by John Ringo
When he got back to the water he squatted down and appeared to go to sleep. He seemed to just be napping in the sun with the hook dangling in his hand.
“Need any help?” I asked.
He answered in what I took to be the negative.
I’m a really good linguist. You need a lot of exposure to Cajun to understand it. One of the reasons is it is a closed metaphorical dialect. What’s that mean?
There are closed metaphorical dialects in English. Take the deep south. One of those places where you want to paddle faster if you hear banjoes. If you go into a corner station and ask the owner for directions, the answer might be: “Don’t take a hound-dog to know the weather.”
What this actually means is “You should probably buy a map, Yankee.”
Unless you understand the metaphors, the colloquialisms in other words, you may be able to cut through the accent, you may be able to understand the words, but the metaphors are only understood by a closed set.
What does the term “being bus-left” mean? What is a “spare tire” besides the obvious?
You more or less have to guess based on the context. And you are entirely unable to communicate on your own terms, fully, because you do not have the necessary metaphors to relate.
This was my issue with Cajun the entire time I was in the area. Even if I could cut through the thick accent to understand the mixture of French and English, the metaphors were only fully understood if you were raised in the culture.
At one point when I was recuperating I dug into the anthropology and linguistic texts on Cajun and came to the conclusion that the anthropologists and linguists who were Cajun—and there are Cajuns who go to college—were incapable of explaining it and those who were from outside were incapable of understanding it. So that was no use.
Or as a Cajun would say: “Racoon dans un arbre ne est pas le souper.”
More or less.
I went back to Honeybear in a less than good mood.
“This wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t rocking the car,” Milo said in a superior tone.
“I wasn’t rocking the car,” I said. “You just can’t shoot.”
“You were rocking the car,” Milo said, getting angry.
“Was not,” I said.
“Were too!”
“Not!”
“Were!”
I shoved him. Lightly. With my elbow. He shoved back. Harder. We shoved back and forth for a while then both started laughing.
“See!” I said. “That’s rocking the car.”
“How long’s it going to take?” Milo asked.
“No idea. And rocking the car was funny.”
“See!” he said. “You were rocking the car!”
“Duh,” I said. “I was waiting for you to get down on the ground in exasperation. Then when you were going to get in I was going to drive away and make you chase the car for a while.”
“You…jerk,” Milo said, laughing. “I don’t know why I like you.”
“Same reason I like you,” I said. “I have an actual asshole of a brother and you lost all of yours. We both gotta find family where we can.”
“Point,” Milo said.
I rolled up the window and cranked the A/C.
“I am going to get some shut-eye,” I said, sliding the seat back. By then I’d taken off my armor and gear and was just in the Kevlar and cotton combat suit. “Wake me up if Methuselah catches anything.”
I was having a nightmare about spiders when Milo shoved me and started shouting.
“Werewolf!” he shouted. “Loup garou! Get out of the car!”
I’d kept my .45 on just in case and hit the door in an instant, totally awake. Then hit the ground on my face as my boots caught on something.
“What the fuck?” I yelled, rolling over and trying to get to my feet again. And down. And up…and down. And I finally looked at what my feet were caught on.
My freaking bootlaces were tied together.
“You son of a bitch!” I shouted. “Milo!”
Milo was on the other side of the car laughing so hard he was choking. He’d had the good sense to cower behind one of the tires so I couldn’t get a shot at his ankles, the coward!
“That’s for rocking the car, jerk!”
I tried to come up with an acceptable insult and gave up. I started untying my boots. He’d knotted them thoroughly. “Okay, okay. Even?”
“Even,” Milo yelled.
“Hoooweeee!” Cousin Badouin shouted. “Ooooh! Eeets a beeg one!”
Methuselah the teak Proto-Human had caught something.
He was hooting and caroling as he dragged the gator up towards the bank. I had enough knowledge of gator hunting by then to know that on the bank was the worst possible place to have a gator. They had a very powerful tail in addition to their bite. Nobody in their right mind wanted to try to kill a gator on the bank.
