The Rambling Read online

  “What about the Creepy?” I said.

  “You mean the baby snatcher?” said Pop. “The one who eats up innocent little children for fun? It ain’t true. A fella like that don’t exist.”

  “Well this blind man I met on the road said to watch out for him.”

  “I lived in these parts my whole life. Don’t you think I’d know if there were any baby eaters around? Besides, you come to a legend like that, you always find a person at the bottom of it. An honest-to-God human being. And when it’s a human being involved, flesh and blood, same as us, well, ain’t nothing too much to be afraid of, is there?” He lit his pipe and took two big puffs. “See Buddy, you can’t be trusting any old man you meet on the road. You don’t know what such a man wants. You can’t trust a person if you don’t know their angle. And everybody’s got one, of that you can be sure.”

  “Even Mom?” I said.

  Pop laughed. “Don’t you doubt one second your mom’s got something cooking. That lady schemes more than any person I ever met. Probably why I fell so hard in love with her.”

  I wanted to ask him another question about Mom, why she had left Pop in the first place. I’d always wanted to know, and every time I asked Mom she’d just go silent, and why would I want to go upsetting my mom like that? So I generally kept mum about the whole thing. But now was my chance. Now I was gonna finally get to know what happened.

  “Pop,” I said. “I wanted to ask you something.”

  Pop lit his pipe and leaned back in his old rocking chair. I was sitting on a bait bucket. The whole house smelled like mudbugs and pipe smoke and fish. I was about the happiest a kid could ever be.

  “Why’d Mom run off on you like that?” I said. “Why’d she leave the swamp? Why’d you let her take me with her?”

  Pop thought a minute.

  “Now that’s a tough question right there, Buddy,” he said. “That might take more time to answer than I got tonight.”

  “Aw, come on,” I said. “You can’t say one word about the subject?”

  Pop smiled his gold-toothed grin real big and whipped a deck of cards out of his back pocket. He fanned them out wide in his hands.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “Pick a card, any card. Go ahead now, I won’t look.”

  He shut his eyes and turned his head, all dramatic-like.

  I wished Pop would just tell me instead of making me play a game like this. But then again, wishing my daddy was any different than he was was about as useless as wishing the moon would turn purple. All I could do was play along and make the most of it.

  I took a good long look at those cards. They weren’t normal cards, the kind you play poker with, clubs, spades, hearts, diamonds, all the court folks. No, these were special cards. They were Parsnit cards, the best and most noble game in all the world.

  I loved Parsnit cards. They were like playing cards, but they had pictures on them, and you were supposed to tell a story with them. Whoever told the best story won the Parsnit duel. It was a tough game, mind you, and only the best, smartest, cleverest folks ever played it. I remembered Pop and his friends, the whole gang of them, hollering and clapping and telling stories about the wildest duels they played and saw. A true Parsnit duel required the presence of a witch. It was dangerous and mysterious business. You were taking your life in your hands if ever you played Parsnit.

  I looked at Pop’s Parsnit cards, immaculate and bright in his grubby fisherman’s fingers. They didn’t have a speck of dirt on them, as if he cleaned them every night, as if there was something magic about them.

  “Go on,” said Pop, his gold tooth flashing and his eyes shut. “Pick one.”

  I picked the Fish Boy. He was a sort of short peasant kid who looked normal, wearing normal clothes, and he held a wooden cup in his hands. And popping out of that cup was a great big catfish, glowering at him, whiskers whipping this way and that. The boy looked scared, his eyes all bulging and goggle-like, and all around him people were gasping, their hands at their mouths. All of them recoiling in fright, or else pointing to laugh. It was a scary card, and a sad one. I don’t know why I picked it, but I did. There was something about it that felt true to me, like maybe I knew how the Fish Boy felt.

  I plucked the card and nearly dropped it. I dunno. It felt as if it was tingling in my hand, like it was moving, like it was alive.

  I saw a grin crawl across my daddy’s face.

