When I found out from the lady clearing away breakfast where Bobby was, I went up to his room and knocked on the door. He was still asleep, but it would be better to settle the new things I had been thinking about with him now than later. I kept knocking, and after a time he came.
I sat down in a rocking chair and he sat on the bed.
“First of all,” I said, “I need some clothes. You probably ought to have some too, if we’ve got enough money. Your clothes are in better shape than mine, so you go out and get me some pants—blue jeans are all right—and a shirt. Get yourself whatever you need, and, if you’ve got anything left, buy me some shoes. Brogans.”
“OK. There ought to be a hardware store right around here. In this town, everything is right around here.”
“Now listen, one more time. We’re all right so far; we’re golden. Lewis is getting taken care of, and our stories—or maybe I should say our story—is going over. I didn’t see a flicker of doubt in anybody’s eye. Did you?”
“I don’t think so, but I’m not as sure as you are. Did that one guy ask you about the canoes?”
“No. What guy? What about the canoes?”
“The little old guy who’s some sort of local lawman. He asked me about the other canoe: where was it, when did we lose it, what was in it.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him what we agreed to tell him: that we lost it in that last bad place.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“No, I don’t have any idea what he was getting at.”
“I do,” I said, “at least I think I do, and it could be trouble; maybe not real trouble, but trouble.”
“Why, for the Lord’s sake?”
“Because we lost the green canoe the day before yesterday and it, or part of it, might even have been found before we got to the place where we said we lost it.”
“Jesus!”
“We’ll have to try to patch it up, then. It’s likely that this little guy is going to get the word around to the state police that something doesn’t jibe in our story, and then they’ll be asking all of us questions. Remember your movies; police like to separate suspects and try to get them to contradict each other. So we’ve just got to sit here right now and become contradict-proof.”
“Can we do it?”
“We have to try. I think we can. Let’s go back. We lost the other canoe when Drew was really killed, right?”
“Right. There’s nobody who can argue with that. But if we take them up there, or if they go up there …”
“Now wait a minute. We’ll say we spilled first a long ways upriver and that’s where we lost the green canoe and Lewis was hurt. But we all survived and tried to make it downriver in Lewis’ canoe. We were overloaded and taking chances trying to get Lewis out and just couldn’t control the canoe when we hit the bad rapids. That last half-mile of falls got us, and Drew didn’t make it. Now stay with that. Stay with it. If we do we’ll make it home tomorrow night, or—maybe even tonight.”
“Suppose they don’t believe us? What am I going to say when that little rat-faced bastard faces me up to telling him where I said we lost the canoe?”
“Tell him—and anybody else around—that he misread you. Was there anybody else listening to you when he was talking to you yesterday?”
“No, I don’t believe so.”
“That’s good. And I don’t think I let it slip to that first trooper. Anyway, it’s more likely than not that he won’t ask you, but will come around and ask me. When he does, I’ll let him have it. I’m ready for him. I’m sure glad you told me about him. I sure am.”
“Is that all we have to change?”
“As far as I can tell,” I said.
“Again, Ed, what if they don’t believe us? What if there’s just enough doubt so that they go looking farther up?”
“Then, like I said, we may be in some trouble. But I don’t think they will. Look, there are an awful lot of falls and rapids we came down day before yesterday. It could have happened anywhere up there. And the place where Drew was killed—and the part where we sunk that other guy—was right where the banks of the gorge are the highest and steepest. The only three ways to get there are upriver, which would make the whole search party have to fight rapids after rapids for hour after hour and probably day after day, searching the river in the rapids and between them foot by foot, and they’re not going to want to take that on, just because one local guy disbelieves a survivor’s story. An outboard wouldn’t stand a chance in that stuff, and anything else’d be too heavy for the shallows. The other way is downstream, and if they came that way they’d have to run the same rapids we did, and you know what they’re like. How’d you like to have to do that again? They’d be risking their lives, and it just wouldn’t be worth it. Besides, how could they be doing that and searching too?”
“They could search in the calm places, and that’s where Drew is.”
“Right; in one of them. But which one?”
“All right,” he said. “I guess all right, anyway.”
“The only other way in is to come down the cliff. But they’d have to go down and come up it time after time, and they wouldn’t do much of that, I can tell you. They might start out doing it, but they wouldn’t keep on.”
“What if they went that far back and found the broken rope?”
“Chances are they wouldn’t. The rope broke at the very top and there’s a lot of cliff. Anyway, there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.”
“Is that all, now?”
“Yes; all but one thing. We didn’t see anybody on the river. Not since we left Oree have we seen another human being. That’s awfully important, and we can’t vary from it.”
“I’m not going to vary from it, I can clue you. We haven’t seen anybody. I wish we hadn’t.”
“We didn’t. The only other thing is whether somebody was reported missing in that area, and people knew more or less where the person was going. That bothers me a little, but not so much as some of the other problems. Those were awful-looking men; who’d care where they were?”
“Somebody might.”
“That’s right. Somebody might. But whether the person would know where they went, or the area or direction they went in, we just can’t have any idea. That one is beyond us. That’s where we’ve got to ride on luck. And I feel lucky; the odds is good.”
Bobby laughed, and some of it was really laughter. “Do you reckon this room is bugged? Or that someone could be listening?”
“It’s not bugged,” I said, “but that sure is a thoughty notion of yours, cousin.”
I slid off my tennis shoes and went to the door sock-footed, and listened. “Keep talking,” I whispered back to Bobby. “Keep talking, and give me time to listen, too.”
I listened; I listened for the nose-whistle of breath, and maybe it was there. But then you always can hear breath, anywhere, when you want to. I couldn’t hear enough, though, for it really to be breath. Or at least I didn’t think I could. I took hold of the knob and jerked the door inward. Nothing. Was there any sound going down the stairs? No. I was sure. No. I turned back to Bobby and held up a circle of fingers.
“I’ll be in my room,” I said. “Go get us those clothes and then we’ll hustle our asses over to the hospital. Lewis’ll still be knocked out, I bet, and I doubt they’ll pump him too hard anyway, but we better try and get the change in story across to him or see what he remembers of the first one.”