Love is a Wounded Soldier (13 page)

As the sun sapped my strength, I became a
little peeved; my wife was deliberately making me work in the sun’s heat,
during the hottest point in the day, while she lay comfortably sleeping, not
even bothering to entertain me with conversation! After stewing about it for a
half hour, my hot head hatched a little plot of vengeance from a bedeviled egg.
A mess of weeds floated beside us, and I speared it with my pole, lifted it out
of the water, and examined the slimy, dripping swamp salad I’d snagged. My mood
flipped quickly from irate to gleeful as I dangled it over her belly and shook
it loose. Almost before it plopped down, she shrieked and sat up, clawing at it
and flinging it into the river. I laughed so hard I almost fell off the raft.
Then she almost threw me off, grabbing my wrists and glaring threateningly at
me, with just a glint of growing amusement in her eyes.

“I oughta kill you!” she growled, as I
pretended to cower, but I failed miserably at looking like I took her
seriously.

“I’m sorry!” I laughed insincerely. “I—I
was scared you might be burning.”

“Do I look burnt?” she yelled at me,
looking down at her perfectly tanned torso. She released my wrists and looked
back at the disgusting clump of weeds floating away.

“Ew!” she shuddered.

“Well, you made me work so hard by myself
in the sun, and then—” I raised my voice indignantly for effect, “and then you
lay there, taunting me with your—your frockless glory, and—and you didn’t talk
to me or pay any attention to me for hours and hours!” I exaggerated, doing my
best to sound like a sniveling child.

“Aww,” she played along, “come here you
poor thing!” She consoled me by patting my back in maternal fashion. I sniffled
as she hugged me, my hands taking liberties with her body.

“Now, now,” she said, “would it make you
feel better if we pushed off to some quiet place and I could give you the
attention you deserve?”

“Yes, I do believe that would mend my
broken heart,” I smiled, wiping the imaginary tears from my dry eyes. She
laughed at the alacrity with which I grabbed my pole and pushed us on in search
of that quiet place. It wasn’t long before I located a quiet, shady backwater.
An eddy spun the water in a wide, unhurried vortex which kept the raft turning
slowly in a circle, negating the need to find a place to beach it or moor it in
any way. And I got my attention. Gobs of it.

After she’d all but exhausted me with
attention, we dug into our picnic lunch. The shade was refreshing, and felt
almost cool. The water twirled our raft lazily around and around as we talked.

“Do you think God will still bless our
marriage, even though we disobeyed Daddy?” she asked me out of nowhere. I
hadn’t really given that question any thought to speak of, so I had to think a
minute before answering.

“Well, you’re supposed to honor your father
and mother,” I admitted slowly, thinking at the same time that there was no way
in hell I’d ever honor my father.

“But, I think honoring your pa means you
respect his advice, but you don’t have to obey him. You’re old enough to make
your own decisions. I don’t think you should have to live with the decisions
made for you by someone else.” I took a swig of water from the canteen.

“I’d like to think I’ll be judged for the
choices I made, not the ones that someone else made for me,” I finished, taking
a bite of cracker and sardine.

“What, are you having doubts now?” I asked,
a little puzzled at why this had come up now.

“Oh, I don’t know!” she said. “My
motivation for marrying you wasn’t, you know, exactly spiritual.” She looked at
me to see if I understood what she meant. I got it.

I wiped the crumbs off my lips and
answered. “Well, I think anyone that says they’re getting married for
“spiritual reasons” is either delusional, or a bald-faced liar. The only reason
to get married is to fulfill this God-given drive in all of us without sinning.
You probably know the Bible better than me; is there any place it says that
you’ll help build the kingdom of God by getting married?”

“No, not that I know of,” she shook her
head slowly.

“So I guess we can infer from what I know
of the Bible, at least, that the whole point of a man and woman becoming one
flesh is to be fruitful and multiply. And as near as I can make out, that’s a
pretty fleshly process,” I grinned at her, and she winked back.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” she
concurred, falling silent. We both commenced staring at the gently swirling
water, lost in our respective thoughts.

