October 20, 2010

River Girl by Charles Williams(14)

had said about the bed she’d made in the back? That
would be perfect. There would be a lot less chance of
our being spotted with just me alone up here than
with both of us. I put her down temporarily in the
seat while I reached for the keys to unlock the trunk.
Then I noticed I was still carrying the jailer’s key
ring in my hand. I threw it out into the street and
went around to the back, and unlocked the trunk and
raised it. She went into it perfectly, curled up like a
child with her head on the pillow. But suppose she
wakes up there in the dark, I thought. I ran back to
the front and looked in the glove compartment.
There was a flashlight, as I had hoped, and I
snapped it on and put it down beside her on the
blankets. She’ll know where she is, I thought.
I didn’t want to leave her. But it’s only for a little
while, I thought. As soon as we’re out of the worst of
the danger area I’ll pull off onto a side road
somewhere, by a little creek, and she can get out
and I’ll shave myself. I put the shell down and went
back and lifted the back seat up, pulled it out a little.
Feeling back with my hand, I could see there was
plenty of opening for air to get through, and with the
shell closed the carbon monoxide from the exhaust
couldn’t back up on her.
I jumped into the seat, and then discovered I had
left the keys in the lock of the trunk. I was getting
jittery with the hurry now. There still wasn’t anyone
in the street and it was growing light. I ran back,
snatched them out, and climbed in. It had been too
easy, and I was scared.

River Girl by Charles Williams(13)





the rifle almost at the same time because he was so
near. Before the sound had even died I was on my
feet, knowing somehow that I had to get up and over
the bank while he was working the bolt or I would
never move from there alive. And then I was in the
trees, hurtling zigzag through them while the gun
cracked again. They had cut the motors and in
another few seconds they would be on the bank
themselves and chasing me.
I didn’t know where I ran, or how far. There was
just the pain in my chest and the crying sound from
my open mouth as it gulped for air, and the only
thing my mind could hold was the picture of that
long, canvas-wrapped bundle like an old rolled-up
rug lying in the bottom of the second boat. After a
while I fell, unable to move, and lay there in the
brush trying to still the tortured sound of my
breathing enough to listen. There was no sound
behind me now.
River Girl — 223
Twenty-five
I don't know how long I lay there on the ground with
nothing but the numbness and the terror in my mind.
We were whipped now, and this was the end. They
already had her, and I was trapped. They had found
him; they knew I had killed him and I was a fugitive
with no plan of escape and nothing ahead but futile
and senseless flight. Flight? I thought. To where? I
looked down at my clothes, at the utter ruin that I
had deliberately sought,

River Girl by Charles Williams(12)

I pushed through the crowd to the lunch counter
and ordered a cup of coffee. What had she told
them? That was the question that went through my
River Girl — 208
mind over and over. Everything depended on that,
and there wasn’t any way I could know. Suppose she
had confessed? In spite of the sticky heat I felt the
chill between my shoulder blades. And it was
possible; I knew it. In her terror and confusion, not
even knowing what she had been picked up for, with
all of them firing questions at her, who knew what
she might blurt out?
But suppose, I thought, trying to pick up the
thread of thought I’d had before I realized I had to
get out of the hotel, suppose she kept her head and
hasn’t said anything so far? Then we’re safe enough
—for the moment. The danger then would lie in the
fact that eventually they might wear her down, keep
hammering at her until she let something slip, or
that eventually, as they kept looking for my body,
they might find Shevlin’s. That was a very real
danger now that Raines had joined in the search
because he wasn’t trying to cover anything up, as
Buford was. Therefore, I had to get her out of there.
But how? Obviously, the only way I could do it was
by turning myself in, or coming back to life. And
then they would be asking me the question, the big
one: Where was Shevlin?
But wait, I thought. I was very close to it a while
ago when I had to run away from the hotel. Suppose
I could come back to light in some way that wouldn’t
indicate I had ever been down here at all or even
knew her?

River Girl by Charles Williams(11)

Thinking of the watch reminded me of the time
and I looked at mine. It was after eight. The first
editions of the morning papers should be on the
street in a little while, if they weren’t already. I
should go down to the lobby and get them, I thought,
but it was too pleasant just sitting there waiting for
her to come out again so I could see how she looked.
I’ll pick them up when we go out to dinner, I
thought.
River Girl — 192
I heard the door open, and looked up and whistled
softly. She was very tall and smart-looking and cool
in a white skirt and short white jacket, with a blouse
of frosty blue gathered in some kind of ruffle about
her throat. The stockings were very sheer and she
had on white shoes that didn’t appear to be much
more than high heels and straps.
She turned, holding out her arms. “How do I look,
Jack?”
“Don’t come any closer. I might try to bite you.”
“Do I really look all right?”
I got up from the bed, conscious of what a crumbylooking
specimen I was now beside her, with nothing
on except my shorts and with the stubble of black

River Girl by Charles Williams(10)

