"Now what are you planning to do, Toby?" she said.
"I might catch a little nap in the front seat," I said.
"Do you know how you could get a much better nap?"
"No," I said. "Where's that?"
"I bet you used to know how to build a lean-to, when you were a boy."
"I used to build some good ones back in the woods."
"Wouldn't it be nice to have a big lean-to for you and your Pop, and one for the twins and me? You could cut pine branches for the framework, and thatch it with palm fronds. And you could make beds inside from little thin pine branches. That would give us a place to stretch out comfortably at night, and a place to sit in the shade during the day. This sun gets pretty hot. Would you like to do that, Toby?"
It would be kind of fun so I said I would do it. She started work on her crab net, and I got the Scout axe. But before I went off into the woods I had a thought and said to the babysitter, "When we was talking Pop out of the hub caps, do you recollect him saying that once you start giving in to a woman, there ain't no end to it?"
She looked flustered for some reason. "I remember. What about it?"
"What woman was Pop talking about?"
"What woman? Why, me, Toby."
I grinned, and warn't going to say anything, because if
Pop meant that, he sure needed glasses. Of course it was all right for the babysitter to think Pop meant her because all kids like to play they are growed up.
"What's so funny about it?" the babysitter said.
"Well," I said, "I never see a nicer kid than you, Holly, but I wouldn't call you no woman yet."
"Why, I am so!"
"There's no call to rush things," I said in the kindest way I could. "Stick around a few years and you'll be growed up. What are you now, fifteen at the outside?"
"Toby Kwimper, I'm nineteen! I finished high school two years ago."
Well, she wouldn't lie about it, so it looked like I was wrong. "I reckon maybe I warn't paying attention," I said.
"You certainly weren't! You might take a look at me now, just to see how wrong you were. Go ahead, look."
I wanted to keep her happy, so I done it. I reckon I hadn't give her no real look before, but it warn't a case of having missed much. She was wearing an old pair of blue jeans and a man's white shirt, and if you had heard a young feller whistle as Holly walked by you would have knowed he was just calling his dog. She was on the skinny side and looked like she would have to take a deep breath before she could cast much of a shadow. There warn't nothing wrong with her face and maybe another girl could have done something with it, but I reckon all Holly figured you ever did with a face was just scrub it. She had yanked her brown hair back and tied it in what they call a pony tail, and maybe on a pony it would have looked real cute.
"Well?" she said, getting a little pink under the tan.
I don't like telling whoppers but this time I was going to tell a good one. "Holly," I said, "I got to apologize. The way you have changed you could take a man's breath away."
She looked at me for a moment and then give me a funny smile. "I guess I could," she said. "Especially if I poked him in the stomach. Thank you, Toby. You tried hard."
"What makes you think I tried hard?"
"Toby," she said, "maybe I don't seem to have much else that goes with being a woman, but I'm well equipped with what they call woman's intuition."
That was a little deep for me, so all I done was say, "It looks right good on you, too, Holly." Then I went on about the job of building the lean-tos and the beds of pine boughs.
3
THE lean-tos come out pretty good.
I cut branches with crotches in them for uprights, and laid poles across the crotches. We didn't have no string to spare, but I found some palm trees that have a kind of burlap stuff they wrap around themselves where the branches start, and that made a binding to lash the poles to the crotches. All I had to do was just lay palm fronds on top for the roof. I cut little pine branches and stuck them point down in the crushed shell, close together, and come up with beds you would be proud and happy to have in your home. I woke Pop up to show him, and he grumbled that it didn't look no good to him, and he crawled in our lean-to so he could show me it warn't comfortable. I waited a while for him to come out but it seemed a shame to wake him up again so he could tell me was he comfortable or not.