I’d forgotten this was one of Shelbye’s cousins. That put the question of “right mind” in perspective.
Sure enough, he had the gator caught on the tail with that treble hook. And, sure enough, he was dragging the damned thing up on the bank.
He yelled something at me in pseudo-French. He had both hands on the line so he couldn’t gesture. But I got the impression from head movements he wanted help.
I ran over, glad I had managed to get my boot laces undone, and he pulled the line towards me.
“Vigoureux!” he shouted. At least I was pretty sure that was what he was saying. “Vigoureux!”
I decided he wanted me to hold onto the line. And pull vigorously?
I grabbed the line and pulled vigorously. The alligator pulled back even more vigorously and I was nearly on my face again.
“Vigoureux!” Cousin Badouin shouted again, dancing around like, well, a proto-human design based on various forms of non-primate monkeys. He’d drawn his single action .22 and was waving it in the air. I noted in passing that, surprisingly enough, he had his finger off the trigger.
I kept pulling vigorously, dragging the recalcitrant gator onto the bank. Based upon the gabbling from Methuselah, I was now proceeding as desired.
As soon as the gator’s head was in the shallows, Methuselah made a leap like a vampire and landed on the gator’s back. The gator then became extremely vigorous. Then I stepped on one of my bootlaces.
I had gotten them untied. I hadn’t gotten around to tying them again.
I was on my back with an angry gator on the other end of the line and an angry Methuselah on its back.
How do I keep getting myself into these situations?
Milo was no help whatsoever. He was laughing too hard.
I managed to keep pulling vigoureux, pushing along on the ground.
Methuselah finally managed to get into position and capped the gator in the back of the head with a .22. The gator thrashed a couple more times and was still.
“Laissez les bon temps rouler,” I said, letting go of the line and rolling over on my back. “Ce était plus amusant que de manger des araignées.”
“Les araignées sont bonnes frites!” Cousin Badouin argued. “Bon! Tres bon!”
“What the heck are you saying?” Milo the cunning linguist asked.
“I was just explaining that you were my retarded cousin,” I said, standing up. “Now we gotta try to get—”
Something hit me hard in the head. As I passed out I distantly heard a male voice shout:
“Fore!”
* * *
I sat in the car, windows rolled up, A/C on full blast, Twilight Zone playing, surrounded by the smell of decaying blood from the damned loup garou that had bled all down my roof and all over my interior, drinking a Budweiser and holding an icepack on my head while I let Milo deal with Dave. From what I could see without turning my head much—the fall had wrenched my neck—there were bits and pieces being extracted from the belly of the gator.
Milo had duly paid Cousin Badouin who had presumably left satisfied. I don’t know. I was comatic
by Titleist. SOGCMOB, TGB, CBS.
“I got a receipt for one shambler,” Milo said as he got in the car. “How’s the head?”
I just looked at him balefully then removed the icepack for a second.
“Ooh,” Milo said. “Nice goose-egg! You can see the little dimples! That’s gotta hurt.”
“Thanks for your concern,” I said, putting Honeybear in gear.
“It was hard to tell, but I think Cousin Badouin said seeing you get whacked in the noggin made his day.”
CHAPTER 27
In the Air Tonight
I walked into Maurice’s and slapped Everett Christiansen on the back. I hadn’t seen him since the beginning of the full moon. For some reason, he looked a little tired.
“Still think the South side of Chicago is the baddest town ever?” I asked, sitting down next to him.
“This place is insane,” he said, picking up his shot and downing it with shaking hands.
“Just concentrate on those PUFF bonuses,” I said. “And they call it the Big Easy for a reason.”
It had become tradition, after surviving a full moon, hunters, MCB agents, and SIU cops gathered at Maurices, and Melisent had shots waiting for all of us. It looked like most of them had already arrived.
