Robert Crews (32 page)

Friday made no reply. She deposited the canteen at his side and stood up.

Her husband made no attempt to rise. He addressed her back. “And as anybody can plainly see, you survived in the wilderness the same way.” Apparently his skull had not been seriously damaged: he had yet to finger the affected side of his head or favor it in any fashion.

“You want to get your fishing rod?” Friday asked Crews. “I'm taking whatever food's left. It's mine. I'm paying the rental on the tent too, and the rest, but he can keep them. Tomorrow we'll be in Judson.”

“You two puny characters are going to paddle upstream?” Michael shouted derisively. “You got a sucker punch in on me, but you're not going to put one over on Nature.”

“I've been doing that for weeks,” Crews said. “There doesn't seem to be much of a current. If it's too strong we can always try poling, along the shore. I'm tired of walking.”

The big man continued to rant, but he stayed where he was, sitting on the earth. Probably he had been hurt more substantially in the spirit than in the flesh.

Crews retrieved the cased rod and tackle box from amidst the other things inside the tent, and then he went through the fancy backpack, with its aluminum frame, until he found the pistol and an accompanying box of shells, only a few of which remained. The weapon was of the six-shooter type and felt heavier than it looked.

Michael was in the process of rising, but when he saw the gun in Crews's possession he sank back to the ground and, cowering behind crossed forearms, cried, “Hey man, wait a minute. Don't do it!”

And even Friday, holding what looked like some kind of camp cooking kit, nested pots within a canvas pouch, recoiled and said, “Oh,
no
. Throw that thing away!”

“Take it all,” Michael pleaded. “But don't kill me. You got no reason to. I'm not resisting! It would be cold-blooded—”

“Will you stop sniveling?” Crews said. “Am I even pointing it at you?”

“Please get
rid
of it.” Friday made forceful gestures. “I don't want it in existence.”

But Crews candidly defied her on this matter. “We'll hold on to it, in case you need it for evidence. It's insurance.” The pistol was too heavy for any of his pockets. Finally he put it and the extra ammunition on top of the gear in the tackle box, closed the box, and slung the strap at his shoulder.

Michael now asked, in a howl, “You're leaving me here, with no food and no means of protection?”

Friday sighed and rooted in another canvas bag, coming up with a little pouch of shiny plastic. She read aloud the legend printed on it. “‘Chicken-and-noodle soup.' Here you go.” She tossed it to him, but he refused to catch it, and it fell near his elbow.

Crews was interested to note that when it came to violence or the threat thereof, Friday's sympathy went immediately to the putative victim. But at other times she could be uncompromising.

“So I've got a temper,” Michael wailed. “You ought to know better than to needle someone holding a loaded gun.”

Crews asked Friday, “Is he still trying to explain how you got wounded?”

“Yes,” said she. “And about that he's right. I'll never do it again.”

“But you just took him on at karate.”

Her expression was reproachful. “That was something else entirely. Can't you see that?”

“I'll try.” The tackle box was growing oppressively heavy, with the added weight. He shifted it to his other shoulder and hung the rod case from the free one. “We'd better get going before it's too late to see what we're doing.”

“Call me about your possessions when we get back to town,” Friday said to her husband. “I'm changing the locks at home. What you do with your car is up to you, but I'm not going to make any more payments on it.”

Crews dawdled before setting off down to the beach, should Michael be stung into some sort of action, but the big man's morale was not quick to recover. All that he had left was spite.

“You're pathetic,” Michael said. “You're getting old and you're losing your muscle tone. All of you is about ready to slide south. You just got a short reprieve, eating acorns and deer droppings or whatever old Dan'l Boone here provided. But you'll put the blubber on when you get back. You know it, and I know it.” He cackled with laughter. “Hey, buddy, did she tell you what she weighed when she first waddled into my club? I used to work with her in private, otherwise it would have been bad for business: drive people away, you know? What you see there is
my
doing, not hers. On her own, she'd still be the Queen of Lardland.”

Crews asked her, “Do you want me to give him another taste of the log?”

“Now you know all that's worth knowing about me,” Friday said, managing a wry smile. “Once again, though, he's right. But let's go. I've heard enough bitter truths for one season.” She tossed her head for practical reasons: a strand of hair had swung across her eye. She brandished the bag of food. “He lied about the provisions: there's a lot left. Cocoa and dehydrated beef stew and all.
And
almost a whole little box of matches. I'm taking a couple of pots and pans too. Can you carry the paddles? They're leaning against the far side of the tent.” Her husband had prudently brought them up from the beach, so as to deny them to thieves of his own ilk.

Before leaving, Crews asked the sitting man, “You're not thinking of doing anything to stop us, are you?”

Michael made a keening sound, but in simulated glee. “Stop you? Brother, I'd do anything I could to hasten you on your way. You're hauling away a load of garbage that otherwise I'd be stuck with. I'm grateful to you. I love you for it.”

“I'm fond of you too,” said Crews. “But I'm sticking to the one with the career.”

When he and Friday reached the canoe, Crews said, “I haven't been in one of these since I was a kid. You've had more recent experience. You want the boss paddle? That's the rear one, right?”

“No, thanks,” said Friday. “I had a hard time getting the hang of it when I tried, and that was downstream. Anyway, the guy in front can complain about what the steerer is doing back there. My sense of self has taken enough for one day…. I really ought to say this: there was a time when we, when we…”

“When you liked each other better,” Crews said. “I'm sure that that is just as true as any of the negative things. And a balanced memory is easier to carry. Give me a hand here, will you?”

The canoe was light enough for him to turn over and for both to carry if they put their undernourished backs to a weight that her husband had surely toted with no effort at all. It had given Crews enormous satisfaction to deck such a man. No doubt this was a shameful feeling, not to be shared with decent human beings, but it had been sufficient to stifle his brief, craven urge for a drink.

Floating the vessel in the shallows, they tossed their burdens therein, and Friday climbed on board. Crews restrained the stern from rising as she crawled to the bow seat with her paddle, then splashed aboard himself from the thigh-deep water.

Friday looked over her shoulder. “I can't absolutely guarantee that I won't get fat again.”

Crews shrugged. “If that happens, and I start boozing, we can always come out here again, with no supplies and bare feet.” The current, while not so strong as utterly to frustrate their intent to go against it, was stronger than it had looked from shore, and the first strokes of their paddles, not yet in coordination, swung the craft to face downstream.

A hoot of derision came from the bluff. “Don't mind him,” said Crews. “If he starts throwing stones, remember I've got the gun…. Now, let's get organized. Keep your paddle on the right, and I'll put mine on the left for the moment, but I think it's the back paddle that usually does the switching if necessary. What we need in the bow is stability.”

Friday glanced back again. “That's what you'll get.”

“I hope you'll keep calling me Robert. Nobody else ever has.”

She was already too busy, digging into the swirl with the paddle, to answer except with a saucy upthrust of her shoulder cap.

After several more fits and starts, and even one near miscarriage in which the left gunwale dipped within a hair of the roiling water, they at last brought the canoe to the optimum attitude to head for civilization. About an hour remained before they would pull into shore, start a fire with matches, eat beef stew and wash it down with hot chocolate, and, one more night, sleep under the stars.

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Copyright © 1994 by Thomas Berger

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