to see you back.”
The assistant was looking past us at my truck, his mouth had dropped open a bit and then he snapped it shut and turned away, shaking his head in disgust. Cleve and I walked up toward the office.
“I don’t have a new canoe yet. But if the offer still stands, I’d like to borrow yours to get out to the shack,” I said.
“No problem. But I’ll have to get you the key,” Cleve answered, moving through the office to his desk.
“After everything going on, I went out and put a hasp and lock on the door. Figured it might keep your stuff safe,” he said, putting the key in my palm and then looking at it a second too long. “First time I ever had to do that.”
I felt a pang of responsibility, like I’d taken something from him.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Ain’t your fault,” he answered. “Things change.”
We carried his canoe to the water. I loaded my bags from the truck and just before pushing off I called out to Mike Stanton, who was still working the waterline of the Whaler.
“If you want to fix her up again, I’ll pay you.”
He looked off across the ramp at my truck.
“OK. Yeah. Maybe.”
I nodded, put my right foot in the middle of the canoe, grabbed the gunwales and pushed off.
My ribs were sore from the plane crash. My arms and shoulders knotted from the parking lot fight. And my lungs were dry and constricted from too much air conditioning and not enough exercise. Cleve’s canoe seemed awkward and the paddle felt strange in my hand. I tried to get a rhythm going and got deeper into the flow of the current and around the first mangrove curves, but it wasn’t working. I couldn’t get the feel of someone else’s boat. The trim felt wrong. The balance was off. The only thing that wasn’t different was the river.
I still worked up a heavy sweat and a running heartbeat by the time I entered the mouth of the canopy. Inside the shade I stopped paddling and drifted into the coolness. A Florida red belly turtle stood guard on a downed tree trunk, his neck stretched out as if sniffing the air, the yellow, arrow-shaped marking on his snout pointing up the river. The white summer sky peeked through the leaves, its rays spattered the ferns below and in the distance I heard the soft roll of thunder. I resettled myself in the seat and moved on.
By the time I reached the shack it was raining, hard. The leaf canopy sounded like cloth ripping and lightning sent a flash through the undergrowth and for an instant stole the color from the trees. I lashed the canoe to my platform and ran the bags up the stairs but when I twisted the knob and pushed, the door rattled and stuck.
I’d forgotten Cleve’s new lock and dug through my pockets for the key. Once inside I dragged the bags through the doorway and stood dripping on the pine floors and squinting through the dusk. I had seen too much of Billy’s airy and fashionable apartment.
I found my way to the kerosene lamp and lit the wick. Hammonds’ warrant servers had been civil. With the exception of a few counter items out of place, it was the same as I’d left it. I started a wood fire in the stove and set up a pot of coffee. I found my old enameled cup that some officer had misplaced on the drain board.
Outside the lightning snapped and I could hear the water sluicing off the roof and onto the cinnamon fern below the windows. I took off my dripping clothes and sat naked in my wooden chair, tipped back on two legs, put my heels on the table and listened to the rain.
I lay in my bunk that night half dreaming and half recalling, my skin moist in the humidity, and every time I closed my eyes I could see blue and red lights flashing through the trees. I was back in Philadelphia. The concrete sidewalk was still wet from some early-morning drizzle and up high at the top of the hill in the distance loomed the huge, yellowish back wall of the Museum of Art. In front were the tiered steps that the Rocky character had charged up and then shaken his fists at the world. In back was the Schuylkill River winding out through an urban park of maple trees and wooded lanes and