Jimmy sighed. He had been lucky in some ways. Raised among his own people on their ancestral land. George had been much more a victim of the insensitivity of racists.
Jimmy’s stomach rumbled and he chuckled to himself. No matter how high-minded or involved your thoughts were, your body still demanded food in its primitive, aggressive way.
“Are you hungry?” Jimmy asked George. They had packed sub sandwiches from Deep Six Sub Shop in Old Town.
George shook his head. “I think I’ll just have some coffee—you can eat mine if you want.”
Jimmy was tempted, but he had begun to put on weight. He seemed to be eating more, but the irritation in his joints was preventing him from exercising as much as he might like.
He asked the flight attendant for a bottled water and a coffee for George. George specified a caramel frappucino with just a dash of rum, which made the attendant, a pretty redhead, laugh.
“How about black with cream and sugar,” she asked.
“If you bring it, it will be sweet enough,” George said, smiling.
She shook her head and walked off to the galley.
George nudged Jimmy, who was retrieving his sandwich from his carry-on bag.
“I’ve still got it,” George said.
“Trouble is, nobody wants it,” Jimmy said, pulling down his tray table, which never settled right over his long, cramped legs.
Thomas had recommended Tylenol for his aches until he could examine him. Jimmy wished he had brought some now. But seeing Dabo Muu had put it in his mind he might need to stay clearheaded, and he knew the discomfort helped keep him alert.
Once they had their beverages, Jimmy unwrapped his sandwich.
“Damn, that looks good,” George admitted.
“Oh…it is,” Jimmy said, around a big bite.
George dug his out of his own bag and they enjoyed their dinner, each pointedly avoiding the topics of George’s tragic past or his missing grandson.
Jimmy knew any joy George might experience was both overshadowed and fleeting. Still, best to leave him be, while it was just the two of them, traveling into the unknown.
Chapter 11
ATCHAFALAYA SWAMP, LOUISIANA
As his grandfather was nearing Texas, Donny was shivering on a small island in the middle of the swamp. He had stumbled into a sinkhole and had gone into the water. The ghost children had laughed merrily at his misfortune, but Trang had helped him out of the water. He was covered with mud and muck, and he wished for the thousandth time he was in his mothers’ embrace, something for which he had just recently complained he was too old.
He sniffled but remembered Trang’s warning that Professor Foxfire loved tears.
Tattoo-faced asshole, he thought, and that made him feel slightly better.
There were just the living kids on the little island right now. Professor Foxfire had gone off to find them some food and the ghost children went off to play in the swamp.
Their bonds of Spanish moss had been removed, as the Professor felt they were too far into the swamp to run off. “Besides,” he said merrily, “there are plenty of live gators if my ghost pets don’t get you!”
Donny kept thinking of food. Cheeseburgers, pizza, and bacon and eggs with hash browns, all his favorites, plus chocolate layer cake, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and mint chocolate chip ice cream…and french fries, chicken nuggets, mac ’n’ cheese…
“If you’re thinking Foxfire is bringing back something tasty, forget it,” Trang said, as if reading his mind. “The food is always spoiled or gross. That’s how one of the kids died, getting botulism or something like that.”
“What’s botchalissum?” Donny asked.
“Food poisoning,” she said. “I think he wants to keep us alive for a while, so maybe he’ll be more careful. Or, he won’t. If it smells bad, I wouldn’t eat it.”
Donny was so hungry he was ready to eat one of those nasty vegetarian casseroles his Tru-Mom was so fond of. Now he’d clean his plate and ask for seconds. Just to be home, warm and dry, and safe.
He wondered if they would find him and remembered his moms had told him they would never let anything bad happen to him. Of course, he kind of messed up because he went out when he wasn’t supposed to, but his mothers were smart and resourceful. They wouldn’t let some bogus, tattoo-faced skank-asshole keep him here.
Then he remembered that the minister at church said that God helped those who helped themselves. It was real good to believe, and good to pray, but sometimes you had to put your butt in gear if God was gonna help you.
He looked around, thinking maybe he’d find some old knife or axe or even a bayonet from the war.
Movement off to his left caught his eye. He turned and couldn’t believe what he saw.
Taillights receding in the darkness.
It’s a road! he thought.
If they could get to it, they would be rescued. All roads went somewhere, and certainly a road would not detour into swamp waters.
It was a perfect moment. Professor Foxfire was gone, and he saw no evidence of the ghost gators. Maybe headlights would hurt them.
He motioned for Trang to bend down. She did, looking at him with wariness and curiosity.
“I spotted a road. You and me are the strongest, we’ll get help for the others.”
“Donny, there’s no road…”
Then he heard it, the far-off warbling of the bone flute.
Professor Foxfire was coming.
“We have to go now,” he hissed.
“I’m telling you…” she began, but he wasn’t listening. He bolted through the underbrush and across a narrow channel. He tried to ignore the half-submerged shapes that could either be logs or alligators.
“Donny!” Trang called anxiously. “Come back!”
She didn’t believe. Too bad. She would when he brought back the police and the FBI.
He struggled up an embankment just as another car went by, its headlight sweeping past, red taillights disappearing into the mist.
