Deadlight Jack

by Mark Onspaugh

  Jimmy reached out and put his hand on George’s shoulder. So much sorrow he had avoided being so isolated in Alaska.

  Though neither of them was anxious to go back to sleep, they knew trying times were ahead, and it was better to be rested, especially George, who admitted he could be a hothead under the best of circumstances.

  Chapter 15

  ATCHAFALAYA SWAMP, LOUISIANA

  By 8 A.M. the temperature in the swamp was nearly eighty degrees and climbing. There was enough shade among the trees that the more ambitious mosquitoes were still out, as well as biting flies and gnats.

  It was several degrees hotter by ten and the searchers were soaked with sweat. Three volunteers had blundered into poison ivy the day before, and one of them had had a severe reaction and had to stay home.

  The search was being coordinated by the Atchafalaya Basin Levee District Police Department out of Port Allen. In addition, several employees from the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries had volunteered to help on their day off, as well as several locals and members of the Friends of the Atchafalaya, a volunteer group promoting conservation and awareness of issues pertinent to the preservation and restoration of the basin.

  Men and women searched on foot or in boats. A helicopter from the District Police covered an ever-widening arc.

  Because there had been no evidence of abduction, the FBI had not been called in, although Delphine had had several heated conversations with members of the department on that very matter. She had also contacted the local branch of the Bureau and had been told that local law enforcement would continue to handle the case.

  A large canopy had been set up near the edge of the campground as headquarters for the search. Inside, police officers and a civilian volunteer pored over maps and anecdotal data from tips that had been phoned in. So far, none of these had proved useful. There was also a makeshift first-aid station with a cot and a well-stocked kit that included antivenom for cottonmouths and copperheads, and units of whole blood on ice. Aside from this, there was also plenty of fresh water and coffee and donuts provided by Bayou Cross Baptist Church.

  Delphine, still fuming over her last bout with them, called the FBI a fourth time. This time, a rather irate agent told her the Atchafalaya Basin Levee District Police were a state agency and that was as far up the ladder as she was going to get, unless a ransom note or other evidence of abduction turned up. The agent then hung up on her.

  Delphine was ready to try a fifth time when Melissa pleaded with her to just let the authorities do their job.

  “I just want to find Donny,” Delphine replied.

  “Are you implying Trudy and I don’t?”

  “Of course not, but a search like this needs participants from a wide range of specialties.” The older woman sighed. “You and your brothers shouldn’t have talked me out of that private investigator.”

  “Delphine, all you’re doing is making me tense—Trudy, too.”

  “Oh,” she sniffed. “I had no idea I was such a burden.”

  “Delphine,” Melissa said firmly, her voice rising for a moment, then resuming a normal volume. “I am hanging on by a thread. I am grateful for all you’ve done, all you’ve ever done, but you are not my mother, and you are not Donny’s mother, nor his grandmother.”

  Delphine’s mouth dropped open at that, and Melissa stormed out into the sunlight. Trudy glared at Delphine and followed her wife.

  Martin and Richard were standing with one of the volunteers from the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, staring at Delphine. They had heard the altercation, of course—everyone had—and they each gave her a disapproving look and had gone back to their conversation.

  Blinking back tears, Delphine busied herself with a cup of coffee. A church volunteer graciously asked her how she was holding up, and Delphine was glad for the deflection.

  Five miles from the base camp, two locals found Big Mike’s boat and all the gear. The boat was recognized immediately, and calls to the home of Big Mike and his place of work, Haskell’s Meats, showed that neither he nor his coworkers Jimmy Porter Jr. or Ralph Dinsmore had shown up to work that morning.

  Footprints of a child were found in the mud, and these were photographed and covered with a box until casts could be made.

  Outside of there being no sign of the men or the child, the most curious thing was the boat. Part of it was blackened and melted, and the paint of Big Mike’s beloved nose art was blistered. There were no signs of a fire in the area, and some theorized it might have been caused by a lightning strike, although there had been no storm for two days.

