Hell's Guardian: Demon of the Swamp

By Ronald R. Roberts

A rogue, man-eating alligator is terrorizing the swamps. It is being pursued by locals and professional alligator hunters-some wanting to catch the beast alive, and some wanting it dead. While the creature is being hunted, there is another man hunting one of the hunters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stratton Press
• Release date: Jun 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781648959967

Ronald R. Roberts

Ronald R. Roberts was born on July 4, 1950 in the small farming community of Harvard, Illinois. The eldest of six children, he enjoys the outdoors, hunting, and fishing. His outdoor travels have been the inspiration for his books.

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Hell’s Guardian

Copyright © 2022 Ronald R. Roberts

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Stratton Press Publishing

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in the work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-64895-995-0

ISBN (Ebook): 978-1-64895-996-7

Printed in the United States of America

For Diane Kadolph

and Linda Layton

Contents

1. Guardian of Hell’s Hideout

2. Terror on the Bayou

3. Blood in the Water

4. The Hunt Begins

5. Bad Day on Big Cypress

6. Delicort’s Revenge

7. Bolassky’s Nightmare

8. Close Encounter

9. The Old Man of the Swamp

10. Words of Warning

11. Death Comes Calling

12. The Storm

13. The Capture

14. Hurricane Daniel

15. The Perfect Soul

1

Guardian of Hell’s Hideout

He was ancient, almost as old as the largest cypress tree in the swamp. He was the biggest, oldest, meanest alligator living in this snake-infested, mosquito-ridden, stinking swamp hole they called Hell’s Hideout. His color was as black as the swamp mud, and he smelled almost as bad. He was the ruler of this watery domain, the ultimate predator, and he feared nothing. Neither man nor beast. To him, anything that entered his kingdom was considered as food for the taking, and he took it. It made no difference if it was a dog, a deer, or another bull alligator. If he wanted to eat it, it was as good as gone. He was a notorious killer of dogs and a verified man killer. He had killed several people over the years and had been blamed for the disappearances of several others, and his reputation preceded him like the wave of water that rolled before him when he swam.

In human years, he was considered old, more than one hundred, but time meant nothing to him. He lived each day as it came, patrolling his kingdom as he cruised lazily along the water’s surface. His log-like shape floated slowly along the bayou, the ridges and bumps along his back looking like the bark on an old cypress log. He was so old that small patches of algae grew here and there along the length of his body, adding to the log-like effect. He was almost as long as a cypress log, close to twenty-three feet from the rounded end of his broad nose, to the tip of his muscular, rudder-like tail; 2,200 pounds of death incarnate to anything that ventured too close. The creature was gigantic. To those who had seen him up close and lived to tell about it, he was as big as a dinosaur, a living prehistoric relic from the past, and he was as fearsome as a T. rex with teeth to match. He was a creature from hell, and Hell’s Hideout had been his home for as long as anyone could remember. They called him Hell’s Guardian.

He had lived in this swamp all of his life. He had been born here, and he was the dominant gator for miles around. His great body carried the scars from his many battles over the years for territory and breeding rights. In his younger years, he had fought often and viciously. He defeated his challengers one by one, his territory slowly growing larger as he grew along with it, until his size was almost unimaginable. Now, the other bull alligators were mere hatchlings compared to him, and he no longer had challengers for his territory or during the mating season. He had never backed down from a challenge; he had no reason to. His size alone would deter most threats from the other bulls. Those males that were foolish enough to challenge him usually ended up dead or, at the very least, missing a leg or half of their tail. His territory belonged to him, and he was free to breed any and all females that he found, and he found many every year.

He had been hunted many times through the years, either for his hide or for being a man killer, but he had always managed to outwit his pursuers in his own reptilian way or he had killed them; his massive jaws and his tyrannosaur-like teeth inflicting great bodily harm to anything or anyone caught within their grip. Several of his pursuers had disappeared without a trace, presumably swallowed alive by this gargantuan prehistoric beast. Several others had been found piece by piece. He was a force to be reckoned with, and most people reckoned that they would leave him alone. In their minds, it was better to know that he was there and not see him rather than know he was there and be staring down his throat because if you were staring down his throat, you could kiss your ass goodbye. It was all over. Nobody bothered him, and nobody ventured into Hell’s Hideout intentionally with the idea of trying to take him down. Nobody except Delicort Beaudreault.

