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  He turned underwater and fought his way across the current toward the place the tree had been. It was a small sweet gum, not much more than a sapling, but he knew there would be submerged branches he could locate if he could come near it underwater.

  They’ll be looking for me downstream, he thought. The thing is to find it and come up inside the limbs. If I can hold straight enough I may be able to do it. Must have come twenty feet now, and it should be right ahead, not more’n another ten feet. Can’t figure out about that arm. It was hit, but I don’t feel nothing. Hardly nothing at all. Must not have hit the bone, because I can swim with it. If it had, the bone would have been busted all to hell. They weren’t shooting 22’s. Well, I ain’t in any hurry to feel it. When the shock wears off I’ll get it all right.

  I must have passed that tree. Come fifty feet anyway, and I must have got off the course and missed it. And it ain’t going to do no good to make a second run at it, because when I come up over here instead of downstream they’ll know what I’m up to and they’ll start blowing the tree out of the water. I missed it, that’s all. Then leaves and small twigs brushed the top of his head and he felt a surge of hope.

  Right under it, he thought. He raked upward with his right arm and felt a limb, still underwater, and began following it up, forcing himself to go slowly in spite of the pain in his lungs. Then there was the trunk of the tree directly over his head. He held onto the limb under the surface and came up slowly until his face was just out of the water. He took a deep, gasping breath and opened his eyes. It was perfect.

  The tree was eight or ten inches in diameter here, with a couple of inches of it out of the water. Several limbs took off at this point and his head was in a cluster of leaves and small twigs. Through breaks in the foliage he could see the two men on the near bank, standing now in knee-deep water and intently searching the surface of the flood downstream, waiting for him to come up. It fooled ‘em, he thought, and started to swing his head slowly around to look out at the opposite bank for the other two when he heard an ominous and terrible buzzing just back of his ear like an egg beater whirring in a pile of dead leaves and felt all his nerve ends turn to ice in one of the few moments of absolute terror he had ever known.

  Cold fury looked at him six inches in front of his face, and the deadly triangular head drew back to strike. The big rattler had been stretched along a limb as high as it could get out of the water it hated, and his movement or the pull of the current had disturbed the balance of the tree and rolled the limb downward toward the water. There was no time to pull his head back or submerge. One more slightest move and it would strike him full in the face. He brought a hand up and took the deadly, loathsome impact of it on his wrist and felt the puncture of the fangs. His hand closed over the body just back of the head and he pulled it below the surface, squeezing terribly with all his strength, feeling the sinuous, thick-bodied power of its threshing, and then the fangs pierced his hand once more before it stilled. He let it go and vomited into the water in front of his face.

  Sixteen

  Joy lay on her bed in the hot, close-pressing darkness and listened to the soft breathing of the younger girl across the room. It had been almost a half hour since she had heard the sibilant scuffing of Mitch’s bare feet on the sand in the back yard and had seen the light glow through the battenless crack in the back wall of the room. She knew he had come up on the back porch and lit the lantern for something, then there was the retreating snup, snup, snup of his feet going away toward the barn, and the light had faded away.

  What was he doing out there at this time of night? she wondered. There wasn’t even any way of knowing what time it was, for she had been lying awake for hours, long after Jessie had gone to sleep. She wondered if the hatred would ever let her sleep again. Closing her eyes, she could see him now, going somewhere with the lantern, down the trail toward the bottom perhaps, lank, straight-backed, bitter-faced, and hateful, and the vision made her sick with rage. Her mind swung, hate-lured, to one of the facets of her dream. She was driving a Cadillac along a tree-shaded boulevard, young and radiant in a gold lamé evening gown, while a handsome young millionaire made love to her at her side, and saw Mitch lying in a ditch beside the road with an arm outstretched in beseeching agony and the thin, harsh angularity of his face bearing the ravages of some loathsome disease like leprosy. She stopped, the car and went back to bend over him, and when he looked up in supplication she spat full in his face and laughed, and went on laughing with contempt and scorn, pointing at him so the young man in the car could laugh too. Oh, God, she thought, isn’t there anything I can do to him? If there was something, if there was some way to hurt him I could sleep again.

