AMayhar - The Conjure

by The Conjure (v1. 0) [lit]

  His late summer and fall work kept him busy much of the time, however. He had his garden to plant for fall onions and greens, the tomato vines he had cut above their scorpion-like roots to set out, his collards and fall squash to set into the rich black soil. What Choa ate he worked for, and this was the time of year when he had to secure his winter food supply.

  Still, he managed to make it into the tangle of creeks every afternoon as long as the deputies and the narcs kept looking. He knew they would never probe the most remote creek bottoms, much less the deep eddy around the foot of the gators’ favorite sunning spot.

  Yet he worried about that stuff down there. Would the ice chest begin to leak at last and poison the water with its contents? Choa refused to risk any of the critters, and he knew he must move it, eventually, burying it, perhaps, or burning it.

  Still, he didn't want to raise it until all chance of being interrupted by intruders was well past. It wouldn't fall into the wrong hands, if he could help it.

  The law enforcement people gave up in a week or so, and the birds and the beasts settled again into their late summer rhythms. The heat had now evaporated much of the flood water, and creek levels were reduced to shallows in many places. Even the eddy Choa watched was hardly deep enough to conceal its contents, though the alligators were made so irritable by the heat that their grunts and tail lashings made up for any lack of depth in their favorite water hole.

  For several days Choa kept to his cabin and garden and the swamp beyond his pier. He gathered whole cat-tail plants, for he used the fluff from the long brown heads to stuff his pillow, the leaves to weave baskets to trade to his neighbors for luxuries, and he dried the roots and pounded them into flour for part of his winter store.

  Mullein was raising its tall stalks in the higher clearings, and he secured plenty of that. He sometimes got sick in winter, coughing and sneezing and snorting. Smoking dried mullein leaves relieved that considerably, so he always hung up a good supply from his rafters, when the time came. He dried the mint growing under his porch, too, for an aromatic tea that helped when you got sick in winter.

  Hickory nuts, huckleberries, and wild grapes would ripen, in time, and he had to check trees, thickets, and vines to make sure. His muscadine wine was his most popular trade goods, and he fermented big plastic buckets of the stuff, for future bartering.

  No, Choa couldn't spare a lot of time to keep watch on the gator hole, but then those who might come wouldn't be quiet enough to avoid his attention. Crows would caw warnings from on high, if strangers came poking around in their domain. They had just about cawed themselves hoarse at the deputies and narcs, over the past month or so, but he'd never known them to fail to warn the woods people of impending danger.

  He did visit King Deport a couple of times, calling him from the edge of the woods to keep from invading the privacy of his house. That made a lot more visits to other people in a month than he usually made in a year.

  When King told him about the lawmen questioning those living along the road, he nodded. “Best to keep ‘em out of our territory,” he said. “Though I hate for Miz Follette to be bothered."

  "Don't you worry about her none,” King said. “She can hold her own with any lawman and most druggies, too. You remember how she fixed that bad hat that killed the girl down on the river, back a ways."

  "And Miz Lena visioned that body before they located it?” he asked the old man. “I'd have sworn it would go right on down the river when I left it to itself. Must have hung up pretty quick."

  He sighed. “I like that lady, but sometimes she does give me a shiver up my backbone. My folks's ways can be kind of scary, at times, but hers makes my bones feel cold."

  "You ought to see her make a sticky spell.” King spat into a bunch of ageratum, just budding into a fuzzy blue blossom. “I'll never forget that jet plane she stuck up there in the air over her house. Had the Air Force chasin’ its tail, believe me.

  "That was when you was off takin’ your Daddy to the hospital in Houston, I think. She'd cleared it away before you got back and took her own sweet time about doing it, too."

  "She stuck aplane? I've seen her stick birds and little critters, but I didn't know she could do big stuff,” Choa said, feeling that familiar chill down his spine. “Even those bank robbers—I figured she somehow tricked ‘em. You mean she used that..."

  King nodded and spat again. “Me'n her goes back a long way. I've seen that woman do things would boggle your mind. Never get crossways with her, Choa, that's the important thing."

  That conversation had given Choa something to think about beyond his immediate worries. In a way the idea of magic frightened him, for his people's mysteries dealt with real animals and plants and such, while Lena's seemed to reach way out into space and pull in powers he didn't like to think about.

  But he kept working, and his fall garden got planted, with turnip greens coming up and tomato vines beginning to bud again. One day he looked around and knew he had everything coming along that he could keep without its spoiling. It was time for his fall break in the endless labor of surviving in the swamp.

  Again he visited the alligator hole, smelling the rank stink of the big creatures that lay, dappled by sun and shadow, watching everything that moved without seeming to. Those agate eyes looked sleepy, but he knew they missed nothing.

  Better guardians he couldn't imagine, and he turned his back on the place with confidence. He needed to check with someone who had a radio, to see what was going on. If the law was done with the swamp, it was probably time for those on the other side to take their shot at finding the dope. He could either watch closely or rest, which he found himself needing to do; he had to know which was needed.

