“Man wants to see you.”
She looked up and he knew at once it was her. The man at the table closed his ledger and watched Sam passively. He was about forty-five, dressed all in khaki, even to his baseball cap.
The old woman wore glasses and didn’t have to squint to size Sam up. “You come in a boat?”
“No, ma’am. I have a horse.”
Glancing at his town shoes, she said, “You sure didn’t walk here in those.” She banged a spoon on the edge of the skillet and dropped chunks of cut-up rabbit into the vegetables. Then she smiled and he saw the gap in her teeth. “Excuse my manners while I keep working. We don’t exactly get much company out here. What can I do for you?”
He looked at the two men, the first still standing in the doorway behind him. Sam was a fair teller of unimportant lies and thought he might fool people like this. Then he looked down at the dog, who watched him as if he were game. “I have a nice house down in Baton Rouge, on Florida Avenue,” he began unsteadily, “where I live with my wife and two young kids. A man next door owns a chow. The dog’s attacked my kids twice, and all night he keeps my family up with his yowling. I’ve tried to deal with the owner for a couple years, but he won’t get rid of the dog.” He paused for effect here, scratching his ear, glancing across the room. A door was opened halfway, revealing a large indoor still under a metal cowl that vented through the ceiling. “He seems to get pleasure out of the trouble he’s caused me.”
“I never knew a chow to bark much.” The woman lay the spoon down on a dishcloth and motioned to him. “Sit down, mister?”
“Sam Simoneaux.”
“Well, a coonass.”
His face remained fixed; he couldn’t afford anger here. “Yes, ma’am.”
“And you live on Florida Avenue down in Baton Rouge?”
“Yes.”
“What block?”
“Ma’am?”
“What’s your house address?”
A brief surge of panic ran up his backbone. “The 1900 block.”
“All right.” She pulled a chair out from the table and sat down, then introduced him to her son Billsy, who had crossed his arms over the ledger and was leaning forward, regarding him with distant amusement. “And that other one’s Ralph. Anyway, how can we help you with this dog?”
“I hear you’re pretty good at gathering them up.”
“And where did you hear this?”
“I have a friend on the police force.”
Here the man at the table laughed, stood up, and poured himself a cup of coffee out of a porcelain pot sitting in a warming pan on the stove.
The woman tilted her head and looked at Sam directly. “Everybody’s got friends on that police force.” She raised a hand and let it drop. “Some even have relatives in the sheriff’s office.”
Sam looked around the room. “I don’t guess you see much law back in here.”
“Son, if we needed the law I’d have to write a letter, but then somebody would have to build a post office for me to mail it in.” Her voice was fine-grained. Close up, her skin seemed smooth and light. “What color is this dog’s tongue?”
He looked toward the door, where the shepherd sat, its mouth closed, its big ears up. “I don’t know.”
“Hot days, a chow’s tongue is always out,” Ralph said, leaning against the door frame.
“Simoneaux, do you have a telephone in your house?” Ninga asked.
“Yes.” This, he sensed immediately, was a mistake.
She got up and went to a high beaded-board cabinet and swung open its door. Inside he could see lines of books and her quick hands flashing through a stack of what looked like magazines. She found the one she wanted and thumbed through it with her back to him. Then she came back and sat at the table, spreading her hands out on the oak.
“We don’t have a phone, but it’s good to have a phone book anyway. Funny thing is, you don’t seem to be listed in the latest directory.” She raised her head and looked him in the eye. “Now, you can tell us what you really want.”
“I want a dog picked up, that’s all. Now if it’s a matter of price-”
“As I remember, the 1900 block of Florida is completely occupied on both sides by a cemetery.” Her gray eyes were as constant as facts, and he knew his lie had failed.
He looked over at the men, who were smiling smugly in admiration of their mother. The dog let out its tongue and panted, as if thirsty for the truth. “All right. I’m from New Orleans and-”
“And somewhere south of there before that,” she added. “We could hear New Orleans in your talk. But you still say those funny a’s the way those dummy Frenchies do. Where were you born?”
