John Raven Beau

by O'Neil De Noux

  “He went in here.” Anderson points to our left.

  I see deep footprints in the bog. Re-holstering my Glock, I carefully climb over the rail and drop lightly next to the footprints, which lead off straight into the deep marsh.

  Anderson curses as he jumps away from a large spider web. “Fuckin’ spiders are bigger than my hand.”

  I shush him and tell him in a harsh whisper, “Those are golden silk spiders. They won’t bother you.” A black, fierce-looking silk spider, nearly three inches in diameter, moves slowly along its web, it’s long yellow legs flexing, showing off the black tuffs of hair at its leg joints. “Just don’t let it bite you.”

  Anderson goes down on a knee.

  Clyde’s wearing cowboy boots. I stand and follow the footprints.

  “Whoa,” Anderson calls out in a muffled voice. “You’re going in after him?”

  I turn and tell him to wait back by the bike in case Clyde doubles back. Hearing a tractor-trailer rig ramble along the Chef behind Anderson, I point over his head. “And set up a perimeter along the Chef, I-10 and Highway 11.”

  It’s about three miles to Highway 11 to the east and about the same distance to I-10 to the north. If we surround the area, we’ll have Clyde trapped. Over my shoulder I add, “And watch Bayou Sauvage in case he swims it and heads for Bourbon Street.”

  “Hey!” Anderson calls out, stopping me again. “Want my flashlight?”

  “Did Clyde have one?”

  Anderson shrugs.

  “Just tell the ass-holes with the bloodhounds I’m in here.” I don’t have to worry about SWAT. No way they’ll soil their pretty black uniforms in a swamp.

  Stepping around an oak as wide as any in City Park, I follow Clyde’s footprints across the boggy marshland. The sound of cars fades quickly, replaced by the incessant buzz of insects. Two mosquito hawks dance past my face as I wipe away a mosquito biting my neck. As the evening draws close, I’m going to curse myself for not wearing a long-sleeved shirt.

  Clyde’s tracks are easy to follow in the daylight and I pick up the pace, keeping a wary watch where I’m headed, in case of ambush. Moving around a ten-foot, prickly palmetto bush, I hear my Daddy’s voice telling me how its fruit is a favorite of robins, crows and raccoons. I stop and listen and ahead, very faintly, I hear something moving through the brush. I follow the sound and the footprints. In the dappled, early evening sunlight, long shadows cover the foliage. Moving as silently as I can, I press on past brambles and wild camellia bushes, ducking beneath large spider webs suspended between trees.

  As I ease around another oak, a crow caws loudly off to my right . I stop and peer through the long trumpet vines dangling from the oaks thick branches. A brown lizard scampers up the creeper vines, wrapped tightly around the oak’s thick trunk. A sound behind me turns me around in time to see a squirrel scramble to a sweetgum tree. Wiping sweat from my eyes, I continue through the steam, following the footprints. Another mosquito bites my neck and I wipe it away, as well as two on my left arm.

  Concentrate. I have to concentrate on the prints and what’s ahead. The fetid, almost sweet scent of the swamp gives way to air so thick, it’s a struggle to breath without gasping. The footprints open up. He’s moving faster. I increase my pace through a stand of sugarberry trees. The footprints lead to a cluster of dwarf palmetto bushes. Clyde’s pushed his way through the prickly spires. Several are broken and more bent.

  I move around the bushes and pick the prints up on the other side. Clyde seems to be making a bee-line straight north. He’s heading for the interstate. I step up my pace through a thick grouping of bald cypress and immediately I’m in ankle-deep water. Clearing the trees I see a wide expanse of water ahead. In the distance are more trees and an elevated roadway – I-10.

  Dotted with cypress knees and tall cypress trees, the wide pond glimmers in the fading sunlight. I take a few hesitant steps and I’m up to my knees. No way Clyde’s out ahead, I’d be able to spot him. I slide back to the nearest cypress and lean against it.

  Three feet away, a black cottonmouth glides past. At least five feet long, its vicious triangular head sticks out of the water, tongue darting as it sniffs the steamy air. The chilling cry of a bobcat off to my right startles me and I almost jump. Jesus. I close my eyes and listen hard for anything but only hear my Daddy’s voice again, telling me how the bobcat cries at the setting sun, announcing its meal time.

