Part 45 (2/2)

Nothing moved down there.

I called out Jesse's name. She didn't answer. I called it out again and again, but the only sounds came from the breeze and a few birds and the creek rus.h.i.+ng by.

The creek, off beyond the rocks, looked more like a river now. It was swollen up to ten times its regular size, rough and muddy, sweeping bushes and sticks along toward the south.

I commenced to climb down, groaning some with each step, and was about to jump from the bottom boulder when a whinny came through the quiet.

It was the sweetest sound I could've heard just then, other than Jesse's voice.

It came from the left, so I snapped my head sideways. The pain in my neck fetched a wince out of me, but I had to smile at the sight of General off in the distance. He was no more than a hundred yards away, nibbling the leaves off a bush.

I got about halfway there before he noticed me, nodded and whickered and came wandering over. He seemed no worse the wear for the last night's near miss. After greeting him with some fond words and pats, I swung my saddlebags across his back and led him over to a rock. Using that to give me some height, I had little difficulty climbing onto him. With my rifle in the crook of one arm, I gripped his mane with my other hand and turned him toward the water.

We followed the sh.o.r.e, me calling out Jesse's name and studying both sides of the river. The sun was starting to heat things up, so steam drifted off the damp ground and the water. The mist wasn't thick enough to hide much. It rather gave me the creeps, though. What with the stillness, the limbs and such rus.h.i.+ng by on the dirty river, the dead critters here and there along the banks and the white shroud hanging over it all, I felt like I was riding through a wasteland fit for a nightmare.

The flood seemed to have killed everything it met. I came upon the remains of birds, snakes, gophers, and even a three-legged coyote, all of them washed up along the sh.o.r.e. They had flies buzzing about them. A buzzard was working on the coyote.

Once, a dead burro glided by on the river.

Much as I wanted to find Jesse, I took to dreading the notion. She was bound to be dead, same as all these animals. I didn't care to see her that way. It was my duty to keep on looking, though. Mostly, I hoped I might beat the buzzards to her body.

Soon after the mist burned off, I spotted a pair of white legs sticking up out of a tangle of tree limbs at the other side of the river. The sight made me want to curl up and die.

The tree was still in the water, but jammed tight among some rocks. All I could see of the body was its legs. They were bare, which made me wonder what had become of Jesse's boots and dungarees. Maybe they'd been tugged off by the currents, or maybe she'd had time to pull them off so they wouldn't sink her. One leg pointed straight at the sky. The other hung sideways at the knee.

The look of that broken leg made it all worse, somehow. Bad enough she was dead, but it pained me even more to see how she'd been ruined.

As she was across the river, I figured I was likely to drown trying to reach her. Didn't much care, though. I couldn't ride off and leave her there. If I got drowned, so be it.

I stopped General upstream a ways, dismounted, and shed my clothes. Then I raced into the water. It splashed up, wrapped around my s.h.i.+ns, and climbed higher until I couldn't run any more, but only trudge along. It was a mite chilly, though not cold enough to bother me much. The current shoved at me. I was near halfway across and still on my feet when a branch came scooting along. I had to backstep to keep it from hitting me. As it slid by, I grabbed hold and let it tow me downstream till I was just above the caught tree. Then I let it go and got sucked down. I was shoved and tumbled for a bit. When I finally got my feet planted firm on the bottom and stood up, I found myself just below the tree. The water was no higher than my waist.

Leaning into the current, I worked my way back to the snagged tree. Its trunk was half submerged. I hung on to the top side of it and stood in the water, catching my breath and trying not to look at the legs. I could see them out of the corners of my eyes, though, off to the right. Even after I was breathing easy again, I stayed put. I just didn't want to do what had to be done.

Finally, I judged as how waiting wouldn't make it any easier.

So I boosted myself up onto the trunk and crawled along its top, crawled straight for the legs and couldn't help but look at them. They were scratched and bruised. They had an awful bluish-gray color. The leg that dangled sideways from its knee was the closer of the two, and made me wish I could've come from the other side.

The body was stuck in the fork where the trunk branched out. It was caught at the waist, actually. More than just her legs were out of the water. Those parts had been out of sight, hidden by some branches, until I'd climbed onto the trunk. I wished I couldn't see them now, but there was no way around it.

