Black Water

by Bobby Norman

  Raeleen lay flat on the log, wrapped her right arm around that side, leaned to the left, and reached for Harvey. “Move!”

  Harvey had no more than reached up when he jumped back and looked down to see a two-foot-long cottonmouth hangin’ from his pants leg, its fangs hung up in the fabric. He’d been bitten. Then another got him. And another. Another. In seconds, they were all over, like they’d popped up out o’ thin air. They were slitherin’ out of holes in the gravelly creek walls.

  Hub watched one wriggle right between his own two feet, slide down the bank, and splash into the water. It had no more interest in him than the hogs had. It undulated in the water with its kin, straight to Harvey, and bit him. Raeleen jumped up as one wriggled past her on the log and dropped over the side. Cottonmouths, rattlers, and copperheads slithered through the water, ever one of ’em bound for Harvey. He reached down and squeezed hard with both hands, squishin’ somethin’ inside his pant leg. A writhing serpent fell out. He swooned, pressed the heels of his hands to his temples, and fell back in the pool. He looked like a six-foot-two, two-hundred-and-forty pound child, sittin’ on his butt in a wading pool. The venom taking effect, he looked at the squirming multitude, confused and bewildered. He picked one up and brought it to his face as if to look at it, and it bit him in the cheek. He looked up at Raeleen and whimpered, “Mama?” Then his lip curled, his eyes rolled up, and his body crumpled as if his bones had turned to butter. He flopped back, smackin’ his head, hard, splittin’ the back of his skull on the sharp edge of a rock, and the water turned the prettiest pinkish-red. His body spasmed, sickeningly, a byproduct of the venom. Finally, it stopped, but even in death, the serpents continued to bite.

  …Th’day th’first dies…

  Nature exploded while Raeleen struggled to stand up on the log. She turned around and pulled Hub’s revolver from her belt. “Well, asshole,” she yelled over the storm, “it’s over. It’s done. They’re dead. I got nothin’ t’lose now.”

  “’At’s CRAZY,” he hollered back, his eyes squintin’ from the rain and wind. “We still got a chance,” but all he saw looking back at him was the gun’s big black hole, and in back of it, a face that’d lost all reason.

  Lightning cracked. The thunder was deafening. Hub ducked as if it’d been thrown at him. Raeleen never flinched. All she felt was her finger crooked around the trigger, and all she saw was the look of fear on Hub’s ugly face.

  “What d’I care?” she laughed, crazily, through gritted teeth. “She’s got both m’babies now. I ain’t gettin’ out alive, ‘n I’ll make damn sure you don’t! Like you said, maybe me killin’ you’s part o’ her plan all along. I don’t know ‘n I don’t much care. It’s awright with me.” She raised the gun, helt it out at arm’s length, and thumbed the hammer back.

  Hub looked down the barrel where the hot lead slug was gonna come screamin’ from and put one o’ those neat little holes in his forehead, blowin’ out the entire back of his skull, brains and all. That was the picture he saw. Nothin’ else. Obviously all that bullshit ‘bout your life flashin’ through your brain was just that. Bullshit. He did notice, however, that her hand wasn’t shaking. Not a’tall. She looked happy. She wasn’t gonna get talked out of it this time. It was gonna happen. She pulled the trigger.

  click

  He rocked back a step but caught hisself before falling over. He’d been fully prepared to die, and it was a shock that he hadn’t. He wasn’t disappointed, but he was surprised.

  So was Raeleen. She looked at the gun, then at Hub. He started to move to her, but she snapped the gun back up.

  He stopped.

  She thumbed the hammer back—again. Aimed—again. Pulled the trigger—again.

  click

  Again.

  Hub leaned back and howled. “It’s empty! You dumb bitch! You forgot t’reload it!”

  Quicker than she could get out o’ the way, Hub jumped to the log, swung the satchel with both hands, and clobbered her upside the head. The blow knocked her in the water on the log’s high side. She righted herself, but before she could shake it off, he jumped off the log, wound up and swung the satchel like an Olympian in the hammer throw, and hit her again. The blow spun her around. She fell flat on her face in the water, but before she could get up, Hub was on her, straddlin’ her back. He leaned for’ard with all his weight on the back of her head, grinding her face in the gravelly bottom. Gathering all her strength, she pushed herself up onto her all fours, Hub ridin’ her like a hobbyhorse. He got off on her left side before she could get to her feet and kicked her, hard, in her left saggy tit.

