Under the Cajun Moon

by Mindy Starns Clark

  It took what felt like a full minute before I could breathe again. Gasping for air, I sat up, and when that didn’t help I flipped around onto my hands and knees. Getting the wind knocked out of me was a horrible sensation, and as I regained my breathing I had no choice but to remain there on the ground, heart pounding, and pray that I wouldn’t be discovered before I could get moving again. After a few moments I steadied myself so that I could stand. Unfortunately, I didn’t see the snake there, the one that was hidden in the shadow of the fallen log.

  I didn’t see it, that is, until its fangs were buried deep into the flesh on the back of my hand.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  I’m not sure how I had the presence of mind not to scream. The moment I understood what was happening, I jumped up and flung my arm outward. With that, the snake let go, flying through the night air and landing with a thunk somewhere in the brush. Between my panic and the darkness, I realized I hadn’t noticed its colors or markings. All I had seen were its beady eyes and its teeth, burying themselves into my hand, the hand that was now bleeding.

  At that point, my entire snake education consisted of being able to recognize exactly two kinds: water moccasins, which were long, dark, and poisonous, and milk snakes, which had rings of red, white, and black and were nonpoisonous. I don’t think this snake was either of those, though I wasn’t sure what it had been.

  I stood, waiting to see what would happen next. I didn’t know anything about what I should do, and every bit of snake advice I had ever heard contradicted every other bit of snake advice I had ever heard. Suck out the venom, don’t suck out the venom; make a tourniquet, don’t make a tourniquet; hold the wound above my heart, hold it below my heart. Whatever my inclination was, I was afraid it might be wrong. Most of all, I could only hope that if indeed the snake had been poisonous that my death would come quickly and not as painfully as I feared.

  I felt woozy, but I didn’t know if that was the snake venom or my own hysteria. Steadying myself, I moved from the path on toward the water, thinking how ironic it would be if I made it to safety only to drop dead at the last moment because of a snakebite.

  Whether my veins were coursing with venom or not, I still needed to staunch the bleeding. Trying not to think about infection—and knowing that if the snake really was poisonous then the venom would kill me long before infection ever had time to set in—I placed one filthy, muddy hand on top of the other and applied pressure to the wound.

  I was closer to the river now, and again I tried to decide what to do. Plunge my wounded hand into the water or not plunge my wounded hand into the water? Doing so might wash away some of the germs and debris, but it could also introduce bacteria.

  Was I delirious yet? Was I dying? I didn’t know.

  “My name is Chloe Ledet,” I whispered out loud, just to see if my speech was slurred. It wasn’t, which I took as a good sign.

  Finally, as I stumbled from the wooded path onto the open riverbank, I realized I had come to the end of myself. The whole world was against me. No matter what I did right, it turned out wrong. Now even nature itself had reared its ugly head and taken a bite that would possibly end my life. For a moment, I almost felt like laughing. Stumbling toward the water, I knelt there on the riverbank, trying to decide how I should spend what might be my last few minutes on earth. I uttered a single, awkward prayer for help and hoped that God was listening.

  The bleeding had stopped, for the most part, so I scrambled around for a stick, and there in the mud I gouged out block letters: CHLOE WAS INNOCENT. Looking down at my handiwork, I added OF ALL CHARGES and underlined the word ALL.

  If I knew who was behind everything, I would have written their name there instead, as the killer or at least the mastermind of the killings. I knew my mother was involved, and I strongly suspected Travis was as well, but I still wasn’t sure who was actually calling the shots, orchestrating my demise, and plunging me into what had probably turned out to be the final nightmare of my life.

  I dropped the stick and thought about all Travis had said just a few hours earlier in his cabin as he read to me from the Bible. At the time, his words had been so inspiring and so instinctively needed that I had latched on to them with a kind of joy I hadn’t experienced in years. Now that I knew he probably wasn’t the man I thought he was, I decided that the God he had described wasn’t the Being I thought He was either. Much like my own father, my heavenly Father had far better things to do than worry about someone like me. Vast and distant and uninvolved, He hadn’t even sent me deliverance in my darkest hour.

