vegetation.
“What is the matter with him today?” Namo asked. Without waiting for an answer, he went in after him.
Fargo swore. He was the one who should go; he was the better tracker. Shoving the Colt into his holster, he rested the Sharps’s barrel on the log and scoured the greenery.
A troubling thought struck him. What if the Mad Indian picked that island for a reason? In the dense tangle the madman could easily pick them off.
A fly buzzed his ear.
A centipede crawled along the log.
The quiet was unnerving.
Fargo kept expecting to hear a shout or a shot. He did hear a slight sound behind him in the water, and twisted. The barest of ripples disturbed the surface. A fish or a snake, he reckoned, and faced the vegetation.
A bird screeched.
A cricket chirped.
Another sound behind him made Fargo turn his head a second time. There were more ripples. Small ones. The same fish or snake or maybe a frog or turtle, he figured.
The minutes crawled.
Fargo thought he heard voices. Then, from far off, Remy yelled his name. Quickly rising, Fargo ran a dozen yards in. “Where are you?”
Remy yelled again but it was impossible to tell what he was saying.
“I can’t hear you! What’s wrong?”
Again Remy shouted but only one word was clear. “Slipped.”
“I still didn’t hear you!”
“Watch out! We think he slipped past us into the swamp!”
“The swamp?” Fargo repeated. Why would the Mad Indian go into the swamp on foot? The answer hit him like a five-ton boulder. Whirling, he flew back to the pirogue and the canoe—only they weren’t there.
Forty feet out the Mad Indian, only his head and arms showing, was paddling the canoe as fast as he could paddle. Not quite that far, the pirogue was drifting.
Fargo had a choice to make. The Mad Indian or the pirogue. It was really no choice at all. Without the pirogue they were stranded. He set down the Henry, shucked the Colt and placed it next to the rifle, sat and tugged off his boots. By then the Mad Indian had vanished, but not the pirogue.
Trying not to think of gators and cottonmouths, Fargo waded in. It didn’t help that he couldn’t see under the surface. Anything could be down there.
The water rose to his knees. It rose to his waist. Kicking off, he swam after the pirogue. It was moving faster. A current had caught it.
Fargo pumped his arms and legs. He was a fair swimmer, but only fair. His skin never crawled as it was crawling now. He hated this, hated it with all he was.
To his left were floating plants he didn’t know the name of. As he came up to them, they bulged upward. Something was underneath, and moving toward him.
Fargo wished he had the Colt. He wished it even more when an alligator’s snout appeared. Then the eyes and the rest of the head. It was staring at him. He swam faster.
The short distance to the pirogue seemed like a mile.
Fargo glanced back just as the alligator sank under the water. Relief coursed through Fargo. He thought the gator had gone back under the plants. But no, a second later it reappeared, all of it this time, its tail flicking as it gave chase in an almost leisurely fashion.
It didn’t matter that the gator wasn’t much over five feet long. Its mouth was rimmed with the same sharp teeth as all other gators.
It could rip him open and take him under just as a bigger one would.
Fargo swam harder. Twenty feet to the pirogue, and the gator was more than halfway to him. He realized he wouldn’t reach it in time. Stopping, he dog-paddled and brought his legs up to his chest. He had to pry at his pant leg to get hold of the Arkansas toothpick.
The alligator slowed and circled. Evidently it was unsure if he was suitable prey.
Fargo held the knife under the water and turned to keep the gator in front of him. He knew how fast they could strike. He also watched its tail. A blow from that could stun him and make him an easy meal.
The gator swam slowly.
Maybe it was only curious but Fargo couldn’t count on that. From the island came yells. Remy and Namo were coming but they were a ways off yet.
“Fargo? Have you seen the Indian?”
“Why don’t you answer?”
Fargo wanted to but it might provoke the alligator into attacking. The thing was beginning another circle. He continued to turn but his legs were growing tired. He couldn’t tread water forever.
“Fargo? Where are you?”
Fargo took a gamble. They had rifles. They could scare the alligator off or send it to the bottom. “Here!” he hollered. “Come quick!”
The gator exploded into motion, coming at him with its mouth agape. Fargo kicked to one side and the jaws snapped shut inches from his chest. In an effort to keep them closed he grabbed at the snout and nearly lost his fingers. Swimming backward to put distance between them, he felt something bump his right leg. Something alive. Something that coiled around his leg as a snake would do. He glanced down but couldn’t see what it was.
“Hell!”
A gator near him and a snake under him.
Fargo kicked but the snake—if it was one—clung on. And just then the alligator came at him, going for his neck and face. Which was exactly what Fargo wanted it to do. Twisting, he thrust up and in, sinking the toothpick to the hilt in the gator’s throat.
In a twinkling the gator turned and swam for its plant sanctuary, the water growing bright with blood.
Fargo kicked at whatever was wrapped around his one leg and whatever it was slid off. He looked for the snake to rise up and bite him but nothing appeared. Not wasting another moment, he swam for the pirogue, which had lodged against a moss-encrusted cypress. He pulled himself up and over and lay on the bottom, grateful to be alive. A shaft of sunlight warmed his face but the rest of him was soaked. He slowly sat up and got hold of one of the paddles.
“Fargo? What on earth are you doing out there?”
“And where’s the canoe?”
Remy and Namo were at the swamp’s edge.
“Hold on,” Fargo replied. He pushed free of the tree and made for the island. There was no sign of the alligator. Or of the Mad Indian, for that matter.
“You let him get away?” Namo said in reproach after Fargo had explained. “All we have done and we have nothing to show for it.”
“He did what he could,” Remy defended him. “Or did you miss the part about the alligator?”
Fargo was wiping the toothpick dry on grass. “I don’t know about you two, but I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life searching this godforsaken swamp. There’s only one thing left for us to do.”
Remy nodded. “We lure the razorback to us. Just as I have been saying we should do.”
“We’re not even sure it will work,” Namo objected.
“There’s plenty of wood on this island,” Fargo noted. “We’ll make a big fire, one that can be seen from a long ways off. The Mad Indian is bound to spot it. And with any luck, he’ll set the boar on us.”
“How do we kill it when it comes?” Namo asked.
“I have a plan,” Skye Fargo said.
17
The sun had set an hour ago.
