1 News from Dead Mule Swamp

by Joan H. Young

  I crawled a few more feet to be free of the tree’s branches and struggled to my feet. The trail was now unfamiliar, and all I could see was a slightly lighter opening between the trees to guide me. The surface beneath my feet was a complete mystery, but I had to keep running. I forced myself into a jog. I hadn’t known I could run this far, but I’d never been quite so motivated. Behind me, I heard a grunt and a thump. So, Kevin had found the tree, too. He apparently hadn’t been using the light to find his way, only to search for me. Somehow his discomfort didn’t worry me very much.

  Without warning, my left foot encountered a soft, angled surface, and then my right foot disappeared into cold water. I pitched forward and felt both my feet being pulled into soft, oozing mud. Unavoidably, I thrashed my arms to try to regain my balance, and the resulting splashing sounds were loud in the night air. I twisted to look back at the trail, but this pushed me even deeper into the muddy water.

  The flashlight beam caught me full in the face and blinded me. I couldn’t see Kevin, but I heard him panting. It was one thing to read old newspapers and track down a killer in theory. It was another thing altogether to be face to face with one in the dark of a swamp.

  “Perfect,” he said, heaving with the effort of speaking. “No one will find you here for months.”

  I heard the gun click, but there was no pop, no ripping of leaves, no tearing of flesh and bone, or burst of pain.

  “Shit,” he said. I thought of the last time I’d heard someone say that word in Dead Mule Swamp. That had been because of this same man’s success at taking away a life. This time, it was because he couldn’t take mine.

  He moved the light slightly so it was out of my eyes. I could see him looking at the tiny gun cradled in his hand. He raised his eyes to mine, and his face wore a crafty look. There was bark and a dead leaf stuck to his forehead with what might have been blood. He must have scraped his face on one of the big tree’s branches. It might have been comical if my situation weren’t so critical. I had now sunk up to my rib cage in the muck. It was hard to decide which frightened me more—the man or the mud. As I floundered, he spoke again, “No, this is even more perfect. No bullet hole is better. Everyone will just think you wandered into the swamp at night. Which you did. Good riddance. Forest County will be better off without a nosy newcomer.”

  “Don’t just leave me here,” I protested. I probably was whining, but I didn’t care. I could definitely accept being touched by Kevin right now. There was nothing solid under my feet and the soft mud was sucking me downward.

  “Your newspaper’s gone, and soon you’ll be gone too. ‘Newcomer Abandons Cherry Hill when Renovations become Overwhelming.’ How would you like that headline? The swamp doesn’t dry out in this part. You’ll never be found.”

  I was afraid he was right. My only consolation was that other people would be alive to confront him. The alternate headline would sell even more papers, “Teeter Farm Implements Owner Indicted for Fraud and Murder.”

  He gave that nasty laugh again, turned on his heel and walked back the way we had come. A few seconds later he swore and I could hear breaking branches. I was glad the tree had gotten a second chance to inflict some damage.

  Chapter 33

  One threat was apparently gone, but I couldn’t deny that I was in real trouble. I seriously wished I had trusted Cora enough to tell her what I had planned to do, but I knew she would never have agreed that it was a good idea. A layer of haze was settling down over the swamp, but the moon had apparently risen, because there was now a soft light reflecting off the open water. It wasn’t much, but it did allow me to see a little better. What I saw wasn’t good.

  My floundering had taken me farther away from the path. Not very far, but my feet still hadn’t encountered anything solid, so I certainly couldn’t walk away from this problem. I was in mud almost up to my armpits, and I was finding it difficult to fight down the panic. I tried to recall anything I might have learned about quicksand. The scene from Princess Bride in the Fire Swamp didn’t seem a useful resource, and there was no handsome Westley here to dive in to save me. In Lawrence of Arabia, the Arab boy had disappeared below the surface in a few seconds; at least I was still floating.