  Suddenly she heard the faint sound of an automobile across the oppressive stillness and wondered whose it was. It came on down the sand-hill road leading in from the highway, and then turned, going along the hill toward the Jimerson place. It was probably Cal or Prentiss, she thought, coming home from a dance. It went on, the sound fading away, and then it stopped. She was sure she had heard the motor sound die abruptly. But why would anybody stop up there? She must have been mistaken. It had probably just gone around a bend in the road.

  Minutes dragged by and she forgot about it. I’m going to the if I don’t go to sleep, she thought. If there was just some way I could hurt him, and see I was hurting him, and have him know I was seeing and was doing it on purpose so he would know how much I loathe and despise him and hate him and have ever since the first time I ever saw him, and that I was just making fun of him and laughing at him when I did that, when he shoved me. Oh, God, help me do it.

  She held her breath a moment and lay still, listening. What was it she had heard, out there in the yard? Terror ran through her for an instant and she wanted to scream, but held it in. Was it Mitch, still wandering around outside? No, there it was again and it was not the sound his bare feet had made or the sure, arrogant, fast-legged walk of Mitch at all. Whoever it was seemed to be walking erratically; there would be two or three steps in hurried succession and then a sudden and pregnant silence as they stopped. She sat up in bed, thinking again of the car and the way the motor had stopped.

  “Joy!” The hoarse whisper floated in through the window. She turned and could see nothing in the blackness. Oh, it’s that stupid Cal Jimerson, she thought with a sigh of relief. That was his car up there in the road. He must be drunk, or crazy. Is he dumb enough to think I’m going to go out there when Jessie’s right here in the same room?

  She slipped silently out of bed and stepped to the window on bare feet, hurriedly, to stop him before he could make any more noise. She put her hands on the sill and looked out. It was too dark to see anything but the shadowy bulk of him against the night.”Hush, you crazy fool!” she whispered. “Go away.”

  “H’lo, Joy,” he said, not whispering, but low-voiced. She could smell the sour stink of the whiskey. “Got drink in the car. Come out, let’s talk. Want to talk to you.”

  “Go home, you crazy idiot,” she hissed fiercely. “You’re drunk.”

  Then she heard Jessie stir on the bed behind her. Panic seized her and she leaned forward with an arm outstretched to put a hand over his mouth, if she could find it, before he could speak again.

  Jessie was sitting up in bed. “Joy, what is it?”

  At the same instant she felt Cal’s hand close over her arm and start to pull, and in a bursting flash of inspiration so fast it was almost pure reflex she cried out with terror in her voice, “Mitch! Turn me loose, Mitch. Please!”

  Her thigh and knees bumped the sill as she fell through the window on top of the stupidly weaving Cal. He caught her and staggered, almost falling. When her feet were on the ground she swung a hand, hard, and it exploded against his face with a sharp slap audible across the clearing. She wrestled out of his arms and hit him again and he moved back; then, as it began to penetrate his drunkenness that there was too much noise and everybody was going to be awake in a minute, he turned and start
ed running toward the road.

  She fell, sobbing, to the ground just as Jessie came running around the side of the house.

  “Joy, where are you? Are you hurt?” the younger girl was crying anxiously. She saw the white blur of the night gown and knelt down hurriedly beside the figure sprawled in the sand.

  “Did he hurt you? Are you all right?” She put a hand on Joy’s heaving shoulder, but got no answer except sobs. She slid an arm tenderly under Joy’s head and helped her to sit up.

  “Can you stand up?” she asked. “Put your arm over my shoulder, honey. And raise up when I stand up.”

  Joy got to her feet with her arm about the young girl’s shoulders and they went around the corner and into the house, walking slowly while she still shook with crying. She collapsed on the bed in tragic and shaken helplessness while Jessie struck a match to light the lamp.

