Vanilla Ride (20 page)

“That eyelid part,” I said. “I want to be up front and go on record right now. I’ll talk like you haven’t never heard anyone talk before if that’s done to me. I’ll be like a whole flock of canaries. They won’t have enough paper to write down what I got to say. And they start threatening my dick, I’ll start making stuff up to go along with it.”

We had tried to do it the easy way, which was drive over to the side of the lake where Hirem said the cabins were, but the easy way turned out hard, so we were going to cut to the chase and ask directions. We waited until the traffic at the store played out, then I went inside and found the owner behind a counter that contained whoopee cushions, fake dog shit, and all manner of redneck yuks. An older woman with gray hair and a face only a blind, prideless mother could love was behind the counter arranging a stack of little Texas flags on sticks in a large decorative coffee cup.

She said, “What can I do you for, honey?”

I gave her my winning smile, though I couldn’t remember the last time it had won me anything. “Me and some buddies, we were supposed to meet a friend here on the lake, but we’re kind of confused.”

“Lake’s out back of here. How confusing is that?”

I grinned like that was the best I had heard since my joke about the dog with the shot-up paw. Come to think of it, Leonard was right. That joke sucked.

“This buddy of ours said he was gonna meet us at a cabin on the east side of the lake—”

She pointed. “That’s east.”

“Yes, ma’am, we been over there. But the problem is, we can’t find where we’re supposed to meet him. He said a fellow named Bill Jordan had some cabins—”

“Bill Jordan. That old fart is in the ground, some three years now. He don’t own them anymore.”

“Oh, well, that puts a damper on things.”

“A crippled fella with a funny haircut owns them now, but he don’t rent out much. Got a pension.”

“I see. Well, I’m pretty sure my friend is meeting us there. That’s what he said anyway. He hasn’t been here in a while, so he probably rented from the other fella.”

“It’s kind of hard to get to actually,” she said. “Road is near washed out and it winds up in the pines. Good hunting up there, though. I know a fellow killed a wild hog there big enough to tussle with an elephant.”

“That a fact?”

“Of course not. Ain’t no hogs big as elephants. But it was big.”

“I see. So, you go around on the east side, but where do you turn? We were all over that place, and we couldn’t find what we were looking for.”

She got a piece of paper and a pencil and drew me a map, explaining as she did. Pushing it across the counter, she said, “Now, you got to watch all the ruts and potholes, and it’s narrow and there’s limbs all grown up around it. I was up there last year taking the crippled fella with a funny haircut some supplies. He calls up and I deliver. For a little extra fee, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Anyway, it’s like the goddamn Amazon up there.”

“Well, thanks.”

I started to go out. She said, “You know, you wanted to, there’s an easier way. It’ll take a little longer, but it’s still easier, and you’d have to get going before the storm comes up, ’cause one is coming.”

“So we were told.”

“You could rent one of my boats, take it straight across the lake, and you could just dock at the place.”

“How long would that take?”

“About an hour, maybe two if you get some tough wind and you ain’t no hand with a boat. You go now, you got to rent the boat for overnight. Or you can rent if for a few days if you’d rather be over there awhile.”

“How much is the boat?” I asked.

In the van I explained about the map and the boat. I said, “Me and Leonard can take the boat across, and you guys can follow the map. Thing is, I think you don’t want to go over there right away, because you do, they might follow.”

“They won’t fool me again,” Tonto said.

“Just in case they do, however,” I said, “we could go across by boat, which they may not expect, see if we can find Hirem’s boy, the girl, and the money. It might even be a sneakier way to come up on them if they’re there. We can maybe call you when we get there and you can come around.”

“Checked my phone a little while ago,” Jim Bob said. “No signal out here.”

“All right,” I said. “Go do something that will give us two hours before you arrive, and we’ll take the boat across. We get there early we’ll hold our own until you show up. I think we can handle two kids and a pile of money.”

“But if that big fellow and his pals show up before we do,” Jim Bob said, “you might have your hands full.”

“They been full before,” Leonard said.

We spent some of our money on fishing poles and a bucket of minnows for show, a can of gas, bought a couple of sandwiches and a bag of
vanilla wafers and a six-pack of Dr Pepper. The owner of the store, who told us her name was Annie, took us down to the boat and gave us instructions, and we set out.

