***
Joe Billiot’s property was located in a small, wooded area in the northwest corner of St. Mary Parish, right on the border of Iberia Parish and just a few miles from Vermilion Bay which empties out into the Gulf of Mexico. His modest, one-story home was built high up on stilts to guard against flooding.
Parked in the driveway was a faded red Chevy truck that looked like it had seen better days. There was a small, wooden shed with a creaky door that gently opened and closed with the breeze. In the brief moments it was open, it revealed old fishing nets and rusted farm tools.
They walked up the steps to the front porch, dodging a dirt dauber making a mud nest between a post and the ceiling. There was no bell, so Miles knocked on the door with the faded green paint.
“Someone actually lives here?” said Noah.
Miles shushed him and then knocked again after a few moments.
“Maybe he’s not home,” said Miles.
Noah heard the sound of footsteps on leaves, faint, but there. “Someone’s out back. Or something.”
“How do you know?”
“You don’t hear it?”
Miles shook his head and smiled. “Your abilities come in handy.”
The sound moved toward the shed. Noah hopped down from the porch and rounded the corner in time to see a shotgun pointed in his face. At the other end of the barrel was a man in his fifties with a balding head and dark, pockmarked skin, in a brown camo jacket and olive slacks. There were two dead rabbits hanging from his belt. Three ancient, white scars cut ravines into his face, and four more on his right arm.
Noah put his hands up. “Hey, wait up! We’re not here to hurt you.” He got a whiff of sweat and tobacco.
“You get the hell off my property, son!”
“Excuse me, Mr. Billiot?” said Miles, his voice oddly calm.
“What the hell y’all want?”
“Just to ask you about some members of your tribe.”
“You with the government or the state?”
“Neither. Andrew Verret sent us here.”
Joe Billiot slowly lowered his gun. “He still alive?”
Miles nodded. “We’re looking for something—a book—that your grandmother Elizabeth kept.”
Joe cleared his throat and spit on the ground. “I know the book you’re talking about. My sister took that book after our daddy died some twenty years ago.”
Miles’ eyes widened. “You have a sister?”
“’s the matter? Ya deaf? Mean ol’ bitch, she was.” He seemed to reconsider his words. “Wasn’t always like that, though. Guess Daddy made her that way. Made us both that way.”
“Do you know where I can find her?”
Joe looked Miles up and down. “Why ya so interested in that damned book? Guess ya know what’s in it. Nothing good can come of it, so ya just soon go back where you came from. Tell that piece of shit Verret he can kiss my ass.”
“Please. We need that book to keep it out of the wrong hands.”
“Good luck gettin’ it back from Millie. She left the tribe damn near two decades ago and moved up to Vermilion Parish, last I heard. Don’t even know if she’s still alive.”
“We’d still like to try. I don’t suppose you have an address?”
“Hell no I don’t. Last place I saw her was in Lafayette, prob’ly a year after she left here.”
Miles considered this. “Well, then, we thank you very much for your time.”
Joe’s deep-set eyes looked Miles up and down. “Ya say you gettin’ that book back to keep it safe?”
“Yes. You have my word.”
He spit on the ground again, went into his house and came back out a minute later, holding an old, ragged, homemade doll. He handed it to Miles. “If ya find her, give her this. She used to sleep with it all the time. Only thing nice Daddy ever did for her. He was pretty skilled in making crafts. Learned it from Maw Maw Beth.”
Miles gingerly took the doll in his hand.
“Keep it,” said Joe. “Just collectin’ dust in there.”
“Thank you.”
Before Miles and Noah left, Joe said, “If ya find her, tell her …” He looked as though he wanted to say something tender but never finished his sentence. He closed his mouth and walked away.
When Noah was back behind the steering wheel he said, “What’s that guy’s problem?”
Miles waited until they were driving away to answer. “Andrew—the tribal elder—told me Billiot murdered another member. He went to prison but got a reduced sentence for confessing to manslaughter. When he got out, Andrew kicked him out of the tribe.”
