Tonton

by Billy Kring

  “Well, they need the publicity.”

  Hunter shook her head, “That’s some dry humor you have there, Benton.”

  “Like the Sahara.”

  “Call ‘em.” While Andre called the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Hunter glanced in her rearview and saw John on foot, checking some bushes near a house. What the heck? That would be something to ask him about tonight. And Randall would be home, too. That thought made her happy.

  Hunter and Andre had time to begin processing Jean Claude as his attorney sat and watched, but that was all. A half dozen Justice Department Attorneys came into the room, as did four FBI Agents, two CGIS Investigators from the Coast Guard, the two Fort Lauderdale Homicide Detectives, Rahinsky and Bustamante, and, on their way as fast as they could drive, were the two Miami Homicide Detectives, Jesse Coda and the young one, Jason Hale.

  Bob Redus pushed through the crowd and told Hunter and Andre, “News teams are on the way, too.”

  “Which ones?” Andre asked.

  “All of ‘em.” He winked and squeezed back through the crowd.

  Andre looked at Hunter, “You ever have anything like this before?”

  Hunter laughed, “I live in a town with a population of eighteen-hundred, and the nearest town with a population over ten thousand is two-hundred miles away, what do you think?” She shook her head. “I don’t think we’ll have to worry. Looks like the suits are already sprucing up for their on air interviews. Let’s get our part done and get out of here.”

  Andre said, “Let’s.”

  They didn’t make it without being interviewed by several of the news teams, but there was always someone they turned it over to, so they weren’t in front of the cameras nearly as long as the others.

  ~*~

  By the time Hunter ended her shift, John and Randall were peppering her phone with texts and images of what the news teams were showing on the network stations. Underneath one image of Hunter they texted, “I know her! I know her!”, and on a second, “How come u r not wearing yur bikini uniform?”. The last one was, “Randall’s. Steaks. Mangoes. Beers. Be There or be a Trapezoid.” Those guys, she thought.

  Hunter didn’t bother changing, just went straight there. Randall handed her a Dos Equis as John put the steaks on the grill. She said, ‘Glad you’re back. How was the Land of Enchantment?”

  “Enchanting as always.”

  John said over his shoulder, “Says he’s got some things to tell us.”

  Hunter looked at Randall, “That you learned in New Mexico?”

  Randall said, “After we eat.”

  She asked, “How’s your grandfather?”

  “Good. The doctor said he’s healthy, just had an old person moment. The hospital released him to be at home. I’ve got a cousin lives nearby, he’s gonna check on Grandfather every couple days or so.”

  John pulled out a chair and sat down, “Tell me what this Ringo Bazin guy looks like again.”

  Hunter said, “Why?”

  “I think he was there today.”

  “At Villard’s?”

  “When I first saw him, I thought he was a mannequin propped between two bushes, but then I realized it was a man.”

  Hunter felt her neck hairs prickle. “I saw you in the rear view mirror, looking around some oleanders.”

  “That’s where he was. I was in the car watching you for a second, and when I looked back he was gone. Like, poof. What does he look like?”

  “He’s about six-five, athletic looking. It’s hard to judge weight because he wears tailored suits, but I would guess him at around two-twenty. His skin’s light, coffee with cream.”

  “And?”

  “He’s very still. I don’t know any other way to put it.”

  “That’s him. I’m going to do some checking around.”

  Hunter took a sip, “You find something, let me know. He spooks me.” John tipped his Dos Equis at her in acknowledgement, and then rose to work the grill.

  The steaks were done to medium rare perfection, and John had also grilled fresh asparagus. Earlier, Randall had prepared mango salsa, borracho beans, and fried plantains, and when the three friends placed everything on the patio table, it looked like enough food to feed eight. Randall said, “Don’t wait on me.”

  When they finished and leaned back, sipping fresh beers, Randall told them about the things his grandfather said.

  When he mentioned his grandfather giving him Victorio’s saddle, Hunter said, “You brought it back?”

  “Yeah, in the house. He told me to go ahead and take it with me. Right now, I have it in the closet in the spare bedroom.”

