Swamp Sister

by Robert Edmond Alter

  Now it was just plain foolishness, she rationalized, to go and give good money to that disgusting old man who was never sober enough to remember to button his own pants. My goodness, if a girl didn't watch her pennies she'd end up in nags and barefoot like any poor white, and where was the sense in that she'd like to know. After all, something might happen to Shad in the swamp – or maybe someone else had found his money – or maybe someone would take it away from him. And ten dollars was ten dollars, and right now it was a bird-in-hand.

  Her lacquered fingernails dug into her palm, and the bill was as captured as a coon in a drop-trap and had as much chance of getting away.

  She went on down the road, humming the play-party tune, secure in the self-righteousness of personal conviction.

  Two shadows separated themselves from the woods and stepped, dark and ominous, into the road before her. Dorry stopped with a jolt and her heart went whunk in her throat.

  "Well, look a-here what we come at, Sam," Jort Camp said.

  "Yeah," Sam murmured. "Yeah." And he began edging to the left, gradual and smooth and inhuman in movement.

  She started to turn back, and with a flicker of motion he had her by the left arm and his fingers were like damp narrow bones in her bare flesh. She caught her breath and raised her fist to hit him, and then Jort had that arm and she saw his teeth white in the moon and she was being lifted from the road, and before she really knew what it was all about the black shadows of the woods had closed oven her and she was standing with her back to a tree and Jort Camp and Sam Parks had her fenced in.

  "What's wrong, Miss Dorry?" Jort asked. "We didn't go to scare you none, did we?"

  Sam was fidgeting, dry-washing his hands, shift-footing himself like a horse in a stall, husking air through his mouth. "No – no, we don't want to scare you none," he whispered, and he tentatively reached for her arm to soothe her.

  She jerked back as though he'd offered her a lizard.

  "What you want with me, Jort Camp? I got nothing fer you."

  "Oh, now that's where you're wrong, Miss Dorry. Be dog if you ain't. I got me a fat type idee you know something I want to know: and I'm God sure you got plenty that old Sam here wants. How about that, Sam?"

  Sam giggled as though he couldn't help it. She was all dank in the shadow and reminded him of an unbelievably beautiful coloured gal, and her dress was all crinkly sounding when she moved.

  "You leave me alone, Jort Camp. I'll – I'll sic my boy friend on you!"

  Jort seemed interested. He straight-arm leaned himself against the tree, bringing his big face within six inches of her mouth.

  "Who's that, Miss Dorry? Huh? Old Tom are you talking about?"

  She didn't say anything to that.

  Jort shook his head in a reflective manner. "No. Laugh at myself fer thinking so. Hit would be Shad Hank, now wouldn't it be, Miss Dorny? Yeah, I reckon it would be old Shad. Sam, don't you reckon it would be Shad?"

  Sam's eyes were busy. He mumbled, "Yeah – yeah," absently.

  "Tell you how it be with Sam and me, Miss Dorry," Jort offered. "We got us a fat old problem. We don heered about all that money Shad got hisself and we was thinking mebbe you could tell us where he's got it hid at."

  "I don't know nothing about that money. I don't know nothing about Shad neither. And I'm goan tell my pa you holding me here, Jort Camp, and he'll cold come at you with his shotgun."

  "Yeah, yeah, we'll worry about that later. Let's talk about Shad right now. You know – the fella you shack up with down to the shantyboat."

  "You hush your dirty mouth, Jort Camp!" The tears were starting to come now.

  "What you hiding there behind your back?" Jort asked. "What you got in your hand back there – a play-pretty?"

  She forgot about crying. "That's my nevermind."

  "Let's have us a look." He caught her wrist and twisted her arm out of the shadow. She winced and said, "Don't-"

  "Hayday," Jort whispered. "Looky here, Sam. A ten dollar she got here. Now I wonder where that come from?" He glanced at Sam. "By juckies, Sam. Will you kindly remember we ain't here to play peek-a-boo! Don't you see what this means? Shad must a just give this to her – er – yeah – er she knows where at he keeps hit hid."

  "Well, where's that?"

  "Dunno. She might a ben coming from the old Colt place. Yeah. How about that, Miss Dorry? That would be a good place fer Shad to hide his money, wouldn't it?"