  I looked up at the sky, at a million twinkling stars, and thought about the power of something so mighty it could have created them in the first place. Travis had read a verse to me earlier, one that said God knew how many hairs were on my head. I knew now that was a lie. God didn’t even know I had a snakebite. He didn’t even know I needed Him.

  Maybe He didn’t even know that I existed.

  I had nowhere else to turn. I was still waiting for the venom to set in, to do its job in stopping my heart or closing my airways or whatever it was that venom did. From where I sat, I couldn’t see the dock that should have been somewhere along here on the river side of Paradise. Perhaps I should try to get to the dock after all, on the small chance that my death was not imminent.

  Getting back to my feet, I dropped the stick I had written with and moved down the river bank some more, not caring whether I was about to stumble upon another snake or even an alligator. I decided that the sun would be up soon, so maybe even if there were no vessels at this dock, I could find a place nearby to hide and wait. Surely, come sunrise, there would be some activity on the river and perhaps I could wave down a passing boat.

  It sounded like a plan, assuming I didn’t drop dead from the snakebite first or get caught by my kidnappers.

  As I got closer, I realized some sort of noise was coming from up ahead. Ducking behind a clump of trees, I moved toward the sound as silently as possible. Judging by the clinking and clanging, it sounded as though someone was working on an engine or a motor.

  Moving closer, I could see something white bobbing in the water. A boat. It wasn’t an airboat like the ones on the other side of Paradise. Again inching forward, I squinted and tried to make out the name of the boat that was painted on the side, Miss Demeanor, which didn’t make a lot of sense unless it was owned by a cop—or a criminal.

  I could only hope it was the former.

  The old Chloe would have jumped out of hiding at that point, run toward the man who I could now see was hunched over the boat’s engine, working away. I would have thrown myself at his mercy, trusting in the goodness and purity and devotion of an honored civil servant, confident that he would save me.

  The new Chloe, however, understood that no one could be trusted. Sheriff or not, I still thought my best bet was to make sure he was alone and then attempt to ambush him and steal his boat.

  Repositioning myself, it crossed my mind that for the very first time since this whole nightmare began, I was about to commit an actual crime. Assaulting a police officer had to be a serious offense. My only hope was that I wouldn’t really have to hurt him so much as just knock him off the boat and into the water. Then I could make my escape and hope that an alligator or something didn’t get him before he could climb back onto dry land.

  At least he was in the right position to make my plan feasible. He was paying no attention to me, he was definitely alone, and I saw no telltale bulge under his clothing where a gun might be. Summoning my nerve, I grabbed a big, solid stick from the ground, emerged from the tree line, stepped onto the dock, and crept toward him. I could see that in the man’s hand was a long wrench, and that concerned me, because I knew it could be used as a weapon and was likely to be more effective than my stick. I needed something even bigger. That’s when I noticed the oar sitting on the side of the boat within easy reach.

  Trying not to think about what I had become, I finally made my move.

  Dr
opping the stick, I grabbed the oar and raised it over my shoulder like a baseball bat, ready to swing. At that moment, the man turned around, and I saw that it was none other than Wade Henkins. He seemed to recognize me instantly, despite the fact that I was covered in mud, bearing a weapon, and about to knock him overboard.

  “Chloe!” he cried. “I been calling everywhere for you! Are you okay? What are you doing here?”

  At this point, I trusted no one, not even this man who was my father’s friend and who had been nothing but nice to me.

  “I’ve been drugged, betrayed, kidnapped, and bitten by a snake. I guess you could say I’m not all that okay.”

  “Wait a minute. First things first. What kind of snake? When?”

  “One with really sharp teeth, maybe fifteen minutes ago. I don’t know if it was poisonous or not.”

  “Fifteen minutes ago,” Wade repeated, the relief evident in his features. “Trust me, if it were poisonous, you would know by now.”

