He tried it four times to make sure it would work. It never missed. Then he picked the cleaver from the floor, wiped his prints from the blade and handle with his ap.r.o.n, and placed the cleaver in position on top of the hunk of meat. It was a leg of lamb, the meat blood-red, the fat sickly white. He sat down on the floor, then stretched out on his back looking up at the leg of lamb. Good meat, he thought. Prime.

He smiled, tensed with pain from his chest and stomach, relaxed and smiled again. Not quite like going to sleep this way, he thought. Not painless, like freezing. But faster.

He lifted a leg, touched his foot to the leg of lamb. He gave it a gentle little push, and the cleaver sliced through the air and found his throat.

HATE GOES COURTING.

I SHOULD HAVE FIGURED IT the second day. By that time you have to see it unless you shut your eyes, and if you shut your eyes you just about deserve what happens. the second day. By that time you have to see it unless you shut your eyes, and if you shut your eyes you just about deserve what happens.

It was the wind. It's that wind you get out on a plain or desert and almost nowhere else, the kind of wind that builds up miles away and comes at you and keeps on going right through you and on into the next county. Clothes don't help. If you're in the desert the sand goes right through your clothes, and if you put a wet handkerchief over your face the wind blows the sand right through the handkerchief.

When you're up north you freeze. The wind ices you right through.

And when you're in Kansas there's just the wind coming at you like a sword through a piece of silk, just the wind and nothing else. It's a sweeping wind, not the twister that blew Dorothy to Oz and knocks over a house now and then. The sky clouds up and the sun disappears and the d.a.m.ned wind is all over the place. Then it rains water by the pound and when it clears up the air is still and quiet.

That's how it usually happens, and that's why I couldn't have figured it out on the first day, not even with my eyes wide open. But the second day I should have known. On the second day there was still no rain, no storm at all, and the wind was blowing all over and harder than before.

It happens that way once in a while. It happens, with the wind holding up forever like it's never going to stop, and in Kansas they call it the bad wind. It blows forever, and it blows your tendons so tight you think they're going to snap on you.

And something happens. Something like a man dying or a house burning, something bad.

That's why I should have known-if I had my eyes open.

The afternoon of the second day we were out hunting jacks in the north field. The wind was coming from the west, bending the long gra.s.ses all the way over and holding them there. We were hunting into the wind; it didn't make too much sense that way, but it was late and we were headed back home, and back home meant walking into the wind.

"Bet she's been here," Brad was saying. "Not hunting-"

Lady let out a burst of good baying, sounding the way a good beagle sounds, and she cut off the rest of his sentence.

"You hear me, John?"

I nodded at him but he wasn't looking at me. He was about twenty yards ahead of me and it was no use talking into the wind. It just shoves the words right back into your mouth. You can shout at it, but I didn't much feel like shouting. I didn't feel like answering, when you come right down to it.

"You hear me? She's been out here plenty of times."

My cap was down over my ears but I could still hear him good and clear. We could have gone home right then. The bag was full of jacks, nice husky ones that Lady ran down like a champion, more rabbit than we could eat in the next year and a half. But going home wouldn't do any good. Brad was a tough guy to shut up.

"Nice soft gra.s.s out here. Her nice little body would fit real cozy in it, you know?"

I looked down at the gra.s.s without meaning to and my head started to ache.

"Know what we used to call a woman like that? Called them 'sweethearts of the fleet.' There's lots like her, Brother John. She's not the only little tramp in the-"

"Shut up."

"World. But you wouldn't know, would you? Old John stays on the farm through thick and thin. Doesn't let the glitter of the outside world knock his life apart. Sober Old John. You ever fixing to see the world, brother?"

"Maybe."

"Sure. I hear you went to Omaha once. Like it?"

"It was all right." I didn't want to answer him. I never wanted to answer him, but that didn't make much difference. It was always like that-him needling and pushing and prodding and me taking it and answering when I was supposed to.

When he was in the Navy it was nice. Pa and I made the farm run, coming out ahead in a good year and squeezing by in a bad one. Hunting with Lady and catching a movie in town now and then, and a long sleep at night and good food and plenty of it.

But with Brad around you don't sleep much. Ma died giving birth to him, and he's been killing the rest of us since then. Brad was a smart little brother, a real sharp little fellow.

Brad and I never got along.

"You like Omaha, huh? That's good-glad to hear it. But how does it stack up next to all the other big towns?"

This time I didn't answer.

"Did you really do the town or just go to the feed store? I hear they have a real fine feed store in Omaha. Lots of feed and all."

