Blood Kin Read Online Free PDF Page B

taking him seriously. Even Mickey-Gene, struggling to make his face look serious like the others, but he only made himself look even more comical.
    Only fools, idiots, and worse took George Mackey serious. She watched as he pushed back on his bent top hat, and then pulled up on his blue-black pants legs so he could crouch by Mickey-Gene and whisper something in his ear.
    Mickey-Gene looked startled, glanced over at Sadie standing out in the road, his white face making his red hair look even redder.
    Sadie walked on up the street, trying to keep the tears from coming. It was hard, she was so mad. But she knew these men. Once they saw a weakness, they never forgot it. They’d hit on it every time they saw you after that.
    She slowed down almost to a stop as she got closer to Miss Perkins’ dress shop. Although it wasn’t just a dress shop no more — she had books and magazines and little statues and pictures and cards and all kinds of knick knacks in there now. She just never could sell enough dresses. But “Dress Shop” sounded real good, sounded fancy, and Miss Perkins must’ve figured that brought the customers in.
    Some of the women up the hollow near where Sadie lived did seem to take Miss Perkins’ place pretty serious. They’d speak in hushed tones about what nice things she sold them, what expensive things, and half the time they’d go into that shop just to admire, not really intending to buy. That didn’t seem to bother Miss Perkins. Sadie figured most of those things were just for show anyway. More than once she’d seen Miss Perkins offer something for sale a whole month then wear it herself out in Morrison, probably just like she’d wanted all along. Miss Perkins would do her best to talk a customer out of it if they wanted to buy one of her nicer things. Miss Perkins’ place was just for show, like a movie theatre (which the town didn’t have) or a meeting hall (which they did). Women got themselves all gussied up just to go.
    Miss Perkins didn’t need the money no how. Her father had been one of the richest men in the valley, a dairy farmer, and when he died he left her enough money that she’d never have to work. Or so people said — Sadie didn’t know first-hand.
    Miss Perkins’ Dress Shop was Sadie’s favorite place for lifting things. “Lifting” was what they called it in that old pulp magazine her granddaddy gave her. It meant stealing. With all those pretty things lying around out in the open — Miss Perkins didn’t have no glass display cases — it was hard to resist.
    But now Miss Perkins watched her like a hawk every time she came in, but so far she hadn’t done nothing about it. Probably too embarrassed to. Probably thought her Dress Shop was too fancy a place for anything as nasty as stealing to be going on. Lifting. Or maybe she was scared of Sadie’s daddy, the roughest man by anybody’s count in the whole town.
    Or maybe Miss Perkins was afraid of Sadie because she was a Gibson, and the preacher’s niece. That just might be. Most people in the town didn’t think the hollow Gibsons were right folk at all. They were Indian or Spanish or Nigger or something. Not rightly human, whatever.
    They were spirited, them Gibsons. Black nasty magical.
     
     
    S ADIE RAN UP the steps in front of Miss Perkins’ as fast as she could, holding her arms out straight in front of her. She hit the door flat with her palms, so hard it burnt, and was quite satisfied with the explosion it made when it struck the wall. She ran into the middle of the shop, breathless, eyes peeled for Miss Perkins.
    Miss Perkins started to shout something, and then Sadie saw her eyes when she recognized who it was. She looked down at her magazine again. Sadie had to hold her belly to keep from laughing.
    Most of the stock was the same goods Miss Perkins had always had, long as Sadie could remember. Seemed like she hadn’t sold hardly nothing out of the fancy stuff. Mostly people would buy a card or some