by Jon Sharpe
“My mother couldn’t kill it and she was a good shot. You can’t kill it. Nor can Papa.” Halette clutched at his buckskins. “We must go back. Make Papa go back too. Before it is too late.”
Just then Namo and Clovis returned. Seeing Halette, Namo bellowed for joy and swept her into his arms. Clovis, too, was delighted, and spun in circles, whooping. Both had forgotten the beast.
But not Fargo. He made a circuit of the hummock. Some frogs croaked and a gator grunted but the rest of the swamp was unnaturally still. He thought he heard, faint in the distance, the breaking of underbrush, but he couldn’t be sure. He was turning to go back when he heard a sound he was sure about: the splashing of a paddle. Dropping onto a knee, he spied what he took to be a pirogue gliding toward the hummock. But as it came closer he saw that it was a canoe.
A silhouette told him only one person was in it. A Cajun, or so Fargo reckoned until the canoe was near enough for him to see that the man was naked from the waist up and had hair that spilled past his shoulders. Fargo saw him put down the paddle and pick up a curved pole and a short stick. Belatedly, Fargo realized what they were: a bow and arrow. The man was about to loose a shaft at the Heuses.
By then the canoe was only a few yards from the hummock. Setting down the Henry, Fargo took a long leap and launched himself from shore. The warrior cried out in surprise as Fargo slammed into him. The canoe tilted from the impact and down they went. Rank swamp water embraced them.
Fargo got hold of a wrist and kicked to the surface. To his surprise, the warrior offered no resistance. Hauling him onto dry land, Fargo let go and retrieved the Henry.
The Indian looked up, his long hair hiding much of his face. But Fargo could tell he was old, very old, and his body much more frail than it had appeared at first. The man wore a breechclout and nothing else. His legs were spindly, his knees knobby. Each of his ribs stood out as if his skin were too tight. The effect was that of a walking skeleton.
“Who are you?”
An odd sort of laugh was the reply. The Indian pushed his hair aside, revealing a swarthy face seamed with wrinkles. So many wrinkles, he had to be eighty if he was a day. His dark eyes glittered and he bared his teeth in a mocking grin.
“You’re the one they call the Mad Indian.”
“So the white dogs say,” the man said, and cackled. “What will you do now that you have caught me?” And he laughed again.
“I’m not your enemy.”
“All whites are my enemies. I will hate your kind until the day I die.”
“Why? What did whites ever do to you? And where did you learn to speak the white tongue?”
The Mad Indian pushed up off the ground, his bony fists clenched, his teeth bared. “What did the whites do? What did they do?” he practically screamed.
From over by the fire Namo Heuse yelled, “Fargo, is someone with you? What is going on?”
The Mad Indian glared at the Cajuns and then at Fargo. “By the words of the black robes will you die! An eye for an eye, they told my people! An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth!”
“The black robes?” Fargo repeated. “Do you mean priests?”
The old man threw his head back and howled with vicious hate. “Black robes! Black robes! Black robes!” he cried while hopping up and down, first on one foot and then the other.
“What the hell?”
The Mad Indian pointed a gnarled finger at Fargo’s chest. “It kills you! It kills you and I am happy! What do you think of that, white dog?”
“No wonder they call you mad.”
“Mad?” the old Indian said, and did more prancing. “Mad, mad, mad, mad, mad!”
Namo and Clovis were running toward them, Namo with Halette in his arms. “Who is that, Fargo?”
“The local lunatic.”
Suddenly the Mad Indian whirled and sprang to his canoe. With unexpected speed he swung up and over the gunwale, scooped up the paddle from the bottom, and commenced a flurry of backstrokes. “Mad, mad, mad, mad, mad!” he tittered insanely.
Namo came to a stop. “It’s him! The Mad Indian!”
“If he were any madder he’d be rabid.”
“Shoot him!” Clovis urged.
“What for?” Fargo wasn’t about to kill an unarmed old man whose only offense, if it could be called that, was that he was completely out of his mind.
