The Thanatos Syndrome

no insulators. No signs, except a radioactive warning. I told him it is not a substation. But you not going to tell Mist’ Hugh anything.”
    â€œThere is something I don’t understand,” I tell Vergil.
    â€œWhat’s that, Doc-tor?” He almost said Doc.
    â€œYou say you and the uncle went quail hunting there.”
    â€œYes, suh. My daddy evermore love quail and my mamma can evermore cook them, idn’t that right, Miss Lucy?”
    Lucy nods absently.
    â€œMist’ Hugh, he some kind of hunter. A dead shot. I’ve seen him shoot two birds crossing with one shot. He and old Maggie.” Vergil laughs.
    We can see Maggie’s tail stiff and high moving through the Johnson grass like a periscope.
    â€œHe loan me his automatic and kept his old double-barreled .12 and got more birds than I did. The reason we went to the island was to get woodcock. He claims they like it there, but we didn’t see any. He say he can tell by the way Maggie points whether it’s birds or woodcock.”
    â€œHow did you get in there?”
    â€œHow you mean?”
    â€œI mean whoever put in that pipeline and pumping station is not going to want people to see it—and there’s that eight-foot fence plus barbed wire up here next to the intake.”
    â€œThat’s right. But they don’t watch the other end of the island. Here.” He touches the lower blind end of Lake Mary. “The fence goes right across Lake Mary, but except at very high water you can ease right under it. They don’t care. Nobody bothered us.”
    â€œHow would you go about getting in there now?”
    â€œMist’ Hugh got an old skiff hid up in the willows by Bear Bayou here. You welcome to take it. He happy to take you. You just put into the lake here and ease up under the fence and put in here and walk half a mile on this old jeep trail, used to be a hog trail.”
    â€œHow about you?” I ask him.
    â€œMe? I got to work. Ax Miss Lucy.”
    â€œYa’ll three go,” says Lucy testily. “I’ll get Uncle Hugh to be the guide. You two take a look and see if you can figure out what in the hell is going on.”
    â€œMist’ Hugh be happy,” says Vergil, laughing.
    Lucy can’t or won’t go. She has to collect her thoughts—this is a different ball game; do you mean somebody is doing this on purpose? This calls for different queries, a different epidemiology.
    â€œTom,” she says, tapping her teeth, “I’m looking for effects, symptoms, a correlation between high Na-24 levels and the attendant symptoms. What are you looking for?”
    â€œActually it would be the abatement of symptoms—of such peculiarly human symptoms as anxiety, depression, stress, insomnia, suicidal tendencies, chemical dependence. Think of it as a regression from a stressful human existence to a peaceable animal existence.”
    â€œThat’s a big help. How in hell can I frame a question in those terms?”
    â€œTry for cases of mindless violence—like a rogue elephant— like Mickey LaFaye shooting her horses—or a serial killer, the fellow who killed thirty Florida coeds. Theoretically the pharmacological effect of Na-24 on some cortices should produce cases of pure angelism-bestialism; that is, people who either consider themselves above conscience and the law or don’t care.”
    â€œHm. Then I might turn up something from criminal data banks.”
    â€œTry it.”
    She watches us, frowning thoughtfully from the great open front door of Pantherburn.
    The uncle is delighted to take us. He’s got it into his head that it is some kind of fishing trip, for when we pile into my Caprice, he has a short casting rod with him.
    Maggie thinks it’s a hunt and wants to go, nudges her iron head into my crotch, but is not allowed.
    We take the Angola road south and at the uncle’s direction two or three turns onto gravel roads and dirt tracks, dip down out of the loess hills onto the flats of the Tunica Swamp. The willows here, often under water, still have dusty skirts from the dried mud of the spring rise.
    The uncle leads the way through the willows, fishing pole trailing, right shoulder leading the way, creeper and potato vines singing and popping around his wide, sidling hips.
    Bear Bayou is no more than a creek’s mouth. An old cypress skiff, hard and heavy but not waterlogged, is pulled up under bushes