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for the past thirty years. Not a bad track record." He stared at Nahimana meaningfully. "I have had a
nodding acquaintance with the disappearance of nearly one hundred little girls in seventy-five major
cities, from Sacramento to Bangor."
Bonhomme eyed a crack forming in the ceiling. "Well, you re all done now."
"That remains to be seen, trapper."
The trapper whirled without warning, jamming the Winchester s barrel into Van Dusen s forehead,
slamming his head against the wall. "You re nothing but a worthless piece of shit. You gotta use little
kids in order to feel somethin -- anything. You re less than nothing, Van Dusen. And you keep
fuckin with me, I m gonna feed you to whatever s prowlin around outside. Got it?"
Bonhomme slowly eased the shotgun to the middle of Van Dusen s face. There was a bloody semi-
circle in the center of Van Dusen s forehead. He chuckled softly. "We re all on the smorgasbord,
trapper. I just hope I live long enough to see our friend eat a squirming little Nahimana."
Bonhomme s eyes narrowed and his finger tightened on the trigger.
"No." It was Nahimana. "That s what he wants you to do."
Trigger finger relaxed, Bonhomme grinned and laid the shotgun across his broad shoulder. "You know,
kid, I think you re right."
Van Dusen shrugged. "I have escaped from much more complex and dangerous entrapments than this."
"He s afraid," Nahimana said with wonder.
The thing outside the Swamper -- slammed wetly into the front door of the cabin and the wood
splintered.
"Yeah, well, so am I," the trapper replied.
The entire structure began to tremble. Bonhomme knew that the shack had been built upon short stilts
to accommodate the crest and fall of the river. The creature was rocking the old shack back and forth
on the pilings, attempting to topple it.
"Everyone hang on!" Van Dusen shouted merrily.
Bonhomme was nearly to Nahimana when a shriek of wind ripped the roof away. Swirling
thunderheads shrouded a blood red moon and Bonhomme could see a flash of movement out of the
corner of his eye in the inky darkness. Van Dusen had freed himself from the tape and rope, and was
rushing the trapper, shoulder first.
The shotgun somersaulted into the screaming wind as Van Dusen plowed into Bonhomme, knocking
him from his feet. The four walls of Trapper Nelson s shack which had withstood numerous
hurricanes and tropical storms for nearly a hundred years fell into the river and underbrush. The
hardwood floor, covering the railroad ties that supported the building, remained.
Bonhomme frantically reached for the shotgun, but found only debris. He searched the darkness for
Nahimana, but she was nowhere to be found.
"Looking for this, trapper?" Van Dusen asked mockingly. Van Dusen had the Winchester pointed at
Bonhomme s head, point blank. "I thought about tying you up and torturing you to death slowly after I
finish up with little Nahimana, but you are far to dangerous for that."
Might kick his legs out from under him, Bonhomme thought clinically, but he d still get the killshot
off.
"After I d done with Nahimana, I think I shall pay your lovely wife what was it, Miakoda? a little
visit. A bit long in the tooth for me, perhaps, but I think she might prove interesting." Van Dusen s
finger tightened on the trigger as he smiled at Bonhomme in triumph. "The timeless convergence of
good and evil, trapper? I think not. Merely proof positive of the implacable laws of survival of the
fittest."
That was when Bonhomme saw it.
The storm clouds abruptly cleared and the enormous scarlet moon briefly illuminated the swamp. A
huge black, greasy oil slick with giant serrated triangular teeth rose up from the swamp behind Van
Dusen. The hide was obsidian, smooth, and it encased the shape of an enormous writhing eel. The
eyes were curved slits, even more unfathomable than the ebony skin. The thing the Swamper
moved faster than the eye could follow, and abruptly Van Dusen was gone except for his thrashing
legs protruding from the black thing s maw. Bonhomme thought he heard the muted sound of the
Winchester firing off a round inside the Swamper s mouth.
Somewhere, Bonhomme thought he heard Nahimana whimper, and he tried in vain to go to her. A fat
bolt of white-hot lightning split the night sky, shattering a centuries old cypress tree nearby. The last
sights burned into Bonhomme s mind were the man-sized lump in the Swamper s gullet as it seemed to
swallow Van Dusen, the moon overhead appearing to smile down on the scene, Nahimana running
toward the beast, and finally, the ragged cypress limb hurdling toward him.
A sensation of light and the gentle lapping of the waters of the Loxahatchee on a nearby bank awoke
Bonhomme. Other than a painful lump in the middle of his forehead, and feeling like he d gone ten
rounds with a young prizefighter, Bonhomme was uninjured. Beyond the flooring and foundation, the
remains of Trapper Nelson s shack were nowhere to be seen, reclaimed by the river, swamp and forest.
He sat up, head spinning, vision blurred.
To the west of where the cabin formerly stood, the swamp had been trampled in an area as wide as a
city bus, leading into the forest as far as the eye could see. At the edge of the new pathway, the
cypress ruined by the solitary lightning strike. Otherwise, the ancient swamp seemed undisturbed.
At the point where the entrance of the cabin once was, Bonhomme s jon boat, gear bag and Winchester
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