Midnight Grinding by Ronald Kelly Read Free Book Online Page B

folk speak of in hushed and fearful tones. An eight-legged monstrosity known as “La Sanguinaire.”
     
     
    Larousse would not take him there at first. “It not safe to travel de swamp at night,” the old Cajun warned in his heavy French accent.
    But Douglas Scott Price was accustomed to having his own way. An extra hundred dollars laid across the old man’s leathery palm soon changed his tune.
    The last rays of daylight played through the Spanish moss hanging from ancient cypress trees when the two climbed into Henri Larousse’s pirogue, a canoe-like boat used by many of the trappers and fishermen in the area. “What’s that for?” Price asked his guide when a double-barreled shotgun was laid across the center seat.
    The elderly man shrugged. “De gators, dey would rather eat than sleep. Where we are going, dey be plenty of dem.”
    They began their long journey into the Louisiana bayou in silence. Price sat at the bow of the boat as Larousse rowed. Deeper into the swamp they drifted and deeper did the shadows gather, until the Coleman lantern next to the scattergun had to be lit. It cast an orange glow upon the two men. The lack of conversation was awkward, but they really had nothing to talk about. The only link between them was purely monetary.
    A loon screamed off in the darkness, causing the young man to jump. The elder man chuckled softly and continued to row with slow, even strokes.
    “So, what is it you do for a living?” the Cajun asked. Without conscious thought, he maneuvered the dugout across the dark waters, missing exposed roots and sandbars by mere inches.
    “Oh, nothing really,” Price replied with an air of pomposity. “I was born into old family money. Ever heard of the New England Prices? No? Well, I expected as much. Being independently wealthy tends to mean a lot of free time, but I manage to keep myself busy.”
    Larousse had a good idea what sort of luxuries occupied Doug Price’s time. Ferraris, eighty-foot yachts, and million-dollar thoroughbreds; a wet bar always at hand and a beautiful woman waiting at every point of the compass. Larousse knew his mind as well as he knew his own. Men of wealth and influence…you could almost smell the good fortune exude from them like the odor of some cheap cologne. The Cajun had been born in backwater poverty and had lived that meager life for nearly eighty years. He could sense a rich man a mile away, like a bluetick hound catching the scent of swamp coon upon a midnight breeze.
    Seeing Larousse’s amused eyes in the glow of the lamp, the young man continued. “Despite what you think, old man, I do not spend every waking hour jet-setting with a buxom blonde on my knee and a martini in my hand. No, actually my interests are quite respectable. My passion has always leaned toward the biological sciences, most particularly zoology. I’ve contributed millions to various zoological societies; the Smithsonian, the Audubon, the Sierra. I’ve also devoted much of my time. I’ve traveled the world over collecting rare species of bird, mammal, and insect life, both for public exhibition and for my own private collection.”
    “And so dat be de reason we are here, rowing through the bayou at such an ungodly hour?” asked the guide. “To collect something or other?”
    “Yes,” said Price, a little peeved. “But don’t complain. You’re being well paid for this little foray. In an hour or so, you’ll be back at your humble swamp shanty, stuffing that three hundred inside your mattress. And I’ll leave this godforsaken place with what I came here to find.”
    “And that would be de creature you mentioned before?”
    “That’s correct,” said Price. “A rare species of the order Araneae. The pronunciation of its Latin nomenclature would likely be way over your head, old man, so I won’t even bother. Needless to say, the common name of the arachnid is the striped swamp spider. It has a pale underbelly, the upper shell pitch black with broad