He jerked his head up, his eyes opening.
They had drifted toward the left of the channel and were almost in the branches. Dan steered them toward the center again, and then he heard the sound that had awakened him: a muffled thudding like the heartbeats of a giant. Ahead and to the right, electric lights glinted through the thick woods. Dan looked at his wristwatch and saw that another hour had elapsed since they’d entered the wider channel.
“What’s that noise?” Arden asked, waking up almost as quickly as he had.
“Machinery,” he said. “I think we’re comin’ to somethin’.”
Around the next curve the trees had been chopped away on the right to make room for a hodgepodge of weatherbeaten clapboard structures built on platforms over the water. Electric lights cast their glary circles on a dock where an assortment of motor skiffs and two houseboats were tied up. On the dock were gas pumps and an attendant’s shack, also lit up with electricity supplied from a rumbling generator. Plank walkways connected the buildings, and Dan and Arden saw two men standing in conversation next to the gas pumps and a couple of other men on the walkways. A rusty barge loaded with sections of metal pipe, coils of wire, and other industrial items was anchored past the dock at a concrete pier where a long building with corrugated aluminum walls stood, the legend WAREHOUSE # 1 painted in red across the building’s doorway. Beyond the warehouse loomed oil storage tanks and twelve or more spidery derricks rising up from the swamp. The giant heartbeat — the sound of pumps at work — was coming from that direction.
The entire scene — a large, mechanized oil-pumping station, Dan had realized — was almost surrealistic, emerging as it had from the dark wilderness. As he steered them toward the dock, he saw a pole that held a tired-looking American flag and next to it was a sign on stilts that announced ST. NASTASE, LA. HOME SWEET HELLHOLE. On the supporting stilts were a number of other directional arrows with such things as NEW ORLEANS 52 MI., BATON ROUGE 76 MI., and GALVESTON 208 MI. painted on them. One of the men on the dock picked up a line and tossed it to Arden as they approached, then he hauled them in. “Hey there, how you doin’?” the man asked in a thick Cajun patois. He was a husky, florid-faced gent with a red beard and a sweat-stained bandanna wrapped around his skull.
“Tired and hungry,” Dan told him as he carefully stood up and helped Arden onto the dock. “Where are we?”
“Fella wanna know where he am,” the Cajun said to the other man, and both of them laughed. “Friend, you must be in some sad shape!”
Dan stepped onto the timbers, his spine unkinking. “I mean how far from here to the Gulf?”
“Oh, blue water ’bout tree mile.” He motioned south with a crusty thumb. His gaze lingered on Arden’s birthmark for a few seconds, then he diverted his attention to the waterlogged skiff. “I seen some crackass boats before, but that’un done win the prize! Where ya’ll come from?”
“North,” Dan said. “Anyplace to get some food here?”
“Yeah, cafe’s over there.” The second man, who spoke with a flat midwestern accent, nodded in the direction of the clapboard buildings. He was slimmer than his companion, wore a grease-stained brown cap with a red GSP on the front — a company logo, Dan figured — and had tattoos intertwining all over his arms. “They got gumbo and hamburgers tonight. Ain’t too bad if you wash ’em down with enough beer.”
A door on one of the houseboats opened, and another man emerged, buckling the belt of his blue jeans. He wore a company cap turned backward. Behind him, tape-recorded rock music rumbled through the doorway and then a woman with bleached-blond hair and a hard, sunburned face peered out. “Okay!” she said with forced cheerfulness. “All-night party, boys! Who’s next?”
“I believe I am.” The man with tattooed arms sauntered toward the houseboat.
“Non, mon ami.” The Cajun stepped forward, seized his companion by shirt back and pants seat, and, pivoting, lifted him off his feet and flung him from the dock. With a curse and squall the unfortunate flyer hit the water and skimmed its surface like a powerboat before he went under. “I believe you was!” the Cajun hollered as his friend came up spitting. “Hey, Lorraine!” he greeted the bleached blonde. “You got sweets for me?”
“You know I do, Tully. Get your big ol’ ass in here.” She narrowed her eyes at Arden. “New chickie, huh?” She gave a throaty laugh. “You gonna need a little makeup, darlin’. Well, good luck to you.” Tully lumbered into the houseboat, and Lorraine closed the door behind them.
