Last week we had a short piece from an unpublished novel. Today, I’d like to give you the Prologue of another one entitled SOURWATER SLOUGH. It takes place in my old neighborhood of Southeastern Oklahoma. And speaking of Oklahoma, let’s take a moment to remember the tragedies of that great state’s recent super tornadoes.
By the way, the protagonist in this book (whom we will not
meet in the prologue) unexpectedly finds himself a brand new Malcolm County
Deputy Sheriff—after spending most of his teen years being a thorn in the
Sheriff’s side. How he got there’s an interesting story in itself. Tishomingo
Echo Hawk is a cool, woman-chasing, hard-drinking Choctaw not yet twenty-one whose
tenuous tie to the native community is a sassy, no-nonsense grandmother who
outsmarts him every time. He dislikes the way his mother selected his given
name, so he goes by the moniker of Mingo.
Here’s the start of his story. Enjoy.
###
“You’re
crazy.”
The
girl tossed her head and looked at the pickup sitting thirty yards away on high
ground. Her long black hair rustled like silk. That hair was what he liked most
about her. Along with her eyes.
She
turned her gaze to the black, silent water at their feet. “Why’d you bring me
to this creepy swamp, anyway?”
He
wagged his eyebrows suggestively and immediately felt like a fool. “Looking for
a little privacy. You know, to have some fun.” He shifted his weight. His boots
slipped in slimy mud.
“Fun?
In a place like this? You are crazy.”
“You’ve been to lotsa
parties down here. We both have.”
Why had he chosen this spot? Maybe to get her goat. No, that wasn’t it.
He liked the place, probably because no one else did. He inhaled the fetid air
like perfume.
“Down
in the bottomlands, maybe, but not in this sewer. Sourwater stinks like a
toilet.” She pointed a dimpled chin to the west. “Fisherman’s Slough is bad
enough, but it’s Lake Texoma compared to this cesspool. I wanna go home.”
“All
right, we’ll go back to Fisherman’s, but don’t blame me if somebody comes by
and interrupts us.”
“Interrupts
us? No way, buster. If this is all you think of me, there’s not gonna be any
interrupting. Who do you think you are, some lover boy? Well, let me tell you
something. You aren’t that good. Now take me home.”
Her
words struck like a body blow. He flushed. Struggled to fill his lungs. “You
get off on giving a guy a sniff and then telling him to take a hike?”
“That’s
disgusting.” She whirled and started for the truck, skating in the mud before
catching her balance. “Let’s go. Right now.”
“Don’t
turn your back on me, bitch!”
He tugged
on her slender arm. She stumbled backwards, scrambling to maintain her balance.
Thin-soled slippers lost traction in the goop. She went down with a muted cry,
slamming into the bole of a tree. She dropped and lay like a rag doll.
He swayed
over the inert body, drawing sharp gasps. The rage dissipated. His hands
dangled at his sides, fingertips twitching. His hammering heart rate slowed
abruptly, leaving him dizzy. Reality returned in the faint drip of water
somewhere nearby; in the smear of blood on the rough, curling bark of the tree;
in the rank stench of the swamp. A stultifying breeze ruffled his face.
He
looked down at her. “Come on. Get up.”
Aw,
hell. She wasn’t gonna get up. Ever. Oh, man, what now? It was an accident. Her
fault. Anybody could see that. Anybody but that fat Malcolm County Sheriff, Joe
Lee Buchanan. That redneck wouldn’t buy it. Not for a minute.
He’d
just wanted to get it on, to do it. That’s what they’d come out here
for—or he had, anyway. Wasn’t like they hadn’t done it before. Why’d she have
to go squirrelly? It wasn’t fair. Got him all hot and bothered and then crapped
out on him. She couldn’t get away with that.
His
shoulders rose and fell with a sigh. She was usually a good sport, up for doing
crazy things. He’d led her away from the truck on purpose, laughing at the
awkward way she skied through the mud. How was he supposed to know she’d get
mad? God, she looked funny lying there. Too bad, but she ought not have treated
him like dirt.
“Serves
you right.”
His
words echoing hollowly across the dead surface of the slough spooked him. Didn’t
sound like his voice. More like a stranger’s. Was somebody in his head talking
for him?
