The Secret of the Swamp King (12 page)
Read The Secret of the Swamp King Online
Authors: Jonathan Rogers
Aidan changed the subject. “I've heard stories about he-feechies leaving their family bands to join Chief Larbo's band at Bearhouse. Has anybody from Gergo's band gone over?”
Dobro nodded slowly, his eyes cast down. “Yeah,” he said. “Remember Benno Frogger?”
“Yeah,” answered Aidan. “Sort of a show-off, if I remember right.”
“That's the one,” said Dobro. “He picked up and left one day. Said folks in Gergo's band didn't 'preciate him. Since when I was supposed to 'preciate tomfoolery and show-offiness, I don't know, but that's what he said. Said he was going to Bearhouse where a man's free spirit was 'preciated.
“I don't believe poor Benno knew what he was flapping his jaws about. Some strange feechies had been showing up around Bug Neck. I believe he got all that palaver about free spirits and 'preciation from them strangers.
“Benno's mama asked me to run him down, to tell him he was a thick-headed jaybird and drag him home if I had to. I caught up with him and tried to talk sense to him. He just looked at me kind of blank, the way a possum does.
“Then he pulled a knife on me. Not a stone feechie knife, neither, but a cold-shiny knife. I asked him where he got such a thing, and the answer he gave me was mighty peculiar. He said it was a present from the Wilderking.”
Feechiesing
It was well past nightfall when the swamp council convened. A large group of the participants had gone fishing and didn't come back until it was too dark to see what they were doing. Others had spent the late afternoon napping in the island's big oak trees and had to be rousted out.
A cold but satisfying supper of duckweed and duck potatoes was served, and the seventy or so swamp councilors lolled around the smoking village fire for awhile, not saying much. Aidan wondered when they would get down to business.
Hyko stood at last. “We got a lot to talk about tonight,” he said, “so I reckon we ought to get this here swamp council started.”
“Awww,” complained a voice in the crowd. “We just got here!”
“We ain't even had no entertainment yet.”
“I just figured,” said Hyko, “that we might skip the entertainment tonight and get straight to the confabulation.”
A loud and growing grumble arose, and Hyko could see he would have an uprising on his hands if he didn't
give in. “All right, all right, all right!” he shouted. “What do you want to do? Fistfights? Contests?”
“How 'bout a feechiesing?” came the voice of Orlo.
A chant rose up from the crowd: “Fee-chie-sing! Fee-chie-sing! Fee-chie-sing!” They stomped in time with the chant. Three sweet gum logs were dragged in and laid side by side to form a small stage called a singstump. Chief Gergo's band, the Bug Neck boys, had a reputation throughout the swamp for putting on the best feechiesings, and the other feechies urged them toward the front.
Branko was the first to mount the singstump. “If it don't make you boys too lonesome for your sweethearts,” he began, “I thought I'd sing a little love song.” With nods and hoots the audience encouraged him to proceed.
“Sing on,” called one of the Coonhouse feechies. “If I can't have my little love-turtle by my side, a love song is the next best thing.”
“Sing on!” echoed the rest of the assembly.
Branko clasped his hands over his heart and sang the lilting tones of a feechie love song:
My sweet feechie girl is the swamp's finest pearlâ
A treasure, and man, don't I know it.
And I really do think that she loves me, too,
Though she don't always know how to show it.
Her brown eyes are dark like a loblolly's bark.
Her skin is as smooth as a gator.
The one time I kissed her, she knocked me cold, mister.
But nothing could cause me to trade her.
She smells just as sweet as a mud turtle's feet.
Her hair is as soft as a possum.
Once I walked by her side,
      but she knocked me cross-eyed.
It took me a week to uncross 'em.
Her voice is as pleasin' as swamp lily season
She talks kind of froggy and crickety.
Once I give her a rose, and she busted my nose.
My sweetie can be right persnickety.
I'll give you this warning: You mess with my darling,
I'll whop you a right, then a left.
And if that ain't enough, or if you're extra tough,
I might let her whup you herself.
Cheers and applause echoed in the trees. “That was beautiful,” called Jerdo. “Gets better every time I hear it.”
“If that song don't describe my little Hudu all over ⦔ began a member of the Scoggin Mound delegation, but he broke off and dabbed at one eye and then the other with the back of a fist.
