Dirty South

“Got him,” Cash say, laughing. “We got him.”

Teddy’s boat revving real hard. Smoke shootin’ from the engine, whining almost like a scream, but not moving.

CHRISTIAN TRIED to reverse the boat and then run her forward. But nothing would get him untangled from the high grass and mud that clogged the propellers of the engine. I looked back and saw JoJo with Cash in this big, purple Cigarette boat and then Bronco and ALIAS. My eyes wavered and I bent at the waist for a few more dry heaves.

Christian turned to me, seeing the smile form on my face, and plodded back, knocking me in the chest with his fist. I tumbled back into the water, twirling in the bayou, feet sucking deep into the muck, and finally finding the way to air. I swallowed in light and oxygen, brushing reeds away from my face.

He looked down at me. “Push, goddammit. Push us out of this shit.”

I moved to the side of the boat, found my fists on the hull loosening, handprints painting brown patterns on the white paint, and pretended to move the boat from the reeds.

Christian revved her motor again and foul-smelling bubbles of marsh gases erupted from deep in the bottom.

Teddy stood over me, his arm extended with his gun. He squeezed off a few in the direction of Cash.

Still, I heard the steady, constant motor of Cash’s boat. Chugging. Ready to pounce.

I pretended to push more. My weight not moving a feather.

Teddy disappeared from the stern.

I walked backward in the thick water. The water level coming up to my neck.

I saw a water moccasin glide and curve sideways from the middle of the little lagoon.

Cash hit the engine hard and the long torpedo of boat shot forward hard and fast.

Teddy fired, the glass windshield exploding from Cash’s boat.

The boat whooshed by me and collided hard with Teddy’s Scarab. A cracking thunderous crash.

I heard two splashes and saw Teddy scrambling into the water, paddling his way to a shore that barely existed. Deeper into the reeds and grasses.

Silence. The engines died.

Yelling.

JoJo jumped in and high-stepped his way to me.

I felt my eyes roll back in my head and I tumbled backward.

He caught me and dragged me to a long flat of mud. My face flush into the gray muck, seeing scattering animals’ footprints. The early-morning heat rising in odorous waves from the pile.

I collected myself. Wavered to my feet.

I heard a few more shots.

Two other big purple Cigarette boats ran close to the line of tall grasses. Some of Cash’s boys getting up to their waists, guns held high over the water, slogging through. I saw a couple up to their ankles in marsh. Each step taking a grimace from the men, mud and decaying earth sucking them down.

I heard rustling. Grasses shifted near where I stood.

I wandered forward, the heat and sun and loss of blood wrapping the whole earth in a halo.

JoJo yelled for me.

I fell to my knees, sinking up to my elbows and thighs through it all, water and mud covering my face. Losing a boot and pulling off the other one, crawling for the sound through a tunnel of broken reeds, where cloven feet scattered in a labyrinth of high grass.

I tumbled out about thirty yards on the other side.

I stood on a muddy little bank, the bayou holding me up to my knees.

Teddy was stuck, frozen. Birds trilling all around us.

He turned to me. His red shirt muddy and torn. Dirt and mud caked over his face and into his hair. He looked almost comical.

But he wasn’t laughing.

His gun hung loose in his hand.

TWO of Cash’s boys haul Dio’s ass out of the damned bayou, pulling him out by his neck. Cash stand like some kind of general, shirtless and scarred, on our boat waiting to meet him. He reach down into the water, grab him by his arms, and pull him on board with all of us. Ain’t no real sound comin’ from nowhere. Just animal sounds and water slapping real low from beneath them bridges. You don’t say a word.

You just walk over with Cash and look down at the man you thought was God.

He look the same but don’t seem the same.

He look at you, recognize you know he ain’t shit, and then see his eyes jump down to your Superman platinum.

He reach for it and you knock his hand away.