Sometimes the cutoffs circled back to the main road, or met up with another little road.
When a road dead-ended at the woods or river, or was just too muddy to drive, we got out of the car and walked awhile, hoping I'd see something familiar that would lead to a tributary or creek or some little outflow of water that might be the home of the Iron Bridge.
Mostly we walked and Leonard cussed the brush and rotten logs we stepped over. I think he did it to irritate me. I'd never known the woods to bother him before. I think he wanted to remind me he thought this whole thing was stupid and he was humoring me.
I tried to ignore him and listen to the cries of the birds and the splashing sounds coming from the river. Those sounds made me think of great fishing days and channel cats, catfish they called the trout of the Sabine. Gunmetal gray, lean and graceful with pointed heads and wide, forked tails. And there were the bigger cats that swam along the bottom of the river or laid up between the huge roots of water-based trees. Some called them bottom cats and others called them flatheads. They were big, brownish rascals, sometimes fifteen feet long, weighing up to a hundred pounds, narrow-tailed, with a wide head and a mouth big enough to suck up a child. And there were stories that they had.
Certainly there were gars in there that had bitten children and pulled swimming dogs under for their afternoon meals. They didn't call the big ones alligator gar for nothing. Six feet long, lean and vicious, they were the barracudas of fresh water, beasts with an angry racial memories of lost prehistoric seas.
And now and then, there was the real McCoy, the alligator. I had never known them to be plentiful along this stretch of the Sabine, and growing up I had seen only one in the river, and that one from a distance. Another I had seen big and complete, lying dead in the back of a fisherman's pickup out front of Coogen's Feed Store.
To the best of my knowledge, they were hibernating. Hoped so. Rare or not, it only took one to punch your ticket. They weren't the sort of critters minded eating a man in a dry suit, oxygen tanks and all.
Definitely the cottonmouth water moccasins, the meanest snakes in the United States, were hibernating, and that was a relief. Winter, even one bad as this one, was not without its charms.
We scouted around like this until noon, then drove into town, bought some bread, sandwich meat and beers, drove back and found a little road that terminated at the riverbank, sat on the hood of the car and had lunch.
We didn't talk much. We watched the brown water roll by and spread out in a dirty foam where the river widened down to our left. "In the spring it would be great to come here and fish," I said.
"Yeah," Leonard said.
Another half hour went by.
"Guess we ought to get back at it," I said, totaling a beer.
"Yeah."
We walked along the edge of the bank and the wind picked up and brought a damp chill off the water; the sky had gone gray as a cinder block.
We went until the bank became nothing more than mud and gravel and was hard to keep our footing on. We were about to turn back when I saw a great tree split wide from lightning, its blackened halves lying one on the bank, the other partially in the water.
I studied it.
"That used to be a big tree," I said.
"Good, Kemosabe. Pale Face no miss fucking thing. Him know big trees from small trees. Pale Face one smart sumbitch."
"It used to have an old tire swing hung from a chain. The swing was over the river."
"You're saying you remember something?"
"We'd bail out of it into the water, then climb up and do it again."
"We're near the Iron Bridge?"
"No, I just remember the tree and the swing."
"But it's a landmark to help you find the bridge?"
"Probably not. I remember the tree, but can't put it into relationship with the Iron Bridge. I know we used to come here is all. The Iron Bridge is on the side of the river we're on, though. Bridge goes partway over a creek that shoots off the river on this side. The tree helped me remember that."
"That's something," Leonard said. "You remember that much, means we can spend all our time looking on this bank."
"It's not real close to the river, as I recall. It's down this creek I'm thinking about, and quite a ways."
"Meaning the creek you can't find?"
"That's the one."
"So, Dan'l, what do we do now?"
"Anymore beers?"
"Nope."
"Guess we keep looking."
Chapter 17
Back to work we went, driving those back roads and excuses for roads, and it was late afternoon, maybe two hours before dark, when we drove around this curve and I happened to look out and see this rusty metal pole, and, bam, there was an explosion in my memory centers. At first I couldn't place what had exploded, but around the curve we went, and the debris from the explosion rose to the top of my memory and began to tumble into something identifiable and I said more calmly than I felt, "Stop the car."
"You're smiling," Leonard said. "You got something, right?"
"Turn around."
He had to drive a ways before we could find a wide enough place to get the car turned, and when we got back to the curve and the pole, I had him pull over. We got out, and I took a look. My smile got bigger.
"When we used to come down here this pole had a metal sign on it," I said. "Probably rusted off the bolts and's under all these leaves and pine needles, a few years of dirt. Sign said something about this piece of land belonging to some oil company or another. I don't remember exactly. But by the time we started going here, there were bullet holes in the sign and it was no longer valid. The oil company had long since lost its lease on the place, and it had reverted back to the county, or the State of Texas, or whoever owns it. But the little road for trucks and equipment was still here, worn down and grown up some, but still usable."
"It's not here now," Leonard said.
I looked where I remembered the little road being. The trees were scanty there, relatively young. In spots there were patches of dirt mixed with old hauled-in gravel, and neither trees or weeds had found support there. If you studied hard enough, you could see where the little narrow road had wound itself down into the woods toward the water.
