The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp (19 page)

Sweetums was in a hurry too. “Heads up, people!” he said. But before he could really process his family's failures of comprehension . . .
rumble, rumble, rumble, rumble
 . . . he scrambled for his place underneath Chap's bed. The floorboards shook. The bed above him shook. What if the bed fell on top of him? He shot out from under there. But the open room was too . . . open.

The closet!

He darted into the farthest corner and curled into a very tight ginger ball. He had done what he could.

Rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble.

I
N THE CAFÉ, THE LAST
of the regular customers had just rolled away when Chap looked through the kitchen window and saw the Hummer roll in. Like it had before, it took up the entire parking lot and then some.

As Chap watched, the driver hurried to the side doors and swung them open. Twenty-four people, including Sonny Boy and Jaeger, stepped onto the red gravel surface. Chap could see that all of them were dressed in fancy suits and shiny shoes; the mayor and her husband even wore matching scarves. None of their outfits were suitable for mucking about in the swamp. In their hands each of them held a gold-plated shovel. Chap watched as one by one the dignitaries leaned their shovels against the porch rail.

“Guess they're gonna eat pies first, then do the ceremony,” said Coyoteman Jim. Chap could tell that was right. The golden shovels gleamed in the afternoon sun.

“Pies for everyone,” ordered Sonny Boy Beaucoup as they filed in through the door. In the kitchen, the sound
of Sonny Boy's voice scraped against Chap's insides. The knot of humiliation that had smacked him earlier reared back and smacked him again. Whatever manliness he had acquired over the past few days flew right out the window. Worst of all, Chap now knew exactly what it meant to “be put in one's place.”

Face it, old Chap, he thought. You lost.

But as he waited for the twenty-four dignitaries to take their seats, he made a decision. He might have lost, but he was not a loser. He was
not
going to let Sonny Boy Beaucoup, with his stupid socks, know that he, Audie Brayburn's grandson, had been bested. His mind raced over the image of the greater roadrunner his grandfather had drawn in the sketchbook, the one with the heart drawn over its breast. It rested on the word “greater.” “Greater Chaparral.” That's what it said. Not “greater roadrunner.” Not “lesser roadrunner.” Greater Chaparral.

And with that in mind, he straightened into his full six-foot-plus frame. He might be a boy, but he was a tall boy. Taller than Sonny Boy. Taller than Jaeger Stitch. Taller even than the mayor and her husband.

Like trees.
Grandpa's voice whispered in his ear.

With that, Chap walked out of the kitchen with a heaping tray of fresh, hot fried sugar pies and started serving them up. As soon as the dignitaries got a whiff of them,
they dug in. All you could hear was chewing and chomping.

The smell of sugar filled the air.

Finally, the mayor said, “My, those were wonderful.” She wiped her mouth with her napkin and grinned. That was followed by many, many compliments. When everyone was finished, Sonny Boy tried to hand Chap a stack of bills. “Here,” he said, “this should cover it.”

Chap looked at the stack. He could see that it was way more money than was called for. “I threw in a little tip,” Sonny Boy said. Then he started laughing his ridiculous laugh. Chap was used to tips. Most of their customers left tips. But this was more than a tip. It was something else. It was pity. Sonny Boy thrust it at him again. “Here, boy,” he said. But Chap just stood there. He wanted nothing to do with Sonny Boy's money or his pity.

And even though there were more than two dozen people in the same room with him, Chap felt more alone than ever. The cloud of lonesome that his grandpa had left behind sat right between his shoulder blades.

While Chap stood there, staring at the wad of cash in Sonny Boy's outstretched hand, Chap's mother walked up. He would let her handle the money. But instead of reaching out for it, she put a dab of flour on Chap's cheek. And in that simple gesture, Chap felt the smallest bit of courage.

“Keep it,” he told Sonny Boy. “It's on the house.”

T
HEY SAY THAT LIGHTNING NEVER
strikes in the same place twice, but the same is not true for courage. As it turns out, when courage strikes, it almost always begets more courage.

“Whatever,” said Sonny Boy, staring at Chap, who suddenly seemed way too tall to be a twelve-year-old boy. Sonny Boy tucked the wad of bills back into his pocket. Then he and Jaeger led the rest of the groundbreaking contingency out the front door. One by one they collected their gold-plated shovels.

