AMayhar - The Conjure

  Wash gave a deep sigh. Matters were about to move, he felt sure. He wasn't at all surprised when Myra waved him down outside the courthouse and said, “Sheriff Cole asked if you'd drive over to the high school and meet him there. He has a problem that's come up and thinks you might be able to handle it.” She took the file he handed to her through the window and waved him on his way.

  He passed the sheriff's marked car, which was parked beside the street two blocks from the high school. Pulling up ahead of it, he gestured for Cole to join him, which he did without wasting time.

  "Run up toward the river,” Cole said. “I need to get our ducks in a row, here."

  Wash turned toward the park that flanked the river some blocks ahead, and when he came to the first entrance he turned in and stopped, facing the coffee-colored water. The place was deserted at this time of day, and the two of them got out of the car and went down to the path along the edge of the stream. The mutter of water amid and over rocks and around thick growths of cat-tails might cover their conversation, he thought, as they sat on a drift-log.

  "I've got several things on my plate,” Cole said. “First off, I've had a boy checking into computer files all over the place, and we've got some pretty solid stuff on Carlos Monteverde."

  Wash grunted. “I kind of thought he might be mixed up in our last mess, back in the summer. What else?"

  "I been thinking about the way that fellow Parker came in here like he was God A'mighty and pushed folks around. While I had this boy workin', I got him to look into Parker's business.” He looked sideways at Wash and winked. “Tax business, you know."

  Shipp almost swallowed his tongue. Now how did a redneck like Ranse Cole ever think of hacking into bank and government records? His estimation of the man's intelligence went up several notches, though he knew what had been done was completely illegal. Still, when you dealt with crooks, sometimes you had to get your hands dirty.

  Cole grinned like a possum and went on, “We found some interestin’ stuff. I think a good case could be made for auditing his income taxes—say back to 1987. That's when things started to look suspicious.

  "Anyway, I've sent a letter to the IRS internal affairs people. I think Parker will be too busy pulling his own feet out of the fire to worry about anything back here."

  Wash sighed deeply. Even if the means weren't quite kosher, the end was one he could agree with. “Okay. Anything else?"

  Cole looked uncomfortable. “You know, Wash, I been around here all my life. Never took much stock in the fairytales folks tell about ... certain people in the swamp. But you never know, do you? Might be somethin’ in the tales. I been wondering if that old lady down there, Miz Lena, could help us, maybe."

  Shipp looked him in the eye. “Ranse, that old lady can do just about anything she decides to. Tell me what you need for her to do, and I'll see about getting word to her. I have my ways, you know, as well as lots of kinfolks down in the low country."

  As Cole spoke, Wash began to grin. When he was done, Shipp reached for his hand and shook it heartily. “I never thought of you as being in that class, Ranse, but you surprised me. Forsneaky , this beats all. And it isn't really mean, either, because the folks that will suffer deserve to but never will, left to the law. I'll get the word out as soon as I can."

  * * * *

  Wim Dooley had not forgotten the thing he had witnessed beside the sinkhole. Seeing someone die in that particular way made him unusually quiet and thoughtful all week, making his mother believe he was taking sick. She had no experience of sick children—of all her brood, none had ever so much as had the sniffles, and he could tell she was worried.

  He couldn't tell her the trouble, though. He'd promised Chief Shipp that he'd talk only to lawmen, if they ever came down and asked, and even then he'd stick to the story they put together as they trudged back to the car.

  Finally his Ma consulted Miz Libby, who had dosed generations of children in the Brakes with sassafrass tea, willow bark tea, plaintain poultices, and all sorts of herbal remedies the medicos had never dreamed might be useful.

  The old woman looked Wim over well, shook her head, and said, “Miz Dooley, somethin's worryin’ that child. Just let him loose a bit to work it out. He's a sensible boy, and he'll come out of it on his own. No use gaumin’ up his innards with medicine when all he needs is some time."

  That relieved Wim a lot, though his Ma seemed to think that if you didn't give medicine you couldn't cure the problem. However, she took Miz Libby's advice to heart and let him stay home from school on Friday. She even let him walk up to the store to spend some of her precious quarters on a cold bottle of pop.

  As he crossed Miz Libby's front yard, he glimpsed a familiar vehicle sitting under the sycamore tree on the far side of the house. Now what was Chief Shipp doing out here this time of the week? Wim struggled with himself—only for a second or two, but he did struggle—before running around to the back door and knocking softly.

  Shipp himself came to the door and stood staring down at Wim as if he might be a ghost. “Boy, how'd you know I wanted to get a message to you?” he asked, opening the rusted screen to let the boy in.

  Wim shook his head. “I didn't know, but Ma let me stay home today and she even give me this.” He held out a grimy palm with two quarters staring up like two silvery eyes. “And here you was, so I came to find out if anythin’ has happened."