  So at least I wasn’t going to die from the snakebite after all. That was good news, but I still had the little matter of my kidnappers and their guns, not to mention my mother. As politely as I could, I apologized to Wade for not trusting him and asked that he please get off of the boat.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “Did you also say you were kidnapped?”

  “Yep, I was gagged and tied up and brought here just a short while ago. I managed to escape, but they’re going to be looking for me very soon. That’s why I need to get out of here.”

  “But I can help you, Chloe. I am a cop, you know.”

  “I know, and you’ve been a big help to me these past few days. But I’m learning the hard way that I can’t trust anyone.”

  Wade nodded, but he didn’t move.

  “I know how you feel, Chloe. Trust me, cops are probably the most cynical people of all. We’ve seen too much not to be. But I gotta tell ya, sometimes you reach a point where you have to choose to trust. Even if it’s the wrong choice, it’s still the one thing that keeps you human in the end.”

  Glancing at the dark wilderness behind me, I had to wonder if my mother had figured out yet that I was gone. Surely she had. I wasn’t sure how much more time I had here before I would be overtaken by my captors once again.

  “Thanks for the riverside philosophy, Wade. Maybe sometime when I don’t have armed kidnappers breathing down my neck I’ll think about it. Right now, I just want your boat. Climb off nice and easy and you don’t have to get hurt.”

  I thought I could detect a small, brief smile at the corners of Wade’s mouth. He thought I was a softie, that I wasn’t up to this. Just a few days ago, I wouldn’t have been. At this point, however, it was all about survival. I was ready to do whatever it took to get off this island and far away.

  “You can have the boat, Chloe, but it won’t do you no good,” Wade said as he climbed onto the dock. “The motor’s dead as a doorknob. Worse than that, the radio has been sabotaged. I got no way to communicate and no way to get out of here. I know you’re feeling a little suspicious right now, but I think your smarter bet would be to trust me. Let me see if I can’t fix the engine, and then I can get us both out of here.”

  Maybe it was the frank concern in his voice. Maybe it was the vague trace of light purple along the horizon that hinted at morning. Maybe it was simply that I had reached the end of my rope. Whatever it was, I decided to lower my weapon and surrender to the situation.

  “If someone tampered with your radio, I’m guessing they messed with your motor too?”

  “Sure looks that way. It’s been running funny for the past half hour, and then it finally died about a half a mile away. Lucky for me that the current runs pretty strong through here, so all I had to do was watch for the dock and then use the paddle to get myself over to the side.”

  “Speaking of the paddle,” I said, handing it over to him.

  “Why don’t we get back in the boat and I’ll work on the motor and you can tell me what the heck is going on.”

  “What if the kidnappers find us?”

  “I got a gun, Chloe. I’ll keep us safe. You can be the lookout.”

  I didn’t know Wade Henkins very well, but as he said earlier, sometimes we just had to make the choice to trust. Given that he was stuck here too, I thought I might as well fill him in a little, starting with the hardest news of all.

  “If someone’s been tampering with your engine, I have a good idea who it might be,” I said as I climbed aboard and sat in a cold, vinyl seat, the one that would give me the best vantage point as the lookout. “You know Travis Naquin? I’ve been watching him fool with boat motors all night. I know for a fact he has the knowledge, but I’m just not sure why he would choose to use it this way.”

  “Probably just ’cause he’s a Naquin.”

  Wade went back to work on the boat engine, shaking his head and telling me a tale about the Naquin family. According to him, this piece of land originally belonged to the Henkins family. In the bayou, there was something known as “trapper’s justice,” a law of the land that dictated who had the right to hunt and fish where. It wasn’t just a matter of being a good neighbor, he explained. There were actual laws about usufruct and land ownership and hunting and fishing rights.

  “In 1927, Louisiana had its biggest flood ever,” Wade explained. “Back then, this piece of land here belonged to my grandparents. During the flood, the whole thing was underwater. Once the flooding was over, their home had been destroyed, their crops were ruined, and they had lost every single one of their possessions.”

