il. There was nothing for Val to do but to follow his directions.
And the longer he lingered before setting out the bigger lead Ricky was
getting.

He found the canoe behind the willows as Sam had said. Awkwardly he
pushed off, hoping that Lucy would pry the whole story out of her son
and put Rupert on their track as soon as possible.

The second clump of willows was something of a landmark, a huge matted
mass of sucker and branch, the lower tips of the long, frond-like twigs
sweeping the murky water. A snake swimming with its head just above the
surface wriggled to the bank as Val cut into the small hidden stream Sam
had told him of.

Vines and water plants had almost choked this, but there was a passage
through the center. And one tough spike of vegetation which snapped back
into his face bore a deep cut from which the sap was still oozing. The
small stinging flies and mosquitoes followed and hung over him like a
fog of discomfort. His skin was swollen and rough, irritated and
itching. And in this green-covered way the heat seemed almost solid.
Drops of moisture dripped from forehead and chin, and his hair was
plastered tight to his skull.

Frogs leaped from the bank into the water at the sound of his coming. In
the shallows near the bank, crawfish scuttled under water-logged leaves
and stones at this disturbance of their world. Twice the bayou widened
out into a sort of pool where the trees grew out of the muddy water and
all sorts of lilies and bulb plants blossomed in riotous confusion.

Once a muskrat waddled into the protection of the bushes. And Val saw
something like a small cat drinking at a pool. But that faint shadow
disappeared noiselessly almost before the water trickled from his
upraised paddle.

Clumps of wild rice were the meeting grounds for flocks of screaming
birds. A snow-white egret waded solemnly across a mud-rimmed pocket. And
once a snake, more dangerous than the swimmer Val had first encountered,
betrayed its presence by the flicker of its tongue.

The smell of the steaming mud, the decaying vegetation, and the nameless
evils hidden deeper in this water-rotted land was an added torment. The
boy shook a large red ant from its grip in the flesh of his hand and
wiped the streaming perspiration from his face.

It was then that the canoe floated almost of its own volition into a
dead and distorted strip of country. Black water which gave off an evil
odor covered almost half an acre of groun