Krewe of Hunters, Volume 1: Phantom Evil ; Heart of Evil ; Sacred Evil ; The Evil Inside

by Heather Graham

  All this—living history and their bed-and-breakfast rentals—was done to survive into the twenty-first century. But the Donegal family had been letting the place out for nearly thirty years now. And the living history and the reenactments were the true highlights to be found here, distinguishing it from other great plantations along the river.

  “Okay, sure. You all are right,” Charles said. “It’s over. Long over. Hell, the Yankees did win the war.”

  Cliff laughed. “Still hard to convince my mama and a few other folks I know that it’s true. But thanks, Charles, that’s great. The Yanks are good guys. Man, it’s sad to think back, though, huh? We would have wound up being enemies.”

  “Who knows what our feelings would have been back then?” Ashley asked. “We might have chosen to fight for the North.”

  “It was a different time, a different lifestyle,” Griffin pointed out. “You’re all indignant now about injustice, but you didn’t live back then. You didn’t grow up in an economy of cotton and sugar.”

  “Rich men wanted to stay rich,” Ramsay agreed dryly.

  “Who’s being Marshall Donegal today?” Charles asked.

  “That would be me,” Ramsay said. “I’ve done it the past five years.” He was quiet a minute; he had done it since Ashley’s father had passed away. “Ashley could don a uniform herself, but she thinks we boys should just be boys. So I get the honor.”

  Ramsay was trying to move quickly past the mention of her father, Ashley knew. He had been gone five years now; he had died shortly after her mother. She had accepted their loss—and she knew as well that there would still be a little core of pain when she thought about them, even if she lived to be one hundred. Inwardly, she winced. She hadn’t just lost her father that day; that had been the end of her and Jake. Her fault, her call, and she still wasn’t sure why. He had frightened her, she thought. It seemed he had scratched the surface of something, and she didn’t want to know what was beneath. And still, to this day, she knew that although she had closed the door, she missed Jake. And missing Jake had colored everything else in her life.

  “He died,” Charles reminded him. “Marshall Donegal was killed, you know,” he added quickly.

  “Well, as we’ve said, the war is long over, so I guess they’re all dead now anyway,” Ramsay pointed out.

  “Gentlemen,” Ashley said, speaking at last, “I want you all to know that you are greatly appreciated. You’re all such wonderful actors, taking on whatever role is needed, whenever it’s needed! Charles, the Yankees are great guys. Michael Bonaventure lives in town, and his ancestors lived there as well, right in the heart of the French Quarter. His family left when the war started, because Bonaventure’s ancestor was fighting for the Union. Hadley Mason is from Lafayette, but his ancestors agreed with the Northern cause as well. It will be fun for you to be a Yankee. It’s acting, just like when we act out the encampments. And I truly appreciate you taking on the role.”

  “It’s really amazing,” Griffin said. “We do get all tied up in what was. The way the past still has so much to do with the present! Charles, come on, you’re a stepchild. We all really had ancestors back then who were involved with this thing. You’re welcome among us—totally welcome. But, hey, if I had come in on this recently, I’d be happy just to be a part of it all.”

  Charles Osgood offered Ashley a weak smile. “Sure. You know me—I’m just happy to be here.”

  To Ashley’s surprise, Ramsay Clayton suddenly spoke up again. “Charles, I have an idea. Some of those guys really are my friends. My good friends. I’ll be a Yankee today. You be Marshall Donegal.”

  Charles opened his mouth, stunned, and stared at Ramsay. “Oh! Oh, no. I couldn’t take that honor away from you!”

  “You get killed, you know,” Ramsay reminded him.

  “Oh, like you said, they’re all dead now. I just couldn’t—I really couldn’t.”

  “Hey, I think I want to be a Yankee for once,” Ramsay said. “It’s cool. You be Marshall Donegal, and I’ll be a Yankee. No arguments—it’s decided. I’ll be a winner for a change!”

  “I don’t know what to say!” Charles told him.

  “Say thanks, and let’s get on with it. We have to finish planning this thing,” Ramsay said.

  “I’m going to be Marshall Donegal!” Charles said, still awed.

  Ashley lowered her head, hiding her laughter. These guys really were like children when it came to the reenactment. They were so dedicated. But it was really good, she reminded herself. They kept history alive. It had been on a trip to Europe with her parents when she had seen the quote that meant so much to her: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” It was the philosopher George Santayana who had written those words, and she had seen them above the gates of a concentration camp. So, whether history was sterling or not—pitting man at his best and his worst—it was necessary to remember.

  The reenactors did a fantastic job. Although there had been only a small encampment at Donegal Plantation at the time, they recreated a larger one, complete with a medical tent, where surgeries were acted out, officers’ quarters and tents for enlisted men.

  “This is a right nice place to meet, but we need to get to business,” Griffin said, winking at Ashley.

  “Yeah, Ramsay, looks like you need to skedaddle!” Cliff teased.

  “I’m out of here!” Ramsay said, rising. He looked around. “Sadly, I do like Cliff’s digs better than being cramped up in an apartment!”

