The Black Swan

by Day Taylor

  Still trembling and clinging to him, she nodded, then stood back looking at him as if to assure herself he was truly there. Her face distorted in renewed horror as she saw the bloodstains. She rubbed frantically at her cheek where she'd pressed it against his chest. Her screams were long, howling cries that reason could not temper.

  "Get her out of here, Mammy!" Leona's fists beat at her skirts. "Adam, help me! Garrett is dying! Help me!"

  Adam and the servant called Luster carried Garrett to his room. Leona dogged their steps. Her untidy hair flew about her face in gray wisps. Adam placed Garrett on the bed and hurried out.

  For an instant he hesitated at the top of the stairs, wanting to run down their length into the outdoors, away from the noise and the chaos, away from his mother.

  Mammy had taken Zk)e to her sitting room and there

  tried to quiet her. By the time Adam had gained sufficient resolve to face his mother, she was crying in soft, self-pitying hiccupping sobs. Her normally pretty face was swollen and blotched with red.

  He said awkwardly, "It isn't so bad, Ma. Mr. Cline says Uncle Garrett will mend. The dray turned over, and he hit his head."

  *1 wish he had died! I do! I do!"

  "Miz Zoe!" Mammy breathed, clasping her hands and rolling her eyes sincerely heavenward. "Doan you talk hke dat. De Lawd done heah you!"

  *'He deserves it, after what he did," Zoe sobbed.

  "Ma, quiet down, you don't mean what you say. It's over. Look, nothing happened to me. Everyone is saife."

  "Till next time and next time and next time, till he finally gets you killed!" She clawed at his shirt, pulling him toward her. "Adam," she whispered urgently, "promise me, promise me you'll never do this again. We'll leave here today, and then you must promise you'll never see Leona or Garrett ever again. Promise me, Adaml"

  "Ma—I can't do that."

  "You will! You must! I can't stand any more of this!"

  "You'll feel different in the morning. Ma. Wait—"

  "I won't wait! I can't! You've dragged me from my home, gotten us into one trouble after another! I demand that you do as I say in this!"

  Carefully he opened her grasping hand, freeing himself. Zoe, wrapped in her own hysteria, did not see her son's hurt and anger. Adam looked at his mother, who, pathetic but determined, was waiting for him to accede. He said, "Ma ... I can't do it."

  "They mean more to you than II You'd sacrifice your own mother's well-being for your quixotic notions?" Her voice rose. "You ungrateful ignorant! You know nothing, nothing of what you are involved in. Can't you see Garrett and Leona are taking advantage of you? You're a child I They are using you for their own purposes!"

  "No, they're not, Ma. They're good people."

  "And what am I? Doesn't it matter to you that my life is being ruined? I love you, Adam. Is it so much for a mother to ask that her son not bring her sorrow every waking moment of her life? Do this for me, promise me."

  He took another step away from her. "I can't," he said more quietly than ever, choking on the words.

  "Adam!" she cried, coming toward him. "Go to your room! Go immediately, and stay there until it is time to leave for the new house. Do as I say!" she shouted, stamping her foot when he didn't move. "Adam, I am your mother! You will obey me, you will!"

  "Ma, don't . . ." he said, his hands out to her. The hurt on her face was mirrored in his own. She screamed at him again. He walked to the door, stopped there, looking back over his shoulder, then ran down the hall. He took the steps two at a time, stumbling as he hurled himself through the front door and out into the soft evening light.

  His mind raced, but nothing formed into a coherent thought. Impressions and scenes and feelings sped in and out of his consciousness. Like a wounded animal, he wanted a safe place to lick his wounds and try to mend the awful tearing that had occurred last night and today. Vaguely he thought of Tom. Tom, better than anyone, would understand what he felt over having killed the catcher. Tom could feel what he felt and help him to find sense somewhere.

  He ran for the flatboat, jumping into it with such recklessness he nearly capsized the craft. He rowed down the Cape Fear River, then poled his way back into the depths of Green Swamp with hardly a thought to which channels and meandering creeks he was taking.

