Chapter 3
"We searched the docks for hours before we finally found the man. He did, indeed, have the look of insanity about him. His hair was wild, and one of his eyes always looked off to the right regardless of where his other eye settled. But despite his uncanny appearance, his one good eye held piercing intelligence. We had been told that he would do anything for a price, and he had no concern for his own life, and those things proved to be true. He was a most unpleasant traveling companion. He spoke what was on his mind seemingly with no censor between his thoughts and his mouth. But he knew the swamps, and he was willing to take us."
Dean interrupted, "Do we really need to hear this part? I mean, so far they haven't mentioned Colt or the revolver."
"Dean, any piece of this could be important, but besides that, aren't you even the least bit curious about what life was like for a hunter back then?" Sam looked over the top of the journal at his brother, "This is fascinating stuff. I can read it quietly if you really don't want to hear it."
Dean shook his head, "No, go ahead. I may as well listen. This is the last time we get a room without cable, though." He gestured to the ancient television with the rag in his hand. "Nothing better to do."
Sam shook his head and picked up where he'd left off. He snuck a glance at his brother and saw that, despite his words to the contrary, Dean actually was interested in the story. "The man's name was Joseph Delacroix. His boat, a small, shallow affair called a pirogue, was barely large enough for the three of us. Most of the space aboard it was filled with crab-pots and fishing gear."
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"Damned mosquitoes, lived here nigh on twenty years, I'll never get used to the little bloodsuckers." Delacroix slapped at his arms, "Mind my traps, boy, I can't afford to have you dumping them overboard. We'll be into the swamps soon. Nasty place. Full of injuns and gators. Dunno what you want up here. You fellas ain't hunting escaped slaves, are ya? Cause I tell ya right now that's a nasty business. Been stories about folks dying mysterious up here. They say there was rice plantation burned to the ground, and all the slaves just went into the swamp, turned themselves into gators with that black hoodoo they do. Still living out here eating up any white man foolish enough to come looking."
Roland shifted in his seat, watching as the tall reeds of the marshes grew closer. His eyes narrowed and he tilted his head to draw Jacob's attention to what he had seen. A large alligator slipped from between the stalks of sawgrass and into the water, vanishing with barely a ripple to mark its passing. They had said very little on the trip, it being very hard to get a word in with Delacroix's constant nattering. As the boatman paused for a breath, Roland took his opportunity, "Do the gators ever come into town?"
"Naw. They're shy, for all they look like a thing out of a devil's nightmare. They'd just as soon stay out of the way of a man, unless you catch a bull during mating season. Have heard tale of a couple of deaths in town, though. Sounds like gators, but if it is, it ain't natural. Gators don't like to go where the people are." Delacroix spit into the water as he put down his paddle. They coasted into the shallows and he pulled a long pole from its place along the side of the boat and shifted to a standing position near the back of the boat. He aimed the pirogue for a narrow channel in the sawgrass and began to pole the boat into it.
Roland gave Jacob a meaningful glance. They had seen the bodies of two of the victims, and they certainly looked like they had been attacked by an alligator, a very large alligator. But unless this particular alligator had learned to unlock doors and navigate stairs, it was unlikely a natural gator could have done the killing. There had been four deaths so far, and the only thing the victims had had in common was that they were all slave owners, or somehow involved in the slave trade. Just this once, Jacob sympathized with the monster. If anyone deserved killing it was a man barbaric enough to think he had the right to own another man. But that wasn't their job. Killing the monsters was.
For over a year there had been stories coming out of the swamps about men who could turn themselves into alligators. Or about an alligator that could speak like a man. Or a hundred variations on the theme - Indian magic, African hoodoo, escaped slaves and alligators. Roland and Jacob had their muskets loaded with silver shot. That was the one common thing to all shapeshifters, regardless of what form they took.
