The Rift (35 page)

“Be thankful, man,” Nick said, sweeping with his branch. “It could be worse. They could be fire ants.” The raccoon gave him a resentful look and kept scratching.

Nick looked up at the ant nest, the ball of glittering angry insects, and he considered attacking it directly. Maybe with his branch he could knock them into the river by the thousands.

On the other hand, maybe he’d just piss them off.

He decided it was worth a try. He edged along the limb until the knot of ants was within easy sweeping distance of his branch, and then he cocked the branch back and slapped it against the ball of ants.

He was surprised at how easily it worked— the seeming solidity of the ball of ants had made him think they would be harder to dislodge. A large chunk of the ant nest was knocked off the tree and fell in the water. He was surprised that the knot did not disintegrate: the ants clung to each other, forming a nearly solid raft as the current swept them away.

When they hit another tree, Nick thought, they’d all climb it.

A catbird gave its mewling cry of alarm and fluttered to safety. Another bird burst from the higher branches, dropped low across the water before gaining altitude. Some kind of owl, he saw, a big one, with horns. Didn’t like the ants, either.

He cocked his arm back, swept again. More ants spilled into the water.

He swept a third time. And then something flashed white and green in the tree, and glittering fangs clamped on the leafy twigs. Cold primordial fear shot up Nick’s spine.

Cottonmouth,
he thought.

His father had taken him all over the world when Nick was growing up. Nick had grown up on Army bases in Europe, in Korea, and in Thailand. But he had spent much of his youth on bases in the American South. And, like every Southern child who shares his swimming hole with nature, he had learned terror of the cottonmouth moccasin.

Snake!
some boy would cry, and there would be a flurry of arms and legs and white water, and the boys would stand panting on the shore while a cottonmouth, long and thick as a grown man’s arm, prowled the water in search of something to kill.

Coral snakes and rattlers were shy, avoided humans when they could, and never bit unless threatened. A cottonmouth moccasin was afraid of nothing, would aggressively invade territory occupied by others, and would bite without hesitation. Their venom, unlike that of the copperhead, was deadly.

“A
cottonmouth will bite you just to watch you die.” That’s what the old folks told their children. And when the children grew older, fear and hatred of all snakes was buried so deep that it might as well have been seared on their bones. A lot of the children with whom Nick had shared his boyhood swimming holes grew up to kill every snake they saw, whether they were poisonous or not.

That was what the fear of the cottonmouth could do.

Nick had never been as afraid of anything in his life as he’d been of the cottonmouths he’d seen when he was young. And that deep-buried fear had never gone away.

The distinctive white mouth tissue flashed again and again as the snake struck repeatedly at Nick’s branch. The snake was a big one, too, four feet long.

Its thick body was covered with furious biting ants. It was in agony. And it was angry enough to kill.

Fear clawed at Nick’s brain with fingers of fire. Nick kept thrashing at the snake with the branch. He couldn’t think of anything else to do. His branch was too small and light to knock the snake off the tree, but at least the flailing leaves distracted it, kept it from biting at him. He found himself retreating along his limb, backing up until his butt came up against a nest of branches and he could back up no farther.

Brilliant emerald scales flashed as the cottonmouth advanced, half-falling down the tree as it writhed in pain. It gathered itself on Nick’s limb, raised its head, hissed. Furious ants swarmed over it. Nick thrust the branch at it again, and it struck.

The raccoon gave a warning yelp and made a hasty jump for the water. It was as scared of the cottonmouth as Nick was.

For a half-second Nick considered following the raccoon’s example. But the cottonmouth was an aquatic snake, it could swim better than Nick could. If it was angry enough to follow Nick into the water, then it could kill him easily, while he tried to thrash his way through the waterlogged brush below.

The cottonmouth writhed closer. Nick batted at the snake with the branch, but the leafy broom was too light to budge it from its perch. He could see his reflection in the snake’s unblinking eyes, and felt his blood run cold.
Grab it behind the head,
he thought, that was the safe way to handle a snake, but he couldn’t think of a way to grab its head without letting the cottonmouth strike at him first.

