Read Online Alligator Bayou by Donna Jo Napoli - Free Book Online Page B

Christmas.”
    It’s dusk already, and the treetops look like skeletons, stabbing the gray sky. We pass through a cavern of cypress decorated with moss.
    Rock points at a cypress with a cavelike opening in its trunk just above the water level. “After the rains the entrance to that holler will be underwater. A ’gator will claim it for his den.”
    An owl hoots. Another answers from across the swamp.
    I swat at a fly. It takes off with a little chunk of my flesh.
    “Think that’s bad?” Ben points at the blood on my arm. “Ha! In a couple of months, this air’ll be so black with flies, y’all’ll think it’s night at noontime.” He stands up. “My turn.” He takes the pole from Charles.
    We move slowly through the swamp and everywhere I look, the shadows hold vines that could as easily be snakes. And everything looks the same. There are no landmarks. Or nothing I can make out. I want to ask: how will we know the way back?
    The pole sinks in lower now. This water must be deep enough to hold ’gators. What if they’re under us? What if they come up from underneath and turn us over? I’m sitting in a tight ball in the center of the skiff. I can’t bring my arms in any closer.
    It’s dark now. Ben pulls in his pole and sits down. He strikes a match. The smell of kerosene stings as the lantern glows bright. Instantly the swamp disappears. All that exists is the circle of lantern light.
    “Here.” Ben digs into his pocket and holds out a cigarette butt.
    “That dirty thing?” says Rock.
    “It ain’t dirty.”
    “I saw you pick it up with a lump of horse manure the other night.”
    “I cleaned it off good.”
    “Listen to them,” Charles says to me. “Two cats in a bag.”
    Ben shrugs. “All right, Rock, don’t smoke it, if you that particular.” He lights it with the lantern flame, takes a puff, and passes it.
    We all puff and pass, including Rock, till the butt is too short to hold.
    Ben throws it in the water. Fsst , it’s gone.
    Rock points. “There.”
    Ben stands and holds the lantern high.
    I can see it now. A single, small, shining yellow ball.
    Charles poles us closer.
    The yellow ball has a black vertical slit down the center. An eye.
    Rock moves to the far end of the skiff and waves his arms.
    Don’t! I want to shout. I huddle tighter.
    The yellow ball stays fixed on the lantern light.
    “Good,” says Charles. “This one mine.”
    “It ought to be mine,” says Ben. “By rights and all.”
    “My family got rights, too,” says Charles. “’Cause of Tricia.”
    I don’t know what they’re talking about.
    Charles steps to the center and Ben takes his place at the head, still holding the lantern. The yellow ball follows that lantern as we close in. Charles leans toward me and Cirone. “Be ready to move quick to steady the skiff. It’ll trick you how fast it can flip.”
    I grip the rim of the side hard. Steadying skiffs?
    Charles holds on to the side nearest the ’gator as Rock poles us up beside him.
    That ’gator is still looking at the light. He doesn’t seem to see us at all.
    Charles punches the ’gator in the back of the head.
    I gasp.
    The ’gator bobs a little, but still looks at the light.
    “Pretty small,” says Charles appraisingly. “Mind if we catch only a small one, Mr. Calo-whatever?”
    “No,” I whisper.
    “What you say? Speak up.”
    “I don’t mind.”
    Rock makes a lasso out of the rope and throws it in a big circle onto the surface of the water, with that ’gator eye at the center.
    “Ready?” Charles takes a spear out of his sack. It’s short, and sharp at both ends. He holds it over his head and jumps out of the skiff. Jumps right into the swamp, right onto the ’gator’s back! I can’t believe it! The skiff slaps side to side in the water and I’m clinging to the rim and screaming inside my head. Charles is dead. We’re all dead.
    When I can see him again, he’s got one arm around the ’gator’s neck and Rock’s pulling the lasso