by Wile E Young
She had been afraid.
“You uh, you gonna be okay?” Otis Porter wasn’t very good at comforting words. His true forte was in profanity, and when the boys gathered down at Johnson’s Ranch for game night he was hurling four-letter words like they were on clearance.
I nodded. Otis and Scott both promised they would treat her with the utmost respect and decency and that they would send for me when they had news. Most of their words were a haze lost in the late morning heat.
Beau reappeared his boots caked with mud and with a few fresh mosquito bites. He climbed in the cruiser followed by Otis. Their wheels kicked up dust as they left, Scott’s van following in their wake.
I wanted to reach out. Whether my daughter was in the back of that van and dead or not, I didn’t want her to go.
The engine sounds followed long after the cypress woods had swallowed them, and I listened until that was only a memory replaced with distant crows, chattering.
I shuffled and looked up at the sun and its merciless gaze, and then I slowly shambled my way back into the cabin. The whole building was single story, low roof, and wood and brick that generations of blood and sweat had maintained. Four bedrooms: one for Renee and I, two for the kids we had intended to have that had ended up only being one, and another for guests. Renee had been ecstatic when I had replaced the ancient carpet with wood, polished oak floors that had felt weird to walk across at first, especially in the winter when I was used to the carpet warming my old feet.
The silence wasn’t new. I had been living with it for a year.
There was tiny part of me past the bitterness that hoped Lincoln would bring life back into this place, that the boy would grow up here in the bayou learning the ins and outs like his mother had, that he could find the joy in it that had eluded her.
The old red easy chair was a relic from a previous decade; Renee had always hated that chair and begged me to let her buy me a new one. But through tide, time, and my stubbornness, the chair had stayed. A small table stained with round circles from years of condensation on cups and glass sat next to the chair. A few old family photos were arrayed across it.
I reached for the nearest one and looked at my wife, as beautiful thirty years ago as when she took her last breath, Sammie Jo just a baby in her arms like Lincoln was in the nursery right now.
The weariness set in and I leaned back in the chair, staring at the picture as I sobbed myself into a dreamless sleep.
****
It was a low sound that woke me, a deep vibration in my chest like a train churning across a distant railroad.
I had heard a fog horn before, but it didn’t sound like that. It sounded rougher, like the inside of whatever was being blown caught the sound to deform the note. It was close, outside my cabin; I blinked my eyes and stared at the light coming through the window.
It was late afternoon; the sun had settled behind the cypress trees and turned the world into a tapestry of long shadows and islands of fading light. The light in the cabin was dim,[AD1] but a hunter’s instinct had seized me.
I wasn’t alone.
The gun cabinet was across the room and took only seconds to open. The .308 hunting rifle was like an old friend in my hands.
The horn sounded again.
I eased out the back door, making my way around the house towards the tree line and the sound. All kinds of mischief haunted these woods and possibilities flitted through my mind, childhood fears come back to life.
Everyone in Uncertain had grown up hearing tall tales about the Robichaudes, a family who lived deep in the bayou. Rumor had it that they practiced all sorts of witchcraft. I couldn’t speak to black magic, but the fact of the matter was that people who harassed them usually met with some ill fate not long after. Supposedly… hearsay and belief ruled around here much more than fact.
Maybe that was why the lynch mob had hung them from the rafters of their own home.
The Robichaudes had lived not too far from me, on the back lake, when I had heard the noise I had gone to investigate.
I still remembered that trek through the bayou; hadn’t stopped when the branches cut my skin or when I had twisted my ankle on an outstretched root. All of that and I had still been too late. Their murderers had come and gone, leaving only a little boy screaming at the sight of his kin’s bodies.
It was a town secret, and no one had stepped forward all those years ago to claim responsibility. I had my suspicions but no proof… Still I had seen the guilty faces on Sunday mornings in church. There was no disguising shame.
To this day I could still hear those faint screams.
With no phone it had been up to me, and I had arrived in time to find the bodies.
There weren’t any dead Cajuns out to haunt me for my failures today. Just some assholes eager to catch a bullet.
It might have been the Klan; sheet-wearing bastards had been a thorn around this town for years. Thoughts of meth heads looking for a new place to cook drifted through my mind.
A quick glance at Cy’s vacant cabin confirmed that it was still empty.
Teenage idiots looking to see where someone had actually died then…
The Spanish moss hid me, and my wide boots were quiet on the leaves. As I crept through the woods, I briefly worried about coming up on a snake before I decided that it didn’t really matter.
Grief does crazy things to the mind.
The horn blew another time, down by the boat slip. I couldn’t see anyone there at least not out in the backyard that the sun still held dominion over.
Whoever was down there was standing in the shadow of the boathouse where the reflections in the water played tricks the eye. I thought I could see someone squatting close by the water. At least I thought it was someone; the shadows and the onset of night were playing hell with my vision.
I crept though the woods until I was close. Then I sprinted from the woods, screaming hellfire and thunder, squeezing off a shot into the sky. That had always worked in the past when trespassers or hunters a little too far off their leases wandered onto the property.
