Swamp Sister

He went along a split-nail fence, so old and tired it was trying its unlevel best to tumble down, and near to doing it, and beyond the fence and through the willows was the old, empty Colt place. A shell of a shanty, bow- sided and weathered and not enough roof left to nest an owl, squatting immobile and gape-windowed with sassafras sprouting all around.

He approached the old man's place in a circuitous manner, taking time and care in his investigation. He didn't want to go balling the jack right into Mr. Ferris' lap. He didn't want to meet anyone now -just Dorry, and to hell with the rest. He went on in through the rear door and it squeaked like a wagon at the end of summer.

The old man was on his bed, not in it. He was in his longjohns and he still wore his trousers, one worn and greasy suspender up, the other looped down around his elbow. His bare right foot was hanging off the bed nearly touching the floor. He was asleep on his back, his mouth open, and everytime he breathed the phlegm in his throat rattled like a page being torn out of a magazine.

There was an old wheel lock muzzle-blaster hanging oven the fire board on the limestone fireplace, but that had belonged to granddaddy Pol and anyone who was fool enough to try it was risking a blown-off hand. The Harks had used it only as a decoration for as far back as Shad could remember. He went to the large woodbox against the south wall and raised the lid.

The dusty rifle was in there, and the lid slipped his fingers and went down with a plam! On the bed the old man said. 'Whuah?' and stirred himself a little, his right hand wagging in the air alongside the bedboard as though he were trying to row himself away from the disturbance. 'Whaas' at?'

Shad ignored him. He hefted the rifle. It was an old stock-scuffed Springfield, rust-splotchy along the barrel. He worked the bolt back and forth, finding it stiff.

The old man managed to get his elbows cocked behind him and he propped his head and shoulders up on his spindly arms. He looked at Shad, a bleary-eyed, whiskeny-f aced stupid look.

'Thet – thet you – Shaddy?'

'Naw, it's Estee, come to see ain't they nothing else handy around here she can tote off to that brood of hern.'

The old man started wobble-necking his head to and fro. He'd had a rough night; he hardly even felt like arguing with Shad. He'd planned on starting his south ploughing that morning, but that no-account Estee had come down the road last night, and then he'd dug out his jug of corn and – and my-my, wasn't it something the way women and corn tone a man up? He reckoned he wouldn't do much ploughing that day -maybe tomorrow.

'Now, Shaddy, now – now it don't do to come at me thataway. I plain ain't myself this morning – ain't hit morning? Uh – I thought hit seemed right bright. I got me a head – got me a head like -'

'Like a kid's piggy bank with no sense in it.'

'- like a great big old drum, and the hull world a-coming at me and a-lining up taking turn a-banging hit, and some of 'em not waiting they turn, and a-clanging me with sticks and clubs and cypress trunks and – Lordy me-oh my, Shaddy, I just do hurt.' His elbow props slid out at night angles to his stovepipe body and his head sank down into the striped pillow that had never been inside a case and was grey and shiny from wear.

'I don't see no great difference there than any other morning in your life,' Shad said. 'Except that they usually beat you with pink cottonmouths and twenty-legged spiders.' He went over to the cluttered hutch and rummaged through the drawers for some ammunition.

'Sha – Shaddy – wha' you after there?'

'Your rifle. I done lost my carbine.'

The old man thought about it, blinking up at the rafters.

'My rifle?' and finally he got it. 'Well – well, don' go take hit, Shad. I mebbe need hit.'

Yeah, and Shad knew why. 'Pa,' he said, 'if you ain't more careful about selling things, that Estee goan end up owning the hull shanty.'

A hesitant slyness stole over the old man. 'Well, if'n I had me some dollars I wouldn't have to go and sell things.' He closed his eyes and looked like he was prepared to pass on to another world at any moment. 'I could buy me some food and things what I need – if I had me another one of them ten dollars – Shaddy.'

Shad said nothing. He was wondering if he should tell him he was leaving for good. He could just hear what the old man would say – Shad smiled. The old man should have been a preacher, he could sure rip hell-fire into a fella. But his amusement palled, and he suddenly sensed an irrevocable loss. Standing in the centre of the shadowy room, where millions of dust specks danced in the blocky shafts of sunlight that rammed through the windows and open door, a realization came to him like the spectacle of a foundering ship. He watched it sink with a sort of detached fascination until it drifted to the bottom, and suddenly it had meaning for him.

This's the last time I'm going to see the old man, ever. He went quietly to the bed. 'Pa – Pa, I'm saying goodbye now.'

But the old man had drifted off again, and Shad had spoken low. I could give him a prod. I could speak up and wake him.

He stared at the rumpled old man who had gone halves in giving him life, at the dirty, foolish, hung-over old man on the filthy bed. Maybe it was better this way, unsaid. Maybe this was the only way.

Shad hefted the Springfield and walked on out the back door, across the yard and left the shanty where he had lived for twenty years, left the corn-sodden old man asleep on the foul bed that a cat wouldn't litter on.

The night came in sections. It came creeping across the fields and under the trees, stretching the shadows farther out until they joined and lost all shape and meaning, and then everything was shadow all around; and the trees and the bushes and the weed lost their colour and turned to black and grey; and the moon never stood a chance, because with the night came the swamp mist; and in the woods and in the swamp the little creatures fretted and twitched and sniffed, because now their scent would be damp, active, and everywhere danger waited.

And that's how it was with Shad.

He left the skiff when he decided it was eight o'clock. He took his time, staying clear of the fields and meadows and the road; picked up a path that led to the bridge creek and found some steppingstones to cross over. Then he entered a shadow-pool grove of sycamores. He stopped suddenly and looked back, listening. Something that had crunched the dead leaves behind him stopped also.

He stepped into the shadow of a tree. It couldn't be Sam because Sam didn't make noise. Might be Jort Camp though. He looked up at the black leafy terraces overhead. The swamp mist was crawling off like a sick man, thinning out, and the moon was trying to show. Well, that would help some. He didn't hanker to be rushed when he couldn't see who on what was doing the rushing.

He walked along the shadow of the sycamore to the next tree and put his back to it. The who-or-what was making a move again. He heard it first, crunching softly on dead leaves, then saw it. Ten yards off a man's head raised above the shrub. It gave Shad the absurd sensation that he was a little boy again alone a night in the woods.

'I see you there, Shad Hark,' the man called. 'I see you agin that tree.'

'All night,' Shad said. 'You win the gold paper ring off the cigar.' He straightened up and stepped into the lane. 'Why you tagging after me, Tom?'

Tom Fort left the shrubbery and started toward Shad, but slowly, as though approaching a pitfall.

'Ben looking fen you since late last night,' he said.

'That so? Ain't I the popular one lately.'

'No call to git sassyfied, Shad. I'm fixing to do you a hurt.'

'Why's that?'

'Because Dorry Mears is my girl.'

Oh, tired Christmas. Here was something he hadn't counted on.

'Well, who even said she weren't?'

'Dorry did, last night.'

'Well, Tom, I reckon that's her nevenmind.'

'I don't give a damn-fer-Fniday hoot what she says,' Tom snapped. 'I'm telling you _she's my girl!_'

Shad was becoming annoyed. 'All right. Go to hell ahead and call her your girl. Don't mean beans to me. Go write you out a big sign saying 'Dorry's my girl' and wear it on your backside. I ain't stopping you none.'

'You kin cold toot that again. I ain't fixing to take no back seat fer nobody.'