She wanted to shove Baptiste’s skinny butt down the hill. She wanted to slap at his head, chase him away from her. She looked down at the highway and wished she could make a run for it, yet she knew there was no running from Baptiste. She remembered that Baptiste, even with his smoking and his hard whiskey ways, could outrun the high school athletes. She had seen him running hard, never winded, hurdling barbed-wire fences as easily as a deer. He could stand dead stop on solid ground and leap like an antelope over the high school fence. He could bolt full speed when he wanted nothing. And she knew he could jump her like a cougar if she tried to run from him—and would. Her grandmother had told her to back slowly away from him if she was frightened by him. She had run from him before and her sister had been bitten by the rattler. She pulled in a sigh and waited.

Finally Baptiste turned back toward her and shook his penis dry. “Scare you?” he said, grinning. Louise watched him zip up his pants and wished she had the power to make him catch his cock.

He sat down beside her and whispered to her. “Don’t you know animals are afraid of human scent?” He batted her arm with the tips of his fingers. “You wouldn’t want a skunk in your bed, would you?” Louise swatted at her ear as if she were slapping a mosquito. She gave Baptiste the same look her grandmother gave her when she came in from a night of drinking.

Baptiste leaned over close to her and before she could duck him his teeth clenched the top of her ear. He bit down hard enough to sting her. She seized his jaw and pushed him back from her. She grabbed the branch she kept by her blankets and swung at him. He jumped over her first strike, laughing until she cracked him hard on his backside. When he put his hand to his back she struck a hissing blow to his face. She could see the white welt rising on his cheek as he stood back from her.

She watched his face, afraid he would hit her. He stared at her. He stared at her for a long time until she had an urge to rub the back of her neck, to look away from his staring. She sat still with the thick branch still raised in her hand. “You shouldn’t have left me,” he said. “Did you think you were rid of me?”