Swamp Sister

21

Shad decided to take Jort's skiff. It was a good craft, and now that Jort wouldn't be needing it there wasn't any sense in letting it rot in the bog. To Mr. Ferris' question, "Are you going to leave yours here?" he said, "Yeah. I'll pick it up another time."

Mr. Ferris nodded. "Well, perhaps it'll come in handy for that Parks person."

Shad looked up. "Sam? Sam's dead, Mr. Ferris."

"Dead?"

"Same as. If he ain't panther-clawed er gator-et er cottonmouth-bit, then the pin-downs will kill him."

"It's as dangerous as that?"

"Dangerous enough fer anybody," Shad said. "But it's real bad fer a fella like Sam. He'll go coo-coo inside an hour, and once you press your panic button _you're through_."

Mr. Ferris said nothing more. He climbed into the skiff and went forward. He was thinking how incongruously these people were made. Sam, Jort, and Shad would bend over backward to evade physical labour for wages – and yet would rush to this nightmarish land with open arms to pit their lives against gaining something for nothing.

They went on down-slough, slipping by the palmetto bend where Shad had set Margy ashore. But he didn't stop to go find her because he hadn't made up his mind about Mr. Ferris. He had to make up his mind right soon – yes or no. But if it was yes, what would he do it with? He'd left the bow and arrows behind deliberately because he never wanted to use them again on anything.

He skirted the skiff along the mudbank where the thicket of pink hurrah blossoms, white Cherokee, yellow jasmine and bloody ivy trumpets stood like a floral paper on one wall of a green room. He spotted the cross he'd blazed on a cypress trunk.

"This here's it," he said, and ran the skiff into the mud.

As Mr. Ferris climbed from the skiff Shad rummaged under the stern's seat and found what he thought he would – an old nick-bladed hatchet. Mr. Ferris stood in the mud, looked at the hatchet, then at Shad; but Shad had his eyes averted.

"We got to go easy," he warned. "This here's gator ground."

They went hands and knees through the thicket tunnel, Shad leading, Mr. Ferris close on his tail. Shad kept listening for gator-grunting but couldn't catch any. Even the musky gator odour was gone, as though vanquished by the poisonous scent of lush jungle flowers and the rot and decay of the bog.

The tunnel opened, the bank shelved down, and the pond stretched away to the far green wall, to the giant cypress all adrape with the brown tendrils of a bullace vine, and the suspended Money Plane. Shad straightened up, staring, unconscious of Mr. Ferris behind him.

Finding the pond and the Money Plane for the second time was like stumbling upon the materialization of a childhood dream – or nightmare. The enigmatic structure of the place brushed him with a peculiar uneasiness, and a sense of moral disturbance that he couldn't understand settled on him like in indescribable malaise. They stood side by side in the soft mud and stared.

There was nothing and there was everything, and all of it still. There was the torpid water, black except where the jungle reflected a dull green, and there was the water grass and the pickerelweed, and scattered on the surface the never-wet leaves and the bonnets.

A good-God flock of green-winged teal flicker-flacked overhead with their multitude of wings; and when the men suddenly looked up, the flock slammed the sky with a whamp! and veered into a new thunderous course.

The mood was dispelled. Mr. Ferris cleared his throat and said, "How do we get to it?"

Shad simply said, "Raft," and went into the thicket to chop up some lightwood logs. Mr. Ferris smoked a cigarette while Shad constructed the raft. It was a hurried, patchwork affair – five logs lashed with vine, a yard wide and two long.

"I ain't going at this proper," Shad said, "because I don't want to take the time. We'll have to ditch our boots and tail the bottom-end of us in the water."

"That's all right," Mr. Ferris said. He looked across the pond at the Money Plane. "As long as we get there and back." Then – "Are there alligators?"

Shad didn't look up. "Guess not. 'Pear to be all gone. Last time I was here they was a God-awful gator nest just down-slough." He stood up, raising the rickety raft, and said, "Let's go."

They left their boots standing four-at-attention on the bank and waded into the pond, prodding the raft ahead. Far off a poor-joe bird squawked at something, and closer in they heard a panther cough. Then there was nothing, only a water snake draped on a breather.

