Sorrow Creek

by Christopher Fulbright

  Cassi had been quiet for the last twenty minutes, but finally she asked, “You sure this the right way?” Everything looked the same to her. She didn’t know how Troy knew which way to go just by looking at one squiggly little pen line on a sketch.

  “Pretty sure.”

  Cassi resisted the urge to snap at him. She couldn’t afford to piss him off. She needed Troy. It was Troy and his daddy’s fishing boat or the sheriff. She knew the sheriff would take his slow-as-molasses time investigating before he’d even begin to search. In that amount of time, Max could be dead – or worse. She didn’t even want to contemplate the “worse” scenarios. Some sicko out here in the middle of the swamp. Out here where no one would see Max or hear him scream if the psycho pervert decided to do terrible, torturous things to him – to his body. And worse, to his mind. Cassi breathed deep. Oh, Maximus! Hold it together, baby. Hold it together!

  The sun was blocked by the dense canopy of tree tops and vegetation. Occasionally a swath of light sliced through the murk, but it was never anything to get excited about. It was light enough to navigate by, but they couldn’t see more than two boat’s lengths in front of their vessel.

  A rotting, floating log bumped up against the boat, jarring them to one side. Cassi gripped the low boat rail and looked at Troy expectantly.

  “Git that oar out from the clasp there and push that log away from the boat widt it.” Troy pointed at the wood oar hooked to the inside top rail of the boat. He shut the motor off and unclasped the other oar so he could use it to navigate the boat through the log-riddled waters.

  Cassi fiddled with the iron fixtures until the oar slid free. She held the handle, using the paddle to push the hollow log. The log’s surface was spongy and the oar smashed bits of decomposing wood away in splintered chunks. Finally, it rolled out of their path and got hung up on a tree growing out of the water.

  Wiping the sweat from her brow onto her shirt sleeve, she began to refasten the oar into the boat.

  “Go ahead and leave that out.” Troy pointed in front of them to a patch of water-swollen logs.

  Cassi sighed and got into position to continue shoving away logs. She leaned lightly against the boat rail as they came up on a turtle-covered log. Steadying herself by locking one foot against the brace beneath the boat bench, and resting her shin against the boat’s rail, she leaned over to reach for the nearest log.

  A heavy thunk plowed into the opposite side of the boat. Cassi held onto the rail, but almost went over. “Damn logs!” she shouted, birds taking flight at the sudden noise.

  Another forceful bump whacked the boat, lifting it partially from the swampy brew.

  Cassi flew over the rail and landed with a splash in the water.

  She surfaced, spitting and choking, bits of unidentifiable goo clinging to her hair and clothes. She began to curse when she saw Troy looking horrified into the water on the other side of the boat.

  “Don’t fucking move!” Troy said between gritted teeth. The boat was plowed into again, sending the side barreling into her shoulder. “Git in now!”

  Cassi grabbed the boat’s rail and dragged herself over, climbing inside, still coughing. As she laid face down in the boat, swamp water poured from her clothes, and the boat shimmied to the right hovering above the surface of the swamp. Her heart pounded inside her chest like a piston. She pushed herself up from the bottom of the boat to look at Troy.

  “Stay down, dammit!” He had one leg wrapped under the wood seat and was slightly leaning over the rail, scouring the black water for the shape he knew was there. “Alligator!” he hissed.

  “Shit!” Cassi whispered, the full realization of what could have just happened to her in the water dawning on her. She wedged herself against the inside of the boat, holding onto the seat’s brace, so she could see most of Troy and beyond the opposite rail. Brown water lapped over the boat in waves stirred up by the commotion caused by the alligator.

  “There’t is…motherfucker…ten-footer.”

  “You can see it?”

  “Not all of it. You can estimate the length by guessing the distance from the center of the bugger’s skull to its nostrils. This one’s ‘bout ten inches -- means it’s about ten-feet long.” Troy kept his eyes on the water. The boat dropped with a splash. Cassi let out a surprised squeak.

  Suddenly, a huge brown leathery head reared up from the water’s depths, snapping ferociously in the air. The gator’s body bashed the wood boat with the force of a battering ram.

