The Secret of the Swamp King (9 page)

Aidan scrambled to his feet and ran toward the licking flames. He stomped at the burning grass, smothering the fire in boot-sized patches. The feechies joined, too, stomping as best they could. But even feechies aren't tough enough to stomp out a wildfire with bare feet.

A steady breeze from the west fanned the fire and it grew, carrying flames from one tuft of wire grass to the next. Aidan fetched his extra tunic from his backpack and used it to smother flames, but it was too late for that. The fire had stretched itself into a long line marching eastward before the prevailing wind. A small holly tree had already caught fire and sent popping cinders out ahead of the fire line. Little troops of flames licked around the bases of the big pine trees, looking to burst into magnificent flame among the long straw of the
overstory. But the old trees resisted, and the ground fires died at their feet.

The vanguard of the fire kept marching onward. Rabbits fled before it, as did pine voles, little ground sparrows, and other animals that depended on the high, thick grass for cover. Rat snakes and cotton mice, normally predators and prey, entered a truce born of emergency and sought refuge together in the dark coolness of the tortoise burrows, deep below the crackling fire.

Behind the fire line a swath of charred and smoking ground expanded. But the fire was insatiable. It pushed eastward, devouring every blade of grass, every bush, every little sapling in its path. Aidan looked past the fire to the forest beyond. Dry wire grass waved as far as he could see—leagues and leagues of fuel for a fire that looked as if it might never stop.

The feechies were running in every direction, yelling and waving their arms but not doing anything helpful. They soon lost what little self-control they had and began crying and moaning, heartbroken at the prospect of their beautiful forest going up in flame. Hyko took it especially hard; his leg, after all, had kicked the burning log into the grass to set this conflagration in motion.

But they all snapped to attention when Aidan announced, “I know what to do.”

Hyko wiped his eyes and sniffed a long, wet sniffle. “You do?”

They didn't understand what Aidan was doing when he pulled burning limbs out of the fire and handed one
to each of them. But they were encouraged by the apparent sense of purpose with which he shouldered his pack and raised his own firebrand like a cavalry officer's sword. “Follow me!” he ordered, and as he ran across the smoking ground toward the fire line, the three feechies followed.

“Ow! Ow! Ooooh! Ow!”

“Hooo! Hooo! Hot! Hot!”

The poor feechies didn't have the benefit of a layer of boot leather between their feet and the hot ground, and the closer they came to the fire, the hotter it was.

“I'm 'bout to burn up!” complained Hyko above the crackle of flames. But neither he nor the other two feechies turned back.

“It's cooler on the other side!” shouted Aidan. And with that, he leaped into the chest-high hedge of flame. The feechies closed their eyes and followed him.

“Haa-wee!” Aidan shouted exultantly when he made it through the flames. He turned around just in time to see Hyko throw down his firebrand and barrel into him. Civilizer and feechie fell to the ground.

“Stop it!” yelled Aidan. “Stop it!” But Hyko didn't stop. He rolled Aidan over on his back as if to pin him.
These feechies don't know when to stop!
thought Aidan as he struggled to get away. Then Orlo and Pobo jumped into the fracas and started slapping at him.

“What's the matter with you!” Aidan screamed. He was good and angry now. A brushfire was bearing down on them, but all these feechies wanted to do was fight and wrestle.

“You're on fire!” shouted Hyko, and Aidan realized it was true. The flapping tail of his tunic had caught fire as he passed through the flames. The three feechies rolled him back and forth and slapped at his smoking tunic until they were sure the fire was out.

But there was little time to reflect on the near disaster. Aidan relit his smoldering firebrand in the encroaching fire line and led the feechies onward, ahead of the fire, across the open forest. He didn't stop until he was more than three long stone's throws away from the fire line. He stopped in a spot where the grass was sparser and more sand showed between the clumps.

The feechies' eyes grew wide when Aidan touched his firebrand to the wire grass and set it ablaze.

“What's a matter with you!” barked Orlo, stomping at the burning grass. “I thought we was going to fight this fire, not feed it!”

“It's called fighting fire with fire,” Aidan explained. He touched off another clump of grass. “A wildfire can't burn what's already burned.” He lit another tussock near his feet. “If we can make a backfire we can control, we might be able to kill the wild one.”

