THE THUNDERER.

The wonderful thing about English (the rotten thing is spelling, but that has nothing to do with this story) is that it's like a big vacuum cleaner. It sucks up everything, useful or not, and compacts it in one place where you can pick through stuff at your leisure, sorting out the useful from the lint and dead things. Not only individual words and phrases but patterns of speech as well.

Not long ago The Economist magazine did an extended survey of international English, remarking on its versatility and ready adaptability to the needs of today. The gist was that a supplier of raw materials in Bombay could talk to his dealer in Singapore to ship via Kenya to London and New York even if he couldn't talk to his neighbor down the block. Putting Urdu and Hindi aside, neighbors would end up conversing in English.

Because the English language lives while others wither and die. In English words are never thrown out with the garbage. More often than not they're resurrected and given new life and meaning. Witness "gay, " "cool, " and "gas" as examples of old words given new meanings. Sometimes a word can acquire and dose several meanings in a mere lifetime, such as "b.i.t.c.hin'. " Words are discarded as rapidly as new ones are invented to take their place, so we have "rad" replacing "reet. "

Speech patterns can be as fascinating as the words they employ. When stirred together, they form a linguistic gumbo that can create a mythology all its own. Plain everyday talk can suggest any number of phantasmagoric possibilities.

"His feet big and flat bottomed like heavy pirogue. His legs, dey thick as oaks and tall as slash pine. His body one great slab o' rock that flake off side o' tired old mountain an' de arms hang from dat like twisty cypress.

"He got a cane field full o' hair and skin de color o' de best bottom soil, cloud big cheeks all sunk in and eyes like swamp pool wid no bottom. When de trees bend, when de of river talk loud, when de bull Gator roar his lovey song, when de crook flash walk de sky, den we say dat de Thunderer walkin', de Thunder stallkin', de Thunderer . . . he talkin! . . ."

Old Louisiana folk tale

Out southwest of New Orleans there are places in counties with names like Iberia and Cameron, Vermilion and Terrebonne, where sometimes even the rain has no ambition. Instead of falling hard and quicksilver, it just sort of dribbles down out of a winter sky the color of soiled mattresses. By the time it's worked its lazy way through the obstructing leaves and bushes and Spanish moss, you can almost hear it sigh in relief as it finally touches ground.

The Texon geologist tugged the slick bill of her rain cap lower over her forehead, and still the rain crawled for her eyes.

"You sure that place is around here, Crossett?"

"Yes, ma'am." The guide grinned. His narrow face erupted with alternating squares of ivory and gold, a thin parody of a Vasarely print. His hand, which always shook slightly, was an extension of the outboard motor. Voice of man and voice of motor were also much alike: steady, unexcited purrs.

"Jean Pearl been living here since before I was born," he added conversationally, peering to one side to see ahead. "n.o.body around here knows who come first, Jean Pearl or Jean Pearl's cabin."

Mae Watkins looked back at him. "Since before you were born?" The geologist giggled, an infectious cottoncandy sound that shoved aside the somberness of the rain sogged swamp. "He must be odd, then."

"n.o.body know, ma'am." Crossett leaned affectionately on the motor's arm, and the boat swung slightly to starboard. The trees closed wooden arms above. Watkins felt as though they were sliding weightlessly down a graygreen tunnel. The world here was composed of gray permutations, swamp colors h.o.m.ogenized by the storm. Trees were gray green and gray brown, the occasional heron white gray, and gators and anhingas so gray as to be rendered invisible. Gray moss drifted on gray water.

There was a click forward, and she turned her attention to her a.s.sistant. "Lay off, Carey. You know how the company feels about shooting for sport."

The other geologist was barely into his thirties and less out of childhood. Reluctantly, he slipped the safety back on and set the rifle across his knees. "Mae, he was a twenty footer if he was an inch!"

"Africa's ten thousand miles away, Carey." She jerked her head to her right. "You're a geologist, not Frank Buck."

"Frank who?"

"Before your time.

He still looked disgusted. "n.o.body had to know. I had a clean shot."