"We used to go rafting like this when I was a boy in Ohio." Mr. Ferris' voice had the quiet tone of camaraderie. "There was a river near our farm."

It startled Shad to hear that Mr. Ferris had once been a farm boy

"That so? So did we when I was a tad." And right then he was quite certain that he wasn't going to kill the man.

The water slipped past their knees and they hunched themselves up on the raft, leaning forward on elbows, forearms and abdomens, and started scissor-kicking with their feet. The going slowed when they ploughed into the golden-heart bed, but there was no way around it. They pawed the lilies aside and kicked the raft on. Above them loomed the giant cypress and the rust-stained Money Plane.

They sloshed onto the bank, pulling the raft after them, and then, in mute agreement, paused to stare up at the wrecked airplane.

"You mind being around dead men, Mr. Ferris?" Shad asked. "I mean old dead men?"

Mr. Ferris looked at him.

"No," Shad said. "I reckon not. Well, let's git up and see how they ben keeping."

The scut-shot gator was hungry. He'd been prowling the waterway for hours but hadn't found anything to satisfy him. Now he entered the Money Plane pond. He looked around, saw nothing, and then submerged himself and tail-hitched over to the distant weed bed. He watched the translucent water, waiting to see what might come wandering downstream. His passage had stirred up a slimy colony of black leeches and they were wiggling around him wormlike. But he didn't pay them any mind. After a while he surfaced effortlessly. He looked just like a barely drifting log.

In the musty cabin of the Money Plane Shad and Mr. Ferris squatted where they could find room and looked at the mouldy bags of clothing that contained all that remained of the payroll agent known as Hartog and the pilot known as Willy.

"I like to think they was friends," Shad said. "Seeing that they had to go at hit together."

Mr. Ferris looked at him. "Where's the brief case?"

"Behint that bucket-type seater."

Mr. Ferris reached behind the seat and felt for the case. When he found it he drew it into the light and placed it before him on the floorboards, flat. He didn't do or say anything. He stared at the gutted surface and at the clump of green and black bills bulging up through the rent.

"Hit's all there," Shad said, looking hard at the brief case. "Except fer that hundred I took."

Ferris said nothing.

"Hit's a shore God heap of money, ain't it?"

There was a pause, and then Mr. Ferris murmured, "Yes – a heap of money." He seemed slightly mesmerized. When he spoke again his voice had a curiously disembodied flavour.

"Seeing it like this – face to face – brings one to realize why men turn to schemes. Men like Jort Camp and Sam and -" He didn't finish it.

Shad nodded, looking at him. "How'd you come to get hooked up with Jort and Sam, Mr. Ferris? I'd a thought old Jort would try to avoid you like a fox going downwind of a hound."

A smile came and went in Mr. Ferris' face like a snap of the fingers. "No, no," he said. "I didn't have any trouble in convincing friend Camp that we should form a partnership. You see – I knew where the body was buried."

"How's that?"

"It's a city saying, it means I knew something about them that they wouldn't want published."

Shad's eyes narrowed. "What was that?"

Mr. Ferris looked at him. "It doesn't matter now, Shad. It was something I saw them doing in the woods that night you had your fight with the Fort boy."

It was bothering Shad again – Jort's face in the dream, the ten-dollar bill in Jort's denims. He tasted his lips.

"Did hit have anything to do with Dorry Mears?"

"It isn't important now," Mr. Ferris said flatly.

Shad stared at him. Mr. Ferris turned his head and stared back -and for the first time Shad saw more than just a pair of peculiarly penetrating eyes. It touched him like an ice pick at his throat, because he'd seen so much of it lately. Simply greed.

Mr. Ferris put his right hand inside his jacket and under his armpit. When he drew the hand out it held a snubnosed. 38, and he let Shad see the little round black hole in the end of the barrel. He smiled wistfully

"You see, Shad, I wasn't quite unprepared to deal with Jort and Sam."

Shad couldn't make up his mind whether to watch Mr. Ferris' eyes or the goodbye end of the. 38. He made a sound in his throat and got his tongue moving finally.

"You ain't got the idee I brung you here to kill you, do you?"

"It had crossed my mind, yes. I'm not going to be so foolish as to forget what happened to Camp and Parks today You're a rather dangerous man, Shad."

