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was on Nansemond's shores that we lived, in the house by the spillway.
Powhatan Swamp

English I

Charles Clewt

Ohio State University
    ***
    SAM STOPPED after about a mile to shoo off blackbirds and robins from wild grape clusters. A big patch of the grapes grew on the swamp's edge, near their farmhouse. Sam's mother made jelly from them annually. They'd never tasted better than now.
    After resting about twenty minutes, she got to her feet again and plodded on toward John Clewt's. Each step felt like razor blades were in her boots. Around nine o'clock she broke out of the brush at the edge of the lake, knowing that if she walked due east she'd run into Clewt's and the dam spillway.
    The clouds had retreated; the sun was now shining strongly, laying yellow wands across the lake water, chasing away the mist. Though there was some bird chatter—wood ducks quacking now and then, fluttering across the still water—there was a comparative quiet around the lake, unlike in the swamp's noisy interior.
    Rising out of the surface like gaunt witch fingers, some only a few feet high, others towering up thirty or forty feet, were cypresses, both dead and alive, their fluted trunks flaring at the bottom, with "knees," exposed roots, dotted around them. Of the cedar family, bald cypresses are almost decay-proof, good for shingles or coffins.
    She'd first seen them on fishing trips. They'd reminded her of those grotesque dancing trees in
Fantasia,
the ones in "Night on Bald Mountain." They were scary then, and none too friendly now.
    After slopping slowly along in the soft mud at the edge, sometimes circling around when a cypress knee stuck out into the water, Sam finally saw Clewt's place about a quarter of a mile ahead. For the first time in more than twelve hours, she could breathe easily. Help at last.
    Time had colored the one-story spillwayman's house dark silver. It had to be as old as the one she lived in. Though she hadn't seen it for eight or ten years, it looked the same. A house from another time, a good house for a horror movie.
    Sam was less than fifty feet from it when two dogs attacked, seemingly out of nowhere, barking loudly. She ran for safety. Later, she couldn't remember how and when she made the decision to go onto the roof above John Clewt's back porch. Within seconds, as she struggled to raise her body, one of the two raging dogs had his teeth sunk into her left wader.
    Intense pain shot up her leg as he broke through the rubber, puncturing flesh. Yelling at him, kicking hard, she slammed his broad head against the porch railing. The dangling dog fell back to the dirt, and Samantha went on up.
    Panting heavily, she sat on the edge of the roof to catch her breath. The two shaggy brown mongrels, defeated momentarily, big bodies still tense with anger, barked hard enough to spray spittle. Their paws pranced with each hoarse volley.
    Dogs! She'd had enough of dogs to last a lifetime.
    Where was Clewt?
Where was he?
Where was his weirdo son? That's exactly what local people called him, "the weirdo."
    Unless they were deaf, the Clewts weren't in the house. Wherever they were, Sam didn't plan to go anywhere until they returned.
    Soon she realized that her left ankle was bleeding. Below her ankles, Sam was nothing but a swollen mass of pain. Trying to relax, she blew out a breath. Where
was
Clewt? She hoped he hadn't gone for the day. The dogs were still down there, still raging. They had a vicious mind-set, those two.
    She stayed on the edge of the roof, scratched up, smudged, and dirty, hair a mess; char on her face and clothing. A wreck she was, all over. When John Clewt
saw her, he'd probably ask, "What'n hale happened to you, girl?"
    There was a good view around the yard and over toward the dam and spillway. Except for a TV dish and a roof antenna, rusting machinery and a couple of rotting rowboats, the place didn't look too much different than the last time. In fact, it had probably looked the same twenty-five