9
WARM RAYS FILTERING THROUGH pine boughs fell at the edge of the marl pit where Ondray Keyes sat holding the last half inch of a cigarette between fingernails, trying to catch a last puff or two without burning himself. His shirt was buttoned to the throat, the collar turned up. It had been chilly all morning, icy dew on his bare feet as he ran to the outhouse, fog on the pop bottles.
A brown bird fluttered out of the scrubwood behind him. It hovered a moment, dive-bombed the pit, skimming over weed-choked water, then floated up into high branches across the way. Ondray kept his eye on the small shape, knowing that if he looked away for only a second he’d lose it in the leaf shadows. He slapped one eye shut and aimed through the clear, soft air. Hook that finger round the trigger, take a breath and hold it steady, then squeeze. Pop. Ondray was saving up to get a BB rifle.
He flipped the cigarette end, hardly more than a coal by now, into the water and walked back to the culvert by the road where he’d hidden his bicycle. He brushed dirt off the seat and adjusted the playing cards clothes-pinned to the rear spokes (they made a bad motor-buzzing sound when the wheel spun). Once he’d climbed on, Ondray unwrapped three sticks of bubblegum and wadded them together before filling his cheek. The flavor went so fast. Then he put his small weight on the pedals and took off down the crown of the road, alert for any gleam in the weeds.
Maybe ride all the way to the big highway. Maybe see what’s doing over at that Mr. Gables’ house.
Karl answered the door holding a blue towel around his waist. “Ondray, my little pal. What you doin’, son?”
“What you doin’?”
“Standin’ here gettin’ my butt cold. Come on in here so’s I can close the door.”
Ondray moved slowly, sucking on his pink wad. “You sleep all day, man,” he said. It was not a question.
“I was up late. Wife called me again from New York last night. Had to sit down and make some plans, you know, stuff I gotta be doin’. A few deals I want to be on top of when she gets back.” Karl grinned woozily and padded toward the bedroom. “Put some clothes on and I’ll be right out. Should be a Coke in the fridge if you’re thirsty.”
“Can I keep the bottle?”
“Sure, go ahead. Collectin’ ’em are you?”
“That’s what we be doin’ most every mornin’, me and my brother. And splittin’ the money half and half.”
“So that was Earvin I seen the other day snoopin’ along by here with a gunnysack?”
“Coulda been.” Ondray pulled open the big white door and found the Coke next to a bowl of something that had fur growing on it. “Coulda been,” he said, parking his gum by the sink before drinking.
“That’s real good. You boys got some enterprise.” Karl emerged in pants and a Louisiana Tech sweatshirt, sat at the kitchen table with socks and sneakers in hand. “If you’d told me before, I woulda been savin’ all my empties for you. That’s some enterprise all right.”
“No, uh-uh. We just be findin’ ’em, that’s all.” Draining the bottle, he jammed it neck first in the back pocket of his dungarees.
“So it’s all in the huntin’. Right. All in the huntin’.” Karl hummed experimentally while preparing his morning meaclass="underline" instant coffee and crushed aspirin mixed with hot water from the tap. “You know those ads in the magazines that say ‘your song poems wanted.’ I was thinkin’ I might take a swing at it. Whatta you think, Ondray, you think I could get a hit record?”
Ondray shrugged, replaced his wad.
“Okay, but you might hear my words comin’ out a juke box sometime. They’re lookin’ for new blood, you know. New ideas.”
“You gonna eat this banana?”
Ignoring him, Karl peered out the window. “Guess it’s a nice day out there,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “Maybe you and me could do some huntin’ on a day like this.”
“We finished that up already and Earvin done went home to eat. He like that fish head soup.”
“No, see what I had in mind … Lizard huntin’. Remember a couple years ago how we went lizard huntin’ right out back here in the slough. Caught some big ones, too, and my wife tied pieces of thread on ’em so you could walk ’em up and back like on a leash. Remember? We got awful muddy, both of us. And you were just a little scrap back then, looked like a piece of devil’s-food cake with the frosting all mussed. But we sure had a time of it. Nice kinda day to do it again. We could go right now if you want.”
Ondray’s mouth was filled with banana so he answered by angling his head and wandering toward the door. Nothing much else to do that he could think of.
Karl walked in front. He wore his painter’s cap and carried a shoe box and a couple of glass jars. Ondray scuffed along after him, eating a jelly sandwich. As they reached the trees, Karl cautioned him about making noise. A hunter, he said, had to move as softly as a breeze. They walked several minutes through thick woods with clouds of gnats hanging over their heads. A bread crust slipped from Ondray’s fingers and tiny brown ants instantly swarmed on it. He bent down to watch them.
Karl, who’d gone ahead, came thrashing back through stalks and saplings. “Come on, we got to stay together out here,” he said urgently. “You can’t tell what might be lurkin’ around.”
“Sure, man.”
The trees thinned out and the ground became uneven, exposed roots and grassy little hummocks. A smell of warm rot reached them.
“Couldn’t get me out here by night at the wrong end of a gun,” Karl said. “That’s when the swamp cats come out and big bears’d tear your head clean off with one swipe.”
“Ain’t no bears,” Ondray said impatiently.
Up ahead, light hit the stagnant water like a fist.
“There’s snakes though. They good to eat.”
Karl moved back out of the sun. Sweat was dripping down his neck and water had begun to seep through his sneakers. The coffee was pressing at the neck of his bladder but he didn’t want to let it out. He had this crazy thought that if he took his cock out, some creature would jump up and take a bite out of it. Crazy. But every time he’d reach for that zipper, he’d imagine what they’d feel like, those little wet teeth, and it was so real his stomach would drop. Hey. Settle down now.
He was duckwalking by the edge of a puddle flecked with scum when he saw one and froze. A black salamander with yellow spots. It was basking with eyes closed and forefeet just touching the water. Karl balanced, set his weight back on his heels, moved his open hand very slowly until it was directly over the target, and then he swooped. Mud and water in his fist and, yes, a little something cold and wriggling, a dark head emerging from between his fingers. He felt behind him for the jar, fascinated by the struggling movements, the shiny jaws widening. He thought he heard a tiny squeak and then there was a new sensation, something warm. He loosened his grip, looked. In his excitement he had squeezed so hard that the salamander’s belly had ruptured and its purplish viscera were all over his palm.
Karl flung the body away, churned his hand in the water, wiped it on the grass. And then he stopped. Ondray was gone and he was completely alone in the cruel emptiness and heat of the slough. Here it came again, that panic of broad daylight that he knew well enough to recognize at its first shifty approach. The trees closed off his route of escape and the sun descended on him from above.
He wanted to call for Ondray but his throat would open only for the thinnest stream of air. No sound came out. His head felt like a sponge full of wet plaster. If he’d had the strength he might have dug a safe hole in the earth. But all Karl could do was curl up in the mud and pray his lungs and heart would keep working.