Delicort Beaudreault was an alligator hunter. He was a loner who lived a hermit-like existence in a small three-room shack on the edge of Beauregard’s Bayou. He had been born in these swamps and had spent most of his life traveling along their waterways. Delicort had helped his daddy catch alligators when he had been a young boy. Now, he made his own living catching gators, and most of the food that he ate came from the marshy waters and their surroundings. He lived in the swamps, and he lived off the swamps; they were his life and his livelihood. He belonged to the swamp’s body and soul, and swamp water flowed in his veins. He was, always had been, and always would be a swamper until the day he died.

Delicort didn’t mingle with people much. When he went into town for supplies, he kept mostly to himself. There were only a handful of people that he considered as friends, and even with them, he remained reclusive. Most people thought that he was a bit crazy, too; that he wasn’t playing with a full deck. Delicort knew what most people thought of him, but it didn’t bother him any. If people thought that he was crazy, they would leave him alone to go about his business uninterrupted, which was what he preferred. He wasn’t really a people person. He preferred his own company to that of others. He hated crowds. Delicort didn’t even go to the taverns much because there were too many people there and too many fights. He had been in his share of them over the years, but he had never started them. Mostly, he just kept to himself and stayed home or stayed out in the swamps hunting for alligators when the season was open. He enjoyed hunting gators. He was good at it, and he usually filled all of his tags every season. He especially liked hunting for big gators. The bigger, the better. They were worth more money, which made the time and effort of hunting for them worthwhile. He often took several gators every year that measured between twelve and thirteen feet, but he had never taken a massive gator. He had never even seen a gigantic gator until three years ago.

Three years ago, he had ventured into Hell’s Hideout just to check it out. Since he had been a kid, he had heard the tales about a gigantic bull gator that was supposed to live there. Someone had once said that it was a genuine man killer, that it had supposedly killed and eaten seven or eight people over the years, and that it was a true monster in every sense of the word. Years ago, several hunts had been organized to kill the beast, but the hunters had always become the hunted. Several of them had disappeared without a trace. Several others had been severely injured by the crushing jaws of the monster they sought. The gator had never been taken and was said to still patrol the dark waters of Hell’s Hideout. That was enough information for Delicort. He knew that he had to go to Hell’s Hideout and see for himself, and so he went. He had not been disappointed. In fact, he had almost become another one of the gator’s victims.

Hell’s Hideout was aptly named; only Satan himself would live there. It was the foulest smelling piece of swampland that Delicort had ever ventured into. The cypress trees grew as thick as a dog’s hair. Their branches were draped with massive blankets of Spanish moss that hung down like tattered, dirty curtains almost to the water’s surface. The water was littered with fallen limbs and submerged logs, waiting to rip a hole in the bottom of any boat that was foolish enough to traverse the dark waters of the bayou. Every kind of biting or stinging insect in existence seemed to live there, either flying through the air or crawling on every tree and bush to be seen. The plants were just as bad. Everything seemed to be covered with spines or thorns to stick and poke and scratch. Poisonous snakes of every description slithered across the surface of the water and crawled across the marshy ground; rattlesnakes, copperheads, water moccasins, take your pick, they were all there, and you could throw in a few coral snakes as well. The water itself seemed thick and greasy, its color a shit brown from the tannic acid that leached from the countless cypress roots. If you were under the water’s surface, you couldn’t see two feet in front of you, the water was so dark. You could swim inside the jaws of a lurking gator and not know it until it was too late, provided you didn’t get tangled in the fallen branches first that littered the bottom and drown. The surface was covered with duckweed and vast mats of water hyacinths, what the people of the bayou country called lilies. The hyacinths were so thick you could almost walk across them. Like the logs and branches, they made boat travel through the area difficult if not almost impossible. The mud reeked from eons of death and decay, large bubbles of methane gas erupting on the water’s surface, like in a kettle of boiling water. The stench was unbelievable, and in the hot, humid weather, it was impossible to breathe the air there. But there were alligators there. Lots of them in all sizes, and there was a giant one.