  A horde of mosquitoes settles on my arms and I wipe them off and move around the tree back to the marsh. I have to find Clyde’s trail again before the light is gone. I’m a swamp man. My Daddy raised me that way. Except for the fuckin’ moccasin and the smart-assed bobcat, I feel at home here. Reaching the boggy marsh, I spot a gator mound and give it a wide berth. Female gators protect their nests ferociously. An adult gator can easily run down a man in mud.

  Finally, I’m on firmer ground. Pausing, I examine the area for footprints. None. Concentrating my senses, I feel I must veer more to my left, skirting the pond. Clyde had to have gone that way. Ten feet later, I spot a fresh scrape against a cypress tree and see Clyde’s footprints along the edge of the pond. He’s going in and out of the water, moving more easterly now.

  Deep in the swamp the high-low call of cicadas echoes through the summer evening, rising and falling like an out of tune accordion. Rounding another cypress, I stop and study the black mud around me. A particularly mean mosquito bites my left wrist. I squash it and scoop up some mud, rubbing it on my arms and neck to keep some of the blood suckers away.

  The beating of wings turns me to my left as a Louisiana blue heron rises from the swamp. Silhouetted against the orange sunset, it does my heart good. It’s a good omen, I tell myself as I press on. I get a momentary view of the eastern sky, which is already dark. There’s a full moon hovering there. Another good sign. Even with some clouds, the night may be bright enough for me to track.

  Clyde’s footprints lead out of the water back into the marsh and in a straight line toward Highway 11. God, I hope they’ve cordoned off the area. I follow the tracks in the fading light. Under the heavy canopy again, it’s much darker.

  I follow the tracks for a good half hour, but don’t spot Clyde. Walking bent over, in order to see the footsteps, I move through the twilight until I can see the tracks no longer. Finding a tree, I stand against it and wait for the dusk to die away, wait for my eyes to adjust.

  Slowly, moonlight begins to filter through the canopy. If Clyde’s still moving, he’s getting further away, but a patient tracker will grow old and die an old man in his bed. Here in the swamp, a tracker who hurries may find his prey too quickly. I force myself to wait for the moonlight.

  A snorting to my right brings me to pull out my Glock and I lean around the tree. Moments later, I spot a shadow ahead, low to the ground. It snorts again and I recognize the sound. The shadow moves slowly away. I can barely make it out, but it’s a feral hog, digging its nose in the mud, ferreting out truffles. My Daddy and I killed a razorback once. He slew it with one shot of his twenty-two rifle, right through the hog’s eye. It didn’t drop right away, but we had no trouble tracking it.

  Suddenly I hear a slap off to my left. A human voice curses and slaps again.

  Thank God for mosquitoes.

  Ducking away from my tree I creep toward the sound. Carefully, silently, I move through the marsh, using whatever moonlight I can. Trees are darker and so are the bushes I must navigate around as I walk on the balls of my feet. A sound from behind stops me. The deep howl of bloodhounds echoes through the swamp. Jesus, they got here quickly. And I realize it could be some local hunter’s dogs. Wait a minute. I remember a Levee Board police officer who raises bloodhounds.

  A movement off to my right catches my attention and I see Clyde for a second, too far away to shoot at, as he steps around a tree, heading south now, straight for the Chef. I pursue him directly, Glock in hand. I hear him snapping through bushes, moving quickly. I pick up my pace. He can’t hear me if he’s makin
g so much noise. Increasing my pace, I try to close on him. Clyde grunts and I stop, going down on my haunches. It takes a few seconds, but I hear him moving again, away from me, this time more easterly. My God, is he heading for Highway 11 again?

  Thankfully Clyde continues his breakneck movements. I don’t have to be as careful. He doesn’t know I’m here. Pausing every few steps, I listen to make sure he’s still moving. I just need to keep him within earshot. No way I can catch him without running.

  I move through a spider web and quickly remove it before its creator crawls on me. Thankfully there’s no painful bite. I keep checking my arms and hair as I continue. Have to be more careful. Pausing again, I can’t hear Clyde.

