"Shad," she said. "If something should go wrong -" she turned back to him, "if mebbe somebody beat you to that money er -"
He held back on the pole, staring at her, his eyes narrow and warm. "What in hell's name you talking about?" he demanded. "Ain't nobody beating me to that money. That's my money."
She looked down at her moccasin-clad feet.
"Yes, I know. But things kin go wrong – sometimes."
"Not this time they ain't."
"I just don't want you feeling bad if they should, is all."
He started stobbing again, all starchy with determination and righteousness, watching the gator ground in the distance. Fool girl. There wasn't nobody going to take that money from him, noway. It was his. He'd gone balling through hell's gate to keep it and he'd do it again if he had to.
"When we git there," he said stiffly, "I'm leaving you in the skiff. That old slough ain't a safe place. It's a razor hole."
She didn't say anything.
He glanced down at her and frowned. He felt bad about shouting at her. She'd just been trying to help him; he knew that. But he just couldn't stand the idea of anyone else getting that money. He eased up on the pole, wondering if he should apologize. Poor little kid – She was looking past him, downwake, and he didn't understand at first what was wrong when he saw her eyes go wide with alarm. It caught him off guard.
"Shad – pull in ashore."
"What?"
"They's somebody coming."
It hit him where he lived. Something inside of him leaped and he spun about, holding hard to the pole, and way down the prairie he saw Jort Camp's big skiff coming. He could make out Sam's scrawny figure crouching aft with the pole, and up forward was someone who had to be Mr. Ferris.
Shad hissed. "Ain't _I never_ goin git 'em off my back?"
But it was no time for tears and he knew it. Blood, yes, but crying was for when you couldn't do nothing else. And he knew what had to be done now, and it was a wonder to him that he hadn't known it right from the first minute he'd found the Money Plane. He probably had known it deep down, but hadn't had the sense to recognize it. But it was going to be bad – without a gun it was going to be tailbusting bad.
He shot the skiff ahead, looking wildly around at the jungle. He had to get them well past the gator pond where the Money Plane was. There wasn't any chance of outrunning them and that meant he'd have to land. But the south bank was out – the Money Plane was there; and the north bank was clear to hell and gone across the prairie and Jort would cut him off in midwater if he tried that.
"What're you fixing to do, Shad?" Margy was gripping the gunwales, staring back at Jort's skiff with dread fascination.
"Shet up. Got to think." And he had to think about her too, not just himself now. God's grandpa but he'd been a fool to bring her into this. He'd known it was a mistake when he said yes. She couldn't outrun men like Jort and Sam, and she couldn't fight them.
Desperation made a punching bag of his nervous system. He was wild on the end of that pole now, nearly offbalancing himself twice for a header into the water. Got to land her, he thought. Got to ditch her and go at this business like I knew what I was doing. He'd rather have the swamp get her than Jort and Sam.
The prairie was skinning down to a slow, flowing waterway, and a bend in the south bank was coming toward them. He looked around and then up. A lone lop-eared cabbage palm soared high and mighty above the swamp. It couldn't be more than one hundred yards off.
"Margy," he said, "look up there. See that cabbage palm? In a minute now we're goan around a bend in the bank. Soon's we do I'm going to land you and take off up-slough. Want you to git in the jungle and make your way over to that palm. Want you to stay there till I come back fer you. You understand me, Margy? Stop shaking your fool head that way!"
"No," she said, and she was pleading. "No, Shad. No, I ain't goan leave you."
"You're goan do what I say! You're going over to that palm and you ain't goan budge till I come for you."
"No. Please, Shad. They'll kill you." She was crawling toward him now, reaching for his leg. "I want to be with you. If something happens to you, I got to be there too."
And he was a believer when he glanced at her face. But he couldn't have it that way He scooted the skiff around the bend and down-dragged on the pole as a canopy of fronds swatted at them, turned the bow in and shoved it onto the mud. Then he squatted, grabbing her.
"Margy honey, you got to do what I tell you. Hit's the only way."
"No – Shad -" She was still trying to get at him, trying to get where she could wrap herself around him.
He slapped her hard with his hand, snapping her face away from him, grabbed her hair and pulled her back around. Her eyes were enormous, staring up at him.
"Goddam you, now you listen at me. I'm your man now and you got to do what I tell you. I got that right and if I don't got it then you ain't no woman fer me. You goan a-git in that jungle and keep out of sight and wait fer me by the cabbage palm."
She was dragging air through her mouth, her eyes wide and brown, both her hands clawed in his knees.
"Honey," he said, "you just gitting us both kilt this way. Give me the chance to save us."
She stared at him.
He nodded to her encouragingly "Go on. Git out now. Git into the thicket." He gave her a little shove to get her started. "It's my job to protect us," he said. "You got to let me go at it best way I see fit. That's it – keep a-going."
She went like a sleepwalker, stepped out of the skiff and her feet sucked down in the mud. She looked back at him. "Shad -"
He straightened up and grinned at her.
"Hit's all right, honey. I'll be back fer you, hear? No matter what happens, I'll be back. Git on now."
He shoved off and looked back. The palmettos were just closing over her. And then he realized he had wanted to tell her he loved her. But it was too late.
20
Everything was coming to a head; time was running out.
The waterway was turning to morass and maiden cane; a pin-down thicket swung away from him along the north, and he wasn't having any more of that. And he still couldn't turn south – there was more than just the Money Plane to worry about now in that direction; there was also Margy.
He ran the skiff into the crackling tules until it butted heads with a breather and then, hunting knife in hand, he got out. The peaty earth sank under his feet, trembling, and ale brown water sped around his boot soles.
He started slogging toward a distant rising jungle, using the breathers and log litter to pave his way where he could. But the going was mean. He slipped and lurched and sloshed ahead and sank once -panic crawling down his back – in a sinkhole to his waist, and went on again, hacking at the cane and cotton grass with the knife.
A short-winged fool of a cooter bird came all duckfooted and lobate-toed along a half mud-submerged log and stopped short, beady eyes bright with curiosity Shad shooed it off, climbed onto the log and looked back. He couldn't see any sign of his pursuers, couldn't hear them either. He jumped down and hacked on.
The marsh dust was balling in the air, covering him with a fine powder, turning to mud where his pants were wet, and the mosquitoes were growing pesky, and that sun was straight up and God-awful hot, but he didn't care. The jungle was looming now. He made some last cuts and plunged through the cane.
It looked like a long runaway island; cypress, titi, pine and palmetto all crowding each other for growing space. He spotted a deer run and started along it, the jungle closing in like a narrow green hallway. Two hundred yards into the bush he found a scrawny cypress with roots clutching the edge of the trail. A thick ten-foot dead log was leaning against it like a drunk on a porch post.