  “Can I look at it later?” She was excited.

  “Sure. John, you want to see it?”

  “I do.”

  Randall stood, “Come on then, palefaces.” He brought the saddle into the living room and put it on the small coffee table in front of the couch. “Victorio marked it,” he lifted the flap of leather and showed them the red marks.

  Hunter said, “There’s a place about an hour and a half from Marfa, out near Sierra Blanca where Victorio fought some soldiers in a big battle. I’ve walked the place and tried to imagine what it was like back then.”

  John said, “That’s where the soldiers fortified their place on Devil’s Ridge.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “I used to sit with Randall when Grandfather and other elders talked about it. They didn’t do it often, but when they did, I listened. Theirs was a whole different perspective from what the soldiers wrote down.”

  Hunter sat on the couch, looking at the saddle as if she wished it could talk. “I always wondered about that. It was declared a soldier’s victory in everything I read.”

  Randall said, “Not exactly what the Apaches said, since their version was only spoken, not written down. But if you read the sign of the battle, you can tell that what Grandfather was told matched what the warriors said about it.”

  Hunter leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “Don’t stop now.”

  “The archeological evidence showed that Colonel Grierson and his soldiers were about four hours from being wiped out, and they never knew it. The Apaches were harassing the soldiers from several places to their front and drawing their attention, while Vicrorio sent small groups in flanking movements to shoot from higher ground. The bullet casings found–this was in an archeological search back in the eighties–showed one warrior was already in a perfect high point on the Calvary’s west to shoot into them while the soldiers hid behind stone breastworks.

  Another Apache, on the east side, was within fifty yards of being on a second high point that would have had every soldier fully exposed to rifle fire, and with no place to go. There were only one or two rifle casings found at those locations, which matched what the elders said, that a lot more Calvary arrived before the two warriors could shoot more than once or twice.”

  John said, “The reinforcements arrived from Fort Hancock. Victorio left the battle to fight another time. People forget he had to protect all the women and children with him, too. Anyhow, they retreated into Mexico, and Colonel Grierson proclaimed a victory.”

  Hunter looked at the saddle, “And Victorio rode on this saddle during that time?”

  “Pretty sure.” Randall said.

  “Thanks for letting me see it.”

  “I thought you’d like it, being an ol’ country girl.” He grinned.

  “Au contraire, amigo. I’m mucho cosmopolitan. I listen to Renèe Fleming and Bruno Mars, not just George Strait and Johnny Cash. I own a genuine imitation Prada handbag, too. So there.” She winked at him and touched a stirrup, “But I do think this saddle is so…frickin’…awesome.”

  They called it an early night. When Hunter returned to her hotel room, it was 9:00. She felt relaxed and happy. It had been a long time since she felt this at ease. They’d done good work today, bringing in Villard. She was proud of that, and, she thought, I owe Marc Dessaline a thank you. I sure never thought that would happen
. Tomorrow, then, she thought. Andre and I will go by and do a little hand shaking. She undressed, showered, and climbed into bed. She fell asleep in minutes.

  Outside, under the shadows of the palms, Ringo Bazin watched the lights go off in Hunter’s room. He stood there for an hour, then left.

  When Ariel Baimby saw his Mercedes leave, she started her ten-year old Camry and followed, her eyes luminous. She liked this Hunter Kincaid, and the pull to her was so strong. Tonight, she had planned to talk to her, but saw Bazin standing in the shadows like some dark monolith. She eased back to her car and watched from there. Ariel worried that Bazin would attack Hunter when she arrived, but he only watched her go to her room. He stood there for an hour, not even shifting his feet. Then, as if on some invisible signal, Bazin left.

  Something was going on with Kincaid that Ariel could not discern. She followed Ringo to see if maybe he would provide a clue.

  ~*~

  Ringo drove to a small, nondescript warehouse in the Little River area. Ariel parked a half-block away, and then walked forward in the dark. Few streetlights were there, so it was easy to move from shadow to shadow.

