And when the glare had faded, two seconds later, the lightning had taken Old Pope with it.
The machine began to rise, slowly, slowly. Then it ascended in a blur of speed and was gone as well, leaving only one crescent moon over the cacophonous swamp.
The Seminoles had been right, the lizardman thought. Right as rain. Old Pope had come to the swamp on a bolt of lightning, and was riding one home again too.
Whatever that might be.
He rested awhile, there in the mud of his domain.
Sometime before dawn he roused himself, and he found a piece of his airboat floating off the mudflat. He found one of his gaffhooks too, and he lay on the splintered remnant of his boat and began pushing himself through the downtrodden rushes toward the far shore. The swamp sang around him, as the lizardman crawled home on his belly.