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The shot missed Calvin Jenkins, but he heard a flat smack as the projectile struck fir bark about six inches from his right ear.

That fuckin' asshole Helprin!

Tried to shoot him right inna fuckin' head, man!

Jenkins had only a vague idea of the shot's origin and, without sticking his head around the tree and probably collecting one square between the horns, only an equally vague notion of where Helprin was now. The bastard would certainly have moved right after firing, but which way? The only thing certain was that Helprin had gotten above him on the steep mountain slope. And shooting down gave the bastard a definite advantage.

Feeling a sneeze coming on, Jenkins pinched his nostrils till his eyes watered. It didn't work. In a moment he was wracked by several huge, strangled chuffs. Despite holding his nose till his eyes bulged, sneezing made considerable noise. A fact that Helprin's mocking voice quickly made clear.

"Ohhh Caalvin.... I hear youuu," he sang.

The dense forest acted like sound distortion panels in a fun house.

Jesus, where was that bastard?

Trying not to even breathe hard because Helprin had ears like a fuckin' radar, Jenkins spread his legs and braced his back on rough bark, holding his Kingman Spyder in a double-handed grip and resting the long, cold barrel against his cheek just the way Dirty Harry would do it. The Spyder was a beautiful weapon. Single-piece aluminum frame, M-16 grip, light, balanced and accurate.

"Ohhhhh Caaall... vinnnnn..."

He just couldn't be sure where the voice was coming from. Maybe it was directly up slope. Right where that little tree was growing on that rotten stump. The one with the huge bracket fungi all over it. Jenkins quickly stuck his Spyder around the trunk and fired a blind shot.

"I'm hit!" he heard Helprin scream, "Oh, fuck! Got me, man. Oh, Jesus, right inna fuckin' guts! Ohhhh..."

Yeah, right.

Jenkins hadn't gotten this far in life by being that stupid.

He began a crab-walk down the steep slope, digging boot heels into forest detritus and carefully keeping the fir between himself and where he thought Helprin was. God help him if he were wrong. He had to find better cover. Here the tree trunks were fairly far apart and the dry forest floor, covered in a thick layer of dirt, rotted wood and evergreen needles, supported only an occasional berry bush. A lousy berry bush would never protect him from Helprin's unerring aim.

Fresh trickles of sweat ran down Jenkins' face and he wiped with his sleeve as he worked his way along, scraping his back on tree trunks, slipping and skidding on dead needles, praying his camouflage T-shirt and pants would conceal him. And knowing they wouldn't because there was no thick underbrush. His lungs were burning and knees trembled with fatigue and fear. He knew there was very little time left. Above him on the slope came the sharp crack of a dry branch breaking underfoot.

Helprin!

The fucker was closer than he'd thought. A lot closer!

Below, about 30 feet away through the trees, he saw the brilliant, sunlit green of what looked like a meadow on a small rock shelf projecting from the steep mountain side. He slipped around another tree, then hopped sideways down about 10 feet of slope. Now he could see trees thinning out ahead and, better, the luxuriant green of salal covering the open area.

Once he got into that shit, man, Helprin could fuck himself!

There was a sudden crackling of breaking branches, the soft thud of a body hitting the ground and a muffled curse from only a few feet away in the jungle of tree trunks. In his peripheral vision, Jenkins saw a brand new Doc Martens poking from behind the tree he'd left just a few seconds before and realized that Helprin had been right on top of him. Probably aiming a fatal shot when he fell on his ass.

Abandoning all attempts at stealth, Jenkins took off, crashing and floundering towards the meadow without the slightest plan but keenly alert to suggestions from geography. Maybe he could cut across and take cover on the far side. If Helprin were stupid enough, he'd follow into the open and right into Jenkins' sights. He'd have the bastard. But Jenkins wasn't at all sanguine about pulling the trigger on Helprin. The swine had been in his sights about a half hour earlier. Had a perfect shot right between Helprin's shoulder blades, but he'd deliberately fired wide.

Helprin was a nasty turd at the best of times and he'd be a good deal nastier if you shot him.

As he bounded through dense salal, Jenkins saw several boulders protruding from lush green foliage like tops of granite toadstools baking in summer heat. There was a particularly large one just about in the middle of the meadow, and that became his goal. He flailed and floundered, wrenching his feet through tangled vines, pouring sweat and gulping clear mountain air in great, searing gasps. Behind him, he could hear Helprin thrashing through underbrush.

It was going to be close, man, really close. There was no time to go around the rock. He'd have to go over it. Jesus, was it ever going to be close!

He scrambled onto the rock, its sun-baked surface almost burning the palm of his left hand, holding his weapon in his right. His only real hope was to dive off the rock on the far side and take cover, but he couldn't help himself. He just had to know where Helprin was. At the far edge, with safety just a few feet away, Jenkins spun, crouching and looking for a shot. Just in time to see Helprin, up to his ass in salal, raise his own Spyder and hear the bastard yell "Die, you fucker!" even as he pulled the trigger.

The shot hit Jenkins full in the chest with numbing force. His boot slid on rock and he teetered for a moment, arms windmilling, then plummeted some six feet in to a dense bed of salal. Vines acted like a spring-loaded mattress, cushioning his fall so well he barely felt his back touch ground. He lay there as dust, leaves and insects swirled, marveling that the fall hadn't hurt and looking at the large, bright red splatter on his chest.

No question, he was done for.

It was a kill for Helprin.

He stared into the blue vault. It was poetic to spend your last moments on earth gazing into the heavens. A warrior fallen in mortal combat. He fancied he could hear a chorus of angels in fleecy cotton clouds and almost wished he could remember that fuckin' poem he was supposed to have learned in school. Something about poppies in some fuckin' field. Deep inside his fatally damaged body, muscle tissue would be shredded and ruptured vessels would be spilling blood into his chest cavity.

There'd probably be shattered bone stickin' out all over the fuckin' place.

Soon he would feel his legs and arms grow cold. A tremendous lassitude would come over him. Then that white tunnel would form, just like in the movie Ghost. Yeah, he'd get the white tunnel, not them black fuckers comin' up outa' the fuckin' ground. He concentrated on seeing the sparkling white mist gathering above him.

Instead, there was a scraping of boots and Helprin towered against the azure sky.

"Got you, fucker," Helprin said, sneering in triumph and picking at a large zit on his chin, "I seen it."

"Yeah, fuck you, Helprin," Jenkins said.

It was okay to say "fuck you" to Matt at times like this. Times when he'd just shot your ass again and was feeling pretty good about his inner child.

Jenkins took a handkerchief out and wiped the worst of it off his chest. Then he shoved his paint ball gun into his makeshift holster and rolled over. He was on the point of getting to hands and knees when his gaze penetrated tangled, leafy ground cover.

He couldn't believe what was less than six inches from his nose.

It lay facing him, tipped to one side and half-buried, yellowed with age, spotted with moss and so infused with salal it seemed part of the living landscape.

Jenkins' eyes opened so wide they ached as they met gaping, empty eye sockets.

A human skull!

Jenkins' stomach suddenly turned to mush and he nearly peed himself. In fact, there was just a tiny spurt.

"Holy fuck" he shouted, backing up on hands and knees. "Holy fuck!"

"What's wrong with you, you pussy?" Helprin asked, holstering his own gun. "I gotcha again. Big fuckin' deal. I always getcha. I'm the fuckin' best there is, man."

Actually he wasn't sure of that one. The paint ball guns were a recent acquisition from a sporting goods shop in Seattle, and the two hadn't had a lot of experience with them. It didn't look like they'd get much, either, because they were quickly running out of paint balls and CO2 bottles. It hadn't been a very selective shopping excursion, since a store guy or some fuckin' thing showed up right in the middle of it. They'd been forced to just grab whatever came to hand before leaving at a high rate of speed though the storage room window. Helprin had paint balls and gas bottles on his wish list for the next nocturnal shopping trip, but he wasn't sanguine about finding any. There certainly hadn't been any in the prior three stores they'd visited.