  Soft yellow light flooded the room and Jessie went over to the window and pulled the curtains, then closed the door. Joy lay listening to her, and when Jessie came over to the bed she turned on her back and drew a hand across her eyes to wipe away the tears.

  “I—I’m all right, honey,” she said shakily. “It was just the—the awful scare. He ran away, and the fall didn’t hurt me.”

  “Are you sure?” Jessie implored anxiously. “Are you sure you didn’t break anything?” She pulled down her nightgown and brushed sand from the sheet, fussing over her.

  “Yes,” Joy said bravely. “I’m all right, honey.”

  Jessie’s fright was over now and her smooth child’s face was growing white with anger. The nostrils of the pert nose were pinched and pale, and her chin was more stubborn than Joy had ever seen it. The large blue eyes did not look like those of a child at all.

  “How did it happen, Joy?” she asked ominously. “I just heard you scream as I sat up in bed, and the next thing you fell out of the window. You screamed something about Mitch. Was it him?”

  This is where I have to do it right, Joy thought. It would be so easy to overdo it and botch it. And I wish I didn’t have to do it. Not to this kid, because she is sweet, but I’d do anything to her or anybody else I had to if it was the only way to get even with that bastard.

  “I—I don’t know, Jessie,” she said. “I don’t think it was. It must have been somebody else. I don’t think Mitch would do a thing like that.” Her voice quivered.

  “But I heard you say Mitch! That was what you screamed just as you fell.”

  Joy shook her head, nobly and with an infinite sadness. “No, that wasn’t— I mean, what it was, I must have just screamed to Mitch help. I mean, he’s the only man around, and—”

  “Joy! Trying to cover up for him is all right, and I might know you’d do it, you’re so sweet; but I know what I heard. And I haven’t forgot what he was trying to do when you went out there to the well tonight. I saw that!”

  Joy gave way to tears again for a minute, but regained control of herself. She had just heard Cal’s automobile start up there on the road. “No, Jessie,” she said wanly, “I just don’t know. It’s such an awful thing, I wouldn’t accuse Mitch of it unless I was absolutely sure. I just don’t think it was.”

  “We’ll see,” Jessie said ominously. She got up off the bed and started toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” Joy asked in alarm. “Out to his room. I’ll find out.”

  “No, Jessie,” Joy urged piteously. “Don’t go out there. Whoever it was might be still around. It’s too dangerous.”

  “They won’t bother me,” Jessie said, her eyes snapping with anger. She opened the door and went out.

  If Mitch is there, Joy thought, if he’s come back, all I have to do is say I told you so, I knew it wasn’t Mitch. And if he hasn’t come back I don’t have to say anything. Nobody would ever be able to convince her it wasn’t him, especially after that thing tonight. He’s a stupid cluck; he’d fall for anything.

  Jessie was back in a minute. “He wasn’t even there,” she said angrily. “And you were trying to cover up for him, Joy!”

  “I just didn’t know for sure, honey,” Joy said sadly. “Maybe it was just a joke.”

  “A joke!”

  Jessie stood in the middle of the room with her whole small body radiating anger for a minute; then she went slowly over to her own bed and sat down. Her shoulders slumped, as if with tiredness, and she seemed to collapse in some odd manner without changing size or position, just as if the fierce energy of her spirit had suddenly wilted and let her fall in on herself. She did not cry or say anything for a long time. The wide blue eyes were dry as she looked down at her scuffed, unlaced shoes, but there was an uncomprehending look of hurt in them that was worse than tears.

  Joy left her alone. She lay on her bed, waiting. There’s no use in saying anything more now, she thought. Let her say it. I’m a lousy bitch, all right. I guess I always have been. But there wasn’t any other way to get even with him.

  After a while Jessie looked up. “Joy,” she asked quietly, “when you get the money from your friend, and get ready to leave, do you think I could go with you?”

  “Do you want to leave here, honey?”

  “Yes. I want to go away.”

  “Of course you can go with me, baby. We can make out some way.”

  They turned the light out in a few minutes and Joy lay for a while thinking about it. So he thinks I’m not good enough for the kid to be around, she thought. Well, I guess now he’s right, but he sure as hell ain’t going to like it, knowing he is.

