The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp (15 page)

Which they did.

All the way back to the DeSoto.

Whew!

They scurried in through the entryway on the passenger side and plopped onto the front seat. Since raccoons aren't all that great at counting, we'll just say that they had in their collective paws more than four fried pies and fewer than a dozen. And let us also say that carrying those fried pies right underneath their noses was a kind of delicious torture.

Bingo looked at the pile of pies scattered on the front seat. “I think we took more than we needed,” he said.

J'miah nodded. Then he said exactly what Bingo was
thinking. “Since we have so many, I think we could taste at least one of these, don't you?”

Since they were both in agreement, they each picked up a Paradise Pie, and—sit down, brothers and sisters—they did not think they had ever tasted anything so rapturous in their entire lives. Not crawdads. Not blackberries. Not crickets. Not slugs. Not minnows. Nothing could compare.

Those pies kicked their stripy booties!

They ate one pie each. Then just one more. Then
really
just one more. Okay, this was it, absolutely only
one
more.

Bingo and J'miah were in Paradise Pie delectation. But then a tiny voice in Bingo's head sang out, “Stop!”

His belly pooched out like a balloon.

“Oh, my!” said J'miah. He looked down at his own belly. It was covered in crumbs, and it also pooched out. He had never felt so full.

But it wasn't really the bellies that were the problem. In a panic Bingo patted the seat. He looked underneath it. He jumped into the backseat. He patted the floorboard. He checked the dashboard. He even stood on the rear dash. At last he had to force himself to look back at the front seat, to the spot where all the stolen pies were supposed to be, the pies that they needed to lure the Sugar Man out of his sleeping lair, the pies that were supposed to substitute
for the canebrake sugar. The pies that he and J'miah had gobbled up. Those pies. They were gone.

Almost.

There, all by its little lonesome, was the last fried pie.

One.

Fried.

Pie.

All.

Alone.

On.

The.

Front.

Seat.

And if that wasn't bad enough . . .
rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble
 . . .
rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble
!

In their pie-eating frenzy, our Scouts had momentarily forgotten about the Farrow Gang! Bingo slapped his forehead. Here they were, trying to be good little Scouts, and they had acted like . . . well, like hogs! And not only that, but now they only had one pie for the Sugar Man.
One tiny little sugar pie.

What to do?

Rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble.

J'miah brushed his paws together to get the sugar off them.

Bingo looked through the DeSoto's now-shiny windows. Through the vines, he could tell the sun was on the rise. There was no going back to Paradise Pies Café in the daylight.

He sat back on the seat. Beside him J'miah squinted. His invisible cap pressed down on his eyebrows. Then he busied himself by combing the remaining crumbs off the leather-covered bench. Every so often he paused and admired the art on the dashboard. The armadillo made him feel just a little better, but not much.

It could have been a total doomsday scenario, except that Bingo opened his mouth and . . .
BURP!
A sugary belch floated through the air. Followed by another
burpburpburp.

Before they knew it, the air was filled with the smell of sugar. It was small comfort, because soon enough the seriousness of their situation settled in.

The facts were these: (1) they were supposed to gather up some raw cane sugar to wake up the Sugar Man; (2) they were blocked by the canebrake rattlers; (3) the Voice had told them that the Paradise Pies would kick booty; (4) surely a Paradise Pie would wake up the Sugar Man; (5) we'll put the emphasis on
a
pie, as in
one
pie.

The two brothers looked at the single fried pie. Would
one pie be enough? Enough for a creature whose hands were as big as palmettos, whose feet were the size of canoes? Enough for a guy who kept
Crotalus horridus GIGANTICUS
as a pet? Bingo's tuft stood straight up between his ears. J'miah squinted.

One pie would have to do it.

And with the sun in the corner of the sky, Bingo gathered up that single pie, and together he and J'miah crossed their fingers and toes. Then they headed back out, back to the deepest, darkest part of the forest.

Rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble . . .

C
HAP PADDED INTO THE KITCHEN
. He could hear his mother pushing chairs under tables, getting the café ready for the day. He looked at the clock—4:30 a.m. The numbers glowed in the dim light. The sun would be up soon. He switched on the radio.

