The Hanged Man's Song

backwater.
    And if you ever need to find a poisonous snake in a hurry—rattlesnake, copperhead, cottonmouth—the strip between the levee and the water, anywhere between Memphis and New Orleans, is just the spot.
    >>> MAYBE I was crazy about this river-crossing thing. I was sure it would occur to him, but if he thought about it long enough, it would also occur to him that he’d be a sitting duck for a powerboat, out there in the middle of the river. By eleven o’clock, I’d convinced myself that he wouldn’t try crossing the river: he’d get himself lost in the woods, instead. Maybe try cutting cross-country on that trail bike. As far as we knew, he didn’t have the money to try anything more sophisticated.
    My phone rang. We looked at it as though it might be a cottonmouth, and it rang a second time, and I snatched it off the end table where it was sitting. “Yeah?”
    “You in Longstreet?”
    “Just got here,” I said. “I’m beat, I can barely see. If we’re gonna do this, let’s do it.”
    “You got the laptop?”
    “Yes. But I got a couple of things to tell you. We think you might be planning to double-cross us on the girl. We’re gonna give you the laptop, but don’t double-cross us. You don’t know exactly what you’ve gotten into with us, but if you hurt Rachel, we’ll find you, and you won’t be given a free phone call. We’ll cut your fuckin’ head off. You understand that?”
    “Fuck you. Bring the laptop.”
    “Look, there’s no point in a double-cross.”
    “I’ve thought of all that. So listen: You know where Universal is?”
    “Universal? What is it?”
    “It’s a town, fifteen miles south of Longstreet. A cafe, a gas station, a feed store. Ask your friends.”
    I looked at John. “A town called Universal?”
    He nodded. “Down south.”
    I went back to Carp: “Okay. They know where it is.”
    “Go down there. Stay off your cell phone. If you leave right now, you should be there in about twenty-one minutes, from your friend’s door. I will call you on your cell phone in twenty-one minutes.”
    “Rachel . . .”
    “I’ll tell you about Rachel next time I call.” And he was gone.
    >>> BEFORE I got out of there, John pointed to the town on the map. “There’s a whole line of hills off there, all tree-covered.I’ll bet he’s up in the woods, where he can look right down into the town. And look at this—just a little south of there is one of the river’s narrow spots, where it goes around Cutter’s Bend, and the highway on the other side runs close. He’s gonna do the river trick.”
    “I gotta go,” I said. “You get everybody ready. Marvel, I’m gonna need your cell phone.”
    She gave me the phone, but asked, “Why?”
    “Because I want to be able to talk to you guys while I’m talking to him on my cell. I want you to be able to hear what I’m saying to him. I’ll call John on your phone when I’m a few miles out, and keep talking while I go in and wait for him to call on my phone.”
    We were out the door as I explained, and I got in the car and waved. John was already talking on his phone, bringing the guys who’d gone north back into the action.
    >>> THE highway south from Longstreet has been featured in blues, jazz, country, and even rock tunes, from musicians running up and down the river between Memphis and New Orleans, stopping off in Baton Rouge, Natchez, Vicksburg, Greenville, and Helena. The highway’s an old one, a cracked patchwork of tarmac and concrete, with lots of wiggles—half of them, it seems, known as “dead man’s curve” by the locals—and mostly used for short runs, since they put in I-55 to the east.
    I wasn’t alone on the highway, when I headed south, but the nearest car in front of me was a half-mile away, and there was nobody in my rearview. Every minute or so, I passed cars coming the opposite direction, which meant that two-mile spacing might be typical.
    The day was hot: August in the Delta. Heat waves and six-foot mirages hung over the roadway. A line of low hills ran parallel to the river, but well back from it, at Longstreet; but as I got farther south, the river and highway turned into the hills, tightening the valley. Ten miles south of Longstreet, the bottoms of the hills came right down to the road. The levee was a half-mile away, with a few narrow farm fields—cotton and beans—using up the space between the road and the levee. I called John on Marvel’s cell phone, got him, then dropped the