Free Season of Death by Christopher Lane Page B

good with a paddle and had shot his share of rivers. Yeah, he could do it. Maybe. Possibly. The question was: Did he want to? Why take the risk? Especially with
two
people depending on him to return home safely. Ray urged the floating couch toward the shore.
    “Dis da greatest!” Lewis shrieked.
    Ray reached for a birch and pulled their kayaks onto a shallow sandbar.
    “Whattya doin?” Lewis wondered in dismay. “Come on! Can’t stop now!”
    “Sure we can,” Ray argued. Sliding from the kayak, he climbed up on the bank.
    “Dis be great!” Lewis insisted.
    “Dis be stupid.” He swung the tandem around and helped Billy Bob out.
    “Boy howdy!” the cowboy exclaimed. “Don’t solid ground feel good?”
    “We gotta shoot ‘em,” Lewis demanded. “Only way to caribou.”
    “Caribou, shmaribou,” Ray said, smirking. He’d had enough of Lewis’s immature antics. It was time to take control of this runaway boating trip.
    “Can’t stop! How we gonna get home?” Lewis protested. “If we miss da plane …”
    “We won’t miss the plane,” Ray grumbled, already pulling the kayaks out of the water. “Not unless there are a lot more rapids downstream. Of course, we don’t know whether there are or not, because
nobody
bothered to check it out.”
    “What you gonna do?”
    “Portage. You do whatever you want to. You wanna blast that nasty stuff, fine. Have at it. We’ll catch up to you on the other side. If you’re still alive.”
    Lewis considered this, then shrugged. “Okay. See ya on da udda side.”
    “We’ll see that your remains are shipped back to Barrow, if we can find them.”
    “I gonna run da mudders,” he assured them “Take care a Fred da Head.”
    They watched as he floated downstream, quickly picking up speed. “Anybody that’d do that there mess,” observed Billy Bob, “has got ta be plumb outta-his-head crazy.”
    With the kayaks safely on the bank, Ray removed the tent poles, and they began extracting their load: Billy Bob’s borrowed backpack, Ray’s still-damp sleeping bag, the cowboy’s bundled, twenty-pound catch.
    After slipping on the pack, Billy Bob lifted his boat and shook it. “These thangs ain’t too bad. Long as we don’t have ta portage fer too far.” He hoisted the craft up under his arm, ready to carry it like a stack of schoolbooks.
    “Hang on.” Ray gestured for him to put the kayak down. “Lift it over your head and use your shoulders. That way you don’t fatigue as quickly.”
    Billy Bob made a face, then started to lift the boat again.
    Ray stopped him. “We need to do something with this.”
    The cowboy stared vacantly at the two bundles Ray was bearing: down sleeping bag cradled in his left arm, sweatshirt-bound head in the other.
    “Turn around,” Ray told him. When he had complied, Ray set his burden aside and unzipped the main pocket of the cowboy’s pack. He began pulling out clothes: a shirt, a pair of jeans, a belt with a silver-and-turquoise buckle. He tied a light jacket around Billy Bob’s waist.
    “Whatcha doin?”
    “Making room for Fred,” he replied, tying a work shirt around his own waist. He fastened the jeans around the pack frame and stuffed the skull into the space he had created.
    “Dang! These skeeters are about to carry me plumb away.”
    Ray zipped the pack shut, strapped his sleeping bag back to the outside, then fished a bottle of Cutter’s from a side pocket. Squirting out a palmful, he offered Billy Bob the repellent. “We’ll trade off with the pack. How’s that?”
    “Fine with me.” He smeared white lotion on his face.
    “You bring a hat?”
    “Just ma Stetson.” His face fell, remembering the loss back at the lake.
    “I mean a real hat.” Ray started to explain why a hat was essential, to conserve body heat, to guard against the sun, against insects, to keep from having to slop Cutter’s into your hair … His own hat was decorating the bottom of Shainin Lake as well. “Put lotion everywhere