"I'd know." She let that percolate, then added, "If this trip pans out and we can confirm the hopes of the aerial survey, the company will buy you your own pool of gators, and you can indulge yourself in an orgy of slaughter." Seeing his glum look, she said less accusingly, "And when you do, I want at least three pair of shoes, different styles, and bags to match.".

He tried hard not to smile and failed. Fl.u.s.tered, he turned away, scanned the nebulous line dividing island from water. It was hard to stay mad around Mae Watkins. No matter that she was fifteen years his senior and his superior on this trip. Anyone who could switch from boss to mother to coquette in the same sentence kept you eternally off balance.

Anyhow, he consoled himself, there was always a chance a gator might charge them. Held tight in his palms, the wood of the rifle was hard and warm, slick, comfortable.

Crossett saw the geologist's fingers tighten around the gun and smiled. He could sense what the younger man was thinking. On the bizarre happenstance that some crazy gator did burst out of the water nearby, that fool white boy was more likely to blow off his own foot than anything else.

Though in weather like this, one couldn't discount surprises. His own rifle lay near his feet. It was nicked and worn, and the barrel was wrapped with steel tape to hold it together. No matter. What counted was where the bullet ended up, not what it emerged from.

Rain tickled his eyebrows. Fog and drizzle teased his vision. "There she be, ma'am. Just like I said."

"Yes, Crossett. Just like you said." She arranged equipment, poking into the lockers set below the seats. The photos and charts she ignored. The rain wouldn't hurt them. They'd been laminated before they had set out from Styrene three days ago.

Carey Briscoe set his rifle down, sniffed resignedly as they neared the island. The shack drawing closer resembled the exoskeleton of along dead bug whose innards had long since decayed and putrified, leaving only a sh.e.l.l behind. Dozens of sheet metal and tin roofing sc.r.a.ps covered the roof, a quilt held together with nails instead of thread.

Two faded windows flanked the center door, rectangular eyes bordering a sagging nose. A front porch sagged alarmingly in odd places. There were no signs, not on the building, not on the collapsing jetty that thrust out into the bayou.

They slid neatly up to the tiny pier, b.u.mping against the frayed eye sockets of old tires. "Watch your step, folks." Crossett was looping a line around a splintery piling. "Jetty's kind of worn. "

"Worn, h.e.l.l." Like a kid testing a hot bath, Briscoe gingerly put one foot and then the other onto the first planks. He gave Watkins a hand up, studied the cabin. "How does he make a living here? Who can he sell to?"

"Trappers, mostly." Crossett was lugging two large gas cans out of the back of the boat. They clanged noisily against each other, fruity echoes of distant thunder. "No tourists out this way." He laughed, a single sharp "ha!" "No roads out this way. But the swamp folk, they know he's here."

They slogged toward the cabin. "Interesting old structure." Watkins somehow found beauty even in the dump they were approaching. To her it was picturesque. 7b anyone else, it was a slum. Semantics, mused Briscoe.

"As to why it, and its owner, are here, that's obvious," she said cheerily. "The man likes his privacy. Suppose he ran a store in a big town like Lafayette? What would he do with the extra money? Buy a private place out here in the woods and have to commute."

"Very funny." Briscoe gave her a sour look as they stepped up onto the porch, out of the rain. There was a dog there, lying against the house. Probably supporting it, he thought. The s.h.a.ggy lump was an amalgam of all dogs, a true weltburgher of pooches, a canine compendium of all the breeds of all the lands and ages. A mutt. There was little difference between his coat and the moss dangling from nearby live oak branches.

At their arrival it raised its head and surveyed them with a practiced eye, then dropped to the porch again. It did not let its head down. It literally dropped, landing with a distinctive thump.

Crossett moved to knock. The door opened before he could. Standing in the portal was either the most Gallic black man or the blackest Frenchman Watkins had ever seen. Also the oldest. It was fitting that he was all of a tricolor. Hair, mustache, teeth, and eyes were white; skin was black blue like ink; and in keeping with the day's, coloring, his clothes were gray. He was slightly bent at the waist but seemed alert and lively. Not at all like the ancient wreck she'd expected from Crossett's description.

" 'Lo, Charlie Crossett." His voice was husky but not cracked.

"Jean Pearl." Their guide nodded minutely, held up the two cans. "Gas?"

