THE REVENUERS WANT TO KNOW WHAT HE KNOWS

WHAT HE KNOWS: HE SHOULD NOT!{

indent} "I know, he knows about the car, and pa. He has his hands full of blood. No one has ever seen him lose his temper. No one remains alive to challenge him, why I do not know. Daphne!" I address my girl, she is well developed, knows how to fight better than I do. I know I have to be careful when dealing with her as I do him. She cut a good sized gash in my chest, with her choice of weapons a dagger was not bad with a rifle either.

         She gnaws on a stalk of one of the reeds that is growing in the swamp She smiles as though, she knows what I am about to suggest. The moon is full, its blinding light exposes the green marsh as the sun would. That is when pa vanished, he was last seen headed his way. "So?"

         "You know, as well as I da! He is responsible, for his disappearance. Is he not?" I inquired, still trying top muddle myway through my thoughts of the night when he vanished. Grandpa had to have something to do with it. But what?


          "I remember him, suggesting he had to get there. He seemed worried, THere was a mention of his brother going over there, some ten years earlier and remember that was when he vanished, too!"

         That was a long ago."

         "I know, but they never found his body."

         "Pa was saying, They even sent the dogs, but they could not find him."

         "That is just it."

         "Remember, how the others in the community reacted after pa vanished."

         "I know, that is what is geting to me!" I related as I looked at the other houses of the settlement. Most of the people here, steered clear of grandpa. Why did not understand that. However from what the old folks said, he never left the community. Never in all the time ,I knew him,. Did he.

         "They said, he was born when the bad moon was rising, he cause our blood to run cold. I felt a chill, when he looked at me. It was as though he had stole something from me. My mother seemed afraid when grandpa came to our house." Dauphne suggested.

         "Them there revenuers are here. We have to hide the stills!" Cooly stated as he sees them a coming.

         "With their blood hounds, to find what they are looking for. It seemed a little whie ago, one of them did not return from here. They found his car crashed in the moors. BUt he was not there? Wonder where he went?"Cooly laughs. and slaps his thigh as though pleasently surprized.

         I said,"They will find him?"

         "Like your pa." Dauphna suggested as she looked at Cooly, as her toes grazed the earth.

         "What ta about your pa?" Cooly replie, looking curiously at me, he drew
away. Turned and he ran into the brush.

         "Where did he go?"

         "I do not know! Best not ta ask about him, though!"

         "Ma said, 'It was like that, when Ab vanished, Some twenta years ago. Mind she said, somepin about them drums and dos lights!"

         "I seem ta recall the drums playin! The night he vanished too"

         "Careful, what ya say, boy!" Cooly warned.

         There was a large embankment on the marsh, everyone steered clear of it, albut my family. The only people who went there were the men. Why I did not know. Even we, the men, did not step past the wall of trees and their branches which hid it there. Some here swore, no one should go there.

         I had often asked pa, "What was there?"

         He did not tell me, he would look away from me, as though I had lite a match over an overturned bottle of moonshine. He was frightened, when ever I asked about that hill. I had been caught journeying there. I got a devil of a whooping there.

         A revenuer comes to speak to us,"He has his breifcase and a pencil and a pad to write on. He is dressed in a suit,"What do you know about.."

          Cooly intererupters him,"I do not know nothin,"

          "I was talking to the lad!" the revenuer suggests

         "So, was I! I ain't talkin' ta yu!" Cooly warns as he cuts a reed with his bowie knife, his hand looked callloused and dirty.

         "What do you know about the man dressed as I am?" the revueneer stated

         "He wanted us to get rid of our drink! He hada shot gun with him!" I said.

         "That, he did. Its illegal to brew it!" the revenuer warned, as he raise his shot gun's muzzle towards me.

         "since, when?" Dauphne ask as she came out the door of our house.

         "Since, now! The man made a ruling, that is illegal Mind, if I look a round!"
the revenuer declared.

         "Get off of my land, den yu can look around in the marsh!", Daphne warned

         "I have papers, that says I can!" the revenuer looked unconcerned by what she had to say.

         "Yu ,do yu? I got a shot gun, that says, Good bye!" Dauphne said as she brought up her double barrelled gun to point it at him. Her finger moves on to the hammers of the barrels.

         "Yu do not know what your doing?" he rexclaimed.

         "I have da right ta shoot poachers; Dat's waht yu are?"

         "I am a federal agent! I have rthe right to do this!"

Dauphne dropped the hammer, the slug hit the ground just before his right foot, with a bang. He jumped off of the yard back to the road. He peeled out of here.