  It felt as if her breast had exploded. The kick emptied her lungs, and the pain emptied her stomach. Lumpy globs a’ vomit flowed downstream as she grabbed for her ruined breast and rolled over in agony to her back. Except for the excruciating pain, her mind was a blank.

  Hub jumped on her, astraddle her gut. She bucked and tried to push him off, but she didn’t have near the strength on her back she had on her belly. He pounded her in the same tit, and when her hands went to protect it, he hammer-fisted her face and shattered her nose. Bright red blood flowed over her lip. Temporarily stunning her with a hard blow to her left cheekbone, he lifted the heavy bag over his head and smacked it flat in her face. Blood gushed from her broken nose and a gash over her right brow, down her cheeks, and into the water.

  They were both so consumed with hate and rage they didn’t notice the air was filled with Lootie’s screech. Hub finally weakened Raeleen to the point where he could grip her throat with both hands. He leaned for’ard and, lockin’ his elbows out, straight-armed all his weight into it, helt her head under the water. She thrashed desperately, trying to pry his fingers loose, but it did no good.

  Then Hub noticed her hex bag bobbin around in the water above her throat. She gasped for breath when he yanked her head out o’ the water just long enough to let her watch him rip it off her neck. He pressed the sodden bag to her busted nose and ground it in the blood, then tossed it in the water. She watched it flow under the log. Laughing, he leaned into her again, forcing her head under the water. Raeleen’s fingers dug into his, but it was useless. She finally let go, and Hub figured she was finished.

  He figured wrong, though, because under the water, she was groping for the knife in the sheath on her belt. She pulled it out and jammed the blade into Hub’s side, hard. He gnashed in pain and almost let go, but came to his senses and, if anything, squeezed harder. She stabbed him repeatedly in the hip and thigh, anywhere she could stick it—under the circumstances, she wasn’t particular. But still he didn’t let go, his fingers buried in her throat. Then it hit him, that with his fingers clamped around her throat, she’d probably last longer than if she took a lungful o’ water. He pushed her head down as far as he could and then let go. As he’d hoped, she took advantage of it and sucked, hard. He helt her face under the water, allowing her to take all the water her oxygen-depleted lungs wanted. Then he rewrapped his hands around her throat….

  Lookin’ up through the watery distortions, Raeleen saw her killer. There was no mistaking the long, scraggly hair, the scar’s discoloration, and the eyes, one inky black, the other….

  …and this time he squeezed so hard he felt somethin’ snap in her throat. Immediately, her body went slack, and the knife rolled from her dead hand to the gravelly creek bottom.

  …Th’day th’first dies…

  Raeleen was dead, but unlike Henry’s end, the hot wind didn’t subside and just blow off. The dark, menacing clouds kept boiling and thunder rolled. Blood pulsed from his wounds when he rolled off Raeleen’s body, exhausted. He stood up, and although hampered by the satchel, unhitched his pants and pulled ’em down far enough to check the wounds. They were bleeding, but other than burnin’ like Hell, he didn’t believe they were anywhere near life threatening. Most of ’em had hit him in the hip and upper thigh. Nothing vital. He hitched his pants back and, bending to Raeleen’s body, searched her pockets for the key to the manacles. T
hen he remembered. Harvey had it. He remembered his puttin’ it back in his pocket after chaining him up that morning.

  He hobbled along the crumbly creek bank. He’d been so busy throttlin’ the life out o’ Raeleen, he hadn’t noticed how the creek’d risen. The water that’d been flowin’ under the log was now lapping over it. Raeleen’s lifeless body was wedged under it, helping to dam it up. Standing in water now almost knee high, he looked into the lower part o’ the pool where dozens of snakes continued to wriggle and slither over Harvey’s lifeless corpse.

  He picked up a cantaloupe-sized rock out o’ the water and tossed it over the side to scare ’em off. It hit Harvey square in the sternum, forcing water to spout from his mouth. His arms and legs jerked skyward, his eyes bugged open, and he screamed as if bein’ ripped from a horrendous nightmare.

  Hub screamed!

  If the writhing, squirming mass’d had the capability, they woulda screamed too, but instead, they took their shock out on Harvey’s already venom-saturated body, all over again. Then, as quickly as it’d started, it was over. Harvey plopped back in the water. Dead.

  Again.

  The miraculous reanimation had stirred the wrigglers up but hadn’t scared ’em off as Hub’d hoped. He looked at the blood runnin’ off the tips of his fingers. Blood that wasn’t comin’ from the knife wounds but his scarred arm. Rain pelting his face, he looked into the boiling sky and shook his fist. “It’ll take more’n this, you old bitch!”