Hyko was starting to understand. “We burn out the grass from this end, and when the wildfire gets here, it's got nowhere to go.”

“As long as this one doesn't get away from us too,” cautioned Aidan.

Hyko jigged around excitedly. Like all feechies, he liked playing with fire and was glad to have a good excuse. “Hee-haw! This civilizer's got what it takes!” He
set his torch to a tussock of grass, then another and another.

“Whoa, horse!” laughed Aidan, stomping out one of Hyko's fires. “Don't make more fire than you can handle!”

Orlo and Pobo were skeptical of Aidan's scheme, but in the absence of a better plan, they touched their firebrands to the grass.

The westerly breeze tried to push the backfire into the firefighters. Occasional gusts sent them scrambling, stomping out fresh blazes. Aidan stomped and leaped like a buck-dancer and made good use of the long, broad rattlesnake hide as a fire beater to smother the flames. Since his feet were protected by boots, Aidan took sole responsibility for killing errant sparks while Orlo, Pobo, and Hyko broadened the reach of the backfire. Back and forth he ran, up and down, responding to the urgent cries of his men when a stray clump of grass ignited or a popping cinder threatened to set a bush ablaze.

The occasional gust of wind was a crisis, threatening to send the backfire in the wrong direction, to make it an accomplice in the ravages of the wildfire. And as the feechie crew succeeded in stretching out its line of defense, Aidan had farther to run and more emergencies to deal with.

They seemed to be making progress. A band of blackened wire grass grew longer and broader, and though it was ugly, it represented the best hope that the grass for miles beyond would be spared the same fiery fate. The wildfire lengthened its reach even as it was getting closer. The backfire still wasn't nearly long enough to contain it.

The strain of the work was starting to show on all the firefighters. The heat and smoke were exhausting. They were all blackened beyond recognition. And Aidan had been running in the smoke for close to an hour without a rest. He was getting discouraged, ready to surrender and let the wildfire burn to its heart's content, when an unfamiliar voice sounded behind them.

“What's going on here? Why you burning up my woods?”

The firefighters turned to see a hunting party of five feechies who had materialized from the forest. “Tombro!” Hyko shouted joyously to the strange feechie who had spoken. Tombro squinted, unable to recognize Hyko for the coating of soot and ash. “It's me, Hyko Vinesturgeon.”

Tombro nodded his head slowly. “Yeah, I reckon you're Hyko. But with that black face, you look more like a old hog bear.” He turned to the other two soot-blackened feechies. “Then you must be Orlo and Pobo?” He looked quizzically at Aidan, who was still running furiously up and down the line of the backfire and stomping at flames. Aidan was so thoroughly blackened that the newcomers didn't even notice he was a civilizer.

“That's Pantherbane,” explained Orlo. “The civilizer.”

The new feechies gaped in wonder. “
The
Pantherbane?” asked one of them.

“That's right,” said Pobo. “Sure as you're standing there.”

The hunters waved shyly at Aidan, who waved back, though he didn't stop his frantic dance to do so. “We need
help,” he announced. “A lot of help. We're making a backfire.” He looked at the approaching wall of flame. It was only fifty strides away.

“Sure, sure,” nodded Tombro eagerly, and his four companions nodded with him. None of them understood what Aidan was talking about, but they were honored to help the famous Pantherbane any way they could. Pobo fetched firebrands for them. Aidan pointed to the wildcat hide that one of the new feechies wore for a cape. “Can you use that for a fire beater?” he asked.

The feechie hesitated a moment. The cape was his most prized possession. Tombro had little patience with such foolishness. “Jerdo, give me that cat hide,” he grumbled, unhooking the claw catch from around Jerdo's neck. “If Pantherbane needs help, we gonna help him.”

The extra hands were a huge help to the firefighters who needed all the help they could get. The wind had picked up, and the wildfire was coming faster. Seven feechies were lighting fires now, and Aidan and Tombro worked frantically up and down the line, beating and stomping out fires that sprouted up ever more quickly.

When the leading edge of the wildfire was a mere ten strides from them, Aidan called a retreat. He wasn't sure what would happen when the two fires collided, and he didn't want anyone to get hurt.

