Robert Crews (29 page)

“I couldn't stand to have him arrested,” Friday said.

“You're not serious?” Crews continued to enclose her supple body.

“It would just be my word against his.”

“For God's sake, you're the one with the wound.”

“It wasn't anyplace vital.”

He hugged her more ardently. “It can't be right to let him—”

“But what would be gained if we went through some legal mess?”

“A would-be killer might be put away for a while.”

Friday stepped just far enough back to look at him through accusatory blue eyes, she who had seemingly been about to pardon the real criminal. “You have to understand we're talking about somebody who's basically a helpless weakling.”

Crews nodded. “Forgive me, but I really have to say this: you once saw something in him.”

“There's nothing to be proud about,” said Friday, “but I'm not ashamed either. I found him attractive! It's always hard to explain why to anyone else. He's handsome and he knew more than I did about something I was interested in learning at that time, and he seemed interested in and attracted to me, and—”

“Reasons enough,” Crews said hastily. He was scarcely in a position from which to contest such points. What his wives had first seen in him would have been difficult to specify. He had brought the matter up only to dispose of it. Mutual attractions can seldom bear the scrutiny of persons uninvolved, whereas aversions are often immediately obvious to all. His resentment of a man better-looking and more physically fit than himself was so natural as to be impersonal.

“But what if he is stalking you, or us?”

“He isn't,” she said firmly. “I was a coward for a while, but I realize now he wouldn't take
you
on.”

“He stole my fishing tackle.”

“You weren't there at the time.” She shook her head. “He's gone back and told his own version, that the shooting was an accident and that I ran away and got lost.”

“You're beginning to believe that now yourself,” said Crews.

“So be it.” She smiled sadly. “Maybe it's even true. He'll lead in a rescue expedition. He'll try to put a good face on it and maybe hope even to emerge as a sort of hero.”

“But how could he count on you not to accuse him of attempted murder? This change of heart is new even to me.”

“He knows me,” Friday said. “I have to admit that. He knows in the end I always give him the benefit of the doubt on anything that pertains to his manhood.”

“I've been counting on that myself,” Crews said, and though pretending to levity he was serious enough.

“Your quality is not in doubt,” she said tenderly. “People don't fuss over those who are strong! What a tiresome companion I've been! I think I've finally got it all straight. I'll do better now, I promise.”

Crews was aware that he should be man enough to accept prestige gracefully, but he was still too new to it. “Good! Except when I'm hunting, I intend to lounge about camp while you do the menial chores. Isn't that the way the human race started out?” He could not keep the joke going. “You don't know about me. I'm almost forty and I've never really had a job. I've been married three times. I was drunk for years, and I lost all the money I ever had, none of which was earned. I don't understand how I was able to hang on out here by myself, but it was just barely. I instinctively saved myself in the plane crash. I didn't deliberately let the others drown—if they were still alive after the impact—but I was no help to them. It's only since meeting you that I've had any sense that I'm doing more than just keeping alive only because it is natural to fight against ceasing to exist.”

“That's only what
you
say,” Friday said, linking arms with him. “How would I know what truth is in it? Anyway, that's the past.”

“But what's the future? What will I do when I get back?”

She sighed happily. “Write a book about how you survived here! Come on, let's celebrate by taking a walk down to the fishing hole.”

“I've never done anything like that.” Yet he felt exultant. “I guess I could tell it to somebody, who would do the actual—”

“No,” said Friday. “That's not like you.”

“The fact is, it's exactly like me. I'm trying to be realistic.” She had succeeded in overcoming his initial restiveness and getting him in motion, but she still had to pull him along. “What I did here was an alternative to perishing. I was forced into it. What compulsion would I have back in town? It will be hard enough to keep off the booze.”

She stepped in front of him. “I'll be there, won't I? You won't be able to let me down.
I'm a witness:
I know what you stand for.”

He had never heard a statement like that from anybody his life long. He could only assume that her judgment was still quite as faulty as when she selected the ineffable Michael for a mate, and Crews was almost too devoted to her well-being to let her do it again; but not quite.

“Do you mind my asking where your husband will be, if you won't send him to jail?”

“Just because I don't intend to press charges,” Friday said, “doesn't mean I intend to stay married to him.”

They continued walking downstream, past the rapids, to an area where the banks gained in height as the water became less turbulent. During his weeks in the wilderness Crews had developed an attentiveness to practicalities that was unaffected by emotional preoccupations. At the moment his feelings were in what otherwise might have been a turmoil, yet he did not fail to notice a promising striation in the side of the bank beneath them.

He knelt and reached down. “Look at this.” He held up a sample for Friday's inspection. “This feels like clay to me.”

She rubbed it between her index finger and her thumb. “I only remember the stuff we had as kids. This is the wrong color, but the texture seems right.”

He wiped his fingers on some weedy vegetation and ripped up a sheaf for her. “We can making things with that. Cups and plates, to go with your wooden silverware. If I get really ambitious, I think I could make that oven. Then we could bake and roast things. We might try some roots. Roasting's a sophisticated culinary technique. It might make all the difference.”

She had taken his arm again. “Now that you've found the route out of here, you're in no hurry to use it.”

“The hurry was for your sake,” Crews said. “But I'm beginning to understand: you're going to let your husband stew in his own juice for a while. He won't know whether you're dead or alive, or what you'll say when found.” He squeezed her hand between his elbow and ribs. “I was afraid, there for a few moments, that you were going to forgive him.”

“I'm going to do my best to forgive him,” said Friday, “at least for our time here.” She lifted her face to take the sun on its fine surfaces. She closed her eyes and sniffed. “Rain is on its way.”