"Stop it."

He said something that I didn't catch, and then he said a little louder, "How does Margie stack up next to the Omaha chippies?"

I wanted to kill him. If he were right close instead of twenty yards off, I would have hit him. I could feel the bag slipping off my shoulder and my fist balling up and sinking into that soft belly of his. My fist would have gone through him like the wind was going through me right then.

I should have raised the gun and shot his head off.

Instead I clenched one fist and let it relax. I didn't say anything.

"She'd make a good one," he said. "It's her trade, all right. She's got the shape for it. And plenty long years of experience."

"Stop it, Brad."

"All she'd have to do," he went on, "is what they call relinquishing her amateur standing. Just sell it instead of giving it away. But maybe she likes it too much to set a price on it. Is it as good as I hear it is?"

"You never touched her."

It was out of me before I could stop it. It was part question even though I knew he hadn't. I had to make sure and I had to tell myself, and at the same time I didn't want to know if he had. It didn't matter. It didn't make any difference at all, but I just didn't want to hear about it.

"You sure about that, Brother John? Well, maybe yes and maybe no. But I guess I'm fixing to try her, all right. If she's as good as everybody says, I must be missing a h.e.l.l of a lot. Is she that good?"

I closed my eyes and listened to the wind. His voice seemed to come over the wind, cutting and burning just like that wind, just as bad and holding up just as long.

"Or are you waiting until you're married? Is that it, Brother John? That's a good one-waiting it out on the town tramp!"

He started to laugh. His laugh was like the wind, ice cold and mean as a mad dog, cutting like a sword through a piece of silk. I gave a whistle for Lady and she came like she always did and I headed back toward home, walking away and leaving him laughing that laugh of his in the middle of the fields.

Ten minutes later I was still walking and I could still hear him laughing and the wind was as bad as ever.

He didn't understand.

n.o.body understood the whole thing, but no one else got on my back the way Brad did. Everybody knew about Margie, but everybody else kept to their own business and let me mind my own.

Except for Brad.

The others knew about Margie, but they also knew that Margie was different, that she wasn't like any other woman who ever lived. It was something they could feel even if they didn't know just why.

She was beautiful. That was something all of them could see. It wasn't exactly hard to see; it jumped out at you until all you were conscious of was the beauty of her. Her hair was the color of corn and she wore it long, letting it flow down pure and golden and glowing. Her body was so smooth and rounded that she seemed to be made out of liquid. She looked like she was moving even when she was standing absolutely still.

When she slept, she looked like a big cat crouched and ready to spring.

Her skin was clear as a cameo. Her mouth was tiny and red and her eyes were a soft brown and her ears were little sh.e.l.ls covered with a furry fuzz.

These were things that anybody could see-even Brad.

But n.o.body else could see inside. n.o.body else could see her eyes when she cried because she never cried when anybody else was around. Most of her beauty was inside, and n.o.body else could see inside her. Their eyes stopped at the clear skin and the corn-colored hair and the gently curved body, and that is why I was the only person who ever knew Margie.

The others never knew how she felt in your arms when she was very happy or very sad. I don't give a d.a.m.n how many arms she's been in; she's only happy or sad with me. With the others she crawled into a sh.e.l.l as thin and tight as skin, and the others think that sh.e.l.l is Margie.

But it isn't.

I felt sorry for the others, if you want to know the truth. I felt sorry for them because they never stayed all night with Margie and woke up with her tears matting the hair on their chests and her body warm and quiet.

When I asked her to marry me she cried more than ever and told me I was crazy and I didn't mean it. Then she said yes, and cried some more and we made love so beautifully that even thinking about it weeks later made me shake a little.

I finished cleaning the gun and set it up on the rack on the wall. I skinned the rabbits and dressed them and salted them down, and then I washed up and changed my shirt and headed towards Margie's place. She lived by herself in a little cabin on the outskirts of the town.

Days she clerked in the five-and-dime in town, but that was going to change. She'd be coming to my place and she'd be my woman, and then she wouldn't have to work anymore. She didn't have to do a thing she didn't want to. She could just lie around the house all day loving me.

That would be enough.

The moon was up by the time I got to her cabin. The moon was round and bright and golden and it floated like a California orange. When I opened Margie's door, the wind nearly tore it clear off its hinges.

The wind blew all night long, but I didn't hear it.

I think the wind set a record for our part of Kansas. It kept up day after day, each day a little worse than the last, and you could tell there was more than a storm brewing. You could smell it the way the wheat was bowed over so much it looked like it grew that way.

