Where the River Ends - Charles Martin [119]
An hour before daylight, we passed what I thought was Coopers Neck Road, but between the darkness and the water, it was difficult to tell for sure. We slipped beyond the roofline at Mount Horeb Baptist Church. It, too, was underwater. Oddly enough, the baptismal was not. Painted white, made of cement blocks stacked eight high and surrounded with a lead pipe railing, it sat on a higher grassy hill. Currently three wood ducks floated in circles behind the railing.
The last several hours I’d paddled at close to ninety percent. The river had transformed overnight and flowed unlike anything I’d ever known. I did what I could to keep the bow pointed downriver, but the constancy of that spent me. In paddling terms, I was cooked.
Before daylight, we reached Brickyard Landing and slipped by on the other side—recapturing the sixteen miles we lost when Bob took us back to his place. The increased flow of the river had negated the incoming tide. I couldn’t tell if it was coming in or going out because so much water was flowing out. Normally, along this part of the river, a black stain registers along the marsh grass indicating how high or low the tide had risen or fallen, but the water was several feet above what was once considered high tide.
While I felt we could slip by White Oak and its seven miles of shoreline, we still had two remaining hurdles. The bridge at Highway 17 and the bridge at I-95. The senator was no dummy. He’d have people on both bridges. Probably news cameras, too. If we got lucky and slipped beneath the first bridge, we had only five miles to go before we reached the bigger bridge—and bigger problem—at I-95. The interstate bridge was tall, giving them a clear view upriver long before we got there. Further, the water was wide and the bank was muck, marsh and oyster bed, allowing no place to hide and no place to rest. To make it, we’d have to shoot the center, which meant we’d be silhouetted against the reflection. A lot like those ducks circling the inside of the baptismal pool.
But twelve miles on the other side lay Cedar Point. Given the fact that I was sure he’d received Abbie’s letter by now, I was pretty well assured he’d be in St. Marys. Maybe even Cedar Point, if he could find it. I was so tired, I really didn’t care.
Sitting there staring over the water, paddle resting across my legs, I realized that I was way past tired. Tired beyond my bones. For some reason, all of it, everything, chose right there to press me into my seat. It was the first time I’d ever sensed the presence of the revolver at my back for a purpose other than those outside of me.
It was a dark place.
So many times I’d wanted to tell her. To explain how Heather got into my room and what had happened. I had convinced myself that she was better off not knowing. Unless, of course, her dad had already gotten to her. In which case, she had lived in doubt of me and we were living inside a cat-and-mouse mind game in which we pick at each other’s scabs. But if he hadn’t and I brought it up, and it was all news to her, then I was cutting her when there was no cut before.
I had no easy answer.
“Abbie?”
She cracked her eyes and smiled at me. “Hey, Band-Aid.”
“I need to tell you something.”
She shook her head. “No you don’t.”
“But…you need to know that…”
She opened her eyes. They were glassy and bloodshot. She shook her head and held out a stop-sign hand. “You mean Heather?”
“You know?”
She nodded. “Heather came and saw me. Told me about dinner. Apologized. We had a good cry over it. She said you were”—Abbie rested her head on her hands and pulled her knees into her chest—“everything she’d ever wanted in a husband.” She swallowed and reached for my hand, placing it on her chest.
“But, honey…”
Her whisper fell. “Doss, you’ve never wounded me.” The words were hard to come by. “No scars.”
RESTING