“Who’d he kill?”
“His father.”
Noah was at a loss for words for a moment. “Why?”
“That’s what I want to know. Andrew politely told me it was tribal business and that he couldn’t share it with me.”
“You think his sister will tell us?”
“If she’s alive, I hope so.”
“Have any ideas where to look?”
“I think we need to include Abbeville in our little road trip.”
6
Old Flame
They pulled into a long driveway out in the country off Highway 167 in Abbeville. The rocky driveway was lined with pine trees and led to an old house with chipped white paint. In front was a large pond with the branches of a mayhaw reaching across the surface. There were two cars already there. Miles had Noah park near them. They went up the front steps of the porch, and Miles rang the doorbell. Noah didn’t understand why Miles looked uneasy.
A short, old lady with snowy auburn hair answered the door. When she saw Miles, her eyes widened and her jaw slackened.
“Hello, Miss Clothilde,” said Miles.
The woman’s lips pursed into a thin line and her eyes grew hard.
“I’m very sorry to show up unannounced, but I needed to speak with you about Andrew Verret.”
The woman was about to say something—Noah figured it was going to be something unpleasant—but just then a little girl of about twelve came up behind the woman and said, “Maw Maw, me and David want to go fishing. Can we borrow Paw Paw’s old poles and go out to the bayou?”
Miles looked like his heart stopped when he looked down at the girl with the red hair and green eyes. He couldn’t look away from her.
“’May David and I’,” corrected a young woman with blond hair who came up behind the girl.
“May David and I,” repeated the girl, frustrated. “Can we, Maw Maw?”
“I told them all the fish were hibernating for the winter, but …” The young woman stopped when she saw Miles, and she looked as surprised as Clothilde when she first opened the door. Her eyes met his, and they shared a look that was a strange mix of fear and fond nostalgia.
“Maw Maw?”
“Yes. Y’all go,” said Clothilde, ushering the girl away. “Make sure to wear your coats!”
Miles watched her leave, his mouth turning downward. The young woman rested her hand against her chest and tilted her head tenderly, smiling sadly at Miles.
“You should leave,” said Clothilde.
“Mama!” said the young woman in a hushed voice.
“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t know …” said Miles. “I’m sorry, Mary.”
“Miles, it’s okay,” she said, smiling radiantly. “It really is.”
“Baby, you coming?” A man’s voice called out from inside the house.
“Yeah! Be right there,” said Mary.
Miles looked like a tiny knife stabbed him in his heart. Mary’s sad smile returned.
“I just need to speak with your mother,” he said.
Mary nodded. “Be nice, Mama,” she told her, and then retreated into the house.
Clothilde stepped out onto the porch, closing the door behind her. She barely gave Noah a glance and refused to look at Miles. She sat on a rocking chair and looked out at the pond. Miles leaned against a post, and Noah sat on the front steps and looked out at the
property, letting Miles do all the talking.
“Please forgive my intrusion,” said Miles.
“What did you need?” Her voice was stiff and just polite enough.
“In the time you knew Andrew Verret, did he ever mention someone named Joe Billiot?”
She thought for a second, still staring at the pond. “That Thomas Billiot’s son?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know much about him. I knew of Thomas, though. When Andrew was teaching me to be a traiteur, he was called away one evening for an emergency council meeting. Next time I saw him, he wasn’t the same man. He was … broken inside, I guess you’d say. Said that he had to make a hard decision. I asked him about it, but he couldn’t talk about tribal business. It was his wife Joyce who told me.” She stopped to look at Miles.
“I know that his son, Joe, killed him. I just don’t know why. I think, though, it had something to do with him being a skin walker.”
She looked back at the pond. “That’s part of it, yes. But Joe had been knowing that. He was a young man at the time. He grew up knowing that’s what his daddy was. But Thomas started to change. He got meaner and started taking it out on the children.”
“Joe and Millie. I didn’t know until very recently that he had a daughter.”
