Lyin' Like a Dog, The Yankee Doctor, The Danged Swamp! 3-Volume set

by Richard Mason

  “Sam, there may be snakes in those willow trees.”

  “Hell, kid, there ain’t no place in this here swamp where they ain’t snakes, get moving!”

  “Okay, but…”

  “Shut up, kid! I’m tired of listening to you.”

  I splashed on until I was under the first big bank of willow limbs. Two small snakes dropped off a branch, but they were several feet away and didn’t cause a problem. Then I heard a sliding sound and a big splash, and a really big water snake landed right beside Jim.

  “My God, look at that snake!” Jim screamed.

  The snake struck at him, causing Jim to thrash in the water and yell, “Get the hell out of here! Run!” We started forward as fast as we could in the waist-deep water.

  Oh, no! We shouldn’t be splashing and yelling. Sure enough, I was right. All that danged yelling and hollering had them snakes spooked, and they began dropping off them limbs over us, like a bunches of bananas hitting the water all around us. My God, you shoulda heard all the racket. That bunch was yelling, kicking, and slapping the water with sticks, but none of them snakes had hit them until I heard this kinda splat—and then, what a scream.

  “Yeeeeeeeee! Yahaaaaaaaa!”

  It was from Sam. I looked around, and he was just going dog crazy trying to get a huge water snake off his shoulder. That danged snake looked at least 5 feet long and his head was right in Sam’s face and about half of the snake was hanging down his back. The big man was yelling, jumping and trying to shake the snake off without touching it.

  “Oh! Oh! Oh! Get him off me! Get him off me!” If I hadn’t been so scared I’d have laughed my head off. Then the dangest thing happened.

  Oh, my, God! Before Sam could shake the snake off his back the snake’s tail looped around his neck and the snake drew back.

  “Look out Sam!” I yelled. It’s striking!” Well, Sam tried to get his hand up but he was just a half-second slow. That danged snake’s head went straight for Sam’s face biting him right below his left eye. Sam grabbed it and pulled it off his face, but that snake was mad as hops and wow, it went to striking Sam just everywhere.

  “Ahaaaaa! Ahaaaa! Ooooh!” Sam grabbed, hit and pulled as the snake as it struck again and again. Every time Sam grabbed the snake, it struck his hand and he’d turn it loose, and then the snake would sink its fangs into Sam’s arm, shoulder or neck. Wow, Sam was thrashing around like a chicken with its head cut off, when suddenly he stepped on a log and lost his balance. He fell backward with the snake still wrapped around his arm and neck, and came up spitting water and screaming bloody murder, “Oh, God, get him off me!”

  The snake finally dropped off Sam and the convict thrashed ahead of me, running in the water so fast that he was almost dragging me. We got out from under the willows, and Sam stood there rubbing his cheek and all them other places where the snake had bit him.

  “God, I hope that damned snake wasn’t poisonous.”

  “No, it weren’t, but if it’d been a water moccasin, and he’d bitten you on the face, you’d be a goner before you could get out of this swamp,” I said.

  “How do you know it wasn’t poisonous?”

  “You can tell just by looking at ’em. Water snakes have a pointed, skinny head, and the moccasins have an arrowhead-shaped head.”

  “Smart-ass, kid. Well, I guess you’re right. The damn bites hurt, but I ain’t a-swelling real bad or nothin’. Let’s get goin’.” He yanked my rope and plunged ahead across the beaver dam. Dang him, that hurt like heck.

  “Sam, my neck’s bleedin’. Please stop pullin’ the rope.”

  “Shut up, kid and keep up. If you don’t stop whining, I’m gonna give you something to whine about.” Finally, we reached the other side of the swamp—only to hear sounds of the posse searching the woods.

  “Sheeee, listen. It’s the posse. Kid, you make a sound, and you’re dead.”

  Back into the water and down the creek we walked, and three hours later, when we finally stepped out of the swamp, we’d circled almost back to my house. Sam stopped for a minute and looked around. Then he yanked my rope and yelled, “Kid, this here spot looks familiar. You sure we’s heading for the railroad tracks?”

  Oh, my God! This is the third time we’ve been by here. I gotta be more careful.

