He dropped down and crawled the last few steps, dragging his stiff leg behind him, then sat down and leaned his back against the wall. Beth glared furiously at Junior, then sashayed over as if she were in control of things and lowered herself to sit next to Carver.
Junior plopped his bulk down in the room’s one chair, making it groan in helpless protest. B.J. sat on the end of the bed. Both of them were staring at Carver and Beth in a way Carver didn’t like. He knew they had ceased to be people to the Brainard brothers; they were business now. To be disposed of in a way the Brainards would enjoy, but still business. Mercy would play no part in it.
The night insects screamed louder. Bullfrogs croaked behind the motel. B.J. said, “We’re gonna wait right here till it gets darker.”
“Then what?” Beth asked. Carver heard her throat work as she swallowed. She laced her long fingers together and tightened them. She couldn’t hide her fear.
Junior’s imagination raced ahead. He grunted like a hog in sexual thrall.
B.J. grinned at Beth and traced a slow, tight circle in the air with the nasty barrel of the Uzi.
He said, “Yeah, then what?”
30
When it was midnight, B.J. and Junior led Carver and Beth outside at gunpoint. There were no lights in the motel other than the softly glowing road sign with the neon outline of the Spanish castle. Carver’s cane had been returned to him. He was sure no one saw them as they crossed the gravel parking lot and walked along the dirt road through the swamp.
They turned onto a narrower, rutted side road. Walking was difficult in the dark. Carver’s pace with the cane slowed them down, and he feigned more difficulty than he was having, trying to gain time to think. The swamp was black and ominous and screaming around them. Wing and fang and claw. Now and then Carver heard a splash and wondered what had made it. He was sweating from heat and fear. His shirt was plastered to his flesh, and insects flitted against him and occasionally bit or stung his bare arms. Beth was moving easily beside him. She had her fingers hooked in his belt almost casually, as if she might catch him if he started to fall. He could hear B.J. and Junior trudging heavily behind them. Now and then Junior would say, “Jus’ keep on walkin’. Walk on. . walk on.” A kind of chant that was perversely soothing.
Suddenly B.J. said, “Hold it. Gotta look around here afore we go on.”
Carver felt a gun barrel prod the small of his back, causing an ache in his spine.
He stood leaning on his cane, putting on a rapid-breathing act, as if he were exhausted from the walk over rough terrain. His daily bouts with the ocean had given him stamina. He could take this. This and more. He glanced up. Saw no stars. He and Beth looked at each other with blank faces that denied panic. They were wrapped in thick foliage in the deep swamp.
“Over there,” B.J. said. He shoved Carver toward a blacker shadow just off the road. High and boxy. It was the knobby-tired Blazer.
Carver and Beth sat on the rubber-matted floor in back while Junior kept the Uzi trained on them. B.J. drove.
The inside of the Blazer smelled like oil and rotted fish. Tools or fishing equipment rattled around in a padlocked, battered steel box bolted to the floor behind the seats. Blackness pressed against the windows. There was no way to gauge direction, but the rumbling, bucking truck made several sharp turns. A front window was open, but it admitted only the saturated warmth of the swamp, along with mosquitoes, and occasional large beetlelike bugs that ricocheted crazily around the inside of the truck and dropped, buzzing and dying, on the floor.
After about fifteen minutes B.J. braked the Blazer to ajar-ring halt. The abrupt stop caused Beth’s head to bounce off the side window. She gave no indication she’d felt it.
Junior grinned in the shadows behind the black eye of the Uzi’s bore. Said, “Home.”
B.J. got out first, then stood behind the Blazer while Carver and Beth crawled out the back. Beth helped Carver until he was standing with his weight bearing down on the cane. For a moment her mouth was near his ear and he thought she might whisper something, but she was silent.
They were in a clearing lit faintly by moonlight and surrounded by saw grass and towering cypress trees. There was a rambling, flat-roofed shack with a falling-down porch. A very old, block-long Cadillac was parked in front of it. Off to the left was a post-and-wire fence. The posts jutted crookedly from the ground like spindly broken fingers, but the wire was taut and appeared barbed. A cluster of small animals stood inside the fence. Goats, Carver thought, though he could only make out vague shapes in the moon shadows.
He knew they were a long way from civilization here. A long way from help. Beth seemed to sense it, too. She shivered beside him in the hot swamp air.
Junior was still holding the Uzi. Still grinning. His porcine little eyes were glittering diamonds in the moonlight. “Know what we use them goats for?” he asked.
Carver said, “Not keeping the grass short, I bet.”
“There’s a bet you’d win,” B.J. said. He was waving the rifle barrel slowly to sweep the space between Carver and Beth. He could nudge the barrel either way and put a bullet through one or the other in an instant. Carver thought he might be able to inch near enough to lash out with the cane, maybe knock the rifle aside or out of B.J.’s grip, but then brother Junior would open up with the Uzi. The Brainards had it figured. This was their game.
Junior said, “We take them goats one at a time an’ stake ’em out at night at a place near here. ’Gators hear ’em when they bleat, come up outa the swamp to feed on ’em. When a big enough ’gator’s busy with his meal, B.J. an’ me open up with rifles an’ get us enough alligator hide to make somebody a suit.” He rolled his tongue around the inside of his cheek, looking for a moment as if he were chewing a wad of tobacco, then spat. “Killin’ ’em might be illegal, but they’s good money in ’gators,” he finished, as if defending his poaching.
“Not to mention fun,” B.J. said.
Junior said, “Gonna be the most fun tonight.”
Carver felt his good leg turn to rubber. He leaned hard on the cane. Beth moved closer to him, so her hip and thigh were touching his. She’d realized the direction of the Brainards’ revenge. He could feel the vibration of her trembling.
She said, “You bastards!”
Junior giggled, sounding like a hog that had been tickled.
B.J. said, “Save your insults for the ’gators, nigger.” He motioned with the rifle barrel. “Now, the two of you walk straight ahead, into the swamp. I’ll tell you when to stop.”
Beth moved slowly while Carver limped beside her, along what seemed to be a narrow path. Leaves brushed his arms and face. Something that felt like a web settled on his neck and he brushed it off. His fingers touched a large insect for an instant; brittle wings whirred and he heard it buzz and drop to the ground behind him. A beetle like the ones that had flitted into the Blazer? “Walk on. . walk on,” Junior muttered. Carver set the tip of his cane carefully. The ground was getting softer, soggy. Off on either side of the path, he could hear things moving in water. The swamp lapped at the saw grass and the exposed roots of the giant cypress trees that twisted grotesquely in the darkness. One of the brothers shoved Carver forward when he paused to find a dry spot for the tip of his cane. Carver almost fell. He caught himself by levering the cane into the damp ground. It made a sucking sound when he withdrew it from the mud. Beth said again, “Bastards!”
B.J. produced a flashlight from where it was stuck in his belt beneath his shirt. He switched it on, then swept the beam from side to side like a lance that met hard shadow and was turned away. Blackness and thick foliage curved around them. Once, Carver was sure the yellow beam swept past a pair of luminous eyes. Beth hadn’t seen them; she was busy helping Carver maintain his footing on the softening earth.
“They’s quicksand around here,” Junior said, and giggled again. He was up for something tonight, was Junior.
They walked on toward the center of the darkness.
After what seemed like half an hour they were in another clearing. This one was smaller. A tall, angled tree grew near the middle of it. The grass was flattened around the tree. The flashlight beam lingered on a thick rope