Conversation hereabouts, Watkins mused, was as muted as the scenery.

"I'll get it for you." The old man took up the two cans and retreated inside, closing the door behind him.

"Friendly sort," said Briscoe, meaning the opposite. "He stores his gasoline inside his house?"

"In back." Crossett picked his teeth with a piece of porch. "Oh, Jean Pearl, he friendly enough." A rodent of indeterminable pedigree scampered into view, and Crossett spit at it. "Like the lady say, he just like his privacy."

He also liked to take his time. While they waited, Watkins and Briscoe pa.s.sed the minutes discussing anticlines and salt domes. Around them the rain intensified. A really worthwhile storm unfolded, droplets hammering the rich earth with liquid persistence.

Eventually the door was pulled inward, and Pearl reemerged. He handed the filled cans to Crossett.

"Goin' back now, I 'spect?" The query was unexpected.

"No, Jean Pearl. These folks down from Styrene. Oil people."

"Huh! Know it alls."

Watkins smiled at him. "I suppose you don't think much of us, do you? Tearing up your beautiful swamps with our rigs?"

Pearl surprised her by responding with a wheezing chuckle. "You crazy fool people! What I care about swamp? You go tear up all you want."

"Don't you like it here?" Briscoe was unable to resolve the statement with Crossett's insistence that Pearl loved his privacy.

"Like it? Like the swamp? Like copperheads and water moc'sins, gators and rats and skeeters big as you little finger? You crazy for sure, boy." He shrugged. "But what Jean Pearl to do? I born here, I live here too much my life. For sure I gon' die here. I got no place else I know, no place else to go. Like it? Boy, you want tear up the swamp, you got Jean Pearl, his blessings." Abruptly his att.i.tude changed drastically.

"But not 'round here, not tonight, yes?" His voice had turned solemn, anxious instead of challenging. "You good fella, Charlie," he told their guide. "I know you family from when 'fore you born. I know you momma and papa." He gestured callously at the two geologists, speaking as though they weren't there.

"These folk, I don' know, I don' care. But you pretty good guy. You go back nort'east, Charlie. You don' go west, you don' go south. I tell you, the Thunderer, he out on night like t'is for sure."

"You a good man youself, Jean Pearl." Crossett regarded the oldster affectionately. "We thank you for you warning, but we have our business."

"Warning?" Briscoe looked interested.

So did Watkins. "What's this Thunderer he's talking about, Crossett?"

Their guide looked embarra.s.sed. "Pay him no mind, ma'am. It an old local folk superst.i.tion. Country tale. The Cajuns, they claim they get it from the Indians who here first, and everyone else get it from the Cajuns." His smile returned. "The Cajuns, they great storytellers. It make a nice tale to scare the children with during a fry or when everyone out frog giggin'. "

"I'm always interested in folk legends." Watkins looked kindly at the recluse. "What's a Thunderer, Mr. Pearl?"

"You oil people. You should know." Pearl snorted. "The Thunderer, he make you oil for you."

Briscoe struggled not to laugh. "With all due respect, sir, petroleum is formed when decomposing organic matter is subjected to tremendous heat and pressure. n.o.body 'makes' it."

"You smart boy, you. OI' Jean Pearl, he can' fool you." Pearl waggled a wrinkled finger at him. "You find Thunderer, maybe then you find some oil, yes."

"In that case he's just the chap we'd like to meet," said Briscoe gently.

"What is he supposed to be like?" Un.o.btrusively, Watkins had pulled out a pen and was fishing in her diary for a blank page.

"Not 'supposed' . . . is."

"Excuse me. What is he like?"

"Not for me to say. The Thunderer, he shy fella. Stay asleep under swamp all time 'cept few nights every year like this one. He big 'round as cypress, have biggest gator in swamp for toothpick. Like to drink oil, and when he can' find it, he make it."

Having lost interest, a bored Briscoe had turned away and was studying a chart.

"I see." Watkins's pen squiggled on the page she'd opened to. She finished jotting, looked up. "He's sort of a local bigfoot, a southern Sasquatch. Like a big hairy man, is he?"

