The Swamp Searchers

Chapter III

That night a pale moon poured cream over the hills, threw shadows into the valleys and coves, and turned to silver reflections in the dark water of the lake. During the day Barney had recessed from his fishing long enough to cruise slowly from the boat dock to Little Sanloosa and back again. He wanted to make the trip by water and needed the certainty that he could navigate in the darkness. He had also spotted the tumbledown, deserted shack above Little Sanloosa. He hadn’t seen the house at first, but after he’d cruised into the cove he’d picked it out of the trees, an ivy covered mass of logs blending with the hillside.

Now, with the moonlight at his back, he cut the kicker and stood in the boat as it drifted toward the bank. It bumped gently. Barney went over the prow with the line in his hand. His feet slipped on the dark, slick mud. He snubbed the line about a stump just above the water line. Then he started up the hillside.

Frogs and crickets sang lullabies; but Barney’s nerves refused to be soothed. He struck the brush line and waded through brambles, muttering darkly. He was sweating by the time he came out of the brush into the clearing where the tumble-down cabin stood.

He paused a moment at the edge of the clearing. From his hip pocket he slipped the jack handle he’d picked up in an idle moment today. He wasn’t really anticipating trouble; but with twenty thousand dollars floating around he didn’t feel it wise to take too many chances.

The cabin was dark and seemed to be deserted. The front door was standing crookedly, hanging by one rusty hinge. There was a strong earthy smell inside the cabin.

Moonlight filtered feebly through the cracked window, touching a paleness over an old stone fireplace, a broken-down table and bench. Barney’s body was blocking a part of the moonlight; and when he shifted, he saw Bobo.

He caught his breath and the jack handle fell from his fingers. Bobo was sitting on the floor of the cabin, his shoulders sagging against the wall. A crimson well had been opened through a jagged wound in his hairy neck.

Barney fought about four impulses at once. To run. To yell for help. To shut his eyes, and tell himself this wasn’t true. To see if anything could be done for Bobo.

Given a second to steady himself, Barney knew there was really no decision to be made. He dropped on his knees at Bobo’s side. Bobo was his friend, and it lumped Barney’s throat and made him very mad to see him hurt like this. He was a big, dumb clunk, but he’d never done anything to deserve this.

Barney jerked out his handkerchief to make an effort at stemming the flow of blood. It was already becoming a coagulated mess on Bobo’s neck. It didn’t seem that he could help any. He already looked dead.

Then there was a twitch of Bobo’s lids, and his eyes opened. They were glazed, the pupils wide and dark with shock and fear.

“It’s me, Bobo,” Barney said gently. He saw some of the wild terror leave Bobo’s eyes.

“The money, Barney... Get Josie to take you to Cold Slough.”

The words were stretched out and took great effort. Bobo closed his eyes again and Barney decided to get him in a more comfortable position and run like crazy for help, a telephone, a doctor.

Before Barney could move him, Bobo coughed bloody froth. He opened his eyes once more; they were filled with some kind of message. And Barney knew that he couldn’t help him now. Neither could he fathom the message in his eyes.

“Murder, Barney,” Bobo gurgled. “Strictly murder...” He kept right on talking, but it was silent talk, just a movement of his lips. Maybe he thought he was shouting it. The message seemed to leave his eyes. But he wasn’t making a sound, and Barney couldn’t read lips. Then Bobo burped, like a baby, almost, and fresh blood spilled over his lips.

Bobo died. Barney saw the light go out of his eyes; then Barney sat back on his haunches and discovered a hot feeling in his eyes that might mean tears. He thought about the time he’d known Bobo and what a friendly lug he had always been. Then frustration began roiling in Barney as he realized that Bobo had not only labeled his death as murder but had gone ahead to tell the who, how, and why of it. Only it had been the silent talk of the dead, the talk of a man in whom the fighting instinct had tried to operate until the last.

Barney eased Bobo to a sitting position and folded the large, heavy hands across the great barrel structure of chest. Then Barney rose, slid the small flashlight out of his hip pocket and played it over the room.

Near Bobo he found the gun, a secondhand thirty-eight revolver. He decided he’d never seen the gun before. It could belong to anybody.

He stepped to the door of the cabin, switching off the flashlight. He smelled the odor of earthy perspiration before he heard the quick shuffle of a foot. He started his body about in a spin. Halfway around, the blow caught him on the side of the head. A great light bloomed in his brain, and he saw the large shadow moving out from its hiding spot outside the door jamb. Then the light went out, leaving nothing but a black void.

