When the Tide Ebbs: An epic 1930's love story (A Grave Encounter) Read Free Page B

bobbed.
    “Stay up there, Zann. You’ll scratch your legs on the briars.”
    She proceeded down the embankment and yelled back. “I’m not afraid of a few little scratches. I’m halfway there, already.”
    I gasped as she half-walked, half-slid down the steep ravine, overgrown with scrub-oaks and thick blackberry vines.
    She stopped to pick beggar lice from her clothes. Then tripping through the underbrush, she hollered, “Hold on, I’m coming. I want to wade with you.”
    “No you don’t!”
    Her smile faded. “Why not?”
    I took long strides, stomping the ankle-deep water as I splashed toward her. “Because.” That was it. No explanation. It wasn’t much of an answer and it didn’t suffice, for her smile returned and she slowly inched her way down to the sandbar. Flustered, I felt a desperate need to stop her.
    “You don’t want to wade today, Zann,” I blurted. “The water’s freezing. You’ll catch pneumonia.”
    I don’t know what prompted me to make such an idiotic statement. Sure, it was cool, but freezing? I grimaced. The water in Pivan Falls never freezes, and especially not in mid-September in Mississippi but it was the first thing that popped in my mind. I couldn’t have her prancing around barelegged in the water with me, her skirt all twisted between her legs. Jeepers, how could a girl so smart in some things, be so dumb in other ways? Didn’t she know she had no business walking further into the dense woods with a fellow? Any fellow?
    “Corn shucks!  I’m not afraid of a little cold water. If you can stand it, so can I.” She kept running toward me, giggling all the way.
    I laughed. Partly because I was nervous, partly because her laughter was infectious, and partly because I’d never heard anyone say corn shucks . . . or at least not as an expression. Everything about her was different from anyone I’d ever known. My words had not been a deterrent. She came splashing, right smack down the middle of the creek. Just as she got near, she fell and I caught her in my arms. She seemed to think it was humorous, although I saw nothing funny about the situation.
    “You may as well turn around and go back to the bridge, Zann.”
    “Don’t be a fuddy-duddy, Kiah. The water’s not cold at all. I love to feel the sand between my toes.”
    I glanced down at her bare feet and felt my face flush. “We’re here to work, Zann. Remember?”
    “Of course, I remember, but you know what they say about all work and no play.” She reached down with both hands, scooped water in my face and snickered.
    “Why you little—”
    She’d caught me off-guard and I laughed. Out loud. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed. I pulled a handkerchief from my back pocket and wiped my face. I wanted to splash her back, but I dared not. We were here to study, not to horse around. I stuffed the handkerchief back into my pocket and in a serious voice befitting a tutor, I said, “Sure, I know what they say about all work and no play. It puts a roof over your head and food in your mouth.”
    She made a cute pouty face. “That’s not exactly the way I heard it.”
    “No, I don’t suppose it is.”
    Zann was too sweet to suspect I was being sarcastic, inferring she wasn’t in tune with common people. What would she know about folks having to work for a living? Her father was a preacher.
    She followed me as I walked under the bridge. I sat down on an old dead log, expecting her to do the same. Instead, she walked right past me, all the way down to the water’s edge. Where was she going? I squirmed. Perhaps I should’ve waited for her to sit first. If I stood now, would it become even more apparent that I was unaccustomed to being in the presence of a lady? If I didn’t stand, would she think me rude?
    Before I could decide which of the two scenarios would make me look less like a backwoods’ nincompoop, she spoke up.
    “Mother fixed us a jar of lemonade.”
    “You got lemonade?” I flinched,