It was time to move on. Dan ventured along one of the walkways, heading toward the buildings, and Arden followed close behind. The place made Dan think of a Wild West frontier town, except it had been built up from the muck instead of being carved from the desert. It was a carpenter’s nightmare, the structures cobbled together with pressure-treated pineboards and capped by rusted tin roofs. Electrical cables snaked from building to building, carrying the juice from generators. The walkways were so close to the water that in some places reeds stuck up between the planks. There was a store whose sign announced it as R.J’S GROCERY and next to it was a little narrow structure marked ST. NASTASE POST OFFICE. A Laundromat with three washers and dryers and two pool tables was lit up and doing business. Dan noted that the men they saw gazed hungrily at Arden’s body, but when they looked at her face they averted their eyes as quickly as Tully had.
St. Nastase, Dan had realized, most likely never closed down, to accommodate the crews who were off shift. Dan figured that the men here had signed on with the company for three or four months at a stretch, which meant prostitutes in houseboats could make some money plying their trade. It occurred to him that Lorraine had thought Arden was a “new chickie” because the only women who dared to go there were selling sex, and he was unaware of it but Arden had come to the same conclusions about ten seconds ahead of him.
In another moment they heard the mingled music of a fiddle and an accordion. The smell of food caught their nostrils. Ahead was a building with a sign that said simply CAFE. The place had a pair of batwing doors, like a western saloon. The music was coming from within, accompanied now by whoops and hollers. Dan figured this could be a hell of a rowdy joint, and again he wished Arden wasn’t around because he was going to have to be responsible for her safety. He said, “Stick close to me,” and then Arden followed him through the batwings, her right hand clenching the pink drawstring bag.
The cafe was dimly lit, blue-hazed with cigarette smoke, and at the ceiling a fan chugged around in a futile attempt to circulate the humid, sweat-smelling air. Hanging from the ceiling as well were maybe three hundred old, dirty brown caps with red GSP logos. At rough plank tables sat twenty or more men, a few of them clapping their hands in time with the jerky, raucous music, while four of their fellows danced with ladies of the evening. The fiddler and accordionist both wore company caps, and a thick-shouldered black man got up from his table, sat down at a battered old piano, and began to beat out a rhythm that added to the merry clamor. Some of the men glanced eagerly at Arden, but they looked away when Dan put his arm around her shoulders.
He guided her toward a bar where metal beer kegs, canned soft drinks, and bottles of water were on display. Behind it, a harried-looking man with glasses, a beard, and slicked-back dark hair was drawing beer into mugs, sweat stains on his red-checked shirt and a cigar stub gripped between his teeth. “Can we get somethin’ to eat?” Dan asked over the noise, and the bartender said, “Burgers a buck apiece, gumbo two bucks a bowl. Take the gumbo, the burgers taste like dog meat.”
They both decided on the gumbo, which the bartender ladled from a grease-filmed pot into plastic bowls. Arden asked for a bottle of water and Dan requested a beer, and as the bartender shoved trays and plastic spoons wrapped in cellophane at them, Dan said, “I’m tryin’ to get this girl out of here. Is there a road anywhere nearby?”
“A road?” He snorted, and the tip of his cigar glowed red. “Ain’t no roads outta St. Nasty. Just water and mud. She a workin’ girl?
”
“No. We’re passin’ through.”
The bartender stared at Dan, his eyes slightly magnified by the glasses, and he removed the cigar from his mouth. “Passin’ through,” he repeated incredulously. “Now I’ve heard it all. Ain’t no man comes here unless he’s drawin’ pay from Gulf States Petro, and no woman unless she’s tryin’ to get a man to spend it on her. Which insane asylum did ya’ll get loose from?”
“We had an accident. Went off a bridge north of LaPierre. We got a boat, and —” Dan stopped, because the bartender’s eyes had gotten larger. “Look, we’re just tryin’ to get out. Can you help us?”
