Crimson Bayou

by C. L. Bevill

  One of the shapes moved out of a tree’s shadow and she saw that it was a dog. Relief almost made her sag, but then she became conscious that she was hardly free from danger. It looked like someone’s pet. A shorthaired mongrel no more than thirty pounds in weight, it didn’t seem like it would be threatening, but its gums were pulled back from its snarling aperture giving it the impression that it was mostly teeth. Its fangs were glistening with saliva, and its hackles were raised all along its back. Its eyes were reflecting red in the dying light and directed at her and her alone. Another stiff-legged step had it one more pace closer to her, increment by excruciatingly slow increment.

  Mignon stared at it as it inched forward toward her, not twenty feet away. But then her peripheral vision caught movement to her other side. Below the dock in the exact spot where she had pulled the pirogue up on shore was another dog. Smooth and gray in color, it was growling softly as well, its nose close to the ground but staring up relentlessly at her. She had to resist the immediate impulse that flooded through her to leap to a standing position and flee for the safety of her Explorer.

  Her head moved, and she saw at least three other animals moving stealthily from shadow to shadow. All dogs. Feral, she comprehended. Perhaps even abandoned by their owners or escaped; now they were making their way in the bayou where game was more plentiful. But she remembered John Henry talking about the lack of deer this year, so she understood instantly that these wild dogs were hungry, and she was small enough to be considered accessible prey.

  Mignon deliberately unfroze herself. She brought herself fully up in a fluid and slow movement. The dogs took a moment to size her up, hesitating as she became larger, but the lead dog apparently decided that they could still take her. He pushed forward, those upraised hackles on his back like a series of knives pointed heavenward.

  Her eyes went to the Explorer. The key fob was in her pocket. It had gotten wet along with the rest of her. She didn’t know if the little battery-powered remote control would work after its repeated dunking. Her watch wasn’t, after all, and she wouldn’t have time to fiddle with the key in the keyhole. The one thing that Mignon didn’t want to do was to turn her back on the pack of dogs.

  Then there was the water behind her. She’d seen two alligators on the way back from the Honores’ house. No snakes had been evident, but she knew that they were there all the same. She didn’t want to dogpaddle in the bayou all night. No pun intended, she thought half hysterically.

  While Mignon was thinking, the dogs were inching forward. Suddenly, she became conscious that they wanted her to run for it. She hadn’t been watching Animal Planet or the Discovery Channel lately, but she had an abrupt notion that what the dogs were doing was what packs of dogs had done for thousands of years.

  Then the lead dog was another three feet closer, and Mignon knew she had run out of time. Maybe it would try to make her run. Maybe it would simply corner her, and the pack would take pieces of her until she was too weak to fight. She didn’t have time to get to the SUV, and she didn’t have time to get to the nearest tree, which was more than fifty feet away, even if the pack would have let her climb it. The only choice was the black water behind her. She took a step backwards, and the dog charged.

  Chapter Twenty–three

  Monday, March 17th

  I am a little orphan girl, my mother she is dead.

  My father is a drunk and won’t buy me my bread.

  I sit on the window sill and hear the banjo play,

  And think of my dear mother who is dead and far away.

  Ding dong the church bells, farewell to my mother.

  Bury me in the old churchyard, beside my oldest brother.

  My coffin will be white, six little angels by my side.

  Two will kneel and two will pray,

  And two will carry my soul to heaven straightaway.

  - Children’s jump rope rhyme

  Feral dogs, was the disgusted thought that skidded unwelcome through Mignon’s mind as the animal plunged uncompromisingly toward her. She dimly perceived in that moment that the dog’s companions were beginning their rush, as well. Really hungry, I guess.

  The leader’s blood red eyes and fangs seemed as large as a lion’s before Mignon could make her frozen muscles move. She spun on her heel, deciding that snakes and alligators would give her a fighting chance. She took one mind-numbingly slow step, then another. The rabid snarling was as loud as the sound of a freight train closing in on her. There wasn’t an air horn to alert her of the imminent danger, but it hardly seemed to matter. The snarl’s tone changed as the dog increased its speed. The rattle of claws across the wood let Mignon know that the animal was much closer than she wanted to admit to herself. Hurry. Hurry! HURRY!