  Although Lena had a radio, Choa felt uneasy about going back to her so soon, particularly since his skin was still crawling as he thought of a jet airplane hanging over her house, suspended by the force of her will. He'd always known Lena wasn't entirely safe to be around, but never before had that been so apparent.

  He had never actually approached Irene Follette to talk to, though he understood she knew as much about him as he did about her. Now she had been questioned by the law, and he felt it was time for them to share information, comparing what they knew.

  The river bottom people had always pulled together when outside interests threatened them, no matter what temporary feuds and fusses might crop up among them along the way. They were so scattered, so thin on the ground across that vast expanse of lowland, that they seldom got on each others’ nerves.

  Now it was time to close ranks again, he thought. People who dealt in drugs in a big way were more dangerous than any alligator or coral snake in the swamp.

  * * * *

  It had been the longest month Oscar Parmelee ever spent. Everything about that last drug deal had gone wrong, through no fault of his own, and now he had to wait and wait and wait before he could clean up the mess. Every day he waited increased his own danger, he knew all too well.

  It was strange that the feds and the locals hadn't located the stash; that was what worried him the most. His contacts among the hired help along the river told him they'd probed under every cutbank there was, though he doubted they could find a lot of them. Still, the one he'd chosen for a hiding place was remote, if you didn't know there was something to search for.

  Nevertheless, they should have found that ice chest, if the flood hadn't washed it away to hell and gone, beyond anybody's finding. If that had happened and the unnamed but incredibly valuable addition the Man had put with that shipment was gone, he shivered to think what might happen to him.

  It might be on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, right now. And then again it might not. If not, he had to get it back, because the Big Man wanted either that or his money, and if he didn't get it, Oscar knew his own hide wasn't worth shit.

  However, he had his escape route well in hand, along with a supply of money to finance his getaway. Someone in his business who had half a brain took care of
such things, but still he didn't want to leave.

  This was home, and he wanted to stay where people knew to be scared of him. Breaking in some new territory, with all the beating up and possible killing it took, was too much trouble, unless it was absolutely necessary.

  He watched TV in his motel room, taking careful note of the locations of the different search parties. It was just bad luck, those stiffs being floated out by the flood, but sometimes those were the breaks. If he just left things to rock along by themselves and the Man got really pissed off, he'd probably join his partners in the graveyard, which was something he hoped to prevent.

  Only when the media and his personal sources of information agreed that the last Fed had left the swampy country, did Oscar prepare to move. He didn't intend to go by way of the river. Not again.

  He hired a car under his carefully prepared alias, rented a boat and trailer, and prepared for a “fishing trip.” He could go down Cottonwood Road to the boat launching spot on the Nichayac, get his boat into the water, and pretend to fish. He'd keep up the act all the way, until he found the outlet of the creek he wanted.

  There he'd find that stash, or he'd know the reason why. Any fisherman who got in his way had better have his will all made out and his burial insurance paid up.

  Oscar had bought all the right stuff for a fishing trip: a white canvas hat with baits stuck around the band, a tackle box filled with bright plugs and fancy trout flies. He'd spent more than he intended on it, but he didn't quite dare to steal what he needed and take a chance on getting caught.

  As he turned onto the oiltop road that became a gravel one and turned at last into a rutted clay track, Oscar was thinking hard about his goal. As he passed the old farmhouse beside the road, he didn't notice the middle-aged woman sitting on her porch steps, half concealed by wistaria vines, who took intense interest in his car, his boat, and his brand new white canvas hat with the attached lures. If he'd known, he might have turned into her drive and blown her head off.

  As it was, he zipped on down the oiltop, while Irene Follette nodded to herself and went into the house to find her keys. The drive to Lena McCarver's house was long, and at the end it got bumpy. The sooner she started, the sooner Lena could get the signal to Choa, down in the swamp.

  From his description of the big man who'd killed the drug runners, that just might be Oscar Parmelee who had just gone down toward the river towing a rented boat and driving a rented car. That snow-white hat all but assured her of it.

  Every fisherman she'd ever known wore a stained, weathered, finger-marked hat. Before wearing theirs for the first time, she thought they must run them through a mud puddle and give them to a puppy to maul. A brand new fishing hat,white , was something she had never seen in all her life.

  That was no fisherman, whoever he was. Choa must check him out.

  She pulled around her drive, checked for any other pickup flying low while pulling a boat trailer on its way to the river, and headed for the turnoff leading to the McCarver acreage. It looked like a cattle trail, but she turned into the cattleguard and bumped down the uneven track that Lena called a road. Through the woods, around six ninety-degree bends, and through a shallow creek she drove, rounding the last and seventh bend to find Lena waiting for her at the gate.

  "I felt like somebody'd be here this morning,” the old woman said. “Come on in and tell me your news. I can see it sticking out all over you."

