Where the River Ends - Charles Martin [43]
I turned and stood nose to barrel with the business end of an old rusty shotgun that looked about five feet long. Behind it stood the most hideous woman I’d ever laid eyes on. Toothless gums, mouth half full of snuff, the brim of her hat was pushed up flat over her forehead where it touched the crown, and her hands were gnarled and her fingers crooked in all the wrong places. She wasn’t white or black but some faded shade between. Her face was covered in freckles and the top half of her right ear was missing. She wore denim overalls, a tattered denim shirt and knee-high rubber boots. She slid the barrel off center and sized me up. Now if she pulled the trigger, she’d just blow off the right side of my head rather than the whole thing. Her left eye was clouded over and a large cataract had dimmed her pupil. She closed her mouth, pushed all the spit to one side, then pursed her lips and shot it in a practiced stream out the side of her mouth. Over to the right, some fifteen feet away, a scratchy noise caught her attention. With swiftness, she swung, aimed and pressed the trigger. Four feet of flame rose out of the barrel and somewhere across the river, a rodent with a long tail caught the entire load and was launched airborne in a hundred disconnected pieces. She ejected the shell, slid another in and slammed the receiver shut. Eyes narrowed, she studied me and the canoe. The blast had brought Abbie upright and bright-eyed. The woman pointed the barrel down and raised one eyebrow. She shook her head. “Rats! They gnawin’ at my vines. I don’t like that.”
Abbie nodded. “I see that.”
The woman waved the barrel at me. “You with him?”
Abbie pointed at me. “He promised me an Alaskan cruise, you know one of those whale-watching deals, and…this is what I get.”
The woman broke the receiver open, hung the shotgun across her arm like a boomerang and laughed. She spat a dark stream out into the river. “I like you.”
Abbie shrugged. “Gee, that is sure better than the alternative.”
The woman laughed again. The mucous hung on her vocal chords and made me gag just listening to it. “What you doing with him?”
“He’s my husband.”
She waved the bent barrel toward me. “He’s an idiot.”
“You know, my dad has been telling me that for fourteen years.”
The woman laughed a hyena-howl that rose up through the trees. The force of the laugh dislodged the tickler in her throat. She cornered it with her tongue, cocked her cheeks and rocketed the oyster-sized loogie out over the river. “I like you.”
Abbie followed the arc of the spittle. “I’m glad we’ve established that.” When the spit landed, the fish nibbled at it, popping the water with suction.
The woman walked down into the water and waded up next to the canoe. She stood waist-deep, eye to eye with Abbie. Swaying to one side, she said, “You sick?”
Abbie nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Well…” Abbie looked at me and shrugged. Then she did the knock-on-wood thing on her head. “I’ve got this thing in my head that’s growing. Seems to have a mind of its own.”
The woman tongued an enormous wad of snuff from one cheek to another. “What’s gonna happen?”
“Well, according to the doctors, it’s kind of like having a miniature bomb in my head.”
“When’s it gonna go off?”
“That’s the question.”
The woman pulled on Abbie’s arm, edging her closer to Abbie’s head. She studied her face and neck. “Don’t see nothing.”
“Me either, but take my word for it.” Abbie smoothed the scarf. “There’s something in here.”
“Well, what happens when it blows up?”
Abbie smiled. “That’s sort of a good news–bad news sort of thing. The good news is that it won’t hurt anymore.”
The woman rested the shotgun on her right shoulder. “And the bad news?”
Abbie pointed at me. “He gets to marry one of my rich friends.”
The woman slammed the shotgun closed and waved it at me, nodding. “It’s always about the money, ain’t it? Son of a—”
Abbie put her hand on the woman’s