Raw Wounds

by Matt Hilton

  That was then, Zeke supposed.

  Things are different now.

  He strode off in search of his brother, all thoughts of hunting a frightened girl now taking second place to a reunion with Villere.

  NINE

  Tess watched the tall man in the grungy hat climb into a pickup truck he’d left illegally parked in an ambulance bay. His simple act of disregard for the acceptable decorum – let alone the official rules and regulations – in such a location pissed her almost as much as how he’d acted towards Pinky minutes ago. She’d heard a brief summation of the man’s inherent racism and bad attitude in a few curt words from Pinky before trailing him through the hospital. Now she stood in the weak sunlight filtering through the overcast sky, surrounded by the loamy smell of nearby Bayou Teche brought to her on a fluttering breeze. She felt colder than she had when leaving the airport terminal earlier, and again pulled her thin jacket tightly around her. Her chill had nothing to do with the weather, but what the tall man’s interest in Clara Chatard might signify.

  He was trouble. No second thought about it. But it begged a question: what kind of trouble followed that man?

  He drove the pickup as if he was in a hurry to get away, and she edged out to log the licence number in her memory. On the tailgate was a company name and she ensured she had that firmly lodged in her mind too.

  Pinky stepped up behind her. He’d held back in pursuit because he was too obvious a figure to conduct close surveillance.

  ‘There’s something about that dude …’

  ‘Trouble.’ Tess looked at him, and watched Pinky’s eyes widen.

  ‘He’s that, f’sure, him. But I meant there’s something about him I recognize. Can’t place from where, but I’ve seen that face before, me.’

  ‘And you’re absolutely sure he isn’t one of Clara’s family?’

  Pinky shrugged. ‘If he were he’d have said so. He would’ve had more right to see her than I had to stop him.’

  ‘And the first thing he did was make threats?’

  ‘Showed me the hilt of a knife. Was an unspoken threat if ever there was one.’

  ‘What else did he say?’

  ‘Nothing of importance. Just your typical racist bullshit. Has a liking for the word “nigger”, you ax me.’ Again Pinky shrugged. ‘Water off a duck’s back. Trust me, pretty Tess, I’ve been called much worse, me. Someday I’d like to meet one of those racist buttheads who has more imagination when it comes to insults. Being called a fat-ugly-nigger-faggot grows a bit boring when you’ve heard it a million times.’

  The pickup was out of sight. Tess wondered when she’d see its driver again. Probably sooner than she’d like, even if it were years from then. ‘We should get back to Po.’

  Pinky had never gotten used to Nicolas’s new name. He’d only been nicknamed Po after moving north and those who learned he hailed from the bayous had named him after a southern delicacy. Po was quick to put them straight, and the ‘boy’ had firmly been dropped from ‘po’boy’. Even she thought his nickname a little whimsical when the three of them got together. Pinky, Po and Tess: they sounded like characters in a children’s cartoon.

  ‘Nicolas was shocked when I looked in on you,’ Pinky prompted.

  ‘Yeah. You could say that. He just heard he’s got a baby sister.’

  Pinky’s head cocked to one side. ‘Oh?’

  ‘Apparently Clara’s youngest isn’t a Chatard at all. She’s Jacques Villere’s daughter. Nicolas’s full sister.’

  ‘He-he! Talk about confusing an already complicated matter.’ He ran a palm over his scalp. ‘You think maybe we should get them all together on the Jerry Springer Show to work out their differences?’

  ‘I’m not sure that show is still current,’ Tess said.

  ‘I was only joking, pretty Tess.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, thinking back to a similar ridiculous conversation she’d had with Po while standing over the corpse of Ron Bowen. ‘I was too. Who needs Jerry Springer when people air all their dirty washing on the social networks these days?’

  Po came out of the exit behind them, and immediately fed a cigarette to his lips. He didn’t light up, but it was inevitable. His eyebrows made a literal ‘V’ as he walked towards them. ‘Wondered where you’d got to,’ he said by way of greeting. Both Tess and Pinky waited for him to say more. But he simply strode by, looking for a place to smoke.

