Considerately, he said, “Oh, he’s expert in other things, I imagine.”
She seemed not to approve of those other things.
Willows colonized the floodplain of another part of Frenchman’s Creek where the pebbled sand was hard-going for the horses, but at a turning they strode at a quicker pace toward a spot they seemed to remember. Shade trees and soft grasses moved in the breeze and creek water pillowed over smooth round stones near the bank. Dick jumped down from Shep and helped Natalie down from her horse. “Go ahead and give me your foot. I’ll try not to get too personal with ya this time.”
Natalie smiled. “I am not bothered.”
Dick walked her down to the creek bank with a red picnic blanket that he flung out and let float on the air and softly settle. She sat on it while he squatted beside her, unscrewing a canteen filled with Owen’s wine as he told her, “French trappers used to ship pelts from hereabouts to fur companies back east. One fella’s name was Bernard
LeBoeuf. Had a rough time of it, I guess, and thought he was a goner. Wandered around like a zombie and fell into the water here. Woke up an hour later halfways healed. Had himself a new lease on life.”
“What was his problem?”
Dick thought about it. “Thirst, for one thing.” He paused. “And I guess a grizzly bear before that. Torn up pretty good. Ever since, this has been called Frenchman’s Creek and tales of its magical powers are still being told.”
“And do you believe these tales?”
“Why I brought ya down here.”
She held out a plastic cup and he poured wine into it. “Is it you want to make love with me?”
He hesitated, and then got a plastic cup for himself and filled it. “Well now, I’m a tad bit old-fashioned about that.”
“What is it you want then, Mister Tupper?”
Skiffs of sunshine rocked on the water as he watched it move. “I’ll tell ya what I have. Twelve hundred acres plus farm buildings, machinery, and feeder pens. I have a four-bedroom Victorian house that’s just had itself done over by an interior desecrator named Mitzi. I have five percent of the last Holiday Inn you passed on the highway, nine percent of the largest Chrysler Dodge and Plymouth dealership west of Lincoln, and half a dozen employees that call me Mister Tupper. What I don’t have is a wife.” He paused. “She left me high and dry.”
“She was stupid,” Natalie said.
“Don’t expect me to argue the matter.” Dick looked sentimentally at her and then was ashamed of his forwardness. “Hell, I’m too old for the hunt anyway.”
Natalie protested, “Mais non! You are not old!”
Dick recited, “‘Cold are the hands of time that creep along relentlessly, destr
oying slowly but without pity that which yesterday was young. Alone our memories resist this disintegration and grow more lovely with the passing years.’” He smiled with some embarrassment. “I got that from a movie.”
Natalie was nodding. “But yes! The Palm Beach Story. I like very much the films of Preston Sturges.”
Dick considered her with amazement. “Wonder if we met in a past life.”
She watched as some shade trees furiously shook. She could see a pair of shining minks playing and twirling in the creek, the noise of it shifting over the rocks with the sound of party conversation. She said, “No. This is my first life. That is why I’m so happy and surprised.”
Dick took pleasure in that. “So you like it here.”
“I love it here!” she said. “It is so odd and old-fashioned and naive, and no one is trying to be smart.”
“Are you sure those are compliments?”
She put a hand to his cheek. “And you, Deek Tup-pair. You are as faithful and honest and natural as a horse.”
Each of them looked to Shep as he nuzzled into shaded grass, his tail whisking right and left. But it soon turned into an unfortunate moment and they turned away.
“Horses’ll do that,” Dick said.
And then they heard a hollering, rollicking group of Owen, Carlo, Iona, and Pierre sailing down the creek on tractor tire inner tubes, squirting Owen’s wine out of goatskins, the men shirtless and sunburnt and in jean cutoffs, Iona luscious in a leopard print string bikini and intently watching the man and woman in the shade as she floated past.
Carlo was giddy at finding the picnickers fulfilling his plot and with a squiggly smile tilted out on his inner tube to see Iona’s face. She seemed properly disappointed as an eddy spun her away. Carlo gave Dick a puckish thumb’s up.