Blackwater (9 page)

A big black dog came bounding out of somebody’s back yard and trotted along beside us, then ran ahead on to the river path.

Hannah was out in front of their house. “I don’t have flowers,” she said. “But I’ve brought this.” She showed us the shell she was holding, one of those big ones shaped like a cone. “I found it on the sand in Bolinas Bay,” she said. “You don’t find too many of these.”

I thought it was nice of her to give it up.

“Is it OK if I come?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said.

Sim Corona and his dad were already in the yellow inflatable, flowers and candles and bunches of silvery leaves piled all around them. Kids stood in clumps on the beach, and there were newsmen too, and photographers higher up on the bank, talking among themselves, sighting through their cameras.

“There’s Best in the West,” Alex said. “And there’s your friend, the cop.”

Raoul stood by himself well away from everyone else. I wondered what he was thinking. He and the news people and Mr. Corona and Mrs. Manuel, the school counselor, and our principal, Miss Diaz, were the only adults there. We laid the pom-poms and the shell and the flowers in the boat with the others. A few kids came after we did. Stacy O’Neill brought a huge wreath that she must have bought at Mrs. Nelson’s flower shop. Stacy was Pauline’s best friend and she was wearing dark glasses. I thought probably her eyes were red from crying. I thought probably I should get some dark glasses because they hid a lot.

I felt suddenly hopeless. What was the point in hiding anyway? Sooner or later that person was going to tell, wasn’t he?

The boat was almost filled. The sun was going down. The rumble of the river was like the purr of a great satisfied cat. Birds winged toward home, skimming low. Sometimes their wings touched the water. Weren’t they afraid that the river would catch them, pull them down? Dinkins Pond rippled peacefully, shot through with light. This was one of the times I liked best to swim. I looked across the pond now and wondered if
I’d ever swim again, anywhere.

“We’re going,” Mr. Corona shouted, and he and Sim took the oars and began to row. The dog rushed into the water after the boat, splashing and barking like fury. Somebody waded in and grabbed its collar.

Hannah stood in front of me. The barrette that held back her hair was shaped like a bat with its wings outspread.

“I saw a movie once,” she said. “It was about a Viking funeral. There was a raft and they put the body on it and pushed it out onto this lake. Then an archer shot a fire arrow and everything went up in flames. So the raft was floating there and all the flowers, and him, and everything was just a bonfire.”

“Cool,” Alex said.

We watched, everybody quiet as the boat moved slowly across the pond. The colors of the flowers reflected in the water.

Now they’d reached the Toadstool. Sim’s dad held the inflatable steady, his hands gripping the ledge, just where I’d gripped that awful morning. Sim climbed up on the rock and began unloading the flowers.

“Stay away from the far edge,” someone called.

“Don’t worry. I will,” Sim yelled back.

“Did you know they’re trying to make it against the law to climb up on the Toadstool?” Isabel Moreno said. “My dad says they’ll never be able to enforce it.”

Sim was lifting up the pom-poms now. There were two white candles, but he didn’t light them. Probably he had no matches. There was a framed photograph. Its glass mirrored the sun. I knew it would be a picture of Pauline, though I couldn’t see it, and I was glad I couldn’t. The shell. Stacy’s wreath.

A girl began singing in a shaky voice, something about it’s time to say good-bye, but she stopped when nobody joined in.

Sim lowered himself into the boat again, and they began rowing back to shore. Behind them the Toadstool was a mass of color. I thought I could pick out Mom’s roses.

“How can you stand here and watch?” Hannah asked. “How can you? You must have no heart.” Her voice was thick with tears.

I turned to look at her. I felt weak. Did she know…?

“If I’d known them, I couldn’t watch,” she said, and she wasn’t looking at me. “It’s so sad.”

There was a whispering and stirring in the crowd. Heads turned.

“What’s going on now?” Alex muttered.

Samellen Ferguson had arrived.

“That’s the officer who was with Raoul this morning,” Hannah whispered.

Samellen was heading up the bank toward Raoul. Their heads were close together, and then Raoul looked out toward the river across Dinkins Pond. He lowered his head, turned and walked down toward the river path. Officer Ferguson followed him. So did Best. So did just about all the other news people.

“Something’s up,” Alex said. “I wonder what it is.”

It didn’t take long to find out. The murmur went through the crowd like a cold damp wind.

