Black Water

by Bobby Norman

  Black Water

  By

  Bobby Norman

  JournalStone

  San Francisco

  Copyright © 2015 by Bobby Norman

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  JournalStone books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

  JournalStone

  www.journalstone.com

  The views expressed in this work are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

  ISBN: 978-1-942712-15-2 (sc)

  ISBN: 978-1-942712-16-9 (ebook)

  JournalStone rev. date: March 13, 2015

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015832364

  Printed in the United States of America

  Cover Art & Design: Cyrusfiction Productions

  Edited by: Dr. Michael Collings

  Acknowledgements

  No one writes a book alone. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my wife and best friend, Ilene, and my agent, Leslie Gardner, at Artellus Ltd. in London, then the friends who took the time to help me out with a read. In alphabetical order, they are: James Allen, Clifford Ashpaugh, Kevin Bash, Pamela Blackwell, John Burley, Chelsea Keene, Bonnie Little, Howard and Sue Lowell, Lou Moore, Richard Mullen, and Julia Nunez.

  Black Water

  BOOK ONE

  The universe is a balance of Good and Evil. Usually, each keeps to its own. Usually. A knock-down-drag-out between the two would be pointless. Because, simply put, one could not exist without the other. Without an up, there is no down. No dark, no light. Regardless, once in a great while, there’s a borrowing—a give and a take—needed to maintain the equilibrium. As it was, a favor was owed and Evil came to collect. A deal was struck, and on the night of August seventeenth, nineteen hundred and twenty-four, to rub out the debt, God turned his back on Oledeux, Louisiana.

  CHAPTER 1

  The witchlet looked like a toad, squatted down with her dirty little toes clenched, bird-like, on a mossy log, her bony back bowed, knobby knees framing her shoulders. Her eyes had a pinkish hue, hair the weight of spider web, and skin, tallowish, the color of a cheap candle you could almost see through. Bluish veins just below the surface crawled like arthritic, cancerous tendrils of ivy. She wore the odor of the decaying, rotting swamp like a shroud. At that moment, she was bothering a terrapin, trying t’mind its own business, eating terrapin dinner, pulling hunks of meat off a water dog. Every little bit she’d giggle and poke it in the tail with a stick, to piss it off.

  She didn’t know there was a booger hidin’ behind a Cypress tree at her back, settin’ up to pounce.

  The little witch’s name was Smoke. Peculiar name, but Smoke was of a peculiar nature. It wasn’t a real name anyway, just what everbody called her. ‘Cause of her color. Witches didn’t let anybody know their real name. A known name was akin to a chink in their armor. A way to get in. Smoke was nocturnal and showed up about the time the bats come out to fill their furry little bellies on muskeeters and lightnin’ bugs. She’d come out of a day, but it had to be pretty cloudy. Dark. Like this one’d been. It wasn’t that she disliked the sun. It hurt her. And for good reason.

  Smoke was albino.

  Most things born in a Looziana swamp didn’t move much futher than where they’s dropped, and if so, she was probly hatched-out in the sluggish, black water swamps northeast of Oledeux, the same year the Great Emancipator was shot in back of the ear.

  Half-wild children were as common as bug bites in a Southwestern Looziana wet. Even the ones that lived in houses couldn’t be accused of being overly domesticated, and if it hadn’t been for the color of her skin or those frogged-out, weird lookin’ eyes, she wouldn’ta stood out much either. But, Smoke was like some dead and bloated somethin’ or other you might come on alongside the road, all maggoty and puffed up by the sun, legs stuck out, belly-bloated, about to pop, that you didn’t wanna look at. But you did anyway. Out the corner of your eye. Like you didn’t wantcha to know you’s doin’ it.

  She was like a cat, too, when it rubbed up on your pants leg, hiked up on its tippytoes, with its back all bowed up, makin’ little come-and-pet-me sounds like it wanted its ears scratched or belly rubbed, but as soon as you stuck out your hand, lit out. Teasin’. That was Smoke. She was a teaser. If she’d had little gossamer, veiny-like dragonfly wings, she’da looked like a storybook fairy. Delicate and fragile (which she was neither). She had a cute little nose and ears that stuck straight out, a jughead, and when she ran it was always on her toes. It was like she never set her feet down flat. And you couldn’t actually call it runnin’—it was more like flittin’, her elbow-bumpy little arms stuck out to the side like little wings, and she’d flit. Smoke never walked…she flitted, and she had a thin, squeaky little voice that went along with the rest of her fairyness.

