The Swamp Searchers

Chapter II

He said nothing else to the girl as they crossed a clearing toward the house. Josie walked across a footlog that spanned a creek, waited for him to regain her side, gave him a smile that was more or less impersonal, crossed the packed earth of the yard, and opened the door of the house.

It was a structure of logs, rambling across the hillside. There were electric lights and a living room set in the front room. The place was clean, comfortable, and might have been the summer retreat of city folks.

“You can start a fire in the fireplace to dry out if you like,” Josie said. “I was just getting supper.”

She left him alone in the living room. There was wood laid in the fireplace and Barney found matches on the mantel. He touched fire to shavings, which caught and licked flame about the corncobs, which in turn threw flame against the heavier wood. The fire was beginning to crackle when Josie entered the living room again. She was carrying jeans, blue shirt, and a pair of brogans.

“These are pa’s, Mr. Loy. I don’t think he’d mind you wearing them until you dry yours. Supper on the table in ten minutes.”

She tossed the clothes on the overstuffed chair. Barney picked them up. “I’ve been thinking what you said about Bobo Hensley and Charlie. You got more than passing interest in it?”

“Bobo is my cousin. Lots of cousins in these parts, Mr. Loy.”

“The name is Barney,” he said almost angrily. “And for the record, I’m no cousin of Charlie’s. I’m just along for the ride and because I wasn’t able to make up my mind about that character at first. I was so sore at him I didn’t want him out of my sight, see? But I don’t want to be mixed up in no feud. You can just put the word out in your telegraph system that I like the fishing.”

She smiled. “I’ll do that for you. I’ve seen you on the lake, Barney. And around the village. I’ve wondered how come you keep company with that walking corpse fellow.”

She went out, and Barney pulled the blind and began climbing into her old man’s clothes. They had a clean, nice smell of strong soap. So she had seen him around the village. How in blazes could he have seen her and not have it register?

She served him com pone, hominy, thick slabs of fried ham, and collard greens. Halfway through the meal, thunder began to roll over the mountains and rain began to beat a lulling rhythm on the shingle roof. Barney ate until he was filled with a pleasant glow. He helped Josie stack the dishes in the kitchen sink. Rain was hammering against the windows now, and when she went back into the living room she stood with her back to the fire, and it made her very beautiful.

They were shut away here in a world all their own, and Barney took her in his arms and kissed her. Her lips were warm and sweet and her body flowed against his for a moment. She stepped back and Barney found himself gasping to breathe.

She slapped his face hard, though her features held no anger.

“You think I’m fresh, huh?” Barney said, holding his cheek. “You didn’t like that?”

“Maybe I did, but I’m just a helpless mountain girl and you shouldn’t try to take advantage of me.”

Barney wasn’t sure she was so helpless; he grinned, “Okay, so I was fresh — but I won’t apologize. You don’t apologize for something you enjoy very much.”

She was smiling again. She studied the rain pouring down the dark window. “You’ll get drenched. And you’d never find your way to the village or back to the boat dock in pitch darkness, 1 suppose you’ll have to stay here, at least till the rain stops. But you sit over there — and I’ll sit here.”

Barney took the chair she indicated, and she curled in the chair across the fireplace from him. Like a kitten. She asked a question or two and Barney found himself talking about himself. It was a new experience. He’d never been very talkative before, especially with dames. But he told her about little adventures he’d had as a kid, what life in the big town was like, and he found her a good listener.

The fire burned low, but the rain didn’t stop. Barney quit talking finally. She was sleepy-eyed. She yawned, said, “Looks like I’ll have to offer you the settee for the night.”

She rose, lifted down the rifle that hung on wooden pegs over the fireplace.

Barney gave the gun an askance look. He didn’t like guns. He said, “What’s that for?”

“Pa’s logging on Big Hickory.” Josie smiled. “This little fellow will have to stand in his place. Good night, Barney.”