The heat and humidity were oppressive, like a blanket of wet cotton batting pressing down on them. Sweat streamed down Jacob's face and into the collar of his shirt, adding to the already uncomfortable itch from the myriad of mosquito bites that lined his arms and cheeks. The sawgrass pressed close. Delacroix had warned them not to grab at it with bare hands - it lived up to its name. When a stray blade sliced across his cheek and left a stinging scarlet trail where it had passed, Jacob shuddered at the thought of being lost in these marshes, cut to ribbons by the very grass.
It didn't take them long to pass through the belt of sawgrass and into the swamps. The grass changed over to reeds, then to cypress knobs and brackish water tinged green with algae. The swamps were crawling with life. They had a song unlike anything Jacob had ever heard before – the calls of frogs, the drone of the seven year cicadas, the buzzing of flies and mosquitoes, the cry of a blue heron startled from its fishing spot in the shallows – it all blended together in a symphony. It was jarring when all of that sound suddenly ceased.
As they passed beneath the cathedral like reaches of the ancient cypress trees draped with Spanish moss the swamp seemed to take in a breath and hold it, as if waiting anxiously to see what would happen next. Roland and Jacob checked the loads in their pistols and peered out into the murky greenness around them. Even Delacroix paused his seemingly endless stream of chatter.
Roland noticed them first. He nudged Jacob's knee and motioned with his pistol. All that showed of them were their eyes. A ring of them surrounded the pirogue, six at least. Their long scaled bodies were hidden by the algae coated water, but the eyes were enough. Alligators. Big ones. They watched the occupants of the small flat-bottomed boat with cold reptilian intelligence, unwavering in their regard.
"What are they doing? Why are they just watching us like that?" Jacob whispered as a large bead of sweat threaded its way down the back of his neck. He shivered despite the heat, his eyes tracking from one gator to the next.
"Unnatural," Delacroix crossed himself and muttered a hasty prayer.
"Steady, boy. I think they just want to see what we're about." Roland scanned the area with narrowed eyes.
"Oh, but I already know what you are about, white man." The voice boomed through the swamp, round and deep and touched with the musical cadence of Africa. "You are looking for Uncle Monday, and you have found him, much to your misfortune." At the sound of the rolling voice the gators surrounding the pirogue became active, churning up the water with lashes of their great tails, circling the small craft ominously. Very faintly the sound of rhythmic drumming drifted through the swamp. The motion of the gators pushed the light boat deeper into the swamp, and Jacob met Roland's eyes with worry as he began to recognize the sound of chanting intertwined with the drums.
There was nothing they could do but hold their weapons and wait while the gators pushed them to some unknown destination. Jacob and Roland had a musket and pistol apiece, but they would have only one shot with each, and there were too many gators in the water around them. Any other action would upset the boat and dump them in among the toothsome terrors. And they still hadn't seen the owner of the deep baritone voice. It seemed that this Uncle Monday was indeed the creature for whom they were searching.
After seven years of hunting together very little needed to be said between them. A sharp glance from Roland was enough – stay alert, watch and wait, look for the opportune moment.
The pirogue ground out on a hummock of grass and mud, a small island of solid earth in the seemingly endless expanse of murky water. The gators stopped at the edge of the water, blocking any chance of retreat in the boat, but they did not pull themselves onto the island, leaving the way clear for the three men.
Delacroix stood, his hands held before him in a placating gesture, his voice shaking as he pleaded, "I don't want no part of this. I don't mean no harm to you or your like. I was just hired to pole the boat and I don't want no part of this."
Roland cursed the man for a coward under his breath, but they waited to hear any reply that might come. It came with a rolling laugh that held no merriment, "Yet here you are. You showed these men into my place, so you will live or die as they do. Come, hunters, let me show you the hospitality of the Crocodile Clan."
The boat lunged and jerked, bashed from behind by the tail of one of the huge reptiles, shoved further onto the island and leaving the three men with no option but to climb out of it. Roland stepped onto the island first, his sharp eyes scanning the area around them.
