"Goddamn him," Pete said. "I thought we had it all settled who belongs to who."
"He didn't think you'd mind," Julie said softly. "Since you were in here with Connie."
"I'll talk to him later," Pete said. "Go on, get out of here."
Later they buried Butch. Max insisted that Sally and Connie do it. He made them drag the big hulk outside and down the stoop, and then pull it around to the back of the barn, where the grave wouldn't be visible to someone who happened to drive into the yard. It was dark, of course, and they stumbled several times getting there. Max didn't offer any help, and he wouldn't let Julie help either. When they were there, he took them around to the inside of the barn and had them get some shovels. Digging the grave was slow work for the two women, and they slowed down even more as they went along. They complained that their hands were sore. Max said that was too bad, and keep digging. Pete was in the house with Jim, seeing that he didn't get loose. Max had gotten a promise from Pete that he wouldn't kill Jim unless Jim got free. Still, Julie was anxious. She would have preferred being inside with them to being out here. But Max had insisted.
"You may not have had anything to do with this," he said. "But it'll do you good to see the end of it anyway. I don't want you getting smartass later on." Watching her sister and her sister's friend bury the man they had killed would be good for her, he believed. Julie had to admit that it was a grisly experience. But not as grisly as it had been seeing him lie there on the kitchen floor all the time.
It was after midnight when they finally got him into the grave, and then they had to cover him up. Max sat against the back of the barn with Julie next to him, stroking one of her thighs idly, while the other two women worked doggedly, shoveling heaps of dirt back into the deep grave. They seemed to be in a hurry until they had enough dirt inside to cover the body. Then they slowed.
When they patted the last shovelful on top of the grave, Max stood. Julie came up beside him. "All right," he said. "Let's put our tools away, girls. Then you can go inside and cook us something. As soon as you get cleaned up."
When the shovels were both hung back in place, the damp smell of the earth still clinging to them, Max herded the girls back to the house, the rifle held at a lazy ready position. A car went by on the road, and the women all looked at it longingly, thinking of the people who were inside, going from somewhere to somewhere else, with nothing more to worry about than getting there on time. Max laughed.
"Why don't you yell?" he asked. "Maybe they'll hear you." It was just a joke, of course. The occupants of the car wouldn't be able to hear anything from this distance other than a shot. And even that would probably be ignored. The headlights flashed by, and then the tail lights winked between the fence posts until they disappeared. Max prodded Sally with the rifle. They started toward the house again.
When they were right in front of the stoop Connie stopped suddenly and fell to her knees. She began to wretch, her little body shaking all over with the convulsions. The vomit spewed, hot and steaming, to the ground. Max laughed again. "Getting to you, cunt? Too bad. You should have thought of that before you shot him." Sally looked as though she were only holding on by the skin of her teeth. Julie felt a new surge of contempt for them both. The burial hadn't been a pleasant experience, but she couldn't see that it was worth all this fuss.
Connie stood, and in the light from the window Julie noticed that some of the vomit had splattered on the girl's breasts and belly and thighs. It was a warm night, and Max had made them all come out in the nude.
The inside of the house seemed almost cheerful after the ghoulish scene outside. Max shoved Connie and Sally toward the bathroom, then told Julie to go inside with them. "You could use a little cleaning up too," he said. "We like to keep our little whores smelling dainty, you know."
When they were inside the bathroom with the door shut, Connie went straight to the toilet and knelt down to try to vomit some more. She couldn't manage to do it, and finally she stood up. Her face was white and drained looking, and her features looked pinched.
Sally turned on the water in the tub and held her hand under the stream, waiting for it to warm up. There was a gooseneck shower fixture hooked up to the tap, and when the water was adjusted to her taste, she pulled up on the cutoff, sending the water up through the shower pipe.
"Come on," she said to Connie. "Come on, honey. You'll feel better after you get cleaned up a little." Connie allowed herself to be led to the tub, and stepped over the high side of it. She stood on the rubber mat, letting the steamy water wash over her. "Now you wash," Sally said, as though she were talking to a child. She handed a wash cloth and a bar of soap to the girl. Connie looked at the two articles blankly for a moment, as though she couldn't figure out what they were for, then she smiled meekly and held them under the spray to wet them. Sally pulled the shower curtain around the tub. Then she went to the toilet, closed it, and sat on the lid. She looked at the wall, pointedly ignoring Julie.
