Way, hay, roll and go!
Joel Sutt fished a jug from under his counter, found a shot glass, gave the inside a wipe with the tail-corner of his apron, and poured Shad a drink. But he held back the glass, tipping a wink to Dad Plume.
"Shad," he said, "I wouldn't want fer you to git yourself in a dather overn this-but in case you ain't ben informed, they's a law agin serving minors hard corn. And when I come to thrash back in my rememory, hit 'pears to me you ain't but a tad."
Shad made out like he was belligerent. "Oh? Well, how in tarnation would you be knowing how old I be? Was you there when my ma breached me?"
Joel Sutt looked appalled by the suggestion. "No, I'm happy to say for the sake of my stomach, I weren't. But I'll tell you what, I was standing right there when Preacher Sims went and baptized you in the creek. And that were only ten-twelve years ago!"
Shad pursed his lips, frowning, as though he'd just butted heads with a poser. "Hmm," he grunted. "I see. I do see." Then he brightened up. "Well then, Mr-know-aplenty Sutt, how do you know I weren't already a ten-year-old when I done got baptized?"
Joel Sutt slapped his forehead with his free hand. "Hi, boys! He's gone and got me on that one. I pure out don't know! He was kicking up enough fuss to be two tenyear-olds when old preacher came to git aholt of him!"
All of them laughed, and Shad, grinning, used to the horseplay, downed his drink. He dug in his jeans for one of the tens.
"Shad," Dad Plume spoke in a voice proper to the subject, "I don't reckon you saw airy of Holly?"
Shad blinked. He hadn't consciously been thinking of Holly, not since he'd discovered the broken cypress with the landing wheel. A stab of contrition ice-picked him and he shook his head, not looking at Plume. "No. Nary a thing."
Someone else asked, "Where at did you try this time, Shad?"
Shad stalled, wetting his lips, "Oh – off a Breakneck."
"Well, but where off'n?"
"Oh-up Cotton Creek some."
"Cotton Creek!" It was Jort Camp who shouted, and now he chested his way through the men at the counter to confront Shad. He was a huge, bawling, swaggering man with ten-some years on Shad. Not skilled in anything except singing dirty songs and telling dirty yarns, Jort had become a gator-grabber, catching gators alive and barehanded to sell to tourist centres for display, The man was all nerve, it seemed to Shad, and not much sense. And because of this, men knew him as dangerous.
"Why, ain't no sense a-tall a-looking up Cotton Creek," Jort said in Shad's face, and his breath, wild as decay, set the younger man back, "Ever'body done ben up that creek onetime another."
Shad nodded, turning back to the countet "Had me a trap up there I had to git."
Jort Camp looked interested. "Any luck?"
"No," Shad said shortly. "Not airy."
He still had his hand in his jeans and he wished the big man would move away. He didn't especially want to bring the ten-dollar bill into Jort Camp's sight. But Jort stayed right at his elbow, and Joel Sutt was waiting forhis money. Like it meant nothing, Shad pushed the crumpled bill over the counter, saying, "I want me a carton of tailormades out'n that too, Joel."
Jort Camp leaned forward, following the bill from Shad's hand to Sutt's. "Hayday," he said. "Lookit what Shaddy's done got him."
Joel Sutt seemed a bit surprised himself when he flattened the bill and saw the denomination. He looked quizzically at Shad.
"Where at you come by this, Shad?"
"Fella down river owed me that fer some skins. I finally collected." Shad was offhand.
"Oh?" Sutt said. "Thought you was selling me all your skins?" His voice hinted at the touch of hurt he felt.
"No," Shad said stiffly. "Not quite all."
Sutt fetched a carton of tailor-mades and gave Shad his change. He didn't say anything more. But Jort Camp, watching Shad stow the money in his pocket, asked, "What fella be that, Shaddy? What down-river fella?"
"Just a fella I knowed. Joel-I'm saying good night now."
"All right. Good night, Shad."
Jort Camp followed Shad to the door. "Shaddy, you ain't forgit you'n me is going gator-grabbing?"
Shad had agreed to help Jort in a weak moment. The big man wasn't much of a hand at swamp tracking, and it was common knowledge that Shad knew more of the swamp than many of the old-timers. Jort had been pestering him for months to help him locate an easy-git-at gator hole. "No, I ain't forgot."
"Well, me'n Sam is fixing to go at her come Monday."
"Uh-huh. Well, I'll see if'n I'm free then." He went out on the porch and down the steps quickly, wanting to get away from Jort. He didn't really like the man.
"Be by fer you nigh sun-up!" Jort called after him.
Beyond the crooked, picket-missing excuse for a fence the yard was stark sand, spotted with sandspurs; and it went on that way around the east and west corners of the house until the bull-grass picked up again, back where it held the sagging privy captive. There was a jasmine vine entwined over what was left of the porch, but it looked like something old and discarded, like something a previous owner had left behind. And there was the neck of a whisky bottle jutting up from the sand midway between where the gate should have been and the porch. Shad remembered because his pa had thrown it at him. That was the time Shad had first returned from the swamp, having spent three nightmare days and nights looking for Holly.
The old man had been waiting on the porch, drunk. He had raised his troubled, bleary eyes from the empty bottle in his hand to stare at the boy coming through the fence.
"Where at's your brother?" he'd shouted.
The boy had stopped short in the yard, annoyed – hurt even-that the old man hadn't asked first about his trip. Don't give him a damn if'n I near got me cotton-mouth-bit and gator-et, he'd thought savagely. No. Just Holly. All the time Holly.
"I didn't cut acrost him," he'd answered sullenly.
The old man had stood silent for a moment staring, sinking the words through the corn. Then-"Nor yet see airy of him?" he'd shouted.
"No."
"Well, why the hell you done come back? Why ain't you still out there a-looking? You done forgit he be your own flesh and blood?"
Shad hadn't moved. He'd learned from bitter childhood experience never to cut across on the old man when he was drinking.
"You done forgit I'm yourn?" Shad had retorted.
And then the old man had thrown the bottle.
"Well," his pa had muttered after a cold moment of embarrassed silence, "pick that up when you come. Don't want nobody to go cut a foot on hit."
"I'll be eternally damned if'n I will!" Shad had shouted "Pick hit up yourself, you want it so bad."
But the old man hadn't and Shad wouldn't; so it stayed there and became a mute reminder of the love that never could have been lost because it never had been.
The house's line had a crippled down-at-the-corner look, low, rambling and one-storied, cracked and grey-boarded from lack of paint, and the shingled room looked like the cuts on a long dead and well-decayed gator's back. The old man was limp in his rocker on the porch.
Shad passed through the fence opening and walked across the yard, glancing at the black neck of the bottle.
The old man raised his grizzled head, and it was an effort. It was almost painful to watch him bring his rheumy eyes into focus. He scraped the phlegm in his throat to a new and higher position.
"You seen airy of your brother?" he asked. It was a question of habit and sounded automatic.
"No." Shad stared at the shadowy shape of the old man, frowning. "Where at did you git it this time?" he asked finally.
The old man decided to circumvent that. He played sly.
"Git what, Shad?" he asked innocently, and his head wavered on its spindly neck. "My cough?" He coughed hopefully. "I dunno. I think mebbe-"