The Cage Keeper (20 page)

“She’s layin’ right smack in the middle.”

Reilly leaned forward and saw where the two lines came into the water at a steep angle from each bank, were pulled tight and unmoving in the current.

“God damn!” Billy Wayne shouted from up the embankment behind them.

“All right,” Red said, “when you hear that cork pop up you gotta figure you have another half a minute before she breaks water. When she does, let out a holler and one of us’ll be down with the light.”

“Just leave it here with me.”

“No sir, you need both hands for what you got to do, so just give us a call, yank. Now get in that creek and catch us a loggerhead.” Red Willie turned with the light and walked up the embankment to the hickory tree, rope, and Billy Wayne.

Reilly’s bladder was full but he didn’t want to call out to them to wait for him. He pulled the gaff back until he could touch the hook then turned it with its point facing down.

“Ready, Cap?”

“
No,
let me get in there first.”

“There ain’t no guarantee she’ll stay in that net, yank!”

Reilly walked forward in the sand until he could feel the water moving against his ankles. He stopped and took a deep breath, opened his eyes wide and looked straight ahead and to his left. He couldn’t see the net lines; he wanted to urinate, to get out of that warm water he couldn’t see and go sit by the fire, sit by the fire with Mimi, the two of them here together, alone.

“Let’s do her,” Reilly heard Red say. He heard the rope rising out of the water to his right then whizzing over the hickory branch. It stopped. “Shit,” Billy Wayne said. It moved again then stopped, moved then stopped, and Reilly knew only one of them was pulling. He gripped the gaff so hard it felt like a part of his arms. He rushed forward into the water to his knees then to his mid-thigh. He stepped forward again then pulled back as his foot touched something hard. His heart was beating fast in his chest and head and ears. He took a deep breath and stepped well over the hard thing. The current was stronger now, pushing at his hip; he was conscious of his crotch being underwater and he wished for the light. “Hey! Are you both pulling? ’Cause if it’s only one of you, how about some light?”

The rope stopped. “Billy’s got a problem, yank.” It started up again and Reilly listened to what he had been hearing, heard Billy Wayne’s coughing turn into a heave and retch, heard the gush-splash of his insides as it hit the ground; then he heard the thrashing out there ahead of him in the dark.

“Shit, Red, light!”

The rope kept moving then stopped. “Has the cork popped yet?”

“No! Something alive!”

“I’m tyin’ her now!”

Reilly spaced his feet apart in the creek’s bottom then lowered the hook end of the gaff in the water ahead of him and pulled back his arms to feel it. This is it, he thought. This is the kill. And he heard a sound he had never before heard but right away recognized it for what it was. “Bring the goddamned light, Red!”

“I’m right behind ya, yank.”

Reilly saw the light jerking ahead of him on the water then higher to the opposite bank, to the bare roots of trees half in the creek, half in the earth, their surfaces smooth from the water, hanging curved and rigid like the dead legs of a spider. “Fucking snake caves,” Reilly said and began to run in place against the current, his heart beating so fast he could feel it in his throat. He heard Red Willie stop at the edge of the creek then saw the light steady as it moved away from the bank then over him to his left, to that sound.

“Holy shit.”

“Get in there and snag the shit out of her, boy!”

Reilly didn’t go forward. He looked down the gaff at what was moving awkward and heavy in the net in front of him. His eyes fixed on the shell first; it was bigger than the round aluminum skiffs he and Joey used to slide down Nettle Hill in; it was smooth and so dark green it was almost black. Then he looked at what was making that sound, a thick fleshy claw that stretched five or six inches out of one of the leg holes then flapped back against the shell with a power that made Reilly move his legs faster.

“Well go on, boy!” Red was laughing.

“Shine it near its head!”

The light moved up to where the cork was and Reilly saw it, the size of a small boy’s fist, sticking three or four inches out of the shell, a double ridge of barnaclelike bumps along the top of it with a black beak that was opening then snapping shut, a tiny eye shining gold in the light. “It’s got a head like a fucking vulture!”

“Snag her, yank!” Red wasn’t laughing anymore.

Reilly gripped the gaff then lunged it out at the turtle; it hit the center of its shell with a crack that traveled up through the gaff into Reilly’s hands; he jumped back, wanting to throw it away from him, feeling like he’d just reached under the shell and touched it with his bare hands.

