• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

The reeds changed into scrub trees and thorny brush that clawed at my skin, raking me with their needlepoints. I used a stick as a club and beat at them, trying to hold my temper down. When they continued to eat their way into my flesh I cursed them up and down.

But the next second I took it all back. They were nice briars. Beautiful briars. The loveliest briars I had ever seen, because one of them was sporting part of a woman’s dress.

I could have kissed that torn piece of fabric. It was stained, but fresh. And nobody was going to go through those reeds and briars except the little sweetheart I was after. This time I was gentler with the bushes and crawled through them as best I could without getting myself torn apart. Then the brush gave way to grass. That green stuff felt better than a Persian rug under my sore feet. I sat down on the edge of the clearing and picked the thorns out of my skin.

Then I stood up and shoved the tail end of my T-shirt down into my shorts. Straight ahead of me was a shack. If ever there was an ideal hiding place, this was it, and as long as I was going to visit its occupant I might as well look my charming best.

I knocked, then kicked the door open. A rat scurried along the edge of the wall and shot past my feet into the light. The place was as empty as a tomb. But it had been occupied. Someone had turned the one room into a shambles. A box seat was freshly splintered into sharp fragments on the floor, and the makeshift stove in the middle of the room lay on its side. Over in the corner a bottle lay smashed in a million pieces, throwing jagged glints of light to the walls. She had been here. There was no doubt of it. Two more pieces of the same fabric I held in my hand were caught on the frayed end of the wooden table. She had put up a hell of a fight, all right, but it didn’t do her any good.

When the voice behind me said, “Hey, you!” I pivoted on my heel and my hand clawed for the gun I didn’t have. A little old guy in baggy pants was peering at me through the one lens of his glasses, wiping his nose on a dirty hunk of rag at the same time.

“That’s not healthy, Pop.”

“You one of them there college kids?” he asked.

I eased him out the door and came out beside him. “No, why?”

“Always you college kids what go around in yer shorts. Seed some uptown once.” He raised his glasses and took a good look at my face. “Say . . . you ain’t no college kid.”

“Didn’t say I was.”

“Well, what you guys joining? I seed ya swimming in the crick, just like the other one.”

I went after that other one like a bird after a bug. “What other one?” My hands were shaking like mad. It was all I could do to keep my hands off his shirt and shake the facts out of him.

“The one what come up t’other day. Maybe it was yesterday. I disremember days. What ya joining?”

“Er . . . a club. We have to swim the river then reach the house without being seen. Guess they won’t let me join now that somebody saw me. Did you see the other guy too?”

“Sure. I seed him, but I don’t say nothing. I seed lotta funny things go on and I don’t ask no questions. It’s just that this was kinda funny, that’s all.”

“What did he look like?”

“Well, I couldn’t see him too good. He was big and fat. I heered him puffing plenty after he come out of the weeds. Yeah, he was a big feller. I didn’t know who he was so I went back through the woods to my boat.”

“Just the other guy, that’s all you saw?”

“Yep.”

“Nobody else?”

“Nope.”

“Anybody live in that shack?”

“Not now. Comes next month and Pee Wee’ll move in. He’s a tramp. Don’t do nothing but fish and live like a pig. He’s been living there three summers now.”

“This other one you saw, did he have a mean-looking face, sort of scowling?”

“Ummmm. Now that you mention it, he looked kinda mad. Guess that was one reason why I left.”

Dilwick. It was Dilwick. The fat slob had gotten the jump on me again. I knew he was smart . . . he had to be to get along the way he did, but I didn’t think he was that smart. Dilwick had put the puzzle together and come out on top. Dilwick had found