The Marauders

by Tom Cooper

  They laughed together about this for a little while.

  Melloncamp sniffed. “Another time, I don’t know where we were going. A field trip, I think. But I saw Lindquist eat a ladybug on the school bus.”

  “Say what?”

  “Everybody dogging him. Lindquist was all like, don’t think I will? Then he palms it and swallows it. A live ladybug. Like it’s nothing. A piece of candy.”

  “Holy mackerel.”

  “Wait a second though. There’s more. Now I remember. We were on one of those swamp tours, one of those boats. You won’t believe this, but a little later Lindquist burps and the ladybug comes flying right out of his mouth.”

  They laughed together again.

  “I never saw it, but another kid did. Swore by it.”

  Silence.

  “He’ll be back. Shit, guy lost an arm. Tough son of a bitch.”

  THE TOUP BROTHERS

  The Toup brothers trudged up the shoreline of the island and advanced into the brush. Within a minute they saw light through the trees and they heard rustling, tentative and human.

  When they came into the clearing they saw a short man with his back turned to them. About five feet nothing, baseball-capped and pony tailed. He was wearing headphones, pulling up marijuana plants and stuffing them into a black garbage bag. Victor moved stealthily through the brush toward the man, making no sound as he stepped over the soft dead leaves and nettles. When he drew closer he heard a familiar song coming out of the headphones. “Don’t Do Me Like That” by Tom Petty.

  Victor pulled the Sig Sauer from his waistband. “Hey,” he said.

  “Nothing stupid,” said Reginald.

  The small man went obliviously about his business.

  “Hey,” Victor said, louder.

  No response.

  Victor moved closer and kicked the man in the ass. Hard. He flew forward, howling like an animal, and landed face-first in the dirt.

  “Cosgrove,” the man said, an enraged wail. He snatched off his headphones. “Fuckin’ kill you.”

  “Who’s Cosgrove?” Victor said.

  The man’s posture stiffened and he scrabbled up and turned around. He stared wild-eyed at the twins. “How ya doing?” he asked. A jerky nervous smile. He was wearing a Tom Petty DAMN THE TORPEDOES T-shirt and jean shorts, and bits of chaff stuck to his chin and forehead. His baseball cap had a fleur-de-lis and LE BON TEMPS ROULE on the front.

  Victor had the gun pointed at the jockey-bodied man.

  “Why you pointin’ that gun?”

  “You been picking this crop?”

  The man looked around. “Didn’t know it was anybody’s.”

  “What’s your name?”

  The man seemed reluctant to answer but then saw something in Victor’s face that made him. “John Henry Hanson.”

  “Just growing in the wild, you thought?”

  Hanson said nothing.

  “Who’s Cosgrove?”

  “Guy usually with me.”

  “He here now?”

  Hanson’s jaw worked as if grinding a sunflower seed.

  “Is he here now? You have exactly one second.”

  “Yeah, he’s here,” Hanson said, quieter now.

  “Where?” Victor asked.

  The man pointed his chin vaguely. “Probably the boat.”

  “What a colossal dumbfuck.”

  Reginald stooped under the low-hanging boughs and went through the underbrush looking for the man called Cosgrove.

  Pointing his Sig Sauer in the man’s face, Victor told him to get on his knees. He did, lacing his hands behind his head, his face muscles jerking with panic.

  “Look, man,” he said. “I’m sure sorry about all this. Take whatever I picked. It’s yours. I don’t need it.”

  “You’re saying I can have it?”

  “Yeah. Yes sir.”

  “That’s real generous.”

  Silence.

  “Mine, you say?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “So why’d you take it in the first place?”

  Hanson slowly shook his head.

  Victor stepped forward and pressed the barrel of the gun into the flesh of Hanson’s forehead. “So you’re in charge now. Telling me what’s what. Take what’s mine, you’re telling me. Like it’s a favor.”

  “We’ll leave. Right now. Never come back.”

  “That won’t work.”

  Hanson gaped up at him, swiping his tongue over his parched lips. “Sure it will.” A high pleading note had entered his voice.

