The Cottoncrest Curse by Michael H. Rubin

Author:Michael H. Rubin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LSU Press
Published: 2014-01-28T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 42

Marcus cautiously pushed aside several charred stalks and peered down a trench that ran between the rows of cane. No one was in sight. He listened closely. No noise of horses. Just the crackling of the flames in the field as it swept away behind them and the crinkling of the fire in the uppermost leaves of the trees in the woods ahead of them.

The cane field fire had spread. Although the recent rain had dampened everything, the few crisp dead leaves that had clung on grimly to the high branches were aflame and were drying out the nearby branches, which in turn were smoldering. The top branches of the hardwoods in the distance were a flurry of sparks. The wind stoked the fires and blew flaming leaves from tree to tree, where they ignited others.

“This is not good, not good at all,” Marcus whispered. “Gonna drive out the game. Gonna drive out the birds. Gonna make it all the harder in the spring for those who won’t or can’t go. On the other hand, it’s good for us right now.”

He motioned for Jake to stay where he was and, remarkably fast for an old man, skittered across the break to the woods on the other side. There he waited behind the trunk of a large hickory. The moonlight illuminated the break, and Marcus, from his hiding place, could now see down the entire length of the gap between the woods and the sugar-cane field. Nothing moved in the cleared area, which, for all its width, still had not been wide enough to keep the fire from leaping it.

Marcus signaled for Jake to join him. With the damp, muddy bear-skin in his arms, Jake swiftly left the burned sugarcane behind him and entered the safety of the dark woods.

Jake followed Marcus as the old man sure-footedly threaded his way amid the hickory and bay trees, the wet earth squishing under their boots. Jake followed as they walked deeper and deeper into the forest, past the oaks and the scattered mimosa. The ground grew even softer, and now they were often walking ankle deep in water, which penetrated and then filled their leather boots.

Still Marcus pushed on, through stands of gray and brown cypress, their gnarled trunks firmly planted in the swamp. Cypress knees, off-shoots of the main trunk, stuck up through the mud and water, evidence of the shallow, spreading roots below that held these ancient trees in place in the heavy clay soil.

They made their way through the swamp without speaking. Although there was no visible path, Marcus did not hesitate. He knew these woods and swamps. He knew each gum and hickory and the drier spots that they signaled. He knew the area where lightning had brought down a huge oak, years ago, now lying like a giant soldier frozen at stiff-backed attention and chopped off at the knee. He knew the stands of palmettos, looking like huge green versions of the elaborate Chinese fans that the Colonel Judge had bought at the Cotton Exposition years ago, long before he married Miss Rebecca.

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