“A place you never heard of, over by the Texas line.”
“ Lake Charles?”
“Troumal.”
Ralph snorted, then walked up to the table. “I know where it is.”
Sam gave him a quick look. “You been there? Nobody’s been there much. It’s just our families.”
“Your family-it’s still there, is it?” he asked.
Sam studied his face, then its hard features. “My family was killed off by outlaws.”
A brief flash flew through the man’s eyes. “I think I heard about it, long time ago.”
The woman suddenly tapped him on the shoulder with her spatula, and her face began to darken. “Are you some kind of law? At least tell that much of the truth.”
“No.”
She looked up at the denim-clad son. “Ralph, do you recognize him?”
“I didn’t at first, but now I do.”
Sam turned around. “How is it you know me?”
“We never been innerduced from the front,” Ralph said, showing a rack of yellow teeth.
A phantom pain rose in the back of Sam’s head, and he stood up. “You about killed me.”
“If I’d wanted you dead you’d of been that way.”
The woman moved a hand as if she were shooing a fly. “Look, sit down, Simoneaux, or whoever you are. Ralph, you and your brother do a walkaround, make sure he’s alone.”
Once they had left, he decided that he might as well ask her, and he did. “Why’d you take that little girl?”
She stood and tended the little stove, which smelled of kerosene. “What exactly are you doing out here? Somebody payin’ you?”
“I got my reasons.”
She adjusted the sickly flame under the skillet and stirred the contents slowly. “You don’t see a little girl around here, do you? Any sign of one?”
“I work with that child’s parents. They’re excursion-boat musicians, and they’re sick with worry about her.” He looked at the back of her head as if there might be a little window there that his thoughts could climb through. “You’re a mother. Can’t you think about how that lady must feel?”
“I’m seventy-some years old, too old to fall for crap like that.” She shook the skillet over the flame. “You know, sometimes people seem one way on the surface. But inside, they’re different.”
“What?”
“Musicians? Those fine parents might be musicians, all right, the drifter kind that think they’re better than everybody else just because they can read squiggles on a set of lines. You know what I’m talking about. Rummies in the vaudeville orchestra, whorehouse bands, saloon singers.”
“The Wellers aren’t like that.”
She turned her doubtful face on him. “You really know them?”
He blinked. “Well enough to know you been told wrong if you think they’re trash.”
“Still, where will they be in ten years? They’re music players. If they can’t keep up with the tunes, they’ll be as out of work as a broke talking machine.”
“Well.” He leaned back in the chair and looked through the screen into the weed-choked yard. “And where will your boys be in ten years?”
She bristled. “Ralph and Billsy’s already there, mister. And you don’t have to know exactly where, neither. We come over from Arkan
sas with nothing, and now we’re doin’ all right. That kid’s parents, if I had to guess, can’t give her a thing except how to grow up singin’ dirty songs to dancing drunks.”
“Look, I’m not the law.”
A half-smile formed over the sizzling skillet. “I was worried you might be one of those Chicago boys hired to make some law on the side, if you know what I mean. But you ain’t nothin’ but a coonass that learned all his words.”
Sam glared at her. “Just tell me what you did with the girl.”
“I don’t know what we’re talkin’ about.” She raised the lid on a pot that was chattering on another burner and stirred the rice. “There ain’t no little girl around here.”
The two men came back into the room and sat with him at the table, leaving Satan on the other side of the screen, his eyes like two hot coals caught in the mesh. “You got vittles yet?” Ralph asked.
“Watch this one off the property. He’s just leavin’,” the woman said.
Sam remained seated. “I might stay around to sample some of that rabbit.”
The one named Billsy ran a hand through his iron-colored hair and looked worriedly at the skillet. “What’s he want, anyways?”
The woman sighed. “Hush up.”
