Chapter 1
Barney Wiggins shifted into second to climb up the slight grade before driving through the south entry of the county park. He drummed his thick fingers on the steering wheel in time with the country western song blaring out of the truck’s radio and reached forward to pull on the headlights. The clean scent of ozone filled the air. The approaching storm whispered through the pine tree branches overhead and the delicate clustered swags of gray-green moss began to swirl and jerk spasmodically as the wind picked up speed. An ominous cloud cover roiled overhead but Barney didn’t seem to notice. He was in a hurry to get his afternoon routine check of the park finished so he could get home to Enid, his Lone Star beer, and later, the Friday night football game on the radio. He had planned to prune his rose bushes when he got home, but it looked like the weather would delay that project. He glanced up at the darkening sky and worried about the game in nearby Lufkin being called because of rain. Maybe it wasn’t raining over there, not like here at the lake. A few miles could make a large difference in climatic conditions in this part of the state. Thunder rumbled as he rolled the truck to a stop by the large pavilion in the middle of the park area, narrowing his eyes as he checked the shadowy corners of the brick pillars holding up the cedar shake roof. Teenaged dopers liked to hand out in the open-air structure, which gave them shelter from summer heat or winter rain, lots of cross ventilation which blew away their pot smoke. A drinking fountain stood at one corner and a restroom they had broken the lock on three summers earlier was an added convenience. Pine needles carpeted the concrete floor and the table tops in the popular meeting place for many community occasions. The best part was its location, which was within a quick dash to the soft water of Lake Lamar. Graduating seniors always had their final picnics and swimming parties here. It was a tradition for every school in the county.
Barney shone the powerful beam of his large flashlight around the interior of the rectangular structure, careful not to miss spots big enough to hide a loitering kid. He smirked, remembering the town bully that had tried to ambush him during another 3evenking check; Barney was ready for him and had heard him try to slip up behind him with a one-by-four as big as a baseball bat. The teen gangs used heavy limbs, ax handles, four-foot boards or thick branches as weapons and Barney had caught the movement in his peripheral vision that night and had had time to draw his pistol. Nothing moved this rainy day except the branches of the pines, which were beginning to scrape the roof.
He checked the door to the kitchen area and made sure the pantry was locked, since transients also dropped in occasionally, hoping somebody might have left foodstuffs in the storage cans. He had found seven bums camping out in the kitchen once in the middle of February, but let them stay two days because of the frigid temperature and at least they were out of the freezing wind. There weren’t many pavilion visitors in the winter, other than the rare lovers seeking privacy or the few and far between deer hunters using the place as a dining room or simply as a place to re-group. He chuckled remembering the many poker games he had sat in on, when hunters had gotten their limits and didn’t want to cut their time together short. They always invited Barney to join their card games, saying they’d rather have their night watchman to watch rather than having him watch them. Sometimes he even won a couple of hands, if it was five-card stud. None of those fancy games appealed to him. He liked things simple.
The wind flipped a lid off one of the 32-gallon garbage cans and he hustled to catch it before it danced into the lake. His boss was a penny-pinching frugal freak and had a hissy fit when he suspected there had been any unnecessary waste. He pushed the plastic lid back in place and thumped the top, firmly authoritative. A brilliant flash of blue-white lightning lashed its crooked brilliance across the sky, briefly reflected in the restless surface of the lake, a few yards from the picnic pavilion. He counted the seconds until he heard the thunder, out of habit. One, two, three, four, boom. The storm was very close now and the clouds were sucking up wind preparatory to lashing the land with rain.
He settled his baseball cap more securely on his head before walking out into the wind to check the rowboat. It was always kept tied securely to the pier that jutted out about forty feet into the lake and then made a ninety-degree turn to the right for another ten feet. It was an old pier but sturdy and the county’s skiff was moored at the corner of the right-angle turn. He stood on the shore and watched the wave action bouncing the small boat against the pilings over and over.
“Damn. Got to tighten that line or the boats gonna get beat up bad. And that’s gonna make me miss the kickoff…” He muttered to himself as he zipped up his windbreaker all the way to the top and shrugged with resignation. “Oh, well, hell . . .Can’t leave it like it is. I’ll get blamed for the damage. . .”
