Swamp Sister

part two
16

Shad left the lake in the dark brittle hours before dawn and stobbed his way upriver, working close along the high silt banks, and when the sun winked over the far away pines and cypresses it found him approaching the true swamp.

The river narrowed, the banks fell away into a greyish black morass, and the tupelo and scrub oak were replaced by titi and laurels. The cypresses towered up from their swollen boles that sat on wet, spindly legs and fluttered their grey mossbeards. They stood rank-and-file as far as the eye could see, and everywhere cast their green reflection across the face of the mirror-tarnished slough. The poisonous breath of the swamp waited like an invisible barrier – as sharp and commanding as a wet hog pen on a rainy day.

He worked the skiff up an inlet, heading for Breakneck, poling quietly with a touch of caution, like a cross-eyed man trying to find his way in a delicate house of mirrors, uneasy about disturbing the sleeping giant. But it wasn't really sleeping. It was more, he decided, like a mute monster gaping at him, absently wondering why he was foolish enough to deliberately enter its trap.

He entered a long, narrow, dead-stifi lake and drifted for a bit, letting the pole drag. The sad cypresses reached such extraordinary heights, and the jungled vegetation entwined with such fierce and ardent vitality that the sun could only find the swamp floor in white shafts. It lay like great slabs of light among the shadows.

This was Breakneck, and it always reminded Shad of a great deserted cathedral.

Evil he'd heard the swamp called, by those who had been in it and those who had not, and they were right. But it had always struck him that it was a purely beautiful form of evil.

At the north end of the lake was a tongue of land, giving the place its name, and beyond, a network of tributaries formed. The slough nearest the west bank was the one he wanted – the water course that would lead him back to the Money Plane. To save time he shipped the pole, sat on the thwart and used his paddle, and began cutting across the center of the lake.

A swallow-tail kite was tracing aerial patterns in the sky. It held a struggling lizard in its talons and was taking lunch on the wing. When it spotted Shad in the skiff it swooped down in an effortless dive out of pure curiosity and whanged past his head, totally oblivious to danger. Shad ignored the bird, other than to realize he was hungry himself. In the bow of the skiff he had put a blanket and a large tin box containing his knife, a box of kitchen matches, firstaid kit, and three on four cans of food. When he reached the Neck he would land and treat himself to a feed.

There were more of the stumpy bays now, and paintroot and hurrah bushes, and the palmettos were thicker than the head of a new broom. The water shallowed, the bonnets and pickenelweed and never-wet leaves began clustering about the skiff, and he changed back from paddle to pole, stood up and balanced his body against the give of the boat and the heft of the stobpole. He worked his way around the Neck and entered a great secluded palm bog.

The towering battlements of vegetation seemed to roll up and over him like a great fibrous wave, and the mass of branches, leaves, creepers, festoons of moss threatened to squash anything as puny as man. He stobbed patiently through the maze, ducking and weaving as the trailing creepers came slowly at him. After he had his lunch he would pick up the trail he'd blazed and be on his way. He grinned as anticipation jacked up his spirits.

"Money Plane," he whispered, "I'm cold coming at you."

And right then someone called.

"Hi, Shad! You ben looking fer us?"

Shad nearly lost the stobpole. He turned, crouching, the skiff wobbling dangerously underfoot, as everything in him tightened into startled suspension. It was like watching the mainspring of a nightmare coming at him to see Jort Camp and Sam Parks pole Jort's big gator-grabbing skiff out of the greenery.

He was one of those men about whom lesser men like to boast as though by merely exhibiting their knowledge of him they have a claim on him, on his astonishing powers, though in secret reality they are scared to death of him, and probably hate him as well. But he was the type of man whom little, vicariously living men (like Sam) can create legends around. And Sam and his breed have done well by Jort.

You come into the county thinking you'll visit Sutt's Landing to see some real swamp folk, and right off one of Sam's breed will try to impress you with the legend of Jort Camp – You ever heened of Jort Camp where you come from, stranger? Jort Camp? No, I can't say that I have. Is it an army post or a person? Is hit a – well, I should hope to hoppin God hit's the most stupyfyin person you'll ever meet! Oh? Well, who is he? Who is he? Who is he! Why he's the biggest, bestest, toughest, brawlin'est, gator-grabbin, bobcat-beatin, cadaver-maker you ever see! That's who he is! And you say, "Oh," and though you don't really believe that he is the biggest of all these wonders, or necessarily the best, your subconscious automatically forms a picture of Jort Camp and you decide that you definitely don't care to meet such a person.