  Then I remembered. Floating was the key. If you stopped struggling, and just treated it like thick water, you could stay on top. The problem was that the whole idea was repugnant, counter-intuitive. To float, I would have to put the rest of my body, the only parts that weren’t being sucked down by the soft mud, into the black ooze. I thought about that for a few seconds, but realized I didn’t have much time for contemplation.

  Denying the desire to struggle which the panic clamored for, I lay back, splayed my arms as wide as I could and spread my fingers against the dark water, palms down. Mud sloshed into my ears, and a leaf drifted against my face. I wanted to brush it away, but didn’t dare move my arm that much. I could feel my hips rising, almost imperceptibly, but they were definitely being forced upward by the tension of my back, flat against the surface. My feet still dangled downward, caught in the slime. The grip of the mud was so strong it felt as if my sneakers might be pulled off my feet.

  I waited until it seemed as if my legs were no longer moving, and tried something akin to swimming. I didn’t dare do anything as bold as a backstroke, not wanting to raise an arm from the surface and reduce my floating power. Instead, I sort of fluttered my hands, scooping watery mud with each motion. At the same time, I risked a slight kick with my feet. I could hardly move them. It seemed exactly like the proverbial expression: “to swim through molasses.” However, as I moved a few inches backward, my feet came a few inches upward as well. The higher I could get, the better, because the surface area was much more liquid than the depths. It seemed at first as if my left shoe might remain in the swamp—the lace must have been loose, but I curled my toes and managed to keep it on my foot.

  The plan was working. I was moving very slowly, but my feet were rising, and I was staying on top of the ooze. The next problem was that I was moving in the wrong direction, away from the path, and presumably into deeper water. Well, maybe the open water would be more clear, and I could turn over and actually swim.

  After a few minutes of flap-paddling, I bumped into a clump of bushes. They were growing right out of the water. I rolled on my left side and grabbed a handful of the branches. Now that I wasn’t fighting to stay afloat, I could see I wasn’t really very far from the path. It had made a jog, but I had run straight ahead into the water. These bushes were screening me from it. Although the path was not far, the branches were too thick to push my way through, especially since I couldn’t get any purchase with my feet, but the line of bushes did lead right back to where the trail had turned. The way was longer, maybe fifty feet, but I could get there, if I were strong enough.

  First, though, I had to turn around. This meant leaving the security of tightly gripping a bush, and then turning in a half circle. The shrubbery pulled at my hair like rough fingers as I rotated past, but I was beyond caring. Finally, I was facing the bushes again, with my left hip out of the water, and now my head was pointed toward solid ground.

  I reached above my head, grabbed some branches and pulled them toward me. They bent, but did not break, and slowly, my body slid in their direction until my stomach was even with the stems I had grasped. It was a good thing I had taken up renovating my house. Hauling rubbish and hefting sheets of drywall had made me strong, stronger than I had realized. I did the maneuver again. Assuming my arms were about three feet long, I calculated that I’d just moved about six feet. Only forty-two feet to go, fourteen more strokes. I did two more. This was really hard work, but I felt secure, and the panic was gone. And there was no time pressure; I had all night if I needed it. At least I hoped I did. I prayed that Kevin would not come back, bringing fresh ammunition for the gun.

  I rested for a while and then pulled myself along the edge of the shrubs for three more strokes. And then three more. What was it Adele had called t
his stuff? Oh yes, buttonbush. It grew right through the open water. Two more strokes. Well, I’d just button myself right to it. Another rest, and then two more strokes. The moon was visibly higher now, glowing weakly through the haze. I tried to twist my head around to see how close I was to dry land, but I couldn’t tell without turning my whole body, and I didn’t want to waste the energy. My arms were tired and shaking; I was getting cold. But I thought it couldn’t be more than a few more strokes until I’d be out of danger. This danger, at least.