  It was cooler in the swamp. By night it would be cold. The dark creek water that wound its way through the spongy, vine-clogged growth was quiet but swift running, a powerfully tranquilizing, immutable force that always calmed Adam, gave him pause and insight. This time nothing calmed his turbulent feelings. He poled, his eyes fastened unseeing on the blackish water. All was turmoil, disorganizing him, forcing him on deeper and deeper into the swamp, his mind always returning to the moment when the dray had suddenly overturned. After that there had been no thought, only impressions, horrible, sickening vignettes that tormented him.

  He wasn't in the right branch of the creek for Tom's cabin, and he no longer cared. He didn't want to see Tom either. He didn't want to see anyone. He didn't want to talk or think or feel. All he wanted was sleep.

  He moored in a deep channel, throwing a rope across a bough that hung far out over the water. He lay down in

  the bottom of the peacefully rocking boat and closed his eyes.

  He awakened to the shrill morning songs of the swamp birds. Bright spots of sunlight through thick overhead foliage danced against silhouettes of isolated leaves. Lazily he lay there, cradled by the boat, lullabyed by the woodland sounds on the undulating water. So long as he didn't move, nothing was real. But he felt dirty. The 6dors of tension and sweat clung to him, befouling the sweet fresh air he breathed.

  He climbed out of the boat to relieve himself and looked down at the hardened splotches of crusted blood with bits of dog hair dried into them. Hastily he pulled off his clothes, throwing them into the water. He knelt on the bank, scrubbing the clothes, rubbing them until his knuckles chafed. The bloodstains weren't coming out. He picked up a rock and jumped into the water. Again he scrubbed, pounding the clothes viciously against the rough surface of the rock. The fabric gave until the pink of his hand showed through the thin remains. He placed the garments on bushes to dry. As he looked at them, rippling slightly in the breeze, he felt one part of yesterday had been left behind.

  He dived and came up in waist-deep water. With hand-fuls of grass he scrubbed the day-old sweat and dirt and memory from his body. When he had finished, he let the grass float away from him like tiny green ships on a vast, dark sea. The waters of the creek carried them slowly past its deep-cut banks, covered with tangled late-summer grasses and blue dayflowers, until the little flotilla had disappeared. He ducked again to rinse himself, stood up, and stretched his body. His clothes might be dry enough to wear in an hour or so.

  He gave a startled yelp, thinking of alligators as something slithered past him. As if disembodied, long strands of blond hair fanned out underwater like silken snakes. She surfaced, stretching her smooth, tanned body to come out of the water so close to him that her full breasts rubbed his chest disturbingly.

  **Mawnin',*' she said cheerfully. "What be yere name?"

  "A-Adam," he said, backing away.

  The gu-1 giggled and let the water carry her against him again. **Then mayhap moi name be Evel" Her laughter

  rang out, echoed by a chorus of birds on the swamp not far away. "What be ye a-doin'?"

  "I, well, I . . . was taking a bath. I didn't know anyone was nearby."

  "Been watchin' ye since afore ye woke up. Watched ye make water up agin that tree, watched ye wash yere clo's an' scrub yere body. Oi got plumb tuckered wie watchin', so Oi come to be wie ye."

  In spite of his confusion, Adam found himself fascinated by her voice and straining to understand what she said. The strange cadence and pronunciation of her words, mixing the hard sounds of the Banker with the soft slur of the hill people, formed a very ancient, very English language he'd never before known except here in the swamp.

  He realized he was leani
ng forward as he listened. He straightened, embarrassed anew. "I'm sorry, I seem to be in your swimming hole. I'll—I'll—if you'll just turn your back, I'll—get right out." He kept moving back, getting nowhere. She was right there no matter what he did.

  She shook her head flirtatiously. Her cat-eyed smile was devilish. "Oi come to be wie ye, Adam. How come do ye wanta run away, dereling?" She moved closer to him, looking up into his face.

  He hardly knew what to do. She was as relaxed and fluid as the water itself, gliding in graceful motions against him and then away. When her flesh passed and touched his, there came that peculiarly sensual feeling of water being warmed by skin and skin cooled by water, sensations so stirring that they were overwhelming his ability to think.

  He hoped fervently that the water was cold enough to. prevent a natural display of his desire, yet the growing feeling of heat warned him. Without frock coat or trousers to conceal it in the ordinary way, he had no place to hide, no secret desires to be left secret

  His eyes riveted on her naked breasts. As far as he could tell, all she had on was a blade of grass stuck to her shoulder. And that was something he didn't want to think about because it didn't bear thinking about, but he couldn't seem to think of anything else.

