I went out one foot, two feet, three feet. It felt as solid as the rink ice.
“C’mon back, McCain. Don’t go any further.”
“It’s perfectly safe.”
“I thought I heard a crack,” she half-shouted.
“It’s your imagination.”
“C’mon, McCain, please come back.”
“I’ll be fine.”
And I was.
I got bolder with each step. The ice felt perfectly solid. I kept walking toward the canoe. I even put on a little skit for Mary. “Oh, my God! The ice is cracking!” And I started windmilling my arms like I was going to sink into the water.
“McCain! McCain!”
“I’m just kidding. I’m fine.”
And to demonstrate that I was fine, I slid across the ice on my boots, right up to the canoe.
Oh, I was the dashing one, I was, showing off for a girl the way I used to try and show off back in seventh grade. I was pretty good at sliding, too. I put on a regular show for her; all the while she kept shouting at me to be careful. And all the while I enjoyed her shouting because it made me feel so manly, the carefree adventurer striking terror in the heart of the woman who loves him so much. Move over, Robert Mitchum.
And that’s when both things happened. I saw the dead girl in the canoe. And the blood all over her tan skirt. And I felt the ice start to fold under me. And that crack that Mary had mentioned hearing? Well, all of a sudden, I was hearing it, too.
And then Mary wasn’t alone. Shouting, I mean. I was shouting, too.
Could I pull myself back up without pulling the entire canoe down on top of me and sinking myself to the bottom of the deep, dark pond?
Part II
Fourteen
Don’t panic: those were the two words I remembered from Boy Scout camp. When you find yourself in a dangerous situation, keep your head and don’t panic.
But of course I panicked. Natural human reaction after being dumped into deep and icy water.
I wrapped my arms around the end of the canoe and hung on. I did my best not to move. Every time I shifted even slightly, I heard the ice crack some more.
I could hear Mary hollering for help and that was about all.
And then I took hold. The rational part of me did, anyway. I decided that if I could stay absolutely still I’d be all right. I occupied my time by trying to get a better look at the dead girl in the canoe. I thought of the girl missing the next county over. There was at least a chance it was her.
Mary was at the canoe, jerking a wooden oar out. Walking carefully over to me. I guess her slight weight kept her from breaking through the ice.
She pushed the oar at me and said, “Just grab on to it, McCain.”
“Thanks, Mary.”
It always looks easy in the movies but it’s not, pulling yourself out of icy water with whatever safety device is thrown to you. For one thing, you’re cold and soaked and about as mobile as a block of concrete. For another, your hands are numb, so it’s hard to get a grip on anything.
Mary stayed calm. And she looked very pretty doing it, her cocked beret and elegant face outlined in the moonlight. But she was all work: no slacking, no wasted words. She was slowly pulling me back to the ice again.
I finally got the middle of my body even with the ice and, between her pulling on the oar and me grappling with my elbows, I was able to pull myself up. I collapsed on the ice for a few moments, my breath coming in terrible shaken gasps. I heard the noises my lungs and throat were making. I didn’t know human beings could make noises like that.
“I don’t know how strong this part of the ice is,” she said. “Maybe you’d better get up now, McCain.”
“God, thanks for saving me.”
“I couldn’t just let you drown,” she said. She smiled. “Though sometimes I’ve thought about it.”
I slowly got to my feet. “What’s that sound?”
“Your teeth.”
“My teeth?”
“They’re chattering.”
I hadn’t known until that very moment that teeth actually do chatter.
The flashlights were like insect eyes coming at us through the dark woods. All I could think of were those hokey earth-invasion movies at the drive-in.
I just hoped these folks wouldn’t be wearing papier-m@ach@e masks. They’d heard Mary’s calls.
They came out of the woods in silhouette. You could see their silver breath and you could see the insistent bobbing eyes of their flashlights. But there was no human detail. They could have been phantoms.
They were shouting now, mostly things like “Are you all right?”
A few of them hit the ice and started walking tentatively toward us. One of the women had thought to bring a blanket. When she saw me standing there soaked from the waist down, she forgot about the ice and walked out to me. She threw the blanket over my shoulders. “Bring that thermos over here!” she called to somebody on the edge of the pond.
Matt Tjaden was the man who brought the thermos out. He’s the county attorney and plans to run for governor someday, sooner rather than later. He was the Kiwanis Club’s Man of the Year for the entire midwest two years ago. The only club I’ve joined since reaching my majority is the Science Fiction Book Club, which is to say that Tjaden and I don’t have a lot in common. I suspect he’s a decent guy when he’s not being official, but I’ve never had the chance to find out. He’s the stalking horse for the Sykes clan and I’m the unofficial representative of the Whitneys.
“I’ve always said you were all wet,” Tjaden said. “And now you’ve proven my point.”
“Har de har har,” another guy said. “Just give him the damn coffee, Matt, and spare him the jokes.”
Tjaden has the kind of bland Van
Johnson good looks that old ladies like and men don’t dislike. He probably believes at least half the corny things he espouses, and if he isn’t especially bright, he also isn’t especially mean or vindictive, which is a lot more than you can say for the Sykes clan. The only time he can get you down is on the Fourth of July when he gives his inevitable death penalty speech right before the fireworks. If Tjaden had his way, we’d be hanging people every other week. Tjaden sees our state’s unwillingness to execute more people as “the subtle and nefarious influence of Communism.” The quote by the way is from J.
Edgar Hoover. I think Tjaden carries a photo of J. Edgar in his wallet.
Tonight, Tjaden looked like a skiing ad in Esquire magazine. He had on some very fancy red and blue ski togs and some blue boots that came up to his knees. He looked like a superhero in a comic book. Except for his slight jowls. And slight paunch. And slight baldness. And slight nearsightedness. After he poured me a cup of coffee, he started telling people to go back to the rink, that everything was under control here.
I said, “There’s something we need to talk about.”
“You should be more careful, McCain.”
“Thanks for the tip.”
“You’d never catch me out on this ice.”
“I hate to point this out,” I said, shivering inside my blanket, “but you’re on this ice now.”
“Oh,” he said, and then looked down at the ice. “Well, you know, I meant standing where the ice is weak.”
“There’s a body in the canoe over there.”
“What?”
“A body.”
“Dead?”
“No, she’s sunbathing.”
“Who is she?”
“I was going to find out but then the ice gave way.”
He looked over at the canoe. “You think it’s safe to go over there?”
“If we walk wide and come in from the north.”
“God, this town is going to hell in a handbasket. First, Kenny Whitney goes nuts and kills his wife and himself, and now there’s a dead girl in a canoe.”