The Brat

by Gil Brewer

  We flashed past a hammock.

  “Kaylor said one of DeGreef’s deputies had you in custody,” I told her. “What happened?”

  I kept my eyes on Kaylor’s boat. It seemed as if there were more clouds in the sky. It was darker, harder to see without the gleam of moonlight. In my mind’s eye I saw Kaylor and Evis with their money.

  “That’s right,” Rona said, leaning closer to me. “Nobody’d believe me when I told them about everything. There’s some insurance detective down, asking questions, too. They wanted to hold me. But the deputy’s an old friend. He let me go. I was supposed to go home—promised him I would. But I took our air boat and started out to find you. All I could think of was you, all alone out here. Then I met some of the posse over by Tom’s Landing. They didn’t know who I was—said you and the sheriff had gone out into the swamp.”

  As she talked, she kept trying to gain on the other boat. Kaylor was running for it now, trying hard to lose us. But in speed the boats were evenly matched.

  “Posses are all over the place,” she said. “They really believe you’re guilty of everything, Sullivan. They wouldn’t believe a thing I said. It’s like you’re a mad dog, or something, the way they talk.

  “I saw Berk over at Lark’s Crossing. He was just starting out into the swamp. I trailed him. It was all I could do. I didn’t know where you went. We crossed a trail ‘way back, but I couldn’t be sure it was yours. Right then I heard shots from some place. Three of them. He heard them, too. I think he knew there was another boat somewhere near him, but it could have been a fisherman. Then he cut a pole and from then on, he never used the motor. He poled till I was nearly dead—'cause I had to pole, too. He dragged his boat a long ways when he saw this island, and it was dark then. I couldn’t pole any more. I kept trying to get closer, then everything happened out on the beach. There was nothing I could do. Soon as he left, I started up and came in.”

  “DeGreef’s been kind of nuts,” I said. “What’s the matter with him?”

  “Lots of things. He’s new down here. But he ran for sheriff and won in the election. Talked big. Then he tried to change ways of doing things. Folks didn’t take to it. He’s kind of desperate, I reckon—he wants to keep on being sheriff. It’s kind of like some kind of disease with him.”

  Suddenly the other boat turned in a broad curve and cut toward the black shape of a distant hammock. Rona quickly touched the rudder, and we planed toward them at an angle, shortening the distance. Kaylor saw his mistake. He immediately straightened course.

  “We’ve got ‘em lined up now, I reckon,” Rona said. “But I think he’s going to make a run for the jungles. He’s headed that way. It can be bad in there—we might lose them.”

  “We can’t lose them. I’ll try shooting for their prop again.” I glanced at her. “Give it everything you can; get as close as you can.”

  We were on a broad expanse of open water. Then with a shock I saw it was hardly water at all. It was nothing more than a soggy field. Speckled patches of earth showed in large dark shadows, riffling the silver sheen of water. We skimmed lightly across.

  The country began to change. We shot past a floating island, then another. We neared, then left a hammock behind. I saw red glowing eyes in there on the shore, and a crane stood in the shallows, tall and still

  “Sullivan, something I’ve got to tell you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “In case we don’t get out of this.”

  “Don’t talk like that. We’ll get out, all right.”

  “You don’t know the swamp.”

  “I’m learning damned fast. What is it?”

  “I’ve never had a man, Sullivan.” She looked straight at me when she said it. “Reckon it’s crazy—but I waited for you. I knew you’d come back. It’s all up to you now.”

  I started to say something, but we zoomed into a surprise of abrupt darkness. Rona turned the spotlight on again. We flashed down narrow channels, along a stretch of dark water. Cypress trees appeared on either side and moss swung close to the boat. She slowed the engine. Up ahead I saw the spotlight settle on Kaylor’s boat. A white, frothing wake foamed behind. He was going too fast, even I could tell that, and Rona stepped our engine up still more.

  “The fool,” she said. “He’ll smash it up.”

  We cut in and out of channels, coming very close to black mangrove-gnarled banks. For long moments at a time there was no glimpse of the other boat.

