I stared after them as they disappeared around the bend. I felt something nudge at my leg. It was Pearl; she must have followed the trash truck and tracked me down River Street.
'Okay,' I said. 'I can't leave you here.'
I got into one of the rowboats and gestured Pearl in after me. She sat up front, and we pushed off after them.
There was a single oar in the boat and it was broken, so I had only a short handle with a blade. It wasn't much use, but I was able to get the rowboat out into the middle of the river, where the current took over. Pretty soon, the sound of the motor faded. I used the broken oar to steer. I wasn't going to catch them at this rate, but maybe I could find where they went. Besides, I didn't know what else to do. And if I found them, then what? All I had was a jackknife. I didn't know what to do about that either. So I just drifted, following Jeannie down the big river, under the dark arch of trees that grew out from both shorelines. I felt like I was in a tunnel, without much choice about where I was going. And with no clear idea of what to do when I got there.
Chapter 13
'How old were you?' Susan said.
'Maybe fourteen,' I said.
'Weren't you scared?'
'I was terrified,' I said.
'You couldn't tell the police or your father?'
'I'd have lost them,' I said. 'I didn't know where they were going. I figured when they got to the river that they were going to one of his hideouts. But I didn't know where that was, not even which direction, you know? Upriver or down.'
'And you had no time to think,' Susan said. 'And you were fourteen years old.'
'Exactly,' I said.
'How about the dog?' Susan said.
'She was kind of comforting, actually. She'd been on the river with me a lot over the years, and she liked riding in the boat.'
'Why did you do it?' she said.
'Go after her?'
'Yes. Why didn't you say, it's an issue between a father and his child. It's not my business.'
'I never thought about that,' I said.
'But you were fourteen years old and alone.'
'It seemed like the right thing to do,' I said.
'I'm not saying it wasn't,' Susan said.
'My father used to tell me, a??Every person is afraid sometimes. Thing is not to let it run you. Thing is to go ahead and do what you need to do.' '
Chapter 14
An occasional turtle splashed off a log into the water as we drifted past. In the front of the rowboat Pearl was very interested in the turtles. As she was with the frogs that jumped or the jays that flew about under the high treetops. On a small island in the middle of the river we saw a huge snapping turtle that made an odd noise, between a hiss and a grunt, at us as we floated by him. Pearl laid her long ears back flat and hunched a little at him.
She'd hunted enough and been trained enough so that she never made any noise in the woods. She'd bark at people from the front porch of our house. But in the woods she never made a sound unless we ran into a drunken bear.
Occasionally we passed a fishing camp or a little summer cottage with a boat dock. And, of course, here and