Otis had been found.

O
tis’ body was caught in the weeds, completely under the water. Which was why it took so long to find him.

That night, the night he was found, I thought I’d never get the imaginary picture of him out of my mind…. Otis down there in the murky greenness, his hair swaying like river weeds. Otis, staring at the rushing water.

So it hadn’t been Otis who’d left the towels and the “TELL” note. He’d been dead all the time. Who had it been? I tossed and squirmed. If the person planned on reporting to Raoul, wouldn’t he have done it by now? Maybe he was going to let it go, since both Pauline and Otis were dead? Or maybe it was someone who knew
my dad and my mom, who knew how awful it would be for them.

I tossed and squirmed while Alex gnashed his teeth in the other bed. What was he dreaming about in his own darkness? His mom? The Vultures?

Lying there I thought this had probably been the worst night of my life. And there was still tomorrow and Pauline’s funeral.

Somehow I lived through it. My dad says God never gives us more than we can bear, but having to go to Pauline’s funeral cut it pretty close. All day long I felt as if I had a fever or had taken another of Mrs. Doc’s pills, as if none of this was real.

The church, filled to overflowing, the gleaming casket in front, banked with flowers. Pauline’s mom in a wheelchair, her husband on one side, her brother, Pauline’s uncle, on the other.

Shouldn’t they have put off the funeral because of Otis? But there was the uncle who was leaving for Chile the very next day.

I heard the gasp when Otis’ mother and sister came in the church, the baby with them in a little carrying basket. I heard the murmur of surprise when Otis’ mother walked over to Mrs. Genero,
bent down and kissed her cheek. I saw the way Mrs. Genero hugged her back. Two moms. Only they knew how bad they felt. It made no difference now who was to blame. And then there was me, sitting with my own mom and Alex, sick with guilt at what I’d done.

There was my dad in his black robe and his blue surplice. Hope Blue he called it. There was Raoul and his wife, and Maria. There was the Batman with Hannah. There was Mrs. Rand, the woman who’d seen what she thought was true from the other side of the river. There was Hank Chubley, who’d saved me from the Blackwater. There was Bobby Steig with his parents and Tom, his brother-in-law. There was Mrs. Doc Watson. Person after person who I knew, who I’d always known, came in the church.

Light streaming through the stained-glass window shimmered in the empty place in the pew where Pauline used to sit.

Stacy O’Neill spoke the eulogy words that I’d been asked to say, breaking down in the middle, half the people in the church breaking down with her, me crying great, silent sobs.

And afterwards, there was my dad sitting
on the floor in front of the altar, playing his guitar, while one by one Pauline’s friends from El Camino came up to cluster around him. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Dad played the music, soft and heartbreaking. I’d thought it was a cheerful song, but it was the saddest in the world.

I sat on the floor, too, close to Dad, Alex beside me, and I thought of Pauline, up there where happy little bluebirds fly, and I tried to tell myself she was happy. But I knew she’d rather be here.

I went to the grave site, too.

It was evening. Birds sang. A jet droned high overhead. The air was filled with the flower perfume, and if you listened real close you could hear the Blackwater. Always, everywhere in this town, if you listened real close, you could hear the Blackwater.

Almost over. I told myself to just hold on. But it wasn’t. Those at the graveside were invited to come back to the Generos’ house, where the townspeople had brought food and sympathy to share with the others who’d loved Pauline.

“Please, Mom. I don’t want to go,” I whispered. All I longed for was my room, the door closed, no
Alex, just silence and me alone with my misery.

“I don’t see why you have to,” Mom whispered back. “I think you and Alex could just go home. But first, say a few words to Pauline’s mom and dad.”

Say a few words? What could I say?

I walked around the other mourners, past headstones, past the marble angel with the chipped wing that John Sun and I used to climb when we were little. Alex dragged along beside me, his hands in his pockets.

“Just tell them you’re sorry,” he muttered. “Don’t go on and on. You’re all shook up and you might say the wrong thing.”

I glanced at him. He was afraid I’d say the wrong thing. He’d never want me to do that, because we had a bond now. The bond was safe.

I stopped beside Mrs. Genero’s chair. “I’m sorry about Pauline,” I said, and she looked up at me with her big, suffering eyes and said, “Thank you.” Then she lifted her hand as if it were the heaviest hand on earth and slowly touched my cheek.