  “We’re near the highway, Sullivan.”

  The channel swiftly broadened into a lake, and toward the far end I saw thick tangles of foliage. The spotlight swept across the fronds of huge palms, and oaks, enormous long clots of Spanish moss. Then I saw thrusting bulwarks out in the water, an endless series of old pilings, with jetties and piers, and collapsed landing platforms. A row of sheds stood along the water’s edge.

  “I know where he’s going,” she said.

  We slammed in among the pilings. They flashed past, very close. If we struck just one, the air boat would splatter like balsa.

  I didn’t hear the sound of the rifle, but I heard the sound of the slug as it struck our boat. Again it was a ricochet, the angry whine of the bullet went straight up in a wild scream.

  “I’m going to try the shotgun,” I said.

  “Yes. Berk’s better with that boat than I am. They’re gaining already.”

  Kaylor had swung around. He passed in close to the shore, headed back in the opposite direction. Again the rifle spat, and I saw him holding it. Evis was steering the air boat. Rona cramped the steering rod on our boat, and once again we were racing after them through the danger of pilings and wharves.

  “Slant it broadside,” I shouted, readying the shotgun.

  I couldn’t shoot through the propellor. She gunned the engine and we picked up terrific speed. The echo of the noise drowned everything out. The lake in the swamp was calm and enclosed, and sound roared in the tall jungle. We moved up on them slowly. I saw Kaylor drop his rifle and grab the steering rod of his boat as Rona got the spotlight on them.

  Rona hauled our boat around in a tight, skidding turn and I fired the shotgun at Kaylor’s propellor.

  “You got it!”

  A crazy showering of broken splinters flew into the air. Rona slowed our engine. The engine in the other boat was tearing itself apart, the boat drifting in toward the shore between the pilings. Kaylor cut the engine.

  The other boat brushed against foliage. Kaylor and Evis leaped out into the shallow water and ran up onto the shore.

  We sped in toward them and Rona cut the motor. I watched them thrust through a tangle of undergrowth into the forest.

  Chapter 20

  IT SEEMED we would never reach shore. The night was silent now, and you could hear them running in there, tearing through thick growth. I wanted to get out of the boat, take to the water, but you could tell it was deep directly off shore.

  “They’re trying to get to the highway,” Rona said. “It’s not too far away. There’s a long stretch of jungle, all full of old buildings. Then a canal, and the road.”

  I grabbed a piling and pulled us toward the shore. She had shut the engine off a shade too soon.

  “It’s going to be hard finding them,” she said. “This is an awful place. Hollywood tried to film a swamp picture here once. They began out on that island where you were.”

  “Evis told me.”

  We scraped shore. I grabbed the shotgun and went over the side. I couldn’t let them get away now. The very thought of it had me filled with a baffled rage.

  “Wait for me,” Rona called. “Don’t go in there alone.”

  I ran through mucky, sparse water and up onto a narrow stretch of beach. I could still hear them in there. Rona trained the spotlight on the jungle directly in front of me, then I heard her go over the side of the boat.

  I broke through the undergrowth, pushing at thick vines. I kept going back in my mind—back to Evis and what we’d had It was like a chant in my h
ead. The things she’d said and done. Those crazy days when she’d had me planning with her to take the money from Braddock & Courtland. Ray Jefferies lying dead in the office, with his smashed containers of coffee on the floor. The notes she’d written to help frame me. That day I’d told her we couldn’t do it, at the restaurant. And I realized it had been only yesterday. It was all jumbled and screwed-up in my mind and I knew I was moving on sheer nervous energy, exhaustion just around the corner … Fowler’s cabin, with her dress wadded in the center of the bed, her underthings strewn around the room … And the way she had talked in the tent …

  A rutted, overgrown road showed and I started running along it.

  “Sullivan!”

