Eternity Swamp by T. C. Tereschak Read Free Book Online

The Hunt
    J.W. was lost, hopelessly lost, not “just turned around a mite” as his daddy used to say. His dogs had taken off after a coon and he couldn’t keep up. They’d gotten so far ahead of him he couldn’t even hear them anymore. He looked up at the inky black sky wishing the clouds would part and give him a little light.
    J.W.’s daddy had told him many things, among them, “Never go huntin’ without three things, son. A sharp knife, a good compass, and a flashlight.” J.W. had two out of the three; the compass was in the ashtray of his truck and now, without any moon or starlight to guide him, he was just some dang fool stumbling around in the dark. His daddy would never have come into an unfamiliar swamp unprepared because daddy hadn’t been a dang fool!
    J.W. missed his daddy something awful and sometimes, like now, questioned whether or not he actually enjoyed coon hunting. What he liked was spending time with daddy, listening to the stories of when he was a boy hunting with granddaddy. Everything back then seemed so much grander.
    J.W. asked himself if he wasn’t really out here hunting for his daddy’s ghost, or warm memories, instead of coon. He sighed, holding back a tear. Daddy was gone. Cancer had eaten away his pancreas, dead at forty-seven. It didn’t seem right.
    His daddy had sweated out twenty-seven years at the paper mill in Port St. Joe and when he finally made foreman, no more swing shift work, no more pulling doubles, he got cancer. J.W., his mama and sisters had all prayed so hard for him. But God had taken him anyway. Selfish bastard.
    J.W. hadn’t spoken to God since his daddy’s passing but the more he staggered around, getting even more twisted up in this swamp, the closer he got to saying, maybe, just a small prayer to ask for help.
    He cussed himself, asking why he’d come all the way up here and why he hadn’t stayed back in home in Sneads, where he knew the terrain. Bobby Barlow—he’s why; Bobby, and his tall tales about forty pound coons with thick, rich pelts; big, blowhard, braggart Bobby Barlow. Bobby always had the nicer pelts though, so come up here he did.
    J.W. didn’t like this swamp, not one bit. It had an eerie feel to it. It wasn’t like any place he’d ever hunted before. Every snap of a twig or rustling of a bush made him jump. And the wind . It sounded like people screaming, somewhere, far off in the distance.
    He couldn’t shake the feeling someone or something was following him. His heart pounded and his palms began to sweat. He tried to control his breathing, relax and remain calm. His brain had formulated the first words of a prayer when a loud snap, close behind him, sent him spinning around and leveling his rifle.
    At the same moment, the clouds parted revealing a beautiful full moon and an odd looking little man popped out from behind a bush. He brushed himself off, looking rather embarrassed. He was bare-chested, wearing dirty bib overalls and knee high rubber boots, with his pant legs tucked in. He sported a week’s growth of white facial hair and his blue eyes sparkled in the moonlight.
    “Howdy. Oops, sorry…I didn’t mean to startle you. I saw you comin’ through those trees, a totin’ that gun there and I didn’t want you a goin’ off shootin’ at me, ha, ha. What’re ya out after, coon? Yeah, I love me some huntin’, I surely do.
    The toothless old timer was chomping nervously on a wad of chewing tobacco. Watching him gum the chaw, almost made J.W. laugh.
    Still shaking, J.W. lowered his rifle but continued to eye this fellow up but good. He couldn’t say why, he knew he’d never laid eyes on him before, but somehow, he seemed familiar. Then it hit him, his granddaddy. This fellow didn’t look like granddaddy, not as J.W. remembered him anyway. His granddaddy had died when J.W. was eight and the memories were now beginning to fade with time, it was more the way he spoke, the pattern of a slow, deliberate drawl and he smelled