The Backwoods

waters are too rocky ‘n’ shallow for their big rigs. So they all go south ‘n’ leave us alone. The Squatters use flatboats to get around these shallow waters, and they always bring in the same number of bushels a day, and not one more than that, ever. The rest of the bay’s been fished out, but not Agan’s Point. The Squatters stick to their daily haul limit and never break it; that way there’ll always be plenty a’ crabs. We only sell our meat to the better restaurants and markets in the county, and that’s it, and because Agan’s Point crabs taste so much better than the other stuff, our buyers pay more per pound.”

“What makes them better?” Patricia asked. Now she was sitting at the edge of the pier, waggling her feet in the cool water.

“The meat’s sweeter ‘cos the salinity’s perfect and the water’s cooler ’n’ cleaner. It’s that simple.” Ernie hung up his clipboard, apparently satisfied with the trap delivery. “And another reason the company’s got a higher profit margin per pound is ’cos of the lower overhead.” He pointed to another pier, where several men sat down at tables next to some large picnic-type coolers. “Most crabbers use chicken necks fer bait, but what ya need to know about the Squatters is that they don’t waste anything.”

Patricia didn’t get his meaning; she leaned up higher from where she sat, squinting at the men. Now she heard a continuous series of thwacking sounds. . . . “What are they doing?”

“Like what I was sayin’,” Ernie went on, leaning against a stack of traps. “The Squatters live off the land like nobody’s business; they don’t spend a dime on food unless they need to.”

Patricia’s bosom jutted as she leaned more urgently to see what the men at the tables were doing. “I still don’t—”

“It ain’t just crabs the Squatters trap; it’s everything. Rabbit, possum, muskrat, squirrel. When they’re done guttin’ and trimmin’ what they catch to eat, they chop up what’s left. Scraps, guts, feet, ‘n’ tails. And that’s what they use fer crab bait.”

Patricia shuddered a moment when she finally realized what the men were doing: chopping up animal scraps and innards with butcher knives and then depositing the portions into plastic jars punctured by holes. Each jar was then put into a cooler.

“Them jars there?” Ernie explained. “When the boats go out tomorrow, they put one a’ them jars in each trap. Best crab bait ya can get. And it’s free.”

It sounded very practical—but grisly. “I can understand rabbits and squirrels—I ate plenty of that when I was growing up,” Patricia noted. “But you said the Squatters even eat muskrat and possum?”

“Oh, sure. I do, too. Muskrat’s tough to dress, but it tastes like ham, and on a possum the only thing ya eat is the back strap. Tastes like the best pork tenderloin ya ever had if ya marinate it right, and the Squatters know how to do it.” He tapped her on the shoulder, looking down. “You’ll be able to try some. This weekend is the Squatters’ celebration feast. You’ll think you walked into the county fair, and they’ll be cookin’ up everything. These people know how to cook.”

Her feet in the water relaxed her. She looked up at him, frowning. “Ernie, I don’t mind eating a little squirrel and rabbit, and crabs are fine too, but now possum and muskrat? That’s roadkill, if you ask me.”

“You’ll try some,” he assured her. “One thing I remember about you from way back is that you were always adventurous.”

“Not that adventurous,” she declared. It occurred to her in the briefest moment that her position—sitting down at the pier’s edge as he stood over her—afforded Ernie a considerable view of her cleavage and possibly even her nipples, given the leeway of her loose ivory blouse. Again, she hadn’t put a bra on, and she’d been oblivious to that fact until just this second. But when she glanced back up at him to say something, he was looking out at the water, not at her. What the hell is my brain up to now? she asked herself. It’s almost like I want him to be looking at me . . . but if he’s not, I’m disappointed. I’m so screwed-up! Then her original question resurfaced. “You said they’re having a celebration feast?”

“Yeah. Every month—every half-moon, whatever that means. They got some weird ways.”

The Squatters were notoriously superstitious but . . . Half-moons? she wondered. “So what are they celebrating?”

“Life, I guess—in their own way. Nature, the crab harvest, the food they get from the woods. But when ya think about it, it’s the same thing as our Thanksgiving.”

Patricia supposed so. All societies, even today, seemed to have some ritual of giving thanks for the abundance of the land. “What religion are they, though?” she asked next. “I never quite got it.”

“I asked Everd once, and he said they’re worshipers of nature and love, or some such, and left it at that. But then ya see a lot of ‘em wearin’ crosses along with all those knickknacks and stones around their necks. Their own kind of Christianity, I think it is, mixed with other stuff.”

How interesting. Like Cuban Santeria and the obia of the Caribbean, these religions amalgamated old African folk magic with traces of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. Even Haitian voodoo borrowed patron saintdom and idolatry from Christianity. And now that Ernie had mentioned it, she looked back at the men chopping up the crab bait and noticed that one of them wore around his neck what appeared to be a cross made from small animal bones.

“See, right out there,” Ernie said, and pointed out to the bay

Patricia focused out on the water. At the end of the berm, near the inlet’s mouth, she spotted a wide plank sticking up out of the water; on its face someone had painted a cross.

“Everd supposedly blesses the Point every morning,” Ernie said.

But Patricia was still looking out. There were actually two planks, she noticed now, the second sunk directly into the sand berm. But it wasn’t a cross painted on it; it was some sort of a squiggly design. “What’s that second one there?”

“Some kind of clan good-luck sign,” Ernie said. “Don’t rightly know exactly.”

More superstition, Patricia realized.

One of the Squatters approached them, a knobby-kneed man in his fifties, with a sun-weathered face and the trademark coarse, jet-black hair of the Squatters. He seemed to be bearing the lid of a bushel basket as a waitress would with serving tray.

“Howdy, Regert,” Ernie greeted him.

Regert, Patricia thought. What a strange name.

The man kept his eyes downcast, the way servants wouldn’t look directly at their masters, another thing that had always struck Patricia as strange. “Miss Patricia, Mr. Ernie.” He returned the greeting with a curt nod. He set the basket lid down on a dock table. “We made ya both a clan breakfast. Hope you like it. It’s a blessing from the land.”

“That’s mighty nice of ya, Regert,” Ernie said, then to Patricia: “This is great; come ‘n’ have some.”

Patricia got back up to look. Two tin tumblers of liquid sat on the tray, along with a plate of shucked oysters and a bowl of . . .

What are those? she wondered. Prunes? Figs?

“Try our home-brewed ald, miss,” Regert said, passing her one of the tumblers.

“Thank you, Regert,” she said, mystified. Ice cubes floated in the tumbler full of a thin pink liquid.

Ernie took a glass for himself. “You could almost call it a Squatter highball.”

Patricia rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to have a cocktail at nine in the morning!”

But Regert sternly responded, “The clan do not imbibe, miss. Our bodies are gifts from on high, temples of the spirit. Everd the sawon says so, and we follow his word. The clan will not disgrace our bodies with alcohol, the elixir of the devil.”

Patricia was amused. This guy sounds more like a Southern Baptist.

“There ain’t no booze in it,” Ernie assured her. “It’s stuff they make from roots ‘n’ bark, stuff like that.”

It didn’t look terribly appetizing. “Well, you’re the one who said I was adventurous,” she dismissed, and took a sip.

Her lips pursed at once. It doesn’t look good, and guess what? It tastes like it looks.

Ernie laughed. and downed his in one swig. Patricia elected not to offend Regert’s hospitality, so she just