Into the quiet air of the kitchen, Coyoteman Jim's resonant voice slipped out. He was just signing off, “Have a good day and a good idea.”

Chap reached for a bag of coffee beans and poured them into the grinder. As he poured the water into the coffeemaker, he saw something odd, something unusual, something he'd never seen before in the kitchen . . . muddy paw prints. He looked closer at the prints and followed them to the windowsill. The radio was there. Steve's cell phone was there. The window screen was missing. He looked back at the counters. Pies. Lots of pies. All stacked up.

But . . . not as many as there were when he went to bed.

“Thieves,” he cried. “We've been robbed!”

And in that same instant Coyoteman Jim cut loose with his final, “Arroooooo!”

W
HAT WOULD
G
RANDPA
A
UDIE DO
?
That was the question that rang through Chap's head as he looked at the muddy paw prints on the counter. Chap knew that Audie had always liked the local raccoons. But at the moment “like” was not the word he would associate with them.

He might have considered shooting at them if he'd had a gun. Or at least shooting over their heads to scare them. But he didn't have a gun. All he had was his grandfather's old machete, and it was strictly used for chopping sugarcane, not for dispatching wildlife.

“We live on their land,” Grandpa Audie had always told Chap. “Not the other way around.” And Chap respected that. Thinking about his grandpa made him calm down a little. If Audie were still alive, he would likely have turned the robbery into a funny story. Chap thought about his grandpa's drawing of the raccoon with the harmonica.

But Grandpa Audie did not have to raise a boatload of
cash in order to keep Jaeger Stitch and Sonny Boy Beaucoup from transforming the swamp into a freak show.

Grandpa Audie was not the man of the household now. Chap was. Or at least he was supposed to be. While Grandpa Audie was busy meeting his Maker, raccoons had been busy stealing pies. And Chap had not prevented either of those events from occurring. He wanted to kick something. Throw something. Hit something. And all those somethings looked like . . . raccoons!

But he also knew that his grandfather would never have kicked, thrown, or hit anything, including pie thieves.

As Chap looked around, he realized what he needed right then was . . . coffee! He filled the GBH mug to the very rim. His hands shook as he raised it to his lips.

Hot hot hot.

Bitter bitter bitter.

The jet-black brew was not getting any better. He swallowed, then took another sip. Then, without waiting for his mother, he cleaned the counter, wiping away all the evidence. He looked at the mountain of pies they had baked. Dozens and dozens. The result of hours spent chopping the cane, squeezing the thick stalks in the juicer, rolling the dough, mixing up the filling, and then frying everything in deep, deep oil, at a very high temperature. It had been a lot of work. And now, there
were stacks of fresh fried pies, sitting on their counter. He counted them.

Result: The raccoons had taken more than four, he figured, but fewer than a dozen. Chap could see that there were plenty of pies left. More than enough. Boo-coos of pies. Pies to the sky.

Nevertheless, “A man's house is his castle,” said Chap, and even though no great harm had been done, the castle had been breached. Measures would have to be taken to be sure that the raccoons did not cross the moat again. And he knew exactly what those measures would be.

“Traps!” A few years back, a young bobcat had set up housekeeping under the porch, and Grandpa Audie had caught it in his Havahart trap, then carried it far down the bayou, where he set it free. They had never seen that bobcat again.

Chap could do the same with the raccoons. No guns needed. He puffed out his chest. No hairs needed either.

He took another sip of the dark coffee. It burned his tongue. How did anyone ever come to like this stuff? He started to ask that question out loud, but before he could, his mother's voice interrupted him. “Chap?” she said. “Would you come here, please?” He turned toward her as she opened the door.

There, on the front porch, stood a very long line of
people, hungry-for-sugar-pie people. Chap had never seen such a long line. It started at the door and snaked all the way past the parking lot and out to the Beaten Track Road. Mom turned the sign over from
CLOSED
to
OPEN
and said, “Y'all come in.” And they did. In droves.

