Joshua and Eli stared bleary-eyed at the body tangled in their fishing net. “This is a bad thing,” Eli simply muttered, and in his heart he thought that it foretold worse.

“She’s just a girl,” Joshua whispered. His voice was choked and hoarse. He turned away.

The sun shone high on Big River, and Laurie bobbed in near silence as the ripples in the water gently splashed against her hull. Neither man knew that the body in their net once belonged to a girl of the same name as their boat: Laurie, only twenty-one years of age; a tall blonde with a smile that could kill, reduced to this. She was naked and her skin had a greenish tinge. Bits of her had been chewed on by the watery denizens of Big River. Even so, Eli would have wagered that she hadn’t been there long. He didn’t like to look at her, the state she was in, and after a while he turned away too. Then he heard Joshua putting back on his rubber gloves.

“What are you doing?” Eli asked.

“We can’t just leave her there.”

Eli wanted to argue with him, but he knew how it would sound should he suggest the alternative, so he just repeated his earlier statement: “This is a bad thing.”

“I believe that’s what they call an understatement,” Joshua said and grunted as he got his gloved hands under the girl’s arms.

Normally Eli would have joked back at him, but at the moment he felt as though a pair of cold hands had wrapped their icy fingers around his throat. His heart nearly stopped as Joshua began yanking the body from the net when, for just a moment, he thought she might fall apart in his arms. Luckily she was held together by the grace of rigor mortis.

Joshua managed to get the body free relatively easily enough. He tried to treat her gently and with dignity. Eli, meanwhile, felt a pang of guilt at not helping, but being deeply superstitious both by nature and by upbringing, he would not touch the body. He tried to justify it to himself as a job more fit for a captain than a first mate, but that only made his guilt worse.

For the time being, Eli descended below deck to fetch a bottle of rum from their stash. By the time he emerged with it, Joshua had got the body wrapped up in a spare blanket they would have to throw away. Eli handed the bottle to his old friend, and it was taken without a word. In turn they each took a pull as they stared at the covered lump of one-time living flesh.

“I guess we ought to take her down to the city,” Eli suggested.

“Lord knows that’s where she came from,” Joshua agreed.

Still, they moved without haste. The discovery of the poor girl filled the hot air with a kind of lethargy. Joshua sighed deeply as he took up the helm and Eli, who was always quiet and somewhat morose, seemed especially so as he went to his own post.

The two did not talk as they followed the river south towards the city. The trip was not long, in truth, though it felt so for the two fishermen. Occasionally they would glance at the covered body and shudder. Eli, much to his chagrin, could not dispel a certain feeling which had come over him – that something had changed, that the two old men had brought aboard something more than just a corpse. The superstition in him made him want to do something about it, like say a prayer over the body or some such act, but he could not think of what exactly was appropriate in such a case. His father, who had taught him all he knew, had never addressed just such a situation.

Once they reached the city and got their boat in the marina, Eli went to fetch the police, leaving Joshua with the remains of the girl. While Eli was gone, Joshua lit a cigarette and kept watch. His eyes never shifted from the misshapen blanket as he puffed away. It was as though he expected her to get up and walk off at any moment. At any rate, he was glad he had covered her up the way he had.

Once Eli returned with the police they were kept busy enough to not think too hard about what it all meant. All that was required of them for a time was their detailed recollections. There were questions, answered consistently and with ease. When all was said, the body was taken away to be examined. Joshua, at one point, tried to ask his own questions.

“Who was she?”

“What was she doing out there?”

“Why did this happen?”

The lawmen answered none of them. They left, body in tow, and Joshua and Eli were alone once more on the boat.

By then it was getting dark.

“I guess we might as well stay here,” Joshua suggested, “call it a night.”

“Do you want to go into town?” Eli asked.

Joshua shrugged. “I don’t know what it is I want to do.”

Eli nodded. For a while the two were silent, and then Eli went and leaned on the railing of the deck. From his pocket he produced an heirloom watch and checked the time. “We’ve got to eat at least,” he said. “I remember when my old man died, how strange it was to think we needed to eat.”

“How much of that rum have we got left?” Joshua asked.

By the time the sun had fully set and taken all its light with it, the old timers were good and drunk. Joshua shook the bottle and listened to the splash of the finger or two of rum left in the bottle before setting it down between the two of them.