The wildfire roared over the smaller backfire like a tidal wave. It looked unstoppable, throwing sparks and cinders in front, little flaming outriders scouting out new
grass to burn, new bushes to swallow up. The fire made its own wind, searing waves that pulsed at the nine firefighters, who winced not just at the heat, but at the dread of the wildfire jumping their hard-won firebreak and swallowing the vast expanse of forest behind them.

A few flying sparks and airborne cinders did clear the firebreak and land in the flammable grass beyond. But vigilant firefighters quickly squelched them before the fire could find purchase. Most of the sparks, however, landed in the blackened trail of the backfire, where they died for lack of fuel. The main body of the wildfire spent itself. It had nowhere else to go, no way to propel itself farther.

At the south end of the line, however, the wildfire outflanked the backfire. For a few tense minutes it appeared enough flames had survived to grow again into an unmanageable blaze. But Tombro dropped to the ground and started digging furiously with a flat stone, about the size of his hand, that he pulled from his side pouch. The other seven feechies had similar tools in their own pouches, and together they were able to dig just enough of a trench to slow the fire.

The fire jumped the feechies' trench but not all at once. As the flames licked across, the firefighters were ready for them and snuffed them out. Aidan handed his snakeskin to Pobo and took off his own tunic to use as a fire beater. Jerdo's cat hide was a blackened mess by now, but the three fire beaters were more than enough to contain the last remnants of the fire.

“Hee-haw!” yodeled Tombro. “We whupped it!”

Aidan surveyed the black and smoking scene before him. “We whupped it,” he rasped, almost too blistered and exhausted and thirsty to care. “We whupped it.”

Aidan squeezed cool mud between his fingers and dug his blistered feet in the mud beneath the shallow water to soothe them. A huge mud-coated sycamore leaf was plastered on his scorched brow like a cooling rag. Tombro had led the troop of firefighters to this shady seep hole to recover from the rigors of their day. Three of Tombro's hunting party stayed at the fire site to make sure the smoldering fire didn't burst again into flame. But everybody else—Aidan, Hyko, Orlo, Pobo, Tombro, and Jerdo—was sprawled in the ankle-deep water of the seep hole, lolling in the mud.

“This is living,” observed Pobo, glopping a handful of sticky mud onto his chest and slathering it around.

“A leech!” squealed Orlo, raising his leg out of the muddy water. Aidan blanched at the sight of a glistening black sluglike mass, about the size of a pinky finger, attached to the feechie's ankle. And he felt sick when Orlo pried it loose and popped it whole into his mouth.

“Mmmmm,” Orlo murmured contentedly as he chewed. “Could things get any better?”

“Lucky,” muttered Hyko as he checked his own arms and legs for leeches.

Aidan was starting to doze, but he was awakened by a question from Tombro. “Hey, Pantherbane,” he called. “What'd you say your civilizer name was?”

“It's Aidan, Aidan Errolson.”

“Errolson?” asked Tombro. “What's that name supposed to mean?”

“Well,” Aidan began, not sure what the feechie was asking, “it means I'm the son of Errol. That's how all civilizer last names work. I'm Aidan son of Errol so my name's Aidan Errolson. My father's the son of Finlay, so his name is Errol Finlayson.”

“So civilizer names don't mean much of anything then,” observed Tombro. “Every feechie name tells a story—tells about something you done or something one of your people done.” He was up on one elbow now, the better to gesture while he talked. “Take my name,” he said, “Tombro Timberbeaver. My daddy won the swampwide log-cutting contest five years straight and never picked up a ax.” Aidan looked doubtful, but Tombro pressed on. “He had a family of beavers he trained. And when he told them beavers where to gnaw, they whirled in there and fairly made the chips fly! That's how my people came to be called Timberbeavers.”

Aidan smiled wanly. He wasn't sure he believed Tombro's story, but he didn't want to offend by expressing doubt. He had already survived one feechie fight that day and didn't feel up for another.

“Ask Hyko,” suggested Tombro. “Ask Hyko where his last name come from.”

“All right,” Aidan obliged. “Hyko, how'd you get your last name?”

