by Jon Sharpe
“I reckon I’m making too much of things,” Fargo said to the Ovaro.
The door opened, spilling a rectangle of light, and out came Liana. She was wearing an apron over her dress and holding a cloth. “Here you are. Another couple of hours and I can close for the night.”
“Have something in mind, do you?”
“I thought perhaps you and I could take up where we left off.” Liana grinned and swayed her hips. “That is, if you’re not too tired to give me a back rub.”
“I’ll give you more than that.”
Laughing merrily, she turned to go back in. “Oh. I thought you should know. There has been more talk of Remy. But they are going to leave him be.”
“Any word from Namo?”
“No. He’s staying with a friend in a shack at the west end of the street. From what I am told, his children are happy to be out of the swamp. It is said that they went through a terrible ordeal out there.” She looked at him. “You didn’t tell me everything.”
“I told you we tangled with the boar.”
“You didn’t tell me how many it killed.” Liana shook her head in sorrow. “It is a monster, whether you think so or not. Word will spread quickly. I would imagine that by this time tomorrow, everyone for fifty miles around will have heard.”
Fargo heard a distant splash. “Liana—”
“What?”
“Nothing. Just don’t go anywhere tonight unless I’m with you.”
“Where would I go? I have a business to run.” Liana chuckled. “Have you grown so fond of me that you want me always near?”
“That must be it.”
“Why don’t I believe you? Very well. Don’t say. But I promise not to leave unless I let you know.”
“Good.”
Liana reached for the door, then turned back to him. “What is it that concerns you so?”
“Where you find the Mad Indian, you find the razorback.”
“Surely you are not suggesting what I think you are suggesting?”
“I’m just saying, is all.”
“No.” Liana stared into the dark and shook her head. “The beast would have to be as crazy as the Indian. There are too many of us.”
“I think so too but you never know. Maybe you should spread the word. Warn them. But do it in a way they won’t think you’re loco.”
“Dear God, I pray you are mistaken. Now I won’t sleep a wink all night.”
“That’s all right. I was planning on keeping you up anyway.”
“I can hardly wait.”
The door closed on her laugh and Fargo was left to ponder the swamp and the night. In his mind’s eye he relived his glimpse of the razorback and tried to calculate how big it really was. Six feet high at the front shoulders, he guessed, and ten to twelve feet long. Foot-long tusks. Easily a thousand pounds. Maybe Liana was right—it was a monster.
The next consideration was how to kill it. Fargo had seen with his own eyes that its hide was proof against bullets. His Henry had proven useless. Clovis’s Sharps might be powerful enough to bring it down but the shot must core its brain or its vitals and the boar wasn’t about to stand still long enough for anyone to take sure aim.
Fargo shrugged and went in. Maybe he would ask to borrow the Sharps before they headed out.
The tavern was packed. The topic on everyone’s tongue was the razorback. An old Cajun with a salt-and-pepper beard was saying to an attentive audience, “All of you know me. Like many of you, I’ve lived in this swamp all my life, and I say here and now that this animal can’t be as big as they say.”
“Namo claims different,” someone said.
“Fear makes things seem bigger than they are.”
“Are you calling Namo a coward?”
“No, no. But you’ve heard the story. Their fires were out. The thing was on them so fast, they didn’t get a good look. Now I ask you. Is it unreasonable to suggest they have exaggerated without meaning to? I bet the razorback is no bigger than any other.”
Fargo put an elbow on the bar. “You’d lose that bet, mister. I was there.”
All eyes swung toward him. Few were outright friendly.
“You’re the scout that’s taken up with Liana?”
At the other end of the bar, Liana hollered, “Hear now. Watch what you say about me, Parfait, or you can go clear to New Orleans for your liquor from now on.”
“I meant no offense, che’ri,” the old Cajun said. “You should know better.” To Fargo he said, “I’m sorry but I just don’t believe it. Why, someone told me the thing is as big as one of our shacks.”
