by Kathi Appelt
Muscovado. That’s what it’s called. No one really knows how the first plants got here, seeing as how it’s not native to Texas at all. Maybe a seed blew in on a storm. Maybe a passing trader planted a batch. Maybe a goose deposited a seed as it flew by. Regardless of how or why it arrived, the muscovado sugar is one of the swamp’s best mysteries.
It’s not grainy like the white sugar you buy in the supermarket. No, no, no. In its raw state, it’s brown, like the sand in Barbados, like the water of the Bayou Tourterelle, like the feathers of a roadrunner. Brown like that.
It tastes like heaven.
There’s nothing like it. Nothing. And Clydine wanted some. Snort, snort, snort! Get that girl some muscovado!
69
WITH THE SUN MOVING ACROSS the middle of the sky, Bingo knew they had to pick up their pace. They would need every bit of light that the daytime sun could offer as they made their way through the darkest part of the swamp.
Hurry, Scouts, hurry! As if to prove the point, rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble, he could feel the hogs coming closer.
Then Bingo had a horrible thought. Even if the pie did wake up the Sugar Man, what would happen then? Scout orders were, “Wake up the Sugar Man.” They didn’t say what to do next.
Have we forgotten the stuff about the wrath of the Sugar Man?
Nosirree, Bob. We most decidedly have not. After all, we remember that the Sugar Man had that wee bit of rattlesnake venom in his blood, and rattlesnakes, as everyone knows, are feisty. In fact, they’re downright venomous. Snip-snap-zip-zap.
Take heed, Scouts. Take heed.
70
THE SOUNDER NORMALLY DIDN’T TRAVEL during daylight hours, but everyone had become so impatient that Buzzie made an executive decision to hit the trail early. That did not mollify the irascible Clydine. Instead of praising him for his ambition, she was a bundle of complaints.
Clearly, she had not gotten her beauty rest, and it showed. Her yellow eyes were yellower than ever, and her curly tail drooped. What had he ever seen in her? Buzzie wondered.
She wasn’t the only one who complained. Every single little porker in the pod had some injustice to report.
“He pulled my tail.”
“She bumped me.”
“I need to use the restroom.”
“I’ve got a bellyache.”
It was constant. If only hogs could climb a wall, Buzzie would have climbed one.
Sugar. Just get us to the sugar, he prayed. And with a snort, he told his clan, “We’re almost there.” But they had heard that before, so they just kept complaining.
“He’s got my ear in his mouth.”
“I want another mud bath.”
“You’re not the boss of me.”
Buzzie wanted to drop all of them off at the nearest hog shelter. Of course, that would require a hog shelter, which to our knowledge does not exist.
That’s when the porcine divine intervened and they rumbled up to an enormous round hay bale.
“Attack!” snorted Buzzie. And all seventeen of our grouchy grunters lowered their heads and charged the unsuspecting hay bale. There are reports that hay rained down in four states. But the important thing was that tempers were assuaged. Clydine regained her composure. And Buzzie was a semi-happy camper.
71
CHAP WAS ALSO A SEMI-HAPPY camper. The sight of all that cash settling into the bottom of the boat made him think they had a chance of keeping the café. But even if they managed to save the café, Chap knew that what they really needed to save was the swamp itself. Sonny Boy’s voice echoed in his head. If I see some proof of the Sugar Man, I’ll give you the whole darned swamp.
But proof? Of the Sugar Man? All he had was his grandpa’s old drawing, the one that had been stuck to the back of the raccoon-with-the-harmonica picture. A drawing with the date: 1949.
That date always reminded Chap of the DeSoto. Then Chap realized that if he couldn’t save the swamp, the ivory-bill wouldn’t be the only thing lost forever. The other thing would be the chance of ever finding his grandfather’s prized Sportsman with the Simplimatic transmission and the waterfall grille.
“It even had a hood ornament that lit up whenever the lights came on,” his grandpa had told him. “There was no other car like it.” Chap knew that it had been one of his grandfather’s deepest wishes to find that car, right along with his other wish, to see the ivory-bill one more time and add it at last to his sketchbook.
