The old man had been somebody. He made it through the Great War unscathed
as a radio telegraph operator. While sending messages, he learned a bit about
business and investing. He was surprised by the information that went out to the
upper echelon in the naval fleet. From that information, he planned his career
for after the war, and he did well. He married way above his
class after the war and invested in stocks no one else knew anything about.
During the Roaring twenties, he had amassed a fortune. But then that dark
day in nineteen twenty nine, just like that, he lost it all.
He tried to make do, but his wife was accustomed to so much more,
and she fell into a deep depression. He didn't find the arsenic bottle
until a week after her funeral. For a man who had once been a
celebrity of sorts, he now shunned human contact. He left the mansion and
settled on an old shack in the Louisiana Swamp, dressed in old, raggedy
clothes, his hair and beard left to grow wild. He spent his days
walking the bogs and swamps, fishing, hunting, gathering his own food,
doing what it took to get by. The locals would see him now and
then, and he became a sort of boogeyman in the area. You kids
better watch out, old man will is gonna get you. The depression finally
ended. We went to war again in the forties, and the economy boomed,
and Lucius Clay stayed right where he was. He didn't care anymore.
The Cables were a nasty bunch of people, always in trouble, fighting,
stealing. The town of lou Ray considered them white trash. Their mama was
a good woman who married a bad man. The marriage lasted for six kids
to be born, and then Jameis Cable vanished, leaving Miss Cable with nothing
but six growing boys to feed. South Louisanna in the fifties. No work,
no husband, no money, but she did the best she could.
The three oldest boys rived at gas station two counties over and were on the
run from the sheriff. Now they took to the swamp until things blew over.
A younger brother would bring them food, but they needed a plan.
They couldn't stay down there in that swamp forever. They ran across an old
shack out there and no swamps, And ya knew where the old hermit lived.
The plan made sense to them. They had it all worked out in
their head. They came up to a shack about the edge of dark.
Their boat motor had quinn on them. They said, was it okay if
they camped outside of shack until morning? But by midnight they had drunk all
the whiskey they had. Little brother hadn't brought food for days. Now they
were drunk, hungry, and mean that old man ain't as scary as Mama
said, the oldest cable said. They wondered why the old man lived out
here like this. Had to be hiding out like they were, probably ribbed
a bank or something. Lucius was a legend, and folks said he had
a fortune stashed somewhere on that place, enough for them to leave the area,
hell enough of them to live like kings. But they needed to find
it. They took turns beating the old man. If he didn't give them
what they were wanted, they're going to have to kill him. But it
was something he didn't have. After an hour, the old man broke told
them boys the money was buried in a swamp, and if they'd quit beating
on him, he'd lead them right to it. He grabbed an old lantern
and a shovel and he led them limping out into the swamp. He circled
and turned and changed direction, going north and then east and then back north.
The cable boys were lost, and the old man knew it. He
knew that swamp like the back of his hand, and he could find his
way out in the dark. And that was his plan. He figured.
It was pushing about three in the morning. He had to work fast.
Now. An ancient cypress tree stood in the distance, and he waded through
the deep section to get to it, pointing at the base of the tree.
It's right here, boys, it's four feet down. Well, start
digging. Old man took the shovel and he started digging real slow, playing
up his injuries and acting like he had trouble catching his air. Impatient with
the old man, one of the cable boys yanked the shovel out of his
hand and began to furiously dig, making the hole wider and deeper, cussing
when he hit a route and water seeped into the hole. It ain't here,
God, damn it. Give me the shovel, boy, the old
man said, and he stabbed it into the hole now filled with black water.
You hear that, that's a box. All you gotta do is dig
it up. All three cable boys gathered around the hole and the old man
backed up. One of the boys kneeled down to reach into the water.
