seen it rise without rain, and it was a frightening thing to watch, like seeing a dead body mysteriously come to life and move.
The trail dropped down toward the level floor of the bottom where the lantern threw long pendulum-swinging shadows of his legs against the towering columns of the oaks, and then suddenly there was the sinuous weaving of deadliness ahead of him in the trail, almost under his feet. It was a big rattler, diamond-marked, cold, and silken- flowing, moving up the trail toward higher ground. He caught up a dead limb and smashed it across the head, killing it, and threw the body off the trail. It was a had sign. There were few rattlers in the bottom, and when you saw one coming up out of the low ground like that it meant high water coming.
He hit water before he got out to the river’s bank. When he came to the old wagon road coming downriver and going out to the ford there was muddy water in a low spot in it. He was barefoot, so he stepped in and waded across. It was only a little over his ankles, but it meant the river was spilling up against the tops of its banks in places.
He came out to the ford and stood holding the lantern above his head. As far out as he could see in its feeble circle of light the brown flood slipped past, silent, swollen, bearing on its surface the telltale flotsam of drift, twigs, limbs, and small logs. A big bridge timber came by, slowly turning end for end on the dark and turgid bosom of the current. It’s just like it was that last time, he thought, the year Sewell went away. No rain here at first and it just kept coming up all the time, getting higher and higher every hour, going past quiet like that, like a river of oil, and then when it started to rain it came right out of its banks and over the bottom.
Another foot and it’s going to be pushing on that levee we built across the head of the field. And I ain’t got my fresno this time to build it up any higher. That road camp we borrowed it from is gone now.
I still got a shovel, though, he thought, silently watching.
Fifteen
He slowed to go through a small town, and suddenly a police car shot out of a side street behind him with the rising snarl of the siren ripping into the night and drawing ice along his back. He hit the accelerator and the speedometer needle began its dizzy swing, thirty-five, fifty, seventy, eighty-five, and still climbing. The highway ran straight out beyond the town and he let it roll, kicking the headlights up on high beam and watching for curves coming up. Then there was a long easy swing to the left and he rode hard on the throttle, hearing the scream of the tires go up higher and higher.
I should have shot the nosy bastard, he thought with cold ferocity. He was looking at me through the windshield all the time. They wouldn’t have this car on the pickup list this soon, and I wasn’t speeding, so it’s only one thing. That nosy punk kid called the cops. And that means there won’t be just one of ‘em. There’ll be a road block somewhere up ahead.
At this speed he could not take his eyes off the road to look back, but he could tell he was slowly pulling away. The siren was dropping behind and the reflection of the headlights was less glaring in his mirror. Going to have to shake ‘em fast, though, he thought. They’re just chasing me into a road block, and God knows how much time I got before I hit it.
The police car began to drop out of sight behind him for minutes at a time. In another ten miles it was only a faint flashing light seen occasionally far back down the road, and he slowed abruptly, looking for a turnoff. His luck was good and he spotted a gravel road going off to the left inside a mile. He swung into it and cut the lights, waiting.
The police car shot past with the siren screaming and he whirled back onto the road headed the other way, gunning the motor in second to pick up speed. That’ll take care of ‘em for a few minutes, he thought. But not for long. They’ll know it before I can get very far and they’ll get on the phone, or on the radio if they got one, and both ends of this road’ll be plugged. I can’t go south, there’s just the Gulf down there. I got to ditch this car and get another one. The description and license number’ll be all over the state in fifteen minutes.
Ten miles back there was a secondary road taking off to the north. There were no cars in sight when he made the turn. The road was narrow and in poor condition, not safe for over forty miles an hour, but it wound north, in the direction he wanted to go. A few miles farther along another one led off to the right and he took that, swinging east again. If I can keep heading north and east, he thought, I ought to hit the highway going north. He looked at the clock on the dash. It was almost two.
He wound for miles through the maze of country roads, past dark farmhouses and through desolate second- growth timber. The worn macadam pavement gave way to gravel in places, and then went back to macadam again.’He was on a graded dirt road when the rain began. I got to get out of this mess and back on the highway before it begins to get slick, he thought. If I get stuck out here I’ll be in a hell of a mess.
Then, shortly after three o’clock, he came into a small town and there was the pavement going north. The town was asleep, dark in the rain, except for an all-night filling station. He turned left and picked up speed again.
I’m going toward home now, he thought. When I cross the river up there I’ll be within fifteen miles of the old place. I hope they don’t expect me to drop in for a visit. He grinned coldly. Time’s going to be kind of pressing for that. I wonder what the old man’s selling these days, now that he’s diddled off everything he ever owned.
The rain was coming down harder now, and it reminded him of that other night a week ago with George driving and himself in the back seat shackled to Harve, going to the penitentiary. God, he thought, was that only a week ago? It seems like a year. Remembering Harve, he thought of Joy, coldly and regretfully. Ain’t no help for it, he thought. I couldn’t find her. And if I get out of this mess alive, that’ll be a miracle itself.
Long miles rushed back in the darkness and the slanting gray lines of the rain, and the country towns dropped behind one by one, huddled darkly beside the highway. He slowed a little going through the towns and then hit the accelerator again when he had passed them, feeling a grim satisfaction in the smooth surge of power under his foot.
Then it happened. He was going through one of the small towns, slowly, around thirty-five, and saw the light streaming out into the rain from an all-night cafe and the four or five cars parked in front of it. The last one was a patrol car and it started to back out into the street as he went past. He swerved out, feeling again the icy shiver along his back, and went on at the same speed so as not to draw attention to himself. The patrol car backed on out and straightened up, and for an instant its lights were full on him. The muscles of his back were bunched up in a cold knot and he fought down an almost overpowering impulse to bear down on the accelerator and flee. Maybe they hadn’t paid any attention to him. Maybe they didn’t even have a bulletin on him yet. Maybe . . . And then the siren snarled, then screamed, as the cruiser shot toward him.
It had terrific pickup and was gaining on him. He gave the big motor wide-open throttle and held it, and when he passed ninety he could see he was gaining back a little of the ground and he began to draw slowly away. It’s just a question of which one of us piles up first, he thought. This ain’t no hundred-mile highway, to begin with, and at night like this, in the rain . . . Somebody’s going to leave it on one of these curves.
They slammed on through another town, and in going out on the other side had to make a right-angled turn. The big Lincoln skidded sickeningly, then straightened. The cruiser was within a half mile of him and it was growing light. I won’t be able to pull any turnoff this time, he thought, coldly examining his chance’s.
Then, suddenly, he had no chance, and knew it. They were waiting for him at the river. He went slamming down a long turn coming off the hill and saw the river bottom spread out below him in the gray wet dawn, the river in flood and spread out over the bottom, the long fill going across, the big steel bridge black in the rain, and the two patrol cars drawn up and waiting for him. He took it all in in one flashing fraction of a second at ninety miles an hour, coming down off the grade. Jesus, what a sweet setup, he thought. What a stinking, lousy sonofabitch of a thing to run into.
He was going too fast to stop and get out of the car and make a run for the timber on foot. The other car was right behind him. And the two up ahead were pulled part way across the road, one at each end of the bridge, He saw all the terrible beauty of it in one quick, coldly assaying glance. It was perfect. If he shot past the first car and got onto the bridge, the other one would pull squarely across the other end of it and he would be trapped like a fly
