The Drought

by Patricia Fulton

  The next few seconds occurred so quickly, Suzy wasn’t really sure what happened first. She saw Curtis jerk back under the impact of the shot. Then she heard the report of the gun, which didn’t make sense to her because surely she would have heard the sound before the butt of the gun hit Curtis’ shoulder. Somewhere overhead a hawk’s scream ripped through the air. The dirt below her exploded and something sharp hit her in the face. Dully, she reached up to touch her face. When she pulled back her hand, she saw blood on her fingertips. In a stunned voice she said, “You shot me.”

  Curtis threw back his head and laughed. He rested the butt of the gun on the ground and held the barrel loosely with his right hand. “Little girl, I just saved your life.” Then he pointed toward the ground. Suzy looked down and saw a headless Diamondback, writhing inches from her feet.

  “Come on over here, nice and slow.” He held out his hand. “Where there’s one, there’s usually more.”

  Suzy sagged in defeat. She was tired, hot, thirsty, hungry, completely terrified and she couldn’t have stopped the sobs coming up out of her chest if she tried. Her entire body heaved under the wracking sobs and her cry although not as high pitched, was almost as soulful as the dying pig.

  “Awh, shit! Don’t cry little girl.”

  Looking around in panic, Curtis finally approached the girl and patted her clumsily on the back. “Come on now, let’s get you over to the house and see what Maple wants to do with you.”

  They were approaching the farmhouse when the door opened and Maple stepped outside with a small boy at her side. He slowed down and said, “I found this one up in the live oaks.” He pointed at the boy. “Where did you find him?”

  Annoyed, Maple snapped. “Right here on my doorstep. Let her go.”

  Confused, Curtis released the girl. Offering an explanation in his own defense he said, “She was trespassing.”

  Maple waved off his words the way she brushed away the flies that remained in constant attendance in her house. “They’re just kids. Go help Lionel with the pig. I’ll take care of the children.”

  Maple assessed the girl. “I don’t suppose you’re hungry?”

  Suzy nodded.

  Maple’s next words nearly made Suzy swoon in gratitude. “After you eat, I’ll give you two a ride back into town.”

  *

  They were on the outskirts of downtown Junction when a gust of wind hit the truck. Fine, golden sand skittered across the windshield. Maple held her hand outside the window for a minute and shook her head grimly. Jar seeing the look, asked, “What? What’s wrong?”

  “Sandstorm’s brewing.” She left it at that. But she knew about sandstorms, the same way she knew about droughts. She had lived through them both and one was usually the result of the other. The drought killed off the plants and shrubs. The earth didn’t have its natural protection. There was nothing to hold the earth to the ground. It only took a good wind after that. When she was a girl, they had brought in snowplows to clear the sand drifts off the highway. It was a hell of a sight, but not one she cared to see again.

  Suzy sat in the middle, trying to keep her lanky legs out of the way of the gearshift. Her head was bobbing with fatigue and for once she was silent.

  They passed Schreiner’s park and crossed over what was left of Lake Junction. Jar cast his eyes along the murky bottom wondering how much longer it would be before it went dry.

  Maple asked, “So, how many of those milk jugs you say you filled with water?

  “Twenty. I would have had more but I couldn’t find any more jugs.”

  Maple nodded her head thoughtfully. “That’s good. That should do you for awhile.”

  They dropped Suzy off first. The lawn in front of her house was uncut. It looked like tufts of dead hay. The front window glowed soft blue. Murphy was sitting in his recliner in front of the tube with an ice-cold beer in his hand, five empties by his chair, and six more waiting for him in the refrigerator.

  Jar grabbed Suzy’s bike out of the back of the truck and handed it down to her. He said, “Hey, I figured out a way we can help Barry.”

  Suzy’s tired face opened in curiosity.

  “If you want in, meet me at the drainage pipe first thing in the morning.”

  The budding curiosity on Suzy’s face closed up and she shook her head. “I don’t think I’m up for another one of your adventures.”