"There's a fuckin' skull down here, man!" Jenkins squeaked.

"Oh, yeah, right," Helprin sneered. "C'mon, let's go again. I'll give ya a head start. Count to a hunnert."

"No, I'm fuckin' serious, man," Jenkins squeaked, still peering into gaping eye sockets, though from a slightly greater distance, "There's a fuckin' skeleton down here."

Helprin brushed a greasy strand of dirty blond hair from his eyes and picked at the zit. This Jenkins kid was a really crazy shit, sometimes. What the fuck kind of trick was this?

"Okay, I'm comin' down," he said at last, "But this better not be a fuckin' trick. You fuckin' shoot me, man..." He left the threat unfinished as he jumped, landing with a crash beside Jenkins, losing balance and sitting down hard in vibrant greenery.

"Fuck," he muttered, getting his feet under him and crouching next to Jenkins. "Okay, asshole, where's the fuckin' skeleton?"

"There, man." Jenkins, hand trembling so badly he just about covered all points of the compass, finally managed to indicate the skull.

"Fuck," Helprin breathed in wonderment. For once Jenkins had been right. There was a fuckin' skeleton down here.

"See?" Jenkins affirmed, "what did I tell you, man? 'S a fuckin' skeleton."

Helprin reached over Jenkins' shoulder and pushed foliage aside. A gold-crowned molar glinted in the sun. Half the left side of the cranium was missing, leaving a gaping hole into the brain case through which salal vines grew.

"Maybe we should take it to the cops?" Jenkins offered.

"Fuck that," Helprin said, digging a package of cigarettes out of his vest pocket, "I ain't tellin' that fuckin' Bentley bitch nothin."

He stood, crossed his arms over his chest the way he fancied made his arms bulge and showed off the SS runes on his left shoulder and barbed wire tattoo that encircled his left biceps, and considered the skull while he lit up. He flexed muscles to make the tattoos stand out, the way he always did when he had some really heavy thinking in store, and inhaled deeply.

"This... is really fuckin' neat, man," he said, after due contemplation, as he exhaled a lung's worth of smoke, "We can take it to the club. Make those assholes pay to see it."

'Those assholes', to Matt Helprin, meant basically anyone who wasn't with him at the time of the reference. He could just see all those assholes lining up to pay him a couple of bucks a throw to look at this fuckin' skull. Maybe they could get some black candles or something and make one of those pentagram things. Make it really spooky.

"Here, get the fuck out of the way," he said, pushing the younger and smaller Jenkins to one side, "I'm gonna dig it out, man. Just get some of these fuckin' vines and shit out of the way."

Squatting and dangling his cigarette from a corner of his mouth, he shoved some of the tangle away, spraying embers as he whistled tunelessly through a gap in his front teeth. It was not one of his more endearing habits. Helprin actually had a number of habits that weren't particularly endearing.

"Just gotta get this shit out of the way, man," he muttered, sweeping another vine to one side and, in the process, uncovering a tiny cave created by the rock overhang.

To Jenkins, dabbing at the paint splat in the middle of his best T-shirt, the one that had "USMC" stenciled on the front, and anxiously wondering how long it would take the wet spot in his pants to dry out, it looked almost as though Matt Helprin had been shot. His lanky body jerked in shock, then shuddered and became very still.

"What, man?" Jenkins squeaked nervously, "what's the fuckin' matter?"

Helprin stayed rooted to the spot, staring fixedly at something under the rock.

"Matt?" Jenkins said, trying to control his racing heartbeat, "H-Hey, man, what the fuck? What the fuck?"

"Oh, fuck," Helprin breathed at last, turning to look at Jenkins. Jenkins, noting that Helprin's normally narrow eyes were now very wide, despite the curl of smoke from his cigarette going in to them, and that all the color had left his companion's face, felt a new thrill of horror. Whatever this was, it wasn't going to be good.

"What the fuck, man?" Jenkins gasped, edging away from Helprin and skull. He caught his heels in vines and sat down hard, getting back to his feet almost before his ass touched the ground. Suddenly all he wanted to do was get the fuck out of here, but horrified fascination held him fast.

"Holy shit," Helprin breathed, his voice suffused with an awe, wonder and terror that Jenkins had never before heard, "You know who this is, man? Do you know who this fuckin' is?"

"W-who?"

"You know, man. You gotta know."

"No, I don't fuckin' know," Jenkins said, in his fear coming as close as he'd ever come to showing exasperation with Helprin.

"It's him."

"Him who?"

"Mailman Mel."

Nothing actually happened when the dread name was spoken. No clouds suddenly covered the sun. No streaking bolt of lightning split the heavens, no icy wind sprang up, no demonic laughter echoed through the silent forest. But to the two teenagers, suddenly in the jaws of damnation, the afternoon had become icy and forbidding.

"N-naw," Jenkins managed after a pause to get control of a bladder that seemed to suddenly want nothing more in the world than to turn inside out, "Naw, it ain't, man. It ain't The... The Mailman. It's just some Indian or somethin', man. S-s-some old fuckin' hunter. Prob'ly bin there a hunnert years or somethin'."

"Oh yeah? Whaddaya fuckin' call that?" Helprin said, moving aside and pointing to the little cave. There, shoved into the dry alcove and littered with dead leaves, twigs and dirt of 23 years, was a blue canvas shoulder bag with faded white lettering that read U.S. Postal Service.

Jenkins stared at the old mailbag while his stomach did flip-flops. That nailed the whole thing down. There could be no question.

They had stumbled upon the final resting place of Mailman Mel.

Jenkins never afterwards told anyone, and Helprin uncharacteristically never referred to it, but at that moment, as he gazed into the empty eye sockets of a horrible legend and an icy hand closed around his heart, Jenkins had a somewhat larger urinary mishap.

With the snap of the ball the field, at least to Tipple police chief Samantha Bentley, turned into a gray and white ant heap. The pre-teens were dressed only in gray sweat pants, white T-shirts and helmets, so there was no bone-jarring contact, but otherwise, the scene looked much like every football game she had ever seen. Incomprehensible.

A split second after the snap, the ball was thrown through a gap in the players and bounced off the grass, tumbling end over end. A piercing whistle shrilled and boys stopped in their tracks.

"I'll never make sense of it," Samantha said to her daughter, who sat beside her on the third row of bleachers reading a college psychology text between plays.

"You have to advance the old pigskin," Ellen said without looking up. "It's a game of territory."

"So says Odin Larsen," Samantha said.

"So says Odin," Ellen agreed, glancing down at the field. The boys were listening with rapt attention to a tall, Nordic blond man who spun the ball in large, powerful hands as he talked earnestly to three of them. He was dressed as they were, in gray, tight-fitting shorts, a white T-shirt and football helmet, but there resemblance ended. The boys, with one exception, were skinny and gangling, with acne, caved-in chests and pipestem arms. The exception was fat and had acne. The instructor had the wedge-shaped build of a Greek god and towered over his worshipful charges.

"Looks like a pretty successful summer program," Samantha said, estimating the number of boys at better than 30, "Must have gotten them from all over western Washington. The Y doesn't generally do that well."

"The Y doesn't generally have the great Odin Larsen as a volunteer coach, either," Ellen said.

Samantha, not sure whether her daughter was being ironic, looked back to where the boys had lined up again. Her future son-in-law, whistle in mouth, had moved back a few paces to survey the action. The ball was snapped and the field again dissolved into chaos. The youthful quarterback stepped quickly and nervously into the pocket and threw the ball in a clumsy spiral. It went behind another boy and bounced off the turf again as Odin's whistle sounded.

"That boy there," Samantha said, pointing, "the one it went behind? He was the, um, guy who was supposed to catch it, right?"

