A slow breeze stirred across the April night. The moon-light washed through the clearing in waves of warm silver. Kezzy sat with Piety and Lant on the front stoop.
She said, "I kin smell the white oleander bloomin' by the gate."
Piety said, "Things is mighty sweet on a warm night. I kin smell ploughed ground back yonder."
"How's the new mule?" Kezzy asked.
"He ain't as smart as the old un," Piety said, "but likely he ain't learned my ways. Lant, don't you shoot that gun in the night this-a-way."
"I ain't fixin' to shoot. I'm jest sightin' it."
He lifted his new 30-30 Winchester rifle to his shoulder; down and up again. It had an ivory sight that caught the moonlight. He laid the gun across his sharp knees and drew an appraising hand along its smooth length.
"I kin knock hell outen a deer with this, most as far as I kin see him."
Kezzy asked, "What were the matter with your old gun?"
"Nary thing," Piety said. "He jest had the money when him and Cleve divided after their trappin' and he couldn't git to the catalogue quick enough."
"You done the same thing with the mule," he argued. "He'd done been eatin' his head off and doin' no work, but when you put him to the plough the one day and he dropped dead in the traces, you takened on like 'twas me was dead."
He nudged Kezzy and waited for his mother's wrath.
"The gun and the mule wa'n't the same thing," she shrilled. "I uses a mule to make us rations. Your ol' gun were plenty good. You kin shoot with a old-style gun, but you shore cain't plough with a dead mule."
"Ne' mind, Ma," he said, "you got the new mule and I got the gun."
"That's jest about all we got, too. I declare, Kezzy, seems jest lately like him and Cleve has done swopped natures. Cleve workin' for Ab acrost the river, and Lant a-settin' and puttin' out the last o' the cash money for a rifle. And the house full o' guns," she added.
"Ma, you jest gittin' cranky. Listen!"
In the near-by hammock a whip-poor-will sounded his tumultuous cry, tearing the still night.
"That's jest the feller I been waitin' for," he said.
Piety said uncertainly, "If you been waitin' on somethin', why'n't you say?"
"'Cause I perfeckly enjoys tormentin' you," he said.
Kezzy slapped at her legs.
"I don't know what the first whip-poor-will mean to you, Lant, but dogged if it don't mean the first skeeters to me."
She stood up.
"I got to be goin'. Zeke'll think I'm spendin' the night. Ary one keer to walk the road with me?"
Piety said, "We'll both go. Seem like we're wakeful, first warm weather."
They strolled together the half-mile of scrub road to Zeke's land. Kezzy walked between Lant and Piety, linking her arms in theirs. The sand road showed brighter by moonlight than by sun. A squirrel ran across in front of them. From the river there came the roar of a bull alligator.
Lant said, "I figgered you belonged to stick your snout outen the water 'bout now. Beller, you scaper, go on and beller. Ma, you got so short o' patience—how many 'gators have you heerd?"
"That's the first."
"Uh-huh. And how did you reckon I'd go 'gatorin', when they wa'n't no 'gators out?"
"If you was aimin' to 'gator," she said indignantly, "you should have said."
"'Twouldn't hurry the 'gators none to say."
Kezzy said, "I been wonderin' if 'twa'n't about time for 'em. I been wonderin', too, why 'tis they don't never come out 'til the nights gits warm."
"Because spring and summer's their matin' season. And matin' season, hit's jest the nature of the creeters to pop up."
She laughed and looked up into his face.
"Now listen who's talkin' about matin'. What do you know 'bout 'gators matin'?"
"I know all about it," he said earnestly.
Piety said, "You've seed their nests on top o' tussocks, ain't you, Kezzy?"
"Lant dug into one oncet to show me. Down near the Dread. Sixteen eggs, wa'n't it, Lant? And them all covered with the biggest mess o' rotten leaves and river trash. When Lant put my hand down in to feel, it were hot as if a settin' hen had jest left the nest. Lant, what you fixin' to hunt 'em for? You after the live uns or the hides?"
"The hides o' big uns and very small uns alive."
"What they worth?"
"Four and a half for seven-foot hides and over. A quarter apiece for small live uns."
"If the price holds up."
"You mighty right. Trouble with this country, the word goes out they's money in a thing, and the hull mess lays in and works that thing. They got the price o' skins down to where winter trappin' don't scarcely pay."