  Jar’s voice was tense and rushed. “Please, Suzy. I need your help.” He climbed into the truck and leaned out the window. “Be there, Suzy. Come on, I need you.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Junction, Texas

  In another realm, somewhere between life and death Barry Tanner fled down the upper hall of his house pursued by a hostile presence. Before he could make it to the safety of the dumb-waiter, and pulley himself up to the third floor the specter leapt ahead of him and cut him off. Hostility rolled toward him in thick waves, pushing him away, bullying him down the hallway with a force as strong as a hard shove.

  The force in the hallway was not singular, but collective and they knew he didn’t belong in their realm. He was a foreign object in their world and they sought him out each time he ventured away from the third floor.

  One other room in the house provided him with safety, his own bedroom. Each time he came near his physical body he felt the connection with his mother stretch thinner. He wasn’t ready to let go yet, wasn’t ready to return to the living and face never seeing his mother again.

  He backed away from the hostile energy until he felt a familiar current, an undertow pulling him toward his bedroom door and back toward his body. The collective force felt the current pulling at him and drifted back, giving his door a wide berth. He could see his own essence disintegrating, tendrils of light being suctioned beneath the crack and seams of the door.

  A specter broke free from the mass and lunged toward Barry—a man’s disfigured face emerged stretching the air like elastic rubber. Terrified of the malignant presence stretching toward him Barry stumbled back to avoid the gruesome face. His shoulder hit the door. The undercurrent coming from his bedroom grabbed him and carried him through the cracks and into his room.

  A slight noise from the bed made Maryanne Cook look up from the book she was reading. The boy stirred beneath the covers and she wondered if tonight would be an episode of thrashing. Stretching, she stood and placed the book on the chair. A quick glance out the window told her dusk was approaching. An unusual golden hue hung in the sky and a strong wind stirred the leaves of the pecan trees lining the front drive. If she had listened for it, she would have heard the sound of sand skittering across the paned glass but her apprehension of the coming darkness occupied her thoughts.

  For the past five weeks she had been subjected to the solitude of the large house, her only company the comatose boy on the bed. A boy who at times could have passed for dead. She had tried to leave after three weeks. She had presented the boy’s condition to his father, insisting there was nothing more she could do. Nothing anyone could do until the boy decided to rejoin the living.

  Griffin Tanner could be very persuasive with his checkbook. Each night she swallowed her growing fear and focused on the money she would have when her long vigil ended. Thoughts of the little house she would buy in Kerrville quieted her inner voice which whispered furiously each night, he’s not going to let you leave. And these thoughts as terrifying as they were, were nothing compared to the sounds of doors opening and closing, footsteps in the hall, the doorknob rattling and the absence of anyone in the hall when she got the nerve to jerk open the door and take a look.

  At first she thought it was the long absent Mr. Tanner coming to check on his son but no one was ever in the hallway. Not on one single occasion.

  She approached the boy preparing to complete her nightly examination when she heard him gasp for air. Rushing forward she reached to pull the blankets away. A cold hand wrapped around her wrist. A thrill of fear rushed through her and a scream rose and died in her throat.
Barry opened his eyes. Brilliant blue orbs locked onto her. He pulled himself toward her and croaked, “Don’t let the gypsies…” then he collapsed back against the pillows. She snatched her arm away.

  Backing away from the bed, she touched the cold place where his fingers had held her wrist. A chill moved up her arm. She rubbed her arm vigorously trying to stop the spreading chill. A dull dread, as numbing as the cold, spread through her. Something’s come over from the other side. Death stopped by and left his calling card.

  A gust of wind hit the window. Startled she spun around. This time she did hear the sand skittering against the glass. Frozen between the cloak of coldness emanating from the boy and the sight of the sand swirling outside the window she came to a decision. She quietly gathered her things, edged toward the door and retreated to her own room.

  She sat primly on the edge of her bed and stared vacantly at the wall. In her mind she was already gone, she could see herself putting her bag in the car and driving down the lane but the image of the wrought-iron gates stopped her midflight. She didn’t have the code. An inner voice whispered, just ask him for it. Tell him you have a family emergency.