“We were at a call,” Milo said, sat down, looked at the shot then at the waitress. “Orange juice? Please?”
“Up to you, honey,” Melisent said, pouring Milo orange juice in a shot glass.
I took his bourbon and downed it.
“I’m gonna need a basis for drinking, honey,” I said. “And I still don’t have your number.”
“Food’s almost up,” Melisent said. “And that’s ’cause I’ve got yours.”
Milo looked over at Officer Tremaine. “Hey!”
“Tremaine,” Tremaine said, raising her glass. “That loup garou on Roche?” Her accent had gotten very pronounced.
“Tremaine,” Milo said. “And this guy kept trying to sell me drugs! Right in front of a cop! With a dead werewolf up on the roof! There were thirty or forty people gathered around trying to get a look!”
“Drugs ain’t my bailiwick,” Tremaine said.
“We got more important things to worry about,” Salvage said. “We take our time busting street dealers, we get nothing else done. Not in this damn town. Unless it’s gnomes.”
“Death to all gnomes,” Tremaine said, raising her glass.
“Death to the gnomes!” the other two chorused and drank.
Melisent poured more drinks.
“How the hell do you handle this?” Christiansen asked. He had bandages on his face.”
“Last couple times, with half as many people,” Trevor said.
“We lose anybody?” I asked.
“No deaths. Some injuries, nothing severe.”
“You expected more?” Christiansen asked.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you,” I said, grinning. “This was an easy full moon. Hell, I got some sleep.”
We’d had gotten a lot of calls over the last few nights, but with all the people we had in town most of them had been easy to clear up. I’d even been able to stop by the house, take a shower and change into a new uniform.
“Alvin and a couple of Ray’s guys are in the hospital,” Trevor said. “Torn up by some ghouls.”
“Steele and Castillo,” Ray said. He was the only one from his team who wasn’t looking worn to a frazzle. “Superficial injuries, they’ll be fine.”
“LT and Stick Insect,” I said, nodding. “Ghouls are nasty. SOCMOB. F-G, O-O-N.”
“What?” Greer said.
“Standing on the corner minding my own business,” Tremaine translated. “Fucking ghouls. Out of nowhere. I’ve actually listed that in the ER before. ’Cause I was standing on a corner…”
“Hoooweee!” Shelbye said, sitting down at the bar. She had Fred Ramsey with her. He was in a soft cast and from the looks of the way he was moving probably had broken ribs. Shelbye had a bandage on her arm but that looked like it. “We gonna be havin’ a real fais do-do on Saturday! Y’all come on down my camp! Laissez les bon temps rouler!”
“Make a deal with Doc Henry?” Salvage asked.
“T’at one beeeg rat!” Shelbye said. “Gonna make a fine rat jambalaya! We bring some up to t’ee boys in hospital. Do t’em good. Put bone on t’eir bone!”
“Rat what?” Katie said. “You’re going to eat a rat?”
“How come you always manage to get the big ones?” Trevor said. “When they said giant rat I was thinking dog sized, not elephant.”
“Elephant rat?” Christiansen said, downing another shot. The shakes were fading at least.
“Mole rat,” I said, shrugging. “We got an idea on PUFF on that, yet? Should be decent.”
“Real big,” Milo said. “Real real big in your rearview.”
“Use a LAW again?” Salvage asked.
“Figured Shelbye would want it for jambalaya,” I said. “So, Bertha.”
“So it nearly ate us!” Milo said. “I said we should go straight to LAW.”
“Worst part was it half ate Honeybear. Trunk is that fucked up. ’Cause somebody drives like an old lady.”
“Cousin Louis fix it right up,” Shelbye said.
“If that stupid woman had just gone through the intersection…”
“You’d have looked both ways and slowly and cautiously proceeded,” I said. “While I was busy trying to kill a monster rat…”
“Monster rats,” Christiansen shouted. “What, a hundred zombies? Ghouls? Vampires hunting in a group? Fricking werewolf on every corner! What the hell is wrong with this town?”
