by Greg Hall
“Thank you,” Henri said quietly, as they approached a growing crowd of Bunkie residents who were all gathering to find the scream.
“For?”
“You saved me. If you hadn’t grabbed me back from the fire, who knows…”
“I was simply returning the favor. You tried to rescue me from a friend’s hug.”
Henri knew Modeste was trying to lighten the mood, but he didn’t feel like laughing. He flashed her a smile, and their eyes met for a few seconds.
No matter what happens, at this moment, she’s my only friend.
Henri wondered how she remained so calm in all of this. How she could travel all this way, witnessing what she had, be treated like crap in every town, and still have a smile on her face.
“How do you do it?” Henri asked.
“Do what?”
“Smile all the time. In these few short days, you’ve been yelled at, told where to go, you’ve been blocked from entering buildings and some roads..”
“Well, Henri, I don’t have much of a choice,” Modeste said, then looked back to Franklin, who was leading a group of black people toward the center of the town. “None of us do.”
Henri watched the smile fade. She was right. It was easy for Henri to try and understand her actions, but he didn’t know the first thing about being in her shoes. Henri had encountered some adversity, but they were miniscule compared to what Modeste had to endure every single day. His issues were not caused by oppression. The color of his skin didn’t cause his problems. There was a history deep within the state’s roots that Henri was able to overlook. It was easy to remain ignorant of something when it bears no weight on you. But that was a problem all on its own. Modeste was a fantastic person, and seeing how people were treating her without even knowing her, and after he had made the same judgement, made him angry.
He thought about Modeste and what she must experience daily as he encroached on the crowd. It was a familiar sight to what he found in Morrow. The crowd had formed around a young white woman on her knees who was crying into the palms of her hands. She was saying the same word repeatedly, but Henri couldn’t quite make it out.
Henri and Modeste didn’t have to speak to know what had happened. The only difference was that she was white.
“I told you it would come for anyone,” Modeste said to Henri as she turned around to join Franklin.
Franklin’s group remained several feet from the action. Henri watched as Modeste joined them. Henri was desperate to remain with Modeste and Franklin, but it would have gone against his entire journey. There was a divide between the black and white folks. Henri thought about how Modeste would have wanted to come up, but with everything that had happened so far, she wouldn’t have made it far.
Henri turned back and began to push his way through the crowd. Once at the front, the man clinging to the young girl looked up to Henri. Their eyes locked for a few moments. They were trying to decipher each other. It was the same man who had been watching them while they were in front of the tavern.
“What happened?” Henri asked a stranger standing on his right. The man didn’t respond, but Henri could already guess.
The man rose from the crying woman’s side and kept his stern eyes locked on Henri. The man approached Henri with weariness and hesitation. He never blinked, and he kept his gaze on Henri.
Henri felt all the eyes from the gathered crowd now resting on him. He felt nervous but pushed the feeling down so he could remain courageous. They were so close. The killer was there.
“What happened?” Henri finally asked the man that Franklin had called David.
“Malorie is missing,” David said. His eyes became more focused and calculating on the stranger who decided to question the events. “Who are you?”
“My name is Henri. My partner and I…”
“Partner?” David recoiled.
“Ah, yeah. Modeste. Sorry. We’ve been traveling through Louisiana trying to stop a killer who has killed in every town.”
“You and that negro are working together?” the man said with palpable disgust.
“That’s what you’re concentrating on? Look, we only have a short time.”
“Before what?” the voice of the woman who had been crying. She stood up, wiped her tears , and made her way toward Henri. She was walking with so much authority that it caused the man to grab her and for Henri to take a step back. “What do you know about this? Tell me!”
Henri felt obligated to tell her yet didn’t want to go into details. There were too many people lingering around, hoping to hear their conversation, and he thought that maybe the three of them should speak privately.
“You heard her,” David said angrily, before Henri could respond. ”Tell the woman what will happen to her daughter.”
Henri looked to Modeste for help, but she clung close to Franklin. He thought back to when she spoke out to Lincoln and told him how there was a bloodsucker. She had said it with such faith and certainty that Henri, at that moment, had started to believe that maybe monsters did exist. Henri didn’t want to tell the entire town, and the mother, that Malorie wasn’t going to be coming back. He didn’t want to tell them that the poor girl was taken somewhere and that the killer would do horrendous things to her.
“He has gone from town to town, kidnapping and killing along the way.”
“Kidnapping? So the man is traveling with people he has kidnapped?” the man asked.
“He brings them back…” Henri let the sentence trail off. He fought with the idea of telling them what would happen in five days. If he wanted them to take him seriously, he was going to have to keep what he had believed to himself. “The monster brings them back.”
It was the first time Henri said the word out loud. Monster. He couldn’t believe he used it. It seemed missed by David, but Henri could feel Modeste’s eyes on him. He turned to her, and he was right. She was staring right at him, locked on him.