“Get in closer, boy!”

Reilly stepped forward a half step, the current pushing against his legs, hips, and buttocks. He began to move in deeper. He felt the weight of the gaff in his hands. This is eight feet long, he thought, that’s as close as I have to get. Then he heard the water splashing behind him and spun around quick to see the silhouette of Billy Wayne against Red’s light, small-shouldered and thin-necked, his ears sticking out from his head. “Shit!” Reilly said.

“C’mon, boys!” Red shouted.

Billy Wayne came and stood waist deep in the water beside Reilly. “You hook her, Cap. We’ll pull her together, by God.”

He was breathing loud and it sounded to Reilly like it was coming from someplace wet inside his chest, and the air smelled sour around him.

“Okay.” Reilly stepped closer to the net and felt his lower belly wetten. He couldn’t see the head and the claw had stopped moving.

“She’s pulled in, smart old bitch,” Billy Wayne said. He leaned into Reilly a bit with his shoulder, but Reilly didn’t move. He breathed deep and reached the hook of the gaff toward the head hole of the shell.

“That’s it, yank!”

He rested the gaff against the net then pushed over it to the front. He lined up the hook, turned it so it was pointing at the hole, then with both his arms he swung into it and pulled to him, his back and arms straining with the weight. The big shell turned with his pull, the hole facing them, and Reilly looked straight ahead into it and saw the reflection of Red’s light in both its tiny eyes just before they closed.

“Keep her movin’ once she’s off that net, now!”

“Ready, Cap?”

“Yeah.”

They pulled hard backing up in the water with long slow steps, the current moving against the sides of their legs, and Reilly felt the weight of it as it slid off the net into the water. He stepped on the hard thing again then jumped over it. “Easy, Cap.” They pulled the gaff ahead of them and lifted their legs higher as they got closer to the bank and Red Willie’s light. Billy Wayne let go when their legs got free of the water and Reilly pulled her the rest of the way to where Red was standing.

“Keep her movin’, yank! Get her away from the creek.”

Reilly pulled and felt the drag of it as it moved through the sand; he was breathing hard and as he started up the embankment, his legs and arms burning, he gripped the gaff tighter and pulled the turtle to the flat ground near the fire. He turned around and dropped the gaff then straightened up and breathed deep through his nose as Red Willie and Billy Wayne came up with the light.

“God damn,” Billy Wayne almost whispered through his breathing. He squatted and rested his elbows on his knees, put his head down.

The fire was burning brighter now and Red Willie turned off the flashlight and dropped it into his pocket. He walked over and stood beside the turtle. “Man, ain’t she majestic. Look at her, yank. She’s old enough to be your gran’mammy.”

Reilly looked down at it; its claws were out now resting on the ground, its head still pulled in the hole at the front of its huge shell.

“God damn,” Billy said.

Reilly could smell him over the smoke of the fire, could smell the half-burned whiskey in his sweat, the sweet and sour of his insides in the air.

“Now yank, you got to respect a reptile like this.” Red walked spread-legged until the turtle was beneath him then straddled it, sat on the highest part, his bare feet kept well away from the claws on each side. He ran his hand over the light circular patterns of its shell. “She’s a beauty. Man, she’s royalty.” He reached into his overalls pocket and pulled out the pint bottle and opened it, took a quick sip, then wiped his mouth with his bare arm and held it out to Billy Wayne.

Billy raised his head and took it.

Red looked up at Reilly, smiling. “Did she feel like a five pounder to you, yank?”

“No, sir.”

“That’s right, son, that’s right.”

Billy Wayne stood up fast and coughed hard into his hand then wiped it on his pants and spit out into the darkness toward the creek. He held the bottle out to Reilly.

“No thanks.”

Red Willie nodded his head at the fire. “Yank, get me somethin’ burnin’ outta there.”

Reilly bent down and pulled out a short hickory stick, one end smoking and glowing bright orange.

“Just right,” Red said. “Now yank, these things don’t live as long as they do by bein’ nice to everybody all the time. But when you kill one you want to do it quick like; you don’t want to give it no pain.” Red reached down into one of the deep pockets in his pant leg and pulled out a knife, its blade long and gray.

