by D. A. Bale
“Sure.” I smiled. “Just look how it turned out for Mary Magdalene.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Thanksgiving Day was a rather subdued affair, and not so much because of the weather or the fact that I had to share space in front of the television watching football with the sperm donor. It wasn’t because my pants felt a little more constricting before we’d eaten either. Truth be told, it wasn’t even so much from knowing Maisie had a lot more work dumped on her shoulders or that Maurice had been transplanted from the gator grounds to kitchen duty. No, a new emotion welled up and threatened to swallow me in melancholy.
Guilt.
Guilt that I hadn’t kept my big mouth shut. Guilt that I’d spouted my thoughts louder and higher than the front drive fountain the moment they tracked through my brain cells. Guilt that my big mouth had gotten Sibby fired – and now I was bound by a promise to Maisie to do something about it.
The only thing that buoyed my spirits was having Slinky downstairs with me to watch the game – and the fact that George was now so deep in the swamp with Addie, it’d take a gator to chase him out. Even then, I doubt if he could move fast enough to get out of the way. Plus, there was the sweet satisfaction of knowing I’d bested George – and in front of an audience no less. Seeing him walk and sit gingerly after our little run-in was just an added bonus.
As long as I didn’t think too much about what my hand had held. Like Lady Macbeth, I still felt the need for continual handwashing even after the hundredth time. Maybe another douse of alcohol might do the trick – of the libations variety. After four days with nary a sip or slurp of Jack, I sported a headache to rival my worst hangover.
And nope, cooking sherry wouldn’t even make a dent.
‘Course that could be more because of my proximity to the sperm donor. Even though it was a holiday and a day to relax, Thomas De’Laruse and my dad still sported pressed dress slacks and crisp white dress shirts with enough starch to walk on their own. At least they’d both left off the ties and suit jackets until dinnertime.
Through the early game, I’d had the luxury of Thomas’ presence to distract dear old Dad from forced conversation. But as soon as the referee blew the final whistle, Addie had stolen Janine’s dad from the room, giving us a full twenty-nine minutes of post and pre-game blather from the commentators before the Cowboys’ kickoff.
Somebody just kill me now. Better yet, perhaps the Lord above would have mercy on me and strike my dad with the fear of God – for once – giving him a good ol’ heart attack. Or an aneurism. Well, that would’ve been better during the early game, ‘cause I didn’t want to miss my boys in silver and blue.
“So,” my dad started, “what’s that furball’s name again?”
I scritched Slinky behind the ears where he slept curled up beside me. “His name is Slinky.”
Frank eyeballed my critter. “Strange naming a cat after a children’s toy from the nineteen-forties.”
“That’s not where I got his name.”
“Then where?”
Okay, this was odd conversation – even for us. But at least we weren’t at each other’s throats – yet. I took a deep breath and remembered Addie’s words. I was a strong woman and could be the one to reach across the divide and heal the breach between me and my dad.
Or not.
“It’s how he roamed around the apartment when he was a kitten,” I said.
“Like that springy toy?”
“No, like he was afraid of being seen.”
He glanced again at my purring prowler for all of a half-second before dismissing him in favor of the television. “Probably something wrong with him then.”
No, that sounded more like a diss instead of a dismiss, which sent my catnip twisting six ways to Sunday. No one was gonna talk about my sweet baby kitty like that. Me strong? Yeah, when standing up for those I loved.
“Sure there was something wrong with him when I found him. He was a tiny kitten, all alone in a great big, scary world, missing his mama who’d possibly gotten run over or who’d forgot to return for him so that he was left to fend for himself in the middle of a gully-washing thunderstorm. And God-forbid he tried to avoid being seen so he wouldn’t get eaten by some damn foul-mouthed critter who was bigger than him.”
“Speaking of foul mouths,” Frank implied.
“I guess you taught me something useful after all,” I accused.
“More of a dog man myself.”
“What is that…a bull-shit-dog?”
He didn’t bite. “I like to think of myself more as a bullmastiff. I’d swallow that mangy feline in one gulp.” He snapped his teeth together for effect.
“Well I’d rather have at least some semblance of compassion for any of God’s creatures.”
‘Cept for snakes, spiders – pretty much anything that slithered. Oh, and errant gators. Not sure how any of those critters benefitted creation, so why God decided to throw them down on this floating rock was beyond my comprehension.
Maybe I could ask Him someday. Guess I had to get there first – and Heaven’s Gate, Louisiana didn’t count.
Frank flicked a spec of imaginary dust from his immaculately tailored sleeve. “In this world, compassion merely holds you back from being a productive member of society.”
“I can definitely attest to your lack of the former, but I’ve discovered that life isn’t all about the latter,” I said. “Your money never bought happiness.”
“That money you so despise provided anything you wanted as a child…toys, dresses, shoes, that car you love so much. You’ve got nothing to complain about.”
“And all of it paid for out of the pound of flesh you so loved to take out of my carcass on occasion. No amount of toys, dresses, or shoes could overcome that hostile environment,” I pointed out.
