Dark Secrets, Deep Bayous

by Meg Hennessy

“This is my grandfather’s land, where we stand, where your father built this home.”

  “It is the land that you want?”

  “Oui,” she whispered through trembling lips.

  “Above all else?”

  She looked up at him through tear-soaked eyes. “Oui.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jordan’s heart raced with the beat of his running feet. Nearly out of air, he reached the pirogues. Loul had been waiting with at least fifteen of their backwater smugglers. He hopped on board as they silently pushed away from land. Two pirogues had been loaded and covered with canvas. One behind the other, they silently pushed through the waters of the night.

  Loul came along side of Jordan. “You’re very late, brother; might we have lost our only chance. The new wife, she delay you?”

  “Life delayed me.” Jordan surprised himself with his response but his life had changed so much in the past few weeks with Aurèlie and his daughter. Life indeed had delayed him and he wasn’t all that disappointed to understand that. Maisie’s childlike secret lingered in the back of his mind. Had Aurèlie told her that she loved him? The admission would surprise him for Aurèlie kept herself well guarded, at a safe distance. And he wasn’t all that comfortable to realize he wanted to know if she had said it and truly felt it.

  He positioned himself to the front of the pirogue, peering through his binoculars. “We’ll get there in time. You got everything on the list packed?”

  Loul nodded. “We do. We had to take some of the barrels.”

  Jordan peeked under the canvas. “Fentonot’s barrels? No, they were for customs, not for trade with pirates. You didn’t use the barrels that weren’t stamped?”

  “It had all been packed to walk through customs, brother, we had no time to reload.”

  Jordan didn’t want to think about it. It would only remind him of what he was doing and why he had agreed to make Aurèlie his mistress. He glanced over at his brother. “Loul, keep a watchful eye for an ambush. We don’t want to end up like our father.”

  Loul nodded, keeping his focus on the waters ahead. “I know the danger but I think this is odd. If selling information, why ask for prize that he would have to sell? Whoever it is, we are meeting tonight, would have to transport into New Orleans with this stuff.”

  “I don’t think so. This list was too specific. Whoever we are meeting wants this bounty for themselves, which is why I brought along something to pack inside the merchandise.”

  Jordan pulled a small crystal charm that dangled on the center of a standing golden hoop. “I dug this out of Mother’s things years ago. I’ll put it inside one of the barrels. If the man has Colette, perhaps she’ll see this and know we are looking for her. Perhaps get word to us. If not, we might be able to track it if it is sold.”

  “Like the medallion.” Loul sounded defeated with his shrug. “That didn’t work.”

  “It’s worth a try. I don’t think we are dealing with a cabetour tonight. We’re dealing with a pirate. Do you know anything about the Lady Tempest, Edgar Brunette?”

  Loul shrugged. “Small-time player, on both sides of the law. Why do you ask?”

  “I wish I knew. I saw the ship in port. Something about it made me curious. Is he a Spaniard?”

  “I think he’s American.”

  “Any Spaniards in the trade?” Jordan swallowed hard, knowing the answer.

  “Only Donato de la Roche.”

  Jordan glanced around at their men pushing the pirogues through the water. “Do they know we’re not getting paid for this?”

  “No, a little detail I forgot to tell them. You’ll have to pay them out of your own purse.”

  The pirogues moved silently through the night, parting the swamp around them, awakening the sleeping water. Moonlight played off the wet surface, as the day’s heat started to rise. By the time they had rowed about ten miles through bayou country, the rising mist had formed a foggy curtain. Hunkered near the water of both sides of the stolen cargo, they pushed in silence through the mangrove swamps.

  Jordan thought he saw something up ahead but with the hazy night filled with moon-washed fog, he couldn’t be certain. As they drew closer, an outline of something started to appear.

  Loul whispered, “There is something out there.”

  Jordan nodded, trying to dismiss the advice from the Spaniard, more warn than harm. The vague outline grew. Soon masts at least sixty or seventy feet in length opened up in front of him. He motioned to halt the polls. They continued to float forward, toward something large and unknown, lying low in the water. Jordan watched until he could barely make out a flag—cannons—men standing on deck.

