Denise White Parkinson

by Denise White Parkinson

“The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings.” ~ Kate Chopin

“I’m hard to kill.” ~ Jase Le Trip







Chapter 1: The Mute

The number of people mucking out was low at first but grew exponentially. Every day more folks dropped off the map and/or gave themselves up to whatever happened next. According to scientists, the ongoing diaspora was one of many results of mass trauma. These were not missing persons, exactly; they simply did not want to be found.

The mute considered this as she walked a path through a dusty tunnel of goldenrod. Sumac bushes nodded velvety red clusters overhead as memory’s thought-loop proceeded. “Mass trauma affects everyone in slightly different ways,” her former doctor was stating for the umpteenth time. “For example,” the doctor murmured. “We as a society no longer refer to the numerical year due to the mass trauma generated by events associated with a particular time-period. Your speech loss developed during early 20-Umpteen, but it’s likely temporary.”

She’d sought a diagnosis after losing yet another degrading job due to “communication issues.” The position was quickly filled via Artificial Intelligence – apparently A.I. communicated better than she did. Leaving the doctor’s office in a daze, she decided to muck out, cut her losses and avoid any medical follow up. She was done with this game of categories.

As the eviction/inflation crisis deepened, aka the Slumlord Boom, things reached a point where she stuffed her meager belongings into a pack, laced up her well-worn boots, left the room key on the apartment’s only table and took off walking. She did not tell anyone. She would at least avoid being categorized as a burden on society.

The city’s ragged concrete edges gave way to two-lane blacktop, then gravel and eventually dirt roads. The few people she saw appeared phantom-like among the country’s signature brand of debris: boarded-up strip malls, abandoned car lots, piles of rusting refuse, empty grain silos. Miles of identical metal storage units lined the road, filled with belongings of the moneyed set. Chain-link fences sagged, clogged with trash.

Somewhere past the rim of metallic entropy a path suggested itself, pine-needled and skinny, leading into a forest. She had taken the path in the general direction of the river. An inner singsong accented her steps: “Oh, miles and miles of piles and piles, then tunnels through the trees, oh!” Absorbed in a moving daydream, she failed to notice quickening steps approaching from behind.

“Shake a leg!” came a breathless voice as a wiry figure darted past, brushing her backpack. “They’re blowing the bridge, come on,” the runner urged racing down the path. After walking all day, the mute could only trudge. Another bridge demolition – how many did that make so far in this land of rivers?

The trail ended in a clearing where a group of people stood talking. She could smell the river on the breeze and took in deep breaths. The runner from the path glanced over, shaking his head. “I thought you were Artemisia,” he said. A tall woman next to him snorted with laughter. “How could you mistake her for me? She’s just a little cigar-nub of a gal,” to which the runner retorted, “She may be a dang shapeshifter but I ain’t waiting to find out!”

The half dozen or so people made their way to an enormous sycamore tree. A thick knotted rope dangled against its mottled, bumpy trunk. One by one, including a pair of small children, they scrambled up the tree and disappeared into the canopy. “Well, are you a shapeshifter?” asked Artemisia. The mute shook her head. “Then drop your pack on that stump, it’ll be okay there.” The woman grabbed the rope and planted her right boot, a large steel-toed boot. Bracing, she adjusted her canvas britches, squared off and walked slowly up the trunk, grunting. The mute followed in a cold sweat. Heights, like a lot of things, unnerved her.

The others pulled them through an opening onto a wooden platform and the mute dropped to her knees in alarm – there was no railing. The treehouse was a makeshift observation deck of wooden boards lashed to limbs with rope. The runner perched in a branch overhead, peering through binoculars while the kids (twins?) whined for him to let them see.

“Look where I’m pointing,” he said, shushing them. The mute closed her eyes against a wave of dizziness, hunkering as low as she could. The others stood straining to see upriver where a glint of silver marked the bridge a mile away. Their collective gasp was followed seconds later by sonic booms echoing across the bluff.

“I’m heading to the Tinkers,” muttered the runner. The mute opened her eyes to see him launching away on a zipline in a hail of leaves. The group began a slow, silent descent punctuated by whispers from the children. What did he mean by Tinkers – did they blow up the bridge? Back on solid ground she retrieved her pack and instantly the twins were upon her.

“What’s in your backpack? What’s your name?” Rummaging in the knapsack, the mute found a small plastic bag of salted peanuts and offered it to the children. The snack, souvenir of a long-ago trip to a gas station, marked a time before gas and even peanuts grew scarce. Artemisia approached with a tin cup. “Here you go, some spring water – yeah what’s your name?”

The others gathered around as Artemisia read aloud from a scrap of paper: “I have Aphonia and cannot speak. My name is Larkin. I have my I.D. card.” Everyone swooped in leading her to a picnic table on the edge of the clearing. A fish fry commenced, and plates of food began appearing so quickly she had to force herself to slow down, trying to remember when last she ate.

The children raised cups of water as the grownups toasted with wine. “Cheers to Larkin! You’re finally here! We knew you’d make it,” filled her ears. Midway through the meal the sun began to set, and someone brought out a guitar. Larkin’s head drooped lower, coming to rest beside a bowl of soup. The homemade wine (muscadine?) was strong. Soon her soft snores blended with the music.



Chapter 2: The Twins


The dream was a recurring one. Larkin was back at her old media job selling ads to flog the building trades. The dreamscape consisted of a hastily built mansion (engineered stone) set in a gated community. A nearby billboard proclaimed, “Welcome to Vanity Shores.”

The interior of the house showcased the bland decor of a lakeside vacation retreat. Floor-to-ceiling windows framed a waterfront view, but the man-made lake had dwindled to a putrid greenish puddle choked with algae. Suspecting a golf course upstream, Larkin reached to pull the curtains only to have the dream-fabric disintegrate in her hands. “Behold Lake PawPaw,” came a familiar voice she couldn’t quite place. “You cannot unsee it. Or unsmell it.”

It was an advertorial assignment for the magazine cover: “Lake PawPaw, Where the Living is Greener.” In the dream she was saving her publisher’s ass after the diva photographer up and quit. Fumbling with the camera, Larkin struggled in slow motion through mudroom, rumpus room, mancave, chef’s kitchen, exercise room, home office, theater, master suite, guest wing, en suite Jack-and-Jill bath and walk-in shoe closet, every shot godawful. “We’ll photoshop in the lake later!” bawled the disembodied voice of the publisher. The dream dissolved into a generalized sense of shame and Larkin woke blushing.

“She’s up,” the twins yodeled. How long have they been watching? Stretching, Larkin vaguely recalled being led through a moonlit forest and getting tucked into quilts. She was in a wicker structure, a giant basket lined with what looked to be mullein leaves. Peering over the edge, she saw it wasn’t up in a tree but rather at the base of a clump of privet inside a dome of greenery.

The twins pulled her from the nest of quilts. “We helped take off your boots last night,” crowed the boy as they helped her into them, kneeling to tie the shoelaces. “We can do the bunny ears,” lisped the girl.

Something about the girl’s voice struck a note, but Larkin had never met children like these. Their copper-colored hair fell in ringlets, what her granny used to call “sausage curls.” Their rosy freckled cheeks flushed deeper as they took great care tying the laces. Suddenly she knew the girl’s voice, recognized from the quickly fading dream. Only now with a lisp.

“What a ugly houth,” mumbled the girl. The boy jumped to his feet. “Breakfast is cookin’ – come on.” In the clearing the picnic table was already set and Artemisia stood at a Dutch oven waving a spoon. “Good morning! Grab a basket and fetch me some eggs.” The twins steered Larkin down a side-path to another wicker structure, a chicken coop. They filled the basket and returned in triumph. Artemisia cracked eggs into an iron skillet. “I hope you like frittata, Larkin. A double-yolker, now that’s a good sign!”

And so began a muckrat rhythm the mute fell into gladly. She found that everyone from the day before lived in and around the camp. They all stayed busy because there was a lot to do. The forested bluff was picked clean of fallen limbs to keep the cookfire going. There was a solar oven too. Some of the log piles were inoculated with mushrooms – shiitake logs, where grow the pride and joy of muckrat cuisine.

Mornings she and the twins helped Artemisia with breakfast, afterwards hauling water from a sand-boil spring in the woods. An iron cylinder set into the ground made a well of sorts. All you had to do was raise the heavy lid and dip your jug into sparkling cold water, so clear it was invisible. At the base of the water column a finger of golden sand danced and spiraled. Larkin liked fetching water, feeling her muscles in use. For the first time her muteness became a non-issue.

She roamed the bluff with the twins, forest and thicket and clearing. Everywhere they went birds sang and squirrels fussed. Summertime brought herbs in profusion and a variety of berries and mushrooms. Muckrats hunt and fish but also forage for food and medicine. A different kind of foraging was practiced at Tinker Camp. They scouted dump sites for items to repurpose. Bicycle parts, broken machines, old tools – whatever could be re-used, they gleaned. The Tinkers set the iron cylinder into the spring. Awhile back they built a small bladeless wind turbine using metal scooter parts and odds and ends. Based on a baffle design by Leonardo DaVinci, it powers the only radio for miles.

The runner was called Jerry; he visited the Tinkers often. Ranging far and wide scavenging, Tinkers carry the latest gossip. And ever since the Electroplasma Storms of 20-Umpty-Aught, anything hitched to the grid is less dependable than ever. Gossip remains dependable.

Larkin listened to conversations flow as she learned to weave baskets from grasses, grapevine and willow. She listened while washing or sewing with Artemisia and formed a concept of muckrat existence, at least the small group at this place called Connector Camp.

It was named for a network of ziplines strung from tall trees on the bluff. For those brave enough to use them, the lines offered shortcuts to other camps up-and-downriver. Supplies flowed in and out of Connector Camp along with updates on Yonder, a generic term for cities and towns. Yonder takes money to live in but the main muckrat currency has always been trade and barter. As the saying goes, “Can’t tax barter.”

Besides Artemisia and Jerry, there were a couple of couples: DaveyNJosh, a pair of gentle giant musicians with salt-and-pepper dreadlocks, and JinnyNMark. Larkin guessed JinnyNMark to be high school sweethearts the way they mooned over each other.

The twins were a mystery. They went by lots of pet names: Twinlings, Boo-Boos, Young’uns. Larkin wondered who their parents were but shied away from writing a question to Artemisia. Children (especially a set of twins) were a touchy subject after the Infertility Epidemic of 20-Aughtyleven.

Some evenings the folks of Connector Camp gathered along the bluff to watch what they called the Light Show. Whoever spotted the sky lights first would bang the gong, bringing everyone running. Were the red spiderwebby ones with purple rings called “sprites” and if so, what the heck is a sprite? Are the yellow and green streaks aurora borealis? They wondered, slapping occasional mosquitoes. Is that a mushroom cloud without the shockwave, or what? The debate over possible causes of the phenomena went on for hours under a mad psychedelic sky.

During lunch one day Jerry returned to the subject of the destroyed bridge. “After that last demo there’s maybe three bridges left over the Old Man,” he declared. Artemisia gasped, “You mean from here to the Gulf, that’s all that’s left?”

“According to the Tinkers, yep. And whoever’s got the salvage job on these bridges nobody will say. It may be time for us to think about heading downriver. We’ve been here too long anyway.”

“Somebody’s collecting a debt or paying off on a favor,” observed Mark. “Prolly both,” said Davey. “That steel was made the old way, during the Before Time. It’s stronger.” The talk turned to the tragedy of infrastructure neglect and the scourge of saboteurs. “Such is the way of Entropy,” sighed Jinny as the muckrats nodded sadly.

As if on cue the twins launched into song: “My country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of entropy –” but fell silent when Jinny glared at them. The twins whispered together, laughing. They’d wolfed down their lunch already. Larkin ate slowly, savoring the barbecue provided by nearby Pit Boss Camp. A dozen baskets had gone in exchange for the ‘que and Larkin took pride in her small part in the trade. “What’s so funny, Twinsters? Yeah, tell us the joke,” said DaveyNJosh.

“Larkin’s joined the Roadkill Gang and don’t even know it,” the boy blurted as the girl burst into giggles. The adults chewed silently, staring everywhere but Larkin’s direction. She leaned over and tugged Artemisia’s sleeve in a questioning way and Artemisia sighed. “Yep, we should’ve told you about the Pit Bosses. They barbecue anything they can get their oven mitts on, and I mean anything. Except people, of course. This here’s raccoon with maybe some possum thrown in. They do have a talent for barbecuing wild pig, though, when they can get ‘em.”

“Thanks to the Pit Crew we don’t have to worry about packs of wild dogs,” Jerry grinned, licking sauce from his fingers. The twins rushed to Larkin’s side, rubbing her arms, patting her back, apologizing for spoiling her meal. Finally, she smiled. “I’m Windy,” whispered the girl. “Windy with an ‘I’ – and my brother Thephyr.”

The boy added, “That’s Zephyr with a ‘Z’.” They petted Larkin’s hair. It was nice being the twins’ toy.



Chapter 3: Weather


A rainy spell broke the heat. It was a rain without wind, thunder or lightning, and the forest shimmered. The privet nest was abandoned as the twins slept in Artemisia’s little hut. Everyone huddled under tarps strung round the clearing or went indoors noting good sleeping weather. Snores drifted over the bluff, blurring with the song of frogs. Clouds descended cloaking everything in a fine opaque mist.

Larkin admired the converted school bus where DaveyNJosh lived. Hidden in the woods and painted camo, it once belonged to a deer camp. There was a lean-to shack where JinnyNMark stayed, and Jerry alternated between treehouses. Larkin set up a pup tent on some moss shaded by a big oak, grateful for this gentle rain. Weather of all kinds frightened her when she lived in the city, cowering in the box-like apartment. Here there were rain barrels and every bucket and washtub set out to collect precious water.

While the twins were taking a rare nap Larkin slipped a note to Artemisia asking about them. Artemisia replied, “I don’t like to talk about folks or about past things and such, but this is different. Let’s have us a chinwag.” The two were keeping dry under a tarp shelling pecans and Artemisia began:

“The twins just showed up one day. In the Spring a while before you came. It was laundry day, and I was in the clearing at the washtub when two little kids come skipping up the trail. It was such a surprise I hollered, where’d y’all come from?”

The pair ran right up to her, not the least bit shy and not acting lost. They said they wanted to play the washing game, too.

“You can play the washing game if you tell me where you came from,” Artemisia replied, studying their embroidered tunics of an unfamiliar weave. Their moccasins looked like dance slippers.

“We got here quick as we could,” the girl panted. “We had to find where that humming came from—”
“No, no,” the boy interrupted. “She means where WE came from. Before, silly! Let me tell.”

The girl took a deep breath. “We were with the Flotilla and came here quick as we could. They let us off up the trail and we ran the rest of the way.” The boy stomped his foot in frustration.

Artemisia suggested they both looked thirsty and needed a drink. As the children downed cup after cup of spring water she invited them to pull up around the tub. “We can play the washing game and swap stories at the same time – now flip that bucket over and take a seat.” After an hour of interruptions and splash fighting, the clothes hung on the line and Artemisia was certain of one thing: The twins were not from here.

“They’re not shape-shifters or gubmint agents. They say their names are Windy and Zephyr, they have no parents and they’re here because they can go through anything.” Larkin pondered this detail as Artemisia shrugged. “Yep. Exact words: ‘We got picked to come here because we can go through anything.’ They say their home-place is called Neutrinia but whenever we ask ‘em about it they just laugh and make like it’s a secret. So, your guess is as good as mine.”

Before Larkin could hazard a guess, the twins woke from their nap. What in the world, or out of the world, did it mean? Artemisia inspired a sense of awe. A skillful manager, diplomat, and instigator, she herded the children around camp turning chores into games, patiently answering questions. But Artemisia was not their mother. Larkin began to remember her own mother and stopped quickly. Her mother had been nothing like Artemisia.

Artemisia, examining a leaf: “Yessirree, that’s a Mockernut Hickory. Remember where it’s at and we can get some nuts in the fall.” Sometimes she would let out a Tarzan yell or random ululation. “Who can find the finest chanterelles today? Who’ll win the prize?”

“Me, me, MEEE,” sang the twins, and Larkin ran to keep up as they plunged into the woods, baskets swinging. Larkin was their toy and playmate but also a sort of rustic nanny. “An au pair of aces,” murmured the inward voice, lisping a little.

She went about her chores in contentment, unquestioning. Living in the moment took all her time. Remembering to breathe required constant attention. Standing on the green bluff overlooking the river bend far below, Larkin shed tears at the depleted scene. For the umpteenth year the once-mighty river was barely a trickle. Abandoned barges lay half-buried in the mud, picked clean of their cargo. Ragged stobs poked up beside stretches of quicksand. But she came often to the river to make vague soundless prayers among the trees.

Chapter 4: The Moon


On a warm autumn night Larkin woke to humming in her ears and the full moon in her eyes. A beam was bearing down like the headlight of a freight train, only trains didn’t run anymore. She slid over the side of the nest, careful not to wake the twins. Leaves carpeted the ground, shiny as coins. The fragrance of some night-blooming flower hung in the still air. Too still – no cicadas buzzing, no crickets chirping.

The humming sound faded as she padded barefoot to the oak tree. Curling on the moss like a cat, the moment her head touched the green pillow there it was again: Hummm. It broke off for an instant of silence then started up, a gentle yet slightly menacing throb in the throat of the earth. Some faraway machine?

Larkin sat up and leaned against the oak. Putting her ear to the tree, she detected no sound. The bright moon made shadows on the bark, zigzags of white and black tattooing a vivid pattern upon the skin of the tree, its rough gray trunk. In the dark, trees become elephants, why not? Ganesh the benevolent elephant, remover of obstacles. She stared as the bark pattern settled into lines of runic script carved by moonlight. The shadowy letters grew clear: “Live and Let Live.” Was she in a dream?

“Ah-HA! We thought so,” cried Zephyr. Larkin turned to find the twins yawning nearby. “Wake up the muckrats – she can read trees!” Windy squealed, running to clang the gong. Artemisia emerged from the hut, braids swinging like a backwoods Valkyrie. “What’s wrong? Here, gimme that stick, you’ll wake the dead!” The others arrived groggy and muttering.

“Pajama party,” sang the twins while Artemisia re-lit the fire and put on a pot of chicory. “Why does it have to be in the middle of the night,” groaned Davey, to which the twins replied, “Y’all promised!”

Jerry stood at the head of the picnic table and when everyone had taken a seat, he began: “Back in the spring, Larkin, we promised to give Windy and Zephyr a chance to show us something. They say they came here to show us a way through whatever is fixing to happen, what they call Something Big.” He paused and Davey intoned, “Hear, hear.”

“First, they asked us to collect seeds,” Jerry continued. “It got our attention since we’ve been doing that along with Seed-Swapper Camp. Then they asked us to calculate an equilateral triangle on a map according to some specifications they provided. Which we did (thanks for working that out, JinnyNMark, hopefully we learn why tonight)—” at this Jinny piped up, “That’d be nice!”

Jerry went on, “The twins predicted you’d come, Larkin. Well, here you are. They even said your name would sound like a bird. I guess we’re gathered here for the latest news from Neutrinia. Let’s sip our coffee – thanks, Artemisia – and open our ears. Kids, you got the floor.”

Larkin noted the expressions of the grownups gathered resignedly around the table, by turns sleepy, blank-faced or bemused, lit by a few candles and the moon. The twins whispered and giggled. The children were fun, they could be enchanting and annoying and downright eerie but did the others take them so seriously?

“I go,” said Windy. She climbed onto the table and stood arms akimbo, eyes flashing at the grownups. “We made it to where Larkin can thay yeth or no.”

“By nodding or shaking her head,” added Zephyr. “Right,” Windy continued. “We found out tonight Larkin can read tree language! We can prove Larkin can find the Door before the Big Thing happens. The doorway out!”

“And in,” Zephyr added.

“Right. And we got to get through the door before – well, we got to.”

“So, you’re saying Larkin is the key to this door?” Jerry asked. “Right, the key!” nodded Windy. “Ready, Zeph?” The boy stood up beside and the others realized the questions were memorized. Of course – the twins were still learning their written alphabet.

“Question number one,” chorused the twins, crossing their hearts in unison. “Did you lose the one you love?” Larkin looked at the ground and nodded.

“Was it your son who died?” Larkin nodded.

“Did you anoint his head, hands, and feet before he died? [Yes] Was the balm of myrrh and frankincense, golden beeswax and herbs? [Yes].” Their audience swiveled back and forth at the volley of questions, coffee cups stalled in midair.

“Did you forage the herbs on hands and knees, praying? [Yes] and was his body unmarked, no tattoos or piercings? [Yes]—”

Artemisia let out a low whistle as a cloud obscured the moon. The twins took deep breaths and plunged on:

“Did you see Jacob’s Ladder in the sky? [Yes] Did flocks of birds dash themselves to death against his window? [Yes] And was his name a triple name? A name with a triple meaning?”

Larkin rose, moving away from the table. “Circle ‘round!” Jerry cried and instantly she was surrounded. The twins continued inexorable as the humming had been:

“Was his death caused by betrayal? During an eclipse of the full moon?” Larkin trembled, spinning around inside the ring of faces. Opening her mouth as if to speak she folded like a piece of paper and collapsed to the ground. “Get her to the hammock,” gasped Jerry. “She forgot to breathe. I was watching – she forgot to breathe and passed out.”

When Larkin came to in the hammock the moon was still blaring through the trees. Around the firepit the others sat in conversation. She stared at the glowing circle and listened, storing their words in her heart.

“It’s happening all right,” Jerry was saying. “The First Peoples are on the move already. They’re coming from all directions to converge on the Great Plains, on the ceremonial dancing ground.”

“And then what?” somebody asked.

“Dancing! The likes of which this world has never seen. A dance that combines all the old ones plus some new moves. They’ll take turns to keep going 24/7 until the portal opens.”

“Where do we go? Can we open a portal?”

“You downstreamers need help getting to your portal,” Zephyr piped up. “It’s a muckrat portal so it’s hidden, but we’ll find it. Lucky for y’all Garlotta’s on our side.” Windy said, “Garlotta’s up to something. That’s her humming, you know.”

Wondering who Garlotta could be, Larkin soon drifted off to sleep again.



Chapter 5: The Portal


Golden yancopin flowers, a species of lotus, grow here afloat with their green lily pads. Yancopin also blooms underwater, yellow petals submerged reaching for the surface. According to custom, Yancopin blossoms are placed (along with mussel shells) on the graves of river people. Lotus of compassion, filtering light as in a tea bath, appearing and becoming. Your scent is pure feeling.

The musical dream-voice subsided even as Larkin could see a yellow flower waving from the shallows, glowing underwater. It recalled the yellow light around her son’s head, a glow that appeared around him whenever she visited him in prison. An infamous Delta prison: Tucker Unit, home of the Tucker Telephone. He’d seen one of these torture apparatus in a barn he was sent to clean.

He was consigned to prison for using his house key to visit his girl, a stripper with a new (unbeknownst to him) boyfriend. As the boyfriend was a local narc, the pair set the law on her son for coming over to cry about his dog that died. Rest in peace, Biggie the pit bull, feral from the get-go.

Strolling into the visiting room in a clean set of prison whites that set off his bronze skin, her son stood tall filling the doorway. His blond curls were cropped short, sun-streaked from long days in the fields working the hoe squad. The prison was after all a farm that depended on slave labor. There in her mind’s eye he stood flashing his brilliant smile, putting on a brave face.

“When I was getting processed,” he chuckled, “there was this cool old lady from the Delta who checked me in. She’s all feisty and goes, ‘Why you be in here for B&E? For B&E? That ain’t shit!’”

They sat shyly on folding chairs amid the noise of the gymnasium-sized room echoing with visitors and inmates. She bought ice cream from a snack vendor. “I like it, even though I can’t taste it,” he sighed. His sense of smell and taste disappeared the day he jumped from a moving car and landed on his head in a failed attempt to escape a bounty hunter. When Larkin found out what happened, she went on a mission to rescue him from the town where he’d been living. It was a shitass town.

They went from hospital to hospital, eventually driving across the state while he moaned in the passenger seat. Every place they tried turned them away for various non-reasons. One hospital accused them of being a pair of drug dealers, conning doctors out of painkillers. The head nurse called security before kicking them out.

Nobody looked at the brain scans or read the paperwork Larkin waved before countless averted eyes. No one explained anything, despite Larkin’s efforts at being a “patient advocate.” The medical folks did not seem to believe Larkin was his mother. She couldn’t help it that the two of them looked more like siblings. She was still somewhat young, and he was just so tall…

“It worries me that I can’t smell smoke,” her son was saying for the umpteenth time. His father having died in a fire, thoughts of such a horror persisted. Suddenly the memory-dream rippled and jerked. A large boom shook the prison and everyone in the visiting area stopped talking. The lights winked out and for a timeless moment the windowless room went pitch dark, silent as a cave.

Light returned as a backup generator came on and the crowd exhaled. Apparently, a summer storm was brewing over the detention complex. The voices around them grew indignant – the forecast said clear skies, not storms! In the dim amber light her son caught her eye and they laughed.

This is a dream, she told herself. My son is gone on. He’s restored to wholeness for all eternity and recovered all his senses and then some. He’s together now with his father, like he always wanted. They’re both safe from this world of saboteurs.

She recalled escaping from her son’s wealthy, politically connected family that terrified her. Upon learning Larkin was pregnant, the parents went stone-cold. They threatened to deny their son access to his own grandmother, the person in the family he loved most, if he married Larkin. His family refused to be seen with anyone from the wrong side of the levee, especially the one bearing the first grandchild. After a while Larkin just up and ran away.

She went as far north as she could go, taking the child with her. The first family member to label her son a bastard being none other than her own mother, Larkin resolved to stay away. She made a home in an alien sphere, working in her son’s preschool in upstate New York.

The following summer Larkin allowed him to stay with his father down South. She harbored a slim hope she might be invited to join them but as summer ended her son returned. Then came a phone call saying his father’s house burned down in the middle of the night. It was not actually a house per se, but a trailer, the kind that burn fast. His parents having cut him off financially, it was all he could afford. He died in the fire.

When Larkin and her son arrived heartsick to attend the (closed casket) funeral, the father’s family launched proceedings, eventually taking the child. They were well connected while Larkin was for all intents and purposes an orphan. After they installed the boy in a faraway boarding school, Larkin’s hair fell out in a sort of bodily protest.

In her heart she knew she was meant to run away; if she hadn’t, all three of them could’ve died in that fire. She saved her son from one fate but not from his own. Could anyone ever be saved? Awed, Larkin felt an inner tremor and heightened senses, as during the long-ago pregnancy when she was “eating for two.” But she was not pregnant and never would be again; the Infertility Epidemic had seen to that. Is my soul queasy? Am I feeling for two? She wanted out of this dream but could not wake up.

The prison’s visiting area was changing, transforming to a much smaller dream-space: a tiny room with a windowed wall. They were in a hospital on an upper floor overlooking flat rooftops and a jumble of buildings. The nurse was out of the room, so Larkin quickly turned to the motionless figure in the bed, rubbing salve on her son’s face and scalp, hands and arms, feet and legs. Intubated and heavily sedated, his skin nevertheless glowed with health while electronic machinery beeped nonstop, measuring the inner workings.

The nurses did not want Larkin putting salve on the patient, especially herbal beeswax balm she made at home. They objected sternly, saying it was not sterile. His skin won’t be ashy on my watch, Larkin decided. Opening a fresh jar, she bent over the hospital bed that was too small for her son’s 6’3” frame and massaged fragrant balm over his feet, tears streaming down her contorted face.

Holding his foot in her hand, the high arch so graceful, on impulse she leaned down and pressed the sole to her forehead. Larkin was unaware of performing an ancient ritual. The old Hindu sky-god Indra did the same thing, loving the lotus feet of Vishnu. But Larkin didn’t know this because she had not read the Upanishads…

“I can’t do it,” wailed a despairing voice and Larkin woke up. The muckrats were standing around the hammock and the sun was up. “I can’t, I can’t!” the wail went on rising to a shriek. Windy was having some sort of meltdown. Artemisia gathered the child in her arms and carried her to a rocking chair. Larkin clumsily climbed from the hammock while the others attempted to fill her in.

As the muckrats clamored insensibly, Larkin looked down at her hands. They were covered in ink. As she realized this a pen dropped from her left hand. Jerry retrieved it and offered it to a puzzled Larkin, an old souvenir ink pen with a faded logo, “Jasper Engines & Transmissions.”

“What’s all over you?” Jerry asked. “Been doing some automatic writing?” Larkin shrugged, rolling up her sleeves to reveal both hands and wrists covered in scribbles. Everyone gathered round the table and Jerry read while Jinny jotted the lines on a scrap of cardboard, forming verses:

Mend the net Indra sends downriver
Weave it with jewels to catch Her eye
Cast when the Sun crests the midday sky
As the Bird flies follow the way
Twin spires frame the Lotus Door
Eclipse of the Sun meets a Comet this day.

Everyone was quiet until Davey said, “Guidance comes in visions and symbols, in dreams and signs. Words can be a source of misunderstanding. But poetry is more than words.”

“Amen, brother,” murmured Josh.

“Y’all, we got an upset child over here,” Artemisia hollered. “Let’s stop all the hoodoo and have something to eat. We can think better on a full stomach!”

Larkin gave thanks for the umpteenth time for Artemisia’s nail-gun timing.




Chapter 6: The Message


Over a hasty breakfast the muckrats came up with a plan to solve the mystery at hand using a team-effort approach. What with Larkin’s tendency to fall over like a fainting goat and Windy’s sudden tantrum, they sought a middle way forward. After rocking Windy to sleep and tucking her in at the hut Artemisia returned asking what next?

Zephyr offered to do the mind-reading, explaining modestly that he was better at it but let Windy go first out of politeness. “Ladies first,” he grinned. The others stood in a circle around them as Zephyr took Larkin’s ink-stained hand in his pudgy, grubby one. For safety’s sake the two sat cross-legged on the grass.

“Let’s start with something nice,” Zephyr began. “How about: what’s the best thing your son ever told you?” Immediately Larkin smiled. Zephyr shook his head. “I love you is always good, but these words are more like…” he faltered. “What do you call it when somebody gives you a helpful tip you use every day?”

The muckrats called out suggestions. “Password? Advice, mottos? Fables, morals?” Zephyr replied, “Sort of like advice or a motto, I guess.” Artemisia said, “Recipes?” and Jerry added, “A mantra – is it a mantra?”

Immediately Larkin understood the question and Zephyr relayed her silent message: “Larkin’s saying her son taught her how to stay strong. He said always remember to strengthen your core.” Zephyr patted his middle. “So, every day she repeats to herself: ‘This is an opportunity to strengthen my core.’ Those are his exact words, she says.”

“Your son must be a wounded healer,” Jerry said excitedly. “Let’s all do this. We can start –” Jinny’s sudden hoots of laughter interrupted.

“I cannot believe you people,” she sneered. “First you had us plot a map to nowhere, with no explanation, and now you want a group mantra?” Artemisia stamped her foot. “Jinny! We all get how things are weird these days. It’s the endtimes. And Entropy too, of course.”

“I don’t fucking see how a tight core is a plan for the endtimes!” Jinny screamed. Instantly Zephyr reared up, tucked his chin and ran forward, head-butting her in the stomach. She doubled over gasping as the shocked muckrats froze. “Zeph! Don’t you ever—” began Jerry angrily but the boy bellowed, “She asked for it!”

Mark helped Jinny to a bench. “Things are definitely weird,” Davey said. “Weirder than the Sinkhole Swarms of 20-Aughty-Aught,” added Josh. Artemisia launched into a passionate appeal for breaking out the “medicinal” elderberry wine and in the ensuing chaos of finding clean cups Jinny moved, sneaking into the woods. Larkin saw and grabbed Jerry’s sleeve, tugging urgently. “Something’s up,” Jerry said as they took off in pursuit.

The muckrats reached the shack to find Jinny rushing frantically in and out of the doorway with a box of matches, lighting them one by one. The humidity had gotten to them so that each time the flame sizzled out Jinny shrieked louder. Jerry shouldered her away, ducked inside and retrieved the undamaged map. Rolling it up, he muttered, “Good day. See y’all at supper.” The others followed him back to the clearing as Jinny sobbed against Mark’s shoulder.

By the time Connector Camp assembled that evening, Jerry was late returning from the Tinkers and JinnyNMark were no-shows. The beans, cornbread and greens were a somber affair despite Artemisia encouraging everyone to eat up. “Soul food is what we need,” she pleaded. Windy, somewhat recovered, was first to notice Jerry coming down the trail with one of the Tinkers. The two silently grabbed plates and joined the table. “Where’s JinnyNMark?” Jerry asked.

“She’s gone!” called Mark, soon visible coming through the trees. He staggered into the clearing and collapsed onto a bench. He had a black eye.

Mark recounted how Jinny began packing to leave and when he begged her to stay, she coldcocked him. “She said she’ll be damned if she’s going to listen to our mumbo-jumbo and be slave to a pair of shape-shifting brats. I think she took off toward Yonder.” At this, Jerry’s companion, a Tinker known as Dub, set down his cup. “That may be. That may be, son. But word’s out on Miz Jinny. Some folks you got to feed with a long-handled spoon.”

Larkin wondered what the Tinker was talking about until Artemisia sang out mournfully, “Who would ever o’thought? Jinny a gubmint agent!” As the news sank in, Jerry jumped to his feet. “Where’s the message? Did she take it with her?”

Windy rose. And then she kept rising as the muckrats gaped in astonishment. “So, Miz Jinny says we’re shape-shifting brats, does she?” Windy called, levitating over the beans and cornbread. The lisp had disappeared. Zephyr ducked under the table hollering, “Take cover! She’s goin’ all in!”

Larkin watched in awe as Windy stretched, growing tall and majestic before their eyes. Her curls turned a deep shiny auburn, spiraling in flowing locks past her muscular shoulders. Everyone craned their necks as she towered over them. The tunic and long johns she wore when the transformation began were stretched beyond the limits of woven flax. “Lord love a duck,” whispered the Tinker.

“What do you think children are besides shapeshifters?” Windy cried. “Changing and growing all the time, especially in our sleep. Every time you lay eyes on a child, we change like a flower changes. Fools!”

Now that Windy held their undivided attention she calmed down. Gesturing for folks to come in for a group hug, she sighed. “Let’s get some rest and meet first thing in the morning. There’s no need to worry about Jinny and we still have time to find the Door.” With that, she bid good night to the bewildered muckrats and retired to the nest. Zephyr followed Artemisia to the hut and the rest of Connector Camp slunk off to sleep fitfully, if at all.




Chapter 7: The Sign


One of the best places on the bluff for solitary meditation was a holly grove encircling an outhouse some distance from the main clearing. The water closet’s sturdy roof included an overhang to shield from rain because the frontage, doorless by design, was open to the view. From this elevation a solitary meditator, hidden in the holly, could see across the river over miles of forest here and there slashed with bald patches.

Watching the sun rise, Larkin noticed the trees – whether from drought or change of season – were beginning to turn color. Sprinkles of yellow dotted the green canopy. Far above a hawk circled soundlessly. Then the gong began to clang so she hurried back to camp, on the way remembering to tighten her core.

She arrived to find a crowd of strange muckrats milling about. They all wore camo and carried intricately carved walking sticks. The tips were pointed like javelins – these walking sticks doubled as spears. Artemisia came over and took her arm. “Larkin, meet my cousin Snuffy. He’s here with the Pit Boss crew. They brung us some bacon.” Artemisia chuckled, “We nicknamed him Snuffy back when he was just a little critter with a runny nose.” Larkin nodded at Snuffy. His braided beard made her smile. “I’m afraid we are meeting under a cloud,” he said softly. Larkin looked up – the sky was clear.

DaveyNJosh arrived with the guitar. “Let’s start the day with some breakfast music,” they urged. Soon the walking sticks were stacked to one side and the sound of strumming and smell of bacon wafted through the clearing. The Pit Bosses stood talking with Jerry and the Tinker. Waving Zephyr over, Jerry asked, “Would you please wake your sister? I’m a little scared to myself. Everybody needs to hear what they came to say.”

“Good morning glories!” Windy sang, sweeping into the clearing. “What’s all this, a party for little ol’ me?” She’d fashioned a sort of wrap-dress toga from a chenille bedspread and the Pit Bosses bowed in silent awe. After greeting Larkin and Artemisia, Windy strolled over and mussed Zephyr’s hair. “Why don’t you stretch out and join me,” she laughed. “The weather’s fine up here.”

“No way, Sis,” Zephyr retorted. “I like being a kid. It’s fun to be small!” Jerry was clearing his throat trying to get everyone’s attention when Dub gave a loud whistle that quieted things down. “What’s the news?” sighed Josh, setting aside the guitar. Jerry slowly replied, “I don’t know which is worse, to hear it on an empty stomach or a full one.” Snuffy stepped forward. “Let me then,” he said. “I found her.”

“Found who?” Mark stammered. Snuffy took off his cap and held it as the rest of the Pit Boss crew did likewise. He handed Mark a strand of plastic beads. “Jinny’s ankle bracelet,” Mark said. “Where’d you get it?” Jerry motioned for Mark to sit beside him.

