A Dark and Lonely Place (8 page)

She was difficult to ignore.

Sometimes he cut them each a pole with his double-bladed pocket-knife. The rolling river teemed with jumping, silver-finned fish. Unlike
other girls, Laura was not afraid to bait her own hook. Worms didn’t scare her.

“Who are they?” she asked, as they fished from a small wooden skiff one golden winter afternoon. Two strangers waved repeatedly from the riverbank. She took off her sun hat and waved back.

John shrugged. “They look citified, not from here. What are they doing?” He shaded his eyes with his hand. The men had set up some odd-looking equipment down by the water. “Stop waving, Laura. You don’t know who they are.”

“Maybe they’re lost,” she said.

“Could be surveyors.” John squinted at a contraption on thin legs.

He dug the oars deep and turned slowly toward the bank, close enough to hear the strangers but not too close.

“A moment of your time, son,” called one, coaxing them closer.

They look alike, John thought, balding men with bristly mustaches, dark city suits, vests, ties, and pocket watches. They had an odd-looking little dog with them.

“If they try anything,” John muttered under his breath, “I’ll knock the closest one down with a paddle. Then you run as fast as you can.”

“Oh, John!” Laura fanned herself with her hat and glared in exasperation. “Don’t you dare! Look how elegant they are.”

He frowned. “Do what I say, Laura.” He squinted suspiciously at the strangers. Up close they looked even more alike.

“I’d like to introduce myself,” sang out the man who’d beckoned them. “I’m Charles Homer, and this”—he gestured with a flourish—“is my brother Winslow. Winslow Homer, the great American artist.”

John stared blankly. Laura blinked in the brilliant sunlight and looked thoughtful.

“And this is Sam.” Winslow imitated his brother’s flourish and introduced the dog, whose ears perked up at the sound of his name.

Laura smiled at the pup, who wagged his tail furiously.

“What kind of dog is that?” John asked.

“Sam’s a fox terrier.” Winslow clapped his hands and laughed heartily at their keen interest in the dog, not the artist.

“We planned to do a bit of fishing,” Charles explained, “but my
brother is quite overwhelmed by the beauty of the Caloosahatchee at this spot . . .”

“It’s only the river.” Perplexed, Laura wrinkled her nose and peered over her shoulder at the familiar bright green water.

“. . . and has an idea that the image of you two there in your little boat . . . He’s already done a few sketches . . .”

“He’s drawing our picture?” Laura’s face lit up and her shoulders straightened.

“Yes.” Winslow smiled. “We hoped you wouldn’t disappear around that bend before I finish. I’d like to keep you in sight a bit longer, unless, of course, you have a prior engagement.”

“What should we do?” Laura adjusted her bonnet.

“Exactly what you were doing before we hailed you. Pretend you don’t see us. Forget we’re here.”

“Can we, John?” She turned to him eagerly.

“If you want to, Laura.” He sounded doubtful.

“So you are John and Laura.” Charles jotted their names in a small notebook.

At their direction, John paddled back out onto the shimmering gold and green river.

“It is beautiful here, Laura,” he said.

“Sit up straight, John,” she said primly, her small chin firm. “That man is painting your picture.”

When it came time to go home for supper, Winslow Homer asked them to return the next day so he could continue his work.

“I’ll ask my father,” John said.

“We’ll be back,” Laura confidently assured them.

Charles handed them little blue cloth bags of shiny nickels, for their time.

Laura was ecstatic. “Don’t tell your father, John. He might say no.”

John gave his nickels to his parents and told them everything.

“Homer?” Joe’s brow furrowed. “Winslow Homer? I know the name. If he’s the same one, he traveled with the Army of the Potomac to illustrate the war.”

“A Yankee?” John asked in dismay.

“No, he reported on the war, drew sketches of the battles for magazines
and newspapers. My uncle John, the man you’re named after, met him in Virginia during the prisoner exchange. Maybe I’ll go down to the river with you tomorrow.”

“What were you doing on the river with little Laura Upthegrove?” his mother asked.

“Rowing.” John’s face colored. “And fishing.”

“You go fishing with little girls?” It was Joe Ashley’s turn to look dismayed.

