Jon Reskind - The abducted wife

Buck stood up and raised the bottle to his lips. He closed his eyes and took several long gulps, then he lowered it down again and breathed a long deep sigh. "Whew, them fellas'll be back shortly. Why don't you and me finish this off before they come?"

Jane smiled to herself. It would only be a matter of time before he had drunk enough to be less aware of her moves; yet, the alcohol she had drank was already affecting her and she was less than certain that she could pretend she was drinking when she actually wasn't.

"I said drink it. There ain't nothin' wrong with this here corn liquor," he said, waving the bottle in front of her.

Jane raised the bottle again. This time it didn't taste as bitter, and she even felt a slight lift as the whiskey settled in her stomach.

"Ya ain't drinkin' it, I can tell. I mean take a long one," he said, hitching his fingers around his belt.

"I've really had enough," she complained, but took another long gulp. She knew she was hurting herself by obliging him and drinking since it would take three times as much to get him drunk as it would herself. Slightly dizzy, she considered pouring out some of the contents of the bottle when he wasn't looking, but he never seemed to take his eyes off her.

"Ya know, ya ain't too bad looking," Buck said suddenly.

"I've been watchin' you all afternoon, and I think you're real nice."

Despite herself, Jane felt her face grow crimson. She looked down at the smoothly downed tannedness of her legs and the full rounding curve of her firm young thighs and blushed again.

"Yeah," Buck sighed deeply. "I been lookin' at ya real close. You got pretty blond hair. I like it real long like that."

Unconsciously, Jane ran her hand through her hair, pulling it from in front of her breasts and letting it fall smoothly down her back. Somehow she did not feel disturbed at what Buck was saying to her, and she attributed this to the feeling of easy confidence the liquor was giving her and the fact that he had been rather kind and understanding toward her throughout the afternoon. Still, she wanted to divert his attention. She remembered how he had acted last night with the prostitute and the last thing she wanted was to be molested.

"I've often wondered what it would be like to live alone out in these hills," she said, looking toward the green thickness of trees surrounding the shack. "I've lived in the city so long, you know."

"It ain't nothin' you'd like," Buck said after a moment.

"Oh, I think I really would. There's something about the calm, the absolute quiet that keeps bringing me back. Before I was married, I was quite anxious to live in New York. I thought life was so dull in a small town in North Carolina, do you know what I mean?"

Buck sat quiet. Jane looked at him nervously, sensing that the liquor was making her talk too much. She pushed the bottle toward his hand, hoping that he would drink from it again. Yes, she did feel at ease with Buck and the only way she could explain it was that he was lonely too and needed a companion to confide in as she did.

"I never thought about it much until now," he said, drawing deeply on the whisky and setting the bottle on the stoop in front of them. "I don't know any of them things you're talking about. Since I was a little kid, alls I ever knew was work and more work. First it was for my pa cuttin' timber, then it was in the mill for ten years. Now it ain't much easier but I got more money."

Jane frowned and looked steadily toward him. She was a little worried about the strong effect the alcohol was taking on her, but at least she had gotten the man talking and drinking, and now the next step was for her to wait until he was distracted.

"This work ain't no good either," he continued. "There's all kinda trouble with Josh. He gets drunk and goes crazy. Then we all gets drunk like we did last night and he wants to fuss with the neighbors. One of them who complained about his wife being bothered disappeared about a month ago. I don't know nothin' about it, but I 'spect he's buried out there behind them trees."

Buck held up the bottle to Jane and she quickly took a drink. What he had just said frightened her, and her stomach seemed to sink as far as the dirt ground as she thought of Bob's possible arrival and what might happen to him if he tried to protect her from this group of mountain men. She took another swig and drew in on herself, grateful for the sensation of the liquor warming her slightly as it coursed through her veins. Yes, this was a world where the law of survival of the fittest still prevailed; there were rules, she knew, yet these rules were not those of so-called civilized society. And what frightened her most was the concept of justice these backwoods people maintained: courts of law were completely ignored in favor of the eye-for-an-eye vengeance that came out of a barrel of a gun. The outsider by his very nature was immediately condemned – as her own dilemma had profoundly demonstrated – and Bob would be brutalized as an intruder without a second thought.

"Like I was sayin'," Buck went on. "There ain't nothin' but some dirt farms and stills and lots of killin' around here. Folks get heated up and they let it come out real easy."

She flinched inwardly at these last words. He looked at her with a violent expression that matched the darkening of the summer cumulus overhead, and she pressed herself against the side of the door, moving her leg slightly away from him. Then she felt the touch of his hand on her thigh and she moved her leg, this time more abruptly and with more certainty toward the edge of the stoop.

"What ya gettin' so jumpy for?" he laughed, and placed the palm of his hand firmly on the dimpled area above her knee. "I could make things nice for ya."

Almost instinctively Jane reached for the bottle of whisky. Now she had an idea what he had been planning, but somehow she didn't really care, as long as she got him drunk enough to make her escape.

"You're just like the rest of them Yankees. Ya say you're from the South, but ya talk like a furrener to me."

The touch of his hand on her leg was disconcerting at first, but she knew she had better not protest and after some moments she found herself adjusting to the feeling of it placed warmly on her lower thigh and she did not protest. She drank when he asked her to drink, and even smiled as he related to her the details of an unhappy childhood and a broken marriage. It was amazing how much a person could endure, given the circumstances, she thought; she even admitted that she liked Buck, that she felt somehow endeared to him because of their backgrounds and especially because of his unhappy marriage. Her own relationship with her husband was nothing admirable, she knew, and Bob's vicious rape of her by the lake was in its own right no less violent than the way the men were treating her here.

Buck handed the bottle to Jane and she drank from it again.

"I don't want any more," she said with a slight slur. "It's too strong, I can't drink too much of it."

"Ya hardly made a Goddam dent in the bottle," he responded. Then laughed and moved his palm softly up and down the smoothness of her thigh. The liquor she had drunk had dulled her senses somewhat, and instead of rejecting him she felt drawn to the reassuring feel of his hand against her warmly tingling skin.

"Why don't we just forget them bottles inside," he said. "I just like sitting here with you. I said I'd help you before and I meant it. You just gotta cooperate a little."

Jane jerked back startled for an instant, then she pulled closer to Buck, knowing what his words implied and how she must deal with him. Just a little more time, she thought, and he would be drunk. His hot breath caressed her shoulder and his hand slid closer to the edge of her tight dress. Yes, she must make her get away as soon as possible. She couldn't imagine herself performing with all the men like the whore the evening before.