by Shelley Katz
Rye came out of his tent, scratching himself like a bear that was just out of hibernation. As he pushed past Lee and made for the coffeepot, he yelled, "Maurice! Get your ass in gear!"
He downed the steaming-hot coffee and felt the warmth spread through his body. Then he yelled again, "Maurice! Come on. You know it takes you longer to get ready than anyone else."
Still there was no answer, and he strode over to Maurice's tent, threw back the flap, and bellowed, "Get up, you lazy son of a bitch!" Rye pretended to throw his cup of coffee at Maurice's sleeping bag; then he realized it was empty.
He called to Lee, who was walking back from the water, "Hey, Boone, you seen Maurice?"
"No," answered Lee. "I thought he was in his tent."
"Well, he isn't." Rye crawled into Maurice's tent and looked around. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary: His sleeping bag had been slept in; most of his supplies were still scattered on the floor. But something was wrong. It wasn't like Maurice to go wandering off alone. With increasing anxiety, he pulled apart Maurice's things, and noticed some of them were missing. His knapsack wasn't around. Neither was his gun.
Rye came out of the tent and found Lee watching him. "You got any idea where Maurice could have gone to?" he asked, trying to keep calm but beginning to be alarmed.
"No," answered Lee, and instantly knew that he did.
Rye picked it up immediately. "I got a sneakin' suspicion you know more than you're tellin'."
Lee didn't feel like giving Rye an explanation, but he too was apprehensive. "We had a talk last night," he said. "Maybe he took offense."
Rye's voice was like a crack of thunder. He was more than worried now; he could smell trouble. "A man doesn't wander off in the middle of the swamps because he takes offense, especially not a man like Maurice. What the hell went on last night? Let me guess. I'll just bet you gave him a little lecture featurin' some of your horseshit ideas on manhood, eh, Boone?"
"What I said was the truth. I don't take it back."
"The truth!" screamed Rye. "What the hell is the truth, and what makes you think you're the only one jvho owns it?"
Lee flared up. "You want to know what I told him, well, here it is, plain and simple. I told him to be his own man."
Rye exploded. "Who appointed you God? So you were tellin' Maurice to be his own man. Poor guy wouldn't know where to begin. You think I take advantage of him, but you don't know the half of it. That man couldn't get another job if he was to pay them for hiring him. He needs me. Take that away and he's got nothin'."
Rye fell silent for a moment. He was overcome with worry, but also with remorse. He had walked all over Maurice a million times and excused it because down deep he cared about him. When he spoke again, it was with great sadness. "You want to know what I think? I think that asshole went out after the gator."
"Afraid he might surprise you and get it?" countered Lee.
Rye was trembling with fury. "Just how long do you think he'll survive out there?" he hissed. "One day, two? The poor sucker couldn't even last three hours in downtown Miami. The truth! Why, you do more harm with your honesty than I ever done with my lyin'." Rye's eyes burned like hot coals. "Everything ain't so black and white as you see it, my friend. You got a lot to learn about life and the livin' of it."
"I don't need no lessons from you!"
"Well, you're gonna get them, like it or not."
Lee's face was compressed into a tight smile of fury. "Could be I got a couple lessons of my own to give."
"That right?" said Rye. "Well, I'll be lookin' forward to 'em. Yes, sir, I will. But I tell you right now, if so much as one hair on Maurice's head is ruffled, you ain't gonna live long enough to teach nothin' to no one." Rye paused for a moment, then yelled, "Get your gun, you hear me, big mouth, get your gun. We're goin' after him."
Rye and Lee stared at each other, neither of them moving or speaking a word. Then they broke off and went for their guns. Each felt the burden of his own guilt.
The connection in Maurice's mind between his Uncle Stan, whom he had disappointed so many years ago, and Rye, whom, he was beginning to feel, he had disappointed all along, may have prompted Maurice to go out into the swamps after the alligator, but common sense intervened not long after. By that time it was too late. He was lost.
