Swamp Sister

by Robert Edmond Alter

  She studied the image of Iris Culver, the surface Iris.

  It wasn't a woman she saw so much as a creation of ego. Every minute detail contributed a little to the whole-the meticulous scarlet lips, the lacquered nails, the closely cropped raven hair deliberately messy at the foretop where it blossomed, the svelte dress with the single pin, and much more. All of it done for effect, a part of the purpose, like her speech, her mannerisms, gestures. She was acutely aware of her perfection, her breeding and poise. She was a product of the ruling class, whose birthright stretched back to before the coming of Christ. Only now the thing to which she belonged was dead, finished, outmoded and useless, superannuated by phiistines, men like Larry and Shad. Shad.

  The image of her porcelain face barely changed when she smiled coldly. "You perverse bitch," she said quietly.

  A thirty-eight-year-old dilettante in love with an ignorant swamp boy. _Fool. Silly fool_.

  And suddenly the mirror showed her something she didn't want to see, something that was like death, only to her-worse. She saw a woman who was no longer a glittering show piece, no longer a fragile glass gift to the world. Only a weary female who was slowly being prodded into her forties by time's wrinkled shoulder. She turned from the mirror without sense of direction, feeling a kind of horror.

  It grew. It was the swamp. It was the endlessness, the mystery of the swamp. It was the heat and the violence, violence that spun on always around her and that no one except herself seemed concerned with. It was the people and the animals and the hostility, hostility that was in a league with the swamp billies and the alligators, the coons, the cottonmouths, the Negroes, the climate, the stinking mud and rotting swamp flowers.

  What if I can never escape? What if I must go on spending my life in this Confederate madhouse? Stay here until it is too late?

  For a vivid moment it seemed that her nerves were going. She wanted to tear a scream from her body, leap wildly through the window, run away from the swamp, to a city, any city, to lights, movement, music, and gaiety.

  She took a few aimless steps to nowhere and stopped, realizing the unit cigarette was in her hand. She found a match, then went to the bar (Shad had built it after the door, when she needed a reason to keep him around the house) and hurriedly mixed a martini.

  She felt better after the drink. And mixed a second.

  The money was the problem. There was never any escape for her class without money. Even then escape was a word covering a certain deadness that could lead to suicide, if you thought about it. A symbol-word that led to more boredom, more small talk-a particular apathy of reaction to the world and everyone in it. But at least they were all a shaving from the same whittled stick (as Shad put it), and there was comfort in that, a miserably disenchanted comfort.

  Larry wrote three "boys' books" each year, under three separate _nom de plummes_ (the _Adventures of Tab and Red_ being the most popular), one detective paperback, and numerous action short stories for men's magazines. It was a living – here in the swamp, a comfortable living. But it wasn't escape. It wasn't even worth divorcing over. _Money_.

  She went back to the long bay window and looked at the swamp across the lake. Eighty thousand dollars was out there somewhere. And now there was a rumour that Shad had found it- Larry had come back from the country store at noon with a mildly excited look in his eyes. Iris had been sitting before the window with her first martini for the day, sitting with her cigarettes and glass, staring at the swamp, wondering when Shad was coming back.

  "Darling," Larry had said, "there's quite a fascinating little story going in the village."

  She hadn't looked at him. "Someone's cow give birth to a two-headed calf?" she inquired with cold politeness.

  He came over and stooped to peck her forehead.

  "No, no," he chuckled. "You remember Ferris' airplane? The one these people call the Money Plane? They say Shad Hark has found it. I got that from Joel Sutt himself. They're all a-whisper with the story in the village."

  Outwardly she hadn't shown any emotion. Inwardly a certain excitement had begun to snowball.

  "Whisper? Why are they whispering about it?"

  "Because they say the Hark boy hasn't admitted it. But he's been passing out ten-dollar bills like a New Yorker on a spree. 'Course it may not be true – you know how these swamp vifiages thrive on gossip. Still, it's rather interesting, don't you think? Might even be a story there, somewhere."

  "Yes," she said absently. "Tab and Reb, the latter-day rover boys find the Money Plane."

