The night hung heavy as a beaded cloak as Gonzales paddled down one ribbon of water after another, its pathway an ancient memory. I thought I heard the grinding churn of a motor off in the distance, but the sound was soon swallowed up as each stroke of Gonzales’s paddle took us deeper into the labyrinth. Turning toward the man who was a creature of the swamp himself, I dared to break the silence.
“Do you know where Trenton and Charlie are?”
Gonzales blended perfectly into the night, adorned in black tee shirt and jeans. Gaunt and gnarled like the trees, the trunk of his body remained motionless as he glided the boat on a shimmering mirror of ebony. Rays of moonlight played on the slick strands of his hair that hung listless as moss.
“Where dey are, is where dey is. Dey out here somewhere layin’ in wait for de huntin’ to begin.”
“Are we going hunting, too?”
Gonzales grinned, his black teeth jagged as broken bottles.
“Yes, miss. Don’t you worry none. We goin’ huntin’, too.”
I drew my knees tight against my body. The swamp began to play games with me, blowing up my childhood fears. Holding my breath, I could almost hear the bogeyman sneak up from behind, his fingers running down the length of my back. Every tree was a ghost, the white moonlight its transparent shroud. Every ripple in the water was a hand reaching up to pull me into a black underworld. Gonzales began to mimic each sound we heard. I twisted around until I sat facing him in the boat, and leaned forward to whisper, afraid to intrude upon the silence.
“What is it about the swamp that you love so much, Gonzales?”
Looking around, his eyes sparkled like those of the gator who lay in wait for his prey.
“De swamp is like my mama’s arms around me, an’ I just a li’l bitty baby. Dis here is my home. It’s where I always feel safe. I got everytin’ I be needin’ an I don’t wanna be nowheres else.”
A black stick came to life, wriggling close to the boat. Propelling itself away, one more creature disappeared, swallowed up by the swamp.
“If I couldn’t be in de swamp, I just as soon be dead.”
“You still do any outlawing, Gonzales?”
Gonzales grinned at me through broken teeth, grabbing the limb of a tree and placing the splintered end in his mouth. “Just a li’l bit, Miss Porta. A li’l bit a gator, a li’l bit a gro’bek. Not enough to hurt, mind you.”
We continued on in silence. I listened to every twig break, every leaf rustle, until I could hear my own heart. A splash of water off to the left drew Gonzales’s attention. Flicking on his flashlight, he shined its rays onto a cluster of snouts snapping at a meal that bobbed up and down like a giant cork in the water. Gonzales rowed closer to see what all the commotion was about, raising his oar and jabbing it in the reptiles’ direction until the covey of gators broke up.
The smell was enough to tell me that what lay facedown like a hunk of floating garbage was a human body, as we moved in for a better view. A ring of blood glowed phosphorescent in the yellow beam of the light. Gonzales tucked his paddle under the balloon of clothing, straining his muscles against the deadweight, until the body slowly rolled over. The face was partially gone, along with an arm and a leg. But enough was left to be able to tell that the man bobbing like a half-eaten apple was Louisiana State Wildlife Agent Clyde Bolles, dressed in the same clothes I had seen him in last night at Pasta Nostra. Moving to the opposite end of the boat, I leaned over, intent on throwing up, until I saw reptilian eyes staring back at me through a bed of algae, patiently waiting for me to bend a little lower. I pulled back up like a shot with the gator following, determined to snag his retreating dinner. Grabbing my .357, Gonzales pushed me aside and took aim, shooting the gator straight through the eye. It fell back into the water with a thud, and Gonzales kicked its body away from the boat with the heel of his boot.
“Dat will keep dem ot’ers busy, Miss Porta. Dey don’t be bot’ering us no more.”
Gonzales handed me back my .357 and turned his attention to what remained of Clyde Bolles. Looping a piece of rope, he slipped it around the waterlogged body to tow Bolles behind us. We paddled on until a small slip of land covered with palmetto came into sight. Jumping out of the boat, Gonzales dragged the mutilated corpse onto the island, where he tied him upright to the trunk of a tupelo tree. Then we pushed back into the foreboding darkness, and I glanced around to see Bolles, a tattered and bedraggled rag doll, looking like one more bayou ghost.
