The Traiteur's Ring

by Jeffrey Wilson

  “Can’t promise I won’t need more space in the trunk by the time you get back,” she forced smile. “I saw some crafty looking shops back there. We may even need to check bags on the way back.”

  He kissed her mouth this time.

  “No problem, love.”

  Then, he walked out and forced himself not to look back. He slipped into the Charger and headed west on the main drag and out of town. A half mile out he turned onto a nearly invisible dirt road with weeds that reached the tops of his wheels.

  Welcome home, Ben.

  He thought the voice in his head was just his own.

  * * *

  The shack (their shack – Gammy’s and his) still stood where he remembered, and he realized he knew it would be there. He had no idea whether the raging fire from his memory was the illusion or the sagging building he pulled up to. One or the other had to be illusion he supposed. He realized it also didn’t matter. Not anymore.

  Just go for a ride and clear the attic.

  Only this wasn’t a dream. Now he could be certain of that. This was real – whether supernatural, definitely real. Thirty-five minutes away (the road had been remarkably dry) his beautiful wife and best friend sat and sipped coffee, no doubt with the furrowed brow he felt pretty certain was reserved exclusively for the way he complicated her life.

  Today was real.

  Dreams are the reality that hides from us.

  The Elder’s voice in his head felt like a memory, not a new message.

  He pulled the Charger, now more grey than black with a thick covering of dust from the twenty-five minutes on the dirt road, up beside the back of his childhood home and turned off the ignition. He couldn’t quite get out of the car – not right away – and sat in the growing heat of the driver’s seat and stared at the remnants and his past as images flooded through his head. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of familiar home. When he opened them, nothing had changed except his powerful sense of nostalgia. He slid out of the driver’s seat and closed the door with a satisfying thunk.

  The tall grass that climbed several feet up the side of the shack didn’t look to him like neglect – it had always looked just like this. The roof sagged a little to the left of middle, but again, that was just as he remembered it the day he had last left it – only a few weeks before the fire (if that had even happened).

  He walked around to the front and carefully stepped up the three rickety wood steps onto the badly warped porch. From there, he looked out over the yard – more of a clearing in the woods he realized – and for a moment could almost see his Gammy, brightly-colored dresses and bare feet, as she stirred dirty clothes in a giant steel tub over a fire. He felt tears well up in his eyes and realized how much he loved her and missed her.

  Past the clearing and the imaginary laundry pot, he saw a short moss-covered trail he knew led in short order to the homemade rope hammock. Beyond were the woods – his woods – the woods he had both embraced and conquered as a kid. Those woods had been at times a refuge for his imagination and, at others, dark and frightening. His woods had been castles he had conquered, forts he had defended from Indians, and his sitting room where he poured through the books Gammy had gotten for him every month from “Dat busy lady in town wit all dem ole books.” He sighed and for a moment just let the childhood nostalgia sweep over him in images and feelings. He opened his eyes, and the clearing looked small, so different from six and half feet up instead of through his little boy eyes.

  He turned slowly, a part of him reluctant to let go of the warm, bittersweet trip his heart took him on. He knew that Christy, alone and worried back in Chackbay, might think these were the thoughts and feelings that brought him here. He knew that no purging of childhood memories would let him shake off the shackle of this place. He had ghosts to bury, that for sure was part of it. Sho’ ‘neff true dat, he thought, and chuckled, but he also had present day demons to slay. Those demons had to die, whether only in his mind or not real, if he wanted to start his life with his new wife. Ben reached out and grasped the knotted rope that served (and always had) as a makeshift door knob.

  The only difference was the cold. He walked slowly across the creaky wood floor of the large room he remembered as always being warm, even too hot at times. He knew the frigid air could be easily explained by the now unused large, black pot-bellied stove that had served as stove and central heat (causin’ it in da center of da room) that had always glowed with wood fire when he was young, even on sweltering hot summer days. Today the stove looked dark and cold.

  Cold here’s comin’ from more than a lack of heat.

