crash as the door yielded and then three men appeared in a rush on
the open balcony behind them. A soft phat ! and a
flash of flame indicated a silenced shot sent after him. The slug
splashed uncomfortably close in the mucky water. Durell dived, and swam for a
dozen feet toward the girl.
When he surfaced, he was under another house. The tide lapped
around the pilings with soft sucking sounds. On the floor hoard above him
he heard the quick slap of a bare foot and a spate of angry Chinese. A woman
replied. Then there was silence.
He turned his head, looking for Yoko Hanamutra. But he could
not find her.
“Yoko?” he called softly.
There was no answer.
“Yoko?” he called again.
Something brushed against him and he glimpsed a pale white
jelly-like substance that made him recoil instinctively. He did not know if it
was a live thing or not, and he did not care to find out. He swam again
toward the place where he had last seen the girl. He thought he heard her
swimming ahead, and followed with quick, long strokes, moving always under the
plank walks and under houses, listening to the constant sounds of teeming
humanity above in the world of light, the peddlers of rice and chicken, the
drinkers of tea, the lovers, those who were eating and conversing and playing
mah-jongg. Down here he felt as if he had entered some kind of dark, dank
netherworld. And he could not find the girl.
There were no other shots. The men in the Lee house could
not possibly spot him in this labyrinth of twisted pilings, boards, sampans and
fishing boats tangled in shadows thick with the effluvium of waste and
unpredictable sea things. He tried not to think about it, and swam on.
He had to assume that Yoko had lost him and gone off to swim
to safety on her own. He could not worry about her now. He had his own strategy
to think about.
Strategy was something that Grandpa Jonathan, back in Bayou
Peche Rouge, had often lectured to him about in his boyhood, regarding the
psychology of hunting and being hunted. Those days in the bayous, under the dim
green shadows of the gum trees hung with Spanish moss, seemed a lifetime ago,
in another world. But old Jonathan was still there, and his dry comments on the
ways of men and women and the world had made a lasting impression on Durell
when he was a boy.
“The trouble with being hunted, Samuel,” the old man would
say, “is that you start running and keep right on in a straight line, and let
panic ride you like the old man on Sindbad’s shoulders. You go on and on and
try to make good on strength alone, forgetting you'd never be hunted in the first
place if the other fellow wasn’t stronger and faster than you. And with sharper
teeth, so to speak. So don’t ever try to outrun the enemy. You got to shake the
weight of panic off your back and be smart. The race ain‘t to the swift, it‘s to
the clever.”
“And what do the clever ones do, Grandpa?” he’d asked.
“The same as the fox, maybe. Double back. Do the unexpected,
mainly.” The old man’s eyes twinkled cannily. “But is that enough for you,
Samuel?"
“I think not. It’s not enough just to run and escape.”
“Right, son. If you want to win for good, you can’t make it
by pumping your legs and getting out of breath and duckin’ down some dark hole
and hidin’ like a rabbit or a fox. You've got to hit back. So you double on him
and get on the other feller’s trail and While he’s looking for you in one direction,
you hit him from the other. If that sounds like unfair play, just remember it’s
one of the rules of survival. The feller who wins is the one who says which law
is right and which is wrong.”
There was some doubt in Durell’s mind about the validity of
the old man’s philosophy today, but he could not question the fact that old
Jonathan had been a fine tactician then, one of the shrewdest hunters of
animals and men in the delta bayou country. He could double back, however, and
hit ‘em while they were looking
the open balcony behind them. A soft phat ! and a
flash of flame indicated a silenced shot sent after him. The slug
splashed uncomfortably close in the mucky water. Durell dived, and swam for a
dozen feet toward the girl.
When he surfaced, he was under another house. The tide lapped
around the pilings with soft sucking sounds. On the floor hoard above him
he heard the quick slap of a bare foot and a spate of angry Chinese. A woman
replied. Then there was silence.
He turned his head, looking for Yoko Hanamutra. But he could
not find her.
“Yoko?” he called softly.
There was no answer.
“Yoko?” he called again.
Something brushed against him and he glimpsed a pale white
jelly-like substance that made him recoil instinctively. He did not know if it
was a live thing or not, and he did not care to find out. He swam again
toward the place where he had last seen the girl. He thought he heard her
swimming ahead, and followed with quick, long strokes, moving always under the
plank walks and under houses, listening to the constant sounds of teeming
humanity above in the world of light, the peddlers of rice and chicken, the
drinkers of tea, the lovers, those who were eating and conversing and playing
mah-jongg. Down here he felt as if he had entered some kind of dark, dank
netherworld. And he could not find the girl.
There were no other shots. The men in the Lee house could
not possibly spot him in this labyrinth of twisted pilings, boards, sampans and
fishing boats tangled in shadows thick with the effluvium of waste and
unpredictable sea things. He tried not to think about it, and swam on.
He had to assume that Yoko had lost him and gone off to swim
to safety on her own. He could not worry about her now. He had his own strategy
to think about.
Strategy was something that Grandpa Jonathan, back in Bayou
Peche Rouge, had often lectured to him about in his boyhood, regarding the
psychology of hunting and being hunted. Those days in the bayous, under the dim
green shadows of the gum trees hung with Spanish moss, seemed a lifetime ago,
in another world. But old Jonathan was still there, and his dry comments on the
ways of men and women and the world had made a lasting impression on Durell
when he was a boy.
“The trouble with being hunted, Samuel,” the old man would
say, “is that you start running and keep right on in a straight line, and let
panic ride you like the old man on Sindbad’s shoulders. You go on and on and
try to make good on strength alone, forgetting you'd never be hunted in the first
place if the other fellow wasn’t stronger and faster than you. And with sharper
teeth, so to speak. So don’t ever try to outrun the enemy. You got to shake the
weight of panic off your back and be smart. The race ain‘t to the swift, it‘s to
the clever.”
“And what do the clever ones do, Grandpa?” he’d asked.
“The same as the fox, maybe. Double back. Do the unexpected,
mainly.” The old man’s eyes twinkled cannily. “But is that enough for you,
Samuel?"
“I think not. It’s not enough just to run and escape.”
“Right, son. If you want to win for good, you can’t make it
by pumping your legs and getting out of breath and duckin’ down some dark hole
and hidin’ like a rabbit or a fox. You've got to hit back. So you double on him
and get on the other feller’s trail and While he’s looking for you in one direction,
you hit him from the other. If that sounds like unfair play, just remember it’s
one of the rules of survival. The feller who wins is the one who says which law
is right and which is wrong.”
There was some doubt in Durell’s mind about the validity of
the old man’s philosophy today, but he could not question the fact that old
Jonathan had been a fine tactician then, one of the shrewdest hunters of
animals and men in the delta bayou country. He could double back, however, and
hit ‘em while they were looking
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