“We’s trackin’ wild hogs through the old quarry,” Snuffy said. “It got dark, and we’re about to pitch camp when there’s a commotion up the trail. We got there too late to save your gal. She put up a fight, but it was razorbacks. We covered her with branches and got here quick as we could.”

Mark hung his head as everyone murmured sorrowfully. Then he stood, no longer shaky. “How many shovels we have around here? I’m giving her a proper burial.” The muckrats swung into action. As they marched out of camp carrying an assortment of pickaxes, hoes and shovels, Snuffy handed Artemisia the piece of cardboard. There was a splotch of dried blood on it.

“Jerry wants you to stash this message and for y’all to stay with the twins ‘til we get back. Thanks for the oatmeal.” He gave a stiff bow and left.

Windy snatched the cardboard and turned to study it. “Is there any more bacon?” she asked. “Let’s figure out the message before they return.”

“First you’re gonna explain why you said we didn’t have to worry about Jinny,” Artemisia burst out. “Did you know she was going to – well what do you have to say for yourself?”

Windy motioned for them to gather round the table. “When I said that last night, all I knew for sure is that she was exposed as a traitor. Right now there’s a lot of Biblical, legion-type stuff going on towards Yonder – which explains the herd of possessed swine.” To which Zephyr added, “But there’s miracles going on, too!”

“Right,” said Windy. “All the metaphors are becoming real now that the floodgates are open. Zephyr can fill you in, I haven’t got the patience. Something about archetypal return. There’s a quantum equation –” Zephyr interrupted with a blast of cryptic lingo and Artemisia clapped her hands to her ears. “Never mind! You two would try the patience of a saint. Let’s play a game instead. Let’s see who can be first to puzzle out this message.”

When the crew returned from their grim task the message was decoded, wine uncorked and meal ready: shepherd’s pie. The famished muckrats made short work of it, praising the chefs. After folks got settled and Dub lit his pipe, Jerry called for a chinwag. “We hear y’all might have it all figured out?”

“Yessir, sort of,” a suddenly shy Windy answered. “Hold on, wait a sec,” Jerry interrupted. “Listen: anyone hearing my voice, tell us right now how we know we can trust you.” Larkin jumped as the muckrats chanted, “All drought ends in flood!” and Artemisia responded, “Yep that’s the password. Go ahead, Windy.”

Windy resumed, “The message is a list of instructions that depend on an astronomical event. For the timing, I mean. The line about an eclipse of the sun meets a comet on the same day. We need an astronomer.”
“You got a Tinker instead,” said Dub, reaching in his pocket and handing something to Windy. The crowd sighed at such a treasure, an antique brass spyglass. “It’s retractable, see? Look through this tonight after sunset and you’ll see that comet. We been tracking it awhile now.”

Windy handed the telescope back to Dub. “This is something. But if you’ve seen the comet, then it’s time to go. That eclipse could come any moment. How long does it take to get downriver? To the trinity – to Rivers End?”

Jerry shifted nervously. “If you’re talking about the confluence where the Old Man meets up with the Arkansas River and the White River, it depends on the flow. It’s a hundred miles southward as the crow flies, but –”

Windy snapped, “No buts! It’s bug out time. Larkin, Artemisia – help me pack the seeds!”




Chapter 8: The Map


The muckrats stoically set about breaking down Connector Camp. Amid sorting gear and bundling tools, Artemisia shed a tear freeing the small flock of chickens. They would have to fend for themselves. Windy was in an uproar over packing the seeds. It being a heavy mast year the acorns were plentiful, and she wanted as many as could be carried. “They’re our calling card,” she insisted. “We’re going to plant, not lay waste!”

Zephyr explained the message’s instructions while Windy, Larkin and Artemisia began attacking the storage lockers. The main thing was to assemble tomorrow on the riverbed at the bend below the bluff. “Before noon,” Zephyr repeated.

“How the heck is a net supposed to get sent down the river?” Dub kept asking. “There’s barely any current and no rain coming anytime soon.” Jerry reminded them great risk calls for trust and besides, what if Jinny had already reported their location? “This space is too hot. Be on the lookout for surveillance drones. How many of your folks you think will come?”

Dub and Snuffy shrugged as they studied the map. Zephyr pointed to the upside-down triangle drawn over the Delta, its tip marking a spot near Rivers End. “See, this is where the mussel beds are. Garlotta was born here, and she wants to go back. But because she knows she can’t go back, the way to go is through.”

Dub began grumbling about “Garlotta the mystery gal,” and Zephyr said patiently, “I don’t know what you call her, but where we come from she’s just River Granny. Larkin heard Garlotta in a dream. That’s how we figured out the portal is a Lotus Door at a place called Yancopin.”

“Yancopin – like the water lily?” asked Snuffy. Staring at the map, he whistled. “Yancopin used to be a town near Rivers End, but it’s been abandoned since way before 20-Umpteen. I hear there ain’t nothing left there but an old cypress houseboat. Used to be a saloon until it became the Yancopin Post Office, hah! Maybe this map is pointing to the Yancopin train bridge. It crosses the bottomlands down there. It’s so dang big they ain’t blown it up yet.”

Jerry said, “Then spread the word and get back here tomorrow as early as you can. At least now you know where we’re headed.” Dub and Snuffy shook his hand, vowing to do their best. Dub took off walking to Tinker Camp while Snuffy and the Pit Crew headed for the zipline. On the way they passed Larkin busily filling drawstring bags with acorns. Snuffy paused and reached in his pocket.

“Here, ‘til we meet again. For luck.” Larkin waved goodbye and turned to examine the smooth stone, cool against her palm. She recognized the green and white agate as Ocean Jasper, also called Rain-stone.
Windy parked the wheelbarrow filled with buckeyes, hickory and walnuts and sat down heavily. “Please, Larkin,” she pleaded. “Zephyr and I apologize for spying on your thoughts. We had to find things out and we couldn’t tell you beforehand because it would confuse your reality. I hope you understand.” Larkin shrugged. Big Windy was quite an adjustment, after all.

“From now on let’s be partners and share our thoughts,” she gushed. “Now that I grew up some, I’m ready to learn more about your son. He’s supposed to help us get to the portal, y’know. I bet you’re proud of him.” Larkin froze.

She tried to concentrate on the acorns in her hand, but it was no use against the flow of memory. “Mom, I have a splendid idea,” her son was saying, beaming up at her. He was very small. “When I grow up, I want to be an Invincible Squirrel.” The scene shifted and she was tucking him in, singing the song her granny used to sing, “You are my Sunshine.” Snuggled against her shoulder he murmured, “I want to be your moonbeam too.”

Her son’s changing face flashed before her, a sadness in his eyes growing along with him. The years of separation and what they wrought. His visits home from the fortress-like boarding school found her drinking and numbing herself, searching for someone, anyone to rescue them. He traveled the globe with his father’s family even as Larkin moved from job to job and rental to rental, each apartment shabbier than the one before.

He always brought home gifts. Once he brought a chocolate croissant from Paris, cradling it wrapped in waxed paper all throughout the transatlantic journey. It was the best pastry she ever tasted. Their communication faltered until they began to communicate around a mutual love of music. He was a born song-and-dance man as well as a poet, after all…

Larkin dropped the bag of nuts, shuddering with exhaustion. “Let me tuck you in,” Windy cried. “It’s your turn to get tucked in.” Embracing Larkin, she lifted and carried her to the nest.



Chapter 9: Dreaming


No sacrifice goes unseen, children. Especially the sacrifice of a Forever Young’un. They’re the ones to watch out for, the real beauties. Forever Young’uns attract love unknowingly, effortlessly. More tears are shed when they depart than for all the dead Kings and Queens. Untimely departure, that’s their seal of fate. But it’s the Forever Young’uns who keep the left-behinders going. Their ascension makes them true guardians and protectors, even lodestars…

The serene voice paused. Windy whispered through the darkness, “Garlotta, is that you?” In reply came a low Mm-hmm as a third voice said, “Windy are you here? How am I hearing myself?” Larkin giggled nervously, tickled to be able to communicate. Another voice mumbled sleepily, “Y’all go ahead without me. I’m too tired for a midnight chinwag.” It was Zephyr checking in from his bunk in Artemisia’s hut. Larkin and Windy were asleep side-by-side in the nest.

“What’s a party line?” Windy asked. Larkin was visualizing an old telephone but Windy had never seen one. “Well, never mind that,” she continued. “Let’s find out about the portal. The whole Delta’s essentially a Door – that’s the meaning of the word delta, anyhow – so we need the exact location of the portal. Portals are more like the keyhole in a door. So, Ma’am? Pardon me, Garlotta, what can you tell us about this Bird in the message –”

Garlotta resumed as if she hadn’t heard the question: “Pity the left-behinders if you must. But their tears of lamentation serve a greater purpose: to heal the vast seas. The oceans lack salt because the floodgates have opened. The ice is melting. The salty tears of lost humanity restore elemental balance. Tears purify the soul.”

Images cascaded, billowing as across a screen. Larkin’s son was crying, and she could not comfort him. He was locked naked inside a box, a young man sobbing helplessly. Larkin had been searching for him for days after he stopped answering his phone. Filled with a familiar dread, she drove to his apartment to find it deserted.

Word came he was in a hospital, having suffered an overdose. This hospital, the pride of the state, was in the Capitol City miles away. Her son was there imprisoned in a box, a literal box, as punishment for an unlikely sin: He got up to pee and, overmedicated and confused in the dark, urinated in the trash can beside his bed.

Larkin arrived to find he’d been in the box overnight and no longer knew his mother or himself. Pumped full of a random cocktail of antipsychotic drugs, ensnared by the state’s teaching hospital where drug addicts fall into the category of convenient guinea pig, her son rocked senselessly back and forth in the darkened room inside a zippered rectangular prison, like a large playpen covered with a mesh roof, flimsy yet totally inescapable.

Larkin approached and put her hand to the nylon barrier, trying to catch his eye. Like a merman caught in a net, he spat blindly at her hand. Sinking back into the plastic he muttered, “I’m so exhausted – so exhausted.”

All day and night she kept vigil beside the box. She cried along with her son and no doctor came. She begged the nurses appearing on shift to let him out and move him to a real bed, but they merely made vague replies and disappeared. She began to suspect she was a ghost to them, invisible. Sometime before dawn she dozed off in a chair only to be awakened by the sound of her son mumbling unintelligible rapid-fire words that made no sense, a flood of words.

Larkin realized her son’s voice – his beautiful voice that carried lyrical uniquity, poetry and expression thrilling with rhythm central to his soul – all of it was rushing out of him just as the tears had. She leaned in at a repeated phrase. He was saying, “What’s the question, what’s the question?”

On reflex Larkin said, “To be or not to be? – is that the question?” He stopped rocking and they locked eyes through the mesh. “That’s a horrible question!” came his anguished cry as the vision faded to blackness.

Windy murmured, “This is why I had to grow up some. To be able to stand what I’m seeing. Now I know why muckrats don’t trust hospitals. There’s no hospitality in a hospital. But I like that word – uniquity – did your son teach you that word?”

“Yes,” Larkin sighed. “He taught me about things like Moksha and Schumann Resonance and the Large Hadron Collider. He said, ‘creativity is our only freedom’ and made his poetry into songs. I’d give anything to dance to his music again. But between me and the world and the hospital, we broke him. He came into the world perfect – born at home, not in a hospital. But I couldn’t protect my own child.”

“No!” Windy protested. “His spirit never broke! He wrestled every day with ‘to be or not to be’ after his father died. But his spirit never broke. Like another poet says: if this world can’t break somebody it kills ‘em.”

Larkin considered the times her son had walked away untouched from a car he wrecked. The times she knew of, that is. A committed joyrider, he racked up stolen cars and arrests until the wealthy grandfather responded by supplying him with a succession of new vehicles, all of which ended up totaled. A man-boy outlaw with nine lives and then some calling from the coast after another cross-country adventure in a “borrowed” car:

“The weather’s perfect and I got tickets to the show, it’s at an amphitheater in the mountains –” and on cue Larkin headed to wire him some mad money, using for the umpteenth time the same test question and answer: “What color are our eyes? Green.”

“It took the ultimate betrayal to bring down your son,” Windy was saying. “Ptolomea is full. It’s why we must get to the portal. Who betrayed him?” But Larkin was lost in thought, unreachable. Garlotta’s snoring hummed softly and soon Windy slept.



Chapter 10: Casting Away


Morning broke fresh and cool. By the time the muckrats lugged their gear down from the bluff the sun was just clearing the tree line. As they trudged in single file toward River Bend, Zephyr gave a shout. There was something smack-dab in the middle of the riverbed. It looked like an old shack. “How’d that houseboat get there?” Artemisia said.
They hurried to inspect the shantyboat. Its tin roof, mossy in places, curved slightly like an old Romani wagon. The door was closed, windows shuttered. The trim little shotgun structure was surrounded by a solid-looking plank wood deck set atop cypress logs for floatation. Zephyr was first to reach it. Ignoring Jerry’s pleas to wait, the excited boy climbed up and opened the door. “What’s in there?” Jerry panted, clambering onto the deck.

It was a net. THE net. A tangled web of thick rope filled the interior of the houseboat. “This looks more like a deep-sea net,” Davey said, marveling at the mass of knotted hemp. Windy called, “Send it down here so we can spread it out!”

DaveyNJosh and Jerry began pulling the net through the door while the others grabbed the ends from below. But no matter how they all tugged, dragging the net onto the sand, there seemed no end to it. The half-circle of net draped the front of the houseboat and spilled onto the ground, expanding over the riverbed through streams of water, stretching across sand and mud. Zephyr could not stop laughing. “It’s a magician’s trick,” he hooted. “The scarves keep coming out of the magic hat!”

Artemisia could find no places that needed mending. “It’s a miracle there’s no mildew or dry rot. Maybe the message to mend it means to untangle it,” she mused. “And by the way, where are the jewels? To weave into the net?” None of the muckrats wore jewelry except for the occasional un-pawned pirate earring. Mark handed Jinny’s ankle bracelet to Artemisia: “Here, let’s try everything we can.” Straining against the heavy rope, Windy said, “Thanks Mark, you just helped heal Jinny’s soul. But this is Indra’s net and we’re the jewels. All of us will be jewels in the net, see?”

Artemisia grunted, “Sweaty jewels. Makes as much sense as anything, I guess. Whoever Indra is, he’s right on time.” Windy explained the signs were multicultural because river culture is a multiethnic heritage. “For example, I think Larkin’s son has a Persian name –,” Windy was interrupted by the arrival of Snuffy and the Pit Bosses followed by Dub and a few of the Tinkers. “Tinkers are so dang hard-headed,” Artemisia sighed. “I knew most of ‘em wouldn’t come.”

The Pits were using their versatile walking sticks to carry all sorts of things. Snuffy and a friend came forward toting Artemisia’s beloved washtub slung by the handles. It was initially left behind due to its bulk and she was overjoyed to see it. The others hauled an assortment of kayaks.

“The Tinkers give us all these,” Snuffy said. “They don’t think the river’s gonna flow, so most of Tinker Camp decided to head north a-ways. Dub and his buddies here are from the Delta so they’re all in. And o’course the Pits are on board. There’s good hunting south of here.” Artemisia flung her arms around his neck. “Now you’re the one snuffling,” he laughed.

Taking a rest from the infinitude of the net, the others made their way to join the crowd assembled amid packs, sacks and kayaks. Passing a canteen, Jerry said, “I’m glad y’all are here,” to which Dub replied, “God don’t want us and Hell’s already full.”

“Almost time,” Jerry muttered, squinting into the cloudless glare. The sun was high when a large bird appeared riding the updrafts over the bluff. At first Zephyr claimed it was an airplane, but airplanes don’t fly anymore.

“It’s a giant turkey buzzard,” gasped Artemisia. DaveyNJosh were sure it was an eagle, and Dub said it must be a large cormorant flying upriver from the Gulf. Snuffy thought it was an albatross. Jerry tried his field glasses. “That doesn’t look like any bird I ever saw,” he said. “But it’s time we cast that net.”

The twins stood solemnly scanning the sky. “It’s more than a bird,” Zephyr said. “It’s the Phoenix, it’s been reborn.” Windy knelt beside Zephyr and whispered, “It’s more than the Phoenix – it’s Bennu.”

Jerry brought out the scrap of cardboard:
“Mend the net Indra sends downriver
Weave it with jewels to catch Her eye
Cast when the Sun crests the midday sky
As the Bird flies follow the way
Twin spires frame the Lotus Door
Eclipse of the sun meets a comet this day.”

“I suppose the Her in the message is y’all’s mystery gal, Garlotta,” Dub grunted, filling his pipe. Zephyr nodded gravely. “You got it. Garlotta’s going home and we’re going with her.” Windy added, “Have you ever been a hitchhiker? Because you are now.”

Dub shrugged. “Where’s ol’ Garlotta been all this time? On vacation?” The Tinkers elbowed each other, winking. Their laughter died in their throats as Windy approached. She stood so close Dub was forced to look up. “Yes’m?” he murmured.

“You must be psychic,” she smiled. “Yes, she’s been on vacation. She’s been at her lake house. But not the kind of place Larkin wrote about for money back in Yonder. Garlotta has a real lake house on a real lake. You’ll see. Now, how about we all practice strengthening our core?” Windy stepped back, lifting her arms and barking commands. “Inhale! Hold, tighten – exhale!”

The muckrats joined in, some half-heartedly, others concentrating, and something happened that caused everyone’s core – especially the glutes – to constrict. The entire riverbed vibrated as voices cried, “Earthquake!” and Windy began jumping up and down. “That’s no earthquake – It’s Her! She’s on the move. We need to do a dance!”

“But we’re not indigenous,” Jerry yelled, swaying to keep his balance. “We don’t know sacred animal moves like the First Peoples do.” Without missing a beat in her pogo-ing, Windy bellowed, “No buts! You’re inbridgenous. With Garlotta it’s the thought that counts. Hey Larkin, I bet you know a dance, you’re a birdwatcher.”

All eyes turned to Larkin wobbling beside the houseboat in a half-crouch, trying to keep on her feet as the sand shifted and rippled. She managed a faint smile.

“Brilliant!” Windy yodeled. “Larkin’s going to show us how to dance like a woodcock – simple yet effective. Garlotta will love it. Everybody, follow Larkin!”

Larkin began bobbing up and down, knees slightly bent. Moving forward with a hop and a little backwards jerk she swayed, bobbing nonstop. “Ain’t a woodcock also called a Timberdoodle?” Artemisia asked, bobbing next to Larkin. “Yes!” screeched Windy. “Come on y’all, do it!” The crew surged onto the widespread net, splashing and swaying. The absurd motion made the tense crowd giddy with suppressed laughter.

“Go ahead and laugh!” Zephyr and Windy screamed, bobbing with all their might. Everyone burst out howling. Some toppled helplessly into the mud and lay spreadeagled, gasping as tears ran down. A few peed their pants. Then, with a loud gurgle that may also have been laughter, Garlotta broke loose from the hiding place.



Chapter 11: Garlotta


The woodcock dance saved them. When She resurfaced from Her deep underground cavern everyone was crouching or flat on their backs. Nobody lost their balance as the riverbed bulged upward. Clinging to the net, hunkered low in the wet sand, the muckrats grew more convinced of an earthquake. Wails and groans mingled with a growing volume of background gurgles as the forlorn crew clustered around the houseboat, apex of the ever-rising mound. “Is Garlotta cutting farts?” Zephyr asked. The sudden odor of swamp gas gagged all but the twins, who laughed calling it a good stink.

Jerry pointed in alarm. “The sand is rolling over there, what is that?” As they strained to see, the ground shivered and shook the humpy hill. Clumps of willow and scrub slid away from the sides to expose a silvery subsurface. “Quick, tie the kayaks to the net before we lose ‘em,” Snuffy yelled.

While the kayaks were being secured the water began a steady rise, pooling and spreading across the riverbed. Their lines of muddy footprints filled and disappeared. Reaching the banks, the river rippled back to surround and lap against their swelling hill. The kayaks slid down and floated alongside tethered to the net, dangling like enormous earrings, Larkin noted.

“Garlotta is giving us a piggyback ride to the portal,” Windy sang out. “The river’s rising fast now that the underground lake’s coming up.” Zephyr added, “And don’t forget the New Madrid fault.” Artemisia scooted closer to Windy and Zephyr. “What’s this about the New Madrid fault?” she demanded. “And Garlotta – what is she, a sea monster? What’s going on you two, spill it!”

Before they could answer Dub yelled, “Drones! Northeast, coming in fast!” Handing the spyglass to Snuffy, he said drily, “Time to pull out the slingshots.” The muckrats knew the futility of firing a gun at gubmint drones armed with microwave blasters. What few hunting rifles they possessed would be no use against the squadron heading their way. Windy signaled to Larkin. “Let’s try to reach the Bird. No weapon can stand against Bennu!” The two closed their eyes in concentration as the muckrats waited in silent prayer.

Barely visible at its acme of height the great Bird spiraled tirelessly in a helical loop, one graceful figure eight after another. The high-pitched buzz of approaching drones was soon joined by a different sound, a cacophony as every bird in the forest called urgently. A dark cloud ballooned over the bluff and stretched high in the sky, rolling itself toward the drones.

“It’s a murmuration!” Jerry cried. “Umpteen-zillion birds – I never saw so many!” Seated atop Garlotta’s gently sloping back, the dumbstruck crew had a front row seat for the battle of flock vs. drone. As dozens of the metallic killing machines flew in tight formation, the roiling feathered mass engulfed from all sides, overwhelming and driving them down. The drones crashed and exploded, sending plumes of smoke rising from where Connector Camp had been.

“Gosh,” breathed Artemisia. “I hope the birds are okay.” Windy and Larkin exchanged a look. “We honor their sacrifice,” Windy said. “And by the way, Garlotta is not a sea monster, she’s a Gar – a whole lotta gar. She’s THE alligator gar and she’s taking us home before the New Madrid fault cuts loose. Like it did umpty-leventy years ago when it made the Old Man run backward. That’s the last time the river got deep and wide enough for Garlotta to swim to her lake house and she’s grown since then, so it’s fixin’ to get even deeper. Any more questions?”

The muckrats erupted in protestation and disbelief. But as more of Garlotta’s armor-like scales shone through when her bulk shifted and she headed downriver, they suspended their doubts and set about making themselves as comfortable as possible for the journey. The Pits and Tinkers brought out flasks and the twins begged for music, so Davey produced a hand drum and accompanied Josh on guitar. Overhead the Bird made a westerly turn and Garlotta adjusted course in the widening current, floating like an immense barge of antiquity.

One of the Pits spotted something approaching from upstream and soon the muckrats began to cheer – it was Seed Swapper Camp poling this way on a raft. Garlotta slowed as they drew alongside and secured the raft to the netting. A half dozen bedraggled Seed Swappers crawled up to rest beside the houseboat and Garlotta picked up speed. The sun began to set and the Bird, lit by a fiery glow, flew on.

Darkness fell and a waning yellow moon began to rise. Jerry and Mark took turns keeping watch, but the splashing water sang them to sleep along with everyone else. Even Garlotta kept nodding off. Only Windy remained wakeful, her green eyes fixed on the remote spiraling Bird as the river sparkled, bioluminescent in the moonlight.

Awakening at first light, the downstreamers found themselves upon an inland sea layered in fog and mist, riverbanks no longer visible. “Bless my soul, what do we have here?” Snuffy chuckled. The trailing kayaks now held an assortment of woodland critters curled up fast asleep. Everyone gawked as some whitetail deer appeared from the mist swimming toward them. Snuffy and Mark climbed carefully over the net and hauled up the four spotted fawns one by one, depositing them on the raft where they huddled wearily.

A parade of turtles large and small surfaced following apace. Rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, possums, and raccoons chilled in various kayaks. “Nothing like a good flotilla,” Zephyr quipped. “Arkansas is an ark, y’know!”

The travelers laid out a breakfast potluck as the fog cleared. Their animal passengers slept on while the picnic of deer jerky and molasses cookies proceeded. Garlotta emitted occasional chortling hums and they figured she was snacking on Lord knows what as she swam. A few flasks came out with some hair of the dog as Windy stood and addressed the crowd.

“Good morning, everyone. I’m glad the animals hitched a ride. I was talking with Garlotta earlier and she asked me to tell y’all something.” Windy paused and everyone waited. Jerry looked at Dub and laughed. “Promise not to tease about Garlotta, okay?” Dub crossed his heart and grinned. Windy continued, “Garlotta says to thank us all for the welcoming dance and to tell everybody: She always wanted a beautiful hat with a matching necklace and earrings. It’s the best gift ever.” The crew sat in puzzlement and Jerry mumbled, “Please tell Her it’s our pleasure.”

Artemisia said, “The houseboat’s the hat. The net and us and kayaks full o’critters is the jewelry, ah hah!”

“It’s more than that,” Windy suddenly grew stern. “Garlotta wants us to know she recognizes her own vanity and enjoys its moment of fleeting amusement. But she says: Beware the ones who refuse to ever see the depths of their own vanity. Blinder than Narcissus, they eat their own hearts out. They devour souls.”

“We ain’t like that,” Artemisia exclaimed. “Nobody on this here gar is a mean person. A muckrat will disappear to the next bend in the river rather than suffer a mean-ass person.” Voices chimed in agreement, “Yep – true that! Drylanders be danged!” Zephyr suddenly waved his arms. “Hey, help it somebody, it’s drowning,” he cried, drawing their attention to a cat swimming their way. Someone took a minnow net and scooped it up, depositing it on the houseboat deck. It was too small to be underfoot safely. Larkin took her poncho and dried the soaked animal as it mewed piteously.

“That ain’t one of your heart-eaters disguised as a kitty, is it?” Dub asked as Windy rolled her eyes. Zephyr piped up, “He’s right, Sis. It may come in disguise. We need to keep a lookout for it.” The twins vaguely described the so-called Soul Eater as something utterly grotesque with a big head like an alligator. The talk turned to alligators in general and the destruction wrought by the gubmint program that turned gators loose on the Delta.

The onslaught of taxpayer-subsidized alligators joined a long list of gubmint depopulation methods against the fertile area’s humble inhabitants. Well before 20-Umpteen the Delta was already carved up and manipulated, bombarded with chemicals, categorized, traded for high stakes among a mafia of anonymous Owners bent on sheer extraction.

Through engineered boom and bust and back again, entire lineages of downstreamers got pushed off the river and/or starved out. But it’s hard to suck all the life out of the Delta, and pockets of wildness miraculously survive.




Chapter 12: Bridges and Siphons


Every so often the muckrats caught a glimpse of the giant gar’s face steering ahead through the murky water. Garlotta’s greenish snout, slightly longer than the houseboat/hat, displayed rows of sharp fearsome teeth. Yet her round dark eyes twinkled so playfully the overall effect was of a monstrously silly smile. Her occasional gurgles, hums and tummy-rumbles were more amusing than terrifying. As her placid stability proved reassuring, two-dozen cramped piggy-backers took turns stretching their legs while a quartet of Tinkers lolled on the sand passing a flask. They claimed the cure for stiffness and sore muscles was regular sips of their Special Reserve.

Larkin leaned against the houseboat, elbows resting on the deck. Some of the Pit Boss and Seed Swapper gals were up here seated in a row, relaxing in the sunshine doing each other’s hair. Larkin watched in fascination as they caressed locks of black, brown, ginger, and blonde, fingers moving swiftly and delicately, braiding and twisting. The little black cat nestled purring in the lap of Maya, one of the Pits’ fiercest hunters now fallen under the kitten’s spell. Larkin realized the last time she had a cat in her lap was before the Pet Purge Paranoia of 20-Aughty-Ump.

A length of tow rope was attached to the stern of the houseboat deck and from time to time someone would rappel down Garlotta’s backend. Holding tightly to the rope they could carefully relieve themselves in the river – another detail to add to the trip’s looniness. A boozy Tinker called Corndawg was at the rope when there came a confused shout. “What in the Sam Hill?” the graybeard thundered, hurrying to the others.

Behind the flotilla came round objects bobbing and sinking in the current. The orangey-red balls were the size of buoys and more surfaced every moment. Windy hollered, “Don’t touch Garlotta’s eggs! The eggs of a gar are poisonous – everybody keep clear!” Artemisia shook with laughter. “You know what they say fish do in the water – everything!” she cackled.

The day wore on and storm clouds began massing from the west. The Great Bird wheeled amid mushrooming anvil shapes while Jerry and Snuffy unrolled the map, kneeling on the edges to flatten it. “Have you ever been to Yancopin Bridge?” Jerry asked and Snuffy shook his head. “Never been that far downriver but I seen a picture of it. On a postcard saying it’s the longest train bridge in the country. The ArkLaTex tycoons built it to transport their chemicals to the Gulf, back in the Way-Be-Fore. It’s abandoned like everything else down there.”

Jerry frowned at the darkening sky. “We better stash this map. I’m wondering about the twin spires in the message, the ones that frame the doorway. Can you remember anything like that?”

Staring across limitless water broken by treetops and stretches of levee road, Snuffy recalled the old saw, “There’s no walls on the levee.” Closing his eyes, he pictured the sheer hulk of the Yancopin Bridge, its crisscrossed rust-colored steel girders towering over the landscape, a human attempt to connect the Delta by spanning the Arkansas river across the White River and Mississippi floodplains. These three rivers contain within them countless other rivers, yet it’s all the same water, Snuffy marveled.

“I remember it as a steel truss bridge with a swing span,” he said slowly. “No, two swing spans, so yeah there’s a pair of tower-y things toward the far end.” Jerry brought out the piece of cardboard so Snuffy could draw the bridge. He scratched a rough shape as Jerry called everyone over and excitedly relayed the Yancopin portal theory. Snuffy added a dot to the drawing: “This here’s the size a muckrat would be.” Impressed with the sketch, everyone agreed the “twin spires” were exactly as the message described.

After stowing the map inside the houseboat Jerry peered through field glasses and Dub joined him with the spyglass. “We’re heading west of the main channel,” Jerry observed. “We must be crossing the flood plain, the Grand Prairie. We got to veer southeast at some point to reach Rivers End.” Dub pointed. “Look at that,” he said excitedly. Faint lines along the horizon made a distinct pattern. Jerry called, “Windy! Can you please ask Garlotta to make a slight detour over there?”

They were passing the sacred Pecan Groves of Keo, or what remains of this living cathedral. Avenues of ancient pecan trees poked up from the water, branches arching to make leafy flooded tunnels. The Bird circled overhead as Garlotta swung into place beside the grove. Jerry yelled, “Pole that kayak over, the one with the squirrels. They’re raring to go!”

All the forest animals sat perky and alert, focused as one on the mighty trees. The kayak of squirrels (both gray and red-tailed, aka fox squirrels) chattered loudly as Mark grasped the tow rope and nudged them under the nearest low-hanging limb. The horde leaped into the interlacing branches, spiraling in blurs as they raced noisily from tree to tree, luxuriating in their element. “If pecans are ripe that means it’s already Septober,” Artemisia declared.

Pausing to shell a few and gobble them up, the squirrels stuffed their fuzzy faces, returning to the kayak to stash pecans and rush back for more. Everyone stared entranced at the moebius flow of squirrels until Dub called, “Get ‘em down from those trees, it’s fixin’ to come up a blow!”

Lightning zigzagged nearby and with the first crack of thunder the muckrats drew close against the houseboat, pressing against its mossy cypress logs. The animals hunkered too. Tucking in for the duration, every critter balled up and set its furry back to the storm. Wind moaned and thunder crashed, but instead of a cloudburst there came only light tickling rain, neither cold nor shivery. The muckrats were surprised at the refreshing drizzle that caressed their upturned faces like sea spray, wet kisses on a breeze.

“We can thank Larkin for this sprinkle,” Windy announced. “Because of her, Indra’s lightning bolts won’t come our way. Indra’s a sky god and Larkin’s our protection. She’s like our umbrella.” Dub adjusted his spyglass and whistled. “Well, I’ll be dipped in shit and hung dry – over thataway it’s raining like a cow pissin’ on a flat rock.”

Windy told how Larkin unwittingly drew Indra’s attention that day. How her grief and love matched his own, beyond language, unutterable. “It struck him on the soft side of the heart,” Windy said. “So, Indra bestowed a gift: the gift of attracting gentle weather.” As the crew pondered this development, Jerry remarked, “There’s something to that. When’s the last big storm y’all can remember? I know when it was. It was a few days before Larkin came to Connector Camp. Before she showed up, there was a Geostorm every other week.”

Their protective bubble served them well as Garlotta rode out the tempest. Dub spotted a frothing wave a good distance from their sheltering grove. It was followed by swelling lines of whitecaps carrying logs and debris due south. Windy urged them not to fret. “Like I say, we’re protected. Those waves are from the old gravity-fed siphons northeast of us. The big ones on the St. Francis River—they’re breaking down.”

Zephyr chortled with glee, “The levees are dissolving. Serves the Army Corps of Engineers right for making war on the River!”

Jerry said, “A good thing we turned. That Bird steered us clear. If this is Keo, which I think it is, then we go southeast from here, same angle as on the map. It’ll put us right at Yancopin Bridge.” Maya came over carrying the purring kitten slung in a scarf, swaddled like an infant. Smiling, she took Larkin’s hand and placed it on the kitten and together they stroked its warm fur.



Chapter 13: The Magician


After the storm came a fresh breeze. The clouds broke to reveal the Bird overhead. Stars shone so brightly their individual colors twinkled. Dub directed their gaze to a blueish blur – the comet was visible to the naked eye. A sickle moon hung low shedding sparkles on the waves as the travelers began pointing out constellations. DaveyNJosh took up their instruments. “Check this cool reggae tune we heard awhile back,” Josh said. “We just remembered how it goes.” Davey began a steady rhythm on the hand drum as they sang:

“I’m not running from anything
I’m just running toward everything
A life made of good things, good things…”

Larkin jumped to her feet, jolted from head to toe. Windy said softly, “Your son wrote this song?” and Larkin nodded, listening intently for the chorus.

“All I know is I’ll never grow old, no nooo, no
Yes I know that I’ll never grow old, no no, nooo…”

Windy leaned close, “He sure is a prophet, your son.” The two moved away from the circle of music to continue a silent discussion.

“Here’s what I think,” Windy resumed. “I haven’t discussed it with Zeph yet. But from what I can see, your son is that Bird. He’s leading us to the portal because he’s on the way to meet up with his dad. Tell me about his father…”

Larkin grew still, remembering the boy she wanted to marry. How young they were! Orphans of the storm adrift in a world of chaos. “What’s Three-Card Monty?” Windy asked. Larkin tried to explain sleight-of-hand. Her son’s father was the youngest member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.

“He trained his own doves when he was still a child. He could disappear through a trap door in a burst of flame and smoke. He kept a collection of ancient books on magic and taught himself everything.” She subsided and Windy asked, “What’s a blind date?”

Larkin resumed: “Some mutual friends set us up and we were together ever since. He was Order of the Arrow and could do the Sacred Hoop Dance – one time I banged the drum while he did it.”

How unworthy she’d felt that day, trying to keep a steady beat while he high stepped, pulling the hoops over his slight frame, stretching his arms to mimic a bird in flight. Not tall, he was small and lithe, what her granny called snake-hipped. His green eyes were fierce, his stomping rhythm intense and electric in its flow. Windy snorted with laughter. “You thought he was prettier than you!” she guffawed.

Larkin blushed at her own vanity as Zephyr ambled over. “I was listening in, and I bet you chose each other before you were born. Because of your magic. Only Larkin forgot she has magic because she can’t remember who she is yet.”

Larkin shrugged, recalling the exquisite pottery her son’s father made. His family expected a lawyer or worse, a politician – not a sensitive artist. Except for the grandmother: A true Southern belle, she adored her grandson without reservation. Among his pottery creations was a small vessel glazed mossy green and brown that featured a deftly painted “Om” symbol – his celestial brushstroke. Sometime around 20-Umpteen, Larkin went down to the riverbank and buried the little Om pot along with some of their son’s ashes.

Zephyr said in earnest, “He wasn’t a trickster magician. He had real magic, especially in his works of hands. But there was so much fear.” Windy interjected, “Yes – why were you so afraid? You were afraid of the father and later of your son, why?” The sound of geese honking overhead made the trio look up. DaveyNJosh ceased playing as a giant faraway V-shape flickered across the starlight. Faint yearning cries fell to their ears like strange music.

“They’re making for the portal!” Jerry called. “Windy, can you ask Garlotta to take us on a moonlight ride? Where’s the Great Bird?”

Windy roused Garlotta from her doze. Ever so slowly the travelers found themselves turning in a southeasterly direction as more flocks of birds streamed over. “Everything’s beginning to flow toward Rivers End,” Zephyr said. “We’ve got to figure out the rest of the puzzle before we get there.” Figure out or figure eight? Larkin wondered as she glimpsed the Great Bird moving amid constellations. Either way, they were all in for the ride.

The brisk autumn air was invigorating. Hooded cloaks, blankets and ponchos came out as everybody layered up, not sleepy at all. “What’s a ‘lightweight’?” chimed Windy and Zephyr, doubling down on their questioning. Larkin huddled deeper into her poncho. The thing that frightened her was always the same. The scary parts that came with the drinking.

