass.
The Branch place stood back from Derrick Road a few hundred feet, at the end of a lane so overgrown with weeds that I almost missed it. I turned into the lane, killed the motor after a few yards and got out.
At first I couldn't see a thing; it was that dark. But gradually my eyes became used to it. I could see all I needed to see. I opened the trunk compartment and located a tire tool. Taking a rusty spike from my pocket, I drove it into the right rear tire. There was a "poof!" and a "whish-ss!" The springs squeaked and whined as the car settled rapidly.
I got a jack under the axle, and raised it a foot or so. I rocked the car and slid it off the jack. I left it that way and headed up the lane.
It took maybe five minutes to reach the house and pull a plank from the porch. I leaned it against the gate post where I could find it in a hurry, and headed across the fields to Joyce's house.
"Lou!" She stood back from the door, startled. "I couldn't imagine who--where's your car? Is something wrong?"
"Nothing but a flat tire," I grinned. "I had to leave the car down the road a piece."
I sauntered into the living room, and she came around in front of me, gripping her arms around my back and pressing her face against my shirt. Her negligee fell open, accidentally on purpose I imagine. She moved her body against mine.
"Lou, honey..."
"Yeah?" I said.
"It's only about nine and Stupid won't be here for another hour, and I won't see you for two weeks. And... well, you know."
I knew. I knew how "that" would look in an autopsy.
"Well, I don't know, baby," I said. "I'm kind of pooped out, and you're all prettied up--"
"Oh, I am not!" She squeezed me. "I'm always prettied up to hear you tell it. Hurry, so I can have my bath."
Bath. That made it okay. "You twisted my arm, baby," I said, and I swept her up and carried her into the bedroom. And, no, it didn't bother me a bit.
Because right in the middle of it, right in the middle of the sweet talk and sighing, she suddenly went still and pushed my head back and looked me in the eye.
"You "will" join me in two weeks, Lou? Just as soon as you sell your house and wind up your affairs?"
"That's the understanding," I said.
"Don't keep me waiting. I want to be sweet to you, but if you won't let me I'll be the other way. I'll come back here and raise hell. I'll follow you around town and tell everyone how you--"
"--robbed you of your bloom and cast you aside?" I said.
"Crazy!" she giggled. "But just the same, Lou..."
"I know. I won't keep you waiting, baby."
I lay on the bed while she had her bath. She came back in from it, wiping herself with a big towel, and got some panties and a brassiere out of a suitcase. She stepped into the panties, humming, and brought the brassiere over to me. I helped her put it on, giving her a pinch or two, and she giggled and wiggled.