I thought about Moses. I hardly ever
thought about him anymore. He was like a bad dream I tried to keep locked in
the dark attic of my mind. The very suggestion of honoring him riled me. His
memory angered me. As I thought about him, I could still see the look of hurt
and degradation on his face as I’d shown him to the door with my fists. I
suddenly felt guilt; pricks, not pangs, but it felt strange, because I’d never
before felt guilt in conjunction with that memory. It wasn’t my blows that had
hurt him; I’d humiliated him, and somehow, for some reason, I just didn’t feel
right about that.

A piece of crust fell off the bread I’d
been eating, and I picked it up and absentmindedly threw it in the water. The
water boiled briefly as a fish came and snapped it up, rousing me from my
daydream. Ellen saw it too, and we both reached for fishing poles. I got mine
ready, then helped Ellen string hers up. We used bits of our lunch as bait, and
were delighted to find the fish were in an afternoon feeding frenzy. I moved
the raft nearer to the shore, where the fish were hiding under logs and in the
weeds. We caught mostly bass, and I put four or five on a string for supper,
but the fish kept biting, so we kept fishing.

“Bet I’ve caught more fish than you,” Ellen
needled me. I laughed. I considered myself to be an above-average fisherman,
although I’m not sure how I came to be so high-minded about it; I’d mostly
fished by myself, so I really had no one to compare to.

“How many?” I asked, setting my hook into
another freshwater beauty.

“Oh, ten or twelve,” she clearly
exaggerated.

“This is number sixteen,” I lied, pulling
the flopping fish onto the raft.

“Right!” she shot back doubtfully.

“Well, let’s have a contest, then. Let’s
see who catches the most fish from now on,” I proposed.

“OK, but when is the deadline?” she asked,
raising a good point. Neither of us had a watch. I looked around.

“When that tree’s shadow falls dead center
on that rock,” I pointed, “the contest will be over.”

“And what does the winner get?” she asked,
concentrating on casting her hook at a likely looking spot.

“The winner pushes the disgraced loser into
the river to be thoroughly shamed,” I decided.

“Prepare to be drenched,” she foretold
menacingly, and the contest was on.

Good-natured squabbles ensued as we
quarreled over technicalities, both making up rules as we went along. Ellen had
one fish wriggle off her hook as she was pulling it out of the water. I
protested when she counted it, and an argument erupted; she contended it
counted as long as you pulled it in close enough to see it, but I maintained
you had to grab it with your hand, or at the very least, pull it onto the raft.

The tree’s shadow moved like the hand on a
giant clock. It neared the rock around an hour into our friendly competition.
The fishing had slowed down, and I was behind eight to six, if you counted
Ellen’s escaped fish. I nervously watched the shadow creep onto the edge of the
rock. My self-respect as an angler was on the line! How would I live with—and
live with being bested by—a no-account, amateur fisherwoman, who would
doubtlessly remind me of my humiliating loss at the most inconvenient times? It
was a frantic rush against the sundial.

As the end neared, I got a hit. I set the
hook and started pulling it in. It felt like I had something on, but it felt
more like I’d snagged a stick or weeds. I pulled my hook out of the water, and
with it, a bluegill crappy the length of my fingers. I hollered triumphantly.

“You call that a fish?” Ellen hooted
derisively. I looked at the rock. Time was up.

“Well, let’s see . . .” I rubbed my chin.
“It’s got scales, gills, fins. Yes, dear, it appears to be a fish. A bluegillas
crappicanas, to be specific.” I commentated eruditely.

“Sorry,” Ellen countered, “but that isn’t
big enough to count as a fish. That’s just an egg with a tail,” she scoffed. “I
win eight to six.”

