Dorry gone? He sat up. The first part of the dream was bothering him again. Jort – Jort Camp. He took hold of the blanket and looked at Margy. 'Look out. I'm getting up.'
She stepped back quickly. 'Well, I'll thank you kindly to remember, Shad Hark, that I'm not a girl that can be -'
'Stop kicking up a fuss over nothing. I got my shorts on.' He grinned. 'And there ain't much to see nohow – or so some have told me.'
'I'll just
He trotted out to the porch, doused a bucket of water over his head, then washed his face and rinsed his mouth. It tasted like an old tobacco pouch.
Margy was still facing the table when he went for his pants.
'It's safe. They's nothing fer you to bust your eyes over.'
Her look was arctic. 'Ain't that a relief,' she said caustically.
He grinned at her. 'Oh, I dunno, some gals might consider hit a disappointment.' Then he hurriedly cut her off before she could snap back. 'Look a-here, Margy,' he said seriously 'I ain't run off with your sis. I ain't even seen her. I ben three days and nights tooling around out in that old swamp like a blind man in a cornfield.'
The look in her eyes wasn't quite disbelief.
'You ain't lying, Shad?'
'God's truth, Margy. I was out there on my lone looking fer that Money Plane – but I didn't find hit. And that's the truth, too.'
She couldn't understand it. 'Jort Camp and Sam come back night afore last,' she said. 'They told my Pa and Joel Sutt and that Mr. Ferris that they ben put gator-grabbing. Said they seen you'n Dorry going downriver in your skiff. Said they figured you was running off.'
Shad couldn't believe what he heard. '_Seen me and Dorry running off down river?_ Why that goddam Jort and Sam was out in the swamp with me the first day. They wanted that money but I slicked out on'em. They knew I didn't have Dorry with me!'
She didn't know why she had always wanted to trust Shad. It was something about him; maybe the way he acted, moved or looked. She remembered a day when she was twelve. She had met Shad and Tom Fort coming along the road. They'd stolen a watermelon from Uncle Peebie's place and were taking turns toting it. Tom had leered at her that way fifteen-year-old boys always did; had made an insulting remark. He'd thought it really funny, thought it funny when she'd blushed and started to turn off the road, half in shame, half in fear.
But Shad hadn't thought it funny at all. 'Shut your goddam mouth,' he'd told Tom, and he'd meant it and right now, anyone could tell. 'What's wrong with you?' Tom had wanted to know. 'Ever-body knows how her sis -' 'She ain't her sis,' Shad had pointed out. 'She's just a kid.' And then he'd nodded at her, as if saying It's all right. He don't mean it. And he'd given Tom a shove in the back.
She came a step, then another, toward him.
'Shad, you think something's happened to Dorry and Jort knows it?'
He rubbed at the back of his neck. 'Dunno. Where's Jort and Sam at now?'
'They and that Ferris left fer the swamp again yesterday morning.'
There was something wrong about it.
'Mr. Ferris went with'em?' He shook his head. 'He ain't got the sense I thought he did.'
'What's it mean, Shad?'
'Means they think I'm still in the swamp. They're either laying fer me at Breakneck, er they're scouting the north creeks fer that Money Plane. Well, all I kin say is that Mr. Ferris better hope they
But Mr. Ferris' life expectancy wasn't his problem. He snapped his fingers and went out on the porch for a gunny sack. Back in the cabin he started loading all his canned foods into the sack. Margy watched him with large, perplexed eyes.
'What are you goan do?'
He didn't look up. 'I got time and blood invested in that Money Plane. Ain't nobody taking that away from me. I got to swipe me another skiff and git back into that swamp right fast.'
She stared at his humped back. 'What about Dorry, Shad?'
'What about her?'
'Well, she's ben missing fer days. Don't it mean nothing to you?'
He straightened up and turned to look at her, the halffilled sack hanging from his square fist. Neither of them said a word. He let the sack go with a clunk and came over to her.
'Margy,' he said softly 'I guess you think me four kinds a bastard, don't you? But you cain't know how much that money means to me. You don't know what I ben through already trying to git hit.
'Right now old Jort'n Sam and that Mr. Ferris is out there tearing that swamp to pieces trying to find my money. And they got them a fair idea of the general direction in which hit's hid, too. It ain't but a matter of time afore old Sam with that goddam eagle eye of his spots my blaze marks, and then -'
He didn't like the way she just stood there, not saying anything, just looking up at him. A small girl, with enormous watchful eyes. He scowled and looked away
'You kin think what you want,' he muttered sourly. 'I don't know what's happened to Dorry. And right now I ain't got the time to worry about her.'
'You don't love her, Shad?'
He met her eye. 'No,' he said honestly. 'I guess I never did. It was just that I – well -' So how do you explain to a girl like her that one look at her sister and something goes BLOWIE! in your brain.
Her gaze pulled down. She looked at the finger nails of her right hand. Shad did too, absently noticing that they were clean.
'I know,' she murmured. 'I know how it is with Dorry and boys.'
Shad nodded. He'd never before been embarrassed when talking sex with a girl, and he didn't quite know what was wrong here, and didn't have the time to give it more thought. 'I got to go, Margy,' he said. But he couldn't when she looked up at him, couldn't just walk out on that look in her eyes that he didn't understand.
'Shad – you won't be coming back this way again?'
'Not if I find that money I ain't. Cain't afford to.'
He almost didn't catch what she said – it was so low and unexpected.
'Take me with you, Shad.'
Now that it was in words, she was glad. Now she could finally admit it to herself. So she had loved him from that first night on her pa's porch, when they had swapped insults, maybe before that, maybe from the time she was twelve and he had stopped Tom's dirty mouth, maybe even before that.
He was tender with her – as she intuitively knew he would be -the only girl he had ever been tender with. He didn't even kiss her. Somehow a kiss would be the wrong contact at that moment, and he seemed to know it. He put his hands on her shoulders, lowering his head.
'You want to go with me – out there?'
She nodded.
'We mebbe won't git the money,' he said.
'I don't think we will. I think there's too much against us. That ain't why I want to go.'
No, it wasn't. He knew that, and so he said, 'I'm sorry I said that about the money. You ain't like your sis.'
'No. I ain't like her at all.'
He'd be a fool to take her out there. It wasn't safe for one thing. And even if it was, even if he could outfox Jort and Sam and Mr. Ferris, even if he could find the Money Plane again, why would he want her tagging along? She was little and not much on build and a man could find a prettier girl by looking in almost any direction.
'If you go with me,' he said slowly 'I might git you kilt.'
Her head made an even, soft bob. 'I know. But I got it to do.'
And then he kissed her, but not as he had ever kissed before. And it seemed to erase all the others – all the wet lips, and he wasn't sorry.
Funny, he thought, the way things work out.
