Mudlark (30 page)

I transferred the child, gingerly, to the crook of my left arm and began rummaging for rags.

Bonnie said, "Right, Mel, give it a push."

Melanie moaned. Bonnie gripped her hand. I was past nausea. I craned over Bonnie's shoulder. The
baby wriggled in my arms. With a gush of blood and amniotic fluid, the afterbirth spewed onto the slimy surface of
the sleeping bag.

Melanie gave a huge sigh. Bonnie patted her hand and said in an absent voice, "Nice work, Mel. It's
over."

I wondered if I was going to faint. The baby wiggled.

"Lark?"

"Um, yes. Here." I handed Bonnie a wad of mutilated undershirt.

She began swabbing Melanie's face. "You'll have to bury that deep or the bears will be after it."

"That" lay glistening on the plaid flannel lining of the sleeping bag. "Then you'd better take the
baby."

"Undo the other sleeping bag and lay him on it. I'm going to clean Mel up and put her into the
nightgown. Where is it?"

"In the duffel." I scooted over to the other sleeping bag and undid it, one-handed. The baby struggled
against my grip and mewed like a kitten.

When I had laid the little creature, still swaddled, inside the clean sleeping bag, I took up the shovel. I
slid the quivering mass of the afterbirth, part person, part thing, into the empty bucket and blundered out of the
tent.

Both men were staring at me. The rifle barrel sagged.

I stared back.

Kevin said, "Mel..."

Fury welled in me. "What the hell do you care? That woman needs a doctor. Now. So does your
son."

"Lark!" Tom's voice was sharp, cautionary.

I bit back the scalding words. The men stared. I shifted my grip on the pail and headed toward the path
to the beach.

"Where d'you think you're going?"

"I have to bury this, and I am not going to dig through tree roots to do it. I'll find a patch of sand--"

Kevin was scowling. He jerked the barrel of the rifle at Tom. "Help her and be quick about it. I'll keep
both of you in my sights."

Tom and I trudged back to the point at which the vegetation gave way to gravelly beach. The mist had
thickened, and I couldn't see very far out on the water. Nothing moved.

I wondered where Jay was and how Tom had got to the island. There was no sign of a boat, Tom's or
anyone else's. No Shoalwater Fire District rescue launch. Our waders and pails lay where we had left them.

Tom took the shovel from me, found an open patch of dirt and gravel beside the trail, and began to dig.
He dug fast, not speaking. There was no point in our trying to talk because Kevin was standing in the brush at the
edge of the woods. He was out of sight of anyone approaching from the bay, but he was well within earshot. I
emptied the mass of tissue into the gaping hole and carried the bucket toward the beach.

"Where are you going?"

"To rinse the bucket." I didn't look at Kevin, just kept going. The tide was definitely coming in. I sloshed
seawater in the pail until it looked clean, glancing around me, hoping to spot something that would clue me in. How
had Tom found the camp? I refused to believe in coincidence. He had come to find us, but how? Why wasn't he
armed? If he had been armed... If he had been armed we would have been birthing that child in the middle of a
fusillade. My respect for Tom's judgment went up a notch.

"That's enough." There was an edge of something like panic in Kevin's voice.

I emptied the bucket of water and trudged back to the path. Tom had filled in the hole. Kevin herded us
toward the camp. I had seen no sign of anyone--not Jay, not Clara, no posse, no rescue helicopters, no National
Guard. I had heard nothing.

When we reached the clearing, Kevin motioned us toward the stove and the wide cedar stump. He
made Tom sit on the stump, and he sent me into the tent for the fishing knife Bonnie had used to cut the umbilical
cord. Bonnie gave it up under protest, but she was busy with Melanie and the baby. I went back out into the
clearing. Kevin made me put the knife back in his tackle box.

He wanted me to stay outside. Under his eye.

I refused. "Your wife and son need help. So does Bonnie, and my help is better than none. I'm going back
into the tent. Why don't the two of you talk the situation over and decide what to do? You can't keep us here
forever, Kevin."

A stupid thing to say. I picked my way across the scuffed ferns to the tent. Kevin didn't try to stop me,
but I could feel the heat of his frustration. The man was cornered. He'd probably decide to kill us all then shoot
himself. That was what cornered men did in this part of the country. It was a clear sociological pattern among
loggers and fishermen. Jay had told me grim tales. Others I had read in the newspaper or heard of on the TV news.
Tom's presence, unarmed, was a wild card.

