Page 74

CHAPTER 73

I WAS REALLY missing Aaron Vail’s speedboat about now. I estimated it had taken me seven hours to travel about three hundred miles down the lake in the creaky wooden fishing skiff, and I was on my second backup fuel tank. I kept close to the shoreline, where the current was milder. But with the trees and bushes so close, I was batting away bugs the size of my fist.

It was almost midnight. I was exhausted. I needed gas. And water.

As I came around the next bend, I saw yellow lights reflecting in the water about fifty yards ahead.

Thank God! I motored straight toward the twinkle.

As I got closer, I saw an aluminum dock projecting out into the lake and a wood-frame building at the top of a steep slope behind it. The building front was draped with yellow bulbs, and there was a neon Kilimanjaro Premium Lager sign in the window. To me, at that moment, it was like coming across a five-star hotel.

As I pulled up to the dock, a small Black girl hopped down a set of wooden steps from the building. Eight years old, if that.

“I need gas,” I said, pointing to my engine, hoping she would understand me and run to fetch her dad.

“Regular or diesel?” she asked. She grabbed the line from my prow and tied it to the pier post with a perfect cleat hitch.

“Regular,” I said. “Thanks.”

The girl walked to a rusted metal shed set back into the bushes and yanked the door open. She hauled out a plastic ten-gallon tank and pushed it downhill to the dock. It probably outweighed her.

“You thirsty?” she asked, standing up again.

I was coated with grime and sweat. I probably reeked. “How’d you guess?”

She pointed toward the building. “You go up. Have a drink. I’ll fill your tank. Pay inside.”

I trusted this girl totally.

I grabbed my cloth sack and climbed the steps toward the bar. As I got closer, I could hear laughing from inside, and music. Ed Sheeran. As soon as I stepped onto the porch, I could smell beer and frying food.

I pulled the screen door open. The whole place was the size of a large living room. Wood floor. Two round tables. Metal fan spinning near the ceiling. And a bar running along the whole left side. A Black man with a gold earring was serving drinks, and he had a full house. Five people.

A shirtless man in cargo shorts occupied the first stool. The rest of the patrons were women. Two were in their twenties, slim and pretty, wearing shorts and T-shirts. The other two were a little older and stouter, in flowery cotton dresses. Their skin colors ranged from chocolate brown to ebony.

And every single one had copper-colored hair.