"I think this was the road Softboy and his boys took after robbing the bank," I said. "They made all these pretty good plans, but the dumb suckers saw water and assumed they put their boat next to the Sabine."
"But it was the broad part of the creek that flows under the Iron Bridge?"
"Yep."
We pushed limbs aside, stepped through the browning winter grass, and followed the faint curves of the old road. When we came to water, we were at a spot as wide and deep as the Sabine at its best. It was easy to see how someone who didn't know the river could mistake this for it.
"If they had a car down here and ran it off in the water," Leonard said, "reckon Softboy would have done it right here, don't you think?"
"Yeah, but it might not be there now. Over the years, with floods and swellings, even something the size and weight of a car could move, if only an inch or a foot at a time."
"Thank you, Mr. Wizard."
We went walking along the bank. The undergrowth turned thick and grew out to the water. There was little room for footing. Sometimes we hung on to limbs and roots and dangled out over the creek, pulled ourselves along the steep bank like that until we found ground again. It was tough work, and even cold as it was we worked up a lather.
The creek eventually turned narrow, just wide enough and deep enough for a boat to go on. I recalled it widened again at the bridge, then, not far beyond that, narrowed enough to jump across, and went like that a long ways.
We got past all the undergrowth and came to the second widening of the creek. There was plenty of bank to stand on now. The water was dark and spotted with stumps and lily pads. Great trees leaned out from the shoreline and spread branches over the water thick as macramé, dripped vines and moss. P
ast all that, where the water was less dark and less riddled with stumps, was the Iron Bridge.
Half a bridge, really—what was built before the money played out. It sagged, and was covered with vines and moss. The metal, where it was visible, had gone red-brown with rust.
"Why would they build here?" Leonard said. "Back a ways they could have thrown a bridge across in an afternoon."
"They were going to widen all this, entire Sabine and its tributaries, I think. Make one gigantic river out of it. They had, as the Baptist preachers say, grandiose plans. Thought they'd be getting so much oil they'd be using river barges. Tools and machinery coming from the northern end of the river, oil in barrels heading South. But it played out before they got started good. There're abandoned wells all through these woods.
"You know," Leonard said, "I'm a wee bit excited. If there's a car down there, just might be a boat with money in it. Finding the car would be a way of checking. We got an hour before dark. What do you think?"
"Now's as good a time as any," I said.
We went back to the car and opened the trunk. The tanks were well packed in foam rubber so they wouldn't bang together and blow us to hell. And they could. They were highly explosive.
Leonard got in the backseat first and took off his clothes. He had this tube of grease for bonding the dry suit to the flesh, and he rubbed the grease all over his body and pulled on the suit. He got out of the car and put on the tanks and mask.
Then it was my turn.
I hated the grease part.
We put our clothes in the trunk, got a fifty foot coil of thin rope out of there, and went down to the water carrying our flippers.
Leonard fastened the rope to his belt and went in first, and I fed the rope out to him, keeping just enough slack in it.
After a few minutes, he came out of the water and shook. He took the regulator out of his mouth and pulled his mask up. His face looked gray.
"No car?" I asked.
"Fuck the car," he said. "Goddamn." He sat down on the shore and took in some deep breaths and shook. His teeth chattered.
"Chilly, huh?"
"Whoever called these bastards dry suits had to be kidding. I got water all inside, and it's cold, buddy boy, I will assure you. My balls are the size of grapes."
"Before you went in, or after?"
"Funny. Look, it's deeper there than you think."
"I remember it as deep," I said. "Used to fish and swim here."
"There's a mild suck hole too."
"That I don't remember."
"It isn't bad, but it could trick you. It's about where I came up. Damn, I'm freezing."
"I won't be down long."
"Not telling me nothing I don't know. You think it's cold up here, this is the tropics compared to that water. And it's dark. So dark, you'll come up and it'll seem like the goddamn world's bright enough to be on fire."
"If you had listened in your science classes, Leonard, instead of beating your meat under your desk, you would know that it takes more energy to warm a square inch of cold water than it does a square inch of cold air. And absence of light makes it dark."
"Just listen, smartass. You're gonna feel numb at first, little confused. Think you're getting too disoriented, don't wait till you're so messed up you don't know what you're doing, come up, or yank on the rope and I'll help you up. I'm not jacking with you, Hap. Water like that will screw you around. Play some serious tricks on you."
"Gotcha."
I put the rope through my belt and tied it loosely in case it got tangled. Leonard took hold of the other end but kept his seat.
I pulled the mask down, put the regulator in my mouth, pulled on my flippers, and eased under the water.
It didn't hit me for a second, but when it did I felt a wave of blackness and paralysis all over. The cold went right through the suit like some kind of freeze ray. It was a feeling like you have when you get something cold on the wrong tooth, only it was my entire body.
It was all I could do to make myself breathe the oxygen.
The wave of blackness passed, though, and I could feel something like cold bug feet creeping through my dry suit; it was water seeping in, of course.
