Fever Moon Page 21

  Sarah stopped, her face stricken. She stood braced as if her legs had locked. Urine spattered the dirt road, running down her legs and flooding her shoes. Chula looked up from the child to find Clifton Hebert standing in the edge of the woods, a pack of lean dogs at his side.

  “Sarah, it’s okay,” Chula said softly, rubbing the young girl’s back. “It’s okay.” She felt Clifton’s gaze on her, and though she’d never been afraid of him, she didn’t trust the dogs. Their mottled coats showed battle wounds, and the bright gleam in their eyes let her know they considered her prey.

  “Have you come to help us look for Adele?” Chula called to him.

  “Adele, no.” Clifton stepped forward. The dogs sat without a single command. “I need a word with Bernadette, me.” He looked around, taking in the fact that Chula and Sarah were alone. “Where are the others?”

  “We’re early.” Chula forced herself to remember that Clifton Hebert came to her home on a regular basis to bring liquor. He frequently sat at the kitchen table and shared a cup of coffee with her mother, pouring the hot liquid into his saucer to cool it, in the old way. To be afraid of him was ridiculous. Even worse, her fear would transfer to the child, who was already afraid. “Sarah, this is Clifton.” She forced a smile into her voice. “He’s the best trapper in Iberia Parish. Maybe in all of Louisiana.”

  “She is not your bébé, no?” Clifton frowned, trying to fit the child into what he knew of Chula and her mother.

  “This is Henri’s little girl.” Chula pulled Sarah against her leg. “She’s staying with me for a bit.”

  Clifton assessed the little girl. “The little colored child is dead.”

  Despite her best effort, Chula felt fear trace along her spine. “How can you be certain?”

  “My dogs followed her trail. She went into the woods. The scent was strong and the dogs were on it, yes. I was certain I’d find her, me. But the trail stopped.” He held out both hands. “Vanished. Like the little girl was lifted up and taken by a bird.”

  Unpleasant images darted through Chula’s brain, and she struggled against them. “Could someone have picked her up, Clifton?”

  He shook his head. “The dogs circled, noses to the ground, smellin’ the trees and the dirt.” His dark eyes were intense. “There was nothing for them, yes. She was taken.”

  “By the loup-garou?” Chula had to ask.

  “By something not like us, cher. Call it whatever you want. It’s in these swamps.”

  She tightened her hold on Sarah’s shoulder. She looked back down the road, relief palpable as she saw John striding toward them. She waved at him. When she turned back to Clifton, he and the dogs were gone, not even a leaf stirring in their wake.

  Florence slipped the kitchen knife into the pocket of an apron she’d borrowed. She picked up the tray of coffee with sugar and real cream and a plate of peanut butter cookies that Myra Fletcher had prepared.

  “Try to get Raymond to eat something,” Myra directed.

  If the doctor’s wife was surprised that the town whore had arrived to play nursemaid to Raymond Thibodeaux, she showed remarkable fortitude in hiding it, Florence thought as she lifted the tray. “Raymond’s hardheaded.”

  Myra laughed. “I remember him as a teenager. He and Antoine cut our grass during the summers.” Myra straightened the cups on the tray Florence held. “No men could work harder and Raymond taught Antoine, like a father would have. Despite the age difference, they were so close. When Antoine was killed, something died in Raymond.” She met Florence’s gaze. “When laughter dies in a man I’m not sure it can be mended.”

  Florence had no reply.

  “Doc has seen some horrible things, Florence. He’s seen some of the worst that man can do to man. Somehow, he’s managed to hang on to his humanity. He can sit down at the dinner table and tell a funny story. He isn’t … consumed by the evil of man.”

  Florence cleared her throat. “Raymond suffers, Mrs. Fletcher. I know he does. But there are times I see beneath the pain.” It was amazing that she stood in the Fletcher kitchen having this conversation with the doctor’s wife. She stood a bit taller. “I don’t know if Raymond will ever let himself love again, but he can. He’s capable.”