  ‘Thought you might need a few minutes’ privacy with your mom,’ Tess told him. Now really wasn’t the best time to trouble him with news about the stranger’s unhealthy interest in Clara.

  ‘There wasn’t much to say.’ Po continued walking, heading in the general direction of the parking lot where they’d left Pinky’s van. Once he was a respectable distance from the hospital he lit his cigarette from a Zippo. His mother’s advice on giving up smoking had fallen on deaf ears, but Tess didn’t begrudge him the nicotine: hearing such a revelation as he had many other people might turn to alcohol for their emotional crutch.

  She waited until he’d expelled half a dozen plumes of smoke overhead. ‘That was quite a revelation back there.’

  Po’s eyebrows rose, then knit into a ‘V’ again. ‘And then some.’

  ‘You never suspected you had a sister?’

  ‘I heard about Emilia’s birth, but that was about as far as my interest went. Far as I knew she was Darius Chatard’s kid, and if anything I held only contempt for her.’ He shrugged apologetically. ‘That was then. I was young, hot-headed, and had just gone to war with her family. Haven’t given her much thought over the years.’

  ‘And now?’

  Po ground his cigarette under his boot. Lit up another.

  ‘She’s still a stranger to me.’

  ‘You mean she’s still a Chatard as far as you’re concerned?’

  ‘I’ve only my mother’s word that Emilia’s my sister. And her word ain’t worth spit.’

  ‘You never counted up the dates?’ Tess wondered. Po squinted at her. He was a guy; what did he know of such things?

  ‘I counted. If Emilia is my full sister, my mom must’ve conceived a day or two before she ran off to her new beau. Far as I could recall my parents weren’t in a happy place before she lit out. Last thing I imagined was them sleeping together, ’specially if she was already running behind my dad’s back.’ He looked over at Pinky, who’d positioned himself near enough to be supportive if necessary, but wasn’t crowding them during their private moment. Po nodded him over. Pinky was the nearest thing to real family that Po had here in the south. ‘You should hear this too, bra.’

  Pinky joined them.

  ‘You want to meet the girl, you?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s beside the point,’ Po said.

  Tess took his words the wrong way. Her first thought was that nurture might trump nature in this case. ‘You don’t think she’ll want to meet you? Considering all that’s happened between you and her family, it could be a difficult decision for her. I can only imagine that you’re the bad guy in her eyes.’

  ‘That ain’t it.’ Po took a long draw on his cigarette and flicked a column of ash. ‘She’s just not in any position to meet me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Apparently Emilia has gone off the grid.’

  ‘She’s missing?’

  ‘Not so much missing as out of contact. But my mom says it’s not unusual for her. Emilia’s a free spirit, and not exactly a child any longer. She comes and goes as she pleases, but it’s troubling that she hasn’t answered any calls from her family to get her to her mom’s bedside. They’ve even gone as far as checking out some of her known haunts, but no luck.’

  ‘When you say it’s troubling you,’ said Pinky, ‘does that mean you’re troubled by her no-show?’

  ‘Don’t know what I think,’ Po admitted. ‘My mom asked me to go look for her, though. She wants Emilia by her side before she goes. She wants Emilia to learn she’s my sister from no other lips than hers.’

&nbs
p; Tess stared at Po. Waiting. But she knew there was only one thing he could do. He took another drag on his cigarette and looked back at her.

  ‘Your mother give you a home address for Emilia?’ she finally prompted.

  ‘So you think I should go look for her?’

  Tess snorted. It was a damn stupid question: he’d only waited for her to make the suggestion so it sounded like her idea.

  ‘I’ve got an address, but it has already been checked. You know where that means we must go next?’

  Pinky flickered a grin. ‘Been looking forward to this for years,’ he said and surreptitiously scratched under his armpit where Tess knew he had a holstered weapon.

  She shook her head.

  ‘We start at the beginning and go from there. Not directly into a needless confrontation.’

  ‘Not needless,’ Po corrected her. ‘Inevitable.’

  ‘Nothing’s inevitable. You’ve seen your mom now … we could just go home.’

