The idea of a river flotilla persisted. Bartle had purchased more boats, special safe boats, and they’d take them all the way to town. His men had tested everything, and the ride would be only three hours at most. Lewis wanted to write about the notion of traveling along a river for pure sport, and they climbed out of buggies into a late-season cloud of mosquitoes. Dulcy wrapped her scarf around her face and throat, stuffed her hands in her armpits, and took in the scenery through gauze, thinking of Edgar Nash’s last clinic. “Notice they don’t bother biting me,” said Lewis.
James Macalester had ridden with them, sorting flies and waxed lines, nearly poking out eyes with a cane rod while he talked about having delivered six babies in the last three days—what had happened the previous fall? Vinca talked of picnics, but Macalester wanted to fish, not talk. He was sick of talking, and Vinca’s vacation ideas had a way of backfiring. He asked Dulcy if she thought they’d be having another earthquake, or possibly a volcano; strange things happened when they tried to relax together.
She smiled. “I don’t want to think about it.”
“Did you know that you say that often?” he said. “I think it often, when I’m at work, but you say it: I don’t want to think about it. I hope saying it works.”
The women all wore their oldest shoes, skirts and blouses that were flattering but opaque, their best slips, trying to cover the variables of potential wetness. Lewis had wanted Dulcy to wear one of the Martha dresses. He loved them, especially if she didn’t bother with wearing other things underneath. Today she agreed to the dress with a thin sweater, but rebelled with a petticoat and drawers, because the idea of what the river current could do to her skirt temporarily outweighed the idea of what he might do with her skirt.
Bartle was still annoyingly jolly. There were four boats of different shapes and sizes, two barge-like things that could hold eight, two squat little flat-bottomed canoes with square backs meant for only two passengers. The men argued about whether they were Eastern riverboats or Indian boats.
Dulcy was a lake girl, raised to fear waves and undertows. When they pushed off in one of the big barges, she could feel wood twist under her feet, and each jolt on the rocks rattled her, and it took a while to grow used to the groaning planks and trust Bartle’s men. When she did, when even Clara quieted down, the world was beautiful, and everything moved with the river: trees and birds in the wind, clouds scudding downstream, racing the boat. She’d brought a green tapestry bag with her green notebook, and now she scribbled down a list of the wildflowers she could see on the hills. Passing under a bridge, swallows peered down out of drippy nests.
They stopped when Bartle decided to explore some caves. Lewis waited until he was halfway up the cliff. “Snakes,” he said.
“Pardon?”
“Rattlesnakes, Cornelius. Watch where you put your hands.”
They reached a wide, slow stretch. The sun burned, and the wind tugged on Dulcy’s flower bower of a hat, her sloppily pinned hair. Taking it off to fan herself meant never anchoring it again; she roasted and weighed options while Clara piped on, now claiming she’d seen a stream run uphill. After Dulcy watched Lewis lower his hat in the water and flop it onto his head a second time, she finally took out the pins one after another, dipped her hat in the water, and only gave it a token shake before she plopped it back on her head. Cold water ran down her back and over her collarbone, between her breasts. “Better?” asked Lewis.
“Yes.” But the pleasure had worn off by the time they stopped again. She peeled off her shoes and stockings and stood in the river, letting the water numb her ankles. Lewis walked over and looked down at her blue feet, then back up at her face. She could smile back; she could strip him to nothing without anyone knowing.
They picnicked under cottonwoods, on grass flattened in circles by bedding deer. Rex had brought beer, and Bartle’s cook had made dried-out meat pies. Grover never aimed his film camera at Dulcy; he hadn’t talked to her or to Lewis at all. After the parade she’d sent a note, and Grover had given Samuel a little melted twisted bit of celluloid. Durr had been coming through the yard when Samuel passed it on, moving his studio back downtown. “Where did Dewberry have it developed?” he asked.
Samuel didn’t know; why did it matter? Grover had done as Dulcy asked, and Durr needed to stop thinking the worst of people.
Now Margaret photographed Durr photographing the trees. Rex had brought Rusalka, a quiet debut, and they wandered out of sight around a bend in the river. Dulcy lay back and watched the cottonwood tops move against the sky. The trees made popping noises as they swayed, but Grover was talking again, explaining how he was a visual man , as if any of them had thought otherwise, as if any of them cared beyond Clara, who said things like you are such a poet , darling .
“I’ll quote a poem,” said Lewis. “‘The thing for me is a drunken sleep on the beach.’”
“You’re welcome to it,” said Grover.
“You have no idea, Grover. Pipe down. Mrs. Nash, would you accompany me? You’re the quietest person on this beach.”
She lifted her green bag, with her glasses and the green book, into the little canoe-like boat. She wasn’t sure that Lewis knew how to handle it, but she was wild to get away, while Grover announced that he was taking the other small boat with Samuel and Macalester’s rod. Would Durr film them trying to fish with it?
“I don’t think it would be advisable from that boat,” said Macalester, taking the rod away.
“I have my own photographs to take,” said Durr, climbing into one of the barges with Margaret.
Dulcy clambered into the little canoe. Its sides felt like paper, and the water looked violent. “Keep your eyes in your head,” said Lewis. “We’re all right. We’ll find a place and swim and take a little nap.”
He’d left his hat in the barge. “You’re getting a sunburn,” she said. “Would you like mine?”
“You’ll burn your pretty nose.”
“Not in the fifteen minutes it’ll take to save yours.” She dipped the hat again and lowered it onto his head.
“Jesus,” said Lewis.
“He doesn’t hear you,” said Dulcy. “What are you doing?”
“Slowing the boat down, so everyone goes ahead. Then we’ll take that channel.”
“Do you think it goes all the way through?”
“I don’t know,” said Lewis. “We may regret it, but right now I only regret not being wet and not ripping your dress off.”
“All right,” said Dulcy, watching Samuel and Grover disappear.
They found a pool that was just deep enough, and she spread the blanket behind a downed cottonwood. Bodies had never looked so white; sand everywhere despite the blanket. When their skin dried and tightened they went into the water a second time. “Someone will come looking for us,” said Dulcy.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Lewis. But back in the boat, in the main channel, the pace of the current picked up. Dulcy squinted ahead to an obstacle course of rocks and downed trees.
“This was a horrible idea,” muttered Lewis. “I’m going to kill us both.”