by Wile E Young
I said no trespassing and I meant it. If it wasn’t someone that I was familiar with then they were going to have thirty seconds to vacate my property before I began shooting. I couldn’t maintain civility or politeness when the little freak that was my grandson had aged two years in a matter of hours.
Another round of polite knocking happened before I reached the door. I unlatched the deadbolt and twisted the locks, opening the door just a crack.
A man stood on my porch clad in a brown suit that looked like it had gone out of style in the seventies. When he saw the door open he lifted the matching fedora off his head and clutched it to his chest.
“Pardon me—” He paused, his mouth opening and closing. “Sir, if I could just take a moment or two of your time?”
“No you can’t. This isn’t a good time—” I moved to shut the door and his foot darted out lightning quick and blocked the way.
“I’m sorry, sir, but I’m afraid that you haven’t heard the details of what I’m selling.”
His face was a pallid and unhealthy looking grey, like Lincoln’s but more pronounced. His neck looked like he was suffering from gout; his chin melded straight into his neck that seemed to inflate as he took deep gasping breaths.
I placed the pistol directly into his smug face; he broadened his smile without showing his teeth. His mouth looked stretched like putty rather than natural, and it sent chills down my spine.
“No reason for hostility, sir. I’m merely here to inform you that I represent your grandson…” He stopped talking and his eyes bulged, looking every which way before he blinked. “Lincoln… that’s the name… yes… I represent his biological father’s family.”
My eyes twitched, wanting to look back at the living room and my grandson, who had stopped crying. But if the years had taught me anything, it was to never turn your back to anyone who put you at unease.
“What did you say your name was?”
“I do apologize, Grady Pope. I did not properly introduce—” Another pause. “Myself. My name is Savant Huber.” He flipped his crumpled fedora towards me, his stringy slick black hair doing little to disguise his rampant hair loss.
I recognized the name. “Any kin to Ray Huber down in Mooringsport?”
Savant smiled. “Yes, yes, sir. My great uncle; his brother’s daughter was my mother.”
Didn’t care about family history too much. The Hubers were well know brewers of bathtub gin out in the bayous, selling on the fly to riverboats down in Shreveport.
“You a lawyer or something?”
Savant bobbed his head, the motion short like a dog watching a ball instead of a real agreement. “Or something indeed, sir. Lincoln’s father’s family sent me… you might have noticed some oddities…?”
I lowered the gun but kept it close. “Maybe.”
“Ah yes. Well it is part and parcel of—” His damn pauses were beginning to unnerve me worse than his appearance. “His family. Quirk in the seed, I’m afraid. And he will—” The man emphasized the word in an odd, unnatural cadence. “—need to be remanded into their custody so he can learn how to live with his—”
My blood was running cold as his eyes twitched every which way before that putty smile stretched again. “—defects, yes.” Whatever smile he was trying to project was about as convincing as an alligator grin. It looked somewhat human, but still projected false assurance.
I was surprised that the anger, the fear of my grandson, all the emotions that had boiled inside me minutes earlier was gone. You didn’t admit things were wrong with your kin, and you didn’t give them up.
You lived with it. You didn’t acknowledge it. You dealt with it.
Blood isn’t always thicker than water around here, but it was a damn sight thicker than this stranger on my doorstep. Couldn’t discount it as just one more little oddity from the womb, one I could figure out on my own without this strange man.
“I appreciate the offer, mister, but I’m going to have to pass. Lincoln is just fine right here.”
The man’s foot didn’t budge. “Now Mr. Pope, surely you’ve seen how fast he—”
“I’ve seen it. I’ve also seen a seal man and a bearded lady. He’s a little different…that doesn’t mean he needs to be with his deadbeat dad.”
Savant Huber shook his head. “No, sir, you don’t—”
I leveled the revolver back in his face. “You have thirty seconds to get off my property.”
All manner of civility, and hell, humanity, disappeared from the man as his arms shot out and gripped the sides of the doorframe. A warbling croak bellowed out of his throat. “Give him to me, Grady Pope!”
I shot over his shoulder and he flinched away, retreating to the edge of the porch, his crumpled fedora falling from his hands. He shivered, his wide eyes blinking in the sun. “Give him to me, Grady Pope…”
“G’mpa?”
I glanced behind me; Lincoln was standing in the hallway, eyes wide.
Pounding footsteps and Savant Huber was rushing the doorway, a warbling hiss escaping his lips.
My aim was off, and I shot him in the arm. The revolver clapped thunder and the man fell back on to the porch screaming—it sounded like a yowling cat—and grasping his arm. I slammed the door closed locking it.
I swept Lincoln up into my arms as I passed and carried him into the kitchen where I could get a view of the front porch. It didn’t provide a full view, and from this angle all I could see of the man were parts of his leg and feet. He stood up and I could see the end of his arm dangling, blood running down his arm.
It didn’t look right. There was something in that bright red blood, streaks of grey that shimmered under the sunlight. Couldn’t tell what it was, but damn, nicked an artery maybe.
Where the hell was that deputy?