“Quick, somebody,” called Orlo, “sing something merry, like a hunting song. This feller's done got lonesome for his sweetheart.”
“Where's Doyno?” somebody asked. “Doyno, sing the one about your cousin Mungo.”
“Yeah, âMungo and the Bear,'” shouted another feechie voice. “We ain't heard that one since day before yesterday!”
Doyno, happy to oblige, climbed onto the makeshift singstump and without further ceremony launched into his signature song, a ballad about his relative's epic struggle with a great black bear. Every feechie in the camp knew all the words by heart, but they joined in only on the refrain:
The scrape was fresh upon the tree,
The musk was on the air.
Mungo said, “Boys, follow meâ
Let's get ourselves a bear.”
We tracked him through the bottomland,
We knowed he wasn't long.
We heard him racketing through the cane
And Mungo egged us on.
Give him chase, boys, give him chase.
Don't let Bruin win the race.
Through the thickets, through the brakes,
Give him chase, boys, give him chase.
He led us where the bamboo spears
Grow dense then denser, densest.
We caught up where the canebrake clears
And where the creek commences.
Old Bruin rared and slashed around
And give a roar like thunder.
We was all ready to lay it down,
But Mungo was a wonder.
Give him chase, boys, give him chase.
Don't let Bruin win the race.
Through the thickets, through the brakes,
Give him chase, boys, give him chase.
There weren't no fear in Mungo's eye.
That feechie was a bold'un.
He only stood about waist-high
To the bear, and yet he told him:
“I want your hide, you ugly bear,
And a necklace from your claws,
A pot of your grease to slick my hair
And steaks for one and all.”
Give him chase, boys, give him chase.
Don't let Bruin win the race.
Through the thickets, through the brakes,
Give him chase, boys, give him chase.
He raised his spear behind his ear,
And hollered out, “Let fly!”
Our points rained thick upon the bear
Like hailstones from the sky.
But don't you cry for that old bear.
Spears can't break his stride.
Half he swatted from the air.
The rest bounced off his hide.
Give him chase, boys, give him chase.
Don't let Bruin win the race.
Through the thickets, through the brakes,
Give him chase, boys, give him chase.
So Mungo charged; they did collide,
And here commenced the drama.
Old Bruin stretched his big arms wide
And hugged him like a mama.
The bear mashed Mungo good and thin
And rearranged his stuffin'.
His eyes bulged out, his chest caved in.
(This hug was none too lovin'.)
Give him chase, boys, give him chase.
Don't let Bruin win the race.
Through the thickets, through the brakes,
Give him chase, boys, give him chase.
Mungo managed to free a thumb.
He poked old Bruin's eye.
The bear let go to rub it some,
And Mungo slipped on by.
He clumb up Bruin's brawny rear
And hugged his hairy neck.
Bru bucked and rared and spun and veered,
But Mungo wouldn't shake.
The bear tore out across the swamp
With Mungo in a clench.
The last we saw was Bruin's rump,
And they ain't been back since.
Give him chase, boys, give him chase.
Don't let Bruin win the race.
Through the thickets, through the brakes,
Give him chase, boys, give him chase.
The feechies whooped and cheered and stomped like thunder. Aidan was spellbound. When Doyno dismounted the singstump, Aidan caught him by the arm. “Was that story true?” he asked.
“'Course it's true,” answered Doyno. He seemed surprised anyone would question the truth of a feechie ballad. “Happened about five winters ago. I seen the whole thing myself.”
“And your cousin Mungo”âAidan tried to put it as delicately as possibleâ“what became of him?”
“Can't say I know,” answered Doyno in a very matter-of-fact tone. “Somebody said they thought he'd took up with the bear and his family. Said they saw somebody looked a lot like Mungo raiding a bee tree with some bears.”
Aidan gave Doyno a doubtful look, but Doyno didn't appear to notice. “I don't believe it though,” continued Doyno. “Mungo's so mean and aggravating, I don't reckon any bears would put up with him. Besides,” he added, by way of emphasis, “Mungo always stunk something terrible.”
By this time the feechies were growing impatient for the next song. “Let's hear something new,” called Branko.
“Yeah, something we ain't heard yet,” agreed Tombro. “Dobro, you always pirooting around all over the place. I wager you've heard some new ballads.”
