Swamp Sister

by Robert Edmond Alter

He had to go all the way down to the backwater and across the weir to get his gear and then return to the skiff before he could call it a night. He was really beginning to miss the shabby comfort of the shantyboat.

  He was careful in the woods as he approached the old oak. He circled the glen twice before he deemed it safe to go on in. The glen waited cool, shadow-still. He squatted between two grotesque, moon-grey roots and rummaged around in the hide-hole for his gear. He pulled out boots and denim jacket.

  For a moment he couldn't believe it. He clutched the jacket, twisting it, expecting to come up short against the ramrod feel of the carbine. Then he shook it, and then he felt along the left sleeve, and still not believing it, along the right. Nothing. He rooted in the hide-hole up to his shoulder and neck but all he could find were old mice skulls and bird feathers.

  Shad squatted back on his haunches and shook his head. That Sam.

  The new sun hung low over the swamp when Mrs. Taylor opened the door and stepped out on the porch. A saffron glare lay on the weed patch in front of the shanty and slanted on the road between the skinny trees. She could see Shad coming up from the landing, and heard Rival's insistent hiss right behind her, "You git him on in here. Go on now, hear?" And a moment later she heard the other door close, but she didn't look back. She watched Shad coming and hated it.

  "Hi, Shad!" she called suddenly. "Where you going at this morning?"

  The boy stopped short, startled, looking like he was ready to take off for the bush, and she wished he would. Then he grinned and came some into the yard.

  "Just gitting up to Pa's place fer a spell. Got to see him about something."

  She nodded, fussing nervously with the hem of her apron. "Bet you won't find much that goes fer a breakfast up there."

  "Bet I won't at that – less hit's some corn Pa had left in the jug when he drunked hisself blind last night."

  Well go on then, the top layer of her thoughts said, go to drink the blame corn. Don't make me bring you in here. She hesitated, a little trembly smile nearly lost in her beefy face and said, "Well, I just got some fixings left from last night. You're kindly welcome to that."

  Shad said all right and thankee and came up the steps followed her into the shanty. Outside the morning had a touch of the chills and Shad, having slept the night in the skiff in his damp clothes, felt as brittle as glass. The room was rosy bright and glowing warm from the fire in the limestone fireplace, and something was perking in the big black pot hooked to the end of the long swivel bar

  Mrs. Taylor put a plate down and said, "Set, Shad."

  She didn't look at him and knew she should, but couldn't. She started mixing corn pone in the skillet watching what she was doing, wondering how to come at it, what to say exactly, and wishing Rival wasn't standing just ten feet away listening behind the door.

  "When you going at that swamp again, Shad?" she asked suddenly.

  Shad had just tilted back in his chair, giving himself a good stretch and yawn, and her question suspended him.

  "Oh, I don't know. I ain't in no great hurry, I reckon."

  "No," she said. "I reckon not."

  And then they said nothing, and they both sensed that there was a great deal to be said, and neither of them wanted to come at it. Mrs. Taylor put the hot pone on his plate and said, "I got some wild salat and sowbelly here."

  "Don't go to no bother."

  "Tain't no bother."

  She dished up the mustard greens and passed him the vinegar, and then she sat down across the table from him. Shad ate, keeping his eyes on the food. He knew something was wrong – different somehow. There was a mouse in the meal, somewhere.

  "Where do you usually go at in that swamp, Shad?" she asked.

  "Up Breakneck way."

  "Tain't much up thataway. Rival says Breakneck's all played out fen skins."

  Shad talked around a mouthful of pone. "I try some other creeks too."

  "Oh. Which ones?"

  "I disremember."

  He knows I'm fishing him, she thought desperately. And he's going mean overn hit. But she had to take the plunge for Rival's sake, hers too, because what belonged to Rival belonged to her – problems, pain, security, and a cussed little of that they'd ever had to share.

  "I was wondering, Shad, if'n you wouldn't want somebody to go along with you in there next time; it so big and lonely and dangerous-some and all fer one man."

  Shad looked at her.

