On each side of them, the forest stood like a wall, its tough low trees and thick-bodied palmettoes laced and bound together with wire-strong vines. Overhead the foliage met, making the trail a tunnel as inescapable as though it had been built of masonry.
The man walked with a swinging, effortless stride, but his breath sounded in long, audible inhalations, as though he labored physically.
When they had journeyed for half an hour they crossed a small cypress swamp. The cypress-knees jutted grotesquely from the yellow water, and trailing Spanish moss extended drab stalactites that brushed their faces as they threaded the low, muddy trail.
Finally Bess emerged into a small clearing, in the centre of which stood a low hut with sides of plaited twigs and roof of palmetto leaves laid on top of each other in regular rows like shingles.
Crown was close behind her. At the low door of the hut she paused and turned toward him. He laughed suddenly and hotly at what he saw in her face.
“I know yuh ain’t change,” he said. “Wid yuh an’ me it always goin’ tuh be de same. See?”
He snatched her body toward him with such force that her breath was forced from her in a sharp gasp. Then she inhaled deeply, threw back her head, and sent a wild laugh out against the walls of the clearing.
Crown swung her about and threw her face forward into the hut.
§
The sun was so low that its level rays shot through the tunnels of the forest and bronzed its ceiling of woven leaves when Bess returned to the clearing. She paused for a moment. Behind her, screened by the underbrush, stood Crown.