Alligator (26 page)

He looked out at the cloudy water. Swamp gas was bubbling and churning up from the bottom, as if the earth had only recently been formed. He could hear it as it broke surface and dissipated into the air. Farther out he saw a fine spray, like phosphorescent sparks, moving quickly across the surface. At first he thought it was just some more swamp gas, but soon he realized he had never seen anything like it before.

The trail of spray moved closer to shore, and even the animals were startled by it. Suddenly some fishing birds took off into the air, crying out their choked, agonized screeches. A fawn that was bent into the water looked up fearfully, then fled into the jungle. A pair of water rats scattered through the high sawgrass, away from the water.

The phosphorescent spray moved closer, and Maurice saw behind it a huge wake of swirling mud and weeds. A huge area of the water was disturbed now, like a giant eddy. Maurice watched, fascinated and afraid, as it moved toward him. All at once the water calmed, and two yellow, piglike eyes broke the surface.

Breath without sound escaped from Maurice's mouth. He began to run again, pounding the earth with his feet, clawing at scrub willow and sawgrass, gripped by a terror which was beyond anything he had ever known.

Maurice didn't see that his path was blocked. Even as he fell, there was only the fleeting impression of a boulder, large and gray, pitted with millions of fossils. Maurice didn't understand that he'd tripped. All he felt was the terror overwhelming him like a great blinding white light, and then nothing. As his head struck the rock, he found sound and screamed out. It wasn't a cry of pain, or even of fear; Maurice could not longer feel either of these. Rather, it was a cry of outrage, the instinctive cry of all that lives against the blackness of death. As he hit the ground, bones splintered into a thousand pieces. His head split open, and all the memories, knowledge, thoughts, and instincts, everything that made him a man, spilled out onto the jungle floor.

It took only a few minutes for the flies to begin clustering around Maurice's lifeless body in thick, oily black swarms. They buzzed loudly as they moved about, gathering up bits of him. Predatory birds studded the trees; occasionally one would swoop down to claim his share. The animal noise around Maurice soon grew deafening, and as the animals picked at his flesh, his dead body began to undulate with another life.

Lee stopped when he heard the noise. For the past ten minutes, he'd been able to read Maurice's panic from the jungle. The shattered branches, the broken spider webs, the trampled grass, all told the story clearly. He hadn't said anything to Rye because he'd hoped Maurice would be able to bring himself under control. Now there was the sound, oily and sickening. Lee felt that he was going to vomit.

Rye caught up to Lee. A shudder ran through him as he heard the noise.

"What is that?" he asked, terrified.

Lee didn't answer. His throat was closed up, and there was the taste of acid in his mouth.

"I said, what is that?" Rye insisted.

Lee took a deep breath. "Insects," he said, "millions of insects."

"You figure there's any danger?"

"No. Not any more. They come after something dies."

Apprehension crushed in on Rye, and his legs started to give. He bolted and ran through the jungle, calling Maurice's name over and over again, blindly crashing through palmettos and scrub pines, feeling nothing but his fear.

A minute later he saw him. Maurice's twisted body lay on the ground. All around him were the flies, like a living shroud, swirling and undulating in a slow death dance.

Rye ran toward the body, screaming to drive the predators away, as if that would bring Maurice back to life. The huge crows belligerently flapped into the trees to wait, but the flies remained.

Rye crouched and gently cradled Maurice's head in his lap, almost rocking him. "Oh my God," he said, "oh my God."

Maurice had scooped up Clete's hat and shoved it into his pocket in order to protect Rye. It was a strange bit of irony that, had he left it where it was, Lee most probably would never have seen it. As it was, the piece of evidence Maurice took pains to hide had been wrenched from his pocket during his panicky flight, and now lay on the ground not far from his body.

As Rye and Lee stooped by the water, washing off the smell of death, Lee saw the hat. Suddenly he understood everything. The death of Clete, his subsequent jailing, now struck him as so obviously phony that he couldn't believe he had fallen for it. It had never occurred to him to doubt the events that had taken place in town; they seemed to have all the illogic of real life, but now he was amazed that he hadn't seen it right away. Why had he immediately assumed his own guilt? If it had happened to anybody else, he wouldn't have been fooled for a minute.