  She watched Ringo push open an old, rickety door and go inside. Muted light showed when the door was open, then went black when it closed. The closer Ariel got, the more primitive and frenzied the drumbeats inside sounded. She paused at the door, put her hand on the knob and felt it vibrating with the rapid, pounding drumbeats inside. She gathered her courage, opened it and walked into humid heat and an almost overpowering smell of human sweat, spilled rum, and pungent marijuana smoke. But it was what she saw that caused the breath to catch in her throat.

  A dozen utility carts were stationed around the warehouse and each one was festooned with lighted candles in glass jars that provided yellow, fluttering light in the smoky air. The carts were draped with beads and feathers. Human skulls were on every cart, with some painted red or black, and others unpainted. Bottles of chilli rum were everywhere: on the carts, in people’s hands, and on the floor.

  The room was filled with black people dressed in everything from simple cotton whites to colorful clothes like those worn in the Caribbean. Some men wore no shirts, only khaki pants, and others dressed in loose shirts and sleeveless tee shirts. Some of the women writhing on the floor wore only cotton panties. People chanted in Creole as more of them euphorically sang and jumped and spun to the machinegun drumbeats.

  Four men wearing replicas of the uniforms of the Tonton Macoutes stood near the carts. They wore the dark blue straw hats and sunglasses, even in the dim room, and each one had a long machete in a scabbard on their belt.

  To Ariel they seemed to radiate evil. She turned her head toward the drums as they grew louder.

  Each drummer had two drums; a set called batterie, with one drum larger than the other and both shaped like rough-hewn congas, but with more tapered bottoms. The players used sticks to beat on leather drumheads held in place with ropes.

  Only the center portion of the floor was empty of people, and it had multiple designs drawn on it, with many of them representing the crossroads, the juncture of life and death. All drawings were done in white.

  It was a Petro ceremony, and Ariel felt ice in her stomach. This was not to draw benevolent loa, oh no. She caught motion out of the corner of her eye as men drug a black goat and black pig into the open center of the floor. Several men in robes stepped to them, and one cut the pig’s throat with a hard, pulling slice of his butcher knife.

  The pig squealed and fought, gurgling and pouring blood onto the concrete, its hooves sliding as if it was on ice. The people grew more excited, the drums beat faster as a woman dressed in flowing red moved to it and dipped her fingers in a small jar to paint white symbols on the pig’s back.

  Drumbeats increased in speed and loudness when gourd rattles, called ason, joined in the cacophony as people shook them in frenzied delight while the chants grew louder. Several high-pitched wails mixed with the voices. People gyrated and danced as if possessed. Ariel watched as men pulled the terrified goat beside the dead pig and, as it’s yellow eyes rolled in fear and it fought the ropes, a third man doused it with a full quart of charcoal lighter fluid. They stepped back to allow the woman in red robes to toss a lit match.

  The goat erupted in flames and foul gray smoke as the entire body combusted and its hair burned. The goat squalled and cried so loudly it pierced the ears, and it stamped and jerked and fought desperately to escape the fire and the ropes, but was unable to break free. The woman in red, along with many in the crowd laughed, enjoying the goat’s agony. Others swayed to the drums as if in trances. The woman in red poked the goat with a sharpened stick to make the pain worse for the animal, and continued to prod and torture it until the goat collapsed to the concrete and convulsed, then she jabbed it so hard that the point imbedded in the animal.

  When it stopped moving, she cut the goat’s throat. People formed a line beside the woman as she dipped her index finger in the slashed throat, and then touched her wet finger to the tongues of those in line as they stepped forward. Each time someone new stood in front of her, the woman slid her finger into the slashed throat, drew it out and touched the wet end to the person’s tongue.

  Ariel felt ill, but could not turn away. This was like living in a terrible, hallucinogen-induced nightmare. She had only been to ceremonies for benevolent loa before this, and those ceremonies were beautiful and were what most of Haiti practiced.

  These ceremonies for evil were things she had heard of in whispers, but never seen. It frightened her to her core. She started to leave, but a motion at the back of the crowd across the room stopped her.

  The crowd parted and a tall man whose dark face was painted white to look like a skull stepped into the center of the floor. He wore a loose-fitting red peasant suit with light blue sleeves, and wore a black, flat brimmed straw hat.

