boat drift, for even out here where the water seemed to be totally stagnant, there were still gentle currents wafting through the shallow channels.
Once again he remembered Judd Duval’s words just before he’d taken off into the swamp: “If you get lost, just let the boat drift. It don’t look like it, but that water’s movin’, and if you let the current take you, you’ll get out.” The swamp rat had grinned sardonically. “ ’Course it’ll take a few hours, and you’ll wind up maybe fifteen, twenty miles from Villejeune, but it’s better’n spendin’ the night out there, right?”
Well, at least he’d listened, and remembered. He watched the maze of islets drift by. Here there was less cypress, and the landscape was far more open than it was closer to Villejeune. Marsh grasses grew in profusion; flamingos and herons stood in the shallow water, their beaks searching the bottom for food. As he drifted around a bend, he heard a low snorting sound, and looked around just in time to see a wild boar disappear into the reeds.
Then the landscape began to change again, and he was back under the canopy of moss-laden cypress trees. The current picked up slightly, for here the islands were larger, the channels narrower and deeper.
A house hove into view—if you could call it a house. Actually, it was nothing more than a shack, propped up at the water’s edge on rotting stilts. Its floor sagged badly at one corner, and its walls were pierced with glassless window frames.
At first Kitteridge thought it was nothing more than a fishing shelter, and a long-abandoned one at that. But as he drew abreast of the structure, a slight movement caught his eye, and he dipped the oars into the water, stroking lightly against the gentle current. His eyes fixed on the sagging structure, and he studied it carefully. For a few moments he thought he must have been wrong, that he had only imagined that someone was inside the building. Then, in a sudden flurry, a form darted through the shadows of the building’s interior and out through a back door. Kitteridge pulled hard on the oars, and the skiff shot forward, but by the time he had gained a view of the thicket behind the house, the figure was already disappearing.
He hesitated, considering the possibility of following whoever had faded away into the undergrowth, but quickly abandoned the idea. In the boat, at least the current would eventually carry him out. On foot, he was certain he would be hopelessly lost within a matter of minutes.
He moved on, rowing now, following the current as it drifted through the islands. The islands were still larger here, and he began to see more and more of the dilapidated shacks, spaced well apart, as if whoever lived in them valued their privacy.
Occasionally he saw people—thin, narrow-faced women, their faces sullen and weathered, clad in faded cotton dresses, some of them with children clinging to their legs. They watched him suspiciously as he drifted by, and he could feel their hostility. A few times he tried calling out a greeting, but no one answered him. At the sound of his voice, they simply disappeared into the gloom of their shanties, herding their children before them.
As he rounded yet another of the endless bends in the slow-moving stream, he saw still another of the wooden shanties. On the porch of this one, though, a lone woman stood, her torso distended in the last stages of pregnancy, and even as he spotted her, Kitteridge knew who she was.
Amelie Coulton, who had led Judd and Marty to the body last night.
And today, from the way she looked, Kitteridge was almost certain she was expecting him. His feeling was confirmed as he drew closer to the house and Amelie gazed down at him, her eyes filled with suspicion.
“It warn’t me that killed that man last night,” she said. “Onliest reason I went out there at all was I thought it might be George. But it warn’t.”
“You said George went off last night. With someone called the Dark Man.”
Amelie’s sallow complexion turned ashen, and a veil dropped behind her eyes. When she spoke, her voice was flat. “I don’t know nothin’ about that.”
“But that’s what you told Judd Duval and Marty Templar,” Kitteridge pressed.
Amelie shrugged. “I warn’t feelin’ too good last night. I don’t remember what I said.”
Kitteridge sensed that he was on the verge of losing the woman entirely, and decided to change tactics.