Read Online Once Upon a River by Bonnie Jo. Campbell - Free Book Online Page A

swivels. She lifted the rifle to her shoulder and pointed it out the window. She pressed her cheek against the stock and looked over the iron sights at a bit of orange plastic ribbon stapled to a fence post. If she was going to leave this place and all its familiar landmarks, she would have to take this gun. She pocketed a box of .22 cartridges and gripped the Marlin in her left hand. She felt the ghosts of Murrays watching her as she returned to the kitchen. She grabbed the loaf of cinnamon bread off the counter and then headed out the same way she’d come in. The black Lab chained outside barked, and though she knew she should hurry away, she dropped to her knees on the ground beside him, held the bread away from his jaws. “Oh, Moe, I’ve missed you terribly. I should have come over to see you, I know.”
    She pulled herself away from the dog, and he barked behind her. The beagles barked in their kennel. When she reached her boat, she was shaking so badly that instead of dropping the rifle onto the back seat, she dropped it into the icy river. She pulled it out quickly, but not before it was entirely submerged.
    She shook the gun and wiped it as best she could with a towel from her pack. Braced now by the cold and her fear of being seen, Margo laid the rifle on her tarp and swaddled it as she would a baby. She thought the sound of her getting into The River Rose echoed all across the river and through the woods. She took a few bites from the loaf of bread, the first thing she’d eaten all day. When she set out onto the water, she felt an urge to let herself go with the current, to slip effortlessly downstream. Her mother was upstream, though, so she began to row.

• Chapter Six •
    When Margo heard three shotgun blasts in succession, the sound rattled her, made her want to shoot in response. It would still be deer hunting season for a few more days. When she saw the Slocum camping trailers on the north bank, she rowed as hard as she could to pass quickly and avoid being seen. A few hundred yards beyond that, the river curved, and Margo heard voices and laughter coming from outside the abandoned cabin that Junior called the marijuana house. She ran her boat onto the sandbar just below the place and decided to wait for full darkness, rather than risk being seen. She took off her leather work gloves and breathed onto her hands. The tiny cabin here was owned by the Murrays and until three years ago had been used by one of Grandpa’s brothers for weekend fishing. Margo listened to the teenage voices. A girl’s laughter exploded like automatic weapon fire and then was muffled by a closing door. When all was quiet for a while, Margo climbed up on the bank for a better look.
    A white-tailed buck approached the river only twenty-five yards away, near the dock. Margo loaded six cartridges from her pocket into the magazine tube of the Marlin, chambered a round as quietly as she could, and cocked the hammer into the safety position. The loaded rifle felt good in her hands. When the buck stopped at the riverbank and turned to look in her direction, Margo slowed her breathing. With the rifle resting on one knee, she studied the creature, counted ten points, saw a raw V-shaped tear on his cheek, maybe a wound from fighting another male. Her hands stopped shaking. She could take it down with the .22 if she hit it in the eye or the temple. The deer lowered its head to drink from the river. The lever-action Marlin was slightly heavier than her daddy’s bolt-action rifle, but while she aimed the gun, she felt weightless and free from her exhaustion.
    “Don’t shoot!” a female voice whispered loudly from behind her. The deer started at the sound, doubled up its legs, and bounded from the water’s edge.
    Margo jumped back down the bank, climbed into her boat, and pushed off.
    “Hey, are you Junior’s cousin? Come back and hang out with us!” the girl shouted. Margo kept rowing. The girl said to someone else, “I think that