  Because of high cheekbones and slight frame, it was a good bet her papa was Sem’nole or Cher’kee, they’s both pretty common in Looziana, and poochy-pouty lips and a bubble ass gave credence her mama was Creole. A Creole witch. She coulda been Cajun, they had sizeable hindquarters, too, but Cajuns weren’t as witchy as Creoles.

  Smoke had no idea what she was. What she coulda been. What she was supposed to’ve been. Her talents were as natural to her as seein’ and hearin’ was to regular folk. She’d had no one to tell her different. If things had gone right, Smoke woulda been a Goddess in the witch world, adored and feared by the lowest, revered and hated by the highest.

  Achingly careful, the booger leaned down and picked up a rock the size of a tamater out of the water. Half a dozen drops plicked off its fingers and back into the water. Hearing it, the witch jumped up, swiveled around, and the booger helt its foul breath, pretending invisibility.

  CHAPTER 2

  Witches, like regular folks, had their own particular leanings. For instance, there’s them that for enough money could conjure up a hex on a body—make ’em sick or even die if enough had changed hands. But then, if the one hexed come along and offered more to another witch, or even the one who’d done the original conjuring, they could get it unconjured or even bounced back on the original offender. If you were gonna pay a witch to conjure up a curse, you wanted to make sure you paid enough it wouldn’t get unconjured. The only loyalty witches had was to theirselves.

  There were even some, supposedly, that could turn into critters like wolves, snakes, or bats, but those were probably just tales as there wasn’t any actual, factual, hands-on proof.

  Then, there were the ones who could bring the dead back to life, and there was buckets of proof of that. The only people that could be brought back from the dead, though, was them that didn’t go to Heaven, ‘cause once you passed through the Pearly Gates, you were a bona fide, card-carryin’ harp-plucker. You’d think it worked the same with the Hell-bound, but common belief was, if you’s to be brought back for a purpose evil and nasty enough, Beezlebub’d cut you a pass, but the cost would be just awful. It took a very talented witch to perform somethin’ like that. Bringin’ the dead back to life.

  The eyes was one o’ the ways folks knew Smoke was of the anointed. One look at them pale, deep-feelin’ orbs, and you turned tail right quick or sure as shit stunk, you got sucked in like iron to a magnet. Smoke had a specia
lty; she could read people, and men in particular, like a big-print Bible. When the need come on her, most likely from hunger or a fella had a play-pretty she wanted, she’d slip up on him, makin’ like a cat with that sweet pr-r-r-r-r pr-r-r-r-r pr-r-r-r-r gurglin’ deep down in her skinny little throat, cock her head to the side, and give him that little sidewaysie smile. It made a fella wanna grab her up, close his eyes, and rub his face all over her.

  It wasn’t ‘cause she’s much to look at, though. No, sir, not a whit, and especially when first come acrost, before she had time to put on the smoky illusion. The curtain of confusion. At first glance, you saw she was no more than thirteen years old, seventy-some-odd pounds of matted, yellow-white hair. Filthy and smelly as a shithouse rat, perched on scabby and thistle-scarred, heron-thin legs, waxy ears, rotten little teeth, and sure as Sunday’s the Sabbath, she was both buggie and wormy. She chawed cut-leaf, dipped snuff, smoked cigars, and abused the Holy Father’s name like a gypsy muleskinner. But! If…a man was to make the mistake of catchin’ her eye, no more than a sidewaysie squint, he was done for, and in no time the flittin’ fairy was all he saw. She started to look all sweet and cuddly, like one of them glass dolls from China, and she smelled of jasmine, or if you preferred, cinnamon.