Nobody in either lineage could hold their liquor. With drink the feral side emerged every time, a not uncommon occurrence among the inbridgenous; after all, her son’s father was a Caddo River boy at heart. Larkin’s feral side resembled a small woodland animal overcome by fermented berries. But when her son began drinking, she saw his father in him. Alcohol – even the smallest amount – had turned both into bears. The bouts of inchoate rage froze her like a rabbit. Her instinct was to escape, just as she’d run from her mother’s violence.

It occurred to Larkin that by running away, she’d followed in her own father’s footsteps. A river person who lived to go fishing, her dad did the right thing by his high school sweetheart, the gal he got in trouble. After all, there was a longstanding custom of no bastards on the River; they were simply called “woods colts,” taken in and given a surname, no stigma attached.

Unfortunately, Larkin’s dad had married a drylander who resented him in every way. After Larkin was born, the least bit of fatherly affection he showed drew the jealous mother’s wrath. Finally, his spirit broken, he disappeared forever. Larkin cringed at her own cowardice even as she began to comprehend it. At least her father was never inclined to violence. Still, to be ruled by fear!

Her son’s attempts to quell his own fear grew unequal to the task. It was only after he died that Larkin learned of his medical diagnosis. Among his few personal effects was a thick psychiatric file. Larkin had tried to get him a diagnosis and treatment plan; he always refused and/or ran away. “I don’t want to be institutionalized,” his ready reply. But way before 20-Umpteen he’d already been interviewed, tested, probed, scanned, measured, and categorized, and she never even knew. He bore this burden alone.

After reading the file, she realized why he hid it from her. It was a hopeless diagnosis. Besides diving from a speeding car, there were several street fights and the time he got clobbered with a hoe working the fields at Tucker (a case of mistaken identity, he insisted). There was the time he was riding a bike to his job and got hit by a fucking truck. It was enough to make anyone punch drunk.

The history of head trauma and frontal lobe damage was magnifying his worsening cycles of paranoia. Years of entanglement in the “criminal justice” system plus years of self-medication for chronic pain equaled a worst-case scenario prognosis. On page 11, the long-ago psychiatrist noted her son’s answer as to the worst symptom he suffered: “The hopelessness.”

“Even so, none of that was able to take him down,” Windy persisted. “It was sabotage and betrayal that caused his death.” Zephyr piped up, “That caused his sacrifice.”

“Right,” Windy continued. “Listen: you dreamed about your son before he went missing. I can almost see it now. That’s what you must remember, the premonition you had.”

It was during the long dark winter. Every winter he came for a while to stay at Larkin’s apartment where he slept in the cramped loft, crawling up and down the stepladder to bed. Whenever she saw dark circles around his eyes, she feared he was on drugs. Her heart continually sank; she hid the kitchen knives out of caution.

That final winter he stayed a long time in the shitass town in the hills. There was no hospitality to be found in that place and she did not know his friends. He had a girl – he always had a girl; she was delighted whenever he brought one to meet her – but with this one he became more secretive than ever.

Finally breaking away from the toxic relationship, he arrived in the dead of winter thin and hollow-eyed, raging at not being allowed to bring his dog, yet another large pit bull. Larkin’s lease said No Pets, which infuriated him. He refused to work out a plan whereby he could establish himself and eventually retrieve the dog, left behind with the ex. Storming around the tiny apartment, he accused Larkin of wronging him. She finally put her foot down (she was trying a new approach, “tough love”).

Larkin refused to be bullied in her own home, such as it was. When an old family friend offered room and board and a job mucking out horse stalls on his farm, Larkin begged her son to take the opportunity. Instead, he convinced the grandfather to stake him an apartment downtown. He found a dishwashing job within walking distance and seemed to settle down. After he left, she had the dream:

Her son was reclining on a low couch, one knee raised, the other leg stretched out, his expression a blank. There was a wide window in the room, but he sat angled away from the light. In the dream she went over and patted his knee, asking how he was doing. He ignored her. Weeks later at the hospital she recognized everything from the dream: the wide window, his raised knee and obliviousness to her presence. He never looked out the window, not even when a succession of birds flew at it to crash against the glass, their broken bodies dropping into the flower beds far below.

“Here’s some magic,” Zephyr said. “This proves there’s nothing you could’ve done to change your son’s fate. Because in the dream he was already at the hospital. The sabotage already happened. Who sabotaged him?”

But Larkin, curled up against the houseboat, had fallen into a deep and blessedly dreamless slumber.



Chapter 14: The Levee


Morning found the downstreamers rationing their dwindling supply of spring water. The Tinkers glumly apportioned sips of Special Reserve. Artemisa brought around a basket of apples and Zephyr took three, juggling them expertly. “Don’t play with your food!” she snapped, and Zephyr stuck out his tongue. Windy tried to rally everyone for a core-strengthening session and got few takers. Larkin paced beside the houseboat, scanning the cloudless horizon.

Swirls of brown foam stirred the muddy water ahead. “Is Garlotta all right with these whirlpools?” Jerry asked and Windy nodded. “Nothing can stop her now. The closer we get to the portal the more resolved she is.” Jerry and Snuffy informed the crew that Garlotta passed Clarendon around dawn. From what they could tell the small town was completely inundated. Only scattered treetops and the courthouse bell tower stood above water to mark the site of the historic crossing, as Clarendon’s great steel bridges were demolished umpteen years ago.

“The river’s higher now than during the historic Flood of ’27,” Jerry mused. “But that inundation was caused by rain. It may be higher even than the 1811 quake. Garlotta’s underground lake must be bottomless to cause all this.” He fell silent and everyone stared in astonishment. “How in tarnation do you know these things?” Artemisia laughed. “You ain’t been alive that long!”

Jerry sighed, “Well since you ask – before I mucked out, I was a history professor.” The crew gasped and more than a few shrank back reflexively. “You survived the Professor Purge of 20-Umpteen?” Artemisia cried in horror. Jerry was treated to a stream of well wishes as everyone took turns shaking his hand and clapping his back. The Pits were especially touched. Countless historic barbeque recipes had been lost in the purge and they sincerely thanked Jerry for his calling.

Larkin came up to Windy and grabbed her wrist. Pulling her aside, she bombarded her with unspoken questions. Mainly: Why couldn’t her son communicate with her, if he really was up above guiding them right now? Windy, unable to free herself from Larkin’s pincer-like grip, finally gave up trying. “He IS communicating, you dolt!” she hissed loudly.

Zephyr wandered over. “Sis, when you get angry you know you can’t do mind-reading or share thoughts. Get glad in the same britches you got mad in!” The trio stood near the back of the houseboat, the girls glaring at each other. Zephyr pulled the apples from his pockets and began to juggle. “Talk to me, Larkin,” he silently requested.

Watching Zephyr juggle, Larkin imagined Clarendon in its former glory. The lush green levee made a wall between courthouse square and the river, an unbroken battlement that felt soft and springy to bare feet. Like an endless grassy burial mound snaking alongside the water, there were no fences or gates on the levee, just shady cool breeze, frogs and cicadas singing to the sunshine.

Granny’s houseboat set on stone pillars on the river side of the levee, a place to be carefree and happy. Every meal a picnic by the riverside, the river that fed them and made each day a playground of fishing and swimming. Everybody bathed in the river; the big white cakes of soap were slippery and made her laugh.

Here Larkin saw her first alligator gar. Dad caught it in the wee hours when he was running trotlines and brought it back as a trophy. She wasn’t even afraid. When Dad held up that dead gar it stood tall as she was. Breaking a sprig of privet from a bush, Larkin tickled its yellowish teeth, proof of her bravery.

After the gubmint destroyed the houseboat that was little more than a tarpaper shack yet a sanctuary, the grandmother got exiled to a nursing home and her father grew bitter. Marriage to a joyless woman whose motto was “Natural Is Ugly” compounded the loss, especially after a move to the suburbs. Few muckrats can survive a severed connection with Nature.

When Larkin took her son to visit the grandmother in the sad-ass nursing home they found her living in a dream world. She praised the child’s beautiful manners even as she spoke of conversations with people long dead. Perennially cheerful, her only complaint was that her feet hurt.

“See? You anointed your river granny’s feet,” noted Zephyr. “Like with your son. You may not think so, but you have been consistent.” Larkin demurred, as with Granny she’d used what was on hand at the time: Jergens lotion, not frankincense and myrrh.

A calmer Windy broke in, “I don’t know what these Jergens are, but like I said with Garlotta it’s the thought that counts. Where the mind is, there is the treasure! With your son it’s synchronicity and nature-magic. He communicates beyond words now. You showed us how he lost all his words.”

“Sacrificed his words,” corrected Zephyr. “Like in that story by one of your poets, the one about the mermaid that took human form.” Larkin, also calmer now, stretched her arms and looked up. Spotting the faithful Bird, she blew a kiss as Zephyr continued, “We have some good pieces of the puzzle, like when you said they both turned into bears. Wasn’t ‘Boogie Bear’ a nickname?” At this Larkin nodded. When their son took his first steps his father called him that and from then on, he was Boogie Bear.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Windy interjected and Zephyr blurted, “Are YOU thinking what I’M thinking?” This went on until Larkin wanted to spank them both. Suddenly Windy began communicating so fast Larkin could not decipher her meaning. “Slow down, Sis!” Zephyr urged. Handing them each an apple, he took a bite of the one he held and chewed merrily. The girls did the same and as their minds began to clear, Windy resumed. “Zephyr and I are in total agreement: It’s the clearest case of Asterism we ever saw. Hey thanks Zeph, this apple tastes amazing.”

Larkin wondered what asterism could be as a shout went up from the muckrats. The trio rejoined the group to find Jerry waving and yelling excitedly. Dub handed the spyglass to Windy. “You’re the tallest, can you see what’s coming over the water?”

Instead, Larkin boldly snatched the spyglass and aimed it skyward searching for the Great Bird. Windy leaned down and whispered, “He’s in a state of flux right now, you may not get a good look.” After a few moments, a stunned Larkin returned the telescope as Windy sighed in admiration. “Isn’t it wild how he changes back and forth from a heron to a sort of feathered dragon?”

Everyone focused on the approaching watercraft as Windy surveyed the scene. “I see some folks standing on a big raft. Here, Dub, have a look.” The Tinker suddenly found himself hoisted above Windy’s head, sighting through the glass while his feet dangled. “That ain’t a raft,” he growled. “That’s the old St. Joan Ferry. Put me down!” Windy complied and Dub composed himself. “Bet you a nickel it’s Compostarians,” he said. “A few of ‘em still work the mussel beds below St. Joan.”

Artemisia raised her arms beseechingly, crying, “Oh Lord gimme strength!” Snuffy gave her a side hug. “Now, now, buck up. We can deal with a few of ‘em after all we done been through. At least they ain’t proselytizers, or worse, Futilitarians.” The younger travelers were mystified until Jerry said, “You’ll see what we mean. Compostarians put the muck in muckrat. They’re champion mud-wrestlers and noodlers, but mainly what they’re known for is their fearlessness.” Artemisia guffawed. “You mean foolishness!”

Snuffy grinned. “No fear whatsoever. They consider it an honor to give theirselves back to the ground. Compostarians ain’t scared o’shit.” Dub added, “You can’t ask for a better fighter in a pinch.” The travelers anxiously watched the large wooden ferry tacking toward them. Two people worked the rudder while a few others lined the sides, paddling in sync. “Are they Vikings?” asked Zephyr. Dub grunted, “I guess we’ll find out.”



Chapter 15: Ferry Tale


With the approach of the ferry a debate arose on how to proceed. Consensus was they were south of Saint Joan’s old riverboat landing and could come within sight of Yancopin Bridge by late afternoon. But as Artemisia pointed out, no Compostarian would ever accept the dishonor of escaping through a portal into a different dimension, world, whatever. “Compostarians are all about going down with the ship. Too noble for their own good and more hardheaded than a Tinker – present company excluded, of course.”

Larkin, frustrated by their dithering, yanked Windy by the arm again and changed the subject. “Ouch, okay I’ll tell you,” Windy said. “Asterism brings the highest, rarest fate of all. Few attain it and never fully by their own works – Grace is in play. An asterism is a pattern of stars. Here the 88 constellations go all the way back to ancient Egyptian astronomy. So, if somebody on Earth suffers from Asterism and dies – especially by treachery – they transform into a constellation, get it?” Larkin frowned, not getting it.

Bored with the slow-moving ferry, Zephyr joined them to add his take: “Think of an old-timey square dance where you change partners, only it takes eons and Alpha Draconis calls the dance.”

Windy rolled her eyes. “Listen to me, Larkin: Picture Orion the Hunter. Orion’s the constellation and his belt is the asterism. In life Orion was a total boss, just going about his business doing his thing being a mighty hunter. One day he was killed due to treachery, sabotage, betrayal – you get the idea. Then he got transformed into a constellation to guide others. What Garlotta means when she says lodestar.” Larkin tilted her head, scowling.

Zephyr went very slowly: “Your son and his father are (we think) meeting up at the portal to become Ursa Major and Ursa Minor – Big Bear and Little Bear.” Windy added, “Their asteristic connection is the North Star. We thought at first maybe your son was flying solo and taking the form of the constellation Aquarius. But there was injustice regarding the father’s death, too, wasn’t there? He and his dad belong together, it’s destiny.”

A wave of utter relief swept over Larkin. She understood. During the long-ago summer her son and his father lived far from city lights. There was a stock pond where they went fishing, night-fishing for mudcats. His dad kept a collection of night bobbers, the kind with tiny lights inside. The inky black pond rippled as the bobbers twinkled red and green, entrancing the child who considered everything the father did pure magic. Christmas in July!

Stars bore down lantern-like from a moonless sky as father and son sat in a canoe, fishing. It was the time of the annual Perseids, and a meteor arced over flashing peridot green, streaking across so bright the pond lit up in reflection. The father was saying, “Whenever you feel alone in the dark, son, look up and find the North Star and I’ll be with you.”

After the fatal fire the father’s death became a taboo legend. A spectral question mark hung over the tragedy. Larkin learned the futility of posing questions to liars when her mother sneered, “You can’t even call yourself a widow – he never married you!” Windy shuddered at these words, observing, “Your son might have lost hope, but he never stopped believing in magic. He never stopped searching for the truth.”

Turning from the impenetrable mystery, Larkin saw in her mind’s eye her stolen boy pacing the darkened courtyard of the Mississippi boarding school, an orphan searching the night sky, one of many lonely children abandoned to that dreadful place. But his father was a star…

Her reverie was broken by the arrival of the Compostarians. The ferry swung alongside Garlotta accompanied by husky cries of “Wooo, pig sooiee!” and on reflex the muckrats responded: “Razorbacks!” One of the ferry riders called out, “Where’d y’all get that big-ass gar?” and the crew clamored unintelligibly in reply. “It’s complicated,” hollered Artemisia.

“Hey, is that a dog?” Jerry yelled and suddenly a large mutt launched itself from the ferry and made for Garlotta, cutting through the water like a furry hippo. A ferry rider cupped his hands, yelling, “He’s hungry because we run outta deer jerky. He must smell yours. Is that the Pit Bosses? Hey, don’t y’all barbeque our dog!”

Everyone burst out laughing as the animal scrambled up to dart in circles, yipping and wagging and shaking off water. The muckrats swarmed around in bliss. A friendly dog was a rarity after the Pet Purge Paranoia, and many of the travelers had never seen much less petted one. “I do believe he’s a mountain cur,” exclaimed Dub, setting off a round of debate as to the dog’s pedigree.

Jerry shouted questions to the ferry riders and in between steering and paddling they reported the Bluff City had collapsed into a sinkhole swarm, Helena and West Helena washed away – “destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrha.” Artemisia muttered, “How would they know? They keep their noses in the swamp, not Yonder.”

When the ferry folks revealed they were low on drinking water, Mark made a significant discovery. Bringing out his canteen to donate to the ferry, he first took a sip of water. And then another and another. “Hey y’all, check this out,” he cried. “My canteen’s full!” The muckrats soon discovered there was no lack of fresh water.

Garlotta paralleled the ferry while Mark and Jerry slung over some canteens. Finding the Special Reserve miraculously restocked, the Tinkers pitched across a few flasks to shouts of gratitude. Everyone took a while to chug water, pausing only to gasp or say “Ah, delicious!” Spirits lifted and Artemisia emphatically declared Compostarians bring good luck.



Chapter 16: The Maw


Larkin looked on as the dog snapped up morsels of deer jerky hand-fed by the Pits. Some reverent Seed Swappers sat stroking his thick coat, carefully detangling the luxuriant fur. Maya held the kitten that stared unblinking, bristling its little tail, while the other critters observed intently from kayaks and raft. There must be some shepherd and black lab in the mix, mused Larkin. The dog’s reddish muzzle bespoke hound plus pit bull, a true mutt with a brush like a fox – no, a wolf. He turned to watch her watching him and Larkin noticed something familiar about the eyes.

One of the few times her son ever called in distress was when police set a dog on him. She usually learned of his exploits after the fact, but this episode occurred in real-time. He’d traveled to Texas to MC some EDM shows and on the bus trip home some nugs in his backpack set off a powerful funk. The driver and passengers alike were overcome by the pungent aroma of dank. Her son called from a state-line truck stop after eluding the cops:

“They stopped the bus and searched the luggage but couldn’t prove it was my backpack. All the same I bolted so that Texas cop set his dog on me. I was flat on my back on the asphalt and the German Shepherd looked me in the eye, turned and ran. Never even bit me!” It was his one successful escape from the law; he was the only person Larkin knew to get arrested for loitering. Her son loved animals and they loved him. Perhaps she could have saved him if she were born a dog?

As Larkin sat absorbed in thought, DaveyNJosh approached. “We wanted to let you know how much we admire your son’s work,” Davey said. “We didn’t realize you’re Jase le Trip’s mom. Windy told us and we’re both so sorry for your loss.”

Josh added, “His music video, ‘Just a Bad Dream,’ came out way before 20-Umpteen and it’s so prophetic:

‘I think it’s all fake, I think it’s all vaccines
I think that all hate is just a bad dream…’”

Larkin managed a feeble smile. He recorded and performed under several names: Jase le Trip, Jah Spear, Jasper the Trip. Why had that particular song upset her so much? Because he rhymed “Jasper” with “bastard?” His hardcore rap songs tended to unnerve her, as did the raw, in-your-face album cover designs. She recalled the jolt she got listening to a song of his, “Namaste,” thinking it would be meditative, only to find the opening verse went, “I’m lazy, I’m a motherfuckin’ pimp –” Totally catchy hook, but dang. She wondered if his music still floated in the electronisphere of the grid?

“Hey, what’s his name?” called Artemisia, petting the newly clean, dry, fluffy dog. A voice floated over the water: “We call him Jasper ‘cuz he’s such a sidewinder – an egg-suckin’ biscuit-eater, but we claim ‘im!” The muckrats uttered caressing cries: “Here, Jasper! Oh, such a good boy, Jasper!” and Larkin began to giggle. DaveyNJosh smiled with her at first but grew alarmed when the giggling was followed by hyperventilation and a flood of tears. True to form she flopped right over.

“Y’all come here – she’s doing the fainting goat again!” The Compostarians watched in confusion as the muckrats scurried atop Garlotta bumping into each other. Several clumsily poured canteens of water in Larkin’s direction. Others knelt to elevate her feet as Artemisia lifted her head and shoulders, folding her limp body awkwardly. Pushing through the throng, the dog began licking her full in the face and soon Larkin came to, gasping and spluttering.

“Bleah – dog slobber!” she yelped. At the sound of her long-dormant voice a cheer went up. “I knew it was your son’s name,” crowed Windy. “Jasper, Iaspre, Kaspar – a Persian triple-name all right!” Dub helped Larkin to sips of Special Reserve while Artemisia sent a stream of thankfulness into the wind. “Good Godamighty! Thank you, Jesus – and Jasper!”

The Compostarians caught snippets of ceaseless prattle. Now that she could talk, Larkin unleashed a steady stream of consciousness: “Moksha’s liberation – Clarendon levee – cypress knee – scattered Jasper’s ashes – Anderson Island – he loved fishing – Bird up there!” Artemisia and Windy kept a firm grip on her as she babbled, urging her to settle down and breathe.

“We got trouble,” yelled Zephyr, pointing dead ahead. Grabbing Davey’s unattended drum he pounded a warning. In the distance an old concrete grain silo stood like a flooded obelisk. Something was moving behind it in the water like a child playing hide-and-seek behind a tree. Its butt kept sticking out. “Are there hippos in the Delta now?” came a holler from the ferry.

A large figure waded into view and the muckrats emitted a bass note not unlike a restive flock or herd. A stench of rottenness and decay flowed from the monster, its head like an alligator with the shoulders and forelegs of a hairy beast. The forest animals quivered in dread while Jerry and Mark restrained the barking dog. The foul emanation made everyone retch and choke. Windy shrieked, “It’s Ammit, dammit!” as Zephyr banged the drum in shrill accusation: “Soul-Eater, Soul-Eater!”

Over the din came the Compostarians’ hair-raising battle cry: “Root Hog or Die!” Like Berserkers in a frenzy, they steered the suddenly tiny-looking ferry straight at the demon. Artemisia bawled after them, “Y’all gonna beat it to death with your paddles, you buncha shit-talkin’ peckerwoods?!” but it was no use trying to slow or stop them.

Garlotta did not swim forward. Holding steadily in place working her robust fins, she began blowing bubbles. Lots of air bubbles. Her humming soothed the frightened piggybackers as countless milky balloon-sized bubbles popped all over them, tickly-wet against the skin.

“Garlotta’s releasing air from her swim bladder – her maw!” Jerry stammered. A thick mist spread, cloaking everything in billowing blankets of fog. The disappearing ferry-riders savagely cussed a blue streak as the fog enshrouded them. The sound of their indignant splashing faded into the distance. Catching a swift side-current, they safely bypassed the demon. For the moment humbled, the brave Compostarians would live to fight another day.



Chapter 17: Dammit, Ammit!


The remaining downstreamers huddled whispering in the murk as belches issued forth from the distant demon’s gullet. Garlotta was giving it a wide berth. “Ammit is the worst of the worst,” Windy hissed. “Garlotta knows her from when they were young, before they both became mothers and then grandmothers. Their beef goes way back. I’m talking primordial beef!”

Jerry gasped, “Ammit the ancient Egyptian demon that eats souls?” and Windy retorted, “Only souls that reject Truth in all its forms –” but was interrupted by Dub whining, “What’s with all this Egyptian shit?”
Windy sighed. “A river’s a river, the delta’s the delta and portals gonna port. It’s all connected. Jasper (Larkin’s Jasper, the Bird up there) was right about the unintended consequence of running the Large Hadron Collider during peak Schumann Resonance – portals popping off everywhere! It’s basically a big-ass bubble machine for what you call spacetime.”

“The only good thing about it,” Zephyr added, “is now every kid’s guaranteed a portal of their own. You can lose it though if you forget what it’s like to be a kid. Grownups forget and lose their portals.”

“But what about this beef,” persisted Jerry. Windy gave an abridged version of the timeless grudge match between the two colossi. Garlotta – an easygoing, slow-to-wrath creature – initially beheld Ammit as a fellow miraculous being. But Ammit’s deceit wore her out. Ever the optimist, Garlotta’s motto was simple: “On with the Show.” Garlotta was content to stay in her own current, grateful even.

Ammit, however, took the broad path of lies and sabotage. She destroyed and devoured anything she could sink her claws and teeth into yet bellyached for more, insatiable.

“Then Ammit did something so vile Garlotta refused to breathe the same air as her,” said Windy. “Garlotta retired to her hideout because she found out Ammit was eating her own young! A gar considers that a mortal sin.” The fog began to lift and the downstreamers quieted, anxiously straining to pinpoint the lurking demon. Maya called for the Pit Bosses to make ready their spears and slingshots.

Jerry retrieved the hunting rifles from the houseboat. The net was finally free of the doorway and the little cabin made a storehouse for their gear (and umpteen bags of nuts). Windy insisted Zephyr and the dog stay inside the houseboat. “Lock the door and wait for the all-clear signal,” she commanded, sternly overriding his protests. The crew began positioning across Garlotta’s broad back, shooters on bended knee and the rest standing at intervals. Snuffy handed Larkin a slingshot.

“Garlotta says to untie all these kayaks and release the raft,” Windy said. “Ammit’s easily distracted – hurry, the animals will be fine!” As the freed critters floated away, Windy screamed into the clearing sky, “Help, Jasper, help!” and the others joined in the chant. Beside the silo the monster staggered, opening its jaws wide and hissing as the forest animals drifted past.

Then Ammit barfed. “EWWW,” chorused the muckrats. Chunks of undigested stomach contents floated around the demon as it vomited repeatedly. “Looks like it’s been eatin’ gators,” gasped Dub. “Maybe that’s why we ain’t seen any around.” Some of the crew gagged and a Seed Swapper dropped like a one-egg pudding. Jerry cried, “Steady as she goes!”

Larkin was breathing through her mouth, determined not to faint. She sighted the Bird, his plumage unmistakable with flashes of indigo, purple and iridescent green. “Please,” she whispered as Garlotta held still, forcing the monster to approach. Ammit cocked her head grotesquely, revealing a wide white ring around her coal-black eyeball – the bloodshot maniacal stare of a mad horse that Larkin knew only too well.

“Murderer!” came a high-pitched scream. “Liar! Two-faced demon from Hell!” The muckrats turned to see Larkin running forward. Pulling the rain-stone from her pocket, she set it in the slingshot, drew back and released in one smooth automatic motion. The polished chalcedony hit Ammit square in the brow and the monster jerked, roaring in pain.

“Whoa – she’s pissed,” Windy cried. “Help, Jasper!” Ammit waded forward and the muckrats unleashed a volley of bullets and spears that merely increased the demon’s fury. “Hold your fire!” Jerry yelled at a loud buzzing filling the air. “Drones again?” called Dub over the strange noise. A shadow fell across the water as a cloud of insects blocked the sunlight. Every bumble bee, honeybee, wasp, yellowjacket, dirt dauber, hornet, dragonfly, and cicada in the Delta looked to be zooming full tilt at Ammit.

The crew gawked as the monster thrashed inside an unending tornado of bugs that ricocheted off its tough hide. Blind and deafened, Ammit roared to high heaven. Garlotta swerved sharply, throwing everyone off their feet. The muckrats held on for dear life as she raced downriver trailing debris in her foamy wake. Gars must have a strong core, mused Larkin flat on her tummy. Holding tightly to the net, she felt a tap on her shoulder. It was Snuffy stretched out beside.

“Some shot you made. I’d like to shake your hand.” They clasped hands while voices called out “Thanks, Jasper!” Garlotta swam so fast she blew right past the fleet of critters. Eventually she calmed down and checked her speed. Zephyr and the dog rejoined the crew and the joyous picnic that followed proved everybody got their appetites back and then some.



Chapter 18: Ptolomea


Larkin was treated to rounds of “hip hip, hooray!” as the crew congratulated her on her eagle-eye aim. Blushing, she handed Snuffy the borrowed slingshot, but he refused to take it. “Nope, you’re a champeen slingshotter now, get used to it.” Artemisia chortled, “You nailed it in the head like it was personal.”

Windy said through a mouthful of jerky, “Maybe it is personal.” Larkin frowned. “When it looked at us with eyes like a mad horse, I thought I recognized it,” she said slowly. “But how is that even possible?” Laughing, Zephyr replied, “How is anything possible? Right now, everything is possible. That’s why we’re here.”

Jerry commented, “We should be coming up on the Yancopin Bridge soon. What’s all this about Ammit’s eyes? Or is it just her nasty expression that seems familiar?” Larkin took a deep breath and said, “Ammit has my mother’s eyes.” The muckrats gaped as though she’d sprouted a second head. “Tell us,” Windy pleaded. “Is she the one who betrayed Jasper? Your mother?”

Artemisia said, “His own grandmother?” and Garlotta gurgled ominously as Larkin relayed the awful truth. Noting her estrangement from her mother, Larkin explained that when her son went missing, it turned out he wasn’t really missing at all. He’d gone to her mother’s house in the suburbs, the place Larkin fled as a teenage runaway escaping violence. But there was no escape for Jasper.

“She didn’t tell anyone he was there,” Larkin said flatly. “I warned him umpteen times that she was dangerous, so it was the last place I would’ve expected him to go. But he was unwell at the time and went there in search of help.” It occurred to Larkin that “tough love” is no match against sabotage.

Artemisia stomped back and forth wringing her hands, muttering. The muckrats had never seen her so furious. Larkin continued: “He did drugs in her house for nearly a week until he overdosed. When she called to let me know he was in the ICU, it was like she was gloating. When I got to the hospital, she came bursting into the room saying he was going to be a vegetable the rest of his life – if he didn’t die, of course – and she had this horrible gleam in her eye. Then, she held up a photograph on her phone –”

At this Windy and Zephyr chimed in, “What’s a phone?” but the others shushed them. Larkin resumed: “She took a picture of him unconscious, fully clothed, overdosed. She didn’t call an ambulance. He lay face-down on the floor all day in her thick shag carpet, suffocating. Around sunset a neighbor heard him screaming and banged on the door, so she finally called an ambulance. But the damage was done. The oxygen loss to his brain set in. It took two months for him to die in the hospital.”

After the drugs wore off and his mind cleared her son’s eyes regained their sparkle and the brilliant brave smile returned. He recognized Larkin and knew he was in a hospital. But he could no longer speak, swallow, or regulate his body temperature, and the brain damage was spreading. One day he answered questions by squeezing her hand. Once for yes, twice for no.

“The doctors gave him a choice,” Larkin said. “Total paralysis dependent on machines 24/7 – or they could remove all the tubes and turn off the machines. He chose to go to his father.”

Windy said angrily, “His body was broken, but not his spirit – Never! And what could be worse than devouring your own young? Devouring your own grandchild, that’s what!” Zephyr piped up, “No wonder Ptolomea was too full for her soul. It got stuck earthside – Ammit ate your mother!”

“Who the blazes is Tolly Mia?” Artemisia cried. “Another demon?” Jerry explained that Ptolomea is a place located in the lowest level of Dante’s 9th Circle of Hell, next door to Judas and Satan. “It’s the place for souls that offer hospitality to family and friends, only to betray them and kill them.”

Windy added, “When she betrayed her own grandchild, her soul plunged down to Ptolomea and a demon took over her body. Her soul must be truly awful for Ptolomea not to take it. Instead, Ammit took it.”

The muckrats pondered this turn of events while Garlotta hummed softly. Jerry muttered, “She was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in her – or something like that. The way this world treats its prophets is beyond me.”

Larkin recalled how at the end her son appeared beatific. His boyhood fishing buddy, there to bid farewell, saw it too. “He was in the hospital so long he grew a beard. He looked just like El Greco’s painting of Christ on the Cross.”

Artemisia groaned, “I swan to my time! Try and find Mother Mary’s words in the Bible. You can’t, even though it was her Son they crucified. They were killing Mary too, Goddoggit! Killing her heart!” Plunking down next to Snuffy, she took out her bandanna and blew her nose. “Look!” Zephyr called. “The water’s so clear you can see to the bottom!”



Chapter 18: Rivers End


Garlotta slowed and the piggybackers peered into the suddenly crystalline river. They were passing above dim outlines of trees and open spaces dappled by sunlight. Flashes of yellow glowed from the depths – yancopin flowers? Shoals of minnows danced in and out of Garlotta’s shadow, followed by schools of larger fish and lines of turtles swimming nose-to-tail. “I thought this area was abandoned?” Jerry said to Snuffy after a large boxy structure seemed to come and go below, disappearing in a profusion of right angles. Zephyr asked, “What’s that big square thing and that circle next to it?”

Larkin said, “Looks like one of those extreme vacation homes I used to write about – with a swimming pool.” Dub spotted another enormous lodge and another. Apparently, the depopulation of Yancopin was so successful that a wave of vainglorious Owners had constructed elaborate, exclusive clubs where only the highest rollers could partake in the various hunting seasons.

The muckrats tried and failed to explain swimming pools to Zephyr, who scorned the very idea. “They musta forgot what it’s like to be a kid. Why would you need fake ponds if you live on a real river? Their fake ponds got drownded anyhow.”

Larkin noticed Windy was more than a little worse for wear. The Pit Boss and Seed Swapper gals had been at her to let them braid her mane of hair, but Windy was too ticklish to sit still. Now she seethed like a tangled muddy Medusa. “All those useless empty boxes down there,” she snarled. “Fancy cars and trucks and toys washing out to sea. Everything is being resolved unto its roots. Trash is gonna get flushed to where it belongs!”

Dub asked carefully, “And where would that be, Miss Windy?” and the crew waited for her reply. Instead, she turned her back and wiped at her eyes, overcome. Zephyr answered, “Have you ever heard of the Puerto Rico Trench? The deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean? When the New Madrid Fault gives way that’s where all the disposable stuff will go. To be composted.”

“We’ll get to the portal before all that, right?” Artemisia quavered. “The eclipse has to come first, doesn’t it?” All eyes turned to the sky where the fuzzy pale-blue comet hung bigger and brighter than ever, blazing even in daytime. The sun was past its zenith and a few clouds were scudding by. The Bird, no longer looping, flapped a slow straight course.

Jerry peered ahead through the binoculars before handing them over to Snuffy who confirmed, “It’s Yancopin Bridge all right – I see the swing spans. Looks like the water’s overtopping the tracks. Does the portal go under the bridge or over it, or both?” It was a good question, but Jerry had no answer.

“I feel like we’re missing something important!” Windy spluttered miserably as Zephyr patted her arm. “It’s okay Sis, we still have time.” Jerry pulled out the tattered cardboard message and read again:

“Mend the net Indra sends downriver
Weave it with jewels to catch Her eye
Cast when the Sun crests the midday sky
As the Bird flies follow the way
Twin spires frame the Lotus Door
Eclipse of the Sun meets a Comet this day.”

The muckrats jumped as an unearthly sound rent the air, a feral trumpeting call overhead. “The Bird’s singing for freedom!” Jerry cried. Everyone watched the feathery-dragonish creature bolt straight up shining like a prism, soaring above the clouds as the call grew fainter. “He’s fixing to make a plunge,” Windy gasped. “Oh, wait, Garlotta has an important message! She says when we get to the portal be sure and remember to say the magic word –” This tidbit was lost in a sudden chorus of “Oh, Shit!” as Ammit re-emerged from the river.

Garlotta ceased all forward motion and fought the current while her riders fought panic. Amid the hubbub of collecting weaponry and dragging the howling dog into the houseboat, Windy’s yammering went unheard. The Bird, flown far upward, was completely out of sight. In desperation Windy turned to Larkin, pleading silently, “What was that you said before about the remover of obstacles?” Instantly the two began screaming, “Help, Ganesh, help!” as Zephyr popped up to join in the chant. No way was he missing out on everything by hiding in a houseboat.

The demon squatted troll-like in the rushing waters that flowed over Yancopin Bridge, lurking directly below and between a pair of tall metal towers, aka the twin spires. These double swing spans at one time operated hydraulically to open the railway bed and make way for shipping. Immobilized since the Supply Chain Meltdown of 20-Aughteen, the engineering marvel joined the ranks of rust-riddled monuments to the notion bigger is better. At least it was coming in handy now as a portal.

As more of the downstreamers joined in the chant for Ganesh, Ammit swung her repulsive head from side to side, hissing and flicking her fat tongue. Larkin noticed a large swelling where the rain-stone smacked the monster’s brow. “Her left eye’s swollen shut!” she called, and Jerry cried out, “Blindside – aim for its left! Ready, aim, fire!”

Ammit waded slightly beyond slingshot range as bullets and spears stung her hide. Roaring and pivoting lower in the water, the demon aimed its remaining evil eye on Garlotta and the crew. “If there’s a portal, why’s it got to be so invisible?” Dub complained loudly and Windy snapped, “Need magic word! Help, Ganesh!” Zephyr called attention to something rapidly approaching from upstream, “Hey y’all, is that a mountain?”

The crew slung around and yelped at a ginormous gray thing straddling the current. It was on a collision path with Garlotta and from their perspective it took a second to grasp what they were seeing. Snuffy hollered, “It’s the Champeen Bald Cypress of Arkansas County!” At this Garlotta shivered, readying a swerve. The muckrats fell to their knees and some of the botanically inclined crossed their hearts, whispering reverently, “Taxodium distichum.”

The biggest, oldest tree in all of Arkansas hurtled downstream like a half-submerged submarine, root-end first. Too big for any sawblade to cut it, having stood sentinel for untold centuries marking the epicenter of the White River Bottomlands, the giant cypress – including its 10-foot-tall knees – was on the way to the portal. “Elephant trunks!” Zephyr cried, clapping his hands. “Thanks, Ganesh!”

In a surprisingly graceful juke-move Garlotta swerved clear of the log. It was as long as her, though decidedly thinner. “Root Hog or Die!” came a familiar yell – the Compostarians were approaching from the opposite side of the cypress. Jerry and Mark hurried onto the houseboat deck to get a better view.