  I strain to listen and hear a faint sounds of passing cars. We’re close to Chef Menteur Highway and I can’t wait. I have to reach it before Clyde. A vision of him flagging down a ride or racing across to whatever’s on the other side propels me quickly toward the road. Can’t count on the area being cordoned off.

  It’s lighter ahead and I increase my pace around bushes I can now see. Stepping through a line of live oaks, I almost fall into the wide ditch alongside the highway. Large streetlights, more like floodlights, suspended on high poles across the highway, cast a dim glow over the entire area.

  I back up to the nearest tree and scan the wide, four lane blacktop. The other side looks like an extension of the same wooded, marshy swampland. Of course, there are no cops lining the road. I should have known. The only cops I’ve ever seen cordon off an area was on T.V.

  A noise to my left turns me back to the woods. Something moves a good fifty, sixty yards from me along the far side of the line of live oaks. I ease over to the next tree and watch but there’s nothing. Seconds slip into minutes. He’s there. I feel it. He’s just beyond the tree line. He’s waiting.

  To cross the road? Or is he waiting for me?

  Breathing as quietly as I can, I move my hand in slow motion to scrape the mosquitoes off my arms. I fold my arms to help keep the blood suckers away. Patience. I run it through my mind again. I must have patience. I know he’s there.

  He may be a swamp rat, may even know this swamp better than I, but I am also of the swamp. I grew up here. Blinking sweat from my eyes, I examine everything straight-on. Then turning my head, I study the area from the corner of my eye, looking for anything that angle could reveal. I watch for motion, not shape, but see nothing but the trees and bushes.

  I sense something else, something from within. It’s a foreboding. This will be an important night in my life, of this I have no doubt. Maybe a little fear has crept into my heart. Before battle, a Sioux warrior prepares himself, painting himself, chanting the ancient songs, hardening all the soft places within, thus denying his enemy a spot to wound him.

  As I wait, I steel myself, hardening even my heart for this task.

  You killed of my tribe

  Headlights from each passing car flashes through the swamp, especially the westbound cars making the long curve a hundred yards down the Chef from where I stand pressed against trumpet vines wrapped around a tall live oak. I watch for any movement in the swamp, but there is nothing.

  If I’d thought to slip my radio into the back pocket of my jeans, I could have called the cavalry a half hour ago. No, I can’t think of what might have been. I concentrate on the terrain, on movement, on sounds, anything that will tell me where Clyde lurks.

  It’s taken a while to realize the ditch alongside the road narrows dramatically several feet away from where I am. If Clyde is where I feel he is, he won’t have to jump the ditch to bolt across the highway. He can just step over it.

  A sinking feeling begins to gnaw at me. What if I’m wrong? What if Clyde has slipped back into the swamp and is heading for Highway 11? He could be there soon, hitching a ride. A breath of warm air flows over me from the swamp. My shirt, drenched in sweat, feels almost cool for a moment. The loud blast of a horn blares as tractor-trailer rig rounds the long curve and barrels my way. I squint at its high-beam headlights.

  I feel a shiver, as if an invisible finger has caressed my spine. I automatically go down on my haunches. Four thundering heartbeats later, the truck blows by. Closing one eye to the high-beams, I count to three and switch eyes. I hear boots on the blacktop and spot him, running flat out. Clyde’s crossing in the wake of the truck. Sixty yards away, he’s almost across the highway. I step away from the tree and raise my Glock, fixing the reflective white front sight through the rear sights at the running figure. My foot slides forward and I slip into the ditch.

  Climbing out, I see Clyde bolt into the woods just beyond the far streetlight.

  Dammit to hell.

  Can’t let him double back and set up for me across the road. I suck in a deep breath, rise quickly and race across the wide highway. Pumping hard, I bear down until I finally dash into the trees. I swing around a tree to stop myself. My feet sink in the bog. I listen closely as I watch the highway to make sure he doesn’t double back across.

  Nothing.

  Moonlight, filtering through the canopy of live oaks, gives me a good view for at least twenty yards in the swamp. Off to my right, it seems lighter. Slowly, I realize the tree line ends about thirty yards away.

