The sky was beginning to turn gray, so I shoved off. I shot the boat out into the stream and started to paddle. It was a left-handed way to go, but I didn’t dare row regular, on account of the noise it would make, the thump of the oars in the oarlocks. I rounded the point. Sure enough, Mom was there on the bank talking. I steered to bring the hummock, the little hill that was part of the island, between me and the guy and the girl. I feathered the oar to swing in close and let the current carry me. I came to a tree, one sticking up out of water where the river had risen around it in the spring flood we were having, and caught it. Suddenly all three voices came through, the girl yelling at Mom: “Do you want him to kill me? Is that why you dare him to do it?” And Mom yelling at her: “I’m trying to get through his head what’ll happen to him if he dares do it, that’s all I’m trying to do!” And the guy telling Mom: “OK, OK, but I goddamn well might; I might blow her head off if she don’t shut up and you don’t!”
That made no sense at all, but I’d told Mom to keep talking, and if that was her idea of something to say, I couldn’t stop her now. I pulled the boat in a foot at a time to jam it against the tree with one end on the bank. I could just see the guy, silhouetted against the sky. I picked up the rifle and aimed it at him. “Drop that gun,” I said, very quiet-like.
He didn’t. He whirled and shot. I heard the whack of the bullet as it cut twigs over my head.
He cursed as the recoil lifted his gun, which was a small one. It couldn’t have been more than a cheap.32.
I still had his head in my sights and squeezed the trigger.
The flash lit up the island, and suddenly he wasn’t there.
“Oh thank God, thank the merciful God!” sobbed the girl, coming suddenly into view toward me. But after a few steps she fell and started moaning about her feet. “They’re all cut up!” she said. “The river took my shoes.”
I tilted the rifle back in its place against the front seat, hopped ashore, and ran to her through the bushes. She was half-sitting, half-lying against a stump, her teeth chattering, and moaning. I whipped off my coat and put it on her, telling her: “Hold on to me now, give to me when I lift.” I put one arm around her back, the other under her knees, at the same time kneeling myself. Then I got to my feet and carried her to the boat. “I’m so cold, so cold, so cold,” she whispered.
“Take it easy,” I said.
I helped her to the seat in the stern. This time, instead of paddling, I set the locks in their holes and rowed. I pushed clear of the tree, backed into the current, and let it take me below the island. Then I pulled for the east bank, shooting the bow up on it right beside Mom. I jumped ashore, gave the painter a hitch on a tree, and helped the girl ashore. But her feet still flinched at each step, and I picked her up once more, this time not having to kneel. “Get the rifle, will you?” I told Mom.
She didn’t answer or even act as though she heard me. She gave the girl’s hand a jerk and yelped into her face: “What’d he do with the money?”
“Who is this crazy bitch?” screamed the girl. Then without waiting for me to tell her, she exploded at Mom: “How would I know what he did with the money? How would I know what he did with anything? All I know what he did with was what he did with that gun, thanks to you trying to get him to shoot me, daring and daring and daring. Didn’t you know he had to be nuts? Didn’t you know he just might have done it — killed me, like you said? Didn’t you know that all that crap you dished out about what might happen to him if he shot me meant nothing to him at all? Hey, I asked you something! Why did you do that to me?”
“Get the rifle,” I repeated to Mom.
“I’ll bring it!” she snapped. “But first I’m going out there, going out and having a look.”
“Have a look at what?”
“The money, that’s what.”
“What do we have to do with that?”
“A reward’ll be out for it. They always pay a reward! If we turn it in, we can claim it.”
“Mom, you leave things lay.”
“I will, except for the money.”
“If I can put in a word,” said the girl, touching Mom on the shoulder, “you could take off your clothes and start diving down in the river. It got everything — his parachute, his hat, my shoes.”
“How do you know it got his hat?”
“He kept talking about it.”
By now it was full daylight, and Mom kept staring at her. Then: “OK,” she said to me, “take her up to the house and give her some clothes to put on. There’s some old ones of mine in my bottom bureau drawer.”
“Mom, use some sense.”
“And don’t you call no one, Dave, till I give you the word.”
“I have to call the sheriff.”
“But not till I give you the word.”
I still had the girl in my arms. At last we could start for the house. After two or three steps she whispered: “I’m sorry to be so much trouble.”
“You’re no trouble.”
“Am I getting heavy?”
“Not to me you’re not.”
“Mom? She’s your mother?”
“That’s right.”
“I took her for your wife.”
“I don’t have any wife.”
“I’m sorry I yelled at her, but she almost got me killed.”
“She gets some funny ideas.”
“Dave? Dave what?”
“Howell. What’s your name?”
“Jill. Jill Kreeger.”
“Pleased to meet you, Jill.”
“Likewise.”
A wan smile crossed her face. By then we were on the back porch of the house. Her arm suddenly tightened, the one around my neck. That brought her face against mine. She kissed me, first on the cheek and then on the mouth. “Hey, hey, hey! Jill, will you open the door?”
She reached down and turned the knob. We went through into the kitchen. I kicked the door shut behind me, then carried Jill up the hall and through the living room to the den. I was ashamed of the bed, all mussed up with only blankets oh it, a pillow without any case and no sheets. But she didn’t seem to mind, dropping off my coat and getting ready to jump in. But she had on those soggy clothes, such as they were — short red pants, a red bolero, as she called it, and some kind of thing like a bra. I stripped them off her quickly. She was standing in front of me, naked, a beautiful thing to see. I banged open a bureau drawer, grabbed a towel, and rubbed her dry, then bundled her into the blankets. But in the cold air of the room with no clothes on, her teeth started to chatter. “I’m having a chill,” she said.
“Hold everything!”
I started upstairs to the bathroom, but ducked back for one more kiss. She wanted it too, but her lips were cold as ice.
3
Upstairs I tried the water. When it was hot, I left it running while I went back to Jill. She was still in the bed, shaking. I wrapped the blanket around her, knelt by the bed and lifted, and carried her up to the tub. I took off the blanket, so she was naked again, and smacked her one on the tail.
“Get in and get in quick.”
She did. She stretched out in the hot water and for a second the chattering went on. Then it stopped and she closed her eyes.
“OK?”
“Yes, it’s heaven.”
“Is from this angle, no kidding.”