Hyko smiled. It was a favorite feechie pastime to tell name stories, and the story of the Vinesturgeons, Hyko's clan, was always a favorite. “My granddaddy used to hunt sturgeon when they come upriver,” he began. “Had him a little flatboat, and he'd stand up in the bow like this here.” He got to his feet and stood in a crouch, feet apart. He raised his right fist to his ear as if he had a spear at the ready. “Them big, ugly fish'd come cruising up the river—some of them bigger than Granddaddy's boat—and when he saw a big fin break the water…” He reared back and flung his imaginary spear at Jerdo, who happened to be lazing directly in front of him.

“That's when the fun would commence. 'Cause the spear had a long vine attached to it, and Granddaddy hung on to that vine for a owdacious ride. Up the river. Down the river. Across the river.” Hyko zigzagged around the seep hole, pretending to be towed this way and that. “He'd hang on, and that ugly old sturgeon would pull the boat ever which way until he just played out.

“But Granddaddy was a little feller, and sometimes the big fish'd pull the vine right out his hands. He lost two fish in one morning that way—two good spears too. He told his fishing buddies he didn't aim to miss the next one.

“Sure enough, he speared him a third sturgeon that morning. And this'n didn't pull the vine outta Granddaddy's hands. It pulled him clean outta the boat,
but Granddaddy wouldn't turn loose. It dragged him underwater. Granddaddy still wouldn't turn loose. Ever now and then his head popped out of the water, first here, then there, now way over yonder.” He pointed another zigzag. “But still he wouldn't turn loose.

“The sturgeon finally played out, and Granddaddy's buddies fished Granddaddy and the fish both outta the river. They hung Granddaddy upside down from a tree limb just to drain all the water out him. But they figured out why he didn't let go of that vine: He'd done tied it 'round his waist! He couldn't have let go if he'd a wanted to.” Aidan and the feechies hooted with laughter. “And from that day to this,” concluded Hyko, “all my people been called Vinesturgeon.”

Aidan applauded Hyko's performance. He was fascinated by the feechies' naming customs. “So Dobro Turtlebane,” he asked, “where does his name come from?”

“Oh, the Turtlebanes are a clan of fierce turtle hunters,” answered Hyko, “the bane of turtles' existence.”

“How about your cousin, Theto Elbogator?”

Hyko was ready with that story too. “There's a crook of the Tam the feechiefolks calls the Elbow. Used to be a big alligator lived there. We called him the Elbow gator. He'd smash up boats that floated through, eat whatever folks fell out. Theto kilt that alligator. Ate him too. Ever since, his family's been called the Elbogators. Before that, they was just plain old Sands, like Orlo and Pobo there.”

Aidan was confused. “I thought you weren't related!” he said, looking at Orlo and Pobo.

“We ain't,” answered Pobo. “Sands is just the name you get stuck with if you or none of your folks ain't done nothing special.”

“If you ain't kilt no ravaging critters or won no contests or half-drownded yourself chasing after a fish, folks just call you Sands,” Orlo explained.

“We're just as common and no'count as dirt, I reckon,” moaned Pobo. “So folks calls us Sands.” Orlo and Pobo both looked to be on the point of tears, and the other feechies were quick to offer words of assurance.

“You'll get you a name one of these days.”

“You boy's ain't all that no'count.”

Hyko thought about giving Pobo a hug, but Pobo drew back as if to punch him in the nose. Hyko changed his mind, thinking it better to change the subject instead. “Pantherbane,” he called, “how come you're out here nearbout to Feechiefen, instead of across the river where civilizers belong?”

Aidan decided to tell the whole truth on that score for the first time since he left Tambluff. “I'm going into the swamp to fetch a frog orchid for King Darrow.”

“You?” asked Jerdo, a little sarcastically. “Headed into Feechiefen alone?” The feechies all laughed at the idea of a civilizer—even Pantherbane himself—venturing into the Feechiefen alone.

Aidan ignored their mocking laughter. “I was hoping I could find a feechie guide. Do any of you know where the frog orchid grows?”

The feechies just shrugged. “I don't know 'bout no frog orchid,” said Hyko. “The Feechiefen is full of
orchids—pink orchids, white orchids, yellow orchids, purple.”

“Some of them bigger around than your head,” offered Orlo. “Some of them would set on your finger-nail.”

“There's orchids that grows on the ground, orchids that grows on trees,” said Tombro.

“Some orchids grows on other orchids,” Hyko continued. “I've seen orchids shaped like a turtle, orchids shaped like a gator's mouth. There's some that smells like rotten lizard eggs. But the one you call a frog orchid, I don't know what that is.”