“If it was standing broadside in front of you, you couldn’t see over it,” Fargo told him.
“Hogwash.” The old man realized what he had said, and he and several others laughed.
“Suit yourselves.”
Fargo wasn’t about to make a fool of himself trying to convince them. He went to his table and the cards. Now and again he caught snatches of talk. He half hoped Remy or Namo would show up, and when all the chatter abruptly ceased, he thought one of them had. But he was in for a surprise.
“Mind if I join you?” Hetsutu asked.
Fargo pushed out a chair with his foot. “Everyone is staring.”
“Let them. As if I care what they think. They are bigots, many of them, and despise me for the part of me that is Indian.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that,” Fargo said. “When I asked for your name, you told me your Indian name.”
“So?”
“So you’re part Cajun.”
Hetsutu cracked a smile. “Half and half. That’s me. And yes, I have a Cajun name but I never use it.”
“So they’re not the only bigots.”
“No, they’re not, and I am the first to admit it. Blame how I was treated when I was a boy. The half-breed, they called me. Or simply the Breed. As young as I was, I wasn’t stupid. I saw how they looked down their noses at me. Parents wouldn’t let their children play with me. And when my mother forced me to go to school for a year, the teacher made me sit by myself.”
“It’s rough being half and half.” Fargo had seen plenty of race hate on the frontier. Whites who hated Indians because they were red; Indians who hated whites because they weren’t red. Whites who hated blacks and blacks who hated whites and both hating the brown. One thing the world was never short on was hate.
“Don’t take me wrong. I don’t cry in my cups over it. I was born as I was born. But I don’t have to like it, or like those who look at me as if I’m scum.”
Fargo pushed his bottle across the table. “Have a drink, why don’t you?”
“Is this your way of shutting me up?” Hetsutu grinned, and drank, and scowled. “It tastes as terrible as ever. No wonder I never acquired a taste for firewater.”
“Are you out taking a stroll?”
Hetsutu peered at him over the bottle. “You’re a sharp one. No. I came to talk to you. I’ve heard that the Mad Indian was spotted.”
“It’s all over Gros Ville by now.”
“Do you know what that means? On my way over, I listened. The swamp is very still tonight. Too still.”
“We share the same notion. But the good people of Gros Ville don’t. They say there is no way in hell the razorback will attack here.” Fargo accepted the bottle. “Whatever happens now is on their shoulders. I’ve done all I can.”
“But have you really?”
“How’s that?”
“Done all you can? I was thinking that you and I should get our rifles and keep watch. If we’re right, we can shout to warn them.”
“I was wrong about you,” Fargo said. “A bigot wouldn’t do what you want to do.”
“Make no mistake. I couldn’t care less about the men. But there are women and children. And I remember what that thing did to Pensee. She was my friend.”
“I remember.”
“Then you’ll do it? Remy offered to help but he has drunk too much and can barely stand. It will be a
long time, I think, before he gets over what happened.” He stood. “How about if I meet you in front of the tavern at midnight?”
Fargo agreed and Hetsutu left. Unfriendly glares followed him out but no one said anything, which was just as well.
The time passed slowly. By eleven only a few customers were left. Liana shooed them out, shut the door and threw the bolt, and sashayed to his table wearing a come-hither grin.
“Finally. I couldn’t wait to be alone with you.” She sat on the edge of the table and moved her leg enticingly. “Suppose we take up where we left off when you went off monster hunting?”
“Speaking of the boar,” Fargo said, and related the plan to stand watch.
“But now I must wait even longer.” Liana pouted, then glanced at the clock above the bar. “Still, midnight isn’t for an hour yet. Give me a few minutes to wash up.”
“What’s your rush?” Fargo put his hand on her shin and traced his fingers up under her dress.
“I told you before. Not in here. In the back.”
Ignoring her, Fargo ran his hand to her knee. Her skin was warm and smooth.
“I refuse to do it on this table.”