  The boat careened into a succession of floating logs, ricocheting from the larger ones, moving right back into the path of the pissed off beast. Cassi screamed. She heard the unmistakable sound of a slide being pulled back on a pistol.

  She looked at the gun in his hands. “Where’d you get a gun?”

  Troy frowned like he thought she was brainless. He clutched the boat rail with one hand, glancing at her, and then back into the water.

  “I mean, you’re a mailman. I didn’t know you had a gun!”

  “Why would you know that? Like you said, I’m your mailman. I don’t go around whipping out my .45 ACP for all the world to see.”

  She started to say something else, but Troy interrupted her. “Sssh.”

  Cassi held onto the braces beneath the wood seat, belly down on the bottom of the boat. Something was moving beneath them. She could hear the movement of the water amidst the creaking of the boat’s wood. The monstrosity was so big Cassi wondered if it could just rise up, carrying their boat on its back, taking them wherever it wanted. The swamp surged around them as the gator darted back and forth, and circled the boat considering its plan of attack.

  Boom! The alligator smashed the boat from the side again. The beast’s tail whipped the boat, sending splinters flying from the top rail. Little bits of weathered wood flew through the air, peppering her face and hair and landing in the swamp goo coating the boat’s bottom.

  Cassi gripped the braces so tight her knuckles turned white.

  Troy fired the gun three times. Bam! Bam! Bam!

  The shots rang in her ears.

  “Got it…shit…bastard’s not dead though. Just pissed it off more than it already was. I fired too damn low.” Troy waited for the gator to circle back around. “Here comes the motherfucker now—come on – turn around an’ show me the back of yer head, baby – there!” He fired. The gun sounded like a cannon going off. For a brief moment the insects hushed their chatter, the birds ceased their flight, and the swamp seemed unnaturally silent. “Got it! Right at the base of the skull. Take that you ole swamp bitch!”

  Cassi exhaled loudly, coughing, lungs still aching from the unexpected usage beneath the swampy water. “Thank god.”

  The turmoiled waves died to a lulling sloshing, lapping around the lower parts of the boat instead of over the top of the boat’s rail. Then the surface calmed to gentle ripples and bursting air bubbles. The frogs and toads cheerily continued their croaking as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.

  “You sure it’s dead?” Cassi asked, not daring to sit up yet.

  Troy peered over the boat’s rail. “Well, he ain’t come up. I popped him good. Probably sunk to the bottom. At any rate, let’s get da hell on out of here.” He quickly surveyed the boat for damage as much as he could from inside the boat. Content there were no leaks, he checked the motor over. He started it up and motioned for Cassi to get off the bottom of the boat.

  She pulled herself to the seat, slowly, cautiously looking down into the ominous water, expecting the worst. “Good grief. That thing scared the shit out of me!”

  “You and me both, kid. Jest don’t tell no one. Don’t got no permit for shootin’ gators.”

  “But it tried to kill us!”

  “What did?” Troy smiled. He put his gun back into the holster under his camo shirt.

  “What--? Oh,” Cassi said with a strained smile. “I didn’t see a thing.” Nervously, she slicked the hair behind her ears, and wiped her face with her dripping sleeve.
“Shame really, would’ve made some great steaks.”

  She could see Troy chuckle. Cassi found the oar, luckily wedged in the crack between the seat and the side of the boat, and prepared once again to push stray rotting logs from their path.

  11.

  The rest of the journey was uneventful. They broke from beneath the dark hanging branches into the light of the sun. Cassi felt temporarily blinded as her eyes readjusted. Up ahead was a weather-beaten, ramshackle wood cabin built partially on land and partially on stilts over the water. A short rickety pier projected in front of the door for docking a boat. There was no boat tied to the pier.

  “Wonder if he’s home?” she asked Troy behind her over the din of the motor.

  “Sure he is. Where he gonna go widt no boat?”

  “Maybe he’s in the boat.” Cassi surveyed the shore looking for an indication of any other path to the cabin, but the vegetation there was thick and overgrown. Near the cabin, built on land, stood a small outhouse, a lean-to shed housing firewood, and a heavy, flat-topped stone table. Next to the table, a hook was hung over a large tree branch, presumably for holding dead gators or maybe hogs for slaughter.