“If you won’t talk to me, I’ll go back to the excursion boat and saddle up the Wellers and bring them in for a little chat.”
“If you can sober them up, you mean.”
“They aren’t drunks. Somebody’s filled your head full of lies about those people. The same somebody that paid you to steal their girl.”
“If you send anybody back in here, after we deal with them, we’ll come after you.” The woman turned off the stove, and a kerosene stink began to fill the hot kitchen.
Sam folded his hands on the table. “If someone was hired to steal a child, I’d bet it was by strangers who rode up from nowhere with a good story.”
“Nobody came back in here.”
“It might be faraway strangers, too,” he continued.
“Why don’t you just get on, Frenchie,” Ralph said, arranging his knife and fork next to his plate.
“He talked better than you do,” Billsy said.
Quick as a snake his mother rapped him twice on the skull with her spatula. “You are a ringtailed dumbass if ever there was one.”
Billsy raised his forearms above his head. “I didn’t say nothing.”
Sam could see how scrambled his thoughts were by looking at his eyes. “What did this nice-talking man look like?”
Before his mother could hit him again, Billsy blurted out, “He just had a little mustache and talked about his wife a lot. Rode a horse in a suit.”
Sam made a face. “A horse in a suit?”
Ralph suddenly pulled a big sheath knife and banged it on the table boards. “You about ready to leave, ain’t ya?”
“What do you know about the killing in Troumal?”
“I’ll tell you about a killin’ right here in a minute. Now get out.”
Sam glanced at his eyes and stood up. “Can I get past that dog?”
“You can get past him goin’ out,” Ralph Skadlock told him. “But I wouldn’t try it comin’ back. He’ll eat you like a meat grinder.”
Chapter Ten
IT WAS ONE O’CLOCK when he climbed on Number 6 to ride back to St. Frank, a slow trip through the spiders and snakes.
The shadows were long when he reached the bayou, and he was so hungry and stuck up with briars that he galloped Number 6 into the water before the horse could think about it too much, hollering him across and up the bank toward town.
The man at the livery stood watching as Sam rode up and tied off.
“Here’s your animal. I’ll take my deposit.”
The man looked at Sam’s clothes. “Looks like he got his money’s worth out of you.”
“It’s hard to keep him in a straight line.”
“Well, I guess you did good to even get back.” He grabbed the reins and began to lead the animal.
Sam gave him a hard look. “Say.”
The man stopped and let Number 6 roll on like a shoved wagon.
“Some time ago, maybe two months, did you rent a horse to a little man wearing a suit?”
“No.”
Sam looked down the road toward the river. “How come you can answer so quick?”
“I ain’t rented nothin’ to nobody wearin’ a suit coat in five years or better. Nowadays, if you wear a suit you got a Ford.”
“Somebody was up there wearin’ one.”
The liveryman crossed his big arms and spat. “Could of rode in from Woodgulch to the northwest. They’s more than one point on the compass, you know.”
He started walking in the direction of the boat feeling not only tired but thick-headed. More than one point on the compass. He wasn’t cut out for the wilderness, was damn lucky he hadn’t got lost or killed. And if he could help it, he’d never climb on another horse.
***
HE GOT to the stage plank five minutes before the boat cast off and was squeezing through the crowd when the captain grabbed him by the arm.
“By God, Lucky, you smell like a sardine. Get cleaned up and out on deck in ten minutes. We’ve got a load of country boys on with the rest and I don’t think some of ’em have ever seen electricity.”
Sam put a hand on his lower back. “I’m about half dead, Captain.”
“Well, the half that ain’t dead better work twice as hard.” He gave Sam a shove toward the stairs, and he went up to wash and change into his uniform. The upper decks and companionways were reeling with excursionists, some well dressed, some in khaki cotton work clothes, a few wearing blue jeans belted with strips of blond leather. Up on the roof he checked the fire buckets, then opened the pilothouse door.