  The chill was that of a cave, the wet, cool that breathed out of the dark. He tried to check his imagination and walked to the thick wood table in the corner of the big room. He drew a finger across the surface and shuddered in surprise when it came back without a lick of dust. Except for the chilling air, it was like they had been here, the two of them living their backwoods life, only hours ago. The shudder turned to a shiver, and he rubbed his hands up and down on his arms for warmth.

  The ceiling hovered only three or four feet above him, now that he had grown to a strapping SEAL of a man. He felt a little claustrophobic at the nearness that seemed not quite right. The drop ceiling of his little bedroom loft would be a tight fit these days, maybe only a few feet from the real ceiling, but it had never felt small to him back then. He walked over to the homemade ladder he had climbed every day of his child life and grasped the top rung which sat now at eye level. Back then it had seemed an exciting climb, sometimes even a daunting climb when he was young. He could peer now into his little loft without even tipping up on his toes.

  The loft looked filled mostly with shadows now – no light from hanging hurricane lanterns today. To his surprise the grey sheet and heavy homemade comforter were there, pulled only partially over his lumpy pillow, the little boy in a hurry to chase dragons through his woods.

  Why the surprise? The entire house can’t really even be here, and it’s the blankets that seem unbelievable to you?

  For a moment he was a boy again, rocking back and forth, arms hugged around knees, as he watched his home dissolve in the lapping flames and smoke. And, then he was grown again (all grow’d up) and cold, and he shivered anew as the memory floated away in a smoke of its own.

  This time tears spilled onto his cheeks, and he wiped them away in confusion. What the hell was he crying about? As a boy he had dreamed about getting away from here – about getting to the real world. He had wanted to have adventures like the characters in the books he read, to see faraway places around the world. He had found that, hadn’t he?

  After Gammy died and he had bounced around a few foster homes – first in Chackbay and later in the suburbs of Baton Rouge – he had slowly found his way out. He had discovered television and, through it, stories of soldiers and the famous Navy SEALs. He had escaped like he always wanted to, so what the shit? He never told anyone of the fire or Gammy walking him out of those woods that night – impossible of course since she had been hours long dead by then. He had forced his mind away – to faraway places and the Navy – his own personal life raft.

  Ben sniffled as the tears on his cheeks also found their way to the back of his throat. Was this what Christy imagined he would find here? Were these the feeling that would give him the fabled closure? He had no reason to feel angry, but he did. Angry at Gammy for leaving him alone in the night while the demons hunted him down, angry at Christy for wanting him to come here (though she had not even suggested it his mind reminded him, jumping to her defense), angry mostly at himself for feeling like this.

  The resonating creaking felt, at first, warm and familiar. It was the sound of childhood and meant safety. It meant he was not alone tonight, that Gammy would be home with him.

  Creak –Creak – Creak

  The sound of Gammy rocking in her chair on the porch.

  The realization that the noise meant Ben was not alone now melted away the warmth an
d replaced it with an eerie chill that made him shiver again. He could almost smell the venison stew on the pot-bellied cook stove, but when he looked the stove remained dark and cold.

  Creak – Creak – Creak

  Ben walked slowly across the once large and now tiny one-room shack that had been home. It felt more like a tomb and despite the frigid air that raised goose flesh on his skin, he felt sweat pop out on his forehead and temples. One drop tickled its way down his neck.

  Creak – Creak – Creak

  He reached the door with its rope knob and opened it slowly, the old worn hinges adding their own slow creak, a caricature of a ghost story, he realized. He stepped through the doorway onto the sagging and warped porch with no fear of what he would find. He knew exactly what he would see.

  Sho’ ‘neff true, dat.

  Creak – Creak – Creak

  Gammy sat in the rocker in her “night time” clothes, the ones that used to mean she would not be home all night, that for a while he would be alone in his loft, alone in their shack in the forest bayou. The grey dress stretched down to her ankles and nearly covered her dirty, bare feet. Her grey hair went every which way, like always, but her face looked like a grandma from an old book, or maybe Mrs. Claus. She smiled at him over stemless glasses that she pulled off her nose and dropped in her lap. She reached out her pale arms towards him.

