Douglas Child - Fever Dream

Black Brake Swamp

PARKER WOOTEN HAD ANCHORED HIS SKIFF about twenty yards into a dead-end bayou at the northern tip of Lake End, over a deep channel cut where the bayou met the main body of the lake. He was fishing slowly over a tangle of sunken timber with a Texas-rigged firetail worm, casting in a radial pattern in between sips from a quart bottle of Woodford Reserve. It was a perfect time to fish the back bayous: while everyone else was off chasing the environmentalists. In this very spot last year he had landed an eleven-pound, three-ounce largemouth bass, the Lake End record. Ever since then it had been almost impossible to fish Lemonhead Bayou without competition lashing the water on every side. Despite the frenzy, Wooten was pretty sure there were some wise old big ones still lurking down there, if only you could fish them at a quiet moment. The others all used live bait from Tiny's, the party line being that wise old bass knew all about plastic worms. But Wooten had always taken a contrarian view to fishing. He figured that a wise old bass, aggressive and irritable, would be more likely to strike at something that looked different--to hell with the mousees and nightcrawlers the others used.

His walkie-talkie--obligatory when in the swamp--was tuned to channel 5, and every few seconds he'd hear an exchange among members of Tiny's posse as they positioned themselves in the west bayous, waiting for the enviros to show up. Parker Wooten would have none of it. He'd spent five years in Rumbaugh State Prison and there was no way in hell he was ever going back. Let the rest of the yahoos take the rap. He'd take the bass instead.

He cast again, let the bait sink, and then gave it a little tug, bumping it off a sunken log, and started reeling in, twitching the tip. The fish weren't biting. It was too hot and maybe they'd gone to deeper water. Or maybe what was needed here was a firecracker with a blue tail. He was still reeling in when he heard the faint roar of an airboat. Shoving the rod into a holder, he picked up his binoculars and scanned the lake beyond. Pretty soon, the boat came into view, skimming along the surface, its lower section lost in the low haze drifting over the water, the vessel's flat bottom making a rapid slapping sound. And then it was gone.

Parker sat back in his skiff. He took a small sip of Woodford to help him think. It was those two enviros, all right, but they weren't anywhere near where they were supposed to be. Everyone was in the west bayous but here they were, far to the north.

Another sip and he removed his walkie-talkie. "Hey, Tiny. Parker here."

"Parker?" came Tiny's voice after a moment. "I thought you weren't going to join us."

"I ain't joined you. I'm at the north end, fishing Lemonhead Bayou. And you know what? I just saw one a your airboats come on by, them two in it."

"No way. They're coming in through the west bayous."

"The hell they are. I just saw them go by."

"You see them yourself, or is that the Woodford Reserve seeing them?"

"Look here," Wooten said, "you don't want to listen to me, fine. You can wait in the west bayous till they're skating on Lake Pontchartrain. I'm telling you they're going in from the north and what you do with that is your business."

Wooten snapped off the walkie-talkie with annoyance and shoved it in his gear box. Tiny was getting too big for his own britches, figuratively and for real. He took a sip from the Woodford, nestled the precious bottle back down in its box, then tore the plastic worm from the hook and rigged another, throwing it up-bayou. As he cranked and twitched it in, he felt a certain sudden heaviness on his line. Slowly, carefully, he kept the line almost slack for a moment, letting the fish swim off with it--and then, with a sharp but not hard jerk, set the hook. The line tightened, the tip bent double, and Parker Wooten's annoyance immediately vanished as he realized he had hooked a really big one.

66

THE CHANNEL TIGHTENED, AND PENDERGAST shut down the airboat engine. The silence that ensued seemed even louder than the roar of the boat had been.

Hayward glanced over at him. "What now?"

Pendergast removed his suit jacket, draped it over his seat, and slid a pole out of its rack. "Too tight to run the engine--we wouldn't want to snag a branch at three thousand RPMs. I'm afraid we have to pole."

Pendergast took up a position in the stern and began poling the boat forward along an abandoned logging "pull" channel, overhung with cypress branches and tangled stands of water tupelo. It was late afternoon, but the swamp was already in deep shadow. Overhead there was no hint of sun, just enveloping blankets of green and brown, layer upon layer. Now the sound of insects and birds swelled to fill the void left by the engine: strange calls, cries, twitters, drones, and whoops.

"I'll take over whenever you need a break," Hayward said.

"Thank you, Captain." The boat glided forward.

She consulted the two maps, laid out side by side: Tiny's map and the Google Earth printout. After two hours they had made it perhaps halfway to Spanish Island, but the densest, most maze-like part of the swamp lay ahead, past a small stretch of open water marked on the map as Little Bayou.

"What's your plan once we're past the bayou?" Hayward pointed at the printout. "Looks pretty tight in there. And there are no more logging channels."

"You'll take over the poling and I shall navigate."

"And just how do you intend to navigate?"

"The currents flow east to west, toward the Mississippi River. As long as we keep in the west-flowing current, we'll never get dead-ended."

"I haven't seen the slightest indication of a current since we began."

"It's there."

Hayward slapped at a whining mosquito. Irritated, she squeezed some more insect repellent into her hands and slathered it on her neck and face. Ahead now she could see, through the ribbed tree trunks, a glow of sunlight.

"The bayou," she said.

Pendergast poled the boat forward, and the trees thinned. Suddenly they were out on open water, startling a family of coots that quickly took off, flapping low on the water. He racked the pole and fired up the engine, the airboat once again skimming over the mirror-like surface of the bayou, heading for the heavy tangle of green and brown at its western end. Hayward leaned back, savoring the cooling rush of air, the relative openness after the cloying and claustrophobic swamp.

When the bayou narrowed again--too soon--Pendergast slowed the boat. Minutes later, they stopped at a complicated series of inlets that seemed to go every which way, obscured by stickweed and water hyacinths.

Hayward peered at the map, then the printout, and then shrugged. "Which one?" she asked.

Pendergast didn't answer. The engine was still idling. Suddenly he swung the boat a hundred eighty degrees and throttled it up; at the same time Hayward heard a rumble coming from all around them.

"What the hell ?" she said.

The airboat leapt forward with a great roar, back in the direction of the open bayou, but it was too late: a dozen bass boats with powerful outboards came growling out of the dark swamp from both sides of the narrow channel, blocking their retreat.

Pulling his gun, Pendergast fired at the closest boat; its engine cover flew off. Hayward pulled her own weapon as answering fire tore into the propeller of their airboat; with a great whack the propeller flew apart, shattering the oversize cage; their boat slowed and swung sideways, dead in the water.

Hayward took cover behind a seat, but--as she quickly reconnoitered--she realized the situation was hopeless. They had driven into an ambush and were now surrounded by bass boats and skiffs, manned by at least thirty people, all armed, all with guns aimed at them. And there in the lead boat stood Tiny, a TEC-9 in his fat paws.