Alligator (37 page)

He looked at his watch and discovered the dial had been smashed when he'd climbed the cypress last night. It hardly mattered. He didn't need his watch to tell it was about ten o'clock; he could read the sun.

Lee spotted a boulder about a hundred yards down the shore that had a good view both of the water and the land. It seemed as good a place as any to wait. He put a knife on the ground near Rye's feet, walked over to the boulder, and sat down.

Once comfortable, he remained hunched, without so much as a suggestion of movement in his body for a long time. He sat so calm and still that he looked like he might be dozing, but his relaxation was deceptive; every muscle, every tendon was alert and cautious, ready to spring alive at any moment.

He sat in the same position for hours, without moving. Even when the sun climbed up the sky and beat full force direcdy over his head, bleaching the swamps white, draining them of all color under its burning glare, he remained as he was.

Lee's eyes were hooded and impassive as he sat in his Indianlike trance, but he was fully aware of everything around him. Not so much as a leaf could shift without his knowing it. He had gathered all his energy into himself, hoarding it for the moment when he would have to call on it.

He was aware of Rye pacing the shore, knew his exact position though he wasn't looking in his direction. He hadn't said anything to Rye in hours, nor had Rye spoken to him. There was nothing to say except when and why, and neither of them had the answer to that.

The sun began making its downward slope, but still Lee didn't move. It wasn't until three o'clock that he shifted on the rock and exposed a fresh area of his body to its hardness.

Rye had stopped his frantic pacing, though he couldn't sit down. He knew he was wasting his energy, but he couldn't contain his body. He stood at the edge of the shore, searching the water for a sign of the alligator, his shoulders hunched, his chin thrust forward belligerently. His body was tense and furious, longing for action. Only his eyes betrayed him. They were frightened, very frightened.

"Where the hell is he?" he yelled. His voice, too, betrayed the terror.

"He's been here for a while," Lee answered.

Rye jerked his head back toward the water, frantically scanning every inch of it for a trace of a movement. "I can't see him!" he screamed. "Why can't I see him?" Rye pivoted from side to side, scouring the water. He saw nothing, not so much as a fish breaking water; not even an insect disturbed the calm surface. Rye cupped his hand to his mouth and screamed, "Goddamn you, I know you're out there, ya hear me? I know you're out there!"

"Save your strength!" yelled Lee.

Rye wheeled on him. A large blue vein in Rye's temple pounded angrily; his face was red and knotted with fury; his body twitched. It looked as though he were about to pounce on Lee, yet his eyes continued to stare at the water. Lee realized that Rye was beyond words or thoughts or any feeling other than his urge to get the alligator.

Rye turned back on the water and screamed, "Goddamn you! Goddamn you to hell!"

By five o'clock the molten sun had begun to lose its power, its rays no longer pounding down from overhead but angled and diffused. Colors reasserted themselves as cooling shadows splashed across the hummock. A light breeze came up, bringing with it the fetid odor of the thick, scummy water, the delicate scent of water lilies, grass, and cypresses, but also a new smell. It was not the smell of any individual plant or animal or human being, but of a whole galaxy of animals, plants, rocks, and earth. It was the smell of life, and also of death. Suddenly all noise stopped, and the swamps were blanketed in a profound silence.

The alligator was not more than ten feet away, almost straddling the hummock, massive and primitive, like an ancient statue carved out of the' side of a mountain. He didn't move. Captured in a beam of sunlight, his pitted body, encrusted with the dried slime and algae of uncounted years, mottled green, yellow, and rust by the bits of seaweed, shells, and fossilized stones that were captured on his leathery hide, he appeared ossified, frozen in time and space, a reminder of the prehistoric life he had outlived. The brutal beauty of him stunned Lee.

Lee watched the enormous hulk as it shifted slightly. The animal seemed almost passive, but under his knotted hide, in the dark sinews, huge, ropelike muscles tensed and relaxed rhythmically, betraying the enormous power that lay beneath.