But the Sam Parks type of man clings to your elbow and continues to dangle the legendary Jort Camp before you. He tells you that Jort can pick up a whisky barrel and drink it like you'd drink a bottle of been – a pint bottle, and that Jort can walk a ten-foot gaton out of a monas with one hand tied behind his back and a rock in his right shoe, and that Jort once took on the four Keeley boys singlehanded, and three Keeleys having knives and Jort having nothing but an old length of tire chain, and WHANG! BANG! ZIP and CLANG! and Keeleys all ankles-over-appetite, and Jort astandin' there not even breathless and the length of chain hangin' in his big fist, and him shouting, "Well good gawd aw-mighty, is that all the fightin' we goan have? I ain't even got my arm unlimbered!" And that what was even more important (nudge, nudge in the ribs) was that Jort had had every girl in the county over fourteen, and that the daddies over to Crow County best watch out because Jort was startin' to cast his eye in that direction, and – and say, stranger, I bet a purty you don't got no man like Jort Camp where you come from, now do yen?

And you say, "No – no; no one like that at all." And you head back to your car rationalizing that you don't really have the time to spend visiting Sutt's Landing, just to see some 'real swamp folk' in their natural habitat. And if your daughter gives you any guff about it you shout, "Get in the car and shut up!"

Jort knew his own legend (he should – he'd helped it with a story or two from time to time), but he didn't really believe in it any more than Shad did. He was a fun-loving, loud-mouthed bully boy. But he wasn't a fool. But still – where there was smoke- He was big and tough, and he loved to fight, and he'd never yet met the man who could lick him. And when it came to drinking – well, look out, boys! I got me a hollow leg to fill. And that fight with the Keeley boys wasn't just all talk either. It's true that only two of them had knives, and there wasn't really four Keeleys in the fight because Joe Keeley had been so drunk he'd passed out before anyone started swinging. But Jort was willing to bet that Shad would never come out of a fight like that top dog.

And girls now – well say, that had always been his speciality. Well – maybe some of 'em had had to be coaxed a bit, but they'd always said yes sooner or later. Yeah – let Shad sneer at the legend of Jort Camp if he dared. But let him try to build one half as big for himself. Just let him try.

Sam was sitting forward with a 12-gauge across his lap; Jort was standing aft working the pole. He was grinning like a fat boy over a surprise birthday cake.

"You didn't go forgit we-all was goan gator-grabbing together, did you, Shad?" Jort called. "We missed you at the shanty, so we come on out here on our lone. Pure luck running into you thisaway'

So that's how it was going to be, Shad thought. They were going to play cat and mouse with the Money Plane. But still it didn't make sense. They had known he was long gone from the shanty, and in order to get out here before him they must have left the night before. Why?

He glanced at the Springfield on the floorboards but decided against it. Sam was too jumpy a man to startle, and a 12-gauge could scatter an awful lot of space. The safest course would be to play along-seeing that Jort wanted it that way-and wait for a better break. He tucked a smile in his face.

"Jort," he said, "I'm God ashamed of myself. I pureout forgot about us going gator-grabbing. I left the Landing night afore last to come out here'

Jort's big skiff came alongside Shad's with a thuuump, and Sam reached a scrawny hand for Shad's gunwale. But Jort seemed right at home.

"What was your big rush, Shad?" he wondered, folding his huge hands over the butt of the stobpole and resting his chin on them. "Looking fer more skins?"

Shad nodded as though none of it meant a damn to him. "That – and looking fer Holly's body as usual."

"Oh yeah," Jort said quietly. "Pore old Holly." He looked up and around at the green roof crowding over head. "Right easy place fer a man to lost hisself in," he observed. "I got to go nearly halves with Sam on my gators just to git him to come out here with me."

Sam, hearing his name, started.

Shad stared at him. "Something wrong, Sam?"