  Neither man answered her, but as they clambered into the van she knew they weren’t returning to the airport. But that hadn’t been her intention.

  TEN

  Emilia had no idea what had become of Jason Lombard. Some boyfriend he’d turned out to be. She should have known he was unreliable, particularly when the most effort he’d put into their burgeoning relationship was scoring them some of the finest weed in Iberia Parish. When that blood-splashed maniac had barred their escape from the Thibodaux trapper camp, Jason had shown his alacrity, but not in her defence. He jumped out of his truck and ran into the swamp. There was nothing heroic about his dash; he wasn’t trying to lure the bad guy away so that Emilia could escape. He hadn’t even given her a heads up before he’d sprinted for the trees. To be fair, she probably wouldn’t have heard him, because she was screaming so loudly. Her screech did more to win her some time than anything. The big shaggy-haired brute watched her – gleeful at her terror – and by then Jason was gone. Spotting his fleeing quarry, predatory instincts pulled at the giant and he struck out after Jason like a hound on a rabbit’s trail.

  Emilia leapt from the truck and ran for the swamp on the other side of the clearing. Her only thought was to put as much distance between her and the crazed thing that had slaughtered Hal and Jamie Thibodaux, and who she believed would do the same to her next.

  ‘Emilia Chatard!’ She heard a voice call to her, and stumbled for a moment, thinking it was a rescuer. But then its crowing quality struck her, and she knew she wasn’t being hailed to safety. No, the second figure to have appeared from the front door of the Thibodauxs’ cabin was letting her know that he’d recognized her. She knew who it was clumping down the wooden steps in pursuit without having to look, but instinctive terror forced her to check and Zeke Menon showed her the bloody knife he gripped.

  Emilia fled then, her voice caught in her throat as Zeke chased her to the edge of the clearing. He was being vocal enough for both of them.

  ‘You can run, gal, but there’s no escape from this. I know you, and you know I know you! I know all you Chatards and here’s the thing. If you don’t come back here, I can go cut them up instead. That what you want, bitch? You want your brothers slaughtered, your daddy cut to ribbons? What about your dear ol’ mamma? Come on back here … I can be a reasonable man. We can come to another arrangement. You don’t have to die; things can be made more pleasant for you. For both of us. Y’hear me?’

  Emilia kept running, ducking and swiping wildly, forcing a path through the low hanging branches. Spanish moss swiped her face and caught in her hair. The sharp ends of twigs dug painfully into her flesh. She didn’t reply to Zeke’s hollers. She barely understood his words beyond that they were malicious threats whatever action she chose next.

  ‘I know you can hear me, Emilia. Emilia Chatard, you’d better listen up. One word, bitch … one word about what you saw here and everyone you care for dies. You hear me? Do you fucking hear me?’

  She heard, not exactly the words, but definitely their meaning, but she kept running.

  Then she was forging through soft muck that threatened to pull her down. Roots tangled her feet, and jagged stumps reared up around her. She had almost floundered into a tributary of the bayou. The stench of rotting vegetation hung around her, but she smelled nothing. Her senses had closed down to sight and sound only, and neither of those made much sense. She turned left, and ran again, her feet churning through stinking mud, her hands grabbing at tree trunks to help her flight. Fingernails were broken and torn off. She lost a sneaker. But she kept going, her breath burning in her throat, until she collapsed onto drier land. She crawled then, getting deeper into the evening shadows, and scrunched into a hollow between the great exposed roots of a spreading oak tree.

  She hid, quaking, shivering as much from the adrenalin surging through her body as the clammy dampness from wading through the mire. Occasional creaks of the overhead branches or the soft crackle of breaking twigs set her heart racing again, her imagination telling her that Zeke Menon or his demented brother was closing in on her hiding place. But she knew it wasn’t so, because she could hear them much further away to the west. They were howling like damn wolves, catcalling to each other as they chased Jason to ground. She only heard one hint of her fleeing boyfriend when a third voice joined the cacophony, but this one higher pitched, screaming in terror and agony. Emilia wept into her hands as the mist rose from the swamp to add further concealment.

