A Longer Fall (Gunnie Rose #2)(61)

Maybe the sight of Travis dangling from the tree would give ’em pause. But not enough.

Then I heard a dog baying, and I recalled my conversation with the tobacco-chewing man outside the hotel. Clete, or another hound just like him, was on our trail. I didn’t know much about dogs, but I didn’t have anything to bribe Clete with if he caught up to us. That was assuming he was bribable.

Eli was not at full speed because of the death magic he’d used on old Mrs. Ballard. (In hindsight, I should have just shot her the minute she started talking. But I’d thought we might learn something.) Harriet was sore from being beaten. I was hampered by my damn shoes and skirt. I swore to myself I would never wear such things again. See where blending in had gotten me? Running through some woods with a dog behind me.

At least Harriet and I both had our guns.

So we ran. We came to one of those meandering trails of trees that cut through the middle of the first field behind the house. I found that the trees were on the banks of a bayou. The water was dark and still, except for a ripple here and there.

I saw a snake slithering away from the bank. They had water moccasins here. Copperheads. Shit.

We leaped the water at the narrowest point. We raced along the other side, Eli picking the direction. Did not know why he went that way, but I followed. I was working on keeping my breathing even. Harriet sounded like a bellows. Weeds and stickers whipped and tore at us as we bulled our way through.

I finally figured Eli was following the trees because the people arriving at the Ballard place couldn’t see us that way. We were close enough to be visible running through the flat fields. But the line of trees angled north, and we needed to go west, to town. Harriet had to stop for a minute, and I turned back to her.

“I got a stitch in my side,” she gasped. “Go on. I’ll catch up.”

I took up running again. Didn’t want Eli to get out of sight. The growth of trees and tangle of underbrush was thick unless you stuck to the edge of the bank, and I was scared I’d tumble into the dark water at any moment. The bayou was widening, and I saw turtles sliding into the water at the noise of our approach, and a slither or two from other snakes. This was its own narrow strip of swamp. At this wider place the sky could shine down onto the tangled green growth and the muddy bank…

…where there were alligators. I was so shocked it took me a moment to say alligators to myself. Three of ’em.

Eli didn’t slow down, he ran right among ’em. I plunged after him. We were moving so quick, and in the heat and sun the alligators were slow and drowsy. That was going to change any second, because two people flying through was guaranteed to rouse ’em. I found I could run a lot faster than I’d thought I could. So could Harriet, because she passed me.

Two of them were small, one as big as I’d ever heard of. But the three gators might as well have been a score. The big one bellowed.

“I have a plan!” Eli called back to me.

Oh, I was completely at ease now. It better be a good plan. Did Eli’s magic work on animals? Reptiles?

Since Eli’s legs were longest and he was in the lead, I figured he was in the least danger. I dodged the snap of huge jaws and leaped over the fourth gator (I hadn’t even seen it!) as it was twisting to bite. I noted Harriet veering away from the bank into the strip of woods and I wanted to follow, but I took off like a deer after Eli.

The gator came after me for a little bit, and I found I could run even faster. In fact, I could leap over a fallen tree, and the gator could not. That tree saved me, I figured.

When I caught up with Eli, he was bent over gasping for breath. When I looked down, I could see why he’d stopped. It was a drop of five feet down to the dark water. I couldn’t hear any movement behind us, though I listened as hard as I could over Eli’s rasping breath.

“Harriet?” he managed to say.

“Somewhere behind us,” I said, with just as much trouble. “Why the hell did you…?”

“If they’re following us, they’ll run into the alligators too,” Eli said. “Only now they’re all excited. The gators, I mean.”

I felt a little bad about Clete.

In a couple more minutes we had gotten our breath back. We started walking parallel to the bayou. “What now?” I said. “Since you’re the man with the plan.”

“I’m all out of plan,” Eli confessed. “That was all I had, getting away and having a chance to think.”

“I reckon now is the time for the thinking part of it.”

“You’re not hurt?” He bent to look into my eyes.

“Nothing to worry about.” Bruises, scrapes. Little things. I’d feel like hell tomorrow, but right now I was fine.

“Go back for Harriet?”

I thought about it for a few seconds. “No. We got her out of the Ballard house, which was more than she deserved.” We were talking in spurts, because we were walking fast.

“True.” Eli stared up into the blue sky. “Here’s what we can try. We work our way back to Sally and find refuge with either some of the black people who are for rebellion, or we can go to the Fielders.”

“Or we can steal a car and get the hell out of here.” That was my very own idea.

“But we haven’t finished our job.” Eli said that with this real elaborate patience, like I was dumb.