They stopped at Zeke's gate.
Kezzy said, "Much obliged for bringin' me home. Aunt Py-tee, if this long-coupled young un o' yours needs he'p pullin' out 'gator teeth, leave me know."
The bull 'gator roared again as Lant and Piety walked home together. The boy was preoccupied and did not notice that his long double-jointed stride was taking him ahead of her. He missed her and looked back to see her floundering in the sand. He waited for her and took her hand in his.
"Pore Py-tee," he said, "gittin' so old and slow she has to git drug along."
He pulled her behind him.
"Like towin' a extry rowboat," he said.
She laughed. She was surprised to find the walking now so comfortable.
The next day was warm. Humming birds darted at the coral honeysuckle on the fence.
Piety said, "The June-birds is early."
Lant spent the morning putting his 'gatoring equipment in order. He cleaned and filled his bull's-eye lantern that had replaced the fire-pan for night-hunting, loaded his new rifle and sharpened the point of his harpoon. He longed to be on the river, but the alligators were too wary to be hunted in the day-time. A boat slipping down the current could come almost within gunshot of the creatures sunning on logs or mud-bathing in a 'gator wallow, but at the crucial instant they slid into the water.
He ate his supper at five o'clock in order to be on the creeks with the first dark. He went down the hammock ledge with the sinking sun and sat in the boat at the swamp landing until the dark vegetation, the cypresses and the water had absorbed the last of the twilight. He poled silently out of the swamp and into Catfish Creek. Such a night should bring out the old male that had been stripping his bass and catfish lines.
The boat moved without sound. Now and then the pole made a gurgling as it dipped, as though a bass had leaped. Rounding a sharp turn in the creek, the low-hanging boughs of a blue bay scraped the gunwhales. The rustling was no more than the brushing of boughs across a floating log.
Ahead of him the creek narrowed to little more than the boat's width. The circle of light from the bull's-eye lantern in the bow, covered the water. To the right, low under a bank, appeared the tell-tale twin glow of a 'gator's eyes. They shone unblinking like red-hot coals. He poled towards them and they were gone. He was sure the 'gator had not submerged. He backed up to his original position. The twin coals met his light. Six inches of movement in any direction wiped them out. He was too far for a shot, he thought, but when he next flashed the red eyes, he fired. There was a muffled thumping. He approached cautiously. A five-foot 'gator lay dying inside a hollow log. He was disappointed in the animal's size. Above his regret surged a joy in the new rifle. He ran his hand down the barrel, faintly warm from the shot.
"I jest figgered you belonged to be a killin' thing," he said.
When the creature stopped thrashing about, he dragged it into the boat. He was anxious to be moving along and paid it no further attention. A few minutes later the boat was a tumult of motion. The 'gator had come to its senses and was snapping its jaws and flailing the boat with its scorpion-quick tail. Lant lifted his feet out of its way and exchanged pole for rifle. He dared not shoot indiscriminately for fear of sinking the boat. When, in the blackness, he made out the head against the side as the 'gator reared to go overboard, he fired again. It sank back.
"I'd forgot you bastards was that hard to kill," he told it. "Next time I bring my cane-knife," he added to himself.
He followed the network of false channels that honey-combed the swamp between mainland and river. He knew a 'gator cave where False Catfish all but met the river. He swung towards it. Over the deep pool he called up the young alligators by grunting, imitating their sound. They swarmed up from the cave, milling like minnows. He scooped them in with his hands. A broad nose lifted itself. The female had risen to fight. Lant pushed the flat head under with his harpoon.
"Git down there, damn you, and send me up your babies."
He scooped in a handful more, and the female charged the boat. He heard the jaws meet near the side and the powerful tail churned the water. She was something under the desired seven feet and he decided to pass up the shot. The greatest danger in 'gatoring was from infuriated females. He poled rapidly away.
The young alligators swarmed in the boat. The sides were high and they reared helplessly. One lay across his feet. He could not see in the blackness behind the lantern, but he felt the lift of the small thing's breathing. In the main channel of the creek again he was aware of a faint luminosity. The moon had risen. He might as well go home. The lantern light was no match for the silver translucence that washed through the swamp.