  “My big ‘ole boy. Jess look ‘atcha now. Come on now ‘n givin ole Gammy kisses.”

  Chapter 26

  Christy stood outside the Chackbay Market and Gumbo Café and Boudin Joint in front of a bin full of leathery alligators with shiny marble eyes and a sign to would-be buyers that these were AUTHENTIC bayou alligator heads and could be yours for only $9.99. She flipped open her phone which intermittently flashed back and forth between one and two bars. She bit her lip, checked to be sure her ringer was on, closed the cover, and slipped it in her back pocket. That way, even if she set it wrong, she would feel if it vibrated. She took two steps towards the street, stopped and turned back. She crossed her arms across her chest and tapped a nervous foot, then looked at her watch. It had barely been an hour.

  Shit. You best calm down, girlfriend, or you’ll have a nervous breakdown. He’s fine – this is the right thing for him, and he is fine.

  Her mind wandered against her will to the doorway on Dumaine Street in the Quarter and the strange little Cajun man who grinned his scattered-tooth grin and jived to the saxophone. She thought of those strange eyes and the stranger language her husband had fallen so easily into with him and then walked on like nothing unusual had happened. The thought that more was at work here than just Ben’s need to say goodbye to the memory of his grandmother tugged at her.

  How the hell did that crazy old Cajun just show up out of nowhere and have a heated talk with Ben. Just what the hell is going on?

  She pulled her phone out again and flipped it open to call him. Just a quick call to be sure he was okay. Her finger hovered over the number two, his speed dial number. She shouldn’t call, right? She should just let him do what he needed to do up there in the woods. It didn’t hurt her at all that he wanted to go alone – she sort of understood she thought. But she did worry more, not being there, not knowing how he was doing or what he might be feeling.

  Her finger shifted to the number one, and she speed-dialed her voicemail.

  Just gonna make sure he didn’t try to leave a message. Reception sucks out here in Deliverance country.

  Her phone assured her she had no messages (you––-have––no––-messages the annoying bitch told her), and she flipped it closed again, dropping it into her jeans yet again.

  She turned away from the diner and decided to stroll around and find something to buy. She had a feeling she would not really want any mementos from today, but she had to do something. For a moment she saw the old Cajun, grinning face, yellow eyes, and “Purple Haze” ball cap, seated on a bench beside a lamp post at the corner. Her pulse quickened, and she felt herself actually gasp, her breath sucked in through clenched teeth. This was no friggin’ coincidence.

  But then the old man shimmered in the sunlight, like a mirage of water on a hot asphalt road, and disappeared.

  My God, get a grip on yourself, girl.

  She felt for the phone in her back pocket. Secure it was there, she continued down the street at a tense, trotting stroll. She glanced again at her watch despite her best effort not to.

  Four more minutes down.

  Chapter 27

  The terror he expected at the sight of his Gammy – decades long dead now and rocking in her same old rocker, a shaker glass of lemonade in her hand – never came. He realized he had known he would see her today. Perhaps a normal person would feel fear at the sight of a living ghost, creaking in her chair on a warped porch in the woods, but he was a child of the bayou – grandson of a Traiteur (Sho’ ‘neff true dat). Gammy sipped the warm glass of iceless lemonade and flashed again the smile his memory told him meant everything was alright (Awright nah, chile).

  Ben approached her and felt a smile creep across his face. This wasn’t the Gammy of his nightmares – the Gammy with the long curved knife, dripping blood from her naked body in the moonlight. This was grandma Gammy. The Gammy of bedtime stories and soft songs when he had a bellyache. The Gammy of warm smiles and warm potions on scraped knees and elbows – always with a kiss to “seal dat medicine in yo’ knee and heart.” The Gammy that somewhere found Christmas presents every year for her dirt poor grandson in the woods.