"The intended receiver," Ellen said, laughing, "Jesus, Mom, how could you go to all those games and learn nothing about it?"

"Dedication."

"Okay," they heard Odin call out, "we're getting closer, gang. That wasn't too bad at all. Okay, Johnny, Mark, and you, Miles, you guys just stand aside for a second. We're going to run this puppy again, and this time I'll be quarterback. This is a matter of timing. You quarterbacks hear this? You have to go for where your guy is going to be when the ball gets there, not where he is right when you throw it. Timberley, you just run your pattern. Don't try to second-guess me, okay? I'll get the ball to you. Timing it is my job. You have to time these plays. Timing, timing,timing. I can't say that enough. You can't rush things. A rushed play is a broken play. Okay, line up."

The boys snapped into their lines with a steely-eyed determination that made Samantha smile. There was sudden electricity, an edge of excitement missing from earlier attempts.

"The boys just love it when Odin gets into a play," Ellen said, laying her book aside. "It's real fantasy island stuff for them."

"What about his knee?"

"Don't worry, mom. He doesn't do any running. Not much, anyhow. And none of the boys would touch him."

As Samantha looked on, the greatest football player ever produced in Tipple High and the greatest college quarterback ever to play at the University of Washington took the snap. As the lines clashed, pushing and jostling, Odin Larsen moved into the pocket, hopping on a stiff right knee encased in a heavy athletic brace. It was painfully clear that the man could not run, or even walk, without a limp. Planting weight largely on his good leg, he pumped once, then fired the ball in a clean, sharp, bullet pass. It flashed through the air, cutting confusion on the field like an oblong knife, and struck the YMCA logo on Timberley's chest. The thump of pigskin on ribs carried all the way to the bleachers.

With a muffled "ow", the receiver dropped the ball and doubled over, wrapping skinny arms around his chest.

Odin, who had managed to get the whistle back into his mouth even as the ball was in the air, blew the play dead.

There was a chorus of "Oh, fuck, mans" and "Jesus Christ, Timberley" and Odin, laughing, told them to bag it.

"It happens," he said, motioning the boys around him, "everyone drops a ball now and again. No big deal. Even the Seahawks drop them once in awhile. The important thing right now is that our quarterbacks here get the idea of timing, right? That's what being a team is all about. Okay, let's run it again, this time Miles will play quarterback."

The kids quickly formed their lines again.

"They really want to make it work for him, don't they," Samantha said. She suddenly recalled sitting in the university stadium that fateful day two years earlier, when the pocket gave way and that 240-pound tackle from Iowa came hurtling through. In her mind's eye she could see Odin, who had been looking for his receiver, tuck the ball under his arm and turn to scramble for one of his famous broken play recoveries. And then the terrible slip. His right foot sliding outwards on a wet patch of Astro Turf, the incoming player crashing down and catching an unprotected leg at just the wrong angle.

Samantha shuddered, remembering the crunching crackle of the joint giving way, a sound that had seemed to be heard all over the stadium. She forced her mind away from the terrible image of 40,000 fans standing mute as Odin lay screaming on the field and Abel Larsen fought to get through the press of players to his son's side. What an end to a career that had looked so promising. For there had been no doubt in the mind of any football fan in Washington State that Odin Larsen had been on his way to the NFL. And not just going there, either. The pride of Tipple, scouted and coveted by every team in the pro league, had been clearly marked for super stardom from the first day he'd strapped on the pads.

Now he was just a young man, largely forgotten by sports writers and fans, who helped run his father's failing hardware store, walked funny and had decided to do some volunteering with the YMCA this summer. And was going to marry Ellen Bentley, heiress to the Bentley mining fortune.

Odin, catching sight of her, waved. Samantha waved back and Ellen gave him a mocking wave as well. Odin made a face at her.

"Got to be going," Ellen called, slipping her book into her large handbag, "You coming by for dinner?"

"Yeah," Odin called back, "After I'm through here and I get a couple of things done for Dad."

"Better call Hattie," Samantha said, "And let her know there'll be another mouth to feed."

"Already did," Ellen answered.

"Efficient."

"Got to get practiced up for school."

They were filing out of the bleachers when there was a sudden clatter and splash. Samantha looked up at a glowering teenager sitting in the top row of bleachers. The girl, who had a great mane of curly black hair and was beautiful in a pouting sort of way, was just picking up a dripping container of McDonald's coke that she had either dropped or kicked over. She had a sneer on her face and very little on her nubile young body.

"What's bothering Dolly Jenkins?" Samantha asked.

"No idea," Ellen said, "she's a real attitude problem. She's been out here a lot, but she never talks to anyone."

"How long has she been sitting up there?"

"She was there when I got here," Ellen said.

Samantha's gaze met that of Dolly Jenkins and she waved and smiled, getting only a grudging, surly nod in return.

"She's one of yours, isn't she?" Samantha asked.

"That's one of your rhetorical police-type questions, isn't it?" Ellen said. "Judge Albright referred her to the society, but she's not exactly one of mine, as you put it."

For the past two years, Ellen had been putting in volunteer time with the Tipple branch of the Thea Carter Society, working with juvenile girls who had been deemed "at risk" by the courts.

"So," Samantha said, "how's she doing?"

"Mom," Ellen sighed, "You know I can't say anything about that. It's confidential."

"Well," Samantha said as they reached field level, "I don't think it would be stretching confidentiality too much to just say if she's making progress. She's a police problem too, you know."

"I probably shouldn't say this," Ellen said after a pause, "but I've been told we're not getting very far with her. I've heard she's being molested by her dad. Pretty regularly."

"Has she said that?"

"No, and we can't really ask her, either. It would destroy trust if it looked like we were cops or something. Sorry."

"Jesus," Samantha said. "I'd love to slap that bastard in the slammer."

"Neither Dolly nor her mother will make a complaint," Ellen said. "I'm only mentioning it because it's pretty common knowledge. All the kids seem to know about it. It's a pretty big joke with them."

"We've heard some things," Samantha said, referring to the Tipple P.D., "but we'd have to hear it officially to do anything."

"You won't," Ellen said as they arrived at the police cruiser, "I told you. Dolly won't go to the police and her mother won't either."

"Who's working with her?" Samantha asked.

"Virginia Woodbine, off and on."

"You can't tell me how Virginia is doing with her."

"I couldn't if I knew, Mom," Ellen said, "But I don't know. We don't gossip about these things, you know. Counseling is one on one and no talking out of class. In group she hardly ever says anything. All I've heard about the one-on-ones is that they aren't going too well. "

"Maybe I could ask Virginia?"

"She couldn't say, either, Mom. Jesus, we have to get the trust of these kids or we couldn't do anything with them."

"Well, maybe I'll go over and have a word with Juke," Samantha said, sliding behind the wheel.

"Please don't," Ellen said. "For one thing it would just get Dolly whipped again and for another it would set Virginia back. Might even blow the whole program."

"Even if I told that bastard it was just something we'd heard around town?"

"Even if," Ellen said, "honestly, it's a delicate situation."

Samantha put the cruiser in gear and rolled slowly through the parking lot. As she passed a group of pre-teens hanging around a couple of low riders, there were whistles and good natured jeers.

"Hey, chief Bentley, got a real suspect there?" one boy called.

"She looks like a killer, man," someone else yelled.

There was a chorus of "yeah, mans" and more whistles.

"Same old jokes," Ellen sighed as the patrol car pulled out of the parking lot and gained speed.

"They should get some new material," Samantha agreed.

"Or maybe someone should think about getting a new job," Ellen said.

"I like being a cop."

"Honestly, Mom, I don't know why," Ellen said. "With all Daddy's money you don't even have to work, never mind be a cop. I don't see why you don't just relax and take things easy."

"Why don't you, honey?" Samantha said. "You could just go to school and take things easy. You know I'd pay. Why do you do all that volunteer work? Why work as a waitress?"

"That's different."