“I’m sorry,” Alex told her, and he and I each shook Mr. Genero’s hand. I went to Mrs.
McCandless and Wendy and the baby. “I’m sorry about Otis,” I said. “I …”

Alex’s grip on my arm hurt.

“Let’s get out of here, fast,” he muttered, and we headed toward the road.

I glanced back once at the cluster of people still around the open grave. Some were moving quietly toward their cars parked outside the gates.

Any time I looked out my bathroom window, I could see this graveyard. I could probably even see Pauline’s grave. I’d always liked the view of Dad’s church, the spire sharp against the sky. Now I’d hate it.

We hurried down the road.

“That was sad all right,” Alex said. “Man, I hope I never die.” He shook himself like a dog shedding water. “Well, let’s try to forget it.
The X-Files
is on at six. We can watch till your parents get here.”

I nodded. “Alex? You were wrong. It wasn’t Otis who wrote the note. He was dead.”

“Believe it or not, I was able to figure that out for myself,” Alex said.

“Was it you?” I asked.

Alex stopped, turned and stared at me. “Me?
Get real. What good would it do me to have you tell? I could be in trouble for being an accomplice, or whatever.” He spread his hands as if he couldn’t believe how stupid I was.

We walked on and I was thinking, and all at once I had the answer to Alex’s question. What good would it do him? Well, I might be gone, to juvie hall, or someplace like it, and Alex would be right here, ready to step into my shoes and take over my life for me. My life with my mom and dad and my home and my room and my friends…my everything. He wanted to be my brother. But wouldn’t this be even better? He could get honest and tell anytime he wanted. I was in his power now, for ever and ever.

W
e were almost home when a breathless voice behind us called, “Wait up!” It was Hannah.

We waited.

“What’s her name?” Alex whispered. “Hannah.”

She stopped beside us. “I saw you leave. I wanted to get away, too.”

The three of us walked along Church Street. She was carrying her usual blue backpack, which I hadn’t noticed at the funeral. Maybe she’d had it in her dad’s car.

“That was pretty awful,” she said.

“Awful,” I repeated.

“You live down by the river,” Alex said.
“Remember, I went to your house, that morning? You weren’t there.”

“I know.” She squirmed the backpack on to her shoulders. “I was out, bat spotting. When do you get rid of your stitches?” she asked me.

“In a couple of days.”

We were almost at my house, and we slowed. Bobby’s cat came to visit, rubbing herself against my legs.

“We gotta split.” Alex headed for the back door. “The X-Files.”

“You want to come in?” I asked.

Hannah paused. “Are you going to watch TV, too?”

“No. I don’t think I could, right now.”

“Well, why don’t you come with me and see the bats?” she asked. “It’s just about their time. And like I told you, they’re worth seeing.”

“The bats?”

“You know?” She flapped her hands like wings.

“Yeah, but I don’t get what you mean, come to see them? We see them all the time down by the river.”

“But not like this. You’ll be impressed. I promise.”

“I don’t think I’m in the mood for bats, either,” I said.

“Well, it might be better than sitting at home, thinking about your two friends. I’ll be quiet if you like. We’ll just walk.”

I would be thinking about Pauline and Otis. About Otis being fished out of the river. About Pauline down in the warm dark ground. And I’d be thinking about Alex, too. Replaying everything that had happened. When would he have gone to get the towel bundles? If he had? I squinched my eyes tight, trying to remember.

Inside I heard
The X-Files
start at full volume, which is the way Alex likes to watch TV. If I stayed in my room, I’d still hear every word. I’d be wondering, was it him? And then Mom and Dad would be back and there’d be all the talk about the funeral.

“How long would we be gone?” I asked Hannah.

“Not long. About two hours.”

“OK.” I went inside, left my jacket and told Alex I was leaving.

Hannah and I walked along the river path. A bat wheeled above us, zoomed away.

The Blackwater roared and thundered. A wooden crate with
IMPORTED TOMATOES
stenciled on it rushed along in the torrent. There was something small, too, tumbling beside it, something furry. A squirrel maybe or a baby raccoon that had come down to drink. The river didn’t care what it took. It hadn’t yet taken the flowers that were still piled on the Toadstool, their colors already fading. My throat was so tight, I could hardly breathe as I followed Hannah single file.