  Eve knew. She giggled delightedly as she put her arms around his neck and pressed full length against him. "Ye be a slow man, be'n't ye?'*

  He put his hands up to take her arms away. A gentleman, even when he stood naked as the day he was born, remained a gentleman. "No, ma'am, I'm not slow. I'm just . . . just . . ." Her skin felt different from his. Her wrists were so small and smooth compared to his thickly muscled ones, so vulnerable and appealing somehow. He stood there bemused with his hands on her wrists, drowning in the nearly colorless blue pools of her eyes, feeling the seductive smoothness of her skin with every pore in his body. He put his arms around her and kissed her.

  It was a long kiss that went on breath after breath. No matter how tightly he embraced her, it didn't seem tight enough for this girl, who kept teasing against him with her breasts and clasping his shoulders with fingers like claws. And the way she teased him underwater was making his knees turn limp.

  Then, slick as an otter, she was out of his grasp, dolphin-ing away toward the deeper part of the creek. A Piscean mirage who swam with the quiet rippleless grace of a fish, she hung there treading water and teasing him with her pale sea-nymph eyes.

  "What be yere trouble, Adam? Don't ye like a bit o* playin'?"

  He could leave now if he wanted. As she had done, he dived, arching back to the surface, making his way toward her. As he neared her, she sank out of sight. He peered down and saw nothing but the soft moving shadows of the swamp creatures. But she was there. Or else it was a mermaid, running her hands over him to lure him down with her. He reached out, feeling for her, and pulled her up by the hair. She came out of the water giggling.

  Again she pressed her body to his and took his breath away with her mouth. Slowly they sank and hung just under the surface till Adam thought his lungs would burst. They stroked up for air together, and he smiled at her for the first time. "Never thought I could like drowning.**

  "Never know what ye might be likin' till it gits tried." She looked at him from the corner of her eyes before she swam away. She stood in the water, her breasts floating at the surface. "Not too deep over here.'*

  He swam to stand beside her, wanting to touch her but unable to break through the rules that decreed he could not.

  "Ye know nowt of woman, Adam," she said, sounding half-disgusted. "Oi be a-wantin' ye to reach out an* take aholt o* me boozums."

  Adam stretched out hesitant fingers and stroked the curving sides of her breasts. She said, "Purty nice, be*n't they?" and smiled up at him. She was tall. He looked into her eyes, not far below his own. He smiled back and, bolder, ran his fingertips over her taut nipples. He felt his breath getting shorter. He had never held anything so alluringly fashioned, of such a desirable roundness and firmness and softness.

  Eve, watching his face, said, "Ye be a-wantin* obleegin*, Adam, afore ye be a-goin' off an* a-wastin' it in the branch."

  Her hands ran down his body, expending no motions on cleverness or finesse. She grasped his penis and testicles with expert gentleness. Then the end of his penis touched soft, yielding flesh, moister somehow than the water around them, warmer and more inviting than the water. He seemed to go down a long cozy tunnel as deep as he wanted, her warmth securely cradling the length of him. He took a deep breath of delight. Without knowing, he put his arms around her, his hands under her rounded buttocks pulling her desperately close against him.

  Eve moved away from him ever so slightly, yet her hands held him as close as he held her. He moved into her again and pulled away, yet her warmth grew and caressed him faster and faster, holding him tighter, pulsating all the way along him until the pulsations came one upon the next and he moaned over and over with a rapture as vivid as the open cloud gates of the sky.

  His knees turned to water. His entire body was water. But Eve held him strongly and kept him within her. The current flowed around them, lending a buoyancy the land would have denied. Then her breathing began to sound raggedly, shudderingly, as he felt the spasms of her delight caressing him anew.

  They stood locked together, panting, her breasts rubbing against his chest. Then he was slipping out of her. He felt the coolness of the water, washing him clean again.

  Adam opened his eyes, and the brightness of the sun-struck water dazzled Mm. How long had he had his eyes squeezed shut?

  She laughed huskily. Across her breasts and her freckled

  cheeks lay a rosy flush. "Ye air a purty fine man, dereling. Wie time ye be all an' all any woman be a-wantin'."

