Sugar on the Bones: A Hap and Leonard Novel by Lansdale Joe R

Author:Lansdale, Joe R.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2024-07-16T00:00:00+00:00

44

It might not have been freezing, but it was damn cold. I could hardly feel my legs or my nuts, and my asshole had closed to keep the water out. We clung to the tree for a while, just in case they planned to circle back.

Kung Fu Bobby would want to know if we survived. If he didn’t see us for a while, he might think we had gone under.

Hanson was dead.

I was having a hard time processing that. Hanson was dead. Dead. He’d always seemed damn near indestructible.

Leonard said, “We don’t get out of this water, we’re going to stove up.”

“Hypothermia is not our friend,” I said.

About that time, the boat did come back. I guess it had made a wide circle hoping to catch us out in the open trying to swim for shore. Let me tell you, that would be a hard swim. It was too cold, and though I could see the shore, it was too far away to feel happy about.

The boat made a couple of passes and went away again.

We waited some more. I was really starting to feel bad. The cold, the shock, all of it, was getting to me.

“We can’t stay here,” Leonard said. “We have to try for it.”

“Long ways.”

“Soon as we get started, it’ll be closer. I say we swim to the tackle box, use that as a float, kick our way to where we can stop at trees and stumps, and take a rest if need be. It’ll be easier to get up close to the trees than hang for long in the water.”

“Neither will do us much good,” I said.

But I knew what Leonard meant. On our current tree, I was able to rest my feet against it where it was crooked beneath the water. Not all trees would be as handy, but they were most likely better than open water clinging to a floating tackle box.

Leonard took off his fine but waterlogged coat and let go of it. I kept my blue-jean jacket on. We swam toward the box, and I won’t lie to you, I didn’t think I could make it there. I couldn’t tell if I was kicking my legs or not. I told myself I was, but I couldn’t feel them well enough to know for sure. I had to turn my head and look.

I was kicking, but it was a bit like floundering.

Leonard was snapping along a little better. He got to the box first, pushed it toward me, and then we were both hanging.

“We could take turns, one kicking toward shore, the other hanging on to rest,” Leonard said.

“Think we need to keep moving. We stop to rest, we get colder, stiffer, and then dead.”

“Right,” he said, and we started kicking.

The box floated well and it was good to have it, but time clicked on and on and the shore seemed to be moving away from us instead of coming closer. I could see someone walking across the water toward us. It was Hanson.

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