I clapped my hands over my mouth and stood dead still as I possibly could while that gator circled me. I could feel its rough gator skin slide across my back, feel its tail whip my knees, until it circled me whole and faced me, eye to eye, its snout not one inch from my nose.

That’s when I realized it wasn’t any normal gator. No sir. This gator had one yellow eye right in the center of its forehead. I stared at it long and slow, and it stared right back at me with that forehead eye, like it was reading my mind, like it was telling me some deep dark truth I needed to know for the whole rest of my life. I started to say my prayers right then, oh boy did I, waiting for it to chomp me to bits.

But the gator lowered into the water until its eye vanished and its back vanished and then it was invisible, hidden deep in the muck. I felt a whoosh of water and then it was gone, disappeared into the swamp. I realized the water could be full of one-eyed gators. The swamp water could be full of anything and I wouldn’t hardly know it. It was one big murky mystery, the swamp was, and it always would be forever.

I paddled closer, not ten feet from the men now, the fog like swamp’s breath, me nestled deep in it. The moon broke through the clouds and cast a glow down on the men’s faces and I yelped I was so excited.

It was Cecily Bob and Mr. Hugo crouched there by the fire. It looked like they were cooking a rat. They were looking my way.

“You hear something, Mr. Hugo?”

“Aye, sir, I heard something, I did.”

“One of them big-tusked pigs you think?”

“Sounded more like a human to me, it did.”

“A human you say? Could it be the man himself?”

“If only we were so lucky, Cecily Bob. But something tells me we are not.”

“Aye,” said Cecily Bob. They peered out into the gloom. “I don’t see nothing. Perhaps it’s passed on.”

“That would be my wager.”

“Aye. Our poor luck continues.”

“Does it ever, Cecily Bob.”

They looked sad, hunched over like too big gangly vultures around that fire. But if they were there, where was Pop? What happened to him?

“Do we suppose he drowned then?” said Cecily Bob.

“That would be my supposition,” said Mr. Hugo.

Drowned? My daddy drowned? How?

“I say we tell the truth. That I was rowing and you was sleeping and he was all tied up and he rolled himself right out the boat, that’s what we tell them. He rolled himself right out and splashed into the water.”

“And what say ye when Boss Authority asks for a body?”

“We say the swamp swallowed him whole, that’s what we say.”

It couldn’t be true. Pop couldn’t have died. Not like this. He wouldn’t have drowned, there’s no way. Big tears were rolling hot down my face and I kept both hands over my mouth to keep from crying, to keep from weeping all over everything. I was too late. My daddy was long dead. I was just so durn sad you could have chucked me into the water and let me drown and I wouldn’t hardly have fought you at all.