  She thought back to that first day, the glistening blood, the premeditated beating, she should have left, she should have gone to the police and she knew, somehow fully, what price she was meant to pay, she’d felt it coming for years, ever sense she’d accepted the bribe not to report the dead baby—that’s how the devil works, he chisels away taking little tiny pieces that seem inconsequential but overtime they add up. The numbness moving through her was the cold certainty that she and the boy shared the same plight. Neither one of them was meant to leave Griffin Tanner’s estate.

  Chapter Twenty

  Reserve, Louisiana

  “Hey, Daniel let me ask you something.” Nathan hesitated, playing with the pen on his desk as he tried to figure out what he wanted to say. “You’ve got a little Creole in you, right?”

  Daniel sat across the small room hunched over his keyboard filling out a police report, hunt and peck style, with a pencil clenched between his teeth. He held up his hand, pinched his thumb and index finger together, and managed to say around the pencil, “Just a pinch.”

  “What do you know about Voodoo?”

  The typewriter went silent as Daniel turned to look at Nathan, his two index fingers still poised over the keyboard. “What’s one got to do with the other?”

  Nathan didn’t look away. “Maybe nothing. Anyone you know into that stuff?”

  Daniel’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. A big smile split his face. “You gone tourist on me, Nathan?” Realizing his boss was serious, Daniel rolled his chair across the room and stopped in front of Nathan’s desk. “What’s this all about, what’s on your mind?”

  “All those missing animals.” Nathan paused. “I’d say it’s starting to add up to something.”

  Daniel broke eye contact. “Gwen Doucet’s collie only accounts for one dog. I wouldn’t go connecting the dots just yet.”

  Nathan nodded. “Yeah, I know, only…” He stopped, thought about what he was about to say, shrugged and gave it a shot. “Let me run something by you real quick. What if I told you back in 1954 before the kids went missing, the local pets disappeared first? He held up his hand to stop Daniel from answering. “Now wait, I’m not finished. This last piece is a little sketchy and odd as it’s going to sound, it’s true. What if there was a drought back in the 50’s?” He thumped his desk to emphasis the last point. “Just like what we have going on right now?”

  A serious look came over Daniel’s face. He said, “Well I guess the very first question I’d ask is, how much have you had to drink and do you have any to spare?” Humming the tune to the twilight zone he rolled his chair back over to his desk.

  “Okay, okay I know I sound like a crackpot but somehow I think it’s all going to tie together. I think we’ve got someone messing around with voodoo. Maybe it’s a cult that sacrifices dogs when it gets hot, hell I don’t know.”

  “Serious now. I don’t think there’s any linking what’s happening today with something that happened some fifty years ago. Besides we don’t have any missing kids. Knock on wood.” Daniel tapped the corner of his desk. “Did you ever think the animals are just lying low? When it gets this hot sometimes they hunker down and find themselves a cool spot to stay out of the heat.”

  Nathan reached into top drawer of his desk. He withdrew the packet of old news stories and handed them to Daniel. “There’s a pattern Daniel. I’m watching something unfold here and I haven’t a clue what to do to stop it from going to the next level.”

  Daniel’s eyes flicked from the old paper clippings in his hand to Nathan’s eyes. “You think I know something?”

  “It was 1954, your granddaddy was sheriff. It occurred to me he might have told some tales over the years about the woman he found out in the woods.” He splayed his hands. “Maybe a motive, did she confess to all seven murders?”

  Daniel knew the story well. The woman had been chewing on a string of intestines when his grandfather found her. It took everything in him to keep the sneer from ripping across his features. Nathan Singer had no idea what was coming down the pike. Keeping his expression neutral he said, “My granddaddy Roger was a heavy drinker. That man told so many outrageous stories, I wouldn’t know what was real or fabricated. He added casually, “I think his reports are a matter of public record. Have you checked the archives?”

  Nathan said, “A mob carried her off before he had a chance to interrogate her.”

  Nodding, Daniel murmured his agreement. “Sounds familiar. At least we know he didn’t lie about that part.”

