Lost Man's River Read Online Free PDF Page B

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!
    â€œNow, 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?”
    â€œYou 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.
    â€œThing 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?”
    Speck Daniels watched his son without expression. “They heard this same ol’ shit in here a thousand times,” he said.
    â€œNow I ain’t got nothin personal against that ranger,” Crockett Junior was saying, choked by strong emotions. “Might could be a real likable young feller, just a-tryin to get by, same as what I’m doin. Might got him a sweet lovin wife and a couple real cute li’l fellers back home waitin on him, or maybe just the sweetest baby girl—same as what
I
got! Ain’t no difference between him and me
at all
!” He looked around him wide-eyed to make sure these people understood how astonishing it was that he and this park ranger both had wives and children, and how large-hearted his concern for that ranger’s family was. “But if’n that boy tries to take my gators, well, I got my duty to my people, ain’t that right? Got my duty to take care of my little girl back home that’s waitin on me to put bread on the table! Ain’t that only natural?” He looked around the room. “So all I’m sayin—and