Al Gatorson's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Al Gatorson wanted to be a god. In Soggy Bottom, the swamp folk carved shrines to ancient beasts and left them offerings on the mud banks. Al watched them pass his log every morning. He waved his tail. He smiled his widest smile. Not one of them looked twice. He was just an alligator, and gods were not made of ordinary alligators. This morning, three otters poled a raft past him toward a crocodile shrine downstream. They carried a basket of fish for a beast who had died long ago. "I'm right here," Al called. "I'm alive. I could bless you." The otters laughed and kept poling. One flicked water at his snout. Al sank until only his eyes showed. He needed a legend. Gods had done great deeds. He had eaten apples and floated in the sun. That was the whole of his story. Then a howl rolled across the water. It came from the reeds where the swamp folk never went. Al had heard that howl his whole life and always swum the other way. Today he swam toward it. He found the great hound tangled in a fisherman's net. It was no ordinary dog. Green marks curled across its dark fur like living vines, and it stood taller than any wolf Al had seen. The swamp folk whispered of this creature. They said it belonged to the old spirits. They said it could not be touched. The hound thrashed. The net cut deeper. Its yellow eyes fixed on Al, and it bared long teeth. "Hold still," Al said. "I'm going to bite. Not you. The rope." The hound went still. Al did not trust it, and it did not trust him. But it stopped fighting. Al set his jaws on the wet net and pulled. The rope was tough. He worked it strand by strand, careful of the fur beneath. One paw came free. Then the neck. Then the whole tangled mess fell away. The hound stepped onto the bank and shook. It stared at Al a long moment. Then it lowered its great head and touched its nose to his snout. Downstream, the three otters had stopped poling. They had turned their raft around to watch. Their mouths hung open. "That's the spirit hound," one whispered. "It bowed to him." Word travels fast on the water. By the time Al climbed back onto his log, a small crowd had gathered on the far bank. They did not pass him by. They pointed. They murmured. A young frog set a single apple on the mud and pushed it toward him. Al looked at the apple. He looked at the hound now resting beside his log. For the first time, the swamp folk saw him. He had a legend now, one witness deep. But legends grow, and so do the things that come to test them.