  “Yes, sir, I promise cross my heart. It’s just that this whole dang swamp looks the same. It’s just water, trees, and cattails. We ain’t even been close to here.” I looked down and there were footprints where we’d walked earlier that morning. Oh, no! Do something!

  “Sam, did you hear that?”

  “What? Naw, I didn’t hear nothin’.”

  “Look over across that field, I think I see somebody. Hurry we need to head toward those thick woods.”

  “It ain’t far now,” I lied. “I promise.”

  “Okay, but if we don’t get there soon, you’re gonna be in a mess of trouble.”

  We spent several more hours making looping circles until the hounds forced us back in the beaver pond. After we had walked about halfway across the pond I saw this high ground in the lake that me and John Clayton had named Snake Ridge. Yeah, that’s right—it’s big-time snake city if there ever was one. That danged piece of ground in the middle of the lake draws snakes like crazy.

  “Kid,” Sam said, as he looked at the them great big beech trees on the ridge, “is there any snakes in them trees? Let me tell you something, boy, if another damn snake falls out of a tree, that’s gonna be the last thing you see.”

  “No, Sam, them water snakes are only in the willow trees. All of the trees on this ridge are beech. Snakes don’t climb beech trees.”

  Well, there ain’t no snakes in the trees, but there’s a whole bunch on the ground, and shoot, they ain’t all water snakes.

  “Damn! We’ve been walking and running all morning. Let’s take a rest,” said Sam. We plopped down and leaned against a big beech tree, but before we could even lean back, a gray fog of mosquitoes covered us. Millions—and I mean millions—just lighting all over us, sucking blood and stinging like crazy. (Heck, when me and John Clayton go in the swamp we rub a little kerosene on our arms and legs to keep them skeeters off us, but heck, today none of us didn’t have nothing to shoo them off.

  “My God, these here skeeters is eatin’ me alive!” said Sam. “Boy, we can’t take much more of this. You’d better find them railroad tracks quick, or else. Do you hear me? Damn it, kid I’m losin’ my patience!”

  I looked at Sam. He was rubbin’ his shoulder where John had kicked him with one hand and slapping mosquitoes away with the other. His right cheek and both his hands were puffy and swollen from where the water snake had bitten him. For gosh sakes, he was in terrible shape,, and all those danged skeeters were making him just wild.

  Sam stood up, brushing off skeeters, and muttering something about God. He looked at me and kicked in my direction, “Okay, get your scrawny ass moving!” Sam grabbed my rope, gave it a yank, and said, “Let’s walk down this ridge on dry ground for a while.”

  Heck, I sure knew that was one bad, dumb idea.

  “Sam, I think we should stay in the water, because there’re a whole bunch of snakes on this ridge, and they're really hard to see in all these brown leaves.”

  “Hell, that don’t make no difference! In the water there’s snakes! In the trees there’s snakes! On this damn ridge there’s snakes! I can run faster on dry ground. So we’re gonna stay on this ridge as long as we can.”

  Boy, I sure didn’t wanta walk along that ridge, because as long as the weather was warm, hundreds of snakes from the swamp would have crawled up out of the water and be in the brown leaves and weeds on this ridge. Shoot, I knew for danged sure there were some kill-you-dead-as-a-hammer cottonmouths out in them leaves, just waiting till somebody messed with them. I got the willies thinking about a big cottonmouth just waiting for someone stupid enough to aggravate it.

  “Damn it, boy, you’re just trying to slow us down! Now get your ass movin�
��, or I’m gonna leave you here dead for the snakes to eat,” said Sam. He yanked the rope tied around my neck, and I whined a bunch about it hurting, but shoot, I started moving because that knife would hurt a bunch more that just an old rope burn.

  “Okay! Okay! I’m going!”

  I led out down the ridge and sure enough we hadn’t walked 20 yards, when I saw a big water snake stretched out right across the trail.

  “Watch it! Snake!” I kicked a stick in its direction, and it slithered off into the water. We walked another hundred yards and I had to run a bunch more snakes off the path. Heck, I was up front shooing off snakes like I was Moses parting the Red Sea and after a little while the three guys behind me weren’t paying no attention to where they were walking. I thought about this while we were walking along, and then, a few minutes later, as I looked up the trail, I saw a snake. It was a huge, and I mean a huge, cottonmouth water moccasin and it was right in the middle of the trail.

