Mr. Ferris disengaged his mouth and looked up. All he could think at that moment was, this has never happened to me before. I must be growing very careless.
Iris turned a look on her husband as though he'd just asked her to come clean up the mess the dog had made in the living room. She was very annoyed with him.
"Don't stand there like a fool," she snapped at him. "Did you think this was the Victorian era?"
He was a slight man with the pasty pallor of a book lover, which he was not; and the horn-rimmed glasses he wore lent to his incredulous expression, a droll look rather than a studious one. He stood in the doorway with the hesitant stance of a man on the edge of an abyss.
"Iris – Tarleton -"
Mr. Ferris brought out his folded handkerchief and rubbed the lipstick from his mouth. He glanced at his wristwatch. Time to go.
"Iris – what are you doing? How long has this – this – Good Lord, Iris, don't just stand there with your – your gown open that way!"
Iris bunched her negligee together in the front. She swayed slightly on her high heels. "I want a cigarette," she said petulantly. "Tarl, I want a cigarette."
Mr. Ferris brought out his pack of cigarettes and offered her one. Then he struck a match for her. He deeply wished he might be dealing with someone a little more realistic than Larry Culver. He blew the match out and said, "I'm sorry Larry. Really very sorry. I wish I had the time to try and explain – but I have business that can't wait." He looked at Iris, his expression politely void. "Goodbye, lris."
He went through the doorway without looking at Larry Culver. Their bodies brushed and Mr. Ferris murmured "Pardon me." His guard was down pointedly because he didn't expect Larry to strike him. Larry didn't. It didn't even enter his mind.
Iris heard the screen door clatter and she said, "Gone." And then, "Over." Now there would be nothing more – loose pigs on the front lawn that wasn't really a lawn at all, only a pseudo-civilized extension of that filthy swamp; illiterate, barefooted swamp billies loafing along the edge of the lake, leering their imbecilic grins when they saw her; damp mould on everything, even on the people; they called it sweat. And Larry hiding in his ivory tower in hurt bewilderment trying to understand something that was as remote to his intelligence as Mars was to Earth. Ovet
"Iris -" That terrible, incredulous whine. "Iris, don't you have anything to say to me? Aren't you – I mean – we can't just remain mute as though I hadn't seen what I did see."
She put the cigarette out in an ashtray on the dresser. She didn't look at him. "I don't want to talk about it," she said.
"_Not talk about it?_" He was aghast.
His insistent stupidity was too much for her. "You fool!" she cried. "Don't you understand you mean nothing to me? I'd as soon waste my time explaining my actions to that chair. I don't give a damn what you think, or if you think at all, which is doubtful."
He managed to shave some of the whine from his voice, replacing it with righteous disapproval. "Have you been sleeping with him?"
It was so like him to use that archaic expression. She almost laughed.
"Did you think you could satisfy a woman? Any woman? Do you think any woman could live with you and not go stark raving mad. Do you have any idea of what your lovemaking is like? It's like that watered-down slop you write!"
Instantly he found himself on the defensive, which, considering the circumstances, was incongruous. But he couldn't help it.
"Now wait a minute – now – wait a minute, Iris. You're not being fair. I may not be a Thomas Wolfe, but I -"
"_May not be a Thomas Wolfe?_" she cried. "Oh God!"
Suddenly she spoke with cold sarcasm. "Do you know what your work reminds me of? It's like the trash those hack writers used to pot-boil for the pulp adventure magazines back in the '20s and '30s. They always called their dashing Nordic heroes names like McCoy or McKay or McCloud or Quincannon – names which automatically had a connotation suggestive of rough, manly derring-do. Invariably they had sandy thatches of hair, frequently red, and always a scattering of freckles on the backs of their tanned square wrists. But best of all was the manner in which these literary giants would introduce those girlkilling, booze-drinking, saloon-brawling, quick-shooting, Scotch-Irish supermen. They would write, 'No plaster saint – comma – McKay.'"
"Now you're not being fair, Iris. You know I don't use that archaic kind of sentence structure."
But she kicked down his defence before he could even get its underpinning completed.