  He'd blinked at her, pausing in a reflective turn before the window. "Eh? Oh, why no; I was thinking more of an adult paperback. You know, using the gimmick-"

  But she wasn't listening. She seldom did. It was a trick she'd learned to save her sanity. Practice made perfect. She would stare at somethmg as though considering his words, nod at practically the correct time, say hmm at the pauses, and raise her brows from time to time as if saying, "Oh. I see." But she seldom listened. Shad had found the money. The eighty thousand. He was being stupid, of course. That was to be expected. Passing the money around like an idiot. But he wasn't admitting it.

  She sank easily under a deeper surface of thought, remembering all the long afternoons and short nights when they'd been together in her shadowy room, and she'd prompted him with, "Shad, when you're out there looking for your brother – you look for that airplane too, don't you?"

  "Shore. Ever' man and boy that goes into that old slough keeps one eye and half a mind on the Money Plane. But ain't nobody going to find her. Know why?"

  "Why?"

  "Because she ain't nowhere where a-body kin find her. Else one of us would've done it by now."

  "But you'll keep looking, won't you, Shad? You'll keep it in your mind (if we may call it that) when you're out there. Eighty thousand dollars, Shad. We could go away with that money. Just you and I."

  She didn't need or love Shad as a person. Shad was only a simple boy, unworldly. She controlled him. She could work him around, work the money from him and leave. Perhaps it wasn't pretty, but it was escape-.

  She came back to the sullen afternoon, back to the big lonely living room. She was standing at the window, looking across the lake. She waited for Shad.

  He hadn't consciously noticed he was being followed that morning. It hadn't meant anything special to him when Sam Parks fell into his wake after he left Mrs. Taylor's. He didn't like Sam, so he'd pretended to ignore him. Sam had tailed him down to the store.

  Joel Sutt had acted standoffish when he took Shad's order for sheets, food, and miscellaneous whatnot. So had the two or three others hanging around in there. They'd watched Shad, not speaking to him nor to each other; and when he looked at them, they shifted their gaze and tried to look like men killing time with nothing on their minds. With them it was a convincing trick.

  Shad hadn't cared. His head was full of plans, full of Dorry and the money. He nodded to them, said, "Thanks, Joel," and walked out. He couldn't remember Joel saying anything.

  Hert Reade, a fifteen-year-old, had moseyed along after him all the way back to the shantyboat. It was only when he reached the gangplank that he realized Hert was hanging around near the pond.

  "Y'all want something, Hert?" he called.

  But the boy shook his head, not looking at him, pawing at the bank-ooze with his bare toes. "Naw. Just fooling around some."

  For a while Shad fussed with the idea of hiding his remaining thirty-some dollars somewhere in the shanty, but let the scheme go when he recalled the way Jort Camp had eyed his money the night before. Then, too, there was always the worry of Sam Parks tooling around in the bush. Sam could sift himself through a keyhole like a skinny beam of sunlight, and would too, if he thought there was anything worth picking up on the other side of the door.

  So he'd keep his money in his pocket, and there wasn't nobody at the Landing and a damn bit further than that who could take it away from him – Except maybe Jort Camp, the gator-grabber. It bothered hi
m somewhat that there was a man he knew he couldn't whip. Not that Jort had ever tried, but the gator-grabber had whipped every man and boy that ever came his way so far. My turn just ain't come yet, he thought. Then he said, "Well, if he's coming at me, he best come like the wrath of God, because I'll cold go to scratch like hell on feet."

  Hert was gone when Shad left the shanty in the early afternoon. But Mel Warren, a nondescript trapper, was there piddling around in the bush, carrying a fishing pole.

  If he's going fishing he's mighty God slow a-gitting at it, Shad thought. And if he's already ben – he's had mighty poor luck.

  He struck up the path, giving Warren a wave. "Catching anything out there in the bush, Mel?" he called. He thought that was a pretty good one. But Warren didn't laugh. He reacted like Hert had, with embarrassed bewilderment.

  "No. Just lost something. Hit don't matter much."