The little man flinched again. His head didn't come quite around as he said, "Huh! No – no they ain't nothing a-tall wrong."

Jort was offhand. "Sam don't cotton to this air swamp much. Git him out a the woods and he feels like a Georgia hick in a cee-ment city."

"Why you bring him?"

Jort's smile was wry. "Tell you, Shad. I'm some like Sam here, and not a bit like you. I don't take to being out here alone myself."

Shad nodded. "Hit's not so bad," he said. "If you know where you're going."

"Yeah." Jort said, looking at him. "That's what counts. Knowing where you're going."

Sam was restless. He wiped his hands along the sides of his pants, pulled at his upper lip, and hunched first one way on the thwart and then another. He swabbed the front of his buckteeth with his tongue; didn't look at anyone when he suddenly spoke.

"Well, we just goan set us here all the blame day?"

Jort looked at him, his eyes narrowing. "No," he said thoughtfully, "we're just waiting fer Shad to show us the way."

That was getting closer to the brass tacks, Shad thought. Too God close.

"What size gator you got in mind, Jort?" Shad asked innocently.

Jort stared at him fixedly for a moment longer, then started smiling. He was enjoying this. This was what he'd been saving for nearly fifteen years. He could feel the payoff of the premonition coming and he sensed that he would get more pleasure out of it than from the ultimate discovery of the Money Plane.

"Oh well, I'll tell you. Shad. I need me a big daddy. That's where the money is. But I don't want no old devil that's goan tear up the hull shop like a bear with a hurted paw. You know what I mean, Shad?"

"Yeah," Shad said.

He stared at the water reflectively, not thinking of Jort's gator. The thing he didn't want to do was to get too far removed from the vicinity of the Money Plane.

He looked up, looked across the slough to the palm bog, where all the known and the nameless little creeks meandered into Breakneck. He thought the one he had his eye on was the Money Plane creek. If he could only get closer he could be sure – could find his blaze mark. There was a patch of cypress breathers at the mouth of the creek that looked like a natural fish weir, and he thought he recognized the landmark. But there was nothing trickier than a landmark in a swamp.

He nodded at Jort. "You ready to ramble now?" he asked. "I know of one old daddy up Lost Yank way that's near ten foot. He's a loner and easy got at."

"He ain't likely rambunctious, be he Shad?" Jort wanted to know. "I ain't fixing to git myself gator-et, thank you kindily."

"Naw, he's wore-out. No vinegar left."

Jort grinned. "I don't look forward none to the day we peter out like that, eh Shad?"

Sam trembled suddenly, the tremor running through his entire body as though he were strung together by wire and under the automatic control of a master hand.

Shad looked at him. "What's wrong, Sam?" he asked. "Cold?"

Sam's head jerked as though Shad had struck him, and his voice leaped out fast and high like a wood duck taking off in startled flight. "No, I ain't cold. How in hell could I be cold out here?" He wiped at his face with the back of his wrist.

"Take hit easy, Sam," Jort said softly, and because of a certain quality in the big man's voice, Shad looked at him sharply.

Jort's great moon face swung back to Shad, frowning and smiling at the same time, and he tilted his head slightly, directed at Sam's back. That meaningful look of bewildered amusement was asking wordlessly if Shad didn't agree that Sam was a caution.

Shad said nothing, but he didn't like it. There was a snag in the line somewhere, he thought. They've done something and Jort's afeered Sam'll kick over the bait can. He planted his stobpole deep, ready to shove off. But Jort said, "Why'nt you leave your skiff here, Shad? We kin all fit snug-like in mine."

Shad shook his head, not looking around. "Uh-uh. I like to keep hit handy." He shoved down on the pole, hard, sending the skiff abruptly into the slough.

Looking around a moment later he saw they were following close in his wake; Sam sitting forward with the 12gauge, chewing his lower lip with his overbite, averting his eyes quickly when he saw Shad looking; Jort standing massive and sure in the rear, stobbing with one hand, the other tucked carelessly in his hip pocket.

Shad sent an underbrow look at the tangle of cypress knees that suggested a weir, and then turned the bow of his skiff into Lost Yank Creek.