While doing the lean-tos and beds I seen some coconut palms, and I brung back some of the old coconuts that had fell off, and I took off my shoes and swarmed up one of the coconut palms and cut off a clump of the green nuts. Holly thought they would come in handy, and I hatcheted off the husks for her. Then because I didn't want Pop to get the pine bed only broke in his way, I
clumb in beside him and took a nap and made sure I got my half broke in right for me.
It was late in the day when Pop and me woke up, and Holly had fixed a mighty good dinner. The twins had caught two more fish and Holly had snagged a mess of crabs, and she had cooked them all together in coconut milk and bits of chopped coconut. A man couldn't ask for nothing better. Holly had figured out how to get a set of spoons and dishes, too. Some of the palm trees have seed pods up to a foot or so long, and after they have opened and dried out they make good bowls. And she had hunted along the shore and found mussel shells that made good spoons when they was cleaned up.
What with one thing and another we didn't have a worry in the world, and so it come as a shock when Pop all of a sudden looked startled and said, "Ain't there been no cars along today?"
"Come to think of it," I said, "I reckon not."
"What are we going to do about it?" Pop said.
"Well, Pop," I said, "why don't we just wait for cars to come along?"
"That is what we been doing, Toby, and what has it got us?"
"It has got us a couple of nice lean-tos and pine beds, and water and some mighty fine food. A man might think we are doing right good."
"A person can't just set here and not get ahead in the world," he said. "I can't get back on Compensation here. If we wait around long enough, the government will cut the twins off Aid to Dependent Children. I might miss out on Security. What's going to happen to your checks for Disability?"
"I see what you mean," I said. "Well, you figured we come about forty miles on this new road. If you wanted, I could jog back to where we turned onto this road. I don't reckon it would take me more than six-seven hours. I can jog along pretty good."
"It would look mighty queer for a man who is on Total Disability to go running forty miles. That sort of thing might upset the government."
"You want me to jog down the road the other way?"
"We don't have no idea how far anything is that way. No, I reckon we just set here and wait, and hope we don't starve."
"We won't starve, Pop. At least we won't as long as this car of yours holds out. It turns out that folks can live pretty good off a car."
Pop give me a hard look, and switched around to look at the car. "Now what have you done to her?" he said.
"Well," I said, "there was a little strip of chromium that kind of come off in my hand, and we used that for a hoop for the crab net. If the worst comes to worst, I could make a sling shot out of an inner tube. If I jacked her up and yanked off a set of them leaf springs and took them apart, I bet the long ones would make real good bows for bows- and-arrows, and—"
"I'm ashamed of you, Toby," Pop said. "Leave you alone with civilization for a couple weeks, and you'd have her back to the stone age. Now you let that car be."
Holly broke in and said in a dreamy way, "I think this is just wonderful. It's . . . it's like being pioneers."
"You take it easy," Pop said. "I wouldn't want it said we run out on the government to go off and be pioneers. If everybody done that, where would the government be?"
Pop had something there, so me and Holly didn't argue with him. We set around talking the rest of the evening and allowed as how there had to be a car along the next day, and
then we turned in.
For some reason I couldn't get to sleep. I lay there a while listening to Pop snoring like an air hammer busting up a road, and finally crawled out of the lean-to. It was the kind of night that can make you feel all tight and aching and restless. Little puffs of cool air was coming off the water and mixing with the warm land air. The stars was so thick and close you could have reached up with a broom and swept yourself down a bucketful. For a while I thought of taking a jog of five-ten miles to loosen up some, but then the water started looking good. I got into my trunks and dove off the bridge and had a high old time paddling around and seeing could I swim more than just a couple minutes under water. I warn't in good shape, though, and I couldn't make it to three minutes.
I was floating on my back near the bridge when somebody come out on it. It looked like Holly, but I didn't say nothing because she might be getting ready to fish and I figured I would swim by her line and give it a big tug and have some fun. It turned out it warn't a smart idea to have kept quiet. It was Holly all right but she didn't plan on fishing. She was getting ready to take a swim, and by the time she clumb through the railing and got ready to dive it warn't easy to miss the fact that she didn't have no clothes on. What I mean is, I tried to miss that fact but I couldn't quite make it. I had to admit she didn't look so skinny without them blue jeans and baggy white shirt, but nobody can judge things good by starlight and I reckoned she was still skinny.
