Edge of Dark Water by Joe R. Lansdale

son stole and we’re thinking about digging his daughter up. I don’t know I could look him in the eye.”
    “I don’t care,” Terry said. “With that money, we can get out of here.”
    “Split three ways it won’t last long,” I said. “It’s a good start, but that’s all it is.”
    “That’s all I want,” Terry said. “A good start. I’m like a bird with someone’s foot on its tail. I can’t fly. Stepdaddy has heard rumors about me, about me and a boy who came to visit before he married my mom. Those rumors are not true. But because he thinks it, he treats me bad and talks to me bad, and he hurts my mother’s feelings. He’s sucking the spirit out of her, like she’s nothing more than a sugar tit. And how come he’s made up his mind about me? How come so many people have? Do I seem like a sissy to you?”
    I mulled that over.
    “I do!” he said. “I can tell the way you’re thinking it over.”
    “Well, you are very good-looking and you have good manners. I don’t see you with a lot of girls.”
    “You’re a girl,” he said.
    “But we’re friends,” I said.
    Terry shook his head. “Looks are not my choice, and there are lots of people with good manners.”
    “Not crossing my path,” I said.
    “That’s the only reason you think I’m a sissy?”
    I shook my head. “No. May Lynn. You didn’t look at her the way other men did. You didn’t even take notice when we went skinny-dipping; you hardly even looked.”
    “You noticed her, or you wouldn’t be asking me why I didn’t notice her,” Terry said. “So do you like girls?”
    “Sometimes, between me and you, I think I could have liked her. She looked like some kind of ice cream dessert. But no, I’m kidding. I reckon I’m inclined to men and a life of misery.”
    “Not all men are miserable,” Terry said. “A man and a woman can be friends and be married.”
    “Mama and Don aren’t friends,” I said.
    “Yeah, and that’s precisely the reason they don’t get along,” Terry said.
    “You got me there,” I said.
    “That time we went skinny-dipping, when May Lynn was naked as a nymph, I noticed. I noticed plenty. I was on the sly about it, but I noticed. Thing is, May Lynn liked to use that body of hers for power, and I didn’t want to give it to her. I didn’t want her to know I liked what I saw. I don’t want anyone having power over me. Anyone. In any kind of way.”
    Before I could fully get in line with this new information, I saw a man coming up from May Lynn’s house, trudging in the moonlight. He was heading for the outhouse. He had on a ragged hat and overalls and clodhopper boots with the laces untied. He had about him the look of a scarecrow that had climbed down from its pole.
    “It’s Cletus,” I said, knowing it was the first time Terry had actually ever seen him.
    We stood up but stayed in the shadows under the tree. Still, bright as the night was, he would have seen us easy had he looked that way, but he had his head down and was walking fast. He was a man on a mission.
    He came to the outhouse, tugged on the door, and it didn’t open. Jinx had thrown the swivel lock inside. It wasn’t the sort of lock that would hold if someone was serious against it; it was more of a friendly reminder that someone was inside.
    May Lynn’s old man stepped back and looked at the outhouse like it was strange to him. He said, “Who’s in there?”
    “Just passing by,” Jinx said. “I’ll be out right soon.”
    “Is that a nigger in there?” he said. “You sound like a nigger.”
    “No,” Jinx said. “I’m white.”
    “Better not be no black ass on my outhouse hole,” he said.
    There was a long pause, and then the side of the outhouse bumped, and bumped again. A board came loose with a screech and popped out. Then another. Jinx shot out of there like a cannonball, causing the boards to fly completely off. She came charging toward the tree where we stood, pulling an overall strap over her shoulder as