She entered the bedroom, reappeared long enough to toss him a quilt with a crazy pattern and a pillow; then the door closed behind her and Barney heard it lock.

He rolled in the quilt, lay looking at the dying embers of the fire. He felt strangely young and happy. He went to sleep with a smile on his face.

Later he snapped awake, a feeling of alarm jolting through him. He didn’t know how long he had slept, or who was in the room with him. Maybe Pa had finished logging on Big Hickory. Mountaineer fathers and shotguns became an unpleasant correlation in Barney’s mind.

He stumbled off the sofa, watching the shadow over near the window, and bumped into the second man. Startled at the new presence, Barney threw a right, felt it connect, acting on the assumption that anyone who entered in this manner could be up to no good. There was a grunt; then a chunk of steel slapped the side of Barney’s head. He sat down on the floor so hard the house timbers groaned with the strain.

A switch clicked. A light flared up. Josie said, “Leave him alone, cousin!”

Barney took his hand away from the side of his bursting head. Sitting with his legs splayed, he saw Josie in the bedroom doorway, her face tight, the rifle in her hands. Shuffling away from the open window was Bobo Hensley. And just to Barney’s right, standing over him, was a big hillbilly with a black beard, black eyes, and an equally dark look on his face.

Bobo had never been pretty and a hundred-odd fights had made such a mass of cartilage of his face that he was something out of a nightmare. He was bald and had the lumpiest ears in the fight racket. He looked at Josie and said in a voice filled with gravel, “Be careful with that thing!”

“You be careful. Mr. Loy is a guest in this house. You ought to show a little mountain courtesy. The idea, breaking in this way.”

“Shucks,” Bobo said, “we didn’t mean evil. I just got to talk to Barney, is all.”

Bobo’s plaintive words and doleful expression caused Josie to lower the rifle. She came forward to help Barney back on the settee. She touched his hurt with gentle fingers.

Bobo came forward, offered his hand humbly. “Barney, it’s good to see you. This is Skip Merrill. Skip, you apologize to the man for hitting him.”

The big mountaineer slid his pistol in his overalls pocket, hooked his thumbs in his galluses, worried a cud of chewing tobacco in his stubbled paws, and looked Barney over. He didn’t seem to think Barney was so tough. “Reckon I can, at that. Apologies, Barney. Didn’t calculate to bop you. Just intended to make you quiet-like.”

Barney decided to let it pass. He didn’t like the faint sneer of contempt in Skip Merrill’s eyes. Merrill was fully as large as Barney and seemed to be thinking what a pleasure it would be to take this citified prize fighter apart just to show the boys up and down the cricks that he could do it.

I don’t think I’m gonna like Bobo’s pal, Barney thought.

Josie crooned over him and said she would get turpentine to take the soreness out of his lump.

Bobo watched Josie pat the pungent medicine on Barney’s head. Bobo blinked his eyes now and then. He shifted his gaze to Barney’s face. “I saw you on Sanloosa when you hit the log. Saw you meet Cousin Josie. We kind of ambled up this way, and been waiting in Pa Calhoun’s barn until we decided you wasn’t coming out tonight.”

Bobo licked his lips. His eyes were worried. Barney found himself feeling sorry for Bobo, remembering little favors Bobo had done him, the way Bobo, in Barney’s comer, always seemed to suffer every punch that landed on Barney’s face or body.

“Look,” Bobo said, “Charlie Collins being down here has kind of got me pinned down.”

“You took his twenty grand?”

Bobo nodded. “I’m gonna level with you, Barney. I had to have that money. I need it like a bass fish needs his scales. I need to use it in a hurry, for something extra special. So I got to get Charlie out of my hair.”

Here it comes, Barney thought, the pitch.

“Tell you what,” Bobo said in his halting tone, “I don’t want to see anybody getting hurt, even that skunk Charlie. What I’ve got to do won’t take all the money. I’ll make a deal, split with Charlie.”

It seemed to Barney to be rather cockeyed reasoning. He said, “You will make a deal with Charlie — for Charlie’s money?”