Aidan's face fell. He had assumed that any feechie he met in the swamp would be able to take him straight to the frog orchid. “So you've never heard the Frog Orchid Chant?” The feechies all shook their heads. Aidan recited a couple of lines to see if it jogged anyone's memory: “In deepest swamp, in house of bears, / An orchid in the spring appears.”

“House of bears?” snorted Jerdo. “That don't narrow things down too much. Ever dry spot in the swamp's a house for bears.”

“Unless it's talking about Bearhouse Island,” suggested Orlo.

“Well, I ain't guiding nobody to Bearhouse!” yawped Pobo.

There was a general grumble of agreement.

“Me neither!”

“I heard that!”

“Uh-uh, not me.”

“I'm skeered of Bearhouse Island,” confessed Hyko, “and I'm fearless.”

“Where's Bearhouse?” asked Aidan.

“Spang in the middle of the swamp,” Hyko said. “Five days' poling from the swamp edge.”

“That's five days for a feechie, born and raised in the Feechiefen,” put in Orlo. “And that don't count the time you'd spend fighting off the biggest alligators in the swamp.”

“But even that ain't the worst part of it,” continued Jerdo. “The worst part's the feechiefolks that runs things on Bearhouse.”

“Chief Larbo's band,” Hyko explained. “And them boys is mean.”

“Aren't all feechies mean?” Aidan asked.

“Well, sure,” said Pobo, with a hint of pride in his voice, “but we ain't talking about regular feechie mean. Folks that's too nasty to live with the rest of us, that's who joins up with Larbo's band.”

“Folks what don't care a lizard's tail for the Feechie Code,” said Orlo.

“Folks what don't love their mamas.” Tombro shivered as he said it.

The feechies' description of Larbo's band of outlaws made Aidan think of the attacks on Last Camp. “Somebody's been attacking a hunting camp on the other side of the river,” he said. “I think it's feechies. Could it be Larbo's band?”

“On the civilizer side?” Tombro shook his head. “Even Larbo wouldn't attack on the civilizer side.”

“But they shot from the treetops,” said Aidan. “And when they ran away, they ran away through the treetops. Civilizers can't do that.”

Hyko's brow wrinkled. “That do sound like feechiefolks…”

“You say they was shooting,” said Tombro. “What kind of arrows did they shoot?”

“I saved one,” said Aidan. He pulled the white-feathered arrow out of his quiver and handed it to Tombro.

“See there?” said Tombro triumphantly. “Cold-shiny arrowhead. Can't be feechie.”

“But that shaft…” Hyko began.

“What about it?” Tombro retorted.

“It's black bamboo. Feechiefen's the only place where black bamboo grows. A civilizer couldn'ta made this arrow.”

Taking the arrow from Tombro, Orlo fingered the white feathers. “Egret feathers,” he observed. “Few days ago, me and Pobo come up on a egret rookery where somebody'd kilt all the birds and left them dead on the ground—just plucked out the big plume feathers and left them there.”

“Pitifullest thing I ever seen,” said Pobo.

“Plume hunters are shooting out the rookeries on the civilizer side too,” said Aidan.

The feechies grew quiet, trying to figure out what it meant. Hyko was the first to speak. “I don't know what's going on exactly,” he admitted, “but I do know that there's feechies breaking the code, and that brings trouble on every feechie in the swamp.”

“Cold-shiny arrowheads …” Pobo's lip curled in disgust. “Next thing, folks'll be building civilizer houses all over the swamp and riding around on smelly horses and covering ever dry spot with furball, civilizer sheep. What kind of feechie would shoot a cold-shiny arrowhead?”

“Maybe the same kind of feechie what shoots out a whole egret rookery,” answered Orlo.

“And attacking civilizers on their side of the river …” Hyko shook his head. “That'll just bring the civilizers to Feechiefen, with their horses and their cold-shiny spears.”

“I wish they'd try,” boasted Jerdo, puffing out his chest. “Can't no civilizers whup us in our own swamp!”

“'Course not,” answered Hyko, “but we still don't want a bunch of civilizers tromping around in the Feechiefen.” He rubbed his head nervously. “We got to hold a swamp council. We got to do something 'bout this before it's too late.”