Once Upon a River Read Online Free PDF Page A

drawing of Annie Oakley’d had a beard and mustache drawn on with a black crayon, but Margo had been able to scrub most of it off, leaving only a gray shadow over Annie’s face. Margo was curious about the strange clothes that covered Annie head to toe, including high collars and leggings under her skirts. Margo loved to study the melancholy expression on Annie’s face.
    Margo knew Crane wanted her to make friends outside the family. And Margo was curious about other kids at school, but they took her quietness for snobbery, her slowness to respond in conversation as stupidity. Crane wanted her to speak more, but the calm and quiet of the last year had created in her a desire for more calm and quiet, and Margo wasn’t sure there was going to be any end to it. Silence allowed her to ruminate not just about Cal and what had happened last year, but also about her grandfather, to know again the papery feeling of his skin and the sadness and fear he’d expressed on the sunporch when he was dying. Silence brought back the sound of her mother sighing when she felt too dreary to get out of bed on winter days. Margo wasn’t sure she could move forward in time, when the past kept calling for her attention the way it did.
    “You don’t seem to understand what’s been done to you by those people,” Crane said when he saw how intently Margo was watching Joanna. He grabbed her shoulders. “If you would have spoken against Cal, we could have sent him to jail. Damn it, he raped you! That Slocum girl told me.” He let go of her and stomped off toward the house, shaking his head.
    Rape sounded like a quick and violent act, like making a person empty her wallet at the point of a knife, like shooting someone or stealing a TV. What Cal had done was gentler, more personal, like passing a virus. She had not objected to Cal’s actions in the shed, had even been curious about what was happening. For the last year, however, it had been gnawing at her, and Margo had been forming her objection.

• Chapter Three •
    On Thanksgiving, Margo and her daddy had a meal of turkey breast, grocery-store stuffing, potatoes, and cranberry sauce shaped by the can. They played Michigan rummy until Crane fell asleep in his chair. On the following morning, Friday, Margo served him scrambled eggs and toast. The phone rang, and when Crane hung up, he said, “Brian Ledoux’s going to come get the venison. He’ll give you some money for it.”
    Margo nodded.
    “You keep the money. You earned it. You probably need it for ammunition. But I can’t have you killing any more deer, Margo. I’m taking the shotgun. I don’t have to take the rifle, too, do I? Nobody else is going to kill a deer with a single-shot .22, but I’m afraid you might.”
    She shook her head no.
    “Promise. Say it, or I’ll take the rifle.”
    “I promise,” she whispered.
    “I guess you need something to protect yourself if one of them Murrays comes over here,” he said. “But don’t you do anything unless you got no other choice. You think before you shoot. You consider the consequences.”
    Margo nodded.
    “And you know better than to go to that party. If you even set foot on that Murray property, I’ll drive over and drag you home by your ear.”
    She nodded again, didn’t know how much longer she could stand her imprisonment here. Next summer she would swim, no matter what he said.
    “I’ll be home at seven. We’ll have dinner together, Margo. We’ve got the leftover turkey, and I’ll try to get us an apple pie if they got one left in the grocery deli. That’s the best I can do. You know you’re the only reason I’m still alive on this earth. Don’t you?” He looked at her until she nodded, and then he slid the twenty-gauge into its case and folded down the truck seat to place it back there. Margo was glad for his affection, but maybe it was too much to be the only reason another person was alive.
    After Crane went to work, Margo took his rifle out and shot