He walked to the edge of the lake and shining the flashlight to guide his path, made his way through the high reeds and approached the surface of the pier. A pair of yellow-red orbs shone from near the lake’s edge, just under the top of the water, close to the Pier’s water side, but Barney didn’t notice as he inched along toward the bouncing skiff.
The storm abruptly increased in intensity and the rippling little waves turned into angry whitecaps, surging over the top of the weathered planks like a miniature flood. Barney was suddenly frightened out of his wits. He staggered, holding his hands outstretched, the flashlight tumbling from his grasp to bounce off the pier and into the shallows of the lake. His heart began to pound in his ears and he was having trouble breathing. He wished he hadn’t let himself get so out of shape. He mentally decided he was going to start seriously watching his diet, right away. He had been a pretty fast sprinter in high school and as sure-footed as a goat, so he wasn’t too worried about falling, at least not right away. Another huge rise of churning water licked and slapped against his ankles and his rubber-soled shoes began to lose traction on the cedar planks. He scowled as he struggled to maintain his footing. He glanced back at the shoreline once, seeing he was almost as far out as he would have to go to get back safely, and when the next bolt of lightning crashed overhead, he dropped to all fours and tried to hang on to the slippery pier which was now threatening to break apart.
Suddenly, the section of the pier he was crawling along heaved upward like the arched back of a gigantic caterpillar or a section of the earth during a massive earthquake. Something unbelievably powerful was underneath the pier; pushing it up, up, up until the old pilings creaked apart under the strain and the planks split, spewing the shrieking Barney into the black churning water and right into the gaping jaws of the hungry monster whose patience had run out.
There was no one to hear the watchman’s dying screams as the massive, fourteen-foot long, eight-hundred pound alligator tore one of his arms out of its socket and swallowed it whole, then dragged the mangled trembling body beneath the surface of the now dark red water in order to drown the victim before devouring it.
The storm continued to rage in the heavens, soaking the county for miles around with heavy rains, turning the dirt roads of the east Texas piney woods to thick rust-red mud. Barney’s flashlight continued to shine underneath the surface of the lake for several hours and his Texas Rangers baseball cap drifted quietly into hiding in the thick reeds along the shoreline.
Not since an earlier storm had wrecked the first wooden pier, there had not been a death attributed to any kind of animal attack in over four years, and that had been from a rabid coyote which bit a seven-year-old girl who had tried to pet it. She had wandered off from a family picnic out at the lake on Mother’s Day. This current storm was a final whimper from a hurricane wearing itself out over land after messing up the coastal regions with several inches of rain and leaving a trail of toppled mobile homes in its wake. Barney’s wife, Enid, had heard the weather forecast and had set out plenty of candles and matches in case the power went out, which it often did during these heavy winds. She glanced at the clock over the fireplace then continued embroidering the bouquet of spring flowers on the percale pillowcase held tautly by the circular wooden frame. She worked swiftly, not even listening to the metallic voice of the announcer on the television set. She curled the thread expertly around the end of the needle, and stuck it into the design, pulling it through the other side resulting in a perfect French knot. She looked up at the clock again. Barney was never this late getting home from his watchman’s rounds, especially since he had told her he was getting off early so he could cut back the old canes in the roses.
Carefully placing her needlework on the little scarred table next to her recliner, she stood up and walked to the living room windows and stared out at the pouring rain. The tree limbs were waving around crazily and small branches had broken away and were flying around like misguided Indian arrows. Enid chewed on the jagged cuticle of her left thumb, contemplating the stormy darkness then suddenly wheeled around and hurried to the wall phone in the kitchen.
“Hello? Mrs. Jamison, is Harry there? This here’s Enid. . .yes, Barney’s wife. He ain’t home yet from his Friday rounds and I’m gittin’ worried, what with this storm and all. Thought mebbe that lake road could’a washed out. . .Yes, I’ll. . .I’ll hold…Oh, Harry, I hate to bother you but “Barney, he ain’t home yet. . .yes, I know he’s had time to get here. . .you’re right, he could’a stopped at the cafè. . .okay, thanks. Yes, I’ll be here. . .” She hung up and waited for Harry to call and tell her Barney’s truck had a flat or that he was stuck in the mud somewhere.