“Hold on!” I squawked as she rolled up
imaginary sleeves, preparing to dunk me. “This little guy is as much a fish as
the rest of them, just smaller. And you’ve been counting one fish that you
hooked
,
but never actually
caught
.
And
—” I fabricated nimbly with the
persuasiveness of a trial lawyer, “
and
, you weren’t sharp enough to
notice, but I noted the fifth fish you caught had a small wound on the left
side of its lower lip, which strangely enough, corresponds with the exact
location you hooked your third fish, so the evidence strongly suggests you caught
the same fish twice!”

I stopped to breathe, almost dizzying
myself with my verbal sleight of hand. Ellen protested wordlessly, shaking her
head in laughing disbelief.

“So thus, even if I be a gentleman, and am
gracious enough to count the one fish you caught twice as one and a half fish,
I still win seven to six and a half,” I calculated with a victorious smirk.

The expression on Ellen’s face clearly
showed this snake oil salesman would not be selling her any fish oil today. The
raft pitched dangerously as she pounced without warning, knocking me and my
prizewinning fish into the water, but not before I grabbed her wrist and
dragged her down with me. We both tried pushing each other’s heads under the
water. She was slippery, though, and I had to be content with splashing water
on her, and she returned the favor.

I swam underwater, found her legs, tackled
them, and then swam quickly away before she could retaliate. I stood fiendishly
grinning in the shoulder-deep water, waiting for her to come up coughing and
sputtering. But she didn’t. We were playing closer to the eddy now. I had
thought it to be too weak and shallow to pose any risk, but now I began to
worry. She’d probably disappeared for less than a half minute, but it felt like
eons. As I prepared to dive under and look for her, wham! I got knocked face
forward into the water, gulping a lungful of water, which I found to have an
oxygen level entirely unsuitable for my needs. So I was the one who broke the
surface, coughing and sputtering, and primed for revenge. She laughed and
mocked me from a distance. I tried another underwater ambush, but I couldn’t
find her, though I raised my head above the water several times in vain.
Finally, I gave up, but nervously scanned the water for signs of another impending
stealth attack.

“Scared?” a voice jeered. I whipped around
to see Ellen “hiding,” lying flat on the raft.

“I like to call it ‘alert,’” I corrected,
swimming over to her. “Truce?” She eyed me suspiciously.

“For real?” she asked, squinting her eyes
distrustfully.

“For real,” I assured, clambering aboard.
“You backstabber!” I accused, pretending to be angry. “If you weren’t such a
bewitching little river nymph, I’d have killed you!”

“Yes, you would have killed me—if you
could’ve found me,” she corrected with a superior smile. I coughed and tried to
catch my breath. The warm wind felt cool as it started to dry my wet skin. My
stomach pinched me politely as if to say, “Anytime now. Don’t make me growl!”

“That lunch is wearing kind of thin,” I
said.

“Well, let’s clean some fish,” Ellen
replied.

We beached the raft and I hunted for some
firewood. There was no deadfall nearby, so I did have to walk a ways to find
some.

When I returned, I was mildly shocked to
see Ellen had cleaned three fish and was working on another. I’d expected to
have to do everything.

“My, I had no idea my wife came with such
skills,” I teased, dropping an armful of sticks.

“Ma was too squeamish to clean fish, and
Daddy didn’t like doing it, so he’d always pay me a penny for each one I’d do,”
she said without looking up, scrunching her nose as she threw a head and skin
into the trees.

The fire was ready to go as she washed the
fillets in the river and laid them in the frying pan before bringing them over.
She’d had enough foresight to pack a pat of butter in our grub box, wrapped in
cloth so it didn’t melt. We had no flour, but we did have salt to add some
flavor. We had forgotten utensils, however, so I had to carve a flipper and
forks out of a tree branch. My forks were too flimsy to be of much use, so we
ate mostly with our fingers. I watched her eat, looking proper and pretty even
though she’d just cleaned fish, not to mention lived in the wilderness without
benefit of many of the conveniences she was used to.

“What’s with the dopey grin?” she
questioned my protracted gaze with a bewildered smile.

“You’re beautiful,” I said simply.

“Ha, look at me. Look at my hair!” she
waved at her unruly mane with fishy fingers.