  Up on the road Shad saw Jort Camp slowly coming his way. That wasn't so good. He didn't hanker to have anyone see him going to Iris Culver's house. Least of all bigmouth Camp. When he reached the creek bridge he slid down the soft embankment hurriedly and slipped into the blue shadows under the bridge. He waited three or four minutes for the sound of Jort's boots to clump overhead, but nothing happened. He frowned and waited.

  The creek was slow, warm, sluggish; knee-deep in most places but rump-high awful sudden if a man wasn't careful where he stepped. A combination elderberry and similar thicket went north with the water. Shad eased from under the bridge and dodged into the bush. By the time he reached the Culver grove he was fairly cat-claw-scratched, but he didn't mind.

  He circled around the grove, coming close to the white barn that nestled ship-snug in the trees. Close enough to hear the faint tac-tac-tac of Culver's typewriter clacking away somewhere up in the reconverted loft. He nodded and swung around in the other direction. With the house between himself and the barn he hurried across the lawn and up onto the side porch. "Iris?" he whispered.

  She let him in through the dining-room entrance, and she was all over him before he could even get the screen door closed properly. She was a little crazy; he'd known that for some time. She was something like that English lady in one of that Hemingway fella's books she'd loaned him. Shad didn't have a name for it, but he could recognize a danger when he saw it. The trouble was he should have seen it a long time ago. It wasn't going to be easy to tell her. She wasn't going to like it. He disengaged his mouth, saying huskily, "Whoa! Let's git us a breath in here."

  She was looking at him from five inches away, her mouth open and the wet pink of her tongue showing. It reminded him of Dorry Mears.

  He got all of him untangled at once and stepped clear, avoiding her eyes, a little frightened by the look in them. He removed his hat, as she had taught him to do, and placed it on the table; then wiped the sweat and some of the lipstick from his face. Funny the way sweat never bothered her. Yeah. And a sudden hollow sensation vacuumpacked his stomach.

  "I got to talk to you," he began.

  She nodded urgently, coming at him again. "I know – in the bedroom. We'll lock the door. Larry'll think I'm napping."

  "Couldn't we just talk here?"

  She had his hand, looked at him peculiarly. "Are you insane? Do you want Larry to come in and find us here? Come on!_" She led him. He went helplessly.

  The cool-air unit was growling quietly in a corner of the shadowy room. The windows were closed, the curtains drawn. The bed was made. Iris locked the door. Shad watched her like a broken-wing turnstone watching a shore-prowling puma.

  "You were so long coming, I thought something had happened to you."

  "I went and got me in a bind of gators. Had to spend me a night in the skiff."

  She looked at him, a look that he used to admire – cold superiority.

  "Shad, don't talk like a Civil War throwback. You know better. I taught you better."

  She had taught him, and he did know better. But he frequently spoke his own dialect just to show her that he was still independent of her. He knew it railed her. "All right," he said. "1 forgot."

  She went to the bed, sat on the edge of it, removed her heels, crossing one nyloned leg over the other. "Undress me, Shad," she said simply.

  He stalled, keeping in the centre of the quiet room, sensing the trap closing in on him.

  "Listen at – to me, Iris. I got something that needs to be said."

  "Later, Shad. Undress me."

  She held a long slim arm up to him, the pale hand halfhanging.

  He could always handle girls – young ones, girls of his own breed, the all-giggles-and-no-brains ones. But this woman with her poise, her intelligence and worldliness was too much for him. He felt stupid and cloddish around her, putty-like. He went to the bed and took her hand, but nothing else.

  "It's like this here," he began.

  Her right arm circled his neck, tugging his lips down to hers. Her mouth mumbled into his. "I know. I know about it. We'll discuss it after a bit -"

  She knew about it? How? About Dorry? No, she couldn't, or she wouldn't be acting this way. What then?

  He thought about last night, of Dorry who was young, nineteen young. He thought about now, of this woman in his arms who was old enough to be his mother. He started to struggle, to push her away. Everything was sickening, the clammy sweat, the moist hot mouth, her hands.

  "Iris -"

  But she threw a hand flat against his chest. A warning, frightened gesture. He saw fear in her eyes.

