RGL e-Book Cover©
Based on a vintage Florida travel poster
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.
RGL e-Book Cover©
Based on a vintage Florida travel poster
ZEB TURNEY'S brat dangled his bare feet from the rail-less veranda edge of the never-painted, slab-sided cabin. His brown tanned face bent absorbedly over his whittling. Carefree as a mocking-bird, he whistled contentment. Scrawny chickens scratched in the dust. A lean hound scratched himself and snapped at droning swamp flies. Just a Cracker shack in the Everglades country.
Mink Parsons craned his tortoise neck warily over a fringe of palmetto scrub. His lips split in a thin snarl at the scene. It had done nothing to him; but he hated it. He hated all of this southern country. So empty; so far from the big city; so devoid of all the comforts and congeniality that a man needed for his work—such as poolrooms and backstair hang-outs.
He never would have come here, but that the aftermath to his most recent deal had necessitated a quick flight to the most obscure hideout he could find. For Mink's profession was what he styled "Intelligence Agent," but what the police bluntly called "stool pigeon."
Mink had been quick to seize upon a hint that Zeb Turney was going to be away from home this day, attending to his quiet little still; and if that were so, and the kid would be alone, that would be—Mink's snarl became a smile, as he surveyed the deserted scene—it would be just pie for Mink.
Zeb Turney's brat, they had told Mink, was smarter'n a mockin' bird. But Mink, in his experience, knew exactly how to handle kids—if they were alone and unprotected. So Mink slouched down to the shack.
"Where's yer dad, kid?" he asked brusquely.
The boy stopped his trills and warbles long enough to answer the direct question with amazingly direct candour.
"Pap's daown swamp a ways, makin' shine."
"Take me to him," Mink ordered. He winked a pink-lidded eye. "I got some business with him."
The boy still whittled. "Us Glades Crackers got no business with furr'ners."
Mink knew exactly how to handle kids. He made a quick reach and caught the boy's right wrist. "Gett'n fresh, yeah?" He twisted the arm smartly behind the boy's back. "So then we'll talk different." He pushed the arm upwards between the shoulder blades.
The boy cried out once, then bit his teeth together. Mink's throaty laugh was like the buzz of a swamp rattler. He had all the confidence of experience in his methods. Gutter brats of the slums—give them a little torture to break down the morale they had never possessed, and a promise of a reward to arouse their cupidity for money they seldom saw. It always worked. This rube brat would be a cinch.
Mink applied another twist to the rack. "C'm on now. They says you're a smart brat. Lead me to yer dad an' I give yer a quarter." Another twist now.
It wrung a scream from the boy, and forthwith submission. "Ow-oo-oh! Please. Mister! All right—ah-ow-w-w!" Or at least it was a partial submission. "Ah'll show you all for faive dawlars."
"Damn the brat for an avaricious Judas. But that just showed that the little savage had the most primitive conception of money values. However, it was just as easy to promise five dollars as to promise a quarter.
"O.K!" Mink conceded. "Come ahead."
He pushed the boy in front of him, holding him by the scruff of the neck, as a victorious mongrel holds a rabbit. The boy went before him whimpering.
Mink felt that he could afford to snarl his smile. Why not? His was no dangerous profession of raiding a moonshiner's lair, risking bullets: he got his pay for "supplying information leading to the arrest..."
A faint path led out of the palmetto to a sheet of iridescent scum and there disappeared. But the boy stepped to a saw grass tussock and from that to another. Like stepping stones they made a road through black slime—for those who knew just which tussock. The boy whined from ahead: "Y' ain't give me ma faive dawlars yit."
"You ain't showed me yet," Mink growled. "You get yours when I get back." His temper was on edge. He didn't like this balancing on grass roots. But he'd stick it out; all he needed was a glimpse at the place and he'd get out.
The tussocks merged into open Everglades savannah. That is to say, what looked like prairie grass grew out of deep brown water. A couple of slender dugout pirogues nestled amongst the tall stems.
The boy squatted on his heels in the stern of one and took up a paddle. Mink crawled gingerly into the unstable thing and crouched, his knuckles white where they gripped the narrow edges. Expertly the boy paddled through a maze of narrow passages that criss-crossed through grass high above their heads. A smart boy, in his hick way, Mink admitted.
Abruptly the pirogue bumped upon the shore of a hummock, an island of rising ground. And there, just as though they had never left it, was the faint path winding through the tamarack scrub. Mink was glad to scramble out of the dugout log and get his feet on solid ground once more.
"Still's a hurndred yerd up road." The boy's voice drawled from behind him. Not whimpering now. Hushed and tense.
A hundred yards! That was too suddenly near to be safe. But Mink had all he needed to know. He turned hurriedly to scramble into the pirogue again. But his own effort of landing had pushed it a little distance off shore. Brown water lay between. The boy sat indolently in the stern. Throaty warbles and soft trills whistled from his lips.
Mink experienced a premonition of unease. "O.K. kid," he said. "Let's go, kid. You'll get your five dollars the minute I get back."
Zeb Turney's brat made an expert flip of his paddle. Silently the pirogue slid backwards round the bend of the narrow brown channel. The pure mocking-bird melody broke off. Only the Cracker brat's voice came out of the emptiness. Never a whimper in it now. Calmly matter-of-fact.
"Hell, mister. You all ain't comin' back."
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.