At last into the void began to filter sensation, which was anything but unpleasant. Barney had the grandfather of headaches. A hand was on his shoulder, shaking him.

He said, “Lemme alone!”

A light played like fire against his closed lids. The hand shook him again. He remembered Bobo, and he opened his eyes.

A Coleman lantern was hissing softly, throwing a glaring white light over the moss-grown interior of the cabin. Barney rolled his head. Charlie and Leah were here; and there stood Josie, looking down at him and biting her lip.

Barney had never seen the man who held the lantern. He was a huge individual with shoulders that sloped off into an elephantine stomach. He wore no coat, and his shirt sleeves were rolled halfway up his thick, hairy forearms. Barney saw the gleaming star pinned just over the shirt pocket. With a sinking sensation that almost overpowered his headache, he lifted his gaze to the man’s face. It was a heavy, cruel face with thick lips, sagging jowls, fleshy nose, cold gray eyes; the creased forehead slid off to become a bald pate.

Josie knelt at Barney’s side. She touched his sore head and managed a wan grin. “Looks like I need the turpentine bottle again. Barney, this is Sheriff Tyne Conover. Tell him what happened. He thinks you killed Bobo.”

“I was slugged,” Barney managed.

“Yeah?” Tyne Conover said. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Right sure you didn’t get in a hurry to get out of the place, trip over that old stick of firewood there and slam your head against the door jamb?”

“I was slugged,” Barney repeated. “Period. By a creature on two legs I wouldn’t hardly call human.”

“And how about the money?” Conover demanded.

“What money?”

“Don’t play dumb.” Conover glanced at Charlie; then he wrapped Leah in a very appreciative gaze. “These folks say you was to meet Bobo here in regard to a little matter of some money he stole. When you became pretty long overdue, they set out to find a cousin of Bobo’s you’d mentioned. Josie, naturally, she being the only female cousin of Bobo’s living four or five miles from the boat dock where you said. They figured Josie might know where you and Bobo were to meet. She knew, all right. She heard Bobo tell you the spot, but she wouldn’t bring ’em here alone. She fetched me, and look what we found.”

Just look, Barney thought. I don’t want to. I never wanted in this setup in the first place.

“Barney,” Josie said, a sob in her voice, “I never reckoned on finding what we did. Or I’d never have brought Tyne into it. At least I’d have given you a chance to run.”

Barney felt cold sweat breaking on him. There stood Leah and Charlie both damning him with their eyes. And there was Tyne Conover looking ready to lick his chops. And here was Josie not believing he’d killed Bobo, but knowing that her belief wasn’t worth a plugged nickel.

“No need of wasting any more time,” Conover said. “I’ll let you cool your heels in my jail. It’ll go easier with you if you tell me where the money is.”

“I didn’t kill Bobo and I wasn’t looking for the money!”

“That’s your tale?”

Barney nodded. “And I’ll keep right on telling it.”

Conover helped him to his feet, snapped handcuffs on his wrists. Barney looked at the cuffs and a coldness seeped into the bottom of his stomach. Josie was looking at the handcuffs too. She pressed herself against Barney. She was very slim, warm — and trembling. Conover said, “Stand aside girl.”

“If I had pa’s rifle, you’d never take him, Sheriff.”

“I don’t like that kind of talk! You get yourself along home!”

Charlie fidgeted from one foot to the other. Barney looked at him, said hoarsely, “Get me a lawyer, Charlie!”

“Sure,” Charlie said. “A lawyer for the guy who steals my dough?”

Barney looked at him and Charlie backed up a step, even if Barney was wearing handcuffs. “Okay,” Charlie said, “I’ll get a lawyer. I’ll help you out of this jam if I can. But I won’t forget it, Barney!”

The next day Leah came to jail to visit Barney. Tyne Conover came to the cell to announce her presence. The jail was in the rear of a rambling frame building; there were two other cells, though Barney was the only occupant at the moment.

Conover’s eyes wanned as he watched Leah walk into the cell. Conover licked his lips and his gaze didn’t miss a movement of Leah’s body. She was wearing a sun-backed yellow dress today, and it added humidity to an already hot day.

Conover stood in the cell doorway a moment, just looking at her. She turned, gave him a smile, and he hitched his pants and his chest swelled a trifle. “You need anything, just call out,” he requested.

“I’ll do that,” Leah said.

Conover closed the iron-barred door. Leah looked about the barren cell, at its single lumpy bunk and scabby walls. She crinkled her nose, lighted a cigarette. “How goes it, Barney?”