"A man that writes that sort of pap isn't really a man. Isn't really anything. And that's what I've been living with for eight years. A nothing man. That type of lame-brain should be put away in a glass cage and sheltered and protected and never be shown a newspaper. They shouldn't let you into bedrooms. It upsets your sensibilities, unhinges your nervous system."
She tottered toward him, the negligee flowing wide open again. Her eyes were wild.
"Shall I tell you the things I've seen, done? Would you like to hear?"
He stood in a dumb stupor, sick, listening to the things she'd seen, the things she'd done. And it evoked the imagery, having little or nothing to do with love.
He felt as if he'd been picked up by the heels and dipped headfirst into sewer slime and then cast limply on a mudbank like a carp just off the hook. And he stared at her with an awe of awakening, as though seeing her for the first time and seeing in her the definite end of something he had never really thought about.
He had always considered her rather frigid because of her lack of response. But he hadn't let it bother him because he was a low burner himself, and so had thought them perfectly matched.
He opened his mouth to speak. He had to speak – say something. But it wouldn't come. The words were rammed under gigantic air bubbles and the bubbles were hung up on something inside his chest.
Iris stared at him for a brittle moment, then marched determinedly toward the doorway – so determined that he had to move aside quickly to avoid being knocked down.
"No talent – comma – McCulver!" she sneered in his face.
She crossed the living room by rote, coming by instinct to the bar. Her hands trembled over the martini shaker. Then, abruptly, she set it down without pouring herself a drink. She stared at the bright, gleaming finish on the bar top.
That illiterate savage is going to win after all. He's going to beat all of us. I know it, feel it. Nature is perverse that way.
Then she closed her eyes, tight, and leaned against the bar, the pink flesh of her bare stomach folding softly about its edge.
"Oh, God damn Shad Hark!" she said fervently.
Larry Culver didn't know what to do. He stood in the guest room and gaped at the rug. Then he gaped at the bed – where it had happened. Or had it happened in his wife's room?
Suddenly he had to get out of the house.
He walked mechanically, through doors, down steps, across the yard, and entered his writing studio – the reconverted barn. The upstairs contained his desk and typewriter, his filing cabinet and reference books. One wall was plastered with a colourful array of magazine tearsheets – his printed stories from the pulp magazines.
He looked at the vivid ifiustrations, at the titles, at his name LARRY CULVER on each one of them. They were by way of a touchstone. _The Dark Dive_, _The Dark Tower_, _The Dark Voyage_ – Funny, he'd never consciously noticed the redundancy of the adjective before. But it was an apt word for an adventure yarn.
He went to his desk and sat down. Then he opened the bottom drawer and brought out a. 22 target pistol and set it beside his battered old Underwood. He had purchased the pistol five years ago, when a timber rattler came to visit his garden one day. But he could never find the snake again, and so he had never had occasion to fire the weapon. He looked at the gleaming metallic barrel.
He supposed, bleakly, that it was really the only thing left to do. The only kind of work he knew was hack writing. It was that or go hungry. And now his wife had torn it to sh
reds for him. He didn't see how it was possible to pick up the pieces.
His eye fell on the white sheet of typing paper that was captive in the Underwood's roller. What was it now? he wondered absently. Oh, yes, the scene when Reb comes aboard the yawl and Tab has just said, "Gosh sake, Reb. Why did you walk off with the marlinspike? I've been looking everywhere for it."
Yes – now what reply had he figured out for Reb (that good-natured clown) before he'd run out of pipe tobacco and had to go to the house for more? Oh, yeah – yeah. He remembered. But perhaps he'd better put it down before it slipped his mind. He squared himself in his chair facing the typewriter and typed, "_Marlins pike?" Reb cried. "I thought it was a blunt ice pick!-_"
After that – somehow – he just kept on writing.
19
The night was silver and black when Shad stumbled down the backwater bank and onto the gangplank of the shanty-boat. He was damp from having come downriver on logs, but he didn't mind it. Too beat to mind anything. Besides, the night was warm.
