Read Online On the River Styx by Peter Matthiessen - Free Book Online

Traver told himself. The man done give ol’ Traver up. Traver too spry for him.
    The idea restored his confidence a little, and he chuckled without heart. He was still hungry, and he had no idea what his next move should be. Remembering the white man’s face, he did not really believe he had given up the hunt, and this instinct was confirmed, at daybreak. The boat appearedagain, and the white man met it, but he did not come out of the cabin. He stepped into the clearing from the yaupon on the other side. Traver had almost approached that way the night before. The light in the window had only been another trap.
    Traver fought a wild desire to bolt. But he controlled himself, squeezing great fistfuls of earth between his fingers. He watched the hunter walk slowly to the beach and, resting his rifle butt on the silver roots of a hurricane tree, speak to the boatman. They were silent for a time, as if deciding something. Then the hunter shrugged, and shoved the boat from shore. It backed off with a grinding of worn gears. He returned to the cabin and came out of it a minute later. He had a cooked bone, and he pulled long strings of dry meat from it with his teeth. Traver stared at the lean yellow-brown of his face, the wrinkled neck, the faded khaki clothes and high cracked boots against the soft greens of the trees and the red cassina berries. He stared at the bone. The man tossed it out in front of him, then tramped it into the ground and lit a cigarette. Breathing smoke, he leaned against the cabin logs and gazed around the clearing. Traver caught the cigarette scent on the air, and stirred uncomfortably. The man flipped the butt into the air, and together they watched it burn away upon the ground. Then he shouldered the rifle and went back to the woods, and once more Traver followed.
    Who huntin who heah? Traver tried to smile. Who huntin who?
    The fear was deep in him now, like cold. He started at every snap and crackle and cry of bird, sniffing the air for scents, which could tell him nothing. There was only the stench of rotting vegetation, and the rank sweat of his fear.He crept along closer and closer to the ground, terrified lest he lose contact with the hunter. In his heart, he knew there was but one course open to him. He could not leave the island, and he could not be killed. Both prospects were unimaginable. But he could kill.
    Man, you in de swamp now. It you or him, dass all.
    But he could not make himself accept this. He supposed he could kill a black man if he had to, and a white man could kill
him
. But a black man did not kill a white man.
    Man, it doan matter what de color is, it just doan matter now. You in de swamp, and de swamp a different world. Dey ain’t nobody left in dis heah world but you and him, and he figger dass too crowded. When ol’ Lo’d passed out de mens’s hearts, dis heah man hid behind de do’. A man like dis heah man, you let him run where he de law, and he kill you if you black or white or blue. He doan hate you and he doan feel sorry. You just a varmint dat got in de way, dass all.
    But Traver doubted his own sense. Perhaps this man had nothing to hide, perhaps he was hunting legally, perhaps he would do no more than remove Traver from the island, or arrest him—how could he know that this man, given the chance, would shoot him down?
    And yet he knew. He could smell it. He doubted his instinct because he hated what it told him, because he wanted to believe that this man also was afraid, that a man would not shoot another down without first calling out to him to surrender.
    Man, he ain’t called, and he know you heah. He quiet as de grave. And you take it in you haid to call you’self, you fixin to get a bullet fo’ you answer.
    A GAIN THAT MORNING , he was nearly ambushed. This time a rabbit gave the man away. For the first time, Traver lost his nerve entirely. He ran back east along the island and stole out on the marsh, crawling along the dike bank where he had killed the