Crews raised his nose. “Damned if I can smell it.”

“Even though there's not a cloud in the sky.”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“Only if it turns out I'm wrong,” Friday said, swinging around to face him with sparkling eyes. “But we've still got time before it comes to improve our house, put on those birch-bark shingles. And you probably can even get the clay oven built. You know, a fire could be kept going in it throughout all kinds of weather.”

“You won't be wrong,” said Crews. “Sooner or later it always rains.”

“When it does, we'll be nice and snug.” She was laughing in the sunlight.

They walked to a point at which the woods swung away in favor of a sun-drenched meadow.

“My God,” Friday cried. “Don't tell me those are blackberries!”

Her eyes were sharper than Crews's own for the middle distances. She ran ahead, and had plucked a handful by the time he arrived. She popped one in his mouth.

The berry was an explosion of sweetness against his palate. “They're at their peak,” he said, accepting another from her and speaking through it. “And look at all the bushes. It's this whole part of the field!”

Friday had removed her denim jacket and was using it as a receptacle for the gathering of fruit. Crews helped fill it, but both were gobbling down more than they saved.

“After all,” Friday said, chortling with berry-stained lips, “the only breakfast we had was that awful tea.”

“I thought you liked it.”

“I didn't want to hurt your feelings.”

Crews groaned through a mouthful of blackberries. “The tea was
your
idea.”

“It was?” Her eyes were disingenuously wide. “I could have sworn…” An insect had followed her latest handful of fruit, and in shooing it away from her face, she crushed a berry against her cheek. She mugged at Crews. “I must be painted like a clown.”

He thought her more beautiful than ever. “Is my beard stained?”

“Not nearly enough!” She smeared him with her red hands.

He cupped a palm, scooped some loose berries from her jacket, and threatened her with them.

She screeched like a schoolgirl. “You wouldn't
dare.”

“You're right. I wouldn't.” He threw the berries back.

Friday's face fell. “I'm okay now,” she said softly. “You don't have to take it easy on me.”

“It's not you…”

“All of a sudden you're sad,” said Friday. “Is there anything I can do?”

“I'm happier than I can ever remember being,” he said. “I want you to know that, because it has to do with you. I'm sad because I can't just stay here being happy until we run out of berries or the weather gets so bad we can't protect ourselves from it—winter will come eventually—or until you get enough of my company. I really have to think of the families of those men on the airplane. It was self-serving to say they are better off in their ignorance. I ought to stop telling myself such lies.” He paused. “Unless I go back, it might be years before the plane is found. Those bodies should be recovered.”

“Of course. I always knew that.”

“You did?”

“That's the kind of man you are.” She quickly pushed some berries into his mouth. “Now don't say anything else on the subject. We know what we're going to do tomorrow. Let's make the most of what we have here today.”

Ever since arriving in the wilderness, Crews had gone to bed when night came and, except for bears, mosquitoes, or bad weather, remained asleep until dawn, for a natural reason: without artificial interference, the human being is a diurnal animal. But on this last night in their home camp, he and Friday stayed near the glowing embers of the fire until the only natural illumination was a thin slice of moon amid a vast sparkling dome of stars.

He pointed to a constellation that was exceptionally vivid this evening. It was the only one he could identify. “Would you look at the Big Dipper? It's unmistakable. The two stars that make up the leading edge of the receptacle point directly at that bright one out there. That's the North Star, as everybody knows.”

“I didn't, as it happens,” said Friday, resting her tilted head on his shoulder, so as to study the heavens more comfortably.

“Well, I've known it since I was a kid. I think I saw it in the comics, not the ones with stories but those that inform you of certain facts, like what makes the tail of a comet, and so on. I remembered some other stuff about natural indicators of direction: moss tends to grow on the north side of trees and the bark is thicker, but there are so many exceptions to the rule, depending on other factors, that you can't really trust such things. But the North Star is never wrong. And I forgot to stay up and look for it when I was lost!”

“Would it have made much difference?” Friday asked, nestling her warm head against his neck.

“None, when I was on my own. But I would have found the river sooner when you and I were looking for it.”

“But then we wouldn't have made this nice place.”

“You're right,” he said. “What do you think—when we've both done what we have to do, should we come back for a visit?”

“That won't be possible,” Friday said. “Once the news is out, this will be a popular camping spot.”

“I won't tell how to get here.”

She sat up, his arm falling to her waist. “You're going to be a celebrity, whether you like it or not. You won't be allowed to keep any secrets.”

“Especially since this can be called a love nest.” He shuddered. “You're giving me every reason not to want to go back. Can't we just wait till we're found?”

“It's tempting,” Friday said. “But we've got to take the initiative. You know that.”

“I need you to remind me…. If we have to lose this, then we'll make another place, even nicer.”

“There's no doubt about that,” she murmured.

“Then that's settled.”

“Now that we're going back,” said Friday, “I'll have to start thinking again about what I tried to forget. My situation has gotten a lot more complicated than when it was just that my husband shot me.”

“Under the circumstances,” Crews said, “we
had
to live together. We can deny we were lovers.”

“I don't know about you,” said she, clasping the hand he had kept at her waist, “but I would find it humiliating to make such a statement when everybody looking at us would know it was a lie.”

D
ESPITE THEIR DECISION TO JOIN THE
rest of humankind now that the route had been located, Crews might have found it easy to procrastinate in doing as much had Friday not convinced him, on arising next morning, that, if you thought about it, there was no good reason to delay.
He
could have stayed in place at least until the blackberries were exhausted, but she was right, and not only in the obvious sense. Having command of oneself meant you made decisions and acted on them: whatever the outcome, you had completed a process. He had lived too long in fragments and spasms.