"No, it isn't. You're putting something into the community with your volunteer work and you're being self-sufficient with your job. I'm putting something back into the community, too. Making up for generations of Bentley exploitation."

"You married in, Mom. The Millers never exploited anyone. They were the ones being exploited."

"By the Bentleys."

"That's really a pretty thin reason. I've always thought there was more to it."

"Nope," Samantha said, "that's it. Payback time."

"You could pay back some other way, you know. Police work is dangerous."

"Not in Tipple," Samantha laughed, "worst crime we've had lately was the coin laundry burglary, and we have a pretty good idea who did that one."

"There were those murders."

"Honey, those were more than 20 years ago. Ancient history."

Ancient to the world at large, perhaps, but not to her. A cloud passed over her mind at the thought of the murders and her own sordid part in the ensuing drama.

"History has a way of repeating itself," Ellen said darkly.

"Wash your mouth out with soap, young lady," Samantha said with a forced laugh, "that was a one-time thing, trust me."

"It could happen," Ellen said, "lots of newbies in town these days. How about that guy?" She pointed to an incredibly tall man wearing faded blue jeans, a black T-shirt with a Grateful Dead logo and black Stetson, unfolding himself from a BMW in the Log Cabin Café parking lot. "There's an evil-looking piece of business. Probably some sort of serial killer just looking for victims."

"I've seen him around," Samantha said, "world's tallest man."

"Who is he?"

"I've no idea. But looks aren't everything."

"His sure aren't. Maybe you should arrest him for violating the ugly ordinance."

"Ellen, honestly."

"Well, you're a cop," Ellen laughed, "You're paying back the community. The community has a beautification policy. Jeez, Mom, do I have to tell you everything? Unless there's more to it than just paying back for what Grandpa did."

"No, there isn't."

That was a lie. In bitter moments when Samantha was honest with herself, she knew the Bentleys' exploitation of the village was just a convenient excuse. But she wasn't going to discuss the most terrible event in her life with anyone.

Ever.

Keeping perfect time with the music, Dolly Jenkins unhooked her tiny skirt and eased it down her hips, showing the top of flimsy nylon panties. She tossed her head just the way Mom had shown her, shook her breasts in her see-through bra, and let curly black hair, glistening with sweat, fall over her face.

The difficult part of her routine was coming up. The spots were on her, the place was packed with horny guys and she would have to step out of her skirt without looking even slightlyawkward. Sitting at a table right down front and all by himself was that big time movie producer guy, the one who'd done that war movie about saving some guy. He'd come all the way to Seattle just to scout her for a starring role in his next film. The audience was silent, hanging on every move, the pressure was unbelievable. But she was Delicious Dolly, the most exciting stripper to ever come out of Tipple, bar none. After the show the producer guy would be around to her dressing room, just begging her to sign his contract. And Marvelous Molly could shake her melons at that.

In reality, Dolly was doing her routine in an abandoned shack near the old Bentley No. 1 coal mine. The music was pumping from a boom box sitting on a table fashioned from rough-hewn planks laid across a pair of empty 50-gallon oil drums and draped with a piece of old, oil-soaked tarpaulin so covered in graffiti it resembled a patchwork quilt. Her audience consisted of younger brother, Calvin, and one other boy.

It was the other boy who was making her very nervous.

Leaning against a window frame, flexing biceps, a smirk on his lean, acne-ridden face, lank hair falling across predatory eyes and sporting an immense erection in tight jeans, was Matt Helprin.

Matt Helprin, who was not supposed to have been there. Jesus, was she pissed at her brother. He'd told her only Jeremy Vanton and Clyde Hemmings would be there. They were both Calvin's age and Dolly could handle them easily. But when she'd arrived, she found that Vanton and Hemmings were not there and Matt Helprin was. Helprin was a horse of a completely different color. Not known for intelligence or sensitivity, he combined a powerful body with the social development of a five-year-old and the instincts of a honed psychopath, though Dolly didn't know that word.

When she glanced at Helprin from the corner of her eye, there was an almost delicious sinking sensation in her stomach.

Helprin, making no attempt whatsoever to hide the huge bulge and wet spot in his jeans, licked fleshless lips and muttered words of encouragement. They sounded like "c'mon, bitch, get it the fuck off."

Dolly would have liked to say "abadeea abadeea, that's all folks" and stop the show right then and there, but fear of Helprin drove her on. That and, if she were honest with herself, more than a little arousal. For the truth was that the money she might one day earn following in her mother's footsteps was completely secondary to the kick she got out of putting on her one-girl shows for her brother and his adolescent buddies.

Shifting her wad of bubble gum to her cheek, Dolly executed her patented little three-step and, without a trace of awkwardness, came up with skirt in hand. A bump, a grind, hold the skirt like a bullfighter's cape. Give them a peek, and another peek, then flourish the skirt, whip it around in the air and toss it into the crowd. Hands behind head, stick those tits out, give them a good look. Pirouette, show some ass, bend over for the ankle grab, then another bump and grind routine and finish right on the last beat of the music.

There it was. Another brilliant performance by Delicious Dolly. As good as anything ever staged by Marvelous Molly Melons.

Calvin clapped enthusiastically. Helprin smirked and gave three cursory smacks of his palms. It wouldn't be cool to clap as enthusiastically as that dweeb, Jenkins.

"Pretty good, huh?" Dolly said, gasping for breath. Hers was a very strenuous routine and smoking wasn't doing her endurance any good. She slipped the last menthol cigarette out of her pack. Drawing smoke deep into her lungs, she picked at sweat-soaked panties clinging to her ass.

"Gettin' better all the fuckin' time," Helprin said with a loose-lipped grin that Dolly didn't like at all.

"Good as Mom, I bet," Dolly said, looking at her brother.

"I dunno," Calvin said carelessly, then, catching the look in his sister's eye, quickly added that Dolly was just as pretty as Mom used to be. Prettier, even.

"Ya know," Helprin said thoughtfully, "real pros have to go all the way."

"I'm not a pro yet," Dolly said, breathing slowly returning to normal. She used her forearm to wipe rivers of sweat and managed to further smear heavily- and inexpertly-applied mascara.

"If ya don't go all the way, ya can't be much of a fuckin' stripper," Helprin opined. "I bet yer fuckin' old lady went all the way, man."

"Yeah," Dolly said defensively, "well, if you guys were paying me, maybe I'd go all the way. Once I go pro and get a gig in Seattle, then I'll go all the way. You can even come and watch. Or watch and cum."

She giggled. That was actually kind of quick. Come and watch, or watch and cum. She'd have to remember to tell it to Maureen and maybe some of the other girls. Dolly didn't often have a bon mot to relate to her friends.

"Maybe you should get in some fuckin' practice," Helprin said, either ignoring the pun or missing it completely. He lit his own cigarette and let it dangle from the corner of his mouth. There was an edge that made his words something a little more than just a casual, friendly suggestion.

"In... In your fuckin' dreams," Dolly answered with a catch in her voice, coming abruptly back to earth. This was, after all, Matt Helprin. You might as well try to trade light-hearted banter with a dyspeptic crocodile. Affecting a casualness she didn't even approach feeling, Dolly turned and bent over to pick up her cotton miniskirt.

Helprin licked his lips, winked at Calvin and grabbed his member through damp denim.

Dolly stepped into her skirt and picked up her thin blouse. Pulling it on, she slid feet back in to sandals and walked over to the bench set against the wall by the door of the shack. Sandal buckles jingled as she slid her feet to keep them on. Her breathing was still a little fast as she sat beside her brother, but it wasn't entirely from exertion. She took a deep breath, pushing ample young breasts against her blouse to tantalize her audience that she, not being the sharpest knife in the drawer, had momentarily forgotten included Helprin. She got an immediate response from that worthy, and it made her stomach sink again. She promptly deflated her chest and tried to make her breasts look smaller. God, she had to watch herself. Pushing out her breasts was as natural to her as breathing, but she didn't want to do anything more to provoke the ugly bastard.