The canoe was twenty feet out and still retreating. Another cackle mocked them, along with, “All of you will die! You’ll see! This is his swamp, not yours! He has come from the time before to slay and punish!”
“What is he talking about?” Clovis asked.
“Beats the hell out of me.”
The canoe and its crazed occupant melted into the ink and the moss. The lapping of the paddle faded.
“First the monster, then the Mad Indian,” Namo said. “It must be true, what people say, that the two are linked.”
“How can that be, mon père?”
“I don’t know, son.”
Nor did Fargo, but he did have an idea about something else. “It was the fire,” he remarked.
“What was?”
“The reason the monster, as you call it, didn’t attack us. I suspect it was afraid of the fire.”
Namo grinned excitedly. “If that is the case, we can use fire to trap it and kill it.”
“If it doesn’t kill us first,” Clovis said.
8
Four days they searched. Four days of stifling heat and awful humidity. Four days of bugs and more bugs. Four days of always being on the watch for snakes and gators. Four long, exhausting days, and at the end of the fourth day they had nothing to show for it.
“Not a sign anywhere,” Namo said angrily. “How can that be?”
Fargo admitted he was stumped. They were traveling north, the direction the creature went that night it paid them a near visit. It was also the direction the Mad Indian went. They stopped at every island, every hummock, every bump of land. They looked for tracks, scat, places where a large creature might have bedded down. They found nothing.
The only conclusion Fargo could come to, the only thing that made any sense, was that the so-called monster spent nearly all its time in the water. A lot of animals did—snakes, frogs, alligators—but they all came out on land. Only fish spent their entire time in water, and whatever the monster was, Fargo was sure of one thing—it damn sure wasn’t a fish.
Fargo began to understand why the Cajuns who hunted the thing never found it. The beast was either incredibly intelligent or incredibly wary, or both. Its senses were superior to human senses, and it knew the swamp better than they did.
Then there was the Mad Indian.
Fargo didn’t know what to make of him. That the Indian showed up after they heard the creature the other night suggested the Indian was following it. But why anyone, even a lunatic, would follow an animal that was going around attacking and killing people, was beyond him.
Namo had been excited the morning after they heard the thing. He was certain they would catch up to it before nightfall. But by the third day he was glum, and by the fourth morning he was scowling at the world and everything in it.
That evening they camped on a strip of land so deep in the swamp, it was doubtful any other white man ever set foot there. Clovis gathered wood and Namo kindled the fire. Fargo put coffee on.
The one bright spot was Halette. She talked, but only when spoken to. Not once, though, did Fargo see her smile. Most of the time she sat in the pirogue with her head bowed, a portrait of misery.
To complicate things, their provisions were running low. They could make do for another three or four days, provided they came across game to shoot.
All these factors combined led Fargo to remark, “We should head back to the settlement tomorrow.”
“To Gros Ville?” Namo looked about to argue the point. But he sighed and said, “Oui. I suppose it is best. We will rest a few days, buy more supplies, and head out again.”
“Without your kid
s.”
“What?” Clovis said.
“We have been all through that,” Namo reminded him. “You agreed they could come.”
“Look at your daughter. Your son is wore out, too. Find someone to leave them with or you can come out again by yourself.” Fargo tried to soften the sting by adding, “We can cover more area by ourselves, make better time.”
Clovis objected. “No, Papa. Don’t listen to him. I want to be with you. I loved Mama. I have that right.”
“You will do as I say,” Namo responded. “I don’t want to leave you but the scout has a point. You do slow us down, if only a little.”
From that moment on Clovis didn’t hide his resentment. Where he had been friendly, he was now cold.
Fargo didn’t care. He had been hired to do a job. The children were complications he could do without.
The next morning they headed back. That night they thought they heard, far off in the distance, the squeals and shrieks of the thing they hunted. But it didn’t come near them.
They were a day out from the settlement when they rounded a cluster of cypress and came on a large island. Half a dozen pirogues had been drawn up, and as many tents and lean-tos erected. Several campfires were going. Hunters or trappers, he thought, until Namo Heuse stiffened.