“Sure, I know a new ballad,” answered Dobro. “I learnt it from the beach feechies. But it's terrible sad, and I'm fearsome it would bust up the merriment.”
“Sing on, Dobro,” encouraged Odo. “The sadder the better. I could use a good cry.”
“I don't mind singing it,” continued Dobro, “but I ought to warn you, it's terrible long.”
“Sing on,” shouted a voice from the crowd. “We got nowhere to be.”
So Dobro mounted the big singstump. “This here sad-ballad is called âThe Thing That I Done,'” he explained. Then, as was customary for the singer of a sadballad, he pulled a long face, closed his eyes, and began to sing in a keening voice as high and as lonesome as a tree frog's:
Now listen up children to my tale of woe.
I used to be happy a long time ago.
Now everyone calls me the miserable one.
It's all on account of the thing that I done.
I hope that you'll learn from the mistakes I've made.
I hope that you won't play the games that I played.
I done what I done with no thought of tomorrow.
And now I got nothing but mis'ry and sorrow.
Pobo, already primed for a good cry, tuned up at the first mention of misery and woe. By the end of the second stanza, he was leaning on Doyno, his face buried in his hands, wailing as if his best friend had died. After a brief pause, Dobro carried on with his ballad. Such outbursts were to be expected at a feechiesing.
My mama, she learnt me the things I should know.
My daddy, he showed me the way I should go.
But I wouldn't be an obedient son.
I went out and I done the thing that I done.
Now that a mother was involved, there were sniffles all around. A few sobs could be heard in the crowd.
“I miss my mama,” wailed Branko. “She's the finest she-feechie ever swung on a vine.” Doyno pushed Branko from behind. “She ain't neither,” he blubbered. His eyes were red-rimmed from crying for his own mother. “My mama could whup your mama any day!” For a moment it appeared a fistfight was about to break out, but the other feechies shushed Doyno and Branko, anxious to hear what awful thing had ruined the balladeer's life. Soon it was quiet enough for Dobro to continue.
I once was so jolly, but now I just suffer.
Things has got rough, and they'll only get rougher.
My troubles and worries and distress begun
When I did that thing that I shouldn't have done.
Oh, this thing that I done, at the time I enjoyed it.
But listen to me, child, you better avoid it.
It ain't worth the heartache, it ain't worth the strife.
The thing that I done has done ruint my life.
By now the whole swamp council was dissolved in tears. Some had their arms around one another, sobbing on each others' shoulders. Others were laid out flat on the sand, literally wallowing in pity for the poor soul in the ballad whose whole life had collapsed, whose happiness was shattered because of one mistake. They were desperate for more details. What was this one thing that had caused so much heartache? How might they avoid a similar fate? They hung on Dobro's every word.
Lean in here close, and I'll tell you my tale.
It'll straighten your hair, it'll cause you to wail.
But if my sad story can save even one,
I don't mind your knowing this thing that I done.
Except for a few involuntary sobs, the feechies were perfectly silent. All eyes were on Dobro. Their anticipation grew almost unbearable as Dobro launched into a stanza of heartfelt humming, a sort of instrumental interlude: “Hmmm, hmmmm, hmmm, hmmmm, hmmm ⦔
Dobro launched into a second stanza of humming, his eyes still shut tight as if he were lost in the music. But his audience's patience was starting to fray. “Any day now,” grumbled a feechie named Beppo.
“Come on, Dobro,” whined Branko. “Ain't it time you moved this here story along?”
Dobro just kept humming, but as he moved his head around in time with the music, Aidan thought he saw
one eye peep open just enough to get the lay of the land. Then, suddenly, the sadballad broke off, and Dobro sprang from the singstump like a bullfrog and soared over the first row of the audience. He was leaping for a grapevine hanging over Branko's head. But it was a few inches too far. His fingertips just grazed the thick, woody vine and he belly-flopped onto Branko's tortoiseshell helmet with a great, air-expelling
ooooofff.
Dobro and a very surprised Branko both thudded to the ground.
A swarm of feechiefolk was on Dobro in an instant. “Where do you think you're going?” asked Beppo. “You get up and finish that sadballad.”
“Put him back on the singstump,” somebody shouted. The angry feechies carried Dobro roughly over their heads and deposited him back on the sweet gum logs, where he stood sheepish and silent for a few moments.