Monday, earlier that day on the river
E.B. AND LAURA
“You’re married?” Laura spat. E.B. had been decent, useful, kind. Of course he was married.
“I was . . . I am . . . I mean,” he mumbled, “Berniece . . . it was her idea. She walked out on me.”
Laura picked up a couple of rocks and pitched them into the river. “Same shit, different day.”
“I haven’t filed, yes, that’s true,” E.B. muttered. “Haven’t been sure. It’s been two months.”
“Save it.” Laura stared at the river, embarrassed. When would she ever learn?
“I’m not that way.”
“Right.” Hadn’t she even wondered once why he was being so kind? “Seems simple enough to me. You make googly eyes at me, you flirt with me, you kiss me, you’re married. What’s different about you? I see that shit every night, E.B.”
“Hey, wait a sec. I’m a farmer. I go to town twice a week.
Who am I supposed to flirt with, the checkers at the Park ’N’ Shop, the little old ladies at the welcome center?” He stood next to her, staring at the river, feeling her disappointment. “It’s been a long time since I kissed a woman I liked.”
“I’ve heard it all before.” From the men at the club, trying to pull her aside after a show. Those others at the stage door, leering at her. Goddamn Harry. The friggin’ thugs. She jumped up and ran down the shore. As long as she kept running, no one could tear her apart.
“Slow down.” E.B. followed her for a bit, then stopped. “I don’t think Berniece is coming back.”
Laura heard a plaintive tone in his voice she needed to ignore. She charged up a hill and scrambled over a pile of rocks. It couldn’t be true; it would never be true. No decent man, ever, now or in the future. The only men who wanted her were the unavailable kind. Or the ones who tried to force themselves on her.
E.B. leaned on the rocks, below her, poised to follow.
“Stay there,” Laura said. She needed time to think.
He waited.
“So, I’m supposed to trust you? Now? Why?”
“Laura,” E.B.’s voice echoed across empty canyons. “You have every right to be angry. Listen to my side of the story. Then judge.”
She crouched under the shade of a cottonwood tree. “This better be good.”
“Berniece and I.” He took a breath. “We’ve known each other since high school. There aren’t that many women in these parts. Our families thought it would work out. And it did, for a while. That is, until she found the Lord.”
“Don’t come any closer.” All that sweet talk. Why should she believe him?
Suddenly the leaves overhead started rustling. The wind picked up enough so that she started to worry about branches falling. She moved back toward the beach. E.B. kept his distance, which was a relief.
“I thought you were a churchgoer.” Laura turned to face him. “I knew it.”
“Was. I was. She is. Hell, she’s so involved she lives with the church.” He held very still.
“You string me along, the whole time knowing you’ll be seeing her.”
“What? I’m not seeing Berniece. What are you talking about?”
“Your wife. Yes,” Laura said. “That’s right, they said tomorrow. Coal Banks Landing—isn’t that where we’re going?” Laura would tell Stella everything, down to the same old piece-ofshit ending. The wind started to whip up waves on the river.
“Too much time in the sun and you’re delirious,” E.B. muttered. “Come on, let’s get going while we still can. We’ve got to catch up with Campbell this afternoon.”
“Tomorrow night at Coal Banks. Should be kind of cozy, don’t you think, you, me, and Berniece?”
E.B. stepped too hard into the canoe, making it wobble. “Maybe it’s not them.”
Laura climbed in and pulled back on her paddle, hard. “Think I’m making this up?”
E.B. placed both hands on the gunwales as thunder cracked opened the sky. “Jesus,” he said suddenly. “We gotta get moving.”
Laura looked at his eyes, then glanced up at the darkening sky. Wind shot down the river, making whitecaps. “We going out in that?”
“Yes! Any minute now! Get moving! Paddle hard!” Dark clouds that had been hanging over distant cliffs were now overhead, banking over the river and growing thicker all the time. “It looks like it might hail.”
Pings of water peppered the river, making circles grow.
“Faster! Faster!” he cried.
She could feel him paddling behind her, speeding up, faster and faster as she matched him stroke for stroke as he steered them into the main current, into the whitecaps. The temperature dropped about ten degrees. Her whole body shivered with the cold. She glanced at the shore as it sped by. It cooled off even more.
In a minute marsh grasses bent nearly double as gusts of wind ripped across the water. The wind shifted again, this time into their faces.
“Come on!” he shouted over the wind.
Rain was coming harder now, dampening her shirt and covering the river. “Hurry! Hail out here can kill you.”
Her hands, wet on the shaft, twisted when she took a stroke. Tightening her grip and getting down on her knees, she helped him power through another bend.
“Hole-in-the-Wall campground shouldn’t be far,” he called, his voice fading in the howling and rising wind.
Laura kept her head down and concentrated on her stroke. The boat felt like a part of her now. Heavy rain poured down the back of her neck and under the thin fabric of her shirt. Thunder rattled overhead. Lightning cracked in front of the canoe, illuminating very briefly some shelters on a bluff. The black clouds and rain came back obliterating everything. She pulled harder into a darkness, unaware of which way to go.
The canoe slammed into shore. Hail opened above them like machine-gun fire.
“Run!” E.B. shouted. “They’re some shelters up there. Run like hell!”