  With passion's retreat, reality returned, and Adam stood staring at her, dumbfounded over what he had done. In his consternation, he'd been going to beg her pardon. Word-bereft, he dropped his embrace.

  "Mayhap ye won't be a-wantin' to do it again?" she said, still smiling.

  "Not—not right away," he answered, feeling himself blush.

  The girl floated away from him, lying half-submerged in the water like a pond lily. Adam floated near her. There must be something he was expected to say. The only trouble was he didn't know the proper words to use when a girl has come up out of the creek and seduced you for the first time in your life.

  It was inadequate, it was foolish, but he said it. 'That was nice, Eve. Th-thank you."

  Her laughter rang out with the crafty wisdom of the natural child. "Preacher man says it be naughty 'stead o' nice, but it be nice, be'n't it?"

  "Yeah." They grinned at each other. Adam took her hand, and they lay companionably together, resting in the water. Presently he asked, "Would you really want to do it with me again?"

  "Aye, Adam. Aye. Ye got the kinda cock Oi be a-likin'. Long an' thick. There be a few things ye're not knowin* yet, but Oi'Il learn ye a' that, next tuthree days."

  "You live around here?"

  "Aye. Cabin' yonder the turnin' there. Ye an' me'll go in after a bit, an' Oi'll gie ye a mess o' grits an' aigs an' side-meat, an' Oi'll show ye tuthree things fer larkin' about."

  "You live out here by yourself?"

  She looked at him strangely. "Roy lives with me sometime, an' moi kin when they's a mind."

  "They're all at the cabin?"

  She shook her head. "Roy's went up to Wi'mton wie a chap. Ye don't injoy folks a-pesterin' wie yere fun?"

  Privacy meant nothing to her. How could he explain that it was a part of his life? Feeling captured and captivated by this tantalizing creature, he said nothing, but smiled as he looked up into the sun-bright clouds and considered what wonder might befall him next.

  Adam followed her out of the water, taking his trousers

  and shirt off the bushes. He started to put on the trousers, suddenly shy again, now that they were on land. She laughed. "Ye'll have no call fer duds, lad." He walked behind her, insisting on carrying his clothes, feel
ing gratuitously exposed, yet avidly watching her bare brown butt muscles twitch as she strode along the path to her cabin. Evidently she went naked in the sun a lot, for she had no paler areas as he did where his trousers covered him. At her door she suddenly turned, and her eyes went down. She grinned. "Ye be 'bout ready agin, be'n't ye?" She fondled him briefly, then stepped inside the cabin. "Come in, if ye can git in fer the dirt."

  Adam followed eagerly. "Latch thet door, Adam. If Oi don't go to he'p work today, they'll be a-sendin' one o* the younguns to see 'bout me. Oi don't 'spect ye'll be wantin' a bairn lookin' on?'*

  "No, ma'am."

  "Ye be of the gentry, Adam? Ye talk so."

  "I—I guess I am," he said, uncomfortably aware of the differences that lay between them.

  "Oi'd injoy bein' a loidy. Roy saw some loidies a-waitin' fer a sailin' ship in Smithville. Roy said they'd faces white like milk, an' totin' sunshades up on sticks to keep the sun off'm."

  "You've got beautiful skin," he blurted out.

  She was poking up the fire in the fireplace, lifting a lid off a kettle that hung from a hook. She smiled at him, a picture of feline grace bending toward the fire, its light painting flickering shadows along the curves of her breasts and hipbones. "Oi'm gonna show ye ev'thing Oi got," she said matter-of-factly. "Oncet ye know what it looks like, then ye'll be a-knowin' what yere a-feelin' fer in the dark. Time Oi git a' done wie ye, ye'll be a-knowin' how to pleasure any woman ye'll ever want."

  The idea embarrassed Adam; yet, as the girl had observed, he was ready. But such readiness had a way of disappearing. When she was willing again, would he be ready then?

  He looked around the cabin. Tidy. Clean enough. A few garments hung on pegs. A homemade table and chairs and two chests that stood side by side under the windows. In the comer, a wide rope bed. Everywhere, furs. On the puncheon floor he recognized raccoon and fox. Over,the

  chests and on the bed was fine beaver sewn together into a coverlet. He was even sitting on a fur-covered chair.

  "Them furs feel good agin yere privates, don't they dereling?" she asked companionably.