“Wait!” he called hoarsely, his voice little more than a strangled croak.
He crested the embankment and moved down to the road.
But there was no road, just a long tributary of the Atchafalaya River, the moon shining over its ripples and slicks of green algae.
Donny stared past the expanse of water, searching in vain for a car or traffic sign.
“Ah, where did that road go?” asked Professor Foxfire behind him. He chuckled, then blew out a breath as if snuffing out a candle. Two bright motes of light traveled past Donny and out over the water, turning red as they receded, like the taillights of a car.
Donny trembled but with anger this time. He did not look at Professor Foxfire and made his voice firm and steady. “My moms are going to find me, and when they do, they will kill you.”
Professor Foxfire leaned around him, the bright orange salamanders on his face rearing up their heads and hissing. “Oh, no, no…Your mommas are miles and miles away. Before they find you, you will just be more bones for Ethan to carry. You will never see your home again, or sleep in your bed. No more birthdays, no more Christmases…No more hugs or kisses from your sweet mommas.”
Donny struggled. Motherfucker, you won’t make me cry!
Professor Foxfire leaned in even closer. “And you know what the worst part is? They will forget you. Oh, they’ll remember you for a while, but not as their son, more as ‘the boy who ran away.’ ” Professor Foxfire brightened as if something had just occurred to him. “And they have your brother…And they’re young, no? They’ll probably have another baby, and they’ll forget all about you. You will be out here for years, and they’ll never even think of you…Not once. Not ever.”
Donny willed himself not to cry, but a painful lump developed in his throat and hot tears rolled down his cheeks. Professor Foxfire’s long and skeletal index finger collected one off Donny’s cheek. He tasted it, savoring it like a connoisseur.
“Oh, that is good.” Prof
essor Foxfire said and smiled his terrible smile. “You have only one chance in this whole wide world, little Donny Watters of Beechwood Drive. You got to call out to your grandpapa.”
“Don’t have a phone,” Donny sniffled. “And I…I don’t have his number.”
Professor Foxfire threw back his head and laughed. It started as a friendly, hearty laugh, then altered into something awful, a bestial shriek that sounded like an animal being torn apart. It echoed through the swamp, and Donny could hear gators and birds roused from their slumber thrashing and splashing, trying to escape that hideous sound.
Professor Foxfire tapped Donny’s temple, hard enough to hurt. The tip of his finger was dry and rough.
“You call out with your mind, child. The phone is in your head, see? But your grandpapa George is the only one who can hear.”
Donny wanted to protest that he didn’t know what Professor Foxfire meant, but the Professor smiled, his long and yellowed wolf’s teeth glinting in the moonlight. He took Donny’s hand and stroked it with his sandpaper fingers. “You did it before, you know you did. Do you want me to help you, maybe cut off a finger or an ear, feed it to my pet?” Professor Foxfire made a cutting motion with his fingers.
Donny shrank back. Professor Foxfire produced a pair of rusty shears from the voluminous pocket of his greatcoat. He opened and closed them rapidly.
Snick snick.
Snick snick.
Before Donny could react, Professor Foxfire had his left index finger wedged deep in the vee of the open shears. The edges were already cutting into his skin.
Granddaddy! Donny screamed in his head. Granddaddy, help me! Please please please please come now!
Chapter 12
TRAVELING
George had been listening to The Temptations when the message exploded in his head, pushing him back in his seat.
…mpa, help me! Please plea…come now!
George’s head throbbed and his eyes watered.
“Are you all right?” Jimmy asked, his voice sounding very far away.
The words in George’s head had been garbled, but he got the gist. And he knew where they had come from.
Donny.
A shudder ran through George. A memory flitted through his mind, indistinct but terrible, and then it was gone before he could seize it.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to.
“George, do you need me to call someone?” Jimmy asked.
George shook his head. “I’m okay,” he rasped.
“You’re pale,” Jimmy said with concern.
“That’ll be the day, Mingo.”
Jimmy handed him some water. George sipped it, wondering if he should tell Jimmy what happened. He didn’t want Jimmy turning this into some Raven-inspired quest that would just make everyone edgy.
“Had a nightmare,” George said. “Guess that sandwich didn’t agree with me.”
Jimmy watched him closely for a moment, unsure of whether to believe him. George did his best to put on a smart-ass grin and said, “Don’t you want to get on my ass about ‘Mingo’?”
“Actually, the Mingo are a group of the Iroquois,” Jimmy said.
“God, you are just sad, Jimmy Kalmaku. Mingo was Daniel Boone’s best friend. He was Cherokee and played by Ed Ames, back in the sixties.”
“Who played Daniel Boone?”
“Fess Parker.”
“I thought he was Davy Crockett.”
“He was both.”
“You seem to know a lot about white folk heroes,” Jimmy said.
“For your information, Daniel Boone had a friend named Gabe. He was a black fellow played by Rosey Grier, former tackle for the Rams. In fact, he was a member of the ‘Fearsome Foursome.’ ”
“George Watters, you should be on Jeopardy!.”
“I’m too pretty. Speaking of which, where is that stewardess?”
