Charlie’d been fit for a strait jacket then. He’d wept, real tears. He would cut Bobo up and feed him to stray dogs. But he had to find him first.
They’d gone to Bobo’s apartment, Barney himself so mad he could bust, now that Charlie had spilled his brains in hopes that Barney might have some idea of where Bobo had gone and be of some help.
In the apartment, they’d found that timetable, slid down behind the dresser where it had fallen accidentally. Bobo had made little checks beside the schedule to Bryson City, North Carolina.
Charlie’s lips and eyes had looked as if oil had been poured over them. “The dumb hillbilly punk, he’s gone home with the dough. He was always talking about those mountains above Bryson City, the lake where he used to fish, those hills where he hunted.”
All that before Bobo, big, strong, easygoing Bobo, had got his brains scrambled after having fought his way nearly to the top in the big city. The Mauling Mountaineer they’d called Bobo, but he’d been good only to stay in another man’s corner when Barney had met him.
“What will he do with twenty grand in that wilderness?” Leah had wondered.
“Maybe he’ll buy some pigs,” Barney had said, “to enjoy a higher grade of company.”
The bass failed to show interest in the minnow. Barney weighed anchor and cruised on down the lake. He finally got Charlie, Leah, and Bobo off his mind when he had a strike in the rock-bound inlet he’d learned to call Little Sanloosa Cove.
He worked at the fishing another hour without luck. He noticed that night was creeping like dark oil poured over the jagged eastern peaks.
It was time to get back. After darkness, in this maze of coves, he wouldn’t give a plugged nickel for his chances of finding the boat dock. The kicker popped to life and Barney swung the boat out in the channel. It was later than he’d thought. Those shadows were reaching long toward the eastern shore. He opened the throttle wide and the roar of the kicker banged against the hills, throaty with anger. The boat began to crawl out of the water and plane, the prop churning water like a giant eggbeater. A little spray struck Barney’s face. This was living. Cripes, a little more practice, and he would be a first-class sailor.
He didn’t see the log. It was so sodden with water it must have been prowling just inches under the surface. The boat struck the log with a dull crunch. Up and over the boat started, like a fighter plane peeling off. It was as if Barney had been sitting on a giant spring, and the spring snapped suddenly. Up and out Barney went. End over end, arms and legs flying. The water was hard as a brick wall when he struck. The water gave him a stinging slap on the face that threatened to tear his head off his shoulders.
Bubbling, throwing spray, roiling about him, the water claimed Barney. He rolled down and down until his lungs ached, and then he burst back to the surface, blowing water out of his nose.
When the ringing left his ears, he heard the roar of the kicker fading in the distance. After throwing him like an angry bronco, the boat had righted itself, and Barney watched it charge down the channel, pitching and skipping crazily. It vanished from sight around a far off point of land. The sound of the kicker became a whisper in the majestic silence of the mountains and then faded out altogether. The boat had probably beached itself.
Barney began dog-paddling toward shore. He swam with all the grace of a mastodon. He’d never learned any of the fine points of swimming, but as a kid he’d been able to dog-paddle around East River docks for hours on end.
He pulled himself erect when the water was waist deep and waded to the slippery, chocolate mud shore. Under a tree just above the shoreline, he sat down to snort the remainder of the lake out of his nose and catch his breath.
He was pondering a night spent under the trees. He didn’t relish the thought. He was sopping; the nights up in these mountains sometimes got more than delightfully cool, under such circumstances.
Perhaps he could find a house nearby. He stood, turned toward the hillside, and saw the girl.
She startled him. He stood looking at her for a moment without speaking. She was small and slender and her hair was a mass of gold tumbling to her shoulders. She looked like a very charming mountain sprite in the half light of dusk.
Her voice was warm, husky, serious: “Are you hurt?”
Barney jarred to life. “No. At least I don’t think so.”
She walked toward him, graceful as a wood nymph. Barney, you’re staring, Barney thought. She saw his stare and the drop of his jaw and smiled.
“I’m Josie Calhoun,” she said. “I live in the cabin overlooking the point. When I heard the roar of the motor and the crunch I knew somebody had hit a log. Thought I’d better come down and see. You can dry out at the house if you want.”
“That’s very nice of you,” Barney said in his best manner. “My name is—”
“Barney Loy,” she finished for him. She had turned and started along a path which would have missed Barney’s eyes if he had been here without a guide. He caught up with her.
Walking beside her, he was conscious of his bigness and the homely cast of his face. She was like... like cotton candy at Coney when he was a kid. He said, “How’d you know my name?”
“Oh, most folks around here know you. That Charlie Collins fellow with you, he hasn’t found Bobo Hensley yet, has he?”
“Folks around here seem to know everything,” he said, mimicking her liquid mountain drawl. “You must have mighty fine Western Union service in these parts.”
Her laugh tinkled. “I didn’t mean to make you sore. Strangers always attract attention and folks usually fathom what brings them here. Then word just somehow seeps around, like it’s borne on the wings of birds or filters through the very air itself.”
Her words caused Barney to feel alien in the mountain quiet. The dusk took on a tinge of evil. The harrumpping of frogs on the lake was strangely lonely, disturbing. He thought, hundreds of eyes watching, like chips of blue flint. Word filtering from tight mouths, making its way over the mountainsides, into the hidden coves. Charlie Collins had better watch himself; the tricks that go in New York might not look so smooth here.
Chapter II
He said nothing else to the girl as they crossed a clearing toward the house. Josie walked across a footlog that spanned a creek, waited for him to regain her side, gave him a smile that was more or less impersonal, crossed the packed earth of the yard, and opened the door of the house.
It was a structure of logs, rambling across the hillside. There were electric lights and a living room set in the front room. The place was clean, comfortable, and might have been the summer retreat of city folks.
“You can start a fire in the fireplace to dry out if you like,” Josie said. “I was just getting supper.”
She left him alone in the living room. There was wood laid in the fireplace and Barney found matches on the mantel. He touched fire to shavings, which caught and licked flame about the corncobs, which in turn threw flame against the heavier wood. The fire was beginning to crackle when Josie entered the living room again. She was carrying jeans, blue shirt, and a pair of brogans.
“These are pa’s, Mr. Loy. I don’t think he’d mind you wearing them until you dry yours. Supper on the table in ten minutes.”
She tossed the clothes on the overstuffed chair. Barney picked them up. “I’ve been thinking what you said about Bobo Hensley and Charlie. You got more than passing interest in it?”
“Bobo is my cousin. Lots of cousins in these parts, Mr. Loy.”
“The name is Barney,” he said almost angrily. “And for the record, I’m no cousin of Charlie’s. I’m just along for the ride and because I wasn’t able to make up my mind about that character at first. I was so sore at him I didn’t want him out of my sight, see? But I don’t want to be mixed up in no feud. You can just put the word out in your telegraph system that I like the fishing.”