Read Nothing Gold Can Stay for Free Online

opens the cooler, takes out a six-pack.
    “This is enough, don’t you think?” he says, and I nod.
    We’re heading for the counter when Donnie notices the rack of fishing equipment at the back of the store. There’s a couple of dusty Zebco rods and reels leaning beside the rack. Donnie gives me the beer and picks one up to check the price, clicks the button to see if the line comes out smooth, and does the same to the other.
    “We’ll come back for these when we get paid,” Donnie says.
    “It’s two o’clock,” the man at the counter says. “I’m closing now.”
    Donnie turns, the rod in his free hand.
    “Your sign says you’re open all night.”
    “I’m closing now,” the man says again.
    He glances out at the parking lot and you can tell he’s wishing hard someone would pull in, or even drive by. But nothing is moving out there. It’s just him and me and Donnie under the store’s bright lights.
    “Take the beer,” he says. “It’s free.”
    “Well, that’s neighborly of you,” Donnie says, and sets the rod down, takes the beer from me.
    “Is it Christmas or something?” Donnie says, a big grin widening on his face. “Everywhere we go people are giving us stuff.”
    “Go now,” the man says.
    As Donnie heads toward the door, I pull a five out of my wallet and step toward the counter. The man raises a hand as if to fend off a blow.
    “Go now,” he pleads.
    “Okay,” I say, stuff the bill in my pocket, and follow Donnie out to the truck.
    I pull out of the parking lot. As soon as we’re out of town, Donnie hands me a pink, takes one for himself. I put the tab on my tongue and let it lay there. Donnie opens a beer and hands it to me.
    “Drink up,” he says.
    The OC’s coating starts to dissolve. Its bitterness fills my mouth but I want the taste to linger a few more moments. As we cross back over the river, a small light glows on the far bank, a lantern or a campfire. Out beyond it, fish move in the current, alive in that other world.

Something Rich and Strange
    S he follows the river’s edge downstream, leaving behind her parents and younger brother who still eat their picnic lunch. It is Easter break and her father has taken time off from his job. They have followed the Appalachian Mountains south, stopping first in Gatlinburg, then the Smokies, and finally this river. She finds a place above a falls where the water looks shallow and slow. The river is a boundary between Georgia and South Carolina, and she wants to wade into the middle and place one foot in Georgia and one in South Carolina so she can tell her friends back in Nebraska she has been in two states at the same time.
    She kicks off her sandals and enters, the water so much colder than she imagined, and quickly deeper, up to her kneecaps, the current surging under the smooth surface. She shivers. On the far shore a granite cliff casts this section of river into shadow. She glances back to where her parents and brother sit on the blanket. It is warm there, the sun full upon them. She thinks about going back but is almost halfway now.
    She takes a step and the water rises higher on her knees. Four more steps, she tells herself. Just four more and I’ll turn back. She takes another step and the bottom is no longer there and she is being shoved downstream and she does not panic because she has passed the Red Cross courses. The water shallows and her face breaks the surface and she breathes deep. She tries to turn her body so she won’t hit her head on a rock and for the first time she’s afraid and she’s suddenly back underwater and hears the rush of water against her ears. She tries to hold her breath but her knee smashes against a boulder and she gasps in pain and water pours into her mouth. Then for a few moments the water pools and slows. She rises coughing up water, gasping air, her feet dragging the bottom like an anchor trying to snag waterlogged wood or rock jut and as the current quickens again she sees her