by Sean Black
Cressida tried to keep hold with her right hand, and use it to haul herself up.
The hard wooden butt came down again. It smashed into her other hand. She lost her grip entirely this time, and slid down, back into the water.
Her head went under. Panicked, she inhaled a lungful of water, arms flailing wildly.
There were shapes at the edge of her vision in every direction now. It looked almost like a shoal of large fish filling the pond. Only they weren’t fish. They were ’gators.
Looking across, she saw Lyle’s body about twelve feet to her left, barely on the surface. A huge ’gator moved in, took one of his legs in its jaws, and pulled his body down into the pond.
Some of the other ’gators flicked their powerful tails, making their way towards the body, as the ’gator that had him went deeper and deeper, rolling over and over, its belly flashing white every second or so. The death roll continued. Another gator ’darted in to grab at one of Lyle’s arms, setting off a fresh rush from some of the others who had been warily circling.
Cressida struck out, back towards the boat. A black shape closed in on her. She could see its teeth. At the very last second it changed direction, and dove down to join the frantic fight over the newly arrived spoils. Its tail slammed into her as it moved past, winding her.
She surfaced for a split second. The boat was moving away, the propeller turning slowly. If it left without her, she was dessert. That much she did know. Except “dessert” didn’t fully capture the horror of how she’d live her last moments.
Reaching her hand over her head, she began to front crawl as fast as she could for the back of the boat. She kept going, knowing that at any moment jaws could clamp around one of her legs and take her down to the limestone bottom to join Lyle.
She settled into something approaching a rhythm, closing in on the boat. There was no propeller below the water to slice her up. If she could reach the back of it, maybe she could find something to hold onto. She could tow behind it and hope that the noise of the airboat’s propeller would be enough to keep the ’gators at a safe distance.
As her head once again cleared the surface, she saw the stern of the boat pulling away as it headed back towards the channel. It was pulling away faster than she could swim.
70
As the scooped bow of their boat cleared the channel, Ty saw Mimsy, atop another airboat heading towards them. She steered with one hand. In her other, she held a shotgun.
Her eyes went wide with surprise as she saw them. She took her hand from the stick, took the shotgun in both hands, and swung the barrel toward them.
“Threat!” screamed Ty, as she pulled the trigger and the echo of the shotgun boomed around the pond.
RJ ducked down as her shot whistled overhead.
Ty’s SIG cleared his holster. He clambered toward the bow, duck-walking low, and scanning the other airboat for any sign of Cressida. He couldn’t see her, but he didn’t have the best angle. She could be lying down. If he returned fire, he couldn’t afford to aim wildly. He’d have to pick his shots with care, and allow for the wash from the other boat as it headed for the channel.
Thankfully for him, Mimsy was up top, sitting on the pilot’s seat.
Ty topped his head above the bow, took a two-handed grip on his gun, and squeezed the trigger. The shot slammed into the bottom of the chair where Mimsy was sitting, sending shards of metal sparking across the deck.
Ty ducked down, and scooted across on his butt. He doubted a fiberglass hull had many ballistic resistant qualities. At the end of the day they were floating in a huge plastic bathtub with a propeller strapped to the back, not an Amphibious Assault Vehicle, like the ones Ty had used in the Corps.
Ty twisted round. RJ had climbed down from his seat, and taken cover with one hand so he could steer. “Bring us alongside her,” Ty shouted to him.
“Are you crazy?” RJ screamed back at him.
Ty treated the question as rhetorical.
“Ty!” shouted RJ, jabbing a finger at the pond.
“What is it?”
“Look!”
Ty popped his head back up, and tried to see where RJ was frantically pointing. All he saw at first were ’gators. Everywhere. At the sides, and swarming to a part of the pond where the green duckweed had been replaced by a bloody slick of deep scarlet.
“No,” RJ hollered. “There! There!”
Ty looked ten feet to his left. Someone was in the water. He could see their head, bobbing on the surface. Their arm came up above their head for a second. Then both arm and head disappeared under the surface as more ’gators slid into the pond.
Mimsy’s boat was almost parallel to them, separated by no more than thirty feet of open water. Ty whipped round to see Mimsy, back on the seat, taking one more shot.
It slammed into the lip of their boat on the port side, taking out a chunk. She threw down the shotgun, and kept moving, accelerating towards the channel opening.
Ty stood up, and took off his boots. He held up his SIG, holding it by the short metal barrel and tossed it to RJ. RJ caught it one-handed.
Ty scooted his legs over the side of the boat.
“You see any ’gator heading for me, turn the asshole into a handbag and a pair of boots,” he said, diving into the cold water.
71
Ty pushed off the boat with his feet, and struck out for where he had seen her go under. He took a couple of strokes, and surfaced. He couldn’t see anyone. He looked back to the boat. RJ had taken up his position at the bow, the SIG in his hand, scanning for approaching ’gators.
He dove underneath. The water was clear. He could make out what seemed to be a human shape over to his left, legs paddling frantically. Beyond her was a mass of ’gators, swimming past each other, and diving back and forth between the bottom and the surface. A cone of blood blossomed in the water at the center of them.