The tracks that Delicort saw in the mud on the bank were as big as a dinosaur’s, almost as wide as both of his hands put together, the toes on the feet close to eight inches long. The slide where the behemoth’s belly had dragged in the mud was almost four feet wide, wider than any slide the man had ever seen. The furrow caused by the gator’s heavy tail was almost five inches deep. Some of the reptile’s handiwork floated in the water nearby. The half-eaten carcass of what would have been an eight-foot gator lay half-submerged in the shallow water along the bank, its flesh jagged and torn by the five-inch long spike-like teeth of the larger carnivore. It had been bitten in half. Truly, this was a monster of immense proportions, and Delicort quickly glanced around to make sure that the beast wasn’t trying to sneak up on him. A gator of this size could do extreme damage to a person. True, any alligator was dangerous, even a small one, but this one was apparently big enough to swallow a man whole, and Delicort thought that the stories he had heard were probably true. He didn’t really want to find out firsthand.

He stood and pushed his boat back away from the bank with a long push pole that he always kept in the boat. In shallow water, it would be easy for a gator that big to just reach up and grab him out of the boat. One quick bite and it would be all over. Nobody would even know that he was gone unless someone happened to find his boat, which probably wasn’t very likely. Nobody was foolish enough to come here, except him. He sat down and gave the rope on the motor a hard pull when the boat was in deeper water. The motor roared to life, and Delicort turned the boat back in the direction from which he had come, the hull of the boat slowly carving a V through the green carpet of duckweed that covered the water’s surface. The man scanned his eyes back and forth across the swamp as he kept watching for any sign of the giant reptile. It was suddenly very still here, too still. There wasn’t a bird in sight anywhere, no other gators swimming or sunning themselves, nothing moving at all. Delicort had an ominous feeling that he was being watched or followed, and he turned to look behind him.

As he turned, his boat suddenly lifted out of the water by several inches, then lurched forward like he had run over a submerged log. If he had been standing, he would have lost his balance and gone overboard. He looked to his left and saw a large swirl on the water’s surface, the thick layer of duckweed undulating like a giant serpent, and he knew that the monster had tried to capsize his boat. He turned the gas up on the motor and raced across the water, hoping that he could outrun his attacker before it turned and came at him again and prayed that he didn’t hit a log in the process. Delicort looked behind him once more and saw a huge blackish-green head just before it disappeared below the water’s surface. The size of it took his breath away. It looked almost big enough to swallow his boat. He turned the gas up even more, the boat flying across the swamp, bouncing like a bucking bronco over the waves. He was no longer concerned about the logs. He did not slow down until he was back home. He had been lucky, this time.

When he reached his boat dock at his house, Delicort was visibly shaken, not so much by the near disaster as by the enormous size of the alligator itself. If the head was any indication, the beast would be as long as Delicort’s boat, if not longer. He would have to do some serious thinking about whether he wanted to try hunting for it. The animal had found him easy enough, but if he went back to Hell’s Hideout, it might not be so easy to find the monster again. And if he did find it and was successful in killing it, how the hell would he get it out of there? It would probably weigh half a ton or more. That it would be worth the time and effort, there was no doubt. A gator of that size might be worth a thousand dollars or more, but was it worth the risk? Even if he did catch it, how would he be able to hang on to it long enough to put a bullet in its head and how would he get it in the boat, if it would even fit in the boat. He was obviously going to need heavier gear if he was going to stand half a chance of bringing it in. The thing was monstrous! He replayed the image of that huge black-green head once again in his mind. He wished that he had been able to see the whole body, but maybe it was best that he didn’t. If he had seen the entire thing, it might have scared him so badly that he wouldn’t want to go back there again. He was having second thoughts as it was.