The man disappeared from my view. A few seconds later and he was running past the kitchen window, leading down towards the bayou. I could still hear him: “Give him to me, Grady Pope, give him…”
I covered Lincoln’s ears and ran to the window, seeing the edge of the brown suit disappear behind the house.
I was scared, and I wasn’t afraid to admit it. Men had tried to kill me before, but none had run laps around my house while trying to steal a child.
He kept repeating those calls, demanding I hand over my grandson. I expected to hear the tinkling sound of breaking glass, but it never came. Savant Huber’s calls grew fainter and fainter, and then disappeared completely.
I breathed deep and Lincoln rested against me, trembling just as much as I was.
“G’mpa?” I quieted the boy, whispering that it would be all right.
More knocking on the door, and I tensed up before I heard Luc. “Grady? I heard a gunshot. You okay?”
“Yeah!” I called, my voice a little gruffer than I preferred. “There’s a fucking lunatic running around outside!”
I heard Luc stumble on the porch, looking around. As I ran back to my bedroom and sat Lincoln on the bed, I pointed a finger right under his nose. “Don’t move, you hear me?”
The boy trembled and didn’t answer. he now looked two years old. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but he’d grown a few feet and started walking in a few hours. Hell, maybe he could speak.
I left him there and hurried to the door, unlocking it and making sure Luc was alone before I joined him outside.
The hot day was the same, the long shadows and humidity unchanged, but now with an air of oppressive evil. I looked for Savant Huber behind every tree and errant moss strand. I briefly explained what had happened to Luc and he began looking around, fists clenched.
Deputy Beau Caldwell was not at the corner of my property sitting in his truck. In fact he was nowhere to be seen, gone back into town or to lick his own asshole. My already dismal opinion of the man plummeted further, and I resolved to tell Otis that if the little prick came back around I was going to kick his ass.
I told Luc to keep watch while I went back inside, momentarily glancing down th
e hallway at my closed bedroom door, overgrown grandson beyond it.
Couldn’t afford to think about that right now as I unlatched my gun cabinet and pulled out a small .22 Sig Sauer. I handed it to Luc when I went back outside. He hefted it, checked the chamber, and clicked the safety off, pointing the gun at the ground.
Good kid.
There was something on the ground. That odd-colored blood. The dust had lapped at it thirstily, but there was still a distinctive trail that led around the side of the house.
I gestured silently, and Luc nodded, following in my wake as we rounded the house. There was a splattering against the wood right under the kitchen window, trailing back down and into the grass. We followed it around to the backyard; it led back down to the lake.
I scanned for a boat or anything that indicated where the man had come from. I hadn’t heard a car engine or boat motor, and only a crazy person would dare swim through this bayou. Wouldn’t put that beyond what Savant Huber was willing to do based on the few minutes of bat shit crazy I had experienced.
Something rustled in my boathouse. I glanced down the hill and there was the barest hint of movement in the gloom.
Luc followed me as I walked down the hill, blood droplets clinging to the grass like morbid little stars.
I stopped short of the boathouse door; I usually left it open, a bad habit that had led to snakebites a time or two and a lot of dead serpents. It was an old instinct to watch for danger, and right now it was screaming at me that Savant Huber was standing on the other side of the wall in the dark, ready to bash my skull in as soon as the back of my greying hair was visible.
“I’ll circle around to the corner, cover you,” Luc said.
I nodded and took a step forward, trying to keep my gun steady despite my nerves.
The dark doorway drew closer, inches away. I probed the inside of the doorway with the bottom of my foot and with a deep breath plunged into the thick of it, trying to flick the light switch on as fast as I could. The dim bulb sparked to life with a hint of ozone and I aimed the gun around me wildly.
There was no grinning maniac with a hammer, no brown-suited lunatic holding his bloody limb.
I was hit immediately with the smell. If anyone has ever cleaned or touched a fish, they were familiar with that stench. It was strong and pungent; biting into my nose like someone had been squatting in my boathouse and cleaning fish all day.
I heard dripping water and looked over at the edge of my boat, right behind the engine where the dock met the water.
Luc came in behind me, but I didn’t bother turning to look at him. There was the brown suit and fedora by my boat, damp with blood and water, but Savant Huber was nowhere to be seen.
“Bastard is running around naked in the woods.”
Luc didn’t laugh, and I wasn’t sure why I myself had stated the obvious. The situation was so strange I was falling back on something familiar rather than rooting myself in the now. I was scared and I’m not ashamed to admit it.
Then there was that nagging feeling in the back of my head.
That Luc Robichaude shouldn’t know about Lincoln.
Couldn’t blame my instincts; lynch mobs had been formed for less, and that protective instinct beat strong in my chest… mixed feelings about him aside, he was still the son of my daughter and my blood ran in his veins.
For the first time I thought that I would die for that kid.
Couldn’t rightly explain it.
“This is… concerning.”
I glanced at Luc, who had furrowed his brow. “You’re telling me. You aren’t the one who had a nutcase trying to break in and steal your grandson.”
Luc abruptly stood, and I heard him muttering under his breath. It was too quick a snippet really, but the words were clear.
“This isn’t like them.”
Isn’t like who?
“Luc?”
My friend and new neighbor shook his head and tried to give me a reassuring smile. “Who is the sheriff now? Might want to get him out here on this.”
