The Beet Fields (13 page)
Authors: Gary Paulsen
“But Taylor—“
She stopped again, looked at the boy. “We ain't talking about him. There's him and there's me and we're talking about me. You're worried about him, stay the hell away.”
There was nothing that could have kept him away—not a thing in the world.
He didn't wait the ten minutes but was at the trailer door when she came from the kootch tent, caught in the hot night, caught in lust, caught in a curiosity so intense, an anticipation so agonizing, so driven, he thought he would explode and die before she came to the trailer and took him iriside.
Her world, her life, were there in the small camper lit by a flyspecked bulb.
A makeup table at one end, a bed at the other.
He stared at the bed.
She never said a word. With one hand she guided him to the bed and with the other unzipped his pants and then she was on the bed and he was with her, oh her, in her, around her, trying to do and be all the things he had heard about in all the pool halls and all the bowling alleys and all the school hallways, in all the tall tales and lies told by all the boys who would be men.
It was all of time in the trailer, all of all the time there was.
“Once for you,” Ruby said, smiling and helping him rush, rush though never in such a hurry, never wanting something to start and never never end. “And once forme…”
It was the once for Ruby that lived, lives forever. The first to make him hurry and not believe and scream and, with corded neck, almost
die
— the first to end forever his boyhood and give him wonder the rest of life.
But the second to remember, to remember all the big and little things outside and inside.
A lamp in the shape of a palomino pony next to the narrow bed with the pink spread and glamour magazines (did any woman ever need them less?) scattered along a cjrude shelf on the wall and an old pair of drum majorette's boots with tassels in a corner and beer cans on windowsills with lipstick around the punched holes and a table with a round mirror stacked and covered with jars of cream and beauty oin“I'ments and oils and feminine mysteries and a clock set in the belly of a ceramic black panther with the hands stuck at 9:20 and clothing draped over books and chairs, clothing that rode next to
her
skin,
her
body, and cheap wood paneling on the walls and ceiling and the light from the carnival filtering through tired shades over slatted windows cranked up to let in all the noise, music, screaming, pulsing
noise,
of the midway while sinking into the wetness, the forever-warm wetness of Ruby.
Ruby.
T
HE RECRUITER SAT LIKE A SMUG PIMP
.
“You're seventeen?”
The boy nodded.
“And these are your parents' or guardians' signatures stating they'll allow you to enlist in the United States Army?”
Another nod. This time the lie didn't show through the nod and the boy didn't think it would matter anyway. They'd taken a boy he knew who couldn't read and another he knew who was given the choice between the army and prison. How fussy could they be?
The recruiter studied him. He was a sergeant. Impossibly neat. Impossibly clean.
“What branch?”
“I don't know what you mean. I thought I was enlisting in the army.”
“Yes, but
in
the army there are the cavalry and the artillery and the signal corps and the infantry. Which one do you want?”
The boy shrugged. “I don't know.”
The tight smile, the pimp smile. “Can you shoot a rifle?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I'll put you down for the infantry. That's the best branch—all the promotions go for the infantry.”
“Fine.”
“You'll like the infantry.”
“Fine.”
“It'll do you a world of good.”
Gary Paulsen
is the distinguished author of many critically acclaimed books for young people, including threeNewbery Honor books:
The Winter Room Hatchet
änd
Dogsong.
His novel
The Haymmdow
received the Western Writers of America Golden Spur Award. Among his newest Delacorte Press books are
Alida's Song
(a companion to
The Cookcamp)/Soldier's Heart, The Transall Saga, My Life in Dog Years, Sarny: A Life Remembered
(a companion to
Nightjohn), Brian's Return
and
Brian's Winter
(companions to
Hatchet), Father Water, Mother Woods: Essays on Fishing and Hunting in the North Woods
and five books about Francis Tucket's adventures in the Old West. Gary Paulsen has also published fiction and nohfiction for adults, as well as picture books illustrated by his wife, the painter Ruth Wright Paulsen. Their most recent book is
Canoe Days,
The Paulsens live in New Mexico and on the Pacific Ocean.
Published by
Dell Laurel-Leaf
an imprint of
Random House Children's Books
a division of Random House, Inc.
1540 Broadway
New York, New York 10036
Copyright © 2000 by Gary Paulsen
All rights reserved. No part of diis book may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without the written permission
of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address Deläcorte
Press, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.
The trademarks Laurel-Leaf Library® and Dell® are registered in die U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office and in other countries.
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www.randomhouse.com
/teens
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www.randomhouse.com
/teachers
Check out Gary Paulsen's Weh site!
www.garypaulsen.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-51402-8
RL:6.3
January 2002
OPM
v3.0