Shoo, said Wanda. You’re a mess.
He came toward her, arms flailing stiffly in a fiend’s mime, and she ran screaming.
Well, the old man said. You wont get it just bein in the same boat with him.
I aint goin in no boat, the boy said.
You aint, aint ye?
I caint bend my arms.
Reese had a knife and spoon up in his hands, holding them like candles, waiting for the food. The boy was standing rigidly at the end of the table. You what? Said Reese.
Caint bend my arms, said the boy loftily.
The old man laid down his silver quietly. Well hell’s bells, he said. He looked at Suttree. I reckon you and Wanda will have to take it today.
I’ve got a better idea, Suttree said.
What’s that?
You and Wanda.
Well, I thought I’d make the downstream run by myself. I thought I’d let you take the upstream with Wanda on account of she knows it.
The woman swung a bucketful of oatmeal onto the table and the old man seized the ladle and loaded his bowl. Suttree looked downtable at the boy. He was still standing with his arms out at his sides. Wanda was sitting at the table across from him. She did not look up. She seemed to be at grace. Suttree took the ladle and dolloped out the oatmeal. Reese was blowing on his, holding the bowl in both hands and watching Suttree across the rim. Pass the milk, said Suttree.
She sat with her knees together in the stern facing him as he rowed, her hands in her lap, the brail drops swinging behind her from the poles. Suttree seeing new country and asking about things along the shore, which side of an island to take. Her pointing, her young breasts swinging in the light cloth of her dress, turning in the boat, caught up in a childlike enthusiasm, a long flash of white thighs appearing and hiding again. Her bare feet on the silty boards of the skiffs floor crossed one over the top of the other.
She said: Holler when you get tired and I’ll spell ye.
That’s all right.
I row for Daddy all the time. I can row good.
Okay.
You like to work with Willard?
He’s all right.
I dont. I worked with him last summer some. He’s a smart aleck.
I guess you got to practice up on your rowing with him.
Shoot. That thing wont do nothin. You know he tried to get me to hide out what pearls we found cleanin shells and we’d slip off and sell em and keep the money?
Suttree grinned. Well, he said. I’d guess old Willard probably doesnt have much luck finding pearls. I’d say that everybody else would find about five to his one.
Shoot, I bet he keeps what good ones he does find and hides em somewheres. Looky yonder at that old snake.
A watersnake was weaving his way upriver by the shore reeds, his sleek chin flat on the water.
I just despise them things, she said.
They wont hurt you.
Shoot, What if one was to bite ye?
They wont bite. They’re not poison anyway.
She watched the snake, the tip of her thumb between her teeth.
Let’s just row over there and get him and I’ll show you, said Suttree, taking a hard turn on the larboard oar.
She squealed and jumped, grabbing at the oars. Suttree could see down the front of her dress all the way to her belly, the skin so smooth, the nipples so round and swollen. Buddy! she said, high and breathless and laughing. She was almost in his lap. You stay away from that thing.
The boat rocked. She steadied herself with a hand on his shoulder, she touched the gunwale and sat down, a shy smile. They looked toward the shore for the snake but the snake was gone. The sun was warm on Suttree’s back. He let one oar trail and wet his hand in the river and put it against the back of his neck. You scared the snake off, he said.
You scared me.
Maybe we’ll see another one.
You stay away from them things. What if one was to climb in the boat?
I guess you’d be climbing out. Suttree suddenly looked down over the side. Why here he is, he said. Right alongside the boat.
She squealed and stood up, holding her wrists together in front of her, her hands at her mouth.
Suttree shook and jostled the oar. He’s coming up the oar, he said.
Buddeee! she wailed, climbing onto the seat in the transom. She peered down into the water. Where? she said.
Suttree had let go the oar and was laughing like a simpleton.
You quit that, she said. You hear? Buddy?
Yes? he said.
You promise me. You hear? Dont do that no more.
Okay, he said. You better sit down before you fall in.
She stepped down and sat, holding the gunwales at either side as if to be ready for rough water. He stood his feet against the struts in the skiffs side and pulled into the current.
They ate their lunch on a grassy knoll above the river. A cool wind that bore an odor of damp moss coming off the water. Reese had gotten credit at the store and there were baloney sandwiches on white bread with mayonnaise and little oatmeal cakes. She sat with her bare feet tucked beneath her and brought these things from a paper grocery sack and laid them out. When they’d eaten he lay back in the grass with his hands behind his head. He watched the clouds. He closed his eyes.
She took the oars as they went back down and Suttree handled the brail bars. She would help him haul the filled brails in, smelling of soap and sweat, her body soft and naked under the dress touching him, the mussels dripping and swinging from the lines and clacking like castanets.
They coaxed the loaded boat through the shallows, walking alongside it on the gravel floor of the river. Suttree raised the front of it by the ring in the prow and ran the water to the rear and grounded the bow of the skiff on a rock. Them leaning over the boat from either side, their heads almost touching, scooping out the water with bailing cans.
Drifting downriver in the lovely dusk, the river chattering in the rips and bats going to and back over the darkening water. Rocking down black glides and slicks, the gravel bars going past and little islands of rock and tufted grass.
When they reached the camp there was no one about. Suttree took the axe and went for wood while she built the fire back.
He came up dragging some dead stumps and found her sitting in front of the fire on a tarpaulin she had spread there. She looked up quickly and smiled. He set one of the stumps in the flames. Hot sparks rose and drifted downwind in the dark. Where is everybody? he said.
I reckon they’re at church.
You think Willard went with them?
Mama makes him go. She puts him to work if he tries to lay out.
Suttree sat down on the tarp alongside her.
They could hear the river running on in the dark. He heard her breathing beside him, her breast rising and falling, eyes watching the fire. Suttree rose onto his knees and reached across the flames and jostled the stump forward into a better place. He looked back at her. She had her knees up and her arms locked about them. Her full thighs shone in the firelight, the little wedge of pink rayon that pursed her cleft. He leaned to her and took her face in his hands and kissed her, child’s breath, an odor of raw milk. She opened her mouth. He cupped her breast in his palm and her eyes fluttered and she slumped against him. When he put his hand up her dress her legs fell open bonelessly.
This is nothing but trouble, he said.
I dont care.
Her dress was around her waist. Incredible amounts of flesh naked in the firelight. She was warm and wet and softly furred. She seemed barely conscious. He felt giddy. An obscene delight not untouched by just a little sorrow as he pulled down her drawers. Struggling onehanded with buttons. Her thighs were slathered with mucus. She put her arms around his neck. She bowed her back and sucked her breath in sharply.
Hers was a tale of bridled lust. He made her tell him everything. Never a living man. When he rose from between her thighs the fire had died almost to coals. She sat and smoothed her skirt and swept back her hair. She got up and took up her fallen underclothing and went to the lean-to. Suttree saw her go with a basin toward the river and when she returned she had bathed and changed her dress and he had mended back the fire and she came and sat by him and he took her hand.