The same noise repeated back, only this time it was two long, two short.
“You boys seriously communicate like that now?”
“When you live in the swamp and your only friends are the creatures that occupy it, you learn their language.” He pressed her onto her stomach as he lay flat on the ground, snagging his rifle. “Goddammit. One of these days, I will accidentally shoot that man.” He jumped to his feet and raced to the dock.
She was right on his six.
“Rodney, what did I tell you about sneaking up on me?” Patch waved his gun.
“Sorry.” Rodney pointed upstream. “Thought you’d want to know those two strangers are coming downriver. They are by my place, so you’ve got ten minutes before they swing by the bend.”
“Thanks.” Patch handed her his weapon.
“And I got a look under their tarp. They got guns, and not just any kind of weapons. They got machine guns.”
“Fuck,” Patch muttered.
“Want me to run interference?” Rodney asked with a toothless grin.
“Absolutely not.” Patch shook his head. “Those men are dangerous and not my kind of dangerous. Keep heading downriver. We’ll come find you when it’s safe. If we don’t, just keep going until you get to my new place. One of my buddies will be there. Tell them what’s going on. They’ll know what to do.”
“You’re the expert.” Rodney nodded before giving his boat a little more gas.
“Go get your brother.” Patch took Savvy by the shoulders. “Tell him we’re going all gator on these assholes, and I need you three to have my six.”
“I don’t understand.”
“McGuire will, and he’ll tell you what to do. Now go.” He turned her, patted her bottom, and gave her shove.
She took off running. Suddenly, the cabin seemed a million miles away, even though it only took a minute to get there. She barreled through the front door, nearly knocking over her brother.
“Jesus, sis. What the hell?—”
“Patch is going gator.” She gripped the rifle, sucking in a deep breath. Her lungs burned. “What does that mean?”
“Good fucking Lord,” McGuire mumbled, pointing toward the door.
Savvy turned and gasped. “Is that an alligator skin he’s draping over his body?”
“It is.” McGuire nodded. “He’s going to dip into the water, swim like he’s that dead creature on his back, get under their boat, maybe work out a rivet so it takes on water, or maybe flip it, but we’re to make sure he doesn’t get eaten or shot. And if he flips that boat, we need to haul those assholes in so we can find out who they’re working for.”
“That’s a lose-lose scenario.”
“Everything in the swamp is lose-lose,” McGuire said. “But you of all people should be used to that by now.”
“Sadly, that’s true, but I do not want to watch Patch become gator food.” She spun on her heel and made a beeline for the shore, scanning until she found the perfect place to lie down and wait.
Her brother flanked twenty feet upriver and Riven, ten feet below.
Jesus, she saw two sets of eyes in the water, and she couldn’t be sure which one was Patch.
This was not good.
CHAPTER 10
The water wasthick with mud and decay, warm as blood and twice as dense. Patch lay submerged up to his neck beneath the curtain of low-hanging moss, motionless except for the slow, deliberate breaths through his nose. The dead gator hide stretched across his back like armor—stitched, strapped, and soaked. It stank of rot and river, but it camouflaged him perfectly.
The bayou was still, eerily calm, like death had come for him and was about to swallow him whole.
