“I ain’t gonna hurt her, honey, not for all the treasure in the worl’. Said I wouldn’t hurt your baby, not for diamonds or for pearls. Only one black-hearted bastard dare to touch that little girl.”
She led the band to the turnaround once more, then into another verse. Not one you’d find in any written version of the song, though:
“I ain’t gonna hurt her, honey,
not for all the treasure in the worl’.
Said I wouldn’t hurt your baby,
not for diamonds or for pearls.
Only one black-hearted bastard
dare to touch that little girl.”
The crowd roared as if it were the funniest thing they’d ever heard, but Kyra began to cry. Sara saw this and stuck out her breasts—much bigger breasts than Mattie’s—and shook them at her, laughing her trademark laugh as she did. There was a parodic coldness about this gesture . . . and an emptiness, too. A sadness. Yet I could feel no compassion for her. It was as if the heart had been burned out of her and the sadness which remained was just another ghost, the memory of love haunting the bones of hate.