Gonzales clucked to himself as his paddle fractured slivers of moonlight with each stroke.
“Dat was one bad man, miss. He kill more critters dan anyone else around. You pay him off, he leave you alone. Ot’erwise, he haul you in an’ you can’t feed your family none. De swamp take care of its own, don’ you worry.”
Petty corruption had always been an unspoken fact at State Fish and Game. And in the local system where one hand washed the other, all poachers worked hard to fix the law. Being from a city where payoffs are a highly respected art form, I shouldn’t have been surprised. But I was. I pressed my hand against the butt of the .357 where it lay tucked inside my waistband, and was grateful to have Gonzales with me.
The swamp changed character as we turned down a narrow channel. The silence was heavier, the darkness impenetrable, and the chorus of frogs no longer sang. Hiding behind a bank of black clouds, the moon had vanished. Gonzales touched my shoulder, and I followed his finger to a cluster of fireflies through a labyrinth of dead cypress trees. As we glided closer, the fireflies became flickering lanterns, their reflections bobbing like miniature moons. Just ahead sat a wooden lodge on giant stilts, an enormous bug with its legs sunk deep into the muck of the swamp. The silhouettes of boats swayed in the water, looking like restless horses hitched up to the cabin’s dilapidated pier. The loud din of voices drifted toward us, an underlying buzz of anger filling the air.
Gonzales maneuvered around back, secured our boat, and then pulled himself up onto the platform. Reaching down, his hands locked tightly around my upraised wrists and lifted me up onto the wooden planks, where I landed with a soft thud. Placing a finger to his lips, Gonzales motioned for me to follow as we crept over to a window, staying well below the line of sight. The glow of lamps spilled out in patchwork squares, forcing me against the weathered boards so that I had to crane my neck to see what was going on inside.
At one end of the room stood Buddy Budwell, his thin blond hair slicked flat to his scalp, with skin as bright red as a freshly boiled crawfish. The armpits of his dirty white shirt were stained with yellow half-moons of perspiration, and his belly jutted out like a ripe watermelon about to burst. The only difference in his appearance from the last time I’d seen him was the black armband he now wore, along with the rest of the men in the room. Snippets of conversation floated out the open window as a hayseed dressed in denim coveralls stood up to speak.
“We don’t go begging to no Krauts to support us over here, so why the hell should we be giving them our hard-earned money? If they’re having trouble, shit. That’s their problem. I say it’s time Schuess got his ass back to Germany and out of our wallets. I’m sick of this Brotherhood crap. It don’t hold no water with me. It’s time we took care of our own.”
Aryan Brotherhood, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, or Klansmen—whatever totem the group was rallying under, it all added up to the same thing. Buddy leaned into the lectern like a preacher preparing to work up his flock.
“Y’all know that since Schuess has been here tapping into our funds, we’ve had to go behind some backs and stick our fingers into the cookie jar just to keep ourselves going. Well, that’s all gonna end. Hillard’s given me his word that once he’s mayor, Schuess is out of the deal. Louisiana’s just gonna be for Americans again. We’re gonna make N’Awlins our own, send faggots and the rest of the scum packing to Miami, and take back what’s rightfully ours.”
I glanced around behind me, but Gonzales was no longer in sight. Reassuring as it was to see our boat still t
ied to the piling, I knew that without his help I’d be a goner. I would never make it through the swamp on my own. The voices rose into an angry clamor over Schuess’s demand for more money, when a movement in the water caught my eye. Crawling to the edge of the platform, I spotted Gonzales’s outline swimming from boat to boat, a hunting knife clenched between his teeth, to cut the ropes that held each skiff in place. One after another, a ragtag navy of pirogues and small motorboats floated quietly off on the water, as Gonzales gave each a shove away from the lodge. The crafts drifted slowly, transformed into a queue of bobbing ducks among the cypress trees. He caught my eye and waved as he swam on to the next piling to finish the job.
