Here by Mistake (10 page)

Brandon heard that. He gave the paper a final shove and jumped to his feet. Stephen grabbed his glasses, notebook, and backpack, and Sarah donned her shoe. They dashed for the gate.

Seconds later, two young men ran up to the two on the ground. The teenager gripping his knee wasn’t going anywhere, but the other one jerked the paper out of his mouth and let the newcomers help him up. He quickly told them his story and took off after Brandon and his friends. He waved for the young men to follow him.

“There!” Stephen exclaimed, pointing to the gate. He and Brandon and Sarah tore out of the park and dashed across North Rampart Street. Running down Orleans Avenue, they soon saw the man in white, standing and swaying in the spot where they had left him.

“Excuse us, mister,” Brandon said breathlessly as they flew past him. The man smiled and tipped his derby to them. He watched them turn sharply east and disappear into a pedestrian alley.

Seconds later three young men came bounding down the avenue. They stopped at the man in white.

“HEY!” barked the one Brandon had beaten. “Y’see three kids runnin’ just now?”

The man looked the three of them up and down. He crinkled his nose as if he didn’t like the smell of them.

“Stinkin’ drunk,” muttered the teenager under his breath. Suddenly he grimaced, hawked up a shred of paper, and spit it out. “Listen,” he said, wiping his mouth, “three kids. See ’em runnin’ just now?”

The man drew a silver flask from his pocket, flipped the cap, and took a swallow. His nose blushed crimson. “Why, yes. They ran that way.” He pointed his derby west on Burgundy Street.

“C’mon,” the teenager yelled to his companions. They raced away, almost knocking over an elderly couple crossing the street.

The man in white watched them go. His smile returned and his eye regained its twinkle. “Not a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he said slyly.

They sat at the kitchen table with Quint peering at their faces. Stephen’s forehead was cut and his neck was bruised. Sarah’s cheek was turning purple. Brandon’s left eye was darkening.

“Damn it,” Quint whispered.

“Don’t worry about it,” Brandon said. “Next time we run there I’m bringing a baseball bat.”

“No,” Quint said. “There’s no next time, B, for any y’all. All we need’s a police contact to screw everything up. Y’all can’t show y’belong t’anyone, and I can’t show custody. Y’all’d be packed off someplace in a flash.” He took a roll of adhesive tape from the counter and tore off a strip. “I never thought about it, but I should’ve,” he said as he taped the broken stem to Stephen’s glasses. “Those walks y’all have been goin’ on—y’all were takin’ big chances. From now to the sixteenth don’t go any farther than the backyard.”

“What?” Brandon asked.

Quint ignored him and handed Stephen his glasses. “You’re quiet, my man.”

Stephen shrugged and put his glasses on. They sat crookedly on his face.

“We know why they jumped Stephen,” Brandon said. He went on to describe the attack in minute detail. While he was speaking, Stephen slowly slid down on his chair. Finally Brandon noticed. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

Sarah whispered in his ear, “B, enough already.”

Brandon blinked at her. He put his hand on Stephen’s shoulder. “I . . . I’m sorry.”

Stephen nodded slightly.

Quint got up and opened the drawer next to the sink. He took out three dishrags and ran them under the faucet. “Y’all hold these against those bruises.”

They did as he said.

Quint leaned against the sink and crossed his arms. “A helluva week,” he said with a sigh. “Y’all need a break. For that matter, I do too.” He seemed to get an idea and to think it over. “Listen, tomorrow’s Sunday. If we do something together, will y’all stick close and not get in t’any trouble?”

“Do what?” Sarah asked.

“A swamp tour.”

“A what?”

“Swamp tour. They’re fun, and I know a guy who’ll get us in free. Free’s all we can afford right now.”

Brandon had never heard of a swamp tour, but he liked the sound of it. “Yes,” he said. “We . . . But you said we can’t go out.”

“I know what I said,” Quint snapped, “but y’all are strugglin’, and I’m not far behind. Will y’all stay close if we go, and do what I say?”

Brandon nodded. “Sure. And we can get in free?”

“That’s right. All we need’s a bag of marshmallows.”

Brandon gave him a quizzical look.

“For the ’gators,” Quint said. “They love ’em.”

The next afternoon the sun was bright and the temperature sneaked above seventy. The Edsel rumbled toward Honey Island.