  The team in that area intensified their search, calling out to Donny and to anyone in the area.

  Nearly five hundred feet away, Professor Foxfire and Donny watched the search from an ancient culvert long overgrown with reeds and creeper vines.

  Donny hated being inside the culvert. It smelled like rotted fish and dog shit, and something would occasionally moan from deep in the darkness behind them. It wasn’t very loud, just loud enough to make his skin break out in gooseflesh.

  The searchers drew nearer, calling Donny’s name. He nearly answered when Professor Foxfire’s bony fingers squeezed his shoulder. He whispered in Donny’s ear, and his breath was worse than any dead-fish or dog-crap smell.

  “You remember what I did to those three good Samaritans earlier? You yell and I will burn all these brave souls, then I will go burn your mamas and the rest of your family.”

  Donny clamped his mouth shut and began to worry that he might sneeze or cough, and Professor Foxfire would say he did it on purpose and kill everyone, including his moms.

  A man, swatting at bugs and calling out to Donny, came closer as Donny’s throat began to tickle.

  The closer the man got to the culvert, the worse his throat became. Donny tried to suppress the cough until he felt like he would burst.

  Just before he coughed explosively, Professor Foxfire pulled him back into the darkness and gestured.

  As the man registered the metal of the culvert through the undergrowth, a huge crocodile exploded from its mouth, and the man ran in terror.

  Professor Foxfire laughed a hissing, wheezy laugh as Donny coughed. He pounded the boy on the back violently, almost knocking him into the foul water.

  He dragged him back farther into that forbidding darkness, and the stench of something rotted and terrible grew.

  Donny began to struggle, but the Professor pulled him effortlessly.

  The Professor’s terrible tattoos grew bright, illuminating the way like lamps. Even though he was only eight, Donny knew it was because Professor Foxfire wanted to scare him—he had no need of such light.

  He wanted Donny to see whatever moaned far back in the culvert.

  Donny couldn’t close his eyes because he might fall into that awful water, and there were oozing and shapeless masses floating around them.

  The moaning grew louder, and Donny prayed for the umpteenth time for God and Jesus and his moms and the whole Justice League of America to please come save him, but the only answer was that moaning.

  When he saw something that looked like a mound of moldy, fungus-ridden rags look back at him, Donny closed his eyes and let the Professor drag him past whatever the thing was.

  He thought that if he didn’t see it, he wouldn’t scream.

  But it touched his bare leg with fingers that were fuzzy and moist, and he could feel the flesh of it sliding around on the bones within…

  I won’t scream, you motherfucker, I won’t!

  Donny bit his lip so hard it bled, and he thought he would be able to stay quiet, and Professor Foxfire would lose.

  But then, the watery thing was saying his name, in a voice choked with algae, corruption, and a terrible hunger.

  And Donny did scream, and Professor Foxfire laughed and laughed.

  Chapter 16

  PORT ALLEN, LOUISIANA

  Jimmy and George were far more tired than they realized and slept well into the afternoon. The
only thing that woke George was hunger, whereas Jimmy might have slept around the clock.

  Once they started walking, Jimmy realized he was also famished, and the very thought of something greasy or fried made his mouth water.

  They walked down to Phoebe’s. The place was busy, so they waited for a bit, the smells of strong coffee, eggs, and bacon making them even hungrier. When they finally sat down, both ordered a large breakfast with eggs, bacon, ham, hash browns, and biscuits with plenty of coffee.

  After they ordered, George was quiet again, and Jimmy let him have his silence. He had noticed that he himself was more comfortable with silence than many he met, and that had included George, until recently.

  So he looked around the restaurant, taking in the walls that were decorated with paintings of hunters and fishermen, some antique guns and traps, and three trophy whitetail deer heads and even a stuffed red fox, which made him a bit sad. Jimmy sipped his coffee and let his mind go into a relaxed, white-noise state.

