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Mae Watkins looked back at him. "Since before you were born?" The geologist
giggled, an infectious cotton-candy sound that shoved aside the somberness of
the rain-sogged swamp. "He must be odd, then."
"Nobody know, ma'am." Crossett leaned affectionately on the motor's arm, and
the boat swung slightly to starboard. The trees closed wooden arms above.
Watkins felt as though they were sliding weightlessly down a gray-green
tunnel. The world here was composed of gray per-mutations, swamp colors
homogenized by the storm. Trees were gray-green and gray-brown, the occasional
heron white-gray, and gators and anhingas so gray as to be rendered invisible.
Gray moss drifted on gray water.
There was a click forward, and she turned her atten-tion to her assistant.
"Lay off, Carey. You know how the company feels about shooting for sport."
The other geologist was barely into his thirties and less out of childhood.
Reluctantly, he slipped the safety back on and set the rifle across his knees.
"Mae, he was a twenty-footer if he was an inch!"
"Africa's ten thousand miles away, Carey." She jerked her head to her right.
"You're a geologist, not Frank Buck."
"Frank who?"
"Before your time.
He still looked disgusted. "Nobody had to know. I had a clean shot."
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"I'd know." She let that percolate, then added, "If this trip pans out and we
can confirm the hopes of the aerial survey, the company will buy you your own
pool of gators, and you can indulge yourself in an orgy of slaughter." Seeing
his glum look, she said less accusingly, "And when you do, I want at least
three pair of shoes, different styles, and bags to match.".
He tried hard not to smile and failed. Flustered, he turned away, scanned the
nebulous line dividing island from water. It was hard to stay mad around Mae
Watkins. No matter that she was fifteen years his senior and his superior on
this trip. Anyone who could switch from boss to mother to coquette in the same
sentence kept you eter-nally off balance.
Anyhow, he consoled himself, there was always a chance a gator might charge
them. Held tight in his palms, the wood of the rifle was hard and warm, slick,
comfortable.
Crossett saw the geologist's fingers tighten around the gun and smiled. He
could sense what the younger man was thinking. On the bizarre happenstance
that some crazy gator did burst out of the water nearby, that fool white boy
was more likely to blow off his own foot than anything else.
Though in weather like this, one couldn't discount sur-prises. His own rifle
lay near his feet. It was nicked and worn, and the barrel was wrapped with
steel tape to hold it together. No matter. What counted was where the bul-let
ended up, not what it emerged from.
Rain tickled his eyebrows. Fog and drizzle teased his vision. "There she be,
ma'am. Just like I said."
"Yes, Crossett. Just like you said." She arranged equipment, poking into the
lockers set below the seats. The photos and charts she ignored. The rain
wouldn't hurt them. They'd been laminated before they had set out from Styrene
three days ago.
Carey Briscoe set his rifle down, sniffed resignedly as they neared the
island. The shack drawing closer resem-bled the exoskeleton of along-dead bug
whose innards had long since decayed and putrified, leaving only a shell
behind. Dozens of sheet metal and tin roofing scraps cov-ered the roof, a
quilt held together with nails instead of thread.
Two faded windows flanked the center door, rectan-gular eyes bordering a
sagging nose. A front porch sagged alarmingly in odd places. There were no
signs, not on the building, not on the collapsing jetty that thrust out into
the bayou.
They slid neatly up to the tiny pier, bumping against the frayed eye sockets
of old tires. "Watch your step, folks." Crossett was looping a line around a
splintery piling. "Jetty's kind of worn. "
"Worn, hell." Like a kid testing a hot bath, Briscoe gingerly put one foot
and then the other onto the first planks. He gave Watkins a hand up, studied
the cabin. "How does he make a living here? Who can he sell to?"
"Trappers, mostly." Crossett was lugging two large gas cans out of the back
of the boat. They clanged noisily against each other, fruity echoes of distant
thunder. "No tourists out this way." He laughed, a single sharp "ha!" "No
roads out this way. But the swamp folk, they know he's here."
They slogged toward the cabin. "Interesting old struc-ture." Watkins somehow
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found beauty even in the dump they were approaching. To her it was
picturesque. 7b anyone else, it was a slum. Semantics, mused Briscoe.
"As to why it, and its owner, are here, that's obvi-ous," she said cheerily.
"The man likes his privacy. Suppose he ran a store in a big town like
Lafayette? What would he do with the extra money? Buy a private place -out
here in the woods and have to commute."
"Very funny." Briscoe gave her a sour look as they stepped up onto the porch,
out of the rain. There was a dog there, lying against the house. Probably
supporting it, he thought. The shaggy lump was an amalgam of all dogs, a
trueweltburgher of pooches, a canine compen-dium of all the breeds of all the
lands and ages. A mutt. There was little difference between his coat and the
moss dangling from nearby live oak branches.
At their arrival it raised its head and surveyed them with a practiced eye,
then dropped to the porch again. It did not let its head down. It literally
dropped, landing with a distinctive thump.
Crossett moved to knock. The door opened before he could. Standing in the
portal was either the most Gallic black man or the blackest Frenchman Watkins
had ever seen. Also the oldest. It was fitting that he was all of a tricolor.
Hair, mustache, teeth, and eyes were white; skin was black-blue like ink; and
in keeping with the day's, coloring, his clothes were gray. He was slightly
bent at the waist but seemed alert and lively. Not at all like the ancient
wreck she'd expected from Crossett's descrip-tion.
" 'Lo, Charlie Crossett." His voice was husky but not cracked.
"Jean Pearl." Their guide nodded minutely, held up the two cans. "Gas?"
Conversation hereabouts, Watkins mused, was as muted as the scenery.
"I'll get it for you." The old man took up the two cans-and retreated inside,
closing the door behind him.
"Friendly sort," said Briscoe, meaning the opposite. "He stores his gasoline
inside his house?"
"In back." Crossett picked his teeth with a piece of porch. "Oh, Jean Pearl,
he friendly enough." A rodent of indeterminable pedigree scampered into view,
and Crossett spit at it. "Like the lady say, he just like his privacy."
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