  “No, it won’t.”

  “Why not?”

  Victor stayed quiet.

  “Why not? We’re no narcs.”

  Victor stared without blinking at Hanson. At a loss for what else to say, Hanson looked at the ground, eyes ticking back and forth as he plumbed the depths of his brain searching for the right thing to say, the magic word that didn’t exist. Around them insects hummed and scratched. Then there was the sound of approaching footsteps, the dragging of shoes across sleech and dead leaves. Reginald emerged from the brush with the other man, a broad-shouldered guy with a beard and the beginnings of a gut. Cosgrove.

  “Found this rougarou,” Reginald told his brother.

  Cosgrove shot Hanson a weary, I-told-you-so look. Reginald had the barrel of his Bearcat Ruger revolver held to the back of the man’s head and told him to kneel. He hesitated.

  “On your knees,” said Victor.

  Cosgrove winced and got down on his knees next to Hanson.

  “What’s your name?” Victor asked the new man.

  “Baker.”

  “What Baker?”

  “Larry Baker.”

  “You sure?”

  Silence. The hoot of a night owl from a nearby chenier. The wind sighing through the marijuana plants.

  “We’re already off to a bad start,” Victor said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because your name ain’t that.”

  Cosgrove was quiet.

  “What’s your real name?”

  “Nate Cosgrove.”

  “If I check your wallet, that’s what it’ll say?”

  “Go ahead. Check.”

  “How about you?” Victor asked Hanson.

  “I don’t have my wallet. Check if you want. Go ahead and check, mister. I swear to God.”

  “Names’re probably besides the point now,” Victor said.

  Hanson’s lips twitched over his crooked teeth. He rolled a frightened glance at Cosgrove, who was making an effort it seemed to stare straight ahead without looking at the twins’ faces.

  “Neither of you are too bright, are you?” Reginald asked.

  “I guess not,” Cosgrove said.

  “That’s the first true thing you said all night,” Victor said.

  “I just don’t know what to do with you two,” Reginald said.

  “Let us go,” Cosgrove said.

  “Let you go,” Victor said tonelessly.

  “We’ll give all your money back.”

  Silence.

  “With interest,” Cosgrove said.

  “What’s in it for me?”

  “You get your money back.”

  “So I just accept the money and let you go? For my troubles?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “We’ll give whatever you want,” Cosgrove said. “For your troubles.”

  “Whatever I want.”

  “Whatever you want,” Hanson agreed.

  “Your lives?”

  Hanson’s head drooped as if his neck had turned to rubber. “Whatever I want. Right?”

  “Fuck,” Hanson said.

  “I don’t care how much money,” Cosgrove said. “We’ve got thirteen, fourteen thousand back in the motel. Cash. I can get it right now. Right this second. Thirteen, fourteen easy.”

  Hanson glanced at Cosgrove, shook his head. His chin quivered. “These guys are fuckin’ with us.”

  “Shut up,” Cosgrove said.


  “They’re fuckin’ with us.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Cosgrove said.

  “Fourteen thousand?” Victor asked.

  “Cash,” Cosgrove said. “Right now.”

  “Fourteen thousand is nowhere near the number you gotta be. Not even in the same universe.”

  “You’re marijuana growers,” Hanson said. “You’re fuckin’ with us. Right? What’s this, Scarface?”

  “You’ll never be found,” Victor said. “That’s the thing. Never.”

  “You’re fuckin’ with us.”

  “Blah, blah, blah,” Victor said. He raised his gun and without hesitation shot Hanson in the face.

  COSGROVE

  Hanson’s head exploded like a melon, the dark mist of blood hanging in the air even as the last echoes rippled across the swamp. For a moment the body remained propped on its knees before thumping backward in the dirt. The insects and brush animals ceased their thousand small stirrings, as if afraid a similar fate might befall them. Then there was only the ringing quiet of night.