Bobo said seriously, “I figure Charlie owes me that money. You don’t know Charlie like I do. He sold me short all down the line. He sold me for the quickest buck. I might be fighting even yet if Charlie had handled me different.”

Barney studied Bobo’s ugly, sad face. Barney was willing to concede a certain point. Charlie would have a tough time collecting the dough from Bobo through legal channels. Possession here seemed to be ten points of ownership.

It was anybody’s dough, under the present setup. Hell, Barney thought, I’ve got as much right to it as anybody. I’m the guy who took the beating for the dough.

The thought angered him. But he kept his mind on Bobo and Charlie. “What’s your deal?”

“I’ll give Charlie back half the dough,” Bobo said, “if he’ll promise to get out of these hills and not make any trouble. Otherwise he’ll get all the trouble he’s asking for, and I’ll keep all the money.”

Bobo stood up, moved toward the door, Skip Merrill a sardonic shadow beside him.

Barney said, “Leah wants to get out of here.”

“That Leah,” Bobo said.

Skip Merrill grinned; he had broken, yellow teeth. “Some babe. What kind of playmate is she, Loy?”

Barney looked at him levelly. “She’s warmer than a kewpie doll,” he admitted. “But Charlie ain’t. He’s got ice in his veins. He may not want to leave so bad. I don’t think he’ll take your deal, Bobo.”

“Maybe I got a way of forcing the deal,” Bobo said darkly.

Barney studied Bobo’s face again. Bluff or bravado wouldn’t work in this setup. He saw neither in Bobo’s face.

“You just do me this one favor, Barney,” Bobo said. “We’ve always been friends, but I won’t sponge on friendship any further. Just outline the deal to Charlie, see if you can help swing it, and meet me tomorrow night just after moon-rise at the cabin on the point overlooking Little Sanloosa. You can’t miss the place. Meantime, Skip and me will locate the boat you lost and fetch it back to the dock.”

“I don’t want to be dragged into this,” Barney told him. “But I’ll run this one errand.”

“I told Skip you would. Maybe a little pressure will fix things so that we can iron out the details tomorrow night.”

Bobo and Skip went out. Josie stood by the fireplace, very pensive. “That Leah, Barney — is she really such a... warm playmate?”

Barney looked at Josie’s trim back and grinned. “She’s got a bucket of hot coals where most dames carry their hearts.”

Josie whirled on him, and Barney’s face went stiff. His kidding had misfired. Josie had tears brimming in her eyes.

Barney reached out, his face contrite, his mouth open to try to say something soothing.

“Don’t you touch me, you big hunk of overgrown muscle! Cousin Bobo has done nothing but give you a build-up every time your name was mentioned. But now I believe Bobo really is punch drunk.”

She picked up that rifle again, marched into the bedroom, and slammed the door. Barney let his hand drop and closed his mouth. He felt terrible. He hadn’t known Josie long, but he wanted to know her a lot better. A crazy kind of dream was beginning to stir in the nethermost parts of his mind.

He sat on the settee. But he wasn’t sleepy any longer. The rain had stopped. Moonlight was filtering through the window. He might as well go back to the cottage in the village.

“Cripes,” he muttered, “but I feel lousy.”

Leah cooked breakfast the next morning, scrambled eggs and scorched bacon. She shoved the food before Barney and Charlie, sat down at the end of the table, and poured herself a drink from the bottle of bourbon she had set out.

Charlie, who had the physique of a scarecrow, hunched his shoulders and picked up a fork. “Lay off that stuff, baby. It’s not a healthy breakfast.”

Leah looked out over the silent mountains and shivered. “Why don’t you take a running jump in the lake? You can’t find Bobo Hensley, and you’re not man enough to take the twenty grand from him if you did.”

Charlie’s thin hands began to shake. “You let me find Bobo and I’ll get the dough,” he said. “I’ve dealt with tougher characters before.”