  Myra put her hand on Florence’s arm. “If he’s crippled, Florence, he’ll want to die. He’ll do whatever he has to to get out of a body that’s failed him.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you?” Myra stared into her eyes. “Maybe you do. I see you love him. Just don’t put yourself in front of a hurricane and expect to walk away without being hurt.”

  Florence smiled. “I thank you. Most folks wouldn’t take the time to care if I got hurt or not.”

  “Most folks don’t take the time to think about anything at all.” Myra patted her arm and left the kitchen.

  Florence started back to the bedroom. She passed two young black girls cleaning the room where Veedal Lawrence had died. The smell of bleach was strong, as if they hoped to sterilize the very idea of Veedal out of the floor.

  Doc had put Raymond on the east side of the house, removed from much of the activity. The hope had been that he could rest. Florence made her way down the polished hallway lined with colorful prints of birds. A man named Audubon had come to Louisiana back before the War Between the States to draw the exotic birds, and Doc had bought or traded for some of his work. One day, when she had time, she wanted to examine the paintings, to study the intricate detail and shadings of color that made the creatures seem ready to fly from the frame.

  She passed an exterior door that opened onto a small front porch, screened and private for those patients who had recuperated enough to sit and watch the traffic pass on the Teche. She’d stepped beyond the door when she heard Father Michael’s voice.

  “Are you sure you haven’t seen Adele?” he asked. “If you’re hiding her, it could go harshly for you.”

  Florence stopped. In the long list of her sins, eavesdropping would be a minor offense. Raymond would want to know anything she might hear about Adele.

  “My sister has been taken by Satan, Father. The spirit of sin has blackened her soul. You must pray for Adele’s soul. When they find her tonight, they’ll kill her. Pray for her soul.”

  Florence put the tray on a small table so that the cups didn’t rattle. She wasn’t certain who the female speaking was, but it stood to reason that it was Bernadette Matthews, Adele’s remaining sister. Who else would be begging a priest to intercede in Adele’s immortal judgment?

  Florence slipped down the hallway and out the front door, making her way quickly around the house so that she stood hidden in the dense camellias outside the small screen porch. She had a clear view of the priest and the untidy woman who talked with him.

  Bernadette’s resemblance to Adele was startling. There was the same dark hair and arching eyebrows. A closer examination showed the eyes beneath the brows were lackluster brown, the skin blotched. Where Adele was thin and angular, Bernadette was stouter, but they shared the same genes. Bernadette’s stance was aggressive, her expression angry.

  “The loup-garou may be only a legend, Father, but Satan walks the back roads of Iberia Parish. Surely you haven’t lost your belief in the devil?”

  The priest looked past Bernadette and into the live oaks near the pavilion. “I believe in Satan, Bernadette. I believe strongly in the devil. Sometimes it’s easier to believe in evil than in good. That, perhaps, is my greatest sin.”

  Florence saw the struggle in the priest’s face. Her opinion of Father Michael had shifted. She’d always believed him an ambitious man, but she’d not counted on the humility and concern that touched his face. He was a priest, but that didn’t elevate him from wrestling with the same doubts that afflicted all humans. Florence had simply never expected Michael Finley to be so honest about his struggles.

  “My sister, Adele, has given herself to darkness.” Bernadette stepped in front of the priest, demanding his attention. “She’s taken a child, Father. Maybe to
try to replace her own dead boys, I don’t know. But Adele can’t care for a young-un. She couldn’t care for her boys, no. I tried to help her. I tried to show her what babies need.” Bernadette sat down hard in one of the cowhide rockers. “Before her babies died, Adele was strange. She and Rosa both.”

  Father Michael wiped his cheek and Florence couldn’t tell if it was perspiration or a tear. “Rosa was a good woman, Bernadette. She didn’t ask for the stigmata.”

  “Did she have it truly? Or did she pull a trick, yes?” Bernadette shook her head. “Both Adele and Rosa grew such desperation to be special, to have all eyes on them and tongues waggin’ their names. Even as little ones. Rosa was always praying. She would go out to hang the clothes and come back inside to tell us some conversation she’d had with the Holy Mother Mary. The clothes would still be in the basket.” Bernadette got up and began to pace. “Adele was as bad, in her way. She made up stories all the time. Stories that frightened us. While Rosa spoke with angels and saints, Adele danced with demons, yes. The things she told us were gruesome, and she did it because it was her nature. She’d chosen darkness even then.”