  Griffin was right: they were in a nice place to meet. The office/living quarters in the stables were extremely pleasant; there was no heavy smell of hay, horses or droppings in any way, since the office had long ago been fitted out with air-conditioning and an air purifier to boot. There were a number of trophies along with books on horses, horse care, tack and maps on the shelves around the old massive desk with its iMac and printer. It was the horse master’s realm. No matter the state of riches or poverty the Donegal Plantation might be in, there was always a horse master. These days, the horse master did more than look after the six horses that remained. He was a tour guide, overseer—though they didn’t grow anything other than a few flowers now and then and a tomato plant or two—and general man about the house.

  Ashley stood and gave him a shove. “Our apartments are beautiful. Get on out of here, and get this all moving!” She spoke with teasing force. “I’m going out to check on the camp setup and see that everything is running smoothly, then get ready. I’ll leave you gentlemen to agree on the final assignments and action. The day is moving on. We need to be prepared to start with the battle at sundown.”

  “Hell, I hope they got a uniform that will fit me!” He winked. Ramsay was a good guy. He had a small house that had once been a working plantation, but his land had been eaten up over the years. Plantation actually meant farm, and Ramsay had no farmland left at all. He spent most of his time in the city, where he actually was a working artist making a nice income.

  “I’m off to join the Yankees!”

  “Thanks!” Charles Osgood lifted a hand to Ramsay, and then to Ashley, looking dazed. He was getting the prime role for the day, and he still seemed to be surprised.

  It didn’t mean as much to Ramsay, Ashley thought, watching him as he walked from the stables to the old barn. He was from here; he’d been born a part of it all. He’d played soldiers over and over again, and though it had been magnanimous of him to hand over the role, she wasn’t sure that Ramsay hadn’t decided that being a Yankee might not be that bad a thing for the day. After all, they ended the day with the Pledge of Allegiance and the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Even if they did begin it with a rousing chorus of “Dixie”!

  She left Cliff’s to make a quick check of the horses. “Thank God you darlings don’t care if you’re Yankees or rebels!” she said affectionately, pausing to rub Abe’s ears. She saw that the tack for the Northern cavalry was ready for each of the mounts, saddles and saddle blankets set on sawhorses
and the bridles with their insignias hanging from hooks right outside the stalls. Abe, Jeff, Varina, Tigger, Nellie and Bobby were all groomed and sleekly beautiful, ready to play their parts. She paused to give Varina a pat; she loved all the horses, but Varina was her special mare, the horse she always chose to ride.

  Leaving the stables, Ashley paused for a moment to look across the expanse of acreage to the left, where the tents of the living encampment had been set up. She could see the sutler’s stretch of canvas, and she walked over to see who was working that day. Tourists—parked way down the river road—were milling around the goods for sale. She heard children squealing with delight as they discovered toys from the mid-nineteenth century, just as she heard women ooh and aah over some of the corsets and clothing. She saw that a crowd had gathered around the medical tent where reenactors were doing a spectacular job of performing an amputation. The patient let out a horrific scream, and then passed out. Dr. Ben Austin—playing his ancestor, also Dr. Ben Austin—stood in an apron covered in stage blood and explained the procedure. Ben would later be part of the battle reenactment, but for now, he was explaining medicine. Ashley reached him in time to capture part of his spiel.

  “Amputation was frequently the only choice for a Civil War surgeon, and field surgeons could perform an amputation in as little as ten minutes,” Ben told the crowd. “Chloroform existed, but it was scarce. The South had alcohol. When the surgeon could, he would do everything in his power to make the traumatic operation easier for his patient, but at major battles, the pile of amputated limbs could easily grow to be five feet tall. There was no real understanding of germs, and more men died from disease than from wounds or bullets. To carry that further, more men died in the Civil War than in any other American war, and more men died at Sharpsburg, or Antietam, as those of you from the North might know it, than died during the D-Day invasion.”

  Ben saw Ashley watching him and lifted a bloody hand. Well, it was covered in faux blood from the faux surgery. Ben knew how to be dramatic. She smiled and waved in return and went on, stopping to chat with some of the women who were cooking, darning or sewing at the living-encampment tents. There were soldiers around as well, explaining Enfield rifles to little boys, whittling, playing harmonicas or engaging in other period activities. One laundress was hanging shirts and long johns out to dry—a nice touch, Ashley thought.

  “When the war started, the North already had a commissary department—and the South didn’t,” Matty, the sutler’s wife, was explaining to a group who stood around the campfire she had nurtured throughout the day. “Hardtack—dried biscuits, really—molasses, coffee, sugar, salted beef or pork and whatever they could scrounge off the land was what fed the soldiers, and the South had to scramble to feed the troops. Didn’t matter how rich you were—you were pretty much stuck with what could be gotten. There were points, especially at the beginning of the war, during which the Southern soldiers were doing all right. They were on Southern soil. But war can strip the land. What I’m doing here is boiling salted beef and trying to come up with something like a gravy to soften up the hardtack. With a few precious spices, salt and sugar, it won’t be too bad. A few people can taste, if they like! Of course, I’ve made sure that our hardtack has no boll weevils. The soldiers were fighting every kind of varmint, big and small, to keep their own food.”

