The Drought

by Patricia Fulton

  Maple looked at the girl sharply. “What year?”

  Suzy shrugged, still crying. “I don’t know, it was old.” She wiped her nose. “Really old.”

  There had been an accident on this road involving a yellow truck. But it wasn’t something Suzy could have witnessed. It long ago. Maple believed the girl had seen something; she also knew Suzy was in a state of shock. It occurred to her she might have been in an accident herself and had wandered away from it looking for help. “Suzy, listen to me. Is it possible the accident was farther back on the road? How long have you been out here?”

  Suzy looked up with a half-focused look in her eyes. “I don’t know. It was here.” Suzy indicated the ditch with her hand. “I was riding to get help for Jar and I saw the yellow truck. They didn’t stop to help me but then they swerved and flipped.”

  Maple grabbed Suzy by both shoulders and gave her a shake. “Where’s Jar? What’s happened to him?”

  Suzy looked up realizing she had found the help she had gone looking for. “In the drainage pipe. He went in looking for Luke and the stupid ball and…”

  Maple didn’t let her finish. She shoved Suzy toward the truck and said, “Get in.”

  Suzy got in the truck. She pointed. “It’s just down there at Flatrock Bridge.”

  Gripping the steering wheel, Maple muttered under her breath about stupid kids. Her heart was tight in her chest. She liked Jared Riley and she knew he had gone in looking for the dark man. She just hoped to God he didn’t find what he was looking for.

  When they arrived at the drainage pipe, Suzy showed Maple the severed rope and explained Jar thought Luke and the ball were stuck down in a crevice. They took turns calling into the pipe. Eventually they agreed there was nothing that could be done from their end. Maple drove Suzy home with the promise she would notify the authorities and they would mount a search party and get Jar out of the pipe. Suzy simply nodded, knowing in her heart that if they hadn’t found Luke, they wouldn’t find Jar.

  She remained voiceless when they passed the place in the road where she had seen the fatal accident, even when Maple stopped to pick up her bike. Suzy couldn’t explain what she had seen. She remembered her conversation with Jar earlier that day, when she had given him his dad’s pocketknife and he had asked her, “Do you believe in ghosts?” She hadn’t hesitated, she had replied, “Yes, I do.” She thought back to the first time she had seen the truck and recalled the look on their faces and what she had thought. They’ve been riding in that truck a long time, long enough to get the rhythm of that truck down.

  Ghosts, that’s what she had seen. She thought about her father and Rod Sawyer baking in the hot sun, finding Robert Riley’s body. Her dad thought Rod’s last hours were death bed hallucinations. As she looked out over the barren landscape she realized death had come to Junction. He was moving from house to house, knocking on doors, ringing bells like an unwanted salesman. It was only a matter of time before his knuckles came raping against her door.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Reserve, Louisiana

  Nathan stood in the marsh, hip deep in golden cattails. A dark cloud of mosquitoes hovered, waiting for a chance to get in close for a blood transaction. The fact he didn’t need a boat or at the very least wading boots had his stomach tied in a hard knot. The day had started in the woods. He’d gone searching for the old shanty where Nute often slept. When he found it, it was empty except for an old bedroll sitting in the corner.

  After Agador got a good whiff Nathan had cut a piece of the fabric to carry along. That had been two hours ago and an untold number of miles. In pursuit of Nute’s elusive scent, Agador had treed two coons, wandered in circles and now had led them a mile out into the marsh, where there wasn’t a tree or a damn piece of shade to be had. Off in the distance the hound let off a mournful cry. Letting out a deep sigh of doubt, Nathan took a drink of water and pushed through the dry marshland.

  A cattail exploded into the hot, still air. The golden particles drifted and settled in the long grass. Another long, soulful howl cut through the thick afternoon air. The timbre was urgent, strong, similar to the day he had tracked and found Gwen Doucet’s collie. Nathan’s heart quickened along with his pace. This was no ‘coon. Agador had found something out in the swamp. Tracking the sound with ears accustomed to working with a bloodhound, he made his way through the tall grasses until he came upon Agador, crouched low on his haunches, whining and tearing at the turf with his front paws in obvious agitation.