  She shook her head, panicky now, trying to wiggle her arm free from Jort's bear paw. "I don't know about no money! He ain't got none. I got that from my ma!"

  Sam clawed the top of her blouse. "You tell us, you little devil! You tell us night out where he got that money hid!"

  She jerked violently to one side, the blouse tearing, her left breast bobbling against Sam's hand. "You – you dirty little -" And she screamed, twisting and strildng at him.

  "Shad!"

  Jort grabbed for her hair, but missed as she ducked down pulling herself free. "Shad!" Sam's lips snapped wide from his clenched teeth and he swung at her backhand, clipping her hard across the mouth. Her head whipped away from the blow, slamming into the tree trunk, going thonk! against a knot, and – The stars were suddenly glazed and brilliant like splintered ice and they were spilling into her eyes, and the fiddler's fingers were cakewalking furiously over the violin's neck, and the bow was leaping and squeaking and all the bright dresses were flashing by and twirling away with the stars and her dress was torn and that's the last thought she had.

  Sam stood agape, watching her tilt slowly and stiffly away from the tree, leaning right at him, her eyes wide open and staring at his, fified with a glassy awe. He leaped aside with a gasp as she toppled past him. And then she was down, all of her and all at once.

  She lay in a great opaque swath of moonlight.

  "Sam, Sam," Jort whispered.

  Sam's head jerked. He looked at Jort.

  "Jort – Jorty, is – is she – she ain't -"

  "Shet up." Jort squatted down and looked at the pale, still girl. "Dead as a mule-kicked tad," he muttered.

  Sam was drying his hands at his sides, wagging them up and down witlessly. "No – no – no, Jorty! All I done was to try to stop her squawking. I didn't hardly – I only -"

  Jort got up and came at him fast, grabbing one pipe-stem arm to give it a shake. "Stop that ruckus! We ain't got time fer you to have a case a hop-about fits. She's cold dead and that's that."

  Sam went limp, dropped to his knees by the dead girl, his left arm still cocked grotesquely in Jort's hand. "Oh, God, oh my, Jorty – I didn't mean to do her. I didn't, Jorty. She was so young and soft and -"

  Jort gave the scrawny arm another shake. "Will you stop yipping about her? We got us bigger fish to fry."

  "What'll they do to me, Jorty? What're they goan do to me?"

  "Neck-swing you, if you keep a-going like a chicken with a gator egg up her box. Now git away from that, Sam. Sam – you hear me? We got things to do."

  Sam looked up and caught Jort's pants leg with his free hand. "Jorty – you goan help me, Jorty? You goan stand by me?"

  "Well, I ain't got no choice, and me one of them what you call 'ems -'complice. Now here's what we're a-doing Sam. I'm going to pick her up and tote her, while you swing on ahead and see do the woods be clean. We'll tote her down to my skiff."

  Sam's head was bobbing like a marionette. "Yeah, yeah. And then what do us do, Jorty? And then what?"

  "Why then we haul-tail out'n the swamp."

  Sam felt a shiver tremble through him. He hated the swamp at anytime; but he nodded. "Yeah – and weight her down in a slough."

  Jort looked disgusted. "No, we don't do no such fool thing. You think I want the first butt-nosed gaton that comes along to haul her back up again? No, we takes her way out to a sink-hole I know of. Hit's big and hit's just as soft as fresh cow pie with quicksand. And what goes in there don't never come up again."

  Sam looked down at the dead girl. He didn't hanker any go
ing out into that old swamp at night, but if it would save him from being neck-tied with hemp, he'd cold go at it like he'd been born there. Already he was feeling better The claw crazy bobcat that was inside his chest was starting to relax a little. Everything would come out clean as long as Jort handled it.

  Jort was staring at Sam, and all of a sudden he started to grin.

  "You gaddam wood-colted little idjut!" he whispered. And then he began to laugh, and Sam went panicky, hiss ing, "What? What's wrong with you? What you meaning?"

  He swung Sam up and around, and Sam felt as helpless as a checker piece being moved to a new position on the board. Jort gave him a flat-of-the-hand prod in the back. "Git to snooping," he ordered.

