Lizard World by Terry Richard Bazes Read Free Book Online Page B

provisions was tied securely on the foredeck. Finally he lit his cigar and reluctantly took a seat beside his pain-in-the-ass sister while that good-for-nothin’ Vergil, looking dazed and sneaky as he always did, stood at the wheel guiding the boat among the overhanging wisteria and wild magnolia that nearly choked the passage of the narrow river. Earl could see up ahead that the branches were so dense that the boat would have to shove them apart. Secretly he felt a deep affection for this thwarted, slimy stream. The Sagawummy River was too weak and skinny to make it onto a bona fide map, but it had the staying power of a spiteful dwarf and reached its tiny arm all the way down to the teeming crotch of the great Florida swamp.
           “You two morons’ll run us aground if we can’t see what’s up ahead,” he shouted.
           So Lemuel Lee switched on the searchlight, since it was gettin’ to be sunset, and shambled to the back of the boat so as he could nap, but be close enough if the prisoner or the goat started actin’ up. He closed his eyes and sighed. He knew that he was outa sorts on account a his mysterious condition. Whenever he had that horsefly dream, it always left him like this the day after -- feelin’ tired and sort a delicate. The funny thing about that dream was how it always started out the same -- how it hurt at first to have the wings sprout and felt strange to look through them eyes, like he was lookin’ through a hundred TV sets all at once. Of course the first few times it had happened, he hadn’t noticed much. But then when he’d seen how tuckered out he was on the day after he’d been flyin’ in his dreams, it had struck him all at once that maybe what Old Hattie had told him about shapeshiftin’ might deserve a closer look. And after a while, it had got so that he could control it. He would fly up above his body while he was sleepin’ there on his bed in his BVD’s and he would buzz around lookin for an open window. And one night, just as an experiment, he’d flown into Uncle Earl’s kitchen and seen a penny lyin’ on the table. Well, as soon as he woke up, he’d rushed to Uncle Earl’s house -- and when he saw that same damn penny lyin’ on the kitchen table in the mornin’ daylight, then he knew sure as hell that it was true. So next time that horsefly dream happened again, well, he just flew all the way to Darlene Frummer’s house, squeezed his wings in through a broken screen -- and seen her lyin’ in her Double-D cups on the bed. But of course he was just a horsefly then and couldn’t do a goddamn thing. But still it was good to know you had the gift -- and goddamn useful if you was meant to be a soldier.
           “Lem! Wake up! Time to feed the goat -- and give junior here his slops.”
           The prisoner, tied hand and foot and gagged as usual so he would shut the hell up, was sprawled in the seat opposite, his fatty legs apart, his fancy socks all muddy, that big can of his wedged between the tackle box and the hindquarters a the goat. Lemuel Lee got to his feet and grabbed the slops jar and the spoon. Why did he always have to be the one that did the feedin’?
           “Okay, fatty, time fer yer yum-yum.”
           Once again Smedlow winced as the duct tape was ripped off and the spoon came plunging in: but this time he was prepared -- and spat into the face of his assailant.
           “Why you little!” said Lemuel Lee and cracked him in the forehead with the spoon.
           The pain was sharp, but Smedlow was more incensed by the indignity. He tried to shout: but, once again, his mouth was stuffed and taped. That little weasel was a lot stronger than he looked. And the woman, too -- who was squinting malignantly while pushing down his shoulders -- had remarkably strong, crushing hands. If there was any hope for sympathy, it was from that wiry fellow they called Earl.
    So Smedlow put on his most pitiful