Fargo’s fingers molded her thigh. “Are you sure I can’t change your mind?”
“I do so like when you do that,” Liana said huskily. “You make me tingle all over.”
Fargo inched his hand higher and she parted her legs.
“Men!”
“You love it and you know it.” Fargo moved his chair so there was room on his lap. “Have a seat.”
“Are you forgetting my nice, soft comfortable bed?”
“We’ll get there eventually.”
“If it—” Liana stopped at a knock on the front door. “Go away! I’m closed for the night!”
The knock was repeated.
“Didn’t you hear me? I’m closed.”
Whoever was out there rapped a third time, harder than ever.
“Some people just don’t listen.” Liana marched over and threw the bolt.
“I have half a mind to—” She stopped. “Goodness. What are you doing out this late?”
Fargo heard someone reply but so quietly he couldn’t hear what they said. Then Liana stepped back and two small figures entered. “What the hell?” he blurted.
Clovis and Halette appeared nervous. The boy had his Sharps and the girl was wringing her hands. They came straight over.
“Monsieur Fargo, we’re sorry to bother you but when we went to find Uncle Remy, the Breed told us he is half drunk.”
“Hetsutu,” Fargo said.
“What?”
“The Breed has a name. It’s Hetsutu. You might want to use it from now on.”
Halette stepped up and placed her hand on his arm. “We’re awful worried and we don’t know what to do.”
“About what? And where’s your father? Shouldn’t you be telling him this?”
“That’s just it,” Clovis said. “It’s him we’re worried about.”
“He left us.”
“What are you talking about? Where would he go at this time of night?”
“Into the swamp,” Halette said.
Fargo was dumbfounded.
“Someone brought word about the Mad Indian,” Clovis said. “Papa holds him partly to blame for Mama’s death so he tucked us into bed and told us he would be back in the morning and for us not to worry.”
“He went into the swamp,” Halette said again, and trembled with fright. “I begged him not to but he wouldn’t listen.”
A slew of cuss words were on the tip of Fargo’s tongue. Instead he said, “The damned fool.”
“Will you go after him?” Halette pleaded. “He shouldn’t be out there alone.”
“He shouldn’t be out there at all.”
“I wouldn’t know where to start looking.”
“For me. I don’t want to lose him too.” Tears welled in Halette’s eyes.
Clovis put his arm around her. “Don’t cry. If he won’t do it, we’ll go look for Papa ourselves.”
Fargo had to let it out. “Son of a bitch.”
13
The swamp, as Hetsutu had said, was unusually still.
And sure enough, one of the pirogues was missing.
Fargo stood gazing into the dark and debating whether to take the other pirogue and go after Namo or stay put and wait for Namo to return. To find him out there would be next to impossible. But he’d promised Halette and Clovis he would try so he cupped a hand to his mouth and bellowed Namo’s name on the chance Namo was within earshot.
There was no reply.
Fargo had less than an hour before he was to meet Hetsutu in front of the tavern. He’d left the kids with Liana and told her that if he wasn’t back by midnight to let Hetsutu know where he had gone.
Placing his Henry in the bottom of the second pirogue, Fargo pushed until it floated free, climbed in, picked up a paddle, and was under way. He stroked as quietly as he could, wending among the moss-laden cypress. He had gone only a short way when he stopped paddling and coasted. A glance back confirmed he could still see the lights of the settlement.
Fargo wasn’t about to venture much farther. Even with his keen sense of direction he could easily become lost. Landmarks were hard to recognize at night, even more so in a swamp where everything was mired in murk and the dark tangle of waterways was a maze.
Again Fargo cupped a hand to his mouth and hollered. Again there was no answer.
“Damn it.”
Fargo let the pirogue drift. He was about to call out once more when he heard a shrill cry. Not the squeal of the razorback, but the thin bleat of something much smaller. He heard it a second time, off to his left, and used the paddle. It was an animal in distress. That there weren’t any snarls or growls suggested a predator wasn’t to blame. But you never knew.