  The second man wore a tall purple top hat whose shape reminded Ariel of the one Abraham Lincoln wore. His suit was purple, styled like something out of aristocratic England in the nineteenth century, with tails and a cravat. His pants were also purple, and he carried a black cane with a golden knob on the top. The upper half of his face was painted like a white skull. The two men walked to the center near the dead animals where the woman in red robes joined them as she motioned toward someone that Ariel couldn’t see.

  Two men pushed out another cart. A young, nude, red-haired white woman was tied to the cart, face up, with her arms and legs pulled down on the sides toward the wheels. She’s been drugged, Ariel thought, and the woman lolled her head from side to side. The two men painted white markings on her body as the woman in red pricked her with a long, slender knife so her body jerked. A dozen lines of blood coursed down her sides before the men finished marking her, then the woman in red handed the knife to the man in the top hat. The other man pushed the woman’s upturned face down and back, exposing her throat and stretching the pale skin taut. The man in the top hat moved the knife to her throat.

  That was enough for Ariel. She burst through the crowd, causing a loud commotion, and hurried to the door. She glanced back to see the man in the top hat staring at her. Banging the door open, Ariel raced to her car and slid behind the wheel. Before she drove away, The Tonton Macoutes and both skull-faced men stood outside the warehouse watching her. The man in the top hat raised his cane and pointed it at her like a long, accusing finger until she sped away and lost sight of them.

  She didn’t go home that night, but instead drove all the way to Dania Beach, where she crawled under the pier into the darkest shadow and sat with her back to a piling. Ariel was so tired and exhausted, she let her eyes close. In moments her breathing slowed, and she fell asleep. The dreams that came to her were the same as the flashes she had seen when Marc Dessaline touched her arm and revealed his spirit to her. What he wasn’t aware of was how strong Ariel’s ability was. She saw the part of his life that he didn’t intend for anyone to witness.

  Chapter 5
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br />   In the 1960’s, the legendary Haitian sòsyè, Malice Paisone, felt a need. She was the most powerful vodou witch in all Haiti, brilliant and beautiful, in her early twenties, and hungry for power. Malice was also an officer in the Tonton Macoute, promoted after saving Papa Doc Duvalier during an assassination attempt. Her close, continuing relationship with Duvalier afforded her a level of influence and protection almost unimaginable for the time. If she disliked someone, or took offense, that person, if they were smart, left immediately for another part of the country.

  If they weren’t, well, within a short time, another rotting body would turn up in one of the untended fields where the Tonton Macoute tossed the dead when they finished with them.

  Malice Paisone was known to have powerful magic, and used it to influence and manipulate, to heal, and to kill. Using the Tonton Macoute through Duvalier was simply more expeditious, but no more effective. She was not married, or had a man, although she had used them often over the years only to discard them when bored, or turn them to allies.

  Her sexual expertise was legendary, though talked about among the people only in hushed tones. On her twenty-first birthday, Malice decided not to be alone any more. But she wanted someone extraordinarily special, a male she could train to be the way she wanted a man to be. And he needed to be someone with the ability and intelligence to become powerful in vodou, perhaps almost her equal. That was important in her plans.

  She sent people in every direction to check out the young males. For eleven months, they found no one satisfactory. Then one day, Selvin Jarrè, her most trusted servant, came to her with excitement in his voice and told her of a child.

  He travelled to the remote farming community of Bainet, on the far side of the mountains where it nestled in the fertile valley between the peaks and the sea, a place noted for the marabou people there, the beautiful ones with light colored eyes.

  Selvin first saw the boy at sundown, standing in an unpaved, dusty street while a dozen stray dogs fought all around his feet, creating an eerie, sun-tinted dust cloud the color of the sunset. The boy barked one word at the canines as he clapped his hands twice, and they scattered as if stung by wasps. Bending down, the boy picked up a dusty ribbon of cooked goat meat the dogs had dropped. He slapped it against his leg, and then bit off a small piece. He chewed slowly and put the remainder in his front pocket.