“I dunno. A little. She’s whimpering.”
“We should haul out,” Jack said. “We should take a look and get some food in her. In us, too. She might have to pee. I know I do.” When they were by themselves they knelt on the seat and peed over the rail. Now they both felt shy about doing it, even though their passenger was unconscious most of the time.
“How many miles do you think we’ve gone?”
Jack looked at the sun. He ran his eyes over the shore and gauged the progress of the current. With the wind in their faces and drifting, they barely moved. “Eighteen. Twenty.”
“Damn.”
“I know.”
“Eight or ten to go.”
Wynn drank from the squeeze bottle, unscrewed the cap, refilled it. He tossed it to Jack. “You think we should pull out here?”
Jack drank. With the bottle tipped up he let his eyes run over the close bank, the left, the ledge rock and forest. He looked across to the right shore, far across the cove to the line of dense woods where half a dozen ducks flew fast over the trees and out across the water. “He won’t risk us getting past him, like I said.”
Wynn waited.
“I think we’re good right here. He wouldn’t be at some random spot, right?” Jack said.
“I guess. I don’t think we need to be playing army.”
Jack had the bottle halfway to his mouth. He lowered it. His eyes were flat.
“You think we’re playing?”
“I’m not sure, to tell you the truth.”
They drifted. Jack held his eyes on Wynn and Wynn could not tell what he was thinking, except that the Gimme a minute was unspoken.
Jack took his minute and said, “Your problem is you’ve got faith. In everyone, in everything. The whole universe. Everyone is good until proven bad. You’re kinda like a puppy.”
That stung.
“Thing is, Wynn, this fucker might have just tried to kill his wife.” He tossed the half-full bottle back. It hit Wynn in the chest but he caught it. “If he did, now he’s gonna try to kill you.”
Wynn didn’t know what to say. The Jack in the bow resembled the Jack he knew, but. If he’d seen him like this, it had never been aimed in his direction. Wynn said, “Well, if he did it, why didn’t he just shoot her? Why didn’t he just shoot us, for that matter? When he first landed?”
Jack grimaced; he didn’t want to be anywhere near the man, much less inside his head. He said, “He didn’t shoot her because he’s chickenshit. He thought he’d knock her out with a rock and bury her in the moss and duff and let the cold and wet and the animals take care of the rest. Too cowardly to brain his wife. Almost worked, too. Also, if he shot her and anyone ever did happen to find her they’d find a blast hole somewhere and maybe a slug, his slug. He didn’t shoot us because we surprised him. He wasn’t expecting us. We have a rifle and he’s got a shotgun and there’s two of us, and anyway he’s got to think it through. He doesn’t want us to get out of here, any of us. But he’d rather dump our shit and let the river and the weather and hunger take care of us. He’s not a born killer. And if he has to deal with us himself, he wants to think it through and pick his spot. Make it clean.”
“His spot,” Wynn murmured.
“Ambush. He didn’t ambush us back there because it was too open and spread out with two of us. He doesn’t have the balls for a firefight. He’ll let the river finish us, but if he has to, he’ll try to take us where we’re crammed tight and very close.”
Wynn shook his head. “There was an accident. Bad. Then there was a bear. Now there’s some dude trying to run the river solo and so traumatized he can’t see straight. He needs help as much as we do. Jesus.”
“Look, Big, maybe it was a bear. I’ve been dead wrong before. Maybe the bear shouldered our gear barrels into the river. Maybe she did fall out of a tree. But if she was some accident and this was a bear, where the fuck is Pierre?”
“That’s just crazy.”
Jack spat into the current. He said, “Our friend here will tell us. She’s not saying, but she will. We can cling to the bear theory or the fall-out-of-a-tree theory all we want, but meanwhile he took our food and dumped our shit in the river and he’s trying to kill us, too. And the sonofabitch has a gun.” Jack touched the rifle in the bow, the gesture almost unconscious. He scanned the far shore. “Lucky fucking thing he doesn’t have an ought-six or we’d be dead by now, guarantee it,” he murmured. He turned back to Wynn. “Let’s say you’re right. Pierre is off his meds. Pierre is panicked. Pierre is afraid we’re the killers and took off. Pierre just needs to be talked down, won over. Oh yeah, and that was another bear that scattered all our food and threw our shit in the falls. Bears everywhere—man. Good. Good then. Awesome. Everyone really is good and fair, go figure. But—” He snagged the tin of Skoal out of his pants pocket and twisted the lid, took a dip. “We really don’t wanna find out we’re wrong with buckshot to the chest.”
“I’m not saying everyone’s an angel. It could’ve been the two drunks.”
“I don’t think those guys could stalk a pine tree. Anyway, you’re the doc—she’s waking up, right? Why don’t you ask her?”
“Not really.”
“Not really like she’s not waking up, or not really like you don’t want to stress her out by asking if we’re going to get shot at any minute?”
Wynn winced. “Why are you making me the bad guy?”
“You’re not the bad guy. Definitely not. The bad guy seems to be in a category of his own. I just don’t know what category to put someone in who I think is my friend and is trying to get me killed.” Jack picked up his paddle. “Let’s go to shore and have lunch.”
* * *
After that nobody spoke. They found a low spot in the granite ledge rock and scraped up onto it. The canoe was Kevlar but it had an extra layer like a bow plate for that purpose. They never treated it like an eggshell, or a canvas canoe. It was made to get beat up, which is a little how they saw themselves. Okay to get roughed up, but not by each other. That’s what Wynn thought as he ran the painter to an alder and tied it off. They’d always been back-to-back.
When they got to the canoe to lift her out, Jack said, “Hey, I’m sorry. If I’m amped, I just want us all to get down this river safe. All three of us.” Jack looked away and Wynn suddenly thought of Jack’s mother. The other river, when one of the three hadn’t made it out alive. Jack hadn’t told him the story until they had known each other for over a year. Jack said, “I just think we’ve gotta be prepared.”
Wynn said, “It’s okay. I get it.”
They carried her to a bench of grassy duff and laid her down. Her lower pant legs were wet where they’d been awash, and so was her seat. A sharp urine smell lingered. Jack exhaled. Without a word he began stripping off her pants and Wynn took off his. He always wore light wool long underwear—Jack had teased him that his hair would start growing through it, that they’d have to cut it off by the end of the season. They left her in the sun and Jack walked to the river and rinsed out her pants and underwear and spread the pants over willow branches. He dipped and wrung the underwear like a rag and came back and squatted beside her and whispered, “I’m going to clean you up.” And he did. When he was done he took the underwear back to the river and rewashed it and hung it on the branches. Wynn stripped his wool long johns and buckled his canvas pants back on and worked her feet into the woolies and tugged them up over her legs and hips. This had to change, he thought. She needed to wake up enough to drink some water, to eat something. If she didn’t, she would slip back into shock and die of exposure.
Jack went to the canoe and heaved up one of the tied shirts. Must be fifteen pounds. He carried it to them. Then he went back for a cup and a spoon and the water bottle.
“We’ll make a mash,” he said. Wynn nodded. “Do you think you can get her to drink a little?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s safe to try to wake her.”
“Is it safe to let her go days with nothing?”