—
George offered no more information about what had happened to him on the plane, and Jimmy knew better than to ask. George would deflect his inquiries with insults and humor.
Jimmy might as well talk to their cat, Jabbo, for all the good it would do.
The thing was, he was fairly sure George had had a visitation or vision. Jimmy had seen those telltale signs in others, including himself, and George had demonstrated in the past that he was attuned to manifestations from the Spirit World; he had seen Jimmy’s uncle Will more than once and had witnessed an entire display of Hopi katsina figures turning their heads in the Southwest Museum.
George denied it, but he had an innate sensitivity to such things. Jimmy had tried to talk to him about it, but his forays had been met with the usual jokes. George would listen for a minute or so, then announce that he was leaving such “mumbo jumbo” to Jimmy, that “George Isaiah Watters is more interested in women, music, and booze than all this hoodoo voodoo.”
They touched down at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston at just after midnight, local time.
Neither of them was particularly hungry, so they spent their one-hour layover in silence, dozing near the gate.
Once in the air again, Jimmy could see that George was more anxious. It made sense, he was about an hour or so out from seeing his children for the first time in years.
“George, did you see your kids at your brother’s funeral?”
George nodded. “Everyone except Richard, who was living in France.”
“How did you and Louis get back in touch?”
“Melissa tracked him down when she was still in high school. She found him through one of those online genealogy sites. The kids were all thrilled, and he was good to all of them. Better than me.”
“I’m glad you had a chance to reconnect with him…before he died.”
“We didn’t have a whole lot to talk about, really. Once you get past good memories of the ice cream we ate or the movies we saw, it was pretty much me missing most of his life because I ran off. Never knew he had become a priest, or that he had left the priesthood and gotten married.”
“Did he have any kids?”
“No. Sadly, his wife left him. He never remarried but got a license for family counseling. Guess he’d have been good to have along on this trip.”
Jimmy looked at him. Everything he could think of to say sounded like a platitude.
George chuckled. “I know, what do you say, right? It’s my bed, Jimmy, I have to deal with it. But I’m glad you’re along.”
Jimmy nodded.
“Of course, given a choice between you and Anne Marie…”
—
They landed at Lafayette Regional Airport at 5 A.M. local time. Coming down the escalator to baggage claim, Jimmy saw two men in their forties he recognized as George’s sons immediately. One was the spitting image of George, although his skin color was darker than George’s yellow-brown, and he had long hair that billowed about him with abandon. The other was taller, but his features were, though different, the very essence of George. He also sported a fuller mustache and a beard.
Both of the younger men smiled and stepped forward.
“Daddy,” the first one said, and hugged George.
“Somebody needs a haircut,” George teased.
“Vika said…”
George clasped his hand. “I like it, I like it.”
“Hey, Pop,” the second one said as he stepped in and hugged George.
George smiled and turned to Jimmy. “Jimmy, these are my sons, Richard,” he said, pointing to the young man with the long hair, “and Martin,” he continued as he pointed to the young man with the beard. “Boys, this is my best friend, Jimmy Kalmaku.”
Richard and Martin shook hands with Jimmy in turn.
“Any word on Donny?” George asked, and they shook their heads.
“Sheriffs will continue the search at dawn,” Richard said.
“Delphine wanted to hire a P.I.,” Martin said, rolling his eyes. “Melissa and I talked her out of it.”
“She thought he might be more aggressi
ve than the police,” Richard said. “I have to say I agree.”
“The man was obviously a con man,” Martin protested. “She might as well have hired a psychic.”
George glanced at Jimmy, who said nothing.
“Let’s get you to the motel,” Richard said. “The family’s meeting for breakfast at eight thirty. Do you think you can make that, Pop?”
George nodded.
“We were only able to get one room for you two, Daddy,” Martin said. “Two beds, of course, unless…”
“Very subtle, Marty,” Richard said.
“Just two old widowers sharing expenses,” George said. “No hanky-panky unless I have a girl over.”
“So, no hanky-panky,” Jimmy said.
George’s sons laughed.
They collected George’s suitcase and garment bag. Jimmy had brought the clothes on his back and a carry-on. He had wondered in Seattle if he would need a suit. He didn’t own one, and decided he would buy one in Lafayette if he needed to.
They stepped out of the terminal, and the heat and humidity were noticeable even this early in the morning. Jimmy wondered what it would be like at noon.
Richard and Martin led them to the short-term parking lot, where a rental SUV was waiting. Jimmy had hoped for a sedan but did his best not to wince as he climbed up into the vehicle. He and George sat in the second of three bench seats. Richard drove, Martin sat next to him. They exited the airport and took the I-10 east.
“Are we going near the campground?” George asked.
Richard shook his head. “Not much around that area, accommodations-wise. We’re all staying at a Comfort Suites in Port Allen, which is about a half hour beyond the turnoff for the campsite.”
“You know the South, Daddy,” Martin said, “not a whole lot around.”
George nodded. “How are Missy and Trudy?”
“About as well as you might expect,” Richard said.
“I think Missy is holding up a little better than Trudy,” Martin offered.
“And what about Cal?” George asked.
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