Relieved that I hadn’t been deserted, I sneaked back toward the open window. The conversation had veered to Hillard’s opponent, Sam Jeffers, and his appearance at an upcoming rally. I scanned each face in the room, drawn to the man who now held the floor. Tall and gaunt, his Adam’s apple bounced in nervous anticipation as he began to speak.
“Y’all know what they’re trying to do to Hillard, what with dragging his poor wife into jail on some low-down, trumped-up charge of killing a whore. Well, I hear it was Jeffers’s lackeys and some of those gays that set her up. They even poisoned that poor woman’s dog. So I think it’s only right we get Jeffers in return.”
Buddy surveyed the room as he bellowed out, “Y’all in agreement with that? Cause I got a game plan guaranteed to land that man’s ass on the front page of the Times-Picayune with one hell of a headline.”
A beer keg of a man in a hunting cap and camouflage vest slapped at a mosquito as he heaved himself up from his chair. Waddling out the front door of the lodge, he scratched at the seat of his pants and reached for his zipper, taking his time to rummage inside. I pressed my back against the outer wall and scanned the water, hoping he wouldn’t catch sight of Gonzales. Pulling his penis out with a sigh of relief, the man urinated over the side of the deck, the stream hitting the water full force below as he raised his head from his chest to stare straight out at the night. The moon slid from behind its cloud cover so that the swamp glittered, a pool of silver coins with the small flotilla of boats floating in among the duckweed and carpets of plants. But the man didn’t seem to take any notice until his hand fell away from his penis and a few remaining dribbles hit the tops of his shoes.
“Holy shit! We got trouble out here!”
I pulled back from the corner, searching frantically for Gonzales, expecting to hear the immediate pounding of feet on the deck. The low whistle of a night bird drew my attention to our boat where Gonzales sat crouched, his knife out and ready to cut loose from the piling.
Perching myself on the edge, I pushed off just as Budwell rounded the corner. My legs buckled as the soles of my boots hit the metal bottom of the boat, the sound echoing through the swamp like a shot. But I had little time to worry about the pain in my shins and knees as I caught Budwell’s eye, his smile telling me everything I needed to know. We were as good as alligator bait if he and his men caught us alive. Gonzales’s hand pushed down the top of my head, and my rubbery legs folded into the boat like a jack-in-the-box.
“Dose coon dogs are after us now, Miss Porta. Stay outta sight while I make us some fried chicken.”
A high-pitched howl escaped his throat as he turned from man to wolf, baying at the moon above. I felt as if I’d been whacked on the head with a two-by-four, my senses reeling from fear—and the smell of gasoline. As my eyes watered and my lungs filled up with its fumes, Gonzales lit a match. With his mouth split wide open in a maniacal grin, he leaned down to ignite the slick pool floating on top of the water. Ribboning out in a stream, the gasoline wound around to the front of the lodge. Then Gonzales revved up the boat’s engine until it roared above the confusion breaking loose around us.
As we pulled away, a chorus line of blue flames flared up into a blazing funeral pyre, and I saw the contorted figures of men, silhouetted against the searing night sky, diving into a steaming stream of moonlight. Budwell still stood on the dock, his body planted firmly as he took careful aim with a sawed-off shotgun through the curtain of flames. I shouted to Gonzales—too late, as his body jerked forward and his hand momentarily left the motor’s rudder. A stream of blood flowed down his right arm, pinpointing the spot where he had been hit. He took hold of the rudder with his left hand, and we continued to tear through the night.
I stood little chance of hitting a target with my .357 as we ripped through mounds of water lilies, with the buzz of an engine churning close behind like an angry hornet out to exact revenge. Gunshots echoed, sounding like the raucous cry of a jay. Whoever was behind us knew the swamp nearly as well as Gonzales did.
Our boat wove down one narrow fingerway after another in an effort to shake our pursuer, as the water around us was peppered with birdshot. A spray of lead pellets ripped through the back of the craft with a metallic ring. Missing the engine by barely an inch, they lodged deep in Gonzales’s thigh. He cried out, the skin on his face drawing tight against the bone, and tears seeping from his eyes. The boat slowed to a near crawl as Gonzales turned his attention to the wound that had begun to spurt blood. I took hold of the rudder, determined to outrun Budwell myself.