A
splash down the shoreline sent his heart pumping and puckered his flesh. He
peered through the late afternoon haze. Fishermen? Frog giggers? But nothing
stirred in the oppressive heat. Not a leaf. Just swarms of gnats and flies.
Sourwater lay silent and mysterious, looking more like a pool of dirty motor
oil than water. A thick canopy of branches overhead almost obscured the low
bank of clouds hiding the sun. The heavy atmosphere made it hard to breathe.
The bog reeked of death and decay. What the hell was he gonna do now?
Ripples
near a cypress knee poking up out of stale water turned into a snake. The sight
of the ugly moccasin gave him an idea. Nobody knew he’d brought her out here.
So he’d just leave her for the swamp. Fish ate dead flesh, didn’t they? Better
yet, his great-granddaddy used to tell about a big alligator down in the
bottoms. That dude would take her for sure. Clean up after him in a minute.
Nobody’d ever find her. That was the answer. The slough knew how to take care
of its dead.
A clap
of thunder overhead and an answering rumble off to the south freed him from
inertia. He slogged through the mud to his vehicle in search of something to
weigh her down. Rope was no good—too distinctive. All kinds of killings got
solved with nothing more than a hair. He knew that from watching TV, although
Buchanan and his Malcolm County crew weren’t as sharp as those guys on “CSI.”
They wouldn’t catch him like that. Not those slobs. Still, he needed to be
careful in case they called in professionals—like the state cops.
A spool
of fishing line might work. Everybody in the county had a reel, and it wouldn’t
take fingerprints. What was that other stuff they talked about on those shows?
Skin thing-a-ma-bobs. Epi—epi-something-or-the-other. The nylon was too smooth
to hold anything like that, but just to be safe he’d wear a pair of work gloves
from the pickup to handle everything.
He
stripped to keep sweat from ruining his clothes. Buck naked, he scrounged
enough rocks to fill two burlap sacks he found along the shoreline. Panting from
his efforts, he lashed the frail, dead form to the bags with yards of filament.
Man, even that thick hair looked different now. Lost its luster.
As he
struggled to lift the trussed up package, he slipped and fell on his face. He
fought his way to his feet as the first raindrops crashed through the
overhanging branches. When he rolled her into the slough, she slid a couple of
feet and stopped. He recoiled as her big eyes stared at him.
He
swiped his running nose and steadied himself. It was just the water. The
weighted sacks had caused her to turn in the shallows. She wasn’t looking at
him. She wasn’t looking at anything.
He forced
himself to wade into the revolting stew of sediment and noxious ooze to
struggle with the bundle, all the while trying to ignore thick muck squishing
between his toes and clutching his ankles like spectral hands. Oh, hell. Where
was that water moccasin? It was all he could do to keep from bolting back to
the shore. Fat raindrops raised pimples on the dark water, making it seem
alive. Green at the edges, the lagoon turned black toward the middle. Poisons
leaching up out of the ground. Acids eating his flesh right now.
He
grabbed the body before he freaked himself out and heaved with all his strength.
His feet shot out from under him. He went down hard in the slick mud. The girl
seemed to clutch his chest. With a mindless squeal, he shoved her away and
scrambled to find purchase on something solid, but the slimy bottom betrayed
him. He floundered helplessly as Sourwater sucked him into her depths. He
fought his way to the surface, splashing like a five-year-old who couldn’t
swim. Reason returned, but not before he’d taken a lungful of filthy water.
Coughing and gagging, his insides burning, he clawed his way back to shore to
throw up on the muddy bank.
While
he struggled with his heaving stomach, a brilliant bolt of lightning struck a
tree across the lagoon. Ear-splitting thunder left his head swimming. A sharp
odor filled his nostrils. He tasted ozone on his tongue. His hair stood on end,
and his nerves sang like they were plugged into a live socket. That had been
close. He threw up his head and laughed.
“Missed
me! And if you can’t get me, who can?”
###
Next week: I'll try to get back to THE BISTI BUSINESS. After all, we haven't visited Bisti/De-Na-Zin yet.
New posts are published at
6:00 a.m. each Thursday.
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