A banging noise awoke Bayard from a deep sleep. With a groan, he rolled over and peered around for a moment, not recognizing his sur-roundings. Then a voice said, “Get up! Do you hear me? Get up!”
Groaning, Bayard sat up in the bed, then paused as a sharp pain struck him in the temples, almost forcing him to lie down again. The banging and the voice continued insistently, and finally he called out, “All right! All right, I’m coming!”
Getting up, he stifled a cry as the pain hit him again. The taste of stale liquor in his mouth and the pain in his head made him feel as bad as he ever had in his life. He was still dressed, and he vaguely remembered falling into bed after drinking a quart of whiskey. Staggering to the door, he shot the bolt and opened it.
“Well, I thought maybe you was dead.” The speaker was a tall, slatternly-looking woman. Snuff ran out the edges of her mouth. “I want my money, you hear me? And I wants it now!”
“I’ll get it to you today.”
“That ain’t good enough. You said that yesterday and the day afore. You pay up, or you get out.”
Bayard felt the room reel. He shut his eyes for a moment. He said, “I’ll have it today.”
“If you don’t, I’ll throw your stuff out in the street. You pay me or out you go!”
Bayard slammed the door, and the noise seemed to echo inside the confines of his skull. He leaned against the door with both hands and waited for the room to stop spinning. Then he straight-ened up. He had eaten practically nothing, and the hangover was fierce. It was as if someone were driving steel spikes into both sides of his skull.
Finally he walked over to the wash basin, lifted the pitcher, and drank the tepid water thirstily. He poured the remainder into the basin, leaned over, and sloshed his face. The water helped clear his mind, and as he dried with the filthy towel, he knew he had to do something. With a vague idea of trying to sell his easel and his paints, he pulled on his dingy white hat and left the boardinghouse. As he slammed the front door, he heard the landlady calling after him, “Mind you, money or you’re out!”
He looked in his pockets and found that he had nothing. He remembered losing the last five dollars he had in a penny-ante poker game at some bar. Hunger gnawed him. He had been drunk for over a week and had eaten only when the mood struck him. He wandered into two shops and offered his equipment, but in both places the pro-prietors took one look at the rickety easel and box of paints, mostly dried, and laughed at him.
When noon arrived, he finally came to a conclusion: “I can’t go home again. I’ve got one canvas left. I’ll paint a picture. Someone will buy it for a few dollars.”
Weak and nauseated, he started walking out of town eastward, toward the bayou. He had walked for over an hour and was growing weaker when a wagon passed by, driven by a black man. Bayard waved his hand and asked, “How about a ride?”
The black man drew up and stared at him. “You wants to ride with me, suh?”
“I’m going out to the bayou.”
“Yes, suh, I go close. Get in.”
“Thank you.”
Throwing his equipment into the bed of the wagon, Bayard climbed up into the seat. He was feeling worse by the moment.
“Been lots of rain lately. The swamp pretty high.”
“Yes, it has been wet.”
“You not huntin’ no ’gators, is you?”
“No, I’m a painter. I’m going to paint a picture of some of the wildflowers by the swamp.”
“Plenty of them.”
That was the extent of the conversation. An hour later, Bayard got down out of the wagon with his equipment and nodded. “Thanks for the ride.”
“You welcome, suh. You be careful. Bad ’gators in that swamp could eat you whole.”
“I’ll watch out.”
Bayard began walking toward the swamp. Fifteen minutes later, he was out of sight of all humans, and the smell of humus was thick in his nostrils. He watched as mallards rose in squadrons above a group of willows, trailing in long, black lines across the sun that was yellow as an egg yolk. He continued to walk, and the big cypress trees began to grow thicker. He could hear the bass flopping, breaking water, and more than once he saw the solitary V-shaped ripple of a nutria swimming through the dark waters. Bayard splashed through the muddy pools that began to gather, keeping his eye out for the beautiful, wild orchids. He passed through large areas green with lily pads clustering along the bayou’s banks. They were bursting with flowers, and he muttered, “I can come back and paint the lilies if I don’t find any orchids.”