"You smart oil people, I can' hide nothin' from you." He stared imploringly at Crossett. "I can' stop you goin', Charlie. I see that. You been in city too long much. You forget you momma's talk."

"No, Jean Pearl." Crossett spoke softly, humoringly. "I haven't forgotten her, or Papa, either. I haven't forgotten they had nothin' and that I got a boat and will soon have a new one, and a new gun, for helpin' these folks in their work. I don' forget easy, man. Thanks for you concern."

Pearl turned away, looking so distraught that Watkins was moved to rea.s.sure him. "Don't worry about us, Mr. Pearl. We're armed, and Caret' here's a pretty good shot, a just as I'm certain Mr. Crossett is. We'll be okay."

"You have trouble," Pearl replied firmly, "you fire tree time. If I hear, Lightning and me " He indicated: the dog, which might have twitched at the mention of its name and might have not. " we send for help."

"That's very gracious of you," she said. "How much' do I owe you for the gas?" She had her wallet out.

"Four gallon and tenth, only five dollar."

"Jean Pearl . . ."

The old man glanced angrily at Crossett. "I take back what I say about you bein' good fella, Charlie. Mirablert . . . four dollar, then."

The geologist pulled a damp five from her billfold "Here, keep it, for your concern." She noticed Crossett's disapproving look, did not react.

Back in the boat, slipping the line from the piling, Crossett said admonishingly, "You shouldn't do that."

"Why not?" She settled herself back on the board's center seat. "He looked like he could use money, and Texon can afford it. Even if we don't fi any oil."

"It not that." Crossett got the engine started, head them out into the bayou. "Now he always think he one over on you."

"I don't mind," she said easily. "His concern for was touching, even if misplaced."

"Bigfoots," snorted Briscoe. He spit out warm rainwater. "Let's check out these coordinates, plant our charges, take our readings, and get the h.e.l.l back to Styrene. I feel like I'll never be dry again."

They did not reach the place marked on their charts that night. As they turned to land on a high island, the wind picked up, moaning through the trees and moss, making the swamp sound like the recreation room of an asylum. Rain blew sideways, sneaking around inside their hoods to crawl wetly down ears and necks.

"What do you think, Crossett?" Watkins peered out of the pop tent at the sky as the guide jogged back up from their beached. boat, a locker under each arm.

"I think it plenty d.a.m.n wet, ma'am." He handed her the lockers one at a time, then slipped inside the tent, a roll of thunder on his heels. "I think we should make supper and listen to the radio."

As she spooned in her meal, Watkins reflected that advances in science still hadn't found a way to make freeze dried food taste like food. It was tasty, even spicy, but it was the taste of spiced cardboard. She put aside the tin of macaroni and tuna, fiddled with the dial on the radio until she'd located the marine weather band.

"Tropical storm," she announced eventually, echoing the now silent broadcaster. She nudged the radio into a corner. "Not a hurricane, not yet. And it's moving west. Ought to miss us by plenty even if it should develop into something." .She eyed Crossett. "What's your opinion?"

He considered briefly. "I think we only in danger of getting mighty soaked. You want to stay and work, I stay, too."

"I didn't ask for acquiescence, Crossett. I asked what you thought. You know this country better than we do. I've been through two hurricanes for Texon, one at Styrene and one at Maracaibo. That's enough."

"I gave you my honest opinion, ma'am. I think we be okay."

"Good." Briscoe was sopping up the remainder of his cheese sauce with a biscuit. Watkins winced as she watched him. He actually seemed to like the stuff. "I'd hate to motor back to town and have to tell them we wasted over a week of company time."

"That's settled, then. We stay. Carey, see if you can find something interesting on the radio."

He nodded, set down his scoured plate and pulled over the unit. "Anything in particular you'd like to hear?"

She leaned back onto her bedroll. "Beethoven or Bee Gees, it doesn't matter to me."

The wind continued to howl incoherently around them, battering fitfully at the nylon walls of the tent. It shrugged off all attempts to force entry, the tubular aluminum frame forming a snug, secure dome overhead. Their weight kept it tight against the ground.

Watkins found herself awake, turned her head sluggishly. A figure was moving about inside the tent. "Carey?"