River Girl

by Charles Williams

  I shook my head, not wanting to do it, but knowing there wasn’t room enough for even one of us in that fool’s paradise. I hadn’t done it because I had to. I’d done it because I’d lost my head, gone completely wild when I saw him start for her. No jury on earth would ever believe I’d had to shoot an unarmed man twenty pounds lighter and fifteen years older than I was just to keep him from hurting her or to defend myself. I could have stopped him with one hand. And if by any stretch of the imagination they could ever manage to swallow that, there was still the fact that I was in his house, where I had no business, and that she was his wife. I gave it up and tried to close my mind on it. There wasn’t any way out in that direction.

  I fought at the numbness in my mind like a drunk trying to sober up enough to think. The trails ran outward from here in all directions, crossed and crisscrossed and tangled, and if we took any of the wrong ones we were finished. We couldn’t run without being fugitives the rest of our lives. I couldn’t go back to town and report it, because no matter how you tried to dress it up as something else, it was going to come out as murder. But wait! Suppose, I thought, grabbing at everything, suppose I had been fishing out there and had heard her screaming and had come to help and found him beating her. I’d tried to stop him and he’d got the gun out and in the fight over it I’d killed him. I was a deputy sheriff and I’d be within the law in butting into something like that. Would it work? Maybe, I thought. And then I thought of her on the stand and the district attorney tearing her to pieces the way I’d seen them do it. A woman as beautiful as she was, and her husband killed by another man under peculiar circumstances? He’d start to tie it up into a triangle killing before he’d finished looking at her legs. Had she ever seen me before? Was she sure she hadn’t? Wasn’t it rather odd that a man who hadn’t been fishing for months should suddenly go four times in two weeks and to the same place every time, even neglecting his job to run off up there? I was beginning to think a little more clearly now, and in my mind I could see the succession of witnesses and the facts. And wasn’t it a little odd, also, that I had sold all my fishing gear to the station agent at New Bosque because I’d given up the pastime, and then two days later I was up the lake again with a rented outfit, a cane pole and live bait, according to the testimony of the fishing-camp proprietor, and this in spite of the testimony of the other witnesses that I hadn’t used an outfit like that since I was a boy in grammar school? And consider this other strange coincidence, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the fact that somehow this man was always up the lake fishing on just the days that this woman’s husband happened to be away at the store. Are you sure now, Mrs. Shevlin, that you never saw this man before in your life? No, I thought. That isn’t it; we’d just be walking right into their arms.

  I thought I had her quieted down, but now she started shaking again and pushing back on my chest with her hand. She got to her feet, swaying unsteadily, and then ran off the porch before I could stop her and started across the clearing toward the boat landing. “Doris!” I called out. “For God’s sake!” I ran up behind her and caught her arm but she didn’t even notice I was there. I gave up trying to stop her then; maybe if we got completely away from the house she could get hold of herself.

  In spite of the high heels, she was walking faster and faster. We left the bright sunlight of the clearing and then suddenly she jerked away from me and started running down the path through the trees. Both the boats were drawn up at the float, one on each side, and she stopped at the end of the trail and stared at them wildly. I caught her arm again and then for the first time she noticed me.

  “Let’s go, Jack,” she cried out frantically. “Start the boat!”

  I swung her around and caught hold of both arms.

  They were shaking as if she had a chill. The touch of lipstick she had put on her mouth, hardly noticeable a while ago when I had held her in exactly this way to look at her, was now a violent slash of carmine across the dead pallor of her face, and her eyes were staring with shock. I wanted to take her in my arms and just hold her until it wore off, but there wasn’t time for that any more. I shook her almost roughly, and then when she screamed I let go of her arm with the right hand and slapped her, hard. It was like kicking a puppy.

  The scream cut off and she put a hand up to her mouth, backing away from me. “Doris!” I said. “Listen! You’ve got to listen to me. Are you all right now?” Then I thought of that old football question. “Listen, what day is this?”

  She stared at me as if I’d gone crazy. Maybe I have, I thought.

  “Doris, do you know what day this is?” I asked again. She moved the hand from her mouth around to her cheek where I’d slapped her, still looking at me. She was beautiful and she was hurt, and more than anything in the world I wanted to reach out for her and just pick her up and take her away from here, but I had to keep my head. It was losing it that got us into this mess in the first place.

  I took out a cigarette and lit it and handed it to her. She accepted it mechanically. I led her over and made her sit down with her back against a stump while I squatted in front of her, taking her chin in the palm of my hand so she’d have to look at me.

  “It’s Tuesday,” she said suddenly. I had already forgotten about it.

  All right, now,” I said. “I think now you know why I asked that, and why I slapped you. We’re in a jam, and if we run without using our heads we’re going to be in a worse one. I’m trying to think, and I want you to help me. Can you answer some questions for me?”

  The wild stare of the shock had gone out of her eyes now. She was rational, but I hated to look at the misery in them.

  “Yes,” she said dully. “But what difference does it make now, Jack? Everything is ruined.”