Now don’t go after me about the Vette. I always considered it the spoils of war and therefore appropriate compensation for the hardship of growing up under the sperm donor’s parenting style of belts, bruises, and verbal violence.
He huffed. Snorting was beneath him. “And what does all this have to do with that mangy feline?”
“We connected through a mutual understanding of survival.” I held my furball – hey, it’s alright for me to say it – in the air and touched his moist pink nose to mine. “Isn’t that right, Slinky?”
Frank huffed again. “Is that your cat or your kid?”
That kind of a comment might’ve scared me before this week and triggered dangerous levels on my intimacy radar.
Not anymore. “It’s all the same to me.”
The football commentators garnered his interest for a few more seconds. “I never took you for the type to possess maternal instincts.”
I’d never considered myself that way either – but I wasn’t about to admit that to him.
“I’m just glad I had a mother who demonstrated a little concern for her offspring, unlike the paternal side of the family.”
“Don’t get all dramatic again, daughter. Instead of coddling you, I taught you more important things…like independence, resourcefulness, and self-reliance, though maybe you wouldn’t have embarrassed me so much if I’d used a little more discipline when it came to teaching you about self-restraint.”
That brought on a full-fledged snort. “Coming from the man who has none.”
The vein in the side of his neck popped out. Used to that meant I was about to get a hand across the face or a belt whacked across my bare legs. But then I discovered my super-duper secret weapon named Polaroid.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.
“Gee, I don’t know. Should I go get Addie’s dictionary from the library and read you the definition of restraint?”
“That’s not funny, Vicki. I know perfectly well what the word entails.”
“I’ve got a portfolio that says otherwise, Frankie. They always say a picture paints a thousand words, and yours could write a whole book.”
Silence. Additional veins in his neck poppe
d out to join the first with my verbal prodding at his wayward willie. Maybe I’d get that wished-for aneurism after all.
The photos I’d come across at the Galveston family vacation home when I was thirteen had taken our hostile relationship to the how-low-can-you-go mark. Everything else he’d done to Mom and me since then was just a great big pile-on, but eventually I’d learned how to use my newfound collection to at least get him to shut up and leave me alone. Plus, it didn’t hurt to remind him of his mother’s lifelong fascination with Frankie Avalon.
Thomas took that moment to return to the couch opposite the sperm donor. “Have they kicked off yet?”
“Just about to,” the sperm donor said with a little too forced cheerfulness.
The verbal jousting with my dad had me on the hunt for fresh fodder. “Mr. De’Laruse, what did Addie want to talk to you about?”
“None of your business,” Frank growled.
Thomas put on an appropriate and well-practiced smile – at least I figured it was rehearsed. Come to think of it, with all the hours the De’Laruse patriarch put in to expand the family empire, I’d spent little time in his presence over the years. Hell, even his own children spent little time in his presence.
Hmm. That might explain a lot of things – and not just where George was concerned.
“Adelaide had some questions concerning the company, is all,” Thomas offered.
He answered my question. Did that mean he’d answer another one? Ah, what the hell. I was already in for a nickel, so why not spend a dime? “Were some of those questions concerning Janine’s place in it?”
A twinge of a cheek muscle gave him away. “Proprietary information, Victoria. I couldn’t say.”
Another vein in the sperm donor’s neck promised a full-blown Chernobyl any second, until the conversation was cutoff when the players lined up on the field for kickoff. The ball arched on a high-and-tight tumble downfield just as Janine ran into the room, trailing a flour cloud.
“Vicki, you’ve got to come right away.”
“But, but…”
“No buts,” she said, grabbing my arm and dragging me and Slinky from my cozy corner of the couch.
“DVR the game for me,” I called over my shoulder.
Though with my lovely little repartee with either man the last few minutes, I figured my request fell on deaf ears.
***
Good thing I’d ignored Thanksgiving Day protocol and dressed in comfy clothes, saving dress-up attire for dinner. At least Janine took a minute to change from pumps to flats and I tucked Slinky safely away before slipping and slopping through the mud toward the graveyard.
“What’s so dadgum important that you’ve got to drag me away from the game, Janine?” I whined. “I didn’t even get to see the kickoff return. For all I know, the Cowboys ran it all the way to the end zone and already have points in their pocket.”
“Pish-posh. Missing one football game isn’t gonna kill you.”
I stopped smack dab in a puddle. “But what if it does?”
“And people call me dramatic, gee.” She grabbed my hand and tugged me along. “Don’t you want to see what Lucas discovered?”
“Lucas? What…are you two on speed-dial with each other now?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, lighting up like Rudolph’s nose.
“What if we run into Maurice’s gator?”
Janine harrumphed. “I’m beginning to think Maurice is going a little senile.”
I begged to differ – pretty sure his senility needle was tilting more toward a lot than a little. But hey, what do I know?
We made it across the De’Laruse property in record time, climbed the fence, and skirted the tarped hole, then took off past the old overseer’s house into the clearing. We were really trespassing this time.
Lucas sat on a miniature piece of equipment that looked like a cross between a baby backhoe on one end and a posthole digger on the other. He waved us over.
“I’ve found two others,” he called.
“Two other what?” I returned.
“Aqueducts,” Janine answered. “Straight out of Roman history.”
