your money. If Sam kills me – ain't nobody goan find that old Money Plane.'
Jort seemed to be appalled at the idea. '_Kill you_, Shad? My, my, what kind a fellas you take us fer? Ain't nobody said nothing about _killing_ folks. But, Shad, you ever seen a fella try to run away with his legs all blown to Billy-be-damned by a scatter-gun?'
Suddenly Sam's skinny frame tightened into listening attention, then his head whipped around and he ducked behind the maiden cane.
'Something coming,' he whispered.
Shad got his eyes off Jort and looked across the creek. The palmettos beyond the cypresses were rustling, and just before they burst apart the three men heard gator-grunting. The old bull waddled out of the palm bog and down to the sandy bank of his private pooi.
He was all gator, ten foot of him, and the armour on his back was so dense he looked like a many-horned monster from a primordial age. He lumbered along with the peculiarly embarrassed gait of a gator out of water and fetched up alongside a long dead log that sloped from the bank into the centre of the pool. He raised his snout and the two excretory ducts under his throat discharged the God-awful musky fluid from his glands. Instantly the air all around the pool became tainted with a strong, sickening odour.
Shad looked at Jort 'You still game?' he asked.
Jort blinked at him. 'Huh?'
Sam cocked his head in alarm. 'Hey, hey,' he whispered rapidly. 'We ain't got us no time fer gators now.'
Jort glanced around at him as though annoyed by the distraction, then looked at Shad. 'I don't reckon we'll be needing that air gator-money now,' he said.
Shad nodded as though he'd found confirmation of his suspicions.
'I didn't reckon you'd go to tangle with him after you once seen him. Big, horny-looking old feller, ain't he?'
Jort's eyebrows puckered down at the bridge of his beefy nose. He blinked at Shad's profile. 'What you mean?' he snapped.
Shad turned a sardonic grin. 'I always heered what a slam-bang gator-grabber you was; but I notice you never bring back but little five-six-seven foot fellas.'
Jort wet his lips. He studied Shad's eyes for a moment 'You saying I'm skeered of that big bastard?'
I've hooked him! He'd rather spook me with a show of muscle than find the Money Plane.
Aloud he said, 'I don't see you busting your hide to go at him.'
When Jort smiled thinly his face looked dangerous. 'Yeah, you sly fox, and you know
'What eighty-thousand dollars?' Shad asked.
Jort's face pushed in at him.
'Shad – you honest to God think I cain't make you tell me where that money is hid?'
If I've guessed him wrong, Shad thought grimly, he's goan pull me inside out like a coon goes at a gunny sack with corn at the bottom.
His left hand scraped together a damp clump of sand. It was the best he could think of. Maybe he could get it in Jort's eyes before Jort made contact with those gatorgrabbing hands of his.
'I told you once,' he said, 'that if you ever decide to come at me – you best bring help.'
Everything inside of him slipped into strained suspension. He watched Jort's eyes.
Jort stared at him, a flat, contemplative look. Then he grunted, started smiling, and pushed back on his haunches. He continued to watch Shad from his new position as he began unbuttoning his shirt.
I was right. He cain't help himself from showing off.
Sam couldn't believe his eyes. He pick-picked at Jort's sleeve. 'Jort – Jorty, what you fixing to do?'
Jort smiled at Shad, almost fondly.
'Sam, you just tag along with the scatter-gun. Shad here's got hit in his brainbox I cain't grab me nothing but pint-size lizards.' He flipped a huge hand at a coil of rope nearby in the weed.
'You fetch the rope, Shad.'
Jort raised on his knees and looked over the cane. Across the way the gator had crawled out on the fallen log and sprawled himself on it for a siesta, his little stumpy legs hanging down on either side, his forepaws just touching the placid surface of the pool.
'I'll lead the way with the slipknot,' Jort told Shad. 'And you folly behind with the fag end. If I miss his snout, then I'll have to go at him bare hand. You coil the rope in and stand by, see?' Shad nodded.
Jort grinned and jerked a thumb toward Sam.
'I know you ain't planning no tricks while I'm busy gator-grabbing, because I know you ain't gone and forgot that chuckler about the feller trying to run with his legs blown all backtail-to.'
Shad nodded, smiling. 'I ain't forgitting.'
'Let's go then.'
They crossed up-creek and came slipping silently down through the palm bog to the pool. Jort was in the lead, carrying the business end of the rope. Shad tailed him with the rest of the line coiled in his right hand. Sam was some yards behind with the 12-gauge.
Jort stopped just where the palmettos screened the pool and straightened up, bringing his hands akimbo. Standing just behind him, Shad had to marvel at his massive bare back. It looked as big and hard and formidable as a moonshiner's still. The son-o-bitch was purely put together with horseshoe nails and the ends cinched over, he thought.
Jort and Shad eased through the palmettos, Jort passing the fronds to Shad so they wouldn't whip back; and then they went tippy-toe down the shore to the uprooted bole of the dead log. Jort looked around at Shad and raised an eyebrow. Shad nodded, meaning Go ahead – he's asleep.
Jort whispered, 'Deep?' And Shad shook his head.
'Under three feet,' he lied. Out in the center, he knew, the pool shelved to a good six. And it wasn't the first lie he'd told Jort. The gator was old but he wasn't worn out. Shad had seen him fight a young burly bull about a month before. What little was left of the young gator was now stinking up a bog about a quarter of a mile down- slough.
Jort took in breath, shook out the slipknot and started wading cautiously into the pool. Shad shifted after him.
A man can move only so far in water without making a noise a sleeping gator will hear, and Jort was doing pretty good at it. So Shad let his end of the rope drop-_spoop!_- The gator snorfled, elevated his head and started to swing it around. Jort wasn't waiting for more. He lunged forward -foot-falling into a hidden sinkhole – toppled sideways against the log – said, 'SON-O-BITCH!' and reared up and forward again.
The gator tried to do two things at once – tried to get his great body turned around on the log to see what was coming and tried to get his jaws open. His hindquarters slid off the far side of the log with a splash; his paws were scrabbling furiously against the wood. It was a mighty awkward way for a gator to enter the water.
Facing him across the log, Jort swung the loop at his snout, but the old bull whipped his head back and shoved his horny body to the right.
'I'll be damned!' Jort bellowed. He let the rope go and vaulted over the log after the gator.
Shad started reeling in the line, watching Jort and the gator thrashing through a welter of white and brown water. A Jort arm and leg, a gator paw and end of tail swung out of the water, flashed, and then it all went under again. Instantly Jort's head, soused and wild with water, shoved up and he shouted at Shad. '_The rope!_ Goddam-' And he ducked under again and Shad saw the white-plated belly of the gator glint in the sun as it broke through the surface.
Sam was having a dancing fit on the bank.
'The rope, Shad! _Git in there with the rope!_'
Shad blinked. 'Yeah -' he breathed. He heaved himself over the log and sank to his thighs in the churning water. And right then he was in the middle of the damn thing. Something cut his legs out from under him and he crashed, face and shoulder against the log and felt himself slipping down- and couldn't get footing anywhere.
His brain went all to pieces screaming, 'Hell no! Don't let that big son-o-bitch' – and somehow he was on his
