"But . ."
"You coming or what, missy? I told you, I got work."
I hesitated. I should tell Jack, I thought. I took out his note and turned it over to scribble my own on the back.
Dear Jack,
Went with Buster Trahaw, who said my mother was at his house. Be back soon.
Love, Pearl
I left the note on the counter and hurried after Buster Trahaw, who had already stepped out of the house.
He nodded toward the dock. "My pirogue's just down here."
I followed along, looking back only once and regretting that I couldn't have the time to see Jack. But maybe I would get to my mother and bring her back before Jack even found my note. Full of hope, I hurried along. Buster Trahaw didn't wait for me. He practically ran to the dock and got into his pirogue. I hesitated. I couldn't recall the last time I had been in one, or the last time I had gone into the canals.
He reached up finally to help me, and I stepped into the canoe.
"Good," he said. "Finally."
He smiled, dipped his pole into the water, and pushed us away from the dock and into the swamps. I sat down hard and watched him anxiously. He never took his eyes off me, and he never stopped smiling.
14
Great Grandpere's Debt
Must Be Paid
.
Buster Trahaw's pirogue was so old and rotten
that I was afraid it would simply come apart and dump us into the swamp water, which became the color of dark tea as we left the dock. Buster groaned and grunted as he pushed down on his pole. Soon beads of sweat as big as small marbles were breaking out over his forehead and rolling over his rough skin to drip off his chin and jawbone.
"How far do we have to go?" I asked nervously. Pieces of sun-dried bait and worms littered the canoe floor, as did cigarette butts, empty beer bottles, and crushed tin cans.
"Not far, not far," he said quickly. Instinctively I looked back toward the dock. I had a strong urge to ask him to return me there, but I couldn't help being afraid he was telling the truth and Mommy really needed me. I would have felt so much safer and reassured if I had seen Jack before I left. Who knew how long it would be before he found my note, and what if he didn't find it? I shouldn't have run off like that, I told myself.
"Don't worry," Buster said, still smiling. "We gonna be there soon. No one poles a pirogue faster than Buster Trahaw in these here canals."
I sat back. I really couldn't recall being in a pirogue when I was just a little girl, but certain visual memories returned when I saw things that were once familiar. Off to my right, among the lily pads and cattails, bream were feeding on the insects that circled just above the water. It looked like bubbles popping. Sheets of Spanish moss draped over cypress branches rose and fell with the breeze. Dragonflies hovered inches above the canal until something triggered them to veer right or left and hover over another area. They moved like dots merging into one large fly.
Buster turned the pirogue a bit to the left, and we entered a narrower canal, passing first under a canopy of willow branches. When I looked back, it was as if a green door had been slammed closed behind us. As we continued into the canal, the overgrowth became thicker. At times the canopy of cypress over the water was so dense it nearly blocked out the sun. I saw an alligator sleeping under a fallen, rotting tree trunk and then another floated past us, its eyes glaring with suspicion or anticipation.
Buster laughed when I cringed. "Ain't nothin' to worry 'bout," he said. "I wrestle gators for fun." He followed that with a cackle that echoed in the bush. "You're a fancy lady now, ain'tcha? Betcha don't even remember livin' here, huh?"
"No. But I'm not a fancy lady," I replied. "Just where is this place?"
"Yonder, 'round the bend." He jerked his head to the left.
I shaded my eyes and gazed in that direction. Flowering honeysuckle covered the far bank. Two snowy egrets paraded on a rock while bullfrogs leaped around them, but I saw no shack and no other human beings.
The stillness got to me. Except for the sound of a dove or the cry of a marsh hawk, all I heard was Buster's grunt and the rhythmic dipping of his pole. Along a nearby bank, I saw a couple of nutrias dash into their dried domes of grass and then a white-tailed deer lifted its head, gazed our way, and turned to trot off. It was as if everything in nature knew to be wary of Buster Trahaw.
"What do you do?" I asked him. He had made little or no effort to start a conversation and had really volunteered nothing about himself.
"Whatcha mean, do?"