Ermal ate the fried squirrel while watching the news out of Pikeville. There was no mention of the girl, which didn't surprise him. Chances were she wasn't from anywhere around Pikeville. Whoever had dumped her body could rest assured she'd probably never be found. It would have been a lot of work to get her up there, unless of course he had done it by train. That would have been the most likely explanation if she hadn't been so far from the tracks, though Ermal supposed it would be easy enough for a sole conductor to convince some girl to go for a train ride - and for things to get out of hand. He had heard different drivers bragging of having sex on their runs; all it would take to start some trouble is one girl to say no, and mean it.

Ermal knew how things like that could happen. He knew about things getting out of hand. When he was seventeen and already two years in the mines, he had driven into Ashland with Junebug Adkins and some other men from the mine in Junebug's car to go drinking and to see a movie. Once in the bar, though, none of them could see the point in sitting through two hours of Hollywood living that none of them would ever know, or for the most part cared to know. Instead, they did what they did every Friday: they laid the better part of a week's pay on the bar and watched it melt into a pool of beer and whiskey.

Ermal had stepped out the back door of the clapboard shack of the bar to piss and catch a breath of fresh air. As he rolled a cigarette he happened to look out toward the street and notice a girl leaning against a rusted-out freezer, watching him.

"Hey, girl, you get an eyeful there?"

"An eyeful of nothin', Ermal Jenkins."

He knew her as soon as she answered; it was the hare-lip girl who hung out at the bar, or at least, was there every time he had been.

"Hey, Laura Ann. Y'all wanna see my car? Maybe go for a ride?"

"You ain't got no car."

"Sure I do. What you want to call me a liar for, girl? I'm just trying to be friendly's all. Now what do ya say?"

They walked to the other side of the building where there was a narrow strip of packed and oiled earth that served as a parking area for the few cars that came to the bar each night. Ermal slipped his arm around Laura Ann's waist as they walked toward the green Dodge four door. She pressed in closer to him, warm and inviting. Encouraged, Ermal let his hand slip down over her hip and rested it in the small valley between her buttocks.

"Don't be so grabby," she said.

"Y'all didn't seem to mind so much last week when I was here."

She moved his hand from her behind up to her waist, and laughed. "Once't was enough to have you pawin' on me. You boys are always too eager. Like they say, boys trying to do men's work."

Ermal snorted. "What's that you're sayin', girl? I can't understand a word you say with that nasty old lip of your'n."

He moved her around to face him, and made to kiss her.

"Uh-Uh. None of that. I told you."

"I told you before, I'm just tryin' to be friendly. You wanna be friendly, now don't you, Laura Ann?"

He pressed her against the car, one hand on her hip, belly against belly, his other hand fussing with the door handle.

"Don't. Stop it, or I'll yell."

Ermal paid no mind, but only grew more persistent.

Laura Ann began to struggle then, already knowing what was to happen, not yet resigned to it. She tried screaming, but Ermal's hand, rough as stone and almost as hard from fifty to sixty hours a week in the dark recesses of the mine, was fast and ready. He forced her into the back of the old Dodge, pushed her skirt up, and forced his way around the seam of her panties. As he entered her, she stiffened, not moving until it was over; a matter of seconds.

With one knee on the floorboard and the other resting on the seat between her legs, Ermal fastened his jeans and looked down at Laura Ann. Her eyes were closed tight, tears seeping between the lids. A string of saliva hung suspended between the corner of her mouth and her clavicle as she mewled almost inaudibly. Ermal backed out of the car and closed the door. He looked back at the bar, the warm kerosene-like glow of the lights through the windows, the smoke drifting from the chimney and the muffled confusion of a dozen voices raised in unified weekend celebration, and knew he would not be able to go back in. He ran his hand through his oiled hair and started up the road, waiting for a passing truck, or less likely, a passenger car, to come along that he could hitch a ride with.

The next Monday, as they entered the elevator that would take them down into the mine, Junebug said to Ermal, "Laura Ann got pretty roughed up the other night. Gave her a ride home, seein' as you wasn't around takin' up space."

And that was the end of it. Nothing more ever happened and no one ever mentioned it again, but Ermal sensed a coldness that hung in the air, and he knew that everyone knew what he had done.