  Then, for the first time since Mitch had shoved her contemptuously into the dirt, she dropped off to sleep.

  Seventeen

  When would it start?

  It was like waiting for an explosion after the fuse had been touched off, The four small needle-like punctures in his wrist and hand were nothing, like a fuse burning, and not very painful, but somewhere inside him the mysterious chemistry of the venom waited to begin its slow-burning explosion that would swell and blacken his body and bring death in the end.

  Even in that chilling first minute after the snake had hit he had not even considered calling out to the men and surrendering. It had not occurred to him, and if it had he would have brushed it aside. It did not matter that they could have rushed him to a doctor for treatment and saved him. For what? he would have thought. The electric chair?

  The tree swung lazily in the eddying brown sweep of the current and he held onto the limb with only his face out of the water, watching the hooded banks and the timber go slowly past in the rain. He could see the men in black raincoats still splashing through the water along the banks, running downstream and intently searching the surface of the flood for him, and knew the trick had fooled them. As long as he did not move or come too far out of the water among the leaves of the small sweet gum, they would not discover him, and with the current carrying him on down the chances were very good that in another mile or less he would be beyond them and they would go on back to the highway and he would be alone with the river.

  No, not alone, he thought. I got the snake in me. I’m about as much alone as a woman seven months gone. I got nobody to talk to, but I got company just the same.

  Them bastards with the black slickers will go back to the highway after a while, he thought, and they’ll think I drowned or that they got me with that last shot, but that ain’t going to mean they’ll quit looking for me. They’ll go right on till they find something, even if it’s just rotten meat. I couldn’t never get out of here, even if I didn’t have the snake in me.

  There was no fear of dying, only a cold and terrible anger at it and regret at the thought of Joy. I had a whole week, he thought, and I never got close to her. A whole week to get her, and it’s all gone now.

  The tree swung around a wide bend in the river and for a moment he could see both banks at once behind him. The men with the guns had stopped. He drifted on around the bend and they were out of sight behind him.

  Then in a few minutes he began to shake
as with a chill and he could feel the first faint, whirling giddiness of nausea pushing upward inside his stomach. So that’s how it starts, he thought.

  * * *

  At dawn it had begun to rain, and the river was spilling over its banks. Mitch came up out of the bottom, walking fast with the extinguished lantern swinging in his hand and urgency prodding his thin-shanked, furious stride. He hung the lantern and his raincoat on the porch and went into the kitchen, the calloused soles of his feet rasping against the worn and silvered planking of the floor. Jessie was cooking breakfast, and looked up without greeting.

  “I ain’t got time to eat,” he said. “You got any coffee ready, Jessie?”

  She looked through and beyond him, still-faced, un-recognizing. “No,” she said with distant coldness.

  He stopped, his mind coming back from the river. “What’s the matter with you?” Then he noticed she was wearing the homemade play suit, which amounted to little more than a pair of too short rompers and a halter.

  “I thought I told you to burn that thing,” he said.

  “Did you?” she asked without interest.

  “I certainly did. Go in there in the bedroom and put on some clothes and hand me that thing. No sister of mine is going around looking like a half-feathered jay bird.

  ”There was disgust and a cold and infinite contempt in the glance she gave him. “Well, you’ve certainly got a nerve.”

  Mitch had never been one to heed warning signals or ask any discreet questions. Frontal assault was the only tactic he had ever learned. Women, even his adored younger sister, were of another race, and the oblique and sometimes devious courses of their mental processes met with no understanding and only scant interest in his forthrightly masculine and uncomplex philosophy. She was his sister, he was older than she was and consequently knew better what was good for her, he loved her, and the clothes she was wearing were indecent—these were all the facts in the case as far as he was concerned, and were sufficient for action. He was no more equipped to cope with the idea that Joy might have put her up to it for the forseen and calculated effect of his inevitable reaction than he was to play a dozen simultaneous and blindfolded games of chess.