“It’s so cold.”
“I couldn’t get cold when you were with me kid.”
“Dont talk like that.... I dont like it.”
They walked leaning together in the darkness up the muddy rutted riverside streets, between huge swelling gastanks, brokendown fences, long manywindowed warehouses. At a corner under a streetlamp a boy catcalled as they passed.
“I’ll poke your face in you little bastard,” Dutch let fly out of the corner of his mouth.
“Dont answer him,” Francie whispered, “or we’ll have the whole gang down on us.”
They slipped through a little door in a tall fence above which crazy lumberpiles towered. They could smell the river and cedarwood and sawdust. They could hear the river lapping at the piles under their feet. Dutch drew her to him and pressed his mouth down on hers.
“Hay dere dont you know you cant come out here at night disaway?” a voice yapped at them. The watchman flashed a lantern in their eyes.
“All right keep your shirt on, we were just taking a little walk.”
“Some walk.”