Free When the Women Come out to Dance (2002) by Elmore Leonard Page A

be fixing her face to go to work at Betty' s Hair Salon, and Bowman would say, "Who you think you are , Ava Gardner? You don't look nothing like her."
    Ava had quit trying to get it through his head no on e ever said she did. The day she was born her daddy named he r Ava on account of Ava Gardner saying she was a country gir l at heart with a country girl's values. He had read it somewhere and believed it and would remind her as she was growing up, "See, even a good-looking woman don't have to put on airs."
    She married Bowman a year out of high school because h e was cute, because he was sure of himself and told her he' d never work in a goddamn coal mine. He'd wear the blue an d white of the University of Kentucky and after that get drafte d by a pro team; he wouldn't mind the Cowboys. But college s either wouldn't accept his grades or didn't think he was goo d enough. He blamed her for their getting married and takin g his mind off staying in shape so he could try out at som e school as a walk-on. She said, "Honey, if your grade-point average sucks . . ." Uh-unh, that had nothing to do with it, it was her fault. Everything was. It was her fault he had to di g coal. Her own fault he hit her. If she didn't nag at him h e wouldn't have to. Unless he slapped her for the way she wa s looking at him. He'd start drinking Jim Beam and Die t Coke--ate like a hog and drank diet soda--and she'd see i t coming as his disposition turned from stupid to ugly an d pretty soon he'd be slapping her, hard. She ran way to Corbi n and got a job at the Holiday Inn waiting tables. Bowma n found her and brought her back saying he missed her an d would try to tolerate her acting up. It was her fault she miscarried after he'd beat her with his belt. Her fault h e didn't have a son he could take hunting with him and hi s creepy brother. She told Bowman there were times he wasn' t home Boyd would stop by wanting a drink, and if she gav e him one he'd start getting funny, "your own brother." Bowman whipped her for telling him, kept after her with his belt till she fell and hit her head on the stove.
    This was the other night. She got up from the floor knowing he would never hit her again.
    The next day, Saturday, he walked in smelling of beer an d gunfire, like nothing had happened the night before. She ha d his supper on the table, ham and yams, cream-style corn an d leftover okra fixed with tomatoes, because she wanted him sitting down. Once he'd poured his Jim Beam and Diet Coke and took his place at the table, Ava went in the kitchen close t and came out with Bowman's Winchester. He looked up an d said with his mouth full of sweet potato what sounded lik e "The hell you doing with that?"
    Ava said, "I'm gonna shoot you, you dummy," and she did , blew him out of the chair.
    When the prosecutor asked if she had loaded the rifle before firing it, she paused no more than a second before telling him Bowman always kept it loaded.
    Raylan was told Bowman himself couldn't fin d his house when he was drunk. Go on up along the Clove r Fork, or take the Gas Road out to the diversion tunnels an d turn right down to a road bears east where a sign says JESUS SAVES, and it ain't far; start looking for a red Dodge pickup i n the yard.
    It was one-story with aluminum awnings set high amon g pines. Raylan got out of the Lincoln Town Car--one Art ha d taken off some convicted felon and given to Raylan to use-GCo a nd crossed the yard past the Dodge pickup to the front door.
    It opened and he was looking at a woman in a soile d T-shirt worn over an old housedress that hung on her, her dar k hair a mess. Ava was forty now, but he knew those eyes starin g at him and she knew him, saying, "Oh my God--Raylan," i n kind of a prayerful tone.
    He stepped into a room with bare walls, worn carpeting, a sofa. "You remember me, huh?"
    Ava pushed the door closed. She said, "I never forgot you," a nd went into his arms as he offered them, a girl he used t o like now a woman who'd