I entered the tent and stopped. Bonnie was sitting in the middle of the floor, cross-legged, shoulders
slumped, head bent. She looked up at me. "Now you can tell me what's going on."

"I don't know." I took in the rest of the tent.

Melanie lay in the clean sleeping bag with the baby snuggled against her. She was resting--or
unconscious. Bonnie had rolled the other filthy bag up and shoved it against the opposite side of the tent. She had
given her own face and hands a rough cleaning, too, but she looked grimy and exhausted in the greenish light, and
no wonder.

I scrunched down beside her. "You were terrific, Bonnie. Are you all right?"

"We have to get Melanie to a doctor."

"Is she bleeding?"

Bonnie nodded. "Not badly. I think women do bleed after a birth. I rigged a pad for her. Still, everything
in the tent was dirty. She needs antibiotics, and so does the baby."

"What about milk?"

"For the baby?" She frowned. "I don't think that's a big deal the first day or so, and she was going to
breast-feed anyway. But she's weak, and the baby's small."

I rested my chin on my knees. "Should I fix something for her--soup maybe?"

Bonnie sighed. "It might be a good idea, but she'll sleep for a while. I wish I could sleep. I'm beat."

"No wonder."

"What did Tom say?"

"Not a lot."

Her shoulders sagged. "He must have come looking for us."

"Yes. It's too much of a coincidence otherwise, but I don't know where his boat is or who else knows
where he was searching. Clara must have called him."

"Would she?"

"She doesn't like cops."

"True." Bonnie heaved a sigh. "Well, see about soup. I'm hungry even if Melanie isn't. Kevin's probably
missed a meal or two himself."

"I don't somehow think the way to his heart is through his stomach."

She gave a small mournful smile. "Pity."

I creaked to my feet. I was getting stiff in the shoulders already. By tomorrow, if I lived that long, my
whole body would probably seize up.

"Try to talk some sense into the man," Bonnie said as I left the tent.

"...and I decided to take a look at the oyster bed," Tom was saying in a ludicrously peaceful voice. "I
knew Bonnie and Lark meant to go clamming, so I hiked around the point to see how they were doing. I saw the
waders and buckets, and followed your trail. That's all there was to it, Kevin."

"You're shittin' me."

"No. Nobody knows where you are--yet. Why don't you haul the canoe down to the shore and take off?
Search and Rescue will come looking for Bonnie and Lark sooner or later, and when they do we can see that
Melanie gets medical help."

Kevin had his back to me. I considered jumping him and decided not to. A sideways flick of his head
suggested he'd heard me. His hands tightened on the rifle.

I inspected the pile of supplies. I found a box of biscuit mix, salmon jerky, bacon, Rice-a-Roni, packets of
dried soup. Chicken noodle soup. Tom was droning on about the oyster bed. He was still droning when the water
boiled, talking about anything but the current situation. I turned the burner way down and let the soup
simmer.

Tom was reminiscing about some fishing boat he and Kevin had worked on. I tuned him out and tried to
think.

Kevin could use the canoe to reach the mainland, but it was still daylight, and he probably feared
discovery. Did he intend to take Melanie and the baby with him? Where would they go? I supposed he had hidden
the pickup somewhere in the brush on the relatively unsettled eastern shore opposite Coho Island. He could
retrieve the pickup as soon as it turned dark and head for Portland, but he ought to leave Melanie and the baby
with us. Us? He was probably going to shoot us.

"He fired me." Kevin's voice, aggrieved. "He won't take me out no more. I was counting on that
job."

Tom said, "Henry will take you out."

"I don't like that old Siwash. Besides, fishing's a dead end. I need a steady job. Maybe
construction."

"There's a lot of building."

"Goddamn Californians."

"Well, it's work."

"I got money. I was going south, down around Alsea. I got friends down there with a gyppo outfit.
They'd hire me. I got money." He repeated the phrase as if he were reciting a magical formula. "We was going to
find us a motel in Alsea and hole up."

So he had meant to take Melanie. "What about the baby?"

Kevin spat. "Goddamn woman. She made me bring her along. Wouldn't stay with her ma. I had me this
camp. I was going to hide out here until things calmed down. I could've, too, easy, but Mel made me bring her.
Dumb cunt swore she had two more weeks to go."

