"Seems to me a slick cop like you could have gotten a country b.u.mpkin police officer to release them to you."

"Almost. But the girl was smart and confessed to some murder that happened here, so he wouldn't let me take them. Best I could do was convince him not to let them make any phone calls. I told him we were about to do a big bust and that he could blow it by letting them call anyone."

"How soon before all the stuff is loaded?" Lafitte asked Milo.

"Soon enough. If the girl doesn't get anyone out here."

"She won't," Lafitte tersely replied. "What about that smarta.s.s detective?"

* 278 *

"She's bleeding and running around in this swamp. I've got one of the boys posted on the road to cut her off. Not a big worry."

"Yeah, you keep saying that. Blood," Lafitte said, changing the subject, I presumed. "Here on the ground. She was here."

There was a pause, then he continued, "Aren't you going after her?"

"Naw, I'll send some of the boys. I'm wearing expensive shoes."

"Make sure you get her this time."

Their voices were receding, going back to the house. To tell some of the boys to come after me. I started moving, to get away from any telltale blood. My leg was still oozing, but probably not enough to give me away. I had left a spot back in the clearing because I had stayed there.

I couldn't stray too far from the house because of the treacherous bog. Maybe I could find some place to hide. I certainly wasn't going to outrun them.

I had to edge even closer to the plantation to avoid a dense tangle of vines. It would take too much strength to plow through them, although I would have preferred their cover to the overgrown path that I was treading now. I could see patches of clear sky through the trees. I was that close to the lawn.

The snakes hissed as the bag swung. A nice idea, but maybe I should let them go. Carrying my weight was bad enough.

A patch of white through the trees caught my attention. Then I saw some red numbers. Korby's plane.

"End of the line, fellows," I whispered to the snakes.

Somewhere I had given up. I knew I wasn't going to get out of this swamp alive. All that was left for me was to make the game as hard as I could for my opponents. It made my next move easy and the risk seem unimportant.

I edged closer to the clearing, making my way to the lawn perimeter.

This was the widest part of the lawn. Wide enough for a small airplane to land and take off. The plane was parked at this end, maybe ten yards from where I was, ready to whisk Korby away to freedom.

They were so sure of themselves, they hadn't even bothered to guard it. Who could get to Korby's plane from the middle of a swamp?

* 279 *

I crawled up the slope to the lawn, dragging the hissing bag behind me. A purpose, a goal, made it easier to ignore the pain in my injured leg.

This part of the lawn was hidden from the house and the barn by a thick swatch of trees and underbrush. I could hear voices over at the barn, but couldn't see anyone. Nor could they see me.

My good foot suddenly slipped in the wet leaves of the slope. I had to brace myself with my wounded leg to keep from sliding back down. I grabbed a tree, but the pain still shot through me. It didn't even feel like it was in my thigh, but more like a huge knot in my chest with tendrils twining through my arms and legs. The bag slapped against me and I felt the thrashing coils of a snake. I put the bag on the ground, then sank to my knees, not wanting to slide back down the hill. I held onto the tree with both hands, my cheek resting against the cool bark, as I waited for the pain to subside. Slowly it ebbed out of me, down to a dull throb in my upper leg.

Make it hard on them. I pulled myself to my feet, still holding on to the tree with both hands.

I looked back at the lawn. Still no one was there. Rather than attempt to lift the snake bag, I dragged it behind me. The snakes hissed protest. It was only a few feet, but I could have been climbing Everest for all the speed I made. I finally made it to the level green of the gra.s.s.

I stood for a moment, catching my breath. There were no trees between me and the plane. I had to be strong enough to walk the distance with only a makeshift cane to hold me. The snakes were still hissing from their treatment, but less vehemently than before.

I walked carefully toward the plane, trying not to jostle the bag. I tried to ignore the pain in my leg, concentrating on what I had to do.

A needle, a pin p.r.i.c.k in Korby's thick, lizard hide. A small message to him and all the men like him that they weren't always in control.

That if they bent and broke enough people, someone would fight back.

One snake in the plane could be an act of nature, but two was an act of vengeance. Korby might get out of this one, but he would have to start looking over his shoulder now, wondering when the next snake would strike.

There were steps leading into the plane. It was a cramped six-seater with a pile of luggage and gear dumped behind the seats. That's * 280 *

where I left the bag. I untied it and put the open end under one of the back seats. It would take the snakes a while to find their way out. I was hoping they would rest comfortably until takeoff.

"Bon voyage," I said as I climbed back out of the plane.