If he was going to hunt for the beast, he would obviously need some help. The reptile was too big for one man to try to tackle alone. It was probably too big for two men, but Delicort only had one friend who he would really trust to help him. One friend who was almost as crazy as him. Beuford LeFont. They had known each other for most of their lives and had been friends for almost as long. They had hunted, fished, and trapped together all over these swamps, and neither of them was afraid to venture into some place where they had never been. They were both excellent shots with a gun and could throw a knife with the best of them if there was a need for it. Beuford had spent some time in prison because of his knife throwing, but Delicort didn’t hold that against him. Beuford was a good friend and a good person to have on your side in a fight, and they had both been in many over the years. Like Delicort, Beuford wasn’t what you would call a people person. He liked going to the taverns, make no mistake about it. He just didn’t like people much. Delicort was an exception.

Delicort had driven over to Beuford’s the next day and had told Beuford about the huge gator and what he intended to do. If Beuford helped him catch the giant lizard, Delicort would split the money that they got for it with Beuford. They would need to buy some bigger hooks and heavier lines first. The beast was too big for the hooks that Delicort usually used and would straighten them out with little effort. Shark hooks should be sturdy enough to do the job. As for the lines, the one-thousand-pound test trotline he always used would be like dental floss to a gator as big as this one. Delicort would have to use a half-inch nylon rope if he was going to stand half a chance of hooking this thing, and even then, there was always the possibility that the gator would still bite through it. They would set out half a dozen hooks especially for the monster and bait the hooks with whole chickens. A single breast of half-rotted chicken meat wouldn’t even tempt something as big as this one was. If they succeeded in hooking the animal, it would take both of them to try to wrestle it close enough for Delicort to get a shot at it. He would have to shoot quickly and aim straight because one man wouldn’t be able to hold the bastard for very long by himself if one man could hold it at all. The problem was going to be trying to get the thing up out of the water and into the boat, but they would worry about that after they caught it. They had spent the next several days buying the equipment and supplies that they needed and getting everything ready, then had set out early the following morning on their quest.

It was still dark when they left Delicort’s boat dock. The sun wouldn’t rise for another four hours yet, but it would take them at least two and a half hours to cover the distance to Hell’s Hideout. In the dark, they wouldn’t be able to run the motor wide open like they could in the daylight. There was too much of a possibility of running into a log in the dark and damaging the boat. They needed to get to Hell’s Hideout by first light while the beast was still out hunting. They would bait and set their hooks in the dark before the gator returned to his lair, that way there was the possibility that he would smell the bait on his way back and hit one of the sets. There was also the possibility that they could run into the monster in the dark, and if that happened, the gator would have the advantage. It would be difficult at best to see him in the darkness if he was on the water’s surface unless they caught the reflection of his eyes in the spotlight. If he came at them from under the water, it would probably be too late to do anything except pray.

They cruised along the waterways, the mist rising slowly from the water’s surface. The spotlight near the bow of the boat pointed a beam of light ahead of them, guiding them deeper into the shrouded darkness. The mist was so dense, almost fog-like, that the light couldn’t penetrate more than fifteen or twenty feet. They had to travel slowly, at a snail’s pace, as Beuford sat near the bow to watch for logs lying in the water. It was bad enough to hit a log during the day, but during the day, there were other boats coming by to help you out if you did any damage. If they hit a log and punched a hole in the bottom of the boat now, in the dark, there would be no one but them. They definitely didn’t want to sink the boat now. There were too many gators out swimming around, their eyes glowing ember-like when the beam from the light fell on them. If they sank the boat and lost their light, they would never see the damned things in the dark until it was too late.

They motored onward, the chorus of frogs almost drowning out the low purr of the motor. If it wasn’t for the sound of the boat motor, the frogs would have been deafening. Their croaks and trills and peeps reverberated across the swamp in the darkness to be answered, echo-like, by an identical cacophony of croaks and trills and peeps. If it wasn’t for the sound of splashing water against the bow of the boat and the trees and brush moving along the banks, you’d swear that you were sitting in the same spot and not moving at all, the sounds never changed. Occasionally, the frogs were interrupted by the guttural roar of a bull gator, either proclaiming his territory or looking for a mate. Add the occasional hoot of a great-horned owl or the hoarse, croaking call of a night heron, and a first-timer to the swamp would have been scared shitless in the dark. The sounds enveloped the two men and their boat for the full length of their journey, but the two men had heard it all before, many times, and had learned to tune out the noise. It was when the swamp suddenly became quiet that you had to be concerned.