  The truth was George would have liked some idle chatter but didn’t want to admit his sleep had been filled with awful dreams of being buried alive with a moldy corpse, and no one heard him screaming even though they were just a few feet above.

  When their food came, it was plentiful and tasty, and George ate too fast. After paying their check, George stopped in the convenience store for Alka-Seltzer. The clerk who served them said they were open twenty-four hours, although they had to stop selling liquor after 7 P.M.

  “But condoms,” he said with a wink, “are available anytime.”

  Neither George nor Jimmy found this funny, and the clerk hurriedly bagged George’s purchase and told him he hoped he felt better.

  As they neared the motel, an African-American man in his seventies emerged from the office. He was dressed in slacks and a white shirt, and his head was completely bald. On his cheeks was a collection of small, dark moles.

  He saw George and waved.

  “Who’s that?” Jimmy asked, thinking it was another Watters.

  “I have no idea,” George said.

  The man walked over to them, his brisk gait belying his age.

  “You’re George Watters?” he asked.

  George eyed him. “I might be. Who are you?”

  The man did a little nod of his head that threatened to become a bow. “My name is Pruitt Brewster. I live over in Green Water, about ten miles from here.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know you, Mr. Brewster.”

  “Oh, I know. I’m here on behalf of my mother, Adeline Brewster.”

  George shook his head. “I don’t know her, either. I don’t think I know anyone named Brewster.”

  “She wants to see you, Mr. Watters. Could you come with me? She’s in her nineties, but she’s quite lucid. She’s also quite insistent when she sets her mind on something.” He smiled at them, embarrassed, a grown man sent out on an errand from his mama.

  “We’re supposed to meet my family at eight o’clock,” George said.

  “I can have you back in plenty of time. Please, Mr. Watters, she doesn’t ask for much these days, but this is real important to her.”

  “And you don’t know what it is?” Jimmy asked.

  Pruitt Brewster shook his head, further embarrassed.

  George looked at Jimmy. “Think it’s a con?” he asked.

  Brewster looked startled but said nothing.

  “I don’t,” said Jimmy, studying the man. “Let’s tell the desk clerk where we’re off to, and give him Pruitt’s name and license number.”

  George nodded. Normally, he would make a joke about them being kidnapped or shanghaied, but this was not the time.

  They left information with the front desk and got into a late-model SUV with Brewster. George sat up front, Jimmy in the back.

  George introduced them, then asked, “What do you do in Green Water, Mr. Brewster?”

  “Pruitt, please. I’m the town veterinarian. I should retire but I love the work.”

  The highway had only moderate traffic, and they were soon taking an exit some fifteen minutes from Port Allen. They drove down a long road, large open meadows of green grass on one side, a junkyard, a minimart, and a couple of honky-tonks on the other. Past these on either side were woods, already darkening in the late afternoon.

  A sign riddled with bullet holes indicated that Green Water was five miles ahead.

  They passed a billboard for a Christian television show and another for an A&W hamburger stand, at one time only ten miles away. Someone had spray painted CLOSED over the upper half of the sign and a skull and crossbones over the hamburger.

  Pruitt Brewster turned onto the main drag of Green Water, which was simply called First Street. It was like many towns George had seen in the South, brick buildings for newer businesses, white clapboard structures for the older ones. The street was clean, devoid of litter and graffiti. All the businesses were mom-and-pop enterprises, and there wasn’t a brand-name store nor branded fast-food joint to be seen. Only the gas station was not an off-brand—it was a Shell station, but its logo and signage were of a bygone style and on wood.

  At a corner diner they turned right again onto a residential street. The houses here were a bit threadbare, but care had been taken to keep the grass trimmed and windows cleaned. As they drove on, the houses became larger, more spread apart. They were not the grand homes of the well-to-do, but older homes from an earlier era.

  Pruitt pulled into the driveway of a house of brick with white trim, bordered by a white picket fence. The front yard was dominated by a Magnolia soulangiana, its large blossoms of pink, white, and purple fairly glowing in the afternoon sun.

