Raising my face, I saw sunlight. At least I knew which way was up. Not a damned bit of good that would do me if I didn’t get some air. The thing was, it was kinda pleasant down below. I wasn’t hot or itchy anymore. My body was a limp thing, buoyed lazily on a current. It would have been real easy to give in. Give up. Sink all the way down and anchor myself in the mud for all time.
My parents would think I’d run off. Got a wild hair and never looked back. That was a cruel thing to do to a body. Seeing as I was Mama and Daddy’s only, twice as cruel in my case. I started robbing banks to save them. I couldn’t let it ruin them.
I suppose disappearing would have been better than getting arrested by Caleb Newcastle. Or anybody, for that matter.
A beacon of pain pulsed in my shoulder. That boy shot me. My lungs burned, and spangles flashed in front of my eyes. Swim or die, I told myself. Swim right now and run on home. Put some money in the neighbors’ mailboxes. Tell Mama we delivered twins to some rich city people and they gave us a hundred dollars because they were burning them for warmth.
Up, up, and out of the water and back to Swan’s Holler. Into the Pings’ barn, trade out my robbing clothes for my good-girl dress, and get back to life. Get to the church social. Eat pound cake, talk with Maisie, let Caleb put his hand on my hip.
He wasn’t so bad. Mostly he was pretty good. Emphasis on the pretty, and sweet to me too. He brought Mama flowers and talked to Daddy about the weather. He didn’t blush when people joked we’d be married before twenty.
Up!
My head pounded, but I finally connected it back to my arms and legs. Scrambling and clawing at the water, I fought to the surface. Once I did, I hit a big old branch hanging low. It knocked the stars right into my eyes. I sunk under again, then remembered that I had planned to survive today.
Up!
It was so sweet, breathing. I had river in my nose, and my shoes were lost in the current, but I was alive. If there wasn’t a chance of Caleb sighting me from the shore and shooting me for good, I woulda whooped.
Instead, I took a mouthful of water, then spat it. I breathed, and I swam. When the water went shallow, I hauled myself up. Bandy-legged, I staggered along the rocky bank.
It was a good thing I only ever asked for what was in the drawer. If I’d been greedy, carrying as much money as I could manage, I woulda lost it all, or drowned saving it. Pulling the powder sack from around my neck, I loosened the leather strings. Coiled up like baby snakes, greenbacks nestled down in the dark.
They were wet, but they were still mine.
Mama didn’t believe me when I said that a rich lady with twins gave me a hundred dollars.
Lips tight, eyes narrow, she grabbed my chin between her fingers. Turning my head back and forth, she scoured me with suspicion.
In the end, she said to go wash the stink off and come help with supper. She looked me up and down, then folded the damp bills into the box where she kept her pin money.
Tucked up in some privacy, I washed myself best as I could from a pitcher. Studying myself in the mirror, I said, “You look a fright.” Because I did, bedraggled and scratched, but whole.
Mostly whole, actually. There was a little half-moon taken right out of my shoulder. My first gunshot wound and, God willing, my last. It looked almost like a burn and didn’t smell a thing like gunpowder. That kind of disappointed me, to be frank.
Dinner was biscuits and gravy. Sleep that night was good and hard and deep. And in the morning, I put on my patchwork dress and let Mama braid and twist my hair into a chignon. Baby Boy Wabash was sitting in the Pings’ barn, filthy shirt and suspenders stuffed behind a bale of hay. Marjorie May Johnson was putting on a touch of her mama’s rose water and striking poses in the front room.
The knock at the door startled me. I was still jumpy from my close call, but I had to slough that off. Daddy opened the door. With a big, booming voice, he invited Caleb inside and asked after his granny. She’d been sick with a fever, but according to Caleb, she was all better now. Once he finished yammering with my daddy, Caleb finally turned to look at me.
When he did, his blue eyes widened. He clutched his hat against his chest, his blond hair falling in messy waves across his brow. Not one inch of him looked worse for the wear. If anything, his golden tan made him glow. It deepened the pink of his lips. It reminded me why I let him be forward with me. Why I liked it when he clasped his hands against my waist and pulled me tight.
In fact, that’s exactly what I let him do as soon as he got me out the door and down the street a little. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I drank him up — sweet, sweet lemonade. When he picked me up, I laughed in surprise as he spun me around. Then, like I was delicate, he put me back on my feet.
“You gonna dance with me at this social?” he asked, slipping my arm through the loop of his.
With a champagne bubble laugh, I said, “I just might.”
We walked on, side by side, and I was happy. I robbed banks, I ran from the law — and then I ran right into his arms, once I turned from boy to girl again.
The way I saw it, that was the real mistake the Barrow gang had made.
It seemed to me that they’d have been a lot less likely to get gunned down if Bonnie had just had the sense to be Clyde.