The little island was held together by a few low bushes, their roots stubbornly anchoring the soil against the sluggish flow of the swamp. Near the center of the island a huge old live oak stood, its branches stretching out like a canopy and weighed down by curtains of Spanish moss. A small fire flickered in the gloom beneath its shade. Standing beside the fire was a man, his skin as dark as midnight, his head bald, and his shoulders broad. His teeth gleamed in the darkness as his deep laugh rolled across the swamp.
At the sound of that laugh a shiver ran down Jacob's spine that had nothing to do with the temperature.
Roland kept his eyes locked on the man before them, but a splash from behind drew Jacob's gaze. He watched in awe and terror as the gators in the water moved forward – and stepped onto the island as men. The alligator forms slipped from them, seeming to sluice down their skin like the water that ran from their naked black and bronze bodies. They were a mix of black Africans and red-skinned natives, strong and lean. They formed a semi-circle, flanking the hunters and their guide and blocking their escape. There were seven of them.
Jacob laid a hand on Roland's shoulder in warning. Then he moved so that they stood, back to back, their weapon's drawn.
"Think you that your silver shot will save you, oh, mighty hunters?" The dark man sneered, "You do not know what you have stumbled into." He stepped forward from under the overhanging branches of the oak into the thin green light. Swirling tattoos – an inky darkness against the pitch of his skin – stood out in rows and dotted ridges, giving him a ferocious aspect. "I have faced many such as you, and I will live to face many more." He snarled, "It was men like you, pale and hiding behind your guns, and ignorant of the true way of the world, who dragged me from my home and sold me to slave for a rich pig. But they did not know who they had taken. I am a brother to Crocodile, and he has blessed my people. We will not lie down. We will not bend to the will of the arrogant white man who thinks he can rule this earth."
"Arrogant bastard, aren't you?" Roland replied, a mask of calm covering his face. Jacob recognized the look. Roland's face always smoothed to that deceptive, deadly calm before the fighting started. Roland edged slightly to the right, pushing Jacob gently to face the men to the left of them. "I don't care why you are doing what you are doing. You are a killer. There will be no mercy from me." And he took his shots. Jacob fired at almost the same time, first with his musket, putting the ball of silver shot into the stomach of the Indian across from him, then dropping it to pull his pistol. His second shot took the next man in the head as he lunged forward to attack. Jacob dropped that gun as well, now useless. He pulled a huge Bowie knife from his belt and turned to face a third man.
Behind Jacob, Roland had also used his two shots to drop two of their attackers. He pulled his sword from its sheath at his belt and readied for the fight. There were three of the naked alligator-men left, and their leader, who was roaring with outrage.
The three remaining men shifted their shapes yet again, their faces elongating into snouts full of razor teeth, and their skin thickening to leathery hide. They remained upright, halfway between men and beasts. Delacroix fell to his knees, whimpering. Jacob sneered in disgust as the boatman's pants darkened with moisture. The man had wet himself. He was a coward, but he was still a human being. Jacob and Roland moved put the cowering man between them. The gator-men circled them.
Roland aimed a light kick at Delacroix, not to hurt him, but to get his attention. "If you will not fight, at least reload our pistols," he hissed, never taking his gaze from the circling enemy.
The bravest of the gator-men lunged forward, his razor lined maw gaping open for a bite. Roland obliged him by giving him a taste of his steel. He thrust the sword into the creature's mouth, angling it upward to emerge from the top of the gator-man's head. A second beast rushed Jacob, bearing the younger man to the ground with its weight.
Jacob's knife went into the monster's shoulder, pulling a hiss of pain and rage from the gator-man. The knife lodged there, though, trapped between two bones, and Jacob was unable to pull it free with one hand. His other arm was pressed below the gator-man's jaw trying to hold back those rows of deadly teeth from ripping off his face. Giving up on retrieving his knife, he twisted it instead, drawing another anguished hiss from the beast. Jacob used the moment of his foe's weakness to put his strength into a roll, flipping the creature onto its back and pinning it. He shoved upward on the gator-mans jaw, forcing its head back at an unnatural angle.
