Fixing Lucius with a baleful glare, the one-armed man resumed a story interrupted by Lucius’s arrival. “One time down in Harney River country”—and he pointed his good arm toward the south, toward the Park—“I shot me this gator at night, nailed that red eye, and damn if that sucker don’t sink straight down into black water, could been nine foot deep! I don’t generally miss, but I got this kind of a creepy feelin, and didn’t rightly want to go in after him. That big ol’ bull might had plenty of fight left, he might been waitin on me! Made sense to leave him where he lay. At night, it ain’t the same as what it is in the broad open daylight. When a man gets to feelin uneasy, in the night especially, well, he best mind that feelin, or he got bad trouble.”
Saying that, the big man slapped angrily at the stump of his lost arm. Chest heaving, he stared around the room, ready to challenge anybody about anything. The hard high brush of coarse black hair that jutted from his head like a worn broom gave him a look of grievance and surprise. On his good arm was a discolored tattoo—an American flag set about with fasces and an eagle rampant, talons fastened on a skull and crossbones. The red and white of the stars and stripes were dirtied and the blue purpled, all one ugly bruise.
“That war vet you’re lookin at is Crockett Junior Daniels,” Speck said in a speculative voice, not sounding pleased about it.
“Yessir, folks,” Crockett Junior roared, “that big ol’ sucker might could chomp your leg off! Might be holed up way deep in his cave, and you proddin down in there tryin to find him with your gator hook, nudge him up under the chin, try to ease him slow, slow, slow up to the surface where you got a shot, and him gettin more uproared all the time. First thing you know, he has got past the hook some way, he’s a-comin up the pole, he’s just a-clamberin! And there you are, up to your fool neck in muddy water and no hope at all to make it to the bank—if there is a bank, which mostly there ain’t, out in that country!” He looked around the room. “Them kind of times, all you can do is stand dead still, hope that scaly sonofabitch gets by you in the rush!
“Now, that ain’t a experience you are likely to forget, I’m here to tell you! You go to huntin gators in the backcountry, you gone to earn ever’ red cent you make! And that’s all right, that’s our way of life and always has been, takin the rough nights with the smooth. But since the Park come in, you go out there”—he was pointing south again—“and go to doin what your daddy done, and grandpap, too, and next thing you know, you find yourself flat up against some feller in a green frog outfit that the federal fuckin gov’ment got sneakin around back in our swamps! Know what he wants? Hell, you know what he wants! Wants to steal your hard-earned money! Put your pore ol’ cracker ass in jail!”
The big man pointed a thick finger at Lucius Watson. “Or maybe he ain’t in a green suit! Maybe he just come walkin through that door there, tryin to look like ever’body else!”
Speck said calmly, “Folks here at the Hook ain’t got no use for invaders, notice that?” He turned to Lucius. “Mind tellin us what you’re doin out here, Colonel?” He grinned at Lucius in unabashed dislike. “That’s what your friends call you, ain’t it? Colonel?”
“You my friend now, Speck?” Lucius drank his glass off to the bottom and came up with a gasp and a warm glow in the throat and face. Like bristling dogs, they avoided eye contact, pretending to watch the one-armed man, whose anger was rising.
“Thing of it is,” Crockett Junior bawled, “them damn Park greenhorns and their spies will belly right up to that bar, pertend to be your friend; keep a man from supportin his own family! And you out in that dark ol’ swamp night after night, way back in some godforsook damn slough you can’t even get to in a boat, and half-bled to death by no-see-ums and miskeeters. One night out here is worse than a month in hell! And finally you’re staggerin home across the saw grass, cut to slivers and all cold and wet and more’n half dead, and thankin the Lord that you’re comin out alive, cause you got two thousand dollars’ worth of gator flats humped on your back. And sure enough, one them rangers has you spotted, or maybe he’s layin for you near your truck back at the landin.”
Here the big man paused in tragic wonderment, and when he resumed speaking, he spoke softly. “Speakin fair now, what’s a man to do? If that ranger goes to chasin you, I mean, or tries to stop you? Or tell you you’re under arrest, throw you in jail?”