  The cabin door opened and an old man with a grizzled beard and a beat-up straw hat hobbled into the light. He waved at them. Troy cut the engine.

  “Hello!” Cassi called. “We’re looking for a Jeroboam?”

  “Dat be me. Don’t tie yer boat to da pier. Go round the side; tie it to da big tree.” Jeroboam pointed to where he wished them to go.

  “Why does he want us to do that?” Cassi asked Troy.

  “Hell if I know. Best do what the vieux wants.” Troy started up the boat and drove it around the cabin. The big tree wasn’t hard to spot. It was indeed a big tree, three feet in diameter if not more. He tied the boat to a branch. A small strip of dirt led from the big tree behind the house, and around to side of the cabin with the pier and door. He made an executive decision. “I’m staying here.”

  “What?”

  “I’m staying widt the boat.”

  “Seriously?” Cassi nervously looked toward the cabin.

  “If sumthin happens to the boat we’re screwed. No way to get home. The cabin has walls as thick as paper. I’ll hear ya if sumthin happens.”

  Cassi looked at him as if he had gone mad, but then sighed, shrugged and figured she was lucky he had volunteered to do as much as he had already done. He could have just called the sheriff and gone on about his mail route.

  “Okay. I’ll call you if I need you then.” She stretched out a leg, held onto a branch from the big tree, swung herself to the shore and wobbled onto land. It wasn’t dry, but it was land. She arranged her wet clothing the best she could, adjusted the backpack on her shoulders, and walked behind the cabin to the side where the door was located. Jeroboam met her there.

  “Hello,” she said, extending a hand for Jeroboam to shake.

  The old man shook her hand. “I didn’t know if you’d be comin’.”

  “I didn’t have many options. It was either come myself by following your map or call the sheriff. And I didn’t know if that was a prudent decision.”

  Jeroboam chuckled. “You done good. Come inside. We have some talkin’ to do.”

  Cassi followed him into the tiny one room cabin. Old yellowed newspaper was glued to the inside walls to break the wind and block the insects. The floor boards were covered with tattered remnants of mildewed carpet, but in places where the warped boards no longer met, she could see the water, brown and putrid, sloshing below. Jeroboam gestured toward a cane chair and she sat.

  He sat in an old rocker and produced a pipe from his shirt pocket. He put it to his lips and struck a match against the side of a small iron stove. Puffing slowly, he lit the tobacco to his satisfaction. A wispy cloud of perfumed smoke circled his head.

  “Your letter said you had information about my husband?” Cassi asked.

  “’Bout dat an’ more.”

  Cassi nodded. “Is he okay?” She didn’t bother to disguise her worried tone.

  “Dunno dat.” He rocked slowly in the chair, the floorboards protesting loudly.

  Cassi examined the floor wondering if they’d go plunging into the swamp at any moment. “But you know where he is?”

  “Not ‘xactly, no. I know who got ‘im.”

  “Do you know why whoever it is that has him, has him?” she asked.

  “Oui, I knos dat.” He rocked a little faster. He took the pipe from his mouth and pointed it at her. “I’m gonna tells you story. Hear me out. Don’t not believe me till you hear it all out.”

  Cassi nodded.

  “Woman dat got your man is named Magdalena, but she not Magdalena.” Jeroboam paused as if thinking about how to make himself clear. “You see, the real Magdalena was my mother. Long time ago, back when mastas still owned slaves, Magdalena was a slave. Wouldn’t know it to look at her widt her creamy skin and good hair, but her mother was a slave an her pa was her masta. Mulatto is what she be.” Jeroboam sighed loudly, and then inserted the pipe back between black teeth. “Her pa sold her to nuther masta. This one took her for a lover. Magdalena, she loved dat white man. Fool for dat man. She had herself a baby boy, look jest as white as you. Named him Jeroboam.”

  Cassi pointed. “You?”

  “Me.”

  She calculated some quick numbers in her head. “But, that makes you--”

  “Old as shit. Don’t I knos it.” Jeroboam chuckled. “I be gittin’ to dat part here.”

  Cassi frowned.