Reilly squatted down near the fire, his pants wet and heavy, and looked over at Billy Wayne. He was standing, his arms hanging limp at his sides, the bottle empty at his feet; he was looking down at Red Willie sitting on that big shell. His mouth was half open and his eyes were fixed in a stare, but he looked to Reilly like he was sleeping, sleeping awake and standing up, turning himself in and away from the place his forty years had taken him, and Reilly thought of Jude, could see her expression as she grabbed the hot iron skillet off the stove, a potholder between the black handle and her gripping hands, as she swung it at Billy Wayne, her sad face contorting even tighter with “You bastard!,” the side of the pan spinning then catching Billy Wayne square in the mouth. Then Jude’s face began to turn into Mimi’s and Reilly stood up, focused himself on what the old man was saying.

“Now the meanness that has kept this old turtle alive is the same meanness we’re goin’ to use to kill her. Watch what she does, yank.” Red held the glowing stick in his left hand, the knife in his right, its cutting edge facing up. He lowered the stick until its orange tip was right in front of the head hole. He paused then pushed it in, held it, then pulled it out quick. “Now she’s hurt and pissed off,” Red Willie said without looking up. He lowered the stick again and held it in front of the hole then began to move it slow back and forth like a bow over a fiddle.

Reilly looked into the hole from where he was; he wanted to see its eyes again before it died and he thought of what the turtle must be seeing from inside its house, smoking orange then gray wood, smoking orange then gray.

Red pulled the stick to within an inch of the shell then out it came, its black beak snapping loud onto the burning end of the stick; Red pulled it forward and the turtle’s head followed, stretched out of the hole until Reilly could see the bumpy flesh of its neck pull smooth. He heard the stick crack just as Red Willie brought the knife down under the throat and pulled toward him and to his right, his left arm jerking up as the base of the neck snapped back into the hole like rubber, the turtle’s head still connected to the smoking hickory stick above Red Willie. Blood was pumping out of the hole in short quick spurts and Reilly looked at the head, at its little eyes closed tight, at the loose flap of neck that was dripping blood down onto Red’s arm and shoulder.

“She didn’t feel a thing, yank, not a thing.” Red stood up and walked through the blood that was coming slower now from the hole, was turning into a trickle. He held the stick out to Reilly.

“No thank you.”

Red smiled then stopped and looked down at the head, inspecting it for a moment like he would a splinter in a small child’s finger. He dropped it into the fire.

“Let’s have the knife, Red,” Billy Wayne said loud and hoarse behind them.

Red Willie handed him the wet blade handle-first. Billy took it then held it between his teeth as he bent over and with a groan pulled and turned the shell upside down, its pale yellow bottom facing the sky, the turtle’s claws hanging out of the holes. He took the knife in his hand and worked quickly, pushing its point between the light-colored plates of the bottom and where the shell becomes dark; he pulled toward him and with a dry ripping sound cut and tore all the way around the shell. Then he pulled it out and pressed the tip of the blade below the head hole and moved it straight down the center of the plate, never pushing more than an inch or so until he got to the end of the shell. He dropped the knife then pried the dissected bottom up from the claw holes and pulled it up, flesh and gristle sticking to it; Billy Wayne picked up the knife again and cut through until he could pull the half piece free and toss it behind him.

“That’s it, Billy. You’re doin’ all the good, friend, you’re doin’ all the good.”

Billy Wayne cut free the other half of the plate, threw it over his shoulder without looking, then began to work around the flat mass of entrails that Reilly was now looking down at, standing over Billy Wayne and the dead turtle.

Red Willie leaned over to him. “Pay attention, son, there’s somethin’ here you oughta see.”

Reilly backed away a step to make room for more light from the fire. He listened to Billy Wayne’s heavy breathing and occasional grunting, watched him working away with the knife under the pale organs that gleamed now in the firelight, that was giving off a smell stronger than Billy’s, a hot smell, almost sweet, and Reilly was struck by it; he couldn’t smell anything else and it suddenly occurred to him that he was smelling more than just the guts of an old turtle, and he knew what it was, that if secrets have a smell, this is it.

“They’re unconnected now,” Billy Wayne said. “Stand back, Cap.”