Jonathan Rogers - The Secret of the Swamp King

Drifting by a willow bank the rafters saw a great blue heron, still as a statue, gazing fixedly at the water. It was watching for the shadows of fish beneath the water’s murky surface. “Look at that craney-crow!” shouted Massey. Its concentration broken, the great blue-gray bird rose into the air with four slow, lumbering flaps of its wings, then tucked its long beak on its breast and glided along the surface of the water to a spot where it could have more privacy.

“When I was a boy,” said Floyd, “there was a man in our village taught a craney-crow how to read.”

“He never did!” answered Massey. “What do you mean he taught a craney-crow to read?”

“I mean you put some writing in front of that long-legged bird, and he could read it.”

“You’re telling me a bird could look at a paper and tell you what the writing said?” asked Massey, sure his hunting partner was putting him on.

“I didn’t say the man taught a craney-crow to talk,” answered Floyd. “I said he taught one how to read. He’d just read quiet to himself-didn’t even have to move his lips like you do, Massey.”

“Then how in tarnation,” asked Massey, “could you know he was reading and not just looking?”

“He had a real wise and solemn look in his eye,” said Floyd. “Just looking at him you could see he knew what he was about.” Massey didn’t seem convinced, but Floyd went on, “And if you wrote something nice, like ‘Good day, Craney-Crow’ or ‘Your baby chicks is growing big and pretty,’ he’d bob his head like this here, like he’s agreeing with you.” Floyd jutted his head in imitation of a heron’s head bob. “But if you wrote something he disagreed with, or if he felt like you was insulting him, he’d cock his head like this here and just stare at you-wouldn’t blink or nothing-just stare at you like he was astonished somebody’d say such a thing to a self-respecting craney-crow.”

Massey had his doubts, but he dropped the subject when he noticed two round eye-knobs and a pair of horn-rimmed nostrils poking from the river, just out of the main current a short distance in front of the raft.

“Look a-here, Floyd!” he shouted, pointing excitedly.

Floyd rose to his feet. “I see him, Massey.” Alligator hunting was one subject Massey and Floyd could always agree on. Massey started making a loop in the mooring rope at the near corner. “Man the bow oar,” he ordered, and Floyd was glad to oblige. The nose of the raft was almost even with the alligator now, but it wasn’t quite close enough for Massey to throw the lasso with any confidence.

“Pull, man!” cried Massey to his partner. “Swing the bow around toward the gator!” Floyd strained against the long oar-sweep, struggling to nudge the nose of the massive craft a few feet to the left.

“Floyd? Massey?” Aidan interrupted. “That’s a bad idea.”

But there was no talking to Floyd and Massey. They were alligator hunters first and last. Floyd had made progress moving the bow. Seeing that the raft was getting diagonal to the current, Aidan ran to the stern oar to straighten it. He leaned his full weight against the oar-sweep, but it was too late. By the time Massey was ready to throw his lasso, Floyd had pulled the raft’s nose out of the current. The back of the raft, still very much in the current, swung around. The raft was completely crossways in the channel before Massey and Floyd noticed what they had done. They pulled at the bow with everything they had, but the raft was completely out of control.

They were still spinning when the Headstrong was swept into the Narrows. The river was swift there and twisted between high bluffs on either side. They were at the river’s mercy, and the river didn’t appear to be feeling very merciful that day. The stern of the raft got drawn into a swirl as it careened around the first part of the bend. The raft was in a hard spin now, and the back corner slammed into the embankment. Aidan had lost his grip on the stern oar, and the force of the collision threw him into the swirling water.

Floyd ran to the stern to throw Aidan a rope, but it was no use. The current spun him away and the rope fell short. By the time Aidan managed to outswim the swirl, the raft was a hundred strides away, and the alligator hunters were having no success controlling it. Aidan eased himself into the current in the hope he could gain on the raft and be pulled in on a mooring rope. The raft, after all, couldn’t go faster than the current. But in the alligator-infested Tam, Aidan preferred not to be in the water any longer than he had to, and he was very relieved when he saw the raft beach itself on a sandbar.

Aidan floated on his back until he got within a rope’s length of the raft. Massey pulled him in the rest of the way. The alligator hunters were thankful Aidan was unharmed, but they were also embarrassed that their foolishness had endangered him. They mumbled sheepish apologies, which Aidan readily accepted.

It wasn’t the time to dwell on past mistakes. They had a big problem on their hands. It was hard enough to move a raft of timber when it was floating. But a raft of timber on the ground-there was no budging it. Each log was fifteen strides in length, and most were so thick Aidan could barely reach around them at the base. It would take a mule to drag even one. Here they had forty such logs skidded halfway up their length onto the sandbar.

Floyd scratched his head. Now that Aidan was safe and sound, the magnitude of their problem was starting to dawn on him. “How in the world are we going to get this raft off this bar?”

It didn’t take long for the three rafters to realize they would have to float the raft if they hoped to move it. “The river’s been dropping for three days now,” observed Massey. “And if it keeps dropping, this raft’ll be completely beached by tomorrow.”

“Spring rains is mostly over,” added Floyd. “River’s headed back to its usual flow. Who knows when it might rise enough to float these logs.”

They all agreed that their best option was to take the raft apart, roll the logs one by one into the river, and refasten them on the water. With the river current, it was really more than a three-man job and could take days.

“We need a bigger crew,” observed Aidan. “But we’re a long way from the nearest settlement.”

“Last Camp’s another thirty leagues down the river,” Massey estimated, “and Longleaf’s the nearest civilization in the other direction.”

“Some hunters might have an overnight camp nearby,” offered Floyd. “And the Overland Trail to Last Camp can’t be more than a couple of leagues from the river. Maybe we can meet up with some hunters passing through who might help.” Any hunter who found himself in the Eastern Wilderness should be happy to help get the raft to Big Bend. The timber, after all, was for a stockade to protect anyone who used Last Camp.

Aidan, Floyd, and Massey pushed through the willow bank and into the scrub beyond. It was hard going as they picked their way among thickets of black haw bush and needle palm. The hoorah bushes were thick, too, with their tiny yellow flowers.

“Aidan, I bet you don’t know how the hoorah bush got its name, do you?” said Floyd.

“No, I don’t,” answered Aidan, “but I bet you’re going to tell me.”

“Sure,” answered Floyd, holding a branch from a galberry bush so it wouldn’t snap back and hit Aidan, “since you asked.”

“Long time ago,” began Floyd, “the sweat bees around here was just about to starve to death. Every time they went to get the nectar out of a flower, there’d be a big bumblebee’s behind sticking out of it, crowding the sweat bees out of the action. And worse than that, the bumbles was bullyish about it. It wasn’t no use for the little sweat bees to ask them nicely could they please have a turn. The big bumbles just waggled their head feelers at them and kind of growled.