The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp (6 page)

And that's when the man said, “You must be Audie Brayburn's grandson. I'm Sonny Boy Beaucoup. And this lovely lady is Jaeger Stitch.”

Chap's jaw must have dropped open six inches. As it turns out, he knew exactly who Jaeger Stitch was: the World Champion Gator Wrestler of the Northern Hemisphere. He had seen her before on television. What he didn't know was what she was doing at Paradise Pies Café at the crack of dawn.

Was she here to help Sonny Boy collect his boatload of cash? Chap's hand started to shake. Surely their lease wasn't up yet, was it? Didn't they have a little more time? He gripped the handle of the coffeepot so hard that his knuckles turned white. Hot bitter coffee sloshed inside the pot.

He knew it wouldn't be very mannish to pour the hot liquid right in Sonny Boy's lap, but he had a hard time resisting, especially when Sonny Boy looked directly at him and said, “Boy, you've got flour on your nose.”

E
VEN THOUGH HE HAD ONLY
been asleep for a few hours, Bingo opened his eyes. It was still dark, but the air had that “in between” feel to it, that it's-not-quite-night but it's also not-quite-day-either quality.

His stomach growled. Despite his weariness from Mission Longleaf, he was having a hard time sleeping over the ruminations of his belly. What if he had a little pre-sunrise snack? What if he just slipped out of the DeSoto and grabbed a handful of ripe dewberries? What if he went right there and hurried back, lickety-split?

He knew exactly where those dewberries grew. Right around the bend near Possum Hollow. And, if he hurried, he might be able to snatch them off the vines before the possums even knew about it.

The truth was, the possums of Possum Hollow were greedy about those dewberries. And they had very sharp,
pointy teeth, which they weren't afraid to use. But who made them kings of the patch?

So,
hi ho
, young Scout. It's Mission Dewberry or bust.

B
UST
? D
ID SOMEONE SAY BUST
?
Chap wiped the flour off his nose. If he'd only had an egg in his hand, he would have busted it right on Sonny Boy's head.

Before he could bust something else, namely the coffeepot in his hand, his mother walked up. Chap stood beside her and rocked back and forth on his heels. His mom reached over and put her hand on his shoulder to make him stop. Together they stared at the plans spread out on the table before them.

There, in bold letters, they saw the words: “The Gator World Wrestling Arena and Theme Park.”

They also saw that it would take up a significant portion of the Sugar Man Swamp.
Grandpa Audie's swamp!
While Chap stared at the plans, he realized that there would be acres and acres of concrete. How many trees would have to be chopped down? A thousand? Ten thousand? More?

The familiar flame rose up in Chap's throat. He could
see his grandfather's outstretched arms, hear his voice say,
This is paradise, old Chap.
But Chap knew that without the trees there wouldn't be much paradise. He stared at the plans, at the blank white space where the concrete would be poured for a parking lot. Suddenly, the blank white space reminded Chap of the blank white page in Grandpa Audie's sketchbook, the one left open for the ivory-billed woodpecker. If Sonny Boy's plans became real, the page would always be just that: blank. Trees didn't grow in concrete. Without the trees, the woodpecker could never come back. IBWO. Ghost bird.

Right then, Chap felt the ghost of his grandfather beside him. He rocked forward onto his toes, as if he might launch his body straight through the ceiling of the café.

Chap watched the right corner of his mother's mouth twitch again. She wiped her hands on her apron. He kept his own mouth clamped tight. Sonny Boy drawled, his voice as thick as honey, “Like I said in my notice, come up with a boatload of cash, and you can stay till the gators come home.” Then he and Jaeger Stitch started laughing, like that was the most hilarious thing they'd ever heard of.

Chap gripped the handle of the coffeepot. His mother pressed down hard on his shoulder. Say something, he told himself. A man would say something, wouldn't he? So, in as calm a manner as he could muster, he said, in his lowest
voice, “But what about the woodpecker?”

That sent Sonny Boy into a paroxysm of laughter. Chap waited, his jaw tightened. His mother kept her hand tight on his shoulder. Finally, Sonny Boy looked at them and tried to collect himself. But in between his guffaws he laid his right palm on the rolled-out paper and added, “That old bird is just like the raven—nevermore.”