I ducked into an all-night cafe and went back to
the telephone. Looking up the number of the hotel, I
dialed and waited.
The fan didn’t work and it was stifling inside the
booth. “State Hotel.” It was a girl’s voice. The
operator was still on duty.
“A Mrs. Crawford, please. Is she registered? This
is United Airlines.”
“Just one moment, please.” She paused. “Yes, sir.
I’m ringing.”
“Thank you,” I said. I waited, feeling the tightness
growing inside my chest as I realized how near I was
to her at last. How long had it been since I had let
her out of the car in Colston?
“Hello.” It was Doris.
River Girl — 172
I wanted to cry out, “Darling, this is Jack!” Instead
I asked smoothly, or as smoothly as I could, “Mrs.
Crawford? This is United Airlines, the reservation
desk.” Would she recognize my voice and not say
anything wrong? “We’re very sorry, but so far we’ve
been unable to confirm your reservation west of Salt
Lake. I think we’ll have it in another hour or two,
however. Shall we call you then, or wait till
morning?”
I heard a barely audible gasp and then she came
through beautifully. “Thank you. Tomorrow morning
will be all right. Just call me at Room Three-twelve
here at the hotel.”
“Thank you,” I said. I hung up.

River Girl by Charles Williams(9)

The water was warm. I lay in it, naked, alongside
the boat, with one hand on the gunwale, trying not
to think of anything except the motor. I can’t wait all
day, I thought. If I don’t do it now I’ll lose my nerve.
Shutting my mind to everything, to all thought, I
took a deep breath and dived. I seemed to go on for
a long time, pulling myself down with powerful
strokes of my hands, wanting to turn back but
forcing myself to go ahead. It must be twenty feet
deep instead of twelve, I thought wildly, and then I
felt the soft mud under my arm. I was against the
bottom. This was the terrible part of it now. Pulling
upward against the water with my hands to keep
myself flat against the mud, I groped around with
them, feeling for the motor. There was no use in
opening my eyes to try to see, for at this depth in the
discolored water there would be no light at all. I
River Girl — 155
swung my arms around wildly and felt nothing. My
lungs were beginning to hurt and I thought of the
boat above me, knowing I had to come up carefully
as I approached the surface or I might bang my head
into it. I couldn’t wait too long. Putting my feet
against the mud, I sprang upward, bringing my arms
up over my head to feel for the boat. I missed it and
came out of the water gasping for breath.
I can’t give up, I thought, my mind still focused
with that terrible intensity on just one thing—the
motor. I gulped a deep breath and dived again.
When I was against the bottom I started sweeping it
again with my arms, and then my left hand brushed
against something just at the ends of my fingers. I
turned toward it, feeling my skin draw up tightly
with revulsion. It was a shoe. Bringing my right hand
around, I groped with it, moving a little, and felt the
canvas coat. I was fighting desperately now to keep
from being sick here twelve feet under water and
drowning myself with the retching.

River Girl by Charles Williams(8)

“No,” I said. “All I see is a chump who got in over
his head and is trying to wiggle out.”
“Maybe you’re not looking from where I am.” She
smiled, and then went on, “But let me tell you what I
had in mind. Tonight when you told Buford what you
were going to do, you didn’t make any mention of
what was going to happen after you abandoned the
River Girl — 141
boat there in the swamp. Have you thought about
that? You don’t mind my asking, do you?”
“No,” I said. “Not at all.”
“Good. You realize, of course, don’t you, that
you’re going to be afoot and that when you get out to
the highway you won’t be able to flag a ride because
whoever gives you a lift will remember you. And,
naturally, you can’t take your car. Also, even if you
walked to the next town, you wouldn’t dare get on a
bus there. They might remember you.”
“Yes,” I said. “I know that. It’s not very good, that
part of it, but it can’t be helped.”
Actually, I had an idea about it, but I didn’t see any
point in telling her. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her,
but there just wasn’t any reason she had to know.
There was a railroad across on the far side of the
swamp, and at one place a water tank and siding
where freights went in the-hole for passenger trains.

River Girl by Charles Williams(7)

She thanked me again for the money
and got out. I saw her walk up the street toward the
station. What a life, I thought. Cat house behind, cat
house ahead. Then I snapped out of it. I was in a hell
of a spot to be feeling sorry for her.
River Girl — 122
I drove around and parked in front of the
courthouse and sat there for a minute, trying to
think. Cars lazily circled the square, boys out riding
with their girl friends; and something about it,
maybe the summer night or the hissing sound of
tires or the quick, musical laughter of a girl,
suddenly made me think of how it had been before I
went off to the Army all those years ago in 1942,
how it had been to be home from college in the
summer, out riding in the Judge’s automobile, a
Chevrolet somehow forever five years old. God, I
thought, that was a long time back.
I shook my head, trying to clear it, like a fighter
taking a beating. Get up there, I thought. Get up to
the office and see what you can find on Shevlin;
Buford can wait a little while. But what about this
other mess? It was going to blow wide open,
tomorrow or the next day. If I tried to disappear
now, wouldn’t everybody know it was a phony? And,
knowing it was a fake, they would do a lot of looking
into the place where I had disappeared, a place I
didn’t ever want anybody nosing around because
that was where Shevlin was. I’d be better off to stay
here and take the rap on the probable bribery
charge than to direct any attention toward Shevlin.
But, then, there was no use trying to kid myself that
Shevlin’s disappearance was going to continue
unnoticed forever. Somebody would miss him and
start looking into it. I shook my head again, and ran
a hand across my face. It was like being at the
bottom of a well.

