I wanted to see where it had happened.
That would be the best place to start my search.
The Calm Before the Storm
Before I go on with the rest of what happened last night, I’d better tell what happened to me and the women at the chasm. Last night will make more sense that way.
When I left off, we were wading upstream, Connie in the lead. Earlier, Kimberly had run away from us on the beach. She was afraid we might try to tone down her vengeance, so she wanted a crack at Wesley without us.
We were afraid that, going after him alone, she might get herself killed.
We hurried up the stream. Though we splashed quite a bit, we didn’t speak.
Connie and I slapped mosquitoes, now and then. They weren’t as bad as they’d been on the day we made our first trip to the lagoon, but plenty of them buzzed around us and settled on us and sucked our blood and tickled, so we both worked at smacking them flat. (The critters didn’t bother Billie, of course. My theory is that they didn’t want to spoil her fabulous body by marking it with little red bumps.) Anyway, we waded up the stream at a good, quick pace, and didn’t speak at all for quite a while. We were afraid of giving away our position. None of us, I think, looked forward to a premature encounter with the enemy. If it came to a fight, we wanted Kimberly to be with us.
About halfway to our destination, though, Billie broke into song.
“Once jol-ly swagman… !”
Connie twisted around. “Mom!”
“What?”
“Shhhh!!!!”
“Let’s all sing,” Billie suggested.
Connie’s attitude had improved so much that she didn’t blurt out, “Fuck you!” Instead, she asked, “What on earth for?”
“It’s a great day for singing.” Billie looked over her shoulder at me, and smiled. “Don’t you think so, Rupert?”
“They’ll hear us,” I said, and whacked my neck to mash a mosquito.
That’s the idea,” she said. “Let’s get their attention, if we don’t already have it.”
Connie lifted her eyebrows. “So they’ll worry about us instead of Kimberly?”
“Exactly,” Billie said. “It might not even occur to them that Kimberly isn’t with us.”
“As long as they don’t see us,” I added.
Billie grinned. “If they’re busy watching us, they aren’t watching Kimberly.”
“Okay,” I said. “But we’d better be ready for them.”
“What the hell,” Connie said.
“Let’s do it,” said Billie.
Off we went, marching up the stream, the three of us singing “Waltzing Matilda” at the top of our lungs. Billie and Connie seemed to know the lyrics by heart—Andrew, the Navy lifer, had probably learned the song on shore leave in Australia, or something, and taught it to them. I knew most of the words, myself. (I’ve made it a point, since I was a little kid, to memorize song lyrics, poems, all sorts of quotes that impress me.) We sounded damn good, bellowing it out.
Even though the song is mostly about death and ghosts, it’s so jaunty that I felt great singing it.
We were flaunting ourselves, taunting Wesley and Thelma if they were near enough to hear our cheerfully defiant marching song.
After “Waltzing Matilda,” we sang “Hit the Road, Jack.” I didn’t know the words at first, but caught on after listening to Billie and Connie. Then we sang, “Hey, Jude,” which we all knew most of the words to.
For our next song, I suggested, “We’re off to See the Wizard.”
Billie laughed. “Oh, that’s rich.” Rich, mostly, because I was lugging an ax. “You make a cute Tin Woodsman,” she said. “Ill be the Cowardly Lion.”
Cute. She’d called me cute.
“Gimme a break,” Connie said. “We’re choosing parts? What does that leave me, the Scarecrow? Fat chance. What was he looking for, a brain? Thanks, but no thanks.”
“You can be Dorothy,” I told her, smiling.
“What if I don’t want to be Dorothy? Dorothy’s a woos.”
“That leaves Toto,” Billie said.
“A dog. Thanks a heap, Mother. If we’re gonna sing the damn song, let’s just get on with it, okay? You guys can pretend to be whoever you want, just include me out.”
“Party pooper,” Billie said.
“You and the horse you rode in on.”
“Cowardly Lions don’t ride horses,” I pointed out.
Connie gave me a narrow look, then smiled. “And doughnut holes don’t fly,” she said, “but maybe you can take a leap at one, anyway.”
“Let’s sing,” Billie said.
Without any more discussion, we started in on “The Wizard of Oz.”
Turned out, none of us knew the words very well. We made an energetic botch of the song, then quit when we reached the flat, slanting rock just below the lagoon.
This time, nobody went sneaking up the rock to take a look around. Connie leading the way, the three of us climbed its face. We stood at the top in full view of anyone who might be watching.
We saw nobody.
“Now what?” Connie whispered.
“Kimberly was planning to come in from the rear,” Billie said. “She’ll probably be over on the other side.”
“Somewhere upstream,” I added.
“So I guess we swim across,” Billie said.
“Not me,” I said. “I can’t swim anywhere with this ax.”
“Leave it here?” Billie asked.
“Somebody might swipe it. Besides, what if we need it?”
“Guess you’re right,” she said. “Maybe we’d better walk around to the other side.”
I expected Connie to say, “Be my guest,” then dive in and swim across. I wouldn’t have blamed her, either. I wanted to dive in. The water looked wonderful. Also, it would’ve been very soothing on our mosquito bites.
Connie surprised me, saying, “I’ll go first.” Then she turned to the left and began to make her way along the shoreline. Billie followed her, and I took up the rear.
It wasn’t easy going. A lot of climbing. A lot of ducking under branches. A lot of squeezing through tight places. A lot of tricky footwork, crossing ledges and steep slopes and deadfalls. A lot of huffing and sweating.
I felt responsible. After a while, I said, “Are you two sure you wouldn’t rather go on and swim across? I can meet you on the other side.”
“This is the last place we oughta start splitting up,” Billie said.
“You got a death wish?” Connie asked me.
“I just feel bad about making you do this.”
“You’re doing us the favor,” Billie said. “Hell, you’re hauling around our major piece of weaponry.”
She was right about that.
And very sweet to point it out.
They both seemed to accept this rough haul as an unavoidable part of our mission to hook up with Kimberly, and didn’t blame me.
We stayed as close as possible to the water. That way, we had a good view of the lagoon and most of the opposite shore, including the waterfall. We kept our eyes open for Kimberly. And we watched for any signs of Wesley or Thelma.
Being at the rear, I watched our backs.