Another cry, much closer, prompted Fargo to pick up his Henry. He was drifting toward a mound covered mostly with grass. He couldn’t make out much about it other than that there appeared to be something on top of the mound, something alive, something that was frantically jumping up and down.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t any bigger than a cat.
The pirogue bumped to a stop. Fargo expected the animal to bolt but it stopped jumping and stared down at him, its eyes dim gleams in the starlight. Climbing out, he moved toward it. Instantly, the animal erupted in a frenzy of hopping and bleats of terror.
Fargo bent and saw what it was. But what he was seeing made no sense.
Someone had caught a rabbit and tied it to a stake. Held fast by a rawhide cord around its neck, the rabbit shrieked and tried desperately to bound off.
Fargo stepped back, thinking that would quiet it, but the rabbit only screeched louder. The only purpose he could come up with for staking it there was as bait. But bait for what? he wondered. For a fox? A cougar? An alligator, maybe? And where was the hunter who had staked the rabbit out?
Then, from the benighted swamp beyond, floated a very human laugh. Not loud, or long, but enough that Fargo could tell that the person laughing wasn’t quite sane.
The Mad Indian.
It had to be. But that meant the lunatic had staked out the rabbit. Fargo sought some sign of the madman and happened to glance toward the settlement. The lights were plainly visible. Much more so than when he had been among the cypress.
An awful idea came over him.
Fargo tried to remember everything he knew about wild hogs, and razorbacks in particular. Their diet consisted of just about anything and everything. They were partial to acorns and roots and tubers. They liked berries and fruit and sometimes ate grass. They also liked meat. Razorbacks, in fact, were known to devour all kinds of living things: frogs, snakes, birds, even fawns. He’d heard tell that the succulent flesh of young rabbits was a favorite. Razorbacks had been known to root out rabbit warrens just to get at the young ones.
Fargo looked at the rabbit. It appeared young to him.
And then from the
dark came a grunt and a squeal. There was no time to lose. Fargo yanked on the stake but it refused to budge. It had been pounded in too deep. He put down the Henry, gripped it with both hands, and tried again.
The rabbit was in a panic. It flopped wildly about and screamed—if its cries could be called that. But whatever they were called, they served their purpose.
A thousand pounds of sinew and gristle was bearing down on that mound. The razorback was coming to feed.
“Damn,” Fargo hissed, and tugged harder. He could try to dig the stake out but that would take too long. Then it hit him. “What the hell am I doing?” Quickly, he slid his hand into his boot and drew the Arkansas toothpick. A single slash was all it took to sever the cord.
In a twinkling the rabbit was gone. It flew down the mound and leaped into the water and swam with amazing speed—straight into a living mountain. Jaw snapped and bone crunched and the rabbit shrieked one last time.
Whirling and snatching up the Henry, Fargo sprang for the pirogue. He bumped his shin climbing in. Grabbing the paddle, he pushed off and started to turn the pirogue toward Gros Ville. A squeal and loud splashing from the other side of the mound warned him he was out of time.
Fargo stroked toward a cypress choked with a spidery veil of moss that hung clear down to the water. He barely got behind it in time. Parting the moss, he saw the huge mass of the boar appear atop the mound.
The razorback raised its snout to the sky. It sniffed loudly, then grunted and moved in small circles. The stake drew its interest. The boar tore at it with its tusks.
Fargo held his breath, not daring to move. If the boar caught his scent it would be on him before he could get out of there.
The razorback stopped rooting. It gazed about and stared directly at the moss screening Fargo. Could the thing see him? It was his understanding that hogs and pigs couldn’t see any better than humans but he could be wrong.
With a loud grunt, the razorback came down the near side of the mound to the water. Not twenty feet separated the beast from Fargo’s hiding place. He waited, every nerve raw.
Tilting its huge head, the boar sniffed some more. It seemed about to plunge in and come toward him when it suddenly turned.