“They’re paddling like mad,” Mark cried. “What are they doing?” Then Jerry called, “Look out – he’s gonna jump!” A figure made a running leap from the ferry to land on the moving cypress and cling like a squirrel. “Ohh” breathed the piggybackers as the mud-painted Compostarian climbed into view and steadied himself atop the wide log.

One of the ferry riders threw a paddle and the warrior snagged it from the air with a tattooed fist. Like an avenging surfer assuming a battle stance, red beard flapping in the wind, he lifted the oar and screamed banshee-style at the demon rising from the waves. He looked ready for hand-to-claw combat.

“That’s the one called Chaucer – the one swum clear across’t Arkansas River back in the day!” Dub thundered incredulously. The muckrats held their breath and in the silence Windy whimpered, “What’s the Magic Word, please?” The crew suddenly noticed the dang eclipse was already underway.



Chapter 19: The Gateless Gate


The light was fading fast, as if leaking away in all directions. “Don’t look up at it!” Jerry yelled. Zephyr insisted they produce a magic word: “Come on, there’s always a magic word for a magic portal. No, not Abracadabra – that one expired, ages ago!” The befuddled crew watched the cypress sail past followed by the fury-filled ferry. Ammit rose on her haunches and swiped at the log only to get throat-punched by a cypress knee. Chaucer swung the heavy wooden paddle at full extension, heedless of his balance. Tumbling on top of the demon’s snout, he got in a few eye-gouges before pushing free and diving underwater.

Ammit limped away from the bridge thrashing up a storm and gasping for breath, the wind knocked out of her. Dark blood gushed from both eyes. She blundered into a nest of snakes and countless water moccasins exploded into motion writhing and lashing around her legs. With the pathway cleared the portal came into view outlined against a shadowy sky, lit by the colorful comet. An electric blue oval flickered in a ring of cool flame. Flanked by the twin spires, the doorway arched high above the water that mirrored a dancing circle of light.

The space seemed large enough for Garlotta to get through – until it occurred to the muckrats she’d have to elevate her bulk a bit to clear the bridge’s iron tracks. Dub voiced the crew’s simultaneous thought: “How high can Garlotta jump?” and everyone’s core tightened further.

Windy’s voice was strained and hoarse, but she and Zephyr kept begging for the magic word. The Great Bird screamed announcing its final plunge and at once Larkin knew the answer. “OM!” bawled Larkin. “The magic word – OMMMM!”

She figured it had to be since that was the last sound Jasper uttered toward the end when he resembled the El Greco portrait. All night long the hospital room echoed with the inexorable guttural sound that went beyond language. At the time it terrified her, but she realized now it was indeed the sacred syllable, an invocation he made.

The muckrats began Omming to their utmost as the cypress surged over the bridge and disappeared into the glowing portal. Close behind came the Compostarians. The ferry creaked loudly tipping up and over the spillway, rudder pointing sky-high. Behind it, Chaucer’s bushy red head and tattooed shoulders emerged dripping from the water, cutting a wake. Holding fast to the ferry’s tow rope, he leaned back to come up skimming the surface (knees slightly bent) and fairly flew over the bridge. “Barefoot skiing through a Lotus Door!” marveled Zephyr.

Garlotta held in place, psyching herself for the leap of her life. The kayaks of critters arrived and slid into the portal like floating leaves, followed by the raft of fawns. Yet more animals and birds joined schools of fish and sudden multitudes of frogs and crawdads to pour through the oval, flowing en masse above and below the spillway. Still Garlotta waited, humming tremulously.

Artemisia squealed in terror, “Here comes that bitch again!” as Ammit moved relentlessly toward the sound of their voices. Garlotta gave a “now or never” gurgle and everyone grabbed the nearest rope, net or fellow muckrat.

With a ferocious grunt Garlotta charged forward and into the air like a salmon determined to reach its spawning-ground, dam or no dam. It was quite a leap for an elderly gar but not quite high enough. With a rush the Bird swooped in low, a multicolored bolt of lightning splitting the air and slicing the water to slide directly beneath Garlotta’s ample belly. The added momentum hoisted her up and over the railway like a hovercraft. Gars being ticklish, she shook with laughter as Jasper/Bennu/Phoenix gave the whole kit and caboodle a piggyback ride to another realm.

Upon clearing the bridge, the Great Bird snaked his sinewy tail sideways, smacking Ammit upside the head so hard she careened off an abutment and sank into the flood. That was the last anybody ever saw of the horrid demon.

Garlotta came down with a thunderous splash that sent everyone into the air. Some fell onto her back as others ka-dunked into the becalmed water. Stunned, they floated in the mild current or lay sprawled across the sandy net, staring in wonderment at a sky of topaz blue. A faint rainbow or sundog glowed overhead – but neither comet nor rusty bridge were anywhere to be seen.

The sun (no longer eclipsed) was just past midday. The rough landing had knocked the houseboat askew. The door popped open and out rushed the dog, barking his head off as if to announce their arrival. But arrival where?

The river moved placidly between forested banks, its gentle music playing quietly. Wherever they were no flood was happening. They sighted the bald cypress downstream, beached whale-like against the riverbank. Beside it the empty ferry and raft floated lashed to cypress knees; the kayaks sat in rows on the sand, no Compostarians, no critters.

Sore and soggy, the muckrats hauled themselves onto the nearest sandbar and rested while the folks still atop Garlotta checked for injuries – just a few bruises and scrapes. Zephyr was exhilarated. “Flying through portals is more fun than anything!” he crowed, ready to do it again.

Artemisia groaned, “Just get me off this gar and I’ll never complain about nothin’ as long as I live.” Larkin and Windy watched for the Great Bird to resurface. The river rolled before them and the portal shimmered behind them bridging water and sky and dimensions, but the Bird did not reappear. It was as though he’d become one with the river.

Windy was all give out. Stretched upon Garlotta she rolled around writhing and moaning, “Where’d he go? Why’d he leave us? Where are you, Jasper?” She sobbed until even the Tinkers teared up and blubbered. The confused dog whimpered, licking her hand, but Windy was inconsolable. Larkin scooted beside her. “Here, I kept this along with his poems. It belonged to him – I want you to have it.” Reaching inside a crocheted pouch Larkin took forth a trinket and placed it in Windy’s palm.

“Ah!” Windy gasped. She sat absorbed in contemplation of the treasure, snuffling softly. It was a tiny earring Larkin found before she mucked out. She was cleaning the apartment and saw it dangling from the loft’s low rafter: a little silver amulet topped by a bead of polished jasper. The silver was carved with a Hamsa hand. Her son never wore it; he had no piercings. It hung as a talisman directly over his pillow.

“The Eye of Fatima – a protector,” whispered Windy. “Jasper stone’s called Rain Bringer, and the word ‘jasper’ means treasure and keeper of the treasure… three-in-one. Where the mind is, there is the treasure.”

It occurred to Larkin that the sleeping loft – however cramped and stuffy – was one place her son knew he was safe, protected. But all birds leave the nest, and no wild creature can abide a cage. Freed from a world of cinderblock walls, barred windows and padlocked doors, forever liberated from boarding schools and rehabs, bounty hunters and jails, prison cells and hospitals, Jasper was flown beyond the reach of lies and sabotage. He escaped tyranny to become a real magician like his father, immortal. Her child was all grown up now. Larkin could finally let go.



Chapter 20: Deep and Wide


“Children, I must go to my mussel bed,” came a deep musical voice like a cello playing underwater. In this new place everyone could hear Garlotta. As they realized she was saying goodbye, cries of “Please stay!” sounded in counterpoint. She chuckled bashfully and blew a few bubbles, obviously touched.

“I will sink slowly so the houseboat and net can float. If I don’t get back underwater soon, Children, I shall get a sunburn! Remember what you’ve learned and share it as you share all things. Lift each other up, especially the small fry – give piggyback rides so no one is ever left out. My little Miraculous Beings, remember River Granny loves you, so lift each other’s spirits and sing to the stars.”

Garlotta moved lower as the crew sorrowfully bid farewell. Her riders climbed onto the houseboat while the others began pulling the net onto the sandbar. Jerry tossed the tow rope over and Davey made fast, tying it to a tree as the houseboat settled into the water – it floated just fine. Waving, everyone watched Garlotta swim away until the river eclipsed the gray-green curve of her back and her shadowy form faded from view.

“Hey, where’s the big-ass gar?” arose a shout from a burly figure walking out of the woods. It was Chaucer carrying an armload of kindling. He came to the center of the sandbar and dropped the sticks in a pile. “The rest are up that-a-way,” he said, nodding toward a bluff overlooking the river. He explained that upon arrival one of the gals (their best dowser) aimed her forked rod to locate the nearest spring. She immediately got a strike, and everybody followed into the forest.

“There’s a dang double-decker hot spring on that hillside,” Chaucer grinned. “They’re still up taking a bath. I come back down to build a fire.” The muckrats noticed how clean and ruddy he looked. The only thing more fun for a Compostarian than getting muddy is a soak in a natural hot spring, if only for the double joy of getting muddy again. As the saying goes, “It’s clean dirt!”

“Where are we?” Artemisia asked wearily and Chaucer shrugged. “We took a gander from higher up and it sure looks like the Arkansas Delta. But wilder and fresher and somehow, well, more so.” His voice fell to an awestruck whisper: “Y’all we ain’t even seen a tick. There’s nary a chigger!” As the muckrats gasped in astonishment, he added, “We named it Garkansaw. That is – I mean – if that’s all right with y’all.”

Chaucer blushed so intensely his blue eyes shone in deep contrast, and everyone assured him they could think of no better way to honor Garlotta. The tired travelers stood on the sandbar and looked around. From afar came the sound of the bathers singing at the springs. Larkin recognized the tune – it was one she used to sing with Granny on the levee:

Deep and wide, deep and wide
There’s a fountain flowing deep and wide…

“Welcome to Garkansaw,” Zephyr hooted in glee. “I want a bath in a hot spring, too!” As they all turned to head into the forest, Chaucer leading the way, Larkin glanced back at the portal and screamed. The sudden sound immediately sent poor Artemisia into hysterics.

“What’s a movie?” hollered Windy and Zephyr at the muckrats’ notion of something projected onto a screen. A good thing it was a silent film – a soundtrack would’ve added the effect of a horror flick where everything just blows up. What Jasper calls “screaming debris” in his song, “Raiders of the Lost Arkansas.” Within the fuzzy blue outline of the portal moved a chaos of formlessness. “What’s static?” the twins asked as folks shushed them.

The oval revealed rushing dark water shot with yellow foam, the flood appearing to have fully engulfed the other side. Wondering if the Yancopin bridge was even now collapsing away, Snuffy and Jerry both felt a pang at the folly and pride of man. Everyone realized how grateful they were for making it through. “It’s the New Madrid Faultline cutting loose,” several voices cried. Maya began a keening, howling sort of wail and dog, Pits and Seed Swappers joined in.

The grieving mourners provided a soundtrack to the increasingly abstract action taking place on the other side of the portal. Everything stayed in furious motion for what seemed a long while. Then the view grew calmer though clouded and obscured. In the general pulverization nothing took shape. Zephyr yelled, “It’s confetti!” and the muckrats spotted a repetitive movement. A school of small fish were swimming right up to the portal and peeking in.

There was something familiar about the minnows’ eyes. They twinkled like tiny black jet buttons. Coupled with little snouts filled with baby teeth, the effect was of a silly grin. “Garlotta’s babies!” roared the muckrats in unison. “They’re so cute,” Windy giggled. “Well, everything’s going to be fine, y’all. The gars survived.” Zephyr piped up, “In a few eons that place’ll be better than it ever was.”

After deliciously hot soaks in the spring, a fish fry commenced on the sandbar with steamed mussels (washtub coming in handy right away) and barbecued mushrooms sauteed in Special Reserve. “The foraging here beats all I ever seen,” Dub said between mouthfuls. As darkness fell, lightning bugs flashed throughout the forest outlining the trees in gold. “Lightnin’ bugs in Septober?” wondered Artemisia. Bathed and fed, she was no longer aggravated.

Zephyr lay back patting his full tummy. “This place could have a different timeline. There’s no clocks here. Or maybe it’s Indra’s and Larkin’s gentle weather. Y’all, look – the stars are making a river in space! Is that what you call Jacob’s Ladder?” The muckrats began oohing and aah-ing and Jerry raised his cup, “To the Milky Way and gentle weather!”

Windy and Larkin sat petting the sleepy dog. In the immensity of night, they beheld the twin constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor wheeling to fill the sky, twinkling kaleidoscopically. “Big Bear and Little Bear,” Windy sighed. “They finally made it home. It’s funny to think of him being so much taller than his dad. That means his dad is Little Bear.”

Larkin smiled, happier than she’d been in umpteen years. To think – her son a lodestar, a guardian of Truth together with his father. “It’s like something one of our poets said back in the day,” she murmured. “The child is father of the man.”

At this Zephyr burped contentedly, adding, “I like that poet who said: ‘You got eyes of Avalokitesvara.’” Larkin replied, “If you mean Kerouac, he wrote, ‘I got eyes of Avalokitesvara.’” Grinning, Zephyr quipped, “You said it!”

DaveyNJosh brought out the instruments and began playing Jasper’s song, “We,” the one with the mellow reggae vibe:

“Even if life is but a dream
Keep on keeping on, just a bunch of divine little things
Even if life is a dream
Keep on keeping on, all of us divine little things…”

The bonfire blazed, sending up showers of sparks as fervent voices rose in harmony to the stars.

The end(?)

Epilogue

If you have ever walked through a doorway into a room and suddenly forgotten why you were there, you have a sense of what it is like to traverse a dimensional portal. As a general aid to understanding, this postscript is provided for those who enjoy having various loose ends of reality wrapped up whenever possible.

Due to the Lotus Door’s electromagnetic fluxation, the muckrats gradually shed what was no longer useful, making space for something else. The process went largely unnoticed. For example, no longer under surveillance by “authorities,” they became more authentically themselves. Minus artificial light, ticking clocks, barcodes, QR codes, zip codes and area codes, they lived within natural rhythms. In following the Code of the River, they existed to go with the flow, row gently, sink or swim, surf the stress – and always remember to breathe.

By comprehending the miracle of the Blessed Child their intrinsic fertility returned, and all children became blessings to be protected. The twins remained in Garkansaw and soon Zephyr (who stubbornly refused to go all in or stretch out) gained more playmates. With the realization that the meaning of meaning is feeling, everyone spoke less and perceived more. They moved so poetically that soon the language of birds and wild creatures revealed itself, a symphony under the stars. The more seeds they planted, the more they grew to learn the vernacular of trees.

And as the Sun is a star and the Moon reflects it, they followed Garlotta’s instructions to lift each other’s spirits and sing to the stars. They adopted her motto – On with the Show – and fulfilled it to their utmost. Out of respect for the celestial Immortals – ancestral heroes and heroines lighting the way, magicians, guardians, Forever Young’uns — they made music worthy of such an auspicious audience, dancing and singing as if everyone were watching and listening (because they are).

In short, the Garkansans lived joyously and kindly ever after.

Daughter of the White River from Michael Mueller Productions on Vimeo.

Chapter 1: The River Sisters

Everyone in Skunk Holler remembers the River Sisters. Half the town locked their doors whenever they passed by, while the rest of us cheered them on (under our breath).

I rode my bike out to the old River Place one time on a dare. Coming down the levee road, I was surprised to see their long gray wooden houseboat set up on the muddy bank, rock-throwing distance to the water (this was before the government kicked out the folks living on the White River). I had pictured their home bobbing at the end of a towline.

The yard was deserted, which struck me as odd, and the houseboat had imitation brick paneling on the walls, which looked even odder. When I got to the top of the rickety steps to knock on the screen door, I noticed a cicada sitting on the wooden railing. It stared with big black eyes like some guard dog insect from another world, all quiet, not like any junebug I ever saw. Next thing I knew I was tumbling backwards down the steps to land on my butt in the packed dirt. As I tore off down the path I swear that bug was laughing at me.

My favorite thing about the River Sisters was their laughter. Mary, the eldest, had a golden voice to match her yellow hair, and her giggle was like a little ringing bell. I saw a halo around Mary River once, but I never told anybody. The younger sisters were said to be twins, although I don’t know as I believe that. Lily was ginger-haired with eyes like a cat and a quiet laugh like a purr. Poppy River, on the other hand, was tan and brown as Lily was pale. Poppy’s laugh was loud and ripe and jolly.

The more things folks around Skunk Holler did to try and make the River Sisters cry, the more those girls laughed—they’d laugh right in your face. They even laughed at Old Man Dump, the slumlord of Skunk Holler. He didn’t like the River Sisters selling their wares in town; he said they needed a permit. But every weekend the weather was nice, they came to town to sell all kinds of stuff. They’d set their willow baskets spread out on a quilt under a big shade tree on the courthouse lawn (Old Man Dump didn’t like that, either) and before you knew it, every kid for miles around would show up on foot or bicycle to see what the River Sisters were up to. Needles, yarn or thread? Just ask Lily, who tats lace while she barters. Want some homemade molasses candy? Poppy makes the best. The older girls crowded around Mary, who sold little glass vials of perfume she made out of flowers. She also made remedies from combinations of flowers. Some folks say Mary’s jasmine tea was a love potion, but I don’t know what it tastes like.

One time I got real sick and the doctor couldn’t figure it out. My fever kept rising and Momma got so scared she sent for Mary River, who came right away. It was Mary’s flower tea broke the fever. That was when I saw the halo I never told about, like rays of sun filling up the room as she leaned over me and whispered something I didn’t catch. Her gray eyes looked ancient and wise, though she couldn’t have been but a couple years older than me.

It got to where us kids had to form a human chain on Saturday afternoons in order to keep the town bullies from coming up under the tree and bothering the River Sisters. We pretended it was all a game of Red Rover, but everybody knew we were guarding the girls. The only one we couldn’t guard them from was Old Man Dump. Whenever he showed up all the kids scattered.

Old Man Dump took to campaigning for Justice of the Peace, saying he was aiming to “clean out those river rats living down in the bottomlands.” I never met anybody in Skunk Holler that cast a single vote their whole life, but next thing we all know, it’s Mayor Dump parading around like he’s the biggest hog at the trough. After that, instead of picnics under the shade tree with the River Sisters singing songs and telling stories, it was only Old Man—I mean, Mayor—Dump, speechifying.

“Those River Sisters have no adult supervision,” Mayor Dump would bellow at anyone passing by court square. “There ain’t a person in town ever even seen their parents!” he’d splutter as his face got redder and redder. Everybody had to admit this was true. Whenever a brave soul ventured down to the riverbank to deliver a message to the family, there was always some excuse. “Daddy’s off checking his trotlines,” Mary liked to say, but her wink and giggle made a joke out of it.
The girls’ mother was said to be a legendary beauty, although no portrait is known to exist. The school principal and Preacher Barton couldn’t seem to catch Mrs. River at home no matter how often they tried. Poppy explained more than once, “Momma’s off catching a swarm of wild bees—she hoots at danger!”

Spring came, bringing days and days of gray rain. School let out so everybody in town could sandbag the levee. Mayor Dump holed up in the one dry spot: the County Courthouse. We heard he was studying ancient deeds and plats, liens and property lines.

On the third day we abandoned the sand bags and retreated to the court square, the only high ground for miles. Nobody knew what to do. Mayor Dump flung open the courthouse doors and stepped onto the portico, unfurling his big black umbrella. I saw him smirk at the captive audience. We were all too exhausted to move and too muddy to come inside the grand old building, so we stood in the downpour while Mayor Dump surveyed us, shaking his head.

“Here we stand, citizens of Skunk Holler,” he intoned, “having worked valiantly for days to shore up that levee yonder.” The crowd shifted uneasily at such a compliment, temporarily distracted from the fact Mayor Dump hadn’t lifted a finger.

“And yet,” he swelled under the umbrella, holding up a sheaf of yellowed papers. “And yet, those people—that pack of squatters down in the bottoms, could knock a hole in that levee at any moment. Those river rats would not think twice about flooding out this town. Everybody knows river rats are crazy! These papers right here, they—they explain how the property—these papers…” he broke off in a shower of spluttering.

We all stared at the Mayor. “Well, if y’all ain’t gonna do anything about the situation, I’ll just have to deputize myself,” he grunted, stuffing the papers in a coat pocket. Then he reached into a different pocket (Old Man Dump was known for his patterned waistcoats) and drew forth a black pistol. At this the crowd began a low rumble, emitting a bass note not unlike a restive flock or herd does when alarmed.

“Follow me, citizens of Skunk Holler! I’m heading down the levee to run them river rats outta town for good!” Mayor Dump steadied his umbrella and walked down the steps. A strange thing happened as the crowd parted to let him pass. People shook themselves like wet dogs, and half the folks streamed inside the (now unguarded) courthouse. The rest of us shrugged and followed Mayor Dump.

“What you think’s gonna happen?” one of my classmates, Mattie Lively, said as we trudged behind the line of muddy people. The water was rising fast. I couldn’t answer, and the closer we got to the bottoms, the more I fretted. Up ahead, Mayor Dump’s umbrella flapped brokenly like some evil bat. I began to pray the River Sisters would get wind of us coming and hide.

“At least he can’t burn ‘em out in all this rain,” Mattie said. The crowd, sensing the nearness of the Mayor’s prey, quickened pace. From the front of the line a boy hollered and instantly more kids picked up the cry. “Sounds like we treed us some coons,” the Mayor yelled.

Mattie and I pushed through the throng until we had a better view. The river was running high and dark halfway up the levee bank. The shrieking kids drowned out the Mayor. “Look!” they cried, jumping and pointing. The old gray houseboat had come loose from its stacked stone foundation—it was floating away. The windows were shut and curtains pulled so we couldn’t see inside, but as it turned slowly into the current, we saw a puppy—Mary’s hound dog—sitting on the back porch, just wagging and watching us all up on the bank waving and screaming like crazy. Mattie tugged my sleeve—the Mayor was lifting his pistol! Without even thinking, I reached down and chunked a mud clod at him, hard, right as he aimed.

Mayor Dump got un-elected that day by unanimous vote, on account of accidentally shooting Preacher Barton in the butt. Everyone in Skunk Holler breathed a little easier once’t we didn’t have a mayor any more. But nobody ever saw or heard from the River Sisters again, and I still wonder about them to this day. Especially Mary.

Chapter 2: Freshwater Pearls

The summer after the River Sisters went away, I got sent down to Saint Joan to stay with my great-uncle. My mother was expecting; she had the morning sickness so bad it was decided I would spend summer break on the White River, on Uncle Harold’s houseboat.

I could hardly wait to get a hook in the water and when Daddy dropped me off, it felt like coming home. Nothing had changed since my last visit: Uncle Harold was just as skinny and bent, with wrinkly brown skin like deer leather. The White River was still green and endless, carrying the smell of a million flowering things. Uncle Harold’s houseboat smelled like wet dog, pipe tobacco and fried fish, which we ate a lot. In other words, it was heaven.

I played with the Dupflautz kids down the way, a German family that treated me like a dark-haired version of one of their gangly towheaded boys and girls. Miz Dupflautz made the best bread pudding with whiskey sauce; between that and Altha Ray’s fruit pies, I was eating better than at home, where sweets were for special occasions.

Altha Ray was Uncle Harold’s lady friend. She came by every few days to tidy up the place and fix a big lunch. She and Uncle Harold liked to sit in rocking chairs on the deck, staring off at the sunset. Uncle Harold’s other friend, Mr. S.E., came over Sunday afternoons to play cards and “have a nip.” Uncle Harold had a nip most every evening, often falling asleep in his big easy chair in the living room. My room was a little space behind the kitchen, with just a cot and a bookshelf, but cozy. Bo, Uncle Harold’s lab mix, slept with me, something Momma never would have allowed.
We went to Saint Joan once a week, to the Mercantile. It was a relief to learn Uncle Harold wouldn’t be taking me to church—he said Sunday school for him was fishing with Mr. S.E., outside under the sky. And since “S.E.” stood for “Saint Elmo,” I figured they must have a line on the hereafter.

Every time Uncle Harold went to pay at the Mercantile, whether for salt, sugar and flour or penny nails and lye soap, he pulled out a leather pouch, reached inside and handed something to Mr. Bullard. It dawned on me that Uncle Harold was paying for his groceries with pearls! Freshwater pearls from White River mussels. I began snooping to see where he kept his pearls and sure enough, one afternoon I peeked through the window as he was lifting up his mattress. He took out a small wooden box and opened it—it was chock full of pearls. So, next time Uncle Harold had a nip and fell asleep in the chair, I went and snuck one little pearl. I wasn’t greedy; I only wanted one teeny-tiny pearl.

When I showed it to the Dupflautz kids the next day, they did not seem impressed. The eldest went and rummaged inside their houseboat and came back holding a matchbox. Inside was a pair of long, skinny pearls. “These are slabs,” the boy said. “River tears,” explained a sister. “Two river tears pulled from the same shell’s bad luck.”

That afternoon Uncle Harold asked me to run to town and get the evening paper, so I hopped on the bicycle and took off, forgetting I still had the pearl in my pocket. On the way back I came to a one-lane bridge and saw a big dry-lander boy blocking the way. The Dupflautz kids had warned me about this bully. They called him “The Troll” because of his frown, and he was glaring at me now.

“Toll bridge!” he yelled. “Empty your pockets.” When I hesitated he rushed over, knocking me off the bike. I reached in my pocket and slowly handed him the forgotten pearl. “I bet there’s more where this came from!” crowed the Troll. I took off running through the woods, clutching tightly to Uncle Harold’s newspaper. After doubling back a bunch of times and crawling through the swamp, I figured I had lost the Troll. I finally got home and handed Uncle Harold the tattered paper along with a story about getting chased by a swarm of hornets and leaving the bike in the woods. He gave me a funny look and said I could get the bike in the morning. I went to bed praying the Troll would leave us be.

That night, Bo woke us up barking. Footsteps sounded outside on the stage plank as I ran to the living room. “Uncle Harold!” I yelled, “It’s the Troll—he’s coming for your pearls!” In an instant my Uncle grabbed his shotgun and was out the door. There was a single shot followed by unearthly howling.

“This no-good’s gone and cursed my pearls!” Uncle Harold thundered as I stepped outside to see the Troll writhing on deck, his hand full of rock salt. “The only way to take off the curse is to throw that box of pearls into the Everlasting Pit!” Uncle Harold ducked inside and retrieved the box. Handing it to me, he dropped his voice as the bully thrashed and moaned.

“Take these—stay gone til this blows over, and then sneak back here,” he said. “That way we don’t have to worry your parents with this mess.” I began to wail. I didn’t want to throw away my Uncle’s treasure. Uncle Harold leaned in so close his whiskery whiskey-breath tickled my ear. “You think these the only pearls I got hid away? Listen: I was a mussel sheller for 40 years. I got little cedar boxes like this one buried at every cold spring in Arkansas County. I got pearls to last til the Resurrection.”

“But where do I go?” I cried as he stuffed the box inside my shirt and threw his jacket over my shoulders. “You just head up the road and catch the first bus comes your way,” he said. “Don’t be scared—there’s a full moon to see by. Just go til you git where you’re going!” With that, Uncle Harold gave me such a shove that I staggered off into the night.

I was asleep on the bench outside the Saint Joan post office when the sound of voices woke me. The sun was up and a big green school bus was parked at the stop, surrounded by a bunch of kids. The box was still tucked inside my undershirt. I fell in line with the gaggle of kids and got a few curious stares as I took a seat in the back.

“Are you with the CCC Floating Camp?” asked a bespectacled boy who plunked down next to me. “I never seen you before.” When I didn’t say anything, the kid started talking a mile a minute about the “Big Dam.” At first I thought he was cussing. But after a few miles of listening to him yack, I gathered we were on a field trip to see a dam getting built up north. The bus was full of kids of Civilian Conservation Corps workers that lived in a big string of houseboats near Saint Joan.
“They’re just getting started on building the dam,” the kid said. “Right now it’s just a big ol’ pit. My dad says it’ll be years before it’s finished and fills up with water.” I stared out the window. The everlasting pit. A dam upstream from Uncle Harold—what would he say to that? The bus stopped for lunch and the boy, whose name was Nelson, shared his food with me. By now he figured I was a mute and had quit asking questions.

It was late afternoon when we got to the construction site. From the road it looked like a mass of scaffolding, planks and catwalks. The grown-ups herded us to a hillside park with a vantage. A CCC man in khakis and a rounded hat started lecturing about the dam. It was going to be as big as an Egyptian pyramid. I spied the nearest overlook—there was an iron railing off to the side. Hugging the cedar box, I bolted.

The CCC man grabbed my collar just as I threw the box over the rail. He shook me til my head rattled, cussing the whole time, but I saw the little wooden box sail into the air and pop open, spilling its precious cargo into the gorge. “Does anyone know this kid?” the CCC man hollered, and Nelson piped up. “He’s my cousin, mister. He’s deaf and dumb—please don’t hurt him.” It was an impressive job; Nelson’s chin trembled as he fumbled with his glasses and wiped at his eyes. The man shrugged and let me go.

When we got back to Saint Joan I was glad to find Uncle Harold had fixed everything. Before long, everybody in town was talking about how the Troll was stealing Altha Ray’s peaches and she fired rock salt at him. Consensus was he’d gotten what he deserved. Everything went back to usual: I swam every day, Mr. S.E. came to fish and play cards, and Altha Ray baked pies for us. Uncle Harold said I did a good thing, throwing those pearls into the pit at the dam site. He never mentioned it again.

But later, after I went home and school started up again, I dreamed about that dam. In the dream the giant gray concrete wall was finished. Behind it a deep dark lake was filled to the brim. But at the base of the dam little pinholes were forming, tiny holes the size of seed pearls, that bubbled and spread as I watched until the whole dam was pocked and crumbling. The giant thing exploded into chunks of tumbling cement as water foamed and roared into the gorge.

I had that dream for years, long after the dam was built and the downstream water temperature dropped, killing off the White River mussels and their hidden pearls. But I still take comfort at the thought of Uncle Harold’s cedar boxes, buried beside every cold spring in Arkansas County.

Chapter 3: The Girl in the Graveyard

What is it about sixth grade that it’s the worst year of your life? I pondered this question throughout the long, dreary winter. Skunk Holler was cold and drab, and school was a hard road all of a sudden. The newborn infant said to be my brother (I figured it for a changeling) took up everybody’s time.

Momma stayed sickly after it was born. I couldn’t stand to hear the baby’s colicky cry; made my skin crawl. The day I came home with a report card full of D’s, Dad said he’d had enough. He was taking me down to Saint Joan for a second chance at sixth grade. Any other time, I would have killed to stay on Uncle Harold’s houseboat, but change school? I broke out in hives fretting about it. Momma slathered me with some nasty goo that didn’t even stop the itch. Maybe she was trying to run me off; her strategy worked, as I became too miserable not to leave.

When Dad pulled up to the riverbank, I didn’t look around. Seemed like tears that had been in my eyes for months were still stuck there. Gathering my gear, I went straight to my old room while he talked with Uncle Harold. When Dad left, I hardly said goodbye. After tossing around in my cot sniffling, I got up, curious as to why the place was so quiet. A note on the kitchen table said: “Gone to town. Back shortly.” Next to the note was Altha Ray’s cake tin. Inside was her specialty: chess cake. It tasted so good I began to cry.

Uncle Harold came home with the makings of a dinner party—“just the two of us.” He presented me with a harmonica and after dinner showed me some tricks on it. At bedtime I found a little wooden whistle on my pillow and brought it to Uncle Harold. He was in the deck chair smoking his pipe, watching the bats swoop. “That’s for you,” he grunted. “It’s a quill I carved out of cedar. Put it on a string and wear it so’s you can whistle for help if you ever get in a pinch.”
I thanked him and went back to bed, stashing the quill under my pillow.

That first day walking to school the Dupflautz kids fell in beside, laughing and joking like old times. The teacher at the one-room schoolhouse seemed a nice old lady. When school let out, I wandered off by myself, distracted by Spring. The dirt road came to an end at a grassy entrance bounded by pillars—the Saint Joan Cemetery. Rows of skinny gray headstones decked with spirea and redbud stretched into the distance. Some of the graves were decorated with mussel shells. As I stared, a voice called, “Can you see me?”

I jumped. Was one of the Dupflautz girls yanking my chain? “Yoo-hoo,” came the voice. “Catch me if you dare!” I darted between the rows, zigzagging toward the back of the graveyard. Whoever she was, she was quick. A wall of thick blackberries blocked the way and something whizzed by my nose—a hickory nut! Then one bounced hard off my head. “Hey!” I yelled. “Is this any way to treat a stranger?” The hail of nuts stopped and a girl stepped out from behind a nearby cedar tree. Her dress was the yellow of jonquils; her hair and skin and eyes were dark as my own. For such a petite thing she was a crack shot with a nut. We studied each other and she asked, “What’s your quill sound like?” I reached up to where the string necklace was tucked inside my shirt. I hadn’t even thought to try it out yet.

Setting down my books and lunch pail, I fished out the whistle and gave it a blast. The shrill sound made us both jump. “Hush!” she hissed. “You want to wake the dead?” Giving my hand a quick shake, she said, “Pleased to meet you, stranger. My name’s Helen Spence.” I mumbled something about getting back to the houseboat and she nodded. “Our houseboat’s near to your Uncle’s. He’s friends with my daddy, Cicero. There’s a storm coming, so I’ll see you tomorrow.” I picked up my things and turned to find her gone. It was late when I got home and Uncle Harold gave me a funny look when I asked if there was a storm coming. I went to bed without mentioning the girl and her dad.

Next day at school I got blamed for something I didn’t do. One of the big kids in the back row found a flying squirrel on the way to school and hid it inside his lunch pail. When the teacher was up front writing on the chalkboard, the kid tossed that flying squirrel into the rafters. Everyone watched it swoop around, closer and closer to the teacher’s piled-up gray hair (she was a Pentecostal). When that squirrel landed on her braid there was pandemonium. After the screaming died down, the bully pinned it all on me. Despite and because of the pleadings of the Dupflautz kids (“Everyone knows river rats stick together,” the bully insisted) I was doomed. The teacher whupped me in front of the whole class. Some nice old lady—she swung like a ballplayer!

When the bell rang, I ran straight to the cemetery, but Helen was nowhere to be found. Sprawling in dense moss under a shade tree, I fell asleep. I always sleep hard after a whupping, and this was no catnap—I woke with a start to find it was dusk already. What would Uncle Harold say?

“Your uncle sent me to fetch you home,” Helen’s musical voice called from the shadows. I grabbed my books and followed as night came on. Helen moved swiftly, surefooted along the paths, not saying a word until we got to the cold spring gurgling in the dark. “Our place is half a mile up from here. Now, run home—there’s a storm coming,” and she vanished into the night.

Uncle Harold’s houseboat shone like a beacon through the trees, lights in every window. When I came in all I could do was run up and hug him. We talked about my bad day over second helpings of sausage, grits and a pot of strong coffee. “Your first school whupping deserves your first nip,” observed Uncle Harold, reaching for his flask. Pouring a splash into my coffee, he winked. “Today was probably the most fun that teacher-lady had since Prohibition.”

In the morning I begged not to go to school, but Uncle Harold deemed it necessary for my self-respect. I sullenly avoided everybody, even the Dupflautzes. At 3 o’clock I bolted from the schoolhouse and found Helen standing just inside the entrance to the cemetery. “Can’t catch me!” she taunted, and the chase was on.

We ran laughing among the headstones, tagging each other “it.” I collapsed on a patch of clover, panting hard. “Calf rope! I give!” Helen sat down, primly arranging her skirt. She wore stockings like my Aunt Eula used to wear: white cotton fishnet. After I caught my breath (Helen wasn’t even winded) she put her finger to her lips and gave a shush. Slowly she pulled the hem of her dress over her knee. Tucked behind the mesh stocking was a roll of one hundred dollar bills—biggest wad of cash I ever saw. “That’s $300,” she said. “Daddy needed a place to hide his money.” As I gaped like a mooncalf she jumped up and ran off, her laughter fading in the distance.

I got home before sunset to find Uncle Harold by the stage plank, scanning the sky. “You been talking about a storm,” he said. Dark blue clouds boiled in the distance, coming in fast from the west. After checking the tow ropes we moved deck chairs inside. As we were eating supper, a mighty thunderclap shook the air and the rain came down. “Do you think Helen and Cicero will be all right in this storm?” I asked, and an odd thing happened—Uncle Harold’s head jerked like somebody struck him across the face. Pushing back from the table, he strode to the door and opened it a crack. Flashes of light, roaring wind and rain burst in. “Time for bed,” he said, shutting the door.

A thunderclap woke me from a dead sleep and I was instantly wide awake. Uncle Harold’s snoring was loud as the storm. I pulled on a pair of rain boots and a slicker. Grabbing a lantern, I lit it and made my way out of the houseboat. I had to know if Helen was all right.