"I tell you them Cajuns is crawly eaters. They eat snails, and snails is crawlies," Jort Camp claimed.

"Naw they ain't neither. A snail ain't a crawly," Sam said peevishly.

"Well, hit myself if they ain't! Shad, ain't a snail a God shore crawly?"

They were sitting in a canebrake that fronted Lost Yank Creek; only the creek had thinned out to a guzzle that a good spit with a little breeze behind it could span. They had stobbed up Lost Yank for two-three miles and had beached their skiffs in the early afternoon. Shad had picked up his knife and lunch and was starting for the Springfield when Jort had made the first move to show that the cat-andmouse game was drawing to a fast close. He'd stepped hastily through the ankle-high water from his skiff to Shad's, beating him to the starboard gunwale by a fraction of a second.

"No need in us overloading ourselves, Shaddy," he'd said, and his grin had been affable enough but it hadn't reached his hard little eyes. "I ain't fixing to shoot me no gator, you know. Got to take 'em alive, else they ain't worth mud."

Shad had hesitated, watching Jort's eyes, wondering if this was really the moment both he and Jort had been waiting for. Then he'd glanced over his shoulder. And there was Sam standing on the bank by the bow of Jort's skiff, holding the 12-gauge in both hands, his trigger finger inside the guard, but not quite pointing the barrel at Shad. So Shad had scratched at the corner of his mouth and nodded. "All right. Suits me."

And he'd sloshed up to Sam and pushed on by him without a glance.

He'd led them to the gator's cave – a hole in the creek bank under a sycamore bole – but the old bull wasn't at home. Then they'd crept a little farther into the marsh to a shallow cypress pool where, Shad claimed, the gator liked to take the afternoon sun. But he wasn't there either, and so they'd crossed over the stream to hide and wait for him in the canebrake. And then Jort and Sam had started arguing about bugs.

"Ain't a snail a God shore crawly, Shad?"

"Well, I don't know." Shad gave it a little thought. "You cain't say they really crawl like bugs do, because they ain't got no legs -kind a squish and slide like a snake."

Jort pointed a commanding finger at Shad. "Well, but you say a snake crawls, don't you? You don't say a snake comes a-squishing, do you? Bet your butt you don't! Snails is pure-out crawlies, and anybody goes to eat 'em is a goddam crawly eater, like I said."

Sam said he didn't know about people being crawly eaters, but he knew too damn well that the crawlies were "people eating" him. He slapped at his face and missed a gnat, and then gave the back of his neck a slap.

Jort was pulling the makings from his pocket, and he grinned and said, "Perk up, Sam. Nothing's ever so bad hit cain't git a little bit worser." His eyes slid to Shad. "Take Shad here," he offered. "Bet when he first found all that money he reckoned he had him the hull world by the tail." Jort came to a dramatic pause like an act with perfect timing.

He shook a thin window of golden Durham flakes in a creased wheat-straw paper, leaving a slight depression in the middle, brought his thumbs up, rolling the inner edge in and over the tobacco as forefingers flapped the outer edge over and down. He ran his tongue along this edge, crimped one end and tamped the other with a matchead. He put the cigarette in his mouth and thumbnailed the match aflame.

Shad didn't move.

"Bet hit seemed just thataway, huh Shad?" Jort prompted.

Shad thought about the knife in the back of his belt. He'd have to get Jort first. The 12-gauge was bad, but Jort was worse. He looked around, his expression flat, sizing up their positions. Jort was hunkered down a yard from his right; Sam was squatting six feet away, half-facing him. He'd have to make a full-armed sweep at Jort's chest with the knife, and piledive Sam at the same time. "You talk like a man with no sense, Jort," he said.

Jort stared back at him, the smile still lingering on his fat face. "Shad," he said evenly, "you lying hard as you kin go. You think fer a minute we don't khow what you and Dorry Mears was up to?"

Sam flinched. His eyes went all twittery, blinking rapidly at Jort, at Shad, down at the shotgun in his lap.

"Ain't no sense you a-mean-eyeing Sam thataway, Shad. Every'body knows about you'n Dorry." Jort folded his hands behind his neck and gave his back a stretch.

