Watkins smiled at him. 'I suppose you don't think much of us, do you? Tearing up your beautiful swamps with our rigs?'
Pearl surprised her by responding with a wheezing chuckle. 'You crazy fool people! What I care about swamp? You go tear up all you want.'
'Don't you like it here?' Briscoe was unable to resolve the statement with Crossett's insistence that Pearl loved his privacy.
'Like it? Like the swamp? Like copperheads and water moc'sins, gators and rats and skeeters big as you little finger? You crazy for sure, boy.' He shrugged. 'But what Jean Pearl to do? I born here, I live here too much my life. For sure I gon' die here. I got no place else I know, no place else to go. Like it? Boy, you want tear up the swamp, you got Jean Pearl, his blessings.' Abruptly his attitude changed drastically.
'But not 'round here, not tonight, yes?' His voice had turned solemn, anxious instead of challenging. 'You good fella, Charlie,' he told their guide. 'I know you family from when 'fore you born. I know you momma and papa.' He gestured callously at the two geologists, speaking as though they weren't there.
'These folk, I don' know, I don' care. But you pretty good guy. You go back nort'east, Charlie. You don' go west, you don' go south. I tell you, the Thunderer, he out on night like t'is for sure.'
'You a good man youself, Jean Pearl.' Crossett regarded the oldster affectionately. 'We thank you for you warning, but we have our business.'
'Warning?' Briscoe looked interested.
So did Watkins. 'What's this Thunderer he's talking about, Crossett?'
Their guide looked embarrassed. 'Pay him no mind, ma'am. It an old local folk superstition. Country tale. The Cajuns, they claim they get it from the Indians who here first, and everyone else get it from the Cajuns.' His smile returned. 'The Cajuns, they great storytellers. It make a nice tale to scare the children with during a fry or when everyone out frog-giggin'. '
'I'm always interested in folk legends.' Watkins looked kindly at the recluse. 'What's a Thunderer, Mr. Pearl?'
'You oil people. You should know.' Pearl snorted. 'The Thunderer, he make you oil for you.'
Briscoe struggled not to laugh. 'With all due respect, sir, petroleum is formed when decomposing organic matter is subjected to tremendous heat and pressure. Nobody 'makes' it.'
'You smart boy, you. OI' Jean Pearl, he can' fool you.' Pearl waggled a wrinkled finger at him. 'You find Thunderer, maybe then you find some oil, yes.'
'In that case he's just the chap we'd like to meet,' said Briscoe gently.
'What is he supposed to be like?' Unobtrusively, Watkins had pulled out a pen and was fishing in her diary for a blank page.
'Not 'supposed' . . . is.'
'Excuse me. What is he like?'
'Not for me to say. The Thunderer, he shy fella. Stay asleep under swamp all time 'cept few nights every year like this one. He big 'round as cypress, have biggest gator in swamp for toothpick. Like to drink oil, and when he can' find it, he make it.'
Having lost interest, a bored Briscoe had turned away and was studying a chart.
'I see.' Watkins's pen squiggled on the page she'd opened to. She finished jotting, looked up. 'He's sort of a local bigfoot, a southern Sasquatch. Like a big hairy man, is he?'
'You smart oil people, I can' hide nothin' from you.' He stared imploringly at Crossett. 'I can' stop you goin', Charlie. I see that. You been in city too long much. You forget you momma's talk.'
'No, Jean Pearl.' Crossett spoke softly, humoringly. 'I haven't forgotten her, or Papa, either. I haven't forgotten they had nothin' and that I got a boat and will soon have a new one, and a new gun, for helpin' these folks in their work. I don' forget easy, man. Thanks for you concern.'
Pearl turned away, looking so distraught that Watkins was moved to reassure him. 'Don't worry about us, Mr. Pearl. We're armed, and Caret' here's a pretty good shot, a just as I'm certain Mr. Crossett is. We'll be okay.'
'You have trouble,' Pearl replied firmly, 'you fire tree time. If I hear, Lightning and me-' He indicated: the dog, which might have twitched at the mention of its name and might have not. '-we send for help.'
'That's very gracious of you,' she said. 'How much' do I owe you for the gas?' She had her wallet out.
'Four gallon and tenth, only five dollar.'
'Jean Pearl . . .'
The old man glanced angrily at Crossett. 'I take back what I say about you bein' good fella, Charlie. Mirablert . . . four dollar, then.'
The geologist pulled a damp five from her billfold 'Here, keep it, for your concern.' She noticed Crossett's disapproving look, did not react.
Back in the boat, slipping the line from the piling, Crossett said admonishingly, 'You shouldn't do that.'
'Why not?' She settled herself back on the board's center seat. 'He looked like he could use money, and Texon can afford it. Even if we don't fi any oil.'
'It not that.' Crossett got the engine started, head them out into the bayou. 'Now he always think he one over on you.'
'I don't mind,' she said easily. 'His concern for was touching, even if misplaced.'
'Bigfoots,' snorted Briscoe. He spit out warm rainwater. 'Let's check out these coordinates, plant our charges, take our readings, and get the hell back to Styrene. I feel like I'll never be dry again.'
They did not reach the place marked on their charts that night. As they turned to land on a high island, the wind picked up, moaning through the trees and moss, making the swamp sound like the recreation room of an asylum. Rain blew sideways, sneaking around inside their hoods to crawl wetly down ears and necks.
'What do you think, Crossett?' Watkins peered out of the pop tent at the sky as the guide jogged back up from their beached. boat, a locker under each arm.
'I think it plenty damn wet, ma'am.' He handed her the lockers one at a time, then slipped inside the tent, a roll of thunder on his heels. 'I think we should make supper and listen to the radio.'
As she spooned in her meal, Watkins reflected that advances in science still hadn't found a way to make freeze-dried food taste like food. It was tasty, even spicy, but it was the taste of spiced cardboard. She put aside the tin of macaroni and tuna, fiddled with the dial on the radio until she'd located the marine weather band.
'Tropical storm,' she announced eventually, echoing the now silent broadcaster. She nudged the radio into a corner. 'Not a hurricane, not yet. And it's moving west. Ought to miss us by plenty even if it should develop into something.' .She eyed Crossett. 'What's your opinion?'
He considered briefly. 'I think we only in danger of getting mighty soaked. You want to stay and work, I stay, too.'
'I didn't ask for acquiescence, Crossett. I asked what you thought. You know this country better than we do. I've been through two hurricanes for Texon, one at Styrene and one at Maracaibo. That's enough.'
'I gave you my honest opinion, ma'am. I think we be okay.'
'Good.' Briscoe was sopping up the remainder of his cheese sauce with a biscuit. Watkins winced as she watched him. He actually seemed to like the stuff. 'I'd hate to motor back to town and have to tell them we wasted over a week of company time.'
'That's settled, then. We stay. Carey, see if you can find something interesting on the radio.'
He nodded, set down his scoured plate and pulled over the unit. 'Anything in particular you'd like to hear?'
She leaned back onto her bedroll. 'Beethoven or Bee Gees, it doesn't matter to me.'
The wind continued to howl incoherently around them, battering fitfully at the nylon walls of the tent. It shrugged off all attempts to force entry, the tubular aluminum frame forming a snug, secure dome overhead. Their weight kept it tight against the ground.
Watkins found herself awake, turned her head sluggishly. A figure was moving about inside the tent. 'Carey?'
'No ma'am, it me,' came the deeper whisper.
'Oh, Crossett.' She let her head flop down on they pillow, irritatedly adjusted her hair net. 'What's up?'
'I afraid the water rising, ma'am. Oh, we okay way up here in the trees. But I want to make sure of ours boat.'