  The brothers looked down at Hanson’s body through the gun smoke. The one without the tattoos glared at his brother. Clearly shooting someone had not been part of his plan. The brother with the tattoos dragged his fingers through his hair, thinking what to do with him now. Not whether to kill him: that was already decided. But what to do with the mess of Hanson, the mess of him.

  Cosgrove shot to his feet and in the same motion launched into the brush. A gunshot rang behind him and a flak-burst of broken leaves stung his cheek. He ducked and tottered forward, clung onto a vine, righted himself. Another gunshot cracked and this time the bullet sang so close overhead that Cosgrove felt his hair curling like a spider in flame.

  He batted both-handed through the gnarled growth and glimpsed the dimly speckled sky. He wondered if it was the last thing he’d see before ultimate darkness. A bullet through his brain. The executioner’s hood lowered once and for all.

  Cosgrove felt the third bullet before he heard it. His body shoved forward and there was the ugly roar of the gunshot in his ears. Pain like fire in his shoulder. He grabbed at the burning place and held his hand up to his face and saw that his fingers were slicked darkly with blood.

  But he couldn’t stop.

  He staggered through the mire, his boots huge with mud, his vision swimming with white light. He shook the dizziness away until the jungle around him lurched back into focus, the wizard beards of moss, the tangled serpents of ivy.

  He heard heavy footfalls following him. Snapping branches and crackling brush. Now one brother cursing at the other. Fuckface this, fuckface that.

  Cosgrove’s boot caught on something and he tripped forward. He fell on his hands and knees, noxious mud splattering his face. Behind him the sound of running stopped and one brother told the other to shut up. Cosgrove scrabbled on all fours to the nearest tree and hunkered down with his back against the trunk. His boots were sopping with muck and he could feel warm slime seeping into his underwear.

  Several yards away, a flashlight shined through the trees. “You hit him?” said one of the twins.

  “Yeah.”

  “Where?”

  “The head.”

  “You sure?”

  Silence. Then Cosgrove heard the rumble of an airplane flying high overhead. What he would have given to be in that plane right now, on his way to another place, on his way to a life besides his own.

  The first twin said, “Well, he sure as shit didn’t fly away.”

  “The fuck you hit him.”

  “He’s dead around here someplace. How much you wanna bet?”

  “How does he just disappear?”

  “I hit him, I’m telling you.”

  “What the fuck, just shooting the guy like that?”

  “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Bullshit. You’ll hear it for the rest of your life.”

  To Cosgrove it seemed an eternity before the brothers retreated, their quarreling voices diminishing and merging with the susurrus of the night. Cosgrove could no longer see the flashlight but kept still. After a while he leaned into a patch of moonlight and examined his shoulder. In the dull blue light the gash looked black, but the blood was already congealing. A deep nick, nothing that would kill him.

  He took off his filthy white T-shirt and cinched a tourniquet around his shoulder, drawing the knot with his teeth. He spat out the taste of blood and swamp water. Then he sat still, listening. The faraway caw of some bird. The hysterical prattling of insects.

  Hanson was dead, he thought. Hanson was dead. He sat there for a long time with his head reeling, not believing it. He tried to remember who Hanson had in the way of friends and family. A macaw breeder, Hanson had told him. That was all Cosgrove could recall. Had he known Hanson’s life would end like this, he would have paid more attention. Strange, how after a few months he knew so little about him, except this, the most important detail: the end. Now there were probably people out there who’d go to their graves never knowing what happened to him. And if Cosgrove didn’t make it out of this alive, the same might be said for him.

  It was a while before Cosgrove heard the brothers speaking again. Still far away, so distant that he couldn’t make out what they were saying. “Lee’s Quest,” it sounded like. But the voices were rough, threatening. Then Cosgrove heard a quick volley of gunshots.

  He sat still and listened. When he heard rustling in the wood, he stared into darkness, waiting for one of the brothers to emerge from the brush. There you are, motherfucker, the twin would say. He’d take a swift step forward, gun aimed, and then Cosgrove’s world would end before he even heard the sound.

