“Someone’s been riding Tarot,” Hollis says.
Hank is at the refrigerator, getting himself a can of soda; a pinkish tint spreads across the back of his neck as soon as Hollis mentions the horse. Bingo.
“Know anything about it?”
Hank opens his soda and waits for his pulse to slow down. “Nope,” he says.
“Really?” Hollis’s voice sounds flat; he doesn’t give much away.
“Want me to check it out?” Hank doesn’t even know why he’s lying, except that he feels Hollis will ruin this for him if he finds out about the girl. He knows he owes Hollis. The fact that he’s here at all, eating three meals a day at this kitchen table, is a measure of Hollis’s charity. And yet he keeps his secret. He has, in fact, been watching the girl every evening, and each time he does, he falls for her a little bit more. What he feels for her is tearing him apart and keeping him together and, it appears, it is also turning him into a liar. “I can hang out tonight, and see if anybody shows up.”
Hollis finishes his dinner—a bologna and cheese sandwich and a bag of chips—and brings his plate to the sink. “I’m impressed,” he says coldly. “I didn’t think you could lie right to my face.”
“I don’t know who she is.” The one time Hank is dishonest, and he’s caught—well, it figures. “That really is the truth.”
“I’m not surprised, since you don’t seem to know much of anything.” Hollis washes his plate and stacks it on the drain board. “Does she come from the village? From Route 22?”
Hank shakes his head. “From over the hill.”
“Then I’ve got news for you,” Hollis says. If Hank were paying more attention to Hollis’s tone, he’d hear something rare—Hollis is actually pleased. “I know who she is.”
They go up to the hill together. Twilight is coming earlier, and the dusk is no longer purple, but is instead that inky blue which is always a sign of colder weather to come. When they get to the very top, which looks out over all the pastures below, Hollis crouches down. Everything he sees, he owns. There’s only one thing left, and he’s about to get that too.
“I’ll bet your little friend is staying at the house on Fox Hill.”
There’s something strange in Hollis’s voice, but Hank is too wound up to notice. Hank nods at the road; sure enough, here comes the girl. “That’s her.”
She’s wearing her black ski jacket and tight black jeans and heavy boots that make a clumping noise. This girl may be March’s daughter, but she didn’t inherit much from March, at least not in Hollis’s opinion. She’s nowhere near as pretty, and she’s stupid as well. There she goes, ducking under the fence, heading for the old stump, where she searches for the rope Hollis confiscated and now has in his pocket. It’s Richard she resembles, and maybe that’s why Hollis feels such immediate distaste. Here is the reason March would not come back to him. Frankly, Hollis isn’t impressed.
Gwen seems puzzled when she can’t find the rope, but she climbs onto the stump anyway, then whistles.
“Jesus Christ.” Hollis snorts. “She thinks she’s calling a fucking dog. Look at her.”
Down in the pasture, Gwen is unaware that she’s being watched, but for some reason she feels nervous. This is her secret, and she doesn’t want to share it. She needs to come up with a good excuse to stay on here. She’ll say she’s heard the high school in Jenkintown is great, so much better than the one she’s been attending, or she’s been involved with drugs back at home. She’s already decided—she’s not going back to where she was a major nothing, inside and out. Tonight, it’s even colder than usual, but Gwen’s made sure to wear the leather gloves she found in one of those boxes her mother is packing. She claps her hands and whistles again and the horse appears from the woods and trots right to her, as he always does. She leans close and whispers a greeting, while the horse, supremely pleased at being told how wonderful he is, noses for the carrots she keeps in her coat pockets.
Up on the hill, Hollis rises to his feet. He watches the girl pull herself onto the horse with no reins and no saddle and no idea, it would seem, of any danger.
“Well, there she is,” he says. “March Murray’s daughter. That makes her your cousin.”
Cruelty never loses its flavor, at least not for Hollis. The look on Hank’s face is exactly what Hollis expected: pure confusion.
“That’s what she is to you,” Hollis goes on. “Your first cousin.”