Between the pursuer and the place where Prudence fell, the bull alligator swam silently, submerged. He was sixteen feet from snout to tail tip and weighed six hundred pounds. His dark hemispherical eyes broke the surface. There was great commotion in the water, and something threatening just ahead. The alligator's nostrils cleared the water as his jaw opened.
Des knew he had them. They were no longer running, only walking at a pace that would allow him to catch them in another minute or so. He was sopping, scummy with mud, yet strangely buoyant; he seemed to dance through the water, just as he'd danced for so many years on the polished ballroom floors of the great houses the Yankees had destroyed along with everything else that was fine in the South. The white light lanced his head, spikes of it shooting in from both sides to meet behind his eyes. He felt exalted but anxious. He prayed silently to allay the anxiety. "God, let the light hold back until I've caught them. God, if You have ever favored me as a member of Your chosen race, spare me another few moments —"
The white sizzled and fused, consuming the dark in his mind. He smelled cannon smoke. He heard shells whistling in. He ran through the water screaming, not aware that the women were barely fifty feet ahead. His screams were full of zeal, full of joy:
"Forward the Palmetto Rifles! Charge to the guns! Glory to the Confederacy!"
Something like a club struck him: the alligator's huge lashing tail. Des fired a bullet at the moon as he went down. Then, as the alligator closed his jaws on his torso, he felt a sensation like dozens of heavy nails piercing his flesh. The alligator killed him in the customary way, holding him in the vise of its jaws until he drowned.
Only then was the body allowed to rise and float. Amid the blood eddying in the marsh water, the alligator began to feed by biting off Des's left leg at the groin.
Shouts and a burst of gunfire surprised and alarmed the Klansmen waiting for Des where the embers of the school gave off dull light and enormous heat. Gettys heard someone order them to throw down their arms. "To the road," he exclaimed, booting his mount.
Because he fled first, leaving the others momentarily bunched together, one of the blacks had a clear shot with his militia rifle. As Gettys galloped into the turn to the entrance lane, the bullet slammed his shoulder and knocked him sideways. He kicked free of the stirrups, terrified of being dragged. He fell in a vicious clump of yucca as the other Klansmen streamed by, robes flying. Gettys bleated, "Don't leave me," as the last horses galloped away.
Barefoot men approached on the run. A black hand snatched off his scarlet hood. Randall Gettys stared through steamed spectacles at six black faces, and six guns, and fainted.
"It's all right, Esau," Madeline said, trying to calm the crying boy. It was hard, because she was on the verge of tears herself. Andy was gone, Prudence was gone — God, the toll.
Suddenly, clear in the moonlight behind her, she saw the bubbling, roiling water, then a flash of scaly hide. An arm was briefly raised to the sky like some grisly Excalibur. It sank.
Jane leaned her cheek on Madeline's and wept.
With perfect clarity, she saw Des LaMotte's severed hand pop to the surface and float, shiny white as a mackerel. Something snapped it under and the marsh water was smooth and still again.
61
A grove of wind-blasted pecan trees shaded the bend in Vermilion Creek. Magee sat by one, his derby inverted in front of his outstretched legs. With hard snaps of his wrist he sailed card after card into the hat. He didn't miss.
Satan and two other horses were tied to a low limb; Gray Owl had left his pony behind and ridden the rangy bay. Charles hunkered near the trees on the shore of the purling creek. The sun was at the zenith. The spring day was balmy, and he sweated under his shirt and gypsy robe.
Above him, throwing a dark bar across his face, a leafless limb jutted over the creek. He studied the limb, judging its strength. The April wind caressed his eyes and beard. It was too fine a day for matters of fear and death —
"Look sharp, Charlie."
Magee emptied the cards from the derby and put it on as he stood up. They heard hooves splashing in the shallows. Charles drew his Army Colt. Gray Owl trotted from behind a clump of budding willows, hunched in his blanket. The bay was winded and glistening, not used to such a heavy rider.
Charles holstered his revolver and dashed down the bank to meet the tracker. "Did you find it?" Gray Owl nodded. "How far?"
"One mile, no more." The Cheyenne's expression was characteristically glum. "I saw a small boy."
The noonday sun seemed to explode in Charles's eyes. He felt a dizziness. "Is he all right?"
Gray Owl clearly didn't want to answer. He chewed his bottom lip. "I saw him sitting outside the house feeding a raccoon. His face —" Gray Owl touched his left cheek. "There are marks. Someone has hurt him."
Charles wiped his mouth.
Magee scuffed a boot in the shale. "Anyone else around?"
"I saw an old Kiowa-Comanche come out with a whiskey jar, get on his pony, and ride away. Then I saw a Cheyenne woman leave the big house and go to a small one, where I heard hens. She brought back two eggs."
"He has a squaw?" Charles said.
"Yes." The tracker's eyes were full of misery. "She is a young woman. Very dirty and sad."
"Did you see the man Bent?" Gray Owl shook his head. "No one saw you — not the boy or the squaw?" The tracker shook his head again. "You're certain?"
"Yes. There are some post oaks near it. A good hiding place."
Magee rubbed his hands together, trying to treat this as something ordinary, another field exercise. "We can come in from three different sides —"
"I'm going in alone," Charles said.
"Now that's damn foolishness."
"Alone," Charles said, with a look that killed further protest.
He returned to the trees where he pulled off his gypsy robe. He folded it and put it on the ground. He picked up his Spencer, checked the magazine, snugged his black hat down over his eyes, and walked back to Magee and the tracker.
"I'll watch myself, don't worry. If you hear any shooting, come up fast. Otherwise stay here."
He said it with the officer's tone and the officer's challenging stare. Magee fumed. Gray Owl gazed at the bright water, full of foreboding.
He won't know me, Charles thought as he stalked along the creek bank. Not with this beard down to my belly. He was thinking of Gus but it applied equally to Elkanah Bent. He couldn't imagine how Bent looked after ten years. It was immaterial. He just wanted to get the boy away safely. That was the most important issue, the boy.
The spring air was gentle as a woman's hand. It reminded him of similar days in Northern Virginia when hundreds of poor boys died in sunny meadows and glades. Those thoughts, and what Gray Owl said about Gus being marked, put a bitter taint on his anxiety.
He saw the post oaks ahead. Beyond them he glimpsed a structure of mud brick. Smoke drifted out of a chimney at one end, like a twist of sea-island cotton pinned to the sky. Charles thought he heard a child's voice. His hand on the Spencer grew white.
He tried to purge himself of fear. Impossible. His heart lubbed so hard it sounded like an Indian drum in his ear. He knew he would probably have one chance, no more.
He crouched and peered from behind a post oak. He almost cried at the sight of his son seated on the ground doling corn kernels to the raccoon one at a time. The raccoon took a kernel in his forepaws and stood on his hind legs like a paunchy little man in a mask while he ate the kernel. Then he wobbled over to Gus for more. The boy fed him with absolutely no trace of pleasure on his sad, gruel-colored face.