While they were doing that, Chap Brayburn, filled with twice-struck courage, rushed to the back porch. He swung open the door and hauled the pirogue, now two-thirds filled with cash, down the steps and into the yard. The groundbreakers would have to walk right by it, and sure enough there they came.

Chap blurted out to Sonny Boy, “Here you go, Mr. Beaucoup.
As long as you're taking cash, you might as well take a boatload.”

Sonny Boy stopped in his tracks. Chap could tell that he had not expected that. So he added, “It was a deal, remember?” Sonny Boy tried to ignore Chap. He looked over his shoulder. He brushed the front part of his seersucker suit and straightened his tie. Then he waved for the shovelers to press ahead.

But first, the mayor chimed in, “You made a deal with this young man? What deal?” By then Chap's mother and Coyoteman Jim had caught up with the crowd.

Chap could see that Sonny Boy felt cornered. His jaw tightened. He clenched his teeth. His freckles popped out against the skin of his pale cheeks. Jaeger stepped up next to him. Her eyes blazed.

Chap spoke up, “A deal—a boatload of cash.” He didn't mention the Sugar Man.

“That's exactly what you said,” added his mother. She walked up next to Chap.

“Sure I did,” said Sonny Boy, trying to get his jaw loose enough to smile. Then he pointed to the pirogue. “But surely you don't call
that
a boat?” He paused. “When I said a ‘boat,' I meant something along the lines of a yacht.” All at once, Chap realized how small the little pirogue was, only large enough for two, himself and his grandfather.
Somehow the bills that rested inside it looked pathetic.

And with that, Sonny Boy said, “Does anybody see a
boat
here?”

“I don't see a boat,” said one of the dignitaries.

“Boat?”

“Is that a boat?”

“Rather picayune, if you ask me.”

Picayune?
What does that even mean?

Then, to Chap's disbelief, Sonny Boy took his toe and turned the pirogue onto its side. The small bills that had been set in there so lovingly by Chap and his mother and Coyoteman Jim, set there with so much hope, went floating out into the afternoon air. Some of them flew into the trees, some of them wafted into the pricker vines and stuck there. Most of them just sat beside the boat in a modest heap.

“Oops,” said Sonny Boy. (We believe that is the third “oops” we've heard recently.) As if that weren't bad enough, Sonny Boy said, “I don't suppose you've seen the Sugar Man, too?” Sonny Boy's laughter rolled over Chap's crushed heart. And if that wasn't bad enough, Jaeger stepped in with her own brand of humor. “I don't suppose pigs fly,” she said, whereupon another gale of laughter engulfed the group.

Chap wanted to spit on Jaeger Stitch, but then he decided that he didn't want to waste his good spit. Instead, he crossed his arms and spun around. He couldn't look at them
anymore, couldn't look at his grandfather's boat, lying on its side.

Chap closed his eyes as tight as he could to keep the hot, furious tears from rolling down his cheeks. Finally, he opened them again and turned back toward the bayou. He could see the backs of the groundbreakers as they marched in a single line toward the canebrake. With their gold-plated shovels over their shoulders, they looked like horrid little trolls, going to dig a hole that would drain the entire swamp.

Chap felt like he was caught in their hideous whirlpool. To keep from being sucked under, he sat down hard, right on the ground, and dropped his burning face into his hands.

But then he had a horrible thought: The groundbreakers were on the trail to the canebrake. With his heart pounding in his chest, he realized,
Oh no!
Each one of the dignitaries was a walking, talking target for . . .
Crotalus horridus.
Canebrake rattlers.

He might have hated all of those gold-plated shovelers, but he was still . . . “Wait!” he called. “Wait!” He ran after them.

But instead of heeding his pleas, Sonny Boy turned around and snapped at him. “Haven't we had enough out of you, kid?”

“Snakes!” said Chap.

But the marchers just kept on marching.

I
N THE DEEPEST, DARKEST RECESSES
of Chap's closet, Sweetums curled his ginger body into a ginger ball. The
rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble
s were making him shed. He was a sorry sight.