  “Magdalena, she found out dat her lover, her masta, gonna sell her, but keep me. Magdalena, she sick at da heart for she love her masta, but she love her baby boy more. She knew she only had a little bit of time till she sold off and never see her child again; so she seek out an old Voodoo priestess what lived in the swamp.”

  “Voodoo?”

  “Ah, oui. Voodoo. You see, as long as Magdalena, da masta not think she run off, none of da white folks set the dogs loose on her. If she be gone, they knowed she runned off, and she jest as good as dead. So, da Voodoo priestess she make a cunja.”

  “Damn,” Cassi said under her breath.

  “You knos cunja?”

  She unzipped her backpack and removed the rolled fabric bundle, watching Jeroboam’s face for any recognition of the objects in her hands. He nodded knowingly.

  “Mmm, dat’s part of my story.”

  Cassi sighed. “I thought it might be.”

  “So, Voodoo makes a doppelganger of Magdalena from the mud of the swamp. I calls her my Mud Mother.” Jeroboam laughed at his own private joke. “Da doppelganger take Magdalena’s place while Magdalena kill the masta. Dis way, she could get her baby and escape, but she still be dere, so no one think Magdalena gone. But the Voodoo, it not work.” He stopped rocking. Jeroboam moved to the edge of his seat, the rocker tipping forward. “When Magdalena went to get her baby da doppelganger kill Magdalena widt da same knife used to kill masta. Den she hide da knife in da wall of da kitchen long widt my baby things, an’ grab me and run into da swamp.”

  “This knife?” Cassi looked at the knife in the quilt piece.

  “Dat’s da one.” Jeroboam grimaced. “When masta’s wife find out about da baby boy, her husband love like his own ‘cause she a barren old woman and dey have no children – and she find out about Magdalena kill da masta, masta’s wife she do Voodoo on the mud Magdalena.”

  Cassi rubbed her eyes, the smoke beginning to irritate them as she struggled to decipher the old man’s dialect. “So, the master’s wife counter-voodooed the doppelganger?”

  “Oui, she done dat. First she mad ‘bout me, so she say I only live as long as my mud mother. Den, she say Magdalena must be killt by a woman wronged. She wanted to kill her: revenge.”

  “So, that’s why you’re still alive out here, because the mud Magdalena is still alive?”

  “Oui, oui. She comes in da night, my mud mother, but not my mother. She lives in da darkness, shunning the lig
ht. She go to the big house always seeking a man to love her da way masta love Magdalena cause all of Magdalena’s thoughts and desires locked up deep inside her an’ she don’t know dis kind of love. She want what Magdalena want.”

  “Has it been her all these years killing men associated with Sorrow Creek Plantation?”

  “It be her. She want a man to love. But, now, she learn ‘bout new voodoo. She can turn her mud to flesh if she give over the masta of Sorrow Creek to the dark one of the swamp.”

  “Wait a minute. Master of Sorrow Creek – Max?” Cassi asked.

  “Dat be him. Dere’s only one way to kill my mud mother now. An it’s widt dat knife in your hands. She love Max – take his body widt her sex and widt her power. The only way to kill my mud mother is widt dat knife in the hands of a woman wronged.”

  “Woman wronged?”

  “Magdalena, she fuck da masta, jest like my mother was da masta’s whore.”

  Cassi had tried not to think about the evidence of the sexual encounter in her bed in her bedroom at the house. There were other more important things to deal with then, as now, and she couldn’t allow her emotions and the sting of betrayal get in the way of saving Max. No matter what happened, she still loved him and wanted him safe. “I have to kill her with this knife.” She didn’t ask, she stated the fact. “But if she’s mud … will she die?”

  “Oh, she die. An you set me free from dis prison of life too. Masta’s wife’s cunja punish me for nuthin I done.”

  “You said she comes in the night. She comes here?” Cassi asked.

  “She’ll be here tonight. My mud mother come to sacrifice Max on da stone altar out dere under da trees. When da moon is full, she cut Max’s heart from his chest and feed it to da dark one of da swamp – an she will be flesh and will live a mortal life. Dat’s what she wants: to live a mortal life.”

  Cassi let the other items in the quilt fall to the ground. She stuck the rusty knife into her belt. “Mortal life my ass. Not if I can stop it. I’m not going to let some Voodoo mud monster kill my husband.”