Kat, Bobby Imprisoned in Bayou Manchac

In case you’ve missed the installments on Facebook and Twitter, we’ve only got a couple of weeks left, and one character didn’t make it through this week alive…

As Rarick pulled another dead gator to the dock, Kat asked, "Where's DJ?"

"Sorry, Hun, he skedaddled on you, had me drop him at the landing with Leta, said you were gonna get him killed."

"If he takes the bike and leaves me stranded, he'll wish he was dead."

 

Grim sneered from the duck blind. He'd taken a chance telling Kat about Rarick, but she'd promised to get the hell out when Rarick got back, but he came back without the DJ kid. Grim watched him waving his arms, spewing his typical politician bullshit.

A week of mosquito, snake, and gator bites, then fever and fat chicks. All out hell, and Bobby Grim couldn't wait to get back to California. Maybe he'd swim over and rip the dude's tongue out in front of her.

Before he could climb down, he heard music, then eight boats and a party barge rounded the farthest bend in the bayou. "Now what?"

Rarick grabbed the girl by the arm, dragging her inside. Grim wanted to dive, but the boats picked up speed, bouncing on the water. He could make out the lyrics now, some foreign language, singing words like iko-iko, wild Tchoupitoulas, and Jockomo feena nay.

 

"Check it out." Kat pointed at the boats speeding down the bayou. "Leta said the TV crew'd be back to wrap up their story. Maybe she's riding along." Rarick grabbed Kat's shoulders and pushed her to the door. "No way, old man. I'm going to find out what you did with DJ."

"Listen, you little tramp. Get inside, do exactly what I tell you, or I gut you and use your intestines for gator-bait. Got it?"

Rarick pressed the hunting knife against her throat, opened the door, then shoved her down the hall with his body.

At the room Grim had warned her about, she heard a click behind her and the padlock fell to the floor. He pushed her into the blackness and bent her arms behind her back.

Handcuffs. Chains rattled. Cold at her ankles. She couldn't move.

Death by Gator in Bayou Manchac

In case you’ve missed the installments on Facebook and Twitter, we’ve only got a couple of weeks left, and one character didn’t make it through this week alive…

All three ate in front of the TV, DJ sprawled on a duct-taped orange sofa, Rarick in a folding chair, and Kat on the remains of a Lazy Boy. They didn't know the name of the movie. Some ex-wrestler and an ex-rapper trying to be action heroes.

They had just reached the darkest before dawn part of the film, when the spring in Kat's recliner creaked. She hit the floor, half-crawling down the hall and fell through the bathroom door.

"Shit." DJ jumped from the sofa, going after her.

"Relax," Rarick said, "That's normal when you're not used to spicy alligator."

Later, DJ stood outside the locked door of Rarick's bathroom. "No way, Kat. If it were food poison, wouldn't we all be puking? Oh, God. You don't think you're pregnant?"

Through the door and the gagging, he thought she said, "Morning sickness not afternoon sickness, you stupid Duck." But knowing Kat as he did, DJ must have gotten that last word wrong.

 

Late evening. Across the bayou, the skinny kid and Rarick were climbing into the boat. The girl wasn't with them. They weren't leaving yet.

Bobby Grim squirmed in his tree stand, rubbing his arm. Not healed, but close. Still, he was ready to leave this God-forsaken swamp. He couldn't finish his business with witnesses around, and the longer these two followed Rarick, the less chance they had of seeing twenty-five.

Ten minutes after the boat's rooster tail slid around the bend, Grim stood at the front door of the camp, this time an unlocked door. Inside, the TV blared, but no sign of the girl. The room where the gator latched on Grim's arm, locked again. A shiny-new Masterlock.

He made three steps on the creaky Cypress floor before the girl, Kat, stepped out of another room. "Who the fuck are you?"

Rarick serves bloody trouble to Kat and DJ

In case you missed this week’s action on Twitter and Facebook…

After breakfast, Rarick chopped bell peppers and celery, then loaded more gear into the boat, including four white-paper packages, one dripping with blood.

 

When Bobby Grim got back on the bayou, Rube and the two Leta called Kat and DJ were hanging a raw chicken on a hook, three feet above the water. Neither of the three had seen him before, and if they had, they wouldn’t recognize him now, under the LSU cap and sunglasses he'd bought from Leta.

He cast a line and pretended to fish, wondering if people caught anything without feet or fangs in this stinking muck.

 

"What's that bag you're pulling out of the chickens before we hang 'em?" DJ asked.

"Livers and gizzards," Kat said, "Yea, I cook sometimes."

Rarick dropped another set of innards in the gallon-sized Mason jar he'd brought along. "I'll freeze these for crawfish bait later."

"What are you looking at, Rube?"