  One more frantic step allowed Mignon to see the end of the dock was well within her reach. But the dog was so much faster than she was. She felt the pressure of something closing around her ankle, and then she knew that the dog had caught her. Her leg felt as though it had been caught in a bear trap that had closed in an instant. Her forward movement, which in her head, was seemingly as time-consuming as a snail’s crawl, slowed even more. Behind her she could hear the frenzied scramble of the other dogs to catch up. Their claws clattered on the wood dock like the chaotic work of a woodpecker worrying a particularly delicious tree.

  Despite her beleaguered momentum, Mignon dragged herself and the animal closer to the edge of the dock where the water was deepest. The vicious snarls and frenetic noises of the rest of the pack urged her movements. She couldn’t help looking back. It was as if she were on the camera’s side of a wildlife documentary with the animals charging down their prey. All that was visible in an instant was the rows of open mouths with fangs that seemed incredibly huge and eyes that were like those belonging to a horde of rapacious demons. She knew in that instant that if she fell under those teeth she wouldn’t be getting up again. The knowledge gave her a burst of energy unequalled to anything she had ever felt before. With a last desperate motion, she threw herself off the dock and took the animal attached to her leg with her.

  The dark waters were all-encompassing. Mignon knew that she had her eyes open, but she couldn’t see anything. Blackness seemed to be covered by more blackness. All she could feel was the pressure still so tight around her ankle and the cool depths of the darkness embracing her like an ardent lover. Then, with an abruptness that she found exhilarating, the pressure on her ankle was released.

  Mignon’s head popped out of the water, and a few feet away the lead dog was paddling its way back to shore. Water was not its strong suit. The other animals, over a half-dozen of them, were growling and snarling on the dock and on the shore. She kicked while she floated there, checking nervously around her for other denizens of the bayou that might think her a tasty morsel. The soaked dog clambered onto shore, cast a baleful look in her direction, and snarled at its companions as if berating their slowness. Several of them exploded into a fight for dominance and fur flew. There was a sudden yip, and one limped away from the melee.

  It became apparent to Mignon that they were of a mind to wait and see if their meal might present itself to them on the shore once again. She eyed the pirogues on the dock and damned herself for not thinking to kick one over in her flight from the animals. Like I had time.

  Bobbing in the water like an exotic lure, Mignon warily eyed her opponents. She knew that she could dogpaddle for a lot longer than they could wait. There would be others who would use the dock. It appeared as though others had come in the time while she’d been at the Honores. She saw two other vehicles there, one a truck and another, a rusting Jeep. The gold Altima was gone. With any luck there would be another resident coming by in a short amount of time. Maybe one with a full gun rack, she thought hopefully.

  John Henry was right again. Oh, John Henry, Mignon thought ruefully. If I get out of this without drowning or being eaten by…something in the water or out of it, I hope you don’t hear about it. And I hope Nehemiah doesn’t
hear about it either.

  The dogs positioned themselves at various places along the shore and the dock. Making intermittent growls and yips, they impatiently waited. Apparently Mignon was good-eating. God, she thought. Had they eaten anyone else? Was that what John Henry was trying to say to her without belaboring the point? He could have just told her that wild dogs roamed in packs and were capable of attacking human beings. But, Mignon thought, I’m not sure if I would have believed him. I would have had to see it, like now.

  There was another noise that overwhelmed everything else. “Hey! Hey! Hey!” It came from behind the dogs, and they suddenly scrambled for cover. Then there was the unambiguous explosion of a shotgun, and even Mignon anxiously backpedaled in the water. The shadows were deep and dark, but she saw the dogs vanish into the night, their tails between their legs. They know what a shotgun is, she comprehended with amazement. And what it can do to them.

  Someone stomped down the dock and looked down at her in the water. “Well now,” Robert Dubeaux said cheerfully, a shotgun over one arm. “Look at that. A mermaid. Don’t get many of them floating around in bayou, do we? Shore ‘nuff not.”