  A United States Gunboat.

  “Customs,” he whispered. “Get us out of here.”

  Water splashed as the men worked the polls for leverage. The immediate change in direction brought water over the back of the pirogue. The barrels shifted, slamming into each other. The rigging broke and several rolled off into the water, creating a thunderous crash.

  “Who goes there?” A voice came from the ship. “United States Navy!”

  “We can’t let them find these barrels, Étienne’s barrels. Push, damn it!”

  Jordon positioned himself behind a barrel anticipating gunfire as the men beat the waters in an attempt to turn the momentum of the pirogues in the other direction.

  Three men appeared starboard with long arms raised. In the dark of the night, the muzzle blasts lit up the surrounding fog. Wood splinters filled the air. The pirogue slowly took on water, riding several inches below the surface and as the weight shifted, more barrels floated into the water.

  Men fell overboard, splashing their way to the other pirogue. Some barrels started to sink, while others floated out of range. Jordan turned his fire on the barrels, hoping to sink all of them before they were found by customs, but as the pirogue sank beneath him, he had to push off toward the shore.

  Loul and Jordan managed to pull themselves up on the base of a cypress tree and remained as the gunboat searched, flooding the bayou with light.

  Jordan glanced over at Loul. “Looks like we walked into a trap.”

  Loul shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think the Americans were as surprised as us.”

  Jordan sighed. “Thanks. You just restored my faith in pirates.”

  Loul motioned toward a dark silhouette coming toward them. The other pirogue, still manned, floated silently through the marsh grass, skimming over the calm dark water. They pulled up next to the cypress root where Jordan and Loul had been clinging.

  “Got here as soon as we were able, Cap’n,” Rusty whispered.

  Jordan pushed to his feet with pistol in hand. “Gave us time to dry out flints and powder, who knows what else we’ll find tonight?”

  “We can’t escape, Cap’n.” Rusty motioned to the American warship. “She stands off and on.”

  “We go another way.” Jordan grabbed the side rope and climbed on board. “Push us through that back swale, follow the river north and we’ll find ourselves in Bayou Lafourche. That gunboat can’t follow us, the draft is too shallow this time of year.”

  The remaining pirogue cut through the blackened waters and tree-shrouded embankment of the euripus. Moss draped cypress lined the water with thick, bushy branches that scraped across the remaining cargo. Jungle flora hung on the poles and tall reeds bent beneath the pirogue as it glided over the shallows. Curling fog mingled with the salty mist. Jordan’s eyes burned, his throat felt raw, and he longed to be home…upstairs…with Aurèlie.

  He rushed the image from his mind as desire pooled deep inside of him, nearly distracting him from the task at hand. He needed to concentrate, think, to get him and his men through the dangerous swamps and negotiate the shifting tides. He was only a few miles from meeting the man whom he believed had killed his father and who had possibly sold his sister, as well.

  “There on the sandbank, a light.”

  The pirogue floated silently over the glassy waters a
s the men waited and watched. A lit lantern waved back and forth.

  Jordan lit a small lantern and signaled they were coming ashore. The men pushed the pirogue through the inlet, negotiating the small craft onto a sandbar.

  “I don’t like this,” Loul whispered.

  Jordan squinted through the darkness, still seeing the lantern. “It’s a chance we have to take. You got enough dry powder to fire a round?”

  “I do, but only one round.”

  “I have two. All right.” Jordan stepped off the pirogue and into the shallow water. “I’ll go alone. You and the others wait here.”

  The grassy inlet, weighted with water, felt soggy beneath Jordan’s feet. Bullfrogs filled the night with the occasional caterwaul of a bird. He pushed through the tall marsh grass and had progressed less than twenty feet onto land when he heard several pistols cocked around him.

  “Damn, it’s a trap!” Loul pulled his pistol and fired.

  “Parada, don’t shoot,” a Spaniard shouted from beyond the light of the lantern. “Do not shoot him.”

  “The hell I don’t shoot.” A man, an American, tore out from the underbrush toward Jordan with a pistol in hand. “You son of a bitch! Leave me be!”