“We will try to slip by without them seeing us.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“Listen to me. If they see us, let me do the talking. And if they want us to join them, keep your guns close and don’t turn your back on anyone.”
“Damn it, Namo. What’s going on?”
Suddenly they were spotted. Someone shouted and armed men hurried to the water’s edge. More were by the tents, along with three women. So they weren’t hunters or trappers, after all.
A broad-shouldered Cajun wearing blue pants and a red sash with a pair of pistols tucked under it waved and smiled and called out to them in French. Then his gaze settled on Fargo and he switched to English. “Namo? That is you, isn’t it? With your little ones? Come pay me a visit.”
“Oui,” Namo answered, and stroked for the island.
Fargo didn’t like the looks some of them gave him. It wasn’t outright hostility but it was close to it. “Who are they?”
Namo didn’t answer.
Their pirogue glided in close and waiting hands pulled it onto dry land. The man in the red sash helped Halette out, saying gallantly, “It is a pleasure to see you again, princess. And you too, young Clovis.”
Namo put his hands on their shoulders. “I didn’t expect to find you so near Gros Ville. The last I knew, you were camped well to the south of here.”
The broad-shouldered man shrugged. “I must move around a lot. As you know, there are some who would love to put a knife into my back.” He turned to Fargo. “But who have we here? A new friend, eh? Perhaps you would be so kind as to introduce me.”
“Skye Fargo,” Namo said, “permit me to introduce Remy Cuvier.”
For once Fargo’s poker face failed him. He shook, and was surprised by the other’s strength.
“Ah. You have heard of me, I see. I trust the stories have been flattering?” Remy laughed. So did some of his men.
A sallow Cajun with a pockmarked face said, “We don’t like outsiders. We don’t like them at all.”
“Now, now, Onfroi. He is with Namo and Namo is family and you will treat them as I do, yes?”
Onfroi nodded but he was not happy about it.
“Family?” Fargo said to Namo Heuse.
“I didn’t tell you? Remy is my wife’s cousin. Or was, I should say.”
“Oui. I have spent many a happy night at their cabin,” Remy declared, and patted Halette on the cheek. “When these little ones were infants, I bounced them on my knee. I love them dearly.”
Fargo said, “You’re not what I expected.”
“You imagined an ogre, perhaps?” Remy was a great one for laughing. “After all, I am the terror of the swamp, am I not?”
“To hear everyone talk,” Fargo replied.
“I am not a terror to my own kind, monsieur. I have never killed a fellow Cajun. Outsiders, yes. And there are some of my own kind who hold that against me.” Remy paused. “They don’t understand, as I do, that outsiders always bring trouble.”
Namo said quickly, “I sent for him, Remy, to help me kill the monster that killed Emmeline. He is a famous plainsman.”
“Who is far from his plain. But no matter. Emmeline is no longer with us but you are still family and under my protection. And those with you, as well.” Remy gave his men a meaningful glance and put his hands on his pistols. “If there is anyone who thinks it should be otherwise, now is the time to say so.”
No one did, although Onfroi shifted his weight from foot to foot and fingered the hilt of a stag-handled knife.
Remy escorted them to one of the fires and indicated logs they could sit on. He clapped his hands and demanded drink and food, and two women hustled over and filled tin cups with coffee for Fargo and Namo. Clovis and Halette were given tea.
As Fargo sipped he noticed that Remy’s men had casually spread out and formed a ring around them.
“So tell me what you have been up to?” Remy prompted.
Namo related their hunt, and when he came to the part about hearing squeals and something big moving in the swamp, Remy interrupted him with, “We have heard it too. Several times. One night it came quite close. I ordered my men to throw wood on the fires and we stood with our rifles ready but the thing did not attack. I swear to you, though, that I saw its eyes off in the dark. They glowed as red as the pits of hell.”
“Fargo is of the opinion it is afraid of fire,” Namo mentioned.
“He could well be right. We always keep our fires going all night. Perhaps that is why it has left us alone.”
