'Maybe it won't be raining so hard under the bridge,' I said.
'But if it's a railroad bridge,' Jeannie said, 'won't it just be a trestle? You know, ties on a bridge frame?'
'Maybe there'll be some sort of solid cover at each end,' I said.
'Can't be worse than this,' Jeannie said.
I steered us with my broken oar toward the near end of the bridge. As we got close to it, I made out a sign. It said:
CAUTION
WATERFALL AHEAD
NO BOATS BEYOND
THIS POINT
I could feel the current quicken a little even as I was reading the sign. I steered the boat to the shore under the bridge and tied it to a sapling.
'Far as the boat's gonna take us,' I said.
We were under a support arch of concrete at the near end of the bridge, and it did protect us from the rain. Pearl looked around at me as if to say, 'It's about time.' With the blanket draped on her head she looked like a painting of a Dutch peasant woman my father and I had looked at once in a museum in Denver.
'When the rain stops,' I said, 'we can climb up onto the bridge and follow the railroad tracks. Eventually they'll take us someplace.'
'Soon, I hope,' Jeannie said.
'Sooner or later, tracks lead someplace,' I said.
We sat for a while under the bridge. But the rain kept coming. I was already soaked through. But it wasn't cold, and there was no wind. Once you get soaked, you get sort of used to it. We sat some more. Pearl sat under her blanket and looked at the river.
Then from upriver, a long way off, I heard something. I leaned forward trying to hear better.
'What?' Jeannie said.
I pointed upriver.
'Listen,' I said.
We listened.
'My God,' Jeannie said.
I nodded.
'It's the bass boat.'
Chapter 21
'What do you think he will do if he catches us?' I said.
'He'll be drunk,' Jeannie said. 'He'll be very angry.'
'So what do you think?' I said.
Jeannie looked at me for a while. Her eyes steady on mine. Her face perfectly still.
Then she said, 'I think he'll kill you.'
'And you?'
'I don't think he'll kill me,' she said. 'But he'll give me a fearful beating and drag me off to live with him God knows where.'
I nodded.