Inside, he found a match, got the lantern going, and then brought a can of beans and a spoon to the table. When he sat down it was as if he'd done something permanent, as though from now on he and the chair were one. His eating was automatic. He didn't think about it or even taste the cold beans. He was filling a void.
The can empty, he stood up and pulled off his clothes. Nothing -no, no goddam thing had ever looked better than his bunk. He climbed in groaning like an old man, drew up the blanket and closed his eyes. Immediately he felt like a submerged rock all wavering with undulating weed. Goan buy myself a God-awful big bed with my money, was the last thought he had.
At first the dream was only bothersome. It was Jort's face, all sweaty and unshaven and pig-eyed and rot-toothed, and the mouth kept asking the same question – You think fer a minute we don't know what you and Dorry Mears was up to? And why did it bother him? What was there about the sentence that didn't make sense? Every time he'd try to get hold of it in words, Jort would say it again – You think fer a minute we don't know what you and Dorry Mears was up to?
So finally he hit at the face, only to discover that it belonged to Tom Fort. And Tom was saying, What you done with my girl? I want her back. You give her back, hear? And then more faces and more mouths saying what had he done with her? And hands pawing at him, shoving him around, not letting him get his fists up where he could hit back. What you done with her? the mouths wanted to know. Where you got her? We want you should tell us where you got that old Money Plane. We want a share of her. You goan tell us? Or we got the stuffing to beat outn you?
And finally himself shouting back at the mouths. You don't give a good damn about Dorry. You all the same. Money, that's all you care about. Money, ever' last one of you. And them clamouring. Yeah, yeah, the Money Plane. Where you got her? Money We want that money. And then Edgar Toll's silly face too, slobbering- tongue wagging, hitting at him with a big stick. Kill un, he yelled. Kill un. And then all of them hitting him, and him not able to fight back, and Margy Mears in there too, saying what she had said to him the last time she had seen him, Take care of yourself, Shad – Shad -.
"Shad – Shad, wake up now, hear?"
Normally he awoke as though it were judgement day, coming right up to startled attention. But today it was a long painful road back, a sort of sticky, misty passage out of warm darkness into vague, unfriendly light. And the path was flickering with half-formed images and nonsensical objects. One of them seemed to be Dorry – Dorry bending over him, saying something – wake up, he guessed.
He smiled hazily and put a hand out for her, pulled her down to his chest. Hello, sugar baby, he thought he said, and he cupped his free hand around her right breast. Funny – she'd lost weight, hadn't she?
Instantly the girl was all action and loud indignant protest, even slapped him.
"Shad Hark! You gone crazy? _Stop that_ what you're doing?"
Shad got all of his eyes open then and looked at Margy. Her obsidian eyes sparked black fire. "If you weren't down I'd slap you good, and you so free with your hands." Then, surprisingly, she shut up and looked away.
"That's right," he said. "Never hit a man when he's down."
He looked around at the cabin. It was morning.
"What are you doing here, Margy?"
"Pa sent me down to see did you lock the shantyboat after you."
That didn't make too much sense to him. He propped up on one elbow and rubbed at his face. "How's that? What's hit his business?"
"Well, hit's his shantyboat, ain't it?" she demanded. "If you goan run off with his daughter, least he kin see is his boat still all right." Then she dropped her indignation. "Shad – where's Dorry?"
Shad looked at her. For a moment he wasn't sure that he had successfully left the nightmare. "Home, ain't she? How in hell should I know where is she? What's your fool old man mean, me running off with his daughter?"
Margy put her hands akimbo and looked at him impatiently "What do you mean what does he mean? Why, ever'body knows you'n Dorry ben gone fer days."
Dorry gone? He sat up. The first part of the dream was bothering him again. Jort – Jort Camp. He took hold of the blanket and looked at Margy. "Look out. I'm getting up."
She stepped back quickly. "Well, I'll thank you kindly to remember, Shad Hark, that I'm not a girl that can be -"
"Stop kicking up a fuss over nothing. I got my shorts on." He grinned. "And there ain't much to see nohow – or so some have told me."
"I'll just bet they have." But she turned her back.
He trotted out to the porch, doused a bucket of water over his head, then washed his face and rinsed his mouth. It tasted like an old tobacco pouch.
