Part 43 (2/2)

”A few men will go to jail. There's nothing to connect me to this operation.”

”Nothing a few bullets can't take care of.”

”My point precisely,” Korby answered.

The roar of the plane drowned them out.

I stood still, watching the fragment of a letter that was visible to me. It finally rolled out of my view, a patch of white, then the s.p.a.ce between the trees revealed only the sky. I listened to the noise of the plane as it picked up speed, then the throb of the engines climbing as the plane became airborne. It circled around overhead. I caught sight of it as it broke into clear sky over the river.

It flew calmly and steadily, without a care in the world, a plane of rich and free men, completely in control. Men who didn't care who or what was sacrificed for them to fly high and clear. I hated them, willing the snakes to strike, for one small act of vengeance, some shadow to intrude upon Korby's life.

Suddenly the plane jerked up, then steadied, like it had only hiccuped. A hiss in the c.o.c.kpit or the hands of an inexperienced pilot?

It disappeared beyond the horizon. I was not to know its fate.

I moved on into the marsh. The trees thinned out as I got closer to the river, to be replaced by a bed of marsh gra.s.s about waist high. I didn't want to give up the cover of the trees, so I headed in the direction of the Riven place.

I was starting to get cold again, the water climbing ever higher up my legs. I didn't want to fall into another hole. This time I might not get out. But what did it matter, I thought. Make it as hard on them as possible. My chances of survival were a foregone conclusion. The water slid past knee level.

”Hey, a footprint,” a voice behind me shouted. Another voice on the far side of me answered. The only direction to go was into the water. Here, too, the trees were thinning, the marsh gra.s.s thickening and tangling my steps. The dark water was at my thighs, lapping at the bullet wound. The water topped my rough binding and seeped into the flesh of my leg. I s.h.i.+vered; the cold felt like it had entered my veins, chilling me deep within.

”Over there,” a voice shouted, too close.

* 282 *

They had seen me. I glanced back and caught the blur of another person in the swamp wilderness. Make it hard on them.

I let myself slide into the water until only my head was above the black surface. I pushed myself on through the marsh gra.s.s as quietly as I could, until my feet could no longer touch bottom and I had no choice but to swim. I was clumsy and slow, trying to be quiet, trying to hold onto my staff, trying not to let the cold reach the heart of me.

The swamp widened and deepened into a channel, a hidden inlet from the river. The bayou Korby found so convenient, a perfect place to dock a boat you didn't want anyone to see come and go.

I was at the edge of it, still in the marsh gra.s.s. I heard the rhythmic slap of oars coming from above me. I retreated back into the marsh. I held myself as still as my s.h.i.+vering would permit and listened to the stroke of the oars coming closer and closer.

If they saw me, they would shoot me right here. No need to dump my body, it was already dumped for them. My remains might never be found. At least Aunt Greta would have to wait seven years or whatever it was before she could sell the s.h.i.+pyard. If I ever got out of here, the first thing I was going to do was make a will cutting her out. If I ever got out of here.

The boat drew closer. I could see its bow, then the two thugs manning it. Until I felt the disappointment, I didn't know that I had been hoping that somehow it would be Ranson in the boat or that Danny had gotten my message.

It got closer. Goon boy was grunting at the oars and his friend was scanning the marsh. He looked off behind me, then to the other side of the bayou. Then back. And he looked right at me.

Time slowed, inching sideways and backward. He had to have seen me. All I could look at was his hand, waiting for it to go for the gun. Time was moving so slowly that I knew I would see the bullet as it came to take my life away. It would be small at first, then larger and larger, until it blotted out everything.

He looked beyond me. The boat kept moving. He hadn't seen me.

I waited for the yell, the ”wait, there she is,” the inevitable. But the boat glided on, disappearing around a bend, the oars never pausing.

I counted silently, to give the boat time to glide farther away. I got to somewhere around fifty, then got confused. Cold was numbing me.

* 283 *

Swim to the other side. Now or never. I pushed myself off, threading through the weeds until I hit the channel, then swam a ragged line across it, until the weeds on the other side started to grab and tangle me in their web. I stopped, exhausted, sinking into the dark depths.

Not this way, not just sliding into the brackish mire. I looked back.

Off in the distance, I could see a flash of color that didn't come from the swamp.

If you stay here, they can shoot you from dry land. Keep going, make it hard on them. Make them have to cross that bayou to get you.

I forced myself to swim as far as I could, until my hands dug into mud with every stroke. Then I crawled, sliding along in the mud until it turned into decaying leaves and there was a root at my chin.

I looked back. Behind me was the trail of a dying animal, ragged and sloppy. It ended where I was. All the rest of the horizon was marsh gra.s.s, pointing to a gray sky that had been blue the last time I had seen it. All the colors that I saw belonged to the swamp.

I don't know how long I lay in the mud. Perhaps a minute, perhaps a day. Time was a court juggler, playing tricks on me. Perhaps another lifetime. Maybe I had been reincarnated as an alligator. Or an innocent beetle feasting on my decaying flesh.

Let's play a game. Let's see how far you can go before you die.

How about that tree? Can you make it to the tree? The beetle bets yes, the alligator no.

I started to move, then I couldn't remember which tree. There were so many of them. Pick a tree, any tree. Any tree will do. Somehow this seemed funny. I started to laugh, but it came out sounding like crying, so I stopped.

I found that if I picked a tree and stared at it and didn't let myself look at anything else, I would remember which tree I was going to.

How many trees before I win the game? But I couldn't remember the number of trees I had pa.s.sed. I looked back and tried to count them, but it was impossible. Too many trees. Each one I had crawled to seemed different, but now they all looked the same. Too many trees.

I think I started to cry, but I was too wet to feel any track from tears. I was dying and all the trees looked alike.

Keep going, Micky, you want to win this game, don't you? Don't sit here crying at the trees. They're all wearing disguises to fool you.

Somewhere there was a hill that led up to a lawn. I could get away * 284 *

from all the trees, if I got to it. I remembered running across that lawn in some past life. If I was an alligator now, why was I remembering human things?

I kept crawling, sometimes standing up and half-staggering. If I got to the lawn, it would all be all right. Sometimes I knew I had to get there because if I was going to be found, I had to get where they would see me. Like I had seen Barbara. At other times I wanted to get away from the trees and the shadows of the swamp.

Follow the drier ground, go upward. What little I could see of the sky was a directionless gray. At times I had to fight a desperate panic, believing that the next tree I pa.s.sed would be the last and that I would be back again at the water's edge, with spots of red and yellow, all colors not belonging to the swamp, converging on me. I would be sure I heard the slap of oars only to realize it was my own racing pulse beating in my ears.

Was the sun going down? Or was it just my world getting dim?

It could be high noon and I could be going blind. Maybe it was time playing another cruel joke on me. The shadows started to merge and touch one another, grasping at me.

Suddenly the ground changed. It sloped sharply upward. The hill.

To the lawn. Had Barbara Selby lain here where I was kneeling? There was no sign. No dried blood, no rotting red scarf. No footprints in the gra.s.s.

Maybe this wasn't the spot. Maybe I was still in the middle of the swamp. Maybe this was h.e.l.l.

You win the game if you get to the top of the hill, Micky. That's all you have to do, just get to the top of that hill. What do I get if I make it to the top? I bargained. Will it bring back Frankie or Ben? Will Barbara be okay? Is Ranson going to be alive and waiting for me? Can Cordelia love me?

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