Read Meadowlark for Free Online Page B

be Darla. Everybody says she's
real smart." Darla Sweet was on the Nekana Tribal Council.
    Angie had been brooding. "Hugo won't spray for anything,
not if he loses his whole crop."
    Bianca said, "He's too smart and too experienced to let that
happen, Angie."
    "And I'm not?"
    "You're smart." Bianca smiled a conciliating smile.
    Angie got up, restless. "But not as experienced as Hugo
Bloody Groth. No, and not as hidebound either. The man's
rigid."
    Bianca sipped coffee. "What can I say? He sells everything he
grows for top dollar. Focus on that. Your bulbs, and your statice and
dry arrangements do very well. Forget roses..."
    And they were off on what was clearly an on-going
argument. I caught Jay's eye and raised one eyebrow. He
nodded.
    I said, "Jay has an eight o'clock meeting tomorrow, Bianca.
We really ought to go. The dinner was superb, and I think your
center is exactly the way it should be."
    We made our escape after reasonably brief ceremonies of
disengagement. In the car, I said, "Keith McDonald groped my knee
at dinner."
    Jay's mouth twitched. "And..."
    "What the hell do you mean, and? I had a rotten time, and
I'm looking for a little husbandly support."
    "The fact that I sat down at that man's table and broke bread
is husbandly support, believe it." He started the engine. "Now tell me
what you did to the bastard."
    He laughed heartily when I told him, but I was still steamed.
"I suppose he was using me to get at you."
    "You betcha."
    "I am not some goddamn trophy to be passed back and forth
between rutting males."
    "Yeah, and old Keith knows it." He was not going to be
baited. I had to respect that.
    "Turn on the windshield wipers," I muttered and sank down
in my seat.
    We drove homeward in silence, grim on my part,
concentrated on Jay's. Sleet and rain pounded down on roads as slick
as spit. The wipers swished away. I knew it was bad when Jay
stopped turning them off.
    We headed north on the Ridge Road, a narrow ribbon of
highway with deep ditches on either side. The headlights probed
absolute darkness, wind shook the car, and branches littered the
asphalt. Jay was going thirty-five, but it felt like seventy.
    Headlights and those nasty yellow fog lights loomed behind
us and passed--a high-wheel pickup. Four-wheel drive or no, its rear
end fishtailed. A tall chromed roll-bar gleamed briefly.
    "Damn fool." Jay hunched over the wheel. "Do you want me
to tell McDonald to keep off, Lark?"
    "No."
    "Shall I tell him you're a black belt?"
    "I told him I played for Ohio State. No need to lie."
    "He'd believe me. He's a coward."
    I stared at Jay's profile in the dim light of the dash. He does
not make a habit of calling other men cowards, having been in too
many tight situations himself.
    He rounded a dark curve. "Uh oh."
    I peered ahead. The pickup that passed us had veered into
the ditch. Its lights canted up into the evergreens on the left side of
the road.
    Jay was gearing down. I could see the driver standing by the
vehicle now. Jay stopped the car and waited.
    The driver walked to his side, and Jay lowered the
window.
    "Give me a ride to Shoalwater?"
    "I'll call the sheriff's office for you."
    "It's fucking cold out here, man. I want a ride!"
    I glimpsed a high-colored face, red with cold, and a pouty
Elvis mouth.
    Jay said, in his most peaceable voice, "Well, sure you can
ride with us. I wouldn't leave an expensive rig like that unattended,
though. Let me call in for you. I just live down the road here. Won't
take long."
    "Oh." The guy--a very young man--straightened to look at
his sad pickup. "Oh, well, yeah. Thanks." He stumbled back to his
truck and slid down into the driver's seat, though it was clear the
door wouldn't close.
    Jay engaged the gear, and we eased away.
    I said, "Liar." Nobody on the Peninsula was fool enough to
stop in an ice storm to vandalize anything, not even the local vehicle
of choice. I wondered if the pickup had a gun rack. Most did.
    "The kid was drunk." Jay despises drunk drivers. They