Purvis saw him to the door, and then returned to his study. He listened to Dallas’s car start up. He 78
remained standing, his face expressionless, his eyes thoughtful long after the sound of Dallas’s car had died away.
PART FOUR
I
The slow-moving, mud-coloured Red River wound through a dense undergrowth of saw-grass, duck-weed and sagittaria. The great naked roots of the mangrove trees, anchored in the mud flats, gave the impression of a forest on stilts. An oppressive, tropical heat hung over the river. The only sound Rico could hear was the thump-thump of a diesel engine a long way away, pounding out a monotonous rhythm.
Rico wiped the sweat out of his eyes. He was sitting in the prow of a flat-bottomed boat that seemed to him to be horribly fragile, and likely to tip over if he moved.
Baird sat in the stern and paddled the boat through the slow-moving water, keeping close to the bank.
The Thompson gun, loaded and cocked, lay at his feet. His pale eyes scanned both sides of the bank as they moved slowly upstream.
‘Hear that noise?’ he said suddenly. ‘That’s the dredge. It’s farther away than it sounds. That’s where Hater is.’
Rico hunched his shoulders. Mosquitoes droned above his head. He was afraid to flap his hands at them in case he upset the boat.
‘What a hole!’ he said, looking at the tal saw-grass on either side of the bank. ‘How can we hope to make a path through that stuff? How the hell are we going to get him away?’
‘We haven’t got him yet,’ Baird said. ‘Keep your voice down. Sounds carry a long way across water.’
Rico grunted and lapsed into silence. As the boat moved slowly up the river, taking him farther into the dense undergrowth and away from civilisation, he regretted still more getting himself mixed up in this crazy, dangerous business.
He noticed a big log of wood, like a tree trunk, floating motionless in the water. Baird suddenly swung the boat’s nose away from it, and slightly increased his speed.
‘Don’t wake that guy up,’ he said. ‘That’s an al igator.’
Rico felt suddenly sick. He gripped the sides of the boat as he stared at the black object that was now in their rear.
‘An al igator?’ he repeated hoarsely. ‘You sure?’
‘Yeah. This river’s lousy with them,’ Baird said indifferently. ‘They’l leave you alone if you leave them alone. It’s crocodiles you have to watch. They’ll charge you on sight.’
Rico gulped.
‘Any around here?’
‘Not likely,’ Baird said. ‘Farther south you might find some, but not here, I guess.’
A big bird rose out of the saw-grass with a tremendous flapping of wings, and climbed above Rico’s head, making him start violently. The boat rocked, and Baird cursed him.
‘Sit still, can’t you?’ he snarled. ‘Do you want to have us over?’
A hundred yards farther on, Baird swung the nose of the boat towards the shore.
‘That is it,’ he said. ‘Mind how you get out. The ground’s like glue along the bank.’
The nose of the boat rammed the bank and sank into it.
‘Get hold of the boat and steady it,’ Baird said.
Rico got out awkwardly. His foot sank up to his ankle in the soft ground. Miserably he held the boat steady while Baird threw their suitcases on to the bank, and then worked his way aft and joined him.
‘Most of the ground near the shore’s like this,’ Baird said, hauling the boat into the saw-grass and picking up the Thompson and his suitcase. ‘Mind you don’t lose a shoe. This stuff pulls like hell.’
He began to walk through the high grass, forcing a passage, pulling one foot after the other out of the swampy ground.
Rico followed as best he could. He felt he was walking through a sea of molasses, and after he had gone a few yards he had sweated right through his clothes.
Baird seemed indifferent to the conditions. He kept on until he reached higher ground, then paused until Rico came panting up.
‘It’s okay here,’ he said. ‘It’s only by the water it’s so soft. Come on, let’s get under cover before these goddamn mosquitoes eat us alive.’
Rico followed him along a path bordered each side by dense thickets of custard apple. He could hear the steady pounding of the dredging machine distinctly now. It sounded close.
After walking some distance through the thicket, they came upon a small wooden cabin in what had once been a clearing, but which was now almost overgrown. Big cypress trees obscured the light around the cabin, but Rico was thankful to be out of the direct sunlight that had been scorching him during the trip up river.
