Barry sucked noisily on his finger.
“It’s a good thing Athena’s not here.” Steve grinned. “She’d have wrestled you to the ground by now, been giving you heart massage, maybe mouth-to-mouth respiration.”
A sly look came into his partner’s eyes. “Yeah,” he slurped. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” He took his finger out of his mouth. “You’d like to see that.”
Steve went rigid. Suddenly, his back felt soaked against the seat, and he looked away, tried to pretend he hadn’t heard. “Christ, it’s hot.”
Watching him out of the corner of his eye, Barry cleared his throat. “They’ll catch him.”
“What?”
“The escaped loony. They’ll catch him.”
“Maybe.”
“Come off it, Steve. Soon as they put the dogs on him, they’ll get him.”
Steve popped open the last beer. “If he makes it to the northern quarter…”
“You’d better hide that. We’ll be in town in a second.”
A distant look on his face, he didn’t respond. “I hear there’s stretches out there, forty thousand acres, some of them, without a living soul. If he wanted to, seems to me a fellow could stay lost for a long, long time.”
“Yeah?” Sunlight glinted off Barry’s dark lenses. “And what’s he gonna eat?”
Periodic cicadas had commenced their high-pitched, twitching whine, and the sound filled the woods, making them resonate, until the whole tangled structure of pine and cedar around the stream seemed to throb. And the air—the heavy liquid atmosphere of the summer afternoon—seemed to pulse as well.
Jenny floated. Though the creek’s level seemed low, such sunlight as filtered through the swath of red-brown liquid failed to reach the bottom, revealing only the tops of shattered tree trunks, ghostly in the murk.
“Isn’t this great?” Kicking sideways, Sandra swam over. “It’s deep over here!” Her tiny gold earrings flashed dully in the water as she sank to her chin, then bobbed up, large breasts just breaking the surface as she splashed. “Did you see the snake?”
“Snake?!”
“Alan said this great big copperhead went swimming by. I didn’t see it, thank God.” Turning from Jenny, she giggled and splashed back upstream, her pale buttocks visible through the dark water but the rest of her vanishing in the murk.
Diving from a rock, Casey splashed down heavily, drenching everything around. Everyone yelled. He surfaced, blowing like a whale, then tossed his head violently to clear his eyes. He’d finally put on his T-shirt, and it billowed up around him, holding air, his muscles knotting beneath it as he thrashed about.
Though she laughed with the others, Jenny remained tense. She sensed a…wrongness in making noise here. This place held silence, almost like a church. Wondering that the others didn’t feel it, she allowed herself to drift farther away from them, toward a bend downstream.
They were an intrusion. No question about it. She treaded water, and the murky warmth felt wonderful, soothing. Yet she kept peering up at the bank. The sun’s rays slanted low through the scrub above her, and deep shadows fell on the stream. Small insects flew drowsily, quietly, and the humid air seemed to press on the water.
A thick-bodied dragonfly hovered, iridescent wings glistening; then it thrummed heavily on, following the current. It made her think of jade. Emeralds. She watched it go. Green fire. She bobbed low. The current was sluggish but undeniably there, deep down, cool and heavy. She turned over to float on her back, and water dribbled out of her mouth, trickled shining down her chin and throat. Again she glanced up at the bank. Nothing moved, and she wondered what she kept expecting to see. All day, she’d thought these woods unutterably dreary and drab, but now in the lengthening shadows…
Sand and pebbles, late afternoon sun full upon it, the bank shelved steeply down to the murky current. Light striped the water but couldn’t penetrate. Bright bands of sediment eddied.
They kept clutching at her ankles—the black and twisted roots that grew out of the banks and deep into the water. And suddenly she recalled that Casey had mentioned giant snapping turtles. The voices of her friends drifted to her as she paddled against the stream toward them, her toes instinctively curled.
“…weird…no beer tabs or broken bottles.”
“Only because the water’s so dark, you know,” said Alan, lazing on the edge of the current. “Anything might be down there.”
“…use to think cedar water was just like weak tea, but this looks more like coffee.”
“Amelia, don’t you think you should get out soon?” Jenny stroked smoothly. “Before you’re permanently stained?”
“Oh, Mom!”
“While there’s still sun to dry off.”
“I’ll watch her, Jenny.” Sandra scissored past.
Turning her shining back to her mother, Amelia plunged at Casey, and he yelped as she wrapped her arms and legs around him, commanding him to carry her after Sandra. Watching their glistening limbs, Jenny suddenly felt drained, her leg muscles aching, feet throbbing from the day’s hike. Still, the warm water soothed; she wanted only to rest. Then an odd suspicion formed: the stream was attempting to lull her. Goose bumps rose on her arms and legs, and she wanted out.
She kicked toward the spot where they’d left their packs. A clenched mass of roots gripped the shore, and below her, the streambed sloped away sharply, sliding grittily underfoot. To steady herself, she caught at a root, and her hand slipped down it. Slimy as a water snake, it left a wet sheath of green in her palm. She floundered, with one leg sunk to the calf in clammy silt, the streambed tilting farther beneath her. Hardly able to stand upright, she felt herself being dragged back into the middle of the creek and again tried to haul herself out. Clutching, she got a foot up on the bank, but it crumbled under her, sliding into the water. Panic gave her strength, and with a springing leap, she cleared the side.
She clambered onto the sand as a big hunk of the bank fell away. “Oh!” She crawled faster. At last, breathing rapidly, she sat on a flat rock, well away from the edge. The sun slanted down on her, and a column of midges whirled in the light over the water. “Amelia?” Anxiously, she watched the others, as moisture spread around her on the rock. “Aren’t you tired yet?”
Long-shadowed birches crowded near the creek, and tufts of pointed grass covered the sand hills. Beyond the bank, scrub merged with unbroken dwarf forest.
She dried quickly. As she rubbed her naked body, beads of water rolled off, leaving a smooth residue, like a fine powdering of rust. Slowly, her muscles relaxed, yielding to the sunlight.
Something fat and black glistened like a garden slug on the back of her ankle.
Behind her, somebody spoke. “There’s a leech on you, girl.”
They were making their final rounds of the day. The road between Chamong and Hobbston bent around a cranberry bog, where red and green mats of vegetation lay thickly on the water. They rounded another curve, and dogs filled the road.
“Jesus Christ!”
More than a dozen mongrels scrambled madly as Barry gunned the engine, whipping the wheel hard over. The car barely clipped a collie mutt, knocked it tumbling over the sand. Barry hit the brakes, and the police car scudded, plowing deep furrows in the road. Revolver drawn, he leaped from the car.
Frozen, Steve gaped in disbelief.
Most of the dogs had already scurried off, disappearing into the pines. Except for the straggler—a runty shepherd mongrel, tail between its legs. A moment before, it had been secure in the midst of the pack. Now, looking around in confusion, it just stood in the middle of the road.
Flushed with excitement, Barry fired three shots, two of the bullets whipping harmlessly into the pines. One caught the animal at the base of the spine.
The dog screamed. It bounded, then sprawled in the sand, blood bubbling from its rump when it tried to get up and run. The oversize paws splayed all over the road, and the dog tumbled in panic, collapsed, kicking spasmodically.