At the swamp landing he dragged the grown 'gator on shore to skin by daylight. He turned his lantern on the young ones in the boat. They lay clustered and motionless, blinking evil eyes. He picked them up with a hand closed over their jaws and dropped them one by one into a live-box, counting as he dropped. There were ten. Piety heard him whistling jubilantly, tramping up the ledge and across the clearing.
Through the summer the 'gatoring proved more profitable than the winter's trapping. Lant met Cleve at Kezzy's in June and suggested that his cousin join him. Cleve shook his pale head and grinned, showing his gums.
"Don't you fret about me and the 'gatorin'," he said. "Wilsons and Saunders has wanted I should go with 'em. Not me."
"'Tain't no risk to it."
"Don't tell me. How come Nub-footed Turner lost half his foot if they ain't no risk?"
"He were jest keerless."
"I might git keerless, too. I'm ridin' range for Uncle Ab and savin' a dollar-two a week. I aim to keep away from 'gators right on."
Towards the end of the summer the larger saurians were seldom seen. The females prepared for the September hatching of the eggs, laid in the spring, and hunted winter quarters. They were already holing up here and there in deep watery caves in swamp and river-bed. They had been decimated by the spring and summer hunting. The remaining adults added an acquired wariness to an instinctive one.
Lant poled into the main current of the river for his last night's hunt of the season. He had never seen an alligator at the mouth of Taylor's Dread. He was not expecting to shine a pair of eyes there. The double coals caught him unawares. They shone so wide apart he could not believe what he saw. He sculled quickly and noiselessly across the river and lifted his rifle. His ivory sight glinted between the twin fixed fires. He followed his shot immediately with the harpoon. He poled the boat forward madly.
"Bless Katy," he said to himself, "I got me the granddaddy o' the hull bunch."
The 'gator was rolling with the harpoon. The line twisted in his hands so fast it burned them. But the great creature was dying. Its struggles grew spasmodic. It lunged and lifted itself on the muddy bank. It whipped its tail and was still. Lant leaned over the side of the boat. The head and jaws, flat on the mud, were three feet in length. He dragged at the forefeet and shoulders and chopped twice through the backbone with his machete-like cane-knife.
"I'll not have you comin' to life in the boat," he promised it. "I aim to have you dead good."
He thought at times he would never be able to get the animal in the boat alone. The mud-bank was level with the gunwhales of the boat. He tugged and pulled at the great carcass. He lit a cigarette and rested. His strength at seventeen was manlike, but it came in explosions and exhausted itself. He pulled again. He felt his muscles quiver and refuse to hold. He cursed. He rested and tried again.
"You stinkin' bastard, I'll not leave go—"
He sobbed and held on. A few inches at a time, he heaved the body across the gunwhales and into the boat. The big bull was all of twenty feet. The tail hung over the end. He paddled up the river, home. He left the 'gator in the boat, mooring it high among cypress knees. He stumbled through the dark hammock, panting, into his bed.
In the morning he went for Zeke to help him handle the carcass. Kezzy and Piety followed. They sat on their heels in the swamp and watched the skinning and trimming.
Lant said, "Kezzy, I'll make you a pencil-holder like mine outen this feller's skull. See where them ivory tushes comes from the bottom jaw and thu them openin's in the top? Them openin's, and the eye-sockets, time the bone's cleaned and bleached, makes purely handy pockets for pencils and files and sich."
"I'd jest be mighty proud to have it."
The belly of the beast was bulging and Lant began to cut it open to see what it contained. Frogs, fish and cooters he had found the usual fare; with, in the larger animals, deer and hog meat. Most of them had lighter'd knots in their stomachs. Piety edged in close.
"Ma wants to see kin she find one o' them missin' hogs o' hers," Lant said.
Zeke said, "He's jest about the feller to git 'em, too, comin' to the water's edge to drink."
The stomach fell open. It held much meat and an astonishing assortment of undigested antiquities; wood and bones and a recognisable shoe.
Lant said, "It's a pity Cleve ain't here. He'd swear that shoe belonged to Nub-footed Turner."
Kezzy poked about the saurian's head. She discovered two of the six musk spots, exuding a pungent matter like the yolk of an egg.
"Why you reckon he have that musk, Lant?" she asked.
"I dunno," he said, "lest it is to make him stink like a damn alligator."