         "Ya got guts. NO brains." I said as I watched him go on his way, I turned and decided to go and see what lay behind the trees that formed a barrier there. Why I would find out now. I grabbed one of the rafts that were in the bog.

         I brought my log along to push it towards the trees. The reeds were almost as tall as I was as I crawled acorss the green weed covered surface of the bog, it was closing in on night fall. I had not rea;ized what time it was when I left my house to get out here.

         The brush was dank and deep. There was a quiet that fell as a body would. It was so dense that I heard nothing. Nothing, I tell you. The quiet was volumes deep even my log as it tore and ripped through the green clothing of the bog was silent.

         I heard a sound, I know I heard a sound. Twisting to see what made the sound. I damn near fell in to the water. My shoe left my foot to sink into the murky depths. The sound came again.

         I looked into the inky depthes of the black forbidding gloom to see what had made the sound. I saw two ights looking at me, as I hung from the pole that refused to go any further down into the water. The lights hung there, unmoving. It was close to where my feet were.

         I reached out to touch it. Than the sound became clearer, Ribbit! Splash. Than a frog dived into the water.

         "It was a frog. A Frog! I tell you? Here I am talking to myself!"I said to no one, but I suppose me.

         The lights flickered and blinked white light, it must be from the bullrushes and cat of whispes that grew here. I felt the raft jerk to a stop, I damn near fell off of the raft. I felt water splash and lash my feet. the grass was so thin it was like knives as I dragged myself through them. My eyes had began to adjust to the dark.

         I saw through the brush a huge structure that lumbered into the sky. Struggling fighting to be free, the branches and trees held me as though they were hands of a monster. Each foor fall was an eternity to move, blood and sweat poured off of me. I knew it was not hot. The chill swept across the water chilled my bones as I moved across the flat as a board water.

         Yet, I was sweating. Fighting each strand of grass that rose to hold me moored there. I was struggling, I could barely walk through this grass, whose blades cut me as cleanly as a razor and equally as deep.

         I advanced onto the plain before the structure, it was shadowy, Ut was as if I was dreaming it. But I was there. There! I screamed, but my voice was not loud enoughto hear over it. The deafening queit.

         I was afraid. More so, than the times, when I was in combat. What was here, why was it so forbidden to approach. The adults would not dare to speak of it. Whatever it was. They did not even dare to look at it.

         I grit my teeth and began to approach, I saw the sun coming up from behind it. I was tired, I had to continue on, I did not want anyone to know I was here. However the sun was rising. There was no way to go back now. Without being found out.

         What can I do? I was here, the hill looked huge, there was a narrow ravine in the middle like perhaps a creek, but I did not see any water here. The edges of the ravine were eight feet high, maybe a little more. It looked like it had been there for as long as people were here. I turned around to see, where I had come from.
It was visible. There was no way, I could deny it.

         I spotted something, it looked like a ball dangling from a pole. It was the size of a bowling ball, had a two holes from which moss spilled out to fall onto the ground. I walked closer to it, there was something beneath what looked like a horse shoe only smaller, I recognized it, or did I?

         I walked towards it, as I walked there I saw some white semi circlar hoops objects with sixteen perside and they were joined together by something in the middle, it was covered in moss, there was a grey surface where the moss was not.

         I lost my footing, my foot crashed and burst through the hoops. They snapped like twigs, I fell. To its right.Something on the left began to rise it was connected to the semi circlular hoops, it was trianglar and was connected to another object that looked like a bone.

         I realized what I had stepped on. It was a skeleton in the ground, The ball was a head, without the jaw. I was now nervous. I thought I saw something. I looked down to see what was there. Saw nothing only the dense green of the leaves and the moss that made up this section of the lagoon.

         Hearing a twig snapp. I spun about, That was nearby. Very near. It was growing louder by the heart beat. My heart stopped beating. I looked at the brush and saw a branch snap. Hearing the sound growing louder still. It woudl soon be upon me.

         Looking about, I heard someting crash burst through the branches that had long held me, there. I quickly reached out for something to throw. I had left my shotgun on the raft. Damn, I drew up one of the skulls dangling from what was a branch. Was about to throw it.

         When I saw it was a vulture that I had flushed from the brush. I laughed, the fear had become a galvanizing ball in the pit of my stomache. I weeped in fear. What have I stumbled upon. What occured here?

         I never recalled a bural here. The people simply vanished in the water. I may not have been old enough to ever see a body being buries here. FRom what I knew Father woud take those to where they would die.

         This father was not mine. Or anyone else's.

         I decided, I was time to return to the land from which I left. I was now, more afraid, This could have been where the bodies went. Who brought them here, I did not know.