When they reached the headwaters to Hell’s Hideout, Delicort shut the motor off and let the boat quietly float into the dark water of the bayou. They would need to be as quiet as possible now so as not to alert the giant reptile to their presence, not because they were worried about scaring the beast away, but because they didn’t want to attract it to them. Especially in the dark. Delicort stood in the back of the boat, the push pole in his hands. He placed the end of the pole in the water and lowered it down until he felt it rest against the soft mud on the bottom of the bayou. He then pushed the boat forward while running his hands up the length of the pole to the end, then lifted the pole once more and repeated the process. The boat slowly eased its way across the swamp, plowing its way through the duckweed on the water’s surface.

In the half-light of early dawn, the swamp had an eerie, otherworldly look; the gnarled shapes of the cypress trees, the dark spider’s-web-like clumps of Spanish moss littering the branches, the broken patches of moonlight glistening on the ink-black surface of the water. With the heavy mist rising off the water, the swamp looked primeval, almost prehistoric. Like some place a monster would live. You half expected to see a brontosaurus standing in the water or some sea monster cruising along the surface. A monster did live here, and Delicort wondered to himself if they would be successful in catching the dinosaur-like creature that they were after. He lowered the push pole again, large bubbles of methane gas rising and exploding on the water’s surface when the end of the pole penetrated into the soft mud on the bottom, the smell of ten thousand years’ worth of decay permeating the night air. The boat glided forward slowly, silently crossing the dark waters where death waited at every turn to reach out and grab you before you were even aware that death was near.

Beuford, Delicort whispered to his friend near the bow. Shine that spotlight toward that bank yonder. That’s where we gonna set the first hook out. That big som-a-bitch got ’im a slide there where he been haulin’ his big lizard ass outta the water.

Beuford turned the spotlight toward the bank a short distance away, the light’s beam penetrating through the pre-dawn gloom to the spot on the marshy shore where the monster had dragged himself out of the water. The depression in the mud appeared as wide as a highway in the beam from the light. The mud glistened in the light as small rivulets of water trickled down the length of the slide to drip back into the dark waters of Hell’s Hideout. The creature had been here recently. The muddy trail disappeared back into the thick brush a few yards from the water’s edge. Delicort eased the boat forward toward the bank, the water lapping gently against the sides of the boat as they neared the muddy shore.

Shine that light back into the brush, Beuford, an’ make sure that som-a-bitch ain’t layin’ there waitin’ for us. We don’t want that damned bastard comin’ at us when we get up to the bank. There ain’t room in this boat for all of us. He comes in this boat, an’ we’ll have to bail out, less’n you wanna wrestle with him, Delicort said as they drew closer to the muddy bank.

I ain’t wrestlin’ with no damn gator, Beuford said as he continued to man the spotlight. That’s your job. I’m just here to shine the light an’ watch.

Beuford shined the light around through the brush, concentrating on the spot where the gator’s trail disappeared back into the thick vegetation. There was no sign of the giant, and Delicort gently poled the boat up to the shoreline.

I’m gonna bait one of these shark hooks with one of these here stewin’ chickens an’ tie it to a branch of one of them trees, Delicort said to Beuford. You keep movin’ that light around an’ watch for that damn gator.

What’re we gonna do if I see it? Beuford whispered back.

Kiss our asses goodbye, most likely, Delicort said. You can kiss mine first.

I won’t have time, Beuford responded. If’n that gator’s as big as you say he is, I’ll be too busy pissin’ an’ shittin’ mah drawers. You’ll have to kiss your own ass.

