I explain my plan.’
‘Yes, I think you had better,’ said Hannibal.
‘Well, it’s like the prince and the lady in distress game I’m always playing only it’s turned round. I’m the prince and I’m saving three sorta ladies, if you get my meaning.’ Her smile faded and she continued. ‘Fact is, I know my pa. He’s mean an’ he’s ornery an’ he’s a lazy dog of a man an’ I just don’t like the signs, so I lied. It’s not half a mile to the Muchamanee River, it’s ’bout quarter of a mile, maybe less. My pa is the best hunter round this county but he don’t know these woods like me. He hunts where the game is and there’s never been much good game in these woods so he don’t come here as much as I do. And Siddy Parton’s boat? Siddy’d never lend my pa that boat. He’d shoot him first and come for you himself
and
he’d take no money for his trouble, he’s a learned man. Siddy’s place is more than an hour downriver and another hour past him is Gingertown. I been there once and that’s where Doc’s got his office, in the hospital. It’s got two nurses and six beds. But Pa’d never take you there. The law’s office is in Ginger, and Pa stays clear of the law and the sheriff.’
‘So you’re saying we are going for the river. But my darling, courageous and lovely child, what then?’ asked Hannibal, trying to disguise the distress he was feeling for this child who was taking on the burden of saving them with so little thought for the consequences for herself.
‘Why then, Mr Chase, we get in the canoe I got hidden there – Imean, I
have
hidden there – and we paddle down to Gingertown,’ she answered him, mimicking his Harvard accent and diction perfectly. Her smile was strangely endearing for the cruel lopsidedness of it due to the swelling and bruising of her face and lips.
Chapter 5
Even now, lying between the roughest sheets Hannibal had ever slept in, he wondered how they could possibly have made it through to and down the Muchamanee. Three crippled men in a near-delirious state from broken bones, high fevers and infection, and a young girl with an iron will that they should survive. It had been the roughest terrain they had yet encountered, and the canoe, dented and with more and varied patches than its original skin, at first sight inspired thoughts of a watery grave. But it had been large and dry and the river swift-running with no rapids or falls. Manning it had been almost as difficult as getting to it: climbing in and out for the right distribution of weight, a modicum of comfort achieved for the men who must remain still for hours so as not to topple the vessel – certainly a possibility since it would be riding dangerously low in the water.
Every time Hannibal closed his eyes another vision of the three of them walking, dragging, at times even crawling any way they could through the dense wood, sometimes over huge jagged slab-like sheets of granite then stretches of loose shale to the river, made his eyes open again. At other times, while he listened to the constant whirr of the ceiling fan generating nothing more than moist warm air through the windowless, screened-in room Dr Rudge referred to as ‘the ward’, he would stare from his bed through the screens to the river. He could hear, as if it were happening at that very moment, the haunting melodic sound of Chadwick singing sad country music, ballads, as she paddled in a controlled and steady rhythm. It had been left to her and Sam, when he found the energy, using their makeshift paddles, to get them safely to Gingertown. Andrew’s hands were busy with thetourniquet and Hannibal’s own injuries hardly allowed for paddling.
He surveyed the small backwoods river town of twelve hundred people lazing in the heat. Hardly a dog moved, and only occasionally some person would cross the street to the general store-cum-post office-cum-barber shop and the screen door would swing noisily open and bang shut. The only real
‘Yes, I think you had better,’ said Hannibal.
‘Well, it’s like the prince and the lady in distress game I’m always playing only it’s turned round. I’m the prince and I’m saving three sorta ladies, if you get my meaning.’ Her smile faded and she continued. ‘Fact is, I know my pa. He’s mean an’ he’s ornery an’ he’s a lazy dog of a man an’ I just don’t like the signs, so I lied. It’s not half a mile to the Muchamanee River, it’s ’bout quarter of a mile, maybe less. My pa is the best hunter round this county but he don’t know these woods like me. He hunts where the game is and there’s never been much good game in these woods so he don’t come here as much as I do. And Siddy Parton’s boat? Siddy’d never lend my pa that boat. He’d shoot him first and come for you himself
and
he’d take no money for his trouble, he’s a learned man. Siddy’s place is more than an hour downriver and another hour past him is Gingertown. I been there once and that’s where Doc’s got his office, in the hospital. It’s got two nurses and six beds. But Pa’d never take you there. The law’s office is in Ginger, and Pa stays clear of the law and the sheriff.’
‘So you’re saying we are going for the river. But my darling, courageous and lovely child, what then?’ asked Hannibal, trying to disguise the distress he was feeling for this child who was taking on the burden of saving them with so little thought for the consequences for herself.
‘Why then, Mr Chase, we get in the canoe I got hidden there – Imean, I
have
hidden there – and we paddle down to Gingertown,’ she answered him, mimicking his Harvard accent and diction perfectly. Her smile was strangely endearing for the cruel lopsidedness of it due to the swelling and bruising of her face and lips.
Chapter 5
Even now, lying between the roughest sheets Hannibal had ever slept in, he wondered how they could possibly have made it through to and down the Muchamanee. Three crippled men in a near-delirious state from broken bones, high fevers and infection, and a young girl with an iron will that they should survive. It had been the roughest terrain they had yet encountered, and the canoe, dented and with more and varied patches than its original skin, at first sight inspired thoughts of a watery grave. But it had been large and dry and the river swift-running with no rapids or falls. Manning it had been almost as difficult as getting to it: climbing in and out for the right distribution of weight, a modicum of comfort achieved for the men who must remain still for hours so as not to topple the vessel – certainly a possibility since it would be riding dangerously low in the water.
Every time Hannibal closed his eyes another vision of the three of them walking, dragging, at times even crawling any way they could through the dense wood, sometimes over huge jagged slab-like sheets of granite then stretches of loose shale to the river, made his eyes open again. At other times, while he listened to the constant whirr of the ceiling fan generating nothing more than moist warm air through the windowless, screened-in room Dr Rudge referred to as ‘the ward’, he would stare from his bed through the screens to the river. He could hear, as if it were happening at that very moment, the haunting melodic sound of Chadwick singing sad country music, ballads, as she paddled in a controlled and steady rhythm. It had been left to her and Sam, when he found the energy, using their makeshift paddles, to get them safely to Gingertown. Andrew’s hands were busy with thetourniquet and Hannibal’s own injuries hardly allowed for paddling.
He surveyed the small backwoods river town of twelve hundred people lazing in the heat. Hardly a dog moved, and only occasionally some person would cross the street to the general store-cum-post office-cum-barber shop and the screen door would swing noisily open and bang shut. The only real
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