He looked nonplussed. "Damn. Dumb." She came and snatched it out of his hands and wrapped it for him, turbanlike, herself up close against him.
She had not thought about it when she started; she did before she was done, and she backed off when she had given the cloth its final tuck, with the same embarrassed unease she had had in the night—that he was not a boy, not just anyone, and the only company in her whole life had been female. He was just—different. Touching him felt different; and it reminded her that when she had offered him what she thought was the most profoundly generous thing she had ever offered, he had flinched. Nothing so calculated as a No. Just a gut reaction from a dazed man, honest as it came. She had herself up in his face and he just sat there. Never did what a man ought to do, just tried not to notice.
I never thought I was pretty. I never thought I was that bad. She touched her nose where she and the pole had met, hard, when she was a girl struggling to learn the boat. When she was slow getting to safe mooring in a storm, and old Det got his knock in, back when she was first alone and not so strong as she was now: first time she had ever poled alone in bad storm, and got her nose broken. She had gotten to mooring choking on blood and half-blind with pain; but got to mooring. The nose was always a little flat, a little broad. Maybe it was that. It was sure the pole hadn't helped.
"Why are you helping me?"
She looked back. Hunted a quick answer and discovered it made no sense. "Huh. I dunno."
He thought a moment. He had that look, that there was thinking going on. "How did I get aboard?"
"I pulled you."
"Yourself?"
"Who else?" she asked. "You tried to climb aboard. I grabbed you and I pulled."
He shook his head. "I don't remember. That's gone, I remember the water. I remember a bridge."
"Half a dozen friendly fellows threw you off, nakeder 'n a newborn. Don't remember, huh?"
He said nothing. That saying nothing was a lie. She saw it in the little flicker of his eyes. He looked around. "What are we waiting for?"
"You got a place to go?"
He looked at her.
"You can rest," she said. "Sun's coming up warm, you just lie there and bake those scratches till you feel better. No hurry." She walked over to starboard and got the lines and poles from their ties, skipped up onto the halfdeck and drew the stern anchor tighter. She heard him move and looked around to find him clambering up onto the halfdeck, swaying perilously rimward. He staggered again. "Deck!" she yelled, gut instinct; and he wobbled there widelegged till she grabbed him. "Sit down! Damn, you near went in!"
He caught at her arm and sat down on the halfdeck, all wobbles. She squatted on secure bare feet and the facts slowly dawned on her. She became aware of the little scrunches her toes made, the constant shift of her leg muscles. She reached and shoved at his knees. "Hey, you keep your feet down in the well, huh? Don't you stand up on the halfdeck, and you be damn careful standing up in the well. You got landlegs, not to mention a cracked skull, which don't help. Little boat does pitch a bit. You'll get used to it. You're wearing all the dry clothes I got."
He swung his feet down onto the slats. Looked back at her. "What are the sanitary arrangements?"
"Sanitary?"
"Toilet." And when she blinked in dull amazement: " Piss!' he shouted at her.
"There's that pot there for'ard and there's over the side, you takes your pick. Either you got to do." An image occurred to her. "Piss over the side; you got to do something else, you use that bucket; Ican do't; you'll fall in sure if you try the other."
He looked at her and looked forward and aft and back again as if he hoped for something else. And sat where he was.
She felt genuinely sorry for him; and irritated. And personally insulted. Like the flinching-away from her. It was one and the same. She reached out and patted his hand much the same as she had touched the ingrate cat—quickly and carefully. "Hey, I'll be fishing off the stem, all right?
I won't look."
He stared at her as if he thought there was surely some better answer.
"You some kind of religious?" she asked, as the thought leaped into her head. Some Revenantists were extreme in their modesty.
"No," he said.
"You like men?"
"No." More emphatic than the last. He looked desperate.
"Just not me, huh? Fine. I won't jump you. You don't have to look so worried." She patted his hand again and got up and went over and squatted down on the half-deck at the drop-bin where the rest of the tackle was stowed, meticulously untied it and tied lines and uncapped the bait-jar, wrinkling up her nose at the stench. She wadded a bit of it on one hook and cast.
She sat down then crosslegged on the stern by the engine housing and watched the float and the water and the dancing sunlight, same as a thousand days and a thousand more. Until finally she felt the little difference in the boat his moving about made; felt it in the way the balance and character of the boat went right up her spine and into every nerve. She let him be. Eventually he came back toward the halfdeck; and got up on it. She turned around, but he was being careful, walking bent over with his hand ready to the deck.
He wanted the company, she guessed as he settled near her. It was all right. It was pleasant. "You ever fish?" she asked. It was not a hightowner kind of business, but it was a thing she liked to do when business was slow. Best thing in the world, to watch the water dance and hope for a bobble in the float; it was all hope. At any moment luck could turn. A fisher had to be an optimist. A pessimist could never stand it.
"I—" He edged closer and started to sit down and drop his feet off the side.
"Hey, you'll scare the fish. Keep your shadow off the water, huh?"
"I'm sorry." He got back and tucked his feet up in his long arms. She turned and gave him a look to say it was not unfriendliness. "I—" He tried again. "I'm really grateful," he said. "For everything."
She shrugged, suddenly dragged back to business and feeling a little chill in the world. Bridges at midnight and black-cloaked no-goods. She looked at him.
"It's not that I don't—like you," he said. "I just— don't know what's going on."
"You mean you don't know who threw you in."
That wasn'twhat he didn't know. She read the eyes, the quick unfocusing and dart elsewhere and back.
"How did you happen to be there?"
"I was making a pickup at the tavern. You went in right near my boat. You come up looking for anything to grab. I was it. Lucky, I s'pose."
He digested that for a moment. The eyes flickered. They were green like the sea. No, murkier. Like the sea on a bad day. Then the cloud in them went away and he reached toward her face. She flinched in startlement.
He drew back quickly and looked uncomfortable.
"Hey," she said. It scared her. Her heart was pounding. Ancestors knew, he could be crazy as half the rafters out here. She took up on the pole. "I think I got a bite." It was a lie. It got her out of an uncomfortable situation. She wound the line in and examined the dangling float and hook. The bait was gone. "Damn sneak." She got up and went after more bait.