It was really choppy and the boat rode high and dropped low. It was making my stomach queasy. The motor churned the water behind us and I pointed the bow due east, like Annie had suggested. There was a big stump in the middle of the lake she had directed us to, and when we got to that, she said we ought to start following a line of orange buoys and then those would go away and we had to hold due east until we saw a strip of land. She said it would be a lot farther away than we thought it was. Thing then was, when we got closer, we’d see a rise of pine trees and a dock out front of them, and there was a little trail that led up from the dock to the cabins.

For the moment, that stump in the distance was my bearing.

When we were out a ways, we overturned the minnow bucket into the lake and let all our guys go. Leonard said, “Swim, little fishes. Go, make your way in this big wet world. Make us proud.”

The stump showed up and then the orange buoys. We followed those until they played out, but we couldn’t see a strip of land. Not yet. It was a big lake. All we could see was water, and the sky had darkened and it had started to rain, and we didn’t so much as have an umbrella.

The rain grew thick, and then I got nervous because the boat was holding water. Leonard took the minnow bucket and started bailing. I kept hold of the motor throttle and thought maybe I might regain some religion, because the water was jumping now and the rain had gotten so wild I could hardly see my hand in front of my face, let alone a distant strip of land sporting pine trees.

I decided keeping my hand on the throttle and using my wits would probably do me better than religion, and I kept at it. The rain kept at it too. We bounced up and down, and at one point the boat listed to port and water splashed in heavily, and Leonard was really working that bucket.

“That damn rain is cold,” he said.

“What, you think I haven’t noticed?”

We went on like that for a while, and I feared we had gone off point
and were traveling in the wrong direction, maybe even boating in circles. But then the rain slacked and I saw a strip of land and some pines rising up. I glanced at my watch, putting it close to my face. We had been at it for an hour and a half.

The wind was really whistling now and the boat was struggling. Leonard was bailing like a maniac.

“Almost there,” I said.

The engine sputtered and died. We were out of gas.

“Now,” Leonard said, “if a goddamn whale will swallow us, it will be a perfect day.”

The gas can was under one of the seats, and I pulled it out and went about trying to pour some of it in the outboard tank. Way the water made the boat hump up and down it was hard work, and some of the gas went into the lake.

I finally finished with the can, but by that time we had drifted a considerable distance. I didn’t care. It didn’t matter to me right then if we got to where we were going or if we just made land, any land, and because of that, when I saw a glimpse of shoreline, I took the boat in that direction. I hoped we wouldn’t bring the boat up against a stump, ’cause at the speed we were going if we hit one, we’d be flung into the cold deep churning water, and that wouldn’t be good. Still, I couldn’t seem to slow the throttle down. The rain was slamming us and it was cold and I wanted off the lake.

Something went wrong, and we went into the water, the grateful minnows we had released would save us. Like Aquaman, we would call to them and they would come and lift us out of the water on their shiny backs and carry us ashore.

But I wasn’t counting on it.

Most likely, we’d drown like rats.

I saw it just before we hit it. I thought it was a log, but it was an alligator, and when we struck it the boat jumped and I went out of it as if
shot from a catapult. I caught a glimpse of Leonard, still clinging to the handle of the minnow bucket, go up and over and make a nice little flip into the water and disappear under the waves.

I swam and my arm hit the gator and I screamed like a little girl. The rest of the gator sailed on past me and I could smell a rotten odor, realized the big bastard was dead, and had been awhile. He might have died up in the reeds along the bank and the storm had stirred him loose. He sailed past and the waves rolled over him and took him under and then I went under. When I came up the minnow bucket was floating past me. I grabbed at it like it was a life raft.

Holding on to it, I kicked toward shore, but shore had moved away. Or so it seemed. The water had carried me out farther and quicker than I could imagine. The lake was so cold I could hardly get a breath. I looked around for Leonard and didn’t see him. I looked around for the boat, didn’t see it either. Annie was going to be pissed.

I kicked toward what looked like shore and hoped a live alligator didn’t find me, hoped in this weather they would be somewhere cozy. Then again, I wasn’t sure if alligators liked it cozy. Maybe they liked the rain.

I called out for Leonard, but the wind took my voice and carried it away and all I got out of my yelling was a hoarse throat.

And then my feet were touching ground. Not well, but they were touching. I pushed on toward some reeds, and after what seemed like enough time for the Big Bang to have happened and all the species on the planet to have developed and moved on out to the stars, I made it to some waving grass and reeds and stumbled into that, went down a few times, came up with a mouthful of muddy water. As I tromped through, barely able to stand, hardly able to see, I came across a long four-foot-wide fragment of our boat. On his back in the water, hanging on to the fragment, was a big black guy.