"And," he added casually, "they ain't no sense that I kin see in you gitting yourself busted up like kindling over hit. I reckon they's enough fer three."

Shad looked at him, tensing his arms. "How's that?"

Sam's quick eyes caught the nearly imperceptible tightening in Shad's limbs and it was the last straw for his nervous system. He went straight up in one movement like a jackin-box, stepped back a pace or two and swung the gun barrel around. He stared at Shad, a little bit of his pink tongue slipping slowly under his overbite.

"That Sam," Jort said and chuckled. "He's hell fer spooky, ain't he?" He studied his trembling friend for ten seconds, as though he had nothing better to do. "Look at him a-standing there, Shad. Straight enough to be used fer a post, huh? Bet you could drive him like one too, and him that skinny. Only he's got him that air scatter-gun and he knows a thing er two about firing hit off. You folly me there, Shad?"

Shad pulled a grin into his cheeks. "Better not take that kind a bluff into a poker game, Jort. You'll kindly lose your money. If Sam kills me – ain't nobody goan find that old Money Plane."

Jort seemed to be appalled at the idea. "_Kill you_, Shad? My, my, what kind a fellas you take us fer? Ain't nobody said nothing about _killing_ folks. But, Shad, you ever seen a fella try to run away with his legs all blown to Billy-be-damned by a scatter-gun?"

Suddenly Sam's skinny frame tightened into listening attention, then his head whipped around and he ducked behind the maiden cane.

"Something coming," he whispered.

Shad got his eyes off Jort and looked across the creek. The palmettos beyond the cypresses were rustling, and just before they burst apart the three men heard gator-grunting. The old bull waddled out of the palm bog and down to the sandy bank of his private pooi.

He was all gator, ten foot of him, and the armour on his back was so dense he looked like a many-horned monster from a primordial age. He lumbered along with the peculiarly embarrassed gait of a gator out of water and fetched up alongside a long dead log that sloped from the bank into the centre of the pool. He raised his snout and the two excretory ducts under his throat discharged the God-awful musky fluid from his glands. Instantly the air all around the pool became tainted with a strong, sickening odour.

Shad looked at Jort "You still game?" he asked.

Jort blinked at him. "Huh?"

Sam cocked his head in alarm. "Hey, hey," he whispered rapidly. "We ain't got us no time fer gators now."

Jort glanced around at him as though annoyed by the distraction, then looked at Shad. "I don't reckon we'll be needing that air gator-money now," he said.

Shad nodded as though he'd found confirmation of his suspicions.

"I didn't reckon you'd go to tangle with him after you once seen him. Big, horny-looking old feller, ain't he?"

Jort's eyebrows puckered down at the bridge of his beefy nose. He blinked at Shad's profile. "What you mean?" he snapped.

Shad turned a sardonic grin. "I always heered what a slam-bang gator-grabber you was; but I notice you never bring back but little five-six-seven foot fellas."

Jort wet his lips. He studied Shad's eyes for a moment "You saying I'm skeered of that big bastard?"

I've hooked him! He'd rather spook me with a show of muscle than find the Money Plane.

Aloud he said, "I don't see you busting your hide to go at him."

When Jort smiled thinly his face looked dangerous. "Yeah, you sly fox, and you know why I ain't going at him. Why do I need him when I got eighty-thousand goddam dollars waiting fer me?"

"What eighty-thousand dollars?" Shad asked.

Jort's face pushed in at him.

"Shad – you honest to God think I cain't make you tell me where that money is hid?"

If I've guessed him wrong, Shad thought grimly, he's goan pull me inside out like a coon goes at a gunny sack with corn at the bottom.

His left hand scraped together a damp clump of sand. It was the best he could think of. Maybe he could get it in Jort's eyes before Jort made contact with those gatorgrabbing hands of his.

"I told you once," he said, "that if you ever decide to come at me – you best bring help."

Everything inside of him slipped into strained suspension. He watched Jort's eyes.

Jort stared at him, a flat, contemplative look. Then he grunted, started smiling, and pushed back on his haunches. He continued to watch Shad from his new position as he began unbuttoning his shirt.

I was right. He cain't help himself from showing off.