“It’s New Orleans,” Trevor said, lifting his drink. “To absent companions.”
“Absent companions,” we all chorused and downed our drinks. Melisent was already pouring before they all hit the bar.
I tried again when she poured mine. “And, honey, I need some sweet tea and a phone number.”
“I’ll get you the sweet tea,” Melisent said. “I’ll even give you a phone number. It’s to a mental hospital. You need it.”
“We have a fais do-do Saturday.” Shelbye declared. “Bring both teams, they free. Plenty of rat to go around! You guys sticking around?”
“We’ll hang out for a while,” Ray said. “See if things calm down, but eventually we’ve got to go. There are other areas we cover.”
“Fair enough,” Trevor said. “I still need more help. At least one more full timer at minimum.”
“Two,” Christiansen said, standing up and putting money on the counter. “If I’m out of MHI because I won’t do New Orleans, I’m out of MHI. Fine. But I’m not doing another full moon in this town. I want to live to spend the PUFF money.”
“I’m sure Tony will take you back,” Ray said, shrugging. “Up to him.”
“New Orleans isn’t for everyone,” I said.
“No kidding,” Trevor said. “See ya round, Chicago.”
Christiansen left without another word.
Good riddance. Fucking shotgun? Maybe that works in Chicago.
* * *
This next bit’s gonna be kind of choppy. Much of it was “same shit/different day” and I’ll skip most of that. I got injured, was out for about a month at one point. Dropped the Shackleford kids some special Uncle Chad presents. Spent some more time in England trying to track down what our mysterious digger creature—no luck there—and did some research on Swamp Ape language. Banged some hotties. The usual.
Things did calm down. New Orleans was still the busiest place in the country, and the company hot spot, but it wasn’t the mad house that it had been when I first arrived.
The hexes went back to causing impotence and baldness, rather than growing giant mutant animals or summoning powerful shadow demons. At least for a while. At the time we didn’t know the cause of the out-of-control hoodoo, or that it would be back soon. But those assholes creating werewolves were still a pain in our ass, and every full moon there would be a few ne
w ones.
We’d been turning over people like a treadmill. And it had been a revolving door, let me tell you. Our advertisement and recruiting started to pay off, and Ray kept finding us more help. Some, like Chicago, came in with background and knowing—just like I had—that the Big Easy was going to be easy. Then after one or two full moons would quit. Some quit monster hunting, some got taken back by their teams.
We’d lost Alvin. Not dead, lost his leg to a loup garou, but fortunately didn’t get infected. He retired back to Texas. Still there last I heard, got a job with a sheriff’s department doing the desk work and handling their supernatural stuff. With Alvin gone, Shelbye and Trevor were the only remaining members of the Hoodoo Squad from when I’d joined.
It was late summer and hot as hell day and night, when we got a call from SIU.
Earl Harbinger had been making regular visits, off moon, to the area. Most of the time he’d respond to calls but he was never around the team shack. Always gone. Off on his own. I asked him what he was doing one time and he answered “Enjoying the night life.”
What he’d been doing was, literally, going to bars and clubs, drinking, and just hanging out.
If you’re read in on Earl, you’ll know what he was doing. He was loup garou hunting.
So we get a call from SIU. Our boss has up and shot some dude in a bar multiple times. Guy’s dead. Earl’s claiming the dead man’s a werewolf.
Slow night. We all had to roll out on this one.
Dive’s over in Metairie. One of the ones that had been identified in the very long list from MCB of having had at least one person bitten in it by a loup garou. Earl’s out front of the bar, smoking a cigarette, talking to Officer Tremaine, jacket undone. He’s turned his weapon over to the first officer on scene but identified himself as MHI so the officer called SIU instead of locking him up. Earl’s looking cool as a cucumber.
Inside the bar I expected a shambles. Nope. There were clear signs of hasty exit. There’s a body under a sheet, blood leaking all over the already nasty floor.