“And me without my toga,” I said.
Lucas climbed from the driver’s seat. “It’s a whole system the De’Laruse ancestors must’ve created to channel the underground water to the surface in order to irrigate crops when they first settled this land.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Janine was kind enough to draw this for me yesterday.” He tossed her a smile as he unfolded a large paper, a more detailed drawing of the lines we’d recorded from the survey. Numbers like measurements dotted white space. “I then took what we knew from the duct at the oak tree near the graveyard and calculated additional locations from there. Come see.”
We stood on the edge of his mud pile and looked down into a sodden mess. The encrusted limestone had scrapes along the top from the backhoe teeth, but the shape of a wide pipe-like structure was still visible.
“Why is this one not nearly as deep as the one by the graveyard?” I asked.
“I imagine it’s because the end of this one must be close around here.”
“Or it could be from how debris and sediment has settled during hurricanes or floods since then,” Janine offered. “The land around the family plot was raised at some time too.”
“I’m surprised they put the plot so close to that particular duct,” Lucas mused aloud.
“It’s probably why that one is in such rough shape.”
“I imagine it’s more from the prolific root system through there while this was all open land.”
While the history geeks ogled mud and limestone and pondered the afterlife, I took the drawing and held it flat in front of me then turned in the direction of the mansion somewhere through the tress. The lines – or ducts – fanned out from a central locale like the spokes of a wheel. Or in this case, a half wheel.
“Hey, Lucas,” I called. “You mentioned you found two ducts, right?”
“Yes. The other one is about five hundred yards that way,” he said, pointing off to the right. “Found it last night, and it’s in as beautiful condition as this one. With the crumblin’ one near the graveyard, I’m assumin’ one duct fed each field if they cut irrigation ditches through the acreage.”
I slowly retraced our steps toward the tree line, keeping the map flat, front and center. “So the irrigation source wasn’t the creeks and rivers through the property?”
“Possibly in later years, but waterways are notorious for chartin’ new courses. The presence of this aqueduct system suggests usage of underground water…at least early on.”
“Do you think the underground water ran dry?” Janine asked.
“Highly doubtful,” Lucas said with a grin. “My latest estimates suggest a massive aquifer resides right underneath us.”
“Your estimates?” I returned, my gaze narrowing.
“Well…you see,” Lucas stuttered, the cool demeanor sluicing from his body like a cold shower.
Now he had my full attention. “You never explained that badge that fell out of your pocket during our toga party.”
“What badge?” Janine asked.
“Who are you really, Mr. Monette? State police? Coast Guard? FBI? Homeland Security?” His eyes widened ever so slight at that last one. Ha – had him. “So what’s got Homeland Security concerned enough to bother with harassing two innocent girls on a vacation in inland Louisiana?”
He held his palms up. “It’s not what you think.”
“Are you really with Homeland Security?” Janine glanced between the two of us, settling on me. “What are you thinking, Vicki?”
The wheels of my noggin churned butter – and came up empty. Too much brain bleach the last few days.
“Not sure,” I admitted. “What I’m trying to understand is why Homeland Security is concerned about old family secrets of buried treasure.”
“Do you even own this land we’re on?” Jani
ne asked Lucas.
“Relax,” Lucas said. “To answer your question, Janine, yes, I own this land so the only trespassin’ that’s been done is by you two.”
“But you invited us out here,” she countered.
“This time,” he said with a smile.
“And to answer my question?” I prodded.
Lucas sighed. “My presence here has nothin’ to do with gold bars. It’s more of the liquid variety.”
“Oil?” Janine and I asked together.
He shook his head. “A source of liquid gold this country would need in the event our primary source were compromised.”
The cock of a shotgun stopped further discussion as a man stepped from behind the big oak – miner’s hat set on blinding. “Did someone say gold?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The puzzle pieces fell into place as I stared down the barrel of the shotgun – and this time Jimmy-the-Super wasn’t around to deflect the shot.
There was no oil. There was no gator. There remained only a disgruntled Jack-of-all-trades, searching for a treasure that no longer existed – a treasure spent to secure an even greater prize, one vital to humanity’s survival.
Water rights.
“Maurice,” Janine admonished. “Put down that peashooter before you hurt someone.”
Maurice spat a stream of goop that dribbled a black streak through his gray beard. “Well now, Missy, I cain’t right do that. Not when there’s gold awaitin’ in them thar hills.”
I glanced around. “What hills?”
Maurice cocked a bushy brow my way before spitting another stream at my feet. “It’s just a sayin’, ya know.”
“Just making sure you knew.”
“So how’s ‘bout handin’ over that map, Missy?” Maurice asked.
“What map?”
“The one yer holdin’ in yer hand. The one that’ll lead me to them gold bars.”
“How did you know about the gold?” Janine asked.
My turn to cock a brow her way. “Really, Janine? After all the rumors that’ve floated around your family all these years?”
“Yeah, sorry. I’m not thinking too clearly with a gun pointed at us.” She motioned for me to hand over the drawing. “But it isn’t a map to any gold. It’s just a drawing I made of the aqueducts on the property.”