  Smoke was what you mighta called self-employed. She never wore shoes or any kind of underthings and had the habit of hikin’ up her tattered dress, advertising as it was, commanding men’s lecherous attention. See that and all you wanted was to pick her up, set her on your lap, slide up that dirty little dress—which then appeared made of your granny’s finest lace curtain—squeeze her little butt cheeks, spread her legs, grit your teeth, harpoon her little clam, and jack it in her until your noodle dried up. You could want it, yes sir, but it wasn’t likely to happen. She’d learned early on how consumed men was with the downy, mysterious little treasure at the juncture of her skinny, alabaster thighs, and for the price of a penny, she’d pinch the hem of her dress up under her armpits, clamp it down in front with her chin, and hold it there while they stared at it.

  One of the cutest little things in the world was the tip of a kit’s tongue stickin’ out of its mouth just a teeeeeny bit when it slept. And that’s what Smoke’s little cooter had. That same fleshy little pink, wrinkled tongue that just barely stuck out between her lips, wrinkled and noodly, like your fingers got when you had them in hot water too long. The fellas’d get a grip on their prong and she’d give ’em a few seconds for their blood to work up and then she’d pull those little vertical lips apart with her fingertips and the men would squirt their guts out, gapin’ with their mouth hangin’ open, pantin’ hard, entranced at the unveiled goodie. Scarce as fangs on a banty hen, a near-hairless albino pussy wasn’t somethin’ one saw everday.

  For two pennies, she got down on her all-fours, looked around her shoulder to keep her eye on ’em, and stuck the rear hatch in the cool evenin’ breeze. The two-penny act was a lot better for her than just the extra money, though. With the double southern exposure, her patrons achieved their end much quicker. She’d keep her cheeks spread and stuck in the air until the gruntin’ started slowin’ down, then she’d stand up, brush off the dirt embedded in her knees, and flit off.

  She’d been offered nickels to polish the handle herself, but that meant gettin’ way too close, and she’d just shake her head. Some had offered her quite a bit more to let ’em climb on her, but she just laughed it off. She’d seen how big a fella’s thing got and knew damn well how little and tight her clam was. She might not’ve been as pure as the Virgin Mary, but she was ever bit as untouched.

  ***

  Earlier, Smoke had purred little girlie come-ons at the wrong fella—the booger hidin’ behind the Cypress that woulda had top billing in a circus sideshow. A six-foot-three, two-hundred-and-ninety-four pound, near-brain-dead mulatto with saggy, hairy titties bigger than most women. His name was Mule, and he had ever bit the smartness of a mealy bug. He was probably forty-five, fifty years old, clad in filthy, raggedy old coveralls, and smelled of pig shit and stinky armpits. He was damn near bald and had huge, bulbous brows like an under-cut, flash-flooded riverbank, lending credence to the theory that Neanderthals hadn’t just died out but rutted with Cro-Magnons of low standing.

  But the thing that stuck out most about Mule was what didn’t stick out at all. A nose. Didn’t have one. Not a hint. All there was was a jaggedy hole in the front of his face from just under and between his eyes down to a floppy top lip as useful as eyelashes on a snake that waggled over his mouth when he tried to talk, which, thank God, wasn’t often. And, as one would expect, there was a different story from everbody that had ever seen him about how it come to be. Some had the idee he was born without one. Possible. It happened occasionally. Some slid out the chute shy an arm or a foot, stubbly half-legs with little flippers instead of feet. Nubs for fingers. Some born blind or deef. Harelip. Mute. Cross-eyed. Dead. The often-talked-about-but-never-actually-seen double-headed. But the skin around it was badly scarred, puckered, indicating there’d most likely been one at some time. One of the best stories was that it’d been gnawed off by rats when he was a youngun while he slept peacefully in his crib. That was a real good story, and the visions created by such a thing could keep almost anyone well stocked in teeth-gnashing nightmares for quite a spell, but it seemed unlikely abody could sleep through their nose bein’ chawed off by rats, even if they’s a youngun.

  Another story that got a lot a mileage was that his mama and daddy shared the same last name, but not because they’s married. By the laws regarding relationships, that made his mama his aunt, and his daddy his uncle. Which made Mule his own first cousin. That coulda answered some of the questions about his intelligence, or lack of, but it still left considerable possibilities about the missing proboscis.

