Chasing the Bear Read Online Free PDF Page B

into the woods. I scooted off in the other direction.”
    “Women are generally calmer about such matters,” Susan said.
    “I didn’t realize nice Jewish girls from Swampscott even went to the bathroom.”
    “We don’t,” Susan said. “But I have a lot of non-Jewish friends.”
    “Like me,” I said.
    “Especially like you,” she said. “Was she cute?”
    “Jeannie?”
    “Mm-hmm.”
    “Hard to describe. I mean, she had long brown hair and even features and her skin was kind of pale and she had nice lips, sort of full. Like yours. But what I remember most about her was this kind of softness she had, gentleness maybe, but affectionate. I bet she grew up to be a passionate woman.”
    “Like me,” Susan said.
    “Well, maybe not that passionate.”
    “So what’d you do?” Susan said.
    “We ate some Oreos for breakfast and drank a little of the Coke, and then I climbed a tree and looked around. I couldn’t see anything on the river. I couldn’t see anything inland except more trees. No highways, no towns. No sound of traffic, no church bells, no factory whistles, no sirens, nothing.”
    “And you didn’t know where you were,” Susan said.
    “Not really. I didn’t know how fast we were going on the river. So, I didn’t know how far downriver we were. I could tell from where the sun came up what direction we were heading. But that aside, I hadn’t a clue.”
    “So what did you do?”
    I shrugged.
    “I decided to keep going until I found a bridge, or a highway or a town or something,” I said.
    “Going further away from where you wanted to be.”
    “I didn’t know what else to do,” I said.
    “Like your father said, you were smart. You knew when not to fight. So you got back in the boat?”
    I nodded.
    “Back in the boat,” I said.

Chapter 20
    It would have been peaceful drifting along on the river, under the trees, if there weren’t somebody after us with a bowie knife. And if we had something besides Oreo cookies for breakfast.
    “Do you think he’s still after us?” Jeannie said.
    I noticed dark bruises on her wrists. Probably from when her father grabbed her.
    “Don’t know that he’s not,” I said.
    “He’ll be drunk,” Jeannie said.
    “Still?” I said.
    “He’s drunk all the time,” Jeannie said. “I don’t think he can stand being him if he’s sober.”
    “I wonder how he got to be that way,” I said.
    “I used to wonder that too,” Jeannie said. “Now I don’t even care. He’s too awful.”
    “Was there ever a time he was nice?” I said.
    “No.”
    “Poor devil,” I said.
    “Poor wife and daughter,” Jeannie said.
    “You don’t like him at all,” I said.
    “I hate him,” Jeannie said.
    I had nothing to say to that.
    Big drops of rain began to splat on the water, sending out wide ripples. I looked up through the leaves and the sky was dark. It got darker as I watched. And the rain came harder. Pearl didn’t mind being wet. But she didn’t like the feel of the raindrops hitting her. Jeannie unrolled the blankets and put one over Pearl. She offered me the second one.
    “No,” I said. “You.”
    “But what about you?” she said.
    “I’m a Spenser,” I said. “Tough.”
    She smiled and put the blanket over her head and around her shoulders.
    “My hair must be a mess,” she said.
    “Kind of,” I said.
    “You didn’t have to agree so quick,” Jeannie said.
    “But you still look good,” I said.
    “Ha!” Jeannie said.
    The rain came harder. It was quite dark under the trees. The river meandered mostly, in big looping curves, so that ten miles on the river might be one mile as the crow flies. At the moment we were in one of the more or less straight stretches, and ahead of us I could see something through the murk. It might have been a bridge. The rain came straight down and fast. It was hard to see through it. We drifted toward whatever the something was, and when we got close enough, we saw it was a railroad bridge.
    “Maybe it