Starfish_ A Novel - James Crowley [48]
Mr. Hawkins looked up, instinctively reaching for the large pistol that he wore in his belt, but immediately dropping his hand when he saw that it was Lionel standing on the shore.
“Beatrice, look who’s come to join us,” Mr. Hawkins shouted over the water as he danced from rock to rock, crossing the stream to Lionel. “How did you sleep last night, Lionel? I slept like the rock of Gibraltar, myself. No joke, like the rock of Gibraltar.”
Mr. Hawkins pulled the pistol from his belt and sat down on the soft, moss-covered bank. He threw down his heavy saddlebag and pulled a small black notebook from inside.
“Now, give me a minute here, Lionel, I just need to make a note. This crick here seems to change course a bit every time I see it,” Mr. Hawkins said, setting the narrow nub of a crude pencil to the page. “That’s water for ya, though, ain’t it? It’ll find a way to go where it wants to go. Not much you can do about that, not much at all.”
Lionel looked over Hawkins’s shoulder at the scribbled notes and various rough penciled sketches of trees, rocks, and animals that covered the open pages.
“I’m not sure why, but I do like to make notes of me and the Junebug’s travels. I’m hoping we won’t always be on the move like this, and if we do settle back down, I keep thinking that he may want to recall some of what we’ve seen.”
Lionel saw that Mr. Hawkins’s latest chronicle was a drawing of the brook trout that they had had for dinner and a sketch of the stream and its various pools that were laid out directly before them. Lionel sat down next to Mr. Hawkins, and Hawkins handed him a canteen. “Have a drink of that. Just filled from the stream. That’s good cold water.”
Lionel took hold of the canteen and drank. Mr.
Hawkins was right. The cold water felt good going down his throat, and he drank it in greedy gulps.
“Well, now, there’s a way to catch a fish that I ain’t thought of; maybe you could just drink up all the stream’s water and then we could just walk on out there and pick them fish up,” Mr. Hawkins said, breaking the lead on his pencil before finishing his sketch. “Good Lord, I’ve got to find a way to get some more pencils. This one is about done.”
Lionel looked up at his sister, who stood patiently in the stream as Mr. Hawkins pulled a small jackknife from his pocket, flipped open the blade, and worked on getting the last bit of lead from what remained of the pencil.
“I’m hoping to get a couple more weeks outta this one yet,” Mr. Hawkins said, maybe more to the pencil than Lionel. “Just a bit more…”
But the pocketknife slipped, sliding into Mr. Hawkins’s finger instead of the pencil’s soft wood.
“Will you look at that?” Mr. Hawkins announced dropping the pencil and knife and examining his finger. “I cut myself.”
A small trickle of blood, red blood, Lionel noticed, appeared on Mr. Hawkins’s thick finger. It fell in tiny droplets onto the green moss where they sat.
“Ah, it’s just a tiny cut, but all the same. That little pencil sure is making me work for it, ain’t that right, Lionel?” Mr. Hawkins asked, wiping the blood onto his pants.
Lionel stared at the faint blood-streaked lines across Mr. Hawkins’s trousers and the dark red droplets that sat in half bubbles on the clumps of moss around their outstretched legs.
“What is it, boy? You ain’t squeamish on a little blood, are ya?”
“No, sir,” Lionel explained. “I just didn’t figure on yer blood being red like mine.”
Mr. Hawkins looked puzzled for a moment, his face slowly slipping into a big grin. “Why, of course my blood is red.” Mr. Hawkins laughed. “What color did you expect it to be? Purple, or maybe green?”
“No,” Lionel stammered, “I guess I just didn’t know. I mean your skin’s different than ours.”
“My skin, oh my goodness, my skin.” Hawkins coughed through his boisterous laughter. “No, Lionel,