Sam couldn't believe his eyes. He pick-picked at Jort's sleeve. "Jort – Jorty, what you fixing to do?"

Jort smiled at Shad, almost fondly.

"Sam, you just tag along with the scatter-gun. Shad here's got hit in his brainbox I cain't grab me nothing but pint-size lizards." He flipped a huge hand at a coil of rope nearby in the weed.

"You fetch the rope, Shad."

Jort raised on his knees and looked over the cane. Across the way the gator had crawled out on the fallen log and sprawled himself on it for a siesta, his little stumpy legs hanging down on either side, his forepaws just touching the placid surface of the pool.

"I'll lead the way with the slipknot," Jort told Shad. "And you folly behind with the fag end. If I miss his snout, then I'll have to go at him bare hand. You coil the rope in and stand by, see?" Shad nodded.

Jort grinned and jerked a thumb toward Sam.

"I know you ain't planning no tricks while I'm busy gator-grabbing, because I know you ain't gone and forgot that chuckler about the feller trying to run with his legs blown all backtail-to."

Shad nodded, smiling. "I ain't forgitting."

"Let's go then."

They crossed up-creek and came slipping silently down through the palm bog to the pool. Jort was in the lead, carrying the business end of the rope. Shad tailed him with the rest of the line coiled in his right hand. Sam was some yards behind with the 12-gauge.

Jort stopped just where the palmettos screened the pool and straightened up, bringing his hands akimbo. Standing just behind him, Shad had to marvel at his massive bare back. It looked as big and hard and formidable as a moonshiner's still. The son-o-bitch was purely put together with horseshoe nails and the ends cinched over, he thought.

Jort and Shad eased through the palmettos, Jort passing the fronds to Shad so they wouldn't whip back; and then they went tippy-toe down the shore to the uprooted bole of the dead log. Jort looked around at Shad and raised an eyebrow. Shad nodded, meaning Go ahead – he's asleep.

Jort whispered, "Deep?" And Shad shook his head.

"Under three feet," he lied. Out in the center, he knew, the pool shelved to a good six. And it wasn't the first lie he'd told Jort. The gator was old but he wasn't worn out. Shad had seen him fight a young burly bull about a month before. What little was left of the young gator was now stinking up a bog about a quarter of a mile down-slough.

Jort took in breath, shook out the slipknot and started wading cautiously into the pool. Shad shifted after him.

A man can move only so far in water without making a noise a sleeping gator will hear, and Jort was doing pretty good at it. So Shad let his end of the rope drop-_spoop!_- The gator snorfled, elevated his head and started to swing it around. Jort wasn't waiting for more. He lunged forward -foot-falling into a hidden sinkhole – toppled sideways against the log – said, "SON-O-BITCH!" and reared up and forward again.

The gator tried to do two things at once – tried to get his great body turned around on the log to see what was coming and tried to get his jaws open. His hindquarters slid off the far side of the log with a splash; his paws were scrabbling furiously against the wood. It was a mighty awkward way for a gator to enter the water.

Facing him across the log, Jort swung the loop at his snout, but the old bull whipped his head back and shoved his horny body to the right.

"I'll be damned!" Jort bellowed. He let the rope go and vaulted over the log after the gator.

Shad started reeling in the line, watching Jort and the gator thrashing through a welter of white and brown water. A Jort arm and leg, a gator paw and end of tail swung out of the water, flashed, and then it all went under again. Instantly Jort's head, soused and wild with water, shoved up and he shouted at Shad. "_The rope!_ Goddam-" And he ducked under again and Shad saw the white-plated belly of the gator glint in the sun as it broke through the surface.

Sam was having a dancing fit on the bank.

"The rope, Shad! _Git in there with the rope!_"

Shad blinked. "Yeah -" he breathed. He heaved himself over the log and sank to his thighs in the churning water. And right then he was in the middle of the damn thing. Something cut his legs out from under him and he crashed, face and shoulder against the log and felt himself slipping down- and couldn't get footing anywhere.