I slipped, barking my shin on the rain-slick stage plank. The footpath was easier going, though the trees were thrashing like crazy. I made it past the cold spring but saw no sign of a houseboat. “Helen!” I screamed. The rain ceased and the gale dropped to a whisper. I could hear the clicking of cottonwood leaves. With the force of the sun, a bright light exploded overhead. There was a cracking sound — I turned to see an oak split in two. Branches crashed down, knocking me to the ground, and the lantern flew off into the dark. Reaching for the quill, I blew as hard as I could over and over, whistling til all my air was gone. I must have fainted because when my eyes opened I was in Uncle Harold’s easy chair, bundled in a horse blanket. Bo was licking my hand, wagging, and the storm was subsiding. My Uncle brewed coffee as I checked for injuries—just a barked shin. “How’d I get here?” I asked.

“I found you on the doorstep. Do you believe in miracles?” Uncle Harold held out a yellowed newspaper clipping with the headline “Outlaw Shot After Escape.” He shook his head, muttering, “They called her the Swamp Angel, but she’s just a little river girl.”

The article was ugly as it was short: “Helen Spence, the houseboat girl who killed the man on trial for killing her father Cicero Spence, was shot down after her fifth escape from Arkansas Women’s Prison. The Grand Jury is investigating claims Spence was the victim of a plot by corrupt prison officials. Spence was buried today beside her father in Saint Joan Cemetery’s potter’s field.” I put down the paper. There was no houseboat by the cold spring, not for years and years, anyway.

A telegram arrived in the morning saying Momma and the baby both came down with scarlet fever and died two days apart. I got sent back to Skunk Holler, but this time my tears did not stick inside. I cried them out, slept hard and woke up convinced Momma knew I loved her (I still figured the baby for a changeling). Helen Spence saved me from the storm. She showed me that time, like the river, doesn’t flow in a straight line.

Chapter 4: Back on the Bayou

Momma was buried with the baby in her arms at her kin’s plot in Vine, a flyspeck in the Delta near Saint Joan. Dad and I went back to Skunk Holler to tend to his affairs. I wasn’t sure what that meant. He spent a lot of time sitting in his undershirt at the kitchen table, staring at piles of documents, chin in hand, and quit going to his job at the mill. When Monday came around and I had to go back to school, I learned right quick how things would be different from here on in. The kids at Skunk Holler had seen me leave before and come back to all this. It was a case of mutual bewilderment. They didn’t know what to say and shrank away as if I were contagious. Mattie Lively tried to be nice. She came up and blurted, “Your momma was an angel!” but it bothered me. I remembered something Dad used to say whenever Momma nagged him about going to church: “She’s no angel,” I bawled at poor Mattie. “She’s a feisty hellcat with a scratchy tongue!”

I took to skipping school and when Dad found out, he didn’t have the heart to whup me. The rats’ nest of documents on the kitchen table was growing more coffee-stained and crumpled by the day, so when Dad was napping I tried reading them. Most didn’t make any sense, but there were some official looking papers from Momma’s Aunt Adeline that caught my eye. She passed away back when Momma first took sick. I shook Dad awake and read out loud from the papers. He gave me a bear hug, tears in his eyes—he hadn’t been able to puzzle out the cursive on the deed. We had inherited Aunt Adeline’s dirt farm—10 acres and a creek! Slinging me by the arms, Dad danced like a Holy Roller. He had a mission now.

We were packing up the house when a knock sounded—a rapid rat-a-tat-tat that stopped us cold. “It’s Aunt Eula,” Dad gasped, and we instinctively looked around for a place to hide. She barged in the unlocked door talking a streak and carrying a tattered parasol, the source of the knock. “Did you not receive my letters? I have written you precisely every three days since the funeral.” Aunt Eula nodded coldly at me like she always did, and Dad escorted her to the sun parlor where they could chat. Aunt Eula was Aunt Adeline’s sister. Momma used to say she was a lot of fun back in the day, when Eula and Adeline were flappers. Adeline stayed sweet and kind but Aunt Eula soured up the older she got. I guessed she must be about 90.

After she left in her usual huff, Dad gave me the bad news: Aunt Eula was going to be our landlady. Something about her being the executioner of Momma’s estate. “Cheer up, Dad,” I offered hopefully. “Aunt Eula can’t last forever.”

The trip to Vine was a slog but we made it by sundown. We spotted the house down a dirt road, a small wooden structure framed by a pair of big pecan trees. The yard was all grown up with weeds but the key worked and once inside, we both flopped into the nearest chair and looked around. “Better than the company house in Skunk Holler, ain’t it?” sighed Dad. The front room was dark, so I opened all the curtains. It was definitely a little old lady kind of place, but real nice. “Momma would like this,” I blurted without thinking. I followed Dad into the kitchen. Wood stove, red-handled pump over the sink, a deal table and chairs—he worked the pump until a stream of water flowed into the sink. “Yep, it’s a peach of a place,” he said sadly.

Dad dropped me off at Uncle Harold’s for a few days while he made some repairs to the house. As the Ford rumbled off, Uncle Harold elbowed me, saying, “Want to see a surprise?” I followed him to the kitchen; in a corner on the linoleum was a shoebox. Bo was guarding it, wagging. Inside the box, a tabby kitten peeked out of a nest of lambswool.

I was thunderstruck—here was my first pet. Momma frowned upon “house animals” as she called them. Every turtle, lizard, frog—even chipmunk—that I smuggled home eventually got sent back to the woods, no matter how I begged. All of a sudden, the kitten made a sound like a mudcat does when you pull it out of the water. Scooping up the ball of fur, I asked its name. “That’s your job,” said Uncle Harold. ”She’s all yours.”

“Mudcat. Her name’s Mudcat,” I said, rubbing my face in her fur. The next few days were spent fishing off the deck with Mudcat. Uncle Harold sat nearby and whittled, giving pointers from time to time. Mudcat was the ideal fishing buddy. She sat watching and lashed her tail, sometimes darting off to chase butterflies. I landed a good-sized blue channel catfish after a struggle and Uncle Harold put it on the stringer. “What’s that cat got ahold of,” he muttered as Mudcat zigzagged across the deck. It was a leopard frog. Uncle Harold chased down and rescued the hopping frog. “Shoo, Mudcat, this here’s my prize,” he chuckled.

For the next two days Uncle Harold tormented me with that frog. He hid it in the medicine cabinet, where my toothbrush was. He hid it in the mailbox, in my tacklebox and my bedroom slippers. I got so nerved up from that frog jumping out at me and Uncle Harold cackling in the next room that I finally took the thing and threw it in the river. Uncle Harold pulled a long face; after a while I couldn’t stand it. I ran up the stage plank while he was skinning catfish and on the third tree trunk I found a peeper—a little green tree frog. Smuggling it onto the houseboat, I looked around for the best place to put it to scare Uncle Harold.

“Altha Ray’s here,” Uncle Harold sang out. I darted into the kitchen with the frog, stashing it in the first convenient spot: the sugar bowl. Retreating to my room, I hid under the quilt and listened. Altha Ray came into the kitchen and started her usual clatter with the dishes. I caught the words “fruit cobbler recipe” and “cup of sugar” and next thing I knew, Altha Ray was screaming like a banshee. She left without making the cobbler after lecturing Uncle Harold on the sin of wasting good sugar. He poked his head around the doorway. “Guess I’ll take this peeper out and put him to bed,” he grinned. I snuggled with Mudcat until the frogs sang me to sleep.

Dad showed up the next day and we had a heck of a fish fry, with hush puppies and chow-chow. When Uncle Harold asked how the repairs were going, Dad gave a heavy sigh. His work was now being overseen by the constant presence of Aunt Eula. “She showed up the other day and said she’s staying to make sure I fix everything right,” Dad groaned. “And ever since then I can’t drive a straight nail.” At that, Uncle Harold uncorked his flask and shooed me off to bed. I eavesdropped from there on in:

“Eula ain’t been right since she ran off with that fancy-pants man,” I heard Uncle Harold say. “I understand she took him for a bundle.”
“Right before the Crash of ‘29,” Dad replied. “What was he up to, some kind of new duds or something?”
“He invented clothes without pockets for those as don’t need ‘em…britches for folks that got butlers to tell ‘em what time it is, or to fetch their snuffboxes.” Their snorts of laughter lasted into the night.

School was nearly done for the year, so it was decided the way to ease back in was to attend the May Day fair. Dad and Uncle Harold accompanied me as a united front, and the annual school picnic was more fun than I expected. There was a Maypole, a croquet tournament and a big spread, and all of St. Joan was there. I was eating fried frog legs when a tall skinny kid sat down beside me. “You’re the one took the rap for the flying squirrel,” he declared, putting out a hand to shake. His name was JC White, and he was sitting in the back row in class that day I got whupped. He told me not to worry when I came back to the schoolhouse—that nobody was going to trouble me anymore. As he stood to walk off, I thanked him and invited him to come out to the houseboat any time. To my surprise, the Pentecostal teacher-lady came right over and visited with Dad, telling him what a good student I was. The prospect of a decent end to sixth grade loomed. I wished Momma could see us now.

The following day Dad went back to the property. I was teaching Mudcat to fetch, or trying to, when Uncle Harold came out and scanned the sky. The air got real still and he said it was time to come inside; a storm was brewing. We played a game of checkers and thunder began to rumble. A blast of hail hit and drummed on the houseboat. I had fun collecting hailstones and piling them in the sink until the storm slacked off and we went to bed.

It wasn’t until Dad’s next visit we learned about the effects of that storm on the house in Vine. He told us how Aunt Eula went for an after dinner stroll to check the property, and while she was off by the potato patch the wind blew up and all hell broke loose. Dad climbed down from the roof where he was hammering shingles and yelled for Eula from the porch, but before he could go look for her there came a frog rain.

“It was the damnedest thing I ever saw, Harold,” Dad said. “The air was green and thick with frogs—they were slamming into me like rocks. Eula came screeching up the hill and jumped in her roadster, never even came in the house to get her suitcase—she took off down the road like she was hauling white lightning.”

That was the last time we had to worry about Aunt Eula—she retired to Skunk Holler and kept her distance from then on. We never heard her rat-a-tat-tat again. Every once in a while we’d get a letter from her, but since they were all written in cursive, Dad didn’t pay much attention.

Chapter 5: Summer of the Wolf

For the first time in a long while, I looked forward to going to school. Leaving the houseboat early, I walked through the May sunrise with firm resolve: there was a friend waiting on me.

The Dupflautz kids knew all about JC White. “He’s the kid on Big Creek that got the wolf,” they chimed. “It’s got red eyes!” hollered the youngest. They described JC in voices tinged with awe. When we came in sight of the schoolyard, there he stood: tall and lanky, with a cowlick of black hair that poked up on one side. “Want to go squirrel hunting after school?” was all he said. I spent the rest of the day watching the hands on the wall clock circling slowly around.

“See? This is where he waited for school to let out.” JC pointed at the remains of a rabbit. We stepped further in to the ring of forest bordering the schoolyard. “Wolf!” he called softly. Directly in front of us, a clump of bushes parted and a black timber wolf emerged, staring silently with eyes like glowing coals. “My dad was doing some logging and found him in a tree stump,” said JC. “He was just a little ball of fur when I got him.”

That afternoon summer really began. The last days of school flew by as JC and I took to combing the woods between Big Creek and Tarleton Creek, hunting fox squirrels till the sun got low. I tagged along with him while he checked his traps. Every day he brought home something for the table: a plump red-tailed squirrel or rabbit. Wolf didn’t sound or bark, but he sure could growl. Uncle Harold was glad I had a buddy. “Sheriff Joe’s son is the best shot in Arkansas County,” he observed. “Before JC—stands for Joseph Cressie—was born, his dad rode a one-eyed horse all over Forks-LaGrue Bayou. Ol’ Good-Eye; now there was a horse.”

JC had a plan for when school let out: we were going to find the Honey Man. Some folks claimed he lived in a hollow tree. Others called him the bogey man, saying he was big and wild-eyed and lurked in the bottomlands. No kid had ever seen him by day; he traveled by moonlight, hauling his kegs of golden honey to the Mercantile. His wildflower honey was the main ingredient (besides whiskey) for every cough remedy in Arkansas County.

JC had a powerful sweet tooth; one time he trapped a black mink and Mr. Bullard paid him $20 for it; first thing he did was buy two whole dollars’ worth of candy. “I got to know what the Honey Man’s comb tastes like,” JC said for the umpteenth time. On the last day of school, he kept his word about sticking up for me. A dry-lander boy tripped me as school let out and I went sprawling in the dirt. “Look at the deaf-mute river rat!” the boy sniggered. Getting to my feet, I stood there at my usual loss for words. JC ambled over and grabbed the kid by the back of his overalls. Swinging him up to eye level, he shook the kid like a rag doll. “He ain’t a deaf-mute,” he growled. “He’s a mind reader. You best run hide in the outhouse!” The boy scrambled away howling.

We hit the trail, Wolf gliding behind, and JC cut a pair of sticks to tap the ground for snakes. Coming to a shady spot, he bent some branches and pointed: quicksand. Skirting the mucky place, we moved deeper into the dim swamp where the cypress knees rise shoulder-high. After about an hour we came to a grove and sat down to share some deer jerky. Leaning against a hickory trunk, I piled up leaves til I was buried to my armpits. Patches of blue sky glowed through the branches.

“Hush,” JC said, shaking me from a doze. “You were snoring.” A doe and her fawn bounded past our hidden glade, racing down the trail. They zigzagged into the woods and disappeared. I saw Wolf’s fur bristle in waves down his spine; there came a sound of something tromping through the brush. A figure passed carrying a tow sack slung over broad shoulders. A sweat-stained hat hid his face, but his jacket of golden-colored deer leather seemed familiar: the Honey Man!

JC motioned and I followed. “Smell that?” he whispered. It was wood smoke. Ahead was a clearing, in the center a cypress shack. From the distance came a mule’s laughing bray. Scooting forward on our bellies, we hunkered behind a shed. A screen door slammed and the Honey Man walked over to a row of wooden boxes by the tree line. His face was brown as a walnut and shiny with sweat—he was grinning! Pulling a drawer from one of the boxes, he strode to the center of the clearing and set the drawer on top of a tree stump. He went back inside the little gray house and shut the door.

“Look at the size of that honeycomb,” JC sighed, eyeing the drawer’s glistening contents. Before I could blink, he was gone. Dashing across the yard, he grabbed a fistful of honeycomb and we tore through the woods as if the Devil were chasing us. After putting some distance between us and the shack, we stopped to gorge on the sweet gooey honeycomb, like candy from heaven. I was licking my fingers when JC said, “You hear something?” We stood stock-still, straining our ears. A thin whine sounded in the distance and Wolf growled. “Run!” JC yelled. We took off with the swarm of bees close behind. They chased us all the way to Big Creek, dive-bombing like crazy. “That’s the last time I take charity from the Honey Man,” said JC.

Back on the houseboat, Uncle Harold placed strips of wet brown paper on my bee stings and explained how the Honey Man crossed over from Mississippi a few years back. “His name is Sam. Some Mississippi lawmen claim he killed a couple of Cajuns, but it ain’t like Sam done anything this side of the River,” Uncle Harold shrugged. “Those Cajuns prob’ly needed killing.”

Summer played on and the White River replaced the woods as fishing and swimming filled our days. After finishing whatever chores I couldn’t avoid, I met JC at Bullard’s Mercantile to make plans and we’d go from there. He had the rest of the $20 he got for the mink pelt, so Saturday afternoon we came to town on a mission to buy a new snap gig. What with a full moon and perfect weather, the plan was to go frog gigging with Uncle Harold later on. We were in our usual spot in front of the candy counter when the door jingled. A sudden string of oaths burst forth—we spun around to see Mr. Bullard cocking his shotgun over the counter—it was pointed at a scrawny-looking fellow in the doorway. “You ain’t buying anything in here, mister, not with your blood money,” Mr. Bullard said. The man slowly raised his hands and backed away without uttering a sound. JC glared at the stranger, and when the door closed he leaned down and whispered in my ear, “Go straight home and don’t tell.” Grabbing a handful of nails, he tossed a nickel on the counter and left without buying the snap gig.

Uncle Harold and I were sitting on deck watching the moonrise when Dad drove up. In the morning he was taking me and Mudcat back to Vine for the rest of the summer—Dad was set on making a farmer out of me. He came barreling down the stage plank whooping and hollering, and after catching his breath and having a nip, he gave us the story: Driving through Saint Joan he spotted half the town milling around the Mercantile. Folks were in an uproar over Frank Martin, the prison trusty who got parole for killing Helen Spence. The murderer had brazenly come into Saint Joan only to get run off by Mr. Bullard. “Frank Martin took the rap for killing her, all right,” said Uncle Harold. “Damned drylander.”

“But that ain’t all,” Dad went on, “They said Martin left town in a hurry and was crossing the bridge at Forks-Lagrue when his tire caught a nail and went flat. He got out the car to check the tire and a pack of dogs set on him. Those dogs tore his butt to shreds before he could get back in the car. He drove off on the rim in a shower of sparks—it’s the talk of the town.”

“Well I’ll be,” exclaimed Uncle Harold. “Hopefully it was some mad dogs bit him.” We waited awhile and when JC didn’t show, the three of us slipped off in the shell boat. Sitting in front holding the lantern, I watched the moon peek from a cloud as an eerie howl echoed against the bluff. Dad speared fat bullfrogs one by one and slung them in the boat—he didn’t need a fancy snap gig. Uncle Harold lounged in back, manning the paddle between nips and chuckling through the darkness, “Mad dogs, yep, mad dogs. You ain’t just a-wolfin’… you ain’t just a wolfin’.”

Years later, we heard Frank Martin went around bragging he was the one shot the notorious Helen Spence. He walked into Cloud’s grocery near Casscoe to buy a loaf of bread and the lady behind the counter was from the River. She sold him a different loaf, said it cost less and was just as good. Frank Martin went home, ate dinner and never woke up the next morning. Folks always said the River got him.

Chapter 6: Run for the Roses

Back at the “dirt farm in Vine” as Dad called it, work was plentiful. After bending a dozen nails and breaking a hoe, I was put in charge of the chickens and pond. “Just bring in some eggs and a few catfish or bream now and then,” Dad pleaded.

His plan centered on a crop of fast-growing sorghum. We were going to turn it into molasses at the end of the season. Dad was already tallying jars to sell to the general store at nearby Bethel and Bullard’s Mercantile in Saint Joan. He had acquired a mule so we planted a big garden too. I got used to eating greens, baby taters and double-yolker omelets. Most days I found time to sneak off and see what JC was up to. The Brown farm, a much larger piece of land than ours, was located between Vine and Bethel. One midsummer afternoon I met JC coming down the dusty road. Recognizing me from a distance, he plunked down in the shade and waited. “There’s a horse race today at the big cypress,” he hollered when I was still a ways off, a revelation that set me running.

I never saw a real horse race. Whenever Aunt Eula would go on about the glory days of Oaklawn Park over in Hot Springs, Momma called it scandalous. As we walked, JC described the scene: after taking off from the big cypress, the horsemen would gallop over a mile to the general store in Bethel where the winner got a cold Coca-Cola and folks collected their bets. Part of the track went through the woods. “My uncle was on the crew that built this road,” said JC. “When they got to the cypress tree, there wasn’t a saw blade big enough to cut it, so they built the road to Bethel around it.”

We veered off to the bottoms as shouts of laughter and the jingle of harnesses sounded ahead. Soon we entered a cypress grove containing more drylanders and horseflesh than I had ever seen gathered in one place. At the center of the hubbub, the giant tree rose up like a mountain, with knees 10 feet tall. I stared up at the faraway treetop, where an eagle’s nest wedged between branches. “During rainy seasons it takes a canoe to get here,” JC observed. “A dry spell like this is good racing weather.”

Six tall farm boys swung into saddles. I like Palominos; there was a fine one prancing about, also some chestnut quarter horses and a paint pony. Men young and old ranged around swapping bets. JC stood in conversation with an older boy named Jim whose family kept a houseboat downriver from Uncle Harold. I knew Jim by reputation as one of the best mussel shellers in Saint Joan; despite being small of stature he could shoulder a helmet and stay under water longer than anybody. Suddenly the crowd grew quiet and a man hollered something, lifting his pistol skyward. A shot rang out and the horses broke away in a cloud of dust and yelling.

Some folks ran to the road and jumped in automobiles; a few followed on horseback or mule. By the time we made it to Bethel on foot, the race was over and one of the Hankins brothers had won on the paint pony. All the girls from school were there, milling around and gushing over the horses and the Hankins brothers. Some of the girls had made a garland of roses for the winner. Jim and JC rolled their eyes at the spectacle. “Let’s go fishing,” Jim said, tearing up his slip. “I’d rather bet on something I can eat than a horse race anyhow.”

The following week there was a revival down on the White River. Despite his aversion to indoor churchgoing, Uncle Harold never missed a chance to take Altha Ray to the brush arbor. I tried to get Dad to come, but he just shook his head. “God don’t want me and Hell’s already full,” he declared. He insisted I wash behind my ears and put on a clean shirt, muttering, “Your momma always wanted to see you baptized.” I had no such plans. I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

Every summer on the White River, folks cut lengths of cane and willow branches to fashion a rectangular open-air structure. Then they made a brush arbor, roofing the frame with branches while girls braided lengths of flower-vines and wrapped them around the posts. Honeysuckle, virgin’s bower and maypops dangled, heady with perfume, all within a stone’s throw of the River. Rows of benches were set up and lanterns hung. Preacher Barton surveyed the scene with satisfaction. He’d come down from Skunk Holler by way of Possum Waller to baptize the faithful and eat catfish and barbecue.

I rode with JC’s family to Saint Joan (Wolf stayed behind, consigned to the barn). The buckboard wagon joined a line of others as we neared the River. “I hear the Hankins boys are up to something,” JC said. “We’d better keep an eye out.” His dad pulled the buckboard into the shade and we ran to find Jim, who had already heard the rumor about the Hankins boys. Plenty of families were arriving as the sun rose higher. At every turn, groups of giddy mothers showed off their new babies, exclaiming over each other.

“Let’s get away from this hen party,” muttered Jim. We took a bench in the back of the brush arbor but saw no sign of the Hankins brothers. “Looks like they’re planning a surprise attack,” JC said as Jim nodded gravely. I had only a vague notion of the Hankins brothers; like Jim, they were already past 9th grade and out of school. Besides the winner of the horse race, there were several more just like him, big and boisterous and always into something. “The Hankinses are the best pranksters in Arkansas County,” JC remarked in admiration. Uncle Harold and Altha Ray came over to greet us and the seats began filling up as Preacher Barton stepped to the fore.

There were some farm-related prayers for the crops to increase and good weather to continue; beyond that I got lost in daydreams, drowsy from the heat. After a break for a few baptisms and a picnic lunch, the sermonizing started up again for the duration of the afternoon, punctuated occasionally by hymns. I fidgeted on the hard bench. The babies started fussing too; each time, the mother would get up and take the baby over to where the buckboards were parked in the shade. After tending to the baby, the mother wrapped it and tucked it in the wagon to sleep til the sermon was over. As Preacher Barton droned on, I wished I were asleep on a quilt pallet in a buckboard, too.

Preacher Barton finally ran out of steam around sunset. The contented crowd was headed home when a scream pierced the air. “This ain’t little Howard!” a woman shrieked from a nearby wagon. The line of buckboards slowed as a babble of voices arose: “Whose baby have we got?” “Why, this isn’t Opal—it’s Clara’s niece!” Women poured into the road, rushing hysterically from wagon to wagon. “Lord,” JC cried, awestruck. “I hope there ain’t a catfight.” Folks exchanged squalling babies, calling above the din, “It’s the Hankins boys!”

The revival went on for days, but I stayed home from then on to work with Dad and avoid any chance at getting baptized. JC showed up one day when we were sitting down to dinner, and as Dad piled food on his plate he offered up the latest news of the Hankins boys.

“After a couple days of folks getting their babies switched around, those drylanders took to checking their babies before they left for home,” JC grinned. He described how the Hankins brothers themselves finally showed up and sat in the back row. No one knew what to expect. At the height of Preacher Barton’s oration, the brothers began scraping their big old work boots on the ground, crunching the brush arbor’s floor of crushed mussel shells. Preacher Barton merely increased his volume. This ordeal went on for the entire book of Job.

“The next day was the last day of the revival,” JC continued. “Preacher Barton shows up to the pulpit, takes his Bible and sets it down. He pulls out his big pocket watch and puts that down beside. And then he brings out his Schofield pistol, lays it on top of the Bible and says, ‘I come here to preach the word of the Lord. But anybody in back want to make noise, I’ll be happy to send him to Hell!’”

Things quieted down considerably after the revival, and Dad spent the rest of the summer trying to make a farmer out of me. “I don’t know as you’re much of a farmer,” he would sigh. “But at least you’re not a prankster, nor a preacher.”

Chapter 7: Sweet as Molasses

Autumn on the River is busy season. There’s the Reunion at the end of October, but before that comes the sorghum harvest and molasses-making. I was itching to see my first molasses-cooking party—JC said it lasts for days, with music and circle dances and a big spread. School lets out early, perking folks up.

Dad liked to broke his back cutting the 10-foot stalks, topped with tassels that have to be sawn off by hand. From sunup to sundown we piled green cane into the hay wagon, falling asleep as soon as supper was over. My hands blistered and I got behind on the dishwashing—when we ran out of clean pots and pans Dad kept going. He switched to the Dutch oven and built a fire out in the yard. One evening we were tucking in to a mess of stew when JC and Wolf showed up. After dinner, we lounged on the porch. The moon shone through the pines as JC cleared his throat. “Mr. Granberry, can Brent ride with us to the molasses-makin’? We got room in our buckboard and he can camp with Jim and me.” I waited, holding my breath. Dad grinned. “That’ll work. I’ll be in Uncle Harold’s tent. Just follow the snoring.”

The next few days were a blur. Ducks and geese began flying back to the River, their numbers darkening the sky. Between the nip in the air and the colors in the leaves, I went around dazzled. JC talked molasses nonstop; he was sharpening his sweet tooth. “The best barbecue sauce has sorghum in it. The pit’s already dug at the Williams’ place—they’re probably scalding the hog now. Cracklings are my favorite,” he rambled as we walked home from school. Jim was already gone ahead up the River. “He’s pitching camp by the River, away from the big house,” JC said, “since Wolf is coming to guard the camp.”

“Guard it from what?” I asked. JC didn’t answer until we came to the fork in the road. As he and Wolf turned off for home, he hollered, “Ghosts, that’s what! Guard it from ghosts!” I stared until they were out of sight and a dust devil sprang up in the empty dirt. My scalp prickled and I ran the rest of the way home.

That night I lay awake, listening for Dad’s snore—the house was too quiet. “Dad? Is the Williams place haunted? JC says it’s haunted.” The Williams homestead, for years the site of the molasses-making, had fields and orchards and a big stone wishing well. Two maiden aunts and their elderly brother lived in the farmhouse in peace and quiet, except for the yearly wingding. JC called it “sorghum philanthropy.”

“He’s just rattlin’ your cage, son—go to sleep.” It’s true that JC held to uncertain lore, as when he swore if a Model A were parked with the engine running, the tires would melt. He’d cross his heart while describing in detail a hoop snake, gulley cat or snipe. He even got me to believe knotholes on trees were doors to beehives—for months I knocked on every knothole I saw. Maybe ghosts are uncertain lore.

When school let out we ran yelling down the steps. At JC’s house we climbed into the loaded buckboard, like a big shoebox on wheels, with Mr. and Mrs. White up front guiding the draft horses. JC’s older brother Henry followed on horseback and Wolf stalked beside. Being in high spirits, we took turns singing—that is, the White family sang “This Old White Mule of Mine,” followed by a round:

“I’m going to leave ol’ Texas now, they’ve got no use for the longhorn cow
They’ve plowed and fenced my cattle range, and the people there are all so strange…”

More wagons entered the road, winding past hedgerows of purple sumac and goldenrod. Mrs. White began “Auld Lang Syne,” and a lump came into my throat—Momma used to sing that. On reflex, I looked to the heavens that were bluer than a bird egg and it was like a vision dropped from the sky, as if Momma whispered in my ear: Remember, Poppy River makes molasses candy, the best molasses candy in Arkansas County. The River Sisters—surely they’d be there! I resolved to scour the Williams place for any sign of them.

The wagon topped a rise and the air hummed with sudden laughter and conversation, jangling harnesses, rumbling engines. Distant smoke spiraled from the vat of boiling molasses as folks gathered in oak and pecan groves, unfolding card tables and setting out potluck dishes. A group of men was putting up a stage next to the muscadine arbor and kids played crack-the-whip, white legs and brown legs snaking in a blur barefoot until the whip snapped, sending the small ones rolling in the grass. JC pointed to where a mule trod a circle, hitched to a long pole turning the grindstone. “First we try the raw cane juice,” he said. “But just a sip—you don’t want to spend the weekend in the outhouse.”

Escaping the wagon, we passed some folks working an apple press and a girl held out a cup. “Want some live-apple juice? Say—is that a timber wolf?” With a nod to the girl, JC grabbed my arm and steered toward the settling vat. “First things first,” he repeated. He was right—a little of that foamy, sappy juice was plenty—it tasted sharp as the color green. We took off toward the river.

Jim’s shell boat was tied to the bank and the camp looked a sight. A raggedy flag (red silk bloomers) flapped atop the tent pole and from trees hung all manner of gear: spyglass, drinking gourd, railroad lantern. A circle of stones marked the fire pit, next to which Jim lay with his hat over his eyes. JC whispered to Wolf, who broke into a piercing howl. Scrambling to his feet, Jim cussed us for being late. I stared off while the two of them argued about what to do first—play horseshoes or go find the musicians. “You’re mighty quiet,” said JC. “What’s eating you?”

I announced my mission: to find three sisters, name of River. Apparently, the girls were as legendary in Saint Joan as in Skunk Holler—JC and Jim gawked as though I’d sprouted a second head. “The River Sisters ain’t been seen in a good while,” JC began, but Jim shouted him down, betting us a nickel they were close by right this minute. After more arguing, we agreed to fan out on a search and meet up in an hour. “Wolf, stand guard,” JC called.

I plunged into the crowd and caught up to a buffet line, asking every few paces if anybody had seen the River Sisters. People seemed startled, but in the next breath they’d be talking a streak—everybody had a story about the River Sisters. Begging pardon, I excused myself and ran to the nearest card table, asking some poker players if they’d seen the River Sisters. That was the end of their hand, as each fellow folded his cards and talked over the other, vying to praise the girls. I gave up on the poker players and hurried to find the musicians.

The boys stood behind a shed, tuning their guitars and passing a jug. “Have y’all seen the River Sisters?” I panted. “Speak up, kid—don’t be a mush-mouth,” said the washboard player. When I repeated the question, they welcomed me warmly. “Sit down—have a nip of this blueberry wine.” Dad gave me some blueberry wine once when I had the croup, so I took a swig. The warming potion spread like electricity down my middle as the musicians debated over which songs to play for the River Sisters, ignoring my presence. This wasn’t working as planned, so I went in search of JC.

I found him at the Flying Jenny, a sort of giant seesaw for brave people. “They’re here all right,” JC said excitedly as Jim pushed through the multitude, hollering, “They’re here!” We spotted a table by the barbecue pit and compared notes over messy helpings of barbecue. It was like I thought: nobody had seen the River Sisters, but everybody was sure they were here. “Wonder who started that rumor?” JC hooted. Bonfires flared in the distance as the musicians took the stage, dedicating the song to “the sweetest gals in Arkansas, the River Sisters.” The Cajun reel went round and round: “When we didn’t have no crawfish, we didn’t eat no crawfish,” as couples danced under a full moon.

The rest of the weekend flew by. I won a penny jacknife pitching horseshoes, and Dad and Uncle Harold jarred up 30 crates of fine amber syrup—enough to pay bills. Back home, I slept like a log. But Dad woke me before dawn. “I want to fetch a premium price for our first batch—what do you think?” he said, raising the lantern. Mason jars of sorghum molasses covered the kitchen floor, table and counter. They all bore brown paper labels: “Granberry’s Hainted Molasses.”

Dad had stayed up all night making the labels and I didn’t have the heart to tell him he misspelled “haunted.” Turns out, it didn’t even matter—folks bought it in droves, said it was the best they’d had, and we were in tall cotton for a good while.

Chapter 8: Snow on the Cedar

The Reunion marks the beginning of the Holidays, with Thanksgiving and Christmas and the New Year just around the corner. Camp Doughboy near DeWitt draws families from across Arkansas County, but Dad could remember the old Reunion ground, Camp Fagan, on the lower White River. Camp Fagan was named after a Confederate general; you can still dig up a musket ball on the riverbank there—even cannon balls. That part of the River was known as Indian Bay until a Civil War battle filled the water with dying soldiers and horses. Afterward folks renamed it Stinking Bay.

I rode with JC’s family again and before we saw Camp Doughboy through the trees we could hear the music. Anybody carrying an instrument gets in the Reunion for free. There’s a merry-go-round with wooden horses and a calliope and even a magic lantern show. At dusk, folks file inside the big tent to sit on benches, waiting for dark. Then they light up the lantern that projects pictures—the wonders of the world flicker across the canvas. My favorites were the Taj Mahal, Sitting Bull, the Sphinx and Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls made me seasick, it looked so real—or maybe it was just too many candy apples and rides on the merry-go-round.

“Altha Ray makes the finest fried chicken,” sighed JC, sprawled beside the fire. “I’m fuller’n a tick,” Jim groaned. We were camped by the River, away from the main campgrounds, and Wolf stood guard. “Tonight’s Halloween,” JC mused. “Did I ever tell y’all about the ghost up at the Icehouse?” The Icehouse at Saint Joan did set up on a bluff like some giant gray skull made of cypress instead of bone, but it wasn’t haunted. “I don’t want to hear your fish stories,” I challenged. “I seen a real ghost—it shook my hand!”

Jim whistled. “Still waters run deep. You don’t talk much, but when you do it’s a doozy!” We drew up in a circle by the fire and I told them all about meeting Helen Spence in the graveyard and how she saved me from the storm. “Here’s the quill my uncle made,” I said, pulling the string necklace from inside my shirt. “If I blew this whistle—right now—would it wake the dead? Do y’all think Helen would come?”

“Do it!” hollered JC. But Jim shook his head. “Brent, you know you can’t. It ain’t right to trouble an unquiet spirit. Helen’s an unquiet spirit.” I put the whistle back inside my shirt as JC fumed. “Well I wanna see ‘er! Y’all are scaredy-cats!” Jim stared into the fire. “JC, you talk like a drylander! Were you there when we broke her outta that damned funeral home in DeWitt? Where they had her dead body set up in the winder like Bonnie Parker? No. It was us River folk went and got her and brought her home. Your Uncle was with us, Brent.”

“That was the first time I saw my momma cry, was when Helen died,” JC asked. “I miss her too. You say you know where to find her grave?”

“I oughta know—I helped dig it,” Jim replied. “We planted a cedar tree to mark it. Next to where Cicero is buried, back in the potter’s field. The night we buried her, the moon was so bright it give me freckles.”

We agreed to visit Helen’s cedar tree after the Reunion was over, but there came a hard freeze. “Looks like the persimmon seeds predicted right,” Uncle Harold said, stoking the fire. “Back when your dad was a boy, there was a winter so cold it froze the River—folks went ice-skating!” Dad was toughing it out at the farm—he had closed up the house and was sleeping in the barn with the animals. In the middle of the night I woke to a strange sound, so loud it drowned out Uncle Harold’s snoring. Bundled in a wool blanket, I crept through the dark houseboat and went to open the door—it was stuck. I pried it open a crack, put my head out and felt something like needles on my face—an ice storm!

We were iced in all right. For the next few days we holed up, listening to trees exploding outside. My nerves were shot from worrying if the ice storm would fell Helen’s tree. Uncle Harold wore me down asking “Why so blue?” When I explained the reason, he nodded sympathetically. “Please—tell me about Helen Spence,” I asked, and he stoked the fire and began:

“They called her the Swamp Angel, but she’s just a little River girl. She could shoot straighter’n a man, and sew and tat lace finer than any dry-lander lady. She lived by a code; the code of River Justice. The River gets its revenge, y’know—the River’ll eat you up in the end. Helen shot the man who killed her daddy; shot him four times in such a tight pattern you could put a hat over it.”

“At the trial? In the courthouse?”

“You ain’t just a wolfin’. Folks were jumping out the courthouse winders to get away. The judge hid under his desk. She had a pearl-handled lady’s pistol tucked inside a fur muff she wore—it was cold that day, like now. After she shot that no-good, she handed over the gun to JC’s daddy. That judge never should have sent her to the Pea Farm, because she’s from the River. She kept escaping—always headed back to the River though, so they always caught her. One escape she planned for weeks. They had took her off the field crew and put her to work in the prison laundry. She saved up a bunch of cloth napkins—the red and white ones.”

“Gingham?”

“Yes, gingham-checked napkins,” Uncle Harold continued. “She saved ‘em and sewed ‘em into the lining of her prison dress. And when the mean ol’ prison matron, Miz Brockman, sent the gals up to Memphis and the bus stopped off at the station, what do you think Helen did? She went to the ladies room, turned her dress inside out, and waltzed off pretty as you please! But like I say, they always caught up to her, and give ‘er ten lashes with the blacksnake—a leather strop.” When I asked why Miz Brockman bused the prisoners to Memphis, Uncle Harold hesitated. “They done a lot of bad things then—I’ll tell you another time. Get on to bed.”