When Lee told Sam he wasn't sure what he planned to do about Rye, it was the truth, but, clutching Clete's hat, fury twisting in his gut, the pressure of hatred so heavy on his chest that it took his breath away, he knew.

Lee's mind telescoped. He was aware of the ground, which seemed to whirl under him; he was aware of the heat and the stench of death, but it was all very far away. Everything in him collapsed down and focused into the hot tight ball in his stomach, urging him to act.

Lee lunged at Rye like a panther. He clamped his arms around him, spinning him around, loverlike, then took him to the ground. He could hear Rye gasping for breath underneath him. His powerful hands instinctively found Rye's throat, and he pressed down.

Rye's body convulsed. Bile was flowing into his throat. He was almost retching. Rye forced his arm into action and jammed his fist into Lee's stomach. Lee recoiled. Rye instantly wrenched him from the ground and pulled him over. With a power no forty-eight-year-old man should have, he heaved his body on top of Lee and battered Lee's stomach with bleeding, aching fists.

Rye was grunting, but he couldn't hear himself, nor could he feel the pain; he couldn't even see Lee any more. Occasionally, an image flashed across to him, but it moved too fast to grasp. His mind was blocked off, and he moved totally on instinct.

Lee was losing control. Blood was pouring from a cut under his eye, and energy trickled away with it, wasting itself on the ground. A horrifying giddiness swept over him. He tried to fight it, but the constant pounding of Rye's fists kept pulling him away; all he could see or hear or feel were those fists. He saw something red flash in front of him. He tried to make out what it was, but it disappeared. He saw the flash again, and forced himself to grasp the image. Lee cried out. It was blood: Rye was bleeding.

With new strength, he locked his legs tightly around Rye and pulled him from the ground. Rye flailed and clutched at the air, trying to regain his balance. Lee threw his weight over Rye, sending him crashing to the ground. Instantly he straddled him and began pounding at his face. He felt the flesh give and split as he battered it with a power fed by hate.

Rye lurched up and butted Lee in the stomach. The wind poured out of Lee, and he was thrown off balance. Rye tried to pull Lee over but was too weak. Lee recovered. He grabbed Rye's head and smashed it against the ground. Lee could feel the impact right into his hands. He could feel Rye's head striking the ground; there was a yielding to it, a vulnerability that satisfied, and he banged Rye's head on the ground again and again.

Lee could only see one of Rye's eyes. It stared up at him sightless with agony. He could smell Rye's fear, and that too satisfied.

Rye was gasping violently; his mouth was working, trying to make sound. Finally he gasped hoarsely, "Please, please—"

Lee stopped and looked down at Rye with a savage smile of victory. But Rye wasn't looking at Lee; he was looking at the water, where a trace of spray disturbed the calm. Lee followed Rye's eyes out to the mud-choked swamp, and saw the moss-covered alligator rise like a great black gash across the water. An eerie gust of wind blew across the hummock. It carried with it a strange, otherworldly smell, the stench of death and decay. The alligator broke the surface and rode the disturbed water. His old yellow eyes seemed to be watching the men.

Rye and Lee were frozen as they were, held by the intense death smell and the terrifying, unblinking eyes of the alligator.

A moment later, the alligator melted away. The water closed around him and calmed, until there was no trace of his ever having been there at all.

Lee felt a quickening underneath him. Rye opened his mouth, but nothing came out except a hissing of air. Rye gathered all his energy and fought to speak. "Please," he gasped, "don't deny me this chance."

Lee could feel Rye shuddering beneath him. He could smell the fear coming off him like rut. Rye's tormented eyes stood out of his head, red and wide, but they weren't looking at Lee; they were looking out into the water.

Lee was stunned. So that was it. Rye was afraid, but it wasn't of him, or death, or even the alligator. What Rye feared most was never getting the chance. It would be a loss of his destiny, and that frightened Rye more than anything else. Lee couldn't begin to understand it, but he knew it was true.

All Lee had to do was close his hands around Rye's throat, and he could deprive him of it all, but that was the one thing he couldn't do.

"I could kill you now," Lee growled. "It'd be easy, so easy. But you ain't mine to kill."