And just like it had always been for Chap, Grandpa Audie’s deepest wishes were his own deepest wishes. Nosotros somos paisanos. We are fellow countrymen. We come from the same soil. Grandpa Audie was gone, but his wishes were still there, smack dab in the middle of Chap’s heart. If he could go search for the bird and the car right then, he would. Except, the complete sellout of pies meant that there were still hours of work in front of him.
“We have to double up,” his mother said.
So while the hogs were attacking the hay bale, Chap attacked the sugarcane. Soon, his arms ached. His back ached. His whole body ached. Not only that, but the afternoon sun was relentless. He wiped his face on his sleeve, but that didn’t give him much relief, considering that his sleeves were wet with his own sweat.
He also knew that the rattlesnakes could wake up at any moment. Grandpa Audie had warned him, “Don’t try to use the lullaby more than once a day. It won’t work.” Chap had never asked him what would happen. He had a pretty good idea.
Once again, he bundled the stalks up and tied them with twine, and started pulling his double-heavy bundle up the trail. He had to pull it with both hands behind his back, which made him lean low to the ground. He felt the muscles in his thighs strain at the weight. Sweat dripped off his nose. He had to breathe through his mouth to get enough air, and his side ached to boot.
And maybe because his face was so close to the dirt, he spied the tracks. There, in the soft mud. Raccoon tracks. He dropped his load and sat down hard. His chest rose and fell with the deep breaths he had to take. Then he rubbed his hand over the tracks. They were fresh, less than a day old.
Had the same raccoons that had made the tracks on their kitchen counter made these, too? He leaned closer to get a better look. He could see that there were two of them, side by side. A pair. Just like in the kitchen. Judging from the sharp turn these tracks made in the mud, it looked like they had come to a rapid stop, done a one-eighty, and hightailed it back in the direction from which they had come.
“The rattlers,” said Chap. “They must have had a close encounter with the rattlers.”
But what were they doing at the canebrake anyways? Most critters knew to stay away from the snakes. Had the raccoons come for the same reason he had? For sugar? And then another question popped into his head: Since when had the local raccoons developed such a sweet tooth? Especially when there was an abundance of local food? The swamp had plenty of crawdads and berries and slugs and lizards, all the main stuff of a raccoon diet.
Chap scratched his head. One thing was for certain. If those raccoons had, in fact, become sugar fiends, then he’d definitely have to set the traps. Because the other thing he knew: Once raccoons discovered a cache of something they loved, they’d return. Oh, yes, they would.
72
BUT RIGHT NOW LET’S RETURN to the facts if we can. The overall weight of the 1949 DeSoto Sportsman was more than thirty-five hundred pounds. It had a width of 125.5 inches and a total length of 17 feet.
That’s a lot of car, my homies.
But what, you might be asking, are the dimensions of Sonny Boy Beaucoup’s superstretch Hummer limousine, the one that Leroy shined until he could see himself in its slick black surface?
According to our expert, Phil at LA Custom Coaches, it was quite a bit wider than the DeSoto, coming in at one hundred eighty inches, and twice as long—thirty-five feet. Where it really had an advantage, however, was in the weight category. The Hummer clocked in at close to eleven thousand pounds. Whoa baby, that is one solid piece of car fle
sh.
Then again, part of its girth was due to the fact that it had a full bar set up, with neon and strobe lighting, three plasma television sets, and seating for twenty-four. In other words, it was like a rolling party room.
73
DID WE SAY THAT THE superstretch Hummer seated twenty-four? Why, yes. Yes, we did. This meant that Sonny Boy and Jaeger decided to invite twenty-two dignitaries for the ground breaking. The plan was to gather at the Beaucoups’ Homestead for lunch on the veranda, during which Jaeger would display her alligator wrestling skills.
Afterwards, Leroy would drive the entire party to the site of the ground breaking.
Oh, did we also tell you that the site of the ground breaking was along the banks of the Bayou Tourterelle, where the canebrake grew? And that everyone in the party would have to walk past Paradise Pies Café to get there? Why, no, I don’t believe we did.
Sonny Boy rubbed his hands together in glee.
“We might as well have fried pie while we’re there.” He chuckled. And once again, Jaeger sort of wanted to kiss him, an urge that made her feel somewhat sick to her stomach.