Maurice sat down on a log and tried to get his bearings. A phrase from the Hunter's Bible kept coming back to him:
If you get mixed up, don't call yourself lost! You may just be confused for a few minutes. Remain calm, sit down and relax. Have a smoke or chew some gum—think things over—don't panic...
Maurice found it very difficult to do anything else but panic. He was lost and tired and very scared.
Maurice had been walking for two hours. When he had set out, he headed in a westerly direction, following the alligator trail, but after a while he lost the trail and realized he was going south. He decided he'd better head back to camp.
He doubled back on himself and looked for familiar reference points: a tree that he had passed, a boulder he had seen. Everything looked alike. He couldn't distinguish one tree from another; all the rocks looked the same. It was then he remembered the phrase from the book and sat down.
Maurice looked at his watch. It was eight o'clock. By now they must have discovered that he was missing and set out after him. If he just stayed put, they would find him. Or would they? If the swamp all looked the same to him, why wouldn't it to them?
The sun glared down white-hot. It felt like it was boring into his head. Sweat poured off his body; his clothes were wet with it. It added to his confusion and panic, intensifying everything until he could hardly bear it. He wondered how long he would last in the sun. He tried to convince himself that moving on wouldn't solve anything. The best thing to do was wait where he was. Perhaps Lee would be able to follow his trail. But the jungle seemed to be pressing in on him. He felt like he was being crushed.
He jumped up. He had to do something, go somewhere. The noise of the jungle seemed to be getting louder. He felt as if he were being watched and he had to get away.
He started to run. There was the feeling that he was being pursued, although he didn't know by what. Danger lurked all around him. At first he thought it was his imagination, but after a while he felt it was real. Trees melted into horrifying creatures, then back into trees again; the eyes of animals flashed, disappeared, only to return again, shining even more vividly. He felt his mind was flickering between reason and madness, but he was no longer sure which was which.
Huge spider webs were strung between the trees, and Golden Silk spiders hung from them on long mucus-like threads. Maurice ran through the jungle blindly. He crashed through the spider webs, and they stuck to his face and trailed from his clothes.
A large spider landed on his arm. He felt it move up his arm and onto his neck. Shuddering violently, he tried to bat the spider away, but it clung tightly to his skin.
Panic squeezed his heart tightly. He couldn't breathe. Everything around him was whirling and shimmering, shrieking and whispering. His panic fed upon itself, until there was no room in his mind for anything but a fear beyond fear.
He screamed. The sound of his own voice reached through to him, and with great effort he forced himself to slow down and look around.
The brassy sun glinted off the dark, warm swamp water. Its reflection raced giddily across the surface, making the earth spin from him. He tried to keep his eyes away from it and concentrate on a fixed point on the ground. Sound returned to him, and the choked, agonized, but familiar cries of waterfowl reassured him. Thought was still impossible, but the ability to feel anything for more than a second calmed him.
He looked out at the cloudy water. Swamp gas was bubbling and churning up from the bottom, as if the earth had only recently been formed. He could hear it as it broke surface and dissipated into the air. Farther out he saw a fine spray, like phosphorescent sparks, moving quickly across the surface. At first he thought it was just some more swa
mp gas, but soon he realized he had never seen anything like it before.
The trail of spray moved closer to shore, and even the animals were startled by it. Suddenly some fishing birds took off into the air, crying out their choked, agonized screeches. A fawn that was bent into the water looked up fearfully, then fled into the jungle. A pair of water rats scattered through the high sawgrass, away from the water.
The phosphorescent spray moved closer, and Maurice saw behind it a huge wake of swirling mud and weeds. A huge area of the water was disturbed now, like a giant eddy. Maurice watched, fascinated and afraid, as it moved toward him. All at once the water calmed, and two yellow, piglike eyes broke the surface.
Breath without sound escaped from Maurice's mouth. He began to run again, pounding the earth with his feet, clawing at scrub willow and sawgrass, gripped by a terror which was beyond anything he had ever known.