Lee released his hold on Rye and slowly stood up. Rye didn't move; he didn't even seem to notice that Lee had let go of him. He stared out at the water, watching for a ripple, the trace of a shadow, anything that would give him a sign, but nothing disturbed the calm brown surface of the swamp.

Lee brushed off his clothes and walked down to the water to wash his face. The pain was starting to come. His entire body was swollen and tender. Even his mind felt battered, though in the center he was numb. It was better that way. He was tired of all the hate and anger he'd been feeling the past week; he thought he was well beyond all that. Rye Whitman had brought it back.

When he walked back, Rye was up and looking for his rifle. His clothes were torn and dusty, with large stains of blood and sweat across the back. There were smears of dried blood all over his face, and a small red stream still trickled from his nose. Rye's face showed no trace of the fear Lee had seen before, and though he was probably feeling pain, he was doing his best not to show it. He looked raw, as though his skin had been beaten away, and tired, every bit his age. Lee caught himself almost feeling sorry for him.

Lee spotted Rye's rifle in the bushes and handed it back to him. Then he said, "You can follow me back to camp and we'll divide up the supplies. I'll send a helicopter back for you and Maurice's body. It shouldn't be more than three days before they come. I'll leave you enough supplies for five, just in case."

Rye didn't say anything for close to a minute, and there was no way for Lee to read what he was feeling from his face. Suddenly he screamed, "You ain't goin' nowhere! You're stayin' with me!"

Lee was amazed that Rye still thought he was giving orders. Under the smears of blood, Rye's face was white; it looked like it had been carved out of wax.

"You're not goin' back!" yelled Rye; his voice was high-pitched and hysterical. "Remember I said I had something to tell you. Well, here it is. I knew your ma when she was young. She was pretty as hell, but spoiled rotten. It gave me a great deal of pleasure to more or less equalize her down in the hay."

"I know all that," said Lee.

"But what you don't know is if you was the result of that little romp."

"No," said Lee, "and I doubt you know the answer. I doubt even Ma does any more."

"But let's say you were!" Rye's eyes were sparkling with triumph.

"It don't matter to me no more," said Lee. "I can't believe it ever did. Only thing I want from you and all the rest is to leave me alone."

Rye said nothing for close to a minute. He watched Lee, trying to understand. Finally he did.

"You really mean that, don't you?" Rye said, stunned.

"Yes, sir, I do, I certainly do."

"I feel sorry for you, Boone," Rye said. "Go ahead, run away. Run as fast as you can—that way nothin' can touch you. Tell yourself it's because I cheated you. Well, I did. But that ain't the reason you're runnin'. You're runnin' because you're scared."

"Of you?" Lee asked derisively.

"You're scared of a lot of things, but mostly of livin'. You ain't never gonna lose, because you ain't never gonna even try. You don't have to have hopes or dreams or nothin' that makes a man. Well, keep runnin', Boone. You ain't wanted here. You tell me you don't care whether you're my son or not. To tell you the truth, I hope to God you aren't."

Lee turned around and began walking back to camp. He didn't look back to check on Rye; he knew he'd be following. The numbness in his center had spread out through his body. He felt like he was behind a thick glass wall. He could see and hear everything, but it was very far away. He couldn't touch it, and it couldn't touch him.

An hour later, he was poling away from shore. The nearest town was a good two days away, but he was looking forward to the hard work and the solitude.

Rye did nothing for several hours. He neither moved nor thought; he just sat on the shoreline, staring out at the water as though in a trance. It wasn't until late afternoon that he went looking for firewood, and before he had collected enough, he had to turn back; already the eerie glow of evening surrounded him.

Rye picked up his small bundle of wood and headed back to the shore, talking to himself to keep the lonely night from his thoughts. He told himself about the can of beans he was going to cook up when he got back to camp, and how he was going to fry some saltback and open a good bottle of bourbon. He told himself how soundly he was going to sleep, and how the next morning he'd start off after the alligator by himself.

The sawgrass rustled. Rye stopped walking and looked around. Five yards away, almost hidden in the high grass, was the heavy body of a coral snake. He stirred, flashing yellow, black, and vermilion through the dried brown grass. Rye could see his two tiny eyes and his flickering tongue.