Nevermore?
Never more?
Chap couldn't stand it. Without thinking, he blurted out, “Okay. Then, what about the Sugar Man?” Immediately, he knew he had made a mistake. Even though his grandpa had never told him to keep the Sugar Man a secret, Chap understood that it was best not to bring him up. Regret raced across his face.

But instead of pressing Chap for further information, Sonny Boy and Jaeger thought
that
was the funniest thing of all.

“Look, kid,” said Sonny Boy, wiping the spit off his mouth and pausing to finish his coffee. Chap waited. Then Sonny Boy delivered his lowest blow yet. “Aren't you getting a little old for fairy tales?”

In an instant, Chap's regret turned back to anger. The fire in his throat grew. He sealed his lips. Otherwise he was sure flames would shoot out. Besides, he didn't have one other thing to say. Zero. Nada. Zilch.

Sonny Boy ignored him, then smiled at Chap's mother
and told her again, “If you want to stay here, I'll need a boatload of cash.”

Then together, Sonny Boy and Jaeger Stitch gathered up their plans, stood up, and pushed their chairs away from the table. They didn't do the courteous thing and push them back. They didn't even wait to eat the pies they had ordered; nor did they offer to pay for them. No, they just walked away. But before Sonny Boy went through the front door, he turned around and said, “Hey, kid. I'll make you a deal. If I see some proof of the Sugar Man, I'll give you the whole darned swamp.” Then he burst into laughter again. “Yep,” he said. “Nothing less.” And as a parting shot, he added, “I'll sign it in blood.”

Chap watched the door slam. His chest rose and fell. For a full five seconds he stood paralyzed, until at last he rushed onto the porch and watched Sonny Boy and Jaeger climb into their superstretch Hummer. As they backed out, leaving a wide pair of ruts in the red dirt of the parking lot, Chap shouted, “It's a deal!”

What he knew: He and his mom had about as much chance of filling a boat with money
or
finding proof of the Sugar Man as pigs had of flying.

I
T
'
S TRUE THAT PIGS CAN
'
T
fly, but we're here to talk about hogs. In 1539 or thereabouts, the conquistador Hernando de Soto (after whom our Information Headquarters is named) sailed from Spain to the New World. In his company of seven ships and two caravels, there were 520 horses and 200 hogs.

You heard me. Two hundred hunky honkin' hogs!

Some of those hogs died at sea. Some of them were gobbled up by the conquistadors. But some, once the boats docked, escaped and formed their own colonies. Those were the first hogs to set foot on American soil.

It turns out that Hernando de Soto was not a very nice person. He pillaged and looted and generally wreaked mayhem wherever he went. He also wore a heavy suit of metal armor, which, unlike natural fabrics, did not “breathe.” And since he didn't bathe very often, it's fair to say that he was rank. Seriously, swamp gas couldn't
compete. He's buried somewhere at the bottom of the Mississippi River, and good riddance.

It also turns out that the descendants of de Soto's hogs weren't very nice either. They are still conquering parts of North America, which we'll discover soon enough.

I'
M THINKING IT
'
S SOON ENOUGH,
young grasshoppers, because the sorry truth is, the Farrow Gang was on the march.

There are hogs, and then there are
bad
hogs (emphasis on “
bad
”).

Clarification: Wild feral hogs are not to be confused with the native peccaries, also known as javelinas. Peccaries have been here all along. Just check the fossil records.

They are smaller than the hogs, and even though they look like pigs, peccaries are really not true pigs. There are some who think that they're related to the hippopotamus. Seriously. Now, don't laugh. And just like the hippopotamus, you can't round them up and turn them into pets. That's for sure.

Of course, you can't round up a wild hog and turn it into a pet either. A wild hog is just that: wild.

On the morning he was born, Buzzie's mama bellowed in glee at her son's badness. “This one is going down in boar history,” she exclaimed.

Right away she named him Buzz Saw Farrow. Buzzie for short. Buzzie lived up to his name. Before he even lost his baby tusks, no boar was better at uprooting a pasture. No hog ever did so much damage to a creek bottom. He muddied it up so much that the water came to a complete standstill.