  Sam went off like a deaf mute lost in a fog, his equilibrium running down a hill that wasn't there. He squinted at the darkness as though he didn't recognize his surroundings, but all he was really seeing was that new dress – pale white in the moonlight, pushed up and crumpled. genesis

  In the Silurian ending was the swamp.

  The sea made it and it was everywhere. The earth buckled, mountains reached up, land as soggy and porous as wet sponges spread out, and the sea drained back to its ocean basin and never returned. The weeds and plants, abandoned in this abrupt manner, cast about desperately for substance, and settled for the next best, the in-between of land and sea, the marsh; and the world was warm and damp and green, and the swamp stretched from Greenland to Antarctica.

  One period followed another and each in turn brought something new-the anthropods, the amphibians, and the plants learned how to develop seeds and breed them on the wind, and this reproduction created land food. The Penmian days came in with a slam, with the Appalachians and the Urals, and inland waters receded; ferns, rushes and plants died and covered the earth in huge rotting clumps, swamps drew in on themselves and glaciers crawled across the land, and everywhere the swamps were doomed; but not yet, not for a few million more years.

  The Indians came and felt the soggy earth and it trembled, and they were superstitious and gave it a name, and when they went away they left a legend; and the white men followed and found the grave mounds, found the legends and the superstitions, and saw where it was written that the Great Spirit had sent his son down to earth to teach the red men right from wrong. And they said, "Why, look a-here – them Injuns had them a Jesus." But they didn't really believe it, because God made the swamp and He wasn't an Indian, and went away scoffing and spread some superstitions themselves.

  And the swamp continued to not and to wait for the end, and everything was as it had been in the beginning.

  part two

  16

  Shad left the lake in the dark brittle hours before dawn and stobbed his way upriver, working close along the high silt banks, and when the sun winked over the far away pines and cypresses it found him approaching the true swamp.

  The river narrowed, the banks fell away into a greyish black morass, and the tupelo and scrub oak were replaced by titi and laurels. The cypresses towered up from their swollen boles that sat on wet, spindly legs and fluttered their grey mossbeards. They stood rank-and-file as far as the eye could see, and everywhere cast their green reflection across the face of the mirror-tarnished slough. The poisonous breath of the swamp waited like an invisible barrier – as sharp and commanding as a wet hog pen on a rainy day.

  He worked the skiff up an inlet, heading for Breakneck, poling quietly with a touch of caution, like a cross-eyed man trying to find his way in a delicate house of mirrors, uneasy about disturbing the sleeping giant. But it wasn't really sleeping. It was more, he decided, like a mute monster gaping at him, absently wondering why he was foolish enough to deliberately enter its trap.

  He entered a long, narrow, dead-stifi lake and drifted for a bit, letting the pole drag. The sad cypresses reached such extraordinary heights, and the jungled vegetation entwined with such fierce and ardent vitality that the sun could only find the swamp floor in white shafts. It lay like great slabs of light among the shadows.

  This was Breakneck, and it always reminded Shad of a great deserted cathedral.

  Evil he'd heard the swamp called, by those who had been in it and those who had not, and they were right. But it had always struck him that it was a purely beautiful form of evil.

  At the north end of the lake was a tongue of land, giving the place its name, and beyond, a network of tributaries formed. The slough nearest the west bank was the one he wanted – the water course that would lead him back to the Money Plane. To save time he shipped the pole, sat on the thwart and used his paddle, and began cutting across the center of the lake.

  A swallow-tail kite was tracing aerial patterns in the sky. It held a struggling lizard in its talons and was taking lunch on the wing. When it spotted Shad in the skiff it swooped down in an effortless dive out of pure curiosity and whanged past his head, totally oblivious to danger. Shad ignored the bird, other than to realize he was hungry himself. In the bow of the skiff he had put a blanket and a large tin box containing his knife, a box of kitchen matches, firstaid kit, and three on four cans of food. When he reached the Neck he would land and treat himself to a feed.

  There were more of the stumpy bays now, and paintroot and hurrah bushes, and the palmettos were thicker than the head of a new broom. The water shallowed, the bonnets and pickenelweed and never-wet leaves began clustering about the skiff, and he changed back from paddle to pole, stood up and balanced his body against the give of the boat and the heft of the stobpole. He worked his way around the Neck and entered a great secluded palm bog.

