Where the River Ends - Charles Martin [97]
I nodded toward the closet. “What happened?”
“Oh, that.” He smiled and swigged. “You want the honest answer?”
I shrugged. “Whatever.”
“I stole too much of the parish’s money and slept with too many of my female parishioners.”
“That’s honest enough.”
“Twelve years in prison has a way of shaking you loose from the lies you hold dear.”
He took another long swig and then lit the cigar. The breeze swept through the screen, caught the smoke and filtered it out through the other side of the screen before it hit the trees. He pulled long on the cigar, turning the end bright red, and said, “You thought about your options?”
“Not sure I have any.”
He pointed beyond the screen with his cigar. “I’ve got a rental downriver. At the moment, it’s empty.” He laughed. “Actually, it’s been empty awhile. Last guy to hole up there was some nut who ran a hedge fund. I think his name was Thad but, can’t remember. He was something of a rock star for the better part of a decade, but then he made some bad decisions, the market turned against him and he couldn’t cover his shorts. I don’t pretend to understand all that, but at the end of the day, he was broke and so were his clients. While they were trying to put his head on a platter, he decided he had always wanted to be an artist. Only problem was, he had trouble selling his art.” He nodded. “’Course, that might be because he had trouble making any. Haven’t seen him in a while. You all are welcome to stay in there as long as you like.” He tapped his cigar, shaking off the ash, and then bit some dead skin off his lip. “Sometimes”—he tongued the skin around in his mouth, finally spitting it out—“it helps to let the storm blow over before you…venture out.”
THE MOON THREW our shadow on the beach as I carried Abbie to the cabin. I unlocked the door and pushed it open. It was clean, quiet and smelled of cedar. I fumbled for the light switch and clicked it on. The entire one-room cabin had been built from cedar. The room was broken up into two halves. The living side consisted of a four-poster bed pushed up against one wall, a dresser and a toilet, sink and mirror. Function ruled, because there was no form. On the other side, looking out over the river through a floor-to-ceiling window, sat an artist’s studio. Three easels, several rolls of canvas, dozens of paints, brushes, knives and countless odds and ends needed by any artist. Evidently, the guy was a neat freak because everything was lined up and organized. All the paint labels were turned up and arranged alphabetically. I changed the sheets and tucked Abbie in bed.
I spent several hours picking through his paints and stacks of pencil sketches that had been filed in a plastic bucket in the corner. They were “snapshots” of birds, tree limbs, leaves, fish, whatever could be seen out the window of this studio. Fingering through the desk and drawers of supplies, I tried to remember when the last time was that I had painted…anything. It’d been over three years.
I stared out the window and tried to remember seeing this section of the river from the water. As many times as I’d been down it, I only had vague memories of passing through here. I could remember the S-turn upriver and the ninety-degree after that, followed by another long straightaway that ran for nearly a half mile before a hard left. I also remembered the way the water flowed faster along the Georgia side, but I had little recollection of seeing Bob’s house or cabin tucked up in the trees. Which was good. If we needed a place to hide out, this would work.
Below the cabin, a blackwater creek flowed into the river. Abbie’s forehead was wrinkled and a blue vein throbbed on her right temple. I pulled the covers up under her nose, grabbed a flashlight and stepped out onto the porch. I stared up at the moon, over at the creek and down inside myself. I didn’t like what I saw so I climbed down the stairs and started walking up the creek bed.
While the moon had been bright a few hours ago, it was beaming now. The bank was narrow and the water deep. The water had been running out of here