Once Upon a River Page 0,89

a shower at an old man’s house.”

“You make friends fast. I think your hair changed color. It matches the river now.”

She pulled some of her hair out in front of her and studied it. It seemed to have grown longer, too, since she took the shower. She smelled the old man’s Breck shampoo.

“You’re way too pretty a girl to stay out here alone,” he said. “You’re too vulnerable.”

Margo ate some more puffball.

“But don’t worry, beauty fades eventually.”

“I shot a cigarette out of the old man’s mouth. That’s why he let me have a shower.”

“You what?”

“He was in a wheelchair, and he said if I shot the end off his cigarette, I could have this big pan.” Margo regretted that she hadn’t nabbed one of his buckets, too, while he was sleeping. “I’m going to make soup with our leftovers.”

The Indian let himself roll backward, and he lay there on the ground, hugging his knees, laughing. “You could have killed him. I mean, it’s not funny, but . . . oh, Lordy.”

“I wish you’d stay here for a little longer. One more day.” She regretted the words as soon as they came out of her mouth, for the way they made her sound like a beggar. She knew the Indian wasn’t going to stick around, whatever she might say.

“In one week I’ll be teaching, and in two weeks I’m cohosting a math conference. I’m leaving tomorrow. And why aren’t you enrolled in college?”

“I didn’t finish high school.”

“You can’t get ahead in this life if you don’t finish school.”

“I don’t want to get ahead. What’s so great about getting ahead?”

“I loved school,” he said. “I was bored out of my skull at home. I was an only child, and my adoptive parents were old and boring.”

“I liked school when I was little. But later I couldn’t figure out what the teachers wanted. They said I was too quiet.”

“You don’t seem all that quiet to me.” He took another bite of meat and said, “I’ve always thought of duck as tender.”

“Not old wild duck.” Margo made herself keep on chewing through the tough, slightly gamey meat. He was right—she wasn’t quiet. The realization made her laugh.

After they finished eating, Margo put into the kettle the rest of the meat, the bones, and the wing parts she’d managed to pluck. She added fresh water from the Indian’s jugs and put the pan on the fire to simmer. Margo then carried heaps of pine needles from beneath the evergreens in the windbreak and piled them around the fire to make soft places to sleep. They unrolled their sleeping bags on opposite sides of the fire. The Indian produced a quart juice bottle with masking tape around the lid. The contents were the color of apple juice. He unscrewed the cap and sipped from the wide mouth. His whole body shivered visibly as he swallowed. He said, “It’s bitter. Raw. Must have something in it besides mash.”

“You don’t have to drink it,” she said. “Do you? If you don’t like it?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it. Here, taste it.”

She shook her head, but he held it out and kept holding it there until she accepted the bottle. He watched until she pressed it to her closed lips. It burned worse than siphoning gasoline. She handed it back.

“I should only drink about half of this,” he said. “I’ll tell you a story if you promise to stop me at half the bottle.”

She nodded. By the firelight, she could see all the details of his face. His cheekbones were wide and his features, like his hands, seemed soft.

“My cousin told me this story his great-uncle told him. It probably happened on this very river. There was a girl who was marrying age, maybe your age. She loved growing corn and beans and squash. So there was a boy from another tribe a week’s walk away, and he wanted to marry the girl, but there were no gardens where he was taking her, because the land was wooded and the soil was rocky. He told her she would gather food in the woods and she would make him clothes and raise children and preserve meat for winter.” The Indian looked at Margo as if to make sure she was listening. He reached out and touched her hair, smoothed it over her shoulder.

“The thought of giving up gardening broke this girl’s heart. She said she had to wait to marry him until the corn was harvested.” He took another