As fast as he could, Chap served up pies. He had never seen so many chops being licked or heard so many compliments.

They'd take a bite and say, “Mmmmm . . . these pies sure enough kick booty!”

One-dollar bills. Five-dollar bills. Ten-dollar bills. Even a couple of two-dollar bills. One by one, the customers walked through the door and ordered pies. And bill by bill, the boat began to fill up too. It wasn't long before the bottom was covered in cash. And Paradise Pies Café was completely out of fried sugar pies.

L
ET ME TELL YOU, THERE
are many kinds of sugar. There is the sugar that comes from beets. There is the sugar that comes from corn. But the wild sugarcane that grows along the banks of the Bayou Tourterelle produces the finest sugar of all.

Muscovado. That's what it's called. No one really knows how the first plants got here, seeing as how it's not native to Texas at all. Maybe a seed blew in on a storm. Maybe a passing trader planted a batch. Maybe a goose deposited a seed as it flew by. Regardless of how or why it arrived, the muscovado sugar is one of the swamp's best mysteries.

It's not grainy like the white sugar you buy in the supermarket. No, no, no. In its raw state, it's brown, like the sand in Barbados, like the water of the Bayou Tourterelle, like the feathers of a roadrunner. Brown like that.

It tastes like heaven.

There's nothing like it. Nothing. And Clydine wanted some. Snort, snort, snort! Get that girl some muscovado!

W
ITH THE SUN MOVING ACROSS
the middle of the sky, Bingo knew they had to pick up their pace. They would need every bit of light that the daytime sun could offer as they made their way through the darkest part of the swamp.

Hurry, Scouts, hurry! As if to prove the point,
rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble
, he could feel the hogs coming closer.

Then Bingo had a horrible thought. Even if the pie did wake up the Sugar Man, what would happen then? Scout orders were, “Wake up the Sugar Man.” They didn't say what to do next.

Have we forgotten the stuff about
the wrath of the Sugar Man
?

Nosirree, Bob. We most decidedly have not. After all, we remember that the Sugar Man had that wee bit of rattlesnake venom in his blood, and rattlesnakes, as everyone knows, are feisty. In fact, they're downright venomous.
Snip-snap-zip-zap.

Take heed, Scouts. Take heed.

T
HE SOUNDER NORMALLY DIDN
'
T TRAVEL
during daylight hours, but everyone had become so impatient that Buzzie made an executive decision to hit the trail early. That did not mollify the irascible Clydine. Instead of praising him for his ambition, she was a bundle of complaints.

Clearly, she had not gotten her beauty rest, and it showed. Her yellow eyes were yellower than ever, and her curly tail drooped. What had he ever seen in her? Buzzie wondered.

She wasn't the only one who complained. Every single little porker in the pod had some injustice to report.

“He pulled my tail.”

“She bumped me.”

“I need to use the restroom.”

“I've got a bellyache.”

It was constant. If only hogs could climb a wall, Buzzie would have climbed one.

Sugar. Just get us to the sugar, he prayed. And with a
snort, he told his clan, “We're almost there.” But they had heard that before, so they just kept complaining.

“He's got my ear in his mouth.”

“I want another mud bath.”

“You're not the boss of me.”

Buzzie wanted to drop all of them off at the nearest hog shelter. Of course, that would require a hog shelter, which to our knowledge does not exist.

That's when the porcine divine intervened and they rumbled up to an enormous round hay bale.

“Attack!” snorted Buzzie. And all seventeen of our grouchy grunters lowered their heads and charged the unsuspecting hay bale. There are reports that hay rained down in four states. But the important thing was that tempers were assuaged. Clydine regained her composure. And Buzzie was a semi-happy camper.

C
HAP WAS ALSO A SEMI-HAPPY
camper. The sight of all that cash settling into the bottom of the boat made him think they had a chance of keeping the café. But even if they managed to save the café, Chap knew that what they really needed to save was the swamp itself. Sonny Boy's voice echoed in his head.
If I see some proof of the Sugar Man, I'll give you the whole darned swamp.