  When Mule knew he was gonna come in contact with people, he had the good sense to fasten a dirty rag over his face to hide the cavity. He kept the two top corners of the thing tucked up tight between the brim of his floppy hat and his head, but loose in the front to allow for just enough dip so he could see. It made him look like a hold-up bandit, but it was better than staring at a hole that allowed you to look right in the front at the juicy parts of a body’s head. He spent a lot of time re-situating the rag because it kept slippin’ down. The front of it was always wet. If you had a nose you could snuff up snot and such, but if you didn’t, it just ran free.

  Well, hoping to make a coin or two, Smoke tried workin’ him, but lucky for him, and as she was about to find out, very unlucky for her, he lacked the cranial accouterments to be sirened in deep. Seeing pretty quick she was wasting her time, she’d set off for more susceptible prey, but not before she’d stoked the embers in the furnace of Mule’s crotchal area.

  CHAPTER 3

  Mule jumped out from behind the tree, planted his feet, hauled back his rock-chuckin’ arm, and launched the thing. That son of a bitch smacked her in the right side o’ the head, just above the ear, just as she was turning around, and knocked her into the water. He got to her before she could shake it off, grabbed her around the middle, clamped her up in his armpit, and, gigglin’ like a three-year-old, started to lug her off.

  Smoke kicked and scratched and clawed, bit his hands and anything else that got in range, the whole time screamin’, “Let loose o’ me, you fat son of a bitch!” It didn’t make any difference, though, ‘cause there wasn’t nobody around to hear, but she wasn’t gonna give up without a tussle. Grab a cat, even a full growed one, by the nape o’ the neck like its mama did when it was a kit, and most times it’ll quit squirmin’—just hang there with its eyes scrunched back like a Chinaman and its tail tucked up between its legs to protect the dainty parts. But Smoke wasn’t a cat, and this was the first time abody’d ever had their hands on her, and she didn’t like it a little bit. No matter how Mule grabbed her, she thrashed and scratched so fast it looked like she had five arms and six legs. Unfortunately, one o’ them five arms reached up and jerked off the nose
-hole-hidin’ rag. If she thought she had somethin’ to scream about before, she took one look at the ugly pit in the front o’ Mule’s head, cried “Aaaagggghhhh!” and went plum nuts.

  He’d had enough of the caterwaulin’, so he helt her out with one hand gripped around her throat so tight it cut off her air, her already bugged-out eyes bugged out even futher, and with his free hand gave her one good whack, slappin’ her unconscious. That made her a whole lot easier to handle. He laid her on the ground, readjusted his nose-hole-hidin’ rag, straightened out his coveralls, picked her up, slung her over his shoulder like of sack a spuds, and carted her off.

  It was still dark when she come to and found herself laid out on a thin, scratchy mattress thing stuffed with itchy horsehair and moldy corn husks, with a headache, a bloody nose, a sore jaw, a bump on the side of her head, and a ringin’ in her ear. She was butt naked and latched around the neck with an iron chain securely bolted to the wall post. Seeing the door was open, she jumped up with escape on her mind but hadn’t yet noticed the length of the chain and nearly yanked her head off. It only allowed enough room for her to sit up on the cot. Real quick, she flipped herself around, braced her feet on the wall, got a grip with both hands on the chain, clamped her jaw down, and pulled t’beat the band. The only thing that accomplished was rubbing burns on her scrawny little neck and her hands. Her head would come off her shoulders before that chain come off the wall.

  Mule sat bassackards on a chair at a rickety table in the middle of the room, with nothin’ on but a greasy undershirt, slicing chunks off a raw patater with a big old knife, watchin’ her struggle. The knife wasn’t much more than a dull blade with two pieces of wood for a grip, leather-wrapped and cinched with thin strips of rawhide. He sipped and dribbled a homemade alcoholic concoction from a dented tin cup and pushed the patater chunks in what she determined was his mouth below the God-awful ugly hole in his face where his nose oughta been. A coal oil lamp in the middle of the table obstructed his view so he moved it to the edge. He leered at her girl parts and nodded his head in appreciation of the fine job he’d done locking her down.