They did not think of what they would do with him...
They did not think of what they would do with him when they reached the end, they did not even remember any longer that he was deadHis burden had been the vital thingDead, he was as much alive to them as he had ever been
And yet they lost himThey came to the rapids where Hearn had carried the vine diagonally across the streamIt had washed away in the four days that had elapsed and the water churned viciously through the rocks now with no support to guide themThey hardly realized their dangerThey stepped down into the rapids, took three or four steps, and were upset in the swirling of the waterThe litter ripped out of their enfeebled fingers, dragged them in their harness after itThey wallowed and tumbled through the rough water, gucci watches for women glancing off rocks, choking and swallowingThey made feeble efforts to free themselves, tried desperately to stand up, but the current was too violentHalf drowned, they let the water carry them
The litter split against a rock, and they heard the canvas ripping, but the sound was only an isolated sensation in the panic they felt at swallowing waterThey thrashed once more and the litter broke completely in two, the harness ripping free from their shouldersGasping, virtually insensible, they washed out of the worst part of the rapids, and stumbled toward the bank
A fact which obtruded slowly through their bewildermentThey could not quite grasp itOne moment they had been carrying Wilson, and now he had disappearedTheir hands were empty
"He's chanel classic bag gone," Ridges mumbled
They staggered down the river after him, pitching and falling, and reeling on againAt a turn in the stream they could see for several hundred yards, and far in the distance Wilson's body was just disappearing around a bend"C'mon, we gotta catch him," Ridges said weaklyHe took a step and fell forward on his face in the waterHe got up very slowly, and then began to walk again
They came to the other bend and stoppedThe stream spread out into a swamp beyond the turnThere was a thin ribbon of water in the middle and bog land on either sideWilson had washed into it, was lost somewhere in the foliage and swampIt would take days to find him if he did not sink
"Oh," Goldstein said, "he's lost
"Yeah," Ridges mumbledHe took a china mulberry step forward and stumbled in the water once moreIt felt pleasant lapping against his face, and he had no desire to stand up"Come on," Goldstein said
Ridges began to weepHe struggled to a sitting position, and cried with his head on his folded arms, the water swirling around his hips and feetGoldstein stood over him tottering
"Mother-fuggin sonofabitch," Ridges mumbledIt was the first time he had cursed since childhood, and the words pulled out of his chest one by one, leaving behind a vacuum of anger and bitternessWilson would not have his burial, but somehow that was not important nowWhat counted was that he had carried this burden through such distances of space and time, and it had washed away in the endAll his life he had labored chanel quilted bags without repayment; his grandfather and his father and he had struggled with bleak crops and unending povertyWhat had their work come to? "What profit hath man of all his labour wherein he laboureth under the sun?" The line came back to himIt was a part of the Bible he had always hatedRidges felt the beginning of a deep and unending bitternessThe one time they had got a decent crop it had been ruined by a wild rainstormWhat kind of God could there be who always tricked you in the end?
The practical joker
He wept out of bitterness and longing and despair; he wept from exhaustion and failure and the shattering naked conviction that nothing mattered
And Goldstein stood beside him, holding onto Ridges's shoulder to steady himself in the dior saddle bags curre