  Brewster led them through the front door, past the living room and through the kitchen to a sun porch that had been added to the house in recent years.

  Adeline Brewster had a view of a large yard with a few chickens and a large chinaberry tree. She turned when they entered, stood, and smiled. She was tiny but her eyes were bright, like a mouse’s. Her hair was a mere wisp on her head, like a little white cloud that had chosen that place to rest awhile.

  “Mama,” said Pruitt Brewster, “this is George Watters and his friend Jimmy Kalmaku.”

  She walked forward, still sure of herself though she was ninety. She held out a hand.

  “George Watters, so wonderful to see you after all these years. I do wish the circumstances were different.”

  George looked at her, puzzled, and glanced at Jimmy.

  “Mr. Kalmaku,” she said, taking his hand, “what an interesting name.”

  “It’s Inuit—what they used to call ‘Eskimo’—from my great-grandfather, but my family is Tlingit.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve never heard of that particular nation,” she said.

  “Few outside of the Pacific Northwest have,” he said, smiling.

  She nodded. “Would you gentlemen like some sweet tea?”

  They both nodded and Pruitt Brewster went to the kitchen.

  “Please, sit,” she said. “More and more I sit here and think about climbing that tree as a girl.”

  “Miz Brewster,” George began.

  “Please, George, call me Adeline, you’re all grown up now.”

  “Miz Brewster—Adeline—I don’t believe we’ve ever met.”

  She nodded as if George had confirmed a worry of hers. “I suspected you might not remember. You were just a little bitty boy then.”

  “Did you live in Georgia, come to visit?” he asked.

  Adeline laughed. It was a sweet laugh, without malice. “Goodness, no. You were born here, George. Watters were part of Green Water going back to…well, the end of the Civil War.”

  “Ma’am, all my people are from Georgia. That’s where I grew up.”

  She shook her head. “Your mother was a good friend of mine. One day she told me you folks were moving away—this was after your grandfather died.”

  George shook his head. “You’re wrong,” he said. He felt like he was standing on a h
igh promontory, with high winds threatening to sweep him off the great height and down onto the ocean-splashed rocks below.

  Why are you so worked up? She’s just a senile old lady.

  But he was feeling terrified, as if he were in danger of seeing into some room locked long ago for his protection…for his sanity.

  “I’m afraid you have me confused with someone else,” he said. He made a show of looking at his watch. “We have to go—family business—it was nice meeting you.”

  He stood, as did Jimmy. When George offered his hand, she grasped it.

  “Check the cemetery, George. Lots of Watters there—including your grandma and grandpa Boudreaux.”

  George shook his head, trying to make her stop this flood of falsehoods.

  They were lies, weren’t they?

  “Your grandson isn’t lost, he’s a prisoner. The police can’t help.” She looked at him keenly, bright mouse eyes black in the sun room. “But you know that.”

  George turned and walked out, but she called after him. “You have an aunt over at the convalescent home.”

  Pruitt entered with the sweet tea, confused.

  Jimmy looked at the old woman. She looked at him and nodded. “Some of us see more than we want, but never more than we need. He was a sweet boy. You look after him?”

  “We look after each other,” Jimmy said. He took her hand in both of his and pressed them gently. “It was an honor, Mrs. Brewster.”

  “The pleasure was mine, Mr. Kalmaku. Pruitt will drive you boys back to Port Allen.”

  —

  The drive back to Port Allen was filled with an awkward silence. George had intimated that Adeline was a liar, but Pruitt Brewster was too polite to call him on it. Jimmy suspected his mother might have told him not to be angry with George.

  George elected to sit in the back, so Jimmy sat quietly in the front passenger seat. He was grateful when Pruitt turned on the radio, and zydeco music filled the SUV.

  When they reached Port Allen, George asked Pruitt Brewster to drop them at The Sweet Spot, a bar within walking distance of the motel.