I voiced my disagreement. Otis was a friend, but he wasn’t exactly decisive when it came to shit like this, and he’d already been out here more times than was kosher.
Once is misfortune, twice was suspicious, and three was grounds for arrest. Couldn’t afford to be locked up in the old folks’ home… not now.
Luc sighed heavily and raised his hands in surrender. “If your head’s set then I’d say keep a steady watch in case he comes back. But what man would come back after getting shot?”
A damn crazy one.
I also wasn’t born yesterday.
“What do you think this is, Luc?”
I watched his reaction to the question. Years of poker playing with Cy had given me a keen eye for spotting tells, and Luc’s eye twitched before he responded.
“I think a crazy guy wandered out of the woods and took a shine to your house.”
Good excuse, but he was still hiding something.
Luc smirked, and an evil look passed over his face. “I do have an idea though that will discourage anyone coming around here looking for trouble.”
I was harsher than I meant to be. “Like what?”
“I’ll let Mojo out for the night.”
“Mojo?”
Luc nodded and helped me to my feet. “My mutt, big bastard, could rip through a grown man if I told him too… call up to the house if you need to go wandering tonight. He isn’t too keen on people he doesn’t know.”
That nagging paranoia ate at me and I wanted to thank Luc for his help, but it didn’t feel like help.
It felt like he was trying to keep me from leaving.
Chapter Ten
Luc handed me my pistol back and headed for home, telling me to call if anything else out of the ordinary sprung up. I thanked him for his concern and shut the door, leaving me once again in the silence of my home.
I immediately ran back to my bedroom looking for Lincoln. He wasn’t sitting on the bed and I thought the worst: Savant Huber had managed to break in and kidnap him, he had lured me outside in collusion with Luc to steal my grandson for God knows what.
My heart was pumping out of my chest. Everyone was going to know now that my daughter had given birth to a freak… they’d take him away, stick him in a lab and inject him with all that shit that government people love to play with.
Running water and the sound of giggling.
The master bathroom connected into the bedroom. In my marriage, I had been confined to a tiny sink in the corner with one drawer that had contained my beard balm and other things that Renee had insisted I use, despite my admonition that they weren’t anything but yuppie nonsense.
I walked in and the churning of bathtub water hitting porcelain assaulted my ears. The water was steaming but Lincoln didn’t seem to mind he splashed and laughed in the bathtub without a care in the world. He must have heard me enter because he began excitedly laughing and pointing when I came in. “G’mpa, G’mpa!”
I crouched down next to him and smiled, swirling the water with my hand. “Yeah, kid. I’m your grandpa.”
****
Night came quick; I had found some old clothes that I thought Lincoln could fit in. Occasionally Renee’s brother brought his kids over to have a “real outdoors experience”. That had resulted in a lot of discarded hand-me-downs over the years.
He may have been big enough to crawl out of the crib now, but I didn’t have a bed that could safely hold him… so it was just going to have to do. I laid a pillow inside along with a small blanket; Lincoln was immediately on his feet when I sat back in my chair a few feet away. “G’mpa?”
I reassured him that I wasn’t going anywhere.
Shit… I didn’t have any kids’ toys. The thought fluttered into my mind like the soft brush of bird wings and I smiled. Why was I thinking about children’s toys when my grandson had miraculously grown in a few hours?
From somewhere distant I heard a rumbling bark; a long and distant
howl followed then silence.
“Probably Mojo, boy.” My grandson had looked at the window, startled.
It was a full moon tonight; a wind had come in from the north and was howling with every gust. The shadows of the trees contrasted with the shining bright water. A beautiful sight, for sure. Used to sit out and watch the stars under nights like this. A man could find peace by looking at the heavens in times of woe.
That habit had died over time.
“Mama?”
I looked at my grandson, my fingers tightening around the chair arms “What?”
Lincoln grasped at the air, his brow curled in confusion, his eyes looking around. “Mama?
I wondered how the kid even knew how to talk. It was damn peculiar, like he came equipped with the entire damn English language… though he had grown a few years in a few hours. So knowing how to talk was barely registering on the scale of strange shit.
“Where Mama?”
I gritted my teeth and shook my head, “Mama’s not here.”
The boy still looked confused and he spoke in a lighter tone, questioning. “Where Mama?”
I heaved myself out of my chair and wrapped Lincoln in my arms, bouncing him up and down. “Mama’s not coming back.”
He began to cry a weak, whimpering sound, and I felt the hot tears fall against the nape of my neck. I let the boy cry. I didn’t think that he understood, but I couldn’t be sure. Either way I let him cry, and I let my own tears come unheeded.
We walked around the house and I began to whisper to him all the things that this house had seen, about his grandma and how she would have loved to see another child come into the house, about his momma’s victories and defeats.
The boy stopped crying. I could feel that light breathing that comes with sleep on my shoulder, and I walked him back into the living room, sighing deep.
I wasn’t cut out for this kind of thing, I just wanted to sleep through the night. I had assumed my child rearing days were done, but yet here I was laying a two-year-old magically grown in just as many days back into a crib that he had already outgrown.