“What do you mean?” the mother of the missing girl asked.
“We have to find her quickly,” Henri said.
“And how do you know all of this?” David asked.
“Because the same thing has happened in Maringouin, Melville, Morrow, and now here. We don’t have much time. “
David didn’t say anything. He kept his gaze on Henri and approached with unbreaking strides.
“I don’t know if you’re lying or not, but what I do know is that as soon as you and your witch arrived, one of our town members went missing,” David said. He spoke quietly, just enough for Henri to hear.
“I swear I’m not lying. I am a man of God. I don’t lie.”
“That doesn’t mean much around here,” David said, eyes still locked with Henri. After a few moments he broke the stare and turned to the rest of the crowd. ““We make four groups and encompass the perimeter. Collect lamps, supplies, and whatever weapons you might need,” David said, then turned back to Henri, “This is going to be a long night.”
When the crowd dispersed, the only two remaining were Henri and David. They stood in the same spot. Henri was uneasy about the decisions David had made. He didn’t have a plan himself, but he had hoped that David would have been more understanding.
After what felt like a lifetime, David approached Henri. It appeared as though he had been waiting for them to be alone. Henri looked around for Modeste, but he assumed she had left with Franklin . Most likely she was hurt that Henri had failed to mention the true intentions of the bloodsucker. They both knew what was happening with the girl, and the town deserved to know, but Henri, ignoring the chance to tell the truth, was only putting them all in danger. His neglect showed how little courage Henri still had.
“You came here to stop the killer,” David said.
Henri couldn’t tell if it was a statement or question since he couldn’t hear the inflection. “We did.”
“Then you failed,” David shot back.
“We’re not just dealing with just a killer. It’s something much wor
se,” Henri said, reaching down to find his courage.
“Oh yeah?”
“David!” a man called out from somewhere behind. David turned toward the man and noticed a pitchfork gripped in the stranger’s raised hand. David nodded as if to tell the individual that it was good enough.
“I know it’s hard to believe,” Henri said.
“Hard to believe? If the Lord himself came down and danced a jig right in front of me, that would be easier to believe than a priest and a negro witch doctor hunting a killer,” David replied. And before Henri could respond, he said, “I’m not particularly keen on visitors to my town, and I’m especially not keen on negroes coming to my town. As you already witnessed, Bunkie is afflicted with them.”
“I understand that you don’t like them, but right now, we all share the common goal; to stop the killer. We could use their help.”
“We? You’re not a part of this. You go and mingle with negros in the slums. Keep this to the clean ones,” David said, as he turned and walked away.
Henri watched for only a moment and felt a presence grow from behind him.
“What do we do now?” Modeste asked. She stood a few feet from Henri’s side.
Henri stood bewildered by his interaction with David,
“We go on our own. We check the house and make sure it was the same entry,” Henri said. He thought about it for another minute. “Then we find ourselves a tracker.”
The back door to the house was in the same condition as all the other victims’ houses.The hinges were surrounded by splintered wood. It looked like the door was torn off and placed back on. And yet, no other signs of disturbance. Henri was looking over a footprint left in the mud. He set his foot in the outline and realized that the print was much larger than his own.
“You the pair looking for a tracker?” a bellowing voice called out from behind Henri and Modeste. Henri was so startled that he almost lost his balance.
He realized he was still standing in the footprint and didn’t want to disturb it any more than he already had. He stepped out of it and turned to face the towering man who was at least a foot taller than Henri. The stranger appeared to be the width of a house. His hands were calloused and worn.
“Are you a tracker?” Henri asked, with a hint of a concern. The trackers he knew were mostly stocky and well built. But still able to cover a lot of ground in a short time. This man looked more than twenty years older than him. He had a noticeable limp, and Henri didn’t think this man was going to make it too far into the woods. If he was a tracker, it was most likely a long time ago.
Henri knew of Slave catchers. They were mostly mercenaries who traveled the south seeking slaves who escaped. The Fugitive Slave Act of eighteen fifty helped locate and prosecute runaway slaves, which allowed regular men to have more freedom under the act. Many found work as farmers after, which involved tending to local fields. Some even went onto working the rail.
Most slave catchers grew up as hunters, but they found it much more lucrative to track the escaped slaves. During the Civil War, most men went off fighting, which left most of the south without catchers. Some were too young to fight in the civil war, so they found more lucrative ways to make money. After the emancipation proclamation, their money train came to an abrupt halt.
It took a few moments for Henri to realize that the man who stood before him was once a slave catcher. He quickly did the math in his head, and figured that he was in his late sixties at the youngest. Henri had been hoping for someone a little less antiquated. And preferably not someone who had been using their skill to track black folks.
“I was,” the man said, keeping his eyes on Modeste. A contempt on his face that he wasn’t trying to hide.
“What kind of animals did you track?”