Tom said, "I guess she was wrong."

Kevin growled. "Women and kids drag a man down."

Tom ignored that. "Why Alsea? I thought you wanted to stay here. You told me you weren't going to
leave the peninsula no matter what."

"I got money." Kevin sounded less sure of himself.

"I suppose it's what they paid you to burn down my grandfather's house."

"Hey!"

"Well?"

I glanced at Kevin's face. It was even redder than it had been. His lips worked. "We just give you a
scorching."

"Why?"

Kevin's hands clenched on the rifle stock.

"What did I ever do to you?" Tom was pushing him. I thought that might be unwise, but I didn't
understand the dynamics of the relationship so I kept still.

Kevin cleared his throat and spat.

"That's no kind of answer."

"Don't screw around with my head, Tom. I'm warning you."

"I just wanted to understand." Tom's tone was almost plaintive. When Kevin didn't answer him he
shrugged. "That the gun your dad gave you?"

"Yeah."

"I remember you telling me about it. Thirty ought six. Single action?"

"Yeah. So?" Kevin worked the bolt. "I always get me an elk first day of the season. It's my good 1uck
piece, see?"

"Your old man used to take you hunting when you were in junior high, showed you what to look for in
the bush."

"Yeah. So what?"

"You have a son now, Kevin. Are you going to take him elk hunting?"

Kevin gave a snorting laugh and didn't answer the question.

I wondered if I should dash into the tent, grab the baby, and show him to his obdurate father. It worked
in old melodramas.

"I was going to cut out." Kevin jerked his head in the direction of the tent, and his voice took on a
self-pitying whine. "Mel and the kids is better off without me."

I liked that idea.

The soup was ready. I scooped out a mugful and wiped the cup with a scrap of sweatshirt. When I had
retrieved a spoon and a handful of crackers from the supplies, I took the soup to Bonnie. She woke Melanie and fed
her about half of the salty mixture. I held the baby. He looked around a little, waved a fist, and crossed his eyes.
Then he fell asleep again. So did his mother. I tucked the baby in beside her. Bonnie finished the soup herself.

"Thanks." She handed me the mug. "What are they doing?"

"Talking. In circles, mostly. Do you want me to bring more soup?"

She removed her glasses and cleaned the lenses on her t-shirt. "I ought to get more nourishment into
Melanie. She's weak. What else is there?"

I described the stockpile.

"Bring salmon jerky and soup. And make some biscuits."

"There's no oven!"

"In the frying pan, Lark."

I was dubious, but I thought I might as well try. "Back in a quarter of an hour."

"Okay."

I lifted the tent flap and emerged, mug first, into the clearing.

Kevin was peeing in the bushes. When he heard me he whirled, spraying, and the rifle discharged.

I smacked the ground, head down, scrabbling in the mat of needles. The air quivered from the report. I
could hear Kevin swear over the ringing in my ears. I took a deep breath to yell.

Bonnie erupted from the tent. She ran right over me, hurling herself at Kevin. He was struggling with
his unzipped jeans with his left hand and the bolt of the rifle with his right, and she staggered him. I levered myself
up, but my reactions were slower than Tom's.

He launched himself from a low crouch and butted Kevin in the belly with his head. The rifle flew and
Kevin dropped to his knees. As I scrambled up I saw Tom grab Kevin's right arm and twist. Bonnie, screeching, had
her claws into Kevin's face. Both men roared. I went for the rifle.

I disentangled it from the blackberry vines it had landed in and carried it, arms stiff, out of range of the
wrestling match.

Kevin lay prone with his right arm twisted behind his back. He was gasping for air, and he had two
outraged people on top of him pummeling his head, but he was still heaving his shoulders and trying to flip them
off. Since he outweighed Tom by a good twenty pounds and Bonnie by fifty, his defeat was not inevitable.

The bolt of the rifle had not shot home. I laid the gun behind the cedar stump. Then I looked around me
for a weapon. Even if I had known how to fire the rifle, even if I had been willing to, I would not have had a clear
shot at Kevin. I grabbed the bucket that still contained water. As I reached the melée, Kevin heaved to one
knee, slewing Tom sideways and relieving the pressure on the twisted arm. Bonnie was pulling Kevin's head back
by the hair with both hands, and he was yelling, mouth wide. I sloshed the water straight at his open mouth.