“How long have we been doing this?” He asked, suddenly.

“Five and thirty odd years,” Eli replied, his head bobbing drunkenly in the dark.

“And we weren’t young when we started,” Joshua said.

Eli shook his head.

“I’m feeling it, more and more,” Joshua admitted to him, “but what we saw today. That makes it worse, somehow.”

“Life is brief, Josh, that you’ve got to know.”

“You’re right as always, old friend,” Joshua nodded. “It’s just funny. I kept thinking there would be more time. In her case, there was more time, or there should have been, at least. This world does not wait for anybody, it seems to me.”

“That is doesn’t,” Eli agreed.

“It is a funny thing, indeed,” Joshua murmured, “When I was young, I used to think I would do something great, become somebody important. Not that I’m complaining about this quiet life of ours. I’ve seen what greatness and importance takes from a man, and I would rather our simple labour. You helped me see that, Eli, and yet…” Joshua trailed off.

“Yet?” Eli asked after a while.

“I don’t know,” Joshua said and started to roll another cigarette. Eli could hear, in the pitch darkness, the sound of Joshua’s dry tongue scraping the paper as he sealed it closed. Then he flicked open his lighter. After a while the light disappeared and he exhaled deeply. “I guess I’m just tired,” he said after another long pause.

“Now don’t go talking like that, Josh,” Eli said sternly, sitting upright.

“I don’t mean that,” Joshua explained. “I don’t mean where that poor girl has gone. I just mean…” He searched for a moment and then clarified, “The toil of it all.”

“But that’s all there is,” Eli said, echoing the words of his father. “Life is just work, in the end.”

“But for it to end like that?” Joshua asked. “It just seems to me so pointless.”

Eli didn’t know how to respond to that. Strangely, their conversation made him feel nostalgic. It reminded him of his early days with Joshua; back when they were just a couple of drifters in life, young and lost. To Joshua’s point, he had to wonder: Where had those years all gone?

In the old days, Joshua had been the quiet one – a dreamer, lost in his imaginings of what the future would bring, but forever reticent about his past. Well, “forever” wasn’t completely true. It did take Eli ages to get it out of the kid: Vagrant, parentless at the age of thirteen, street urchin, but one who managed to rise out of what most would call a hopeless situation. Despite having little to no formal education, Joshua was probably the most well-read person that Eli knew. It was long a source of endless amusement that, how someone in Joshua’s position could end up more book-smart than he was street-smart.

In any case, it had made for good conversation back in the day, for though Eli could probably count the number of books he’d read in his entire life on his two hands (Even with his missing pinky finger on his left), he considered himself a man who knew his place in the world. His father, a sailor who lived by a code, not based on science or even religion, but rather a paradoxical mix of common sense and the less-than-sensical patterns of various seaworthy superstitions he had picked up over the course of his career, had taught him all he needed to know about how to live in the world. Mostly it came down to living simply – taking only what was needed and paying sweat for food and shelter.

“The only thing you can trust is your own two hands,” Eli’s father would say, “and even they can be deceitful bastards.”

Such was life, according to the old man, long dead. When his own hands failed him he must have found cause for trusting his son, at least, to take care of him. Eli had only been in his twenties at the time, fresh faced and eager to see the world as his old man had been at his age, and it was during those years his father had taught him most – specifically the more esoteric practices behind living off the water. It was this knowledge that he brought to Laurie and his captain, who he had once, in their younger days, taken under his wing.

Joshua had learned to settle down over the years, and with his vast capacity for knowledge, he had easily overtaken Eli – thus his current role between them. Eli’s own role evolved into one of a grounding sage – he was the rock which held the string of his longtime friend’s kite in place, keeping him on the right track. Together they had had a good, if somewhat simple life. Now, however, it seemed Joshua was beginning to let his thoughts run away from him once again.

“Say we retired,” Joshua said, suddenly. “Say we didn’t have to work. We’ve got some money saved up. What would you do?”

“I’m sure I’d get bored, not having to work,” Eli answered, after giving it some thought.

Joshua laughed aloud. It was his first laugh since they’d found the body. “Oh, come on now, Eli, don’t you ever wish for a break,” he asked, “That’s all I’m talking about: A break. Not having to work for a while. Not necessarily doing nothing, you know?”