F
OR AN EVEN SORRIER SIGHT,
take a look at Sonny Boy Beaucoup's socks. As he walked down the trail behind his merry band, Jaeger in the lead, his socks kept getting snagged on the pricker vines, which seemed to reach for them. Step. Snag. Step. Snag.

He finally leaned down to pull one of the burrs out. “Ouch!” The points were sharp. They poked into his fingertips.

Then he stumbled over another pricker vine. He reached for it. “Ouch!” A drop of blood pooled on his fingertip. For a moment he felt a little woozy. He had never been very good at the sight of blood, especially his own.

But this blood was even worse because it reminded him of the bloody deal that sat on the family mantel. Chiding the boy about the Sugar Man had unnerved him more than he wanted to admit. What if . . . The words of his great-great-greater-greatest-grandfather's deal seared into his sight: “risk
the wrath of the Sugar Man
.” Then his own
words rose into his ears . . .
If I see some proof of the Sugar Man, I'll give you the whole darned swamp.

He started to stick his fingers into his mouth, but thought better of it and pulled out his silk handkerchief. After all, he had plenty of them. He could spare this one. Once he stanched the bleeding, he let the handkerchief fall to the ground. He wouldn't miss it. Nor would he miss this swamp, especially when it became the Gator World Wrestling Arena and Theme Park. Who would?

“Nobody who matters,” he said out loud. With that, he made a promise to himself. As soon as he returned to the Homestead, he would burn that freaking document, and for good measure he would toss in the mounted woodpecker specimen along with it. Enough with the past. It was time to look forward.

It was also time to look ahead. As in
down
the trail. Because if he had, he would have seen why the entire group of twenty-three shovelers suddenly turned around and ran
up
the trail, straight toward him, screaming bloody murder.

“Snakes!”

“Rattlesnakes!”

“They're everywhere!”

“Run for your lives!”

Sure enough, Jaeger Stitch and her groupies had come
face-to-face with a buzzing, writhing, hissing hive of
Crotalus horridus
—in the hundreds. Make that
thousands.
Okay,
tens of thousands
! Including one CHG—Gertrude!

Chichichichi!

A
ND THAT
'
S THE WARNING THAT
the unfortunate hogs did not receive, coming as they were from the opposite direction, because only minutes later they saw that wild muscovado sugar, and hallelujah, pass the gravy, they dug in. But it wouldn't have mattered if they had gotten the message, because snakes were no concern of theirs.

In their sugar haze, they rooted and tooted. They snorted and squealed. They gobbled and gorged.

“WWWHHHEEEEEEEE . . . OOOOOOHHHHHH . . . WWWWHHHHEEEEEEE . . . OOOHHHHHHH . . . WWWWWHHHEEEEE . . . OOOOHHHH.”

Those hogs noshed until the hogs came home. (Sorry, couldn't resist.) They tore through that cane, ripping it out of the ground and tramping it and stamping it and mostly, hogging it. They paid no attention to the startled rattlesnakes, who slithered into the deepest end of the bayou, where they shivered so hard that they stirred the water up and made it look like chocolate soup.

Even Gertrude was too rattled to rattle. She quickly wound her enormous body around the trunk of a sturdy pine tree and shivered.

So, you can just imagine how mad the Sugar Man was when he saw those hogs rampaging through his wild sugarcane. First, he lifted Bingo and J'miah off his shoulders and set them on the branches of the same pine tree that Gertrude had embraced. They clung for dear life. Then, it's safe to say, that Sugar Man went wild. Hog wild.

He reached for the biggest of the batch, which just happened to be Buzzie, and with one hand the Sugar Man grabbed that hog's back leg and swung him around and around in a huge circle. He looked like a helicopter with a big fat bristly blade.

“Clyyyyydddiiiine!” yelled Buzzie, just before the Sugar Man let loose. Oh boy, did he let loose. That hog flew. Yep, you heard it, he flew through the hot, humid air of the swamp, way above the trees, up into the gathering clouds and straight toward the planets, like a big fat comet with a little curly tail.

He was followed by Clydine, who was trailed by all fifteen of their airborne progeny. If you looked straight up, it would seem like a porcine meteor shower, that's how high the Sugar Man tossed them.