“And about that time Easter got in trouble at Mid-Gulf. I don’t know whether he was drinking or not, but it was pretty messy, from what they say. Got in a fight with his foreman and damn near killed him. He was fired, of course, and as far as I know he’s never worked at anything since. People leave him pretty much alone except duck hunters and fishermen who persuade him to guide them now and then. Have to catch him in the right mood, or he might not even answer you.”
“His wife never came back?” Reno asked.
“No. At least, nobody’s ever seen her.”
“But Counsel did show up again?”
“In a way. He was here for maybe a day and a half. He’d received his induction notice, and had to show up. Then he was shipped out.”
Reno stared thoughtfully out into the sun-blasted street. It tied in, that way. Maybe Easter didn’t know Counsel’d returned in forty-two until he was gone again. Then he had to wait nine years for another chance. And it was easy to see why Counsel had tried to slip in without being seen. But why had he come back at all? He had nothing to gain, and he knew he might be killed if Easter saw him. The puzzle wasn’t all there yet.
“Where is this houseboat of his?” he asked.
“I’m not sure I can tell you how to find it. I’ve been up there two or three times duck-hunting, but it’s tricky. Starting out from Malone’s deadfall, you turn off to the right at that first arm of the bayou going north. It’s about three miles, and the bayou forks several times. If I remember correctly, you take the left-hand fork the first time, and then the next two you go to the right.”
“Thanks,” Reno. Said. He stood up.
“But listen, Pete. Your sister’s already lost a husband.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. She couldn’t take another shock like that. Don’t monkey with Easter unless you know what you’re doing, and have the police with you.”
“It’s all right.” Reno paused with his hand on the door, and looked back at the young lawyer without expression. “I’m just going to hire a guide.”
“Remember, he may know who you are.”
“Yes,” Reno said softly. “And maybe I know who he is.”
Eleven
She was not at the car when he arrived. He looked at his watch and grunted. It was 12:30. Ten minutes went by while he fretted impatiently. When she did arrive she was hurrying and out of breath.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I had some business that took a little longer than I’d expected.”
“It’s all right,” he said shortly, as they got in the car.
They were both deep in thought and spoke little during the drive back. She thanked him quietly and went into her cabin.
Reno changed into fishing clothes and went down to the float with rod and tackle box to pick out a skiff. There was no whisper of breeze and the bayou lay flat and glaring like polished steel between the walls of trees. The sun beat relentlessly on his back and shoulders, and before he had rounded the first turn his clothes were dripping with perspiration. There was no other boat in sight. When he came abreast the arm of the bayou that ran off toward the north, he turned in. The channel was narrower here.
He looked back over his shoulder from time to time to check his course, keeping as close as possible to the bank and the overhanging trees to take advantage of the shade. He could be a thousand miles from civilization here, he thought.
He had no definite plan, nor any idea of what he might find. He was drawn merely by the fact that all the information he uncovered led him more surely in the direction of Max Easter. Suppose Counsel’s dead, he thought. It almost had to be Easter who killed him. He had the motive. He was here on the bayou, and he’d been waiting a long time.
He stopped pulling the oars for a minute and looked out through the trees as he lit a cigarette, conscious of a nagging dissatisfaction that he could not escape. There were two weak places in this line of reasoning. In the first place, he didn’t know Counsel was dead. It was just a guess, even if a good, logical one. And secondly, he was no nearer to answering the most baffling question of all and the one that had to be the key to the whole thing: what had Counsel come back for? Not just to see if Easter would kill him—that was a cinch.
He shook his head and took up the oars again. At least he could get a good look at the big man at close range. And if it developed he hadn’t come back from town yet . . . His eyes were tough as he thought of the houseboat. Easter, or somebody, hadn’t been squeamish about shaking down his cabin. It could work both ways.
He pulled steadily, and in about twenty minutes he came to the first fork in the waterway. He took the left-hand channel, as Gage had directed, and mentally noted an old snag as a landmark for the return trip. It would be easy to get lost up here. He wondered how Easter came and went; then he remembered the pickup truck. There must be a road that came nearer to the houseboat somewhere above.
There was none here, however, nor even any trails along the banks. He must have come two miles or a little more by this time, moving in a generally northwesterly direction.
He came to the second fork and stopped rowing to look about him. Go to the right here, he thought. The right-hand channel was narrow, not more than twenty yards across and almost a tunnel under the overhanging trees, while the other was wider and ran straight ahead for another two hundred yards before it swung left around a bend.
Reno wondered for a moment if Gage had meant what he had assumed: right hand facing forward. A man rowing a boat is traveling backward, but that would normally be disregarded in giving directions . . . He shrugged. Gage was no fool, and he had been in boats before.
He was about to take up the oars again when he suddenly jerked his head erect and looked around, trying to identify and locate the sound he had heard. It was not a gun. The muffled roar of it was too deep for that. And where had it come from?
He swung around in the skiff, facing forward, and saw nothing but the empty reach of the bayou shimmering in the sun. The dead, lost-world silence of the swamp closed in again, and he could hear his own breathing as he listened. It was an explosion of some kind, he thought, completely mystified, But it wasn’t a big blast, and it had come from not very far away.”
Then the sound came again. This time there was a string of three, evenly spaced, about five seconds apart. They came from somewhere up the larger, left-hand channel. There was no mistaking the direction now. He dug in the oars and began pulling swiftly toward-the bend up ahead.
Somebody blowing stumps out of a field, or clearing right of way for a road? Road? He thought. Field? There was neither within miles. They used bulldozers now, anyway.
He came around the bend, swung his head expectantly, and saw nothing. This stretch of waterway was as devoid of life and movement as all the others. Less than a hundred yards ahead there was another turn, to the right this time. He rowed on.
He was rounding the turn now, and started to swing his head around to look. He heard the vicious splatt! As the bullet slammed against the water and went whining off into the distance, and he was already off the seat and diving over the side before he heard the sound of the gun itself.
He came to the surface, gulped a breath, and before he could get the water out of his eyes and look around the second bullet threw up a geyser of swamp water two feet off to his left. He went under, pulling downward and to the right. His movements were hampered by clothing and shoes, and he wondered if he could make it to the screen of overhanging limbs along the bank before he had to surface. It shouldn’t be more than thirty feet.