LeBlanc got into the long flat outboard and climbed over the kegs to the bow. Gerard got in and sat on the board plank in front of the motor. He took a flashlight from under the seat and placed it beside him. He wrapped the rope around the starter, put the motor in neutral and opened the throttle; he yanked hard on the rope. It caught the first time, and he increased the gas feed and raced the motor wide open in neutral. They heard the two Evinrude seventy-five-horsepower engines of the police boat kick over across the river.
Gerard took up the flashlight and shone it through the willows so it would be visible from the river. The throbbing of the police boat’s engines became nearer, then they saw it come around the river bend full speed towards the mouth of the cove, the water breaking white in front of the bow, the flat churning wake behind and the spray flying back over the uptilted cabin. Someone on board must have seen the sandbar, because the boat swerved to port just before it struck the crest. The bow lurched in the air, and the engines, still driving, spun the boat around on its keel until it came to rest with part of the stern out of the water and the starboard propeller churning in the sand.
LeBlanc stood up in the outboard and shouted at the police boat.
“Sit down!” Gerard said. “I got to get us out of here.” He threw the motor into gear and shot forward through the willows. The police boat’s searchlight went on, and the trees were flooded with a hard electric brilliance. “Bastards,” LeBlanc shouted. He stood up again and took aim with the pistol. The glass broke with the first shot, but the lamp still burned. He fired twice more, and the searchlight went out.
Avery and Tereau ran for the wagon. They climbed into the seat, and Tereau slashed the reins down on the mules. The mules jumped against their harness, and the wagon banged over the ruts, pitching back and forth, so that Avery had to hold on to the brake to keep from being thrown from the seat. He looked behind him and saw LeBlanc’s pistol flash three times in the dark. Tereau whipped the mules to a faster pace until the boat was out of sight. They could still hear LeBlanc cursing.
“He’s done it,” Tereau said. “We never had no shooting, but we’re going to have it now.”
“Where we going?”
“To the still. I’m going to move out everything I can. The swamp will be full of police before morning.”
The wagon swayed against a tree and careened back on the road. “My God,” Avery said.
“Got no time to waste.” Tereau whipped the mules harder.
“You think he hit anybody?” Avery said.
“It ain’t our doing.”
“We were with them.”
“When they got in the boat they were on their own,” Tereau said.
“Look out!”
The left front wheel of the wagon struck a large oak root that grew across the road. The rim of the wheel cracked in two, and the spokes shattered like matchsticks as the wagon went down on its axle, skidding across the road to the edge of the gully; it turned on its side and balanced for a second, then toppled over the brink, pulling the mules down with it. Avery was thrown free and landed on his stomach in the middle of the road. The breath went out of him in one lung-aching, air-sucking rush, and the earth shifted sideways and rolled beneath him, and a pattern of color drifted before his eyes; then he could see pieces of dirt and blades of grass close to his face, and his chest and stomach stopped contracting, and slowly he felt the pressure go out of his lungs as he pulled the air down inside him. He turned over on his back and sat up. He looked for the wagon. There was a scar of plowed dirt where the axle had skidded across the road. He stood up and walked to the brink of the gully.
“Get down here and pull it off me,” Tereau said.
Avery could see the top portion of the Negro’s body lying among the splintered boards. The wagon had come to rest upside down, pinning Tereau’s legs under it. The mules lay at the front, twitching and jerking in the fouled harness. The kegs had broken open and there was a strong smell of whiskey in the air. The broken slats (their insides burned to charcoal for aging the whiskey) and the copper hoops were scattered on the ground. Avery slid down the bank and tried to lift the wagon with his hands. It came a couple of inches off the ground and he had to release it. He moved to the front of the wagon and tried to raise it by the axle. It wouldn’t move. He stooped and got his shoulder under the axle and tried again. He pushed upwards with all his strength until he went weak with strain.
“Find something for a wedge,” Tereau said.
Avery hunted along the gully for a stout fallen limb. He found several thick branches, but they were rotted from the weather. He searched in the grass and saw a railroad tie that had been discarded by one of the pipeline companies that worked in the marsh. The tie was embedded in the dirt. Avery pried it up with his fingers and saw the worms and slugs in the soft mold beneath. He carried it back to the wagon.
“I’ll slip it under close to your legs,” he said. “When I lift up you pull out.”
“I’m waiting on you,” Tereau said.
Avery fitted the wedge under the side wall of the wagon and lifted.
“Hurry up and get out. I can’t hold it up long.”
“I don’t feel nothing in my legs. The blood’s cut off.”
“I got to drop it.”
Tereau reached under the wagon and grabbed his legs under the knees and pulled.
“I’m out. Let it go,” he said.
Avery released the tie and let the wagon drop.
“Is anything broken?” he said.
“I don’t know. Hep me up.”
He put Tereau’s arm over his shoulder and lifted him to his feet.
“They ain’t broke, but I can’t go nowheres.”
“You can’t stay here.”
“We ain’t getting out of the marsh this way.”
“I’ll help you. Can you walk if I help you?”
“I ain’t going far.”
“Let’s get away from the wagon. They can probably smell the whiskey out on the river.”
“There’s something you got to do first.”
“What?”
“Them mules is suffering,” Tereau said. He took the long double-edged knife from his boot. The blade shone like blue ice in the moonlight. “Put it under the neck. They won’t feel no pain that way.” He handed the knife to Avery.
Tereau leaned against a tree while Avery went over to the mules. The knife cut deeply and quick. He cleaned the blade on the grass and came back.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said.
Farther down the gully there was a rainwash that had eroded a depression in the bank. It was dry now and overgrown with vines and small bushes. Avery was able to get Tereau up the wash to the road. They crossed to the other side and entered the thicket and headed towards the opposite end of the marsh where the still was. Tereau could take only a few steps at a time. For the next hour they worked their way through the undergrowth. Tereau was breathing hard and had to rest often. The vines scratched their faces and necks. In some areas the mosquitoes were very bad and swarmed around them and got inside their clothes. It took all Avery’s strength to keep the Negro on his feet. Tereau took his arm from Avery’s shoulder and sat on the ground.
“Go on and let me be,” he said.
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Go on. You don’t belong down here nohow.”
“You’re not helping anything. You’re making things harder,” Avery said.
“My legs are gone. You’d have to carry me.”
“All right. I’ll try it.”
“You ain’t talking good sense.”
“I’ll get somebody to help. Will you be all right if I hide you here?”
“I’ll get along.”
Avery put him in the bushes and cut some branches from the trees to cover him.