Ty swam for her, using his broad powerful shoulders to power through the water. A bullet fizzed through the water beyond him. He saw a ’gator that must have been heading straight for him zigzag off in a change of direction.
Too many more of those, too long in the water, and RJ would be out of ammunition and Ty would be out of luck.
He came up and gulped a deep breath. He dove back under, figuring that staying beneath the surface was the safer option.
He kept moving, finding his stride, parting the water with his big hands, and putting his back and shoulders into it.
Getting closer, he could make out Cressida, eyes closed, leaking blood into the water, her hair fanning out in every direction. He looked for air bubbles coming from her mouth or nose but couldn’t see any.
Another shot fizzed, this time off to his right where a much larger beast was floating on the surface. This one didn’t move.
Ty came up, took two gulps of air, and went back down. Dolphin-kicking with his legs together, he coasted for a few feet, then spread his arms out to quicken his pace.
Up ahead he could see that she was slowly sinking.
His lungs were bursting, but there was no time to surface. Doubling down, he pushed on, moving into a breaststroke to power himself faster through the water, diving down a few more feet so that he could come up under her.
A shadow fell over him and his heart jolted with a fresh shot of adrenalin. He twisted his torso, looking up to see the outline of the airboat passing overhead.
Two more strokes, and he reached her close enough to touch. He kicked out, grabbing hold of one of her legs. She made a sound, and kicked out with her other leg, catching him hard in the head.
He moved up her body, wrapped one arm around her slender waist, and kicked for the surface as she continued to struggle free.
They made the surface together, both gasping for air. He looked around for the boat. Just as he was starting to panic, he saw it.
RJ hung over the side, the gun still in his hand. Ty lifted Cressida as best he could. She was spluttering water, panting for air. RJ reached over, and ma
naged to grab one of her arms. With Ty pushing, he managed to haul her up, clear of the water, over the side, and onto the boat.
Ty trod water, scanning the immediate area as RJ got Cressida settled. The ’gators were still swarming, the blood pooling ever outwards, diluting from scarlet to pink.
This was the first chance he’d had to take in where he was. If you wanted to get rid of someone, this would be the place to pick. Unfortunately Mimsy would be halfway down the channel by now and, if she had any sense, booking it back to Darling as fast as she could.
Ty had plans for the mayor. But they all relied on him not having his legs bitten off by a frenzied ’gator in the next few minutes. His mind floated to the speech in Jaws, where the gnarled old fisherman tells the story about the USS Indianapolis sinking and the crew being eaten by sharks, and how the worst part was just before you were rescued.
Roger that, mother––
“Ty!”
His name had never sounded sweeter. He turned back. RJ reached down, grabbed his hand and gave him the boost he needed to clear the smooth surface, and get back on board.
“I thought black folks weren’t much at swimming,” said RJ.
Ty smiled, swinging his legs up and over the side. “We are when a ’gator’s about to chew us a new asshole. Anyway, I’ve been taking lessons in case I wanted to re-enlist. SEALs get all the glory, these days.”
Cressida was lying on her side in the recovery position. Ty crouched next to her. “How’s she doing?” he asked RJ.
“Well, she’s breathing. That’s a start.”
As he said it, Cressida made a gagging noise akin to a cat expelling a hairball, and vomited noisily over the deck.
“I’ll sit with her. Can you please get us the hell out of here?”
72
A welcoming committee of a dozen sheriff’s deputies was waiting for them as RJ’s airboat limped toward the dock on its last thimble of fuel. As soon as they had been able to get a signal, Ty had called in a request for medical personnel to meet them when they docked. He had handed over to RJ, who gave them an update on what had happened, including the fact that Darling’s best pancake-maker, or what was left of him, was at the bottom of Devil’s Pond. Ty sensed that the story was better coming from a local than from himself.
There had been no sign of Mimsy or her boat on the return journey. Ty had spent most of it tending Cressida. He’d made sure she got some more water, and did what he could with her broken leg. It looked to be a straightforward fracture of the tibia, but no less painful for that.
Given everything she had been through, the fact that she was still alive bore testament to her spirit. With her capacity to endure sheer misery, she’d have made a damn fine Marine. When he’d told her so, she’d given him a wan smile and asked if he had any morphine. Okay, so maybe not, he’d figured.
Ty had stashed his gun on the boat, hoping they might miss it in all the excitement. He could easily purchase another, but he had a sentimental attachment to that one. As they eased toward land, he made sure to stand at the bow with his hands clearly visible.
He disembarked first, and was immediately placed in cuffs. Not that he had expected any different. To their credit, the deputies were polite to the point of apology. However, there was still the outstanding matter of him discharging his gun in the library.
It was what it was.
He asked to hang back while Cressida was taken carefully off the boat and loaded into the back of an ambulance for the trip to hospital. She managed a weak wave in his direction before she disappeared inside. Hands cuffed behind his back, he had to settle for a stoic nod. She’d be fine.