  Everything seemed to be in perfect order; Ashley’s dreams had been for nothing.

  Except, of course, that the reenactment always made her think about Jake.

  * * *

  They were due to leave soon, within the next few days, but since Adam Harrison’s group was still in New Orleans, they finished with the training they were doing there, and waiting for the move, Jake had agreed to go wandering around the French Quarter with his fellow newly minted agent, Whitney Tremont.

  “I must admit, I’m going to be sorry to leave New Orleans,” Whitney said. She stared out toward Jackson Square. “There was so much paperwork after the Holloway case, it felt like we were picking up the pieces for days at first. But it’s been nice to have this bit of time to get ready for our move, since we’re all taking up residence in the D.C. area. Though, I’m excited—I mean, we’re going to have offices, Jake. Like really cool offices, in a building in Alexandria—with help! A forensics lab! State-of-the-art equipment.”

  Jake grinned. “Yes, it’s going to be interesting to get settled in.”

  Whitney grinned back. Her skin was like the café au lait that sat before them. He knew that the others had thought the two of them might wind up together, but what they had formed instead was a friendship, deep and binding.

  “But it was good, I think—just being thrown together as freelancers of a sort for our first case. Don’t you think?” she asked. “But federal positions…though I don’t think we really get to stay in those fancy buildings that often, do you?”

  “We’re like any other team or unit for the FBI, I believe. The cases come in, and I’m assuming that Adam Harrison and Jackson Crow decide what looks like something we should take on. We’ll get to discuss the situation then. And make the plans.”

  “Do you think that any of us could put a case forward?” she asked.

  “Sure.” He smiled. “Let’s face it, Whitney, we are an experiment in paranormal investigations. We’re unique, and I’m sure there are those who will make fun of the ‘Krewe of Hunters’ unit.”

  “Not anymore. Not after the Holloway case,” she said proudly.

  “We have to keep proving that we’re good at what we do,” Jake said. The name “Krewe” they’d given themselves had begun as a joke, but they’d become a real crew through their passion for the work.

  “Hmm,” Whitney said, twirling her straw in her iced café au lait. “It’s here somewhere.”

  “Here? What’s here? Sometimes you make no sense.”

  That made her laugh. “Only sometimes? I think that our new case is going to be here. Somewhere in Louisiana.”

  “We’re about to move to Alexandria,” he pointed out.

  “I don’t know…I just have a feeling. I don’t think we’ll be going yet. You wait and see.”

  “What makes you think that?” Jake asked. Whitney’s prowess was with film, sound and video. But she also seemed to have amazing intuition. Of course, they had all been gathered into the group because of their intuition, their ability to solve problems where others could not, but where Angela Hawkins was quiet, finding what she found without much ado, and Jackson would always be the skeptic, Whitney went in wide-eyed, eager for whatever might not be considered normal.

  “Feelings and logic, that’s kind of the Krewe of Hunters motto, right?” she asked.

  He laughed, but something was knotting in the pit of his stomach. “I think it’s supposed to be logic—and then feelings,” he told her. He gazed idly across the street. The mule-drawn carriages were starting to arrive in front of Jackson Square. An early-morning tour group was forming on Decatur Street. One of the history tours, he thought.

  “Well, of course, good old Jackson, he’s still swearing solving cases is all logic, and we all know that he knows best,” Whitney said.

  Jake wasn’t really paying attention. He had seen the tour-group leader come out—he wasn’t sure where she had come from. Of course, there were a number of restaurants and bars in the area, and some had been open forever. It was New Orleans. No one frowned if you discovered you were dying for that 8:00 a.m. drink.

  The tour guide was a blonde woman dressed in Civil War attire. Her bonnet hid her face, but she was tall and statuesque, and he had a feeling that she was going to be an attractive woman before he saw her face. Assured, probably in her mid to late thirties, she moved among the chattering crowd as they waited.

  She was coming toward the sidewalk, politely excusing herself as she did so, but people didn’t seem to notice as she made her way through them, which said a lot for the good nature of the group, since she was wearing a respectable day dress with large hoops.

>   She paused when she reached the sidewalk.

  Jake started. She was staring straight at him, and she smiled, but her smile seemed to be very sad. Her mouth moved. He squinted. He wasn’t all that much at reading lips, but it was almost as if he could hear her.

  “We’re waiting, we need you. Hurry,” he thought she said.

  “Jake?”

  “Huh?” He turned back to look at Whitney.

  “Want to move on?” she asked.

  “Yes, sure,” he agreed. He stood and left a tip on the table, having already paid the waiter.

  When he glanced up again, the tour had moved on down toward the cathedral. He didn’t see the woman, but they would be walking in the same direction.

  “Whitney,” he asked as they did so, “did you understand what that woman was trying to say?”

  “What woman?”

  “She was the guide for that group that’s ahead of us. She looked right over at us and said something,” Jake told her.

  Whitney arched a delicately formed brow. “First, I didn’t see the woman, but I wasn’t looking. And second, if she’d spoken from across the street, unless she’d been yelling, how could I have heard anything she had to say?”

  He shrugged. “Good point.”