  "Listen!" she hissed.

  He did – and heard it. A soft, almost cautious tread in the hallway. They froze like a pair of hound dogs butting their wet noses into a belt of scent. Everything beyond the closed door seemed to be frozen, too. They watched the door, waiting. Then they watched the brass doorknob take a slow clockwise turn. Nothing happened.

  Shad wet his lips and eased his head around.

  Who? he asked with his eyes.

  Larry, she said with her lips.

  She was clutching his arm tightly, and it came to him that her nerves were a lot worse than he'd suspected. He could see in her eyes that she might fly apart at any moment. And that made him more frightened.

  Her hand gave an imperative jerk on his arm. He looked at the door. The knob was moving counter-clockwise. Shad let out his breath. He thought he heard something moving, but couldn't be sure.

  "Thought you said it was safe," he accused her.

  "It always has been, hasn't it? I don't know why the fool has stopped writing."

  "Well, how do I git out of here? I ain't fixing to git myself husband-shot, you know."

  "Hush, won't you!"

  Their heads panned together, following the curtained sweep of the windows. Someone, a shadow, was moving silently along the screened porch. They stared at the bedroom porch door in a quiet kind of horror. The knob turned slyly. Shad couldn't face it any longer. He felt like an animal at bay. He started to get up, clenching his fists. Culver was a city man, a soft, not-so-tall man. He'd bust him a quick one in the mouth and be long gone.

  "Don't!" she whispered frantically. "For God's sake, don't!" The shadow was flitting across the windows again, going away.

  "Your hat!" she said suddenly.

  "What?"

  "You left your hat in the dining room!"

  "Oh my God! What'll we do?"

  "I don't – I'll say you came to check the generator. Yes, it's been acting strangely. I'll say you must have forgotten your hat."

  "What was the goddam generator doing in the dining room?"

  "Don't be stupid! You fixed the generator and came into the house for your money. You forgot and left your hat on the table."

  "All right," he said. "It'll have to do."

  He wanted out of there bad. He could see nothing but trouble coming from the Culvers; coming like Jort Camp on a bender. As a rule he played honest with girls, but this one he was going to have to skip. He'd decided against telling Iris that they were through. It was too risky. He had ot
her problems. He was running out of money fast. That meant he'd have to get back to the Money Plane. Well, this time he wasn't going to play around. He'd arrange to get all the money; arrange to meet Dorry somewhere handy, and they'd clear out.

  "Shad, you can't go yet. It's safe now. He's gone away. He thinks I'm napping."

  Shad scowled. "We ain't got us the time now. Besides, I'm all hop-toady inside after him sniffing around."

  "But we were going to talk about the money from that airplane."

  They were just words at first. In his eagerness to get free of the woman and her house, which had suddenly become as dangerous as a cocked shotgun, he let the words slip into the back of his brain -but he snatched them out fast and looked at them again.

  "What?"

  "The eighty thousand dollars. Everyone says you found it." He stared at her, tasting his lips, her lipstick.

  "What are you saying?"

  She was impatient with him. "The whole village is talking about the money you found. It's true, isn't it?"

  He started shaking his head before he could find the words to deny it. "No-no, I don't know what they're talking about. I didn't find no Money Plane."

  In his mind was a morass of desperation, filled with skull-crushing deadfalls of self-reproach at his own stupidity. That was why everyone was acting so peculiar, why they were tagging around after him, watching every move he made. I shouldn't have left home, he thought. Shouldn't have gone to pass out all those tens.

  "You're lying, Shad," she said quietly.

  He shook his head again.

  "You did find that money. And you promised that if you ever did you'd bring it here to me. Why are you treating me like this?"

  "You crazy as the rest of 'em! I tell you I didn't find nothing!"

  "Don't lie to me, Shad. You said you wanted to tell me about it when you first came. You said you wanted to talk to me. You meant the money, didn't you? What else could you mean?"

  He clutched at it. "I was trying to tell you that we was through. That's the something I had to say."

  She gave a cry like an animal being hurt. "Shad! You don't mean that! You can't mean it."