"You don't have to pretend I'm not here," Julie said. "I'm not really your enemy, you know."
"As far as I'm concerned you are."
"Because I saved you from doing something stupid?"
"Let's not go into that again."
"You're still alive, you know. That's because I didn't let you go through with that idiotic notion you had. I warned Max to keep you from getting killed."
"You warned Max to keep yourself from getting killed."
"You're damned right I did. My family and I come first in my book. And I'll do whatever I have to do in order to keep the three of us alive."
"You know, Sis, I really admired you when you did what you did with Pete to keep his mind off killing Jim. I thought, there goes someone who's willing and able to make any sacrifice for the good of those she loves. But now I don't think that's the case at all. I don't think it was all that much sacrifice for you. I think you just don't care much about what you do. You don't mind them putting their hands on you." She shuddered, as though the thought of it were bad enough in itself to make her ill.
"I wouldn't be so Goddamn virtuous sounding if I were you, young lady. I heard the whooping good time you were having in there with Max, you know. You didn't sound to me like you were too horrified by what he was doing to you."
Sally flushed deeply. "Sure, it got to me. It would get to any normal woman, wouldn't it? That doesn't mean I didn't mind it. I don't go looking for it, you know. I'm not the one who grabbed Pete and practically raped him."
"I did what had to be done. Pete had just lost a big showdown against Max. His ego was smarting, and he needed something to salve it. Otherwise he might have gotten mean again. There's just one way to keep his mind off killing, and that's to keep it on the thing he likes better than killing."
"And you're just the gal who can do it, aren't you?"
"You're damned right I am, if it means saving my life, and lives of my husband and my little girl. If you're so Goddamn pure, why don't you just tell them that you've decided not to put out any more? Why don't you tell them that you've thought it over and decided that death really is better than dishonor?"
"You think you're so Goddamn smart, don't you, Sis? No, I'm not going to tell them anything of the sort. Death isn't better than dishonor. I'll put up with the pawing for as long as I have to, but the moment I get a chance to escape, I'm going to. And I won't go looking for a screwing, the way you did. If I don't get a chance to get away from here, I'll at least die knowing that I was a victim, not a whore."
Angry words jumped to Julie's lips, but she bit them off. Instead she said, "There isn't any reason why you have to die. He's not going to kill you."
"Oh, sure. He's just going to leave us here alive and healthy."
"That's right. Provided you don't make another stupid try." Julie felt a momentary flash of guilt at the deliberate lie she was telling Sally, but it passed quickly. The girl should have used her head when she had the chance.
"You sound like you think you know what you're talking about."
"I do know what I'm talking about. Max told me in the bedroom that he doesn't plan to kill either of you. He was mad right at first, and scared because you almost killed him. But after he thought it over he decided that there was no reason to kill you."
"And does he have a reason not to?"
"Maybe you've got him wrong. Maybe he doesn't kill for the fun of it. I haven't seen any reason to think he does." Julie suddenly got an idea. "Besides, he's grateful to you, really."
"Grateful?" Sally sounded skeptical, but she sounded curious, too.
"They have some money hidden away. Max does. The deal was that they would pull their escape together and then they'd all split the money. Now Max only has to split it two ways instead of three. Maybe he plans to kill Pete and keep it all. I don't know. Either way, he feels you and Connie have done him a favor." Julie was amazed at the glibness with which the yarn sprang into her mind. She felt no guilt, not even a tinge. She was intent on making Sally believe her story.
The shower had stopped running, and now the curtain was pulled back. Connie looked at Julie intently. "Is that the truth, Mrs. Bradford?" she asked. She looked eager to believe it.
"Connie, you don't really think…" Sally started, but Connie waved her silent.
"It's the God's truth, Connie, so help me," Julie said. "That's why I'm hoping that you won't try anything foolish. They shouldn't be here too much longer. And even if they are, it's better to put up with them and do whatever they say for a few weeks, or even a few months, if it will keep us alive. Don't you see that?" Julie was pleased with the desperation in her voice. It wasn't even put on. She really was desperate to have the girls believe her.