  “That’s awful. Did they have flood insurance?”

  “In 1927, in a Louisiana swamp? A poor, backwoods trapper and farmer, are you kidding me?”

  “You’re right, dumb question. So what happened?”

  Wade asked me to hand him the screwdriver, and as I did he spotted the wound on the back of my hand. Before he said another word, he stopped what he was doing, moved to the front of the boat, and pulled out a first aid kit attached to the side there. He handed it to me, telling me that even though the bite obviously was not poisonous, I was going to be in for a nasty infection if I didn’t clean it up and dress the wound. I knew he was right, so as he turned his attentions back to the motor, I kept one eye on my lookout duties as I rifled through the first aid kit, pulled out what I needed, and sanitized and bandaged my hand.

  Wade continued telling me the tale of his family and how they were forced to sell this ravaged piece of land to the Naquins after the flood. Sadly, because the Henkins had no money left at all, their only choice for housing had been to become squatters on an abandoned houseboat, one that was located just a quarter of a mile beyond the Paradise property line.

  “Can you imagine what that was like for my grandpa? To have to live with his family inside that nasty hovel right up there, while the Naquin family took over the land here, building a home and putting in a garden and claiming it as their own?” He went on to describe how the Naquins had become selfish with the land, the Henkins had grown bitter and angry, and a grudge between the two families slowly grew into an out-and-out feud.

  “I mean, I know they had bought the land free and clear, but in Louisiana, with trapper’s justice and everything, my family just thought it was a given that they would have the right to hunt and fish here at Paradise forever, regardless of who owned the property.”

  I thought about Wade’s story and how it had clarified the feud that Travis had referred to earlier.

  “Anyhoo, Chloe, do you think you’ve calmed down enough now to explain to me exactly what’s going on? I hate to push you if you don’t feel ready to talk about it, but I want to know about this kidnapping thing. Were you exaggerating, or are you really escaping something that dangerous?”

  Again, maybe it was the concern in his voice or maybe it was just that I needed to talk to someone, anyone, about all of my trauma. Whatever it was that caused the dam to break, I started at the beginning and soon found myself telling him everyth
ing—about the treasure, about my parents, about the clues and the coordinates and even the salt. He listened to the whole crazy story, though he seemed far less interested in hearing about the salt than about the coordinates that would lead to the treasure. The more we talked about it, the stronger the gleam in his eye grew, and it seemed as though there were things he wasn’t saying. Suddenly, I had to wonder if perhaps the treasure had been put there not by a pirate or a confederate trying to protect his money during the war, but a Henkins. Maybe the reason Wade’s face had lit up so was because he thought his family might have the more legitimate claim.

  Frankly, at this point I didn’t care who ended up with the treasure. All I wanted was to be delivered safely from this island with the charges against me dropped. Given the lies my father was now telling about me, I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to go and see him at the hospital. Mostly, I just wanted to head to Chicago, back to my condo in Old Town, back to my life before everything began to fall apart.

  But life didn’t have an undo function. Just because I wanted all of this to go away didn’t mean that it would. I wasn’t free to leave Louisiana, not as long as the murder charge against me stood.

  “Okay, so tell me again about the coordinates,” Wade said. “You got four out of the six numbers but you can’t find the treasure without the other two?”

  “Right.”

  “And the two you are missing belong to Alphonse Naquin and Ben Runner?”

  “Yes. It’s hard to explain, but Ruben and Conrad and Sam had actually played sort of a private joke and displayed their numbers in plain sight in their homes. It would be easier if everyone had done that, but according to Conrad neither Ben nor Alphonse were in on that particular joke.”

  “What do you mean they displayed them in plain sight?”

  “Well, Conrad had a wall covered with photos and plaques, and on one of the plaques he had actually engraved his number. Rubin captured his in the photograph and framed it and put it on the mantle.”