“Why’s it called Honey Island?” Sarah asked.

“For the honeybees, they say,” Quint said. “But I’ve been there three or four times and I’ve never seen any.”

Brandon was sitting in back with Stephen. “How far is it?” he asked.

“Forty-five minutes.”

Stephen had said nothing all day and Brandon hoped to get him talking. The trees sailing past the Edsel gave him an idea. Stephen would know what those tangled gray clumps on the branches were.

“Stephen, what’s that gray stuff hanging on the trees?”

“Spanish moss,” Quint said. “Grows like wild in these parts. They harvest it for all kinds of things.”

Brandon pursed his lips and tried again. If only Quint would be quiet. “What things?”

“Pillows and mattresses, mostly,” Quint said. “The cushions y’all have been sleepin’ on are stuffed with it.”

“No wonder they’re so lumpy,” Sarah said teasingly.

The car was quiet for the rest of the ride. A little after one o’clock the Edsel turned left at a camouflage-painted billboard that said: NATURAL ENCOUNTERS—HONEY ISLAND SWAMP TOURS. Quint parked in the dirt lot and switched off the ignition. The engine shook the car fiercely and cut out with a backfire like a mortar blast.

“Oh, it does that,” Quint said.

Sarah was shaking as she got out of the car. Brandon came up behind her and whispered in her ear: “Don’t worry. It’s only fifteen hundred miles to New York.” He ran a couple of steps to avoid a halfhearted swat from her.

Quint walked ahead to a booth where a bony man with a fat cigar was selling tickets. After a few words with the man he waved Brandon, Stephen, and Sarah forward.

A path through the woods brought them to a mossy dock and a weather-beaten, flat-bottomed boat with benches. They joined about ten people already on board and took their seats under a canvas canopy.

Propped on a stool before the passengers was a small man clad in khaki. His white beard was yellow around his mouth and his toothy smile made him look ready to bite the microphone in his hand. He blew into his mike and spoke. “Afternoon, folks, and welcome. My name’s Charlie, and I’ll be your guide to the smelly, rotting paradise of the Honey Island Swamp—a wonder of nature that covers two hundred fifty square miles.” He pointed his microphone at the operator in back, and the engine started. The water churned and bubbled, and the boat glided into the swamp.

Brandon realized right away that he had never seen anything like Honey Island. In most places the water didn’t even look like water. Topped with a fine layer of duckweed, it looked like grass cut super-short. The smell of rot was very sharp, but it didn’t bother him; it fit the place. Big blue and white birds (cranes and herons, Charlie said) swooped down along the sides of the boat as it chugged forward. One bold heron zipped so close that it sent a woman flying off her bench. It was all strange and wild, and Brandon liked it right away.

Brandon took notice of the boat, which creaked and moaned every time a passenger stood up or moved across a bench. The wood looked almost rotten, and the canvas canopy was just as mossy as the wood. Suddenly Brandon realized that he loved it—the whole mossy, rotten mess of it. Like the smell of rot, it fit the place. In 2005 the boat would probably be fiberglass and the canopy nylon. Or there wouldn’t be a boat and the swamp tour would be done by watching video on the Internet. Like the channel knob and its “thumps”, the boat was physically happening—and Brandon was happening with it. And that was not all. For the first time since going through the niche, Brandon found himself liking the whole idea of being in 1965—indeed, the whole idea of time travel. Surprised, and a little scared, he wondered what had changed in him. He was quickly diverted by the wonders of the swamp.

Charlie drew his passengers’ attention to three logs floating in the duckweed twenty yards ahead. The logs drifted toward the boat as it approached, and drifted faster after Charlie tossed three marshmallows into the water. “If they’re logs, I’ll eat ’em,” Brandon heard a man behind him say. Then Brandon saw the logs had eyes. First one, then the other two together snapped and splashed, and when the water settled, the marshmallows were gone.

“Alligators have a sweet tooth for marshmallows,” Charlie breathed into his microphone. “’Course, around here we call them ’gators.’”

The boat chugged on, waving the water and breaking up the duckweed. Brandon glanced around at his fellow passengers. Most were sitting near the sides for the views. Quint was standing up front with Charlie. Stephen and Sarah were sitting in the middle by themselves. Brandon was about to look away when he saw Stephen say something to Sarah. He wished he knew what it was.