They put me in mind of the time I'd walked in on old Mable about to climb into the bathtub. I was seeing what I shouldn't. Shame got mixed in with all the other miseries I was feeling.

Jesse'd been mighty riled yesterday about the notion that I might've spied on her at the creek. I'd hankered to do just that. Now, here I was. And here she was.

The sight of her private areas made me feel sick and sad and guilty.

The tuft of hair down between her legs was dark, not s.h.i.+ny gold the way I'd imagined it might be. Her rump was heavier than it had seemed when I'd watched it through the seat of her dungarees. Close up, she didn't look near as good as I'd supposed.

All at once, I caught on to how I was studying her and how I was disappointed she didn't look look good. If I'd felt lowdown before, now I was no better than a snake. good. If I'd felt lowdown before, now I was no better than a snake.

A sidewinder, that's what Jesse would've called me.

I got to my feet so quick I almost fell on her, but found my balance in the nick of time. Standing with one foot on each side of the fork, I bent over, picked up the broken part of her leg. It felt wobbly, the skin tight and cool. Holding that leg by its ankle, I reached out and caught hold of her other ankle.

I brought her legs together and gave them a pull. But she was still wedged in tight. I had to move in closer, stepping out along the branches. I had to hug the legs against my chest and push with my body. It was horrible. I was naked. I couldn't keep my own legs together and still keep my footing, so I had to shove at her with my chest and belly and couldn't help but rub her with my lower parts. I sure did wish I'd kept my trousers on.

I shoved and tugged upward and finally she came unstuck, so quick I wasn't ready for it. All of a sudden, she jumped upward. I yelped and let go of her legs and waved my arms and pranced, but it was no good. I tumbled sideways through a thicket of limbs and plunged headfirst into the river.

Before the current had a chance to rush me away, I grabbed a chunk of rock on the bottom. That halted me till I could plant my feet.

Just as I started to stand up, something pounded against me and knocked me down again. I knew it might be Jesse, so I flung my arms around it. As soon as I pulled it in against me, I knew it was the body, all right. I had it by the waist, and felt its back against me.

As we got rushed along, I kept heeling the bottom, trying to stop us with my feet. But we kept being towed along backward. I reckoned I might drown if I didn't let go of her so I could break the surface and find a breath. I just couldn't do it, though. Figured I'd rather drown than lose her.

That's how it might've ended, too, but somehow we got swept toward the sh.o.r.e. Just when my chest felt ready to explode for want of air, my b.u.m slid over some rocks and sunlight heated my face.

I scurried out from under the body, wheezing, blinking to clear the water from my eyes, and grabbed hold of her under the armpits and stumbled backward, dragging her toward the sh.o.r.e.

That's when I saw her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I was hunched over, staring straight down at them. The first thing I thought was that they'd swollen up huge from soaking in the river so long. I also figured the water-or death itself-had leached the color out of them. These looked as if they'd never been darkened by suns.h.i.+ne, whereas Jesse's had been pretty near as dark as her face.

The hair on the head of the corpse didn't seem right, either. Too dark and straight and long.

Still, I figured this had to be Jesse. I was only just troubled by her odd appearance.

I bent lower and looked at the face. I was seeing it upside down. It was an awful shade of purple and the lips looked almost black. The mouth was drooping open. The eyes were shut, but one lid was rather sunk in, as if it had no eye underneath it.

I studied the face, knowing knowing this was Jesse, trying to find something familiar about the hideous visage. this was Jesse, trying to find something familiar about the hideous visage.

All of a sudden, ice chased up my back.

I cried out, ”Yeeah!”

I dropped her and staggered back a few steps, shocked, appalled. I'd been hauling at a stranger!

Not a stranger, exactly.

But not Jesse.

The German's wife.

The river started to swing her away. I sure didn't want to touch her again. Not this awful dead thing that wasn't Jesse. I wished I'd never handled her at all.

But I'd brought her along this far, and it didn't seem right just to let her go. So I splashed after her and grabbed an arm and commenced to pull her toward sh.o.r.e.

It gave me an awful case of the fantods, touching her. Now that she wasn't Jesse.

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