  “Who are you?” Jordan backed into the water, away from the charging man.

  “Leave me be!” the American screamed again, waving his pistol in the air.

  “But who are you?” Jordan’s question went unanswered.

  The man with the pistol didn’t hesitate in his step. Running toward Jordan, he raised his pistol and fired. A ball cut through Jordan’s side.

  Jordan scrambled for his weapon, firing a round at the charging threat. The ball struck the man dead center through the head. His body caved, splashing into the shallow water around them. Fire erupted from the long grass and the men on the pirogues fired back. Jordan raced back to the pirogue; blood had soaked through his shirt. He staggered, cocked the hammer of his last round, and fired before he sank headfirst into the night’s savage mist.

  …

  Aurèlie gasped, sucking in a deep, icy breath as she sat up in bed. She could hardly breathe, feeling a salty, damp taste in her mouth and gunfire ricocheting through her mind. Grasping the side of the bed, she pushed back the bedclothes and staggered across the floor to the window.

  Peering into the darkness, she searched for Jordan. She had no understanding as to why, or what had happened, but a cold shiver claimed her body and shook her like an angry winter wind.

  She pulled on a shift and covered it with a muslin morning dress, still watching through the window, not sure for what it was that she searched.

  The house was deathly silent as she opened the door and stepped into the hall. She lit a gas lamp to guide her through the house. Jordan’s room was to the other side of the adjoining salon. Slowly, she pushed through the large cypress door. His room was empty. She had suspected as much.

  The door to Maisie’s room stood open, adding to Aurèlie’s sense of something gone wrong. Quietly, she entered the little girl’s room.

  The little girl was sound asleep. Her new princess doll had fallen to the floor. Aurèlie picked it up and tucked it neatly within Maisie’s arms. As Aurèlie backed away, an image flooded her mind. She hesitated, getting a fuzzy read until the image congealed into a woman’s face. A beautiful woman with the same brilliant hair as Maisie.

  Aurèlie held her breath, afraid she might chase the illusion away, and glanced around the room.

  A hazy figure of a woman stood near the end of the bed, the outline of her body dark against the moonlit window. Instinctively, Aurèlie knew it had to be Maisie’s mother, Jordan’s first wife. Was she the lost women who tormented his life?

  On shaky legs, Aurèlie stepped away from the child’s bed, waiting for the figure to act. The women made no movement, no sound. Her body nearly transparent, yet darkened by what seemed like a robe over her shoulders.

  Aurèlie made her way around the bed, stopping within a few feet of the ghostly shadow. “Your child, oui?”

  The figure turned and looked at Maisie. Her eyes were dark and hallow and her skin seemed to be translucent like shiny pearls. Blond hair hung in disarray around her head and continued to float about her face as if standing in a breeze, though there was none. Beneath the dark cape, she wore a nightdress, thin and worn. Her feet were bare with a bluish tint.

  She faced Aurèlie, nodding very slowly. “You see me?”

  Aurèlie swallowed hard, trying to remain steady. “Oui.”

  “He does not.”

  Assuming Jordan was the “he” she meant, Aurèlie pushed for more. “Do you wish him to? He is so tormented.”

  “I wish for him to give my daughter peace. He places her in danger.”

  “How? How does he place her in danger?”

  The figure started to fade.

  “Please, don’t go, you must want something?”

  “Isla…Isla de Luna,” the figure whispered before she completely dissolved before Aurèlie’s eyes.

  “No, please, I only wish to ah…to…comprendre.” Aurèlie reached out, waving her arms through the empty air.

  “Aurèlie?” Maisie stirred in her bed. “Miss Aurèlie?”

  “Oui, Maisie, I am here.” She turned back to the bed and tucked Maisie’s bedclothes in tightly around her.

  “Miss Aurèlie, are you done being mad at me? Is that why you are here?”

  “Oh, child, I could never be angry with you.”

  “Did the lady at the shop hurt you?”