  "What I was thinking was that now Rival's got the manure started out in the south ploughing and has got him all the pullets weeded and is nearly done ditching that waste piece-" She couldn't seem to control her volubility now that she had started, and was aware that she wasn't really saying anything, but was only racing word after word in a frantic effort to screen her purpose, and was aware too that Shad realized it, and so she finished with a rush, "- he thought he'd go at that swamp fen a spell, too." Shad said nothing.

  "And git him some skins," she added lamely.

  Shad went tsk at his chipped tooth and looked at his plate again.

  Why don't he say something? she asked. Why do he just sit there statue-dumb? "Rival's powerful good with traps, you know, Shad. Kin build him a deadfall like nobody – and he's handysome in the swamp too. A man like Rival would be a big help to you, Shad, and company as well, and – and we thought on him going with you because Rival says they ain't nobody knows the hide-holes of mink and otter and coon like you, and – and we could shore use that money, Shad – the pelt money, I mean."

  Why cain't I shet up? Why cain't I just sit here and keep my big mouth shet and stop a-hammerin him with words? And why do Rival got to stand in there like a shaky hant just a-pantin over ever word I say, and me knowin hit, and Shad gittin all mean, and me feelin like a ma to him and wantin to mama him, but got to be a wife to Rival and stand by him and do what he says because he's the man of the family and hit's his job to do to support us, and the pore old fella all saddled with debt at Sutt's, and the land all fallow and not fit for raisin nothin except rocks?

  Shad put down his fork and stood up.

  "Yeah," he said stiffly. "I know what you mean." He looked at her. "But I ain't fixing to take me no partner."

  She watched her fat fingers work along the apron hem.

  "Well, I just thought it – being so lonely and all – Rival needing some work and -" Her voice went off somewhere by itself and she abjectly let it go. The sowbelly and mustard green water went ploop! in the pot and she looked at it because it was something to do.

  Shad dug into his jeans and brought out a fifty-cent piece and put it on the table by his unfinished plate. She looked at the money as though it were a slap in the face.

  "I tolt you yesterday I didn't want no money fer breakfast."

  Everything about him was still ramrod-stiff. "That was yesterday," he said. "Today I'm paying. See you."

  But she couldn't let him go like that. She stood up quickly, letting the apron unravel out of her pudgy hand "Shad -"

  He looked back at her, his eyes as friendly as two knotholes in a planed board.

  "Take care, Shad," she murmured.

  "I aim to." And then he was gone and all she heard was his boots clumping down the steps, and then nothing.

  She touched the table with the tips of three fingers, holding them there, as if her equilibrium demanded the tactile awareness of material things.

  Rival Taylor opened the fan door and came into the room. He was a rawboned man with a kinked up back from too many years of stooping; his hands were wide, brown and like scuffed leather, made for holding tools, for gripping plough shafts, and they were too big and spare for his wrists. He scowled at his wife. "Why you done let him git away like that?" he wanted to know.

  "I done said just as much as I could," she said, but not defensively. She was staring at the fifty-cent piece.

  Rival put his oversized hands together and worked the palms one against the other. "Thought he was a friend of yourn?"

  "I reckon
he thought so too," she said softly. "But not now."

  And then he went on the defensive.

  "Well, damn-hit-all, hit seemed like a good idee, didn't it? Him having all that money out there, and us down to beans, and him being a good friend of yourn. Seems to me like if you'd tried, he'd a took me along and let me help him and give me a share. I ain't greedy. I don't want much. Just a little piece of her would a done. If mebbe you'd just gone about hit a little diff -"

  "You goan plough that south field today?" she cut in.

  He blinked, then did something with his head and face as though saying "Aw, what the hell." He nodded. "Yeah."

  "Best git at it then."

  He said "Yeah" again and turned away. He knew it wouldn't do any good to pick at her now. She'd freeze up and he might just as well go out and address himself to the privy door. He tramped on out with his back in a stoop, his big tool-holding hands open and hanging at his sides like an old pair of stiff working gloves waiting to be fitted to the next job.