  I reached back once again and was pulling more branches toward me when my right hip grazed across something hard. I ventured to put some weight on it, and realized it was a log, and it was angling toward the surface. I reached down and grabbed its sides. Now I could turn and face the shore, for that’s where I was, and I dragged myself from the water.

  I don’t know how long I sat there. At first I was just trying to catch my breath, and then I seemed to fall into a sort of trance. I only know that because when I began to shake it felt as if I were waking up. The mud was drying on my skin and was starting to itch. There was no Kevin to hurt me, there was no handsome Westley to save me, there was no Roger to either hold me or push me away. There was only me, sitting in a swamp in the watery moonlight, shivering. I could live without Roger. I could live without a Westley. I could live.

  Chapter 34

  I wasn’t sure whether I would be safer here, or if I walked out to the road. A decision was forced by the fact that I was cold; walking made as much sense as anything, and eventually I’d have to go. It might as well be under cover of night. I didn’t know where the trail led if I went forward. Perhaps it really did dead end at a wide expanse of water. However, I didn’t like the idea of going back the way I had come, just in case Kevin was still hanging around. I tried the flashlight, which was still in my jacket pocket, but it was wet and wouldn’t turn on. It was just as well. I could see quite a bit by the diffused moonlight, and the flashlight beam would have only made me a visible target. I decided to go forward.

  Now that I wasn’t running, the path wasn’t treacherous at all. There were a few more fallen trees, but none as big as the monster that I had crashed into before, and I easily stepped over them. I only had a vague sense of the direction of the trail, but it seemed to be angling away from the rising moon, to the right, so that meant I had to be turning south. That was good news, because it meant this pathway should eventually come to the seasonal extension of South River Road. I had been walking for maybe twenty minutes when I rounded a bend and could see a lighter patch ahead, and the surface of a dirt two-track road. Reaching it, I turned to the right. Now, I could walk faster, which helped me warm up. I thought I knew where I was, but I couldn’t be positive. If I were right, I’d walked that old road many times for exercise, but never in the middle of the night.

  In the distance I heard a siren begin to wail, and I wondered who was in trouble now. The last time I’d heard a siren from this road was also the day that Cliff had died. I shivered again, but not from the cold. I heard more sirens, and then they all cut off abruptly. It sounded as if they were out on the highway. Maybe an accident.

  Headlights shone around a bend in the road ahead of me, and I quickly shrank into the trees beside the road, just as a car came around the curve. Had I been seen? It was moving very slowly, as if the driver was looking for someone, and then I recognized it as a Cherry Hill police car. I stepped into the road and raised my arms.

  The car came to an abrupt stop and Tracy jumped out and ran toward me. She led me back to the car where I saw Tom Baker in the passenger seat.

  Within minutes, I was in the back seat, bundled in an army blanket, which itched even more than the mud, but I didn’t care. Tom poured me a cup of hot coffee from a thermos bottle he held between his knees, as we sped back along South River Road. Tracy swerved around as many potholes as she could, but it was a good thing the coffee was in a travel mug with a lid. At Centerline we turned north and then east on the highway, which seemed strange because it took us away from town.

  They were asking me questions almost faster than I could muster up answers. I pulled the soggy rubbing from my jeans and handed it to Tom. “This might not be any good now, but we should be able to get another. You can probably take the actual name plate to a forensic lab.”

  Tom took the softened paper and studied it.

  “How are you going to find Kevin?” I asked.

  My question was answered when we reached an enclave of State Police cars, and Cherry Hill’s other cruiser. Deputy Kyle Appledorn was leading a handcuffed Kevin Teeter toward one of the state cars. On Kevin’s other side was a State Trooper, firmly gripping his other arm.

  Tracy turned her head to look at me. “I happened to stop in the office this evening, to pick up some files,” she said. “I got the fax you and Cora sent.”

  “But what made you come looking for me in the swamp?”

  “Tom got worried. He called his mother and she seemed nervous. He finally got her to tell him what you two had found out, and she urged him not to go into work tomorrow.”