More than anything it was a relief not to have lost his principal. He sat in the back of the patrol car, and looked out over the swamp. A shudder ran the length of his body as he thought of Devil’s Pond. He could add that one to his running list of nightmares.
RJ was busy talking to the sheriff. It looked like he was going to avoid being detained, for the time being anyway.
Ty wished him well. If there was anyone in Darling who had redeemed themselves, it was the ’gator farmer. He had come through at the most important time of all—when it truly mattered.
In a world where saccharine hand-wringing apologies on social media were the primary currency of absolution, Ty found it refreshing to have met someone whose apology came in the form of naked honesty. Not to mention a more than meager dose of real bravery.
If RJ had been a conspirator way back in ’74, Ty truly believed he had been a reluctant one. It might not count for much to a judge, but Ty thought it should. When contrition was genuine it was hard to entirely condemn a man.
73
Soaked through, and covered with all kinds of swamp filth, Mimsy watched the two sheriff’s deputies parked in plain sight outside her house, awaiting her arrival. She had hoped to grab a shower and fresh clothes before she did what she had to do. So much for that.
She thought about calling Claire Parsons but decided against it. RJ’s betrayal had shaken her. But she still held out hope of turning him around. He needed to be reminded of where his loyalty should lie. If not with his race, or the Klan, or people like her, who had kept the town white, he should think of his wife.
If Mimsy could sway him, this might all still work out.
She watched the deputies for a few more seconds as they dusted the powdered sugar from the doughnuts they were wolfing down off the front of their uniforms. Then she turned and melted back into the stand of trees.
74
RJ’s hand shook as he took the mug of coffee from Sue Ann. He had told her as much as he could, but had spared her the more grisly details, especially about Lyle.
He didn’t know where this would take their marriage. The sheriff had already told him they wanted to speak with him, just as soon as they had located Mary Elizabeth Murray. This time he planned on telling the truth, so help him God, with one minor exception.
As far as he could, he planned on airbrushing Sue Ann from what had happened on the day Carole Chabon was lynched. He would offer himself up to the law instead.
“Poor Lyle,” said Sue Ann, staring out of the kitchen window at the rear pond.
“Yup.”
He guessed in some way Lyle was also a victim. He knew the hardest part to explain in all of this was how Mimsy had exerted the influence she had. How she had been able to make people do the most loathsome acts, and commit the most venal crimes. In truth, he wasn’t entirely sure he knew the answer. It was as if she had been able to cast some kind of spell over the town. She was a master manipulator, always able to pick out a person’s weakness.
Then she had met Cressida King and Ty Johnson, and her magic hadn’t worked so well.
He smiled at the thought.
“Oh,” said Sue Ann. “Big Bertha’s eggs hatched. There’s a bundle of little hatchlings out there,” she went on, with a nod to the back pond. “See.”
He looked out. He could see Big Bertha by the side of the water. He couldn’t pick out the hatchlings. They were far too tiny to see from this distance with the naked eye.
They looked more like lizards when they first hatched. It was the cutest thing.
The momma ’gator would scoop them up into her mouth, and take them down to the water so they could begin learning to swim. She would open her mouth and drop them out. They would scoot about and then she would scoop them back up again, holding them carefully between jaws that could bite through sheet metal.
He would go out and take a look later. Once he’d gotten some rest.
“I’m going to the store. You want anything?” his wife asked.
He shook his head. The last forty or so years of my life, he thought. “No, I’m good.”
She put her hand on the small of his back. “Yes, you are. You’re a hero for rescuing that girl like you did.”
Some people might see him like that. But it wasn’t who he’d see every morning in the shaving mirror. He’d see a man who’d been asle
ep and finally woken up.
Sue Ann walked out of the kitchen, leaving him alone with his thoughts.
75
He tried to sleep. It was no use. He was still way too pumped up.
When he had tried to lie down, he saw Devil’s Pond on the back of his eyelids. It rolled across, like a movie. The start was fine—he could pick out the orchids. So fragile, so beautiful. But those words took him to the faces of dead and nearly dead women.
He stopped fighting, and got up, took a shower, then changed into shorts and a shirt. He would do some work outside, and hope that would bring him relief.
There was always work to do around the place. It was both a blessing and a curse. At times like this, he took it as a blessing. Keeping occupied was no bad thing.
As he walked outside he saw Mimsy’s car. It was parked over by the barns, out of sight of the road but where he or Sue Ann would clearly be able to see it. It hadn’t been there when Sue Ann left. He knew that because he’d rushed out to remind her to pick up some smokes and a six-pack of Coors. He’d had a feeling he was going to be doing some real drinking to help him get over all the upset.
Her car was there but he could see no sign of Mimsy. RJ walked back inside, pushed open the bedroom door, and retrieved the gun Ty had given him for safe-keeping. He hit the magazine release, checked he had rounds, and slapped the mag back in. He tucked it away, out of sight, in the back of his pants, pulling his shirt tail out to conceal it, and went outside again.