“No, sir. Only her. Mr. Homer said the river is beautiful.”

“He’s right, son.”

Joe Ashley met Charles and Winslow Homer the next day, another cool and golden afternoon. John watched them, keenly aware for the first time of the difference between the well-tailored city gentlemen and his father, in overalls and a simple work shirt. He and Laura understood little of the conversation, but the men heartily shook hands at the end.

Winslow Homer painted Laura wading in the river, then beside it as a storm threatened, her long hair loose, skirts swirling, as tree limbs groaned in the wind. On another day, he painted John swimming in the mirror-bright water beside the boat, as Laura sat inside, her face shadowed by trees and overhanging vines.

They shared the brothers’ picnic lunches, played with Sam, and listened to the artist tell tales of his travels. He had just come from the Bahamas, had been to Key West, seen the Gulf Stream and the island of Cuba, had even been to England and seen castles. They were swept up by the artist’s enthusiasm for Florida’s light, sky, and water. He said they were unlike any he’d seen before. The children began to look at the familiar sights around them in a different way.

John understood. He often heard the river call his name. For as long as he could remember, he’d been drawn to its peaceful, green-walled waters and the wilderness around them. Before he met the artist, he believed that only he felt that way.

After ten days, the brothers packed up their easels and said they hoped to see John and Laura again one day. Then they and Sam, the fox terrier, were gone. Laura was crushed; it was as though she somehow expected them to stay on, to continue to chronicle her life and John’s in pictures.

John tried to comfort her. “Everything ends,” he told her. “Nothing lasts forever, Laura.”

“Some things do,” she stubbornly insisted. Her deep blue eyes never left his. “Like it says in the Bible, ‘forever and ever, amen.’ “

Homer had left them a few black-and-white sketches on scraps of paper. John kept one of Laura. He admired how Homer had captured her spirit and posture in just a few spare lines.

The river now held a new fascination for them both.

They met there, alone, as often as possible. By the time John was fourteen and Laura twelve, he’d learned to play the guitar. No matter how stealthily she approached, she never did succeed in surprising him. He never looked up, just grinned and played:
Yes, we’ll gather at the river, the beautiful, beautiful river . . .

They sang hymns, “Amazing Grace” and “The Old Rugged Cross.” His favorite folk songs were laments, involving disaster and heartbreak. “The Wreck of the Old ’97,” “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” and “Oh Shenandoah” moved Laura to tears. She’d sing along, in a clear, high voice so sweet that he’d stop to listen.
Oh Shenandoah, I long to see you.
He said she had the saddest voice he ever heard.

Some afternoons she set up melons and bottles as targets so he could practice with his pistol and Winchester rifle. His father, a well-known marksman, had taught him and the boy was already a crack shot. His brothers were good as well, but John’s aim was truest. He could fire from thirty feet away at the mouth of a bottle on its side atop a fence post and blow out the bottom without even scratching the small opening through which the bullet passed.

A patient teacher like his father, John taught Laura how to shoot.

When he was sixteen and she was fourteen, Laura’s mother forbid her daughter to spend time alone with any member of the opposite sex, especially John Ashley. The woman soon became put out that Leugenia, John’s mother, made little effort to help enforce the ban.

John and Laura still found ways to be alone together.

One steamy summer afternoon they sat and dangled their feet in the clear, cool water at the river’s shady edge. He’d brought his guitar but felt too lethargic to play.

“I’d love to take a swim right now,” he said in his slow, easy drawl.

“Wish we could.” Her voice sounded husky in the heat.

A fine mist filled the air as waterbirds called amorously to each other.

“We can,” he said.

“What if somebody saw us?”

“Nobody else ever comes here.” He clasped Laura’s warm, responsive hand in his.

“We’d burn in hell,” she murmured.

“Then we’ll burn together. But it’s no sin, only a swim. Go on. Undress behind that big live oak. I won’t look. I promise.”

“But there’s manatees in the water,” she protested.

“They don’t mind. Sea cows are harmless. They love company.”