"Holly," I called, "you get back off there. I'm in here swimming."
She let out a squeak and looked like she was trying to hide behind her hands and gave that up as a mighty skimpy way to dress and dove in the water. She come up near me and gasped, "Oh, I'm so embarrassed, Toby! I guess you couldn't help seeing that I don't have anything on."
"That's why I give you a call," I said. "I reckoned you would climb back under the rail."
"It seemed faster to dive in."
"It don't really make no difference," I said. "You take this side of the bridge and I'll take the other."
"Oh, I don't think you need to do that. After all, it's dark and I'm pretty well hidden in the water."
"Well," I said, "you would be pretty well hidden in the water, Holly, except it seems to me you're kind of floating on top of it."
"I'm so light I keep bobbing up. Toby, do you mind if I ask you something?"
I didn't know what I was getting into, so I said, "Go right ahead."
She said in a breathless voice, "When . . . when I was standing on the bridge before diving in, did I look like a woman to you, Toby?"
Well, I put my mind to that for a while, which I shouldn't ought to have done. I can't say I knowed much about women. There was usually a couple of Kwimper girls around my age that would sort of bump against me, back home, but I never knowed if they was my cousins or my aunts and it kind of put me off them. Then at Fort Dix the fellers in my squad had what they called pin-up pictures of girls, although you certainly would have to admit them girls had lost whatever pins had been holding up their clothes. There warn't no question all them pinups was women, and it used to get me bothered to look at them and so I tried not to look at them much.
Well, I wanted to be fair to Holly, so I give it a lot of thought. She had looked right pretty, standing on the bridge with the starlight shining on her, but to be honest I had to say that she stopped just where them pin-ups was getting started.
"Holly," I said finally, "all I know about women is what I see in the pin-ups the fellers had at Fort Dix, and it wouldn't be fair to judge you by them because when nature poured them pin-ups into their skin I reckon somebody forgot to say when."
"I don't know whether to take that as a compliment or not. Did you like the pin-up pictures, Toby?"
"Well, yes and no. I would have to admit they bothered me.
"That's encouraging," she said.
I couldn't follow what she meant by that. We floated next each other a few moments without talking, and the waves kind of brushed her against me, and I knowed I shouldn't have started thinking about them pin-ups because it was bothering me. What I do when I get bothered like that is start going over the times table to myself.
So I started going through it kind of under my breath. "Two times two is four," I told myself. "Two times three is six. Two times four is seven . . . no, it isn't, neither, it's eight. Two times five is ten—"
"What are you mumbling about?" Holly said.
"Oh, I didn't have nothing else to do, so I was practicing the times table. If I don't keep working at it I forget how it goes. Two times six is twelve. Two times eight is . . . no, there I went forgetting two times seven."
"Toby Kwimper," she said with a giggle, "you're fibbing to me. You have another reason for doing the times table. Be honest, now."
Well, when folks want me to be honest I have a drat of a time trying to tell whoppers. "I'd ruther you didn't ask," I said.
"I am asking you, though."
"Well then, I go over the times table when I get bothered about girls. And thinking about them pin-ups just now started to get me bothered."
She giggled again. "How high have you ever had to count?"
"The worst was one time some girls come to Fort Dix for a dance, and this girl had red hair and green eyes and looked like she would have made a real good pin-up if she hadn't been dressed. I reckon she was afraid she would fall down in them high heels she was wearing so she was hanging on tight when we danced, and I got bothered and had to count to four times seven."
"Didn't you get worried having to count that high?"
"Oh, it warn't really bad," I said. "I can take the times table up to five times eight if I have to, so that still give me a lot of leeway."