The shovel hit the back of his head. Lucius was old, but he
was still a fighter. The cable boy dropped the lamp into the hole and
it went out. The youngest cable heard the wish of a shovel right before
it hit him in the face. There was now so dark none of them
could see, but the old man knew where to step, and he casually
walked away. He got behind a big oak and gave his eyes time to
adjust, and the cables were talking. A gunshot shattered the night. It
made the old man jump, but they couldn't hit him. Shooting randomly,
they couldn't see. The old man turned and walked deeper into the swamp,
staying on a vein of dry ground, and a sly grin increased his cheeks.
Back at the tree. The cable urchins were slowly getting off the ground.
They couldn't see anything. The blackness of that place at night will suffocate
a man how we getting out of here? Said the first? Well did
you pay attention to how we got here? Another set? Well, I
figured you were watching, said the third. And they stood in that black
water, the only humans left on earth. A tree trants cracked like a
stick of dynamite and echoed through the swamp. The old man was way off
now, and they heard him laughing. But something else was near, and
it was closing on him. The cables turned and wasted their last three bullets,
and then everything went quiet. The youngest brother was the first to go
steal, jaws clamped onto his waist just above his belt line. The predator
didn't pounce on him, No need to waste calories. It like feeling its
teeth sink into the flesh and taste the blood leaking to its mouth, and
in a quick motion, it backed away. With the screaming twenty year old
clamped in his jaws, all the brothers could do was listen to him,
diging that water to make an escape that would never come. And soon the
water settled and the screaming stopped, and the only ripples remained. Where is
he? What the hell was that? The oldest asked, we go to
get out of here, said the middle brother, right before he was snatched
from above by a similar but much larger beast. No sound, no struggle.
The beast's mouth covered the man's head, denying him a last scream.
His last sensation was his own skull cracking in the mouth of the most foul
beasts that ever lived in those swamps. Big brother stood in that warm water,
and he started to cry. He cursed the day they came to Willis
Swamp to steal that old man's money. He wiped the mud from his eyes,
and he pulled his breeches up, and he wondered which direction to run.
He ran face in into an oak tree. He flopped backwards in the
water. He couldn't catch his wind. That big old nose was broken,
No air would pass, and blood pouring into his mouth madeing vomit, a
foul mix of whiskey bowl and beans from a can. By the time he
stammered to his knees, he heard it heavy panting. It sounded like a
dog, but it was as big as a house. It was already standing
over him. It had made no noise approaching. Superheated foul breath blew his
wet hair around, eaten by a monster were his last words, closing his
eyes, thinking it wouldn't last long. But the creature stood there behind him,
covering him with a cloud of rotted odor. Smaller creatures ran at him
through the water. He was being fed to the litter, one limb at
a time. The young one slowly tore him apart. He was alive for
most of it. The sun lit the sky. When the old man walked
onto his porch. He was tired. Seeing was difficult with his eyes swollen
like that. He had work to do, though, be for a minute.
He sat on that porch and all the memories of his wife flooded back.
He missed her. His chin quivered, but then it stopped. No
bringing her back now. He thought about finding another place to live, but
this place would still do. He only existed now, and he could do
that here he was going to stay. The cable's boat was pulled on the
bank. When he pulled onto the swamp, a heavy piece of channel laid
on the bow that would hold the front down. The tin horse evn Rude
would sink the back in the deepest hole he knew of, several miles from
his shack. He punched holes in the aluminum bottom, and the boat vanished
under the black water. He watched the spot for a while in case it
floated back up, but a guard fin slowly rippled over the spot, and
he knew it was down to stay. It took ten days for the law
to show up. In all the years he had lived there, the law
had left him alone. He knew why they were here, but he also
knew any evidence of what had happened was gone. The sheriff walked into the
tool shed and found him rigging trot lines. Lucius, how you making it
out here these days? Well, I'm doing fine. What brings you out
here, sheriff, Lucius said, as he reached for a hook. Three
boys from the other side of the county went missing a couple of weeks back.
We've been looking for him. Their mama's worried sick. Lucius tied another
hook and the sheriff waited. I hate that for her, Lucius said.
The sheriff shot a brown stream of spit into the ground, looked at Lucius
and he said, do you know the Cable boys? Never heard the name?