"You mean even after I killed Butch, he's willing to trust us, to…"
"Not trust you, no. He'll be keeping more of an eye on all of us from now on. It's just that when it's time for him and Pete to leave, he doesn't see any reason to kill us."
"Doesn't he know we'll go straight to the telephone and call the police?"
"Of course he does! But he won't leave us a telephone, and he won't leave us a car that will run. And he will leave us all tied up. And probably unconscious. By the time we're able to wake up, get ourselves unraveled, and walk to the nearest neighbor for help, they'll be so far away we won't have any way of telling the authorities where they are."
Connie looked at Julie for a moment, and then at Sally, and the desire to believe was so obvious in her that Julie felt an urge to laugh. It was working! Connie, at least, was falling for it.
"Listen, Connie," Sally said. "Listen to me. You can't believe all this. It just isn't true. It wouldn't make any sense, from his point of view, to leave us alive. It would be stupid. Why should he let us live? Because he's a humanitarian? What makes you think that a man who could walk into a house, take it over, and press three women into sexual servitude would flinch at the task of killing a family? Use your head?"
"Yes, Connie. Use your head," Julie agreed. "How much chance do you think we have of escaping? We didn't have much chance to begin with, but now the chance would be infinitesimal. There just isn't any way open to us. They are going to be watching us closely from now on. Maybe Max doesn't mean to let us live. I can't guarantee that he means everything he says to me. But I do know that it is our only hope. If we try to fight our way out of here now, there won't be one person alive on this farm, other than Max and Pete. So the only sensible thing to do is go along with Max and hope he'll keep to his side of the bargain. He could kill us right now, you know. There isn't anything keeping him from doing that except the fact that he likes to keep us around for sex and work. If he's as ruthless and dedicated to his own safety as Sally wants you to believe, do you think that's a very good reason to keep four potentially dangerous people alive one moment longer than necessary? He doesn't want to kill us because he just doesn't like to kill. He killed one person and went to prison for it. Now he's trying to keep from being executed. That's understandable, I think. It doesn't make him a slavering maniac."
"Yes, that's true," Connie said, and Julie felt a surge of triumph in her breast.
"Of course, it's true. In the barn Sally tried to kill him. If he were the kind of man she's trying to make out, he'd have killed her then, wouldn't he? Well, wouldn't he?"
Connie looked at Julie with gratitude that almost flowed from her eyes. She was hooked, Julie thought. At least she had accomplished that much. She'd be a good little girl, and do her tasks, and screw anyone who told her to, and when the time came she'd be put out of her misery like an old animal that has outlived its usefulness. If Sally wanted to make a break for it, she'd have to do it all by herself. And Julie fully intended to inform Max of that fact. He'd be grateful to her for that. It would be another reason to trust her, and let her live when he left the farm.
Sally walked to where Connie was standing, next to the bathtub, and took her shoulders in her hands. She shook her gently. "Connie, listen to me. I know why Max didn't kill me. I know why he wants to keep me alive. He just…"
Suddenly the door from the service porch opened and Max stepped into the bathroom. "What the fuck are you women trying to do in here? Go on strike or something?" He looked them over, then beckoned to Connie. "If you're cleaned up, get your ass out of there and let the others get to work. I didn't send the three of you in there to use the place as an officers' club."
Connie looked at Sally and then at Julie. She smiled nervously at Julie, and then walked to the door. As she went through, squeezing past Max, he gave her ass a slap and she squealed in surprise and trotted out onto the service porch. Max looked at the other two women and then closed the door.
"It looks like you win temporarily, Julie," Sally said. "I didn't get a chance to talk to her, but I will, you know. I'll tell her why that son of a bitch didn't kill me. He wants to keep me alive because I remind him of the girl he killed. He thinks she got off too easily for what he fancies she did to him, and he wants to take it out on me from now on. And that's the only reason he didn't shoot me out there."
"Well, that alone proves that he's not as bent on saving himself at all costs as you make out."
"But it also shows that he's just the kind of monster you scoffed at me for thinking he was. I don't know what makes you think he's going to keep us alive, but you're wrong. I've talked to him, too, you know, and I'm sure, surer than you are, that he means to kill us. It wouldn't make any sense to do it any other way. And I've got to get away from here, Julie. It's the only hope I have, and it's the only hope any of us has now. Including your husband, and your baby, and even you."