The Drowned Life by Jeffrey Ford Page B

grabbed the prod where his hands weren’t.
    â€œOn three,” he said. He counted off and then we pushed. Henry was heavy as ten sacks of rocks. “We got him,” cried Witzer, “now slide it.” I did and only then did I look up. “Push,” the old man said. We gave it one more shove and Henry went into a swan dive, flipping like an Olympic athlete off the high board. When I saw him in mid-fall, my knees went weak and the air left me. He landed on his back with a loud thud directly in the middle of the mattresses, dust from the old cushions roiling up around him.
    We woke Henry easily enough, sent him on his way to town, and were soon back in the truck. For the first time that morning I breathed a sigh of relief. “Easiest Harvest I’ve ever been part of,” said Witzer. We headed farther down the path toward the swamp, scanning the branches for Pete Hesiant. Sure enough, in the same right manner with which everything else had fallen into place we found him curled up on his side in the branches of an enormous maple tree. With the first cursory glance at him, the old man determined that Pete would require no more than a ten. After we got the prods off the truck and positioned it under our last drop, Witzer insisted that I take him down. “One more to keep your skill sharp through the rest of the year,” he said.
    It was a simple job. Pete had found a nice perch with three thick branches beneath him. As I said, he was curled up on his side, and I couldn’t see him all too well, so I just nudged his upper back and he rolled over like a small boulder. The drop was precise, and he hit the center of the mattresses, but the instant he was in the bed of the pickup, I knew something was wrong. He’d fallen too quickly for me to register it sooner, but as he lay there, I now noticed that there was someone else with him. Witzer literally jumped to the side of the truck bed and stared in.
    â€œWhat in fuck’s name,” said the old man. “Is that a kid he’s got with him?”
    I saw the other body, naked, in Pete’s arms. It had long blond hair, that much was sure. It could have been a kid, but I thought I saw in the jumble a full-size female breast.
    Witzer reached into the truck bed, grabbed Pete by the shoulder, and rolled him away from the other form. Then the two ofus stood there in stunned silence. The thing that lay there wasn’t a woman or a child but both and neither. The body was twisted and deformed, the size of an eight-year-old but with all the characteristics of maturity, if you know what I mean. And that face…lumpish and distorted, brow bulging, and from the left temple to the chin there erupted a range of discolored ridges.
    â€œIs that Lonette?” I whispered, afraid the thing would awaken.
    â€œShe’s dead, ain’t she?” said Witzer in as low a voice, and his Adam’s apple bobbed.
    We both knew she was, but there she or some twisted copy of her lay. The old man took a handkerchief from his back pocket and brought it up to his mouth. He closed his eyes and leaned against the side of the truck. A bird flew by low overhead. The sun shone and leaves fell in the woods on both sides of the path.
    Needless to say, when we moved again, we weren’t breaking any twigs. Witzer told me to leave the prods and get in the truck. He started it up, and we drove slowly, about fifteen miles an hour, into the center of town. We drove in complete silence. The place was quiet as a ghost town—no doubt everyone was sleeping off the celebration—but we saw that Sheriff Jolle’s cruiser was in front of the bunkerlike concrete building that was the police station. The old man parked and went in. As he and the sheriff appeared at the door, I got out of the truck cab and joined them.
    â€œWhat are you talking about?” Jolle said as they passed me and headed for the truck bed. I followed behind them.
    â€œShhh,”