And now the gator in the prairie was kicking up a storm, rearing its head from the water, bellowing and snapping its jaws as its tail thrashed up great sweepings of white water.
Shad retreated even further along the bank, then squatted in a hurrah-nest to roll a smoke and think it over. The trouble was the law wouldn't allow shooting a gator – unless the gator attacked.
He started grinning. "What law is goan know what I'm about way out here?" he asked, stroking his palm over the oiled butt of the carbine. "Besides, I kin always say he done come at me. I got me eighty-thousand dollars to git at. Ain't no son-o-bitching big-mouth gator goan keep me shed of that."
He went back along the bank, watching the placid water so intently he hooked his right foot in a pin-down hoop and went sprawling into the warm muck.
Shad rolled over, sat up. "By juckies!" he grunted. Then he shut up, thinking – only thing that surprises me about now is why didn't I trip on a cottonmouth, or fall my fool head into a panther's mouth? He grinned savagely, telling himself to take it easy.
He came to his feet and saw the gator skimming through a bed of golden-heart. He levelled the carbine and took a sight along the barrel, panning slowly with the drifting reptile. He fired.
The Plam! of the shot caromed off the water and rolled away, and the gator rose clear of the pool, coming straight up as if standing on its tail. Then, with an agonized bellow, tipped over, curving itself into a capital C, and fell back with a splash. The pool gurgled, and a rush of blood bubbles wobbled to the surface.
Shad lowered the gun. "That's done fer you, old eatmouth," he murmured. There was nothing left now but to get into the water and go for the Money Plane.
With his boots, denims, shirt and carbine tucked in the fork of a titi bush, Shad entered the torpid water gingerly. He held his hunting knife shoulder high in his right hand. For a good ways he was able to wade, the pooi graduating up his naked goose-fleshed body in slow degrees; knees – hips – armpits. The oozy muck underfoot was ankle-high and cold. He hated it. And snags, sharp and dull, reached for his toes each time he shuffled a cautious step. Once something bumped his lower left leg, wrapped around, then wiggled on. It turned his blood to ice water and the sick knot in his stomach took another half-hitch. Cottonmouths wouldn't strike under water – so he had always heard.
But when he was neck-high and only half across, he knew he'd had enough. He wanted out. He kicked his feet and levelled himself into a slow crawl. There was the heavy suggestion of ominous danger in the shadowy pool and in what he was doing, a sense of not-too-safe adventure. He slacked the crawl to a cautious dog paddle, taking care that his hands and feet never broke the surface to shatter the watching silence.
Ten yards to cover – and the green rosettes of the water lettuce were so thick that for a vivid moment he thought he was tangled and would go under. The panic came at him like a female bobcat guarding her young. It clawed his nerve ends into dripping mush. He opened his mouth to shout as his legs, twisted and captured, sank down-and touched the silty bottom. He was standing on his feet, armpit-high in the water.
His glands discharged relief juice through his body, and for half a minute he just stood there with the nervous giggles. Then he got himself in hand, put his face down among the rosettes and in the water and massaged it. "Cain't lose my head like that again," he said.
He started on, feeling the ground rise until the water lettuce fell to his waist. Then he was before the dark, wet bole of the great cypress that had pared back the left wing of the Money Plane.
The under belly of the wreck was right above him, four or five feet over his head. The tilted nose cone was completely obscured by the hole it had punched in the jungle mat. Shad stayed where he was, studying what he could see of the problem. The heavy nose was probably well supported by the matting, and parts of the body and crumpled wings had been caught in a crazy network of strangler-figs.
He didn't relish the idea of climbing up into the plane and having the whole shebang break loose and dump him into the swamp. But how else could he get the money if he didn't give it a try? He nodded with resolution, put the knife in his teeth and, reaching up, tested the give of a vine. A moment later he was scrambling upwards.
The sorry-looking left wing was in his way. He had to detour -climbing down, around, over its tip. Then he worked his way back along the face of the cypress. Once, about mid-wing, he set a tentative foot on its metallic-like fibre. It punched right through. Shad left the wing alone after that. He worked around the rough bend of the tree and found himself at the canted top of the Money Plane's cabin. Hanging by one hand he cleared away a litter of ivy trumpets, leaves and jasmine with his knife blade, and lowered himself into a warm musty pit of the jungle wall. He was squatting on the hood of the plane, facing the shattered windshield.
The cracked glass was in a star pattern, opaque with scum. He couldn't see a thing. By a spider-like suspension bridge of vines he was able to swing down under the starboard wing to the door. He took the handle and gave it a try. Jammed. He put his right foot against the side of the fuselage, his back into the vines, and reared backwards. He almost upset himself for a header into the swamp. The cabin door was hanging open. Shad pulled himself up and in with a grunt.
The smell was bad. Dead. He had to come right out, bringing with him the vague impression of two dead men- a clutter of old bones in parchment skins and baggy, dusty clothes. He wedged himself in the wing strut, waiting for the cabin to air. And he thought about the two dead men. "At least they went at it together," he said. "And that was nice fer'em – seeing that they had it to do."
But the tragedy was four years old, and it was the death of strangers. He forgot about them and brought his mind back to the money. Suddenly he couldn't wait any longer. To hell with the smell. He wanted that cash. He swung up into the cabin again.
It was there. He knew it when he saw the dusty brief case with the lock. It was clutched in the skeletal hand of one of the dead men. Shad tore the case from the hand. The forefinger came with it by right of adhesion. That bothered him. He made a face and gave the case a quick snap, flicking the bony thing into the musty shadows. Then, for a moment he hesitated with just a touch of superstition. But the tactile feel of the brief case that contained a fortune conquered.
He didn't monkey with the lock. He punctured the case near the clasp with the knife and sawed a six-inch incision. He didn't have the patience for more, dug his hand inside and brought it out with a fistful of damp ten-dollar bills.
He laughed. He couldn't help it, didn't want to. He tipped back his head and roared. Until that moment the slough had brooded with the hush of an empty cathedral. Now the strident cry of a water bird ripped up the silence and was joined by the high lonesome tune of a hermit thrush.
Shad chuckled and began digging more and more bills from the gutted case. All of them were tens. For a while he busied himself counting them, but then gave it up. It would take too long. Eighty-thousand, give or take a ten or two. What did he care?
He still had the pond to cross over. What if some sassy cottonmouth or gator came at him, and him up to his chin in water lettuce? What if he lost the brief case? He looked at it, sorry now that he'd hacked it. Money, money, spilling everywhere – He could take what he needed for now – say ten of the bills -cache the rest – where? He looked out at the savagery of unrestrained growth. Yeah, where? Not just any old where in the swamp, not with nosy bears and buttinsky coons poking around. Right here then. Sure. Right here in the Money Plane that no one had been able to find in four years. Then the next time he came back, he'd fetch along some tools. Slap me a log raft together to cross the pond in. He caught a distant glimpse of the sky and saw that the blue was turning pale. He had some rambling to do. He'd have to blaze a trail clear back to Breakneck Lake; after that he knew his way.