Страница 11 из 79
“Who…?” Lorna mumbled out, unbalanced to the point of feeling dizzy, but also oddly excited by it all.
Carlton turned to her, his bushy gray eyebrows resting high on his forehead. His wide eyes shone with raw curiosity. “The bigger question, my dear, is why.”
Chapter 9
Deep in the bayou, Da
Da
At the moment Da
His father used a pocketknife to cut the line and tag away. He slogged through the reeds with his prize. Da
“Boy, get your thumb out of your ass and move the damned boat closer. We don’t have all day.”
His father wore waders held up by suspenders as he worked through the shallows. Da
Storms like the one last night wreaked havoc on the thousands of crab traps staked along the waterways near the Gulf. Surges ripped them from their moorings and cast them deeper into the surrounding swamps.
Like throwing out free money, his father had often quipped.
Da
“Come get this already! There’s at least two more.”
Oink, oink, Da
Once close enough, he took the trap from his father’s arms and added it to the four already stacked in the boat. It was good haul, and as much as he might despise what they were doing, he understood why. At eight dollars a pound for claw meat and twice that for jumbo lump, they might clear close to a grand for the afternoon’s work. Not to mention reselling the crab traps back to the same people who once owned them.
Scavenging like this wasn’t lost on the Fish and Wildlife guys. If the wardens didn’t haul you to jail and fine your ass, they held out an open palm for their cut of the bounty. The price for doing business out here, they explained. But that wasn’t the worst danger. There were other hunters like Da
Aware of that threat, Da
He listened for the trebling whine of a warden’s airboat or the growl of another scavenger’s outboard engine. So far all he heard was the whine of mosquitoes and the warbling calls of swallow-tailed kites as the birds swept through the branches overhead.
Da
But what could he do?
With no choice, he poled after his father, keeping along the edges of the reeds. They were deeper into the bayou than they normally searched. And out later than usual. Da
“I think there’s another trap over there, Pop.”
Da
“Then go get it while I free this one. Line’s all tangled in some roots.”
As his father cursed behind him Da
He had to work the boat into the cha
Before he turned away, a second coon leaped from a branch, sailed far out, and splashed into the water. He puzzled at their panic.
“Whatcha lookin’ at!” his father called at him. “Hurry it up already.”
Da
He dragged the trap into the boat and stacked it with the others. As he shifted to pole out of the side cha
All right…
He used the branch to pull him and the boat deeper down the cha
He reached the cluster of buoys and was about to lean over and begin untangling them when he saw that their lines trailed toward shore. He spotted the cages abandoned at the edge of the water. Each was mangled and torn open, as if dropped into a wood chipper. He saw no sign of crabs.
His first thought was that some bull alligator had gone for an easy meal, but a cold finger of dread traced his spine. In all his years, he’d never seen an alligator attack a crab pot. And considering how heavy the traps were, it took something big to drag them to shore.
But if not an alligator…
He swallowed hard, his mouth gone dry. He straightened and poled away, retreating down the cha
He poled away faster.
A loud crack of a branch wheeled him around. His heart jackhammered into his throat. A thick tree branch crashed down and landed across the waterway, cutting off his escape.
Bushes rustled on the opposite shore-as if something had leaped out of the tree and landed on the far side. Da