“She had very little schooling. After their mama died when she was eleven, Thomas relied on her to take care of the house while he went to work. One day, when she was about seventeen, he found out she got pregnant. But it was by a married man. That made Thomas mad. He wanted her to give the babies up, but she wanted to keep ‘em.”
“Twins?”
She nodded. “Joyce told me—now you understand this is how she heard from Andrew who was at Joe’s testimony in front of the tribal council—she said Joe had come back from work to hear Millie screaming from inside the house. He ran to open the door, but it was locked. He pounded and pounded, yelling at her to unlock the door. He saw his daddy’s truck there, so he knew he was home. He finally busted open a window and ran to the kitchen to find Millie on the floor, clutching one baby to her chest, and Thomas … he had another baby—the boy—laid out dead on the table next to an opened book.
“Joe said there was a shadow over his daddy’s face. Not like you could see, but you knew it was there. He yelled at his daddy to stop what he was doing, but it’s like he couldn’t hear him. He flew into a rage and tore after Thomas, hitting him, kicking him. Thomas’ eyes started to glow, and Joe knew what was coming. Thomas turned into a wolf and attacked his son. Last thing Joe saw before he passed out from the blood loss was Millie crawling through the window with her baby girl.
“Joe came to sometime later. The sun hadn’t come up yet, but it was light enough to see. The kitchen was a mess. The baby was gone from the table. He stumbled outside and saw his daddy’s truck was gone. He called out for Millie. He found her, shaken and pale, clutching her baby in his truck with the doors locked. It looked like she hadn’t slept at all. His windshield was smashed, and there was a big stick nearby. There were bloody paw marks all over the hood. He figured Thomas was trying to get at her and then finally gave up.
“He got her to open the door for her, and he drove her to his friend’s house in Lafayette. And then he went home, loaded his gun with bullets he had dipped in white ash—best way to kill a skin walker—and he waited. Thomas showed up that night. As soon as he opened the front door, Joe shot him.”
There was a long moment of silence when she finished talking. Miles said, “The father of Millie’s children … what was his name?”
She searched her memory. “He was a Thibodeaux. That’s all I remember.”
Noah gave Miles an uneasy glance.
“Do you know what happened to Millie?” said Miles.
“Joyce said Andrew went looking for her a couple weeks after Joe killed Thomas. He wanted to help her and her baby, but Joe’s friend said Millie gave her baby girl away to protect her, and then she left. We don’t know who she gave the baby to, but as it turns out, Millie got a job working as a seamstress at a dress store owned by my friend Ya. I told Andrew. He went to her to offer her any help from the tribe, but she turned him down. Said she just wanted to move on with her life. He insisted, though, and gave her a house that belonged to his brother who died the year before.
“Ya closed that store about fifteen years ago. I don’t know if Millie moved away, but she was living in Andrew’s brother’s house out in Palmetto Island. Ya’s store was in Perry, a little south of here. Palmetto Island is south of that. Just stay on highway eighty-two. Take a left after you cross the bridge and stay on highway six-ninety until you pass Pleasant Drive. It’ll be the first house on your right not far after that. It’s set far back from the road, so look for the mailbox.”
Clothilde got up from her rocking chair and opened the front door, stepping inside her house. “That’s all I know, Miles. Please don’t come back here unannounced again.” She gently closed the door.
***
They found the house just where Clothilde said it would be. Miles had Noah pull the car into the long, overgrown driveway. The day was growing older, and late afternoon shadows pooled around nooks and crannies. The house was a flat, built up on blocks, with red brick and small windows. It wasn’t much to look at, but it seemed sturdy enough to withstand hurricane weather. An old car from the late eighties was parked under a shed connected to the house.
Miles got out and walked up the front steps and rang the doorbell. Noah sighed, grabbed the doll, and joined him on the porch.
The door opened. Standing before them was a petite woman of about forty with wide-set eyes and a small, hard mouth that looked like it hadn’t smiled in years. Her tanned skin was creased with too many wrinkles for someone her age.
