white wood houses and a few made of two-story brick and solar glass. Barbecue cookers sat in yards like Martians, waiting till the chill thawed out and summer came on and they could have fires in their guts again. Satellite dishes pulled in movies and bad talk shows from among the stars, and dogs, too cold to bark, too cold to chase cars, looked out from beneath porches and the doors of doghouses and watched us drive past.
Beyond all that, the bottoms were still there. They started farther out from town now, but they still existed. They were nothing like the Everglades of Florida or the greater swamps of Louisiana. Not nearly as many miles as either of those, but they were made up of plenty of great forest and deep water, and they were beautiful, dark and mysterious—a wonder in one eye, a terror in the other.
So we drove on down until the blacktop played out and the houses became sparse and more shacklike and looked to have been set down in their spots by Dorothy's tornado. The roads went to red clay and the odor of the bottoms came into the car even with the windows rolled up: wet dirt, rotting vegetation, a whiff of fish from the dirty Sabine, the stench of something dead on its way to the soil.
Winter was not the prettiest time for the bottoms. Compared to spring it was denuded. The evergreens stayed dressed up, but a lot of the other trees, oaks for instance, went in shirtsleeves. Spring was when the bottoms put on its coat and decorated itself with berries and bright birds that flitted from tree to tree like out of season, renegade Christmas ornaments. Leaves would be thick and green then, vines would coil like miles of thin anacondas up every tree in sight, foam over the ground, and hide the snakes. Considering how thick the vegetation would be in the spring, how many snakes there would be, this bad old winter might come to some good after all. Like making me and Leonard some money.
Still, winter or not, the place was formidable. When I was growing up in Marvel Creek, folks used to say, you hang out down there long enough something bad will happen.
Perhaps. But some good things happened too. I caught fish out of the Sabine and swam naked with Rosa Mae Flood.
When I was sixteen, seventeen and eighteen, I parked my car down there and made a motel of my backseat. Made love not only to Rosa Mae, but to other fine girls I remember fondly. Girls who made me feel like a man, and I hope I made feel, at least temporarily, like women.
The clay roads turned to shit as we went, and we had to go slow and easy, and finally Leonard said, 'We oughta have something better for down here. Four-wheel drive maybe. We're gonna get stuck.'
'Well, we can always go back to town and buy a couple. One for me and one for you. Could get them in matching colors even.'
'Just saying we could use it is all.'
'We won't get stuck, Leonard. We're the kings of the world. We do what we want, when we want.'
'Right.'
We eased on and I tried to make out landmarks, but there weren't any. Everything had changed. I had the sudden sick feeling that I had no more idea where the Iron Bridge was than Trudy and the gang. I wondered if anyone knew where it was anymore. All I remembered was that it was not on the river proper, but off of it, and deep down in the bottoms at a place that looked like something out of a Tarzan movie.
'You got some idea where you're going?' Leonard said.
'Of course,' I said. 'You know me. I never been lost, just—'
'A little bewildered. Save it, okay? I can tell. You got no idea where we are.'
'It'll come back to me.'
We went on down that main clay road and turned off on a few smaller ones that dead-ended against trees or the edge of the river. Some of the roads were so narrow we had to back our way out. Sometimes we had to back a long ways. Leonard loved that. He knew more foul words than I thought he knew, and I thought he knew plenty.
About high noon we were dipping down over a hill on the main road and there was a sudden sound like strained bowels letting loose, and the car started to slide right.
A blowout.
Leonard tried to turn in the direction of the skid, but the skid didn't care. The ice on those clay roads would not be denied. The right rear fender struck a sweetgum with a solid whack and my seat belt harness snatched at me and pulled me snug.
We got out.
The car wasn't banged too badly. I said, 'I think it's an improvement.'
'Remind me to knock a dent in your old truck when we get back, you like it so much.'
'While you're changing the tire, I'm gonna look around. Looks kind of familiar around here.'
'Now the place looks familiar. Got a tire to change, and you know the place like the back of your hand.'
'I merely said it looks familiar. I'll be back.'
'When?'
'About the time I figure you've got the tire changed.'
It didn't look familiar to me at all, but hey, I hate changing tires and tires hate me. I know from all the bruised knuckles I've gotten over the years, all the quick moves I've acquired from avoiding slipping jacks.
My mechanical abilities are simple. I can air up a tire, put water in the radiator, check water in the battery, let water out of the radiator, check the oil and put it in, fill the tank with gas.
Beyond that, I'm an automotive moron.
I walked around a bit, hoping I'd stumble onto something familiar, but nope. I went back to the car and Leonard had the spare on, was jacking the car down.
