Karl was choking. He made slight cawing sounds as Newman bent him back. The bandage on Newman's left arm was undone and napping. The wound had begun to seep blood and it trickled down his arm. Karl scratched and clawed at Newman's face, trying to gouge his eyes. Newman increased his pressure. He grunted and then exhaled explosively, the way he did when he lifted weights. Karl gave way. He went backward into the water and Newman came down on top of him, his hands still locked on the throat and shirt front. He pressed Karl back against the bottom of the lake. The bleeding wound in his arm made the water near him slightly pink. Karl's legs thrashed and his hands stopped digging at Newman's face and went to Newman's hands. Under the water he tried to pry Newman's grip from his neck. He dug at Newman's fingers, but Newman increased the pressure. Pressing down more. He could feel the swell of strength in his back and shoulders, feel the force in his arms. There was triumph in the feeling, as his muscles swelled and held. Beneath the water Karl made no sound. He arched his body, thrashed his legs, dug with his fingers at Newman's grip. Newman remained as rigid as a boulder. Sweat stood on his forehead. He bit his lower lip with effort and it drew blood and that dripped down his chin and added its pink tinge to the water already touched with the blood from his wounded arm. His eyes were closed. In that position they held. Karl's struggles slowed. They stopped. He was still on the bottom. Newman still held him against the pebbled bottom while his arms no longer clawed but hung limp and moved slightly in the eddying water, held him several minutes after it was necessary, held him after he had died, held him as if he were unable to let go and would hold him until the lake rose in spring and covered them both. Then slowly his body began to unclench. He relaxed his hands, though he still bent forward pressing lightly against Karl's chest. The trapezius muscles eased, the cords in his forearms smoothed. He rocked back, away from Karl's body, and sat on his haunches, still astride him. He took in air in a long shuddering breath and let it out through closely pursed lips in a slow hiss.
It was fifteen minutes before Newman could stand. His body shook. He staggered as he turned toward shore and began to wade. The blood trickled down his left arm and his chin. There were more scratches and gouges on his face. And five parallel red scratches on his chest where Karl had dragged desperate fingernails just before he died.
He got to shore and found a rock near the bank and trembling sat down on the rock with his back to the bank. His wet, half-naked body was cold. There was a small breeze. It was September. He shivered. He clasped his arms around him and sat, trembling with exhaustion, shaking with emotion, shivering with cold. He sat that way for an hour, until Janet came out of the woods and found him.
CHAPTER 32.
Bundled in his down vest and nylon parka, but still shivering, Newman waited in silence while Janet found the canoe. He was almost entirely inside himself as they paddled it out onto the still surface of the lake and headed straight across toward the cabin. His arm hurt as he paddled but he showed no sign of it, and the pain barely registered.
Halfway across they let the canoe drift and dropped everything but the first-aid kit and the clothes they wore overboard. The carbine was the last thing. He didn't like to drop it. It was compact and shapely. It felt good in his hand. He held it barrel-down for a moment at arm's-length and then let it go. It slid smoothly into the water and sank.
"It's funny," he said.
"What is?"
"To be without a gun. I don't feel right." She smiled. "You didn't need a gun at the end." "I couldn't shoot," he said. "I wanted to. I knew I had to, but I couldn't, not up close, with him looking at me." "You did what you had to," she said.
He shifted the paddle as the canoe began to veer off course. Even with the wounded arm he was so much stronger than she was that the canoe wouldn't hold straight if he didn't compensate.
"And you did it alone," she said.
The sun was directly overhead, and there was no wind. The lake was slick and the canoe moved over it as if without friction.
"Without me," she said.
He could see the float in front of the cabin now, and the small wharf that slanted up from it. The foliage had begun to change and there were scatters of gold and red in the shoreline forest.
"When we came back from Korea," he said, "we came into San Francisco Bay under the Golden Gate Bridge and they tied in the ship's speaker-system to a disc jockey in San Francisco, so that before we even saw land we heard American radio, and commercials, and when we went up the bay we could look up the hilly streets into San Francisco and see American buildings and people and cars." His voice was as flat and still as the surface of the lake. She looked back at him over her shoulder. He wasn't looking at her. He was looking past her at the dock. She turned back and dug in her paddle.
They left the paddles in the bottom of the canoe when they docked. His arm hurt when he had to put weight on it to climb from the skittish canoe. On the dock they stood together. He looked back across the lake. On the far side the woods were unbroken and uniform, patches of color blotching the green. The lake remained smooth and calm. It had healed over the wake of the canoe as it had closed over the carbine, as it had closed over Adolph Karl.
"It's pretty," he said.
"Yes." "From a distance," he said.
"Looking back," she said.
They turned toward the cabin. He swayed slightly. She put her hand on his shoulder. "Are you all right?" she said.
"Yeah. It's just that I'm tired. Fighting makes you tired. And I haven't eaten. And I suppose I've lost some blood, and I feel a little dizzy." "Come on," she said. "We'll go to the cabin and you can lie down."
He was very slow as they walked up the path. She walked close beside him although she didn't touch him. The side door was unlocked. They went in. It was empty and still and strange. He stood swaying in the center of the room, his teeth chattering.
"Get out of the wet clothes," she said. "And lie down. I'll put a sleeping bag over you. And I'll make a fire."
He nodded. She went to the bedroom for a sleeping bag. Only the three bags and the full refrigerator gave sign that they'd ever been there.
Chris was careful, she thought.
Newman with his head down, still fully dressed, stepped uncertainly toward the couch. When his shins hit the edge of it he swayed forward and fell facedown on the couch. He didn't move. When Janet came back with the sleeping bag he was asleep with his mouth open, breathing evenly. A fire was laid in the fireplace. She put down the sleeping bag and lit the fire. Then she went to the couch. She took off his boots and socks. There were large holes in both socks at the big toe and on the balls of both feet. She threw the socks into the fireplace.
She worked her hands in under his stomach and got his belt unbuckled and his fly unzipped. Then she inched the wet pants down over his thighs and finally worked them off. She did the same with his underwear. She un zippered the sleeping bag, spread it over Newman's half-dressed and motionless body, picked up his pants and underwear, and went to the bathroom.
In an alcove off the bathroom was a washer and dryer. She let the water run into it. When it was full she added soap and dropped his pants and underwear into it. Then she stripped off her own clothes and put them in. She shut the top of the washer and walked naked to the shower. With the water as hot as she could take it she stood under the shower. She shampooed her hair twice. She lathered her whole body with soap and rinsed and did it again. There was still grime around her ankles and she squatted in the shower with the hot water cascading over her to lather and massage them a third time. When she was through the water rinsed them clean. She stepped from the shower into the cold bathroom, shivering. She had no other clothes and she wrapped the one towel around her as best she could and walked to the living room. The fire was dancing now and the living room was warm and rich with the smell of hardwood burning. Her husband had not moved.