“Lousy.” Barney stood looking at the sinking sun through the single window; he turned back to Leah. “This Conover yegg ain’t going to strain himself working. He found a body. He found a fall guy on the scene with — he thinks — a twenty-thousand dollar motive. He found a gun and sent it over to the county seat, and it has my fingerprints on it, naturally, since I picked it up when I watched Bobo die. It’s neat, cut and dried, and Conover is patting himself on the back.”

Leah sat on the edge of the bunk, crossed her legs, and rested her elbow on her knee. “What can be done for you, Barney?”

“I dunno. But I know one thing. I’m going to keep screaming. I’m going to yell my head off. I know my rights. I’ll make Conover keep looking, one way or another. There were other visitors at that cabin last night, Leah. Just wait until I get a lawyer. Where in blazes is the lawyer anyhow?”

She shrugged. “Charlie went into the county seat this morning. Conover got there ahead of him. Nobody much seems to want the case.”

“They can’t do it to me!” Barney was aware of panic slipping into his voice. Down here in these hills, the native populace determined what could or could not be done. He felt as if a web were tightening about his chest.

Leah glanced at the corridor outside the cell door. She turned her gaze back to Barney. “Too bad you’re not out of here.”

“Yeah. What do I do? Dissolve the bars with spit?”

“There might be a way.”

“You tell me.”

She smiled. “And make myself a party to a jail break? You’re not too dumb to grab your opportunities, Barney, without having everything put to you in spades.”

She moved to the cell door, called, “Sheriff Conover...”

He appeared in the corridor, walked back to the cell, opened the door. He had a pistol in his hand to cover Barney. Leah gave Barney just one flick of her eyes, and he felt the hackles rise on his neck as she looked at Conover. Barney guessed what she’d meant when she spoke of opportunities.

She gave Conover a strong dose of come-on with those green eyes and he began to grin. She moved to the cell doorway, worried the button on his open shirt collar between her fingers, and slugged him with her smile.

“Barney is very good friend, Sheriff. You wouldn’t mind if I brought him something to eat?”

“Course not.”

“And maybe you and I — just the two of us — could talk over Barney’s case?” “Yeah, and there might be even more interesting conversation,” Conover suggested with a leer.

“How you do talk!” Leah laughed. It was a warm sound, and Conover responded to it and her warm nearness. He couldn’t help looking at her, and his gun shifted a little, and Barney moved. Conover just had time to start swinging the gun up and get a shout formed in his throat when Barney buried a left in the soft midsection. Conover doubled over, dropping the gun and grabbing his paunch. Barney straightened him with a right to the jaw that laid him on the floor in a state of utter unconsciousness.

“Cripes,” Leah breathed. “You didn’t need to try to break his neck!”

“I haven’t hurt him. He’ll come around in a few minutes. You’d better stick here and let him think you brought him to.”

Leah stared at Conover as if she believed it impossible for a man to be so immobilized by two punches. Barney shook her shoulder until the dazed, blank expression faded from her face. He bent, took Conover’s gun.

“Give me ten minutes,” Barney said. “When he comes around, tell him what a tough time you had bringing him out of it. Just stroke his cheek a time or two and he’ll forget to consider you might have had anything to do with it.”

He left her standing there looking at Conover with a certain distaste on her face.

The rear door of the jail building opened on an alley. It was deserted. Barney slipped outside. The alley joined a dirt road that wandered up the mountainside, the village lying below. He ducked back in the alley when he heard the rattle of a pickup truck. The truck passed, leaving a heavy dust pall. Barney moved in the midst of the dust, crossed the road, and gained the brush above the road.

Under a tree, he paused long enough to let a breath out of his lungs and take his bearings. Below him the jail, a few stores, houses, and a movie theater where pictures were shown twice a week. Above him the silence of the mountains, still a trifle frightening to Barney. Off yonder in the distance, the sparkling jewel of the lake. But this Cold Slough that Bobo had mentioned — Barney hadn’t any idea where it was.

He moved like he was doing road work, with a tireless, mile-eating gait, along a path that led toward the upper reaches of the mountain. Right now he wanted only to put distance between himself and Conover.

He tried to keep his thoughts away from Conover. The sheriff might even shoot him on sight, now. The thought of bloodhounds occurred to him. He’d never seen a bloodhound, but he’d read plenty of stories about them. It gave a guy the creeps to think of being chased by those big, hungry creatures. They didn’t give up, but kept coming, on and on, their baying like a trumpet note of doom. Then they ran a man until he was crazy with fear and exhaustion. And finally they closed in on him.

Escaped cons always chose streams to shake bloodhounds, and just on the chance that Conover would use dogs, Barney found a creek and waded it until he was limp with exhaustion.