Roland had joined in combat with the last of the gator-men. This one was smarter than the rest, or knew something of dealing with swords. It feinted toward Roland's left side, then turned away from the Frenchman's blade back to the right, dropping low to grab Roland's right leg in its jaws and lifting the man, flinging him to his back in the muck. It released Roland's leg as it dropped him, though, which was a mistake. Roland rolled away to the left as the beast flung its weight onto the spot where Roland had been. As soon as the creature hit the ground Roland rolled back to the right, bringing his sword around in a powerful chop, taking the gator-man's head from his shoulders.
Roland let out a breath and tried to scramble to his feet, but his badly torn right leg would not hold his weight. He could see Jacob still struggling with the gator-man that had attacked him. Then an unearthly sound pulled his gaze to where Uncle Monday had stood. The huge black man was changing with a roar that shook the ground. Where he had stood there was now a monstrous crocodile, fully twenty feet long. It was a primordial beast, its eyes glittering with cold anger. It moved with unbelievable speed across the intervening ground. Roland rolled again, barely eluding the powerful jaws of the monster.
Jacob saw the massive beast attack his mentor. "Roland!" he cried as he struggled with the gator-man. The gator-man took advantage of his moment of distraction and pulled himself loose, using his strong tail to flip them again, pinning Jacob helplessly beneath him. His teeth came down for a killing blow… and his head rocked backward as a shot rang out.
Delacroix had managed to control his shaking hands for long enough to reload one of the pistols. He had put a ball of silver through the eye of the monster from only a few inches away. Jacob pushed the dead weight of the beast's corpse away from him. He scrambled to his feet, giving the shocked boatman and nod of thanks. Then, weaponless, he went to help his mentor and friend. He rushed toward the giant crocodile, looking around for some sort of weapon.
The sound of a terrible impact brought his attention back to the fight in time to see Roland flung through the air by a powerful swing of the monster's tail. Roland hit the ground hard, and lay unmoving. Jacob scooped up one of the empty muskets and gripped it by the barrel. The massive reptile turned toward him, moving deceptively fast for all its size. Jacob jumped to the side at the last second and brought the musket down with all his strength onto Uncle Monday's eyes. The beast roared with pain and thrashed its head and tail wildly, temporarily blinded by the pain of the blow. Jacob threw himself backward away from the madly thrashing crocodile.
The man-monster, still half blind, chose the better part of valor and made its way to the water, slipping in to the green, brackish water with barely a splash. As Jacob rushed to Roland's side, Uncle Monday's voice echoed back to him from the swamps, "Pray that we do not cross paths again. Next time I will be better prepared, and you will be the one who lies dead."
Jacob ignored the taunt. Roland was not moving. Blood leaked from the older man's mouth. As Jacob felt at his throat for a pulse Roland's eyes opened. He coughed weakly, more blood foaming from his lips. "Jacob. You live." His voice was weak, and his eyes were barely open.
"Yes, and Monday is gone. Hush, now. You're injured, but I don't know how badly." Jacob began pulling his friend's shirt open to look for wounds, but Roland weakly put a hand on his, staying him.
"I'm done, boy. He's broken things inside me. Go home. Go back you your daughter." He coughed again and his eyes shone fever bright for a moment, "Don't become a bitter old man like me." The last breath rattled out of him as he spoke, and his eyes went dull, his hand fell limp.
"No! NO! Roland!" Jacob screamed his anguish at the loss of his friend into the swamps. Tears coursed down his cheeks as he gently closed the old man's eyes. Jacob closed his own eyes for a long minute in grief, then he whispered, "It's too late, my friend. You were right all those years ago. Now that I know what's out there, I'll never be able to stop hunting it. But I will try not to become as bitter as you." A small, sad smile touched his lips, but was gone quickly, buried beneath the tide of grief and anger that washed over the young hunter.