The Lost Skiff

by Donald Wetzel

  Jack shook his head no. “But I have went and acted the fool for sure,” he said.

  “I’ll find a phone somewhere and call The Hill,” I said. “It’s my fault for losing your father’s skiff in the first place. And I am sorry about the way it must be hurting. I am rowing as fast as I can.”

  How he did it I don’t know, but Jack actually laughed. It was faint and quick, but it was a laugh. “I swear,” Jack said, “if the world was to end tomorrow, you would somehow manage to die believing it was all your fault. Actually, I see I can move my fingers a bit now if I really try. They was probably only paralyzed from the shock. It could just be a sprain after all.”

  I didn’t argue with him. If it was just a sprain, I figured, why was he still just sitting there where he had fallen, still so pale that the dirt on his face stood out in splotches, and holding his hurt arm in a grip so tight that all his fingernails were white, like he was trying to shut out the pain? If it had of been anyone else, they would have been crying. I was half close to it myself; at the way he tried to hide it. “Just hang on,” I said. “Maybe if Mr. Byrd has a car he will be willing to drive you back to The Hill himself and save the time.”

  Jack looked at me and shook his head, and then eased up off the bottom of the boat and kicked his way through the stuff under the tarp and crawled past me until he could sit down on the back seat. “I am not dying,” he said, “or even hurting more than I can stand. I have only lamed my wrist. You are getting us in too close to the bank; pull more on your left.”

  It was guts, and I had to admire it. “Keep telling me which way to pull,” I said, “and I will row.” Then I leaned into it even more than I had been doing already, and the sweat rolled down off me, but we moved along in a way that Jack noticed, despite his pain.

  “There is no need to kill yourself,” he said, “we are almost there. More on your right now. It is starting to hurt more like a sprain all the time. It was that stupid tarp I left spread out like that to fool people. I could not see where I was falling. Once, I sprained my ankle so bad I could not wiggle my toes.”

  “Keep me headed toward the landing,” I said. I was blinking sweat out of my eyes and could not really see, but I kept rowing. That was all there was I could do.

  “First cold water and then hot, that was all Ma used,” Jack said, “and by morning the worst of the pain and some of the swelling was gone. The Byrds will have some hot and cold water for sure.”

  “You do not fix a broken wrist with hot and cold water,” I said. “What you need is a doctor. And that is what we will get. Am I headed right?”

  “Dead on it,” Jack said. He was quiet for a while, while I rowed, and then I saw him look at his wrist again and shake his head. “Rodney,” he said, “the way it hurts, it may be broke at that. If I have ruined your trip, I sure am sorry.” Then he hung down his head for the first time. I turned and looked behind me, and there was the landing, well in view, but still far off. I kept my own head down and rowed. Then after a while Jack said, “A little on your left now; you’re doing fine.” I looked at him, and he was still as white as he had been since he fell, and he was still holding his arm out up in front of him, but not so tight, and he had tried to get comfortable on the seat, leaning back a little. He was watching up ahead somewhat in the same way I remembered him when we had started out, leaning back then and smoking a cheap cigar, looking out at the creek like he was king of the world. “It may just be a sprain,” he said. “There is no way of telling from the pain. One can hurt as bad as the other, I believe. You can start easing off; we are almost there.”

  I slowed down some, and then Jack sat up again and said, “On your right now,” and then, “Steady,” and then, “On your left a little,” and finally he said, “Okay, Rodney, just let it coast.” And I did, wiping the sweat from my eyes, and seeing the shore up close out of the corner of my eye and waiting for the boat to bump up against the pier, too tired to turn and stop it, seeing Jack looking up and nodding to himself like we were coming in fine.

  Then as though we had run up on another mudbank, the boat gave an easy lurch and slowed and stopped, and, surprised, I turned, and on the front end of the boat, holding it, was a small, bare, brown sort of foot that I somehow knew was a girl’s. Then tired and worried as I was, I turned more and stared at the long, smooth stuck-down leg, amazed, as though I couldn’t believe it, and then finally like some kind of an idiot I raised my head and saw who it was, and she was a girl, all right, wearing white shorts and a yellow blouse, hanging out over the water holding onto a post, still holding our boat with her toes and looking down at me, with long brown hair hanging down around the most serious, wondering, beautiful face you could imagine; as surprised as I was, I guess, to meet like this, so close and unexpected, and strangers. I just stared at her; and she stared back. “The fast way you were rowing,” she said, “I was afraid someone was hurt. Is it Jack?”