"Oh, Toby," she said, giggling again. "You're funny." She splashed some water at me.
If she wanted to play like that, I could play that way too, and I do like a good water fight. So I splashed her, and she splashed me again and we went at it good. Some folks think a water fight is just throwing water on each other but there's real science to it. What you do is flatten out your hand but with the thumb under the first finger rather than alongside it. That gives you a groove along the palm of your hand, and you skim your hand fast over the top of the water and it shoots out a good hard spray of water. When you do it right you can really sting a person with it. So pretty soon Holly had to turn away and yelled for me to stop and I had won.
"That was starting to hurt," she said, pouting at me.
"Well, I'm sorry," I said, "but what fun is a water fight unless you can go all out?"
"You're a beast," she said. Then she laughed and tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Tag! You're it!" She giggled some more and began to swim away.
I took two strokes and come up beside her and tagged her on the shoulder. She swung around and come for me. I stretched out in the water and really laid into it, and
I bet I was leaving a wake like an outboard motor. Anyway when I stopped I must have been a hundred feet away from her.
"Toby!" she called. "You swim too fast. I can't catch you.
"Then I reckon I won," I said.
"But Toby, what's the fun in tag if one person can't catch the other?"
"Well, it was fun for me," I said. "I'm sorry you didn't get much out of it."
"I'm all tired out trying to swim after you, Toby. Oh, I'm going to sink, Toby. I—"
She started choking and going down, and I laid into the water good and got back to her just as she come up for the first time. As her head popped above water she looked at me and for a moment I thought she was all right, but she let out a weak little "Oh" and lifted one arm over her head and started down again. I grabbed her hand and figured I would get her to shore fast ruther than try any fancy carries, especially since she didn't have no clothes on. So after grabbing her hand I just lay over on my back and done a good fast beat with my legs and flailed away with my free arm, and I mean we hit that beach so fast I come halfway out of water onto the shell. It was good I had my trunks o
n or I wouldn't have been setting happy the next few days. Of course Holly didn't have no trunks on, and I reckon the shell felt kind of lively as I drug her through the shallows on her back because she done some squeaking.
I jumped up and ran onto the bridge and grabbed her clothes and started back. When I come off the bridge onto the shell I squinched my eyes shut and headed toward her without peeking.
As I come closer, she said in a choky voice, "Toby Kwimper, you're a beast and don't you dare look at me."
"I got my eyes shut, Holly," I said. "Keep talking and I can find my way to you. I got your clothes."
"Right over here," she said. "Keep walking. Keep walking . . ."
I took a few more steps and all of a sudden tripped over a log and fell. I did manage to keep my eyes shut, though, and Holly got her clothes from my hand and said, "I wish I thought that made us even," and run away to her lean-to. I got up and brushed myself off and picked a few bits of shell out of my knees and arms. Then I looked for the log I had fell over but somehow or other I couldn't find it.
4
NOT a single car come along the road the next day. Or the next. By the fourth day we had got pretty well settled in. Like with the fishing, for example. Anybody knows you can't count on fish every time you want them, and there was times Holly and the twins caught more than we could use and times when they didn't catch none. We might have gone some hungry them times if Holly hadn't worked out a cute trick. She had me cut branches and make a framework about five feet by three by three, using that burlap stuff from the palm trees to bind the comers, and then she took long palm fronds and made a basket weave bottom and sides and a basket weave lid. After that when they caught extra fish we could put them in the box and anchor it in the shallows tied to stakes. That way when you wanted fish you just went to the box and helped yourself, and it was better than a boughten refrigerator because them fish was alive.
We tried the same kind of box to keep crabs alive, but when you leave a batch of crabs together they eat each other before you get around to eating them. So we made little cages in the big crab box to keep them apart. That way we would also get soft shell crab when it come time for some of them to shed.
Pioneer, Go Home! Page 3