Margy was still facing the table when he went for his pants.
"It's safe. They's nothing fer you to bust your eyes over."
Her look was arctic. "Ain't that a relief," she said caustically.
He grinned at her. "Oh, I dunno, some gals might consider hit a disappointment." Then he hurriedly cut her off before she could snap back. "Look a-here, Margy," he said seriously "I ain't run off with your sis. I ain't even seen her. I ben three days and nights tooling around out in that old swamp like a blind man in a cornfield."
The look in her eyes wasn't quite disbelief.
"You ain't lying, Shad?"
"God's truth, Margy. I was out there on my lone looking fer that Money Plane – but I didn't find hit. And that's the truth, too."
She couldn't understand it. "Jort Camp and Sam come back night afore last," she said. "They told my Pa and Joel Sutt and that Mr. Ferris that they ben put gator-grabbing. Said they seen you'n Dorry going downriver in your skiff. Said they figured you was running off."
Shad couldn't believe what he heard. "_Seen me and Dorry running off down river?_ Why that goddam Jort and Sam was out in the swamp with me the first day. They wanted that money but I slicked out on'em. They knew I didn't have Dorry with me!"
She didn't know why she had always wanted to trust Shad. It was something about him; maybe the way he acted, moved or looked. She remembered a day when she was twelve. She had met Shad and Tom Fort coming along the road. They'd stolen a watermelon from Uncle Peebie's place and were taking turns toting it. Tom had leered at her that way fifteen-year-old boys always did; had made an insulting remark. He'd thought it really funny, thought it funny when she'd blushed and started to turn off the road, half in shame, half in fear.
But Shad hadn't thought it funny at all. "Shut your goddam mouth," he'd told Tom, and he'd meant it and right now, anyone could tell. "What's wrong with you?" Tom had wanted to know. "Ever-body knows how her sis -" "She ain't her sis," Shad had pointed out. "She's just a kid." And then he'd nodded at her, as if saying It's all right. He don't mean it. And he'd given Tom a shove in the back.
She came a step, then another, toward him.
"Shad, you think something's happened to Dorry and Jort knows it?"
He rubbed at the back of his neck. "Dunno. W
here's Jort and Sam at now?"
"They and that Ferris left fer the swamp again yesterday morning."
There was something wrong about it.
"Mr. Ferris went with'em?" He shook his head. "He ain't got the sense I thought he did."
"What's it mean, Shad?"
"Means they think I'm still in the swamp. They're either laying fer me at Breakneck, er they're scouting the north creeks fer that Money Plane. Well, all I kin say is that Mr. Ferris better hope they don't find it; because if they do – then he kin count his minutes on earth on one hand. That Jort -"
But Mr. Ferris' life expectancy wasn't his problem. He snapped his fingers and went out on the porch for a gunny sack. Back in the cabin he started loading all his canned foods into the sack. Margy watched him with large, perplexed eyes.
"What are you goan do?"
He didn't look up. "I got time and blood invested in that Money Plane. Ain't nobody taking that away from me. I got to swipe me another skiff and git back into that swamp right fast."
She stared at his humped back. "What about Dorry, Shad?"
"What about her?"
"Well, she's ben missing fer days. Don't it mean nothing to you?"
He straightened up and turned to look at her, the halffilled sack hanging from his square fist. Neither of them said a word. He let the sack go with a clunk and came over to her.
"Margy," he said softly "I guess you think me four kinds a bastard, don't you? But you cain't know how much that money means to me. You don't know what I ben through already trying to git hit.
"Right now old Jort'n Sam and that Mr. Ferris is out there tearing that swamp to pieces trying to find my money. And they got them a fair idea of the general direction in which hit's hid, too. It ain't but a matter of time afore old Sam with that goddam eagle eye of his spots my blaze marks, and then -"
He didn't like the way she just stood there, not saying anything, just looking up at him. A small girl, with enormous watchful eyes. He scowled and looked away
"You kin think what you want," he muttered sourly. "I don't know what's happened to Dorry. And right now I ain't got the time to worry about her."
Swamp Sister Page 17