Deep Woods

I took his hand. He pulled me up so fast, so effortlessly, that I went light-headed. I tottered in front of him and he put his hands on my hips to steady me, the warmth of his palms soaking straight inward to my groin. I looked up into those cornflower blue eyes and tried to imagine never seeing them again.

“This is the right thing to do,” he rumbled. It sounded like he was trying to convince himself, as much as me.

I swallowed and nodded.

And we went to see Jacques.

31

Bethany

“So who is this guy?” I asked as we tramped through the undergrowth. We were heading in a direction we hadn’t gone before, not towards Tucker’s or town. It was a beautiful clear, crisp day and each gust of wind made a few more gold and scarlet leaves flutter down from the aspens, slowly building into an endless soft carpet that looked like frozen fire. I was luxuriating in my new boots and everything was perfect...except when I thought about the future.

“He’s a smuggler,” said Cal. “Lives on the river. Moves stuff back and forth over the border in trucks, then uses boats on the river to distribute it.” He glanced across at me and must have read my expression. “You thought criminals only lived in the city?”

“No,” I said defensively. Yep. “How do you know him?”

“He doesn’t live that far away. Five hours’ walk or so.”

I shook my head in disbelief. I was still getting used to Cal distances, where a five-hour walk was nothing.

“Basically my closest neighbor,” Cal continued, “So I made sure to check him out before I built the cabin. I see him a few times a year, but I stay out of his business and he stays out of mine.”

It was mid-afternoon before I glimpsed the first sliver of gleaming blue through the trees. As the forest thinned out, the slivers joined together to form an endless blue expanse. It was a river hundreds of feet across, big enough to have a few small islands a little further downstream. “Tell me we don’t have to wade across that,” I pleaded.

“Nope.” And Cal pointed.

As I stepped out from behind him, I saw a tiny square of wood about half a mile upstream. A raft. People still used rafts?! And on the far side of the river, moored at the bank—

“Is that what it looks like?”

Cal nodded. “That’s where he lives.”

It was a steamboat, the sort of thing Huckleberry Finn would wave to, and it must have been well over a hundred years old. Its white paint was faded and it looked like it hadn’t moved in a long time, but it still had a proud beauty about it, with its tall chimneys and high wheelhouse.

We hiked down the side of the river to the raft, a square of tied-together logs and barrels no more than eight feet per side. A rope stretched across the river, threaded through iron rings hammered into the deck, so that you could stand on the raft and haul yourself across. As soon as we got on, the whole thing started leaning and rocking drunkenly, but once we balanced our weight, it settled down. Then Rufus leapt aboard, woofing excitedly, and we had to tame the raft all over again.

Cal leaned down to the rope and began to pull us, the muscles in his back stretching out his shirt as he heaved. I bent down next to him and helped and gradually, the far bank crept closer. I realized after a while that the raft was a pretty good defense. Any visitors were slowed down to a crawl as they made their way across, and they were helpless, out here, hands too busy with the rope to reach for a gun and with nothing to take cover behind. I guessed it was deliberate.

Something else occurred to me. How did Cal know so much about buying new identities, and how much they cost?

The rope took us right to the steamboat. We stepped off onto the deck and were met by a woman in her late thirties in a silky black robe patterned with pink roses. From her bare feet and the way she held it tightly closed against the breeze, she wasn’t wearing anything underneath. “This way,” she told us in an accent that might have been Italian, and she led us below deck.

It was dark, down here, the only light coming from fairy lights strung along the ceiling. I couldn’t see the floor underfoot and when I stepped on a plank and felt it move and sink a little, my stomach knotted. The entire boat creaked each time the wind moved it against its mooring. How close was this thing to going to the bottom?

We passed through a narrow passageway, Cal’s wide shoulders almost brushing the walls. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I realized there were cabins on both sides of us, their doors open. Every one was stacked high with goods. I saw bottles of whiskey, cigarettes, and a tall pile of small white boxes. At the end of the hallway, the woman opened a door and led the way into a much bigger room, which must have been a grand stateroom when the boat was built. It still had its wood paneling and ornate holders for lanterns.