  "Not yet.” Shipp opened Miz Libby's refrigerator and took out a bottle of orange juice, from which he poured a generous glassful. “But with your help, it's going to start.

  "I need to know a couple of things, and it's mighty important. I know you keep secrets—I did the same when I was your age—but this is no game. It's for real. So will you answer me, straight up and no lies, if I ask you some questions?"

  Feeling somewhat overwhelmed, Wim nodded and sat in the chair Miz Libby had set for him by her table. He swallowed hard and waited for the questions, his knees feeling a bit quivery.

  "Do you know Possum Choa? And do you know where he lives?"

  Wim really gulped, this time. That was the main secret of his life, and he had always felt a sacred obligation not to tell anyone that information.

  "I don't want to knowwhere ,” Shipp reassured him. “If you do know, just nod."

  That was better, so Wim nodded, a short jerk of his chin.

  "Can Choa read?” was the next question.

  Again Wim nodded. “He even knows about the old Romans and how they took over back in England, long years ago."

  Shipp looked surprised, but he looked pleased, too. “Then you won't have to memorize the message I need to get to him. My last question is this: Can you take this to him as quick as possible, this afternoon? Will your Mama let you?"

  Wim considered. “I can get there, no problem, but gettin’ Ma to let me into the swamp again may be hard. If you was to go with me and ask, she would, for certain."

  That was why, before mid-afternoon, Wim was halfway across the stretch of swamp lying between the Brakes and Choa's cabin. When Chief Shipp set himself to persuade an anxious mother, he was very good at it. Wim decided he would have to practice that, himself. It might come in handy, in time to come.

  Long before he came in sight of the isolated hut, he gave a shrill whistle that set every crow in tarnation cawing warnings. Choa would know somebody was coming, and Wim was pretty sure he'd know who, as well.

  He wasn't disappointed. In another half hour he saw a dark shape moving silkily along the shadowy ridge he was following, ducking beneath trailing hanks of Spanish moss and sidling along narrow spots.

  "Possum Choa?” he called, just to let the man know he was there and was a friend.

  "Young Wim? What you doin’ here, boy? Anything wrong down your way?"

  "Nossir.” Wim stopped to wait for him to come up. Then he said, “I got a letter for you from Chief Shipp, from over to Templeton. He says it's mighty important, so we better find a good place to stop so you can read it."

&n
bsp; Choa cocked his grizzled head, as if listening to a far-off voice. Then he said, “You come back to the house with me, Wim. I got stew and cornbread all cooked up and ready for supper. Does your mama know where you be? If she don't, I'll take you home myself, when our business is done."

  Wim felt a huge joy fill him from toes to scalp. “She knows. Chief Shipp told her I'd prob'ly have to spend the night, so she won't worry. Let's go."

  To spend the night with Possum Choa, on a mission so important even his mama understood—never had he thought anything so wonderful could happen to him.

  He followed Choa into the dimness, and before the sun sank, they sat together over a burning pine-knot, reading the letter Shipp had written hastily on a school tablet Miz Libby used for making grocery lists. Things were about to happen, and Wim had not suspected how grave they were when he undertook his mission.

  As he dropped off to sleep on Choa's spare quilt on the floor, he knew this was something he would never forget, no matter if he lived to be forty years old!

  CHAPTER XXVI. The Worst of Times

  His business had gone so well for so long that it disturbed Carlos Monteverde to find such a serious lapse in his command structure. He had thought it pretty foolproof, though he had envied the fear factor his Colombian connections could command.

  Nathan Farmer's unexplained absence, along with the disappearance of a helicopter belonging to his son, was bad enough. The complete loss of that shipment, vital to the new, more dangerous interests he found himself representing, was much worse. That had brought him back to home territory in a hurry.

  He flew into Dallas in a corporate jet belonging to a business not obviously associated with his own interests, landing at Love Field rather than DFW. There the car he had ordered met him, but he dismissed the driver. When the time came to attend to business of this magnitude, the fewer people involved the better.

  This would not be the first time he had killed, if it came to that, and on his own ground there was no one better at hiding the traces than Carlos Monteverde.

  He headed east and south, using the old federal highways. Along this back-road route there were few highway patrolmen and little traffic, which suited him well. Though the car was licensed to another business entirely, and his own appearance was not his usual one, Carlos left no detail to chance.

  He kept his speed just beneath the posted limit, and he slowed as he passed through the few tiny towns on his route. He needed no outside interference.

  Harland Fielding was probably going to have to die, just as soon as he could manage it, and he wanted no suspicion that he was in the area at all. With Farmer gone, Fielding was too weak a reed to risk, and it was certain the local lawmen would lean on him soon. A trade like Monteverde's left few clues, but inevitably there would be some, and low-level flunkies like Fielding always knew more than they were supposed to.

  He slid through Templeton at dusk and turned onto the old highway leading to the homestead where his ancestors had lived. The house now looked desolate, and no light ever showed through its dusty windows, yet he knew the rooms were kept clean, prepared for his arrival at any time.