His brain went all to pieces screaming, "Hell no! Don't let that big son-o-bitch" – and somehow he was on his feet again and a good yard away from the log, and that great armored tail lashed up, and he ducked, and the tail came down like a cannon shot, and then Jort's burly shoulder slammed against his hip, and one of the gator's paws clawed his denims, and that damn Sam yelling, "Jort! Jorty – hold'em, boy! Git in there with the rope, Shad! Ain't you never -"

When that gator wasn't trying to smash Jort and Shad to mush with his tail, or trying to clamp his jaws on one of them, he was trying to get to the deep water. And the only thing that was stopping him was Jort Camp. He got the bull around the chest, lifted him with an agonized gasp, and threw him over backwards and into the shallows. The gator flipped right side up while in midair, saw Shad slipping and falling in the water and slammed his jaws at him.

Jort went after the gator in a wild piledive, landed fullbodied on its back and wrapped himself around and hung on. "_The rope!_ Goddam you, Shad! _Git his goddam snout with the rope!_"

The gator rolled, its tail spanking along the broken surface. Shad stepped back quickly, pawed water from his face, and looked down at the hopeless tangle of rope in his hands.

"Sam!" he shouted. "For God's sake _come help us!_ I don't know what to do with hit -"

"God a jaybirds, Shad! His snout! _His snout_, boy!"

"Come in here and help me, you son-o-bitch! Don't just stand there like a goddam fool! I'm all end over rope!"

Sam made a helplessly frustrated gesture with his right hand, his face all a-squint and mouth-twitching, and came wading into the pool, holding the 12-gauge high.

"Git the loop shook out there – the loop -" Sam wagged his hand in the air. "Wait'll Jorty swings the snout up again – Jort! _Jorty! Look out, man!_ You near to damn put my leg in his mouth!"

Shad step-sloshed backwards in the water hurriedly, getting himself a pace behind the frantically screeching Sam. He looked down at the man-and-gator battle. Jort had a tiger by the tail – Shad winced and rammed a flat hand blow into Sam's narrow back. The woods colt shot into an all arms and legs bellyflop, dragging a scream of terror after him. Shad turned and went high-stepping it for shore. When he looked back he saw pieces of Jort, gator and Sam all hurlyburly in the pool.

He ran all the way to where the skiffs were beached, heaved Jort's gator boat free of the mud and shoved it out into the creek, then got his own off the bank and piled over the bow. He stobbed out of the cane and pickereiweed, prodding Jort's skiff with the pole now and then to keep it ahead of him until he had it in mainstream. There a sluggish current gave it a quarter-turn and started herding it down the creek.

Shad dropped on the thwart, breathing fast and thick, and grinned after the big skiff.

Something was coming God-awful fast through the palmettos and laurel bays. He looked back and saw a great chunk of glistening flesh ploughing the brush. For just a moment – because of the muscular bare chest, the swinging thigh-thick arms, the wild-on-end hair, and the eyes that should have belonged to someone in a madhouse – Shad thought he was seeing vividly Holly's last minutes in the swamp; and something, maybe only the sense of a cold loss, maybe the apprehension of premonition, touched him and he shivered.

Jort came through the last of the palmettos and planted himself spread-legged in the mud. He wiped at his face and stared out at Shad. Then both of them heard Sam's wild passage through the marsh. He was making more noise than a bull moose going to a cow.

Jort's head snapped around and he bellowed at Sam. "Go find that goddam scatter-gun!"

"But – but, Jorty, _it's underwater_."

"Good God, I _know hit's underwater!_ Git it!"

Jort looked back at Shad, then at his skiff that was drifting lackadaisically dowstream.

Shad grinned. "I wouldn't count much on using that shotgun, Jort," he called, "Them shells'll be swoll up like a dead doe's bladder."

Jort nodded. He was rubbing his right fist in his left palm.

"Reckon you're right Shad. Reckon you put it over'n me this time."

Shad had to laugh. "Say, Jort, did you git a chance to see old Sam when I shoved him right down the gator's mouth? He looked about as happy as man being flung down a privy."

Jort chuckled, his great naked belly jerking up and down. "That Sam," he said appreciatively.

Shad looked over his shoulder. "Reckon you'n Sam will have some foot rambling to do afore you come up with your skiff. Mind the cottonmouths now."

Jort nodded again. "I'll keep'em in mind."

"See you," Shad called.