Swamp Sister

Mr. Ferris' smile went a little deeper

'Shad, there really isn't any sense in your trying to maintain this fiction with me. You see, I know that -'

'Mr. Ferris, excuse me, but I cain't talk about hit now. I just ain't myself. I think I done a terrible thing just now. I think I kilt Tom.' He hadn't and he knew it.

Mr. Ferris looked up. 'Killed him?'

Shad nodded, putting his hands together as though his nerves were ready to fly apart. 'Yes sir. I think I done busted his neck. I didn't mean to. I was just fighting him back, was all. But when I left off his neck felt all out of whack.' Mr. Ferris stared at him.

Shad looked at the prone figure of Tom Fort. 'Mr. Ferris, please sir, you look, will you? I just cain't – cain't bring myself-' His head went down and he hugged his hands again.

There was nothing expressive about Mr. Ferris except his eyes. He stepped easily through the shadows toward the sprawled Tom.

'Are you trying to put something over on me, Shad?' he suggested quietly. 'I'm quite certain that other than having a face like a raw hamburger, there's nothing the matter with your friend.'

Shad waited until he saw Mr. Ferris' back, then he turned, took one big stride into the bush, ducked down and was long gone on his way. Behind him he heard Ferris call, 'Shad! Don't be a fool!'

He didn't like doing it that way; it wasn't in his nature. But he couldn't help it. There was something hypnotic about Mr. Ferris' eyes that beat him every time.

The night and the woods hung still around him now. He trotted, saving his wind, short-cutting to the Colt place. A bat went wing-clicking on ahead and lost itself in the black leaves of the upper branches. Shad could just see Mn. Ferris talking to Joel Sutt-.

I'm afraid we can't waste any more time playing around with that Shad Hark. Don't you have a sheriff or a marshal in jurisdiction over this section of country?

Well now, they's Pat Folley; he's oven to Tanner We kin phone him up, Mr. Ferris. Well, I think we'd better do that then. So you figure to put the law on Shad, eh Mr. Ferris? Yes. I don't know what else I can do. I really don't – Shad stepped up his pace. Yeah, that's how it was going to work. Well, it didn't matter. He was going to make tracks anyhow. He didn't want any lard-head, pistol-toting law after him. And that Pat Folley, he'd as soon shoot you as smile; he'd done it to moonshinens before.

Dorry was waiting under the sagging porch roof of the old Colt shanty, and she'd been waiting for some time and she let him know about it.

'Why you do me thisaway? Standing me up like I was any old body. I ben waiting here and wait -'

'Shet up, cain't you?' he snapped. 'I ben busy with your boy friend. He went to stick a knife in me.'

'Who? What boy friend? My goodness, Shad Hark, you don't go to tell a girl anything. What-'

But he didn't want to talk about it. She was round and soft in the moonlight glowing nearly. 'Just Tom,' he said. 'It was nothing. Come here, will you?' He pulled her to him, arching her spine and kissing her hard, while his night hand slid down the curve of her back.

She wriggled away from him, all elbows and shoulders, and tossed her hair angrily. 'You behave yourself, Shad! Kissing me like that, and me all over lipstick and no mirror er light to see how my mouth looks afore I go home.'

He grinned at her. 'You ain't going home. Not no more.'

She looked at him, wide-eyed. 'What you mean?'

'Dorry, you love me?'

'Course I love you. Think I'd let you do the things you do to me if'n I didn't? What you mean I ain't going home no more?'

'We got to clear out a here, Dorry. If I hang around much longer I don't know who'll git to me first, Jort Camp, Mr. Ferris, en mebbe the hull damn village will come at me. Seems like even'body wants to know where at's that money. So you'n me is leaving fen the swamp tonight.'

For a moment she couldn't say anything. She just looked at him as if discovering he was crazy. 'Me?' she wanted to know. 'Go in that old swamp? Why, Shadrack Hark, I wouldn't be caught dead in that spooky old place.'

Shad nodded impatiently. 'I know it ain't nice, but we don't have a choice. I cain't afford to come back here again after I git that money, just to pick you up -'

'Just to pick up me? Well, I like that, I don't think so. Let me tell you, Shad Hark -'

'All right, all night,' he wagged his hands at her. 'I didn't mean hit just like that. What I mean is I'll be loaded down with all them bills and how kin I come sashaying through the woods here to find you like that? But if you come with me now, we won't have to come back here a-tall. We'll just kindly go on our way with that -'

'No.' And she started shaking her head, not looking at him. 'I ain't going in that old swamp fer love er money.'

'Oh God,' he said. 'Yeah, but look here, Dorry -'

'No.' And the head-shake.

Shad shut up and looked at her. He had a pretty fair idea just how much good it was going to do him to go on arguing with her.

'Uh-huh,' he said. 'And suppose then I decide not to come back fer you after I git that money?'

She slowly rolled up her eyes, giving him the look that went nearly everywhere except straight on, and her smile was a smirk that could mean a lot of things but none of them decent, and her voice was pure honey.

'Oh, you'll be coming back. That's one thing I ain't in any stew oven.'

Yeah. And how far would he get arguing that? He didn't even try. He grinned and reached for her again. 'Dorry – Dorry -'

'Shad, this ain't the time ner – aw Shad – aw Shad honey -Now just hold on, Shad Hank! Not down there in all that dirt and ruck. My goodness!'

Those boys. She'd seen timber wolves that weren't near so crazy. But it was going to be nice, real nice, like nothing else she'd ever had. First off she was going to get one of those Natalie Renke silk outfits in the leopard print, because the ad in the magazine said they captured a primitive mystery in exotic design; and she might just have her hair tinted auburn like the girl in the ad too, and shoes with the open toes and made of-.

'Goddam, Dorny,' he complained. 'You act like you wasn't even there.'

She moved toward him. She put her arms around his neck again.

'I was just thinking how it was going to be, Shad. That's all.'

'How what's going to be?'

'You and me and our life together.'

Yeah – if he could live through it.

'Well,' he said, 'I best git shagging. I got my skiff hid out and I got to leave while hit's dark.'

The thought of all that money suddenly so close to her, almost within reach, was overwhelming. 'You be back tomorry, Shad?'

'God no, you think I got it hid on some hummock in the lake? Tonight I'm just goan take me to the head of the lake and then git some sleep. Tomorrow morning I'll go on in there; but I'll be lucky if I git back by the next morning. And then I got me to wait around in the bush until it gits dark afore I kin come fer you.'

For a moment she was almost sorry she hadn't said she'd go with him. She would see the money two days before. My goodness – 'Well, the sooner you git started the sooner you git back.'

'Yeah.' He looked at her in shadow, feeling the hint of something lost. 'Look here, Dorry, want you should do me a favour.' He dug in his jeans and brought out his roll of tens. Dorry stirred closer.

'I ain't goan see my old man no more – so you take one of these tens and give hit to him, will you? Tell him hit's from me, and tell him I'll send him more later on.'

She took the ten, its tactile crispness sending a thrill of excitement through her, and watched him put the others back in his jeans. She really didn't see any reason why he shouldn't leave those with her as well. They weren't going to do him any good out in that old swamp, were they?

'All right, Shad. I'll tell him.'

He looked at her and compulsively ran his hand over the smooth melon bulge of her left breast, where it