Maurice didn't see that his path was blocked. Even as he fell, there was only the fleeting impression of a boulder, large and gray, pitted with millions of fossils. Maurice didn't understand that he'd tripped. All he felt was the terror overwhelming him like a great blinding white light, and then nothing. As his head struck the rock, he found sound and screamed out. It wasn't a cry of pain, or even of fear; Maurice could not longer feel either of these. Rather, it was a cry of outrage, the instinctive cry of all that lives against the blackness of death. As he hit the ground, bones splintered into a thousand pieces. His head split open, and all the memories, knowledge, thoughts, and instincts, everything that made him a man, spilled out onto the jungle floor.
It took only a few minutes for the flies to begin clustering around Maurice's lifeless body in thick, oily black swarms. They buzzed loudly as they moved about, gathering up bits of him. Predatory birds studded the trees; occasionally one would swoop down to claim his share. The animal noise around Maurice soon grew deafening, and as the animals picked at his flesh, his dead body began to undulate with another life.
Lee stopped when he heard the noise. For the past ten minutes, he'd been able to read Maurice's panic from the jungle. The shattered branches, the broken spider webs, the trampled grass, all told the story clearly. He hadn't said anything to Rye because he'd hoped Maurice would be able to bring himself under control. Now there was the sound, oily and sickening. Lee felt that he was going to vomit.
Rye caught up to Lee. A shudder ran through him as he heard the noise.
"What is that?" he asked, terrified.
Lee didn't answer. His throat was closed up, and there was the taste of acid in his mouth.
"I said, what is that?" Rye insisted.
Lee took a deep breath. "Insects," he said, "millions of insects."
"You figure there's any danger?"
"No. Not any more. They come after something dies."
Apprehension crushed in on Rye, and his legs started to give. He bolted and ran through the jungle, calling Maurice's name over and over again, blindly crashing through palmettos and scrub pines, feeling nothing but his fear.
A minute later he saw him. Maurice's twisted body lay on the ground. All around him were the flies, like a living shroud, swirling and undulating in a slow death dance.
Rye ran toward the body, screaming to drive the predators away, as if that would bring Maurice back to life. The huge crows belligerently flapped into the trees to wait, but the flies remained.
Rye crouched and gently cradled Maurice's head in his lap, almost rocking him. "Oh my God," he said, "oh my God."
Maurice had scooped up Clete's hat and shoved it into his pocket in order to protect Rye. It was a strange bit of irony that, had he left it where it was, Lee most probably would never have seen it. As it was, the piece of evidence Maurice took pains to hide had been wrenched from his pocket during his panicky flight, and now lay on the ground not far from his body.
As Rye and Lee stooped by the water, washing off the smell of death, Lee saw the hat. Suddenly he understood everything. The death of Clete, his subsequent jailing, now struck him as so obviously phony that he couldn't believe he had fallen for it. It had never occurred to him to doubt the events that had taken place in town; they seemed to have all the illogic of real life, but now he was amazed that he hadn't seen it right away. Why had he immediately assumed his own guilt? If it had happened to anybody else, he wouldn't have been fooled for a minute.
When Lee told Sam he wasn't sure what he planned to do about Rye, it was the truth, but, clutching Clete's hat, fury twisting in his gut, the pressure of hatred so heavy on his chest that it took his breath away, he knew.
Lee's mind telescoped. He was aware of the ground, which seemed to whirl under him; he was aware of the heat and the stench of death, but it was all very far away. Everything in him collapsed down and focused into the hot tight ball in his stomach, urging him to act.
Lee lunged at Rye like a panther. He clamped his arms around him, spinning him around, loverlike, then took him to the ground. He could hear Rye gasping for breath underneath him. His powerful hands instinctively found Rye's throat, and he pressed down.
Rye's body convulsed. Bile was flowing into his throat. He was almost retching. Rye forced his arm into action and jammed his fist into Lee's stomach. Lee recoiled. Rye instantly wrenched him from the ground and pulled him over. With a power no forty-eight-year-old man should have, he heaved his body on top of Lee and battered Lee's stomach with bleeding, aching fists.
