A Crying Shame by William W. Johnstone Read Free Book Online Page A

of puke to begin with.
    The Links have been here for hundreds of years—thousands, probably—making no attempt to leave. They have bred with ... perhaps two hundred human females in the past one hundred and fifty years. I’m guessing at that. If this genetic malfunction had not occurred—if that is what really happened—in another 75-100 years they would probably have bred themselves right into the human race. And, when they had accomplished that dubious distinction, they would probably have looked back with great longing toward the swamps, wishing to God they were back in there, picking fleas off one another in a ritual of grooming.”
    Mike was shocked at the mercenary’s blunt statement.
    You can’t be that unfeeling toward the human race.”
    Only toward the adults. And I assure you, I am.”
    All right, I’ll accept your ... outrage, if that is the right word. Disgust. Whatever. Perhaps ... no, I’m sure you’ve seen enough to make you ... jaundiced. But now, assuming all this ... bullshit you’ve been spouting is true, the Links have killed. Why?”
    Paul stood in the way of a woman they wanted.” The mercenary smiled.Whatever else they may be, they certainly have good taste in women.”
    I don’t find that amusing, Jon. And I agree with you: you don’t have much use for the human race.”
    Only the adults,” Jon corrected. For a moment, the adventurer’s thoughts were flung back in time: to Africa, southeast Asia, Algiers, many other ports of call. He recalled the suffering of the homeless, the starving kids, the pitiful elderly, the ruined countryside, the broken dreams and the broken bodies. Like many meres, Jon Badon had, on more than one occasion, fought for nothing of any monetary value—just for what he thought was fair and right. And he felt nothing but contempt for the petty, grasping, greedy, selfish, self-centered, and comfortable people of all races who allowed another human being to starve to death in a filthy ditch while they sought dubious self-gratification with expensive toys and country clubs, giving their snot-nosed brats everything they wanted—except discipline and a set of honorable values.
    Jon looked at the sheriff. He said nothing. He didn’t have to say anything. The cold look in those pale gray eyes spoke volumes.
    Sheriff Mike Saucier got the accurate impression that the conversation was over for a time.
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    Deep in the darkness of the Crying Swamp, hidden by cleverly constructed living plants and shrubs, a father mourned for his dead son. He mourned silently, his tears his only sign that he felt any emotion at all. The huge adult Link wept with his face turned from the others of his kind. Even though his son had been one of those that had mysteriously turned savage, killing and raping at random, he nevertheless felt a keen sense of loss, sharp and cutting. The father was a third generation—let us call them what Badon and Paul Breaux called them—Link. He was very humanlike in many ways. It took five generations for the Links to produce—through their human mates—a Link that would pass for human. A human link to the past. A living, breathing, bleeding chain to history.
    Before the white humans came, several hundred years past, the Links had been almost pure in their form. Animals, but with a definite social order. They ate only fish and berries and wild sweet potatoes—yams—and certain other palatable roots, which they knew instinctively would cure some ailments and aid their digestive systems. They knew enough to strip the bark from certain trees, including oak, soak it in water, and drink the liquid for sickness. They were as civilized then as many forms of so-called intelligent beings. They did not kill for sport; they did not kill for the sake of killing; they did not make war. They learned to live in harmony with those around them. They took mates, cared for their