All I had to do now was get back to the swamp and let whatever was going to happen happen. I hobbled back to the end of the lawn, then gingerly made my way back into the swampy area. The ground was getting wetter as I headed toward the river, but I didn't turn back toward the house. The only thing left was to make it as hard as possible for them, I reminded myself. If I don't like wet, they won't either. I slogged on through the mire. Glancing back, I was disheartened to see how little distance I had traveled. I could still see part of a red letter through the trees.

Voices carried from the lawn. I stopped, afraid that, if I could hear them, they could hear me.

"Miss James is, at this juncture, unlikely to release the property to me." It was Korby. He continued, "A shame. It would give me great pleasure to continue the traditions Ignatious was so fond of. I have such a reverence for the history and architecture of this plantation."

"Not to mention horses and all the hay they eat," Lafitte added.

"The barn and the bayou are most convenient, I must admit. This property does have a very attractive combination of practicality and grace. However, the police are on their way. It is time for us to leave."

"But we ain't finished loading the stuff out of the barn, Mr. Korby."

It was Milo's voice.

"Do you want to be here to greet them?" Korby asked.

"No, but..."

"Then get in the plane and start it up. It is easy to replace a pilot of your abilities."

Milo didn't reply, or, if he did, I couldn't hear it.

"They might get loaded before the police show up," Lafitte said "They might not," Korby replied.

"Maybe we should just dump the stuff and run."

"There is a fortune of heroin in that barn, Lafitte. I do not intend to lose it unless I have to. Particularly as I've already paid rental on new storage facilities in the city. I do so hate to throw away money. Or anything that will bring me money."

* 281 *

"What if they don't get it all loaded?" Lafitte asked.

"A few men will go to jail. There's nothing to connect me to this operation."

"Nothing a few bullets can't take care of."

"My point precisely," Korby answered.

The roar of the plane drowned them out.

I stood still, watching the fragment of a letter that was visible to me. It finally rolled out of my view, a patch of white, then the s.p.a.ce between the trees revealed only the sky. I listened to the noise of the plane as it picked up speed, then the throb of the engines climbing as the plane became airborne. It circled around overhead. I caught sight of it as it broke into clear sky over the river.

It flew calmly and steadily, without a care in the world, a plane of rich and free men, completely in control. Men who didn't care who or what was sacrificed for them to fly high and clear. I hated them, willing the snakes to strike, for one small act of vengeance, some shadow to intrude upon Korby's life.

Suddenly the plane jerked up, then steadied, like it had only hiccuped. A hiss in the c.o.c.kpit or the hands of an inexperienced pilot?

It disappeared beyond the horizon. I was not to know its fate.

I moved on into the marsh. The trees thinned out as I got closer to the river, to be replaced by a bed of marsh gra.s.s about waist high. I didn't want to give up the cover of the trees, so I headed in the direction of the Riven place.

I was starting to get cold again, the water climbing ever higher up my legs. I didn't want to fall into another hole. This time I might not get out. But what did it matter, I thought. Make it as hard on them as possible. My chances of survival were a foregone conclusion. The water slid past knee level.

"Hey, a footprint," a voice behind me shouted. Another voice on the far side of me answered. The only direction to go was into the water. Here, too, the trees were thinning, the marsh gra.s.s thickening and tangling my steps. The dark water was at my thighs, lapping at the bullet wound. The water topped my rough binding and seeped into the flesh of my leg. I shivered; the cold felt like it had entered my veins, chilling me deep within.

"Over there," a voice shouted, too close.

* 282 *

They had seen me. I glanced back and caught the blur of another person in the swamp wilderness. Make it hard on them.

I let myself slide into the water until only my head was above the black surface. I pushed myself on through the marsh gra.s.s as quietly as I could, until my feet could no longer touch bottom and I had no choice but to swim. I was clumsy and slow, trying to be quiet, trying to hold onto my staff, trying not to let the cold reach the heart of me.

The swamp widened and deepened into a channel, a hidden inlet from the river. The bayou Korby found so convenient, a perfect place to dock a boat you didn't want anyone to see come and go.

I was at the edge of it, still in the marsh gra.s.s. I heard the rhythmic slap of oars coming from above me. I retreated back into the marsh. I held myself as still as my shivering would permit and listened to the stroke of the oars coming closer and closer.

If they saw me, they would shoot me right here. No need to dump my body, it was already dumped for them. My remains might never be found. At least Aunt Greta would have to wait seven years or whatever it was before she could sell the shipyard. If I ever got out of here, the first thing I was going to do was make a will cutting her out. If I ever got out of here.

