Innocent Foxes: A Novel. Torey Hayden

worry, Billy. We’ll manage.’

      Chapter Five

      Billy was late. The shift at the sawmill ended at six thirty and now it was almost a quarter of eight. Dixie took the casserole out of the oven and set it on top of the stove. Billy hadn’t said anything about being late home but you couldn’t always trust him to remember those kinds of things. More than likely he was making up the time he’d taken for Jamie Lee’s funeral. It never went down right to start a new job and then have time off right away.

      Or maybe they were running a late shift. It being the middle of the summer, the daylight would last another hour. Like as not, Dixie reckoned, they’d be running the sawmill double time.

      When eight thirty came, Dixie put the casserole in the refrigerator. She opened a second can of Coke and took a packet of potato chips with her to watch TV. She toyed with the idea of going over to Mama’s but decided against it. It was almost nine and too late to turn up without an explanation. Dixie didn’t want to admit she didn’t know where Billy was.

      It was hard not to think about Jamie Lee at times like this. Nothing on TV could fill up her mind enough to push Jamie Lee out. It was the weight of him she missed most, as if her arms had a kind of memory of their own. She picked up a pillow and cuddled it against her but it wasn’t heavy enough. And it wasn’t alive. That’s what her arms yearned for: weight with life in it.

      A quarter of ten and Dixie knew it couldn’t be a late shift keeping Billy out. Odds were, he was carousing. Usually he came home first and at least offered to take her with him, but maybe there had been something to celebrate at work and the boys had gone straight out.

      She phoned Leola. Dixie didn’t say anything about Billy being missing. They got to talking about Earl Ray and what a piece of shit he was and that took Dixie’s mind off things at hand.

      At half past midnight she flipped the TV off because she was sick of watching. She was sick of drinking Cokes too, and, most of all, sick of cuddling a lifeless pillow.

      What if Billy had run off? That’s what Jamie Lee’s real daddy had done. One day he was there, lying in bed next to Dixie like a great big lump, next day he was gone. Big Jim. That’s what people always called him. Bigger than Billy, that’s for sure. Billy had a cowboy’s build: small, wiry and loosely strung together at the joints. Big Jim was big. All except for his heart, that is, and that was shrivelled up like a prune. But what if Billy had done the same? What if he just got fed up with all the hassle and took off? Tears came to Dixie’s eyes. What was the matter with her anyway? Why couldn’t she ever find a good man?

      At 2. 20 a.m. the screen door banged.

      ‘Where the hell have you been?’ Dixie cried.

      Billy brushed past her.

      ‘Do you know what time it is? You scared me half to death, being gone so late.’ She grabbed his arm.

      ‘Let go of me. I need a piss.’

      Dixie followed him into the bathroom. ‘You been drinking all this time? Jeez, Billy, it’s almost two thirty in the morning. Who were you with?’

      ‘You sound like your goddamned mother, Dixie, with all your fucking questions.’

      ‘I was worried, for Pete’s sake. Why didn’t you call me? I was practically ready to phone the police.’

      Billy pushed past her in the bathroom doorway and headed upstairs.

      ‘So where were you?’ she asked, following him.

      Furiously Billy turned around. ‘For Christ’s sake, Dixie, would you shut the fuck up?’ He gave her a little shove. Not hard. Not enough to push her down the stairs like last time, but she stumbled and had to grapple quickly for the handrail to catch herself. Billy went on upstairs.

      Dixie hurried after him. ‘Who were you with? Why ain’t you telling me?’ She couldn’t keep from crying. ‘What’s her name? Because if there’s somebody else, Billy, I want you to tell me now.’

      ‘It ain’t no one,’ he said and fell on to the bed. He fumbled with the buttons of his shirt.

      ‘Don’t go humiliating me in front of everybody.’

      ‘Dixie, would you shut the fuck up? I wasn’t out with no woman. It was just the boys.’

      ‘What boys?’

      ‘The boys. The usual.’

      ‘What boys?’

      ‘I said, shut the fuck up with your nagging.’ And he hit her.

      Dixie ducked to miss his fist but he wasn’t as drunk as she’d thought, because his aim wasn’t off any. The blow landed hard against the right side of her face just where the cheekbone meets the bottom of the ear. Clutching at the pain, Dixie crumpled.

      ‘I wasn’t out with no woman,’ Billy said, his voice gentler, ‘because that’s what you’re still thinking, isn’t it?’

      Still doubled over, Dixie continued to clutch the side of her face.

      Billy knelt down in front of her. ‘Did you hear me, Dix? That’s the truth. Ain’t no woman in my life but you.’ His voice was apologetic, the way it always was after he’d hurt her. ‘Why did you make me hit you? I’m sorry. But come on now. Everything’s OK.’

      Dixie struggled to stop the tears.

      Billy rose up. ‘If you got to know the truth, I was out with Roy and Mike.’

      ‘Roy and Mike?’ Dixie asked, perplexed. ‘I thought they were working up Indian Creek. On Baker’s ranch.’

      ‘Yeah.’

      ‘So what were you doing out with them?’ she asked, still cupping her hand tenderly over her cheek.

      Stripped down to his underpants, Billy rolled into bed and pulled the sheet up. ‘We’ll talk in the morning. I’m dog-tired now.’

      Dixie sat down on the edge of the bed. Reaching for a tissue, she blew her nose as best she could and sat a few minutes, waiting for the pain to settle down. Then she looked over. Billy was acting like he was already asleep but she could tell by his breathing that he wasn’t.

      ‘What were you doing out with Roy and Mike?’ she asked quietly.

      ‘If you got to know,’ he said without bothering to open his eyes, ‘me and them were working together.’

      ‘At the sawmill?’

      ‘Fuck the stupid sawmill, Dixie,’ Billy said and looked over wearily. ‘Standing there in that hell-hot building, running that fucking stripper. Having that asshole supervisor coming around every two minutes like I’m a fucking kid. Fuck it all to hell.’

      ‘So what you’re saying is you haven’t been working at the sawmill, even though you were telling me you were?’

      He didn’t reply.

      ‘Instead, you been out at the ranch all this time? Doing what?’

      ‘Branding.’

      ‘Branding? That’s going to last like, what? A week?’

      Suddenly she realized what was going on. ‘Ah, OK, I get it. That’s why you were boozing tonight, huh? Today was your last day.’

      ‘It’s a good deal, Dix. ’Cause if I get in with the foreman, I reckon he’ll get Baker to rent me some pasture there next year for my horses, once the guide business takes off.’

      Dixie’s vision blurred with renewed tears. ‘It might be a good deal if you had some horses, but you don’t, Billy. Cowboying’s never a good deal, and you know it.’

      ‘Oh shit, don’t cry again.’

      ‘What am I going to tell that funeral man? Where am I going to get his money by the end of September?’

      ‘What