was heavy enough. When I picked it up I heard a little gasoline splash around in the tank. I started to drain it out on the ground outside and then decided it wasn’t worth the trouble, and started looking around for some wire. I looked at my watch. It was a little after eleven.
It had to be wire. Cord or rope would rot after a while. I finally found some tied up in the walnut tree, and went back out to the lake carrying the outboard, hurrying now to get it over with. I put the motor down beside him and went back across the clearing to the other end, to the boat landing. She hadn’t moved.
“Are you all right now, Doris?” I asked gently.
She looked up. “Yes, I’m all right. Can we go now?”
“Not for a little while longer. You know what I’m doing, don’t you?”
She shuddered. “Yes. I think so.”
“Can you handle a boat?” I asked.
I could see the horror begin to come back into her face. “You want me to—to—”
“No,” I said. “Not with me. I just want you to take the other boat up there to the bend and keep a lookout. There’s not much chance anybody will come along, but we still can’t risk it.”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I can do that much. I’m sorry, Jack.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “You’re doing fine.”
I helped her into the rental boat and gave it a shove. Then I got in his, undamped the motor and lifted it out onto the float, and followed her out of the slough, using the oars. When I got out into the lake I thought of something and looked under the seat for the tow sack he carried the fish in. They were still in it. So he hadn’t gone on to the store. I didn’t think he’d had time, even with that big motor, to get clear down to the store and back since the time I’d met him. I didn’t like it, because the man who bought the fish down there would remember it, remember he hadn’t shown up when he was supposed to. Well, I thought, there’s nothing I can do about it now.
I rowed up the lake shore to where I had left him, then waited until she reached the bend and got in position. When she got there I took a good look up the lake, in the other direction, to be sure it was clear. There was no bend up there and I could see for a mile or more, the lake deserted and glaring in the sun. I backed in to the bank and got out. Pulling the stern up a little so it would rest on the beach, I picked him up again and laid him across the big seat, on his side with his legs doubled up, then brought the motor over and started fastening it to him with the wire. It was hot and breathlessly still now and the surface of the lake was like a sheet-metal roof blazing in the sun. The shaking and revulsion began to take hold of me again at having to touch him and move him around like that, but I kept on until I had done a thorough job of it.
It was harder to shove the boat off now, with him across the stern, but I worked it loose, still standing on the ground and holding it, and moved it around with my hands until it was parallel and I could get in without having to climb over him. Sitting on the middle seat, I splashed water with an oar until I had obliterated the mark the boat had left on the beach, took one more look down the lake to where she was and up the lake to see that both directions were clear, and started pulling out into the channel. When I got out toward the middle I turned around and sounded with the anchor rope. It was about twelve feet deep. Stepping back to the stern, I took hold of the coat and rolled him off. There was a splash and the boat rocked, and then he was gone. A string of bubbles came to the surface, and then at last one big one that made a bulge in the water like a bass feeding. My knees gave way on me and I had to sit down.
She saw me head back to the landing and started rowing in herself. I tied up at