Not since those conquistador hogs stepped off Hernando's boats and cleverly escaped into the Floridian wilderness had there been such a wily hog. Not only that, but Buzzie was enormous, weighing in at almost four hundred pounds. He was a veritable buzz saw of a hog. Nothing could stop him. Nothing.

Except Clydine.

At the moment
she
was born, her daddy declared, “This is the baddest little sow I've ever seen.” And she was. As soon as she could stand on her stout little legs, she tore through an entire soybean field. She ruined a season's crop of peanuts. And she plowed under a pasture where a flock full of little lambs stood cornered in the far side with nothing at all to eat. It was a sorry sight.

Clydine grew and grew and grew. Soon, she was almost as large as Buzzie. So when they met, it was a match made in hog heaven. He immediately fell in love with her soft sow's ears. She immediately went gaga over his yellow gleaming eyes and his razor-sharp tusks. He was so crazy about her
that on their first date he dug up three acres of tobacco and let her chew up every leaf.

The next time they got together, she took him to a watering hole and tramped it down until there was not one drop of water left, only muck. They wallowed in it for hours.

“Buzzie,” she gruntled. “You're the baddest hog I've ever met.”

“Clydine,” he snortled. “You're my little junkyard hog.” And with that they joined forces and tore down a grove of small magnolia saplings that were just getting their new leaves, and gobbled them all up.

Soon they had a whole litter of little boars and sows. Fifteen of them. Imagine it! Seventeen bad hogs. Bad hungry hogs. Bad ravenous hogs. On the rampage. On the move. The baddest gang of wild hogs in history: The Farrow Gang.

Mothers and fathers, lock your doors. Pull the covers up to your chinny chin chins. Turn out the lights.

And here's the really bad news. One night, a terrorized fox whom they had cornered in a peanut field told them, under extreme duress, that the best, the very best, food in the entire world was the wild sugarcane that grew along the banks of the Bayou Tourterelle, the slow-moving stream that ran through the Sugar Man Swamp.

Buzzie's yellow eyes gleamed in the darkness. He charged
at the poor fox, and sent her howling through the night. Then he turned to Clydine and said, “Anything for you, my dearie dear.”

And with that, they turned south, all seventeen of them, while visions of sugarcane danced in their heads.

A
FTER
J
AEGER AND
S
ONNY
B
OY
drove off, Chap felt an urge to throw all of the pots and pans against the wall, and he might have if it hadn't been for Sweetums.

The tall ginger cat wove his way around his boy's ankles, which had a surprisingly calming effect. While Chap gathered his wits, the cat stretched his full length, then sauntered over to his food bowl in the corner and started to munch. It was some sort of crunchy mix especially designed for “adult cats with hair balls.” It wasn't the same tasty flavor as, say, fresh catfish, but altogether it wasn't that bad. And it did seem to assuage the hair balls, which, Sweetums had to admit, weren't all that attractive.

Then he remembered that he needed to let Chap know that something wasn't right with the world. Last night had brought some odd
rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble
s up through the floorboards, and he could tell they weren't the usual rumblings of the thunderstorm.

“People,” he announced, “I've come bearing news.” He said it in his clearest Catalian, but to his chagrin, they both ignored him. He meowed again. “Heads up, people!” But instead of offering him a listening ear, Chap told him, “You know you have to go to the back during café hours.” Of course Sweetums knew that. Duh!

The back was where the family actually lived. The front was the café. There was a back porch, which was screened in. And a front porch, which wasn't screened in.

Sometimes a customer chose to eat his or her pies on the front porch, an action that Sweetums understood because he longed, longed, longed to go out there.
Alas
. “You're an indoor cat,” Chap told him. “If you got out, you'd eat all the baby birds.”

“Baby birds would be nice,” replied Sweetums, licking his chops. But
alas
again. It was against the rules. Who made these rules, anyways? he wondered. Were any of them written in Catalian?

He was especially not allowed into the café during business hours. Chap told him it had something to do with the county health department and cleanliness regulations, which was a puzzle because, “People! Can't you see that I clean my fur all the time?” He was reasonably sure that he was cleaner than any number of the patrons who ate their fried pies.