He picked up his pen and fiddled with it for a moment before tossing it aside as he made up his mind to say more. "Pam Hearst asked me to take her to a movie."
"Pam?" This was a surprise, and possible trouble. Ralph Hearst was one of the townspeople most adamantly opposed to the Mackenzies.
Joe's ice-blue eyes were hooded as he glanced at her. "Pam is the girl I told you about before."
So, it was Pam Hearst. She was pretty and bright, and her slim young body had a form guaranteed to affect a young man's sap. Mary wondered if Pam's father knew she had been flirting with Joe and that was one reason for his hostility.
"Are you going to go?"
"No," he said flatly, surprising her.
"Why?"
"There aren't any movie houses in Ruth."
"So?"
"That's the whole point. We'd have to go to another town. No one we know would be likely to see us. She wanted me to pick her up behind the school, after it got dark." He leaned back in his chair and looped his hands behind his head. "She was too ashamed to go to the dance with me, but I'm good enough for her to sneak around and see. Maybe she thought that even if we were seen, the idea that I might go to the Academy would keep her from getting in too much trouble. Folks seem taken with the idea." His tone was ironic. "I guess it makes a difference when the Indian wears a uniform."
Suddenly her impulsive announcement at the school board meeting didn't seem like such a good idea. "Do you wish I hadn't told them?"
"You had to, considering," he replied, and by that she knew he was aware of the subject of that meeting. "It puts extra pressure on me to get into the Academy, because if I don't they'll all say that the Indian just couldn't cut it, but that's not a bad thing. If it will push me to do more, then I'm that much closer to getting in."
Privately, Mary didn't think Joe needed any added incentive; he wanted it so badly now that the need burned in him. She returned the conversation to Pam. "Does it bother you, that she asked now?"
"It made me mad. And it really made me mad having to turn her down, because I sure would like to get my hands on her." He stopped abruptly and gave Mary another of those too-adult looks before a little grin tugged at his lips. "Sorry. I didn't mean to get too personal. Let's just say that I'm attracted to her physically, but that's all it is, and I can't afford to fool with that kind of situation. Pam's a nice girl, but she doesn't figure in my plans."
Mary understood what he meant. No woman figured in his plans, other than to provide physical release, for a long time, if ever. There was something solitary about him, as there was about Wolf, and in addition, Joe was so possessed by the spectre of flight that part of him was already gone. Pam Hearst would marry some local boy, settle down in Ruth or nearby, and raise her own family in the same calm setting where she'd grown up; she wasn't meant for the brief attention Joe Mackenzie could give her before he moved on.
"Do you have any idea who started the gossip?" Joe asked, his pale eyes hard. He didn't like the idea of anyone hurting this woman.
"No. I haven't tried to find out. It could have been anyone who drove by and saw your truck at my house. But most people seemed to have forgotten about it now, except for—" She stopped, her eyes troubled.
"Who?" Joe demanded flatly.
"I don't mean that I think she started the gossip," Mary said hastily. "I just feel uneasy around her. She dislikes me, and I don't know why. Maybe she's this way with everyone. Has Dottie Lancaster—"
"Dottie Lancaster!" He gave a harsh laugh. "Now there's a thought. Yeah, she could have started the gossip. She's had a rough life, and I kind of feel sorry for her, but she did her best to make my life hell when I was in her classes."
"Rough? How?"
"Her husband was a truck driver, and he was killed years ago when her son was just a baby. He was on a run in Colourado, and a drunk driver ran him off the side of a cliff. The drunk was an Indian. She never got over it and blames all Indians, I guess."
"That's irrational."
He shrugged, as if to say a lot of things were irrational. "Anyway, she was left alone with her kid, and she had a hard time. Not much money. She started teaching, but she had to pay someone to take care of the kid, and he needed special training when he was old enough to start school, which took even more money."
"I didn't know Dottie had any children," Mary said, surprised.
"Just Robert—Bobby. He's about twenty-three or four,
I guess. He still lives with Mrs. Lancaster, but he doesn't go around other people much."
"What's wrong with him? Does he have Down's syndrome, or a learning disability?"
"He's not retarded. Bobby's just different. He likes people, but not in groups. A lot of people together make him nervous, so he pretty much stays to himself. He reads a lot, and listens to music. But once he had a summer job at the building supply store, and Mr. Watkins told Bobby to fill a wheelbarrow full of sand. Instead of pushing the wheelbarrow to the sandpile and shovelling the sand in, Bobby would get a shovelful of sand and carry it back to the wheelbarrow. It's things like that. He'd have trouble getting dressed, because he'd put his shoes on first, and then he couldn't get his jeans on."
Mary had seen people like Bobby, who had trouble with practical problem-solving. It was a learning disability, and took a lot of patient, specialized training to handle. She felt sorry for him, and for Dottie, who couldn't have had a happy life.
Joe pushed his chair back and stood up, stretching his cramped muscles. "Do you ride?" he asked suddenly.