  It wasn’t Nute. Not that he could tell.

  The exposed bones were dry and white, picked clean of meat by the local wildlife. The skeletal remains were partially covered by washed out clothing. The pelvic bones were exposed, the pants hitched down to mid-thigh as if the man had stopped to squat. The rusted blade of a knife was visible inside the pelvic cavity.

  Nathan stepped around the body for a different angle. Sweat dripped down his face. He removed his cap and swiped his arm across his brow, swearing softly. The left arm of the body was twisted down and around, the spindly bone of the fingers gripped tight around the handle of the knife. Nathan’s sphincter muscles tightened at the thought of where the knife had been inserted.

  Even without flesh to define the facial features it was obvious the man had died screaming. His face was twisted into a mask of terror, his expression forever fixed in the placement of bone, the expanse between the upper and lower teeth dreadful and wide.

  The four inch gap of a car door flashed through his mind along with the image of someone blasting five shots inside a car before taking off through the marsh and leaving behind a half a million dollars in a duffle bag. His gut was telling him, he’d found the driver of the abandoned 1970 Mercury Marquis.

  Agador thumped his large head against Nathan’s legs and whined.

  Nathan rubbed the dog’s head. “I agree ol’ boy, I don’t like this either.” He was still trying to get his mind around the width of the mouth and the screams that had to have echoed out across the lonely marshland, startling the cranes and the frogs, when the sun winked off something in the dead grass. He squinted, squatted down, and made as if to reach for it only to stop short at the last second remembering that this was now a police crime scene.

  Looking around, he grabbed a stick and carefully inserted the stick beneath the metal object catching the sun. As he lifted it from the grass he saw it was a ring. The ring slid down and came to rest at the first fork in the stick.

  Nathan stared long and hard at the little ring, trying to make sense of it. He looked again at the dead body with the pants down around its knees. Had the ring been in his pocket or was it just a coincidence?

  He brought the stick closer to get a better look and to make sure he was looking at what he thought he was looking at. Closer inspection confirmed what he already knew. The ring on the stick belonged to his grandmother. It was her wedding ring, the one that had been stolen out of her mausoleum nearly a year ago. What was it doing here? He looked out over the silent marsh as if the answer was hidden in the ranks of dry grass and cattails.

  He pulled out his two-way radio and called the station. Frank Malone answered. Nathan asked, “Where’s Loretta?”

  “She’s out sick. Got a heat migraine.” His voice sounded hollow.

  “All right, well get me Daniel. And get Robert Keiffer on the line.

  “The coroner?”

  “Yeah, the coroner, he can ride out here with Daniel.”

  Frank cleared his throat. “Listen, Nathan. I uh, Daniel’s not here either.”

  “What’s going on over there? A town holiday? Spit it out now.”

  Frank didn’t spit it out. He barely managed to whisper it. He said, “Hell Nathan, “We’ve got a call in on a missing child.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Junction, Texas

  The sound of logs popping on a fire woke him. Through the haze of pain radiating up from his chest, Jar could feel heat on his skin and for the life of him he couldn’t unde
rstand why someone would light a fire. It had been hot for so long. Yet it wasn’t that hot. A slight chill was coming from his left hip, working its numb fingers down his legs and up through his ribcage. He opened his eyes. Everything was dark except the fire burning next to him. The cold was coming from the dirt floor where he was curled into a fetal position.

  A faint rustling sound came from beyond the fire. A man poked at the flames with a long stick. Angry sparks popped. Smoke drifted up and hovered near the roof of the cave like a specter. Up above, in the town of Junction, the temperature climbed another degree.

  In the back of his mind Jar was sure that everything he was seeing was pain induced delirium but he croaked through dry lips, “It’s you. You’re causing the heat.”

  The spectral figure (real or imagined, he wasn’t sure) moved closer, and peered curiously at him. He said, “Bonswa, li’l mon.”

  Jar said, “You’re the dark man.”