As if he were reading her mind, he asked, “You will do that alligator kissing trick, won’t you?”
“Of course,” she replied. Kissing the alligator was all part of her wrestling routine. She had kissed hundreds of alligators. Kissing an alligator instead of Sonny Boy Beaucoup made her feel quite a bit better.
For his part, Sonny Boy had no desire to kiss Jaeger Stitch. He’d just as soon kiss the Sugar Man.
Hah!
There was not one iota of evidence that the Sugar Man actually existed. Absolutely no documented proof. He was just as mythical as Barmanou and Sasquatch and the Yeti. The only person who ever claimed to see him was his ancient sea-faring grandfather. And Alouicious? He was just a memory too.
Just like the woodpecker. Just like his father, Quenton.
Just like Audie Brayburn. Just crazy old memories. That’s all.
74
AUDIE BRAYBURN WASN’T JUST A crazy old Memory to his daughter, or his grandson, Chap. Nor was he a crazy old memory to his friend Coyoteman Jim. Even the cat remembered him.
And here’s something I’ll bet you didn’t know: Audie wasn’t just a crazy old memory to the Sugar Man either. Nope.
75
FROM TIME TO TIME, NOT very often actually, but still . . . the Sugar Man woke up of his own accord, just to mosey down to the canebrake and chew on that delicious muscovado sugar.
He might have enjoyed the company of one of his cousins, Barmanou or Sasquatch or the Yeti, but he knew that it was risky enough having one cryptid (look it up) in a forest, never mind two or more. The cousins were aware of this too, so they all pretty much stayed in their own habitats.
So, imagine how surprised the Sugar Man was one afternoon, oh, sixty-something years back, while he was munching on some sugarcane and singing his rattler lullaby, when he heard an odd noise accompanying the song. He sang it again.
Rock-a-by, oh canebrake rattlers
Sleepy bayou, rock-a-by oh
Canebrake rattlers
Sssslleeeepp.
And the noise played along. It was a noise he liked. It was so much better than that cursed concertina that the pirates played. The Sugar Man raised his head out of the tall cane, and came nose to nose with none other than a young Audie Brayburn, playing his Hohner Marine Band Harmonica, key of C major.
“Howdy,” said Audie. Well, the Sugar Man was so surprised, he accidentally swallowed a huge chunk of sugarcane and started coughing and coughing. Audie could see that the tall man was turning bright red, even underneath all of his fur.
Quick as a rabbit, Audie grabbed a nearby branch and whack! Smacked him right on the back. The Sugar Man kept right on coughing, and so whack! Audie smacked him again.
Just about the time that Gertrude was about to go all snip-snap-zip-zap on Audie for whacking her best beloved, out of the Sugar Man’s mouth popped the big chunk of cane. It splashed right into the Bayou Tourterelle.
“Whew!” exclaimed the Sugar Man. Then he looked down at Audie, and right there a friendship was struck. For the next several hours, those two chewed cane and also chewed the fat. And if that weren’t enough, they both sang at the top of their lungs. They sang so much that Gertrude got all dreamy and took a keen liking to Audie too.
But soon enough, the Sugar Man got sleepy, so he waved good-bye to Audie, wished him well in his search for the ivory-billed woodpecker, and trekked back to his deep, dark lair.
When the Sugar Man stretched out on his mat, he felt as cozy as could be, knowing that he had a new friend. It was sweet dreams, Sugar Man. And Gertrude was happy too. She curled up right next to him and sssssighed.
Of course, the Swamp Scouts (who were, at that time, the great-greater-greatest ancestors to Bingo and J’miah) kept an eye on the whole thing. Nothing gets by them, nothing at all.
So, a few nights later, when the rain came pouring down in heavy sheets, when Audie was asleep inside the DeSoto, burning up with fever, and his car started to float into the muddy depths of the bayou without him knowing it, the Official Sugar Man Swamp Scouts were alarmed. First, they knocked on the windows of the car and tried to get Audie to wake up. Then they jumped up and down on the roof. Still no movement from inside the car. They even tried to open the doors. They tugged and tugged and pulled and pulled. But Audie had locked the car up tight.