  I step around the tree and move forward in the direction where Clyde went in. Moving carefully, I navigate through the trees past the streetlight to where Clyde entered the woods. The unmistakable imprint of a boot heel marks the spot. Crouching, I follow Clyde’s footprints through the trees. Several yards later I lose them in the darkness. I creep forward and find another footprint beneath a opening in the canopy. He’s headed straight through the trees for the lighted area beyond.

  Inching along, I spot the outline of a wide marsh beyond the tree line. As I arrive at the end of the trees, I see ribbons of water, glimmering with moonlight, cutting through thick marsh grass. In the moonlight, the earth is lighter than the sky, which is black as pitch along the horizon.

  I look for movement, scanning from side to side, strain my eyes, hoping to catch him move. As the long minutes pass, I look for anything that is different in the landscape and spot something in the distance, straight in front of me. An indistinct blot is there. I stare at it and finally, it moves. He’s crawling away from me, crawling instead of walking. He knows someone’s following.

  Slipping the Glock into its holster at the small of my back, I go down on my knees and follow the blot. I pick up his trail twenty yards later and slip into it, hoping I’m not producing my own blot as I move toward him. Looking back, the tree line is darker behind me. I should produce no silhouette as I move steadily after him.

  Coming to the first ribbon of water, I see it’s about fifteen feet across. Probing with my hands, I sink into it but it’s not deep enough to wet my belly. I cross it as smoothly as I can, trying not to cause a ripple.

  Climbing back on to the marsh grass, I look for the blot, but it’s gone. Has he stopped? Is he lying in wait for me? Is he just resting? I flatten myself and wait. Something crawls over my arm and I resist swatting it away. A mosquito stings my neck.

  I wait.

  My Daddy’s voice echoes the reminder he’d told me time and again as we moved through the deep swamps along Vermilion Bay. “Be one wit’ de’ swamp, ma boy, and de’ swamp be one wit you.”

  When I was ten, I used to run that through my head again and again, a favorite childhood ditty. I wonder if he’s watching me now, as I lay in this marsh, trying to be one with the swamp in a game far deadlier than any imagined when I was young and the world was one adventure after another.

  Like the time we hooked a young gator in our trout line ...

  The blot rises directly in front of me and moves away, like a turtle. I know I must ignore the inner eye of my memory and focus on the world around me. Be one with the swamp – I follow, keeping to the trail Clyde has left in the rough marsh grass, crawling slowly and steadily. The blot moves in and out of sight as Clyde continues through the grass.

 
It is slow progress and the night deepens as we continue across the wide marshland. Moving through a swarm of mosquitoes, I push them away from my face and wipe the sweat from my eyes.

  I pause a moment to listen and remember my grandfather’s gravelly voice reciting the old rallying cry of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. “Today is a good day to fight. A good day to die.” I know what my Daddy would say to that. “A good day to die? Zif. I ain’t never seen one a dem, no.”

  Pushing the voices away, I continue. The second band of water is wider, and deeper. I have to stand and walk across hunched over in order to keep the Glock and ammo magazines dry. Reaching the other side, I go down on all fours on the grass and something splashes behind me. I freeze. A turtle, I tell myself, or probably or a fish. Could be a gator, but I don’t look back. I watch out front.

  If a warrior drowns, his spirit can never go to the land of ghosts. His spirit will remain trapped in the water forever, cold and lonely, moaning in eternal grief. Nothing in that old saying about being eaten by an alligator.

  An icy finger traces itself across my spine again and I realize, the swamp rat’s trail is too easy to follow. I roll to my right quickly and pull out the Glock. Fiery muzzle flashes and the explosion of magnum rounds in front of me drive my face into the grass. Two more shots explode.

  My heart thunders in my throat as I force myself to look up and aim the Glock. I blink my eyes, trying to get them to adjust to the blackness again, but I keep seeing yellow dots from the muzzle flashes.

  “If you ain’t a fuckin’ cop, quit following me ass-hole!” Clyde’s voice echoes in the open marsh. “If you are. You’re about to die!”

  Perspiration stings my eyes as I squeeze the damp, rubber grips of my Glock. Aiming it, I wait for the blot to reappear. I hear something. A sloshing sound, followed by footsteps.