His eyes popped open.
I mean they just flew open, boing!, and all at once he was staring right at me — a wild and crazy stare, like Freddy Krueger before one of his slice-and-dice rampages.
It scared me so much I recoiled back against the gunwale and cracked my elbow. “Shit!” The boat wobbled a little, kept wobbling as he twisted over onto one hip and tried to sit up. He didn’t have enough strength; he made the groaning sound in his throat and sank back, supporting himself with one hand flat on the deck. When he looked at me again, the craziness was gone. His eyes were still glazed, but in a hurt and confused way.
He said “Trisha?” as if he didn’t believe it was me. His voice sounded like one of the frogs in the Budweiser commercials.
“Yeah.” I wasn’t afraid anymore. He wouldn’t hurt me. I don’t know how I could be so totally sure of that, but I was. I straightened up on my knees, rubbing my elbow. “I was trying to get those wet clothes off, you know? You were shivering so hard...”
“Cold,” he said. He blinked a few times, ran his other hand over the dark stubble on his cheeks. “Where are we?”
“Boat shed.”
“Whose?”
“Ms. Sixkiller’s. This is her boat.”
“Sixkiller... Audrey?”
“Yeah. You know her?”
“Met her. How’d you find me?”
“I was up on the dock and I heard you moaning.”
“Just you? Alone?”
“Just me.”
He tried to sit up again, but something hurt him this time; he grimaced and sucked in his breath. I could see part of the wound in front where the open shirt pulled away. Black and red-brown and scabby. It was bleeding again, too — little pimples of bright red.
I said, “I never saw bullet wounds before,” because it was what I was thinking.
“Better hope they’re the last you ever see.”
“That one looks... man!”
“Feels that way, too.” He was probing at it with two fingers, unsticking the rest of his shirt and wincing when it tore away a scab of blood. “Could’ve been worse. Bullet went straight through, didn’t hit bone or bust me up inside.”
“Lucky.”
“Oh yeah. Mr. Lucky.”
“I brought some peroxide,” I said. I leaned over for the bottle and showed it to him. “I got it from Ms. Sixkiller’s bathroom. It’ll help, won’t it?”
“Help a lot. Thanks.”
“I also got some blankets.”
“Help me sit up. Don’t think I can manage by myself.”
I scooted over, got behind him on my knees, and lifted on his good side until he was sitting up. Then between us we were able to drag the shirt back down over his arms and all the way off. He poured peroxide on and it, like, actually hissed on the open wounds, bubbled up white and frothy in a way that nearly made me gag. The pain must’ve been terrific; he jerked and twisted and tears leaked out of his eyes and he half-strangled on a yell to keep it from coming out loud.
I took some of the gauze pads out of their wrappings and he used half to clean the wounds and then we taped on the rest. He had a little trouble breathing when we were done, so I helped him lie back flat. Then, with him raising his butt and pushing with his hands and me tugging, we managed to get the Levi’s off. He said, “You can leave my shorts on,” but I said, “They’re wet, and I’ve seen guys naked before,” and I worked those off, too. I couldn’t help sneaking a look at him down there. Oh, boy. Even shriveled up from the cold, his dick made Anthony’s look like an Oscar Mayer reject.
When he was wrapped in the blankets, the thermal one underneath against his bare skin, he asked me what time it was. I looked at my watch and told him, “Quarter to ten.”
“That late? A wonder I lasted long enough for you to find me.”
“How long’ve you been here?”
“Most of the night.”
“It must be more than a mile from here to Mrs. Carey’s. You couldn’t have swum all that way.”
“No. I wasn’t in the lake more than ten minutes the first time, maybe twenty altogether. Walked and crawled, mostly.”
“How’d you keep them from seeing you?”
“Dark took care of that. Dark and blind luck. Couple of them got close enough to touch me, but I was hiding under a dock on a crosspiece where their lights didn’t reach.”
“Everybody thinks you drowned. Or else the cold got you.”
“They were almost right. I couldn’t’ve gotten any farther than here. Passed out as soon as I climbed in under the tarp.” He looked at me for a few seconds, and then he said, “I didn’t kill her, Trisha. Mrs. Carey.”
“I know it. I wouldn’t’ve helped you if I thought you did.”
“I hope you don’t regret it. If they find you here with me—”
“They won’t. They’re not looking down this far.”
“But they are still looking.”
“For your body, not for you.”
“Audrey Sixkiller... where’s she?”
“Probably down at the Elem rancheria by now. She has a tribal council meeting at eleven. I was supposed to meet her here at nine, but she must’ve forgot.”
“Better beat it while you can.”
“Don’t worry, she won’t be back until after one—”
I stopped because the wind slackened just then and I heard rumbling noises out on the lake. John heard them, too. He said, “What’s that?”
“Boat engine. Sounds like the sheriff’s launch.”
“Coming this way?”
“Yeah, but they can’t see us if we stay down.”
I stretched out flat alongside him. The engine sounds got louder, closer. John was breathing fast and raspy again; I could feel him all tense inside the blankets. I felt bad for him. And mad, too, on account of what’d happened to him and how wrong everybody was about him. Why couldn’t they see him the way I did — a good guy, not a bad one?
The launch glided past at least a hundred yards offshore without slowing any. I waited a couple of minutes more, until the engine sounds began to fade, then rose up and looked and couldn’t see anything except gray water. I climbed out and went to the end of the float for a quick look. When I came back I said to John, “They’re gone. On their way back to Southlake, looks like. That might mean they’ve called off the search.”
“Might.” But he didn’t sound convinced.
“You want to sit up now?”
He said he did and I helped him. He huddled against the gunwale, not saying anything. He was still shaking but in little spasms, not hard like before. His skin color didn’t seem as gray anymore.
“You look better,” I said.
“Feel better. Warmer. I’ll be okay.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. You get going. The longer you hang around here, the more risk of you being caught with me.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“I do. Go on, beat it.”
“If I beat it, then what? What’ll you do?”
“Sit here until I feel stronger.”
“Then what?”
“You don’t need to know that.”
“Yes I do. Tell me, John.”
“I don’t know. See if I can hot-wire the ignition, maybe.”
“That’s good, getting away in the boat. But where to?”
“Somewhere on the other side of the lake. My problem, for Chrissake, not yours—”
“Big problem,” I said, “if anybody sees you driving Ms. Sixkiller’s boat. Everybody around here knows it’s hers. And even if you do make it all the way across, what’ll you do then? You’re hurt too bad to do much except hide for a while, but you don’t know the area well enough to find a safe place. And you’d have to leave the boat and they’d find it and then they’d know where you went. Right?”
He was quiet again, watching me.