This, they knew, was an emergency. Only one thing to do! They hurried to the deepest, darkest part of the swamp and implored Gertrude to wake up the Sugar Man. At first, he was sure enough cranky, but once he understood that his new friend Audie was about to be washed downstream, he rushed to the scene, grabbed the back bumper of that DeSoto, and pulled the huge Sportsman away from the edge of the water. Then he plopped it atop a little knoll along the banks of the bayou, where it’s sat ever since, hidden, the bust of the old conquistador gazing at the water as it flows on by.
Before the Sugar Man left, he peeked through the windows of the car to make sure that Audie was all right. Just as he did, a small bolt of lightning flashed in his face and momentarily made him see red spots. He blinked. Audie was safe. That was what mattered.
Since then, the Sugar Man has slept longer and longer every year. He’s gotten harder and harder to wake up. Just ask Gertrude.
But now? The Farrow Gang was headed their way. If anything counted as an emergency, this was it. Bingo and J’miah knew it. They also knew that if they couldn’t wake up the Sugar Man, the Farrow Gang would destroy the swamp for sure.
Bingo held the pie up to his nose. His worries grew. This pie was all that stood between the beautiful Sugar Man Swamp and total destruction.
Say it, sisters and brothers—lives were at stake.
The Fourth Night
76
SPEAKING OF HOGS . . .
Rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble.
From the deepest, darkest part of the swamp, Gertrude uncoiled herself and shook her impressive rattle, chichichichichi. If only all that rattling could scare away the pervasive fleas! She itched from stem to stern.
It made her a little cranky. In fact, it made her a little snippy-snappy-zippy-zappy. Those biting fleas made her want to bite something, maybe even something furry.
77
OKAY, NOW WE’RE REALLY SPEAKING of hogs. . . .
“I’m starving!” Clydine snorted.
“Me too.” Buzzie snorted.
“Us too.” The Farrow Gang snorted.
All seventeen members of the Gang stood up and looked around. They had made such a mess of the hay bale that they decided to relocate to a nearby watering hole and do some major big-time wallowing.
And when they were done with their wallowing, they found a century-old pecan tree, one that had been standing next to that now-destroyed watering hole for, well, a century. Those hogs head-butted the tree until its pecans came pouring down. They mashed those pecans up so much that they turned them into p
ecan butter.
All of this was accompanied by a great deal of squealing and oinking. It was sheer bedlam, followed by a whole lot of huffing and puffing.
Yowzers!
78
BINGO AND J’MIAH CREPT INTO the outskirts of the Sugar Man’s deep, dark lair. There wasn’t exactly a door to knock on or a bell to ring. They looked all around for Gertrude, but didn’t see her anywhere.
“Where is she?” asked Bingo.
It seems like a huge guard rattlesnake would be hard to miss, but despite their superior eyesight, earsound, and nosesmell, neither Bingo nor J’miah could detect her.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” said J’miah. Gertrude had told them that she didn’t eat furry things, but could a rattlesnake be trusted?
Hmmm . . . Gertrude had also told them to fetch some canebrake sugar, but had she given them the rattlesnake lullaby? No, she most definitely had not.
She was supposed to guard the Sugar Man. But was she in her guard post position? Again, that would be a negative.
Our raccoons were in a conundrum, sports fans.
Then Bingo got an idea. He handed the fried pie to J’miah and said, “Here. I’m going up.” And with that, he scampered up a large magnolia tree. “Maybe I can see better from up here.”
“B-b-be careful,” stammered J’miah, holding on to the fried pie. The aroma of it was so lovely that it seemed like it might be a comfort, but was it? We can say with certainty that it was not. J’miah watched as his brother grew smaller and smaller as he scaled the huge tree.
Meanwhile, Bingo finally found a branch that was sturdy enough to crawl out on and look down. He had to use J’miah’s trick of squinting in order to see in the darkness. In the shadows, he could detect an arbor of vines and limbs that made up the opening to the Sugar Man’s lair. He squinted some more. Directly beneath him was his brother. From Bingo’s altitude in the magnolia, J’miah looked very small. But sneaking up behind him was something very large.
