The Onion Girl Read Online Free PDF Page B

dropped to his knees and the other two were moving in, she had the knife free and was moving it back and forth in the air between them, spraying drops of blood.

    This was a side of Pinky I’d never saw before that night. I mean, she always talked tough. I just never realized how hard she could back the words up. But I guess those boys knew. The one that got himself gut-stuck, all the fight was taken out of him, that was for sure. Bobby and Eugene grabbed hold of him and held him up between them.
    â€œThis ain’t over,” Eugene told Pinky before they dragged Russell away.
    â€œHell, no,” she told them. “Whatever gave you that notion? I’m of a mind to go by where you sorry fucks live and burn them shacks down. Listen to your mamas squeal while they’re fryin’. That about what you had in mind when you’re sayin’ this ain’t over?”
    Eugene dropped Russell’s arm and started for her, stopping when that weaving dance with the switchblade stopped and the blade pointed at him, still wet with Russell’s blood.
    â€œA smart man’d know when to quit,” she said, “but you’re just a big dumb fuck, ain’t that right? Let me tell you what’s going to happen here, Eugene. I’m goin’ to be wearing your balls for earrings if you don’t turn around and haul your sorry ass out of here.”
    I didn’t know which was troubling Eugene more, that it was a girl facing him down, or that the rest of us was there to see it happen. But I knew this, he was scared of Pinky and scared of that knife. More scared of dying than he was of losing face.
    â€œFuck you,” he said. “Fuck you all.”
    He reached down and grabbed Russell’s arm again and helped Bobby carry him back to their pickup. Pinky eased her way ’round to the cab of the truck we’d been in the back of and pulled down the hunting rifle that was up on the rack behind the seat. By the time Eugene and Bobby had reached their own truck, she was standing there with the rifle in her hand now, just a-waiting.
    That was Pinky for you. Like I said, she’s not real smart in a whole bunch of ways, but she’s cunning. She knew them boys might have them a coon gun up on the rack of their own truck and she just outthought ’em, same as she outbraved them. Eugene and Bobby got Russell into the cab, climbed in their ownselves, and they peeled outta there, tires spitting up sod and dirt. I wouldn’t have liked to have been Russell on that ride, holding in his guts as the truck went jolting back across the field.
    â€œYou can’t never back down,” Pinky told me as she laid the rifle on
the tailgate. “You back down and they’re gonna walk all over you. Not just today, but every goddamn day. You trust me on that one, Raylene.”
    I didn’t say anything, but I nodded. I already knew that. I’d been backing down seems like my whole life and it never got better. Never helped much and only got worse. It’s like every time you get pushed a little further, the one standing over you’s just gotta find something meaner to do, like he’s daring you to stand up for yourself, but he knows you never will.
    Pinky reached down and picked up her switchblade from where she’d dropped it on the ground. She gave the blade a wipe, then closed it up again.
    â€œWhere’d you learn to be so brave?” I asked.
    Pinky laughed. “Hell, Raylene. I got me four brothers—only one more’n you. When we ain’t fightin’ with each other, they’re showin’ me how to fight anybody wants to hurt me. Don’t Del or those other brothers of yours teach you nothin’?”
    He teaches me more’n enough, I thought.
    â€œNothing I want to learn,” I said. “Not from Del. Tell you the truth, Robbie and Jimmy and me—we’s all scared of him.”
    Pinky shook her head. “That ain’t