  Mrs. Taylor roused herself and went over to the south window, stood looking out at the fields. He'll make it yield, she thought, something, somehow, because it's a pant of him. And it's a part of me, too, because he's my man. Mebbe that's wrong, mebbe we're a part of it; mebbe we're its property. And I reckon that ain't saying much -to belong to the land instead of the land belonging to you. Because, God, it's such pore, pore land.

  14

  Shad left the road and cut off through the shrub. He started walking faster and faster, not really watching too much at what might be ahead but at his boots swinging out rhythmically one beyond the other.

  A root in the ground came at him fast, and he snagged his foot on it, went lurching ahead for two-three yards trying to get his balance and finally gave his ankle a good twist. The pain shot into his stomach like sickness, and he looked back, shouting, "You goddam son-o-bitch!" and felt like going oven and giving the root a kick, only his ankle hurt too much.

  He gingerly put down his foot and tested it on the ground, pressed hard and grunted. It held.

  "What surprises me is I didn't tear hit clean off, and it standing over there in the root and me standing here onefooted."

  He went on, favouring the twisted foot some, and he thought about Mrs. Taylor, and the thinking left a bitter, ash taste in his mouth. Didn't think she'd go to do like that at me. Thought she liked me fer what I am and not fer what I might have hid away. Yes, oh my yes; he could see himself lugging old Rival around the swamp like a third leg with a clubfoot. He needed him like nothing. He didn't need anyone -except maybe Dorry.

  He went along a split-nail fence, so old and tired it was trying its unlevel best to tumble down, and near to doing it, and beyond the fence and through the willows was the old, empty Colt place. A shell of a shanty, bow-sided and weathered and not enough roof left to nest an owl, squatting immobile and gape-windowed with sassafras sprouting all around.

  He approached the old man's place in a circuitous manner, taking time and care in his investigation. He didn't want to go balling the jack right into Mr. Ferris' lap. He didn't want to meet anyone now -just Dorry, and to hell with the rest. He went on in through the rear door and it squeaked like a wagon at the end of summer.

  The old man was on his bed, not in it. He was in his longjohns and he still wore his trousers, one worn and greasy suspender up, the other looped down around his elbow. His bare right foot was hanging off the bed nearly touching the floor. He was asleep on his back, his mouth open, and everytime he breathed the phlegm in his throat rattled like a page being torn out of a magazine.

  There was an old wheel lock muzzle-blaster hanging oven the fire board on the limestone fireplace, but that had belonged to granddaddy Pol and anyone who was fool enough to try it was risking a blown-off hand. The Harks had used it only as a decoration for as far back as Shad could remember. He went to the large woodbox against the south wall and raised the lid.

  The dusty rifle was in there, and the lid slipped his fingers and went down with a plam! On the bed the old man said. "Whuah?" and stirred himself a little, his right hand wagging in the air alongside the bedboard as though he were trying to row himself away from the disturbance. "Whaas' at?"

  Shad ignored him. He hefted the rifle. It was an old stock-scuffed Springfield, rust-splotchy along the barrel. He worked the bolt back and forth, finding it stiff.

  The old man managed to get his elbows cocked behind him and he propped his head and shoulders up on his spindly arms. He looked at Shad, a bleary-eyed, whiskeny-f aced stupid look.

  "Thet – thet you – Shaddy?"

  "Naw, it's Estee, come to see ain't they nothing else handy around here she can tote off to that brood of hern."

  The old man started wobble-necking his head to and fro. He'd had a rough night; he hardly even felt like arguing with Shad. He'd planned on starting his south ploughing that morning, but that no-account Estee had come down the road last night, and then he'd dug out his jug of corn and – and my-my, wasn't it something the way women and corn tone a man up? He reckoned he wouldn't do much ploughing that day -maybe tomorrow.

  "Now, Shaddy, now – now it don't do to come at me thataway. I plain ain't myself this morning – ain't hit morning? Uh – I thought hit seemed right bright. I got me a head – got me a head like -"

  "Like a kid's piggy bank with no sense in it."

