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My mistake with BioScience had been to credit the photo as “taken by David Scott, Aiken, SC,” which led to the editor adding that locality to the description of the animal - an impressive yet bogus range extension for anyone paying attention.

Leon sat on the porch railing, a slingshot dangling from his belt loop. He shifted a lock of sandy-colored hair across his forehead as his indigo blue eyes watched the car cross the wooden bridge. He heard the bridge timbers creak like a chorus of swamp frogs. When the car wheeled into the yard in a cloud of dust, Leon told himself that any twelve-year-old boy in those parts would have known that the two men were from the city and probably with the government, even without seeing the front license plate or the words stenciled on the front door panel of the murky green sedan.

First place, no one who lived in the Eddiehatchie bottomlands would have roared into a country front yard in the summer without checking first for chickens and sleeping dogs. But these men didn't even slow down and look after they got up under the oak trees.

Second place, nobody from around there wore hats that didn't have a bill and a logo on it. Leon wondered if he should ask them if they were making a movie about government agents or if they actually were government agents.

Third place, most anyone except cocksure government people would at least have acknowledged his presence. These men had barely glanced at him before turning their attention toward the barn and pasture.

Leon hopped down from the railing and ambled toward the driver’s side of the car. He flicked a deer fly away from his sun- tanned shoulder, watched its whirlwind flight for a moment, then turned his gaze toward the men in the car.

“Hello, son,” said the driver. “I'm Mr. Jones.” The big man in a dark gray suit leaned out the window of the car as it idled over the grass-free yard. His tie reminded Leon of oak bark covered with green moss.

“Hey.” Leon spit out the stem of Johnson grass he’d been chewing.

“We think we're at the right place,” Mr. Jones looked around the yard, “at least according to the directions.” He nodded toward the house. “Is this the Halstead place?”

“Yep.” He knew he should have said, “Yes, sir,” but he didn't feel like it at the moment.

“Is your momma or daddy home?”
“Nope.”
Mr. Jones turned toward the passenger and Leon thought he might have heard the words “talkative little snit,” but couldn't be sure. The man turned back and smiled. “Son, we got a call from a Mr. Clanahan that your daddy has something we might be real interested in.” He cut the engine off. “You mind if we get out and take a look?” Leon was pleased that they asked. But then they opened their doors and got out regardless of, Leon noted, whether he minded or not. “Where you keep it? Out back in that cattle tank?”

“You mean the big turtle?”

“That's right, son. Mr. Clanahan said you had the biggest snapping turtle that's ever been seen in South Carolina. We wanted to have a look at it.”

“What for?”

“Well, you see, we work with the Wildlife Department up in Columbia. We handle endangered species and other wildlife, and are right interested in just what you've found. Mr. Clanahan says the swamp and river are full of them.”

Leon said, “Yep. I reckon so. Some folk say they all over the place down by the rivuh.” He was glad his schoolteacher mother or county superintendent daddy couldn’t hear him imitating red-neck talk but figured city folks like these two expected it.

Both men smiled. “Right,” said the one who had been the passenger. “Mind if we take a look at the one you have here? Is its head really as 'big as a football' like Mr. Clanahan said?”

“A small football. Not nearly's big as some we get. ’Course Daddy only lets us eat one a year. He calls it 'stainability.' We let all the rest of ’em go free. Mostly we just eat the regulah’ snappers.” Standing on one leg, Leon used a dusty toe to scratch the calf of his other leg. He looked bored.

The men smiled at each other, and Mr. Jones said “sustainability.” Leon smiled too, as he saw the deer fly land just above the collar of Mr. Jones’s starched white shirt.

“Well, can you show it to us?”

Leon cocked his head to the right and looked from one man to the other. “Don't know if Daddy'd want me to do that less’en he was home. Them other felluhs wanted to take it. Might have too, if Daddy hadn't been here.”

“Well, those other fellows are the reason we're here,” said the driver. “They were from the university and know all about turtles.

