Once Upon a River Page 0,58
me what else you want to read.”
“I like the Indian hunter book, about the guy who lived in the cave up north,” Margo said. “And I’d like to read more about shooting, I guess. Trick shooting.” She glanced across the river. Paul seemed to be wiping down the seats of Brian’s boat with a bucket and a rag, and though it was hot, he was still wearing jeans and boots. While she watched, Johnny slipped out of his cutoffs and tennis shoes and posed naked at the end of the dock. His arms were tan from his biceps down, but his torso below the neckline was pale, and the sight made Margo smile. He dove off the dock with a pretty splash. Why hadn’t she swum this year? Margo wondered. It was already July. Why hadn’t she swum at all since she left Murrayville? Johnny emerged from beneath the surface.
“What about a vacation?” Michael said. “Do you want to go somewhere?”
“We could go up the river and camp overnight on Willow Island.”
“We should go see something new,” Michael said.
She shrugged. Johnny dragged his body out of the water and climbed onto the dock. He was grinning, no doubt, shouting something to Paul. His bottom was moon-white against the lush foliage around the cabin.
“Maybe I’ll swim today,” Margo said.
“After the wedding we’ll have to go on a honeymoon.”
“You mean like to the cabins in Heart of Pines?”
“The herons go to Florida in the winter,” Michael said. “I’ve heard you can see hundreds of water birds in some places down there. Maybe cranes, too. Wouldn’t you like to see sandhill cranes, Miss Crane? To work on your crane calls.”
Margo thought it was incredible that Michael didn’t seem to notice anyone was at the cabin across the way.
After Michael went off to work a few minutes before noon, Margo went into the bedroom and looked out the sliding glass door. She didn’t worry the first time she saw Paul looking across the river, but then he kept looking, and she saw he held binoculars. She slipped away from the glass door and regretted having stood there like a target as long as she had.
The house might be the safest place to stay, but if Paul and the other two showed up, then she’d be trapped inside. Despite the heat, she left the doors open while she did dishes and cleaned the kitchen, wiped the counters even though they were already clean, the way Michael would have done. Her anxiety remained even after the three men closed up the cabin and headed upstream and out of sight. She thought she would do something nice for Michael, and she mowed part of the lawn with the old reel push mower, but her lines weren’t as straight as she’d hoped they’d be. The wind that afternoon brought a tar smell that she had never noticed before. Mallard ducks and a few black ducks landed on the river between her and the cabin, but they did not respond to her quacking, and they let the current tug them downstream. Normally she felt fine spending a few hours staring into the water alongside the fishing dog, but she now wondered if she ought to be doing something more productive. A few days ago she’d retrieved some overgrown zucchini that had been floating down the river. They were bigger around and longer than any fish she’d ever caught, and it had been fun chasing them down and dragging them out of the current. This afternoon she carried them into the woods and set them up as targets. It had been months since she’d fired the shotgun Brian had given her. She carried the twelve-gauge out and put on the ear protectors that Michael had given her for Christmas. She had several dozen small-game shells in her pocket, along with a half dozen of the large-sized buckshot. She didn’t like to lock up Cleo when she shot, but she had promised Michael she would after the time he saw her studying the photo of Annie Oakley and her dog, Dave; in that photo Annie was preparing to shoot an apple off Dave’s head.
Margo then moved through the woods, imagining the zucchinis were Paul and Billy or some unknown rapists and killers, and blasted them to pulp, one after another. If Michael would only shoot with her, the two of them together could rig up a launch for clay pigeons, but when she had mentioned it recently, he suggested she join