Stork Bite

by Simonds, L. K.

  STORK BITE

  By

  L. K. Simonds

  STORK BITE

  A Novel

  © 2020 L.K. Simonds

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles without the prior written permission of the author.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Lyrics from “Fence Breakin’ Blues” by the Shreveport Homewreckers quoted herein are public domain.

  Excerpts from “Birches,” “A Boundless Moment,” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost from the book THE POETRY OF ROBERT FROST edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright © 1923, 1969 by Henry Holt and Company. Copyright © 1951 by Robert Frost. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company. All Rights Reserved.

  Edited by

  Katherine Rawson

  Cover Design by:

  Kristie Koontz

  KK Designs

  www.lksimonds.com

  For Mabel

  Your eyes saw me when I was still an unborn child.

  Every day of my life was recorded in your book before one of them had taken place.

  Psalm 139:16

  Table of Contents

  Book One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Book Two

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Book One

  David Walker

  Chapter One

  1913

  When David Walker was seventeen years old, he killed a man.

  A white man.

  If David had taken the pig trail—his usual path—that Saturday morning, he wouldn’t have been on the highway when a rusted Ford Runabout passed, driven by a man who glared and scowled. The motorcar disappeared around a curve. David heard the engine slow. He stopped walking, and his dog, Huck, sat at his side. The car’s engine revved and grew louder again.

  Bourbon Democrats. That’s what Gramps called the rural whites who despised their darker neighbors. They were sprinkled through the countryside.

  “Stay away from them,” Gramps said.

  “How will I know them?”

  “You’ll know.”

  Before that October day, the center of David’s secluded, rural life was his maternal grandfather, Gramps, who called David “Big Man.” David was not a big man. He was tall but thin as a rake, so thin he might’ve toppled over in a stiff breeze if the air could’ve gotten hold of him at all.

  Gramps had been a sharpshooter in the Union Army’s 7th Louisiana Regiment during the Freedom War. By the time Gramps was seventeen, he had killed many men. But that was war. Afterward, David wondered if war made it easier or if the man’s face haunted you just the same.

  When the war ended, Gramps did not go home to Port Barre. Instead, he landed on the staff of his former captain, first in Shreveport, then in New Orleans, where Captain C. C. Antoine served as lieutenant governor for four glorious years that were heady with promises of equality.

  David had killed his first deer with Gramps’s Sharps rifle. He patiently fixed the sight on the crease behind the buck’s shoulder and held the long barrel steady, arms burning, until he had a clean shot. He squeezed the trigger. The hammer and the deer seemed to drop at the same time.

  “That’s a better use for this gun,” Gramps said.

  Gramps was the reason David hunted ducks with a .22 rifle.

  “Ain’t nobody hunts ducks with a rifle,” the white man had said.

  “I do,” David answered.

  That seemed to set him off.

  When David heard the Runabout turn around, he said, “C’mon, Huck.” He and the dog hurried into the woods and crouched behind a bramble. The Runabout passed by slowly, the white man half-standing in the vehicle, peering toward the woods. Toward them.

  David put his index finger to his lips. “Shhh,” he breathed. The dog looked up at him, his pale blue eyes luminous in the gloom, and licked David’s hand. Huck was a Catahoula Hound, obedient only to David.

  The car rolled out of sight. “Let’s go,” David whispered. They made their way to the pig trail they often followed on their reconnoiters. It meandered through the woods for miles. The previous Saturday, David had followed it farther from home than ever—across the Arkansas line—and discovered an oxbow lake that swarmed with mallards.

  By the time they reached the lake, David had forgotten all about the Runabout and its driver. There was a pirogue overturned on the shore, with a long paddle tucked beneath it. He wrestled the boat over and laid his rifle and haversack in it. He pushed it to the water’s edge, took up the oar, and prepared to shove off. As soon as he turned to call Huck, he saw the white man step out of the woods. The man wore a pistol on his hip and a badge on his shirt.

  The man walked to the boat and raised one boot onto the gunnel. He removed his spectacles and cleaned them with his handkerchief, taking his time about it. He looked over David and Huck and the contents of the pirogue, then he put his glasses back on, hooking a wire arm over each ear.

  �
��Why you takin’ so much trouble to dodge me, boy?” the man asked.

  David looked at the ground.

  “Say,” he insisted.

  “Didn’t mean to be dodging anybody.”

  “You’re lyin’ on that count.” The man kicked the pirogue with the side of his boot. “This here boat’s for whites only.”