"That fisherman over there. I've never seen him before, and he doesn't have any bait on his line."

 

Rarick cranked his motor and disappeared around the bend. Grim saw them looking and decided not to follow. Not that it mattered. He couldn't finish the job until Rarick hunted alone.

Leta said the kids would be gone before dark. He hoped that meant on their way back to New Orleans. Bobby headed in, climbed back up to the tree stand and was just dosing when Rarick, Kat, and DJ got back from baiting the traps.

 

"Okay, I'm getting sick of this little water safari," Kat said. "When do we go to the bank?"

"Be patient. This evening, we've gotta circle around, pop any gators that took our bait, then skin'em up. If I leave the swamp before then, folks will know something’s up. Tomorrow you two will get money and get out of my hair."

"Besides, Kat, I'm starting to like this," DJ said, "Rube, maybe you can let me shoot one of them when we go back?"

Rube Rarick lifted his jar of chicken innards from the boat. "I suppose that's possible." Then he and DJ followed Kat inside.

Swamp, hot, steamy in more ways than one

Another week of Pay Dirt in the swamp. Let’s review what happened…

"Leta, let me apologize. I do appreciate you delivering my friends here. Let me follow you in."

Rarick cranked the Evinrude and thought he heard the F word somewhere in the fog.

At Rarick’s camp, Kat climbed up to the dock. Leta handed her Rarick's bag. And DJ stayed in the boat with Leta.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm not cool with this water shit, and Leta's pot of Jambalaya's got my name all over it. We'll pick you up later."

"Bullshit..."

Before Kat could continue, Rarick's boat coasted in. "Son, you'll throw rocks at Leta's rice, once you've tasted my Gator Sauce Piquant."

"What time you need me to pick'em up, Rube?"

"Forget it, Leta. You've got enough to do at the shop. I'll take care of my friends here."

 

Halfway back to the bait shop, Leta noticed the boat following her. Muscle boy with his tattoos and tight ass. She wondered if he had anything against drinking at 6:AM.

Bobby Grim followed Leta into the shop, and she said, "So what can I overcharge you for today? Coffee. Beer. Dynamite?"

"Nope. Information."

Leta slapped two whiskey glasses on the counter and filled them with Seagram's Sweet Tea. Grim raised an eyebrow. "The sun's barely up."

"Depends on what you're willing to pay for this information."

"What makes you think I'm willing to pay what you're gonna ask?"

She clinked her glass with his as he raised it. "You're drinking, ain't ya?"

Rarick dipped half a bread slice, triangle cut, into egg and vanilla, then dropped it into the deep fry. "French Toast?" Kat asked.

"Almost, my momma called it Lost Bread. I think of it as French Toast, done Cajun-style."

"Your mother was coon-ass?"

"Yes-mam, I was born and bred a pirogue ride from the Atchafalaya Basin."

Hunting Gator, Human in Louisiana Swamp

This was the first full week in the swamp. Our adventure is just starting to heat up…

Bobby Grim watched from his tree stand, as the last of the television crew's boats disappeared around the bend.

Rube Rarick stood, hands on hips, at the edge of his dock, admiring the five-footer hanging above him. Grim thought the gator's head looked too big for the body, like it had swallowed a garbage can that got lodged in it's skull.

Rarick detached the metal head and slid the bloody arrow from the giant head. Then he popped an electric cigarette between his lips, pulled a Rambo knife from his belt, and began to cut the hide from the beast.

He finished before sunset, then rose early the next morning, ready to hunt again.

And on this day, he'd hunt alone—as would Bobby Grim.

Rarick left the dock before dawn, his bateau loaded light, leaving plenty room for a couple of big ones. He raced through the dark bayou, grinning. Twenty years, he'd been hunting here, no one knew the area better. Around the bend from where he expected the first tag, he killed the Evinrude and started the troll motor.

Even in the fog, where trees and beasts appeared and disappeared with every turn, Rarick still believed he was the swamp's most dangerous predator.

"Huh?" Somewhere behind him, another troll motor started up in the fog.

 

Saturday morning. Leta found the padlock on the bait shop door missing, along with bandages, antiseptic, and Albon—dog antibiotics. The bald muscle guy with the tattoos and ass. She knew, looking at the hundred dollar bill on the counter. She thanked God he hadn’t drowned in the storm. She wanted to get him drunk before he left the swamp.

She heard a sound in the woods, a chainsaw. She walked out on the porch. Not a chainsaw, a motorcycle.

 

When the first rays of sunlight danced over the bayou, Rarick spotted a spinach green forehead skimming open water. Fastening 500 lb test line to his custom arrow, he took aim.

Behind him, hidden by fog, Bobby Grim loaded his bow with an identical arrow.