Eli picked at his beard and looked out over the oily lights of the city reflected in the water of the marina, and the hazy halo above. “What would you do?”

“I think I’d read more,” Joshua nodded to himself, “Try to learn something new, while my eyes and my brain are still capable. Maybe I’d even travel somewhere completely foreign.”

Eli’s father, who had been all over the world, had told him that travel was a fools pursuit. On the surface, someplace else might seem different, might promise a different kind of life, “But spend enough time ashore and you’ll find it’s all the same gutter.” No matter what current you take, what river, what road, they all lead to the same bleak destination.

Eli decided to meet Joshua halfway, if only to help steer him away from doing something rash. “Maybe a vacation wouldn’t be so bad,” he admitted, halfheartedly.

“Now you’re talking,” Joshua said excitedly, heaving up the bottle once more and taking another swig.

“We could get the hell away from this city for a while,” Eli continued, and though he was just saying the words he thought his friend wanted to hear, they started to resonate with him in a way. Suddenly, he was thinking about his father’s old cabin up north – the fresh pines and the rocky cliffs, bright cold afternoons spent casting a line into a clear, misty stream, and starry nights by a fire, singing hymns or otherwise just listening to the crackle of the burning wood and the whistle of the northern wind.

Joshua waved his hand. “Where’d you go, bud?”

Eli told him.

“I remember you telling me about it,” Joshua murmured, and then said to himself, “A cabin up north huh? I could live with that.” He nudged Eli’s arm. “What do you say? Why don’t we get out of this stinking place? Head up north for a while and get a breath of fresh air?”

Eli went on stroking his beard. After a while he said, “Yeah. Why not?”

Joshua laughed and nearly jumped to his feet, did the best he could. He clapped Eli’s shoulder. “Well how’s that? You’ve softened up in your old age, haven’t you? Let’s do it then; Tomorrow we’ll take Laurie upriver and go into town and…” He rambled on about what they’d need to do. They’d stop at the bank and get packed, buy some train tickets. Eli let him go on and on, and even allowed himself to get a little excited. It had been years since he’d been up to the cabin, but he knew his brother still used it from time to time, kept it in shape. Still, knowing him, there would be plenty to keep him busy up there.

In any case, the two men both felt much more at ease by the time midnight rolled around, and drained, less from the labours of the day than the emotional toll, they retired for the night, headed below deck, and climbed into their hammocks. Before they were both asleep, Joshua said, “It is a shame, about that poor girl.”

“That it is,” Eli agreed.

“I guess we’re lucky to have lived as long as we have,” Joshua said, “It’s surprising, really, when you think about it.”

“Well, I hope she’s found peace, wherever she is now,” Eli said, rolling over.

“Amen, old friend.”

A few hours later, Eli awoke feeling sick and disoriented. He had sobered significantly and his throat felt dry and swollen. Trying to sit up, he realized that Joshua was grabbing his shoulder tightly. “What in the hell?” Eli said, whipping around, “What time is it?”

Joshua put his finger to his lips. “Laurie’s on the move,” he hissed, “Can’t you hear it?”

It was as though Joshua’s words unplugged his ears. The sound of the boat and of the river rushed into them. To be sure, they were on the move.

“How’s that possible?” Eli asked.

“I don’t know,” Joshua replied, “Just grab your knife.”

Eli did as Joshua instructed and quietly went to his trunk to fetch his large folding knife, another heirloom from his father. Joshua meanwhile grabbed a crowbar.

“Ready?” Joshua asked.

“I guess I am,” Eli answered. His head was still reeling from his interrupted sleep.

“Let’s go.”

The pair poked their heads out from below deck and were surprised at the chill in the air and the brightness in the sky. It was enough to sting their eyes.

The clouds from earlier in the night had all dissipated, and the stars seemed to shine brighter than they ever had in those parts, but they were nothing compared to the heavy moon which hung low over the river, bathing it in ghostly light.

“Old Luna seems fit to burst,” Eli couldn’t help himself from saying. Joshua shushed him.

They climbed up the stairs and to the helm, shivering in the cold breeze. Eli thought about how sultry it had been only a few hours earlier. Outside the cabin door they stopped to ready themselves. Joshua gave a silent count and then they threw it open, weapons at the ready, only to find the place abandoned. They hesitated for a moment, stunned, then Joshua made his way to the helm.

