Glaring at her, he bent to one knee, put the muzzle against the metallic surface of the bag, turned his head away from the blast, and pulled the trigger. The flock beat their wings and flew off for good. The shot sent a shower of paper into the air and knocked the bag into the shallows. Wiley raced to retrieve it, his sneakers sinking in the mud, and found that the bullet had torn a hole as big as his fist. Poured out on the grass, most of the money was ruined—half blown apart, and many of the salvageable bills were singed or waterlogged. He yelled out a string of obscenities.
Erica put her hand to her mouth to stifle her laughter. “You shot the money.”
“It's not funny,” he said. “Stop laughing at me.”
Wading into the duckweed, she helped him salvage what could be saved, ninety-seven dollars in all. They lined up the bills one by one to dry and upon each laid a small rock, and the sight reminded her of a cemetery, rows of grassy plots dotted by headstones. He paced the waterfront looking for stray survivors, and she stretched out on the bank, the warm sun soon drying her bare feet and evaporating the beads of water that had collected like dew in the fine hairs of her forearms. Through closed eyelids, she could sense the changing light, and on her bare skin feel the falling temperature, and when she stirred from her rest, Erica was not surprised to see an expanse of clouds swallowing the blue sky.
“Looks like rain,” she hollered at the distant boy, who poked a stick at something submerged at the water's edge.
They pocketed the damp money and trudged back to the car. Every few steps, he looked back over his shoulder at her, scowling whenever he caught her smirking. When he touched the wires together, the Duster's engine failed to turn over, and daring her to so much as giggle, he tried again; it whirred and clicked but would not start. She folded her arms, refusing to offer any solace, and watched a ladybug crawling across the windshield. Six segmented legs swam across the glass in crazy desperation, no pattern or plan but escape. The moving circle stopped, the wings flared and then folded, and she wondered why the ladybug did not simply fly away, since it could. After the third unsuccessful try to start the car, Wiley banged out and popped the hood, tinkered for a while, pretending with parts he did not know. Red-faced in the driver's seat, he tried a few more times, but the engine was dead. Muttering and cursing like a lunatic, he pounded out his frustration with his fists on the dashboard while she just stared, impassive, through the glass, fascinated by the erratic path of the bright and tiny insect.
12
At three in the afternoon, a line of thick gray clouds cruised in on a cold western wind, and Erica and Wiley headed leeward, anxious eyes on the horizon, fearful that they would be caught in the coming rain. Dotting the far shore of the lake, a few toy houses clung to the hills, never appearing to draw closer. After bundling the rifles in the blanket and burying the package beneath a pile of leaves, they donned their backpacks and hiked through the silent woods, hoping to reach shelter before the downpour. She followed the trail he blazed, calling out for him to slow down when he marched out of sight.
At the top of a rise, she found him squatting on his haunches to inspect in the undergrowth hanks of gray fur scattered in random patches, grim reminders of some death on the spot. With a long knobby twig, Wiley stirred through the detritus, overturning matted leaves, attempting to discover the buried squirrel or rabbit, but nothing else remained. No bones, no blood. Whatever had been caught had departed with the predator, a fox or owl perhaps. A day or two and the clues would disappear as well, blown by the wind, washed by the rain, or stolen by some woodland creature to line its bed. Resting her hand upon his arm to steady herself, she bent to join him and felt the electric tremor on his skin just before the first dazzling fissure of lightning.
Drops struck the dry leaves in irregular explosions, a budding threat of what was to come, the rhythm building and flattening out as the rain beat harder and more steadily in a rolling percussion. They moved with quick, earnest strides, trying to keep themselves dry, but the rain fell heavily. Their long hair clung to their scalps and shoulders, their clothes puckered against their limbs, and their feet squelched in their shoes through muddy puddles. The water seeped into their knapsacks, doubling the leaden weight on their backs. By the time they reached the first cabin, they were soaked to the core. Wiley pounded on the wooden door to be heard above the roaring storm.