  It was Rona, back there some place. I ran still harder, my heart pounding, and suddenly I was among fallen buildings. It was a kind of swamp ghost town, the jungle growing through moonlit roofs, vines tangling along sprawled galleries. False fronts jutted at crooked angles. I stopped, holding my breath, listened. I heard them running over beyond a row of false-fronted homes.

  I cut around there, ran through a long shed. As I came out the opening of the shed, running across grass-choked planks, I stopped. It must have been the slope of the ground that warned me, nothing else did. You could hardly see the yawning hole itself.

  It was a large octagonally-shaped pit about fifteen feet deep. Grass grew over the planked sides. The sides curved fairly steeply down to a bottom of shallow, scummy water.

  I rounded the pit, running again, and saw an old board sign jammed against an oak tree. The letters were flaked and worn, Black on white, dim, but still readable in the bright moonlight: Alligator Pit. It was probably for the movie they’d been making. The pit was empty.

  I dove flat at the sound of a shot.

  Far across the field, between scraggly oaks, I saw the pale flash of Kaylor’s shirt as he hulked beside a board shed. There was no sign of Evis.

  Kaylor fired again.

  I lifted the shotgun, pumped it, fired back at him. There was a sharp click. I pumped it again. Nothing. The gun was empty.

  I got up and threw the damned gun, ran toward the shed at an angle. As I ran, I heard cars on a highway, faintly, but not too far away.

  Kaylor yelled something and turned, running.

  I went around the other side of the shed. I saw Evis standing by a tall pine. Rona called from further away and Kaylor came from the other angle of the shed. I was almost up to him, and I kept thinking how I couldn’t let them get away now. I had to stop them. He turned, shouted at Evis, then ran like hell into the darkness of the caved-in wall on the shed’s far side.

  I went in there after him.

  A horn began honking from not too far away—three shorts and a long.

  The roof of the shed was a sparse network of planks. None of these buildings had been erected to stand for any length of time; the wood was rotted, ready to fall.

  “I’m going—Berk!” It was Evis.

  “God damn you!”

  Kaylor turned and ran straight at me. He was wild, and he had the rifle. He fired once, missed on the run, and I nailed him, grabbing with both hands.

  He tore loose, swung at me with the rifle. I caught the barrel and for an instant we stood there, slamming at each other from one side to the other. He kicked at me. I went along with the kick, let go of the rifle and he spilled on his back. I dove at him. He caught my leg, twisted it and I went down into a clatter of boards, heavy dust, and dry grass.

  I heard him running again. He raced off across the field under the pines toward where the sound of the car’s horn had been.

  On my feet again, I stumbled after him, one leg painful in the knee where it had been twisted. Somebody shouted out there and a rifle spanged. Then it fired again and I heard Kaylor yell. He came back across the field under the pines, running sidewards, grotesquely. He tripped and fell and back there somebody shouted again.

  “Berk! Berk, are you all right?”

  It was Evis. I saw her running back toward the far side of the shed, through the grass. She had that damned suitcase of money and I started out after her. I didn’t know what was going on out there, but I figured it was the police.

  “Evis,” I called.

  She vanished along the side of the shed, and I turned the corner after her. There was no sign of her. I waited a moment, listening, and heard her feet pounding across the ground up between some of the fallen-down houses of the old jungle town.

  I could only run at a jog now, cursing her a little with every step, a stitch in my side like rusted metal. I turned between the houses and then I saw her.

  She was sagging over against the side of a house, panting, hanging on to that suitcase.

  “Evis!”

  She turned and saw me, tried to run again, then slowed down.

  “Evis, there’s no use running. I’ve got you. Don’t you see that? Don’t try to run. Don’t try it.”

  She stood there watching me, like some kind of animal, caught and at bay.

  “They killed Berk,” she said. “Berk’s dead. Do you hear me? They killed Berk.”

  I stopped walking about twelve feet from her and just looked at her. I was fogged and I couldn’t get my breath. I couldn’t have run another step if somebody gave me all the money in that suitcase as a present.

  All I could do was look at her and feel nothing. As if she didn’t exist. As if I were there, only not there at all. And I had wanted to get my hands on her just once more. Get my hands on her throat. Everything was gone and I was empty of anything I’d ever felt about Evis.