“Mama warned me. You
are
the devil.” She pushed him down on his back and straddled him, her long hair falling like a veil around his face, tickling his cheeks and ears. He smelled her skin, her hair, and the warm, fertile earth beneath them.

“All right,” she said, and rose slowly to her feet. “But remember, you promised not to look.”

“Nothing I ain’t seen before.” He sounded bored, but his heart pounded.

“Oh really,” she teased from behind the oak tree. “You ain’t seen nothing.”

“I live with four sisters and my mother.”

He looked, of course. Saw her cotton skirt drop in a graceful circle around her tanned bare feet. She was nothing like his mother or sisters.

He closed his eyes until he heard her splash into the river, then sprang to his feet, peeled off his clothes and followed.

She watched him from gleaming waist-deep water, her arms shielding her breasts.

“Hey,” he protested. “You weren’t ’sposed to look either.”

“I never promised.” She laughed and swam off, eluding him among a dozen sausage-shaped manatees, some with their calves. They played together and with the gentle, giant creatures so homely that they were beautiful.

He watched her tread water, nose to snout with a huge flat-tailed, bewhiskered sea cow that rolled over so Laura, her hair streaming in
the current, could scratch its belly. He could almost see the creature smile. A great blue heron, at least four feet tall, squawked, croaked, and watched from shore as dozens of pelicans flew overhead in formation, their distorted reflections skimming across the water. John ached to paint like Winslow Homer, so he could preserve the moment forever.

They finally clambered ashore, laughing and out of breath. She eluded him again and snatched up her skirt to wrap around her before they embraced. Then he kissed her, really kissed her, for the first time.

She wrapped her warm, naked arms around his neck and drew his face down to hers as the skirt slipped to the ground. They followed it. Her breath came in little gasps as he kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her mouth, chin, and the hollow of her throat. Her wet skin was smooth, slippery, and soft, and her eyes took on the color of the river.

“We can’t,” she finally said.

“I know. But can we just—”

“No,” she said firmly, and disengaged, then began to gather up her clothes.

He lay on his back staring in bleak frustration at the sky. “You’re killing me, Laura.”

“You’ll be fine; take deep breaths,” she said, serenely content to lie beside him without touching.

He sighed and closed his eyes until frogs began to croak in the reeds. The sun was nearly gone, yet the air seemed even warmer and more moist than ever. Their swim had not cooled him off at all.

Sharing the water with the gentle river creatures as birds darkened the sky above brought one of the Bible stories his mother read aloud after supper vividly to life for the first time. This, he thought, is how it was for Adam and Eve in the Garden.

He gazed at the girl beside him and knew he would always remember the brightness of her body, the water’s reflection in her eyes, and would forever think of her and the river together.

Both caught hell from their parents for coming home late that night. John felt the imprint of her lips on his for days and was sure everyone could see it.

For weeks they found it difficult to be alone together. John’s brothers, sisters, and friends clamored for his company, while Laura’s watchful mother, vigilant siblings, and protective half brother surrounded her.

John and his brothers often played music for dances and church socials. He had adamantly rejected Laura’s offers to teach him to dance until he watched her do the two-step and the Virginia reel with Duncan Moody. Later that night he demanded that his favorite sister, Daisy, teach him immediately. They practiced every day for weeks.

He and Laura danced together for the first time at the next church social, the night their lives changed forever.

That was the night Joe Ashley arrived home late, grim and smelling of whiskey. He woke Leugenia and their nine children, told them to quickly pack up whatever they wanted to keep because they were leaving now and wouldn’t be back.

“Was there gunplay?” his wife asked, her eyes fearful in the lamplight, a tremor in her voice. “Is anybody dead?”

“No, but a man was shot. He’ll live, but he has a big family. We best leave now, or somebody will die.”

She began to pack her best linens in a wooden chest.

The children, still sleepy and in their nightclothes, dutifully gathered their belongings, except for John.

“Where are we going?” he persistently asked his father. “When will we be back?”

“No time to talk, son. We got to go! Get your things together, now.”

John dressed quickly, carried his banjo and guitar out onto the front porch, left them on the steps, then broke into a dead run down the dusty road. The dust, white in the moonlight, looked like silk.

His father stepped out and glared after him.