They say the turtle you have is an alligator snapper.”
“And,” said the other man, his voice rising with excitement, “they don't occur within 200 miles of here. You see, this could be an exciting scientific find. A population of alligator snapping turtles in South Carolina!”
Mr. Jones slapped the side of his neck. “You know, don't you, son, that alligator snappers are the biggest freshwater turtles in the country? Bigger than some sea turtles.” He cringed when the dead deer fly tumbled into his shirt pocket.

Leon was silent, just looking and listening, occasionally scratching his calf. Mr. Jones continued, “Of course, the biologists wondered if that big snapper actually came from around here. Your daddy wouldn't really say.”

The one Leon thought of as Passenger Man spoke. “Here's the thing, son. If alligator snappers do live in the Eddiehatchie, then it's the only place they've been found this side of western Georgia and Alabama. You can see how important that might be to science and conservation. In fact, they're becoming rare; they may even be endangered. You know what that means, don't you?” The man looked inquiringly at Leon, who scratched the bridge of his nose and nodded.

The man went on. “They could soon go extinct in other parts because of overtrapping. People sell them to restaurants and even send them to China. Anyway, if you do have them here in the Eddiehatchie, we want to protect them. We need to prove they're here so we can make some laws to protect them.”

“How come you don't just protect them in the other places?” Leon stood on his other foot.

“Well, it's not that easy,” said Mr. Jones.
“Why would it be easier to make a law here?”
“It's complicated, the laws and all.”
“But if nobody knows they're here, then they already protected.

Ain't they?” Leon enjoyed saying “ain't” but checked the front drive to be sure his mother hadn’t got back from the store or his daddy from the board meeting. Either would yank a knot in him for sure.

The two men were silent for a moment. A trace of annoyance crossed the driver’s face and he glanced at the other man before they both smiled patronizingly. “Son,” said Passenger Man, “I don't think you understand the way laws work. Now can we see the turtle?”

Leon rested his left elbow in his right palm and cupped his chin with his left thumb and forefinger, the way his daddy did when he was contemplating something. “But if all them turtle collectors found out about our turtles before you could make the laws, then they’d get ours, too.”

Mr. Jones gave a nervous laugh. “Look, son. Don’t you worry about that. You let us take care of getting the right laws passed. For now, we need to see the turtle. Maybe you could show it to us. I assure you we're not going to run off with a 90-pound turtle. It is that big, isn't it?” The men smiled at each other, and Leon saw the driver wink.

“I reckon. C'mon.”

Leon started back around the house toward the cattle tank the man had pointed to when he first drove up. Out across the pasture, beyond half a dozen horses that had stopped their grazing to see if it was feeding time, was a line of cypress trees, marking the east bank of the Eddiehatchie. If one caught the morning sun just right, patches of clean, dark water could be seen through some of the open spots along the bank. A covey of quail whirred up from the tall grass near the barn, startling the men but not the boy, who gave a couple of pats to the slingshot on his side. He plucked a stem of grass, drew his thumb and forefinger over the slick end, and stuck it in his mouth.

Leon waved a hand toward the mostly hidden river. “I don't think Daddy'd care much for folks trompin’ around on our bottomlands. Specially turtle catchers.”

“I can understand that,” said Passenger Man. “We wouldn't want that either.”

“He’s right there.” Leon motioned toward a cattle tank eight feet in diameter and about three-quarters full of clear water. Lily pads floated on the surface. A steady flow of water entered the tank through a garden hose clamped to one edge. Water left the tank through a hole in the other side, flowing in a rivulet that meandered toward the cypress bordering the river. The smell of pasture, swamp, and sulfur-laced springwater mingled around the tank. “You want to get him out?”

Mr. Jones chuckled. “If he's a 90-pound turtle, I'd rather see you get him out.” Both men laughed and then peered into the clear water, trying to see past the lily pads to the dark bottom, as cautious as if it were a witch's cauldron.

“Where is he?” asked Passenger Man.

“There.” Leon pointed to a large, dark form on the even darker bottom sediment.

Mr. Jones looked around and picked up a broken hoe handle. “Maybe I can prod him with this.”

