“Come get this already! There’s at least two more.”

Oink, oink, Danny thought sourly to himself and poled forward.

Once close enough, he took the trap from his father’s arms and added it to the four already stacked in the boat. It was good haul, and as much as he might despise what they were doing, he understood why. At eight dollars a pound for claw meat and twice that for jumbo lump, they might clear close to a grand for the afternoon’s work. Not to mention reselling the crab traps back to the same people who once owned them.

Scavenging like this wasn’t lost on the Fish and Wildlife guys. If the wardens didn’t haul you to jail and fine your ass, they held out an open palm for their cut of the bounty. The price for doing business out here, they explained. But that wasn’t the worst danger. There were other hunters like Danny’s father. Fights broke out over territories, sometimes leading to bloodshed. It was said the alligators out here were well fed.

Aware of that threat, Danny kept a watch on the bayou around him, though mostly with his ears. It was hard to see much farther than twenty yards in any direction. All around, forests of cypress and sweet gum dripped with mosses and vines and shut out the world. Branches laced over the narrow canal.

He listened for the trebling whine of a warden’s airboat or the growl of another scavenger’s outboard engine. So far all he heard was the whine of mosquitoes and the warbling calls of swallow-tailed kites as the birds swept through the branches overhead.

Danny wiped his brow with a handkerchief and stuffed it back in his pocket. The day’s heat seemed trapped under the branches. Even the shade offered little relief. To make things worse, the crab pots had begun to stink.