Dolly wiped her face again, then leaned down to buckle her sandals. As she fumbled, she glanced up to see what Helprin was doing. That was when she saw a tattered blue pouch lying open on its side under tarpaulin. A mound of letters spilled from it.

"What the fuck is that?" she asked, nodding at the pouch.

Helprin and her brother exchanged meaningful glances that said this was something out of the ordinary, even for these two.

"It ain't nothing," Jenkins squeaked with a nervous glance at the door, as though G-men were about to break it down. "Just something we found around, you know?"

"So what is it?" Dolly asked again. She wanted to go over and take a closer look. But there was quite often stuff of dubious origin in the mine shack, and it never paid to ask too many questions. Looking at stuff in the shack was something you didn't do unless Helprin invited you. Sometimes the boys would even give her things like CDs or tapes. Or the Mickey Mouse watch she was wearing. Or even, once, when Helprin was high on glue that time, a really nice leather coat. She'd had that for all of three days before Helprin stole it back. The old bag was not in that league, but it was certainly an oddity.

"Nuthin'," Helprin said smugly.

"Come on, Matt, what is it?" Dolly wheedled, knowing Helprin liked to be begged.

"Oh, hell, might as well tell ya," Helprin said with a self-satisfied smirk, "but ya better not tell anybody else, see? It's a mailbag I found over by... up in the hills. An old mailbag. Get it?"

"No," Dolly said. "It's an old mail bag. So what?"

"It's a real old fuckin' mailbag," Helprin smirked.

There was a pregnant silence while Dolly digested that. Calvin mimicked Helprin's self-satisfied smirk and leaned against the rough plank wall, arms crossed on skinny chest. This would be a good one when they sprang it on his sister, and he was savoring the moment. It would sure as hell wipe that superior look off her face. Just because she was older, man.

"I don't get it," Dolly said at last, giving her bubble gum a few tentative chews. She had the definite feeling there was something going on here, and she didn't like not knowing what it was.

"It's a real old fuckin' mailbag," Helprin said, with uncharacteristic patience.

"Yeah," Calvin chimed in, "a real old fuckin' mailbag. We found... I mean, Matt found it over by the lookout, you know?"

"Okay, so it's an old mailbag," Dolly said, still puzzled.

"Oh, for fuck sake," Helprin said with a look of disgust, "it's like maybe more'n 20 fuckin' years old?"

"Just tell me, okay?" Dolly said.

"Come on, Dolly," Calvin said.

"She ain't gonna come on," Helprin said, affecting a look of disgust, "It's a real old fuckin' mailbag and she don't get it."

Dolly, having decided to wait it out, chewed and said nothing. This wasn't working out well at all. She was affording Helprin far too much satisfaction and soggy underwear, working steadily up the crack of her bottom, felt like a wedgie with a wet dishcloth. Fortunately, out-waiting Helprin's patience was never a time-consuming task.

"It's Mailman Mel's bag, get it?" Helprin said after a minute or so had gone by, his voice showing awe in spite of himself.

"M-Mailman Mel?" Dolly asked with a nameless thrill of horror at the mention of The Mailman.

"It's the fuckin' Mailman himself," Helprin said. "It's his bag, man."

"Oh, come on," Dolly said, fear of The Mailman overriding normal wariness around Helprin, "if it was Mailman Mel's bag it'd be like a ghost bag. You could see through it and all, right? Like, they'd be ghost letters?"

Helprin and Jenkins furrowed their brows while they digested that. Jenkins surreptitiously scratched at his groin while Helprin absently picked his chin zit. There was something wrong with this line of reasoning, but they couldn't get a finger on it. A large house fly landed on the mailbag and sat right on the big white "U" of "U.S. Postal Service", rotating its head and rubbing compound eyes with its forelegs. Dolly popped her gum, then cast a quick glance at Helprin to see if the sound had bugged him. The heat inside the shack was stifling, but Helprin and Jenkins, deep in their logical nightmare, didn't seem to notice it.

"Fuckin' mailbags don't die," Helprin pronounced at last.

"Hey, yeah," Jenkins seconded happily. That was it, man. "See, Dolly? It ain't a fuckin' ghost bag because mail bags don't die."

"Then how come when that dumb old geek Thurgood saw Mailman Mel walking up Lake Road that night he had his mailbag?" Dolly asked, skin absolutely crawling.

"I heard that," Calvin said. "It was a full moon and he could see the trees and everything right through The Mailman. And he had these red eyes..."

"Oh, shut up," Dolly laughed nervously. That story had always scared the pee out of her, though she wouldn't admit it.

"When yer a ghost ya look like ya looked when ya died," Helprin pronounced, now on safe logical ground, "But yer clothes an' shit just stay behind, see? Yer ghost has 'em, but it's not really them, see? Just looks like 'em."

"Yeah," Calvin seconded, "It ain't really them. It's just like ya... can see 'em and all, right, Matt? Clothes don't die neither, right? It's just like... what ya looked like, right?"

"That's fuckin' it," Helprin said, "they ain't dead on account a' they don't die, but they're like a fuckin' part of ya. So they're a fuckin' part of yer ghost."

Dolly stared at the bag in awe. Maybe it was the Mailman's. It looked old enough and the letters all looked brittle with age.

"God," she said, crossing herself, "you guys moved this? You stole The Mailman's bag? Jesus, he'll be coming to get it."

Calvin went about six shades of green, starting at the roots of his hair and working down in waves. This was something he'd not thought out. Even Helprin seemed momentarily nonplused.

"N- naw," Jenkins managed at last, "M-Matt?"

"Naw," Helprin agreed, "He has his ghost bag, right? He don't need no real bag."

"Maybe he won't like having it moved," Dolly said, pleased that, for once, she was upsetting Helprin.

"If he gave a shit about it, he'd have come around here last night," Helprin said, "and he fuckin' didn't. We was here till after midnight, right Cal?"

"Yeah," Calvin said, "we was here till after midnight and The Mailman didn't come around. He didn't." The thought that they'd been there till after midnight and The Mailman hadn't paid them a visit seemed to comfort Calvin as much as the notion that the specter might have visited upset him.

"Maybe he couldn't find this place," Dolly said, "maybe he's still out there looking. Maybe you guys will be here and he'll come floatin' through the wall with them fuckin' glowin' eyes and them scars on his face. That 'C' and 'M'. "

"Naw," Calvin said, "It was a big 'H' and an 'S' cut right into his fuckin' cheeks."

"No, it wasn't," Dolly said, "his cousin was Charles Manson. It was a 'C' and an 'M' for Charles Manson."

"Yeah," Helprin said, "His fuckin' cousin did that. But it was 'H' and 'S'. Don't matter none, anyway. He ain't comin'."

"How do you know?' Dolly challenged.

"Because he knows every square inch of these mountains, man," Helprin said, "if he wannit t'find this place, he'd fuckin' be here."

Dolly gazed at the mail sack. Of all the many and varied things that Helprin and her brother had done, this took the cake. This was absolutely incredible. They had found Mailman Mel's bag and brought it to the mine shack.

In spite of her apprehension, Dolly walked over to the table, squatting on her heels to take a closer look at the mound of letters. Helprin squatted on the other side so he could take a closer look up Dolly's skirt. Even though h e had just seen her strip to her panties, it was better when he could get a surreptitious peek up her skirt.

"God, Mailman Mel," Dolly whispered, goose flesh prickling arms and breasts. Trying to control her shivering, she picked up several envelopes. It took a few moments because she was a slow reader, but at last she was satisfied that all postmarks were in June of 1975. Almost exactly 23 years old.

Holy Cow, this really was his mail bag. Luxuriant hair rose on the back of Dolly's neck. Was this spooky or what?

"Whereabouts did you get it?" she asked.

"Found it," Helprin said evasively.