River Girl by Charles Williams(6)

“I’m going to tell you good-by here,” I said,
“because I’m going to drop you off a block or so from
the bus station and run. There will be a bus for
Bayou City sometime this evening, around seven, I
think. You’ll arrive there a little before midnight. Go
to the State Hotel. It’s a small one, quiet, and not too
expensive, but still not crumby enough for the cops
to have their eyes on it. Register as Mrs. Crawford
and just wait until I show up. Try to buy yourself a
few clothes, but make the money go as far as
possible, because we’re going to have to travel by
bus. I won’t be able to bring the car the way things
are going to work out. And be sure to remember
this: When I get there, don’t recognize me. It may be
safer for us to travel separately until we get clear
out of the state. You can slip me the number of your
room on the quiet, but don’t let anybody see that you
even know me.”
I took her face in both my hands. “I won’t see you
for forty-eight hours, and after that we’ll be together
River Girl — 105
for the rest of our lives. So this is two days’ worth of
good-by, and then there’ll never be another one.”
She held onto me, and when she finally stirred and
pushed back on my chest her eyes were wet.
“Jack,” she whispered, “I’m afraid.”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” I said. “Just hang
on.”
“But you’re up to something.”

River Girl by Charles Williams(5)

I could see her fighting to get hold of herself.
“We’ve got to go,” she whispered frantically. “We’ve
got to get out of here! Oh, Jack!” She started to
River Girl — 88
break up again and I shook her a little, holding her
very tightly until she stopped.
“I’m sorry,” she said weakly. “I’ll be all right in a
minute so we can go.”
“No,” I said, not wanting to do it but knowing I had
to. “We can’t go now.”
She stared at me as if I’d lost my mind. “We can’t
go? But Jack, we’ve—we’ve got to.”
“It won’t do any good to run now,” I said. My mind
was working enough to see that.
“But it’s the only thing we can do.”
“No,” I said. “You saw what it did to him; being
hunted, I mean. We can’t do it. We wouldn’t have a
chance of getting out of the country, in the first
place, and if we did we’d just be running the rest of
our lives or until they caught us.”
“But what are we going to do?” she cried out
piteously. “What can we do now. Isn’t he—?” I could
see in her eyes the question she couldn’t ask.
“He’s dead,” I said bluntly, trying to get it on the
line so we could look at it and know where we had to
start.
“But you couldn’t help it, Jack! You couldn’t!
Wouldn’t they see you had to do it, that you were
trying to protect me?”
I shook my head, not wanting to do it, but knowing
there wasn’t room enough for even one of us in that
fool’s paradise. I hadn’t done it because I had to. I’d
done it because I’d lost my head, gone completely
wild when I saw him start for her.

River Girl by Charles Williams(4)

They were slender feet, quite small and beautifully
formed, but rough and calloused on the soles from
going barefoot, and they were dusty from the trail.
Very carefully, with my fingers I brushed all the dust
from them, as if they were very old pieces of
fabulously valuable and very fragile jewelry I had
found gathering cobwebs in an attic. Then I turned
them slightly inward, pressing the soles together up
near the toes, and held them, thinking how small and
breakable they looked, like the delicate feet of a
china doll, in the big, dark hands. I looked up and
River Girl — 69
she was watching me with a misty softness in her
eyes.
“Why are you doing that, Jack?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said.
I looked up again and she was crying, quite silently
and without any movement of her face.
* * *
Time came back for us without any warning. It was
the sound of a motor.

River Girl by Charles Williams(3)

“You took a hell of a long time finding it out,” I
grumbled, but glad he was getting some sense at
last I could still hear the girl inside the room cursing
obscenely and shrilly with the monotonous repetition
River Girl — 45
of a phonograph record with the needle stuck. Afraid
she would get him started again, I stepped over and
stuck my head in through the smashed panel.
“Pipe down,” I said. Then I saw her, and began to
feel scared for the first time. She was sitting on the
bed in a sleazy-looking kimono with her blonde hair
rumpled as if she’d just got up, and if she was a day
over sixteen, I was sixty.
River Girl — 46
Six
She saw me. “Who the hell are you?”
“Never mind,” I said. “Just stop that noise.”
“Why, you jerk!”
I heard the boy behind me and turned around. He
was putting on his clothes, stuffing the shirttail
inside his trousers. He had quit crying, but his face
was white and trembling and I could still see that
wild look in his eyes.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn