Robert Edmon Alter - Swamp Sister

SWAMPSISTER

byRobert Edmond Alter

Copyright1966 by Robert Edmond Alter

Allrights reserved under International and Pan-American CopyrightConventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, adivision of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously inCanada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originallypublished by Fawcett Publications, Inc. in 1966.

FirstVintage Crime/Black Lizard Edition, March 1993

ISBN0-679-74442-8

ToIrene and Ret, to Max, Larry, and Helen

andto Vereen Bell

prologue

Thecypresses stood up from the marshy prairies. Straight up from thesurface covering of water lettuce and the runty elderberry shrubs,until their tall mossdraped arms flickered silver in the sun againstthe vast spread of turquoise sky, like the walls and roof of a greatgreenhouse, covering and protecting in its sullen warm shadows amyriad of dank growth and crawling activity.

Butto the pilot sitting behind the puttering motor, it was like a giantspider web awaiting a crippled fly.

Themotor of the Piper Cub had been acting like a cranky child ever sincethe plane had come over the swamp region, and there wasn't a thingthe pilot could do about it. He looked at the instrument panel -- theglass dials that were the visible nerve ends of the ship, the scorepad of her metabolism. Everything was quivering.

Andin that instant the motor konked out completely. He looked at thepanel again, like a magician searching through his bag of tricks.Then he looked out the window and watched the swamp coming up at himfast. Too fast.

Andtoo close. _Can't jump_. He snapped the switch and the plane wentinto a glide.

Thenhe felt a hand on his back and even though he'd been expecting it, hestarted.

"Whatis it?" an urgent, already-frightened voice insisted in his ear."Why has the motor stopped?"

Thepilot shook his head, watching the green roof of the swamp.

"Masterrod froze, I guess. I dunno. Shut up, huh? I got enough grief."

Thehand beat an impatient tattoo on his leather-covered shoulder.

"Well,but what are you going to do about it? I mean, my God, aren't yougoing to correct the trouble? Is it bad?"

Thepilot had to grin even though it hurt his cheeks.

"Wantme to step out on the nose cone with my wrench?" he asked, thenforgot about the frightened man.

Hewondered why he hadn't used his head when he was a kid. Why he hadn'tbecome a deep-sea diver, or a mountarn dynamiter, or a secret agent.Something soft where I get it fast. But not this.

Ashis mind leaped along idiotically, trying desperately to shove backthe cold fear with tough-boy talk, he was busy with the wheel, tryingto correct his glide, grimly looking at the unstable landscape for aclearing.

Ifyou're unlucky you don't die right away. You get to kick aroundinside the wreck for a while, with your clothes and skin on fire andyour hip bones shoved up into your stomach. Why wasn't there aclearing?

Hefelt very badly, sensed that this was one time he wasn't going towalk away. And the prescience, he knew, sprang from the vast ruggedswamp. It was endless, stretched as far as the eye could see.

Whatif they did get down in one piece? How would they get out? Who couldfind them? But I'll take it! I'll take the goddam alligators andwater moccasins and quicksand. I'll take a month of it. No, a year --if that'll make You happy. God, I'll take it!

Andit annoyed him too, that he had to die with a louse like Hartog, thepayroll agent sitting on the jump seat behind him. He knew it was asilly thing to think about, but couldn't help it. His mind was likethat. A man shouldn't have to die with a guy he didn't like orrespect. Him and his goddam floozies he's gonna have in Jacksonville-- was gonna have, Willy boy. Was.

ThePiper was planing steeply now, too steep. But maybe there would be alake beyond the cypress barrier ahead. Well, maybe beyond the nextone. God, let there be something open beyond the next one.

Butthere wasn't. The cypress, cabbage palm, sycamores reached up,fluttering, nodding in a zephyr, as though in accord with theinevitable, coming to them like a speeding gift from God.

Hartog,leaning forward, the brief case with the small fortune in it clutchedtightly in his damp hands, was watching the swamp also. His eyes,bulged and staring, were incongruous with the narrow shape of hishead and face. He was feeling what Willy, the pilot, was feeling,perhaps differently, but feeling it. For the first time in his lifehe was facing something that was totally inexorable.

"How--" The first word gagged in his throat, but he kept at itdoggedly. "-- How bad will it be if we hit?"

"Likean egg against a brick wall."

Hartog'slids stretched over his swollen eyes. God. He'd been in an autoaccident once when the car had been doing fifty. Everyone said it wasa miracle he lived through it. Two others hadn't. And that had costhim three painful months in the hospital under morphine and Demerol.Like an egg -- Did that mean he wouldn't be able to meet Milly inJacksonville? Then a half-conscious stab of contrition touched him.He shouldn't think of Mily at a time like this. There was Doris, hiswife, for a moment his irrational brain confused the two. He wassaying Doris' name, but seeing Milly's long nyloned legs -- thenylons he'd brought her on the last trip, with the black toes andheels and black seam running up to black tops.

No,no! He raged in backwash of helplessness, fear and shame. Doris -- ohGod, Doris. I do love you. I --.

Hiseyes darted to the window, saw the earth quite close, vague andturtle-green, scampering underneath.

Anew, very personal thought struck him and he cried out against it. MyGod! I'm only thirty-seven! You can't take all that away from me!

Exactlywhat the "all that" was--whether the fifteen years ofcomplacent domesticity with Doris his wife, or the motel-room orgieswith Mily and her long nyloned legs-- he never had a chance toexplain to God.

Thepilot screamed LOOKOUT! and seemed to fly forward. Beyond the pilot'smoving black shape was nothing but a whirling green blur. Hartog felthimself rise to meet the pilot, speeding toward the green windshield.It was the longest trip he ever made.

partone

ShadHark had left the river early that morning, striking a north-eastcourse along a shadowy, still, cypressbordered slough. He wasstanding aft in his small skiff, stobbing the dark stagnant waterwith the stobpole. Overhead, Spanish moss hung from the branches,long and hairy, fluttering.

"Likea crowd of simple old men, rubbing their beards and a-giggling over adirty story," he said.

Ifthe coon and otter hunting turned against him, he'd get himself along pole and go into the moss-collecting business. The harvest hecould sell to furniture manufacturers for stuffing sofas and chairs.It wasn't lucrative but would keep body and soul together.

Aball-bodied, stork-legged limpkin, with a white and black neck like acharred log, went limp-hop-limp-hop out on a petrified log andsabered its long bill into the shallows to snap up a hunchbackedsnail. With a bob of its head it placed the future meal in a crackalong the upper side of the log and looked up to blink at Shad. Itlet out a loud, false cry.

Shadgrinned good-naturedly. "Git on, you old phony. Go at tofrighten some coloured mammy. I know you."

Thelimpkin, sensing no danger from the distant man, turned its attentionback to the snail with bright-eyed patience. Slowly the snail relaxedand opened its trap door. Instantly the long bill flashed down andnipped the living meat, shook it loose from its house.

Shadworked the skiff around a low tussock of water grass and cursed whenhe saw a dense cloud of mosquitoes form in agitation. They came athim persistently, their tinny threads of sound humming in his ears.He did some slapping, damaging his ears and cheeks more than themosquitoes, then got out of there.