The Deepest Waters, A Novel by Dan Walsh Read Free Book Online Page A

didn’t know why. Clearly the man was dead. No one paid him any attention along the way. They all looked straight up, mouths wide open, drinking in the rain.
    “John,” Robert said as he drew near. “What are you doing, is he alive?”
    John didn’t answer until he got within a few feet. “I was too late.”
    “Then why bring him here?”
    Now John knew why, but he didn’t want to say. He unbuttoned the man’s raincoat then carefully pulled his arms free from the sleeves. “Robert, here . . . take this.” He lifted up the coat.
    “I see,” said Ramón. “A wonderful idea. We’ll form this into a large bowl.”
    By the time John climbed back on the raft, a half inch of fresh water already covered the bottom of the coat. John was exhausted and allowed the other men to catch the rain. He laid back, opened his mouth wide, and drank it in. A part of him knew he should feel sorrow for the drowned man. At least a tinge of guilt for how quickly he’d removed his coat and cast him aside. He at least should have said a prayer, but he didn’t have the strength. For the next fifteen minutes, he just lay there drinking in the rain.

     
    Thirty minutes after that, the men stared at the most amazing sunset, formed by the remnants of the passing storm. John sat up and joined them, strengthened by the rainwater and the cool night air.
    No one spoke.
    The fiery sunset took him back to a similar scene in San Francisco: walking with Laura along the bay, just south of Rincon Hill. The colors spreading across the sky now were almost identical. But it wasn’t the sky he remembered most about that evening. It was how nervous he was. He and Laura had been on numerous dates, but so far they had never held hands.
    He had decided this would be the night.
    He had held her hand in certain approved moments: as she stepped up or down from a carriage and, ever so briefly, when he said good night at the end of each evening. Even then, it was so hard for him not to linger when he did, to hold on a moment too long. But he had always let go, as a proper gentleman should. He didn’t want to presume. Laura had never shown an ounce of flirtation so far. He was very glad of that.
    The worry now was . . . if he did take her hand in his, what if she pulled back? If she felt he was being too forward at this stage? At times, she had been hard to read. He didn’t blame her; it was the bane of their upbringing, the consequence of living under so many rules of etiquette and manners. A lady must be this way; a lady is never that way. A gentleman never does this; a gentleman must always do that.
    Here they were, living in San Francisco, a new land, entirely free of such rigid boundaries, but they seemed chained by them still, as if sitting on a porch swing with their mothers peering through the curtains.
    John remembered a strong wind had been blowing that evening. Laura had to hold her hat on with one hand. They’d been looking out at the bay as they walked. But the sunset quickly took center stage. John turned to face it.
    Laura did too. “My word . . . would you look at that.”
    The rolling hills along the western sky had become dark silhouettes; the sky above them was on fire. They both stood and took it in a few moments. While Laura’s eyes remained fixed on the scene, John kept stealing glances at her. Her free hand was just inches from his.
    “Did we ever get sunsets like this back East?” she asked.
    “Maybe,” he said. “I never saw them if we did.”
    “Too many trees and buildings in the way,” she said.
    Just take her hand .
    “That’s one thing I miss,” she said.
    “What?”
    “The trees back East. But I love how big the sky is out here and how far you can see in every direction.”
    “I do too,” he said. “After dinner, are you still open to what we talked about earlier?”
    She looked back at him. “You mean dancing at the Apollo ball?”
    John nodded.
    “I know I said yes before, but I’ve got to tell you