  She had a cellphone in her pocket, but who could she call? She didn’t doubt that Zeke Menon was capable of carrying out his threat to slaughter her family: the evidence of what had happened to the Thibodaux brothers had been plain to see. Alerting the police would only bring a swift and brutal end to another person dear to her, before Zeke or Cleary were caught. Perhaps she was giving their abilities too much credit, but fear tended to magnify the capabilities of those terrorizing you. She could call her brothers, or her father, warn them about the Menons, but by doing so she knew they wouldn’t rest until they’d taken the fight back to them. Her family was connected to the criminal underworld, but not in the way the Menons were: go after them and they would be taking on Nathaniel Corbin and all the resources he could bring to a fight, and that would end in one way: very badly for the Chatards.

  She didn’t take out her phone. Deep in the bog it would be highly unlikely she’d get a signal anyway. Best action, she decided, was to stay hidden, wait for the Menons to finish what they were doing to Jason, and then leave the swamp. She could go into hiding, keep silent about all she’d witnessed there, and hopefully things would blow over. Once the Menons were convinced she could be relied upon to keep their secret, they might allow her to live. They would leave her folks alone. She’d only stumbled into their midst by chance, and they must see that. Stay hidden, stay silent, and protect her family. ‘Stay hidden. Stay alive.’

  That was her mantra for the next four days.

  Once she walked out of the swamp she kept to the back roads, fearful that if she tried to return to town via the highway, the Menons would find her and drag her back. Her ex-boyfriend, she now understood, because Jason Lombard wasn’t coming out of the swamp alive. His death troubled her, but not in the way it should have. She didn’t really have deep feelings for him; he was only one of a number of young men who’d chased her these past few years. She didn’t love him, wasn’t even sure she was even fond of him: he was just a friend with whom she’d shared intimacy, and a penchant for a wild time. She’d never expected their hell-raising lifestyle to bring them face-on with actual demons in the flesh. When she’d mentioned being frightened of the rougarou earlier, she had not really been serious: now she understood there were worse things to fear in the swamp than a mythological wolfman. Then again, grinning at her with blood on his teeth, what else had Cleary Menon resembled?

  She headed north on the levee road, trudging along through the darkest hours of the night on one shoe, which she later discarded. She heard the distant sounds of heavy machinery, off to t
he west in the woods where a pipeline was under construction, but she stayed well clear. As dawn broke she finally walked into a tiny cluster of houses called Catahoula, where she finally took out her phone, called a friend, Rachel Boreas, and asked her to come fetch her. Rachel arrived an hour later, to find Emilia streaked with dried mud, barefoot with torn clothing, and with twigs in her hair. She fired questions in rapid sequence, but Emilia refused to answer, only asking that Rachel take her back to Lafayette, from where Rachel hailed these days. Thirty miles, Emilia suspected, wasn’t enough distance to place between her and the Menons, but it was a start and in the right direction … away.

  On the drive back Rachel tried to coax from Emilia what had happened. Emilia assured her she didn’t want to know, and when Rachel persisted, Emilia begged her not to ask again. ‘Please, trust me, Rachel. If I tell you, then you will be in danger too.’

  Unlike Emilia, Rachel didn’t enjoy a wild lifestyle; she didn’t run around with stoners like Jason Lombard anymore; she had responsibilities. She was a married woman with two small children. She didn’t ask again, and Emilia remained silent. On arrival at Rachel’s home, Emilia thanked her friend for picking her up, but immediately tried to walk away. If by some chance the Menons were on her trail she didn’t want to lead them to a house with two small children inside. When she wouldn’t enter the house, Rachel pressed some cash into her hand, gave her the sneakers off her own feet, and told her to find a motel someplace and clean herself up. She then asked about Emilia’s family.

  ‘You can’t tell them, Rachel, you can’t tell them a thing.’

  ‘Are you hiding from them?’ In the past Emilia had suffered a rocky relationship with her older siblings, and more than once had been on the receiving end of a disciplinary slap or two. Rachel quite understandably thought she was running from a similar beating again.