dontravis.com
blog post #332
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This
week, fellow author Donald T. Morgan gives us the Prologue to his
unpublished novel Sourwater Slough. Set
in southeastern Oklahoma (my old stomping grounds), the book is a murder
mystery. Let him know if sounds interesting to you.
*****
SOURWATER SLOUGH
By Donald T.
Morgan
Sourwater Slough along the Little Fork River, south of Clovertown, Oklahoma
Sucking putrid swamp air into his
lungs in desperate, spastic gasps, he stood over the inert body. The rage of a
moment ago dissipated like a dandelion riding the wind. Hands dangling at his
sides, fingertips twitching, he swayed as his hammering heart slowed
abruptly. Reality returned in the faint drip of water somewhere nearby, in the
smear of blood on the rough, curling bark of the tree, in the rank stench of
the bog.
“Come on.
Get up,” he said in a near whisper.
Aw, hell. She wasn’t gonna get up.
Ever. Oh, man, what now? It was an accident. Her fault. Anybody could see that.
Anybody but that fat Malcolm County Sheriff, Joe Lee Buchanan. That redneck
wouldn’t buy it. Not for a minute.
He’d just wanted to get it on. That’s what they’d come down here for—or he had, anyway. Wasn’t like they
hadn’t done it before. Why’d she have to go squirrelly just because he brought her to the
slough? She was usually a good sport, up for doing crazy things. When she’d bailed out of the truck in a snit, he’d
laughed at the awkward way she skied in the mud. He got out and grabbed at
her. But when his hand hit her shoulder, she went down in the slick sludge,
banging her head on the bole of a tree.
His shoulders rose and fell in a sigh.
God, she looked funny lying there. Too bad, but she ought not have treated him
like dirt.
“Serves you right.”
The words echoing hollowly across
the surface of the slough made his skin go clammy. Didn’t
sound like his voice. More like a stranger’s. Was somebody in his head talking
for him?
A splash down the shoreline
puckered his flesh. He peered through the late afternoon haze. Fishermen? Frog
giggers? But nothing stirred in the oppressive heat. Not a leaf. Just swarms of
gnats and flies. Sourwater lay silent and mysterious, looking more like a pool
of dirty motor oil than water. A thick canopy of branches overhead almost
obscured the low bank of clouds hiding the sun. The heavy atmosphere made it
hard to breathe. The bog reeked of death and decay. What the hell was he gonna
do now?
Ripples near a cypress knee poking
out of stale water morphed into a snake. The ugly moccasin gave him an idea.
Nobody knew he’d brought her out here. He’d just leave her for the swamp. His
great-granddaddy used to talk about a big alligator down in the bottoms. That sucker
would take her for sure. Clean up after him so nobody’d ever find
her. That was the answer. The slough knew how to take care of its dead. He
frowned. Was that why he chose this funky place? Some fort of premonition?
A clap of thunder overhead and an
answering rumble off to the south freed him from inertia. He slogged through
the mud to his pickup for something to weigh her down. Rope was no good—too
distinctive. Lots of cases got solved with nothing more than a hair. Watching “CSI”
on TV taught him that.
A spool of fishing line might work.
Everybody in the county had a reel, and it wouldn’t take fingerprints. But to
be safe, he’d get a pair of work gloves from the pickup to handle everything.
He stripped to keep sweat from
ruining his clothes. Buck naked, he scrounged enough rocks to fill two burlap
sacks he found along the shoreline. Panting from his efforts, he lashed the
frail, dead form to the bags with yards of filament. Man, even her thick hair
looked different now. Lost its luster.
As he struggled to lift the trussed-up
package, he slipped and fell on his face. He fought his way to his feet as the
first raindrops crashed through the overhanging branches. When he rolled her
into the slough, she slid a couple of feet and stopped. He recoiled as her big
eyes stared at him.
He swiped his running nose and
steadied himself. The weighted sacks had turned her in the shallows. She wasn’t
looking at him. She wasn’t looking at anything.
He overcame an aversion to the
revolting stew of sediment and noxious ooze and waded into the water,
struggling with the bundle while trying to ignore thick muck squishing between
his toes and snatching at his ankles like spectral fingers. Oh, hell. Where was
that water moccasin? He fought to keep from bolting back to the shore. Fat
raindrops raised pimples on the dark water, making it come alive. Green at the
edges, the lagoon turned black toward the middle. Poisons leached up out of the
ground, probably eating away his flesh.
Grabbing the body before he freaked
himself out, he heaved with all his strength. His feet shot out from under him.
He went down hard in the slimy mud. The girl seemed to clutch his chest. With a
mindless squeal, he shoved her away and scrambled to find purchase on something
solid, but the slippery bottom betrayed him. He floundered helplessly as Sourwater
sucked him into her depths. He fought his way to the surface, splashing like a
five-year-old who couldn’t swim. Reason returned, but not before he took a mouthful
of filthy water. Coughing and gagging, his insides burning, he clawed his way to
shore and threw up on the muddy bank.
While he struggled with his heaving
stomach, a bolt of lightning struck a dead tree across the lagoon.
Ear-splitting thunder left his head spinning. He tasted ozone on his tongue.
His hair stood on end. Nerve endings sang like they were plugged into a live
socket. That had been close. He snatched a look at the water, half expecting her to rise from the depths and come for him. But she was gone. Sourwater had her..
He studied the smoldering, lightning-struck
snag across the way before raising his chin to the heavens and laughing uncontrollably.
“Missed me! And if you can’t
get me, nobody can.”
*****
Spooky
place to take a girl for a romantic assignation… but like the mysterious “he,”
said, she was usually up for anything. But apparently not Sourwater. But was
his date’s death an accident or “accidently on purpose?” Interesting. Maybe Don
(the other Don) will give us another look down the line.
By the way, several readers had comments on the podcast interview Traci HalesVass of Radio KSJE did on The Bisti Business. Apparently, my voice didn't sound as weird to others as it did to me. We're scheduling another interview for sometime this summer with Abaddon's Locusts as the subject. I'm including the link in case you haven't listened to the podcast as yet.
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-dxfzn-a9b9ad
Now my mantra: Keep on reading and keep on writing. You have something to say, so say it!
By the way, several readers had comments on the podcast interview Traci HalesVass of Radio KSJE did on The Bisti Business. Apparently, my voice didn't sound as weird to others as it did to me. We're scheduling another interview for sometime this summer with Abaddon's Locusts as the subject. I'm including the link in case you haven't listened to the podcast as yet.
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-dxfzn-a9b9ad
Now my mantra: Keep on reading and keep on writing. You have something to say, so say it!
My
personal links: (Not the change in the Email address)
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/donald.travis.982
Twitter:
@dontravis3
Buy
links to Abaddon’s Locusts:
See
you next week.
Don
New Posts are
published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.
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