  He smiled into the darkness, feeling the cut-over woods give way to the thick growth as he neared the river. By instinct as much as by sight, he turned off the gravel road into the double track that marked the approach to the Monteverde house. The old cypress building was hidden by thick stands of timber and heavy growths of brush and berry vines.

  The track turned sharply, and in the concealed garden the grass had been cut, bushes trimmed back, and the graveled path swept. Old Conchita lived in a shanty on the road, and every day she came to keep the homeplace trim. A check came to her each month from a company no one could trace if they tried. When she died, he was either going to have to abandon this ancestral hideaway or find someone equally needy and fearful to take over her duties.

  The air was chilly, for it was early winter now, and the atmosphere was heavy with damp. He killed the engine, after pulling the car into the slump-roofed shed, and reached back for his suitcase. He knew the house would be warm, for he paid to have wood hauled each year to Conchita's woodhouse, and she brought carloads to the old house regularly, in order to keep the wood furnace simmering to keep out the damp.

  The door opened easily when he turned his key in the lock. The air was cool but not cold, and he set his case down and went into the back to open the dampers and add more wood to the furnace.

  Food waited in the humming refrigerator, all fresh, for Conchita used up anything that waited very long and replaced it with new supplies. He boiled eggs, toasted bread, microwaved bacon. The house might look a wreck from outside, but inside it had everything he might need. After a long trip, made harder by worry, he knew he must eat and rest.

  Tomorrow, he would get in touch with his sources of information and learn just what had happened, here where he had always felt himself to be invulnerable. He had ties here that went back for generations, and those who were not devoted to him personally were terrified of him. It was an excellent context for his business deals.

  As he stretched between crisp sheets in the great bed where his great-great grandfather had slept, he found himself relaxing at last. Just as he felt himself drifting into sleep, a thought nudged him awake again.

  Why had he felt compelled to come back and attend to this personally? He had people he could send to do the work. They were competent, good at covering their tracks. Yet a few days after he heard of Farmer's disappearance he had felt literally pushed into action. By the end of a week he could no longer resist the urge to come home again, as if someone had willed him to return.

  Nonsense! Carlos turned on his side and yawned. No one could compel Carlos Monteverde to do anything. His father could not. His mother had tried, God knew, and failed. His grandfather had used a gold-headed walking stick on him as a child, without changing any element of his spirit. He had been self-willed since he came from the womb, and no one would ever make him do anything he did not choose to do.

  Even the priest, urged by the womenfolk to save this errant boy, had admitted defeat at last. The memory was pure pleasure to Carlos.

  Thinking that, smiling faintly, he fell asleep at last...

  * * * *

  The forest was thick, and there were no traces of the work of loggers. The trees were fat and their branches made a high roof against the invisible stars. Still, his feet knew, without faltering, the faint trail they followed, and he did not seem to need to see.

  After a time, he began to recognize the winding of the stream he followed, the jut of a great red rock from the deep leaf-mould, the curve of a tree that had endured even since his childhood. He was walking into the swamp country, finding the all but invisible ridges as he went.

  It had been cold before, but now he felt the steamy warmth of decomposition rising around him. The yeasty smell of the great sink-hole met his nostrils. He must be very near the spot where for centuries it had sucked down everything touching its surface.

  Carlos stopped and shook his head roughly, trying to wake, trying to pull himself back into his sleeping body, for he knew now that he dreamed. He could not awaken. Something—some will far older and stronger than his own—forced him to go on, to step carefully through the mosquito and gnat-infested bushes, past the pools where water moccasins slithered through the mud.

  As he drew near the morass, he felt something inside him curdle with fear. He had never come here by night, even as a daring boy, and now he found that the thought of being drawn there against his will filled him with a cold dread. Still his dream self went forward, unable to turn aside or to go back.

  The Spanish moss dangling from low branches brushed across his face, and he stooped to pass beneath. Then he stood on the edge of the still pool that topped the quagmire, seeing the moon reflected from its murky mirror.

  His black nanna, when he was small, used to tell him tales of that sinkhole, describing the way it sucked down any unwary creature. S
he had told him that it turned, once in a long while, sending long-digested contents into the light again. Skulls of deer, bones of anonymous animals, turtle shells—her description of the strange things that rose, only to sink again into the muck, had made his young blood run cold.

  He stood at the edge of the quagmire, watching it turn. He had heard a hiss and looked down to see a snake coiled at his feet. He had shrieked voicelessly as the moccasin struck, only to fall through his intangible leg and sprawl on the dark soil...

  The sound of sucking waters, hissing bubbles, roiling mud now made him look out over the expanse. The sinkhole was turning. He found he could not close his eyes or bend his neck to stare at the ground. As he watched, glistening lumps bubbled to the surface, some horned, some grinning vacantly.