Rainbow's End Read Free Page A

on a tree, and helped the girl ashore. But her feet still flinched at each step, and I picked her up once more, this time not having to kneel. “Get the rifle, will you?” I told Mom.
    She didn’t answer or even act as though she heard me. She gave the girl’s hand a jerk and yelped into her face: “What’d he do with the money?”
    â€œWho is this crazy bitch?” screamed the girl. Then without waiting for me to tell her, she exploded at Mom: “How would I know what he did with the money? How would I know what he did with anything ? All I know what he did with was what he did with that gun, thanks to you trying to get him to shoot me, daring and daring and daring. Didn’t you know he had to be nuts? Didn’t you know he just might have done it—killed me, like you said? Didn’t you know that all that crap you dished out about what might happen to him if he shot me meant nothing to him at all? Hey, I asked you something! Why did you do that to me?”
    â€œGet the rifle,” I repeated to Mom.
    â€œI’ll bring it!” she snapped. “But first I’m going out there, going out and having a look.”
    â€œHave a look at what?”
    â€œThe money, that’s what.”
    â€œWhat do we have to do with that?”
    â€œA reward’ll be out for it. They always pay a reward! If we turn it in, we can claim it.”
    â€œMom, you leave things lay.”
    â€œI will, except for the money.”
    â€œIf I can put in a word,” said the girl, touching Mom on the shoulder, “you could take off your clothes and start diving down in the river. It got everything—his parachute, his hat, my shoes.”
    â€œHow do you know it got his hat?”
    â€œHe kept talking about it.”
    By now it was full daylight, and Mom kept staring at her. Then: “OK,” she said to me, “take her up to the house and give her some clothes to put on. There’s some old ones of mine in my bottom bureau drawer.”
    â€œMom, use some sense.”
    â€œAnd don’t you call no one, Dave, till I give you the word.”
    â€œI have to call the sheriff.”
    â€œBut not till I give you the word.”
    I still had the girl in my arms. At last we could start for the house. After two or three steps she whispered: “I’m sorry to be so much trouble.”
    â€œYou’re no trouble.”
    â€œAm I getting heavy?”
    â€œNot to me you’re not.”
    â€œMom? She’s your mother?”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œI took her for your wife.”
    â€œI don’t have any wife.”
    â€œI’m sorry I yelled at her, but she almost got me killed.”
    â€œShe gets some funny ideas.”
    â€œDave? Dave what?”
    â€œHowell. What’s your name?”
    â€œJill. Jill Kreeger.”
    â€œPleased to meet you, Jill.”
    â€œLikewise.”
    A wan smile crossed her face. By then we were on the back porch of the house. Her arm suddenly tightened, the one around my neck. That brought her face against mine. She kissed me, first on the cheek and then on the mouth. “Hey, hey, hey! Jill, will you open the door?”
    She reached down and turned the knob. We went through into the kitchen. I kicked the door shut behind me, then carried Jill up the hall and through the living room to the den. I was ashamed of the bed, all mussed up with only blankets oh it, a pillow without any case and no sheets. But she didn’t seem to mind, dropping off my coat and getting ready to jump in. But she had on those soggy clothes, such as they were—short red pants, a red bolero, as she called it, and some kind of thing like a bra. I stripped them off her quickly. She was standing in front of me, naked, a beautiful thing to see. I banged open a bureau drawer, grabbed a towel, and rubbed her dry, then bundled her into the blankets. But in the cold air of the room with no clothes on, her