  "Get out your shotgun first,” Irene told her. “I think Oscar Parmelee passed my house a half hour ago, heading for the river. Choa needs to know."

  CHAPTER IX. The Sheriff

  The ringing of the telephone was a pleasure to Sheriff Cole. It had been abouttime he got one of these fancy cellular jobs, like the big town lawmen had. Grinning, he thumbed the on button and said, “Sher'f Cole, here."

  "Well, Peanut, it's good to talk to you,” said a smooth voice that sent a chill down his backbone. “Seems like a long time since we got together. How's Mae?"

  Ransome Cole felt as if a snake had uncoiled long, chilly lengths in his gut. Since their earliest school days, Harland Fielding had been a pain in the butt, and it was worse now, when he actually got in touch.

  The man had more money than Cole could account for and more power than seemed possible for a sharecropper's son from the backwoods. There was always something slimy involved in his dealings, though Ranse ignored that as much as he could.

  "Mae's fine,” he said, feeling his throat tighten. “What can I do for you, Harland?” He didn't want to know! He felt a sick certainty this would have something to do with that mess down in the river bottoms, and he surely didn't want to get involved with that beyond supplying some deputies to help with the search. Missing drugs were pure poison, and a mess like this had put his predecessor out of office.

  Sheriff Dolf McLean had made away with the evidence in a sting operation, and everybody, including the Feds and the highway patrol, knew just what he'd done. They'd caught old Dolf driving drunk, which had never been any big deal in the years before. This time they threw the book at him. Made him resign; took away his pension.

  Cole had no intention of doing anything as stupid as McLean had done, but he had to keep Fielding happy, else Fielding would do something sneaky and unanswerable that would end Ranse's career. Nobody was completely clean, when it came down to it, and there were things he had done that Fielding knew about ... he shuddered. Blackmail was a nasty thing, when you were the one being gigged.

  All the while, Fielding was talking. “So I'd like for you to take apersonal interest in this thing, Ranse. My friend has a stake in this, and he doesn't want his interests to be ignored, though obviously we can't go to the Feds with the problem.

  "You just keep a sharp eye out for what goes on down in the bottomlands, and if anything else ... floats to the surface ... you glom onto it and let me know. All right?"

  Cole had to swallow hard before his voice would come. “I'll see about it,” he said. The phone clicked in his ear, and he suddenly had a distaste for his cell-phone. It meant anybody could get at him, any time, any place. Not a comfortable thought.

  He turned his car up the wide street to the courthouse, feeling his heart missing beats, as it did when he was angry or upset. He breathed deeply, tried to relax, and finally felt the erratic thumping settle into something more regular and less frightening.

  Only then did he glance up into the mirror to see if his scanty hair was neat and his color had returned to normal. Had to look sharp, because the TV reporters sometimes lurked around the courthouse, during all the furor about those dead bodies. If he wanted to run for county judge, next election, he had to look good all the time.

  He punched the button again and dialed his home. “Mae? You doing all right, Hon? Yep, I'm just going back to my office. Been down to check in with the fellows that's come off the river. No, no more bodies, nor no drugs either. Got to go now ... you take care, you hear?"

  He hung up, feeling worried. Mae was the one to watch over, with her emphysema so bad and all. Never in a million years would he let Harland Fielding know that his wife was ailing. That would be a weak spot that Fielding would find some way to pick away at, if the need came up.

  There were a half dozen men waiting in the hall outside his secretary's office. Cole put on his lawman look and strode up the corridor, seeing the sudden glare of a flash bulb. Reporters were still covering the deal, then, though not the TV people.

  "Morning, gentlemen. Come on in. I've been down to the D.A.'s office, checking out what was found in the search.” The slender man in the dark gray suit led the group, and nobody objected. Federal officials always got to the front, somehow. He took the only chair, facing the desk, and waited for Cole to sit. Then he held out a computer printout.

  This was unusual. Ordinarily, the DEA people told the locals nothing at all, if they could manage it.

  "Here's the report, up to the moment. Our men have gone through that country down there, and I'd wager not a snake
has been left undisturbed. We found no more bodies and absolutely no sign of any drugs hidden away.

  "We can't spare the men or the time to keep on going over old territory, so we're turning the physical search back over to your office. Thedrugs will, of course, remain our jurisdiction, if they are found."

  He looked pale and washed out among the mahogany and ruddy-faced deputies and the single Hispanic highway patrolman. But his steel gray eyes were hard and cold, and Ranse felt them stab into him like twin needles. Not a man to trust. Not a man to cross, either.

  "I'll do the best I can, Mr. Parker,” he said. “But where all your men and my deputies haven't found anything, it's pretty clear nobody else is going to, either."

  He had a sudden thought. “Did you catch sight of an old fellow down there—he looks Indian but he's part Black—living in the swamp? Old Choa knows more about that country than anybody, if you can find him."