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Sutt's Landing was a bend in a country road, by land, and the union of a crippled creek with a minor lake, by waters. It was on high land, built on the fringe of the scrub oaks. A nowhere place, lonely, yet it was a corner of the world that drew a measure of enchantment from its own solitude.
It was dark when Shad rowed across the lake and tied up at the landing. Up at Sutt's Store, and in some of the little village shanties in the grove beyond, the lighted windows stood out like square sheets of flame.
Shad left the jetty and started up the path. Somewhere near at hand an owl- self-appointed sentry of the landing- hooted the inevitable challenge, and further out in the open pine woods a dog cut across on a deer and loosed his deep night-running bay. For a long tremulous minute after that the night was full of music.
Shad chuckled with warm delight as he neared Sutt's porch. He could have himself a rare time right about now, could waltz into the store and say, casual-like, 'If they be any of you fellas thinking on going at that old Money Plane next week, I wouldn't go to git myself in an ailfired stew overn it, if'n I was you.' And they would look at him all big-eyed and mouths unslung, and Jort Camp would gulp and say, 'How's that, Shaddy? How's that agin?' And then, and not a word more from Shad, he'd spread his ten bills out on the bar.
It was tempting, but he knew he wouldn't do it.
I'm goan keep my big mouth shut fer once. And when I clear out, I'll be the richest son-o-bitch that ever did clear out'n here.
It bothered him though that he would have to break one of his bills; but he wanted a drink-needed one. And he was going to buy some taior-mades, a full carton for the first time in his life! He'd be eternally damned if he ever again had to roll a Duke.
Oh, Sally Brown's a bright mulatto,
Way, hay, roll and go!
She drinks rum and chews tobacco,
Spend my money on Sally Brown!
Oh, Sally Brown's a Creole lady,
Way, hay, roll and go!
She's the mother of a yellow baby,
Spend my money on Sally Brown!
It was Joe Tarn, the guitar-banging man, leaning back on a cracker chest, singing. Shad grinned coming in the door. He always liked to hear of the perversities of Sally Brown. When he was twelve (when he first heard Joe sing the song) the imagery of _Sally Brown_ would plague his tossing summer nights. He'd lie on his Spanish moss tick, naked and sweltering, and stare up at the dark cobwebby rafters, not seeing them, seeing Sally Brown. He pictured her a high yaller, the colour of new corn, with long black hair and black wicked eyes. She would start each evening sitting on the edge of a sati bed, herself in a red silk dress-very skimpy. Her right leg cocked on the bedstand, her left on the bed. frame, and she wore shiny red highheels. And because her legs were spread that way, and her skirt high in her lap, he could see her red silk panties. On each leg she wore a blue garter.
That's how he and she started the evening. Later, as the night dragged on, it grew worse. Trouble was he never knew what to do about it. It wasn't until he was fourteen and ran into Lily-Mae Duffy that he forgot about Sally Brown. He superannuated her to a dusty corner along with his other childhood toys.
Frequently Shad wondered just how many times he'd been in and out of Sutt's Store in his life. Nothing ever seemed to change, not even the customers. He could picture it looking just as it did now clear back to the day it had first been raised, and that had been during the Civil War. The long dusty rows of canned goods with their fading labels, the cracker chests and flour barrels, the always halfunrolled bolts of cloth, the scummy glass breadbox, and in the front right corner the hardware, shotguns, axes, spades, and the enamel ware.
High up along the south wall was the aging display of heads-a decoration of the birds and beasts of the swamp. Stilled, stiff wings tacked on boards, and the glass eyes of the bears, bucks, and bobcats staring straight ahead at the north wall year after year through a film of dust. The crusty lips and dull teeth showing in the stark open mouths had a dusky unwholesomeness about them, and all of the trophies were dog-eared and moth- riddled. Somehow they always bothered Shad, as though man, in stuffing and hanging them, had made a mockery of death. Shad had seen their descendants in the flesh, and the contrast was too incongruous.
Man stuffs and hangs what he catches from the swamp, he thought absently. Maybe the swamp ort to stuff and hang what it catches: Ben Smiley, George Tusca, the two men in the Money Plane, Holly- The air in the store was still, hot. Joel Sutt's nightly regulars, some with shot glasses of corn-of-the-hifis in their hands, looked up as Shad entered. They knew he'd been out searching for his brother again, and they waited for him to speak, though it was plain to them that he hadn't found Holly's body.
Shad grinned, nodded, and called, 'Joe-don't stop Sally Brown on my account. She's an old lady friend a mine.'
They laughed, and Shad stepped up to the counter.
'Joel,' he ordered, 'see kin you git me some of that what you pass off on crazy folk fer corn. Got me a thirst drier'n an owl's nest.'
Seven long years I courted Sally,
Way, hay, roll and go!
Joel Sutt fished a jug from under his counter, found a shot glass, gave the inside a wipe with the tail-corner of his apron, and poured Shad a drink. But he held back the glass, tipping a wink to Dad Plume.
'Shad,' he said, 'I wouldn't want fer you to git yourself in a dather overn this-but in case you ain't ben informed, they's a law agin serving minors hard corn. And when I come to thrash back in my rememory, hit 'pears to me you ain't but a tad.'
Shad made out like he was belligerent. 'Oh? Well, how in tarnation would you be knowing how old I be? Was you there when my ma breached me?'
Joel Sutt looked appalled by the suggestion. 'No, I'm happy to say for the sake of my stomach, I weren't. But I'll tell you what, I was standing right there when Preacher Sims went and baptized you in the creek. And that were only ten-twelve years ago!'
Shad pursed his lips, frowning, as though he'd just butted heads with a poser. 'Hmm,' he grunted. 'I see. I
Joel Sutt slapped his forehead with his free hand. 'Hi, boys! He's gone and got me on that one. I pure out
All of them laughed, and Shad, grinning, used to the horseplay, downed his drink. He dug in his jeans for one of the tens.
'Shad,' Dad Plume spoke in a voice proper to the subject, 'I don't reckon you saw airy of Holly?'
Shad blinked. He hadn't consciously been thinking of Holly, not since he'd discovered the broken cypress with the landing wheel. A stab of contrition ice-picked him and he shook his head, not looking at Plume. 'No. Nary a thing.'
Someone else asked, 'Where at did you try this time, Shad?'
Shad stalled, wetting his lips, 'Oh – off a Breakneck.'
'Well, but where off'n?'
'Oh-up Cotton Creek some.'
'Cotton Creek!' It was Jort Camp who shouted, and now he chested his way through the men at the counter to confront Shad. He was a huge, bawling, swaggering man with ten-some years on Shad. Not skilled in anything except singing dirty songs and telling dirty yarns, Jort had become a gator-grabber, catching gators alive and barehanded to sell to tourist centres for display, The man was all nerve, it seemed to Shad, and not much sense. And because of this, men knew him as dangerous.
'Why, ain't no sense a-tall a-looking up Cotton Creek,' Jort said in Shad's face, and his breath, wild as decay, set the younger man back, 'Ever'body done ben up that creek onetime another.'
Shad nodded, turning back to the countet 'Had me a trap up there I had to git.'
Jort Camp looked interested. 'Any luck?'