Mr. Brandywine, who seldom used the new steering levers, was standing on a spoke of the ten-foot wheel, waiting for castoff, and he turned halfway around. “Knock before you come in here.”
“I’m looking for the Wellers.”
“Mr. Simoneaux, I am not in charge of the musicians.”
As Sam retreated down the steps, Mr. Brandywine hung half his weight on the whistle cord and set the big three-bell chime to roaring. The deckhands cast off lines and the boat backed out full speed, the decks shaking as the paddlewheel beat down the water.
The café was jammed, and Ted Weller was pinned at the back of the room by a party of eight dandies examining the one-page paper menus with exaggerated care. The sun was going down and young couples were thronging the open area on the hurricane deck, most of them good natured, smoking and sneaking sips from their pocket flasks. He checked in with Charlie Duggs, who was blending with the crowd at the edge of the dance floor, where perhaps a quarter of the paying customers stood in awe of the black orchestra, of the bounce and surprise of the music, the sass of the trumpet. Most of them had never heard anything like it, but knees began to bend, hips to slide, feet to rise like boats lifted on a freshet of notes. Sam moved downstairs and found the main deck jammed, people tossing cigarette butts in sparking pinwheels across the wooden floor and ordering tableloads of ice and soda.
He walked to the rail and saw that Mr. Brandywine had brought the Ambassador out into a skein of dead water and was letting the boat loaf with its bow upstream, more or less staying in the same pocket of river. The point of the trip, he realized, was not to go somewhere, but only to seem to go somewhere. It was a sad passenger who knew what was happening outside the vessel on a night cruise. The whole point was to stay in the breezy bubble of comfort and music and forget the dark and airless shore.
The cruise brought three fistfights and a bad screaming match between a woman and her boyfriend. One man refused to quit fighting, and Sam had to drag him down to the little brig in the engine room and lock him in. He banged the man’s head with the door when he slammed it shut because he was angry at his own exhaustion. There were still unpulled stickers in his legs, and the insides of his thighs ached from the
saddle.
Passing through the main-deck lounge, he watched the bracing of the dance floor jounce over his head, as if an army were doing jumping jacks, and the captain, who was rushing through to the engine room, stopped and listened to the rumble. “Lucky, run up and tell the band to slow their tempo ten beats per minute on the fast numbers if they don’t want the damn boat to fold in half.”
At last came the race of unloading and policing the boat, and he worked asleep on his feet, moving people along, killing cigarettes, counting deck chairs to see how many had been thrown overboard from the dark upper deck. It wasn’t until he’d climbed into his bunk that he thought of the Wellers, and he let out a groan.
“I hear you,” Charlie Duggs said. “Tired as I am, I got the headache so bad I can’t go to sleep.”
“What’s up for tomorrow?”
“We’re pullin’ out in a bit, bud.”
“Where bound?”
“ Natchez. I expect old Brandywine will run on a full bell all night and have us there by eight o’clock.”
He put an arm over his eyes. “God, not a morning cruise.”
“It’s Sunday. First run is two-thirty. Captain Stewart lets anyone who wants to walk to church get sanctified. You a churchgoing man?”
“Catholic.”
“Well, then, I’ll walk up the hill with you.”
***
THE NEXT MORNING he washed up, brushed out his clothes, and they set off for ten o’clock Mass, walking in a group with a fireman, Captain Stewart, two white porters, Nellie Benton and her nephews, the engineers. At the top of the hill one group split off for the Methodist church while Sam and Charlie walked straight for a spire in the distance. He stopped on a street corner and looked back.
“What’s up?” Duggs asked.
“The Wellers ever go to church?”
“I don’t remember. Don’t start looking down your nose at folks for not goin’ to church. Both of them pulled double shifts yesterday and likely won’t knock off till midnight tonight.”
“That right? And all I did all yesterday was sit in a bubble bath running a silk brush between my toes.”
Duggs made a face. “Maybe they ain’t as tough as you French boys. Come on, we’ll be late.”
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