  Gosh, that danged snake’s more’n 5 feet long, and he’s big around as piece of pulpwood. My God, what a snake!

  Just as I was about to throw a stick at the snake to make it move off the trail, I had an idea: Maybe, if I walk real softly, I could just step over the snake without disturbing it, and one of the guys behind me would step right on it. Heck, I don’t think I’ve ever done anything that mean in my life, but ’course, I ain’t never been kidnapped before and shoot, maybe a snake bite from a big cottonmouth would make them give up. Course, in my entire born days I’d never even thought about stepping over a cottonmouth, and just the thought of that snake waking up and striking me had me shaking.

  Well, yeah, I was desperate, I’ll admit it. And I would have tried almost anything. If the snake moved before I got to it, or if it turned toward me, I’d stop, throw something at it, and run it off the trail. I kept walking at a steady walk, almost tiptoeing. The snake was still, and I guess it was stretched out asleep in a sunny spot.

  I’m almost to it, careful, careful, don’t move snake, easy, easy, I’m over it now! It’s behind me.

  I’d just stepped right over the biggest cottonmouth water moccasin I’d ever seen in my whole entire life, and my heart was beating so hard I could hear it. I took a deep breath and kept walking straight ahead. Sam was behind me holding the rope. I glanced back.

  Sam stepped right over the snake without even seeing it, and the snake never moved. “Dang,” I muttered.

  However, old Jim wasn’t so lucky. He was yelling at me and not even looking at the ground, “Damn it, kid, you better get to them—what the hell!” I turned and looked back just as Jim’s foot came down right in the middle of the huge snake’s back, and just like a flash the snake exploded jerking and thrashing. Jim looked down and started screaming, “Oh! Oh! Snake! Snake!”

  Before Jim could move, the huge cottonmouth water moccasin sank his fangs into Jim’s leg. Dang, just the sight of that big snake biting old Jim made a shiver go up my back.

  “Oh! Oh! Oh, my God! Help me! God, no! He bit me! Get him off my leg!”

  Jim was jumping and kicking, and then he reached down to pull the snake off his leg. “No! Jim! Don’t!” I yelled. But it was too late. Jim grabbed that snake about a foot down

  from its head and, whap! That big snake sank his fangs in Jim’s hand, and then, before he could let go the snake got him again, this time on his arm.

  “Oh! My hand! My arm!”

  Listen, you ain’t never seen nobody go crazy like Jim did while that snake was wrapped around him. Heck, he was jumping and screaming at the top of his lungs, trying to get the snake off his leg. Finally, with a kick and a jerk, he managed to free himself from the snake, which slithered off into the water and was gone in a few seconds. Jim stood there trembling with fright.

  “Oh, God! He bit me three times.”

  We gathered around him to look at his leg and hand. Yeah, I kinda felt bad because I’d caused Jim to get bit, but shoot, he was the guy that had already tried to kill me back when we was in the barn, so I just stood there acting like I really hated it when I was really thinking that I’d gotten even.

  “It’s already swellin’! Was it a water moccasin?”

  “Yeah,” I said. Then I thought. You’re a goner, if you hang around here. One down, two to go.

  “Look at my hand and arm!” said Jim. He held out his arm where the snake had bitten him. His hand was shaking, and the swelling was creeping up his arm almost to his shoulder.

  Uh, huh, heading right for your brain—if you’ve got one.

  “And my leg! Damn! It’s gettin’ numb!”

  “Jim,” I said, “you’ve gotta get to a doctor.” Heck, I might have caused Jim to get snake- bit, but I didn’t want to see him just drop dead while I was watching, and I figured that if one of the guys was snake-bit, then they might give up.

  “Hell, Jim, maybe it’s just a water snake like the one that bit me. Come on, let’s get moving.”

  “Sam, look at me! Can’t you see my hand and leg is full of poison? I can’t go on. I need a doctor.”

  “Yeah, that don’t look good. It must have been a cottonmouth. You probably gonna die if you don’t get to a doctor. You ain’t got no choice. Just head back across this here lake to where we heard the posse and turn yourself in, and be sure you don’t tell ’em where we’s headed.”

  “Okay, but, Sam, I don’t think I can make it. You gotta go with me and help me.”