“Supply boat from Grand Isle oughta be here tomorrow afternoon. I’d say you could hitch a ride with one of these ladies, but they’ll be stayin’ the weekend. Today was payday, see. Fridays and Saturdays, all these sumbitches wanna do is get drunk and screw when their shifts are over.” He pushed the cigar stub back into his mouth. “You come all the way from LaPierre? Jesus, that’s a hell of a hike!”
“Hey, Burt!” a man yelled. “Let’s have our beers over here!”
“Your legs ain’t broke!” Burt hollered back. “Get off your ass and come get ’em, I ain’t no slave!” He returned his attention to Dan. “An accident, huh? You want to call somebody? I got a radio-telephone in the back.”
“I’m lookin’ for a woman,” Arden said suddenly. “The Bright Girl. Have you ever heard of her?”
“Nope,” Burt replied. A man with a prostitute in tow came up to get his beers. “Should I have?”
“The Bright Girl’s a healer. She lives in the swamp somewhere, and I’m tryin’ to —”
“Arden?” Dan caught hold of her elbow. “I told you to stop that, didn’t I?”
She pulled loose. “I’ve come a long way to find her,” she said to Burt, and she heard the sharp, rising edge of desperation in her voice. Burt’s eyes were blank, no idea of what she was talking about at all. Arden felt panic building inside her like a dark wave. “The Bright Girl is here, somewhere,” she said. “I’m gonna find her. I’m not leavin’ here until I find her.”
Burt took in the birthmark and looked at Dan. “Like I asked before, what asylum did ya’ll bust out of?”
“I’m not crazy,” Arden went on. “The Bright Girl’s real. I know she is. Somebody here has to have heard of her.”
“Sorry,” Burt said. “I don’t know who you’re talkin’ a—”
“I know that name.”
Arden turned her head to the left. The prostitute who stood with the beer-swiller had spoken in a nasal drawl. She was a slight, rawboned girl wearing denim shorts and a faded orange blouse. Maybe she was in her early twenties, but her high-cheekboned, buck-toothed face had been prematurely aged by scotching sun and harsh salt wind. Lines were starting to deepen around her mouth and at the corners of her dull, chocolate-brown eyes, and her peroxided hair cut in bangs across her forehead hung lifelessly around her bony shoulders. She stared with genuine interest at Arden’s birthmark as her escort paid for two beers. “Jeez,” she said. “You got fucked up awful bad, didn’t ya?”
“Yes.” Arden’s heart was pounding, and for a few seconds she felt on the verge of fainting. She grasped the edge of the bar with her free hand. “You’ve heard of the Bright Girl?”
“Uh-huh.” The prostitute began to dig at a molar with a toothpick. “Woman who healed people. Used to hear ’bout her when I was a little girl.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“Yeah,” came the answer, “I do.”
As Dan and Arden had been walking into the cafe, the man who’d just gone for an unwilling swim sat on the dock in a puddle of water, watching another boat approach. There were two men in the boat. He couldn’t quite trust his eyes. The man who was paddling wore a dark suit and a white shirt, which was not quite the normal attire out here at St. Nasty. The second man — well, maybe it was time to swear off the beers, because that sonofabitch Burt must be mixing the brew with toxic waste.
When the boat bumped broadside against the dock, Flint stood up and stepped out. His mud-grimed suit jacket was buttoned up over his dirty shirt, the pale flesh of his face mottled with red mosquito bites, his eyes sunken in weary purple hollows. He stared at the battered and water-filled skiff tied up just beside them, a single broken paddle lying in it. Nobody would’ve traveled in that damn thing unless they’d been forced to, he reasoned. “How long have you been sittin’ here?” he asked the drenched man, who was watching Pelvis clamber out of the boat with Mama.
“You gotta be kiddin’!” the man said, unable to take his eyes off Pelvis. “What is this, Candid Camera?”
“Hey, listen up!” Flint demanded, his patience at its bitter end. Clint — who was equally as tired and cranky — jerked under his shirt, and Flint put an arm across his chest to hold his brother down. “I’m lookin’ for a man and a woman. Shouldn’t have been too long since they got here.” He nodded at the sinking boat. “Did you see who that belongs to?”