Nick reversed the branch, thinking perhaps that he could use the sharp broken-off butt end as a dagger. He held it like an icepick in his right hand, eight inches or so from the end, and gave a
huff
of breath as he stabbed at the snake. The sharp wood skiddered on bark, blunted itself. Leaves waved. The snake reared, hissed. Nick stabbed again, a cry of anger and fear breaking from his lips. The snake struck. There was an instant of terror as Nick realized that the snake was striking too fast for Nick to snatch back his hand.

And then the snake’s jaw clamped down on the branch, an inch below Nick’s little finger. He saw the two poison fangs digging into the smooth bark, saw beads of venom swell up. His heart gave a leap.
Now!
he thought.

He pulled the branch toward him, dragging the snake toward him by its fangs. The resistance was formidable: it was like pulling on a thick rubber band. But the cottonmouth was unwilling to let go of the branch, and Nick managed to stretch out the snake’s neck until he could pounce with his left hand, grabbing the cottonmouth just behind the head, where it couldn’t turn to bite him.

Nick dropped the branch, grabbed the snake halfway down its body with his right hand. The cottonmouth’s glassy reptile eyes gazed into his, expressionless, as Nick tried to lift it so that he could fling it into the water below. But the tail was anchored around the tree limb, and muscles
pulsed
in Nick’s hands, sinew flexing, testing his strength. The body was so thick that Nick couldn’t quite close his right hand around it; he could feel the muscles working against his grip, trying to pry the fingers apart, and he clamped down, digging fingertips into the scaly skin, tugging at the snake as he tried to pull it from the limb.

Furious ants swarmed over the snake and Nick’s hands, bit them both without mercy.

The snake dropped the branch and opened its mouth wide, the mouth tissues blossoming like a deadly white flower. It tried to turn its head to bite Nick in the wrist, but Nick held it fast by the neck and wouldn’t let it double back on itself. Drops of venom welled at the tips of the fangs. Its muscles pulsed, flexed, strained beneath Nick’s fingers. And then its muscles surged, and its tail left the tree limb and tried to coil itself around Nick’s right wrist.

Nick gave a yell of alarm as the snake’s fat body writhed in his hands. He thumped his hand onto the tree limb, scraped the cottonmouth’s tail off his wrist against the bark, then raised the snake in both hands over his head and flung it through the air.

“Yaaaaaahl”
he roared, a scream of rage and triumph.

The cottonmouth curled in air, almost turning itself into a knot, and then hit the water.

There was a splash, a twist, and suddenly the aquatic snake was swimming, in its element. Its body surged effortlessly in the water, its head carried high, eyes focused ...

Eyes focused on Nick.

Nick felt his triumph turn to disbelief and horror.
The snake was coming back to the tree. The cottonmouth was coming to kill him.

“Stay out of my tree!” Nick shouted. Heat flushed his skin.
“My
tree!” He waved a fist. The snake kept coming.

Nick turned, snatched at the branches behind him. He grabbed one of the strongest and seized it, bending it back, fighting it. There was a crack as he tore it free. He stripped twigs and leaves from it, turned it into a club.

The cottonmouth pulsed its way to the tree, its head winding a path through the smaller branches so that the thick surging body could follow.

The first, leafy branch that Nick had dropped was still lying in his lap. He took that branch in his left hand and the new club in the right. He hit the club against the bole of the tree a few times, trying to get a feel for the weapon. He tasted bitter despair on his tongue: the club was far too light to smash the head of the snake.

The hopelessness brought defiance to his lips. “You want a piece of me?” he demanded of the snake. He snarled. “You come and get it!”

The cottonmouth’s weaving head slid around the bole of the tree, its cold, inhuman eyes intent on Nick. The forked tongue flickered from the soft white mouth. Nick smashed at the snake with the club, hit it in the neck. The snake reared back, then dropped its head and surged forward.

Nick smashed with left and right, trying to confuse the snake with the leafy branch and then hammer it with the stick. The cottonmouth coiled protectively when it was struck, but then extended itself again and continued its motion along the tree limb. Nick hammered and hammered. The cottonmouth struck at the club and missed. Nick hammered at it, the hot blood bringing strength to his arm.

“You want a piece of me?” he shouted. “You want this tree?”