Rye too was watching, awestruck, almost hypnotized, as the great black alligator came to life and slowly pulled his massive body toward him. Rye couldn't move. As he watched the alligator drag his heavy body closer, he felt he was being covered by a great black shadow. All power in his body was gone, all thought and logic dead in his brain. Everything Lee had told him, everything he had learned since coming out to the swamps, was gone. Even fear vanished. Rye's body felt empty, hollowed out.

Still the alligator moved toward him, dragging his tremendous body closer. Rye could see the hundreds of crusty scars, and the pale sand crabs that scurried across the vast expanse of his back, unaware that their island was not rooted to the ground but moved and breathed under the impenetrable shield of skin.

The alligator's eyes, muddy yellow in the daylight, almost disappeared in the fat folds of flesh that padded his crooked head. As the alligator came nearer, Rye could see the flesh rolling under his skin, making huge double chins as he parted his jaws.

Eighty conical teeth, uneven, almost illogically placed, surprised him, and he watched, mesmerized by the softness of the folds of his mouth. He heard Lee calling out to him, but he felt no association with that voice; it could just as well be the moaning of the wind or the rustling of the leaves. He watched impassively as Lee raced toward the approaching alligator, trying to distract him from Rye.

Suddenly the alligator turned on Lee and, with incredible speed, slashed him into the air with his enormous tail, hurtling his body out into the water. Rye heard the loud crack as Lee's ribs were crushed by the blow, and the suck of air being forced from Lee's body.

The alligator bellowed in triumph; the chilling noise of his roar pierced Rye's armor and brought him alive again.

Rye's mind was a crazy quilt of jumbled ideas and urges. Part of it was aware of what happened to Lee, part of it was aware of the alligator hunched at the edge of the water, but everything was all mixed up and confused.

Rye raced toward the muddy water, half running, half crawling, his body alive with a rage that almost bordered on delight, the millions upon millions of nerve endings clotted and glutted with sensation.

He let out a terrifying cry, almost a howl from deep in his throat, as he threw himself on the back of the alligator. For a moment he rode him, clinging to the bucking back like a crazed, muck-covered Wild West star. Rye howled out in victory and thrust his knife into the alligator's horny side, making a deep gash.

The alligator fell back into the water with Rye still on top of him. Blood was spurting from the torn flesh, mixing with the churning water. The alligator screamed out in agony. Then, almost flipping over onto his back, he reared up and threw Rye from him.

Rye saw a great black flash as the bone-crushing tail whipped into his body. There was a savage crack as his ribs splintered into fragments, crushing the life from his body. A dull, burning pain radiated from his smashed chest. With a loud hiss, breath rushed out of his lungs, and was replaced by a flood of warm water flowing down his throat.

Again there was a black flash. With only a primitive awareness, Rye heard the loud snap of his skull as it was splintered apart by another blow of the alligator's tail.

The alligator spun on Rye and, opening his huge jaws, crunched down onto the bloody, lifeless body, cracking bone and snapping cartilage as he clamped with a viselike grip and took him down into the blackness of the water, far from the sun.

The surface seethed as the alligator sank with Rye. There was a swirl of red, which spread larger and larger until it finally faded into the brown water and disappeared.

The alligator's enormous head rose up again, with parts of Rye hanging from his jaws like laundry on a line. Pieces of ripped flesh and stringy muscle trailed from his back. Matted hair floated all around him. An eye, trailing veins and fatty tissue, bobbed past his huge snout, looking like a beetle in the red-brown water.

The alligator didn't move toward Lee, but lay in a bloody pool of water like a massive black boulder.

After several minutes had passed, the water grew calm again. Lee lay half on shore, half in the water, slipping in and out of consciousness. An agonizing pain racked his body, then muted, only to return again, building to a excruciating, obliterating pain with no beginning or end.

Lee was unable to move, unable to think, unable to feel anything beyond the pain. He looked at the alligator floating amid the horrifying remnants of Rye, but felt neither fear nor sadness nor even horror, only indifference, a vague nothingness, as if he had never belonged to this world at all. His knife floated by him. He saw it, but he didn't move. He felt no need for movement.