“The human kind,” the man said, his eyes still locked on Modeste. She had turned away moments earlier.
“You’re not seriously considering using this man, are you?” Modeste asked.
“We need all the help we can get,” Henri said apathetically.
Henri didn’t understand the issue. He watched as Modeste shook her head and walked away. They came this far and were so close to finding the bloodsucker, they needed all the help they could get.
“You make friends with the negroes?” the man asked.
“I need you to follow these tracks and tell me which direction the killer went,” Henri responded, ignoring the man’s question.
“I ain’t going nowhere with you. And besides, I ain’t much for tracking these days. The legs aren’t as good as they used to be,” the man stated.
“Then why did you come?”
“I can point you in the right direction.”
James staggered over to the footprint that contained Henri’s miniature replica inside. He stared down at the imprint with confusion. “Did you step in here?”
“I did,” Henri responded, with a hint of embarrassment.
“Your first tip, don’t do that if you need to see the print.”
“I just thought, well, I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“That is the problem.”
“Can you tell me at least which direction he went?”
“I could tell you that and so much more. There could have been remnants from where the killer came from. You see, it’s best to compare the last one before entering the house to the first one exiting the house. Those two prints will tell me everything.”
Henri thought about it for a moment and realized what he would ask might come across as ignorant. “What about the left foot? I mean, he has two feet…”
The man didn’t respond. He just remained staring at the prints on the ground.
Henri couldn’t tell if he’d struck a chord with the lumbering tracker or if he simply chose to ignore Henri’s question. Henri followed the man’s line of sight and saw him studying a dark purple substance that he had scraped from the path and was now running through his fingers. Henri almost gagged watching the man place his tongue on his thumb to get a taste of what remained. Henri struggled to hide his disgust.
“Blackberries,” the man muttered.
“Blackberries?” Henri repeated.
“There are brambles north from here. There’s a rotted shack a mile up this path—no roof on the thing. The back wall fell over a few years back—no upkeep to the place. Thing should have been taken down years ago. Just remnants from the line workers. But, that shack is surrounded by blackberries,” the man said.
“Are you sure?” Henri asked. Nothing in his travels so far suggested that this would be easy, nor that the killer would be so easy to track.
“Sure as the sun sets.”
Henri watched the tracker stumble back and disappear around the house. He paused and selected his thoughts. It didn’t make sense. The bloodsucker must have known that everyone would be searching. It did not even attempt to silence the mother. If he were only a mile into the forest, It would have known someone would try and stop him.
Henri’s heart was racing. Everything was culminating into this single night. He wasn’t expecting to find the killer this easily. A small part of him hoped that when he was entranced by the bloodsucker, that maybe It would have left. Henri hoped that his earlier interaction with the bloodsucker would have pushed it to leave. It tried to kill Henri and failed.
Instead, it changed its focus and found a new victim, a young girl.
19
There is a difference of weight between our words and our actions. No matter how many ways we say something, our words are worthless unless we perform by our spoken standards when called to action.
Modeste waited for Henri to turn around before she spoke to him. She hoped he would have followed her when she stormed off, even though Henri let her down, that wasn’t the way she wanted to leave it. She had words for Henri, and if he was going to go off and find the killer with a slave catcher, then this was the time to tell him.
She couldn’t muster the patience to wait for Henri to look at her.
She hadn’t yet turned when she yelled, “What do you think you’re doing?” Modeste asked.
Her words struck Henri to the core. He brought his shoulders up in a frightened motion as if he were protecting himself from her wrath.
“I need a tracker,” Henri responded, without turning to face her.
“I? I thought we were a team?” Modeste asked.
Henri finally turned to her. “We are. I didn’t mean that. It was a slip of the tongue.”
Modeste made sure to remain a few steps away. She was wrong about the man she had grown to trust. He was just like every white male who claimed they wanted change. When Henri moved closer to her, she took the same steps back.
“I’m trying to stop the bloodsucker.”
“But at what cost?” Modeste asked but wasn’t expecting a response. She continued, “Some people’s true colors are exposed when pushed. I see who you are.”
“What? Just because of what he used to do?”
“He was a slave hunter. He hunted my people. Hunted men and women who were only seeking freedom. Seeking a better life. A life free from torture, free from torture, freefrom abuse, free from masters and rapists and childstealing.”
“He’s not a slave catcher anymore.”
“And his sins are not washed away,” Modeste said, silencing Henri.
“I’m lost, Modeste,” Henri said.
The words lingered in the air and silenced Modeste for the moment. It was the most honest, sincere statement Henri made during their whole trip. Modeste was unsure how to respond. Until this point, she viewed Henri as a “white savior” who was set on redeeming himself from his past failures. She found herself trapped in a moral dilemma. On one side, trying to use a slave catcher was unforgivable, but on the other side, he was making headway in stopping the bloodsucker.