  “Oui, I let her and should not have.” Aurèlie moved over to the bed and stretched out alongside Maisie, cradling the little girl in her arms. “Hush now, you sleep, child.”

  Aurèlie closed her eyes while trying to sort out all the images that invaded her mind, the ships at night, the sound of gunfire, the man…the man in the water. As always in her dreams, she’d see the men pull his body from the water. He was alive and wore something silver around his neck—her eyes flew open, washing away the image. Something silver.

  Her mother had been right. Once the portal to her powers opened, unwelcome images erupted. Having little control over what she’d see or feel, frightened her. Yet she felt a sense of purpose.

  Aurèlie watched the sunlight peer through the window and silently wash the dark room with shades of golden highlights. With the coming morning, the house suddenly filled up with voices, excited and urgent. Sounds she had not heard before in Jordan’s house.

  Aurèlie carefully freed herself of the sleeping child and made her way to the hall. Following the voices, she maneuvered her way to the small dining room.

  There were several heavily armed men in the house, many of whom she had never seen before around the grounds, Loul included. They were carrying a wounded man with them. Hattie had cleared off the table.

  “Put him down; we must get the ball out.”

  Aurèlie stepped forward as they laid the man down.

  She gasped.

  It was Jordan with a face as ghostly as the woman she had seen upstairs in Maisie’s room. He wore a vest, which hung open and a white shirt underneath, the side soaked with blood.

  Aurèlie rushed into the room, now understanding her urgent awakening in the middle of the night. She had heard the sound of gunfire in her head.

  Jordan had been shot.

  Hattie was working as quickly as she could, cutting off the shirt to expose the wound. She looked up when Aurèlie walked into the room. All the men froze, as if caught stealing and exposed. Aware Jordan most likely didn’t want her to know, she decided she’d take charge and argue that point with him later. She focused on English words and pulled each one out with authority.

  “Hattie, bring water, bandages, and…a needle with thread. One of you build a fire, we need to heat a knife to remove the ball, before he be taken upstairs.” She looked up to find every one staring at her, except her husband passed out on the table.

  She clapped her hands together for obedience,
abandoning English. “Faire comme je dis, maintenant!”

  As the others scampered about to fulfill her orders, she ran a gentle hand over Jordan’s forehead. His hair was wet, as were his clothes, and soaked with blood. She leaned down and placed a light kiss to his lips. “You hear me, Jourdain, you must stay with me until I make you well again.”

  Jordan frantically ran his hand over his chest and down his side. “Où le médaillon est? Je dois l’avoir.”

  Aurèlie tried to concentrate, stunned to hear the deep French voice of her American husband asking if he still had the medallion. Though he spoke perfect French, the urgency of the situation wouldn’t allow her the time to consider what that meant. She forced her attention on the matter at hand—his survival. “It is here, Jourdain.”

  She brought the silver medallion to his hand. He seemed to sigh with relief as his fingers closed tightly around it.

  “Merci,” he whispered. “Merci.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jordan heard sounds around him and felt his body being lifted from the hard table and placed into a bed. He nearly sighed at the added comfort. He tried to adjust his position, and when he did, tender hands were at his side, assisting. When those same tender hands cradled his head and brought a cold cup of water to his thirsty mouth, he opened his eyes.

  Aurèlie stood over him. She pulled the chair up next to the bed and smoothed his hair back from his face. She watched him through those deep, alluring eyes.

  Jordan tried to sit up but the pain in his side bolted clean through him with every movement. “Where’s Maisie?”

  “Hattie is with her. She only knows that you are ill. But she worry.”

  “Loul?”

  “He’s fine.”

  Jordan cleared his dry throat. “Could I have more water?”

  Aurèlie stood, poured him a cup, and then held it to his mouth. The cool liquid helped clear his head, having only slight memories of what had happened. Aurèlie set the cup down on the bedside table and sank into the chair facing him.

  Jordan swallowed hard, realizing that he’d been caught. His secret life was no longer as clandestine as he had hoped. He tried to rebound but his head felt muddled with unconnected images. “See, Aurèlie, this is what I meant about you wandering the grounds at night. I wandered too far and was robbed.”