  The towering battlements of vegetation seemed to roll up and over him like a great fibrous wave, and the mass of branches, leaves, creepers, festoons of moss threatened to squash anything as puny as man. He stobbed patiently through the maze, ducking and weaving as the trailing creepers came slowly at him. After he had his lunch he would pick up the trail he'd blazed and be on his way. He grinned as anticipation jacked up his spirits.

  "Money Plane," he whispered, "I'm cold coming at you."

  And right then someone called.

  "Hi, Shad! You ben looking fer us?"

  Shad nearly lost the stobpole. He turned, crouching, the skiff wobbling dangerously underfoot, as everything in him tightened into startled suspension. It was like watching the mainspring of a nightmare coming at him to see Jort Camp and Sam Parks pole Jort's big gator-grabbing skiff out of the greenery.

  He was one of those men about whom lesser men like to boast as though by merely exhibiting their knowledge of him they have a claim on him, on his astonishing powers, though in secret reality they are scared to death of him, and probably hate him as well. But he was the type of man whom little, vicariously living men (like Sam) can create legends around. And Sam and his breed have done well by Jort.

  You come into the county thinking you'll visit Sutt's Landing to see some real swamp folk, and right off one of Sam's breed will try to impress you with the legend of Jort Camp – You ever heened of Jort Camp where you come from, stranger? Jort Camp? No, I can't say that I have. Is it an army post or a person? Is hit a – well, I should hope to hoppin God hit's the most stupyfyin person you'll ever meet! Oh? Well, who is he? Who is he? Who is he! Why he's the biggest, bestest, toughest, brawlin'est, gator-grabbin, bobcat-beatin, cadaver-maker you ever see! That's who he is! And you say, "Oh," and though you don't really believe that he is the biggest of all these wonders, or necessarily the best, your subconscious automatically forms a picture of Jort Camp and you decide that you definitely don't care to meet such a person.

  But the Sam Parks type of man clings to your elbow and continues to dangle the legendary Jort Camp before you. He tells you that Jort can pick up a whisky barrel and drink it like you'd drink a bottle of been – a pint bottle, and that Jort can walk a ten-foot gaton out of a monas with one hand tied behind his back and a rock in his right shoe, and that Jort once took on the four Keeley boys singlehanded, and three Keeleys having knives and Jort having nothing but
an old length of tire chain, and WHANG! BANG! ZIP and CLANG! and Keeleys all ankles-over-appetite, and Jort astandin' there not even breathless and the length of chain hangin' in his big fist, and him shouting, "Well good gawd aw-mighty, is that all the fightin' we goan have? I ain't even got my arm unlimbered!" And that what was even more important (nudge, nudge in the ribs) was that Jort had had every girl in the county over fourteen, and that the daddies over to Crow County best watch out because Jort was startin' to cast his eye in that direction, and – and say, stranger, I bet a purty you don't got no man like Jort Camp where you come from, now do yen?

  And you say, "No – no; no one like that at all." And you head back to your car rationalizing that you don't really have the time to spend visiting Sutt's Landing, just to see some 'real swamp folk' in their natural habitat. And if your daughter gives you any guff about it you shout, "Get in the car and shut up!"

  Jort knew his own legend (he should – he'd helped it with a story or two from time to time), but he didn't really believe in it any more than Shad did. He was a fun-loving, loud-mouthed bully boy. But he wasn't a fool. But still – where there was smoke- He was big and tough, and he loved to fight, and he'd never yet met the man who could lick him. And when it came to drinking – well, look out, boys! I got me a hollow leg to fill. And that fight with the Keeley boys wasn't just all talk either. It's true that only two of them had knives, and there wasn't really four Keeleys in the fight because Joe Keeley had been so drunk he'd passed out before anyone started swinging. But Jort was willing to bet that Shad would never come out of a fight like that top dog.

  And girls now – well say, that had always been his speciality. Well – maybe some of 'em had had to be coaxed a bit, but they'd always said yes sooner or later. Yeah – let Shad sneer at the legend of Jort Camp if he dared. But let him try to build one half as big for himself. Just let him try.

  Sam was sitting forward with a 12-gauge across his lap; Jort was standing aft working the pole. He was grinning like a fat boy over a surprise birthday cake.