Джеймс Кейн - Rainbow’s End

She took my hand and led me to the sitting room, then sat down with me on the sofa. “Give,” I told her.

“Kiss.”

I kissed her.

“So,” she went on, “you left.”

“I went over to Flint to warn her, as I told you I meant to do. No soap. No one over there has seen her or knows where she is. My mother showed up too, in the middle of my call on my aunt, with the same idea I had. So we left, and on the road coming back I told her, what little there was to tell. That’s all I have to tell. Now—?”

“I have a great deal to tell. First, I did what you said, talked to someone I have confidence in — as I thought. I called up Bob York at his motel, and sure enough here he came out. Now we have two rental cars. When he heard what that lawyer said, he simply hit the roof — said I’d do no such wacky stuff. But when I reminded him that Mr. Bledsoe was local, that he was a lawyer in touch, he wouldn’t even listen — said Trans-U.S.&C. needed no hick advice. We were playing it straight with no funny tricks. That’s when I cut in to tell him that we weren’t playing at all, that I was playing, and that all I wanted of him was to tell me what he thought. So his answer to that was to call Russ Morgan direct. He put 10 dollars under the phone, and I wasn’t able to stop him. So Mr. Morgan and I had to talk. I explained it to him, that if the police didn’t believe we found that money by accident while trying to catch a carp, we were right under the guns of that woman who could say we killed Shaw on purpose, out on the island, and then hid the money, and so on and so on till I was going up the wall, but at last he saw what I meant and told Bob York to lay off. So Bob got sore and stomped off and left in his car. But that was just the beginning. Next off, Edgren was out, wanting to know where you were, where Mrs. Howell was, and I don’t know what-all. I told him you’d gone to find her and would call him when you got back. Incidentally, I think you’d better.”

So we interrupted the conversation while I called the sheriff’s office. Edgren wasn’t there, but I left word for him that I was back. Then back to Jill. “OK,” she said, “but enduring all that talk, little by little, I knew who it was that I loved and—”

That called for another interruption, with me holding her close, the both of us mingling breath, but no unbuttoning of any kind. Then she went on: “All of a sudden I knew I was going to do it, put the money back — and right away quick, before anyone else came.”

“But how?”

“That was it. I couldn’t handle that boat, but then I thought of a way. I changed to your clothes, these I have on. I got the galoshes out of the car. The woman in the store insisted I take them ‘on account it can rain in Ohio, and when it does it don’t sprinkle, but comes down cats and dogs.’ That’s what she said, and I put them in the car, in the glove compartment. So I went outside and got them, then put them under one arm, wrapped in a kitchen towel, the money being under the other, and hied me up to the landing.”

“My landing, you mean.”

“Yes, up below the inlet that the tree is sticking out of. So then I sat down, and took off my shoes and stockings, took off your pants and my panties, and then was the cutest thing in Ohio, with a bare bottom Trans-U.S.&C. should put in their ads, it was so pretty. So then I pulled on the galoshes and was ready. I took that money and tramped up to the inlet, then I waded in. Oh, was that water cold. But at least, I could see what I was doing — and went splashing on. By the time I got to the tree the water was up to my bottom, but I dropped the bag in and splashed back. When I got back to the landing I took the galoshes off, dumped the water out, and grabbed up the towel — the reason I had brought it. I wiped myself off quick, then pulled on your pants, my shoes and stockings, the galoshes, and scooted back, thinking how much I loved you. So, how much do you love me?”

I folded her in and told her but once more without any unbuttoning. I admit, I was quite overcome. But when I suggested we prove our love, she said no, we’d better not. “Someone might come, and that would ruin everything. Some damned newspaperman, if he put that in his paper, could ruin everything for us. Better you make dinner now, so we can eat it and then take our time figuring what we say — I mean the story we tell Edgren or whoever answers the phone, that’ll get them started tomorrow, to go up there, find the money, and then take it from there.”

“OK. Just the same, I love you. Do you love me at all?”

“What do you think?”

So I made dinner, frying the ham but boiling the potatoes and mashing them so as not to have too much fried stuff, boiling the peas and cutting two pieces of pie. Then we ate and I washed up. We went into the living room. By then it was eight o’clock, and we sat on the sofa, whispering about what we would do to finish up Bledsoe’s idea, which was half carried out already. I think that was the happiest time I’d had with her, up until then, whispering there in the dark, as first I’d think of something and she’d think of something also to make it better. Like when I said I’d gone out before going to bed, “to have a look around, and heard this boat rowing up. When it headed in for the tree I yelled, and it turned and headed downriver” — and she suddenly interrupted:

“Dave, that sounds kind of phoney. Who goes out to have a look around? It’s something you wouldn’t do. But if we both went out, not to have any look, but to take a walk by the river and hold hands and watch for shooting stars—?”

“OK, that’s how it was.

“And then when this boat came along, we were up on the landing by then, sitting there side by side, that’s when it came along—”

“Rowing upstream?”

“Yes, past the island, and—”

“On past the landing—”

“And Dave, that’s when we held still, as we didn’t want to be seen, and—”

“Thought nothing of the boat—”

“That’s right, until I screamed—”

“A real Jill Kreeger screech—”

“As it stopped, then headed for the inlet, and pulled up under that tree—”

“Wait a minute — how did we know where it pulled up? In the dark? It’s 50 yards from the landing up to that inlet, and—”

“The tree is white, Dave — all sycamores are white. We could see the boat against it—”

“So OK, you screamed, and then what?”

“I kept screaming, I did.”

“And what did I do, Jill?”

“You hollered at him, that’s what. You hollered: ‘Who are you, what do you want? What are you doing there?’ ”

“And you kept on with your screaming. And then?”

“He left, all of a sudden.”

“How?”

“He began to row backwards.”

“Backing water, you mean?”

“Whatever it’s called, Dave.”

After some time I asked: “How long did he stay by the tree?”

“No more than a couple of seconds, I would think, Dave. Long enough to get us excited. Not long enough to fish up our money.”

“Your money, Jill.”

When we had that all straightened out, we got on to the rest of it, my call to the sheriff’s office and what I would say. But there we hit a snag, as we were blocked off from me reporting a theft or someone attempting a theft, as to do that I’d have to let on I knew what was in the tree. Then she hit on the idea that I didn’t have any idea why someone would come messing around it, but it was on my place just the same, and for whatever reason he had, there somebody was, “and you want protection, Dave. That’s what’s on your mind. Here they’ve taken your rifle away, as everyone knows by now, as that was on TV, so everyone out here knows. And you have me to think of—”