Rye was grunting, but he couldn't hear himself, nor could he feel the pain; he couldn't even see Lee any more. Occasionally, an image flashed across to him, but it moved too fast to grasp. His mind was blocked off, and he moved totally on instinct.
Lee was losing control. Blood was pouring from a cut under his eye, and energy trickled away with it, wasting itself on the ground. A horrifying giddiness swept over him. He tried to fight it, but the constant pounding of Rye's fists kept pulling him away; all he could see or hear or feel were those fists. He saw something red flash in front of him. He tried to make out what it was, but it disappeared. He saw the flash again, and forced himself to grasp the image. Lee cried out. It was blood: Rye was bleeding.
With new strength, he locked his legs tightly around Rye and pulled him from the ground. Rye flailed and clutched at the air, trying to regain his balance. Lee threw his weight over Rye, sending him crashing to the ground. Instantly he straddled him and began pounding at his face. He felt the flesh give and split as he battered it with a power fed by hate.
Rye lurched up and butted Lee in the stomach. The wind poured out of Lee, and he was thrown off balance. Rye tried to pull Lee over but was too weak. Lee recovered. He grabbed Rye's head and smashed it against the ground. Lee could feel the impact right into his hands. He could feel Rye's head striking the ground; there was a yielding to it, a vulnerability that satisfied, and he banged Rye's head on the ground again and again.
Lee could only see one of Rye's eyes. It stared up at him sightless with agony. He could smell Rye's fear, and that too satisfied.
Rye was gasping violently; his mouth was working, trying to make sound. Finally he gasped hoarsely, "Please, please—"
Lee stopped and looked down at Rye with a savage smile of victory. But Rye wasn't looking at Lee; he was looking at the water, where a trace of spray disturbed the calm. Lee followed Rye's eyes out to the mud-choked swamp, and saw the moss-covered alligator rise like a great black gash across the water. An eerie gust of wind blew across the hummock. It carried with it a strange, otherworldly smell, the stench of death and decay. The alligator broke the surface and rode the disturbed water. His old yellow eyes seemed to be watching the men.
Rye and Lee were frozen as they were, held by the intense death smell and the terrifying, unblinking eyes of the alligator.
A moment later, the alligator melted away. The water closed around him and calmed, until there was no trace of his ever having been there at all.
Lee felt a quickening underneath him. Rye opened his mouth, but nothing came out except
a hissing of air. Rye gathered all his energy and fought to speak. "Please," he gasped, "don't deny me this chance."
Lee could feel Rye shuddering beneath him. He could smell the fear coming off him like rut. Rye's tormented eyes stood out of his head, red and wide, but they weren't looking at Lee; they were looking out into the water.
Lee was stunned. So that was it. Rye was afraid, but it wasn't of him, or death, or even the alligator. What Rye feared most was never getting the chance. It would be a loss of his destiny, and that frightened Rye more than anything else. Lee couldn't begin to understand it, but he knew it was true.
All Lee had to do was close his hands around Rye's throat, and he could deprive him of it all, but that was the one thing he couldn't do.
"I could kill you now," Lee growled. "It'd be easy, so easy. But you ain't mine to kill."
Lee released his hold on Rye and slowly stood up. Rye didn't move; he didn't even seem to notice that Lee had let go of him. He stared out at the water, watching for a ripple, the trace of a shadow, anything that would give him a sign, but nothing disturbed the calm brown surface of the swamp.
Lee brushed off his clothes and walked down to the water to wash his face. The pain was starting to come. His entire body was swollen and tender. Even his mind felt battered, though in the center he was numb. It was better that way. He was tired of all the hate and anger he'd been feeling the past week; he thought he was well beyond all that. Rye Whitman had brought it back.
When he walked back, Rye was up and looking for his rifle. His clothes were torn and dusty, with large stains of blood and sweat across the back. There were smears of dried blood all over his face, and a small red stream still trickled from his nose. Rye's face showed no trace of the fear Lee had seen before, and though he was probably feeling pain, he was doing his best not to show it. He looked raw, as though his skin had been beaten away, and tired, every bit his age. Lee caught himself almost feeling sorry for him.