The boat drew closer. I could see its bow, then the two thugs manning it. Until I felt the disappointment, I didn't know that I had been hoping that somehow it would be Ranson in the boat or that Danny had gotten my message.

It got closer. Goon boy was grunting at the oars and his friend was scanning the marsh. He looked off behind me, then to the other side of the bayou. Then back. And he looked right at me.

Time slowed, inching sideways and backward. He had to have seen me. All I could look at was his hand, waiting for it to go for the gun. Time was moving so slowly that I knew I would see the bullet as it came to take my life away. It would be small at first, then larger and larger, until it blotted out everything.

He looked beyond me. The boat kept moving. He hadn't seen me.

I waited for the yell, the "wait, there she is," the inevitable. But the boat glided on, disappearing around a bend, the oars never pausing.

I counted silently, to give the boat time to glide farther away. I got to somewhere around fifty, then got confused. Cold was numbing me.

* 283 *

Swim to the other side. Now or never. I pushed myself off, threading through the weeds until I hit the channel, then swam a ragged line across it, until the weeds on the other side started to grab and tangle me in their web. I stopped, exhausted, sinking into the dark depths.

Not this way, not just sliding into the brackish mire. I looked back.

Off in the distance, I could see a flash of color that didn't come from the swamp.

If you stay here, they can shoot you from dry land. Keep going, make it hard on them. Make them have to cross that bayou to get you.

I forced myself to swim as far as I could, until my hands dug into mud with every stroke. Then I crawled, sliding along in the mud until it turned into decaying leaves and there was a root at my chin.

I looked back. Behind me was the trail of a dying animal, ragged and sloppy. It ended where I was. All the rest of the horizon was marsh gra.s.s, pointing to a gray sky that had been blue the last time I had seen it. All the colors that I saw belonged to the swamp.

I don't know how long I lay in the mud. Perhaps a minute, perhaps a day. Time was a court juggler, playing tricks on me. Perhaps another lifetime. Maybe I had been reincarnated as an alligator. Or an innocent beetle feasting on my decaying flesh.

Let's play a game. Let's see how far you can go before you die.

How about that tree? Can you make it to the tree? The beetle bets yes, the alligator no.

I started to move, then I couldn't remember which tree. There were so many of them. Pick a tree, any tree. Any tree will do. Somehow this seemed funny. I started to laugh, but it came out sounding like crying, so I stopped.

I found that if I picked a tree and stared at it and didn't let myself look at anything else, I would remember which tree I was going to.

How many trees before I win the game? But I couldn't remember the number of trees I had pa.s.sed. I looked back and tried to count them, but it was impossible. Too many trees. Each one I had crawled to seemed different, but now they all looked the same. Too many trees.

I think I started to cry, but I was too wet to feel any track from tears. I was dying and all the trees looked alike.

Keep going, Micky, you want to win this game, don't you? Don't sit here crying at the trees. They're all wearing disguises to fool you.

Somewhere there was a hill that led up to a lawn. I could get away * 284 *

from all the trees, if I got to it. I remembered running across that lawn in some past life. If I was an alligator now, why was I remembering human things?

I kept crawling, sometimes standing up and half-staggering. If I got to the lawn, it would all be all right. Sometimes I knew I had to get there because if I was going to be found, I had to get where they would see me. Like I had seen Barbara. At other times I wanted to get away from the trees and the shadows of the swamp.

Follow the drier ground, go upward. What little I could see of the sky was a directionless gray. At times I had to fight a desperate panic, believing that the next tree I pa.s.sed would be the last and that I would be back again at the water's edge, with spots of red and yellow, all colors not belonging to the swamp, converging on me. I would be sure I heard the slap of oars only to realize it was my own racing pulse beating in my ears.

Was the sun going down? Or was it just my world getting dim?

It could be high noon and I could be going blind. Maybe it was time playing another cruel joke on me. The shadows started to merge and touch one another, grasping at me.

Suddenly the ground changed. It sloped sharply upward. The hill.

To the lawn. Had Barbara Selby lain here where I was kneeling? There was no sign. No dried blood, no rotting red scarf. No footprints in the gra.s.s.

Maybe this wasn't the spot. Maybe I was still in the middle of the swamp. Maybe this was h.e.l.l.

You win the game if you get to the top of the hill, Micky. That's all you have to do, just get to the top of that hill. What do I get if I make it to the top? I bargained. Will it bring back Frankie or Ben? Will Barbara be okay? Is Ranson going to be alive and waiting for me? Can Cordelia love me?