  *

  Nathan didn’t push. He could tell Daniel was lying but to what end he didn’t know. Maybe Roger Dupier was sick over what happened to those children, maybe he handed her over to the mob, let them tear her apart instead of going through due process. Hell, he might have delivered the death blow himself. That might be a family secret worth keeping. Whatever the lie, it didn’t matter. Something about Daniel’s response had the warning bells going off inside Nathan’s head just like the day he’d come out of Elise’s house and heard the voice whispering through thick static.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Reserve, Louisiana

  “I’m telling you Elise, he knows.”

  She dismissed his words with a flick of her wrist. “He sees a pattern. It doesn’t mean he knows why it’s there, or how to stop it.”

  Daniel sat at her kitchen table still dressed in his uniform. “I don’t know, I checked with Mary Dugas. Those articles he has, they had to come from the archives. But get this, Mary says he never got a look at the archives. She has those boxes stored in a separate location.”

  Elise paused. She stood at the counter kneading a wax mixture. She said, “He is a Sansericq. It’s possible Anne told him.” A worry line creased her brow.

  Daniel shook his head. “I don’t think so. Earlier he asked me if I was Creole—I nearly choked. You’re sure Anne Singer was one of Johanne Sansericq descendants?”

  “I have no doubt.”

  Daniel took a sip of iced tea. “Did she tell you that before she died?” His sister had never admitted she’d been there the day Anne Singer died but he’d been one of the first responders—he knew his sister’s scent intimately and he smelled her that day. The coroner’s report came back with heart attack in the space for cause of death but he knew Elise had access to things that would never show up in an autopsy.

  *

  Elise didn’t take her brother’s bait. She bit her lip and folded the long sheet of wax, working it with the heels of her palms. She was no longer concerned about Anne Singer or the Sansericq line—if Nathan did not know his heritage the remaining two bloodlines would be powerless to stop what was unfolding in Reserve.

  In her heart she knew Narried Savoi was involved. Narried had once been one of the most powerful Mambos outside of Haiti, even more powerful than the infamous Mari
e Laveau, but she had not been an active participant in the society in over a decade. Even if she intervened and managed to convince Nathan of his family’s history, and initiated him in the rites of voodoo, she could not make Nathan strong enough to withstand the spirit of Jean-Claude Brunache—there just wasn’t enough time.

  As if reading his sister’s mind Daniel commented, “If Narried’s already gotten to Nathan, the chances of you getting your hands on that script are slim to none.”

  Ignoring her brother’s concern, she took a paring knife and slid it lightly across her open palm. A thin line of blood appeared in the wake of the small blade. Without a word she rubbed her palm across the wax mixture, and began kneading her blood into the mix. She said, “I don’t need the script. I have a special ceremony planned, one I am certain will please Jean-Claude Brunache when he is returned to Reserve.”

  Daniel retorted, “Good than you can stop fucking Nathan.”

  She flashed a coquettish smile. “Jealous?”

  “I don’t like to share.”

  Elise tore a sheet of paper towel and wrapped it across her bleeding palm, while she calculated how best to deal with her brother’s vulnerability. Crossing the room like a feline, she touched his arm, curved around him, whispered in his ear. “Nathan is dispensable.” Her hand slid inside his shirt deftly unfastening buttons. “I’ve only been using him.”

  His breathing became ragged. “I can’t stand the thought of him touching you.”

  “You’ll have your revenge soon enough.” Her lips touched his. “I promise.”

  Eyes hooded with unfulfilled desire, Daniel watched his sister saunter away. He knew she was manipulating him, she’d been doing it since they were young. Usually her pursuit was his own, the end justifying the means. The stakes in this game were higher. They weren’t in high school using the craft to punish a teacher for a failing grade, or casting a spell to regain the affection of a lost love. Elise’s pursuits required dark favors. The Petro Loa were always willing to accommodate but in return they demanded blood sacrifices. So far the dogs had pleased them but he suspected a human sacrifice could not be far off.