We headed toward the river, Riley leading the way. The legs of his canvas trousers whispered against each other. Every little bit he stopped and stretched himself, as though he’d been riding on a train. Somewhere we came to a hill of already about and busy red ants. Riley unbuttoned his fly and began to flood them; I don’t know that it was funny, but I laughed to keep him company. Naturally I was insulted when he switched around and peed on my shoe. I thought it meant he had no respect for me. I said to him why would he want to do a thing like that? Don’t you know a joke? he said, and threw a hugging arm around my shoulder.
If such events can be dated, this I would say was the moment Riley Henderson and I became friends, the moment, at least, when there began in him an affectionate feeling for me that supported my own for him. Through brown briars under brown trees we walked deep in the woods down to the river.
Leaves like scarlet hands floated on the green slow water. A poking end of a drowned log seemed the peering head of some river-beast. We moved on to the old houseboat, where the water was clearer. The houseboat was slightly tipped over; drifts of waterbay sheddings were like a rich rust on its roof and declining deck. The inside cabin had a mystifying tended- to look.
Scattered around were issues of an adventure magazine, there was a kerosene lamp and a line of beer empties ranged on a table; the bunk sported a blanket, a pillow, and the pillow was colored with pink markings of lipstick. In a rush I realized the houseboat was someone’s hide-out; then, from the grin taking over Riley’s homely face, I knew whose it was. “What’s more,” he said, “you can get in a little fishing on the side. Don’t you tell anybody.” I crossed an admiring heart.
While we were undressing I had a kind of dream. I dreamed the houseboat had been launched on the river with the five of us aboard: our laundry flapped like sails, in the pantry a coconut cake was cooking, a geranium bloomed on the windowsill—together we floated over changing rivers past varying views.
The last of summer warmed the climbing sun, but the water, at first plunge, sent me chattering and chicken-skinned back to the deck where I stood watching Riley unconcernedly propel himself to and fro between the banks. An island of bamboo reeds, standing like the legs of cranes, shivered in a shallow patch, and Riley waded out among them with lowered, hunting eyes. He signaled to me. Though it hurt, I eased down into the cold river and swam to join him.
The water bending the bamboo was clear and divided into knee-deep basins—Riley hovered above one: in the thin pool a coal-black catfish lay dozingly trapped. We closed in upon it with fingers tense as fork-prongs: thrashing backwards, it flung itself straight into my hands. The flailing razory whiskers made a gash across my palm, still I had the sense to hold on—thank goodness, for it’s the only fish I ever caught.
Most people don’t believe it when I tell about catching a catfish barehanded; I say well ask Riley Henderson. We drove a spike of bamboo through its gills and swam back to the houseboat holding it aloft. Riley said it was one of the fattest catfish he’d ever seen: we would take it back to the tree and, since he’d bragged what a great hand he was at frying a catfish, let the Judge fix it for breakfast. As it turned out, that fish never got eaten.
All this time at the tree-house there was a terrible situation. During our absence Sheriff Candle had returned backed by deputies and a warrant of arrest. Meanwhile, unaware of what was in store, Riley and I lazed along kicking over toadstools, sometimes stopping to skip rocks on the water.
We still were some distance away when rioting voices reached us; they rang in the trees like axe-blows. I heard Catherine scream: roar, rather. It made such soup of my legs I couldn’t keep up with Riley, who grabbed a stick and began to run. I zigged one way, zagged another, then, having made a wrong turn, came out on the grass-field’s rim. And there was Catherine.
Her dress was ripped down the front: she was good as naked. Ray Oliver, Jack Mill, and Big Eddie Stover, three grown men, cronies of the Sheriff, were dragging and slapping her through the grass. I wanted to kill them; and Catherine was trying to: but she didn’t stand a chance—though she butted them with her head, bounced them with her elbows. Big Eddie Stover was legally born a bastard; the other two made the grade on their own.
It was Big Eddie that went for me, and I slammed my catfish flat in his face. Catherine said, “You leave my baby be, he’s an orphan”; and, when she saw that he had me around the waist: “In the booboos, Collin, kick his old booboos.” So I did. Big Eddie’s face curdled like clabber. Jack Mill (he’s the one who a year later got locked in the ice-plant and froze to death: served him right) snatched at me, but I bolted across the field and crouched down in the tallest grass. I don’t think they bothered to look for me, they had their hands so full with Catherine; she fought them the whole way, and I watched her, sick with knowing there was no help to give, until they passed out of sight over the ridge into the cemetery.
Overhead two squawking crows crossed, recrossed, as though making an evil sign. I crept toward the woods—near me, then, I heard boots cutting through the grass. It was the Sheriff; with him was a man called Will Harris. Tall as a door, buffalo-shouldered, Will Harris had once had his throat eaten out by a mad dog; the scars were bad enough, but his damaged voice was worse: it sounded giddy and babyfied, like a midget’s.
They passed so close I could have untied Will’s shoes. His tiny voice, shrilling at the Sheriff, jumped with Morris Ritz’s name and Verena’s: I couldn’t make out exactly, except something had happened about Morris Ritz and Verena had sent Will to bring back the Sheriff. The Sheriff said: “What in hell does the woman want, an army?” When they were gone I sprang up and ran into the woods.
In sight of the China tree I hid behind a fan of fern: I thought one of the Sheriff’s men might still be hanging around. But there was nothing, simply a lonely singing bird. And no one in the tree-house: smoky as ghosts, streamers of sunlight illuminated its emptiness. Numbly I moved into view and leaned my head against the tree’s trunk; at this, the vision of the houseboat returned: our laundry flapped, the geranium bloomed, the carrying river carried us out to sea into the world.
“Collin.” My name fell out of the sky. “Is that you I hear? are you crying?”
It was Dolly, calling from somewhere I could not see—until, climbing to the tree’s heart, I saw in the above distance Dolly’s dangling childish shoe. “Careful boy,” said the Judge, who was beside her, “you’ll shake us out of here.” Indeed, like gulls resting on a ship’s mast, they were sitting in the absolute tower of the tree; afterwards, Dolly was to remark that the view afforded was so enthralling she regretted not having visited there before.
The Judge, it developed, had seen the approach of the Sheriff and his men in time for them to take refuge in those heights. “Wait, we’re coming,” she said; and, with one arm steadied by the Judge, she descended like a fine lady sweeping down a flight of stairs.
We kissed each other; she continued to hold me. “She went to look for you—Catherine; we didn’t know where you were, and I was so afraid, I …” Her fear tingled my hands: she felt like a shaking small animal, a rabbit just taken from the trap. The Judge looked on with humbled eyes, fumbling hands; he seemed to feel in the way, perhaps because he thought he’d failed us in not preventing what had happened to Catherine.
But then, what could he have done? Had he gone to her aid he would only have got himself caught: they weren’t fooling, the Sheriff, Big Eddie Stover and the others. I was the one to feel guilty. If Catherine hadn’t gone to look for me they probably never would have caught her. I told of what had taken place in the field of grass.
But Dolly really wanted not to hear. As though scattering a dream she brushed back her veil. “I want to believe Catherine is gone: and I can’t. If I could I would run to find her. I want to believe Verena has done this: and I can’t. Collin, what do you think: is it that after all the world is a bad place? Last night I saw it so differently.”
The
