Pendergast smiled mirthlessly. 'I trust him implicitly--to lie. We can safely discount all these routes he has marked. Which leaves us a northern approach. That way we can evade the ambush here, in the bayous west of Spanish Island.'
'Ambush?'
Pendergast's eyebrows shot up. 'Captain, surely you realize the only reason we were able to rent this boat at all was because they planned to surprise us in the swamp. Not only did someone notify them we would be coming, but it seems he or she also fed them some sort of story designed to arouse their ire, with instructions to intimidate or perhaps even kill us if we try to go into the swamp.'
'It might just be a coincidence,' said Hayward. 'Maybe the real environmental official is just now arriving in Malfourche.'
'I might be concerned about that if we'd arrived in your Buick. But there can be little doubt they were expecting two people
'How could anyone have possibly known where we were going?'
'An excellent question, one for which I have no answer. Yet.'
Hayward thought for a minute. 'So why did you antagonize them like that? Act like a whiny city slicker?'
'Because I had to be absolutely sure of their enmity. I needed to be completely certain they would mismark the map. This way I'm confident of the route we must take. On a more general level, an aroused, angry, and suspicious crowd is far more revealing in its actions than one that is mixed or partially friendly. Think back to our little encounter, and I think you will agree that we learned a great deal more from that angry crowd than we would have otherwise. I find the Rolls to be most useful in that regard.'
Unconvinced, Hayward was disinclined to argue the point and said nothing.
Taking one hand from the wheel, Pendergast removed a manila folder from his jacket and passed it to Hayward. 'Here I have some Google Earth images of the swamp. Not altogether helpful, because so much is obscured by trees and other growth, but it does seem to reinforce the notion that the northern approach to Spanish Island is the most promising.'
The lake curved around and--in the distance ahead, emerging from the mists--Hayward could see the low, dark line of cypress trees that marked the edge of the swamp. A few minutes later the trees loomed up before them, draped in moss, like the robed guardians to some awful netherworld, and the airboat was swallowed up by the hot, dead, enveloping air of the swamp.
65
PARKER WOOTEN HAD ANCHORED HIS SKIFF about twenty yards into a dead-end bayou at the northern tip of Lake End, over a deep channel cut where the bayou met the main body of the lake. He was fishing slowly over a tangle of sunken timber with a Texas-rigged firetail worm, casting in a radial pattern in between sips from a quart bottle of Woodford Reserve. It was a perfect time to fish the back bayous: while everyone else was off chasing the environmentalists. In this very spot last year he had landed an eleven-pound, three-ounce largemouth bass, the Lake End record. Ever since then it had been almost impossible to fish Lemonhead Bayou without competition lashing the water on every side. Despite the frenzy, Wooten was pretty sure there were some wise old big ones still lurking down there, if only you could fish them at a quiet moment. The others all used live bait from Tiny's, the party line being that wise old bass knew all about plastic worms. But Wooten had always taken a contrarian view to fishing. He figured that a wise old bass, aggressive and irritable, would be more likely to strike at something that looked different--to hell with the mousees and nightcrawlers the others used.
His walkie-talkie--obligatory when in the swamp--was tuned to channel 5, and every few seconds he'd hear an exchange among members of Tiny's posse as they positioned themselves in the west bayous, waiting for the enviros to show up. Parker Wooten would have none of it. He'd spent five years in Rumbaugh State Prison and there was no way in hell he was ever going back. Let the rest of the yahoos take the rap. He'd take the bass instead.
He cast again, let the bait sink, and then gave it a little tug, bumping it off a sunken log, and started reeling in, twitching the tip. The fish weren't biting. It was too hot and maybe they'd gone to deeper water. Or maybe what was needed here was a firecracker with a blue tail. He was still reeling in when he heard the faint roar of an airboat. Shoving the rod into a holder, he picked up his binoculars and scanned the lake beyond. Pretty soon, the boat came into view, skimming along the surface, its lower section lost in the low haze drifting over the water, the vessel's flat bottom making a rapid slapping sound. And then it was gone.
Parker sat back in his skiff. He took a small sip of Woodford to help him think. It was those two enviros, all right, but they weren't anywhere near where they were supposed to be. Everyone was in the west bayous but here they were, far to the north.
Another sip and he removed his walkie-talkie. 'Hey, Tiny. Parker here.'
'Parker?' came Tiny's voice after a moment. 'I thought you weren't going to join us.'
'I ain't joined you. I'm at the north end, fishing Lemonhead Bayou. And you know what? I just saw one a your airboats come on by, them two in it.'
'No way. They're coming in through the west bayous.'
'The hell they are. I just saw them go by.'
'You see them yourself, or is that the Woodford Reserve seeing them?'
'Look here,' Wooten said, 'you don't want to listen to me, fine. You can wait in the west bayous till they're skating on Lake Pontchartrain. I'm telling you they're going in from the north and what you do with that is your business.'
Wooten snapped off the walkie-talkie with annoyance and shoved it in his gear box. Tiny was getting too big for his own britches, figuratively and for real. He took a sip from the Woodford, nestled the precious bottle back down in its box, then tore the plastic worm from the hook and rigged another, throwing it up-bayou. As he cranked and twitched it in, he felt a certain sudden heaviness on his line. Slowly, carefully, he kept the line almost slack for a moment, letting the fish swim off with it--and then, with a sharp but not hard jerk, set the hook. The line tightened, the tip bent double, and Parker Wooten's annoyance immediately vanished as he realized he had hooked a really big