  Then Hubert Marshall Lusaw started off, the satchel with fifty thousand dollars still chained to his wrist.

  Two hours later, Hub was still sloggin’ through the stormy swamp. The water was only up to his nuts, but the silty bottom was like walkin’ in wet cement. He alternated holding the satchel over his head, on his right shoulder, or snugged to his chest. He woulda given a thousand dollars for a ten-cent hacksaw blade. Suddenly, he stopped and cocked his ear. Was it just part the storm or, no…a motor! Comin’ his way. He quickly waded to a large cypress.

  Slicing slowly but deliberately through the storm-agitated water was a dented aluminum skiff with two big black men, Bob McDonald, in his low sixties, and Phillipe LaRue, in his low fifties. Cowering under a yellow slicker, Phillipe was at the tiller while Bob sat in the bow, on the look-out for flotsam that might damage the hull. In the skiff’s belly lay the carcasses of half a dozen three- and four-foot gators.

  Hub watched from around the tree when they passed not more than fifty yards from him. He assumed they were poachers and, therefore, wouldn’t wanna have any more to do with him than he did with them. It woulda been difficult for them to see him with the storm, but with their bein’ hunkered down under their slickers, it was almost impossible.

  When the skiff motored out o’ sight, Hub started off in the same direction. He was unfamiliar with this part o’ the swamps and figured the boat’s inhabitants might be headed for some semblance of civilization. If not, he’d still find his way, eventually.

  No more than thirty minutes later, a grin spread across his face as he neared the edge o’ the swamp where the trees started to thin out. He looked at the raging, boiling, bruise-hued clouds and shook his fist. “You lose, you fuckin’ bitch. You’re good at sneakin’ up on abody with snakes ‘n hogs, but how’d ya do agoin’ toe t’toe with me! Come on, you ol’ whore! You ain’t gonna give up on me now, are ya? I wish ya had ‘nother idyit son I’cd throttle th’life out of!”

  Lightning flashed and thunder crashed as if in reply. He looked all around the sky, searching for her ugly face. “’At th’best ya got? Noise? Quit hidin’! Come on, just once, show yerself!”

  Instantly, the screeching wail ceased. Right along with his smartassey attitude. The silence was deafening. The black clouds still boiled, which should make some kind o’ sound.

  But it didn’t.

  The wind blew, which shoulda made some kind o’ sound.

  But it didn’t.

  The small storm-tossed waves lapped at him, which shoulda made some kind a sound.

  But they didn’t.

  The branches in the trees rocked with the wind, which shoulda made some kind o’ sound.

  But they didn’t.

  It was like somebody’d turned a glass bowl over him, upside down, and inside, the lack of sound was all there was. Then…he did hear somethin’. A grumblin’, rumblin’ that he felt more than heard. Then, in his head…

  “I’m here.”

  Slowly, he turned to find he was face to face with the biggest alligator he’d ever seen. In truth, he didn’t know gators got that big. It was as if it’d materialized out o’ thin air. Thin water. All that was stickin’ out o’ the water was a little o’ the snout, the eyes, and some o’ the dinosaur-like knobblies. It looked like a God Damn log with eyes. Hub coulda parked his ass between that snout and the eyes and not touched either one. He could only imagine how much more there was under the water. It didn’t move, but just looked at him. It coulda been a log for all the life it displayed. Except for the eye. Hub’s blood ran cold as he recognized the discoloration that ran from the middle of its upper jaw, up through the blue-blind left eye to the middle of its monstrous skull. The other eye was jet black and depthless.

  She hadn’t snuck up on him at the last second with a herd of swine. She hadn’t snuck up on him with a pool of wriggly cottonmouths.

  Like he’d challenged, she was gonna go toe t’toe. The sound of the raging storm rolled back at full volume, and the alligator’s glassy black eye filmed over. Then the monstrous body tightened spring-tight, and the dinosaur flicked its enormous tail, one time, hard, catapulting itself clean out o’ the water. Its cavernous mouth flew open, it twisted to the right, grabbed Hub around the middle, and snapped shut. As with Raeleen’s throat, somethin’ popped. A bunch o’ somethin’s.

