Sitting there on the front seat of his old Rambler, Hod thought maybe he ought to go out to the lighthouse, do something about those rats before it was too late. But hell, it was after ten now; chances were the Ryersons had come back long ago and it was already too late. And even if it wasn’t, what if he went out there and tried to do something, and they came back and caught him? They’d think he was the one who brought the goddamn rats, not that he was trying to get rid of them. Besides, what could he do? He wasn’t about to go up against seven or eight half-starved rats loose in a little pantry, maybe get bitten himself. He hated rats. He didn’t want anything to do with the buggers.

Didn’t want anything to do with Mitch’s campaign against the Ryersons, either. Didn’t want to know anything else Mitch and Adam decided on doing, not before and not after. Tomorrow he’d tell them that, too, straight out. If anybody’s ass ended up in a sling, it wasn’t going to be Hod Barnett’s.

He started the Nash and drove on up the hill. When he walked into the trailer Della was sitting in the kitchen, smoking like a chimney and reading one of those silly damn romance novels she got from old lady Bidwell. Passion’s Tempest. Jesus Christ. But he knew better than to say anything to her about it.

She’d only start in again about how they didn’t have a TV set anymore and she had to have some pleasure in her life, didn’t she? — all that crap he’d heard a hundred times before.

She said, “Well, where’ve you been?” but not as if she cared much.

“Where do you think?”

“Over at the Sea Breeze running up your bar tab, like usual.”

“Don’t start in. I had three beers, all on Mitch.”

“Where’d he get money to throw away on you?”

“I said don’t start in. Boys asleep?”

“They’re in bed.”

“Mandy?”

“She’s not hem.”

“Where the hell is she, this late?”

“Out. She wouldn’t say where she was going.”

“I told her not to go running around after dark, after what happened to that hitchhiker last week. Damn it, I told her.”

“She wouldn’t listen to me, either.”

“You know where she is, don’t you? Off with that long-haired punk from Bandon again, that’s where. Spreading her legs for him in the backseat of his jalopy.”

Della glared at him. “I don’t like that kind of talk. You know I don’t.”

“Think she hasn’t been going down for him? Think she’s still a sweet little virgin?”

“You’ve got an ugly mouth, Hod Barnett.”

“No uglier than hers. Can’t tell me she hasn’t been acting funny lately, like she’s hiding something. You know what I think?”

“I don’t care what you think.”

“I think she got herself knocked up,” Hod said, “that’s what I think.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you.”

“Why the hell should I like it?”

“Then she’d have to get married and move out and you’d have one less mouth to feed.”

“Ahhh… ”

Hod went over to the refrigerator. He felt like eating something, but there wasn’t anything to eat. Not even a slice of bread or some milk left. No use saying anything about that to Della, either; no damn use saying anything anymore.

He slammed the refrigerator door, and when he turned around she had her nose buried in the romance book again. What did she get out of reading that crap? Did she think some Prince Charming was going to come along and take her off somewhere, a bag like her? She hadn’t been bad looking twenty years ago, when he’d met her down in Oklahoma after his Army discharge at Fort Sill. But now look at her. Letting herself go the way she had… he could barely stand to put his hands on her, even in the dark. Sometimes he wondered why he’d married her in the first place.

In the living room, he kicked Jason’s busted-up Mr. T doll off his chair-damn kid, always leaving his toys lying around-and sat down. The Coos Bay paper was on the floor next to the chair where Della had thrown it. All wrinkled and torn, as usual-she kept right on doing that to the paper even though she knew it drove him crazy. He picked it up and got it straightened out and glanced through it.

Another story about the young college girl they’d found on the cape last week. (Why wouldn’t Mandy listen to what she was told? What was the matter with that kid?) Still nothing new about who’d strangled her; they didn’t even have a suspect. Mitch thought it might be Ryerson, but Hod didn’t believe that for a minute. If Ryerson had done it, the state troopers would’ve arrested him by now, wouldn’t they? Sure they would have.

They weren’t stupid. Mitch was hipped on the subject of Ryerson. Just plain hipped on driving him out of the lighthouse, out of Oregon and back to California where he belonged. He’d probably do it, too, sooner or later, one way or another. If those rats didn’t work, he’d come up with something etse-something even worse, maybe, something Hod didn’t even want to think about.

No sir, he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one damn bit.

Alix

The sound of the telephone cut through the silence, making her jump.