It was a romantic setting — the right place, maybe the right girl — but instead of cocktails, it turned out to be...
The boathouse was a long, rotting hulk of a building standing out over the water like an overgrown bug on stilts. The old man’s cabin was set fifty yards away from the boathouse, on the hillside. I saw him standing in the cabin doorway when I got out of the coupé and slammed the door.
I stood waiting while he came across the clearing. I remembered him. Mac something-or-other was his name. Gnarled, beefy, with a chest that made him look top-heavy, and a wide, pleasant face with warm eyes, he moved toward me with a hint of rheumatism in his gait.
The day was warm and clear, the mountain air just brisk enough to put a tingle in your veins. Insect life made a soft, humming rhythm. The mountains were shaggy and majestic, the gorge down which the river flowed a thing of vast, high grandeur. I was looking out over the softly rippling water of the river, when old Mac came walking up to me.
“Howdy. Looking for some fishing?”
“Could be,” I said. “A friend is letting me use his cabin overnight downriver. I’d like to get a boat.”
He nodded, moved toward the boathouse. I was trailing him.
“Got a nice little hull with a kicker,” he told me. “Just caulked her a day or two back. Say, ain’t I seen you around here before?”
“You might have,” I admitted. “Now and then I get in from the city for a breath of clean air.”
“Well, you can’t beat this air around here. No, sirree.”
He vanished through the creaking boathouse. I heard an outboard motor give out with a couple of popping gurgles. Then the motor came to life with a steady hum, and a moment later he tooled the boat out of the far end of the boathouse and drew it up to the low, sagging pier.
I met him on the pier.
“You got some baggage?” he asked.
“No, my friend has everything I’ll need in his cabin. But I’ll want you to keep your eye on my car.”
He nodded. He seemed about to ask me which cabin I was heading for, but evidently thought better of it. I climbed down in the boat. He stood looking out over the river for a moment, loving it.
“Can’t help but envy you younger fellers,” he said. “Don’t get on the river much myself any more. I get the misery in my legs from the dampness. Sort of hurts me, too. Always wanted to follow this old river clean to her end. Yes, sir, I always intended to find out just exactly where the river flows.”
“All rivers find their way to the ocean,” I said.
“Says so in books,” he acknowledged. “But rivers are like people. Some hurry to beat the band. Some take things quiet and easy. Maybe they all do end up the same place. But I always had a partic’lar love for this old river. She’d sure see plenty of country before she ever got to any ocean. I reckon I’d still give my eyeteeth to know where this river flows.”
He broke off, gave a laugh that carried an undercurrent of embarrassment. “Trouts have been striking good the last couple of days. Sure your friend’s got plenty of tackle?”
“Sure.” As far as I knew my friend didn’t have any tackle of her own. At least not the kind to catch fish with. But I didn’t intend to do any fishing. I might as well tell you — I was going downriver because another man’s wife had phoned me. “Pay you for the boat now, Mac?”
“When you get back.” He grinned warmly, spat on the pier, watched me until I was out of sight around the bend of the river.
It was hot out on the river, only the gurgle of water and the hum of the outboard breaking the deep silence. In less than a mile I tried to turn the boat around and go back three times. I couldn’t. It had been the same way with the coupé. I’d tried to turn the car and go back to town half a dozen times. But the coupé had seemed to have some power of its own. Just as the boat had it now.
I didn’t want it to, but the river was sweeping me down to the lodge, where she was waiting. Glenville Grayson’s wife. I’d told myself that, too, when she’d phoned this morning. I’d told myself she was a dirty little rotter. I remembered the way she’d married Grayson when she’d found out he had money. She’d used me for all I was worth — then Grayson.
Those tender moments we’d had together must have been a laugh to her, after she got Grayson. But knowing that didn’t stop me from losing sleep lots of nights, eating my heart out. And when she’d phoned this morning, I’d known that I’d never be able to turn the coupé or the boat around...
The lodge was a little over three miles down river. A rambling, rustic two-story building of logs, it set snugly in the hillside. If anybody wanted privacy, it could be had here, in style. Glenville must have spent thirty thousand on the acreage, building, and its rustic furnishings. More properly, he must have talked his fat uncle, Roland Grayson, into spending the dough.
