Diana Gabaldon · @Writer_DG
29th Mar 2014 from TwitLonger
#DailyLines #MOBY #WrittenINMyOWNHeartsBLOOD #Book8 #OutJUNE10th #ahuntingwewillgo
Jamie took a firm grip of the back of Germain’s shirt, and beckoned with his free hand to Ian, who held the torch.
“Look out over the water, first aye?” Jamie whispered, lifting his chin at the black glitter of the submerged marsh. It was broken by clumps of waist-high cordgrass, and smaller ones of needlerush, bright green in the torchlight. This was a deep spot, though, with two or three of what the natives of called “hammocks,” though plainly they meant “hummock”—wee islands, with trees like wax-myrtle and yaupon holly bushes, though these too were of a spiky nature, like everything else in a marsh, save the frogs and fish.
Some of the spikier inhabitants of the marsh, though, were mobile, and nothing you wanted to meet unexpectedly. Germain peered obediently into the darkness, his gigging spear held tight and high, poised for movement. Jamie could feel him tremble, partly from the chill, but mostly, he thought, from excitement.
A sudden movement broke the surface of the water, and Germain lunged forward, plunging his gig into the water with a high-pitched yell.
Fergus and Jamie let out much deeper cries, each grabbing Germain by an arm and hauling him backward over the mud, as the irate cottonmouth he’d nearly speared turned on him lashing, yawning mouth flaring white.
But the snake luckily had business elsewhere and swam off with a peeved sinuosity. Ian, safely out of range, was laughing.
“Think it’s funny, do ye?” said Germain, scowling in order to pretend he wasn’t shaking.
“Aye, I do,” his cousin assured him. “Be even funnier if ye were eaten by an alligator, though. See there?” He lifted the torch and pointed; ten feet away, there was a ripple in the water, between them and the nearest hammock.