14

The rising sun turned the eastern windows of the listing cabin a brilliant hot-fire orange. Standing shirtless on the plywood trap-floor, Leland Ticholet stood in the doorway studying the murky surface of the still water in the channel and eating instant coffee granules out of the jar with a spoon.

His guest was still exactly where he’d laid him out on the cot. Bringing the guy out for Doc had cost Leland a day of taking care of his own business, but since he would own the boat moored to his dock for one job of work, it did sort of balance out. He was thinking about all the nutria that were, at that moment, swimming around in his water, eating his vegetation into extinction, pooping floating black pellets by the hundreds, screwing like rabbits, and just plain asking for it while he stood there with his thumb up his ass babysitting some worthless shit-hole, long-haired city boy.

Leland was not comfortable sharing his cabin with anyone, asleep or awake. He couldn’t remember anybody but his daddy, and some of his ’shine customers, ever being inside it. Not one visitor since his daddy passed, and Leland hadn’t ever wanted another one. He didn’t have any conversations he could avoid. In his world, he could go weeks without saying a word out loud, or seeing another human being except in a passing boat.

Leland didn’t own the waterways or any of the land that touched it, yet it was his to use as he saw fit, just as it had been his father’s, and his father’s father’s before him. Leland was like a female alligator that tolerated the presence of others as long as they didn’t get too close to her nest or she wasn’t hungry enough to go after them.