  “Very good,” he said.

  I was nervous, I realized, all sweaty. An owl hooted outside Pop’s window. The weird way the moonlight spilled through the cracks in the walls cast an eyeball-pale glow on the table.

  “Now hold that card behind your back,” said Pop, “and grip it tight, lest you drop it, lest it gets blown away.”

  I did it. He snapped the card fans together into one pile, his eyes still shut, his face still turned a little bit away from mine. Then Pop shuffled.

  Oh boy, my daddy shuffling cards was a marvelous thing.

  The cards flapped in long arcs back and forth, like he was playing an accordion. They flew impossibly high and landed right back down in place, they seemed alive and moving, they danced between his palms like they had a mind of their own, they whirlwinded about his head like any moment they would scatter off and fly away like a flock of birds. But he kept them all under control, he always brought them back together as a deck in his palms. It was mesmerizing, I tell you. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

  Pop clapped his hands together like he was praying, then smacked the deck of cards back down on the table. He opened his eyes and peered at me, his grin wide, that gold tooth flashing.

  “Is this your card?” he said.

  He turned over the top card of the deck. There it was, the Fish Boy.

  “But how?” I said. “I got it right here in my hand.”

  I drew my hand from behind my back.

  My palm was empty.

  I looked on the floor to see if I had dropped it. I mean, there had to be another one, right? There had to be two Fish Boys. I grabbed the deck out of his hand and flipped through it. Nope, every card was unique, an individual, and there were no duplicates.

  “But how’d you do that?” I said. “I had my eyes on you the whole time.”

  Pop chuckled.

  “That, my Buddy boy,” he said, “is your problem right there.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “You will one day,” said my daddy. “Of that I am most confident.”

  I must’ve seemed pretty disappointed. Pop spit on his hand and mussed my hair with it. “Don’t you worry now. They’ll be time enough for all that talk. I sure am glad you came, Buddy. It’s about the best gift you could have given me.”

  That was the kindest thing I’d ever been told. It set all the stars in my heart aglow, hearing Pop say that.

  “Now how about we get some shut-eye, eh?” he said.

  I realized then how tired I was, from the travel and the food. I couldn’t remember ever being so wore out.

  Pop slept in a hammock made of old rope that he stretched over the back room of his cabin.

  “I’ll just take the floor,” I said.

  “No sirree, you will not,” said Pop. There was a small lofted space up above us, by the rafters with heaps of junk on it. Pop stood on a chair and fished another hammock out of the loft and tossed it down to me. “Picked this one up not too long ago. You know, just in case.” He winked at me.

  We tied the hammock to two beams and made sure it was good and sturdy. Before too long I was up there swinging, amazed at how comfortable I could feel dangling off the ground like that. I listened to the night sounds, the buzz of bugs, the holler and screech of tree frogs, the flitter of bats, the thousand invisible creatures calling out in the night. I had forgotten how loud and sweet river nights could sound. I forgot what a lovely racket all that nature could make.

  Out the window I watched the far-off clouds coming dark over the water, the moon a soft pale grandmother wishing us well
. I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you this was the best night I ever had.

  Before long I was sleeping. I only just caught a glimpse of Pop sneaking out of the shack, a lamp in his hands.

  “Where are you going?” I mumbled.

  He held one finger up to his lips, met my eyes, and slipped out the door. I fell right back asleep, as if I’d just dreamed the whole thing.

  3

  I WOKE UP TO A hand clapped over my mouth, Pop’s whisper in my ear.

  “Get dressed, Buddy, and hurry.”

  Pop was up already. He had his knife on his belt and a knapsack over his shoulder.

  “What are we doing, Pop?”

  “Shhh.”

  I heard the sound of oars slapping the water. Pop’s eyes grew wide. He thrust his knapsack into my hands.

  “Up in the loft with you!” he said. “Toss that old quilt over you and do not make a peep, promise me? Under no circumstances, not for nothing, unless I tell you otherwise. Got it?”