"Up by the lookout, you know, there's this rock got a ledge..." Calvin began.

"Shut the fuck up," Helprin said, "It don't matter where we found it, man. We found it. That's all anybody got to know."

"Yeah," Calvin said, "it don't matter. We thought there might be money in summa the letters, so we brought it back here. But there wasn't any." The last bit was added quite quickly upon a dark look from Helprin.

Popping her gum and taking a huge risk, Dolly picked up several more opened letters and examined the addresses.

"Jeez," she said, "Here's one to old Filbert. She died last year."

"Yeah?" asked Helprin, who hadn't bothered to read addresses, "wasn't nothin' in that one. Just a fuckin letter or somethin'."

"It's a birthday card," Dolly said.

Handling the letters wasn't so very bad. They were quite solid and real. Not ghost letters at all. Setting the old bag upright, she grabbed mail by the handful and stuffed it back where it belonged. Then, again taking quite a chance with Helprin, she didn't even ask permission to drag the pouch to the bench.

Maybe she could actually deliver the mail. Maybe The Mailman's ghost could rest if the mail got delivered. Maybe it would even become her friend. Dolly wasn't at all sure she wanted The Mailman's ghost as a friend, but it would certainly keep this creep Helprin away.

Sitting on the bench with the mail bag between long, supple legs, chewing and unconsciously taking deep breaths to make her breasts stand out like her mother's in those old pictures, Dolly began idly taking the crinkly letters out, puzzling out the addressee on each, then putting it aside on the bench. It was kind of like history. Most of the people named on the envelopes were still alive, but there were a few deaders and a few names she didn't even recognize. Probably people who moved away before she was born.

It was probably good for her peace of mind that puzzling out addresses kept her too occupied to see greed and lust in Helprin's eyes.

After about a dozen letters, Dolly became bored . This was worse than her remedial reading class. She popped gum and began stirring the pile with her feet. The letters felt dry and crinkly, like old leaves. Kind of weird. She picked a thick envelope up with her toes, flipped it into the air and gave the pile a last little kick, exposing one that stood out from the others. A flimsy blue airmail envelope sporting several colorful stamps. Dolly leaned over for a closer look. One of the stamps bore a picture of a tiger standing in tall grass. Dolly liked tigers and, even though this one was kind of small, she wouldn't mind having it. Maybe the person who was supposed to get this would let her have the stamp. She scooped the letter and smoothed it over her thigh, then, lips moving as she sounded out the words, read the address. Her eyes suddenly widened. Written in a bold, heavy, man's hand was:

Mrs. Celia Larsen
210225 Snoqualmie Way
Tipple, WA 90223

Trembling, Dolly extracted the letter from the already-opened envelope, making Helprin straighten up and take notice.

"Hey, you find any fuckin' money it's ours, man," he said.

"It ain't money, Matt," Dolly said in an ingratiating tone, "It's just an old letter. I just want to read it."

"I don't give a fuck what you read," Helprin grunted, subsiding, "just if you find any fuckin' money, it's mine."

"Sure, Matt," Dolly said, smoothing the letter out over her knee, "I don't want any money. I just want to read this letter. Okay?"

"I don't give a fuck what you read," Helprin affirmed, clearly disappointed that Dolly hadn't found money he'd somehow missed.

Lips moving as she traced words with a finger, Dolly worked her way down the single sheet. Her eyes got progressively wider. When she finished, she carefully folded the letter and inserted it in its envelope. She slipped the envelope into the waistband of her skirt, causing Helprin's eyebrows to rise. He seemed on the point of objecting, then and went back to watching Dolly's tits. They were lovely, firm little mounds with perky nipples and perfect aureoles, and he was just itching to get his hands on them.

Dolly, in the meantime, started pawing through the rest of the letters.

Near the bottom of the sack, she found what she'd been looking for B another blue airmail envelope with the same array of stamps and addressed in the same bold, dark handwriting:

Mrs. Samantha Bentley,
No. 1 Bentley Drive,
Tipple, WA 90200

Its letter was extracted with the same care and read with the same avid interest. At length, nervous but excited, Dolly tucked the second envelope into her waistband.

"Well, I got to be going. Got a babysitting gig," she said, stretching and trying to look completely casual.

"Yeah," Helprin said, "well, this ain't a fuckin' library. You can leave them fuckin' letters here. We found 'em."

"Come on, Matt, it's just a couple of letters," Dolly said with a jocularity and confidence she didn't feel, as she stepped towards the door.

Helprin was mentally a bit challenged sometimes, but far from physically slow. Leaping between Dolly and the door, he grabbed the letters from her waistband and held them out of her reach.

"Hey, what the fuck, Matt?" Calvin spluttered in surprise, "it's just a couple of fuckin' letters."

"You ain't takin' them fuckin' letters," Helprin said.

"Yes, I am," Dolly said, trying to grab the letters back from Helprin.

"No, you fuckin' ain't," Helprin said, pushing Dolly back.

In years long gone by, Dolly, who was a year older than Helprin, had often pushed him around, even beat him up a couple of times. The Pavlovian memory of those childhood beatings might have acted as a brake on Helprin, but the push confirmed, in a split instant, that the old dynamic had long ago irrevocably changed.

Dolly pouted and put on her best little girl act.

"Come on, Matt," she pleaded, "It's just a couple of letters and I like them. Come on, huh? Please?"

Unfortunately, begging gave Matt Helprin another huge erection. The sight made Dolly very nervous.

"Okay," Helprin said after a pause for thought.

"Okay?" Dolly asked, hope dawning in her big brown eyes, which she blinked a couple of times for effect, "I can take them?"

"Yeah," Helprin said, making no move to stand away from the door, "Sure you can take 'em. But after you do another strip for us. That's when you can fuckin' take 'em."

Dolly, glancing again at Helprin's erection, was not completely thrilled with the idea of doing another strip tease, but the letters were a powerful incentive and she would never get them out of the shack without Helprin's permission.

"Okay," she said sullenly, "I'll do another one."

"All the way," Helprin crowed triumphantly, springing his carefully-laid trap.

"Wh-what?"

"You got to go all the way," Helprin said, "you got to take it all off if you want these fuckin' letters."

"I ain't takin' everything off for you, Matt Helprin," Dolly said.

"Then you ain't takin' the fuckin' letters," Helprin responded quickly. It was a pretty simple equation, even for him.

"How about if I just take my bra off?" Dolly asked. "Bare tits?"

"Fuckin' all of it," Helprin said, "that's the deal. You got to go all the fuckin' way."

Even Dolly could clearly see the dangers of stripping to the buff in a lonely mountain shack with the likes of Matt Helprin. On the other hand, her brother was there. And Helprin wouldn't do anything with her brother right there, would he?

And paradoxically, too, the thought of peeling right to the buff in front of a dangerous kid like Helprin was really exciting in that visceral way. Like what Mom said about peeling in that biker bar in Tijuana. Her mouth felt cottony and her stomach was doing that familiar, almost delicious sinking thing.

"Well?" Helprin said, his limited patience wearing thin, "Ya gonna or not?"

"I'm thinking, okay?"

"Ya want the fuckin' letters?"

"Okay," Dolly said grudgingly, "but just this once, okay?"

"Sure," Helprin said. But somehow that loose-lipped grin was not at all comforting to Dolly.

"And that's it. Just a strip."

"Cross my fuckin' heart," Helprin said, trying to look innocent.

"Okay," she said grudgingly, "but I get the letters. No bullshit, Matt. I get the letters."

"Okay, okay, you get the fuckin' letters. Do it, Cal."

Her brother started the music again and Dolly began her strip tease. This was it. This time she was going all the way. Right to the bare. She was trembling so badly she had trouble controlling her legs, but she was getting excited all the same.