I expected to hear some screaming and a few teenagers go running, but instead there was nothing but silence and the breeze blowing through the trees.
I walked up to the boathouse. The slip was undisturbed my Lowe resting serenely in its moorings. No one was standing on the dock. My eyes were drawn to the spot where Sammie Jo had gasped her last and brought my grandson into the world only hours before. It felt like a different life. The smell still lingered; I had forgotten to clean it up, and Scott had been more concerned with making sure my daughter’s body was properly cared for.
There was wetness around the spot, like someone dripping water had been standing there only moments before.
I looked around, peering inside the boathouse for anyone hiding in the shadows. I clicked on the light; the small dingy bulb coated in a small layer of dust cast its feeble orange light around the boathouse. The inside was really just a small wooden platform that had just enough room for a small workbench and a wall full of rods, reels, and tackle.
I made sure that the winch and pulleys for my boat hadn’t been tampered with and that no one was hiding inside it before I walked back outside.
There was no one there.
I slumped against one of the support pillars keeping the boathouse from sinking down into the muck of the river. This was senility, or dementia, Alzheimer’s and whatever else affected the elderly… my hands weren’t as strong as they used to be, and my eyes were shot to shit.
Age was creeping in.
Good riddance.
Maybe it was instinct or maybe it was because it was the only noise other than my ragged breathing, but my gaze was drawn to the river. It was floating there right below the dock where I was, circular, like a Christmas wreath but made of black driftwood. It was decorated with wilted yellow dogwoods, black grassy moss, and lily pad shavings that were already beginning to droop as life left them.
I jumped off the dock
, my knees popping as they hit the shallow water and mud. I picked the object up into my hands, the flowers and decorations falling off into the water.
The circular driftwood had something carved in it, words or symbols that I couldn’t read.
Still, it was proof that someone had been here.
I suddenly felt watched. But there was no one in the trees, no one sitting in a boat in the water, nothing but me and the wreath held in my hand.
I turned to walk back up to the cabin, snatching my rifle from the dock.
One more thing caught my eye as the sun went down; I squinted against the encroaching night and could barely make out the outline of a footprint next to the bank. I knew it wasn’t my own, but the light and my failing vision must have been playing hell with me.
Every toe looked like it had been connected.
Chapter Four
I went to Shady Glade the next morning like I had always done.
I had fallen asleep on my chair; rifle resting across my lap and wet idol on the couch side table. It was currently resting on the passenger seat next to me, no less strange in the light of day. I had spent the rest of the previous evening on guard hoping, praying, and worrying that whoever had left this thing would return.
They never did.
It was a bright day. The mosquitoes were buzzing as I made my way down the channel and out in the main river. There weren’t many boats on the river this morning, though I knew that it was because the world hadn’t woken up and got to shaking itself free of the morning dew that had accumulated throughout the night. By midday this place would be choked with party barges and speedboats filled with folks eager to get away from real life for a while and lose themselves in the booze and the river of mud.
I sighed and rubbed a hand through my grey hair as I took the Devil’s Elbow turnaround and entered Government Ditch. From there it was just a short jaunt to the Shady Glade marina.
There was a pause in conversation when that chime above the door rang and people saw just who it was that was walking in.
Little known fact about small towns: there isn’t anything to talk about until something big happens. Sammie Jo was one of those bits of gossip that would have spread around like wild fire; at least three tables in this place had probably been talking about her when I walked through the damn door.
I found an empty table in the back right corner right next to the window and waited for Vicky to bring me my morning coffee. She sauntered over with a steaming pot clutched in her hand. She put a hesitant hand on my shoulder, her eyes soft. “Grady we heard… I’m so sorry.”
I nodded my head and gave some gruff words of thanks; I wasn’t well equipped for accepting pity or sorrow. I had been raised under the philosophy to never let them see you bleed. I was prepared for round after round of this treatment for the rest of the day. I expected a few sympathy pies, maybe even a visit from Pastor Arnold and his wife, offering me the church’s deepest condolences.
It was all bullshit.
Not that the sympathy, the pity, and the comfort wasn’t real, but it would be over just as quick. I’d become nothing more than Old Man Pope living out in the woods with his grandson whose mama ran off then came back and died. Everything would be swept under the rug and forgotten except for warning stories for little girls to listen to their daddies.
Vicky brought me my traditional food and I tried to stomach every morsel that usually brought me satisfaction but now turned to ashes in my stomach. Sorrow has a way of discoloring everyday life, especially when the wound is fresh.
Davis Trucker heaved his bulk into the seat across from me, grease-stained white shirt straining to hold in his belly as wiped his sweaty brow with a napkin. “Congratulations and condolences, I suppose…”
Shady Glade’s proprietor was a bombastic showman to his customers and a gruff man of few words to his friends; it was shocking when the mask came off to reveal who he really was. Davis had been everywhere and seen everything with a career that included ice road trucking, canoe guide, accountant… it was a common joke around the dives and eateries of Uncertain that you couldn’t do anything that Davis Trucker had not already done before.