  “Didn’t know that,” David said. “I was just gonna use it, the way folks do.”

  The man squared himself on both feet and put his hands on his hips. “Matter of fact, this here county’s pretty much whites only. I know all the coloreds around here, and you ain’t one of ‘em. You musta come up from Lousy-ana.”

  David did not answer.

  The man reached into the boat and fetched out the rifle and the black-tarred haversack. The haversack was Union army issue, surplus gear Gramps had brought home from the war. It had been packed away for many years until Gramps gave it to David on his thirteenth birthday. For the first time in his life, David was thankful no insignia adorned it.

  The man sighed. “Reckon I better take you in for trespassin’. You and that Leopard dog.”

  Fear thrashed in David’s gut like a pain-savaged animal. He tightened his grip on the long paddle, feeling his knees might give way.

  “This is pretty good stuff,” the man said. “Might be enough to pay the fine for you. It ain’t enough for you and the dog. He’ll have to come with me.” He looked David up and down. “Ain’t you a dandy? Outfitted real nice, ain’t ya? New boots. Store-bought clothes. Looks to me like you got money to burn. Where’d ya get all that money?”

  “I don’t have any money. You can check.”

  “I ain’t checkin’ nothin’! They ain’t no reason for you to be up here poachin’ white folks’ game, now are they? Wha’chu huntin’ anyway?”

  “Just ducks.”

  “Ain’t nobody hunts ducks with a rifle.”

  “I do.”

  The man looked at him sharply. “Well, you is just full a cheek, ain’t ya?” He dropped the haversack and took a step forward, lifting the rifle. “Get on the ground!”

  Huck barked and rushed him.

  The man swung the rifle toward the dog, and David swung the paddle toward the man. The blade of the five-footer left the ground and landed on that milky temple with such swift force that the oar broke into two pieces. The splintering wood sounded like a shot, and David smelled gunpowder. He turned toward Huck.

  The dog was down, lying on his side. David ran to him. Fell on him. Blood bubbled from a wound in Huck’s chest. David sat cross-legged in the dirt and pulled the dog into his lap. Huck’s eyes were open but unseeing. David pressed his hand against the hole to stop the blood and air coming out of it. He held it there tightly while the dog panted. With his other hand, David traced three long, bald scars on Huck’s hind leg, healed gashes from an alligator’s teeth.

  David had foolishly taken the yearling puppy hunting during their first autumn together, before the water cooled and the alligators became indifferent. One came out of nowhere and yanked Huck under. The dog bobbed to the surface, paddling frantically, and David pulled him into the boat before the monster got hold of him again. Watching that pup fight his way clear, watching him cry and tremble and bleed afterward, had torn David up. He’d felt so remorseful that he would’ve done anything to keep Huck safe after that.

  David touched a jagged tear in the dog’s right ear, made by an angry raccoon. David had shot the raccoon and cured the pelt, and Huck had slept on it every night since. The hound wore other scars too—as did David—each calling up a memory from their seven years together.

  Huck stopped breathing, and David gathered him into his arms and cried. He rocked and sobbed and wailed.

  When he had worn himself out, David looked toward the pirogue—only a few paces away—where the man had fallen against its bow. The man’s head was cocked at an unnatural angle that reminded David of the fossils in his mother’s textbooks: lizards imprinted in rock, their necks curved back sharply in death. The man’s eyes were open and startled—absent the spectacles that had flown off—and they were almost as blue as Huck’s. A blotch of deep red bloomed on his pale temple.

  David eased Huck off his lap. He went to the man and knelt beside him. He laid his palm on the quiet chest, next to the badge. The badge was a ruse. It was tarnished and worn almost smooth, except for a faint imprint: Texas Ranger.

  David sat on the ground beside the dead man and wondered what he should do. All the warnings his mother and father had given him: Don’t eat! Don’t say! Don’t touch! Not once had they warned him this could happen. Never once had Mama said, as he was on his way out the door, “David, honey, don’t kill anybody while you’re out today.”

  David’s parents didn’t need to tell him not to kill. God Almighty warned against it. “Thou shalt not kill.” Thou shalt not even kill a man who abused you. Especially not a man who abused you. The Bible said to pray for those who despitefully use you.

  The man surely would’ve abused Huck too, if he’d gotten the chance. Terrible images had flashed through David’s mind when the man said he was taking Huck. When the rifle swung toward the dog, David felt his fear coil and strike before he could stop it.

