Bill Hopkins [Judge Rosswell River Mourn (epub)

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Gravity was his friend as long as he kept his momentum under control.The successful downhill maneuver was to maintain an erect posture, lean forward a few degrees, and move with short, quick strides.It worked.Until he fell.Halfway along, he lost his rhythm, plunging face downward, his cheek connecting with a log, bruising his arms, scratching his palms.Blood seeped from his hands.“Shit!” Rosswell wiped his right hand on his pants leg while holding the binoculars in his left, resumed the pace, and then switched hands, wiping the left one.His face stung.At the bottom of the bluff, he shuffled down one side of the steep road ditch and scuttled up the other side.After he crossed the asphalt road, he halted on the gravelly sand of the ferry landing.The scent of dead fish littering the bank stuck to the inside of his mouth and nose, strong enough for him to taste the vile stuff.Asian carp, the exotic scourge of the river, were caught by the dozens and allowed to rot on land.Rosswell wheezed and gasped, sucking in as much air as he could.He craved the oxygen.Someone on the ferry must have seen the woman go overboard, but no one on deck appeared to have noticed.Binoculars to his eyes, he scanned the boat.The skinny man climbed into the passenger side of a white van.He focused on the van.The tags were smeared with mud—an old trick for anyone who didn’t want to be identified.Unable to signal any other way, Rosswell waved his hands, losing a grip on the binoculars.“No.Tina, no!” It was futile.No one paid any attention to his efforts.The ferry was a third of the way across, leaving Missouri, heading for Illinois.Rosswell scolded himself for not knowing better.Even if the man or anyone else on the ferry had superb hearing like Rosswell’s, no one could ever hear him over the noise of the engine, especially not at this distance.When he called out the name of his beloved, his eyes teared up.Five months earlier, someone kidnapped Tina from a hospital bed where she lay recovering from a gunshot wound.Since then, searching for her consumed most of his work time and all of his free time.He returned the focus of the binoculars on the ferry, particularly on the three vehicles it carried.The late September morning brought another day of unusual scorching heat.The boat plying the river wavered in the hot air, much like a mirage.An aroma of baking vegetationincreased with the rising of the day’s heat.What had happened? Rosswell knew he’d have to write this incident in the journal he kept concerning every detail of his quest to find Tina.The points clicked in his mind like the tumblers of a lock opening.He replayed the scene, mentally formulating the entry he’d make later.Rosswell had been perched on the balcony of the third-story room he’d rented at a bed and breakfast in Sainte Genevieve.Instead of glimpsing the rare Golden-Crowned Sparrow he’d been seeking, he spotted the ferry.A loud thump sounded when the boat was leaving the dock on the Missouri side.He’d checked his watch at 7:00 AM, which was an hour after the first scheduled ferry run.That was when he’d seen the corpse dumped in the river by the skinny man with dark hair dressed in Levi’s and a blue work shirt.The woman’s face burned in his mind.So familiar.So much like Tina.The woman was tall and slender.Strawberry blonde hair.Blue jeans and a white tee shirt clinging to curves.Definitely female.Definitely pregnant.Definitely looked like Tina.After the man dropped the body into the river, he lounged against the guardrail, studying the water for a few seconds before he climbed into the van.Questions about the other people on the ferry chased each other in Rosswell’s mind.He hoped the guy wouldn’t get away with the crime.None of the other passengers paid heed to what the man had done.In fact, the other passengers clustered in a knot on the other side of the deck, their heads bent, staring into the water.What was so interesting?Rosswell refocused the binoculars where the woman had been dropped.Nothing.He broadened his inspection to the area around the ferry but couldn’t see her.Perhaps the body had been weighted down and sunk to the bottom.Again, he tried to focus on the man who’d tossed the body, but he wasn’t visible inside the van.Except for the steady chugging of the vessel’s engine, Rosswell could not have sworn that there was any traffic at all on the river.Besides the sound of the rolling water, little else made any noise in the morning air.Even the birds swooped up and down without sound.It wasn’t an option to stand on the ferry landing close to the swirling current doing nothing.He had to do something.But what? He removed his glasses and wiped his face with his hands.And sobbed.Since Tina’s disappearance, Rosswell had taken to chanting a mantra urged upon him by a New Age counselor.“Center.Center.Center.” He played a game with himself in such stressful circumstances.Graph paper ran from his brain like a seismograph reporting an earthquake.All Rosswell had to do was inhale until his lungs filled, close his eyes, and allow his brain to carry him to a secret calm place until the line on the paper inked itself horizontally.The guru had called it centering [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Pokrewne