When I was a boy in Fordyce, we had a neighbor—a nasty old rip name of Bradlee. Everyone called him Pop Bradlee.” i58767824 |b1090009265849 |dmpda |g- |m |h12 |x1 |t0 |i7 |j4 |k101115 |n06-17-2022 15:05 |o- |aFiction KING Stephen There was nothing. I had imagined it. Surely I had. And so I tupped her down the well. I saw the quilt unravel from the end not held by the pillow-case, and then came the splash. A much bigger one than my vomit had made, but there was also a squelchy thud. I’d known the water down there wasn’t deep, but had hoped it would be deep enough to cover her. That thud told me it wasn’t. Something whistled inches past my ear and then the edge of Henry’s shovel split the rat’s head in two as it looked up into the dazzle.

i58701710 |b1130002907500 |dpc |g- |m |h29 |x0 |t0 |i4 |j2 |k101106 |n07-03-2019 20:56 |o- |aFICTION K545fu What does that Lester think?” Henry asked, sounding indignant. “That we’ve got her tied up in the cellar?” His own hands stayed at his sides, not moving. I love her, too,” I said. Which, however little you might believe it, was true. The hate I felt toward her in that year of 1922 was greater than a man can feel for any woman unless love is a part of it. And, bitter and willful though she was, Arlette was a warm-natured woman. Our “marital relations” had never ceased, although since the arguments about the 100 acres had begun, our grapplings in the dark had become more and more like animals rutting. A little money coming in is worse than none,” she replied (with another sniff and head-toss). “This is something every woman knows. The Farrington Company will pay all at once, and their idea of top dollar is apt to be far more generous than yours. And I will never live in Lincoln. ’Tis not a city but only a village with more churches than houses.” Fair Extension," the shortest of these tales, is perhaps the nastiest and certainly the funniest. Making a deal with the devil not only saves Dave Streeter from a fatal cancer but provides rich recompense for a lifetime of resentment.

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It is,” I said. Knowing it wasn’t. But if things went all right, we were closer to the end than we had been. If. Yep, yep, saw it in his dooryard. Big bastid, isn’t it? Pardon my Polish. Money all gone out’n that box, was it?”

What I wanted to say was, No, it’s not mine . . . but it’s not yours, either. It’s just going to sit there. And that’s all right, because it will be mine in seven years, when I go to court to have her declared legally dead. I can wait. Seven years without smelling pigshit when the wind’s out of the west? Seven years without hearing the screams of dying hogs (so much like the screams of a dying woman) or seeing their intestines float down a creek that’s red with blood? That sounds like an excellent seven years to me. All right,” I said. I tried to brace myself for what I felt sure was coming next: Is there another cow in yonder well? One named Arlette? But I was wrong. The lawyer assures me the land is mine to do with as I wish, and I’m going to sell it. As for the two of you, you can sit here and smell roasting hogs together and cook your own meals and make your own beds. You, my son, can plow all the day and read his everlasting books all night. They’ve done him little good, but you may get on better. Who knows?” I’d say so,” I agreed, thinking: But if you could still pump from that other well, Lars, I don’t think you’d care for the taste at all. “Try it and see.”She expressed the opinion that feelings, like fairness, were also the last resort of weaklings. Then she held out her glass. I filled it, knowing she would remember none of what she’d said in the morning (always supposing she was still there to greet the morning), and would deny it—vehemently—if I told her. I had seen her in this state of drunkenness before, but not for years. Henry shook his head, slowly and emphatically. “That Sheriff—did you see the way he looked at everything? Did you see his eyes?” Fair Extension" was the most enjoyable of the four stories. I put this down to the enigmatic character of Elvid and what he offers to Streeter, the main character: a life extension and reprieve from the cancer that is eating him from the inside. Of course there is a catch; Streeter must put the burden on someone else, someone he knows well. The story loses its intrigue from this point and ends all too abruptly with no real closure, which was a little frustrating. i60148780 |b1200001771779 |dsuff |gn |m220921 |h30 |x2 |t0 |i22 |j4 |k101206 |n08-04-2022 20:59 |o- |aKIN

He looked at me in surprise. “Your wife didn’t send me, Mr. James. In point of fact, I came out here to look for her.” But he did. We both did. I fried eggs, bacon, and potatoes, and we ate every bite. Hard work makes a person hungry. Everyone knows that. i91565091 |b32104000114138 |dpraf |g- |m |h41 |x3 |t1 |i7 |j2 |k150312 |n02-21-2023 20:58 |o- |aF King Sheriff Jones said, “There-there.” And after offering that perfunctory comfort, he bent down with his hands braced on his pudgy knees, and looked under the bed. “Appears to be a pair of woman’s shoes under there. Broke in, too. The kind that would be good for walking. Don’t suppose she ran away barefooty, do you?” You’d go to jail for assault!” He was wearing a celluloid collar that day, and it had come all askew. It was almost possible to feel sorry for him as he stood there with that collar poking into the underside of his chin and sweat cutting lines through the dust on his chubby face, his lips twitching and his eyes bulging.He started to turn away, then seized my arm. His hands were dreadfully cold. “No one can ever know!” He whispered this hoarsely into my face. “No one can ever know what we did!”