Innocent Foxes: A Novel. Torey Hayden

there the other night and the line was a mile long.’

      Dixie bent forward and covered her face with her hands.

      ‘Don’t be so gloomy all the time,’ Billy said in a cheery voice and patted her back. ‘We’ll get through. We always do.’

      Dixie couldn’t sleep. She lay in the dark and listened to Billy’s soft, drunken snoring. Her cheek hurt something terrible and she knew she was going to end up with a black eye. Mama would see straightaway that Billy had hit her, no matter what explanation Dixie came up with. Better just to stay away from Mama until it went down. That was easier than explaining Billy.

      Tears again. Dixie swallowed to keep them down. She wasn’t crying so much about having to keep making excuses for the things Billy did or even about the money. Mostly it was just that she hurt. She was sick of hurting. Sick of pain, whether it was because of Billy or because of Jamie Lee, or just because life was such a bitch.

      Chapter Six

      In the morning when she looked in the mirror, things were worse even than Dixie had feared. Her eye was nearly swollen shut and what little eyeball showed was bloody red.

      Stupid Billy.

      Dixie leaned down and got her make-up case out from under the sink. What was the story going to be this time? She ran into a door? God, people were going to think she had the most dangerous doors in Montana, she’d used that one so many times. Fell over? Over what? None of Jamie Lee’s toys were lying around now to blame. Maybe she should say she’d decided to become one of those girl boxers like they had on the cable channel.

      That thought made her smile and, for just a moment, she became aware of herself, looking at herself in the mirror, and it reminded her of long ago. She had been little then, five maybe or six, and she’d been left home alone with Daddy. Mama and Leola had gone to church. She couldn’t remember now why she hadn’t gone too, and of course, Daddy never went. He didn’t believe in that kind of stuff. Said if there was really someone like God up in heaven, how come He’d created such a mess of a world?

      On that morning she’d been playing by the steps that went down to the outside cellar when Daddy told her she was being a nuisance and to stop playing there. When she didn’t stop fast enough, he’d pushed her. It hadn’t been a hard push. She knew he hadn’t meant for her to fall down the steps, but she’d lost her footing and fallen anyway. What Dixie remembered most about the incident was that she hadn’t cried at all and she’d felt very proud of herself for that, even though she’d scraped the side of her face. Later she’d gone inside and pulled a chair into the bathroom in order to be able to see what her face looked like in the mirror over the sink. That image came to her now, that vision of herself as a little girl, examining her face in the mirror for injuries. Not much had changed.

      Billy left the house before lunchtime. He didn’t say where he was going and Dixie knew better than to ask. Probably off to hang out with Roy and drink up whatever little bit of money was left from the branding.

      Dixie went to a lot of trouble to make her eye look decent. Then she ironed her white blouse, the one with the nice, crisp collar and the bit of edging along the button placket, and put on her black skirt. She decided the black kitten pumps she’d borrowed off Leola looked better than sandals, even though it really was too hot for anything you couldn’t wear bare-legged.

      Mr Roberts was in his office in the back of the Pay’n Save when Dixie arrived. He said hi and looked really pleased to see her. ‘Sorry to hear about Jamie Lee,’ he said. ‘That’s just a crying shame.’ Then he asked if she’d like a glass of iced tea.

      ‘I was sort of hoping I could get back on,’ Dixie said. ‘It’s too quiet at home now. And I could do with the work.’

      ‘I wish I had an opening,’ Mr Roberts replied.

      ‘You were always saying how much folks were missing me at the checkout.’

      ‘Yes, that’s so true. Make sure we have your details, so that next time we’re hiring …’

      ‘Thing is … well, I don’t mean to sound begging, but things are kind of tight right now. What with Jamie Lee’s bills and all,’ Dixie said. ‘It’s real important I find some work.’ She was trying to keep the pleading tone out of her voice. ‘I’d be willing to do anything. Even part time.’

      ‘Yes, I’m really sorry we don’t have anything for you,’ Mr Roberts said. ‘I wish I could help.’

      Dixie managed not to cry while she was in the Pay’n Save, but by the time she got out on to the street, the worry just grabbed her. It didn’t matter if she was crying in the street. No one was out walking around in the heat of an August afternoon anyway, and if they were, they would have just thought it was sweat because she had a lot of that pouring down off her face too, washing away the carefully applied make-up from her black eye.

      She should have gone home so that she could change out of her good clothes before she sweated all over them, but Dixie couldn’t face returning to the empty house. Instead, she went down along the street to the railroad crossing and headed for Leola’s house.

      ‘Lordy, look at you!’ Leola cried on opening the door. ‘Aren’t you a mess? Come on in.’ She had Carrie Dee on her hip. Little Kenny was peeking around her leg, his lips bright blue from the popsicle he held in his other hand.

      Leola didn’t ask what happened with the eye. She and Billy didn’t get on, so she was already inclined to think the worst of him. She did, however, wonder why Dixie was all dressed up. ‘Come sit down in front of the fan,’ she said. ‘You want a popsicle? That’d help. Kenny, go get Aunt Dixie one of those like you got, OK?’

      It was a relief to talk to Leola. They were only eighteen months apart and Dixie was the elder, but truth was Leola was the one born with an old head. She’d always known how to keep life sorted. Even Earl Ray’s cheating seemed to roll off Leola. As long as he brought his paycheck home, she said, she couldn’t be bothered chucking him out.

      So Leola listened. She didn’t say much. Talking wasn’t Leola’s way. She just listened carefully and nodded when Dixie came to the part about Billy and his stupid schemes. She nodded again when Dixie said how he couldn’t ever keep a proper job and she was just about fed up with that. Then Leola reached over on the counter and pulled off a deck of playing cards.

      ‘You want me to do you a reading?’

      Dixie nodded.

      Leola shuffled the cards. She closed her eyes partway and weaved back and forth just a tiny bit as she did it, which always made it feel eerie to Dixie, because Leola was so ordinary otherwise. She wasn’t like one of those fake fortune-tellers at the fair, the kind who dressed up like gypsies and used spooky-looking cards with skeletons and hanged men on them. Leola just used common old playing cards and never did her readings for money, never did them for anyone else except friends and family. But she could lay those cards out and what they told her, well, it was a gift. No doubt about that.

      Mama hated Leola’s cards. She said it was a gift all right. Satan’s gift. She was always coming over and reading the Bible at Leola, saying, ‘Leola, it’s right here in Deuteronomy, “Let no one be found among you who … practises divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, casts spells or is a medium or spiritist.”’ And Leola would say, ‘Yes, Mama,’ and let it roll off her. She always went to church on Sundays and took communion and prayed for her soul like everyone else, but she just couldn’t keep playing cards from speaking the future to her.

      ‘OK, we got to form the question in our minds,’ Leola said.

      ‘Me and Billy. Needing money bad,’ Dixie replied.

      ‘Well, put your mind on that a minute then, so it’s real clear. Then take your seven cards.’ She fanned the deck out face down in front of Dixie.

      Carefully Dixie selected the cards and handed them back to Leola.

      One by one, Leola laid the seven cards out in front of her in