“Millie Billiot?” said Miles.
“Who wants to know?” she said.
Miles took the doll from Noah and held it out for her. “Your brother gave us this to give to you.”
Her mouth fell open slightly as her small hand gingerly reached out for the doll, and she cradled it lovingly in her arms, lost in perhaps the only good memory she ever had.
Noah glanced uneasily at Miles, but he shook his head faintly, indicating for him to give her a moment.
Finally she looked up at Miles, the doll still in her arms. “Joey sent this?”
Miles nodded. “He misses you.”
The look on her face went from confusion to gratitude to joyful sadness in the span of a few seconds.
“Well, I … I didn’t even know he was still ali …” Her voice cracked, and she looked down at the doll again. “Where is he?”
She spoke in the dreamy voice of someone who has lost touch with reality. Noah shot Miles another worried glance, but he didn’t notice.
“He’s in the same place he’s always been,” said Miles.
Her eyes faltered a second as she searched her memory. She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head frantically. “No, no, no. There’s no one there. That’s a bad place, no one lives there.”
“It’s not a bad place anymore, Millie. Joe is there.”
She shook her head harder, her eyes still shut tightly. “No! The bad thing is there!”
“Joe killed the bad thing. It’s gone. It’s never coming back.”
“You’re lying! It’s not gone!” She slammed the doll hard against the door frame, dropping it to the floor of the porch, and shouted, “IT’S STILL HERE!”
Her eyes flew open and now they were glowing, tiny rings of molten gold. Saliva spilled from her lips, and her teeth were like small daggers.
Miles raised his hands and began to drain her energy, but she pounced right away. They fell together down the steps, rolling onto the ground.
In the split second it took for Noah to react, he saw her morph into a large cougar that started clawing and tearing at Miles. She got in a couple of good swipes before Noah tackled her. They tussled for a moment before Noah body slammed the beast. It let out a wail of pain.
It rebounded quickly and swiped at him, clipping his arm. Noah yelled and charged the cat, smashing it into a tree. It kicked him with its powerful hind legs, its claws sinking into his abdomen.
It took off into the woods, and Noah wasted no time in running after it. He heard Miles calling out from far behind him, telling him to come back, but Noah couldn’t bring himself to turn back. He shot through the brush and dodged trees and splashed though the murk of patches of swamp. Her scent was strong, and he followed, only yards behind.
At last, he caught up with her. She lay weak and wounded, panting heavily, her rear leg caught in a hunting snare. She helplessly pawed the ground with her front legs, trying to pull herself up, but it was no use. Her eyes found his. She was defeated, and she knew it.
Noah hesitated, wiping sweat from his face. He was going to kill it. It had tried to kill him, tried to kill Miles. But now all he could do was look upon this animal with pity as it whimpered in pain and suffering.
He swallowed hard and knelt beside the cougar. He hesitantly and gently pried the trap from its leg.
It growled and limped away, but turned to look back at him, not with gratitude, but with keen curiosity.
Noah watched it fade into the growing shadows and then he returned to Miles.
He hadn’t realized how much blood he had lost or the extent of his injuries. By the time he made it back to the house and saw Miles leaning against the car with the grimoire in his hand, Noah was close to passing out.
Miles wasn’t in such good shape, either, but he was clearly alarmed when he saw Noah hobbling toward the car. He rushed to him as Noah collapsed to the ground, holding his abdomen. Miles lifted his shirt and saw the blood trickling from several punctures. He went to his car and got out his black case and brought it back to Noah. He removed his holy water, poured some on his hands and on the wounds, and he prayed.
Within moments, the wounds closed, and Noah’s blood pressure stabilized. Miles, however, looked worse. It took great effort for him to stand, and he stumbled to the car and lay in the back seat.
Noah, feeling much better, got up and went to Miles. “Can’t you heal yourself?”
Nancy K. Duplechain - Dark Trilogy 03 - Dark Legacy Page 4