  Bernadette paced to the end of the porch where Florence was hidden. The camellia bushes were thick, but she held her breath as a small brown wren burst from the foliage, startling Bernadette so that she drew back. Florence felt exposed and wrong, yet she couldn’t leave. Not now.

  “What is it you want me to do?” Michael asked.

  “I don’t know,” Bernadette finally answered. “I want you to see the truth of Adele. Some will try to save her.” She smoothed her hands down the front of her dress. “She can’t be saved, her.”

  “They’ll kill her, Bernadette. You know that, don’t you? They won’t have any mercy.”

  “Perhaps, in the end, that will be the greatest mercy of all, yes.” Bernadette leaned against the support. “Pray that God has mercy on her soul, Father. That’s what you can do.”

  23

  RAYMOND was careful to remain still, as if he were asleep. The drugs Doc had given him were finally wearing off, and he needed to figure a way to get out of the bed. The empty cookie plate sat on the windowsill beside the coffee cups. In an afternoon breeze off the Teche, gauzy sheer curtains billowed inward, draping Florence in a diaphanous gown as she perched on the edge of a chair beside his bed reading a magazine. She brushed the material away, recrossed her legs, and continued to read. She was, without a doubt, the most physically perfect thing Raymond had ever seen.

  He’d eaten the cookies only to please her. While she’d been gone to refill the coffee cups, he’d managed to determine that he wasn’t paralyzed. He was still a man, and as soon as he was alone, he intended to get free of the traction and get on with his work. Adele and Peat Moss were somewhere in the swamps.

  A tap at the door sent Florence to her feet. She answered it, stepping back to reveal Elisha. His sister stared at him, her expression unreadable. He tried to sit up, but the pull of the weights fought him. He struggled to one elbow. “Go home, Elisha.” His voice was sharper than he intended. It was bad enough that Florence saw him like this, but he couldn’t bear that Elisha should see it.

  “I heard you were injured.” Elisha hesitated in the doorway. She glanced at Florence, her gaze shying to the floor. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had company.” She backed out of the doorway.

  “Wait.” Florence crossed the room and grabbed Elisha’s hand. “Wait. Please. Come in and see your brother.”

  “Florence!” Raymond’s voice cracked.

  “It’s only his fear that makes him so bearish.” Florence didn’t release her grip. Slowly she drew the younger woman into the room. “He’s afraid he’ll be an invalid. That is such a gruesome fear, it pushes out his manners and”—she glared at him—“his common decency.”

  Raymond closed his eyes and swallowed the curses he wanted to hurl at Florence. If this was payback for the trip to Baton Rouge, she’d succeeded. “I’m okay, Elisha. I’ll be out of here soon.”

  “They say you killed Veedal Lawrence. That you deliberately ran over him.”

  His sister’s eyes held no condemnation, only curiosity. The scene replayed in his head, the expression on Veedal’s face, the solid thump of his body against the bumper, the way the car bucked over the body. “It’s true.” He felt no remorse or guilt, and he wanted Elisha to see that. To truly know him, so she’d leave him be. “I’d do it again, too.”

  “All of my friends were frightened of him.” She walked to the side of the bed and picked up his hand. “It was a good thing you did, Raymond.”

  He found his throat suddenly constricted, so he squeezed her fingers instead of answering. As a child, Elisha had worn her dark hair in braids and had helped Antoine work on harnesses and leather goods. Her nimble fingers had often been stained by the Neatsfoot oil used to soften the leather. She’d been Antoine’s helper, his devoted little sister.

  “I’m sorry.” The words came out as a whisper. “I’m so sorry.”

  Elisha’s tears wet his hand as she clung to it. “Raymond, come and see Mama. Please. Come to dinner Sunday.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t. What I did … How can I face her when I know how much she misses Antoine?”

  “We all miss him.” Elisha sat on the edge of the bed, his hand held between both of her. “You miss him. But you’re here, Raymond. Alive. And we miss you.” She lifted his hand and kissed it. “I miss my oldest brother as much as I miss Antoine.”