“Yeah, they’re here. Sent ’em over to the cafe.” He couldn’t help but stare at Pelvis. “I know we’re hurtin’ for entertainment ’round here, but please don’t tell me you’re on the payroll.”
“Where’s the cafe? Which direction?”
“Only one direction, unless you can walk on water. Scratch that,” he decided, and he motioned at Pelvis with his thumb. “Maybe he can walk on water.”
Flint started off toward the clapboard buildings, and Pelvis followed, leaving the man on the dock wondering what the next boat might bring. Others they passed stopped to gawk at Pelvis as well, and he started drawing catcalls and laughter. “Hey!” Flint called to two men standing in the shadows next to the Laundromat/poolroom. “The cafe around here?”
One of them pointed the way, and Flint and Pelvis went on. Flint reached into his pocket and put his hand on the derringer’s grip.
“Who the hell are they?” the man who’d pointed asked his friend.
The second man, who had a long, vulpine face and close-cropped brown hair, ran his tongue across his lower lip. He wore faded jeans and a dirty yellow shirt with the tail flagging out, and the sweat on his flesh still smelled of swamp mud and alligators. “Friends of Doc’s,” he said quietly. “I believe he’d like to see ’em again. Here.” He slid a small packet of white powder into the other man’s hand.
“Keep your money. Just do me a favor and watch those two. All right?”
“Sure, Mitch. Whatever.”
“Good boy.” Mitch, who still had the pistol he’d fired at Flint in his waistband, turned away and hurried to his motorboat, his mouth split by a savage grin.
20
The King Bled Crimson
“YEAH,” CAME THE PROSTITUTE’S answer. “I do.” She continued to probe with the toothpick as Arden’s nerves stretched. “Dead. Must be dead by now. She was old, lived in a church on Goat Island.”
“That’s bull!” Burt said. “Ain’t nobody ever lived on Goat Island!”
“Was a church there!” the prostitute insisted. “Blew down in a hurricane, back fifteen or twenty years! The Bright Girl was a nun fell in love with a priest, so they threw her out of her convent and she come down here and built a church to repent! That’s what my mama said!”
“Angie, you didn’t have no mama!” Burt winked at the girl’s customer. “She was hatched, wasn’t she, Cal?”
“Right out of a buzzard’s egg,” Cal agreed, his voice slurred by one too many brews.
Angie jabbed an elbow into Cal’s ribs. “You don’t know nothin’, fool!”
Arden tried to speak, but her throat had seized up. The word dead still ringing in her head like a funeral bell. “Goat Island,” she managed. “Where is it?”
“Don’t do this,” Dan warned, but he knew there was no stopping her.
“Way the hell out in Terrebonne Bay,” Burt said. “Good ten miles from here. Got wild goats runnin’ all over it, but there sure ain’t never been no church out there.”
“My mama wasn’t no liar!” Angie snapped. “You wasn’t even born ’round here, how do you know?”
“I been huntin’ on Goat Island before! Walked the length and width of it! If there’d ever been a church there, I think I would’ve seen some ruins!”
“Miss?” Dan said to the prostitute. “You say the Bright Girl was an old woman?”
“Yeah. My mama said she seen her when she was a little girl. Came to Port Fourchon to see my mama’s cousin. His name was Pearly, he was seven years old when he got burned up in a fire. Mama said the Bright Girl was crippled and walked with a white cane. I reckon that was” — she paused to calculate —” near thirty years ago.”
“Uh-huh.” Dan felt Arden’s body tensing beside him. But he decided he had to go the next step, too. “What about Pearly? Did your mama say the Bright Girl healed him?”
“No, I recollect she said the Bright Girl took him with her in a boat.”
“To where?”
“Goat Island, I reckon. She never saw Pearly no more, though. Mama said she figured he was too bad off for even the Bright Girl to heal. But that was all right, ’cause the Bright Girl made sure he wasn’t scairt when he went to heaven.”
“Come on, baby!” Cal grabbed Angie’s thin arm and tugged at her. “Let’s dance!”
“Wait! Please!” Arden’s anguished voice cut to Dan’s heart. “Is she buried out there? Have you seen her grave?”
“No, I ain’t seen her grave. But she’s dead. Got to be dead after all this time.”
Gone South Page 28