"That was self-defence," Shad said. "You said so yourself. They was fixing on killing me."

Mr. Ferris nodded. "It follows that they would have to – in order to have all the money for themselves."

Shad got his eyes away from the. 38 and looked at Mr. Ferris.

"Oh," he said. "I kindly begin to see. It ain't exactly that you're so afeered of me – but if I'm dead then there ain't nobody left kin tell whatever become of this money"

Mr. Ferris smiled. "That – I confess – has also crossed my mind. It seems to be the general opinion in this territory that you found this money and then proceeded to run off with that Mears girl. I feel that that's a nice comfortable way to leave the situation – the law hunting for two dead people, I mean."

"Then Dorry is dead?"

"The Mears girl? I have every reason to suspect so. But it doesn't really matter to you now, does it?"

"I reckon not," Shad thought of Margy waiting for him to come to her, waiting in the center of the swamp. No, Dorry didn't matter to him one way or another now. But Margy did.

"I guess you ben planning this here fer some time?" he stalled.

"Not so long – only four years. Though actually I seldom make long-range plans. The nature of things is too often perverse. Your former lady friend – Iris Culver and I had a little plan afoot; and oddly enough it nearly worked. Though I rather imagine that had you brought her this money, she would have walked out on both of us and not a word said."

Shad didn't give a Sunday damn about Iris Culver. He could feel his life petering out to the small end of the. 38- Margy's life too. He looked up. "You going to bullet-hole me now, Mr. Ferris?"

"Yes, Shad. I'm afraid I must."

Shad grunted.

"I say if you go to kill me, you just as well turn the barrel around and trigger yourself a goodbye. Without me, you don't even got the chance Sam Parks's got of gitting out a here. And Sam's got no more chance than an idiot trying to breed the razorback outn a strain of hogs before the third generation."

Mr. Ferris' smile returned slowly "Don't try that on me, Shad. I've noticed your trickiness before."

"You ain't begun to see trickiness till you seen what this old swamp kin pull on a man. I ben coming out here since I was a tad, and twice I've gone and lost myself. And what about my brother Holly? He done got so lost he never has found hisself again. And he ain't the only one. You know how many men done died out in this swamp since you left here four years ago?"

He could see that he had Mr. Ferris going now. The eyes were the same except that the bright glare of greed had been replaced with intent concern.

"You know how I done lost myself last time? A great granddaddy gator kicked the skiff right out from under me, and me with a. 30-06 bear gun. You know what a gator will think of that popgun of yourn, Mr. Ferris? He'll kindly think you're pegging acorns at him."

"All right, Shad," Mr. Ferris cut in coldly. "I'll admit that your suggested violence is ominous. But barring an alligator attack, I know my way out of here. All I have to do is go straight down this waterway to that large lake -"

"You know the name of that large lake, Mr. Ferris?" (Mr. Ferris didn't.) "Well, I don't mind giving you that much of a start. It's called Breakneck. You know why hit's called that? Because at the north end a tongue of land nearly cuts the neck in two. It's good to know these things, Mr. Ferris. A man needs every landmark he kin git in this end of creation. You know how many waterways lead out a Breakneck, Mr. Ferris? Eighteen that you kin see. But why worry about Breakneck – you ain't even out of this little old piddly lake where we got the skiff yet. Let's see – they must be – yeah, I kin think of eight waterways right offhand leading out a this lake. You know which is the right one, Mr. Ferris?"

He'd said it now, all that he had to say. It was time to shut up and let Mr. Ferris stew. So he finished with- "Now you set there and brood on it a bit, Mr. Ferris. And while you're about it, I'd kindly appreciate if you'd offer me one of your taior-mades."

It was pure-out amazing the way that Mr. Ferris could contain himself. There he was, still holding hard to that smile and dishing out cigarettes like they were the best of buddies.

"It's a pity, Shad, you were born poor white. I think you might have made something of yourself had you been given an even start."

"I manage to keep myself living – minute by minute."

"Yes, you do. And it looks like you've just talked yourself into a few more hours of it."

Borrowed time. I done got it. It's all I ask, God. Just give me a bit of an edge and I'll cold grab at the rest.

