Half of Paradise by James Lee Burke Page B

eroded a depression in the bank. It was dry now and overgrown with vines and small bushes. Avery was able to get Tereau up the wash to the road. They crossed to the other side and entered the thicket and headed towards the opposite end of the marsh where the still was. Tereau could take only a few steps at a time. For the next hour they worked their way through the undergrowth. Tereau was breathing hard and had to rest often. The vines scratched their faces and necks. In some areas the mosquitoes were very bad and swarmed around them and got inside their clothes. It took all Avery’s strength to keep the Negro on his feet. Tereau took his arm from Avery’s shoulder and sat on the ground.
    “Go on and let me be,” he said.
    “You know I can’t do that.”
    “Go on. You don’t belong down here nohow.”
    “You’re not helping anything. You’re making things harder,” Avery said.
    “My legs are gone. You’d have to carry me.”
    “All right. I’ll try it.”
    “You ain’t talking good sense.”
    “I’ll get somebody to help. Will you be all right if I hide you here?”
    “I’ll get along.”
    Avery put him in the bushes and cut some branches from the trees to cover him.
    “Leave me the knife,” Tereau said. “What for?”
    “I need it.”
    “No.”
    “Give me my knife and get away from here.”
    “I’m not going to give it to you. Stay put till I get back.” He put the knife in his belt.
    “I’m too old a man to go to prison.”
    “Stop talking like that.”
    “Ain’t you got any sense at all? You won’t be back in time, and I ain’t going to no jailhouse.”
    “Don’t talk so loud.”
    “I don’t know why I ever took a young boy with me in the first place.”
    “I’m going to Jean Landry’s houseboat. We’ll come back in his pirogue.”
    Avery left him in the thicket and splashed into the knee-deep water of the swamp. It would take him a half hour to get to Landry’s, and about halfthat time to come back in the pirogue. The bottom of the swamp was mud and sand. His feet sank in to his ankles. He thought he heard the police in the distance. The branches of the trees overhead grew into one another, and there was almost no light in the swamp. He had trouble finding the direction to the houseboat. He believed that old man Landry would help them, since he disliked any type of authority and had moved out in the swamp years ago to avoid paying taxes and obeying the law. Unconsciously Avery felt at his side for the knife. It was gone. He thought he would have heard it splash if it had fallen in the water. It must have slipped out of his belt before he left Tereau. He headed back towards the shore, breaking through the overhanging vines with his forearms. A water moccasin slithered across the water in front of him. Avery’s foot caught on a tree root and he went under. He struggled to free himself and plunged through the reeds onto the bank.
    The cut branches were still in place over the bushes where Tereau was hidden. Avery ripped the branches away. The Negro was sitting upright, just as he had left him, with the knife on the ground by his side.
    “You ain’t forgot nothing, have you?” Tereau said.
    “You and that goddamn knife.”
    “Take off. You ain’t got much time. I heard the police on the road a few minutes ago.”
    “Let’s get moving, then.”
    “It ain’t no use. There’s a big tree out in the water I can hide in. Leave me there and Landry’ll find me in the morning when he picks up his nets. You can go through the grass flats to the other levee and get back to town. There ain’t nobody
going
to follow you through there.”
    “I have to take the knife with me.”
    “You’ll probably cut yourself with it.”
    Avery picked up the knife and threw it through the air into the water. They heard it splash in the dark.
    “Ain’t that a foolish thing to do.”
    “Let’s go,” Avery said. He helped Tereau to his feet and picked him up over his shoulder in a