  What then? Nothing. A body in the swamp, just like Hanson. A secret known only by scavenging reptiles and birds. Not a soul left on earth to remember him.

  Cosgrove felt like crying, but his eyes stayed dry, grainy with exhaustion. The end of his life and he couldn’t even muster tears.

  Was this it: the end of his life? Would a stranger deem it even worthy of being called a life? He had no other life to compare it with, only lives shown in movies and television shows, lives recounted in bars by sentimental drunkards probably lying as much to themselves as to him. What floated up in memory now seemed random, flotsam and jetsam stirred up from the depths of his brain. He recalled a hand job from a wall-eyed girl with braces—he didn’t even remember her name—in his beater Tercel after the high school prom. Recalled his father in the backyard one Fourth of July, lighting skyrockets from a bottle of Pabst beer. Recalled falling from a friend’s tree house when he was nine or ten, walking half a mile home afterward, sobbing, with two broken ribs.

  THE TOUP BROTHERS

  Just before dawn the Toup brothers were scouting the far end of the island for Cosgrove when they saw a pirogue moving swiftly toward the neighboring island. A lantern glowed aboard it and a hunched figure was rowing violently. Victor looked through the reticle scope of his rifle and saw that it was Lindquist. He must have heard the gunfire and now he was fleeing, a hundred yards away from this island and about ten away from the neighboring.

  “Lindquist,” said Victor.

  “This is what I’m saying,” Reginald said. “One thing leads to another.”

  “Kill his ass,” Victor said. He had the rifle aimed and was peering through the scope.

  “No.” Reginald seized the barrel of the rifle and jerked it upward.

  Victor tore the rifle away from his brother and fixed his aim, his finger tense on the trigger. “He saw us. Shit, asshole’s probably got a cell phone.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Either do you.”

  “Wouldn’t work this far out anyway,” Reginald said. Then, “Villanova. He’ll know right away it’s us if something happens.”

  “Not if they don’t find him he won’t.”

  “Lindquist!” Reginald shouted.

  “What’re you doing? He’s just gonna stop?”

  “Lindq
uist!”

  “He’s a fucking dog?” Victor said. “He’s just gonna come?” He fired three times in quick succession. The boat capsized and the lantern sputtered. He fired two more shots but from this distance it was hard to tell what he was hitting. If he was hitting anything at all.

  He watched through the glass and waited. Nothing but the overturned skiff, the disturbance of waves. Then he saw Lindquist climbing onto the shore of the neighboring chenier, launching into the dark vines and branches. He fired three more times.

  “Motherfucker,” Victor said.

  “Did you hit him?”

  Victor gritted his teeth, said nothing.

  Reginald asked again and this time when his brother didn’t answer, he said, “Biggest clusterfuck I’ve ever seen.”

  LINDQUIST

  He heard one of the twins call his name. Then one of them fired a few quick shots. A few more when he was capsized and thrashing in the water. His boots hit the bayou bottom and he half slogged, half flailed to the chenier. Once he climbed ashore one of the brothers shot again and he plowed into the bulrushes.

  A hundred yards or so into the woods, he grabbed at his pockets. Most of the gold, if not all, was still there.

  In a blind panic he staggered onward.

  Soon daylight broke and the wildnerness gathered shape around him. The moss-hung oaks as big around as water towers. Cypresses as tall as obelisks.

  Just beyond a deadfall of pine Lindquist came upon an old gray-faced bobcat. It scrabbled up a laurel tree and stared at him with enraged yellow eyes. Lindquist saw that the animal was missing one of its ears. Only a tattered nub remained. He felt a pang of kinship, but the animal didn’t seem to feel similarly.

  Muskrat and opossum and nutria: Lindquist lost count of how many of these he saw. He would hear rustling in the bracken and pause. The animals halted too, studying Lindquist with a distinct air of peevishness. Maybe they’d never seen a man before. Maybe some animalistic sixth sense picked up a whiff of doom.

  The mantric drone of insects. Anoles with red flags flaring from their necks. Horseflies the size of plums. Beetles like potatoes with wings.