  The man’s face split into a smile, showing dull yellow teeth.

  Jar’s eyes drifted from the apparition and found the shape of Luke’s body. The Carlton Fisk ball was not visible but he knew it was there, the catalyst that had set everything in motion, resting in the dirt inches from Luke’s decaying fingers. He could not say what role the ball played in all of this but he knew he couldn’t leave the cave without it in his possession.

  He tried to push himself up onto his elbows. The pain hiding beneath the numbness, beneath the cold came rushing forward. Moaning softly, he collapsed against the dirt.

  “Kote li ou fe mal?” Where does it hurt? And then the darkman’s hands were on him, moving across Jar’s small chest and applying pressure in different places. Jar felt himself being moved and then he felt the warmth of the fire against his skin. He knew it was a dream, or a hallucination, and deep down the cold reality of where he was settled in. He would die down here, his body decaying right alongside Luke’s.

  A deep warmth settled across his chest. It felt like fire was burrowing into his bones. It spread across the broken ribs and whispered through his collapsed lung, first joining the pain, then prodding it forward, as if ushering an unwanted guest to the nearest exit.

  Struggling against the pressure from the hands on his body he rolled his head away and whispered hoarsely, “No, I don’t want anything from you.”

  Jar’s mouth fell open. His ribs expanded. His deflated lungs filled with cool air and suddenly he was plunged into a darker level of consciousness, not a dream inside a dream but a nightmare inside a nightmare. Images flickered inside his head. They weren’t perfect but they were clearer than the Jerry Springer episode he’d been watching the day Barry came to his house carrying the Carlton Fisk ball.

  *

  He saw soldiers moving stealthily through bushes. They came to a cluster of houses and entered carrying machetes. Terrified screams erupted. Women were dragged outside by their hair and crying children were shoved into a dirt courtyard. They knelt in the dirt crying, trying to comfort each other and begging for mercy. The men who survived the initial attack were bound and brought to watch.

  One of the soldiers snatched a four-year-old child away from his screaming mother. The soldier cocked his head and extinguished his cigarette in the boy’s eye. The boy’s piercing scream triggered a visceral response and several of the men lunged forward, straining against the ropes that bound them. A machete descended and one of the men’s heads rolled toward the huddled group of women, a snarl of rage forever frozen on his face.

  A deep lilting voice whispered, “My name is Jean-Claude Brunache. Mwen Mouri. I died. The dream bled into another, scenes of carnage replaced by a long curving road lined with trees. Jar was riding shotgun in an old Mercury and a giant tumble weed rolled down the road in front of the car. A man, he didn’t recognize, gripped the steering wheel in the twelve O’clock position. The radio was tuned to a blues station—and a voice sounding tinny and faraway crooned, “Something’s Gotta Hold on Me.” Periodically the man would rub his free hand against the seat like his hand was on fire with an itch he couldn’t reach.

  They exited a canopy of gnarled oak trees draped with moss and turned onto a gravel side road. After awhile the dense foliage split, the trees opened up and the Mercury pulled into a clearing. Another car, foreign and expensive, waited. At the sight of the sleek car, Jar straightened in apprehension and peered through the windshield. He recognized the car. He had seen it before.

  The man next to Jar sat behind the wheel of the Mercury chewing his bottom lip. He reached for the cigarette behind his ear but it was gone. He’d smoked his last one on the road. It was obvious he was in no hurry to exit the vehicle. Finally he reached past Jar, opened the glove compartment and took out a pistol and a flashlight. He shoved the pistol in the back of his pants, exited the car and went around the back to retrieve something from the trunk. He came back carrying an old crate.

  The man in the expensive car opened his door and stood. Jar craned to see the man, a queasy niggle in the pit of his stomach telling him he already knew the man’s identity. The man entered the clearing carrying a duffle bag by a strap. He had a gun in his other hand. Jar’s apprehension turned to fear as moonlight slid across the familiar features of Griffin Tanner.