  I nodded, scared as I was, and did what I was told. A million questions fluttered in my head like moths around a candle flame. But I kept quiet.

  Pop crouched by the window, a knife clutched at his side. I saw him take a deep breath and stick his head out the window, chancing a look over the waters. The night was calm and moonlit, the hush of the river lapping soft against the shore.

  Two arms reached through the window and grabbed Pop by the neck. They yanked him hard into the window frame. His face smacked it. Pop let out a holler and I heard his knife clatter on the floor. A long skinny man dressed in filthy ragged clothes slithered through the window. Pop reached for his knife, and the skinny man kicked it across the room.

  The man stood tall and lanky in the moonlight. He had a thick mustache and four glinting earrings in his left ear. His nose was huge and knotty, like it had been busted half a dozen times.

  “Thinking of using that there blade against me, your old pal Cecily Bob? You thinking of sticking good ol’ Cecily Bob?”

  The man kicked my daddy twice, just sucker-kicked him down there on the floor like he was a sack of grain. In the moonglow I saw Pop’s nose was all bloody and his lip was busted from where it hit the windowpane.

  “Well, well, Cecily Bob, is it? You done worked your way up in the ranks, ain’t you boy?” Pop chuckled, spat some blood on the floor. “First time I saw you they wouldn’t trust you to carry slop to the hogs without a chaperone.”

  Cecily Bob grinned. “Wouldn’t say what I’m doing now is too different from my old days of slop carrying, would you?”

  Pop let out a cackle.

  “Touché, Cecily Bob. Still, you’d think Boss Authority would respect me enough to send someone worth a durn.”

  Cecily Bob whipped a long, chipped knife out of his belt and held it to Pop’s throat.

  “You best watch your mouth, Davey Boy, seeing as how I got the drop on you so easy,” he said, grinning. “Seeing as how you’re the one on the floor and I’m the one with the knife.”

  “Hurry up in there,” called a weaselly voice from outside. “We ain’t getting paid by the hour.”

  Cecily Bob stuck his head out the window and hollered back, “Hold your horses, a’ight? Patience is a . . . a whatsit?”

  “A virtue,” hollered the outside voice. “It’s a virtue!”

  “That wouldn’t happen to be my old buddy Mr. Hugo out there, would it?” said Pop.

  How did Pop know these guys? Sounded like he hadn’t seen them in ages, like they were a part of his life before I was even born. Why were they back now, on the very day I came to see my daddy? What kind of jackpot did he get himself mixed up in?

  “Aye,” said Cecily Bob. “Me and Mr. Hugo sure did miss you, Davey Boy. It sure is good to have you back.”

  “Funny,” said Pop. “Never thought I’d hear old Mr. Hugo talk virtues.”

  “And why not?” said Cecily Bob. He bent down over my daddy. “Virtues is what this is all about. Virtues and the payment of debts, I wouldn’t doubt it. A person ought to pay his debts now, shouldn’t he? Come on now, Davey my boy. A person’s got to pay Boss Authority back what he owes him.”

  Cecily Bob, knife gripped in his teeth, sat on my daddy’s back and bound his arms and legs with a rope while Pop didn’t hardly say a word. I couldn’t understand why Pop lay there and took it.

  “I don’t reckon my odds are stellar at getting myself out of this predicament, no sir,” said Pop. “I don’t reckon I got much of a chance at all.”

  “Now you’re speaking truth,” said Cecily Bob.

  “You’re just the best lackey old Boss Authority ever had, ain’t you?” said Pop. “You’ve come a long way for a no-good bootlicker.”

  Cecily Bob kicked my daddy again. Then he bent down and spoke right in my daddy’s ear.

  “Maybe I get a little too excited with this here blade and you don’t make it there at all, how’s about that?” Cecily Bob chuckled and slipped a gag over Pop’s mouth. “Now that’s much better ain’t it? This here’s for your protection, Davey my boy. It’ll keep you from saying something that might get your throat slit.”