  “He has broken his wrist,” I said. “It was my fault. I’m his friend, Rodney Blankhard.”

  For a second or so more we still stared at each other, still serious, caught by surprise, it seemed, and then she smiled, as shy and yet as pretty as could be, half like a kid, but like a girl who knows she is not just a kid, either, and holds back a little. “I am pleased to meet you,” she said. “I am Brenda Sue Byrd.”

  How Jack could have told me all about her father and mother and said not a word about a girl like Brenda Sue Byrd was what finally amazed me most of all. For a time, it had just about made me forget about Jack’s broken wrist altogether. Then I remembered what I was doing and grabbed a post and swung up onto the pier and tied up the front of the boat, while Brenda Sue pulled in the back end so Jack could get out, talking to him like an old friend, which I guess he was, asking him how much did it hurt and how did he do it, and was he sure it was broken.

  “Broke or bad sprained,” Jack said. “But it is nothing to make a big fuss about.”

  “The way your friend was rowing,” Brenda Sue said, “nobody rows that hard just for fun. But when I saw it was you in the back, I thought maybe you had made some crazy kind of bet with him. When you got close and didn’t even say hello, though, I was near to certain that something was wrong. Pa has the car torn up, fixing it, but we could call your pa to come get you if you want.”

  I was glad to know they had a telephone. Jack just stood there on the pier, back in the shade under the roof, showing off his wrist to Brenda Sue and even smiling about it, much as it must have hurt, as though it was practically something to be proud of. He seemed in no hurry about it at all, now we had got here. “Jack said he heard it snap,” I said, “and I believe him. I shoved the boat clean out from under him and then fell on my face myself, so I didn’t hear it. Anyhow, Jack is no doctor and neither am I, and a doctor is the one who will say if it is sprained or broken. So if it is not too much trouble I think we should call Mr. Haywood right away.”

  “Rodney,” Jack said, “if it was you that broke my wrist like you claim, then the least you could do was to let me be the one to decide what to do about it.” Then he turned to Brenda Sue. “Only it was me that done it, being a fool.” He made it sound like bragging.

  She nodded, not needing to be convinced, it seemed, and this pleased me more than I should have let it right then; and when she answered him, it was actually me that she turned and talked to. “Maybe we should go up to the house and see what my folks think about it,” she said. “You are right; if Jack has really broke his wrist his pa had best come get him.”

  “Listen,” Jack said, “instead of all this talk about it, what I would most like to do is get this wrist laid down in a basin of ice-cold water. Then we can talk. But there is no big rush about calling Pa. I am not in danger, just in pain.”

  Jack was right about not just standing there, anyhow, and I knew it and was sorry, because hard as I kept trying to worry about his wrist, I was still more willing to stand there talking to Brenda Sue and watching her, not really in a hurry at all to see
what could be done to ease Jack’s pain. Actually, instead of feeling bad about Jack, like I should have been, I had already got around to feeling bad about his sister, as though just that quick and with no struggle against it, I had let this girl I didn’t even know yet push the picture of Ellen right out of my mind. I was hardly acting normal. Surprises, I thought; now I am even surprising myself. “Jack is right,” I said, “the first thing he needs is some help from the pain, if we can get it.”

