But the one we watched — he must have had his fish already. He looked fit. Fit enough to swim the river at least instead of squatting on the other bank. I think that girl knew it too. He might not have bolted either had I got right up and hollared at him. He liked it where he was. The girl pointed to her friend who sat alone on the sand about half way out a spit that stuck into the river but didn’t join the other side. It was the spot he would make for. If he decided to try.
“She’s afraid.”
“And you ain’t?” I whispered back. The towhead girl — plenty of our children out here have white hair, usually not cut too even — was drawing in the sand. Now and then she kind of pulled at her bathing suit or twisted her head and back like she might if she was older or like she wanted to get up and run.
As far as I could see, he didn’t care. He seemed to be staring at the water. I might have had him in the jail house, there was nothing about him said I couldn’t. On the other hand, there was nothing stamped him bad. I know when to bide my temper and just size up the stride of a man or the way he hangs back when you ask him what he is at. I tried to make out what his hands were doing, but he had them hid. I didn’t suspect him much, though I’d like to have seen if they were small and kind of pink with short tapering fingers.
He wasn’t suspecting either. He didn’t know how close I watch a man. I lit my pipe, seeing he wouldn’t go no matter what. I’ve seen all kinds, men I had to drive out and below town myself, set them down and make sure they headed south out of sight; others I caught before they entered. And if I stop a couple, I may let them go, I may not. You got to watch them if they are in pair.
But I have never seen one just squatting in the desert. He’s not sick, more like he’s healthier than most around here. Most men stop at a river bank to drink, cool their feet, and get across and be done with it. Here’s a man, I thought, is snarled with this river. He’ll have more trouble with it yet, I figured.
There wasn’t any tree to give him shade. You might see a man like him on an island — him and that opposite bank started to look that way to me — someone who had been left there or thrown ashore and you wouldn’t know whether to go up to him or not. It was too late to hail him now. I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
But I wasn’t going to leave him there to do what he pleased. And he was set for something, because his pants were off, already rolled up and slung over his shoulder when we got there. My pipe went out and I found I was watching him so hard I sat chewing on it dry. He still wore his suspenders — bright yellow like a shirt I owned but which no Deputy could ever wear — and they just hung down, unfastened.
If there had been any kind of house around, I might have understood. But there he was, casting a small patch of shadow on water so dark it hardly showed, a man who didn’t look ready to cause trouble and didn’t seem to be got up for any kind of work. He was only half dressed and certainly alone, and yet he didn’t look to need no bothering. The towhead wasn’t minding him, I could see that.
I’m quick to feel out a stranger. In my job you find that other men ain’t like yourself, not when they open their mouths and you see they got no teeth or pull out a billfold filled with too much money or none at all. Most men is soft and childish or else they got to tell you something behind the house. For all I knew he was only looking at his picture in the water. It finally came to me I wasn’t going to sit there and wait for him.