Once Upon a River Page 0,122

they’re your family, and they love you.”

“Save me from their fucking love,” Smoke whispered to Margo as soon as he could do so without Fishbone hearing. But Margo understood how his nieces might think he was not taking care of himself. She felt lousy about Smoke’s deterioration, found that she could not stop worrying about him, whether she was with him or away from him. She felt helpless in the face of his pain and difficulty. She thought Nightmare, too, seemed haunted; for hours the dog would stare at his master, sometimes going most of the day without eating.

“I can stay with you, Smoke,” Margo said, as she poured him more coffee from the percolator, “and your nieces will see I’m taking care of you.”

She sat beside him at the kitchen table, so they were both looking out at the river. A thaw had melted the ice and compacted the snow. Margo had shoveled the patio a few days ago, and it was still clear.

“You can’t go back on a deal,” Smoke whispered.

“I won’t do it,” Margo said, more loudly than she wanted to. Smoke’s hearing seemed to be failing even as his voice grew more quiet.

“It hurts to breathe, kid.” The dog became agitated and stood up and went to the door. “I can’t even have real coffee in that place. They only got Sanka.”

“Maybe if they make you move, you could stay with one of your nieces.”

He shook his head. Margo, too, hated the thought. She let Nightmare out and sat back down. She spread on her toast some strawberry jam Smoke’s sister had made. He said his sister had had brain cancer and had died in the nursing home within a few months of arriving. Smoke said his sister “went off to that shithole like it was some goddamned party.” She had liked the nurses fussing over her, he said, treating her “like a damned baby.”

“My neck aches,” Smoke said. “From holding up my damned head.”

“It’s better to be alive, Smoke.” Margo bit into the toast and chewed, though her appetite was slipping away. “We have to think about the consequences.”

“What about the consequences to living?” Smoke reached in his shirt pocket and pulled something out, pushed it into Margo’s hand.

“What’s this?” she unfolded five twenty-dollar bills.

“For the boat. It’s what you gave me. And take my shotgun. It’s yours. Fishbone’s right. I need it like a hole in the head.”

“You already gave me too much, Smoke,” Margo said. She didn’t know how to explain to him how having killed someone made it more important that she never do it again.

“What the hell am I going to do with a shotgun?” he said. “You’ll keep it clean, won’t you?”

Margo arranged a piece of toast with jam, some scrambled egg, and a bite of sausage on her fork.

“I deserve to die, damn it,” he said. “You need to respect that.”

“But I haven’t figured out how to live yet.”

“You’ve figured it out as well as I ever did.”

“If you go, I’ve got no friends.” Margo heard Nightmare scratch on the outside door, and she got up and let him in, along with a blast of cold air. The weather was supposed to warm throughout the day because a storm was coming tonight. Nightmare lay down on a piece of rug between Margo and Smoke.

“Then you’d better start making friends,” he said. “Nothing wrong with being a hermit, so long as you have friends when you need them.”

“I just want you.”

“I don’t know if I would’ve made it without you these last few months, kid. Your company has almost made life worth living.”

Now that Smoke was getting sicker, it was harder for Margo to go home and leave him all alone. When she had come this morning at ten o’clock, Smoke had still been lying in bed. Margo had lifted him and helped him into his clothes and shoes.

“Fishbone will help,” Smoke said. “After I’m gone, he’s taking Nightmare. For protection for his wife.”

“Fishbone calls me you people. He thinks I should go live with my ma. He’s always talking about me having the dang baby.” Margo’s heart sank at the thought of Fishbone taking the dog away.

“Don’t give up on your ma,” Smoke whispered. “She might come around. And it doesn’t look to me like you’re putting any distance between yourself and that baby.”

Margo nodded. She went home that afternoon, checked her traps, and found them empty. She couldn’t think about the baby, who was safe inside her for