“You can’t do any more, Gonzales. Let me take it from here. Just try and direct me as best as you can.”
But Gonzales pushed my hand away, his eyes locked dead ahead. “Don’ you worry none, Miss Porta. Nobody gonna catch us in de swamp. You just hang on tight and don’ let go. Gabriel gonna put wings on us now. We gonna fly like de angels.”
I’d heard of swamp fever, and knew that extreme pain could produce its share of hallucinations. I was afraid this was one of them. Bringing the boat nearly to a halt, Gonzales swung it around and began racing back full throttle into the oncoming gunfire, with all the determination of a kamikaze pilot. His lips pulled back tight in a half-crazed smile, and the long strands of his stringy hair flew behind him like a flag rippling in the wind. The sound of engines and gunfire roared in my ears and Buddy Budwell came into view. Budwell sat openmouthed, holding on to the rudder of his boat, his shotgun at half-mast as he watched our suicidal run. A ball of flames burned a hole in the night where the lodge had once been. Bathed against the blood orange background, Budwell slowly raised the shotgun, steadying it against his shoulder as he took aim at our oncoming boat.
“Gonzales, don’t do it!”
My scream was lost as Gonzales suddenly pulled the rudder sharply to one side, nearly capsizing us. We wheeled back around in the other direction once more, spraying a sheet of water onto Budwell. Gonzales threw back his head, letting loose an unearthly cackle as he floored the engine, and our boat flew across the top of the swamp. A sandbar loomed directly ahead, and he swerved to avoid the stump of an oncoming cypress tree.
“Hold on! Now we fly!”
I took a look behind, to see Budwell’s boat gaining rapidly as he lined us up in his gun sight. Digging my feet into the bottom of the boat to prepare for the impending crash, I felt the nose of the craft rise, as if it had wings, as we flew over the sandbank. We remained suspended for an instant before landing on the opposite side of the swamp with a resounding jolt, water falling around us like rain. I turned to Gonzales and laughed in relief, as if we’d made it through a terrifying ride at an amusement park, until I saw Budwell’s boat approaching the same sandbar at breakneck speed. The laughter died in my throat as I waited to see what would happen.
But Buddy didn’t know the swamp well enough. He turned to scream at his pilot, but there was no time for them to pull back before the nose of their boat rammed deep into the bar. With an earsplitting crack, the two men were thrown clear to the ground.
Tingling with the pins and needles of pleasure that comes only after having pulled off the impossible, I felt almost immortal until I turned back to see the growing pool of blood around Gonzales. With the immediate danger out of the way, the adrenaline rush that had held him together left him just as swiftly.
Helping Gonzales into the pickup, I rummaged under the seat for his keys.
“We’ve got to get you to a doctor.”
But Gonzales shook his head in refusal, biting down hard on his lip. “No doctor, chère. You take me back to Trentone’s. Miss Dolly fix me up good.”
I drove as carefully as I could over the rutted dirt roads, aware that every bounce was sheer agony for him. We made it as far as Treddell’s front door before being stopped by the barrel of a shotgun pointing in our direction. Shifting the gun so that it was aimed only at me, Dolly’s gaze wavered to Gonzales as I struggled to hold him up, my arm wrapped tightly around his waist. She opened her mouth to speak, then seemed to think better of it. Setting her shotgun against the wall, she helped me to get him inside. The smell of Southern Comfort about her was stronger than ever, mixing in with a sharply pungent odor in the house. Moving Gonzales into the living room, we placed him on a discolored mattress that lay on a floor already stained with dried blood, confirming the stories I’d heard of how Trenton skinned gators at home.
Dolly gathered together bandages, hot water, a stiletto-thin knife, and an open bottle of Southern Comfort with all the assurance of a woman who had done emergency surgery before. Covering her black pantsuit with a well-used apron, Dolly could have passed for a butcher ready to begin her work.
Gator Aide (Rachel Porter Mysteries) Page 27