Lost Man's River Read Online Free PDF

catcalled.
    Lucius was stopped inside the door by a husky barefoot man, sun-creased, with old dirt in the creases. From hard green coveralls—his only garment—rose a rank odor of fried foods and sweat, spilled beer and cigarettes, crankcase oil and something else, something rancid, a smear of old mayonnaise, perhaps, or gator blood, or semen. Expressionless in big dark glasses, this figure crowded him without a word, as if intent on bumping chests and backing the stranger out through the screen door. Then that same rough voice which had yelled at Mud now bellowed “Dummy!” and the man stopped and removed his glasses, and dull eyes gazed past Lucius with indifference as he turned away. His dark sun-baked back and neck and shoulders were matted with black hair.
    The man who had yelled was Crockett Daniels, who had recognized Lucius Watson, too, and nodded sardonically at Lucius’s grimace. Daniels crossed the room to confer with a big one-armed man who leaned on the far wall, then went to the makeshift plywood bar, where he poured two glasses of clear white spirits from a jug. Brusquely he offered one to Lucius, who accepted it with a bare nod. The moonshine was colorless, so purely raw that it numbed Lucius’s mouth and sinuses and made his eyes water. The two stood grimly side by side, elbows hitched back on the plywood, faced out across the room, and they sipped moonshine for a while before they spoke.
    â€œSpeck” Daniels was a strong short man with a hide as dark and hard-grained as mahogany, and jutting black brows and a hawk beak, and dark grizzle in a fringe around a wry and heavy mouth. Straight raven hair, gone silver at the temples, fell in a heavy lock across his brow, and his green eyes were bright and restless, scanning the room before returning to the big black-bearded man in combat boots and camouflage pants and a black T-shirt with a wrinkled red stump in the right sleeve.
    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 sinkstraight 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.
    â€œThat war vet you’re lookin at is Crockett Junior Daniels,” Speck said in a speculative voice, not sounding pleased about it.
    â€œYessir, 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