  I was waiting any moment for Pop to wheel around and choke the man out with his ropes. You think being tied up could stop my daddy? No sir. I was waiting on him to spring to his feet and headbutt the man’s teeth in, or maybe wrap him up with his legs and snap his neck. But no, Pop just lay there. I couldn’t understand why. Pop wouldn’t so much as kick the man in the shins.

  That’s when I realized it was because of me. Pop was lying there, not fighting back at all, to keep the men from finding me out. I wasn’t about to let Pop get kidnapped just because I showed up on the wrong durn day, no sir. I crouched in the loft, about to spring on Cecily Bob. I figured at the least I could bite a hole in his neck, give my daddy time enough to split that sucker in half.

  But Pop shot me a look from where he lay on the ground. Our eyes met. His were fierce, and they issued out one single command: Don’t you move, Buddy boy. Remember, you promised. You gave your word.

  My word. That’s something Pop held highly, I remembered that, as do all the best hustlers and Parsnit players. A person’s only as good as their word.

  “You got to pay your debts so’s you can always have credit at the table,” Pop always said. “A man with no credit is a man with no game. Your word’s got to be your bond.”

  “So what happens when the debt’s too high?” I asked him once. “Do you go to jail?”

  “Nah, Buddy boy,” said Pop. “You’re forgetting the very biggest rule of Parsnit there is. You remember it?”

  “Yessir.” I nodded.

  “Tell it to me.”

  I coughed. “The biggest rule of Parsnit is to make sure there ain’t any way for you to lose in the first place.”

  “That’s my boy,” he said, mussing my hair.

  I wasn’t hardly five years old and he was telling me this stuff. It was now so real to me it was like I had it deep under my fingernails. There was no way of getting it out of me. So I kept up in the loft and I made my word my bond and I didn’t leap out and wring Cecily Bob’s neck.

  But durn if it wasn’t the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life.

  Cecily Bob grabbed Pop like a rolled-up carpet and pushed him headfirst out the window. I heard the sound of a thud, like Pop had smacked on something wooden.

  A boat. They were loading him up in a boat, floating right there on the slough.

  Cecily Bob slithered back out the window, thunking down on the boat, where I’m guessing Mr. Hugo waited with my daddy. I could hear the both of them laughing, the slap of oars on water.

  Now I was faced with a conundrum. On the one hand, Pop told me to stay still. He was quite obviously scared, both for his safety and for mine. These men were killers and they’d bested Pop easy, even if he had let them. What chance did I think I had against them? On the other hand, this was my daddy we were talking about, the man I loved more than any other in the world. Heck, I’d
just gotten here, finally met back up with him after years apart, and folks were already stealing him away.

  Frankly, that ticked me off. Who were these men to show up and steal Pop away on the very night I came to see him? The nerve of those guys. So what if they were killers? They had my daddy.

  I scrambled out of the loft with Pop’s knapsack in my hands. I snatched up his knife from the floor and sprinted out the door of the cabin, around back to where Pop kept his skiff. The moon was bright and full, casting a white road down the water. I could see the two men up ahead in a dinghy, rowing fast, my daddy tied up between them.

  If I was going to catch them, I had to hurry.

  I pushed the skiff into the slough and climbed inside. I paddled my way to deeper water, and before I knew it, the river had caught me.

  The current was real strong, I had forgotten that. I had forgotten that even though it looked still and brown and almost solid, like a dirt road, the river was always moving, always churning wild underneath.

  “Water,” Pop always said, “is the most powerful force on earth.”

  Mom would snort. She used to be playful back then, when I was a little kid, back in the swamp. I could remember how she’d give Pop a hard time and then giggle when he snapped back at her.

  “What, pray tell, is so funny about water being the most powerful force on earth?” Pop would say.

  Mom would shake her head. “You’re wrong, David. It ain’t water that’s so powerful. It’s love.”