He smashed the club down on the snake’s neck, pinning it to the tree limb. He snatched out with his left hand and grabbed the cottonmouth by the neck, just behind the head. The snake’s tail whipped around, coiled around his wrist.

“You think I care if you grab me?” Nick demanded. The snake tightened on his arm. Nick held the snake’s head with his left hand while he smashed at it with the club in his right. The cottonmouth’s head darted left and right to the limits that Nick would permit, seeking escape from the blows. Then Nick lunged forward and smashed the snake’s head into the bole of the tree with all of his strength. The snake’s body spasmed on his arm. He smashed again and again.

“You want a piece of me, cottonmouth?” he demanded. “You come and take it!”

He smashed the snake’s head against the tree until the snake hung in loose coils from his arm, until Nick’s hand was scraped and bloody and the snake’s forked tongue hung limply from its mouth. Then he wearily uncoiled the snake from his arm, held it over the water, and let it fall.

The Mississippi received it with barely a splash.

“My
tree!” Nick shouted.
“My damn tree
!”

His cries echoed in the empty grove. Birds shrieked in answer.

He slapped ants from his hands, from his legs. Snapped off another leafy branch, began to sweep the ants from his limb, from what remained of their nest.

The tree was
his,
and he was going to keep it.

He touched his shirt pocket, felt Arlette’s necklace.

He would give it to her, see the sparkle in her eyes. He
knew
that now.

Hours passed. The day grew hot, and the ants grew torpid. Perhaps they’d found something to eat, or lost interest after the destruction of their nest. The insects that drove him crazy now were mosquitos, dancing around him in swarms.

Farther out on his limb, the mother opossum rustled its way through leafy branches and squawked at its babies. Every so often it would peer out to see if Nick had left. It always seemed disappointed when he hadn’t.

The water level seemed to be dropping a little. The sodden tops of bushes were more visible. The water had ceased to run with its earlier swiftness, now lay still and dark, its surface reflecting the bright rays of the sun.

After sitting on his limb till his body felt like a giant cramp, Nick decided to climb a little higher and discover what might be seen. He clambered higher, heaving and sweating as he pushed his way through tightly woven branches.

This was really the sort of thing the snake would have done much more easily.

The tree began to sway under Nick’s weight. He was panting for breath, and he decided he had climbed enough. He planted his feet carefully and looked around.

Leaves still obscured much of the view. He pressed branches down, tried to clear the sight lines. North and south stretched trees as far as he could see. West he could see an opening, a flat space covered with water, but he couldn’t tell whether it was the river, a field, or a clearing.

He turned east, and a chill shivered through his blood. There, across a flooded field, was the shattered Mobil station where Viondi had died. Its white, blue, and red sign still swung above the brown water.

The Mobil station was no more than a half-mile away. Nick thought he’d wandered much farther in the dark. He must have been tracking in circles once he got among the trees.

There was no sign of the cop or his car. Or of Viondi. Or of any other human being.

He was king of the tree and all he surveyed. He gave a bitter laugh.

The sun was hot on his head.

Nick slapped at a biting ant and decided he might as well climb down. He found it harder to force his way down through the vegetation than it had been to climb up through it. He drove his way between branches, using his weight to force branches aside. He paused as he discovered the opossum below him, heading upward. They stared at each other for a moment, and then the opossum opened its mouth in a snarl, showing a surprising number of very sharp teeth, and then scurried off onto a side limb, its rat-tailed babies still clinging to its fur.

Nick felt like grinning for the first time that day.

He dropped back down to his old limb, then paused a moment to stretch, carefully testing his muscles. The wound on his left arm had stiffened, and the climb had set it bleeding again.

Standing in the tree, testing his muscles one by one, he almost missed the kid in the boat. He
would
have missed him, if he hadn’t seen the white script,
Retired and Gone Fishin’,
through a gap in the leaves.

He knelt on his bough, looking at the boat in surprise. It had passed him in near silence, a big black aluminum boat with a shattered windscreen and no motor. In another few seconds, it would disappear into the flooded grove. A white kid stood in the stern, shoving the boat along with a long pole. His back was turned to Nick, and he clearly hadn’t seen him.