  “To start with,” Jack said, “some good cold water would be fine; for my wrist, and to drink as well.” So we all went walking slow, to stay with Jack, up the long path to the house, with Jack talking a little, mostly to himself, arguing that what he probably had was only a sprain after all, as he was finding he could wiggle his fingers more all the time. Then we went up the steps and on into a big screened-in porch, where Mrs. Byrd was waiting for us, having the same big bright-brown eyes and long brown hair and generally dark complexion that Brenda Sue had, but being maybe a good hundred pounds or more heavier. So we told her about Jack’s wrist, and he held it out for her to see, saying once again that it was probably only sprained. To my surprise, she hardly glanced at it, but put her head on one side and sort of stared Jack in the eye for a minute, and then she said, “Why, Jack Haywood, of course it is broke and you know it.” Then she turned to Brenda Sue. “Babe Honey,” she said, “go out back and get your pa from under the car and tell him to come look at this boy. Jack, you sit down on that chair there and let your head hang down and get some blood up in it, before you go altogether faint and fall and bust your other arm. I’ll get some water for you.”

  Then she left, and for a minute there was only Jack and me on the porch, Jack sitting in the chair like she had told him to, hanging his head down, while I stood there in front of him, not knowing of a thing I could do. Then without lifting up his head Jack said, “Rodney, if you let them call Pa, and he comes up here, that will be the end of your trip as well as mine. He will not let you go on down that creek and back up it all alone. He would be wrong, in my opinion. I believe you could do it without trouble. But I know Pa. That’s why I am arguing that all I have is a sprain. To get some time. I believe I can work something out, if you will only keep your mouth shut for a while. This wrist is broke and I know it, just like Mrs. Byrd said. But she can’t prove it. And for as long as I go on saying it’s a sprain, you try acting like you believe it for a change.” Then he lifted his head to see if I understood him; I was surprised at how he had got his color back. He even gave me that sly grin he gets when he thinks he has noticed something. “If I can stand the pain,” he said, “seems you could stand the company awhile. Was you surprised when you seen her?”

  I just shook my head at him. “Jack,” I said, “I stay surprised.”

  Then Mrs. Byrd came out with a basin of water with ice floating in it and put it on the table next to Jack’s chair and he eased his wrist down into it. Then she came back with some water to drink, and then sat there asking both of us questions faster than either of us could answer, about our trip and the skiff we were looking for and how the people all were on The Hill, as though having done what could be done about Jack’s wrist, we all might as well sit back and enjoy our visit. Then Mr. Byrd came in, a short man, wearing dirty overalls and no shoes, but with a straight, friendly way of looking at you. He shook Jack’s hand—it was the left wrist that Jack had broken—and then mine, when Jack told him who I was. And then he looked at Jack’s wrist, and said quietly, “Can you move it, Jack?”

  “I believe I could if it wasn’t for the pain,” Jack said. “I would sooner wait to prove it, though.”

  “Why, Hank,” Mrs. Byrd said, “you can see in his eyes that it’s broke. He’s just afraid to shame himself before his pa.”

  Mr. Byrd sort of cleared his throat, as though what his wife had said had embarrassed him. “If it is broke, Jack,” he said, “I believe your pa would not appreciate it if we failed to let him know. But it is up to you, of course.”

  “It has only just happened,” Jack said. “I would rather wait awhile and see, if it would not inconvenience you too much. I would hate to have my pa have to come haul me back to The Hill this evening for only a swollen sprain that may have started going back down by morning.”

  Mr. Byrd nodded, as though what Jack had said seemed reasonable to him, as it even did to me, even though I knew better. Still, I thought I ought to try and help Jack out, if that was what he wanted. “I’m sure sorry that we have put you to all this trouble,” I said, “but a few days ago I went off alone in Mr. Haywood’s cypress skiff, the one he built himself. And I let it drift off and lost it. We have been looking for it since. That is what we were doing when Jack sprained his wrist, looking for it back in a slough where it might have drifted.” For me, this was a pretty good bit of straightforward lying. But Mr. Byrd looked at me and nodded the same as he had with Jack.

  “It’s no trouble at all,” he said. “I know the skiff. Just yesterday there was a party with three boats, put up at the point, down in the basin, with one of the boats a cypress skiff. They had set up a camp, so it is possible they might still be there.”

  “Then we cannot quit now,” Jack said. “This is the first we have even heard of a skiff like Pa’s since we left The Hill.”

  “You are welcome to stay, of course,” Mrs. Byrd said, “and if finding that skiff means so much to you both, I guess we can wait and see how Jack makes up his mind about his wrist. But I am not going to let you put it in hot water, too, Jack, the way you said. Because that is only right for sprains. Babe Honey, why don’t you get some more ice for Jack. In this heat, it lasts no time at all.”

