I STOOD FROZEN AS THE diminuendo of its wild cries echoed back to me.
“In heaven’s name, what was it?”
“Hunter-bird,” Grannie said calmly. “A form of avian life found here in the swamp. Harmless in its wild state, but when captured, it can be trained to pursue a quarry until it kills. It has a single unit brain and follows with a relentless purpose.”
“Then that would mean...?”
“That it was sent by our enemy, the same enemy that shot at us in the cafe in Swamp City. Exactly.” Grannie Annie halted at the door of her tent and faced me with earnest eyes. “Billy-boy, our every move is being watched. From now on it’s the survival of the fittest.”
The following day was our seventh in the swamp. The water here resembled a vast mosaic, striped and cross-striped with long winding ribbons of yel