Lucius said, Well, Miss Cable's one of the sweetest women I've ever
known, But she wasn't any good at raising boys. The three oldest ones
are mean. I'll never know why good people wind up with such ornery children.
It's a freaking nature. I think I've had them all in jail through
the years. All they do is cause problems for me. They've caused their
mama to age way before her time. Lucius tied on another hook. The
thing is, Lucius, they have a younger brother. He's a shuttingmouth,
a little punk. But yesterday we leaned on him a little bit. We
knew he knew something. He finally said that he heard him say they were
coming here to your place to rob you and then take off out of state.
Lucius played the part. He acted surprised. Why would they want to
rob me, Sheriff, I ain't got nothing, the sheriff responded, Lucius,
you act like you don't, but most folks around here think you do.
It's none of my business. But years ago, when you first showed
up here, the sheriff at the time, he did some digging on you.
You know how we are, Lucius, stranger moves to town. We
like to know who we're dealing with. Before a retired sheriff Dancy told me
you came here from New York, said you're a wealthy man trying to hide
from something, but he never figured out what it was. You ain't never
been a problem while you lived here, and we left you alone. But
don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about. In town. You're
a legend around here. Folks say you got a lot of money buried in
this mud. Some say you're the rich old boogeyman. Lucius thought for a
minute, and he finally said, I guess if I had all that money
buried out here, or if I was poor as dirt, that ain't nobody's
business. Is this why you came all the way out here to ask me
if I have money buried? Sheriff, No, I'm asking if those cable
boys showed up here in the last two weeks, Lucius. According to their
brother, they were headed this way. Well, I already told you I
don't know the name, Lucius lied. They came here to rob me.
You'd have heard from me by now. Well, I suppose so. Looks
like you've been in a fight with a shee cat, Lucius. The sheriff
was looking at his healing wounds on the old man's face, Lucius forgot about
the way his face looked. It was rare for the old man to look
at himself in the mirror. He had cleaned the wounds two weeks ago and
forgot about them. But the old man never acknowledged the wounds on his face.
He just kept tying hooks. Okay, then, if you hear anything
or happened to run into those boys, you make sure and let me know.
Lucius nodded, and the conversation was over, and the sheriff left.
The farmer found the cow lying dead in the woods. The still born calf
was near half eaten by the dogs and buzzards and maggots. He cut the
cow in pieces and he loaded her up. In an hour, he pulled
into the old man's yard and threw the chunks of the cow on the ground,
and he left. The old man always took the meat, he said
he liked feeding the gaiters. Nobody understood why, but when they had a
dead bovine, they brought it to Lucius Clay when he returned from checking his
crawfish traps. He loaded the cow in his boat and slowly trolled deep into
the swamp, the place he never went unless he had something to trade.
The boat ground on the sandbar, with the motor still running. He hauled
the parts onto the bank, and then he quickly got off that sandbar.
Don't stay too long, don't stay too long at a safe distance. Now,
he cut the motor and he waited. It never took him long.
They always showed up pretty quick. An adult female broke through the vines and
onto the bank. It was half prehistoric wolf and half something that should have
never born on God's planet, and it hovered over the decaying meat. One
short yelp brought the litter, and they all fed at once. It was
all gone in five minutes. The bones dragged off by fighting siblings, making
noises from hell. The female lifted her head sniffed the air as if to
nod it. Lucius nodded back, and then he vanished into the swamp for
the next mile. He laughed. He laughed harder than he had ever laughed.
He thought about those cable boys being eaten just like that calf. The
evil echoed through the swamps as a chuckle. Years passed and the legend of
that old man died away. That old shack is still there, abandoned,
covered in vines full of cotton mouths and hornets. If you walk up next
to the water where that old shaq is and you get real quiet for a
while, you can hear that old man laughing, and you can hear three
young men scream. And if you ever go back in the wooly swamp,
you better not go at night. There's things out there in the middle of
them woods to make a grown man die from fright. Things that crawl,
and things that fly, and things that creep around on the ground. And
they say the ghost of Lucius Clay gets up and it walks around