Above, the sun spread its warm rays across the surface of the water, and the warmth lulled and comforted him. He felt the water lapping at his body rhythmically. The rocking calmed him. The terrible pain started to fade, until Lee was aware of it only as something very far away, something irritating but as if it belonged to someone else and had nothing really to do with him. The only thing that mattered was the warm sun and the lapping water, soothing, calming, calling him to sleep. He closed his eyes.

The sun slanted almost at water level, making the surface shine brightly, like a sheet of metal.

The first sensation Lee felt was the pain. At first it was just a bruised soreness, a raw pulsing in his center. With each breath, the pressure in his crushed rib cage grew, splitting his whole chest apart.

"All right," he muttered to himself. "It's all right."

He opened his swollen eyes and tried to focus. The alligator was gone. There wasn't anything left of Rye, not even a sign of the struggle. There was nothing on the calm brown surface of the water except the glinting of the last rays of the sun. A pair of white herons fished not far away, and several small alligators lay on pitted rocks in the patchy sunlight. Gator bugs scurried across a lily pad; a fish jumped and splashed back into the water.

Emotion returned to Lee, throbbing like the pain. Rye was gone. There was a great emptiness, a hollowness at his core, a sense of loss as if part of his living flesh had been plucked raw from him.

Again he saw his knife, only a few feet away, jammed between some rocks. This time he reached out for it. With movement came the pain, ripping through his arm. He cried out and jammed his teeth into his torn lips. Each fraction of a movement doubled the pain, shooting live sparks of it through his arm and into his spinal column. Fighting the pain, he wrapped his swollen fingers around the handle of the knife and pulled it from the rocks.

He knew he must stand. The sheer enormity of the task made him want to give up, to allow the water to lull him again, but he knew he must stand. Shuddering and convulsing with the electric pain, he slowly pulled his legs up and under him. Forcing energy into his arms, straining every muscle, he raised himself until he was on his hands and knees.

He rested. Waves of pain washed across his body; his limbs trembled and weakened under him; but he held. Once again he forced himself to move. Fighting for every inch, he wrenched himself up until he was standing.

Feet apart, body hunched, straddling the shallows like a waiting fighter, Lee scanned the water for the alligator. He was all right, he thought. He was still all right, and he was waiting.

In the water on the other side of the hummock, a giant black shadow swept across the bottom like a torpedo, sending up huge clouds of mud. Ooze and clumps of grass swirled and eddied to the surface. The water began to boil and churn, as the huge crooked head split into the middle of it. Pieces of flesh and shreds of Rye's clothing still clung to the armored hide.

The alligator's body cleaved the water, sending a heavy spray flashing behind him. When he opened his enormous snout, his teeth, still stained with Rye's blood, glittered in the last rays of filtered sunlight. He roared. It was a challenge, ancient, eternal, a primitive warning that shook the swamps.

Lee caught sight of the alligator as he rounded the hummock. Instinct and thought worked together. He knew he must wait. Hard as it was, he must stand there, not moving, until the alligator was close enough for him to lunge at his brain. The alligator was moving very quickly now, but Lee knew he'd slow down as he got closer to shore. If he could just keep the alligator directly in front of him, then a moment before the jaws reached him, he'd move to the side and thrust the knife into the alligator's brain. It didn't give him much room for error, but he didn't have any choice.

The alligator knifed through the water. The huge wake which streamed behind him swirled black and silver in the sun. Suddenly Lee realized the alligator wasn't slowing up at all. With a sickening clarity, he saw once again that fighting this alligator would not be predictable. He was too old and too smart for that; he'd played this one many times before.

The alligator bore down on him. Lee instinctively leaped at the great black head, thrusting at the soft spot, which was only inches from him. Just as Lee was almost on him, the alligator veered off to the right, and the blade scraped against his thick armor uselessly.

The alligator sank back into the water, then reemerged a few feet away, thrashing the water white with his enormous tail. His jaws were slightly parted; water rushed out the side of his spongy mouth, making him look like he was leering. Lee was close enough to see his yellow eyes, glittering at their edges with flecks of red and brown.

The pain was gone for Lee; everything else besides the waiting alligator was gone. Lee gathered his strength into a great hard ball and began circling the alligator slowly. He was trying to throw him off guard, to force him to make the next move, in hopes that it would be the wrong one.