  “No,” I said, almost roughly. “It’s not. Just keep thinking that it’s not, and after a while you’ll see it. It wasn’t your fault; there was no way on earth you could have prevented it. If anyone is to blame, I am, for losing my head and getting panicky when I saw he was after you, and even that was an accident. Neither of us wanted to do it.” I stopped for a moment, and then went on, talking faster. “And in the end it won’t make any difference. He’s better off now than he was living the way he did. Nothing matters now except us. Nothing matters with me except you, because I love you, and I want to find a way out of this so we can always be together. Now, will you listen and try to help me?”

  She had forgotten the cigarette and let it roll from her fingers. I picked it up and took a puff on it, fighting to steady my nerves and to think. “Yes,” she said quietly.

  “I’ll try, Jack.”

  “All right. Good. Now, tell me, and I want you to think hard. Do you have any idea at all what he was running from?”

  She stared at me, puzzled, then shook her head. “No. He never did talk about it.”

  “And you never did ask him?”

  “Only once. And after the way he looked, I never did again.”

  “But you think it was the police? I mean, that was always your impression, wasn’t it?”

  She nodded.

  “Why did you think so? Try to remember.”

  She looked at me helplessly. “I don’t know, Jack. I—I guess it was just because I couldn’t think of anything else a man would run from. There couldn’t be many other things, could there?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Probably dozens of them. A woman. Some man who was after him. The draft, during the war. A scandal of some kind. Blackmail. But the chances are that it was the police. Didn’t you tell me once that when you had to run like that, it was usually after he’d seen someone you thought he was afraid would recognize him, and that it wasn’t the same man each time?”

  “Yes. That’s right. It happened at least three times. I mean, that many times that I saw the man myself. And it was always a different one.”

  “Do you remember anything about these men? How did they look, and so on? I mean, was there anything special about them?”

  “No-o. Except
that they didn’t seem to be policemen themselves. The first one looked as if he might be a sawmill hand or something like that. Another time it was a better-dressed man standing in a line at the post office. And—oh, I don’t know, Jack. They looked just like anybody else.”

  I tried to add it up. There wasn’t much to go on. These people he kept trying to dodge didn’t make much sense except that the chances were they were ex-cons. An ex-convict can be anybody, and you won’t know it or notice him unless, of course, you happened to be one yourself and were there with him and knew him. But why the running? Of course, a man who’s served time and is trying to forget it isn’t anxious to run into any of his old friends who might expose him to the community, but he’s not that afraid of them, at least not to the extent of throwing up his job every time and dragging his wife all over the country. If that was all it was, he’d have probably told her anyway. An escaped convict? A good chance, I thought. And there was still that impression I’d had that I had seen him somewhere before.

  I sat still, thinking. My mind was perfectly clear now and I could see all the angles. It’ll have to do, I thought. There’s a good chance that he’s wanted for something pretty bad, in which case we’re in luck. And if he’s not on the lam from something, at least we’re not any worse off than we are now. The thing to do is go back to town and find out. And then, if he is, come back here after him. Killed, resisting arrest.

  No, I thought. It won’t work; not that way. It would be tomorrow before I could get back, and by that time he’d have been dead too long. It’d never fool anybody. But I began to see it then, the other way, the perfect setup I’d been looking for. It was a long-shot bet, and it all depended on what he was wanted for and how badly, but if it worked we were out of the woods forever.

  “What is it, Jack?” she asked, staring at my face. “What are we going to do?”

  “I’ve got an idea,” I said. “I think I know the way now. There isn’t anything you can do, so you just wait here for me, and when I get through we can go. I’m going back to the house.”

  “Back there?” she asked with horror. “I have to,” I said. I leaned forward and kissed her, holding her face tightly between my hands. “I’ll be back before long.”

  Without waiting for her to say anything. I got up and went back along the trail toward the cabin. As I neared it I saw the old hound lying under the porch, and suddenly I realized I had forgotten about him altogether, or had never thought of him at all. What were we going to do with him? We couldn’t just leave him here to starve on this island. Oh, hell, I thought, he can swim. He’ll get off.

  I stepped up on the porch, dreading it. It had looked good when I’d thought of it back there at the boat landing, but it wasn’t going to be easy to do.

  Twelve

  Putting it off wasn’t going to help any. I stood in the center of the room looking down at the man I’d have to live with now for the rest of my life, then I started searching for the things I needed. There was an extra bedsheet in a little locker out in the kitchen, but that wasn’t heavy enough. I had to have something thicker than that so he wouldn’t drip blood all over me and onto the trail while I was carrying him down to the lake. In a minute I found it, an old canvas hunting coat in one of the dresser drawers.

  Feeling the nausea well up and turn over in my stomach, I reached down and touched him, rolling him over onto his back. The eyes were open, staring up at me, and I would have lost it then if there’d been anything left inside me. Sweating, fumbling, in a near panic, I slipped the canvas coat over his arms, backward, then rolled him again, away from the pool of blood, and pulled the coat together around his back and buttoned it. It was big, like all hunting coats, and there was slack enough to make it reach around that way.

