Free A Dark and Lonely Place by Edna Buchanan

listened to the artist tell tales of his travels. He had just come from the Bahamas, had been to Key West, seen the Gulf Stream and the island of Cuba, had even been to England and seen castles. They were swept up by the artist’s enthusiasm for Florida’s light, sky, and water. He said they were unlike any he’d seen before. The children began to look at the familiar sights around them in a different way.
    John understood. He often heard the river call his name. For as long as he could remember, he’d been drawn to its peaceful, green-walled waters and the wilderness around them. Before he met the artist, he believed that only he felt that way.
    After ten days, the brothers packed up their easels and said they hoped to see John and Laura again one day. Then they and Sam, the fox terrier, were gone. Laura was crushed; it was as though she somehow expected them to stay on, to continue to chronicle her life and John’s in pictures.
    John tried to comfort her. “Everything ends,” he told her. “Nothing lasts forever, Laura.”
    “Some things do,” she stubbornly insisted. Her deep blue eyes never left his. “Like it says in the Bible, ‘forever and ever, amen.’ “
    Homer had left them a few black-and-white sketches on scraps of paper. John kept one of Laura. He admired how Homer had captured her spirit and posture in just a few spare lines.
    The river now held a new fascination for them both.
    They met there, alone, as often as possible. By the time John was fourteen and Laura twelve, he’d learned to play the guitar. No matter how stealthily she approached, she never did succeed in surprising him. He never looked up, just grinned and played: Yes, we’ll gather at the river, the beautiful, beautiful river . . .
    They sang hymns, “Amazing Grace” and “The Old Rugged Cross.” His favorite folk songs were laments, involving disaster and heartbreak. “The Wreck of the Old ’97,” “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” and “Oh Shenandoah” moved Laura to tears. She’d sing along, in a clear, high voice so sweet that he’d stop to listen. Oh Shenandoah, I long to see you. He said she had the saddest voice he ever heard.
    Some afternoons she set up melons and bottles as targets so he could practice with his pistol and Winchester rifle. His father, a well-known marksman, had taught him and the boy was already a crack shot. His brothers were good as well, but John’s aim was truest. He could fire from thirty feet away at the mouth of a bottle on its side atop a fence post and blow out the bottom without even scratching the small opening through which the bullet passed.
    A patient teacher like his father, John taught Laura how to shoot.
    When he was sixteen and she was fourteen, Laura’s mother forbid her daughter to spend time alone with any member of the opposite sex, especially John Ashley. The woman soon became put out that Leugenia, John’s mother, made little effort to help enforce the ban.
    John and Laura still found ways to be alone together.
    One steamy summer afternoon they sat and dangled their feet in the clear, cool water at the river’s shady edge. He’d brought his guitar but felt too lethargic to play.
    “I’d love to take a swim right now,” he said in his slow, easy drawl.
    “Wish we could.” Her voice sounded husky in the heat.
    A fine mist filled the air as waterbirds called amorously to each other.
    “We can,” he said.
    “What if somebody saw us?”
    “Nobody else ever comes here.” He clasped Laura’s warm, responsive hand in his.
    “We’d burn in hell,” she murmured.
    “Then we’ll burn together. But it’s no sin, only a swim. Go on. Undress behind that big live oak. I won’t look. I promise.”
    “But there’s manatees in the water,” she protested.
    “They don’t mind. Sea cows are harmless. They love company.”
    “Mama warned me. You are the devil.” She pushed him down on his back and straddled him, her long hair falling like a veil around