  “Lee?”

  “Come on,” I said. “It must be the cops out there. You were crazy to run for the highway.”

  “We could’ve made it. Did you hear that horn? It was Berk’s friend. We were supposed to meet him right out there.”

  She leaned forward a little, holding the suitcase. Her hair hung down the side of her face, her sheath ripped up the side, her eyes on me. The moonlight slanted down across her and she kept turning this way and that, looking for the same old escape. There was none. There would never be any escape for Evis.

  “Sullivan?” Rona called from out there some place. “Sullivan, where are you?”

  “What are you going to do now, Evis?” I said.

  “Lee—” She turned her head down, stopped trying to talk.

  “If you try to run again, I’ll catch you,” I said. “Let me go, Lee.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Please,” she said. “Please, let me go. You don’t want me. If you’d just let me go, what’s the difference to you?”

  “Give me the money and you can go.”

  “No!”

  “You worked this whole thing out with Kaylor, didn’t you? Did he know you planned to get that money from Braddock & Courtland?”

  “Yes, Lee. I used to talk with him on the phone. We planned it together.”

  “Why Ed Fowler, then?”

  “I needed him—somebody—You were yellow!”

  “Give me the damned money, Evis. Give it all up. There’s no use trying any more.”

  Stay away from me!”

  She whirled, running swiftly toward the rear of the buildings, down the narrow length of field. I took out after her.

  “Sullivan?” Rona called again, nearer this time.

  I heard a man call out loudly.

  “Evis,” I said, “stop! There’s no use….”

  And then I stopped.

  I heard her scream and I stood there and watched her run straight out over the old alligator pit I’d passed not long before. For a second she hung above the opening, screaming, then fell.

  I walked slowly up to the pit. Feet began pounding from a few hundred yards away, and I heard somebody crash through undergrowth.

  Evis went right on screaming. I stood at the edge of the pit and looked down there. Moonlight was bright, washing the sloped walls and the bottom of the pit in a white light.

  She was down there, kneeling in the s
cummy water.

  “What now, Evis?” I said.

  She looked up. The suitcase had broken open, and all around her, floating on the shallow water, sprinkled in packs against the sides of sloping boards, was the money.

  She clawed at the money, stuffing it back into the suitcase. Leaving lots of the bills behind, she slammed the suitcase closed, latched it and ran at the boards of the sides. It was much too steep. She ran up, clawing at the boards, and she was swearing now, through bitter sobs. She still wouldn’t give up. Maybe Evis would never give up. She saw me.

  “Lee—help me. Help me out!”

  It was as if I were dead inside as I watched her claw and slip and fall back. She screamed at me, yelling, and the suitcase popped open again, and money jumped out around her legs and feet as if it were alive. She scrabbled at the sides of the pit. Then she just stood down there and looked up at me with money clutched in both hands and she cursed me.

  I turned and walked away.

  I could hear her yelling down there, yelling at me … I could hear her run at the sides of the pit, yelling and yelling and never giving up, never learning … but she couldn’t get out of there. And I wasn’t going to help her out. She could never do anything again—they wouldn’t let her, once they got her. Just feed herself, maybe they would let her do that much, and go to the bathroom—and sleep. If she ever wanted to sleep again after this.

  She had wanted that money—and now she had it.

  • • •

  They brought in some big searchlights from the highway, over across the drainage canal, and set them up. The place was real bright, and the Law was all around. Lots of cars stopped along the highway, and the old jungle town was crawling with swampers.

  Nobody seemed to care much about me, or what I’d done, or anything like that. They would. But right now it was just that crazy yelling from the old alligator pit—that’s what they kept talking about.

  It seemed Kaylor’s friend hadn’t been as much of a friend as he’d presumed, since a reward had been posted for Berk’s capture, along with Evis’s. He had told the deputy in Hagar’s Point exactly where they were supposed to come out of the swamp and meet. The Law had been ready.