like swamp pool wid no bottom. When de trees bend, when de of river talk loud, when de bull Gator roar his lovey song, when de crook-flash walk de sky, den we say dat de Thunderer walkin', de Thunder-stallkin', de Thunderer . . . he talkin! . . .'
-Old Louisiana folk tale
Out southwest of New Orleans there are places in counties with names like Iberia and Cameron, Vermilion and Terrebonne, where sometimes even the rain has no ambition. Instead of falling hard and quicksilver, it just sort of dribbles down out of a winter sky the color of soiled mattresses. By the time it's worked its lazy way through the obstructing leaves and bushes and Spanish moss, you can almost hear it sigh in relief as it finally touches ground.
The Texon geologist tugged the slick bill– of her rain cap lower over her forehead, and still the rain crawled for her eyes.
'You sure that place is around here, Crossett?'
'Yes, ma'am.' The guide grinned. His narrow face erupted with alternating squares of ivory and gold, a thin parody of a Vasarely print. His hand, which always shook slightly, was an extension of the outboard motor. Voice of man and voice of motor were also much alike: steady, unexcited purrs.
'Jean Pearl been living here since before I was born,' he added conversationally, peering to one side to see ahead. 'Nobody around here knows who come first, Jean Pearl or Jean Pearl's cabin.'
Mae Watkins looked back at him. 'Since before you were born?' The geologist giggled, an infectious cottoncandy 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 graygreen tunnel. The world here was composed of gray permutations, 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 attention 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.'
'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 eternally 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 surprises. 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 bullet 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 resembled 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 covered the roof, a quilt held together with nails instead of thread.
Two faded windows flanked the center door, rectangular 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 structure.' Watkins somehow 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 obvious,' 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 true weltburgher of pooches, a canine compendium 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 description.
' '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.'
He also liked to take his time. While they waited, Watkins and Briscoe passed the minutes discussing anticlines and salt domes. Around them the rain intensified. A really worthwhile storm unfolded, droplets hammering the rich earth with liquid persistence.
Eventually the door was pulled inward, and Pearl reemerged. He handed the filled cans to Crossett.
'Goin' back now, I 'spect?' The query was unexpected.
'No, Jean Pearl. These folks down from Styrene. Oil people.'
'Huh! Know-it-alls.'
