rinks From Lethe…
A short story by
John Wayne Falbey
Copyright © 2012 John Wayne Falbey
All rights reserved
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, places, events, business establishments or locales is entirely coincidental.
The cloudless August sky shimmered like molten aluminum. The four men had been fishing in the Everglades for the past three days. The brutal combination of heat, humidity and exertion affected all of them, but in particular it had begun to defeat Sir Edward’s meager reserves of stamina. In spite of the old man’s increasing torpor, he refused to return to the fishing camp. As a means of compromise, the party anchored their two small fishing skiffs in a shady cove formed by one of the countless bends in Lost Man’s River. Huge cypress trees, some of them over 700 years old, shielded them from the direct glare of the sun. Still, a hot and soggy breeze occasionally gusted over them from the sawgrass savanna across the river. Here, in a desolate part of the dark and sluggish river, they found sanctuary from the hottest part of the day.
The leathery-skinned and grizzled fishing guide, Taggart, announced lunch in his taciturn fashion. He simply passed around sandwiches and cold beer from the ice chest in the skiff he shared with Sir Edward. The nobleman’s son-in-law, Major Cedric Smythe-Thomas, late of the Queen’s Royal Hussars, shook his head in disapproval and glanced at Larrigan, with whom he shared the second skiff. Taggart only had one hand, and without a matching one to assist, it never seemed to be washed. Thick-knuckled and scarred, its fingers were permanently stained by nicotine from his ever-present cigarettes.
Larrigan always noticed little things, such as the fact that Taggart invariably passed the beer around first. In fact, it was rare that Taggart didn’t have a can of beer in his lone right hand, setting it aside only to light another cigarette or perform some guide duty. Although Larrigan occasionally wondered how the man had lost his left arm, he had never cared enough to ask. A few days earlier, however, in a conversation with his son-in-law and Larrigan, Sir Edward mentioned how Taggart had lost the appendage. It seemed he had become careless one day while chumming alligators at a local tourist attraction. At the time, Larrigan had wondered amusedly whether the ‘gator ever sought more of the guide. Like Captain Hook’s nemesis in Peter Pan.
Larrigan’s ego was outsized and further fueled by the knowledge that he was the best investigative journalist employed by Sir Edward Durville’s international chain of tabloids. At the old man’s invitation, he had come down from his office in Washington, D.C. earlier in the week to do some fishing. Larrigan had not anticipated that Sir Edward would be accompanied by his son-in-law. He had met Smythe-Thomas on a previous occasion, and had instantly disliked the man. Where Sir Edward was soft-spoken and reserved, Smythe-Thomas was boisterous and loud. From Larrigan’s cynical perspective, the Major seemed the epitome of a retired British army officer. He detested the man’s ceaselessly boring accounts of alleged military exploits.
With a florid face and bushy, red handlebar moustache, Larrigan thought the Major was best suited for a clown’s costume. Whereas Lord Durville was a man of refinement and taste, even in the wilds of the Everglades, Smythe-Thomas seemed crass, bigoted and quite overbearing. Larrigan contemplated the vast distinction between the two Englishmen, and wondered how Sir Edward ever had allowed Smythe-Thomas to marry into his family.
The Major suddenly tossed his empty beer can toward the middle of the river. The quick, jerky motion almost capsized the small fishing skiff. It snapped the journalist out of his momentary reflections.
“Goddammit, Major, I warned you not to make sudden, careless motions in the skiff,” Larrigan said with a distinct snarl. “I don’t want to take a bath in this muddy snake pit.”
“Yes, yes, quite so, old stick. I shouldn’t care to either. Sorry.” The feeling of dislike between the two men was mutual. Smythe-Thomas saw in the brash, impetuous, domineering Larrigan all of the traits he despised in Americans. He did concede, however, that the journalist was physically imposing. Where the Major’s pricy and carefully tailored fishing outfits could not conceal his expansive girth, the younger man’s faded denim cutoffs and sleeveless work shirt converged on a hard, flat abdomen. Larrigan was a large man with broad shoulders. Each of his arms was a series of large, knotted muscles from shoulder to wrist. He held the remains of his sandwich in a curiously delicate fashion that seemed incongruous with the power of those arms.
“Now, looka’ here, Major,” Taggart said with his distinct drawl, “I’d ’preciate it if you’d keep them cans in the bottom of the boat, and don’t be tossin’ ’em in the river. Next thing you know, this damn place’ll start to look like civ’lization come along and took a big-assed crap on it.” He pronounced the word “civ’lization” as if it had been coated with a caustic substance.
Taggart was a native Floridian. He took pride in referring to himself as a Cracker. It was a term that referred back to the early days of Florida. Its cowboys used to herd cattle by cracking bullwhips. The nickname, Cracker, came to apply to all native-born Floridians
A battered straw hat shielded Taggart’s balding crown from the relentless attack of the sun. He removed it frequently and mopped his leathery brown pate with a stained and ragged bandana. His khaki work clothes were worn and faded, bound together at the waist by a wide leather belt. The ornate buckle was barely visible beneath the sag of his paunch. The empty left sleeve of the shirt was carefully pinned to the shoulder. A broad ring of sweat stained his right armpit. A lifetime in the subtropical sun had weathered his skin far beyond its years. Beneath two tiny eyes that were the same muddy brown color as his beloved river, his nose was veined and lumpy. It resembled a small pineapple. He was not a handsome man, but there was a certain dignity in his native simplicity.
Larrigan ordered the Major to raise the small anchor and began to motor slowly up the narrowing river in a vain effort to create a draft. The barrage of insects had become too intense for him to remain still any longer. If he could not escape them entirely, he at least could challenge them with a moving target. After a few minutes he came upon the mouth of a small creek. Its entrance was so hidden among the shadows cast by the towering cypress trees that Larrigan almost didn’t see it. Had he not been seeking shade close to the edge of the river, he would have missed it completely.
Strangely, the creek’s turbid waters seemed even darker than those of the river into which it flowed. At this confluence, the water of the much larger river appeared to shrink back from those of the smaller creek, as though purposely recoiling from something sinister and frightening. Although the measure of its flow indicated considerable depth, the stream was so narrow that the tall cypress trees lining its passage formed a canopy of such density that that the brilliance of the August sun barely penetrated. It created a somber and baleful effect. A chilling breeze that was curiously inconsistent with the heat of the season seemed to rise from the streamlet. It cooled Larrigan where his sweat-soaked garments clung to his flesh. He welcomed it in relief and turned the prow of the skiff toward the mouth of the creek.
“Whoa! Hey! Don’t be goin’ up thar’! Taggart yelled from the other skiff some distance behind.
“Why not?” Larrigan said.
“’Cause ain’t nobody ever goes up thar’.”
“What the hell kind of answer is that?”
As his skiff pulled abreast of Larrigan’s, Taggart, with a sullen expression, said, “What I’m tellin’ you is, this here’s The Devil
’s Creek. It ain’t a good place.”
Larrigan pondered the guide’s laconic response for a moment or two. These non-explanations might suffice for most of Taggart’s effete patrons, but they were not acceptable to the battle-seasoned journalist. Getting answers was his forte. He had built his reputation on that talent and the ability to notice things others might miss. One of those things was the way Taggart’s small, almost reptilian eyes, semi-closed in a permanent squint from years in the sun, stared fearfully into the murky tunnel from which the creek flowed. Larrigan saw genuine terror in those eyes.
“What’s the matter, Taggart?” he said. “Is there a boogeyman somewhere up there?”
“Ain’t sayin’ thar’s anythin’ back up thar’!”
He Who Drinks From Lethe... Page 1