  Just his grandma.

  She rose from her rocker with a grunt to meet him.

  “Dese ole bones, now,” she said.

  Just like always.

  She wrapped her arms around him in a huge bear hug, undaunted that she now came only to his chest, and he had clearly grown out of that embrace. He fully expected her skin to be, well cool at least, if not cold. Ghosts were cold, right? But her touch was warm and familiar, and the scent of her was all Gammy instead of the mulchy grave smell he braced for. If not for the powerful memory of her pale and lifeless body, obscene in the simple box so many years ago, he would have been tempted to believe she had never died at all – that he had made some terrible mistake – that and the fact she had not aged a day beyond the old lady from his boyhood.

  She pulled out of his hug and looked him up and down. Her wrinkled old face beamed.

  “Know’d you’d grow up big, but Christ on a crutch, boy. Look ‘atcha!”

  Ben beamed back and kept his hands on Gammy’s shoulders. She raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Lossa questions, ‘ey boy?”

  Ben nodded and felt like the young child he had been when last they’d talked. Gammy nodded back.

  “Lots to tell ya’,” she said and looked past him at the sky. “Not much time for the telling, ‘fraid.” She said. “Sit or walk?”

  Just like when he was little and had questions or was afraid (usually from something he heard in the dark when she wore her night time clothes like now). He usually said sit, and they would sit on the edge of the porch. Right now he thought a little distance between him and the shack he last saw in flames might clear his head a bit – even if he was still talking to his dead grandmother.

  “Walk,” he said.

  “Better now,” she took his hand and led him down the rickety stairs. “Best be getting’ ya on to yo’ appointment anyhow.”

  They walked hand-in-hand through the clearing and started down the moss-covered path at its edge. Ben felt himself drag back a bit as they entered the woods, but Gammy squeezed his hand, and the tension melted away.

  Plenty of time for that if I still gotta go down that fuckin’ hole.

  He realized he still hoped Gammy would say something that could maybe spare him that terrifying journey. They came to a large, moss-covered rock – the moss had overgrown the ‘B.M.’ he had scraped into it years ago – and she leaned against it and turned to face him.

  “Been meetin’ dat other Traiteur, ain�
�t ya boy? Dat one from the dark land?”

  Ben wanted to be sure he understood everything he heard, even if a part of his mind reminded him – insisted in fact – that all of this was created in his brain.

  “Are you talking about the Village Elder? The one I met in Africa?”

  “Yep,” she said. “Dats da one.”

  Ben tried to shake away the little boy he felt himself become.

  “How do you know about that?”

  Because she is inside your diseased brain just like that fantasy.

  Except he no longer believed that.

  “Dem people is kin for us,” she said like that explained everything. It didn’t for him.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Mouth boy,” she scolded. As a kid, he’d been allowed to say “shit” but for some reason “hell” had always been a soapin’ offense. His face became pensive, and she sighed. “Bennie, I love ya more ‘n you could know,” she said, “and I wants to tell you everything you needs, but time don’ let me. Things is that them people over there is our people. Our spirit kin. We is all one wit dem.”

  Ben thought a moment.

  “All Children of Ginen?”

  Gammy laughed the full and deep laugh he remembered, and the musical sound of it tugged another tear out of his left eye.

  “We don’ call it dat here, but yep – any name’ll do it, so sure to dat.”

  Ben nodded, but didn’t really understand.

  Gammy looked past him at the sky again.

  “Gots to keep tellin’ it, honey-boy,” she said. “Time keep on movin’.”

  She took his hand again, and they continued on down the path. Only a few more paces and they passed the rope hammock where he had pretended to be a pirate, high above the sea on the rigging to the main sail, and more lately had awakened in terrible dreams of his beloved grandmother.

  “Time was I could jess be Traiteur here around,” Gammy continued as they strolled slowly now. Her voice had a sadness that tugged his heart. “Long time like that. Remember dem happy times, Benny?”