  "- like a great big old drum, and the hull world a-coming at me and a-lining up taking turn a-banging hit, and some of 'em not waiting they turn, and a-clanging me with sticks and clubs and cypress trunks and – Lordy me-oh my, Shaddy, I just do hurt." His elbow props slid out at night angles to his stovepipe body and his head sank down into the striped pillow that had never been inside a case and was grey and shiny from wear.

  "I don't see no great difference there than any other morning in your life," Shad said. "Except that they usually beat you with pink cottonmouths and twenty-legged spiders." He went over to the cluttered hutch and rummaged through the drawers for some ammunition.

  "Sha – Shaddy – wha' you after there?"

  "Your rifle. I done lost my carbine."

  The old man thought about it, blinking up at the rafters.

  "My rifle?" and finally he got it. "Well – well, don' go take hit, Shad. I mebbe need hit."

  Yeah, and Shad knew why. "Pa," he said, "if you ain't more careful about selling things, that Estee goan end up owning the hull shanty."

  A hesitant slyness stole over the old man. "Well, if'n I had me some dollars I wouldn't have to go and sell things." He closed his eyes and looked like he was prepared to pass on to another world at any moment. "I could buy me some food and things what I need – if I had me another one of them ten dollars – Shaddy."

  Shad said nothing. He was wondering if he should tell him he was leaving for good. He could just hear what the old man would say – Shad smiled. The old man should have been a preacher, he could sure rip hell-fire into a fella. But his amusement palled, and he suddenly sensed an irrevocable loss. Standing in the centre of the shadowy room, where millions of dust specks danced in the blocky shafts of sunlight that rammed through the windows and open door, a realization came to him like the spectacle of a foundering ship. He watched it sink with a sort of detached fascination until it drifted to the bottom, and suddenly it had meaning for him.

  This's the last time I'm going to see the old man, ever. He went quietly to the bed. "Pa – Pa, I'm saying goodbye now."

  But the old man had drifted off again, and Shad had spoken low. I could give him a prod. I could speak up and wake him.

  He stared at the rumpled old man who had gone halves in giving him life, at the dirty, foolish, hung-over old man on the filthy bed. Maybe it was better this way, unsaid. Maybe this was the only way.

  Shad hefted the Springfield and walked on out the back door, across the yard and left the shanty where he had lived for twenty years, left the corn-sodden old man asleep on the foul bed that a cat wouldn't litter on.

 
; The night came in sections. It came creeping across the fields and under the trees, stretching the shadows farther out until they joined and lost all shape and meaning, and then everything was shadow all around; and the trees and the bushes and the weed lost their colour and turned to black and grey; and the moon never stood a chance, because with the night came the swamp mist; and in the woods and in the swamp the little creatures fretted and twitched and sniffed, because now their scent would be damp, active, and everywhere danger waited.

  And that's how it was with Shad.

  He left the skiff when he decided it was eight o'clock. He took his time, staying clear of the fields and meadows and the road; picked up a path that led to the bridge creek and found some steppingstones to cross over. Then he entered a shadow-pool grove of sycamores. He stopped suddenly and looked back, listening. Something that had crunched the dead leaves behind him stopped also.

  He stepped into the shadow of a tree. It couldn't be Sam because Sam didn't make noise. Might be Jort Camp though. He looked up at the black leafy terraces overhead. The swamp mist was crawling off like a sick man, thinning out, and the moon was trying to show. Well, that would help some. He didn't hanker to be rushed when he couldn't see who on what was doing the rushing.

  He walked along the shadow of the sycamore to the next tree and put his back to it. The who-or-what was making a move again. He heard it first, crunching softly on dead leaves, then saw it. Ten yards off a man's head raised above the shrub. It gave Shad the absurd sensation that he was a little boy again alone a night in the woods.

  "I see you there, Shad Hark," the man called. "I see you agin that tree."

  "All night," Shad said. "You win the gold paper ring off the cigar." He straightened up and stepped into the lane. "Why you tagging after me, Tom?"

  Tom Fort left the shrubbery and started toward Shad, but slowly, as though approaching a pitfall.

  "Ben looking fen you since late last night," he said.

  "That so? Ain't I the popular one lately."

  "No call to git sassyfied, Shad. I'm fixing to do you a hurt."