Dawn was here.
Dead cypress silhouetted the landscape like amputated appendages.
As Christian slowly moved into the marsh, engine revving and stopping, revving and stopping, I saw an eagle turn in the sky and hang there for a moment, just riding in the wind that moved him.
72
“Ain’t nobody going to get through that mess,” JoJo say, lookin’ into that smelly-ass swamp. Cash keep the boat back a ways from where Teddy stand on the Scarab. You once wanted that boat but now you want to drill holes in it and watch it sink way down deep into all that brown-green ooze you passin’ through.
You hear the crack of a gun. A bullet spiderwebs the window on Cash’s boat.
JoJo pushes you down. Cash yells.
“He’s dead,” he says. “I should’ve killed that fat son of a bitch when I got the chance. Goddamn. Shootin’ my boat. Man.”
He reaches for a big-ass. 44 he got kept in a little cover by the steering wheel. “Yeah, that’s right.” He revs the motor and drifts closer. “Come on, motherfucker. Cash here to play.”
Bronco inches down on the side of the boat, his gun aimin’ right toward the Scarab.
Y’all drift.
The sound of the cars on the bridges fade away. All you see now is high grass and these tall things that look like bamboo. Ducks. Big funny-lookin’ pelicans and shit. The high grass parts and you see an alligator.
You fall down on your face tryin’ to get to a corner. It’s green and scaly with a knotty back swimmin’ away from the boat.
JoJo look at you and kind of laugh. “Bronco? Guess Tavarius don’t like gators any better than you.”
“I make that motherfucker into a pair of boots.”
Cash squeeze off a couple shots and you hear Teddy’s boat shoot out, engine revvin’ real hard. Cash slam down that throttle and y’all ride, beatin’ through the tall grass and sendin’ up muck, like some kind of green-ass milk shake, splatterin’ behind you.
“Got him,” Cash say, laughing. “We got him.”
Teddy’s boat revving real hard. Smoke shootin’ from the engine, whining almost like a scream, but not moving.
Christian tried to reverse the boat and then run her forward. But nothing would get him untangled from the high grass and mud that clogged the propellers of the engine. I looked back and saw JoJo with Cash in this big, purple Cigarette boat and then Bronco and ALIAS. My eyes wavered and I bent at the waist for a few more dry heaves.
Christian turned to me, seeing the smile form on my face, and plodded back, knocking me in the chest with his fist. I tumbled back into the water, twirling in the bayou, feet sucking deep into the muck, and finally finding the way to air. I swallowed in light and oxygen, brushing reeds away from my face.
He looked down at me. “Push, goddammit. Push us out of this shit.”
I moved to the side of the boat, found my fists on the hull loosening, handprints painting brown patterns on the white paint, and pretended to move the boat from the reeds.
Christian revved her motor again and foul-smelling bubbles of marsh gases erupted from deep in the bottom.
Teddy stood over me, his arm extended with his gun. He squeezed off a few in the direction of Cash.
Still, I heard the steady, constant motor of Cash’s boat. Chugging. Ready to pounce.
I pretended to push more. My weight not moving a feather.
Teddy disappeared from the stern.
I walked backward in the thick water. The water level coming up to my neck.
I saw a water moccasin glide and curve sideways from the middle of the little lagoon.
Cash hit the engine hard and the long torpedo of boat shot forward hard and fast.
Teddy fired, the glass windshield exploding from Cash’s boat.
The boat whooshed by me and collided hard with Teddy’s Scarab. A cracking thunderous crash.
I heard two splashes and saw Teddy scrambling into the water, paddling his way to a shore that barely existed. Deeper into the reeds and grasses.
Silence. The engines died.
Yelling.
JoJo jumped in and high-stepped his way to me.
I felt my eyes roll back in my head and I tumbled backward.
He caught me and dragged me to a long flat of mud. My face flush into the gray muck, seeing scattering animals’ footprints. The early-morning heat rising in odorous waves from the pile.
I collected myself. Wavered to my feet.
I heard a few more shots.
Two other big purple Cigarette boats ran close to the line of tall grasses. Some of Cash’s boys getting up to their waists, guns held high over the water, slogging through. I saw a couple up to their ankles in marsh. Each step taking a grimace from the men, mud and decaying earth sucking them down.
I heard rustling. Grasses shifted near where I stood.
I wandered forward, the heat and sun and loss of blood wrapping the whole earth in a halo.
JoJo yelled for me.
I fell to my knees, sinking up to my elbows and thighs through it all, water and mud covering my face. Losing a boot and pulling off the other one, crawling for the sound through a tunnel of broken reeds, where cloven feet scattered in a labyrinth of high grass.
I tumbled out about thirty yards on the other side.
I stood on a muddy little bank, the bayou holding me up to my knees.
Teddy was stuck, frozen. Birds trilling all around us.
He turned to me. His red shirt muddy and torn. Dirt and mud caked over his face and into his hair. He looked almost comical.
But he wasn’t laughing.
His gun hung loose in his hand.
TWO of Cash’s boys haul Dio’s ass out of the damned bayou, pulling him out by his neck. Cash stand like some kind of general, shirtless and scarred, on our boat waiting to meet him. He reach down into the water, grab him by his arms, and pull him on board with all of us. Ain’t no real sound comin’ from nowhere. Just animal sounds and water slapping real low from beneath them bridges. You don’t say a word.
You just walk over with Cash and look down at the man you thought was God.
He look the same but don’t seem the same.
He look at you, recognize you know he ain’t shit, and then see his eyes jump down to your Superman platinum.
He reach for it and you knock his hand away.
“You just takin’ my place,” Dio says. “You just like me.”
Cash says, “Shut the hell up.” He knock him across the mouth with the butt of his gun. Then you hear him cock the motherfucker and hand it to you.
It feel strong and warm in your hand and don’t take you but two seconds to aim that bitch right at Dio’s heart.
“What’s your name?” you say.
“What?”
“What’s your name?”
JoJo behind him now and he got his hand out. He got his palm out, waiting for you to lay that steel in his hand.
“Shoot him!” Cash yell. “Shoot. Shoot.”
JoJo shake his head on the other side.
“My name is Christian,” he says. “Christian Chase.” His eyes are green but loose and heavy. He don’t show nothin’.
You thumb back the hammer and let it down loose.
You hand that gun to JoJo.
He take it.
Just as you step back, Christian turn and come at Cash with a knife in his hand. He gets that blade right at his face.
But Bronco steps from beside you, grab him at his wrist, and you see the punk drop to his knees and start cryin’ like a bitch. The knife fallin’ out of his hand.
Cash pick up the knife, look at it, and toss it in the water.
He nod at Bronco.
Bronco nod back at him, their shapes gettin’ thrown down on the tops of water in a silver mirror.
A boat pull up beside you and Cash pulls Christian from his feet and throw him in with some of his boys.
“Welcome to the Dirty South, Christian Chase.”