  “The Raymond you loved is as dead as Antoine.” Raymond couldn’t look at her.

  “I don’t believe that.” Elisha rose gracefully to her feet. “Still, I’d like that chance to look for myself. Dinner Sunday. I’ll cook your favorites.” She walked to the door and looked at Florence. “Thank you.” She closed the door behind her as she left.

  Outside the window a jaybird squawked a protest. Florence leveled her gaze at him, waiting. One eyebrow lifted slowly. When he didn’t say anything, she leaned angrily on the foot of the bed frame.

  “If you lose the use of your legs, will that be penance enough? How about if you’re paralyzed from the chest down? Will that be enough? Maybe you can’t use your arms, either. Would that be punishment enough?” She grabbed something from the bed. “Here’s the poultice Madame Louiselle sent to you. Why won’t you put it on?”

  Raymond had no fight left. Elisha’s visit, Florence’s hot words. Even Madame had pointed the finger of self-destruction at him. Was it so much easier to carry the weight of guilt than to free himself? “Cut me out of this”—he waved his hand at the traction—“mess. I’ll put the poultice on.”

  Florence didn’t bat an eye. She pulled a kitchen knife from her apron. “On one condition.”

  The corners of his mouth lifted in a smile. “You’re one tough lady, Florence Delacroix.”

  “I am.”

  “What’s the condition?”

  “That I drive you wherever you go. There are things I need to tell you. Things I overheard.”

  There were a million reasons Florence shouldn’t go with him. She would listen to none of them, so it would be a waste of breath to go down the list. “It’s a deal.”

  The sun dipped behind the trees leaving the sky almost colorless. Michael walked with Jolene along the side of the road, searching for prints as Sheriff Joe had told him. The sheriff had split the volunteer searchers into three groups. One had gone with him, another had gone with Clifton Hebert, and Michael’s group was under the direction of Praytor Bless. They were working the southwest corner of the parish close to Adele’s home and not too far from the place Henri Bastion had been killed.

  Out of deference for Jolene, who looked like she might keel over at any moment, Praytor had assigned them the job of walking along the roadway, searching the damp sand for tracks or impressions. It was a job unlikely to yield anything, but it had to be done. The other volunteers, of hardier stock, were deeper in the swamp, sweeping systematically to the east. Praytor himself was
somewhere in the woods, a tracking hound he’d borrowed from Angola prison dragging him through the sloughs and bogs.

  Michael could occasionally hear the dog’s mournful bay. He couldn’t tell if the animal was on the trail or if it had lost the scent and was complaining. Michael could only hope that if Adele was in the section of swamp they searched, that it wouldn’t be Praytor who found her. He had no doubt Praytor Bless intended to kill her on sight.

  “Do you think Marguerite has left for good?” Jolene asked.

  Michael glanced at her. She was still shaken by her experience at the Bastion plantation, and she stayed within arm’s reach. Several times a small animal scurrying through the dead leaves had made her jump almost into his arms.

  “Maybe.” He turned the conversation. “I hear Joe wants to run for the United States Senate.”

  “That’s why he changed his name. Easier to spell.” She kept pace with him though she’d begun to breathe harder.

  “He’s probably right about that.” Michael stopped to inspect what appeared to be the heel print of a small child. “Look!”

  Jolene knelt beside him, her finger hovering over the indentation in the damp sand. “Peat Moss?”

  Michael had prayed for a miracle. He’d asked God repeatedly for the return of the child, a truly helpless being who’d done no wrong. The print looked exactly like a child’s, but he wasn’t a tracker and he didn’t want to arouse the search party and then be ridiculed. “I’ll find someone to examine it. Stay here.”

  “Alone?” Jolene looked at the lengthening shadows on the road. The sun had dipped lower, burning red now through the bare trunks of the trees. The sky was fired with pink and orange, moving toward mauve and purple on the eastern border. Night would be falling soon.

  “I have to go into the swamp. Wouldn’t you rather wait here? Mark the spot?”

  Jolene looked at the swamp and then at Michael. “I’m afraid.”