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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Thomas Berger, Robert Crews: A Novel
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