“I don’t see no old men around here.” Tereau puffed on the cigarette and flicked it into the fire.
“Why’d you want to come with me, Avery? You ain’t never been one to break the law,” he said.
“Since they took the farm I got nothing else to do. Breaking the law seems like a good enough way to pass the time.”
“If you don’t end up busting rocks on a work gang.”
“They never caught you.”
“That’s because I been at it a long time. My grand-daddy taught me all the tricks when I was a little boy. When he was a young man he sold moon to both the Confederate and Federal army, except he might have added some lye or fertilizer when he sold it to the Yankees. I hope you ain’t planning on making this your life’s work.”
“You’d put me out of business.”
There was a rustle in the bushes, and two men came into the clearing. They were bootleggers who picked up Tereau’s whiskey to run it through the marsh downriver to Morgan City, and eventually to New Orleans and the dry counties in Mississippi. The whiskey was sold for four dollars a gallon at the still and twelve dollars a gallon at the retailers. It was clear and tasted like Scotch, and sometimes coloring was added and the whiskey was sold with a bonded Kentucky label, although its maker had never been out of Louisiana. The bootleggers were sunburned, rawboned men; their hands and faces were smeared with mud and handkerchiefs were tied around their necks to protect them from the mosquitoes; they were dressed in heavy work trousers and denim shirts with battered sweat-soaked straw hats. They were from the Atchafalaya basin, where there is nothing but lowlands, swamps, mud-choked bayous, scrubby timber so thick it is almost impassable in places, and swarming clouds of mosquitoes that can put a man to bed with a fever.
The bootleggers came into the light of the fire. Their names were LeBlanc and Gerard. LeBlanc was the taller of the two, with an old army .45-caliber revolver stuck down in his belt. He was dark and slender, and his eyes were bright in the light. Gerard was thick-necked, unshaved, with heavy shoulders that were slightly stooped; he had long muscular arms and a crablike walk. He cut a slice off his tobacco plug and dropped it into his mouth.
“You all are late tonight,” Tereau said.
“We had to take the long way,” LeBlanc said. “State police is on the river.”
“We’re going to have to change our pickup night. They got it figured when we move our stuff,” Gerard said.
LeBlanc looked at Avery.
“Who’s the boy?” he said.
“He’s all right,” Tereau said.
“What’s your name?”
“Avery Broussard.”
“I reckon Tereau told you it ain’t good to talk about what you see in the marsh at night,” he said.
“He told me.”
“Tereau says he’s all right,” Gerard said.
“Sure he’s all right,” LeBlanc said. “I’m just making sure he understands how we do things down here.”
“He knows,” Tereau said. “Where’s the boat?”
“Down in the willows. We got it covered up good,” Gerard said.
Avery looked at the wild stare in LeBlanc’s eyes.
“There’s too much moonlight. You can see us for a half mile on the river. We had to come down the bayou,” LeBlanc said.
Tereau went to the wagon to get tin cups for their coffee. “I got some rabbit. You want to eat?” he said.
“We ain’t got time. It’s about four hours till dawn. We got to reach Morgan City before daylight,” LeBlanc said.
They sat down on the log while Tereau filled their cups. LeBlanc stretched out his legs and removed the pistol from his belt and placed it on the log.
“Do you use that thing?” Avery said.
“They ain’t nobody around to say I have,” he said. He picked it up and rolled the cylinder across his palm. “I got it in the army.” He snapped the cylinder open into a loading position and snapped it back again. His eyes were hard and distant as he looked into the fire. “They teach you how to shoot real good in the army. I was a B.A.R. man. I could knock down nips at a thousand yards with a Browning.”