  For a brief heart stopping moment Griffin Tanner stared at the Mercury and Jar was certain he’d been spotted and that any minute his best friend’s father would cross the distance and snatch him from the car. Griffin turned back toward the guy with the crate and tossed the duffle bag at his feet. The other guy placed the crate in the grass and tentatively snagged the duffle bag and pulled it toward him.

  Griffin knelt in the grass and opened the crate. For a brief tantalizing moment he was vulnerable and Jar found himself urging the other man to kill him, kill him quickly before it was too late—before he brought that box to Junction.

  Jar knew he was dreaming, knew he was only a spectral figure in the scene in the woods because when he opened the door no one looked over, and when he grabbed the rock out of the grass it was cool to the touch like it hadn’t been baking in the sun for nearly a year. He crossed the distance ready to end it all before it ever started. He lifted the rock high. Over Griffin’s shoulder he caught a glimpse of an object in the crate. It was a simple clay box with a symbol carved in the lid. Jar didn’t wait to see what else might be in the box. He swung and brought the rock down against the back of Griffin Tanner’s head.

  Jar blinked. He was back in the cavern. There was no fire, and he was cold. He had the Carlton Fisk ball clutched in both hands, the same way he’d been holding the rock, and his back was curled against Luke Casteel’s rotting corpse. He let out a stifled scream and rolled away. The earlier pain was subdued but not gone. Holding onto the Carlton Fisk ball he scrambled further away from Luke’s body before stopping to examine his ribs. They were sore but not broken. He took a deep breath expecting pain but his lungs inflated and deflated without restriction.

  He remembered the sensation of heat pushing the pain from his body. Trembling he rose up from the cold dirt expecting the looming presence of the darkman to emerge from the surrounding shadows but no one came. He saw the glow of his pen light next to Luke’s body and reluctantly went back to retrieve it. His dad’s pocket knife was there too. It was open. He closed it and slipped the knife into his pocket. He pointed the light up, trying to find the cut rope. The rope was gone.

  He scanned the cavern with the meager light. On two sides he saw walls of rock cut from limestone. Carrying the Carlton Fisk ball and pen light in his left hand, he touched the cool surface with his right and began to follow the wall.

  Within a few minutes he came to a dead end. Quelling rising panic, he switched the pen light and ball to his right hand and slid his left along the cool limestone wall. He walked back the way he’d come, passed Luke’s body and kept going certain he’d hit another dead end and have to face the fact he was trapped with Luke for eternity. The wall kept going, darkness stretched out in front of him. A pang of
hunger rumbled in his stomach. He ignored it and kept walking.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Reserve, Louisiana

  While a golden cloud of sand, both beautiful and deadly descended over the town of Junction, a different pallor hung over the town of Reserve. Fear—nearly tangible—spread across the town with the ringing of the telephone. Mothers hustled their children inside, while fathers loaded shotguns and flashlights preparing for another long day in the marshlands. Angelina Dupier had been missing for nearly forty-eight hours.

  Narried stood sentinel at a window overlooking deserted streets. She stood in an empty restaurant watching an empty town. There had only been one other time in the past twenty years her restaurant had been empty and that was the day her husband Simon had died. She had closed it, not for the sake of grieving, but to honor the man with whom she had shared her life. She would have given anything for Simon’s strength in what was still to come.

  News of the missing girl had drifted into the diner much like an errant breeze. Only, the effect of the news was more in line with a hurricane. Her older customers, the ones that had been around fifty years ago and remembered the first heat wave, crossed themselves and muttered the words, “Tonton Macoute.”

  Loosely translated the words meant Uncle Knapsack. Haitian immigrants brought the term to Louisiana. In Haiti, children who were good were visited by Tonton Noel, or Uncle Christmas and if they were bad they were snatched by Uncle Knapsack.

  Uncle Knapsack might have been a piece of Haitian folklore, but Narried knew better than to dismiss the stories as conjecture, the truth flowed beneath like a raging river of blood. There had been a man in Haiti, a real flesh and blood man who craved young flesh. His name was Jean-Claude Brunache. He had been killed, his body burned and still his soul craved the blood of children.