“Don't you felluhs know how to pick up a gatorsnapper?” Leon cocked his head again, giving the men a disbelieving look. “Thought you’s s’posed to know somethin’ ’bout handlin’ turtles.”

“Well, son, we handle the paperwork associated with protecting endangered species and what not. Those other men who were here are the biologists. They do the fieldwork. We just want to see the turtle. What if I poke him with this stick?”

“Naw. I'll get him.” Leon leaned over the cattle tank, looked carefully into the water, and put both hands in. He was pleased to see the two men look briefly at each other in alarm and back up a step. “You know they bite, son?”

Leon didn’t bother to answer as he raised the turtle to the surface, his left hand on the front of the shell behind the head and his right under the rear. His hands were almost three feet apart as the creature broke the water's surface. A lily pad was draped over the animal's head like a sun hat. Leon tilted the front end below the surface to dislodge the lily pad and brought the turtle back into view.

“My god! Look at that thing, Bill.”
“Lord, what a monster. Look at that mouth!”
The turtle's brown nose had emerged first, and as Leon lifted the huge shell farther out of the water, a dark brown head broke the surface, mouth agape. A pair of brown eyes with starlike pupils stared at the two men, and the enormous mouth with its hooked beak invited any fool to come within chomping range. At the base of the open mouth, which was large enough to hold a full-grown duck, lay a pink wormlike appendage.

“See his bait?” Leon spoke to the awed pair as if they were schoolchildren. “He waits on the bottom with his mouth open like that and fish think they see a worm. It's their last meal.”

“You sure you have a good grip on that thing, son?”

“He can't do nothing to me like this, but he's too big for me to get him all the way out. Daddy can. You want to try?”

“No, thanks. I've seen enough.”

Leon released his grip and the monster submerged beneath a wave that sloshed a time or two around the tank, splattering water over the sides as it swirled around. Mr. Jones brushed a few drops off of his tie and Passenger Man glanced down at his shoes.

“You better not try to hold a regulah’ snapper like that,” said Leon. “It’ll get ya. And they stink, too. Smell like rotten pumpkins.” “My god, son, that thing's huge. It’s at least three times as big as a common snapper. That's definitely an alligator snapper. This is going to make the news for sure.”
“The state newspaper,” added Passenger Man, “will have reporters down here as soon as we get back to Columbia. TV stations too. Your river's going to be visited by every biologist in the region. Just imagine! A disjunct population of heretofore undiscovered alligator snappers. Yes sir, this is going to be big news.”

Leon looked out across the pasture toward the cypress trees and river, remembering the many hours he and his daddy had spent enjoying the marvels of an unmolested river swamp. Leon thought about the lessons his daddy had taught him since he was old enough to hear straight. That too many men took more than they needed from the land. That there was enough for everyone if people wouldn't get greedy. And that being greedy was particularly easy to do on somebody else's land. His daddy had even been known to wonder aloud whether people could do without most laws if folks just weren’t greedy.

Leon recalled the two beaver trappers he and his daddy had come across when they had been out fishing last autumn. Daddy had told them they'd best do their trapping on someone else’s property. He told them he got real edgy during deer season and had a tendency to shoot at anything that moved. Leon remembered how his daddy had stood up in the boat, lit a cigar, and pointed out to the men that deer season was just about to start in South Carolina. The trappers had packed up their traps and gone somewhere else.

Leon looked down at the ground then at the backs of the two men who were now walking toward their car. “What all did Mr. Clanahan tell ya?”

Mr. Jones turned back to look at Leon. “What do you mean, son?”

“I mean, did he say somethin’ about turtles being in the rivuh or how we got this’n them university folks saw?”

“This Mr. Clanahan,” said Passenger Man, who had also stopped and turned and was now facing Leon, “told our office about the big turtle you had, and that your daddy had caught it in the swamp because there were a lot of them here. But no one took him seriously. The biologists said common snapping turtles don’t get that big. And they don't. But alligator snappers do.”