“The thing’s stuck,” he said, “The motor won’t turn off either.”

Eli peered out the window towards the stern and went pale. He pointed. “Look.”

Joshua did so, not seeing what it was Eli saw at first, but when he did he gasped. “That isn’t real,” he whispered. “It can’t be.”

She stood at the front of the riverboat, naked and pale in the moonlight. Her long blonde hair blew gently in the icy breeze as she stared forward.

Slowly they descended onto the deck and approached her. Neither knew what to say. Both harboured a belief that they were simply dreaming, that the moment the dead girl turned to face them the horror of it would startle them awake, and yet the smell of the water and the bite of the cold wind aggressively told them that this was not the case.

“What are you doing here?” Joshua finally had the nerve to ask. The question seemed bizarre even to him, but there was nothing else he could think to say.

She turned to look over her shoulder, regarded them apathetically. She did not seem angry or sad, but nor did she seem happy.

“Please, leave us alone,” Eli called to her, trying to muster up a tone of authority, despite the shakiness in his voice. “We meant you no harm. We only tried to help.”

“I don’t think she means us harm either,” Joshua said, “Look.”

She was pointing now, a long, thin finger, pointing up river towards a strange glow on the horizon.

“I think she’s taking us somewhere,” Joshua said.

“Nowhere we want to be, that’s for damned sure,” Eli scowled. Frustrated, he began to shout, “Leave us be! You don’t belong here, spirit, and we aren’t going with you. Go on now!”

The girl’s only reaction to his demands was a small smile. The corner of her lips curled into a knowing grin.

“What is that?” Joshua asked, “Yonder. You see that, Eli? It looks like some kind of fog.”

What little anger had temporarily blinded Eli from his fear quickly evaporated. The sight of that wall of fog one the river ahead chilled him sorely, but worse than that was the smell which suddenly hit him, the smell which he believed was coming from that obscuring fog. It was like wet earth and rot, sharp and sweet, but sickly. It turned his stomach, and at the same time filled him with a terrible weariness.

“We’ve got no choice,” he said, “We’ve got to get off this boat. We’re going to have to jump overboard, come on.” He grabbed Joshua’s arm and tried to tug him starboard, but he resisted. “Josh, what are you doing?”

“Now hold on, Eli,” Joshua said, only half looking at him, “Aren’t you curious? I really don’t think she means us any harm. I think she just wants to show us something.”

Eli began to panic. “What are you talking about, Josh, we’ve got to go.” He tried to appeal to him in another way. “What about our trip? The cabin up north. Come on, Josh, I want to show you the streams we got up there, and the mountains. It’s beautiful, I’m telling you.” Just like before, these words, spoken for Joshua’s benefit, drew something genuine from deep inside of him and he began to ramble. “We’ll go fishing, just like we did back when we first got the idea to get this boat, and at night we’ll build a big fire and we’ll reminisce about the times we had. We’ll be able to rest, I promise you, we’ll take a break for as long as you want, just please,” he looked at his friend imploringly, “let’s get off this damned boat.”

Joshua was no longer looking at Eli. He stared straight ahead through the girl, and into the fog which they were fast approaching. “I’ve got to know,” was all he said. “I’ve got to know what it’s all about.”

Eli felt his eyes burn with tears. The smell of the fog, the smell of death, was overpowering, but still he could not release his friend. He choked back a sob and with one more futile tug pleaded, “It’s now or never, Josh.”

Joshua said nothing for a while. There was a serene look in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Eli.”

Eli looked once more at the girl and watched as she was consumed by the moonlit fog. The final expression she showed him was the one he and his old friend had been waiting for when they first approached her, and it did wake him up, in a sense, though it was evidently too late for Joshua.

Three heavy footfalls, a panicked leap over the railing, and Eli crashed into the water. He swam desperately for shore and managed to reach it just in time to look back and watch his boat and his best friend be consumed by the fog and disappear. He sat trembling, his mouth agape, and watched as the fog receded upriver, leaving no trace of Laurie and her captain. After a while the smell vanished as well, along with the chill in the air, then the bugs and the birds and the wetland critters took up their ceaseless chattering once more, as all the signs of life returned to Big River.