I woke burning with fever and poor Uncle Harold didn’t know what to do. As a result, he tried out all his home remedies on me: A knife under my cot “to cut the pain,” doses of turpentine “to clean me out” and hot oatmeal and onion plasters on my chest “to draw up the bad stuff.” When he came at me with yet another steaming cup of godawful stewed leaves he called “senny,” I begged for mercy. “That stuff puts me in the outhouse—it’s too dang cold out there,” I wailed. As a compromise, he brewed a pot of coffee and poured in the last of his “special reserve.” After a few cups, we both felt stronger.

I lost track of time, but one morning brought a moist breeze that started things to thawing. I felt strong enough to go outside, and from the top of the stage plank I watched chunks of blueish ice float past wet black tree trunks. The snow was so bright it hurt my eyes. I went back inside the houseboat, resolved to walk to the cemetery the next day no matter what. I would go alone, since I didn’t have the wind in me to walk to JC or Jim’s place and fetch ‘em.

I was sure I could find the right tree—when Uncle Harold described it, I recognized the place I met Helen. I went slowly, breathing hard, the drip and crack of melting ice sounding through the woods. Fallen trees blocked the road; it looked like the cedars got hit bad—split from the top down, branches sheathed in gray-green ice. At the cemetery entrance I leaned against a pillar, staring over an alien sea of white drifts and broken limbs. How would I find Helen’s tree? I looked down to see a line of rabbit tracks leading off among the headstones, so I followed them. The tracks led to the back corner of the graveyard and there stood Helen’s cedar tree, untouched by the ice storm.

I blew softly on the quill and waited. “Helen,” I whispered. “Are you there?” When nothing happened I leaned my head against the slender trunk. I was all give out. The sun came blazing from behind a cloud and through my tears the ice sparkled like diamonds, little rainbows everywhere. At the base of the tree a droplet appeared bright red against the melting snow—it was red as blood. I knelt and brushed away the snow, uncovering a patch of wild strawberries. What in the world—berries in the dead of winter!

“Brent? Son, are you there?” Dad’s voice called nearby. I answered and soon he was standing beside. “So this is her tree,” he said. He had driven to Uncle Harold’s to fetch me and found me gone. “Son, let’s go home—you ain’t well yet.” I took my quill necklace and tied it around the tree trunk, and Dad helped me to the truck.

That spring brought the best strawberry crop in years. At Eastertide, Dad and I planted dahlias at Momma’s grave. I didn’t return to Helen’s tree for a while, but JC always said that when the dogwoods bloom and a breeze comes off the River just so, the little quill whistles a pan-pipe call, and Helen’s laughter drifts like distant music through the trees.

Chapter 9: Heroes and Villains

There was a flying ace, a fighter pilot who left Arkansas County to travel the world—Frank Tinker. He was a real-life hero of the Spanish War and a buddy of Dad’s. He used to buzz us out in the fields, zooming loud and low over the farm in his single engine Jenny, laughing. We heard Frank Tinker met a sad fate in a Little Rock hotel—shot and killed over a jealous woman. He was buried at DeWitt with “Quien Sabe?” (“Who Knows?”) carved on his headstone. Folks tended to shy away from scandal, so his name went unspoken.

There was also in Saint Joan during this time a villain whose name was on everyone’s lips. From the church sanctuary to the docks, tales of his villainy spread until an image formed in my mind like some graven idol of the Old Testament. He was known as “The Colonel,” said to be rich as Midas and cruel as Herod. JC snickered when I asked which war he fought in. “The Colonel? He got his medals off a Memphis pawnbroker.” JC explained how the old man lived alone ever since his invalid wife up and died of sheer spite; he kept a house in town and a plantation toward Skunk Holler. Over the years so many housekeepers quit on him that he took to writing checks to the Pea Farm, paying large sums to parole poor gals out of prison—and straight into bondage.

“The Colonel rides his tenants hard,” JC said. “Works ‘em ragged. Awhile back, he drilled a well to irrigate his land. Now he charges the small farmers cash on the barrelhead for water.”

I stalked the springtime streets of Saint Joan with a sharp eye out for the Colonel, the only dark blot on April. Roaming the soft green woods, my brain set to reeling from misty breezes. At school I daydreamed and at home I turned bitter and sulled up, snapping at Dad. On top of all this, Mudcat was fixing to have her first litter of kittens. What if she were too small? I seethed with indignation.

“You’ve got spring fever,” Dad concluded. He pronounced the cure: a spell of fishing with Uncle Harold. He said I could come home after Mudcat had her kittens—“Harold’s the dang zookeeper, so let him deal. Cool your heels on the River—it’ll do you good.” But I didn’t want anything to do me good. The heathen in me reared up. First chance I got I snuck away from Uncle Harold’s, scaled the fence back of the Colonel’s townhouse and shook the ripening plums off his trees. Emboldened, I returned the following night with a rock and broke his basement window. JC confronted me after school: “Are you gonna tell me what’s going on, or do I have to throw you?” I bowed up on him, but as he was still a head taller than me, I thought better and dropped my fists.

“You’re the one broke out the Colonel’s winder, ain’t ya?” said JC. “I best keep you in my sight, Cole Younger!”

We came upon Jim standing by the log chute at River Bend. The Mary Woods churned our way, red paddlewheel shining in the distance. She was coming to pick up a tow—a bunch of floating logs all chained together. It was fun to watch the giant tree trunks plunge down the chute into the River, sending spray sky-high. Cypress logs were already piled at the head of the chute and a team of draft horses appeared, shiny with sweat, pulling a load of hickory. Mr. Williams walked alongside.
“Hey Mr. Williams,” called JC. “How’s the molasses business?”

“Like they say—sweet,” he replied. I realized Mr. Williams was a woodsman by trade and as he talked timber with JC and Jim, up strode the company man. “Get that hickory down the chute, boy—now!” barked the foreman. At the sound of a Yankee accent, the four of us turned to study the foreman’s pink face, not saying a word. “We got to chain the hickory to the–,” began Mr. Williams, but the foreman interrupted with an ugly oath. Mr. Williams shrugged and walked back to the wagon team.

“You see that?” Jim asked JC, who nodded. “What happened?” I said. “Watch,” muttered JC. The men used iron pikes to move the ragged hickory trunks, straining and grunting. As the logs thundered down the chute, splashing into deep water, I waited for them to shoot back up like big corks. But nothing happened—the logs just sank. Jim and JC hooted with laughter as the Yankee threw his hat to the ground, cussing.

“I done told you before—we got to hook ‘em to cypress to float ‘em,” Mr. Williams sang out as JC and Jim doubled over laughing until tears ran down their cheeks. Hickory, being a dense and heavy grain, doesn’t float easily. The day’s work was lost. The foreman caught my eye and snarled, “Damn river rats,” so I snatched up a hickory nut and beaned him on the temple. “Run!” yelled Jim and the three of us hotfooted it all the way to Uncle Harold’s houseboat. “You looked like David and Goliath back yonder,” gasped JC.

Somehow my Uncle knew all about the broken window. “Brent’s feeling his oats, all right,” he sighed. “Have y’all taken him to see Mother Carey? She fixed up my plantar’s wart—had me bind a slice o’tater to it. Worked like a charm.” At this, my companions grabbed ahold of my arms and ordered me to march. We left Uncle Harold grinning by the stage plank and headed past the cold spring, following the River. After much pleading on my part they finally let go. “Who the heck is Mother Carey?” I demanded.

“She’s an old gypsy lady,” JC began as Jim interrupted. “No she ain’t, she’s a voodoo witch!” This argument went on for a good half mile. “You got some tobacco?” JC asked, and Jim nodded. “Course I got some! I know the score.” “What is going ON?” I hollered, to no avail.

The path ended in a clearing with a flight of stone steps leading to the water, where a houseboat floated atop cypress logs. It had a pitched roof like a lean-to, and in the doorway stood a little old woman, brown as a bean—a very wrinkly bean. The minute her glittering dark eyes fell on me I got a rigor, a shiver that rippled from head to toe. The old lady lifted her pipe. “What’s a matter there?” she cackled. “A rabbit run over your grave?” Jim solemnly handed his tobacco pouch to Mother Carey and we went inside. She rocked slowly in a wicker chair as we sat cross-legged on the floor and my case was presented: “He’s moonstruck bad—he’s off his feed.” In the dim light I could see the walls were papered in newsprint. Bundles of sweet-smelling herbs dangled from the rafters. When she turned and asked, “What’s your question?” I blurted out the first thing that popped into my head.

“Why’s the Colonel alive and my Momma’s dead?” For answer, Mother Carey lit her pipe. The smoke drifted toward the three of us, and things shifted somehow. It was like we sort of sank into the floor—I can’t explain.

“Don’t you worry ‘bout the Colonel,” her raspy voice echoed overhead. “Y’all be dancing on his grave before the next full moon. And don’t worry about your momma either—you gots her eyes.” The voice fell silent. As soon as we could lift our heads, we crawled out the door on hands and knees. The sunshine revived us and we stumbled back to Harold’s place lost in wonderment.

A week went by and nothing happened except that Mudcat had three kittens. I cheered up some; Bo was happiest of all, as though he was their dad. The Dupflautz kids wanted the two calico ones, but I secretly hoped we could keep the third kitten, a gray tabby. I was walking to JC’s house, musing about the kittens, when I noticed someone galloping up the road—the Colonel! Before I could look around for a good rock to chunk, he passed by in a cloud of dust, flogging his bay mare like a madman. It made me so angry I ran home to the houseboat, not wanting to see anybody, not even JC.

“It’s good you got here when you did,” Uncle Harold said. The weather had turned. We herded the animals inside minutes before a cloudburst ushered in days of rain. The houseboat rose in the water like an ark as the two of us holed up, playing cards and petting cats. After the rain stopped, we didn’t see Dad for a couple more days and I fretted—but as soon as the floods receded, he came bringing news: the Colonel was dead.

“Word is he was checking fences at the plantation when the rain spooked his horse,” said Dad. “The horse took off into the swamp. Rolled over on him—they say he drowned and got crushed, too.” Uncle Harold observed that “if anybody deserved to die twice’t it were the Colonel.”

I was glad to get back to the farm, but first I had something to do. I set out for the Saint Joan cemetery, resolved to dance on the Colonel’s grave. To my surprise, there was a family gathered around the big white marble monument (the Colonel had special ordered it from Little Rock years before). One of the people turned—it was Mattie Lively, my old schoolmate from Skunk Holler. I barely recognized her, she was grown so tall. She smiled and said, “Why, Brent Granberry!”

Turns out, the Colonel’s name was Harvey Walburton Lively—Mattie’s grandfather. He’d quarreled with his only son, banishing him years ago. But since nobody could find a will, the inheritance fell to Mattie’s dad. The farm was to be leased out and Mattie was coming to live in the townhouse. I offered to fix a certain window, and as we talked the old bitterness inside melted clean away. “I missed you, Mattie,” I said, and it was the truth. “Hey—want a kitten?”

Things shifted after that, in a good way. Cured of spring fever, I looked forward to the sun coming up. JC and I laughed at how folks in Arkansas County said the Colonel’s grave was the most fertile plot in the Saint Joan Cemetery. Tall white iris grew thick as weeds against his marble marker, adorned year-round with yellow stains.

The Brothers Simpson

FADE IN:

1 EXT. SIMPSON ENTERPRISES LLC – DAY

A retired couple, the MCCRACKENS, inspect a luxury RV. Their Cobra sports car is parked nearby. BRUCE SIMPSON closes the deal.

MR. MCCRACKEN
Look here, son. My wife’s dragging me off on this trip. If you do as we agreed, then all’s good. If you don’t, there’s gonna be trouble. Here are the keys.

BRUCE
Mr. McCracken, your baby’s safer with me than a bug in a rug snug as a bee in your bonnet or a bur under your saddle blanket. I’ll drive her once a week for conditioning and keep her covered the rest. Y’all have a safe trip—enjoy the RV. See you in three weeks.

RV drives off as FELDMAN, BRUCE’S #1 minion, rushes over.

FELDMAN
Chief, this just came in, it looks important.

BRUCE
Hand it over, dummy. Looks like Uncle Abraham has dropped dead!

FELDMAN
No! I figured that ornery old skinflint to live forever. He sure could fish, though!

BRUCE
You know he’s rich? Won every fishing tournament since ‘62.

FELDMAN
Yep, and so mean and stingy he’d squeeze a nickel til the buffalo poots!

BRUCE peels out in the Cobra.

2 INT. ACCOUNTING OFFICE – DAY.

TRACEY SIMPSON stares at his computer screen, a display of a website about “How to Open Your Own Sports Bar.”

[VOICEOVER]
Simpson! You got that spreadsheet finished for the Boatatorium
Account?
TRACEY
Yes, Mr. Scourge. I gave it to you last week. [bangs head on desk]

TRACEY sees letter on his desk, reads it and jumps up to leave.

3 EXT. ACCOUNTING OFFICE — DAY

TRACEY exits the office. BRUCE is parked at the curb.

BRUCE
Hey little brother.

TRACEY
Where’d you steal the car?

BRUCE
Show some respect. This is a day of mourning!

TRACEY
Respect? He never had a thing to do with us. We weren’t rugged enough. And we stunk at fishing.

BRUCE
Little brother we’re about to be rich.

Cobra peels off.

4 EXT. CONVENIENCE STORE — DAY

BRUCE walks to the door, talking on his cellphone.

BRUCE
Yeah I got that car you said you needed. I’ll see you in the morning. Early!

5 INT. CONVENIENCE STORE – DAY

BRUCE places an 18-pack of beer, pork rinds and a pack of cigarettes on the counter.

CASHIER
It’s not taking your card.

BRUCE
That’s impossible. There’s over $6,000 dollars in that account.

CASHIER
Let’s try credit… Nope.

BRUCE pulls out a wad of cash and starts counting as a line forms behind him.

BRUCE
One, two, three… How old are you, son?

CASHIER
Just turned 22.

BRUCE
23, 24—Here you go, son. And here’s my card – Simpson Enterprises, we do it all. Let’s talk sometime.

CASHIER
Thanks, sir!

6 INT. COBRA – DAY

BRUCE
How old are you, Tracey?

TRACEY
Give me my change.

BRUCE
Just testing. You always were the smart one. Let’s go get our money!

TRACEY
Stop counting your chickens Bruce!

BRUCE
We’re his only heirs. It’s in the bag. Trust me!

TRACEY
I told you never say that to me.

Cobra peels off.

7 INT. LAW OFFICES OF LACOSTA, ARMAN & LEGGETT – DAY

The brothers open a door emblazoned with “LACOSTA, ARMAN & LEGGETT, ATTORNEYS AT LAW,” and enter a musty outdated office with stuffed trophy animals on the walls. They exchange awkward greetings.

TRACEY
Mr. Arman, Mr. Leggett.

BRUCE
Mr. Leggett, Mr. Arman.

MR. ARMAN
If you’ll please be seated….. As your late uncle’s only direct heirs, you both stand to inherit everything. $2.7 million in cash and assets. A Louisiana fishing cabin which may or may not be underwater. A 1/8 stake in Dogpatch. A llama farm. And his famous collection of spoons. However, your uncle provided a codicil.

BRUCE
That’s all good but what’s a codicil? Some kinda fish, heh heh?

TRACEY
It means stipulations, Bruce.

MR. ARMAN
Your uncle provided a video that explains everything.

BRUCE
How’d he die?

MR. LEGGETT
He fell afoul of a poorly fileted trout.

TRACEY
You mean he choked on a fish bone?

BRUCE
And he wondered why we hated fishing.

A TV comes on, revealing UNCLE ABRAHAM, a Colonel Sanders-type figure, glaring from the screen.

UNCLE ABRAHAM
If you’re watching this right now, it means I’ve hooked my last trophy. Bruce, PLEASE wipe the beer and pork rinds off your chin.

BRUCE spews his beer and looks at TRACEY.

UNCLE ABRAHAM
First of all, I ain’t having a funeral, so you’re off the hook for that mess. My ashes are mixing with the mud of Whiskey Lake. Buddy o’mine dumped em for me—Whiskey Lake is where it all began. Now, I know you boys suck at fishing. You came up soft and lazy. You need salvation. And fishing can be your savior. Before you can inherit my fortune, you gotta prove your worth in the world of fishing. I’ve instructed my attorneys, LaCosta, Arman & Leggett, to provide you with a list of fish you must catch. They will also provide you with $10,000 cash for supplies.

BRUCE and TRACEY exchange grins.

UNCLE ABRAHAM
And by the way: there’ll be no drinking, no smoking and no gambling. Just fishing! And you have to use my tacklebox. That is all!

UNCLE ABRAHAM laughs until a coughing fit takes over.

LEGGETT
We’ve hired a retired game warden to make sure you follow the rules and to document your catch. Get the door, Arman.

WARDEN enters office.

WARDEN
You boys can call me Warden. I haven’t seen y’all in a long time. Not since you went fishing on Whiskey Lake. Remember that?

BRUCE
Sure, sure—Tracey, you got the list? Where’s the money? And the tacklebox?

WARDEN
Here’s my number. Call me when the circus starts. I’ll be watchin’.

TRACEY
We’ll be in touch.

8 EXT. PARKING LOT – DAY

TRACEY
Where’s the money, Bruce?

BRUCE
I can’t believe that’s the same warden we met when we were kids.

TRACEY
That was the last time we ever went fishing.

9 EXT. WHISKEY LAKE – DAWN

BEGIN FLASHBACK: YOUNG BRUCE and YOUNG TRACEY in a boat fishing in a Norman Rockwell vision of perfection.

YOUNG BRUCE
Hey—look at that dead guy! Hand me your rod and reel!

YOUNG TRACEY
It is a dead guy!

YOUNG BRUCE
Give me your shoelaces—I’m gonna tie him to the boat so we can tow him in!

YOUNG BRUCE hooks the man’s sweater and reels in the body. As it bumps the boat, it turns over and both kids scream. END FLASHBACK.

10 EXT. PARKING LOT – DAY

BRUCE
Warden didn’t like it when I told him we caught our limit.

TRACEY
We’re screwed.

BRUCE
I’ll cash the check.

TRACEY
I want to hold on to the money.

BRUCE
Fine! You can pick it up tonight when you bring the list!

TRACEY
Take me back to the office.

Cobra peels out.

11 EXT. HORSE TRACK – DAY

BRUCE cheering at the rail as horses enter the home stretch. ANNOUNCER makes the call.

ANNOUNCER (V.O.)
Heading into the final turn it’s Kelly Belly Kid in the lead, with Hank’s Alibi gaining!

BRUCE
Come on, Kelly Belly! Come on Kelly Belly!

ANNOUNCER (V.O.)
It’s Kelly Belly Kid and Hank’s Alibi, neck and neck!

BRUCE
Come ON, Kelly Belly Kid! Come on Kelly Belly!

ANNOUNCER (V.O.)
It’s Kelly Belly Kid! It’s Hank’s Alibi! It’s Kelly Belly Kid! Annnnnd it’s Hank’s Alibi by a nose!

BRUCE rips up ticket, cussing and screaming, drowned out by CROWD.

12 INT. BRUCE’S FARMHOUSE – NIGHT

BRUCE scribbles on a whiteboard, graphing “Species” “Location” etc., when TRACEY enters.

TRACEY
Where’s the money, Bruce?

BRUCE
It was closed. I’ll cash it in the morning—let’s see that list.

TRACEY
Where’s the check?

BRUCE
In the safe at my office. Don’t you trust me? Gimme that list! Bass, trout, catfish, crappie—

TRACEY
It’s “crah-pee”

BRUCE
Right, Right…Oh, here’s an easy one—stripper!

TRACEY
Striper.

BRUCE
Just testin’. I got us a house on Whiskey Lake. There’s a trout stream nearby, too.

TRACEY
This isn’t gonna be like that time with the skeleton key and the mansion? I’m still living that down.

BRUCE
Trust me, brother. A client of mine is out of town, he told me to watch the place. Says here the fish we catch have to be big enough to mount. Uncle Abraham expects us to win a tournament!?

TRACEY
It says, “MUST win one fishing tournament of any kind.”

Screen door opens and FELDMAN enters carrying two 18-packs of cheap beer.

FELDMAN
How’s it going?

TRACEY
We’re not supposed to drink!

BRUCE
Only when we’re fishing or when the Warden’s around, relax! Feldman, hand me a beer. We gotta focus on a tournament.

TRACEY
We’re so screwed.

FELDMAN
There’s that tagged fish contest, but that’s random luck. Take a miracle for y’all to get a tagged striper.

BRUCE
What’s the tag mean?

FELDMAN
$10,000.

BRUCE
No wonder Abraham was rich.

FELDMAN
Cousin Cooter puts on a noodling tournament down on Lake Mullethead. I could sign y’all up for that.

BRUCE
What the hell is a noodle? Type of fish?

TRACEY
No, the noodle is the bait, right? You use macaroni?

FELDMAN
It’s a catfishing tournament. Noodling is when you catch ‘em with your bare hands—the Feldmans are known for noodling. It’s like a calling.

BRUCE
Sign us up! Tomorrow we’re heading to the lake house to get set up for some bass fishing. Tracey, pick me up here at 8—I’m getting the Cobra a tune-up. Feldman, I need you here at dawn.

13 EXT. BRUCE’S FARMHOUSE – DAWN

BRUCE and FELDMAN stack supplies on the porch (water jugs, mask and fins, cooler).

FELDMAN
I scrounged up a few poles, Chief. Nothing fancy. Want me to run the Cobra to the shop?

BRUCE
Get outta the way, Feldman. Here comes the mechanic now.

GUY rumbles up on a Harley, kicks dirt onto FELDMAN. GUY is an excited twenty-something country boy.

GUY
I got the cash Mr. Simpson!

BRUCE
Good, good. Feldman, run upstairs to the attic and get my waders!

FELDMAN
Right, Chief!

GUY
Here she goes Mr. Simpson–$3,000 cash! Peaches is gonna be so surprised!

BRUCE
When’s the wedding? You pick out a shotgun yet?

GUY
Huh? Naw, Mr. Simpson! Peaches ain’t even pregnant! We’s marrying for love.

BRUCE
Here’s the keys. If you do as we agreed, then all’s good. If you don’t, there’s gonna be trouble. Now what did we agree to?

GUY
I have her back to you in a week, not a day later. And not a scratch on ‘er.

FELDMAN (covered in insulation and cobwebs)
Chief I been all through that attic and there ain’t no waders.

GUY
I can’t thank you enough Mr. Simpson—Peaches and me will never forget—

BRUCE
Right, right. Well, be sure and tune ‘er up good!

GUY
You mean Peaches, aw, yeah, haha sure thing! Bye!

BRUCE
Here, take this. Just buy some waders, Feldman. Then go down to Gina Mae’s Fish House. Buy the biggest bass you can find—here, buy two. Then go to the south side of Whiskey Lake. I’ll call you. Take this too (hands FELDMAN the mask and fins).

FELDMAN
Right, Chief. There’s Tracey.

TRACEY pulls up in old truck, kicking dirt on Feldman.

TRACEY
Bruce, I’ve been up all night researching! We’re gonna catch us the biggest bass in the lake!

BRUCE
You’re right, little brother.

They begin loading the truck, TRACEY talking a mile a minute.

TRACEY
Here’s what we gotta do, Bruce. For this time of year, we have to find some shallow brush, ‘cause that’s where they’ll be spawning. We gotta be real quiet and cast a minnow-shaped Ra-pu-luh. If that doesn’t work, we use a spinnerbait.

BRUCE
Spinsterbait’s my middle name.

TRACEY
Let’s go catch some fish.

TRACEY slams the tailgate closed, breaking the poles.

BRUCE
Feldman, add poles to the list!

14 EXT LAKEHOUSE – MORNING

TRACEY and BRUCE exit the truck.

TRACEY
Where’s the money, Bruce?

BRUCE
Bank wasn’t open yet. Here’s some petty cash. There’s a boat here already. Wait here.

BRUCE goes around back while TRACEY waits at the front door, staring at a tole-painted sign that reads “Welcome to the McCrackens.”

15 EXT MCCRACKEN’S BACK DECK – MORNING

BRUCE searches for way to enter, looks under doormat—no key—looks under flowerpot—takes out credit card and jimmies open door.

16 INT MCCRACKEN’S LAKE HOUSE – MORNING

BRUCE heads to front door, kicking some mail out of sight.

BRUCE
Welcome home.

TRACEY
Who are these McCrackens?

BRUCE
Colleague of mine. Let’s load up the boat. I’ll be right down—I need to make a call.

TRACEY
I’ve got the tacklebox. Hurry up.

BRUCE
Feldman? You there yet? Got the fish? Take the trail to the old still, get in the water and hide. When I throw the lure, set her on like we planned. (hangs up, calls WARDEN)

Warden? Yeah, this is Bruce Simpson. Meet us over on the south side of Whiskey Lake. We’re gonna catch us a bass today….

INTERCUT with WARDEN at breakfast table with cereal in a Mickey Mouse bowl. He’s wearing a wifebeater and boxers, a cigar burns next to the transistor radio. He is working a Marilyn Monroe jigsaw puzzle.

WARDEN
So you two city squares are gonna catch a fish, huh? This is gonna be more fun than setting an outhouse on fire.

17 EXT BOAT DOCK – MORNING

The brothers stare at the McCrackens’ pontoon boat.

TRACEY
We can’t bass fish in this!

BRUCE
Sure we can! Trust me. It floats.

The brothers begin loading the boat; Tracey’s sunglasses fall into the lake.

TRACEY
That’s a bad sign.

BRUCE reaches into a storage bin and hands TRACEY a fancy pair of women’s sunglasses.

BRUCE
Here—your luck has changed.

18 EXT SOUTH SIDE OF WHISKEY LAKE – MORNING

FELDMAN, wearing mask and fins, struggles with the dead fish and wades into the water. He hunkers down and hides among some reeds.

19 EXT BOAT — MORNING

TRACEY
Do you even know how to drive one of these?

BRUCE
Trust me.

BRUCE backs out of the slip, catching the canopy and tearing it. Canopy falls on TRACEY.

20 EXT SOUTH SIDE OF WHISKEY LAKE – MORNING

The WARDEN sits in a folding chair drinking a beer and peering through binoculars.

21 EXT BOAT — MORNING

BRUCE kicks back in the seat as TRACEY drives.

BRUCE
There’s some brush cover on the south side—head for that. Hey! Hey—you may want to watch out for that—

Loud boom as boat runs over a buoy.

TRACEY
What was that?!

BRUCE
Buoy.

22 EXT BOAT, SOUTH SIDE WHISKEY LAKE — MORNING

Pontoon approaches bank.

BRUCE
There’s a good spot—slow down!

TRACEY
No, I like this over here—

BRUCE
No, wait, slow down!

Pontoon boat runs aground.

BRUCE
We’re anchored. I’ll fish these reeds over here, you fish on the other side. I got the spinster, you take the Rap-u-luh.

TRACEY pulls back to cast and hooks Bruce’s shorts.

BRUCE
AAAAAAGGHHHH! Get it off!

TRACEY
Wait, I’ll get it!

BRUCE
No, no—stop! Stop!

TRACEY
It’s coming!

BRUCE
Drop the pole! Stop!

Loud ripping sound as shorts fly into lake, leaving Bruce standing in his boxers.

TRACEY
Sorry—it’s these damn glasses! (throws them at BRUCE) Can we fish now?

BRUCE
Look–this is how it’s done!

BRUCE casts straight into the water.

TRACEY
No, watch me—

TRACEY casts into a tree.

BRUCE
Did you research how to get out of a tree?

TRACEY
As a matter of fact, I did! You just pull straight back, keeping the tension proportional to the torque—aaagghh! (tree branch smacks him in face)

BRUCE
Tracey, just relax! Sit down for a minute. Hand me a bottle of water.

TRACEY
This water looks kinda funny.

BRUCE
That’s my water—I like it cloudy.

23 EXT WHISKEY LAKE SHORE — DAY

WARDEN has been joined in his stake out by various woodland animals, all watching the lake.

WARDEN
These buffoons are stupider than I thought.

24 EXT BOAT — DAY

BRUCE
Get that lure outta there and start fishing. I see a honey hole over here.

BRUCE casts, hitting FELDMAN in the mask. FELDMAN grabs line, hooks fish, slips and jerks the line. BRUCE sets the hook and reels FELDMAN and fish to the boat, banging FELDMAN’S head on the pontoon. FELDMAN tosses bass into the boat and swims away.

25 EXT WHISKEY LAKE SHORE — DAY

WARDEN
Move that branch, idiot! I can’t see nothing!

26 EXT BOAT — DAY

BRUCE
Look at this one, little brother!

TRACEY
Bruce that fish ain’t breathing.

BRUCE
He’s just stunned from hitting the pontoon.

WARDEN walks up.

WARDEN
Looks like you boys got lucky.

TRACEY
It’s called the Simpson blood.

WARDEN
Stacey, your lure never hit the water. You caught a pair of pants and a Christmas Tree. Bottom line, there’s still a lot of fishing left. You guys may be the worst I’ve ever seen. Hold it up, Bruce.

STILL SHOT. BRUCE in his boxers holding fish.

27 EXT LAKEHOUSE DECK — NIGHT

TRACEY
I can’t believe how easy that was!

BRUCE
That was easier than pulling corn out of a donkey’s ear rolling out the truck patch!

TRACEY
That makes no sense, Bruce. I’m not sure how you caught that bass, but trout fishing is nothing like bass fishing. I watched all the videos—we need to get the fly rods and pick out the best woolly booger in Uncle’s tacklebox.

[Sounds of distant laughter and music.]

BRUCE
Sounds like there’s a party going on down the street. Listen little brother, here’s the plan: We’re gonna sleep in, get up and pitch a camp along the Little Big River. We’ll catch us a fat trout, and we’re closer to the money. Right now, I think we need to see about some dinner at this party.

TRACEY
Bruce, we got to get to bed. I have to look up some stuff. I’m telling you, trout fishing is different.

BRUCE
Come on, we’ll go say hi, get some dinner, and we’ll come right back.

CUT TO

28 INT NEIGHBOR’S LAKEHOUSE – NIGHT

Wild party in progress—TRACEY swings his shirt over his head, dancing. BRUCE dances atop a coffee table.

29 INT HALLWAY — NIGHT

TRACEY is talking to a blonde.

TRACEY
I’m a professional fisherman.

BLONDE
Reel me in, sugar!

30 EXT BALCONY — NIGHT

BRUCE brags to several women.

BRUCE
I’m the CEO of Simpson Enterprises—we do it all. Any of you ladies into modeling?

31 INT KITCHEN — NIGHT

BRUCE and TRACEY, plates piled high, work the buffet. A large man enters.

TRACEY
Hey isn’t that the wrestler, the Sasquatch?

BRUCE
Oh yes, the ultimate scam, wrestling. I’d like to ask him a few questions. Here, hold my plate.

BRUCE grabs a beer and approaches the wrestler.

BRUCE
So you’re a wrestler, huh? What would you do with a real man?

Man pile-drives BRUCE into kitchen floor and exits.

BRUCE
Oh, that’s what you’d do.

TRACEY stuffs shrimp in his mouth.

TRACEY
Ouch! Nice form, Bruce.

32 INT MCCRACKEN LAKEHOUSE — MORNING

BRUCE and TRACEY, sprawled on couches, snoring. FELDMAN lays on the horn outside, waking the brothers.

BRUCE
McCrackens!

TRACEY
Huh?

BRUCE
Oh, it’s Feldman.

33 EXT LAKEHOUSE DRIVEWAY — MORNING

FELDMAN loads the truck as BRUCE and TRACEY sit inside truck, hungover.

FELDMAN
It’s all loaded up.

FELDMAN closes tailgate on fishing poles.

BRUCE
Feldman, get outta here and go buy some fly rods. Meet us tomorrow morning at the Old Bridge. And remember what I told you.

34 EXT LITTLE BIG RIVER — DAY

BRUCE and TRACEY set up tent.

TRACEY
Says here: put the pin in the bottom, then latch and bend.

BRUCE
Okay, I’m bending it.

TRACEY
Not that…

Tent pole racks TRACEY.

BRUCE
Ouch. Too much?

TRACEY
Just hold that other end. And don’t move.

BRUCE
I got it in, I got it in. Pull ‘er through, fast!

TRACEY bends pole; sound of tent ripping as pole slaps BRUCE in the face.

TRACEY
I’ll get the duct tape.

CUT TO

TRACEY puts final piece of tape on the battered tent.

TRACEY
That should do it.

BRUCE
I’m tired, let me in there.

Tent collapses on BRUCE.

TRACEY
I see what we need to do. Get out of there.

They wrestle with the tent. Time lapse of sun going down to sounds of the brothers arguing over the tent.

35 EXT OLD BRIDGE ROAD — MORNING

The Cobra races down the road, driven by HIPSTER WEDDING MUSICIAN. The runaway bride, PEACHES, hangs out the window, trailing her veil.

PEACHES
I feel so alive!

36 EXT SIMPSON CAMP — MORNING

BRUCE crawls out of ripped, patched and rigged tent, stretches and yawns. As he answers the call of nature, the Cobra screeches across the bridge. A bridal veil floats down and lands at his feet.

37 EXT RIVERBANK — MORNING

TRACEY fumbles with a pair of waders as BRUCE talks on phone.

BRUCE
Good morning, Warden. You ready to witness some first-class trout fishing?

INTERCUT WARDEN at kitchen table working Marilyn Monroe puzzle.

WARDEN
You wouldn’t know a trout from a carp. See you clowns soon.

FELDMAN pulls up to camp.

FELDMAN
Hey Chief! Here’s your fly rods.

BRUCE
You get the spear gun?

FELDMAN
Right here, Chief.

FELDMAN trips, shoots spear gun into his shoe.

BRUCE
Get that arrow out of your foot and get to the other side of the riverbank.

38 EXT RIVER — MORNING

BRUCE and TRACEY wade in river in full trout fishing garb. Downriver, an OLD WOMAN on the bank pulls in a trout with a cane pole.

TRACEY
See that? They’re biting. We got to get a bunch of feeder slack out of this spinning reel. Then cast the line about seven times and get over in that pool.

BRUCE pulls frantically on the line.

TRACEY
No, not that much. Like this.

BRUCE, entangled in the line, slips on a rock and goes under.

TRACEY
Stop messing around! Watch me, it’s all in the wrist.

TRACEY begins looping motions

TRACEY
See, I got the hang of it.

Fly lure catches tent and TRACEY jerks it to the ground.

BRUCE
Nice cast. You keep practicing, I’m going upriver.

39 EXT OLD BRIDGE — MORNING

WARDEN leans on bridge rail, glaring through binoculars.

WARDEN
This is more fun than cow-tipping in the moonlight.

40 EXT RIVER — MORNING

TRACEY (casting)
Oh yeah, oh yeah. I got it, I got it…

TRACEY lets loose with a big cast into a tree, looks over to see OLD WOMAN laughing as she pulls in another trout.

41 EXT UPRIVER — MORNING

BRUCE wades upriver holding the spear gun. Trips, goes under, boot emerges with an arrow through it.

42 EXT RIVER — MORNING

TRACEY tries pulling lure out of tree. Pole slips out of his hands and shoots up into the tree. OLD WOMAN catches third fish.

43 EXT UPRIVER — MORNING

BRUCE sits on a boulder, empties a snake out of his boot and goes under again.

44 EXT RIVER — MORNING

TRACEY greets the OLD WOMAN.

TRACEY
Howdy, ma’am.

OLD WOMAN
(spits tobacco juice) This your first rodeo, young man?

TRACEY
Yeah, we’re just learning. We’re really bass fishermen. We’re having trouble with these trout—what’s your secret, ma’am?

OLD WOMAN
Why, it’s simple—just spit on your lure. Here’s a plug of hand-cut tobacco—go ahead, try it!

TRACEY
We’ll give it a shot—thanks!

TRACEY starts chewing a huge plug of tobacco.

OLD WOMAN
Son, don’t swallow it—you’re turning white as a ghost!

TRACEY
Okay, thanks for the tip.

TRACEY stumbles back into river and begins puking.

OLD WOMAN
He ain’t too bright.

45 EXT BRIDGE — MORNING

WARDEN
Stacey…you are dumber than your own bait.

46 EXT UPRIVER — DAY

BRUCE hunts trout with the spear gun.

BRUCE
I see you under that rock, come to daddy.

BRUCE pulls trigger; arrow ricochets off boulder and knocks off his hat.

47 EXT RIVER — DAY

TRACEY is up in the tree trying to dislodge his rod when the limb breaks. He plummets to the bank.

OLD WOMAN
Ouch.

48 EXT UPRIVER — DAY

BRUCE
I got you now.

BRUCE shoots and hits trout; chaos ensues as he slips and goes under with the fish.

49 EXT RIVER — DAY

TRACEY pulls vines out of his hair. BRUCE wades up holding trout.

TRACEY
What’s that big hole?

BRUCE
I hooked him in the back. I liked to never got the hook out.

50 EXT BRIDGE — DAY

WARDEN
Are you kiddin’ me.