“So when do we get to see the little tyke?”
I didn’t laugh or share in his small smile; the reality of the fact that I had a grandson hadn’t sunk in yet. “When you drive your happy ass up to the hospital, though you couldn’t make it through the door I expect.”
Davis thumped his fingers lightly on the table as I took another bite of tasteless pancake. “Fat jokes. Thought we were long past that.”
“We’ve never been past it, Davis.” I grunted as I finished off the food.
“The boy is going to need some mothering. No offense to you Grady, but Renee was always the one with the better head on her shoulders.”
I didn’t bother trying to dispute that bit of wisdom. I was useful for practical skills, but nurturing social skills and emotional baggage was beyond me. Left to me, the boy would be able to survive in the wild and also be maladjusted to anywhere that was more concrete than wood.
“Folks have been talking, a few even considering helping out… that is if you’ll let them into that old shack of yours.”
I met Davis’ eyes, his receding hairline doing nothing to hide the wrinkles that furrowed along his brow and caused him to look older than he actually was. He may have been quiet and thoughtful when around those in the know, but I had wondered over the years how much of the fun-loving boastful mask was fueled by secret desire.
Everyone wants to be someone different on occasion.
“How much I owe you for the food?”
Davis shook his head slowly and rose out of the chair. “It’s on the house for today. You take care now Grady… bring the little fella by when he gets out of the hospital.”
I didn’t promise I would, but it didn’t need to be said. It was considered a slap in the face of everyone if you didn’t show off your new kin once they were ready.
Lincoln, alone in the hospital, filtered through my mind and I rose from my table making my way out to the dingy old payphone that Davis insisted on keeping. I slipped in fifty cents and listened for the dulcet sound of the dial tone before dialing Otis’ number. He answered on the third ring.
“Yeah Otis, its Grady… I need a ride.”
****
I grabbed the driftwood from my boat before Otis came trundling into Shady Glade’s parking lot. The humidity and sun was already getting to the man as he waved at me and opened the door.
“What’s that? Some kind of half-assed life preserver?”
I explained what had happened last night, the horn, the footprint… Otis snapped out of jackass mode and became the Sheriff as he started grilling me for details, questioning every little thing in hopes that there was something that had slipped my mind.
“What do you make of it?”
Otis shrugged, his eyes hard orbs that didn’t betray his thoughts. “Honestly, that thing could be some old Indian shit or who knows… think you’re stretching looking for some deeper meaning for Sammie’s—” He cut himself off, not wanting to rip fresh scars. “Just think you’re reaching is all.”
Normally I would have agreed with him, but there was something nagging the back of my mind. Instinct or paranoia maybe, but regardless, there was a mental itch that I just couldn’t scratch.
This shit wasn’t normal.
I stifled my misgivings. Otis wasn’t known for his patience when it came to things that he considered settled.
We talked sparingly for the rest of the drive into Marshall, mostly about the salvinia weed overtaking the lake, an anecdote about a drunk boater, the best fishing holes that we were sure only us alone knew about. Standard friendship chatter that didn’t have much deeper meaning to it, easy talk that could have been discussed anywhere. The issue of Sammie Jo and Lincoln was not discussed at all.
We parked at the far side of the hospital lot and walked through the double doors, making our wa
y to the nursery. Lincoln wasn’t there. There were other boys and girls, but my grandson was nowhere to be seen.
A nurse appeared a second later. “Mr. Pope?” I nodded my mouth dry. “Will you please come with me? Dr. Riggs needs to talk to you.”
“What’s wrong with my grandson?” I asked immediately, my heart pumping, fear that there had been some unforeseen complication and he was now lying dead in the morgue.
“Lincoln is fine, Mr. Pope. The doctor just wants to talk to you about some of the things you’ll be facing raising him.”
I thought it was odd considering it was clear that I had already raised his mother, but I didn’t complain as I left Otis in the waiting room to see Dr. Riggs.
****
The nurse was a liar.
Lincoln lay in a small crib, pretty standard for a hospital with its clear sides and blue blankets allowing easy viewing of the kicking boy. Syndactyly was what the doctor was calling it, fancy medical school word for the fact that my grandson had been born with webbed fingers and toes. They claimed it was nothing but fused skin and while it was rare that it wasn’t life threatening, sour news for a man whose daughter had given birth to a kid that would have been at home in a freak show under the stage name Frog Boy.
Then there were the birth defects on his neck, scars that had been formed in the womb, lines that would mark him the rest of his life.
I knew I was being harsh. The boy hadn’t chosen to become like this, and the part of me that was rational and loyal to blood knew that I would care for the kid. That darker side though, the one that I kept under lock and key but close to the surface, looked down at Lincoln with disgust, to my everlasting shame.
“Mr. Pope, do you have all that?”
Dr. Riggs was a bookish man well into his forties who looked like his personal moment of educational pride was being the teacher’s pet. He had talked slowly, enunciating every few words just to be sure that I understood exactly what he was talking about.