Deliverance - James Dickey [58]
and get around one turn and you're home free." "Ed, will you tell me one thing? Have you ever thought there might be more than one?" "Yes, I've thought of it. I must say I have." "What if there is?" "Then we're likely to die, early tomorrow morning." "I believe you." "I don't believe, though, that there's more than one man. I'll tell you why. It's not a good idea to involve somebody else in a murder if you don't have to. That's one thing. The other is that I don't think there's been time for him to go and get anybody else. He's got all the advantages; he doesn't need anybody to help him." "I sure hope you're right." "We'll have to figure I am. Anything else?" "Yes, I've got to say it. I don't think we're going about this the right way. We may have the whole thing wrong." "I'm staking my life on being right. Lewis would do it. Now I'm going to have to. Let me get going." "Listen," Bobby said, grabbing at me weakly, "I can't do it. I won't make a sitting duck out of myself so you can go off in the woods and leave us to be shot down. I can't. I just can't." "Listen, you son of a bitch. If you want to go up that cliff, you go right ahead. There it is; it's not going away. But if I go up it we're going to play this my way. And I swear to God that if you don't do exactly what I say I'll kill you myself. It's just that goddamned simple. And if you leave Lewis on this rock I'll do the same thing." "Ed, I'm not going to leave him. You know I wouldn't do that. It's just that I don't want to go out there in plain sight of some murderous hillbilly and set myself up to be killed like Drew." "If everything works right -- and if you do what I tell you to do -- you won't get killed. just listen to me. I'm going through this one more time, and it's got to stick. I'm going to tell you what to do no matter what should happen." "All right," he said at last. "Number one, move out as soon as you can see the river well enough to get through the next set of rapids. It'll probably still be too dark to shoot from the top. Even if it isn't he doesn't stand much chance of hitting you when you're in the rapids. Whenever you're in calm water, pull like hell for a while, then slack off; don't hit a constant speed. If he does shoot at you, try your goddamndest to get to the next set of rapids, or around the next turn. If you see you can't possibly get away -- that is, if you see he's got you bracketed, and the shots are coming closer and closer -- dump the canoe and let it go. Try to get Lewis out, then stay with him and wait for a day, and I'll try to bring back help. If nothing happens by that time, you'll know I didn't make it. Then leave Lewis and try to get downriver the best way you can, even if you have to swim part of the way. Take all three life jackets and float yourself down. We can't be more than fifteen miles from a highway bridge. If you have to do that, though, for God's sake remember where you left Lewis. If you don't remember, he's going to die. And that's for sure." He looked at me, and for the first time since the sun had gone down I could see his eyes; they had some points of light in them. "That's about it, then," I said. I picked up the bow and went over to the canoe near where Lewis was lying, tirelessly grinding the back of his head into the sand. I crouched down beside him; he was shaking in a certain matter-of-fact way, with the false cold of pain, and some of it came into me as he reached up and touched me on the front of the shoulder. "Do you know what the fuck you're doing?" "No, creature," I said. "I'm going to try to make it up as I go along." "Don't let him see you," he said. "And don't have any mercy. Not any." "I won't if I can help it." "Help it." I held my breath. "Kill him," Lewis said with the river. "I'll kill him if I can find him," I said. "Well," he said, lying back, "here we are, at the heart of the Lewis Medlock country." "Pure survival," I said. "This is what it comes to," he said. "I told you." "Yes. You told me." Everything around me changed. I put my left arm between the bowstring and the bow and slid the