51 EXT RIVER — DAY

BRUCE (yelling)
Hey WARDEN, where are ya? Got another trophy!

WARDEN walks up with camera.

WARDEN
Lemme see that—that’s one sorry-looking brown trout.

STILL SHOT of BRUCE and TRACEY with mangled trout.

52 INT MCCRACKEN RV — MORNING

MRS. MCCRACKEN attempts cooking breakfast in the RV, to MR. MCCRACKEN’S dissatisfaction.

MR. MCCRACKEN
Betty’s coffee is better than this hog slop!

MRS. MCCRACKEN
Maybe you wish the maid was here with us on our second honeymoon?

MR. MCCRACKEN
Oh, where’s my eggs?

MRS. MCCRACKEN plunks down a platter of blackened toast and burned eggs.

MR. MCCRACKEN
Looks like the Waffle Hut again.

53 INT LAKEHOUSE — MORNING

TRACEY draws on the whiteboard: stick figures of people and fish, a map of the lake and some trees.

TRACEY
We picked the perfect time—we’re right in the middle of the crappie spawn. Some big trophy slabs’ll be nesting up in shallow cover, say right about here. I’m gonna use Uncle’s famous jumpin’ jig. You use a minnow and a bobber.

BRUCE reaches over and draws an “X” in the trees.

BRUCE
Keep in mind, there’s no crappie up in these trees.

TRACEY
No, this is my kind of fishing. I got a Z-13 Lightning crappie pole, it’s guaranteed to catch fish. But we can’t be fishing for crappie out of that pontoon boat—we need a jon boat.

BRUCE
We can borrow Cooter’s—I’ll put Feldman on it.

TRACEY
I have to do some business in town. You know, I work for a living. I’ll pick up some supplies but tonight we have to get to bed early. We’re up at 4 am—prime crappie time.

BRUCE
Little brother, we’re gonna be rich.

54 EXT LAKEHOUSE DECK — DAY

BRUCE and FELDMAN lounge on the deck. FELDMAN’s bandaged foot is propped on a table.

BRUCE
Since you’re all gimped up, I got an easy job for you. Tell me about this Feldman family stink bait.

FELDMAN
Alls I need is a bucket of liquefied carp, some coon innards, and a blender.

BRUCE
Get the recipe over to Gina Mae’s. She’s going to cook us up a batch.

FELDMAN
You sure, Chief? It’s some strong stuff!

BRUCE
I’ve known Gina Mae since we were kids. Oddly enough, she enjoys a good stink.

FELDMAN
Weren’t y’all engaged?

BRUCE
Have the jim boat and the stink bait in place on the west side of Whiskey Lake. We’ll be at the Point Cedar ramp at 4 am sharp. Now get outta here—I gotta take this call… Simpson Enterprises, we do it all.

INTERCUT — GUY sits on a motel bed looking miserable.

GUY
Mr. Simpson, you’re not gonna believe this. Peaches run off in the Cobra. There was this guitar player at the wedding reception—she liked his man-bun. What should we do, go to the police?

BRUCE
We’re not gonna do anything; you are going to get that car back or—

GUY holds phone away from ear as Bruce screams unintelligibly.

BRUCE
Now do we understand each other?

GUY
Yes sir, Mr. Simpson, I understand. No need for all that—I’ll get her back—the car I mean—

BRUCE
Listen closely: Get with Feldman, get your motorcycle, and run her down. [click]

GUY
Yes sir. Hello? Hello?

55 INT GINA MAE’S FISH HOUSE — DAY

GINA MAE (a cougar with a Stevie Nicks-style wardrobe) stands with FELDMAN in her ramshackle kitchen. GINA MAE studies the stinkbait recipe.

GINA MAE
I’ve cooked worse. I like the idea of these coon innards—it’ll thicken the carp broth right nice. This is gonna make a good stink. I’ll fire up the Dutch oven out back. It’ll take a while to stew down.

FELDMAN
That stink don’t bother me. Kinda reminds me of home.

GINA MAE
The Feldman family tree is more of a whittled-down stump, ain’t it?

FELDMAN
We are special. I’ll be back later to jar up the stinkbait.

GINA MAE enthusiastically begins grabbing pans and ladles.

56 EXT GINA MAE’S FISH HOUSE — DAY

FELDMAN walks to his truck oblivious to the Cobra zooming past, PEACHES whooping from the passenger side. FELDMAN turns to look, the car is gone. Shakes his head.

57 EXT MCCRACKEN RV — DAY

The MCCRACKENS sit under the RV canopy, bored. MRS. MCCRACKEN reads a magazine.

MR. MCCRACKEN
Look at this tick bite. I don’t know how much more I can take.

MRS MCCRACKEN
I’ve taken 30 years of your smart mouth. There’s a strawberry festival down at Grand Junction and I’m gonna be there when they crown Miss Berry Patch—you promised!

MR. MCCRACKEN
I did nothing of the sort! I promised to take you to the kudzu festival—we already did that—which was about as fun as visiting your sister.

MRS. MCCRACKEN
Don’t start in on my family—they tried to warn me I was marrying beneath me. I should have married Elmer—he’s up to 12 chicken houses now. He knew how to treat a Southern belle. Take me home!

MR. MCCRACKEN
I envy Elmer. None of his hens can talk. And as for your sister—If I have to hear another word about her gout, or her bunions—

MRS. MCCRACKEN
I’ll be packing!

MR. MCCRACKEN
Good! At least you ain’t cooking!

58 INT MR. SCOURGE’S ACCOUNTING OFFICE — DAY

TRACEY
I need to reschedule my meetings for the week—I got family business to attend to.

MR. SCOURGE
I just read the Boatatorium report. We don’t have time for this.

TRACEY
Let the lawyers handle it—I’ve had a death in the family.

MR. SCOURGE
Well that is bad timing.

59 INT TRACEY’S ACCOUNTING OFFICE – DAY

TRACEY resumes surfing the Internet, sees a website: “Is it Your Dream to Own Your Own Sports Bar?” He clicks link—alarms start going off and YOU’RE FIRED flashes red on the screen. TRACEY storms out of office.

TRACEY
That’s fine, Scourge! I’m about to be rich!

60 EXT GINA MAE’S BACKYARD — DAY

GINA MAE stands over a bubbling, boiling Dutch oven, drops a handful of chicken feet into the brew, stirs, sniffs the ladle, gags.

GINA MAE
Oh, Lord help! Auughghg (gag, cough) (sniffs again) Mmmmm, not bad. (replaces lid)

FELDMAN
Yoo-hoo, Gina Mae, where you at, girl?

GINA MAE
Out back, you got the jars? It’s almost ready.

FELDMAN
I could smell it all the way in the parking lot. But something’s different.

GINA MAE
I added a few ingredients of my own—may be my best work. NASA might be interested in this—it’s a stink too powerful for this world! Don’t get too close, Feldman—

FELDMAN
Just a little whiff—

GINA MAE
NO! Don’t touch that lid!

FELDMAN uses the hook to lift the Dutch oven’s iron lid, a cloud billows out, FELDMAN gags uncontrollably.

FELDMAN
I got some on me!

FELDMAN drops the lid, causing a tiny droplet of stinkbait to splash onto GINA MAE’S cleavage. GINA MAE screams and takes off running through the woods toward the river.

GINA MAE
Get the goat soap! Get the goat soap!

61 EXT WOODS — DAY

FELDMAN, holding a bar of homemade soap, runs through the woods after GINA MAE. Every few paces he gets hit in the face with an article of her clothing. By the time he gets to the riverbank, she’s in the water naked and he is holding her clothes in one hand, soap in the other.

FELDMAN
Here’s the soap, Gina Mae. And your clothes.

GINA MAE
Burn ‘em, you idiot. And bring me my overalls. Hurry! The fish are dying!

Fish go belly-up around GINA MAE.

62 EXT POINT CEDAR BOAT RAMP — 4 AM

FELDMAN has boat ready. The brothers pull up in TRACEY’S truck.

FELDMAN
She’s all ready to go, Chief.

TRACEY
What IS that? Something dead around here?

BRUCE
I had Gina Mae cook us up some stinkbait, just in case. As long as I catch it on a minnow, it doesn’t matter what it smells like.

FELDMAN
I wouldn’t use it unless you have to Chief—it’s a real bad batch!

BRUCE
Feldman, you stink worse than a hog waller full of dead skunks. Go sneak up on a bath—and then head to the office. That boy’s coming for his Harley—he’ll fill you in.

TRACEY
Wait, he’s not driving my truck smelling like that!

BRUCE
Keep your eyes on the prize! Let’s get this boat in the water before the sun comes up.

TRACEY gets in FELDMAN’s truck, BRUCE climbs in the john boat and unhooks it from the trailer.

BRUCE
All right, take it slow.

TRACEY
How far do I go?

BRUCE
Keep it coming slow, ‘til the wheels go under.

TRACEY
It’s turning!

BRUCE
No, turn the other way! Watch out, it drops off.

TRACEY
I got it—wheels under.

BRUCE
Not truck wheels!

Trailer goes vertical, catapulting john boat into the lake. TRACEY guns the engine, lodging trailer against a rock. Sound of ripping steel. He jerks it free and drags it out of the water, a mangled mess.

BRUCE
Park that and come on! I’m taking on water—this boat’s a piece of junk!

TRACEY
I forgot to tell you—put the plug in!

63 EXT ON THE BANK OF WHISKEY LAKE — DAWN

BRUCE and TRACEY bail out the boat.

BRUCE
You forgot to tell me.

TRACEY
You finish this, I’ll get the trolling motor hooked up.

64 EXT WHISKEY LAKE — DAWN

TRACEY
We’ve got to start fishing—the sun’s already up. I’m gonna troll us over to those fir trees.

TRACEY guns trolling motor like a motorcycle. It comes off the boat, circling in the water full throttle.

TRACEY
Unhook the battery!

BRUCE rips terminal off battery. Trolling motor sinks.

65 EXT WHISKEY LAKE — MORNING

TRACEY paddles the boat as BRUCE calls WARDEN.

BRUCE
Good morning.

INTERCUT to Warden at his morning ritual: cereal, cigar, Marilyn Monroe puzzle. The puzzle is coming together nicely.

WARDEN
What time’s the comedy start today, Simpson?

BRUCE
You’re a funny man, Warden. Put your little ranger outfit on and come to the show. Point Cedar side of Whiskey Lake. We’re just getting started.

WARDEN (to Marilyn)
I hate to leave you, darlin’. I’ll be back soon.

66 EXT WHISKEY LAKE — MORNING

BRUCE attempts to get a minnow on his hook, drops minnow and has to catch it flopping in the boat. His cane pole swings toward TRACEY, who ducks.

TRACEY
Get serious, Bruce! Hook it.

BRUCE stabs minnow through the back.

TRACEY
No, no. You’ll kill it—it’s got to swim.

BRUCE tosses dead minnow over his shoulder into the water. A huge thrashing, and the minnow is gone. He puts the next hook through a minnow’s tail and plops it in the water. BRUCE stares at the bobber, which quickly goes under a couple of times.

BRUCE
I got one! I got one!

TRACEY
Bruce, that’s your minnow.

BRUCE
My bad.

TRACEY
Here’s how it’s done.

TRACEY sets hook and gets hung up.

BRUCE’s bobber disappears amid violent thrashing in the water.

BRUCE
Whoa WHOA, I got something big! Get the net.

TRACEY fumbles with the net while BRUCE tries to hold on as the pole jerks from side to side.

TRACEY
Hang in there Bruce, tire it out!

BRUCE
Here he comes—get the net!

TRACEY nets the fish—not a crappie but a large Alligator gar.

BRUCE
What is it? A monster!?

TRACEY
Look at those teeth! It’s prehistoric!

The gar bites through the net and jumps to the floor of the boat. BRUCE grabs a paddle and begins whaling on it.

67 EXT SIMPSON ENTERPRISES — AFTERNOON

FELDMAN rolls the Harley up to GUY.

GUY
Think I know where to find her. I found a flyer. That hipster’s band is playing tonight at the Crippled Pig.

FELDMAN
You better hope she is. The Chief don’t play games. We’re running outta time. I’ll meet you there.

GUY
I’m gonna get my Peaches back one way or another.

GUY revs up and speeds off, throwing dirt on FELDMAN.

68 EXT WHISKEY LAKE — AFTERNOON

Time passes as BRUCE’s pile of empty “water” bottles grows.

69 EXT WHISKEY LAKE, POINT CEDAR SIDE — AFTERNOON

WARDEN sits in folding chair on the bank, watching through binoculars. His woodland pals gather to watch as well.

WARDEN
Catch another gar—that was fun!

70 EXT WHISKEY LAKE — AFTERNOON

BRUCE
I can’t take this anymore! Get out the stinkbait.

TRACEY
I got one!

TRACEY pulls up a dripping tree limb.

TRACEY
You’re right, time for stinkbait.

TRACEY hands the jar to BRUCE, who begins unscrewing the lid.

BRUCE
Get the poles ready—we’re gonna pop a glob of this on the hooks—oh Dear Lord God Amighty!

BRUCE tosses the jar to TRACEY as a plume of black mist engulfs the boat. TRACEY screams; they toss the jar back and forth like a hot potato, BRUCE retching.

TRACEY
Get the net! Net it!

BRUCE
I got it! Throw it!

The jar sails through the hole in the net and into the lake. Fish go belly up and surround boat.

TRACEY
Those over there are crappies—I’ve seen pictures.

BRUCE
There’s a big one.

BRUCE scoops up the fish with his hat.

71 EXT POINT CEDAR SIDE OF WHISKEY LAKE — DAY

WARDEN and animals sniff the air.

WARDEN
My God, what is that smell?

WARDEN stumbles away as animals scatter.

72 EXT POINT CEDAR BOAT RAMP — DAY

WARDEN
What died up in here?

BRUCE
Looks like bears do crap in the woods.

TRACEY
I don’t smell nothin’!

WARDEN
Hold it up so I can get out of here.

STILL SHOT: BRUCE and TRACEY cover their noses as they hold up the crappie.

73 INT CRIPPLED PIG — NIGHT

Band plays as PEACHES dances in her tattered wedding gown.

74 EXT CRIPPLED PIG — NIGHT

FELDMAN and GUY attempt to get past the BOUNCER.

BOUNCER
Nope. It’s a private party tonight.

GUY
I got to get my wife—Peaches!

FELDMAN
We’ll be going now—(whispers) shut up and follow me around back.

75 EXT ALLEYWAY BEHIND CRIPPLED PIG — NIGHT

FELDMAN
Climb up on my shoulders—that’s the window of the ladies’ room.

GUY
How’d you know?

FELDMAN
I’ve serenaded a few rough-cuts in my time.

GUY
She’s a drinker—she’ll be in here soon. I wrote down my feelings—

FELDMAN
Do you see anyone? I can’t hold you for long—send somebody to fetch her. (SOUND OF FLUSHING)

GUY
Ma’am? Up here! Hey can you fetch Peaches, it’s important.

WOMAN (VOICE OVER)
You pervert! Oh, it’s you. I’ll get her down off the bar. This should be good.

Sounds of women chattering excitedly as they pack into the restroom. Intermittent sounds of flushing.

GUY
Peaches? You in there?

PEACHES
Yes I’m here and so is half the bar. What do you want?

GUY
I wrote you a poem (FLUSH)

PEACHES
Well get to it, I ain’t got all night.

GUY
How do I love thee? Lemme count up all the ways. (FLUSH)
Um, number one: I love that crease in your left bun.
I love how we have lots of fun. (FLUSH)
Number two: Your cooking ain’t so bad
And I’ll never forget that first night we had (FLUSH)
Number four—

PEACHES
Fool, you skipped one!

FELDMAN
Hurry up!

GUY
Number three: I think that I shall never see
A pair as purty as your double-D’s… (FLUSH)
And Number five—I mean, four—I love your hair, I love your smell
And your big eyes, and big ol’ thighs.
Now darlin’ come and ride with me
Though we are but two
We can someday make three. (FLUSH)

Sound of applause and flushing.

FELDMAN
I’m losing it!

GUY
Peaches, come on!

WOMAN
She left at number three. That was right purty, Hon!

FELDMAN and GUY collapse as a flashlight blinds them; they look up to see the BOUNCER glaring down.

76 EXT UNEMPLOYMENT OFFICE — MORNING

TRACEY walks up and stands below the sign “Unemployment Office.” He puts on his sunglasses. Sign changes to read: “Losers This Way.”

77 EXT GINA MAE’S FISH TACO TRUCK — DAY

Logo on side of truck depicts a taco shell enfolding a fish.

GINA MAE
So, old man Abraham has turned y’all into fishermen.

BRUCE
It’s been easy so far. I’m gonna be rich, Gina Mae.

GINA MAE
Yeah, easy! Like those bass Feldman bought. Or that stink that put me in the lake.

BRUCE
Listen, I need your help. I got a runaway bride driving a black Cobra. She may be traveling with a hipster wearing a man-bun.

GINA MAE
You mean Peaches? I’ve seen her running all over town acting crazy. She’s been in that wedding gown for days. People are starting to talk.

BRUCE
That would be her. I need to get that car back, Gina Mae.

GINA MAE
What’s in it for me?

BRUCE
You know I’ll always take care of you.

GINA MAE
You’re such a stinker. I’ll find her.

BRUCE
Good. I got a noodling contest to win tomorrow, then catch a stripper, and we’re rich.

GINA MAE
Striper.

78 EXT LAKE HOUSE — NIGHT

WARDEN and the brothers sit around a fire pit, drinking beer.

WARDEN
Thanks for the meal, boys, but I’m getting a little too lit. I better head on home.

BRUCE
You can’t leave—not before you try some of this moonshine.

WARDEN
Well, maybe just a swaller.
BRUCE
We just want to bury the hatchet and get on better terms.

TRACEY
You kind of freaked us out when we were kids, is all.

WARDEN
I was upset over old man Peterson’s heart attack. Y’all were just kids and I was a little hard on you.

BRUCE
Have another swaller, Warden. It’s all good now.

WARDEN
No, no—I got to head on–

[CUT TO: WARDEN and the brothers drunkenly singing “Born to Be Wild.”]

79 EXT LAKE HOUSE — EARLY MORNING

WARDEN and brothers slouch around the dying fire.

BRUCE
I may be the greatest fisherman of all time.

TRACEY
It’s the Simpson Blood.

WARDEN
Simpson blood? Y’all been cheating your way through this whole thing. I saw Feldman’s beady eyes in the weeds. I saw you hunting trout with a speargun. And that stinkbait…I can still smell it.

TRACEY
What are you babbling about?

WARDEN
Are you dumb or just ignorant?

TRACEY
I knew about the stinkbait but—

BRUCE
We don’t know what you’re talking about, Warden. We got a noodle and a stripper left and we’re home free. Warden?

TRACEY
He’s passed out. What have you done, Bruce? I knew you were up to something! This always happens. What are we gonna do now? You screwed us again!

BRUCE
We’ll pay him off and we’ll stop cheating.

TRACEY
It’s too late! He’s gonna tell Leggett. You blew it!

BRUCE
If he hasn’t blown our cover by now, he’ll take a check.

80 EXT COUSIN COOTER’S COMPOUND — DAY

BRUCE stands with FELDMAN, who sneaks him a .45.

FELDMAN
Here, Chief, just in case. It ain’t wise to noodle alone.

BRUCE
Perfect.

FELDMAN
Take that trail down to the pond—the honey-hole is under the willer tree. You can win this thing—ain’t but three people in the tournament. Everybody’s still asleep after partying last night. Old man Hawkins is half-blind, and cousin Teeter ain’t got but three fingers—that ain’t good for gripping.

TRACEY
I thought his name was Cooter.

FELDMAN
Teeter’s Cooter’s brother. And his cousin. It’s complicated.

BRUCE
Go get the Warden—we left him passed out at the lake house. And then find my car!

FELDMAN
Right, Chief.

81 INT THE RV — DAY

MRS. MCCRACKEN wrestles with a road atlas.

MR. MCCRACKEN
Is it exit 32 or 33, woman?

MRS. MCCRACKEN
Why does it matter, Hon? Don’t they all have gas?

MR. MCCRACKEN
I’ll be damned if you’re going to break family tradition—the McCrackens are an Exxon clan! And Ford.

MRS. MCCRACKEN
The print’s so small! And all these numbers! Which highway are we on now?

MR. MCCRACKEN
Give me that map.

MRS. MCCRACKEN
Don’t you dare take your eyes off the road, you Philistine!

MR. MCCRACKEN
Give it to me!

MRS. MCCRACKEN
No!

MR. MCCRACKEN
Right now!

MRS. MCCRACKEN
Beast!

The McCRACKENS fight each other for the map, which rips. MR. MCCRACKEN throws his half out the window. The map lands on the windshield of a semi; the truck jackknifes out of control.

MR. MCCRACKEN
Look what you’ve done now.

MRS. MCCRACKEN
Right there—it’s Exit 32! Right, right, turn right!

The RV swerves across lanes and exits, leaving a trail of wreckage on the highway.

82 EXT COOTER’S POND — DAY

BRUCE and TRACEY stand on the bank.

BRUCE
Slide in that honey hole and pull us up one, brother.

TRACEY
No, this looks like a Bruce job.

BRUCE
You know I don’t swim good.

TRACEY
It’s five feet deep.

BRUCE
You haven’t caught a fish yet.

TRACEY
All right! How hard can this be—all you do is use your fingers as bait. I’m going in.

TRACEY goes under, pulls out an old boot.

BRUCE
At least it’s not a tree.

TRACEY
The hole’s wide open now—I’m going in!

TRACEY goes under for a long time, then shoots out of the water screaming, his arm engulfed by a giant catfish.

TRACEY
Get it off! Get it off!

BRUCE wrestles TRACEY onto the bank as they fight the fish.

BRUCE
I got it! I got it! AUUUGHGHGH I got finned!

TRACEY
My arm’s numb!

BRUCE
Hold still, I’ll shoot its tail!

TRACEY
No, no!

BRUCE fires the gun, blowing the tail off the catfish, and TRACEY takes off into the woods.

BRUCE
Stop! I’m coming!

BRUCE shoots at a limb, which falls, halting TRACEY.

83 EXT COOTER’S COMPOUND — DAY

WARDEN, wearing sunglasses, prepares to take the photo.

BRUCE
How you feeling today, Warden? Remember anything from last night?

WARDEN
I feel great, boy. This ain’t my first barn dance. You call this jake-leg business a fishing tournament?

BRUCE
Said so on the form. Let me tell you something: we’re down to a stripper and this little contest is over. I want you to know the Simpson brothers take care of their friends.

WARDEN
I work for Arman and Leggett—I don’t need any friends.

TRACEY
I’m bleeding over here!

STILL SHOT: BRUCE and TRACEY hold catfish with a duct-taped tail; TRACEY lifting a tacky-looking homemade trophy.

84 INT LAKEHOUSE — NIGHT

BRUCE and TRACEY (his arm in a bandage) sprawl on couches in the den.

TRACEY
You heard what he said—he ain’t our friend!

BRUCE
When the money comes in—that’s when the deals are made.

TRACEY
All we had to do was catch some fish but you had to screw it up!

BRUCE
The only fish you caught, caught you!

TRACEY
At least it was an honest catch!

BRUCE
Honest! You bailed on Simpson Enterprises because you wanted to be an honest man, put a noose on and push papers! And what happens? They fire you.

TRACEY
I got sick of being the goat in every one of your schemes.

BRUCE
Look, we gotta figure out how to catch a striper tomorrow, and then see what happens.

TRACEY
It’s not that easy. Stripers are hard to catch. They can be in 10 to 30 feet of water. I’m going to bed—you work on your next scam.

BRUCE
Trust me, brother. We’re gonna do this one straight. Then we’re gonna get our money and build you a sports bar.

BRUCE’s phone rings.

85 INT ROADSIDE MOTEL — NIGHT

The MCCRACKENS are in bed, MRS. MCCRACKEN wearing cold cream and an eye mask; the TV flickers in the background.

MR. MCCRACKEN
Simpson—where’ve you been? I’ve been leaving messages for days.

INTERCUT with BRUCE in Lakehouse den

BRUCE
I’m a busy man, Mr. McCracken. How’s the honeymoon?

MR. MCCRACKEN
The honeymoon’s over. We’ll be back tomorrow to pick up the car.

BRUCE
Tomorrow? Well…we’ll have her nice and shiny for you—about what time?

MR. MCCRACKEN
You better. We’ll be there by 5 o’clock sharp.

BRUCE
Well that’s perfect—enjoy your evening, sir.

MRS. MCCRACKEN
Rub my neck, Hon.

MR. MCCRACKEN absent mindedly rubs her neck while flipping channels.

MR. MCCRACKEN
Enjoy my evening.

BRUCE hangs up phone and notices framed photographs of the MCCRACKENS, including one of MR. MCCRACKEN holding an elephant gun and posing with a trophy bull elephant.

86 INT COFFEESHOP — MORNING

FELDMAN
They’re on their way back—we have to find it today!

GUY
I’m a dead man. Where could she be?

FELDMAN
Think, man! What did you and Peaches do on Saturday mornings?

GUY
Aw, now, ain’t that a bit personal?

FELDMAN
After? What did you do after? Did you go someplace, I mean.

GUY
Well Peaches did like to check out the Farmer’s Market. She enjoys squeezing the melons.

FELDMAN
Me too. It’s open til noon.

GUY
Peaches ain’t an early riser, that’s for sure. We got some time yet.

WAITRESS plunks down two platters piled with bacon, eggs, grits and pancakes.
FELDMAN
Chief would want us to eat.

87 INT TRUCK – MORNING

BRUCE and TRACEY drive to far side of Whiskey Lake to catch the final fish: the striper.

BRUCE
We got another problem.

TRACEY
Great.

BRUCE
Well, you know my RV—I’m a little behind on payments. So I rented it out to some folks. Then I took their car and rented it out. Now, I got the RV coming home and their car got stolen.

TRACEY
You talking about that Cobra?

BRUCE
Peaches stole it.

TRACEY
That’s not good.

BRUCE
And those payments happen to be due. There are some Guido’s looking for me right now, I’m sure.

TRACEY
Here we go again, same old story—why don’t you pay ‘em off with the rest of Uncle Abe’s $10,000?

BRUCE
Little problem with that…I lost it all at the track.

TRACEY
That’s it—I’m done! I’m not going down with you again. Let me out of this truck!

A series of farm animals begins crossing the road, causing BRUCE to swerve violently.

TRACEY
Watch out for that chicken!

BRUCE
Why’d that damn chicken cross the road?!

TRACEY
Watch out for that ass!

BRUCE
What’s going on?

TRACEY
Let me out of this truck!

BRUCE swerves to miss a hog standing in the middle of the road and slows to a stop. As TRACEY opens the door, a huge buck runs into the truck, disabling the vehicle. Steam pours from the hood. TRACEY starts walking down the road as BRUCE grabs the gear and follows him.

BRUCE
Come on, little brother, one more time. We’re almost there. No cheating—we can pull this off!

TRACEY
Leave me alone, Bruce.

88 EXT FARMERS MARKET — DAY

PEACHES, still in her tattered wedding dress, fondles melons at the Farmers Market, drawing stares and whispers. FELDMAN and GUY stand beside GINA MAE’s fish taco truck, eating again.

FELDMAN
Ain’t nobody can make a fish taco like you can, Gina Mae.

GINA MAE
Boys—don’t look now, but there’s Peaches. I told y’all not to look! Come back, you’re gonna spook her!

GUY
Peaches!

PEACHES heaves a melon at her pursuers, grabs a handful of oranges and takes off. GUY and FELDMAN follow, knocking over strollers, acoustic musicians, and old ladies with lap dogs. Peaches drives off in the Cobra, hurling oranges in her wake.

89 EXT FAR SIDE OF WHISKEY LAKE — DAY

Brothers sit on side of the road.

BRUCE
Come on, the lake’s just over that hill—we can call the Warden, catch this stripper, and then find the car.

TRACEY gapes in astonishment as a white monster truck pulls up, accompanied by angelic music and a celestial aura of light. Driver’s window rolls down and WILLIE, dressed all in white, calls to the brothers.

WILLIE
Going fishing?

TRACEY
Who are you?

WILLIE
I’m a fisher of men.

BRUCE
We don’t go for that—we’re not on that team.

WILLIE
I’m here for your salvation.

TRACEY
Did Uncle Abraham send you?

WILLIE
Sure he did. I work in mysterious ways.

BRUCE
Can you help us catch a stripper, fast?

WILLIE
“And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” Yes, my son, get in, I can help you.

90 INT RV — DAY

MR. MCCRACKEN
All this driving’s got my hemorrhoids flaring up!

MRS. MCCRACKEN
You’re always whining about something.

MR. MCCRACKEN
Speaking of, tonight I’m leaving you at home while I take the Cobra –I’ll be wining and dining at the Club.

MRS. MCCRACKEN
At least I’ll get a night of peace! You love that car more than you love me!

MR. MCCRACKEN
You may be right, Mrs. McCracken.

The RV passes a sign that reads “Whiskey Lake, 30 miles.”

91 EXT CITY STREET — DAY

GUY pulls his motorcycle beside FELDMAN’s truck.

GUY
I lost her. Do you see any sign of her?

FELDMAN
No—wait! There’s an orange, follow me!

92 EXT WILLIE’S BOAT — DAY

TRACEY
What’s the plan?

WILLIE
Drop anchor, I’ll get my gear.

BRUCE
Here’s a pole, Tracey’s got the tacklebox.

WILLIE
Fine—hand me that duffel bag first. We’re gonna feed the multitudes.

TRACEY (whispers)
Bruce—this guy’s not right.

BRUCE
He’s nuttier than a squirrel turd.

WILLIE whips out a stick of dynamite.

TRACEY
What are you doing!?

WILLIE pantomimes a fishing pole with the dynamite.

WILLIE
Did you expect me to show you how to flick and dip? Cast your net wide boys!

WILLIE lights the dynamite.

BRUCE
NOOOO!

WILLIE hurls the stick of dynamite.

CUT TO: stock images of atomic blasts.

93 EXT SHORE OF WHISKEY LAKE — DAY

The brothers stagger along a trail beside the lake, burnt and smoking. In the background the boat can be seen in the treetops.

TRACEY
What happened? Where’d he go?

BRUCE
Was he even real?

TRACEY
That dynamite was real.

The brothers come upon two boys fishing.

BOY
Hey mister, you wanna give it a try?

BRUCE, in a daze, casts. A large striper strikes the lure.

BRUCE
Get the net!

TRACEY
I got it, I got it!

BOY
You got ‘im, mister!

TRACEY
Not too hard, don’t break the line!

BRUCE
I got him, get the net!

TRACEY awkwardly nets fish.

BOYS
It’s got a tag! Look, it’s tagged!

WARDEN (VOICE OVER)
I can’t believe y’all did it.

WARDEN appears and snaps photo of an awestruck BRUCE holding up the fish.

TRACEY
How’d you find us?

WARDEN
I just followed the explosions and smoke.

BOY
Look, mister! It’s the $10,000 prize fish!

TRACEY
Warden–what do you mean, we did it?

WARDEN
You did it, boys. Your uncle’s will actually had only one stipulation: that you catch a fish and enjoy it.

BRUCE
Brother we’re rich!

TRACEY [handing the fish to the kids]
Boys, y’all split that prize money down the middle.

BRUCE
Slow down, Tracey.

TRACEY
It’s the right thing to do—give these boys a head start in life.

BRUCE hands the boys a smoldering business card.

BRUCE
All right. But you boys come talk to me at Simpson Enterprises if you want to double your money. Warden, get a picture of their winning catch!

TRACEY
You save that money, now.

WARDEN takes a photo of BOYS holding fish as the brothers steal WARDEN’s truck and take off down the road.

BRUCE
We got to take care of something Warden—meet you later at Arman & Leggett’s!

94 EXT CITY STREETS — DAY

GUY (followed by FELDMAN) pursues PEACHES, motorcycle weaving in traffic. GUY pulls alongside the moving Cobra.

PEACHES
Leave me alone!

GUY
Listen to me, Honey, if I don’t get this car back to Mr. Simpson, I’m a dead man!

PEACHES
Well whyn’t you say so? Which way is it?

GUY
When you get to the fork in the road, take the left.

GUY drops back and follows Cobra.

95 INT FELDMAN’S TRUCK — DAY

FELDMAN (on phone)
We got her headed the long way to the office—I’m taking the wraparound, you cut her off at the gate.

INTERCUT to INT GINA MAE’S FISH TACO TRUCK — DAY

GINA MAE
I’ll beat her there from the south—where’s Bruce and Tracey?

FELDMAN
I don’t know. Over and out!

96 INT WARDEN’S TRUCK — DAY

TRACEY
Slow down Bruce!

BRUCE
We got to make up some time. Hold on!

97 INT RV — DAY

While the MCCRACKENS argue, the Cobra, followed by the motorcycle and the truck, blow past at a high rate of speed, unnoticed.

MR. MCCRACKEN
Just tell me left or right at the V! Use your phone, look up Simpson Enterprises.

MRS. MCCRACKEN
This map app don’t make no sense—but I remember, just go right.

MR. MCRACKEN
Simpson better be there.

98 EXT FORK IN THE ROAD — DAY

The convoy approaches the fork in the road. PEACHES arrives and turns right, followed by Guy. FELDMAN takes the (shortcut) left.

CUT TO VEHICLES

PEACHES
Can’t tell ME what to do!

GUY
Hah, I knew it.

FELDMAN
We got her now.

99 INT WARDEN’S TRUCK — DAY

TRACEY
We’re not gonna make it!

BRUCE
We’re almost there.

100 INT MCCRACKEN RV — DAY

MRS. MCCRACKEN
This is it, turn right!

MR. MCCRACKEN
Now was that so hard?

101 EXT CITY STREET — DAY

PEACHES and GUY race toward Simpson Enterprises’ front gate. GINA MAE blocks the street, sending PEACHES up the drive and through the gate. GINA MAE blocks her in with the fish taco truck. GUY and FELDMAN pull up, blocking the other side of the circular drive.

102 EXT SIMPSON ENTERPRISES — DAY

PEACHES
How’d you know I’d turn right instead of left?

GUYS
‘Cause I’m your soul-fate.

They embrace. BRUCE and TRACEY screech to a halt.

BRUCE
Feldman, get that Cobra in the shed and give ‘er a quick spit-shine.

FELDMAN
Right, Chief!

MCCRACKENS park behind the taco truck and make their way past GUY and PEACHES.

GUY
What about that musician?

PEACHES
He didn’t mean nothing—I couldn’t look at that man-bun another minute.

MR. MCCRACKEN
What the hell is going on around here? Simpson!

GINA MAE
Well, hello there. My name’s Gina Mae, what’s yours?

MRS. MCCRACKEN
Goodness gracious!

GINA MAE
Goodness ain’t got nothing to do with it, honey.

TRACEY walks up and greets the MCCRACKENS.

TRACEY
I understand y’all just came back from your second honeymoon—how long y’all been together?

MR. MCCRACKEN
Thirty years, as of yesterday.

MRS. MCCRACKEN
Look at that cute young couple riding off on that motorcycle, they ` seem so happy. Why can’t we be like that, hon?

MR. MCCRACKEN
We can celebrate as soon as we get the Cobra. Simpson!

BRUCE
How are my favorite honeymooners, the McCrackens?

MR. MCCRACKEN
Got no time for chatting. Where’s my Cobra?

BRUCE
Here it comes right now, sir.

FELDMAN pulls around with the shiny Cobra. He opens the door and an orange rolls out. He pockets it.

MR. MCCRACKEN
Get in, honey! We can still make the early bird special at the Club.

MR. MCCRACKEN holds door open for his wife and MRS. MCCRACKEN elbows GINA MAE out of the way.

GINA MAE
Y’all be good—and if you can’t be good, be good at it!

Cobra drives off. The brothers and FELDMAN and GINA MAE stare after it, FELDMAN peels and eats the orange. BRUCE puts his arm across TRACEY’s shoulders.

BRUCE
I told you to trust me. We did it.

TRACEY
It’s the Simpson Blood.

DENOUEMENT:

103 INTERIOR SPORTS BAR — NIGHT

Wild launch party at TRACEY’s new place: Simpsons On the Lake, is in full swing. All the characters are dancing.

There was a flying ace, a fighter pilot who left Arkansas County to travel the world—Frank Tinker. He was a real-life war hero, a buddy of Dad’s. He used to buzz us out in the fields, zooming loud and low over the farm in his single engine Jenny, laughing. We heard he met a sad fate in a Little Rock hotel—shot and killed over a jealous woman. He was buried in DeWitt with “¿Quien Sabe?” (“Who knows?”) engraved on his tombstone. Folks tended to shy away from scandal, so his name went unspoken.

There was also in St. Charles during this time a villain whose name was on everyone’s lips. From the church sanctuary to the docks, tales of his villainy spread until an image formed in my mind like some graven idol of the Old Testament. He was known as “The Colonel,” said to be rich as Midas and mean as Herod.

LC snickered when I asked which war he fought in. “The Colonel? He got his medals off a Memphis pawnbroker.” LC explained how the old man lived alone ever since his invalid wife up and died of sheer spite; he kept a house in town and a plantation toward Skunk Holler. Over the years so many housekeepers quit on him, he took to writing checks to the Pea Farm, paying large sums to parole poor gals out of prison—and straight into bondage.