On and on he walked, until the trees hid the sun overhead, and the air grew cooler. Once he stirred a flight of egrets, and a blue heron lifted its long legs carefully, its long beak darting down on a fish. Bayard’s breath grew shorter, and finally he reached the very center of the bayou. The air was moist and cool, and it smelled of fish and mud. There was also the smell of something dead that lay heavy in his nostrils. Finally, stepping over roots and struggling with his easel, Bayard came to a spot where he caught the colorful gleam of the wild orchid.
“Now,” he muttered, “I’ve found you.” The water was around his ankles, but he sought a dry spot, spread the easel, put the single canvas on it, and opened the case of paints. He felt disgusted at how sparse his supply was, but grimly he began to work.
For two hours he tried to transfer reality to canvas, and as some-times happened, he grew so consumed with the act of painting that he forgot his hunger and the headache that continued to nag at him. He reached a point where the paint seemed to flow onto the canvas, and he wished that he had more of the brilliant colors. Still, he did the best he could.
Twice he stopped to rest, and once, with his back against a tree, he dozed off. He slept for over an hour and came awake with a start. “Got to finish this blasted painting! Don’t want to get caught in the dark in this bayou.”
He stayed with the work until finally he had done the best he could. He admired the painting for a moment, and he thought, If I worked at this, I would be really good. Remorse filled him as he thought how he had squandered his talent, but hunger growled like a live thing in his belly. He folded up the canvas, closed the paint box, and put it under his left arm. He carried the easel with his left hand, and the painting he held with the painted side away from him. He started back and paid little attention to where he was going. He thought of how pitiful a sight he had become. Shame rushed through him as he realized what he had thrown away.
He suddenly realized that he was wading in water up to his knees. Looking around, he saw nothing familiar. “I came this way,” he mut-tered. “I must have.” He surged forward, but the water grew deeper. “It can’t be.” Bayard turned and traced his way back, and for the next fifteen minutes he followed a track that he thought he had taken into the bayou, but then, too, the water grew deeper. “This is wrong,” he said. He tried to ascertain his direction, but the sun was low in the west, and the shadows were deep in the bayou. He heard the sound of a bull ’gator grunting somewhere and grew afraid. He found another path and started stumbling, hurrying to get out. He nearly fell once, and finally the path he had chosen faded out completely into vegeta-tion that seemed to close around him.
His fear deepened, and Bayard started to run blindly. A root tripped him, and with a cry he fell across a rotten log coated with green moss, his painting flying into the water. He put his arms out to brace himself, but his chest crashed onto the log, and suddenly a pain struck him in the left bicep. Bayard jerked madly and glimpsed a bit of white. He didn’t recognize it at first, thinking it was a flower, and then he saw it was the inside of the mouth of the biggest cottonmouth he had ever seen! It was as big around as his own arm, and with a cry of panic he threw himself over backwards. He scrambled to his feet and saw the huge snake glide away from him.
But his arm! He tore the button off his sleeve, pulled it up, and saw the deadly twin punctures.
Fear can drive a man into frenetic activity, or it can stun and para-lyze him so that he cannot move. Bayard d’Or stared at the twin punctures and remembered the stories he had heard of the deadly cottonmouth. “I’ve got to try to find help,” he gasped. He started walking, stumbling through the water, but he had not gone far before he began to feel the effects of the poison. It burned like fire, and five minutes later he felt so ill that he tried to vomit. He leaned forward on his hands and knees, retching. The ground was dry beneath him, and finally the heaving stopped. He knelt, willing himself to get up, but all around him the swamp was growing darker. He was lost, his body was full of deadly poison, and a terrible dizziness was overtaking him. He cried out, “Help! Somebody please help me!”
The echo of his own voice came back to him, and he realized the futility of the attempt. He called out again, this time not for human help. “Oh, God, I’m dying! Help me, God! Don’t let me die in this swamp!”
Again the echoes of his voice came back to him. He felt the presence of live things around him moving in the dark waters. Night was coming on, and he bent over and touched his head to the ground, covering it with his hands and crying out again, “Oh, God, don’t let me die! Please don’t let me die!”