Minutes later they were wading into the pool, Shad going ahead clutching the torn side of the brief case to his body, prodding the raft before him; Mr. Ferris following a little to the left with the. 38 trained on his back.

The water rose past Shad's knees and he placed the brief case on the raft and looked back at Mr. Ferris.

"What about my girl?"

Mr. Ferris shook his head.

"Better this way, don't you think?"

Shad stared at him, thinking. You cold little son-o-bitch. Then he nodded and started to lean half over the raft. Mr. Ferris waded up and carefully took a position with him. He held the gun at Shad's side. "No tricks now," he murmured.

Shad said nothing. They shoved off and began kicking and pawing their way through the golden-heart. A fat old soft-shelled turtle came tread-legging toward them and stopped abruptly to raise its reptilian head. It looked them over without expression and decided to sound. They were halfway across.

Shad saw what was trying its best to look like a log come drifting out of a tussock – just a few little woodish-looking knots poking above the surface and leaving an almost imperceptible wake. He glanced at Mr. Ferris.

"What's wrong?"

"Kink in my leg." He felt the. 38 dig him slightly.

"Don't get gay, Shad."

Shad wet his lips and started kicking again. When he looked toward the tussock he saw that the 'log' had vanished. It was one of those far-out gators, he thought apprehensively. One that didn't give a damn for man or battleship. He felt like a man who steps deliberately in the path of a car, hoping to be sideswiped slightly and collect damages, but loses his nerve at the last moment and leaps back to the curb. He started to call a warning to Mr. Ferris – but stalled.

It's my only chance. It's a purely poor edge to hinge my life to, but the only one I'm apt to get.

He clamped his mouth, looked around at the water. Where was the damn thing now? What if it was coming up from the bottom to chomp his legs? Fear tingled in his buttocks, and automatically he started to haul more of him onto the raft. Right away his end tipped down with a gurgle of incoming water.

"What are you trying to do?"

Shad looked wildly at Mr. Ferris. He wanted to say it was the kink in his leg again, but he couldn't get the words started. That damn thing was coming for them, he could feel it – coming with that shopping bag it used for a mouth wide open.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

Shad couldn't hold out. He started to say gator, but it was too late. The scut-shot gator reared straight from the bottom and slammed the underside of the raft.

Shad flew up and backwards, the concussion-slam of the raft like a cannon ball in his chest, and – turquoise sky spinning into green-falling jungle – heard the CA-PLAM! of the. 38, and then he struck the water, saw it crash in over his eyes all silvery, and then it was olive-green and he was turning in it, trying to find his equilibrium, vacuum packed and without au. and black bleary shapes were thrashing around him and something – maybe Mr. Ferris' foot -struck his left ear, ramming him farther down into the throbbing shadow, and he saw a torpedo-like form coming at him and knew it was the gator and there wasn't a thing he could do about it and – Something in his left hand – the brief case. The oncoming shadow was bigger, taller, the jaws opening at right angles to the body. Shad tried to scream and swung the brief case around instinctively and into the teeth-studded mouth; felt it rip away from him as he went spinning in the gator's compressible displacement; and he was shouting, He didn't take my hand! God let me still have my hand! And a part of him tried to send a message to the muscles of the hand to clinch or not to clinch, to confirm or deny; but his nervous system was all out of whack and nothing was getting through, and the rest of him was insane panic and it made him kick and thrash and got him up and out of there right now.

He hit the surface, lunging up to his armpits for air, and he grabbed at the sky without knowing it was silly then he settled again, treading, turning wildly about, looking, and twenty feet off saw the great thrashing gator tail whip up and slam down _slam p!_ at the pond, and just a rolling glint of the ivory-tied belly and incongruously – a small human hand widespread and clutching out of the welter of water. And then everything went under and Shad didn't give a damn because he was going all arms and legs for the bank. He went crawling, water-wheezing and gasping up the bank and sagged into a soggy heap of shot nerves. He felt like an old shirt that had been manhandled on a scrub board by a husky washerwoman. Then, remembering with a start he looked down at his left wrist to see if his hand was still along. He started giggling, a low pitched, ghastly sound and couldn't seem to stop.