“The Colonel rides his tenants hard,” LC said. “Works ‘em ragged. Awhile back, he drilled a well to irrigate his land. Now he charges the small farmers cash on the barrelhead for water.”

I stalked the springtime streets of St. Charles with a sharp eye out for the Colonel, the only dark blot on April. Roaming the soft green woods, my brain set to reeling from misty breezes. At school I daydreamed and at home I turned bitter and sulled up, snapping at Dad. On top of all this, Mudcat was fixing to have her first litter of kittens. What if she were too small? I seethed with indignation.

“You’ve got spring fever,” Dad concluded. He pronounced the cure: a spell of fishing with Uncle Harold. He said I could come home after Mudcat had her kittens—“Harold’s the dang zookeeper, so let him deal. Cool your heels on the River—it’ll do you good.”

But I didn’t want anything to do me good. The heathen in me reared up. First chance I got I snuck away from Uncle Harold’s, scaled the fence back of the Colonel’s townhouse and stole peaches off his trees. Emboldened, I returned with a rock the following night and broke his basement window. LC confronted me after school: “Are you gonna tell me what’s going on, or do I have to throw you?” I bowed up on him, but as he was still a head taller than me, I thought better and dropped my fists.

“You’re the one took out the Colonel’s winder, ain’t ya?” he said. “I best keep you in my sight, Cole Younger!”
We came upon John standing by the log chute at River Bend. The Mary Woods churned our way, red paddlewheel shining in the distance. She was coming to pick up a tow—a bunch of floating logs all chained together. It was fun to watch the giant tree trunks plunge down the chute into the River, sending spray sky-high. Cypress logs were already piled at the head of the chute and a team of draft horses appeared, shiny with sweat, pulling a load of hickory. Mr. Williams walked alongside.

“Hey Mr. Williams,” called LC. “How’s the molasses business?”

“Like they say—sweet,” he replied. I realized Mr. Williams was a woodsman by trade and as he talked timber with LC and John, up strode the company man.

“Get that hickory down the chute, boy!” barked the foreman. At the sound of a Yankee accent, the four of us turned to study the foreman’s pink face, not saying a word. “We got to chain the hickory to the cypress first,” began Mr. Williams, but the foreman interrupted with an ugly oath. Mr. Williams shrugged and walked back to the wagon team.

“You see that?” John asked LC, who nodded. “What happened?” I said. “Watch,” they muttered.

The men used iron pikes to move the bare hickory trunks, straining and grunting. As the logs thundered down the chute, splashing into deep water, I waited for them to shoot back up like big corks. But nothing happened—the logs just sank. John and LC hooted with laughter as the Yankee threw his hat to the ground, cussing.

“I done told you we had to hook ‘em to cypress to float ‘em,” Mr. Williams sang out as LC and John doubled over, laughing until tears ran down their cheeks. Hickory, being a dense and heavy grain, doesn’t float easily. The day’s work was lost. The foreman caught my eye. “Damn River Rats,” he snarled, so I snatched up a hickory nut and beaned him on the temple. “Run!” yelled John and the three of us hotfooted it all the way to Uncle Harold’s houseboat. “You looked like David and Goliath back yonder,” gasped LC.

Somehow my Uncle knew all about the broken window. “Brent’s feeling his oats, all right,” he sighed. “Have y’all been to see Mother Carey? She cleared up my plantar’s wart–had me bind a slice of potato to the sole of my foot–worked like a charm.” At this, my companions grabbed ahold of my arms and ordered me to march. We left Uncle Harold standing by the stage plank, chuckling, and turned past the cold spring, following the River. After much pleading on my part they finally let go. “Who the Hell is Mother Carey?” I demanded, to no avail. “You got some tobacco?” LC asked and John nodded. “What’s going ON?” I hollered.

The path ended in a clearing with a flight of stone steps leading to the water, where a houseboat floated atop cypress logs. Its pitched roof was like a lean-to, and in the doorway stood a little old woman. The minute her glittering dark eyes fell on me I got a rigor—a shiver that rippled from head to toe. The old lady lifted her pipe. “What’s a matter there?” she cackled. “A rabbit run over your grave?”

John solemnly handed his tobacco pouch to Mother Carey and we went inside. She rocked slowly in a wicker chair as we sat cross-legged on the floor and my case was presented: “He’s moonstruck bad—he’s off his feed.” In the dim light I could see the walls were papered in newsprint. Bundles of sweet-smelling herbs dangled from the rafters. When she turned and asked, “What’s your question?” I blurted out the first thing that popped into my head.

“Why’s the Colonel alive and my Momma’s dead?” For answer, Mother Carey lit her pipe. The smoke drifted toward the three of us, and things shifted somehow. It was like we sort of sank into the floor—I can’t explain. “Don’t you worry about the Colonel,” her raspy voice echoed overhead. “Y’all be dancing on his grave before the next full moon. And don’t worry about your momma either—you gots her eyes.” The voice fell silent. As soon as we could lift our heads, we crawled out the door on hands and knees. The sunshine revived us and we stumbled back to Harold’s place lost in wonderment.

A week went by and nothing happened except that Mudcat had three kittens. I cheered up some; Bo was happiest of all, as though he was their dad. The Dupslaff kids wanted the two calico ones, but I secretly hoped we could keep the third kitten, a gray tabby. I was walking to LC’s house, musing about the kittens, when I noticed someone galloping up the road—The Colonel! Before I could look around for a good rock to chunk, he passed by in a cloud of dust, flogging his bay mare like a madman. It made me so angry I ran home to the houseboat, not wanting to see anybody, not even LC.

“It’s good you got here when you did,” Uncle Harold said. The weather had turned. We herded the animals inside minutes before a cloudburst ushered in days of rain. The houseboat rose in the water like an Ark as the two of us holed up, playing cards and petting cats. After the rain stopped, we didn’t see Dad for a couple more days and I fretted—but as soon as the floods receded, he came bringing news: the Colonel was dead.

“Word is he was checking fences at the plantation when the rain spooked his horse,” said Dad. “The horse took off into the swamp. Rolled over on him—they say he drowned and got crushed, too.” Uncle Harold observed that “if anybody deserved to die twice’t, it were the Colonel.”

I was glad to get back to our farm, but I still had something to do. I set out for the Saint Charles cemetery, resolved to dance on the Colonel’s grave. To my surprise, there was a family gathered around the big white marble monument (the Colonel had special ordered it from Little Rock years before). One of the people turned—it was Mattie Lively, my old schoolmate from Skunk Holler. I barely recognized her, she was grown so tall. She smiled and said, “Why, Brent Granberry!”

Turns out, the Colonel’s name was Harvey Walburton Lively—Mattie’s grandfather. He’d quarreled with his only son, banishing him years ago. But since nobody could find a will, the inheritance fell to Mattie’s dad. The farm was to be leased out and Mattie was coming to live in the townhouse. I offered to fix a certain window and as we talked, the old bitterness inside melted clean away. “I missed you, Mattie,” I said, and it was true. “Hey—want a kitten?”

Things shifted after that, in a good way. Cured of spring fever, I looked forward to the sun coming up. LC and I laughed at how folks in Arkansas County said the Colonel’s grave was the most fertile plot in the Saint Charles cemetery. Tall white iris grew thick as weeds against his marble marker, adorned year-round with yellow stains.

Snow on the Cedar

The Reunion marks the beginning of the Holidays, with Thanksgiving and Christmas and the New Year just around the corner. Camp Doughboy near DeWitt draws families from across Arkansas County, but Dad could remember the old Reunion ground, Camp Fagan, on the lower White River. Camp Fagan was named after a Confederate general; you can still dig up a musket ball on the riverbank there—even cannon balls. That part of the River was known as Indian Bay until a Civil War battle filled the water with dying soldiers and horses. Afterward folks renamed it Stinking Bay.

I rode with the Browns again and before we saw Camp Doughboy through the trees we could hear the music. Anybody carrying an instrument gets in the Reunion for free. There’s a merry-go-round with wooden horses and a calliope and even a magic lantern show. At dusk, folks file in the big tent to sit on benches, waiting for dark. Then they light up the lantern that projects pictures—the wonders of the world flicker across the canvas. My favorites were the Taj Mahal, Sitting Bull, the Sphinx and Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls made me seasick, it looked so real—or maybe it was just too many candy apples and rides on the merry-go-round.

“Altha Ray makes the finest fried chicken,” sighed LC, sprawled beside the fire. “I’m fuller’n a tick,” John groaned. We were camped by the River, away from the main campgrounds, and Wolf stood guard. “Tonight’s Halloween,” LC mused. “Did I ever tell y’all about the ghost up at the Icehouse?” The Icehouse at Saint Charles set up on a hill like some gray skull made of cypress instead of bone, but it wasn’t haunted. “I don’t want to hear your fish stories,” I challenged. “I seen a real ghost—it shook my hand!”

John whistled. “Still waters run deep. You don’t talk much, but when you do it’s a doozy!” We drew up in a circle by the fire and I told them all about meeting Helen Spence in the graveyard and how she saved me from the storm. “Here’s the quill my Uncle made,” I said, pulling the string necklace from inside my shirt. “If I blew this whistle—right now—would it wake the dead? Do y’all think Helen would come?”

“Do it!” hollered LC. But John shook his head. “Brent, you know you can’t. It ain’t right to trouble an unquiet spirit. Helen’s an unquiet spirit.”

I put the whistle back inside my shirt as LC fumed. “Well I wanna see ‘er! Y’all are scaredy-cats!” John stared into the fire. “LC, you talk like a drylander! Were you there when we broke her outta that damned funeral home in DeWitt? Where they had her dead body set up in the winder like Bonnie Parker? No. It was us River folk went and got her and brought her home to Saint Charles. Your Uncle was with us, Brent.”

“That was the first time I ever saw my momma cry,” LC said. “I miss Helen. You know where to find her grave?”

“I oughta know—I helped dig it,” John replied. “We planted a cedar tree to mark it. Next to where Cicero is buried, back in the potter’s field. The night we buried her, the moon was so bright it give me freckles.”

We agreed to visit Helen’s cedar tree after the Reunion was over, but there came a hard freeze. “Looks like the persimmon seeds predicted right,” Uncle Harold said, stoking the fire. “Back when your dad was a boy, there was a winter so cold it froze the River—folks went ice-skating!” Dad was toughing it out at the farm—he had closed up the house and was sleeping in the barn with the animals. In the middle of the night I woke to a strange sound, so loud it drowned out Uncle Harold’s snoring. Bundled in a wool blanket, I crept through the dark houseboat and went to open the door—it was stuck. I pried it open a crack, put my head out and felt something like needles on my face—an ice storm!

We were iced in all right. For the next few days we holed up, listening to trees exploding outside. My nerves were shot from worrying if the ice storm would fell Helen’s tree. Uncle Harold wore me down asking “Why so blue?” When I explained the reason, he nodded sympathetically. “Please—tell me about Helen Spence,” I asked, and he stoked the fire and began:

“They called her the Swamp Angel, but she’s just a little River girl. She could shoot straighter’n a man, and sew and tat lace finer than any dry-lander lady. She lived by a code; the code of River Justice. The River gets its revenge. She shot the man who killed her daddy; shot him four times in such a tight pattern you could put a hat over it.”

“At the trial? In the courthouse?”

“You ain’t just a wolfin’. Folks were jumping out the courthouse winders to get away. The judge hid under his desk. She had a pearl-handled lady’s pistol tucked into a fur muff she wore—it was cold that day, like now. After she shot that no-good, she handed over the gun to LC’s daddy. The judge never should have sent her to the Pea Farm, because she were from the River. She kept escaping—always headed back to the River though, so they always caught her. One escape she planned for months. They had took her off the field crew and put her to work in the prison laundry. She saved up a bunch of cloth napkins—the red and white ones.”

“Gingham?”

“Yes, gingham-checked napkins,” Uncle Harold continued. “She saved ‘em and sewed ‘em into the lining of her prison dress. And when the mean ol’ prison matron, Miz Brockman, sent the gals up to Memphis and the bus stopped off at the station, what do you think Helen did? She went to the ladies room, turned her dress inside out, and waltzed off! But like I say, they always caught up to her, and give ‘er ten lashes with the blacksnake—a leather strop.” When I asked why Miz Brockman bused the prisoners to Memphis, Uncle Harold hesitated. “They done a lot of bad things back then—I’ll tell you another time. Get on to bed.”

I woke burning with fever and poor Uncle Harold didn’t know what to do. As a result, he tried out all his home remedies on me: A knife under my cot “to cut the pain,” doses of turpentine “to clean me out” and hot oatmeal and onion plasters on my chest “to draw up the bad stuff.” When he came at me with yet another steaming cup of godawful stewed leaves he called “senny,” I begged for mercy. “That stuff puts me in the outhouse—it’s too dang cold out there,” I wailed. As a compromise, he brewed a strong pot of coffee and poured the last of his “special reserve” into the pot. After a few cups, we both felt stronger.

I lost track of time, but one morning brought a moist breeze that started things to thawing. I felt strong enough to go outside and from the top of the stage plank, I watched chunks of blueish ice float past the wet black tree trunks. The snow was so bright it hurt my eyes. I went back inside the houseboat, resolved to walk to the cemetery the next day no matter what. I would go alone, since I didn’t have the wind in me to walk to LC or John’s place and fetch ‘em.

I was sure I could find the right tree—when Uncle Harold described it, I recognized the place I met Helen. I went slowly, breathing hard, as the drip and crack of melting ice sounded through the woods. Fallen trees blocked the road; it looked like the cedars got hit bad—split from the top down, branches sheathed in gray-green ice. At the cemetery entrance, I leaned against a pillar, staring over the sea of white drifts and broken limbs. How would I find Helen’s tree? I looked down to see a line of rabbit tracks leading off among the headstones, so I followed them. The tracks led to the back corner of the graveyard and there stood Helen’s cedar tree, untouched by the ice storm.

I blew softly on the quill and waited. “Helen,” I whispered. “Are you there?” When nothing happened I leaned my head against the slender trunk; I was all give out. The sun came blazing from behind a cloud, and through my tears the ice sparkled like diamonds, little rainbows everywhere. By my foot, a bright red droplet appeared on the melting snow—it was red as blood. I knelt down and brushed away the snow to find a tiny patch of wild strawberries. What in the world—berries in the dead of winter!

“Brent? Son, are you there?” Dad’s voice called from a distance. I answered and soon he was standing beside me. “So this is her tree,” he said. He had driven to Uncle Harold’s to fetch me and found me gone. “Son, let’s go home—you ain’t well yet.” I took my quill necklace and tied it around the tree trunk, and Dad helped me to the truck.

That spring brought the best strawberry crop in years. At Eastertide, Dad and I went and planted dahlias at Momma’s grave. I didn’t return to the Saint Charles cemetery for a while, but LC used to say that whenever the dogwoods were in bloom and a breeze came off the River just so, the little quill gave a whistle, a pan-pipe call, and Helen’s laughter drifted like distant music through the trees.

Autumn on the River is busy season. There’s the Reunion at the end of October, but before that comes the sorghum harvest and molasses-making. I was itching to see my first molasses-cooking party—LC said it lasts for days, with music and circle dances and a big spread. School lets out early, perking folks up.

Dad liked to broke his back cutting the 10-foot stalks, topped with tassels that have to be sawn off by hand. From sunup to sundown we piled green cane onto the hay wagon, falling asleep as soon as supper was over. My hands blistered and I got behind on the dishwashing—when we ran out of clean pots and pans Dad kept going. He switched to the Dutch oven and built a fire out in the yard.

One evening we were tucking in to a mess of stew when LC and Wolf showed up. After dinner, we lounged on the porch. The moon shone through the pines as LC cleared his throat. “Mr. Granberry, can Brent ride with us to the molasses-makin’? We got room in our buckboard and he can camp with John and me.” I watched Dad, holding my breath. He grinned. “That’ll work. I’ll be in Uncle Harold’s tent. Just follow the snoring.”

The next few days were a blur. Between the nip in the air and the colors in the leaves, I went around dazzled, daydreaming. LC talked about molasses nonstop; he was sharpening his sweet tooth. “The best barbecue sauce has sorghum in it. The pit’s already dug at the Williams’ place—they’re probably scalding the hog now. Cracklings are my favorite,” he rambled as we walked home from school. John was already gone ahead up the River. “He’s pitching camp by the River, away from the big house,” LC said, “since Wolf is coming to guard the camp.”

“Guard it from what?” I asked. LC didn’t answer until we came to the fork in the road. As he and Wolf turned off for home, he hollered, “Ghosts, that’s what! Guard it from ghosts!” I stared until they were out of sight and a dust devil sprang up in the empty dirt. My scalp prickled and I ran the rest of the way home.

That night I lay awake, listening for Dad’s snore—the house was too quiet. “Dad? Is the Williams place haunted? LC says its haunted.” The Williams homestead, for years the site of the molasses-making, had fields and orchards and a big stone wishing well. Two maiden aunts and their elderly brother lived in the farmhouse in peace and quiet, except for the yearly wingding. LC called it “sorghum philanthropy.”

“He’s just rattlin’ your cage, son—go to sleep.” It’s true, LC held to uncertain lore, as when he swore if a Model A were parked with the engine running, the tires would melt. He’d cross his heart while describing in detail a hoop snake, gulley cat or snipe. LC got me to believe knotholes on trees were doors to beehives—for months I knocked on every knothole I saw. Maybe ghosts are uncertain lore.

When school let out we ran yelling down the steps. At the Brown’s we climbed into the loaded buckboard, like a big shoebox on wheels, with Mr. and Mrs. Brown up front guiding the draft horses. LC’s older brother Henry followed on horseback and Wolf stalked beside. Being in high spirits, we took turns singing—that is, the Browns sang “This Old White Mule of Mine,” followed by a round:

“I’m going to leave ol’ Texas now, they’ve got no use for the longhorn cow
They’ve plowed and fenced my cattle range, and the people there are all so strange…”

More wagons entered the road, winding past hedgerows of purple sumac and goldenrod. Mrs. Brown began “Auld Lang Syne,” and a lump came into my throat—Momma used to sing that. On reflex, I looked to the heavens that were bluer than a bird egg and it was like a vision dropped from the sky, as if Momma whispered in my ear: Remember, Poppy River makes molasses candy, the best molasses candy in Arkansas County. The River Sisters—surely they’d be there! I resolved to scour the Williams place for any sign of them.

The wagon topped a rise and the air hummed with sudden laughter and conversation, jangling harnesses, rumbling engines. Distant smoke spiraled from the boiling molasses as folks gathered in oak and pecan groves, unfolding card tables and tents. A group of men were setting up a stage next to the muscadine arbor and kids played crack-the-whip, snaking in a blur until the whip snapped, sending the small ones rolling in the grass. LC pointed to where a mule trod a circle, hitched to a long pole turning the grindstone. “First we try the raw cane juice,” he said. “But just a sip—you don’t want to spend the weekend in the outhouse.”

Escaping the wagon, we passed some folks working an apple press and a girl held out a cup. “Want some live-apple juice? Say—is that a timber wolf?” With a nod to the girl, LC grabbed my arm and steered toward the settling vat. “First things first,” he repeated. LC was right—a little of that foamy, sappy juice was plenty—it tasted sharp as the color green. We took off toward the river.

John’s shell boat was tied to the bank and the camp looked a sight. A raggedy flag (red silk bloomers, according to LC) flapped atop the tent pole and from trees hung all manner of gear: spyglass, drinking gourd, railroad lantern. A circle of stones marked the fire pit, next to which John lay with his hat over his eyes. LC whispered to Wolf, who broke into a piercing howl. Scrambling to his feet, John cussed us for being late. I stared off through the trees while he argued with LC about whether to play horseshoes or go find the musicians. “You’re mighty quiet,” said LC. “What’s eating you?”

I announced my mission: to find three sisters, name of River. Apparently, the girls were as legendary in St. Charles as in Skunk Holler—LC and John gawked as though I’d sprouted a second head. “The River Sisters ain’t been seen in a good while,” LC began, but John shouted him down, betting us a nickel they were close by right this minute. After more arguing, we agreed to fan out on a search and meet up in an hour. “Wolf, stand guard,” LC called.

I plunged into the crowd and caught up to a buffet line, asking every few paces if anybody had seen the River Sisters. People seemed startled, but in the next breath they’d be talking a streak—everybody had a story about the River Sisters. Begging pardon, I excused myself and ran to the nearest card table, asking some poker players if they’d seen the River Sisters. That was the end of their hand, as each fellow folded his cards and talked over the other, vying to praise the girls. I gave up on the poker players and hurried to find the musicians.

The boys were tuning their guitars behind a shed, passing a jug. “Have y’all seen the River Sisters?” I panted. “Speak up, kid—don’t be a mush-mouth,” said the washboard player. When I repeated the question, they welcomed me warmly. “Sit down—have a nip of this blueberry wine.” Dad gave me some blueberry wine once when I had the croup, so I took a swig. The warming potion spread like electricity down my middle as the musicians debated over which songs to play for the River Sisters, ignoring my presence. This wasn’t working as planned, so I went in search of LC.

I found him at the Flying Jenny, a sort of giant seesaw for brave people. “They’re here all right,” LC said excitedly as John pushed through the multitude, hollering, “They’re here!” We spotted a table by the barbecue pit and compared notes over messy helpings of barbecue. It was like I thought: nobody had seen the River Sisters, but everybody was sure they were here. “Wonder who started that rumor?” LC hooted. Bonfires flared in the distance as the musicians took the stage, dedicating the song to “the sweetest gals in Arkansas, the River Sisters.” The Cajun reel went round and round: “When we didn’t have no crawfish, we didn’t eat no crawfish,” as couples danced under a full moon.

The rest of the weekend flew by. I won a penny jacknife pitching horseshoes, and Dad and Uncle Harold jarred up 30 crates of fine amber syrup—enough to pay bills. Back home, I slept like a log. But Dad woke me before dawn. “I want to fetch a premium price for our first batch—what do you think?” he said, raising the lantern. Mason jars of sorghum molasses covered the kitchen floor, table and counter. They all bore brown paper labels: “Granberry’s Hainted Molasses.” Dad had stayed up all night making the labels and I didn’t have the heart to tell him he misspelled “haunted.” Turns out, it didn’t even matter—folks bought it in droves, said it was the best they’d had, and we were in tall cotton for a good while.

Back at the “dirt farm in Van” as Dad called it, work was plentiful. After bending a dozen nails and breaking a hoe, I was put in charge of the chickens and pond. “Just bring in some eggs and a few catfish or bream now and then,” Dad pleaded.

His plan centered on a crop of fast-growing sorghum. We were going to turn it into molasses at the end of the season. Dad was already tallying jars to sell to the general store at nearby Ethel and at Ballard’s Mercantile. He had acquired a mule, so we planted a big garden too. I got used to eating greens, baby taters and double-yolker omelets. Most days I found time to sneak off and see what LC was up to.

The Brown farm, a much larger piece of land than ours, was located between Van and Ethel. One midsummer afternoon I met LC coming down the dusty road. Recognizing me from a distance, he plunked down in the shade and waited. “There’s a horse race today at the big cypress,” he hollered when I was still a ways off, a revelation that set me running.

I never saw a real horse race. Whenever Aunt Eula would go on about the glory days of Oaklawn Park over in Hot Springs, Momma called it scandalous. As we walked, LC described the scene: after taking off from the big cypress, the horsemen would gallop over a mile to the general store in Ethel where the winner got a cold Coca-Cola and folks collected their bets. Part of the track went through the woods. “My uncle was on the crew that built this road,” said LC. “When they got to the cypress tree, there wasn’t a saw blade big enough to cut it, so they built the road to Ethel around it.”

We veered off to the bottoms as shouts of laughter and the jingle of harnesses sounded ahead. Soon we entered a cypress grove containing more drylanders and horseflesh than I had ever seen gathered in one place. At the center of the hubbub, the giant tree rose up like a mountain, with knees 10 feet tall! I stared up at the faraway treetop, where an eagle’s nest wedged between branches. “During rainy years it takes a canoe to get here,” LC observed. “A dry spell like this is good racing weather.”

Six tall farm boys swung into saddles. I like Palominos; there was a fine one prancing about, also some chestnut quarterhorses and a paint pony. Men young and old ranged around swapping bets. LC stood in conversation with an older boy named John, whose family kept a houseboat downriver from Uncle Harold. I knew John by reputation as one of the best mussel-shellers in St Charles; despite being small of stature he could shoulder a helmet and stay under water longer than anybody. Suddenly the crowd grew quiet and a man hollered something, lifting his pistol skyward. A shot rang out and the horses broke away in a cloud of dust and yelling.

Some folks ran to the road and jumped in automobiles; a few followed on horseback or mule. By the time John, LC and I made it to Ethel on foot, the race was over and one of the Jenkins boys had won on the paint pony. All the girls from school were there, milling around and gushing over the horses and the Jenkins boys. Some of the girls had made a garland of roses for the winner. John and LC rolled their eyes at the spectacle. “Let’s go fishing,” John said, tearing up his slip. “I’d rather bet on something I can eat than a horse race anyhow.”

The following week there was a revival down on the White River. Despite his aversion to indoor churchgoing, Uncle Harold never missed a chance to take Altha Ray to the brush arbor. I tried to get Dad to come, but he just shook his head. “God don’t want me and Hell’s already full,” he declared. He insisted I wash behind my ears and put on a clean shirt, muttering, “Your momma always wanted to see you baptized.” I had no such plans; I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

Every summer on the River, folks cut lengths of cane and willow branches to fashion a rectangular open-air structure. Then they made a brush arbor, roofing the frame with branches while girls braided lengths of flower-vines and wrapped them around the posts. Honeysuckle, virgin’s bower and maypops dangled everywhere, heady with perfume, all within a stone’s throw of the River. Rows of benches were set up and lanterns hung. Preacher Burton surveyed the scene with satisfaction. He’d come down from Skunk Holler by way of Possum Waller to baptize the faithful and eat catfish and barbecue.

I rode with LC’s family to St. Charles (Wolf stayed behind, consigned to the barn). The buckboard wagon joined a line of others as we neared the River. “I hear the Jenkins boys are up to something,” LC said. “We’d better keep an eye out.” His dad pulled the buckboard into the shade and we ran to find John, who had already heard the rumor about the Jenkins boys. Plenty of families were arriving as the sun rose higher. At every turn, groups of giddy mothers showed off their new babies, exclaiming over each other.

“Let’s get away from this hen party,” muttered John. We took a bench in the back of the brush arbor but saw no sign of the Jenkins boys. “Looks like they’re planning a surprise attack,” LC said as John nodded gravely. I had only a vague notion of the Jenkins boys; like John, they were already past 9th grade and out of school. Beside the winner of the horse race, there were several more just like him, big and boisterous and always into something. “The Jenkinses are the best pranksters in Arkansas County,” LC remarked in admiration. Uncle Harold and Altha Ray came over to greet us and the seats began filling up as Preacher Burton stepped to the fore.

There were some farm-related prayers for the crops to increase and good weather to continue; beyond that I got lost in daydreams, drowsy from the heat. After a break for a few baptisms and a picnic lunch, the sermonizing started up again for the duration of the afternoon, punctuated occasionally by hymns. I fidgeted on the hard bench. The babies started fussing too; each time, the mother would get up and take the baby over to where the buckboards were parked in the shade. After tending to the baby, the mother wrapped it and tucked it in the wagon to sleep til the sermon was over. As Preacher Burton droned on, I wished I were asleep on a quilt pallet in a buckboard, too.

Preacher Burton finally ran out of steam around sunset. The contented crowd was headed home when a scream pierced the air. “This ain’t little Jimmy!” a woman shrieked from a nearby wagon. The line of buckboards slowed as a babble of voices arose: “Whose baby have we got?” “Why, this isn’t Opal—it’s Clara’s niece!” Women poured into the road, rushing hysterically from wagon to wagon. “Lord,” LC cried, awestruck. “I hope there ain’t a catfight.” Folks exchanged squalling babies, hollering above the din, “The Jenkins boys!”

The revival went on for days, but I stayed home from then on to work with Dad and avoid any chance at getting baptized. LC showed up one day when we were sitting down to dinner (he seemed to always know when to show up) and as Dad piled ham and biscuits on his plate, he offered up the latest news of the Jenkins boys.

“After a couple days of folks’ babies getting switched around, those drylanders took to checking their babies before they left for home,” LC grinned. He described how the Jenkins boys themselves finally showed up and sat in the back row. No one knew what to expect. At the height of Preacher Burton’s oration, the Jenkins boys began scraping their big old work boots on the ground, crunching the brush arbor’s floor of crushed mussel shells. Preacher Burton merely increased his volume. This ordeal went on for the entire book of Job.

“The next day was the last day of the revival,” LC continued, “Preacher Burton shows up to the pulpit, takes his Bible and sets it down. He pulls out his big pocket watch and puts that down beside. And then he brings out his Schofield pistol, lays it on top of the Bible and says, ‘I come here to preach the word of the Lord. But anybody in back want to make noise, I’ll be happy to send him to Hell!’”

Things quieted down considerably after the revival, and Dad spent the rest of the summer trying to make a farmer out of me. “I don’t know as you’re much of a farmer,” he would sigh. “But at least you’re not a preacher, nor a prankster.”

Copywright 2016 by Denise White Parkinson

For the first time in a long while, I looked forward to going to school. Leaving the houseboat early, I walked through the May sunrise with firm resolve: there was a friend waiting on me.

The Dupslaffs knew all about L.C. Brown. “He’s the kid on Big Creek that got the wolf,” they chimed. “It’s got red eyes!” hollered the youngest. They described L.C. in voices tinged with awe. When we came in sight of the schoolyard, there he stood: tall and lanky, with a cowlick of black hair that poked up on one side. “Want to go squirrel hunting after school?” was all he said. I spent the rest of the day watching the hands on the wall clock circling slowly around.

“See? This is where he waited for school to let out.” L.C. pointed at the remains of a rabbit. We stepped further in to the ring of forest bordering the schoolyard. “Wolf!” he called softly. Directly in front of us, a clump of bushes parted and a black timber wolf emerged, staring silently with eyes like glowing coals. “My dad was doing some logging and found him in a tree stump,” said L.C. “He was just a little ball of fur when I got him.”

That afternoon summer really began. The last days of school flew by as L.C. and I took to combing the woods between Big Creek and Tarleton Creek, hunting fox squirrels till the sun got low. I tagged along with him while he checked his traps. Every day he brought home something for the table: a plump red-tailed squirrel or rabbit. Wolf didn’t sound or bark, but he sure could growl. Uncle Harold was glad I had a buddy. “Sheriff Lem’s son is the best shot in Arkansas County,” he observed. “Before L.C.—stands for Lemuel Cressie—was born, his dad rode a one-eyed horse all over Forks LaGrue Bayou. Ol’ Good-Eye; now there was a horse.”

L.C. had a plan for when school let out: we were going to find the Honey Man. Some folks claimed he lived in a big hollow tree. Others called him the bogey-man and said he lurked in the bottomlands. No kid had ever seen him by day; he traveled by moonlight, hauling his kegs of golden honey to the Mercantile. His wildflower honey was the main ingredient (besides whiskey) for every cough remedy in Arkansas County.

L.C. had a powerful sweet tooth; one time he trapped a black mink and Mr. Ballard paid him $20 for it; first thing he did was buy two whole dollars’ worth of candy. “I got to know what the Honey Man’s comb tastes like,” L.C. told me for the umpteenth time. On the last day of school, he kept his word about sticking up for me. A dry-lander boy tripped me as school let out and I went sprawling in the dirt. “Look at the deaf-mute river rat!” the boy sniggered.

Getting to my feet, I stood there at my usual loss for words. L.C. ambled over and grabbed the kid by the back of his overalls. Swinging him up to eye level, L.C. shook the kid like a rag doll. “He ain’t a deaf-mute,” he growled. “He’s a mind-reader. You best run hide in the outhouse!” The boy scrambled away howling.

We hit the trail, Wolf gliding behind. L.C. cut a pair of sticks to tap the ground for snakes. Coming to a shady spot, he bent some branches and pointed: Quicksand. Skirting the mucky place, we moved deeper into the dim swamp where the cypress knees rise shoulder-high. After a couple hours’ slog, we found a little grove and sat down to share some deer jerky. Leaning against a hickory trunk, I piled up leaves til I was buried to my armpits. Patches of blue sky glowed through the branches.

“Hush,” L.C. said, shaking me from a doze. “You were snoring.” A doe and her fawn bounded past our hidden glade, racing down the trail. They zigzagged into the woods and disappeared. I saw Wolf’s fur bristle in waves down his spine; there came a sound of something tromping through the brush. A figure passed carrying a towsack slung over broad shoulders. A sweat-stained hat hid his face, but his jacket of golden-colored deer leather seemed familiar: the Honey Man!

L.C. motioned and I followed. “Smell that?” L.C. whispered. It was wood smoke. Ahead was a clearing, in the center a cypress shack. From the distance came a mule’s laughing bray. Scooting forward on our bellies, we hunkered behind a shed. A screen door slammed and the Honey Man walked over to a row of wooden boxes by the tree line. His face was brown as a walnut and shiny with sweat—he was grinning! Pulling a drawer from one of the boxes, he strode to the center of the clearing and set the drawer on top of a tree stump. He went back inside the little gray house and shut the door.

“Look at the size of that honeycomb,” L.C. whispered, eyeing the drawer’s glistening contents. Before I could blink, he was gone. Darting across the yard, he grabbed a fistful of honeycomb and we tore through the woods as if the Devil were chasing us. After putting some distance between us and the shack, we stopped to gorge on the sweet gooey honeycomb, like candy from heaven. I was licking my fingers when L.C. said, “You hear something?”

We stood stock-still, straining our ears. A thin whine sounded in the distance and Wolf growled. “Run!” L.C. yelled. We took off with the swarm of bees close behind. They chased us all the way to Big Creek, dive-bombing like crazy. “That’s the last time I take charity from the Honey Man,” L.C. said.

Back on the houseboat, Uncle Harold placed strips of wet brown paper on my bee stings and explained how the Honey Man crossed over from Mississippi a few years’ back. “His name is Sam. Some Mississippi lawmen claim he killed a couple of Cajuns, but it ain’t like Sam done anything this side of the River,” Uncle Harold shrugged. “Those Cajuns prob’ly needed killing.”

Summer played on and the White River replaced the woods as fishing and swimming filled our days. After finishing whatever chores I couldn’t avoid, I met L.C. at Ballard’s Mercantile to make plans and we’d go from there. He had the rest of the $20 he got for the mink pelt, so Saturday afternoon we came to town on a mission to buy a new snap gig. What with a full moon and perfect weather, the plan was to go frog-gigging with Uncle Harold later on.

We were in our usual spot in front of the candy counter when the door jingled. A sudden string of oaths burst forth—we spun around to see Mr. Ballard cocking his shotgun over the counter. “You ain’t buying anything in here, mister, not with your blood money,” Mr. Ballard said. The man slowly raised his hands and backed away without uttering a sound. L.C. glared at the stranger, and when the door closed he leaned down, muttering in my ear, “Go straight home and don’t tell.” He left without buying the snap gig.

Uncle Harold and I were sitting on deck watching the moon rise when Dad drove up to go frog-gigging with us. In the morning he was taking me (and Mudcat, of course) back to Van for the rest of the summer. Dad was set on making a farmer out of me. He came barreling down the stage plank whooping and hollering, and after catching his breath and having a nip, he gave us the story: Driving through St. Charles he spotted half the town milling around the Mercantile. Folks were in an uproar over Frank Martin, the prison trusty who got parole for killing Helen Spence. The murderer had brazenly come into St. Charles only to get run off by Mr. Ballard.

“Frank Martin took the rap for killing her, all right,” said Uncle Harold. “Damned drylander.”

“But that ain’t all,” Dad went on, “They said Martin left town in a hurry and was crossing the bridge at Forks Lagrue when his tire caught a nail and went flat. He got out the car to check the tire and a pack of dogs set on him. Those dogs tore his butt to shreds before he could get back in the car. He drove off on the rim in a shower of sparks. It’s the talk of the town.”

“Well I’ll be,” exclaimed Uncle Harold. “Hopefully it was some mad dogs bit him.” We waited awhile and when L.C. didn’t show, the three of us slipped off in the shell boat. Sitting in front holding the lantern, I watched the moon slip from a cloud as an eerie howl echoed against the bluff. Dad speared fat bullfrogs one by one and slung them in the boat—he didn’t need a fancy snap gig. Uncle Harold lounged in back, manning the paddle between nips and chuckling through the darkness, “Mad dogs, yep, mad dogs. You ain’t just a-wolfin’… you ain’t just a wolfin’.”

Years later, we heard Frank Martin went around bragging he was the one shot the notorious Helen Spence. He walked into Cloud’s grocery near Casscoe to buy a loaf of bread and the lady behind the counter was from the River. She sold him a different loaf, said it cost less and was just as good. Frank Martin went home, ate dinner and never woke up the next morning. Folks always said the River got him.

Copyright 2016 by Denise White Parkinson