  “Listen to me, Jim. You got yourself snake-bit, and if you don’t make it out of this damn swamp, it’s your fault. So git going or you’re gonna drop dead right here. Hell, I ain’t about to give up. They’d have my ass up at Tucker strapped in that electric chair before you could bat your eyes.”

  Shoot, I knew danged well, old Jim was a goner. He’d never make it to the posse with all that cottonmouth poison in him. We watched Jim stagger off, and before he was out of sight he’d already fallen twice.

  “Boy, something tells me this was your fault. Didn’t you see that snake?”

  “No, Sam. It’s the color of those brown leaves, and I guess it was under some of ’em.” Keep on lying, keep on lying. Sound serious.

  “Well, maybe so, but if anything else happens, I’m not gonna wait to put a bullet in that skinny head of yours!” He gave the rope another yank, and we started walking again.

  All afternoon we ran back and forth into the swamp to lose the dogs, and then out in the woods to look for the railroad tracks. ’Course, they weren’t no railroad tracks anywhere close to the swamp. You’d think they’d figure out nobody in their right mind would build a railroad through a danged swamp. All afternoon it was the same. Sam would hear the dogs and start yelling at us, “Damn it! Them dogs is coming again. Let’s get back in the water. Hurry! Run!” Each time we splashed back into the murky, slimy water, we went deeper into the swamp. Stopping to rest was worse than splashing through the water because wave after wave of skeeters would swarm around us. Finally, I could tell they’d just about had the ’course, because they was whining and cussing like crazy, and Len began talking about surrendering.

  “Sam, I can’t take no more this. Jail can’t be this bad. Why don’t we just give up?”

  “Well, Len, we got a murder rap, and now a kidnapping charge. Murder! Kidnapping! They’ll fry us for sure if we give up. You can turn yourself in if you want, but they’re gonna have to kill me. I ain’t going back to jail just to wait for no electric chair.”

  Well, that shut Len up for a while and we walked for another two hours, deeper and deeper into the swamp. It was getting dark, and, heck, I knew we durn sure weren’t about to walk in the dark.

  “Sam, it’s still a-ways to the railroad tracks, and I can’t tell which way to go in the dark, and if we can’t see, we might step on another snake.”

  “Well, damn it,” said Sam, “I’m not about to wade around in this swamp not knowing where in the hell we’re going. Look over there. We can sleep under that big beech tree.”

  It was a little rise
in the swamp, about 10 yards of dry ground that would danged sure just suck in the skeeters and snakes, especially after it got dark. Well, the skeeters didn’t wait till dark. We plopped down and the dangest bunch of skeeters you ever saw came after us. Heck, it looked like a gray wave floating out of the swamp. ’Course, just as soon as that gray wave swallowed up Len and Sam, they was a whole bunch of cussing and complaining.

  “My God! My God! These skitters is eatin’ me up,” yelled Len as he frantically slapped them off his face. “I can’t believe we are gonna sit here all night.”

  “Shut up, Len. We ain’t got no choice,” mumbled Sam.

  I covered my face and curled up at the base of the tree with as many leaves covering me as I could scrape up and tried to sleep. Heck, you ain’t been through nothing until you’ve spent the entire night with skeeters eating on you, and then you’d hear a rustling. “Snake! Snake!” somebody would yell and everybody would jump up and kick around until you heard a slithering sound as it slid back into the water. My gosh, it was horrible. It was almost daylight when Sam walked over and kicked me in the ribs.

  “Come on, kid, get your scrawny ass moving. I want on that train ’fore the posse gets on our trail again.”

  I began to think of how I could keep them wandering around in the woods and stay alive because I knew Sam was getting real close to losing his patience. Heck, my only hope was for them danged dogs to find us. I stood there and looked around for a few seconds and then I remembered an old an old cut-over field that had grown up with blackberry vines. Shoot, me and John Clayton had got tangled up in them blackberry vines and almost got stuck to death. Well, since it was daylight now I could tell we were just a few hundred yards from that old field. I tried not to laugh when I said, “It ain’t far now to the railroad tracks, but to get there we’ve gotta leave the woods and go across that old field over yonder.”

  “You better be tellin’ the truth kid because I’m way out of patience with you!”

  “I promise, Sam. We’d already be there, but them dogs kept running us back in the swamp.”