No Such Person Read Free

miles, and the tug won’t have to fight the river.
    The high red tower of the tug appears behind the barge. A barge is roughly the size of half a football field and the captain has to be up very high to see over it. Even so, he cannot see the water directly in front of the massive barge; he can only see where he is going.
    Miranda likes to wave at the captains, who always toot back, so she leaves the porch, the little boys chewing waffles and her parents silent over coffee and weekend thoughts, and runs outside on the grass.
    The tug whistles. It’s the
Janet Anne.
    Miranda jumps up and down like a little kid. In fact, she is little; five feet two compared to her sister’s elegant, slim five feet ten.
    Lander follows her outside. “He’s not whistling at you,” says Lander. “He’s warning those water-ski guys. They’re right in the channel.” Handing the binoculars to Miranda, Lander races down the steep steps to their narrow dock, screaming at the guys in the water. There must be too much engine noise for them to hear her words of warning, because they just wave.
    The boy driving the boat circles back. The boy in the water reaches for the towline.
    The tug’s whistles are longer now—shrill and disturbing. But the sounds do not disturb the water-ski pair.
    Miranda’s father is now standing at the edge of the bluff waving his arms, semaphore style. “You don’t have time for that!” he shouts. “Pick him up! Get him in the boat! Get out of the channel!”
    Forty feet below, on the dock, Lander picks up a big striped beach towel and flaps it to attract attention. “Forget the skis! Get in the boat!”
    Miranda cannot believe that the two young men don’t react. Perhaps the screaming tug whistle, the clanking barge and the racket of their own engine have deafened them. Or perhaps they know exactly what is happening, and are betting they can outrun the tug; that it will make a wonderful video—the great black wall of the massive barge bearing down; the water skier mastering the skill at the last possible second.
    Playing chicken with an oil barge is insane.
    The
Janet Anne
is no longer whistling. A terrifying Klaxon begins, which in all these years summering on the river Miranda has never heard.
    The tug reverses engines. The water churns. But the barge does not slow down. There are no brakes on a barge. A barge needs two miles to stop.
    Miranda’s mother is holding the two little boys by their pajama tops, for fear that Henry and Hayden will dive-bomb into the river and swim out to save the water skier.
    The
Paid at Last
does not pick up the water skier. The boy in the water takes the tow handle, signals that he is ready, and the
Paid at Last
sets off again. The lime-green tow rope grows taut and the boy in the water rises perfectly. Miranda’s heart is racing. He’s got to stay up this time. And the
Paid at Last
must leave the channel—no problem for a small boat like this; it doesn’t need depth—and get out of the way.
    Miranda focuses the binoculars on the driver.
    He is looking upriver, not back at the skier he’s towing.
    Miranda is watching his arms and hands. She sees him cut back on the throttle.
    The tow rope immediately goes slack.
    The driver has intentionally dumped his friend in the path of the barge.
    She swings the binoculars. The skier is bobbing in the water. Too late, he seems aware that seven hundred thousand gallons of diesel fuel are about to crush him. How terrifying the vast bow of the barge must look. He kicks away the skis and strips off his flotation device so that it won’t slow him down.
    Upriver, the
Paid at Last
makes a long leisurely circle. It is now safely out of the channel, puttering along Miranda’s side of the river. There is no longer time to pick up the boy in the water. Through the magnification of her binoculars, Miranda sees no expression of horror on the driver’s face. He seems placid.
    He is murdering his friend, thinks Miranda. The barge will suck his