“So, how’d you find this treasure?”
“It’s a local tradition. There’s always a group of kids that lays claim to it. Then, when they move on—school, babies, getting old, whatever—some new group moves in. One of my friends’ older brothers used to hang out there, and when his friends all got jobs in Jackson and Biloxi, my friends took over.”
Only after he said this did Hudson realize he and Leila might not have the oxbow to themselves. Friday night in Vicksburg, what else was there to do? He hoped his friends had gone to the bowling alley instead.
“What do you do over there? Dumb guy stuff?”
“Pretty much.” He signaled and turned the car onto another indistinguishable country lane. “Toss a football around, light bonfires. Have some drinks. I’m not a big drinker, so I’m usually the designated driver.”
“Hmm, too bad we don’t have anything to drink. It’d be fun to get drunk with you.”
Hudson let the comment hang in the air and pretended to focus on the road as he turned off onto an unpaved street. The car rumbled over the uneven surface, kicking up pebbles that struck the undercarriage and chimed like a children’s toy.
“How far away is this place?”
“We’re almost there,” Hudson said, pointing lamely at a patch of darkness beyond the reach of the headlights.
When he parked the car, Leila was quick to open the door and get out, letting in a vibrant sound. It wasn’t the river itself, the current mostly calm, but everything surrounding it: the nocturnal wildlife, the insects, the flora moving in the breeze, almost like lungs expanding and contracting. Impossible to prove, but Hudson felt that the whole length of the river was contributing to the sound, the casino boats a few miles down, the current crashing into the Gulf of Mexico in New Orleans like a jazz cymbal. It all came together to create this wall of noise that felt somehow tangible.
“This way,” Hudson said, starting to head around the trees and into the ravine.
She stepped to him, and before he could realize what his fingers were doing, he took hold of her hand. “Okay,” she said, squeezing his fingers back without much fanfare, “lead the way.”
Thankful for the darkness hiding his uncontainable smile, he took them around the trees. A couple of times he almost lost his footing, too distracted by Leila’s touch to pay much attention to the terrain. They reached the river’s edge and started walking downstream. He was hoping that the boat was there. If the rowboat was there, then it meant he and Leila would have the oxbow to themselves and his friends were off doing something else.
“I like this scenic route,” she said. “It feels like an actual treasure hunt.”
“You’ll love this place,” he said, spotting the low-hanging branches where they kept the small rowboat hidden. It was there. He let go of her hand to kneel down and pull the boat out of its hiding spot. It was little more than a worn-out canoe, its wood knotty and cracked, its white paint darkened to green by the river.
“Oh, I see it,” Leila said, looking out at the river, her hands in her back pockets, that world-changing posture again. “How far is that?”
“Not too far. About sixty, seventy yards, maybe.” He put one foot in the boat and turned to offer a helping hand.
She looked over at Hudson and then back at the island. A mischievous smile spread across her lips. She stepped toward him, but instead of taking his hand and getting into the boat, she knelt down and stuck her hand into the river.
“It’s chilly,” she said. “But the current isn’t too bad.” She stood back up to her full height, which, admittedly, wasn’t very much. “Let’s swim across.”
She kicked off one of her flip-flops and stuck her foot into the river.
Hudson gave her a look.
“Haven’t you ever done it before?”
“No.”
“Yeah, we’re definitely doing this, then.”
“What about our clothes?”
“They’ll get wet, and then some time after that they’ll get dry.”
“And our phones? The car keys?”
“Leave them in the car.” She walked over to him and pulled him out of the boat by his hand. “Hudson, you’re swimming across this river with me.”
He resisted for a few steps, dragging his feet. But then he remembered that he’d climbed out his bedroom window and left his house because he wanted to immerse himself in fun for once. “It’s very hard to say no to you.”
“Why would you want to say no to me?”
Leila laughed and gave his hand a squeeze, then walked them back to the car. Hudson checked the time again before leaving his phone in the glove compartment. If he was tired the next day, he could tell his dad he’d had trouble sleeping out of nervousness. They left their shoes, wallets, and keys inside, then walked back to the shore, treading carefully to avoid stepping on stones or twigs with their bare feet.
They stood at the edge, facing the island, the river’s waves lapping at their toes as if trying to coax them into the water. “Look at those stars,” Hudson said.
“Beautiful,” Leila said, looking up at the night sky. Then she turned back to him and smiled. “Are you a good swimmer?”
“I’m all right,” he said. “You?”
“We’ll see, won’t we?” And with that, she dived in.
There was a very brief pause. A delay between Leila’s action and his reaction, that split second during which Hudson asked himself just who the hell this girl was and what she was doing in his life. By the time the thought had passed, he was already jumping in after her.
The cool water was a shock. She was a couple of body-lengths in front of him, her strokes fast, frantic, overjoyed, the sound of her laughter ringing out every time she came up for air. When he almost swallowed a lungful of Mississippi, he realized that he, too, was laughing in between strokes, that his heart rate was spiked by adrenaline, that he was completely intoxicated by the river, by the night, by Leila. He swam faster until he nearly caught up with her, her kicks coming down only a few inches from his face. Swimming around her kicks until he was at her side, he felt his muscles start to burn with effort. Funny, how it took a little bit of pain to remember that certain parts of yourself were alive.
They reached the island’s shore at about the same time and climbed onto the muddy grass and flopped onto their backs. Leila’s arm was resting across his chest. Without giving the move much thought, Hudson brought his right hand up and laid it gently atop Leila’s forearm. He’d expected her skin to be somehow warm, but it was cold from the water. He started to rub, wanting to bring her warmth.
“We are very wet,” she said, unsticking her shirt from her stomach with the hand not on Hudson’s chest.
“Yes, we are,” he said, chuckling.
She pulled her arm away to wring out her shirt. “Yeah, that did nothing.” Then she stood up, brushing away the grass that had stuck to the exposed parts of her legs.
As he stood, too, for a second, Hudson was dumbstruck. Although in truth it wasn’t just a second; it had been the whole day. Since Leila had stepped out of her car, he’d been dumbstruck by her presence, her beauty. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her.
“I’ll take the staring as a compliment,” she said with a laugh.
“Sorry,” Hudson said, looking down at the ground. Even when he was embarrassed, he couldn’t look completely away. He watched water dripping down her legs, wondering to himself how he’d gotten to be where he was standing.
And now she was stepping