  I stood up, thinking. It was nearer to the lake if I went straight out beyond the side of the house, on that path she used when she went swimming, rather than going clear down to the boat landing. And, too, if I took him out that way and went down and brought the boat around to him, it would keep her from having to see him and possibly becoming hysterical again. Stooping, I put my hands under his waist and lifted. He was limp and awkward to handle, but not as heavy as I had thought he would be. Maybe the fright and the urgency gave me extra strength. Anyway, I managed to get him across my shoulder without too much trouble. Stepping carefully around the blood so I wouldn’t get my shoes in it, I went out through the kitchen and across the clearing. The trail through the timber was dim, and cooler than the sunlight, and for an instant I remembered that other day when we were out here and how we had come running back when we heard his boat. Suddenly, that reminded me of the fact that we hadn’t heard the boat at all this time, and I knew he had cut the motor far down the lake and used the oars. He had known I was up there, or had thought I was. What was it she had said—“After so much of that running maybe you start to crack up and suspect everybody”? There couldn’t have been much reason for his thinking I was up here, unless he had recognized me down the lake, but he had, and now he was dead. It wasn’t a pretty thing to think about—the way you had to live when you were on the run like that. And now, unless this idea of mine was good, we were the ones who would be running.

  I put him down at the edge of the trees along the lake and walked away a few steps so I wouldn’t have to see him and stopped to get my breath. While I was doing that I suddenly remembered something else I had forgotten. I had to have something heavy to weight him with. In this warm water he’d come to the top in a few days. That’s too much forgetting, I thought uneasily. I’ve got to stop that. Once you start something like this, you can’t overlook anything.

  I tried to think of something I could use. It had to be some object that wouldn’t be missed if anybody searched the place, as of course they would. There was his big outboard motor, but that would be missed right away. And I couldn’t use part of the kitchen stove for the same reason. Well, Christ, I thought, the thing to do is go back there and look—not stand here worrying about it like an old woman.

  There was nothing under the house, no rocks or bricks. In the kitchen I found a flatiron, but only one, and it was too light. I stood there looking around, cursing the delay and feeling my nerves beginning to jump again. There had to be something. In desperation, I bent down and looked under the bed. And there it was. I hauled it out, another outboard motor, a small one he probably used for trolling. It was a two-and-a-half horse, and would weigh about thirty pounds, which was heavy enough. When I picked it up I heard a little gasoline splash around in the tank. I started to drain it out on the ground outside and then decided it wasn’t worth the trouble, and started looking around for some wire. I looked at my watch. It was a little after eleven.

  It had to be wire. Cord or rope would rot after a while. I finally found some tied up in the walnut tree, and went back out to the lake carrying the outboard, hurrying now to get it over with. I put the motor down beside him and went back across the clearing to the other end, to the boat landing. She hadn’t moved.

  “Are you all right now, Doris?” I asked gently.

  She looked up. “Yes, I’m all right. Can we go now?”

  “Not for a little while longer. You know what I’m doing, don’t you?”

  She shuddered. “Yes. I think so.”

  “Can you handle a boat?” I asked.

  I could see the horror begin to come back into her face. “You want me to—to—”

  “No,” I said. “Not with me. I just want you to take the other boat up there to the bend and keep a lookout. There’s not much chance anybody will come along, but we still can’t risk it.”

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “I can do that much. I’m sorry, Jack.”

  “It’s all right,” I said. “You’re doing fine.”

  I helped her into the rental boat and gave it a shove. Then I got in his, undamped the motor and lifted it out onto the float, and followed her out of the slough, using the oars. When I got out into the lake I thought of something and looked
under the seat for the tow sack he carried the fish in. They were still in it. So he hadn’t gone on to the store. I didn’t think he’d had time, even with that big motor, to get clear down to the store and back since the time I’d met him. I didn’t like it, because the man who bought the fish down there would remember it, remember he hadn’t shown up when he was supposed to. Well, I thought, there’s nothing I can do about it now.

  I rowed up the lake shore to where I had left him, then waited until she reached the bend and got in position. When she got there I took a good look up the lake, in the other direction, to be sure it was clear. There was no bend up there and I could see for a mile or more, the lake deserted and glaring in the sun. I backed in to the bank and got out. Pulling the stern up a little so it would rest on the beach, I picked him up again and laid him across the big seat, on his side with his legs doubled up, then brought the motor over and started fastening it to him with the wire. It was hot and breathlessly still now and the surface of the lake was like a sheet-metal roof blazing in the sun. The shaking and revulsion began to take hold of me again at having to touch him and move him around like that, but I kept on until I had done a thorough job of it.

  It was harder to shove the boat off now, with him across the stern, but I worked it loose, still standing on the ground and holding it, and moved it around with my hands until it was parallel and I could get in without having to climb over him. Sitting on the middle seat, I splashed water with an oar until I had obliterated the mark the boat had left on the beach, took one more look down the lake to where she was and up the lake to see that both directions were clear, and started pulling out into the channel. When I got out toward the middle I turned around and sounded with the anchor rope. It was about twelve feet deep. Stepping back to the stern, I took hold of the coat and rolled him off. There was a splash and the boat rocked, and then he was gone. A string of bubbles came to the surface, and then at last one big one that made a bulge in the water like a bass feeding. My knees gave way on me and I had to sit down.