  •

  Robert helped her out of the bayou, and Mignon tried unsuccessfully not to let her trembling limbs show. He took her arm and supported her while her knees threatened to crumple. “There, there,” he said, patting her on the head as if she were a child. “Wild dogs been bothering half the bayou. Dint no one tell you not to come out alone?”

  Someone, a few someone’s, she amended to herself, had mentioned it. Mignon mutinously kept her mouth shut. John Henry’s warning about her cousin came back to her at the worst time. If she had been asking too many questions, then Robert could have simply let her drown in the bayou, but there was no certainty of that. The dogs wouldn’t have gone in after her, even if they had been half-starved.

  “The dogs,” she chattered through her shaking teeth, not sure what she wanted to say.

  Robert made her sit down on the log support for the pier. He rested the shotgun in the crook of his arm and kept taking long glances around the area for the possible return of the pack. When his astute gaze came back to her, he realized that she couldn’t finish her sentence. “Folks’ hunting dogs mostly. Mongrels that been trained to hunt. Got dumped. Maybe run off. Some of ‘em got lost while hunting in the deep woods. The good ones, the thoroughbreds that be, the owners put radio tracking collars on ‘em. Thousand dollars’ worth of dog, they don’t want them getting lost no how.” He made a noise. “I gotta blanket in the truck box. Get it right now.”

  Mignon started to say that she didn’t want him to leave her, but he had already turned away. So she rose to follow after him and was reminded that one of the dogs had gotten her ankle. There was just enough light to look, so she sat back down. A cautious look around her determined that the dogs seemed to have fled for parts unknown.

  Robert returned with a blanket and a flashlight. “Doc Hobe was talking about this pack yesterday. Said that they was real vicious.”

  Wrapping the blanket around her shoulders and holding it with one hand, Mignon stopped and looked at him. “You mean you’d shoot them?” The words weren’t quite steady, but they were better than they had been.

  “Shore,” Robert replied. “They kill livestock. Kill regular dogs and cats, too. They took out Miz Fressineau’s chicken coop a week ago. Killed every bird in there and dint eat half. Problem with them dogs is they ain’t afraid of man.”

  The thought of it made Mignon shiver anew. “Because they were trained by man.”

  “Shore. Trained to kill. Trained to stalk. They would have had you, ifin you hadn’t taken a jumper into the bayou.” Robert repressed a chuckle. “Although, Miz Honore said you already been in the bayou today.”

  “Apolline called you?”

  “Called Fred. Fred called me at the gas station where I been working part-time. I came right over. Wanted to make sure you got back all in one piece.”

  Mignon didn’t know where to go next. Robert was working part-time in a gas station. Apolline had called to make sure that she got through the bayou all right. There was still the possibility that Robert was a murderer, although he had just saved her life. Damn John Henry and his overly suspicious hide for giving me all kinds of nasty ideas.

  Biting her lip to keep a horde of accusations and supposition from spilling out of her mouth, Mignon gathered the blanket closer to her and suddenly remembered her ankle. The thought of dogs gone feral returned to her in a flash. Dogs like that don’t usually have their shots up to date, and there were things in the bayou that were rabid. It happened all the time. Bats and raccoons and skunks. All were present in the area and perfectly legitimate prey for a voracious pack of dogs.

  She brought her ankle up to rest on her knee. “One of the dogs bit me,” she said and was proud that her voice didn’t break.

  “Bit you?” Robert repeated seriously. “Jesus God, we’re gonna have to get you to the clinic. Them dogs don’t have no shots. God alone knows what they been eting out here.”

  Mignon directed the flashlight in his hand to point at her ankle, and they both studied the shredded material of the jeans leg for a moment. She raised the ruined cloth to expose the back of her ankle and saw that the thick socks that Apolline had insisted she wear were half-ruined, as well. The dog had gotten its powerful jaws into the jeans and the socks. She pushed the sock down with a shaking hand and saw what lie underneath.

  Robert tilted his head and moved in for a closer look. “Damn,” he swore. “Would you look at that.”

