Drawn Into Darkness(31)

Well, here I was looking into a snake’s eye, and even though a bony ridge like an eyebrow shadowed it, I could see quite clearly the vertical black slit of its pupil.

Water moccasin.

My heartbeat might have sped up somewhat, but I did not bother to panic. After all, things could have been a lot worse. It could have been Stoat.

I must not move or I might be bitten. Sheer inertia had kept me still when I awoke. The bliss of lying in a position other than spread-eagle had made me so lazy I hadn’t even lifted my head. Now I realized that the only part of me I could safely move was my eyeballs.

I deployed them as best I could from where I lay sprawled in the sand. Focusing beyond a blur of mud-colored snake, I could see water sparkling, and some turtles basking on a log—doubtless the tree trunk I had grabbed on to last night—and beyond the river a solid wall of forest with mistletoe balls in the oaks and scraggly pines towering above all the other trees. Trying to make out the river’s far bank, I thought I saw a sketchy line of yellow-tan sand between the gleaming brown water and the mostly green jumble of forest. Understandably, I was not certain, but I thought maybe the river level was beginning to go down.

I took another look at the log, really a long-dead fallen tree with its roots somewhere above my horizontal head. Yes, turtles and all, it seemed to slant a bit higher above the water than it had last night. If I could judge by what I had felt in the dark of the night.

Okay, so I couldn’t really tell. Why did I care?

Justin, that was why. Floodwater going down could only be good for him if—if he was still out in this swamp somewhere, if Stoat hadn’t gotten him.

Was he at least alive? Or had he bumped his head on something and drowned? Or had Stoat killed him?

Never once did I think in terms of Justin’s recapture, because I felt certain Stoat had wanted to kill him even before Justin had conked him with a baseball bat last night, thereby totally and irrevocably pissing him off.

God, where was Justin? I needed to get up, call for him, go looking for him, but here I lay helpless because of a damn poisonous snake sleeping in front of my nose. Or at least I supposed it was sleeping. How could I tell? It didn’t have eyelids, but I hadn’t seen any movement in its eye, which seemed unnervingly fixated on me.

Probably just my imagination. And I remembered the book said snakes were deaf. What if I ever so slowly inched away—

No. The book also said that snakes made up for being deaf by sensing vibrations.

Besides which, I didn’t know what was behind me. With my luck, there could be another snake cuddled up against my rear end.

Gaah. Creepy thought.

Well, sooner or later, it or they had to go away, right?

Right.

Meanwhile, I tried to pass the time by looking at anything and everything else. The turtles. Stumpy heads and legs striped with yellow.

Lichens on the log like green-gray rosettes with sprinkles of paprika—spores?

A turtle plunking into the water, showing its yellow-orange belly shell.

Beyond, a wading bird landing for a moment on the log—some kind of small heron or bittern with chartreuse legs—quickly gone again, flapping upriver.

Long wait.

Wait. I heard something. Not too far away, somebody trying to start a lawn mower. Stupid thing blustered, spit, and died, the way they always did. Again, and again. But finally, protesting, it was coaxed to continue, its loud gasps steadied into a regular chugging, and I heard it heading closer to me.

Lawn mower?

Boat motor. Already the boat had appeared, a shining aluminum savior perhaps twelve feet long, a rudimentary rectangle in which sat two burly trucker-hatted men. I did not dare move because of the snake, but surely they would see me.

“. . . water this high, we should be able to get clear into Chipoluga Swamp, places we couldn’t ordinarily,” one of them was saying to the other.

“All right!” In the local Southern accent, this sounded like, “Aw, rat!” He went on, “That’ll be a sat to see.”

See me, I begged mentally, my heart pounding as they scudded past, hurried along by the high-running river. I couldn’t move or yell because of the damn water moccasin, but there I lay like a corpse on the bank; how could they not see me?

But they didn’t.

“We got the beer?”

“Damn straight we got the beer. You think I’d forget the beer?”

Idiots. Beer-swilling Bubbas. Still talking of beer, they disappeared downriver. The grumble of their motor blended into the distance.

• • •

“Meatloaf, please don’t sit on my face.” Still in bed, Amy Bradley shoved the cat off her forehead, only to feel him settling on her pillow as close as possible to her, on top of where her hair lay, with his blunt snout purring whisker-tickly feline secrets into her ear.