The River of Kings: A Novel by Taylor Brown

Author:Taylor Brown [Taylor Brown]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781250111753
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2017-03-21T04:00:00+00:00

36

Altamaha River, Day 3

“Poachers,” says Lawton. “I don’t like it.”

They are standing beneath the houseboat, Lawton slipping on his fins.

“You don’t know they’re poachers,” says Hunter.

“What else are they?”

Hunter looks at the cinderblocks pillared beside him. One good shoulder blow, like he would throw an undersized cornerback, and the whole place would come crashing down on top of them. “I don’t know. They could be shad fishers.”

In the spring, the shad run upstream to spawn, whole clouds of them silvering under the river’s skin. Lawton stamps his fins into place. “That ain’t exactly a year-round occupation, now is it?”

They hear a retch above them, and a wet comet splats on the bank, flecking their shins with bile. The pool, yellowish in the moonlight, steams. Lawton looks up at the hull of the houseboat, his teeth showing.

“Goddammit, Dillard. Don’t you got a toilet for that?”

“Fuck you, Loggins, you sick son of a bitch.” Another retch, strings of ropy saliva. “I’ll kill you for this.”

Lawton grins, speaking to the hull.

“It’ll take more than that Red Ryder, you sorry fuck.”

“Fuck me,” says Dillard. “I can still feel it squirming in my mouth.”

“Now quit your bellyaching. Them’s a delicacy some places.”

“Did it come out?”

Lawton steps out slightly to look at the puddle of vomit.

“Yeah.” He cocks his head. “Still squirming.”

Dillard exhales in triumph. A thump as he sinks to the floor.

Lawton looks out at the slough, the bridge hulking across the water like a monument.

“Uncle King.” He squints, as if he might see the old man out there on the water. “Wish we would of known to ask the first time we come across him.”

“I think he’s gone somewhere downriver.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I think I heard him go past that night we spent on the island.”

Lawton turns.

“Heard? How’d you know it was him?”

“I don’t know,” says Hunter. “I just did.”

Above them another thump, a creak of hinges. Lawton raises his eyebrows. “Time to bug out.” He produces a coil of parachute cord from somewhere on his person—his vest seems to harbor an endless supply of such tackle. “Should of done this before, put us on a umbilical.”

Hunter looks at the cord. “Umbilical? We’re just swimming back to the bridge.”

“I ain’t telling Mama I lost you out here.”

“Lost me? Where the fuck am I gonna go?”

Lawton is already threading the cord through the D-ring on Hunter’s vest. He looks up at the houseboat again. “We got to head out, Dill. I’m sure you’ll be Wild again by morning, old buddy.”

The old gunfighter groans.

“Kill ’em all,” he croaks.

They waddle down to the water. Above them the bug-lights flicker, a galaxy hastily wired, the stars winking in and out.

“Wait,” says Hunter, tugging the cord to stay them.

“What?”

He looks down at the spew of vomit at his feet. The roach is struggling amid chunks of dinner, legs chewing air, guts seeping yellow. A seed of agony. A peach pit. Hunter’s feet are bare. He clenches his teeth and steps on the insect, pressing it under the hard ball of his foot until it crackles, bursts, squirts like a ketchup packet beneath his big toe.

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