  The gator squished all the air out of Hub’s lungs. It also squished up his gullet what little was still in his stomach from the meager meal consumed the night before. What’d already been digested was squished out the other end. It felt like his eyes were gonna pop out of his head. Then the beast went into its death roll, and Hub’s body and the satchel flailed, slappin’ in the water with each pass. The beast spun like a rubber band on a kid’s balsawood windup airplane, but each time it rolled Hub out o’ the water, it was like time had stopped and he had all the time in the world to see the bright red blood flingin’ through the air like somebody flickin’ thinner from a paint brush. Then he was back under the water. He didn’t have time to pick and choose when he sucked in badly needed air, and half the time it was green, brackish water.

  Finally, he was jerked to the surface one last time, and tried to pull air into lungs that were squeezed almost flat. The way the thing had him, he was layin’ on his back. He and the monster managed one last look. Hub watched its eye roll back and the eyelid close, then it slowly slid under the water, while Hub, blood slobberin’ from his mouth, valiantly but worthlessly pounded on the gator’s rocky face, fightin’ to the last. Bloody bubbles rose to the surface and burst, flickin’ the prettiest little flumes of pinkish water.

  …you all die.

  The wind subsided, thunder and screeches faded into the distance. Buried deep in the screeches was somethin’ that sounded like a cackly laugh.

  Finally, Lootie Komes could go to Hell in peace.

  CHAPTER 38

  The dented, scuffed aluminum tub with the tiny outboard motor was pulled up high on the bank and tied off with a clothesline rope to a dead tree stump. A scruffy, slap-em-up, lean-to campsite’d been hurriedly constructed, and Bob and Phillipe had their skinny black butts planted on two upturned galvanized buckets, their coat collars turned up, warming their arthritic hands with their coffee cups. A cast-iron skillet lay on a grate in the middle o’ the fire with half a dozen thick slices o’ fatty bacon sizzlin’ and spittin’ grease. Bacon, beans, and coffee—the breakfast of poachers the world over. During working hours, the buckets served as fish-gut containers. Smelly fish guts was catnip to
gators. Gatornip.

  It was a beautiful morning…a bright blue sky, and not a sign of clouds. A damn sight better than the day before. Normally, they woulda felt a storm coming and prepared for it, but that son of a bitch yesterday had come up so quick it caught ’em unawares and nearly blew the camp away.

  Two huge, near-feral, slat-sided mongrels lay off to the side, chained up, their slobbery jowls resting on criss-crossed front paws, concentrating on the skillet. The smell of all that bacon fryin’ would’ve aroused most dogs, but those two knew that whimperin’ and carryin’ on wouldn’t do any good. The best they could look for’ard to’d be gator or fish innards.

  The reason there hadn’t been much put into the campsite was ‘cause they had no intention o’ stayin’ in one place for more than a day or two. A permanent, traceable residence was an unrealistic luxury in the life of gator poachers. In fact, they were waitin’ for another pair, Coozie and Gerard, so they could break camp and move on. They shoulda been there the day b’fore. Probly got caught in the storm. They hoped Coozie and Gerard’s luck was better than theirs. There were seven skins, stretched tight on boards at the edge o’ the camp, dryin’ in the sun. It was a pitiful lot. They’d pulled in almost enough to pay for the gasoline and supplies it took to survive that week. Profit wouldn’t make an appearance.

  Bob set his cup down, leaned in, and helt his tin plate next to the skillet with his left hand, grease spitting on it, and with the knife in his right, poked two bacon strips, pulled ‘em on to the plate, and sat back to wait for ‘em to cool. The knife’s handle was longer than the blade. It was old and had been honed so many times, it was worn down to a nub, but it was one sharp son of a bitch. No tellin’ how many times the rough leather wrapped around the handle had been replaced.

  He never used it that he wasn’t reminded of where it’d come from. It was the same blade the ol’ witch, Lootie Komes, had jammed into her chest bones the day Hub Lusaw was sentenced to forty years in Angola Penitentiary for killin’ her sons, George and Matthew. God, what a day that’d been. He and Phillipe had been paid two bucks apiece to pick up her body, put it in back of the cop’s truck, and unload it at the morgue. It’d creeped him out how little she’d weighed—nothin’ but skin and bone. How somethin’ so evil could weigh so little, still stumped him. That day, on the way to takin’ her body to the morgue, he’d looked around to make sure nobody was lookin’, reached over, and pulled the blade from ‘tween her ribs. When they got to the morgue, he and Phillipe lifted her out and lugged her inside. All the cops wanted to do then was get away, so they never looked at the body, and the people at the morgue never asked anything about where the tool was she’d used to kill herself. They probably figured the cops had it.