“Big talk — and meantime we rot. I don’t see what I ever tied onto you for.”

“A meal ticket, baby. Just like your first husband.”

“We’ll leave my first husband out of this,” Leah said, splashing a second drink into her glass. “He was more of a man than you’ll ever be.”

“Maybe I ought to punch you one,” Charlie threatened, “and show you just how much of a man I am.”

This, Barney thought, can go on indefinitely.

“I saw Bobo last night,” he said.

Charlie dropped his fork and Leah spilled her whiskey.

“You... you get the dough?” Charlie asked. He tried to laugh. The sound was forced, patronizing, and it sickened Barney. “You wouldn’t hold out on me, Barney?”

Barney whittled Charlie down with his gaze. What a prize sap I was ever to hook up with this character, Barney thought. But Charlie could be plenty smooth when he wanted to be. Smarter boys than Barney had been taken in by him. Barney guessed there were two Charlies, really, the one who put on the suave front and this other one who had begun to be revealed when the money disappeared.

“You really think Bobo would hand over that money to me?” Barney asked.

Charlie’s thin face grew glum. “No, I guess not. Bobo have anything to say to me?”

“He wants to make a deal.”

Leah stiffened on the edge of her chair, lynx-eyed. Charlie laid down his fork with an elaborate motion. “A deal?”

“Bobo says he will split the money.”

Charlie cracked his colorless lips in a mirthless laugh. “Some boy, Bobo. What does he take me for?”

“I told him you wouldn’t do it.”

“Did I say I wouldn’t?”

Barney studied Charlie’s face. Charlie had something up his sleeve. Barney felt a tremor of fear for Bobo pass through him.

Charlie flung his arms wide in a charitable gesture. “I don’t mind living and letting live, Barney. Where do I meet Bobo?”

“I meet him first,” Barney said. “Tonight.”

“Arrange things for me, pal, and we’ll all be one happy family again.”

“Yeah,” Barney said. He watched Charlie turn to Leah. That calculating expression in Leah’s eyes didn’t change. She knew Charlie was up to something but she couldn’t figure what.

“See, baby,” Charlie told her, “we’ll be getting out of here before long now, and I’ll give you a grand to buy a new winter coat.”

Still chortling, Charlie left the cottage to buy some cigarettes in the village. Leah watched him walk down the path out of sight; then she tossed off her drink. She got up to move around closer to Barney; she was a very delectable image in shorts and halter.

“Thanks, Barney, for trying to fix things.”

She poured herself another drink, offered the bottle to Barney, and sat looking at him. Her lips were ripe, red, and glistening wet. She was bored stiff and Barney knew he could kiss her if he wanted to.

“I didn’t try to fix anything,” he said. “I ran into Bobo by accident, through a little cousin of his who lives four or five miles this side of the boat dock.”

She laughed. “Female cousin, Barney?”

He nodded, said seriously, “It ain’t over yet, Leah. Not by a long shot. Charlie won’t go around handing out ten thousand dollars.”

“I know. I had the same feeling — that he’s planning something. I think he intends to meet Bobo, throw down on him with a gun, and take all of the money.”

“Well, he’d better be careful. This is Bobo’s country, his league. He’s running with a tough sidekick named Skip Merrill. Something powerful is driving Bobo to keep that dough. I had the feeling he intends to keep it, even if he has to kill for it.”

Her green eyes darkened. “He sounds determined.”

“He’s got just one thought in those scrambled brains — to keep at least half the dough. When Bobo grabs an idea like that, nothing will cause him to let go.”

She leaned toward Barney. “Then,” she said, a huskiness slipping into her tone, “it’s still partly up to you, Barney. You got to fix it so we can get out of here. You can do it, acting as middle man.”

“I don’t like the sound of that phrase, middle man. I don’t want any part of this setup.”

Her smile came, slow and liquid. She moved her lips close. “Even for me?”

“I think,” Barney said, “I’d better go fishing.”