I got organized best I could and swam down deeper. I could feel Leonard letting out the rope.
I couldn't have gone far before I touched bottom, but it seemed to take forever. My head, heart and lungs felt pregnant with ice. I couldn't see anything. It was muddy from all the rain and overflow from melting ice. I crawled along the bottom like a crab.
I wanted to swim to the surface, but somehow couldn't make myself do it. It took all my concentration to breathe from the respirator, keep in mind where I was, what I was doing, and that air and daylight were not too far above my head.
It came to me eventually that I was looking for a car. That struck me as funny. A car in the river. Cars belonged on the highway. I had a car once. I had a truck now, but I had a car once. Leonard had a car. Lots of people had cars. Or did cars have people? It was an interesting thing to think about. If I'd had a pad and pencil, maybe I'd have taken a note to consider that later. No, I couldn't see well enough to take a note, and paper wouldn't do so good down here. I'd have to remember about the cars and sort it out later.
I felt a tug, as if wires were attached to me. I couldn't figure it.
Leonard pulling the rope?
No. That was the other direction.
Did I have another rope on me?
No, I didn't think so.
The suck hole. I was near that and it was pulling at me.
Had to think. Okay. Underwater. Got oxygen. Cold as the tip of a penguin's dick. Looking for a car. Honk, honk.
The suck hole was pulling at me. My arms were weak, and I didn't feel as if I could swim. I went with the suction. It wasn't bad, but it was enough to pull me. It seemed important that I do something, but I couldn't think what it was.
Then the river bottom went away and there was water and tugging. I was over the suck hole. I had swam over and into suck holes and out again in my time, but I wasn't this cold then. Beer would keep good in this water, but you'd want to drink it in a warm place. In front of a big fireplace would be nice. Maybe something to eat with it. I really preferred my beer with food.
Something was keeping me from going down.
The rope. It had gone taut. Leonard had me. Seemed to me that was supposed to be good, but I couldn't be sure.
But wait a minute. I was in the suck hole and my feet were touching something.
This wasn't a very deep suck hole. I wondered how wide it was. Maybe I could put a picnic table down here and have that beer and a sandwich on it. But I'd have to wait until summer. Wait a second. You can't drink beer underwater. Sure can't eat a sandwich. It would get flimsy. And taste like the water. The water was dirty, too.
It was so goddamn dark. Had I been down here so long it was night?
What were my feet touching?
The rope was tugging at me. Leonard was pulling me up.
Hold on here. I didn't ask to be pulled up. I'm thinking down here, goddammit.
I got hold of the belt and unfastened it and let it go. The rope wasn't pulling me anymore.
I bent forward and touched with my hands what my feet had been standing on. It was something flexible. I got hold of it with both hands and held on to it and my feet floated straight up. What I was holding came loose and I began to float up.
Let's see, did I want to float up?
Now something had me, had me hard. I wanted to fight against it, but I was holding this thing in my hands and I didn't want to lose it.
Why didn't I want to lose it? I could let it go and fight back.
I thought about that, but by the time I decided to let go I was on the surface and Leonard had his arm under my chin and was pulling me toward shore. The sun was very bright. It wasn't so cold. I could see trees and sky between their limbs. My hands felt numb. I was still holding my prize. I thought I should let it go. All I had to
do was have my brain tell my fingers, 'Let go, you sumbitches.'
I let go. I was lying on my back. What I let go of was on my chest. A monster bent over me. No, Leonard. He pulled back his mask. He took the respirator out of his mouth. He was calling my name, but it sounded as if it were coming from far away. He was calling someone else too. A person named Shadhad. No, wait a moment. That was shithead. Could he mean me?
"Answer me, shithead. Are you all right?"
"I think so," I said.
"You took off the belt and the rope."
"Did I?"
"You did."
"Couldn't think clear."
"The water, smartass. I told you. Too cold. We haven't got top equipment here and we don't really know what we're doing . . . You're okay?"
"Uh-huh. But you can forget finding any car down there."
"That right?" He picked something off my chest, wiped it with his hand a couple of times and held it in front of my eyes.
It was a rusty license plate.
* * *
We took off the swim gear and used some Kleenex from the glove box to get the grease off of us, then we dressed and drove into scenic downtown Marvel Creek. We had a couple of Lone Stars and a hamburger at Bill's Kettle. Afterwards, we splurged and had chocolate pie and coffee.
When we finished, Leonard said, "Course, it could be some other car."
"How many cars are gonna end up in the middle of a creek like that? And that suck hole is wide enough and deep enough to hold a car during floods and water risings over the years, and when the river gets low, bet that spot's covered with enough water to keep the car out of sight."
"What we got is a license plate, though, not a car."
"It was hooked to a car. It came off because it was rusted."
"You know, the boat could really be out there. And with a little luck, the money."
"Lot of luck. By the way, did I thank you for saving me?"
"Not nearly enough. More humility on your part would be good. I went down there without a rope and pulled you up at great risk of my own life."
"How great a risk do you think?"
"Real great. I fought the suck hole and the cold and you. I can't think of anyone braver."
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