The Marauders (40 page)

Wes started the engine and it sounded with a loud purr. He geared the boat and eased into the bayou. It was growing dark, but there was still enough daylight to see the faces in the crowd watching him as he drifted away. He spotted his father, but Wes was already too far out to read his face. He knew him only by the wiry shape of his body, the hunched set of his shoulders. What did you call feeling nostalgic for a moment before it was over? He didn’t know, but he felt that feeling now as he cast further out into the Barataria. As he drifted farther he couldn’t tell one face from another, nor soon after that man from woman, then man from child, until finally he was so far away that who he was looking at could have been anyone. Anyone at all.

Thank you to my brother Michael Cooper for your very early readings of this book, and for your indispensable advice. Thank you to my partner, Kathy Conner, for the same. Both of you made this novel what it is. I’m lucky to have such kindred spirits by my side. Thank you to my grandparents, rest in peace, for all those trips to the bookstore and for so many other things. Thank you to old friends Joe Capuano and Claudia Sanchez and Richard Pearlman for sticking around all these years. Thank you to new friends Joe Wall and Brigette Paladon and Tyler Shepard for always lending a willing ear. Thank you to Reggie Poche and Cass Cross for your perspicacious readings of my early drafts. Thank you to my mentors for your wisdom and encouragement. Thank you to my agent, Lorin Rees, for believing in this book from the beginning. Thank you to Nate Roberson for the same. Thank you to Danielle Crabtree, Rachel Rokicki, Jay Sones, Rebecca Welbourn, and the rest of the team at Crown for working so tirelessly on my behalf. Thank you, reader.

Tom Cooper was born in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and now lives in New Orleans, where he writes and teaches. His fiction has appeared in dozens of magazines and anthologies, including
Oxford American
,
Gulf Coast
, and
Mid-American Review. The Marauders
is his first novel.