The boat came upon a stand of cypress trees. Several branches and even some trunks had broken off and were sticking up out of the water. “Hurricane Betsy did that two months ago,” Charlie said. “It takes time for the swamp to recover from a thing like that, but she will.”

The operator cut the engine near a tree lying sideways in the water. Two large turtles were sunning themselves on top of it, and several logs—alligators—were floating nearby. Charlie invited those with marshmallows to toss them. Dozens of white puffs flew into the water, and the alligators wasted no time. The passengers squealed at the snapping and splashing. Brandon was glad to see Stephen throw most of the marshmallows Quint had brought.

Ninety minutes into the tour the boat turned around to go back. The return trip had fewer alligators and no turtles, but fifteen minutes from the dock a small cypress full of white birds came into view.

“Snowy egrets,” Charlie whispered into his microphone. “Let’s ease ourselves in close as we can.”

The operator cut the engine, and the boat drifted toward the tree. Perched in full sun, the egrets stood out brilliantly against the blue sky. Everyone on the boat was quiet, but something spooked the birds. They all took off at once, producing a flurry of white feathers that fell to the water and the passengers’ outstretched hands.

“‘Swamp snow,’ we call it,” Charlie said with a chuckle.

As the boat was nearing the dock, the passengers were chatting among themselves and paying little attention to the swamp. Suddenly a bird with an enormous wingspan swooped down the port side, startling everyone. Several passengers came off their benches. One woman dropped her camera.

“What the hell was that?” the man behind Brandon asked in surprise.

The bird glided ahead of the boat and came to perch atop a wreck jutting out of the water. Charlie did a double-take and signaled furiously to cut the engine. The operator did so, and the boat listed to port as everyone gathered to see.

“A bald eagle,” Brandon exclaimed when he saw the bird.

Several passengers told him to shush.

Charlie stepped up on a bench and spoke without his microphone, “The young man’s right, folks. I can hardly believe it, but it’s an adult male. Let’s be real still and see how close we can drift.”

The eagle spread its wings and flapped as if it were about to take off. Instead, it settled itself on its perch and stared majestically at the approaching boat.

“I’ve only seen them in books,” Brandon said, straining to keep his voice low.

“Me too,” Stephen whispered.

“Me three,” put in Quint.

The eagle turned to the sun, as if posing for its audience. Cameras clicked as the boat drifted to within ten yards, then five.

“Unbelievable,” Brandon heard Charlie say.

Finally, the eagle took off. The passengers rushed to the starboard side as it flew over the canopy and headed back into the swamp. The eagle followed a steep ascent over the tops of the distant cypresses, then veered west and glided below the tree line.

Charlie wiped his forehead with his sleeve and switched on his microphone. “You had a real treat today, folks,” he said breathlessly. “There’s been an active bald eagle nest in the swamp since 1910, but the only times I ever saw an eagle before today were with binoculars.”

The passengers whooped and applauded their good fortune.

Half an hour later Quint, Brandon, Stephen, and Sarah were on their way back to the city. After a few minutes of excited talk, the car fell silent. Brandon had made sure to get in back with Stephen.

“Stephen, besides the eagle, what’d you like best in the swamp?”

“The alligators.”

Brandon waited, but Stephen said no more. “Why the alligators?”

“The way they eat.”

Brandon waited again, for nothing. “Still thinking about the fight?” he whispered.

“Not really.”

“Want to know what I think?”

Stephen shrugged.

Brandon told him what he thought, revisiting every detail of the fight as he did so. Stephen closed his eyes and slid down in his seat. Then Sarah turned around with her unmistakable look, which Brandon did not mistake. The car was quiet for the rest of the ride.

It was dark when they arrived at 751 Decatur. Quint cut the engine, which started to shake the car. Sarah threw open her door and jumped out, but the stall came without a backfire this time.

“Be up in a minute,” Brandon said as Quint and Stephen headed for the steps. As he had hoped, Sarah stayed back with him. He opened the Edsel’s door and slid behind the wheel. Sarah got in on the passenger side.

Brandon came to the point: “Why’s Stephen mad at me?”

“What’re you talking about? He’s not mad at you.”

“C’mon. You two were talking on the boat. He won’t talk to me.” Sarah started to speak, but he cut in. “Is it because I was late getting there when they jumped you? I ran it fast as I could.”