The otter nodded and swung the sail around to catch as much of the hot breeze as possible. Obediently the zodiac turned southward.
“We can’t be too far off.” Jon-Tom made this appraisal as evening neared. “The porpoises were sure they followed the right course.”
“I wouldn’t bet a tin coin on anything that lot o’ seagoin’ sardine strainers said.” The otter was lying on his back on the starboard hull, legs crossed and staring lazily at the sky. “Pleasant enough country, though a smidgen on the damp side.”
“We’ll find a place to anchor tonight,” Jon-Tom said grimly, “and continue on south tomorrow. If we don’t find them by then we’ll turn about and try farther north. I can’t believe the porpoises were deliberately leading us on.”
“Why not? ’Ow can you take seriously anyone wot don’t ’ave no ’ands?”
Jon-Tom followed the coast as it curved slightly to the east. They were preparing to tie up to the buttress roots of a huge morgel when Mudge suddenly dropped the line he was holding.
“You ’ear that, mate?”
Jon-Tom straightened, stared into the swamp. Small insects were beginning to emerge from the trees. The hisses and hoots of flying lizards reverberated in the evening air.
“I don’t hear a thing, Mudge.”
“Well I sure as ’ell do!” The otter dumped the rope back into the zodiac and pointed. “That way.” Reaching up, he began pulling them into the trees.
“Mudge,” Jon-Tom said warily, “if we go in there at night we’re liable to find ourselves good and lost by morning.”
“Don’t worry, mate. It ain’t far.”
“What ain’t—what isn’t far?”
“Why, the music, o’ course. Sounds like celebratin’. Mebbe ’tis our friends, ’avin’ themselves a high drunken old time. Mebbee drunk enough so’s they won’t know we’re about and we can sneak right up on ’em before they know where their bleedin’ pants are an’ steal sweet Weege away.”
“I still don’t hear any music.”
“Trust me, mate. Well, trust me ears, anyways.”
Jon-Tom sighed, adjusted the sail. “All right, but just the ears.”
As the vines and tangled branches closed in over them he grew steadily more apprehensive. Bogart had a hell of a time getting the African Queen out of country like this and he wasn’t Bogart. At last he was able to draw some relief from the knowledge that Mudge hadn’t been affected by the heat. The otter was no crazier than usual.
There was definitely music coming from up ahead.
Mudge stood in the bow, sniffing nervously at the air, his small round ears cocked sharply forward. The tangle of roots and branches began to thin until they found themselves sailing up a slow-moving river whose banks were festooned with low-hanging vegetation. It was almost night now, but the otter’s eyes saw clearly in the dark.
“Over there.” Squinting, Jon-Tom was just able to make out not one but several small boats of unfamiliar design. The big pirate ketch was not in sight. “Anchored somewhere else,” the otter muttered. “Mebbee still out at sea. They ’ave to use them smaller craft to make it through the swamp.”
A large bonfire lit the woods behind the beached boats, which were drawn up on the first bit of solid land they’d encountered since leaving Yarrowl. Something small and leathery landed on Jon-Tom’s forearm. He let out a muffled yelp of pain and slapped at it, watched as it fell, twitching and stunned, into the bottom of the zodiac. The half-inch-long reptile had thin, membranous wings, a narrow, pointed muzzle. His forearm was starting to redden and swell where the invader had bitten him.
Mudge turned from his lookout position near the bow and picked it up. After a cursory inspection, he tossed it over the side. “Bloodsucker. Bet there are plenty in this country. Foulness with wings, wot?”
“I don’t see anyone guarding the boats.”
“Who’d they ’ave to guard ’em from? Anyways, sounds like they’re ’avin’ too much fun. Crikey, that looks like a row o’ bloomin’ ’ouses. Mighty domestic, this lot.”
The line of shacks, lean-tos and cabins hardly qualified as houses. Shelters would’ve been a more accurate description. Some appeared to stand erect in defiance of gravity.
Jon-Tom was nonplussed by the sight. “This doesn’t look right, Mudge. The houses don’t fit, there’s no sign of the ketch, and that singing doesn’t sound like the chorus of a bunch of drunken brigands to me. I’d swear some of the voices are female.”
“One way to find out.”
They tied the zodiac to a downstream cypress and cautiously headed toward the makeshift village, Jon-Tom cursing the low-hanging branches and thick roots as he fought to follow the agile otter. There was a small gap between a couple of the cabins and they slowly followed it toward the light and singing. All of the cabins were built on stilts, a necessity in a swampland that doubtless flooded every wet season.
Beyond the semicircle of structures was the bonfire whose glow they’d spotted from the river. A covey of musicians were playing a rollicking tune to which numerous members of the little community were dancing and jumping. None of them were dressed like pirates. Mudge’s black nose was working overtime.
“They don’t cook like pirates, neither. Wonderful smells! You know wot?” He glanced up at his friend. “I bloody well think we’ve come to the wrong place. These folks ain’t buccaneers.”
“Of course we no buccaneers. What you two?”
Jon-Tom spun, to see a young lady muskrat leaning out of a cabin window looking down at him. She had a corncob pipe stuck in one corner of her mouth and a bright yellow polka-dot bandana wrapped around her head.
“Yeah, ever’body!” she yelled.
The dancing slowed and the music stopped as the villagers turned in the direction of the shout.
“Right, let’s not overstay the welcome we ain’t been given.” Mudge started to back up the way they’d come, but Jon-Tom put out a hand to hold him. The otter shook it off.
“Wot’s the ’old-up, mate? Wot are you waitin’ for? Let’s make a run for the boat while we still ’ave the time.”
“So we can do what? Continue sailing blindly along the coast until we hit a submerged root or something? Maybe these people can help us.”
Reluctantly Mudge held his ground, muttering. “Aye, ’elp us into the cookpot.”
A fox, several squirrels, and a sleepy-eyed porcupine approached to confront the strangers. “Now what we got here, you think?” The fox’s clothes were of simple materials and design, frayed at the edges but clean. Nor did Jon-Tom fail to note the long sharp skinning knife sheathed at his waist. One of the lady squirrels walked right up to Mudge and put her nose against his, sniffing interestedly. He drew back.