  “Ice alone will be fine.” Jack said. Then Mr. Byrd went back to working on his car, and Mrs. Byrd went back into the kitchen, and before Brenda Sue got back with the ice, Jack said, “If I can hold out until morning, I have a plan so that you can go on by yourself if you want to.”

  “Jack,” I said, “I would just hate to go back to The Hill with one more thing gone wrong and gone wrong on account of me, if not because of me, and not having even finished the job of looking for the skiff I lost. But if you have got to sit here all night long with your arm stuck down in that ice, just to gain me the time, then I think you should let me call your pa to come and get us now.”

  Jack shook his head. “It don’t hurt all that bad,” he said, “and I imagine it would hurt as much back home on The Hill as it probably will here.”

  “But if it’s a broken bone, what if it sets up crooked?”

  “It will hardly set itself overnight,” Jack said. “I will tell you my plan when no one is around. It is simple, but sure to work. In the meantime you can visit with Brenda Sue Babe Honey Byrd. Ain’t that a lot of name, though? Here she comes now.”

  Then for a while there was just the three of us sitting there on the porch, looking out from the western bank of Big Star Creek and yet watching the sun setting in the west, with everything else seeming just as strange and turned around to me, and with none of us being able to think of much to talk about at all. With Jack, it was mostly a matter of the pain, I guess. With Brenda Sue, it was probably the fact of Jack’s trouble and unusual quietness, and that I was still so much a stranger. With me, it was the simple matter of Brenda Sue Babe Honey Byrd.

  11

  I spent the rest of the evening after supper worrying about Jack and wondering about Brenda Sue. I had never known anyone quite like her before; she was the most shy and yet the most open in her manner of any girl I had met. I cannot describe it, but when she looked at you, she looked at you; yet she would look down when she talked sometimes, and talk so soft I could hardly hear her. Her own smile would somehow seem to embarrass her, and she would stop it almost as soon as it had got started, so mostly it was just a kind of quick start of a smile, and then it would be gone; but in that second or so the difference would be like night and day, as though her whole face had been lit by a glow. As dark as she was and as serious-looking m
ost of the time, this was something to see. Toward the end of the evening it had got to be something I was watching for. Even so, it always somehow surprised me.

  Yet shy as she was at first, about talking and about her smile, Brenda Sue did not bother to pretend to anyone, including me, that she had not somehow found me interesting, right from the start. The truth is, just about every time I looked at her I would discover she was already looking at me. It was a new experience, and somewhat embarrassing at first. But she acted so natural about it that I finally started feeling more natural when I looked at her, and this had never happened so easy with me with a girl before. There was such a friendly, serious thing in her expression, when she wasn’t smiling or trying not to smile, that only an ape could have misunderstood it. She was interested, and wondered who I was. And I wondered back.

  I would be lying if I tried to say that all I had noticed about Brenda Sue was her serious expression and her smile. To begin with, the very first sight I had got of her was only of her leg. For so short a girl, it had seemed at the time one of the longest, smoothest legs I had ever seen. And, naturally, she had another just like it. In the white shorts she was wearing, and as well tanned as she was, when Brenda Sue walked, anywhere, it was something you noticed. She stepped right out, too. And when she stood up, she stood up straight. She had no shyness about her figure, anyhow, which I would say was just about perfect. Another thing I had noticed, and while it may seem a strange thing to say of a girl, you just knew she had muscles. I don’t mean big muscles that you could see, but there was this neatness about her, a firmness, I guess, with no slack anywhere, so to speak; maybe just a healthiness. But you noticed it. I guess what seemed most unusual to me, although it is not the fault of other girls but my fault for thinking along such lines, but Brenda Sue did not strike my mind the way most other girls have been apt to do, as either a pretty face, or bouncy breasts, or a fanny that moves nice, or legs I would like to see more of, or as only one thing or another; she seemed altogether special, all of her. Which is probably as honest as I ought to get about it. But it was not just her shyness or smile that I had noticed; not at all.