  The only thing David knew for certain was that he couldn’t leave the body for the whites to find. He knew this instinctively, before he took time to reason it through. David had been seen on the road that morning. A family in a wagon had passed him and Huck. The daddy’s thickly bearded face was partially hidden beneath his hat brim, and the mama’s red hair was tied up in a glory knot. She smiled, her eyes kind, and David smiled back. A passel of children lazed in the wagon bed. They stared, slack-jawed and snaggletoothed, as the wagon rattled past.

  “Close your mouth, David,” His mother had told him often enough when he was young and given to sitting around with his jaw hanging open.

  The family in the wagon were white. When word got around that a man was dead, they’d tell about seeing a dark stranger and his merled dog on the highway. The whites would assemble a posse and begin a manhunt that would end at his family’s front door. Then David wouldn’t be the only one they took.

  The motorcar on the road had to be reckoned with. If left there too long, it might provoke a passerby to investigate. David got to his feet and pried his rifle from the man’s clenched hands. He walked to the highway and turned south, making his way through the trees alongside the road, hiding himself and his bloodied clothes. He went about half a mile but saw nothing. He turned and walked north, eventually coming to a break in the trees across the road. He looked each way and hustled across. The car was there, on a dirt track that angled into the highway. David reached inside, released the brake, and pushed the car far enough from the road to be hidden.

  He trudged back to the lake. From a distance, Huck looked peaceful, as if he were dozing in the sun. David almost expected the dog to raise his head and hail him with a soft woof. He walked directly to the pirogue, passing Huck without looking down. The sun was high and hot, and flies crawled across the man’s open eyes. David knelt and closed the eyelids with his fingertips. He laid his rifle aside and unbuttoned the man’s shirt. He undressed the dead man completely, an awful violation that felt more shameful than striking him, which David had done before he had a chance to think about it. The corpse lay naked, white flesh exposed to the afternoon sun, and David wondered if the skin would sunburn, even now.

  He gathered some stones and put them in the man’s boots, and then he set the boots in the bottom of the pirogue. He spread the man’s shirt on the ground and laid in its center the spectacles, socks, drawers, and undershirt, the empty holster—not the pistol—and a large rock. He wrapped the shirt around it all and tied the sleeves. In the man’s pants pockets, David found a folding knife, some coins, and a money clip stuffed with banknotes. These he put into his haversack, along with the pistol. He knew he shouldn’t keep the gun, but he did. David wrapped the pants around the shirt and secured it all wi
th the man’s belt. Then he placed the bundle in the pirogue next to the boots.

  David took off his jacket. He got behind the man and pushed and heaved until the body was sitting up. The man reeked of body odor and another smell, like potatoes gone bad. David put his knee against the man’s back and sloughed off his own shirt to keep the man’s stench off it. He took a deep breath and wrapped his arms around the man’s chest. David had never embraced another human being, flesh to flesh, as intimately as this dead man. The skin was dry, and the body was without resistance, the muscles having let go of their vigor. David wrestled him over the gunnel of the boat and laid him flat in the bottom.

  He shoved the flat-bottomed pirogue through the mud until the water finally got up under it. He retrieved the blade end of the broken oar, stepped over the body into the boat, and pushed off. He paddled to the middle of the lake and dropped the man’s possessions into the water. They sank out of sight. He turned the pirogue toward a grove of towering cypress, beneath which the water’s surface was choked with yellow-flowering bladderwort.

  In the shadows of the cypress, David rolled the body out of the boat. He held onto one suntanned arm and reached into the warm water to cut the throat. Black blood seeped from the wound, and strands of bladderwort clung to David’s arm and the man’s pallid skin. He punctured the abdomen and the chest, driving the knife to the hilt. He couldn’t have the corpse gassing up and rising in a day or two if the alligators didn’t take it. David had seen a bloated pig float like a cork for days.

  David let go and the body sank, leaving an empty space in the black water where the plants had been disturbed. He rinsed his knife and sheathed it. He churned the water with the paddle then stopped and listened. There was a splash and another one close behind it. He churned some more then paddled a little distance away to wait and see what the alligators would do.

  David swatted at the mosquitoes and listened to the swamp sounds. Birds and insects sang cheerfully as on any other afternoon. A breeze lifted the curly gray beards hanging from the bald cypress. Gramps was the reason David knew Spanish moss wasn’t really moss at all. David and his grandfather had explored Caddo Parish with Gramps’s field guide: Flora and Fauna of Louisiana. David could distinguish the calls of blue herons from those of great egrets. He knew the trilling insects were cicadas, and he could diagram their life cycle.