The doe fought with its sharp hoofs all the way down to the mushy bottom of the black slough, but it didn't do any good. The gator's jaws were firmly clamped about the doe's middle. He waited until the doe went limp and then he knew it was drowned.
"You see, Mr. Ferris? You see it's right there in print. That air's the first ten dollar Shad gived me, and here's the number of hit on this paper you gived me. And look a-here, Mr. Ferris, here's the next two he brung in to me this morning. And here be the one that Estee brung last night – which was sort of a set back to me, because Shad ain't never ben one to fool with no nigra, but -"
"Yes, yes, I see. They all correspond, don't they?"
"They shore God do. You think now that mebbe Shad went and give this here ten to his daddy? Old Hark he always is playing around with that Estee, but Shad is -"
"I don't see that it really matters, Mr. Sutt. The point is that the bills are showing up, but they weren't until Shad started passing them out. Well – is that all?"
"All? Well yes, I reckon so – no, now wait; Bell Means has got him a couple. I ain't seen 'em, but I have heered that Shad give him twenty dollars to rent that old shantyboat of his."
"Bell Mears? Yes, I believe I remember him. Well, all right, Mr. Sutt, I'll go and see Mr. Means. I'd better take these papers with me to check the serial numbers."
"Well I'll tell you, Mr. Ferris; if you want to git a line on Shad, you best git in touch with Sam Parkes or Jort Camp. You remember Jort, don't you? Well, they ben keeping tab on Shad. Sam'd be the best bet. (He chuckled.) That Sam, he's shore hell fer snoopy."
"All right, and thank you. I'll check back with you later."
"Uh – well, uh – you fixing to take that air forty dollars along with you, Mr. Ferris?"
"Yes (smiling at the crestfallen face). They're evidence now, Mr. Sutt, and rightfully belong to the insurance company, you understand. But don't worry. As I told you four years ago – you'll be amply rewarded for your assistance."
"Yeah, yeah – but – uh -just how much you think that air reward will be worth, Mr. Ferris? In round figures say?"
12
Jort Camp was sitting in a sumac bush just upwind of the Means' privy. From his position he could watch the rear of the house, could see most of the clearing in the moonlight, and could follow the road coming and going. So why in God's name didn't something come?
He started to chuckle, reminded of the time the Doaks and Finneys were having their feud. Couldn't anybody remember now, what started the fuss, or how many had been killed, or what ramifications it had caused, or why or how it ever died out. The incident of the Doaks' privy laughed everything else concerning the feud out of the limelight.
The Finneys had attacked the Doaks' place one morning, and long about noon old Jim Finney had gotten all pepped up over some wild hair or another and had slipped up behind the house to burn the Doaks out. But Tully Doaks had seen him coming and Tully had a high-powered rifle and he'd cut loose on old Jim.
First off he'd put a slug through old Jim's right leg, and that had slowed Jim down a mite. Old Jim had went hobble-legged all over the yard looking for cover, and Tully whacking away at him like a kicked-over hornets' nest, and the only cover Jim could find was the Doaks' privy. In he went a'clump-leggin along like a schoolboy who's just had an accident in his pants and sees the teacher coming, and slammed the door. But the walls of that privy were only cardboard thick and wouldn't stop a windblown straw, and Tully Doaks knew it.
"Hi, boys!" he'd called to his kinfolk. "I got me old Jim bottled up in the privy. Let's pepper him some."
So the whole family had opened up on the privy, and they said that old Granny Doaks had laughed till she went into a stroke, and didn't anybody notice it till it was nearly too late, and Old Jim had laid in there on the floor among the corncobs and catalogues, cursin' and duckin' and nunsin' his hurt leg, and pretty soon it got so bad there wasn't nothing for it but to nip up the two-seater board and climb down into the pit. And those Doaks kept him there until nightfall, when he was finally able to slip out and crawl off into the bush. And even then old Jim's kin hadn't wanted to have any part of him for a couple of days, and Tim Finney had even suggested that they dig a hole and bury Jim neck-high like you do when a man gets skunk-squirted.
Jort laughed, his belly shaking around his belt until it hurt, and then he wiped his eyes and shook his head as if to say, don't it beat all? Don't it just? That Jim.
He settled down to business again, watching the house. The light in the girls' room was still on and the shade up, but there wasn't anything of interest to see now. Just Dorry in some kind of new dress, primping herself before the mirror. She'd been going at it for half an hour. It had been better a little while ago when she first came in and turned on the light – when she'd removed her old dress to try on the new one. Oh my yes, that had been much livelier. And wasn't it a caution the way that girl never wore her undies?
Old Sam had been corked off when Jort made him stay down at the backwater to watch after Shad. But it had to be that way because Jort knew Sam. The no-good woods colt would lose track of everything watching Dorry's window, and, too, there wasn't anyone who could trail a swamp man like that Sam. Shad was a tricky devil, but not tricky enough. Every time he made a move Sam would be riding in his hip pocket just as soft and unnoticeable as a bandana. That Shad.
It didn't seem too long ago, Jort reflected, when he used to meander by the schoolhouse and pause to watch all the young hellions scrapping in the yard during recess or lunch. One thing he always noticed – that little Shad Hark never lost a fight. And he had his share of them.
Jort used to lean on the schoolyard splitrail and watch the feisty little devils kick up a storm. He'd grin and chuckle and sometimes call encouragement to one or another of them, but never advice – that would be giving one kid an edge over another and Jort believed that each boy and man had to discover his own edge.
Aside one day, he'd said to Shad, "You ort a start learning you something about eye-gouging. You gitting along to fourteen now, and someday soon some big brawler is goan take after you fer keeps and not fer play."
But the overly tall, scrawny boy had shaken his head and said flatly, "I'm not fixing to damage nobody penm'nent. I make 'em say uncle and that's a-plenty fer me."
"Tough's an old boot, ain't you?"
And the boy, wiping at his mouth with the back of his wrist, staring blanidy at the big man, had said, "Enough so's when you fix to come at me you best bring help."
And Jort had bellowed laughter and thigh-slapped himself, and said, "Bet I might at that." And the funny part of it was it had given him a premonition. Something out of the nameless future had told him he was going to mix with that boy someday and it was going to be hell on earth. So he'd gone on watching Shad fight his way out of puberty, and he'd waited, and he'd put it off. Hedidn't really know why because he knew he could beat him, and yet couldn't seem to bring himself around to proving it. And so Shad bothered him and always had.
Down under the birch and paw-paws and maple Sam Parks sat in cross-anided restlessness. He was watching the squat black hulk of the shantyboat that never went anywhere in the weir-gurgling backwater. He'd been lurking there for three hours now, waiting for Shad to make a move, and though he was so fidgety he was fit to be tied and placed in a basket, his faculties were always greedy for signs, and there was an alertness about him so tense that at times he thought he could hear the weeds growing. And so, though there were only the thin lines of light where the shanty's shutters clamped to the frames, he detected just the sporadic flickering, and knew that Shad was having himself a pacing time in there.