“Have you seen the Mad Indian too?” Fargo asked.
“Him?” Remy laughed. He shifted on his log and crooked a finger at a man leaning against a tree. “Breed! Come over here, if you would.”
Part Cajun and part Indian, the Breed wore Cajun clothes but had his hair in braids and a hawk feather tied to the braid on the left. His waist bristled with revolvers and knives and what Fargo at first mistook for a tomahawk but turned out to be a hatchet. “Yes, my friend?”
“This one”—Remy indicated Fargo—“wants to know about the Mad Indian.”
“And you want me to enlighten him? Very well.” The Breed hooked his thumbs in his belt. “The Mad Indian is the last of his people. His was a small tribe, the Quinipissa. Many years ago they fled into the swamp after a fight with La Salle, the Frenchman. Later a white trader gave them smallpox, and they all died save for the mad one. Now he hates whites, hates them so much, his hate has made him mad.”
Fargo frowned. White diseases, it was said, had killed more Indians than all the white guns combined.
“How do you know all this?” Namo inquired.
“I have Washa blood. I hear things you wouldn’t.”
“But what has this Mad Indian to do with the creature that killed my wife?” Namo wondered.
“That I wouldn’t know.”
As Fargo listened, he became aware that one of the women was eyeing him as a hungry man might eye a side of beef. A shapely brunette whose wafer-thin dress clung tight, she had green eyes, high cheekbones, and inviting pink lips. When he glanced at her she boldly met his gaze, her hands on her hips, her pose saying all that need be said.
Nothing escaped Remy. He caught their looks, and chuckled. “Perhaps I should introduce Pensee. She has been with me for four years now, and there is no finer female anywhere.”
“Merci,” Pensee said.
“Is she your woman?” Fargo asked.
Pensee answered for herself. “I belong to no man. Remy befriended me when no one else would. For that, he earned my friendship, and my loyalty.”
“She had acquired—how shall I put this?” Remy said, with a flick of his eyes at Halette. “A certain reputation.
The prim and proper wanted nothing to do with her, so I took her into my fold.”
“Decent of you.”
“Not at all,” Remy candidly admitted. “My motive was selfish. I have too few women in my merry band.”
Fargo asked her, “Do you hate outsiders too?”
“To me a man is a man,” Pensee said. “His race, his color, matter little. It is how he is under the sheets.”
“What do you mean?” Halette asked.
Remy scowled at Pensee, then smiled and said to the girl, “She means she doesn’t like men who snore in bed.”
“Mon père snores.”
“C’est très ennuyeux,” Pensee said.
“Ca m’est egal. Ne vous en faites pas.”
“What a charming child.”
“Enough,” Remy warned. “She is a delight. You could learn from her if you weren’t so full of yourself.”
Pensee walked off, her hips threatening to rip loose from her spine.
“She has a temper, that one,” Remy said, and chuckled.
Fargo had no desire to spend the night but he didn’t see how he could get out of it short of fighting his way off the island. And there were simply too many for him to take on alone. Then, too, he had an obligation to Namo. To say nothing of his fondness for the girl.
As the evening wore on, the men relaxed and mingled. All save Onfroi, who hung in the background like a vulture circling a carcass. Fargo got a crick in his neck from keeping an eye on him.
Clovis and Halette liked Remy. That was plain to see. Halette sat on his leg and they listened to tales of his wild times. Tales toned down, Fargo suspected, so as not to shock them. It was obvious Remy cared for them as much as they did for him. So much for the hard-hearted scourge of the Atchafalaya Swamp.
Namo insisted his children turn in at ten. “They have had a long day and we have a long way to go tomorrow to reach Gros Ville.”
“You are giving up the hunt?”
“Never! I won’t rest until the thing that killed my Emmeline is a pile of rotting flesh.”
Remy offered his tent to Namo and the children. As for Fargo, “You may sleep where you will. We can lend you blankets if you need them. But be warned. It’s not uncommon for us to find snakes in them when we wake up in the morning. They like the warmth.”