Once again the blouse went, and then her patented three-step and the skirt was gone. She was sweating heavily in the baking heat, her hair glistening in the afternoon sunlight streaming though the window. She reached back for her bra clasp, then hesitated. This was going to be bare. She was going to take off her bra and panties in front of Matt Helprin. Her fingers fumbled with the clasp, then fell away as she did another bump and grind.

Then she looked over at Helprin, who held the letters up in front of his face, waving them seductively.

The message was crystal clear and Dolly's fingers went back to her bra clasp. This time she unhooked it and swept it off. It was the first time outside the privacy of her hot little attic bedroom that she had ever done that, so the action was just a bit clumsy. But her breasts felt free and she grabbed them, lifting the tight, compact globes and wriggling them at Helprin as she danced almost within reach.

"Fuckin' A," Helprin shouted happily, his grin becoming more lopsided and the bulge in his jeans even more pronounced.

Getting out of her panties was a little more difficult for Dolly, but, to Helprin's obvious delight, she managed it. Calvin didn't seem unhappy, either.

And there it was. She had done it. She was as naked as the day she'd been born. And that fulfilled her end of the bargain. Dolly stopped her dance well before the end of the tape selection.

"That's it," she said, covering her pubic area with her one hand and her breasts with the other, "I did it. Now gimme the letters, Matt."

"Hey, that's too fuckin' short," Helprin said, "you gotta dance some more. Come on, you stupid bitch, dance."

Dolly didn't like being called a stupid bitch, but there was something in Helprin's narrow, pale blue eyes that made her think twice about a hot retort. Made her think twice about any retort at all.

"Okay," she said sullenly, "but I gotta go soon because... because I gotta babysit. Yeah. I gotta babysit."

Helprin, for an answer, reached down and adjusted his erection. He was smiling, but his eyes weren't. Dolly found she couldn't look at those any more. They were the shallow, lifeless eyes of a born killer.

Dolly went back to her dancing. Though she didn't have any real enthusiasm for it, it wasn't allthat bad, being naked like this. It was kind of exciting, really. She looked over at her brother and saw he was sitting with his legs crossed and his hands over his privates. Obviously hiding his own erection. Strangely, though, his eyes seemed more on Helprin than on his sister.

The tape came to and end, and Dolly managed, as always, to end right on the beat.

"Okay, that's it," she said, gasping for breath, "now you got to gimme the letters, Matt."

Helprin very deliberately placed the letters beside him on the window sill. Then he crossed his arms, making his biceps bulge and showing off the runes and wire.

"You gotta come over here and get them," Helprin said.

Dolly reached for her panties, lying crumpled on the floor.

"No, you gotta get the fuckin' letters before you get dressed," Helprin stipulated. "You gotta come over here naked like now an' get the fuckin' letters."

"That's all?" Dolly said warily.

"Swear to Christ and spit to die," Helprin said.

Dolly, resolving not to let Helprin put her off, squared her shoulders, thrust out her breasts defiantly, and strolled negligently over to the window. When she got close to Helprin she smelled acrid sweat mixed with some sort of hair oil. Avoiding his eyes, she reached for the letters and yelped when his powerful hand shot out like lightning and closed on her wrist. She tried to pull away, but Helprin held her effortlessly.

"Just one other thing," he said, his own breathing fast and ragged, "ya gotta let me cop a feel."

"No fuckin' way," Dolly said indignantly, trying to pull away, "you promised."

"Had my fuckin' fingers crossed, " Helprin said. "Ya gonna let me cop a feel or what?"

"Get your hands off me, Matt," Dolly said, trying to make her voice sound tough and confident. Instead it came out in a terrified squeak. "Ow, Matt, that hurts," she added, prying at Helprin's fingers sunk deep into her flesh.

"Yeah, fuck you, bitch," Helprin suddenly snarled, slapping her across the face and spinning her around, then shoving her roughly to hands and knees. In a flash his hand went to his pocket and there was a glittering blur of steel as the switchblade snapped open. An instant later it was against Dolly's neck, the razor sharp, cold cutting edge freezing her. Then Helprin was using his free hand to undo his heavy belt and zipper. Out of the corner of eyes wide with terror, Dolly saw Calvin getting up. Thank god, her brother was coming to her rescue.

A moment later her hopes were dashed when she saw that all Calvin was really doing was moving to a better vantage point.

God damn that little bastard!

Jesus, wait till she told Daddy.

Of course, that would also involve telling Juke Jenkins what she had been doing in the mine shack, so maybe it wouldn't hurt Daddy to remain uninformed.

She gasped as Helprin drove deep, grunting and puffing. In her peripheral vision she could see her brother standing there, mouth open and hand on his own stiff member, watching as Matt Helprin raped his own sister.

It didn't last very long. Eight or ten strokes, then she felt the hot flood of Helprin's ejaculation deep inside and heard his strangled moan. In the throes of his climax, Helprin dropped the knife and Dolly, without thinking, swept it away. It slid end for end across the rough pine boards and disappeared down a gap near the wall where part of a board was missing.

Helprin, not noticing that his knife was gone, pulled out and hauled up his Fruit of the Looms and jeans.

"You can... fuckin' get dressed," he said unsteadily.

Dolly slowly got to her feet, more furious than traumatized. It was far from the first time she had been raped. In fact, Daddy took care of that little chore about three times a week, whenever he happened to be sober enough. And she had been pretty hot anyway, so it hadn't hurt. She didn't even care that her brother had been watching.

It was just... just that she hadn't told Helprin he could do that.

That was it.

If she'd wanted him to do that, she'd have told him so.

She picked up her clothes and dressed slowly. The air in the shack was stifling and it took some effort to pull her blouse over her sweating torso. Her clothes were very uncomfortable, and that added to her growing annoyance. As she bent over to adjust her sandals again, she saw that her knees were abraded and several large slivers had driven into her flesh. Even as she noticed the damage, they started stinging.

Muttering "ouch" and "owww" under her breath, Dolly pulled out several of the larger ones, but there were still some that were right under the skin and unreachable without a needle and tweezers.

At last, dressed and pretending indifference to the flat, reptilian stare of Helprin and the curious gaze of her brother, Dolly picked up the two envelopes. They were hers. She'd earned them. Holding her head high, she stuffed them back into the waistband of her skirt and strode to the cabin door.

"You better keep your fuckin' mouth shut," Helprin said suddenly. "You say a fuckin' word about this and you're dead meat."

Dolly walked out, getting about three paces before building resentment got the better of her.

"Fuck you, Helprin!" she shouted, turning back to the humid darkness of the little shack, "you fuckin' asshole!"

She was dimly aware of a younger boy standing nearby on the porch, staring at her with wide eyes and an equally wide open mouth. Marvin Hampton. He'd evidently been watching the whole performance through a large knothole. Just what she needed. Marvin Hampton watching her get fucked by Matt Helprin.

As she turned, the two letters fell from her waistband and landed on the porch, by chance more or less side by side and face up. There was a tramping and Helprin appeared in the doorway. Dolly hurriedly scooped the letters and turned on her heels, walking quickly and firmly off the porch and across the old mine yard, trying to keep her bottom from twitching under her tiny skirt and ready to start sprinting if she heard the crunch of Helprin's Doc Martens on Draw Slate that largely covered the yard.

At the head of Old Mine Road, she risked a look back, still prepared for flight if Helprin was anywhere in the yard. But the door was closed and Helprin was nowhere to be seen. Her bicycle was propped against the shack and, for a moment, she contemplated going back to get it. But that would put her within Helprin's range. Hampton was still standing on the porch, but she didn't think she had time to wait while he fetched it for her. No, the bicycle was going to have to wait for another day.

"Fuck you, Helprin", she screamed, flipping a bird at the silent shack. "Fuck you, you fuckin' retard! You fuckin' moron asshole!"

She set off down the road, picking her way over deep, dry potholes and around scrub bushes growing from the embankment on the uphill side. As the shack was lost to sight she started to feel a good deal better. The rape hadn't been all that uncomfortable and she had the precious letters stuck securely in her waistband. And she'd told that moron asshole Helprin where to get off, too.