Both men turned away again. Leon was beside them as they headed toward their car, the driver talking as they walked. “Anyway, when the university people were coming through this area last month, they decided to come by your place and check to see if it really was an alligator snapper. Mr. Clanahan called again yesterday to say you still had it, so Mr. Lane,” a nod of the head toward Passenger Man, “and I thought we'd stop by here on our way to Charleston. We didn't think you'd have anything but a big common snapper.” He stopped and took a deep breath. “But, Lord.”

Leon snickered. Then he began to laugh. He put his hand to his mouth trying to hold the laughter in but couldn’t. He guffawed, laughing till tears streamed down his face. He finally got his laughter under control then took a breath to steady himself.

Mr. Jones looked at Passenger Man then back at Leon. “What’s so funny, son?”

“Daddy oughta be the one to tell you this, but since he ain't here, I reckon he’d want me to do it. He sure wouldn’t want me to let you go on thinkin’ the river’s full of gatorsnappers. I know that fer sure.” Leon looked from side to side then leaned toward the two bureaucrats as if he were about to share a secret with them. “I don't s’pose Mr. Clanahan happened to tell you about the mountain lions that live in the swamp, did he?”

“Mountain lions?” said Mr. Jones.

“Or the wolf pack that roams through here eating calves and chickens in the winter? Or the flock of Carolina parakeets that ate his apples end of last summer?”

This time Passenger Man looked at Mr. Jones with a puzzled look. “What is he talking about?” He turned back to Leon. “Son, none of those things are found around here anymore. Or anywhere, as far as Carolina parakeets go.” He turned to the other man. “They,” he glared back at Leon, “are extinct.”

Leon smiled. He spoke to the side, as if to himself but just loud enough for the men to hear. “Daddy was right about it never being too late to let Mr. Clanahan out.” He turned back toward the men, looking a little alarmed. “Don't get me wrong. He ain’t never hurt nobody. Daddy says he never will. Says his wild stories don't do no harm, but that his family really should’n’t be letting him use the phone again.” Leon bowed his head then looked up at the men with a pleading look. “I prob’ly shoulda let Daddy ’splain this to you. Please don’t go tellin’ ever’body that Mr. Clanahan’s crazy. Really, he wouldn’t hurt a soul.” He nodded at the men as if he wanted them to agree. “Please don't have him put back in the ‘sylum or wherever he was, cause we all like him. Even Momma.”

Mr. Jones shook his head and sighed. “Where did you get that big turtle, son?”

“Could'a been Arkansas.”
“Arkansas?”
“Or maybe Alabama? Daddy was talkin’ the other day about some fella coming by here with gatorsnappers in a pickup truck. I s’pose this mighta been one of them.”

Mr. Jones did not look happy. “You mean to tell me we came all the way from Columbia to see a turtle that got here in a pickup truck! Nothing unusual about an alligator snapper from Alabama. Nor Arkansas for that matter. South Carolina, yes. That would have been something. Quite a range extension.”

Leon looked worried. “We didn't do nothing wrong did we? I mean, it ain’t against no law to have one, is it? Or to eat 'em?”

“No, son.” Passenger Man looked in the direction of the cattle tank and sighed. “You haven't broken any laws, at least the way they are now. But we sure are disappointed. If that snapper had been caught in these parts . . .” His voice trailed off.

Mr. Jones muttered a word that Leon knew his momma wouldn't have liked then shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I guess we better be heading on down to Charleston.”

“Yeah,” said Passenger Man. “Thanks for showing us the big one, kid. Impressive. Too bad they don't really live around here.”

Over the engine's motor, as they started out of the yard, Leon heard Mr. Jones say, “I told you that . . .” but didn't catch the rest of the sentence.

Leon smiled to himself as he watched the dusty green sedan approach the wooden bridge that would take it onto the dirt road that led to the blacktop highway six miles away. His bright blue eyes were not the only ones that saw the car cross the bridge. Lying just above the surface in a backwater slough of the Eddiehatchie River were several pairs of brown eyes with starlike pupils. As the car headed up the dirt road, an open mouth with a hooked beak snapped shut on a three-pound bass that had just gone after its last meal, a pink tongue that looked like a worm.