PETE HALF CARRIES, HALF DRAGS me the rest of the way along the trail to the river, lighting our way with the lantern. The breeze has picked up. By the time we reach the ferry, wind is pushing the clouds away from the moon, which is full and bright. Pete helps me into the scow. I’m shivering, so he finds some old gunnysacks to lie on top of me to keep me warm. He pushes off from the shore. That’s when I remember,
“The handsaw!”
“What handsaw?”
“My father’s. I left it. I have to go back.”
I struggle to get up on my feet.
“Stay put!” shouts Pete. He’s working up a good speed, pushing hard on the pole. “You’re in no shape to be hiking that trail in the dark.”
“He’ll have my hide,” I say.
“My pa will have my ass for running the ferry so late!”
“Why are you?”
“Because you said you were coming back, and you didn’t show up.”
It’s taken me this long to realize that Pete could have left me on the far shore for the night, but instead he came looking for me down the trail. I’m still too put off with him to muster a thank you. Instead I say, “I have to get that saw.”
“I’ll go look for it in the morning.”
“You’ve got school in the morning.”
“So I’ll skip school,” he says, like I’m being dumb.
I lie back on some coils of rope on the floor of the scow. My need to sleep is taking over again.
“Your pa will be too glad to see you alive to tan you,” Pete says, by way of easing my worry. I’m glad to see a glimmer of the old Pete, my friend. “Do your folks know where you are?”
“They knew where I was going, but I was supposed to be back tonight.”
“You’ll have to stay with us tonight. You can go home in the morning, if you’re up to it. Otherwise, I’ll get word to them.”
“Why are you doing this?” I say.
“Doing what?”
“Being nice.”
“You think you got the corner on being good, George?”
“I never said that.”
“That’s how you act. Like you’re better than me. That’s how all you Gillies act. Superior.”
Well that takes all. I’m thinking of the night that Louie Sam died, when Pete and his pa were behaving like the biggest toads in the puddle, telling everybody what to do. Humiliating my father in front of the whole town.
“Seems to me you’ve got that the wrong way round, Pete.”
“How do you figure that?”
“You’re the one who called me a …”
I can’t say it. Pete has no such problem.
“An Indian lover? If the shoe fits, wear it.” I fall silent. Pete remarks, “I see you’re not denying it.”
PETE’S PA IS NOT pleased to see either one of us when at last Pete helps me to their cabin door. He’s right about one thing—Mr. Harkness is all fired up about Pete taking the scow across the river in the dark. When Pete explains that he was worried something had happened to me, I get the feeling that in Dave Harkness’s view, neither my life nor my limb qualifies as an emergency worth risking his ferry over.
Mrs. Bell calms Mr. Harkness down. She tells Jimmy to fetch some butter for the burn on my right hand, which has begun to throb something fierce, and she tells Pete to dish the two of us up some stew from the pot on the stove. She helps me off with my jacket and shirt so she can take a look at my injured left arm. She feels along my forearm, causing me to twinge.
“That’s a break, right enough,” she says in her Aussie twang. “You’ll have to get Doc Thompson to set it in plaster.”
“It can wait until the morning,” declares Mr. Harkness.
She doesn’t disagree with him, but fetches some rags she ties together to make a sling for my arm. Telling me to sit at the table, she takes the butter that Jimmy has brought and lathers it on my right hand. Pete puts a bowl of stew down before me. I’m famished, but with one arm in the sling and the other hand greased up, I have no way to pick up the spoon. Mrs. Bell sees my predicament, and smiles.
“Let me help you, luv,” she says. She picks up the spoon and proceeds to feed me the stew. “Is that good?” she says, teasing me now. “Does Baby like his dinner?”
I am suddenly heated. I’m afraid I may be blushing. She smiles at the effect she’s having on me.
“I think Baby likes it!” she declares in a sing-song voice.
She feeds me another spoonful, this time wiping gravy from my chin and licking it from her fingers. Now I feel stirrings in places one ought not to, especially not when those stirrings are caused by the more-or-less stepmother of your friend. I try to drive out the shameful thoughts she’s started in me, to concentrate on the pain in my arm instead. I bow my head, praying that no one present will guess what’s in my mind.
Pete gets up from the table, scraping his chair hard against the floor, breaking the spell she’s cast over me.
“He can sleep upstairs in my bed,” says Pete. “I’ll sleep down here.”
Mrs. Bell looks Pete in the eye, like she’s amused by something.
“Don’t worry, Pete,” she says. “I won’t bite him.”
“He left the stew to burn!” Jimmy’s suddenly shouting, his voice high and excited.
All eyes are on the stove now, where the big cast iron stew pot is sending up smoke. Mrs. Bell is across the room in half a second. She may be small, but she’s strong—she grabs the handle with a cloth and swings the heavy pot onto the floor, all the while cursing Pete.
“Did you not think to add some water to it, you dimwit?!”
“He can’t help it, Ma,” says Jimmy. “He’s just slow.”
Pete looks like he’d like to drive his fist into Jimmy’s plump, satisfied face. He answers back to Mrs. Bell, “Don’t blame me! It was already burnt. Better to hide the taste!”
Mr. Harkness is across the room in a flash—cuffing Pete so hard against the side of his head that he sends him sprawling.
“Apologize to your mother!” he thunders.
Everybody’s silent for a few seconds. It seems like nobody’s even breathing. Pete’s still on the floor from the blow he just took from his pa. Slowly he gets up.
I’ve never seen him like this—his face is red with fury, tears streaming down it.
“Goddamn you!” he says. He turns a look of pure hate on Mrs. Bell. “And goddamn her!”
Pete grabs his jacket from the hook and heads out into the night, slamming the door behind him. I’m sitting there wondering if I should follow him when Mrs. Bell turns to me and smiles.
“I reckon that settles it. You’ll sleep in Pete’s bed.”
“Wipe that smirk off your face, boy.” Mr. Harkness is speaking to Jimmy. “And don’t you be calling Pete stupid.”
Jimmy cowers a little and sidles closer to his mam. Mrs. Bell lifts her chin and gives Mr. Harkness a look that tells him to watch his step. He’ll have to come through her if he wants to get his hands on Jimmy. I’ve never seen Dave Harkness back down before, but he does now.
I’m wondering where Pete has gone, and whether he’s coming back. I’m wishing I was with him—anywhere but here, there’s such a bad feeling in the room.
“If it’s all right, I think I’ll get to bed,” I say. “Thank you for the stew, and for the sling.”
Mrs. Bell lets out a hard laugh.
“You’re a bit of a stuffed shirt, Georgie, but you’re all right.”