Swamp Sister

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The cypresses stood up from the marshy prairies. Straight up from the surface covering of water lettuce and the runty elderberry shrubs, until their tall mossdraped arms flickered silver in the sun against the vast spread of turquoise sky, like the walls and roof of a great greenhouse, covering and protecting in its sullen warm shadows a myriad of dank growth and crawling activity.

But to the pilot sitting behind the puttering motor, it was like a giant spider web awaiting a crippled fly.

The motor of the Piper Cub had been acting like a cranky child ever since the plane had come over the swamp region, and there wasn't a thing the pilot could do about it. He looked at the instrument panel – the glass dials that were the visible nerve ends of the ship, the score pad of her metabolism. Everything was quivering.

And in that instant the motor konked out completely. He looked at the panel again, like a magician searching through his bag of tricks. Then he looked out the window and watched the swamp coming up at him fast. Too fast.

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