The Cove Read Online Free PDF

bucket swayed in his hand and a stringer was tied loosely around his neck. The rest of his gear lay hidden in the high grass a few yards from the wooden rowboat. He would set the oars in the bow, then place the lantern and hooks and ball of string on the boat’s planking and push off. Once in the river, the old man checked lines he had hung from willow branches. Hand over fist, he pulled straight up as if drawing water from a well. Sometimes trout and carp thrashed to the surface, but more often what emerged were blunt-headed fish whose dark bodies tapered like comets. The fisherman sewed the stringer through a gill and pulled the loop tight before dropping his catch back in the river. He would rebait the hooks and paddle to the next line. This evening, as was his habit, the old man was back ashore by dusk. He trudged up the path, his body keeled rightward by the stringer’s heft, fishtails thickening with dust.
    Walter watched until the fisherman passed the guard tower, then turned from the fence and went inside the barracks, making his way past men playing cards and pinochle, others smoking or writing letters. He lay on his bunk and waited, remembering what the guards had said—that the easy part would be getting over the fence. Finding the way out of these wild mountains would be the challenge. But with the fisherman’s boat, he would not be wandering dense forests but following a current that went exactly where he needed to go, and with no trail for dogs to follow.
    It was after midnight when Walter stepped out of the barracks’ door. In his right hand was a haversack that held the case and flute, a box of matches, the medallion and chain. Tucked in his pocket, the note and the money. Floodlights cast a thick white light over the stockade but no face peered from the guard tower. He waited in the barracks’ shadow until the outside guard passed, then scurried to the mesh-wire fence and began to climb. At the top barbed wire snared his pants. He ripped the cloth free and jumped, hit the ground and dared not look back. As the stockade’s lights shallowed behind him, the moon and stars revealed the boat. He shoved off and rowed as fast as he could toward the river’s center.
    Once in the main current, he pointed the bow downstream toward a place called Asheville. The biggest town in the region, the guards claimed. He would steal some clothes and then find the depot and buy his ticket. Two nights from now he could be back in New York.
    Walter rowed rapidly until the stockade lights faded into darkness. Heavy armed and gasping, he eased his pace, allowed himself to savor the river’s vastness after so long in confinement. The river made a leisurely curve, then became wider, shallower, rocks sprouting midriver. The dark water gurgled, slapped softly against the largest obstructions. Then the banks tucked themselves closer together and the river deepened. For a while there was no light except what leaked from the sky, then a square of yellow from a farmhouse window, farther on a fisherman’s lantern tingeing the shallows. A dog barked. He passed other habitations whose occupants slept, houses unseen though he drifted only a few oar lengths from their doors.
    Rested, he began rowing harder. The river widened and then narrowed again. A black panel slid over the sky, locked into place a moment, then slid back, the moon and stars above once more. He turned and saw a bridge’s silhouette, high and solid as a ship’s hull. The river ran straight for a long while and no lanterns glowed from shore or window, the world absent but for water. He was near exhaustion but did not slacken his pace. The river shallowed, more scrapes and grabs against the planks. He struggled free from the obstructions, angled the bow into seams and squeezed through, bumping and swaying. When he finally came to deeper water, he let go of the oars and leaned forward, head on folded arms and knees. Just for a