  Tom chimed in, loudly of course, “I got ta thinkin’ about how Kevin acted all day. He was short-tempered and mean. More’n usual. I saw him take that little gun out of the safe. It’s like somethin’ a lady would carry, only five bullets, and I asked him what he was goin’ ta do.”

  “’Just some target practice,’ he said, and told me to mind my own business. But that ain’t no target shootin’ gun.”

  Tracy continued, as much to save our ears as anything, “After Tom talked to Cora they decided you might not be safe. I called the State Police and sent Kyle out to meet them along the highway. They planned to begin looking for Kevin at his business. Then, I picked Tom up. I sometimes deputize him when we are short on officers.”

  “But how did you find me?”

  “We were just going to check your house. But, while we were driving out there, it came over the radio that the State Police had picked up a man walking along the highway with a bad cut on his head, and a lot of mud on his pants and shoes. Turned out it was Kevin Teeter, trying to walk home. That seemed out of character, and when he became belligerent about what he was doing, the officers searched his pockets. That’s when they found the gun, and he didn’t have a permit.”

  “He told you where I was?” That seemed incredulous.

  “Not at first, but the more they questioned him, the less sense his answers made. He was talking about that old machine he has on display and how Cliff couldn’t have any of something, but we couldn’t understand what Cliff couldn’t have.”

  “Half of Teeter’s Implements,” I said.

  “Really? No wonder Kevin was desperate. Eventually he just began to brag about himself. He bragged about his business, and his accomplishments, including getting rid of Cliff, and finally that he had left you in the swamp.”

  “Kyle kept the radio open, so we heard it all,” Tom added.

  “These new broadband communications are great for us, because we don’t have to keep someone on a central dispatch board any more. The last millage increase passed and this is what we bought.” Tracy was doing a little bragging of her own, but it was fine by me.

  Chapter 35

  A week later, Adele and I were getting ready to leave the friendship hall at the former Swedish Baptist Church, now named Crossroads Fellowship. Cliff’s funeral had been somber, but the luncheon afterwards had worked its small-town magic. Everyone was reminding themselves of how much they had to be thankful for. Even Sherri Sorenson was trying to smile, and the kids were tearing around outside with their friends, as if nothing had happened—for the moment anyway. Praising Janice Preston for her pies, and chuckling about the pedestrian pickle-bologna sandwiches were parts of what helped each person to know his or her role in a county with fewer than fifteen thousand inhabitants. There would be plenty of moments of pain yet, but the residents of Forest County were ready to help everyone move ahead with life.

&nbs
p; People were beginning to get up from the tables and move around the room, chatting with people they might have seen yesterday, or not for weeks. Almost everyone took the time to pass by Sherri’s table and put a hand on her shoulder, or at least say something to her. A large blond man seated by her side had been one of the pallbearers, and had been introduced as Arne’s brother, Karl, who had driven up from Minneapolis.

  I had sat with Cora and Tom for the service. Tom was clean and neat in a plain brown suit and cream-colored shirt with a bolo tie. He looked odd, but not uncomfortable in the dressy clothes. His fingernails probably never came clean, but he had clearly tried to scrub off the grease. Cora wore a maroon knitted suit that I guessed might have come off her rack of vintage clothing, but she looked very stylish.

  They had excused themselves after just one plateful of sandwiches, Jell-o salad, and dessert. Cora explained that she could only tolerate large groups for just so long. Over the past week, she had uncovered the information that Cliff and his brother Karl were the only living direct descendants of Arne Sorenson, and that Kevin only had a cousin, Priscilla, who was somewhere in the far west. She was expected to want to sell her share of the Teeter business. “That means that Karl and Sherri will have full ownership of Teeter’s. Although, I expect they’ll change the name.” Cora’s eyes twinkled. “I’ll just pay my respects to Sherri, and head home. Are you ready, Tom?”