  Mignon did. “He only got the jeans and the sock.”

  “Ain’t a scratch on you,” Robert marveled. “But look at them tears in those jeans. Guess you ain’t getting your twenty-one days of rabies shots after all.”

  “They don’t do that anymore,” she said absently. The pressure around her ankle hadn’t been the dog’s jaws enclosed on flesh and bone. It had been the jeans pulled tightly around her ankle as the dog had tried to disable her in the only way that it knew how.

  “Robert,” she said, staring at the undamaged flesh with amazement. “Did you kill Dara Honore, by any chance?”

  •

  Robert was closemouthed on the drive back to her house. Accusing one’s newly found family member of murder was one way of putting a damper on a fledgling relationship. After a short-lived and elevated conversation that contained a, “Hell, no, I dint kill Dara! But not only that, but FUCK, no, I dint kill Dara!” and a “What in the name of Jesus jitterbugging Christ kind of person do you think I am?” Robert shut right up.

  It was the first time that Mignon had heard him keep silent in their brief association. She found that she didn’t care for it much. Robert had been open, friendly, and ready to welcome her into the Dubeaux family. He had problems in the form of his mother undergoing dangerous and lengthy cancer treatments, and he’d obviously had feelings for Dara Honore. But he’d put all of that aside and made sure that he had some time for Mignon.

  After Robert’s response to her question, he had directed her to his truck with concise and short motions. When she had protested that she could drive, he’d said, “No, you cain’t,” but it didn’t sound anything like the first time he’d laughingly said it. He’d motioned derisively at her car and said, “Someone got to your car afore I got here.”

  The Explorer had four flat tires, and the passenger window was broken, but nothing seemed to be missing inside. Mignon groaned and got in Robert’s truck. “You can call someone later,” he’d said.

  Mignon was more concerned about Robert than she was about the four flat tires, but she forced herself to consider them as they drove. Had Noel seen the Explorer and decided to get a little payback? No, if that had been the case then he probably wouldn’t have bothered paying a portion of what he felt that he owed her for his daughter’s funeral. Then someone else, if she believed Robert was innocent, and he’d had a perfect opportunity at the dock to take care of business,
had been responsible.

  When they parked in front of the farmhouse, it was full dark, and the house was as dark as its surroundings. However, Robert waited until she had turned on her lights before he turned around and started to pull away. Her hoarse call made it to him over the sound of his engine, and he slammed the old Dodge to a halt, looking over his shoulder at her figure in the doorway of her house.

  Robert saw immediately what Mignon had seen in the light of the open door. The place, so neat and clean, was a mess of turned-over furniture and debris strewn liberally over the floor of the kitchen. He shot out of the truck and yelled, “Don’t go in, Mignon!”

  Mignon had already backed away, retreating to the relative safety of the porch.

  •

  Robert pulled out the flashlight and shotgun once again. He braced the gun under his arm and checked the load. Then he ratcheted a shell into the chamber and said to Mignon, “Follow along behind me, Mignon. I don’t want to shoot you by mistake.” He slowly walked around the farmhouse and checked inside the house with the flashlight. When they had come around to the front porch again, he climbed up and reached inside the kitchen to turn on the porch light.

  The bright light made Mignon blink. She was tired and damp and full of questions stirring viciously in her head from her encounters today. She had a useless key fob, a dead cell phone, and a hundred dollars in drenched, dirty twenties that she didn’t want. Robert was angry with her. John Henry was angry with her. Someone else was angry with her, so much so, that they had punctured all four of the tires on her SUV and possibly that same person had gone to her farmhouse and trashed it.

  Mignon thought of the bag of Dara’s meager possessions. Some photographs, letters, dozens of rhymes that would have made the Ku Klux Klan proud, and an insurance identification from a St. Germaine Parish Sheriff’s Department Investigator. Her apparent kidnapping and subsequent release by Tomas Clovis was well known. It had even made a paragraph in the local paper on Sunday. Had someone made the connection that Tomas would give Dara’s stash of mostly illegitimately obtained items to her?