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won’t be raining so hard under the bridge,” I said.
    “But if it’s a railroad bridge,” Jeannie said, “won’t it just be a trestle? You know, ties on a bridge frame?”
    “Maybe there’ll be some sort of solid cover at each end,” I said.
    “Can’t be worse than this,” Jeannie said.
    I steered us with my broken oar toward the near end of the bridge. As we got close to it, I made out a sign. It said:
    CAUTION
WATERFALL AHEAD
NO BOATS BEYOND
THIS POINT
    I could feel the current quicken a little even as I was reading the sign. I steered the boat to the shore under the bridge and tied it to a sapling.
    “Far as the boat’s gonna take us,” I said.
    We were under a support arch of concrete at the near end of the bridge, and it did protect us from the rain. Pearl looked around at me as if to say, “It’s about time.” With the blanket draped on her head she looked like a painting of a Dutch peasant woman my father and I had looked at once in a museum in Denver.
    “When the rain stops,” I said, “we can climb up onto the bridge and follow the railroad tracks. Eventually they’ll take us someplace.”
    “Soon, I hope,” Jeannie said.
    “Sooner or later, tracks lead someplace,” I said.
    We sat for a while under the bridge. But the rain kept coming. I was already soaked through. But it wasn’t cold, and there was no wind. Once you get soaked, you get sort of used to it. We sat some more. Pearl sat under her blanket and looked at the river.
    Then from upriver, a long way off, I heard something. I leaned forward trying to hear better.
    “What?” Jeannie said.
    I pointed upriver.
    “Listen,” I said.
    We listened.
    “My God,” Jeannie said.
    I nodded.
    “It’s the bass boat.”

Chapter 21
    “What do you think he will do if he catches us?” I said.
    “He’ll be drunk,” Jeannie said. “He’ll be very angry.”
    “So what do you think?” I said.
    Jeannie looked at me for a while. Her eyes steady on mine. Her face perfectly still.
    Then she said, “I think he’ll kill you.”
    “And you?”
    “I don’t think he’ll kill me,” she said. “But he’ll give me a fearful beating and drag me off to live with him God knows where.”
    I nodded.
    “He’ll probably kill Pearl too,” Jeannie said.
    I nodded again. It was like there wasn’t much emotion in either of us. Like if we let it go, it would just roll over us and we’d be paralyzed. So, there we were sitting in our little boat on the river under the bridge in the rain, talking about being killed or kidnapped like we were planning to skip school.
    Thanks to all the curves in the river, I knew he wasn’t that close to us.
    “Okay,” I said. “Let’s get up on the bridge.”
    “What are we going to do?”
    “I am not gonna let him do any of it,” I said.
    “What are . . .”
    “Come on,” I said. “Take that bottle of Coke.”
    The crackers and cookies were a soggy mess in the bottom of the boat. I stuffed the jar of peanut butter in my shirt.
    The three of us climbed out of the boat. Jeannie and Pearl headed up the bank. I wedged the broken oar into a space between the seat and the side of the rowboat. I draped the two soaking blankets over it. Then I took the coil of rope and put it over my shoulder and kicked the rowboat out into the river. It bobbed gently for a moment and then slid sort of sideways as the current caught it and turned it and began to drift it under the bridge.
    In the narrowing distance the sound of the bass boat motor was getting a little louder. I turned and scrambled up the riverbank toward the bridge. Pearl and Jeannie were at the top.
    “You and Pearl get behind the bushes over there,” I said. “Pearl will probably want to come with me, but don’t let her. If she causes you any trouble, give her a little peanut butter. She’ll lap it off your finger.”
    “What are you doing?” Jeannie said.
    Her voice was sounding panicky.
    “Stay right here until I come back,” I