Jonathan Rogers - The Secret of the Swamp King

Laid out to its full length, the snake was at its most vulnerable. Aidan’s boot plunged down on the snake’s head before it could recoil for another strike. Aidan felt the snake’s head crack beneath his boot. Its tail whipped up and the writhing body twisted around his legs. But the rattlesnake was dead.

When Aidan held the snake’s crushed head at shoulder height, its rattles-nine of them-dragged the ground. Aidan was amazed at how heavy it was. But then again, it was as big around as Aidan’s calf and five feet long; it ought to be heavy.

When his heartbeat finally subsided to something like its normal rate, it occurred to Aidan that he was hungry. It was well past noon. Aidan looked at the huge snake. Father had always frowned on killing an animal one didn’t plan to eat. He didn’t see how he could eat that much snake meat, but he might as well eat what he could and save what little smoked alligator jerky he had in his backpack.

Using deadfall branches and the previous year’s dry pine straw, Aidan got a fire started in a patch of thick sand where no grass grew. While the fire grew to cooking heat, he skinned the rattlesnake and cut it into chunks that could be skewered on small branches and roasted over the fire.

It wasn’t long before the smells of roasting snake meat began to waft up from the fire. Aidan closed his eyes, savoring the smell, growing hungrier by the moment.

But Aidan wasn’t the only one in the forest who was tantalized by the sizzling snake meat. When Aidan opened his eyes, he saw three red wolves, attracted by the smoky aroma, stalking a tightening spiral around him, one slow step at a time. They slunk with heads lowered, reddish fur bristling on their high-jutting shoulder blades. Foaming slobber dripped from their teeth and curling lips, and their yellow eyes were locked intently on Aidan. They appeared to be under the impression that Aidan was giving off the mouth-watering, irresistible smells that had attracted them.

Aidan fumbled for his bow and arrow leaning on the backpack beside him. He notched an arrow to the string, knowing he couldn’t drop more than one of the approaching wolves, but praying that the other two would run away if he did. He pointed his arrow at the closest wolf, a mere twenty strides away. But even as he did, he could feel the wolf behind him come on a little more quickly. He wheeled around to face that wolf, exposing his back to the first wolf. He wheeled again. Three wolves, one arrow; he was bewildered. Aidan’s indecision made matters worse. All three wolves were coming faster now. He could see the pink of their tongues.

Aidan was about to let fly with his arrow when the forest around him exploded in shouts.

“You stay away from my snake meat, you red-fur varmints!”

“That’s my supper, you mangy pine-dogs!”

“Haaa-wwwweeeeee!”

Distracted from Aidan, the wolves looked over their shoulders, but before they could react, they were set upon by three he-feechies who appeared from behind trees. Each grabbed a wolf by its bushy tail and slung it into the woods. The wolves ran yelping into the forest.

Aidan stood with his hand over his heart. “Hallelujah!” he gasped. “You saved me! And just in the nick of time.”

“Saved you?” snorted the biggest of the feechies, the one wearing a bear-claw necklace. “Hek, hek, hek, you ain’t saved, civilizer.”

“Naw,” said the short one. “Your troubles is just getting started good.”

You think we’d risk life and liver to save a civilizer from a pack of wolves?” chuckled the biggest feechie. He seemed genuinely amused at the idea. “But roasted snake meat, that’s something worth saving.”

“Mmmmm,” the third he-feechie chimed in dreamily, “I do love roasted snake meat.”

The short feechie spoke. “We was going to leave you to mix it with them wolves, for the sport of it, you know.” He smiled good-naturedly as he said it; it obviously didn’t occur to him that Aidan may not see the sport in being torn to bits by wolves. “But we was afraid that if we did that, the wolves might get to the snake meat before we could.”

“Mmmmm,” repeated the third feechie, “I do love roasted snake meat.”

“Now, give me my snake meat,” snarled the bear-claw feechie. He pushed roughly past Aidan and snatched a skewer off the fire.

“Hold on there,” said Aidan, indignantly. “I’ve got more than enough for everybody, and I’m glad to share, but I don’t like being talked to that way.”

“Humph!” grunted the feechie as he pinched off a piece of sizzling meat and thumbed it into his mouth. “Ain’t your snake meat to share. It’s mine. And I don’t believe I’m gonna share any with you.”

“It’s not your snake!” Aidan’s voice was rising both in volume and pitch.

The feechie clinched his fists and stuck out his chin in a posture of challenge. “You calling me a liar?” he growled.

Aidan’s eyes flashed as he answered the feechie’s belligerent tone. “I killed this snake. I skinned it. I cooked it.”

The bear-claw feechie looked toward the short one. “You heard that, didn’t you, Orlo? This civilizer just admitted to killing, skinning, and cooking my rattlesnake.”

Aidan stared at the he-feechie and shook his head. “That’s ridiculous,” he muttered.

Aidan’s challenger brightened considerably at this remark. “You heard that, Pobo?” he said excitedly to the third feechie. “I’m ridicaliss.”

“You’re ridicaliss, all right,” answered Pobo. Then he thought for a moment. “What’s a ridicaliss?”

“Well, I don’t exactly know,” answered Bear Claws. “But it’s a awful rude thing to call another person.” He looked to Orlo for confirmation.

Orlo obliged. “No question about it, Hyko. This civilizer has insulted you something terrible.” He shook his head, shocked at Aidan’s rudeness. “To stand right there and call a man a ridicaliss right to his face!” He made a clucking sound of disapproval. “The rudeswap is done. Hyko, you got no choice but to fight him.”

“Hee-haw!” shouted the exultant Hyko. He balled his spidery fingers into hard fists and whirled them around like a windmill. Orlo and Pobo whooped and waved their arms and egged Hyko on.

“Eat him up, Hyko!”

“Skin him out!”

“You show that civilizer what a ridicaliss can do!”

Aidan sighed. He really didn’t have time for a feechie fight, but he saw that there would be no way out of it. He had been tricked into a rudeswap, and the feechies would see it to its conclusion. Hyko swirled around him in ever smaller circles, waiting for Aidan to present his fists. Aidan thought it best to use an old favorite method of the feechies: surprise. Rather than raising his fists, he lowered his head and rammed Hyko right below the breastbone, like an angry billy goat.

Hyko went down on his back, the wind knocked out of him. Orlo and Pobo fell silent, astonished that a civilizer could be getting the better of a feechie in a free fight. Before Hyko could recover, Aidan was on top of him. He grabbed the feechie by the long hair at the nape of his neck and ground his forehead into the sand.

Orlo and Pobo were back at it now, screaming encouragement to their fellow feechie.

“Don’t let a civilizer whup you, Hyko!”

“What would your mama say if she saw you beat by a civilizer?”

“Think of your mama, Hyko!”

Their words of encouragement-plus the fact that Hyko had finally gotten his breath back-revived him. He caught Aidan’s left thumb in his mouth and bit down at the first knuckle. Aidan cut loose with an anguished scream that set a covey of quail burring from a nearby galberry bush. Afraid that the feechie would bite his thumb off, Aidan reached his free hand over the top of Hyko’s head and hooked a finger into each of his nostrils. Then he yanked back for all he was worth. Hyko opened his mouth to scream with pain and rage, and Aidan was able to pull his thumb free.