She hauled the letters out of her waistband.

God, this was just so incredible.

Two letters from Mailman Mel's pouch and she had them.

And what unbelievable letters!

Her good feeling didn't last as she ran a finger over the addresses. What if the ghost of Mailman Mel didn't want anyone to take his letters?

She looked wildly around, halfway expecting to see some transparent apparition materialize on the roadway. But she was alone on this suddenly spooky sidehill under a blasting summer sun that seemed to have totally lost its heat. She shivered and quickened her pace as much as she could over the treacherous little road. It didn't help that she was wearing light-soled sandals. She could feel every sharp little pebble through the thin leather and her feet hurt. Within a hundred yards, her progress slowed to a painful hobble.

Inside the cabin, the enormity of what had happened was beginning to dawn on Helprin and Jenkins.

"God, what if she tells?" Jenkins bleated, "what if she tells the old man? He'll fuckin' kill me, man. If that bitch talks I'm a dead man."

"She's been fucked before," Helprin pointed out, helpfully.

"Not like he knows," Jenkins replied, ashen-faced, "he don't know nobody... nobody else fucked her."

"No shit?" Helprin asked, interest piqued, "That shit's true? Yer ol' man fucks yer sister?"

"Yeah, but he don't like nobody else doin' it," Jenkins said, "he was gonna kill Vanton for just touchin' her tits over her fuckin' blouse, man."

"She'll keep her fuckin' mouth shut," Helprin predicted with no great confidence. Even Helprin didn't like the notion of Juke Jenkins finding out he'd fucked the man's daughter. Against her will too, sort of. Juke, along with a love of country music, had brought from his youth a violent temper and a fairly extensive gun collection.

"You fuckin' want to bet?" Jenkins squeaked. "Oh, yeah, man, maybe she won't tell the old man, but she'll tell all her fuckin' friends. How long do you fuckin' think before the cops are after us?'

"We got to do something," Helprin concluded after some thought.

"Do fuckin' what?" Jenkins said, chewing on his knuckle, "we got nothing to pay her with, man."

"We ain't payin' her," Helprin said, "we're gonna shut her up. Permanent."

"K-kill her?"

"Yeah, kill her. What do you think, you dumb fuck? We gotta stop her from talkin'."

"She's my fuckin' sister," Jenkins said.

"So what?" Helprin growled, pacing around the shack, "where's my fuckin' knife, man? Where's my fuckin' knife?"

Helprin's pacing grew more agitated. He kicked the makeshift table, knocking tarpaulin and planks off the oil drums with a tremendous crash. Momentarily forgetting the mailbag's genesis, he took another kick that sent it the length of the shack, trailing letters in a rustling avalanche. Helprin did not cope well with frustration.

"Where's my fuckin' knife?" he shrieked.

"I don't fuckin' know!" Jenkins shrieked back.

"Fuck, we gotta shut that bitch up," Helprin yelled.

Jenkins, brotherly instincts at last aroused, sprang in front of the door.

"Leave her alone, Helprin," he quavered, raising trembling fists, "Just leave her the fuck alone."

Helprin stopped in his tracks, stunned that Calvin Jenkins, of all assholes, would dare tell him what to do.

"Hey," he said in bewilderment, "hey, fuck you, man. Get the fuck out of my way."

"Leave her alone, Helprin," Jenkins managed, face pale and eyes wide.

"Get out of my fuckin' way," Helprin said, after due consideration. He grabbed Jenkins by the shoulders, intending to throw the smaller boy out of his way and get on with the business of shutting Dolly Jenkins up, permanently.

But instead of allowing himself to be flung aside as usual, Calvin Jenkins fired a perfect, three-point straight right hand to Helprin's nose. Helprin's head snapped and he took a step backwards, the bust in the snot box causing his eyes to tear. He stood there for a moment, staring in disbelief at Jenkins, then his nose began to bleed. Heavily.

"Fuck," he muttered, grabbing his beak and hauling a well-used wad of Kleenex from his pocket, "I'm gonna kill you for that, you little motherfucker. Just as soon as I take care of yer fuckin' bitch sister."

He made a move to go around Jenkins, but Jenkins, having had a taste of battle, was in no mood to let him pass. He stepped in front of Helprin, again raising his fists.

For an answer, Helprin, who was completely distracted by the whole Dolly Jenkins fiasco, merely dropped the bloody Kleenex and threw two heavy punches to Jenkins' mid section, dropping him to the dirty cabin floor. As Calvin flopped about like a cod on a chopping block, gasping and wheezing, Helprin raced across the porch, barely noticing a stunned Marvin Hampton watching in wide-eyed wonder.

Once in the mine yard, he glanced desperately around for inspiration, then picked up a two-foot piece of rusted pipe that had been lying in a pile of old pipe and wire near the cabin entrance. Swinging it in short, vicious arcs, Helprin started across the yard, then ploughed to a halt, spun and bounded back to the cabin, grabbing the startled and horrified Marvin Hampton by his shirt front.

"If you say fuckin' anythin' about this, to anybody, I'll fuckin' kill you," he said, pushing his face within a few inches of Hampton's. Letting the younger boy go, Helprin ran across the mine yard to the forest, taking a shortcut that would head Dolly off at the bottom of Old Mine Road.

Hampton and Jenkins, who, still sobbing for breath, had managed to get to his feet and was leaning against the door, watched with relief as Helprin disappeared. Hampton actually hadn't been able to take in much, but what he had managed to see and hear had been profoundly interesting.

"Holy shit," Bruce Murchison opined, crouching for a really good look at the skull while carefully keeping his distance. His face, under heavy freckling, was pale and his mouth hung open. He'd thought this was just more Matt Helprin bullshit. Right to the moment he'd seen those empty eye sockets.

"Let me see," said Jeremy Vanton, trying to push in beside Murchison.

"Me, too." This from Clyde Hemmings.

Standing to one side, proud but nervous discoverers, were Matt Helprin and Calvin Jenkins. Mailman Mel had been just too good to be kept to themselves. It had taken only a couple of days for their resolve to keep the mailman a secret to erode at least enough to let some of the other guys in on it.

"Jesus Christ," Murchison said, straightening up and letting the other two crowd in for a look, "I bet it is The Mailman."

"Hey, shit," said Hemmings, "we ought to take him back to the clubhouse, man."

"Fuck you," Murchison said, "this guy was Charles Manson's fuckin' cousin, man. Killed them kids and all. Ate their guts and everything. You don't fuck with The Mailman."

"Oh, yeah?"

"You wanna touch him, Hemmings, you asshole? You want his fuckin' ghost coming after you?"

Normally Helprin would have stepped in with the final word, or at least helped beat up the debater he least liked, but these were not normal times. For a change, he had other things on his mind. One of them, hollow-eyed from lack of sleep, was standing right beside him.

"Dolly ain't been home," Jenkins said, keeping his voice low so the discussion group around the skull couldn't hear him.

Helprin looked as enigmatic as it was possible for him to look.

"Did you do it? Did you really do it?" Jenkins inquired.

"What do you fuckin' think?" Helprin said, smiling an enigmatic smile.

"Oh, fuck, man, fuck," Jenkins moaned, almost loud enough for the others to hear. In fact, had they not been mesmerized by the The Mailman's earthly remains, they probably would have heard.

With a furtive glance at the three, who had edged well away from the skull and begun to swap Mailman Mel stories in order to scare shit out of each other, Helprin gently took Jenkins by the throat and squeezed till the younger boy's eyes popped.

"You better not say nothin', man," he hissed, "ever. Not unless you want to go with your fuckin' sister."

Jenkins, choking, managed to ask where Helprin had hidden the body of his dear sister, though he didn't use those exact words.

"In a safe fuckin' place," was all Helprin would say.