He turned his attention to the spotlight and slowly swept the light around through the brush on the bank and across the nearby surface of the water as Delicort prepared the baited hook. Off in the distance, on the water’s surface, several small orbs glowed yellow-green in the light’s beam. The giant’s kinfolk were out in abundance tonight, probably waiting for their granddaddy to provide them with an easy meal.

Looks like we got us an audience, Beuford said as Delicort finished baiting the hook.

Delicort glanced over his shoulder to where the beam of light played on the surface of the water. Several of the glowing spheres moved slowly across the water in their direction.

Let ’em watch, Delicort said as he began to tie the rope that was attached to the hook onto one of the limbs of a nearby tree. We ain’t after them right this minute. We after their granddaddy. We’ll go after them later after we catch this big bastard. He finished tying the rope onto the tree limb, then moved once more to the back of the boat and sat down.

Push us back away from the bank, Beuford, he told the man in the front of the boat.

Beuford took the boat paddle that Delicort kept in the boat and pushed against the muddy bank with the blade of the paddle. The boat drifted backward away from the bank and into deeper water. When they were in deep water, Beuford gently turned the bow of the boat with the paddle, being careful to not make the water splash. Any commotion on the water’s surface would be like ringing the dinner bell for the giant gator. The boat glided forward across the dark water, the ripples scattering broken shards of moonlight off to the sides away from the boat.

Delicort picked up the push pole and stood up in the back of the boat. He lowered the pole quietly into the water, pushing the boat ahead slowly. The duckweed on the water’s surface parted and rose up slightly as the bow of the boat forced its way through like a miniature ice-breaking vessel in the Arctic. A small patch of water hyacinths slid along the side of the boat, the waxy leaves glistening in the moonlight. Out in the bayou itself, the thick mats of water hyacinths could mostly be avoided. It was in the slower flowing backwaters where they became a problem. They would float into the backwaters until the entrance was blocked, then they would continue to grow and spread until the waterway was completely covered in a thick mass of plants that was almost impenetrable. Delicort’s boat had been stuck in hyacinths before, and he had to work like hell to try and get back out. Beuford swept the spotlight slowly back and forth across the water as the mist continued to rise up around them, the yellow-green spheres of a dozen sets of gator eyes reflecting the beam of light as it passed them by. The relentless chorus of frogs continued to bombard their eardrums with its ceaseless melody as they silently made their way to where they would set out the next hook.

Delicort poled the boat up to another muddy bank about thirty yards away from where they had set the first hook out. He moved to the middle of the boat and began baiting the second hook, while Beuford watched their surroundings with the spotlight. It was getting closer to dawn; the cypress trees and nearby brush was starting to become visible shapes now in the gradually increasing half-light instead of shapeless black blobs of nothingness. The giant would be moving back to his lair before long, and they still had four more hooks after this one to bait and set out. They would have to work faster if they were going to finish before daylight. Delicort moved carefully toward the front of the boat to tie out the second hook. There were no nearby trees that were big enough or sturdy enough. He looked back over his shoulder at Beuford.

Beuford, go toward the back of the boat an’ grab me one of them cut poles an’ hand it to me so’s I can tie this hook out.

Beuford moved back farther toward the middle of the boat and grabbed one of the ten-foot poles that Delicort used to stick in the mud on the bank for tying the bait sets to. He picked the pole up and turned to hand it to Delicort.

Here! he said as he released his grip on the pole. The pole fell toward the bottom of the boat, banging and thumping against the front seat. Damn! I thought you was ready to grab it! Beuford said as he reached down and grabbed the pole once more.

I sure as hell hope that damn gator didn’t hear that, Delicort said as he took the pole from his friend. We’ll be in shit up to our chins if he did. You’ll be wrestlin’ the som-a-bitch yet.

He moved into the bow of the boat and stuck the pole in the soft mud on the bank, then tied the rope with the hook on it to the pole. He pushed the pole down into the mud a bit farther, then took the boat paddle and pushed the boat back away from the bank.

All right, switch places with me, he said to Beuford as he carefully stepped over the front seat and began moving toward the stern of the boat.

Beuford moved to the opposite side and slowly