The wind was all over. There was a rush of accidents-a two-car head-on collision at the intersection of Mill Run and 68, a blowout just a mile from our house, a freak accident with a telephone pole dropping on a parked car.

n.o.body walked away from those accidents. Five people died in the two-car deal and a salesman got sandwiched in the blowout when his car turned over. And there were two kids from the high school in the backseat of that parked car. You couldn't tell which was which, the way the telephone pole pressed their bodies together.

It sounded silly, but everybody knew it was the wind. And the wind kept blowing without a storm.

And the wind was in Brad, the way he kept up with his needling and prodding. He was getting through to me more often and my hand was sore from making a fist and relaxing it. He made up stories about Margie and who she went with and what they did and how many times and other crazy things. I just couldn't take it anymore.

"I'm telling you this for your own good," he would say. "h.e.l.l-get what you can. I don't blame you for that. But I have to keep you from marrying her. I've gotta look out for my older brother. You farmers don't know all the angles."

That got Pa mad. He started off how there was nothing wrong with being a farmer and how it wasn't as bad as the Navy where all you did was ride a tin boat or maybe kill some folk if there was a war on.

Every day was just that much worse than the last.

But when it happened I wasn't ready for it. I walked to her place in a harder and colder wind than ever, and when I got there she was all alone. She was sitting hunched up on her bed with her head almost touching her knees and her hair falling down over her face. I couldn't see her face. I pulled the door shut and walked over to her.

When I went to give her a kiss she turned her face to the wall and wouldn't look at me. I knew something was wrong, and I guess I knew just what it was, but I was hoping so hard that I wouldn't let myself believe it.

I sat down on the bed next to her and pulled her over to me. She didn't pull away. I let her head rest in my lap and ran my fingers through that long silky hair. I thought I could get her to cry it out but she wouldn't cry, not a single tear. Her whole body was shaking with something but she wouldn't open up and let it out. I just sat there stroking her hair and not saying a thing.

Then she looked at me and she started to cry. She cried for a long time, crying all the sickness and sadness out of her; when it was done she was better and I knew she would be all right.

It wouldn't leave a scar.

It was done.

The walk home was a long one even with the wind behind me. He was waiting for me, and when I came in he looked at me and he knew that I knew.

He said, "She was nice, Brother John. But I've had better."

I just looked at him. I didn't bother to tell him that he never had her, that I was the only man to have her, ever.

He wouldn't have known what I was talking about.

"You ought to get around more," he said. "Oughta see what the rest of the world's like. You know?"

The vein in my temple started throbbing just the way Margie's did before.

"There's other women. Bet you'll find some that's even better in the sack than she is, Brother John."

When you're up close a shotgun makes a big messy hole, big as a man's fist, but when I squeezed that trigger the sh.e.l.l went through him like a sword through a piece of silk, like the wind blowing outside. He let out a moan and put both hands over the hole in his stomach and sat down slowly. His eyes were staring like he couldn't believe it happened.

His eyes got gla.s.sy, but they stayed open that way, staring at me.

Outside the wind broke and it started to rain.

Fifteen months and I'll be out. The law's the law, but the people around here know me and they knew Brad, and the law can bend a little when it has to.

Margie will be waiting for me. I know she will.

I DON'T FOOL AROUND FISCHER PULLED UP AT A CURB and we got out of the car in a hurry, heading for the black Chevy with the people standing around it. The precinct cop made room for us and we went on through. As far as I was concerned, this was just a formality. I knew who was dead and I knew who had killed him. Taking a good long look at the corpse wasn't going to change that. and we got out of the car in a hurry, heading for the black Chevy with the people standing around it. The precinct cop made room for us and we went on through. As far as I was concerned, this was just a formality. I knew who was dead and I knew who had killed him. Taking a good long look at the corpse wasn't going to change that.

The punk slumped over the wheel with holes in his head had lived longer than we had expected. He was a hood named Johnny Blue, a strongarm-weakbrain who crossed some of the wrong people. He'd been due for a hit for weeks, according to the rumbles that filtered through to Manhattan West. Now he'd been hit, and hard.

One slug in the side of the face. Another in the neck. Three more in the back of the head.

"Who is he?" Fischer asked. I told him.

"A messy way to do it," the kid went on. "Any of those shots would have killed him. Why shoot him up like that?"

My college cop. My new partner, my cross to bear ever since some genius switched Danny Taggert to Vice. My Little Boy Lost, who wanted murder to be a nice clean affair, with one bullet lodged in the heart and, if you please, as little blood as possible.