Free The Brat by Gil Brewer

riverbank itself.
    A boat. A canoe. A dugout. A skiff would have been a dream, even knowing the tortures of the river waters.
    I sprawled on the edge of the black bank of earth and roots, listening, trying to ease the pain in my side. I cursed them all, a little out of my head for the moment. Gradually, the pain began to dissipate as I caught my breath, lying there. There was no sound from back toward the hotel. I had run farther than I’d figured. There wasn’t even the sound of a car’s engine. And it was now that I became, for the first time, conscious of the insects all around.
    The river led on down past the Hellings', and just at that point melded with swamp channels. The swamp itself lay just beyond the far bank of the river, or at least this section of it. And out of it, now, roofing the night like some cacaphonous dirge, came the staccato bursts and shrieking eddies of swamp sound. Nearby, a large bird found its way out of the water, black wings flapping heavily, splashing into the darkness.
    I scrambled to the top of the bank and started moving.
    Since DeGreef was sheriff down here, he’d know where the Hellings lived. He could drive over there and be waiting for me.
    At the same time, I had to go, whether I wanted to or not. I had to find her. She’d played me for the biggest kind of sucker. Just thinking that way seemed to bring on more strength, the old adrenalin pumping.
    The mangroves weren’t thick along here—if I’d had to plow through them, I might not have made it. As it was, it was bad. The mosquitoes started at me out of the dark. Once they found me, they descended in roaring swarms. I was wearing a shirt and trousers. I buttoned the cuffs of the sleeves and neck and turned the collar up and kept moving.
    Out there in the dark, the river purled silently, moving down and down into the swamp. Tall cypress trees hovered against the paling sky, and the jungle gradually began to thicken. I’d left the last of Hagar’s Point behind now. I knew that sooner or later I’d have to take to the road over there to my right….
    DeGreef was something. A real character. It was no good being on his list. He was out to get me, or know the reason why. A local sheriff with the ambitions and maybe even the abilities of a metropolitan police inspector. What the hell was he doing down here? Everything about him read deadly. I wondered if it read right?
    Then I remembered Berk Kaylor. Some of the sickness began to stir inside me, building and building.
    I paused for a moment in the darkness, standing against the smooth side of a banyan. Trailing roots prowled the heavy, motionless air. You could almost hear things growing in the rich, choking, jungle damp. There was the strong smell of musky rot and fresh green birth.
    Here I was. The car was gone—DeGreef most have seen to that. Losing the car might be one of the worse things. I thought of trying to find it, and for a moment, panic touched me. I was alone, and the loneliness abruptly was pronounced.
    And I was sick. Sick deep down inside, all of it caused by what was in my mind. I shoved away from the tree and started across a field of palmetto, thinking about the time Evis told me of a certain snake that inhabited these parts. It came out only at night. In your bare feet, you would step on it, and it would bite between the toes, and you would die.
    The river curved in and out, meandering, high-banked, black. Pushing through underbrush and occasional jungle growth, I heard the sounds of things in the river. The low, throaty grunt just at that moment when silence ruled. The splash and settling of a colossal body.
    Finally the going became too rough. I was making no headway at all, and thoughts of what I was walking through and into began to play on my imagination so badly I decided to take to the road.
    I kept thinking about Evis. Dwelling on her. How it would be when I saw her. How she would look. And it was one crazy hellish thing, the way she was still inside me;