The Tangled Bridge

by Rhodi Hawk

  Ethan stepped between them, his posture tense.

  The woman laughed. “Whadjoo bring him along for? Gotta travel light.”

  “God, look at her hands,” Shalmut whispered.

  They were filthy. Worse than that. In her right hand she clutched a beer bottle with a broken off neck, and from fingertips to elbow: thick black streaks. Even in the growing dawn Madeleine could see that it was blood.

  Stop moving, stop, STOP!

  That strange grin widened. “Oh no you don’t. This here’s my pigeon.”

  Madeleine jerked her head toward the woods, scanning the trees.

  “Who you lookin for?” The woman took another step forward.

  “Stop right there,” Ethan said, hand blocking her.

  Madeleine asked, “Who are you?”

  “You ain’t recognize me? Gotta look past this old lady crack whore.”

  “Y’all, we got to get!” Shalmut whispered.

  The homeless woman spoke again. “They’s good hunting round here, yeah. You been lookin for the blind boy, like me? He’s slippery.”

  Madeleine tore her gaze from the sticky bottle and cast an involuntary glance in the direction of the camp where the quilt and the little cane had been.

  The woman was looking toward that direction, too. “Yeah, well, I’m done for now.” Her gaze swiveled to Shalmut. “Maybe I’ll use him next.”

  She blinked once, and then tossed the bottle onto the cooling embers. Her expression slackened. And then she looked up with a furtive glance from Madeleine to Ethan and then beyond to the north, pausing, her face pinched in thought. Maybe even fear.

  Madeleine realized that the hold had lifted. She tried again to snag the woman’s mind.

  Sit down on the banks, hands on your knees.

  This time, the pigeon exercise took. The woman knelt down.

  Madeleine breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s OK. She’s alright now.”

  She scanned the woods again, her eyes wide and her ears tuned. Nothing. No one else there.

  Shalmut was right by her side. “We got to get!”

  Madeleine shook her head.

  Ethan agreed with Madeleine. “No, we can’t leave. Not yet.”

  The woman was still kneeling near the blackened camp.

  “Who are you?” Ethan asked her.

  She answered with a hint of confusion in her voice. “Alice.”

  Madeleine said, “How do you know me?”

  “Know you?”

  “You asked me, did I recognize you?”

  Alice said nothing.

  Madeleine tried, “Just a moment ago. You called me by name.”

  No reply.

  And then Madeleine asked, “Did you kill someone last night, Alice?”

  Silence, and then, “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Jesus, God almighty,” Shalmut whispered.

  Alice cast a glance at Madeleine’s eyes and then her gaze fell to the shore beneath her knees. “Ain’t sure if he’s dead, but I tried.”

  “How many people did you kill?” Madeleine asked. “One?”

  Alice looked back over her shoulder and a lock of frizz fell over her eye. “Yeah, just the one.”

  “Why? Why did you?”

  “I don’t know that, ma’am. Can’t say that I recall. I remember I’s lookin for a boy, though. He’uz in a car at first, and then he’s out in the woods somewhere. Couldn’t get’m.”

  “Who exactly did you kill?”

  “I don’t know. Someone got in my way.”

  Shalmut was watching with round eyes, his hand curled at his lips as though he was trying to blow warmth into it.

  “Tell us where the body is,” Madeleine said.

  Alice pointed north. “Just over yonder on the banks.”

  Shalmut said, “I’m gonna move along, y’all. This don’t involve me.”

  “Don’t leave, not yet,” Ethan said.

  Alice was still kneeling. She closed her eyes and started to pray in that gravelly voice.

  Madeleine said to Ethan, “We need to find out if that person’s still alive. I need to go check. And then Alice is gonna want to go talk to the police, won’t you Alice?”

  Alice continued to pray without answering, but Madeleine knew she would obey the directive when the time came.

  Ethan said, “You’re not going over there alone.”

  “Well we can’t leave Alice by herself.”

  Ethan breathed through his teeth. “Mr. Halsey. Would you please wait here with Miss Alice while we go look for the body?”

  Shalmut’s eyes were wide and fierce. “With her?”

  Madeleine said, “Yeah. Just watch her. If she gets up from that spot, you can leave.”

  “Good God, good God. I just wanna move along, that’s all.” Shalmut turned and stepped into the woods, but then he paused, addressing Madeleine. “Come on, baby. I can’t just leave y’all here like this, not with your father lookin down on us from heaven. Let’s all move along together and let the police sort it out, yanh?”

  “Please wait, Shally,” Madeleine said. An unenforced request.

  She knew Alice wasn’t going anywhere. She was completely under Madeleine’s will. Shalmut, however, she’d leave to decide for himself. He was free to disappear into the woods if he wanted.

  She and Ethan followed in the direction Alice had indicated. The rhyme kept cycling through her mind.

  See how they run.

  Ethan said, “Next time you go sleepwalking, remind me to bring my cell phone.”

  The shoreline wound around a bend, and they found him: a reclining male figure about fifty feet away, heavy dress shoes worn down so that the sole had flopped forward on his right foot. She could see his legs and nothing more. From the torso up, he was tangled in a broken green umbrella that looked like it had once been attached to a patio table. Probably served as shelter out here. The foot with the flopping shoe was resting in a burned-out campfire similar to Shalmut’s, still emitting a small amount of smoke.

  They drew nearer, saw the arm twisted up around the head. His hand was splayed atop his scalp, his mouth open. Blood on his face. A tear at the throat. It looked like he was missing his right eye.

  Madeleine wheeled away.

  Steady now, she told herself. Not a time for cowardice.

  “Alice must have gotten him in the eye first, then the neck,” Ethan said.

  Madeleine made herself turn back around. “Well. He certainly looks dead.”

  “Probably. But just to be sure…”

  Ethan was leaning over the body. Madeleine kept her gaze fixed on that flopping shoe while Ethan took the man’s pulse.

  “Nothing. And the body temperature’s already dropped.” He withdrew his hand and it came away wet.

  “OK, enough. Police now.”

  She turned, fighting a rise of bile and hoping Ethan wouldn’t see how unnerved she felt. She walked in the direction of where Shalmut and Alice were waiting somewhere further down the shoreline.

  Ethan caught up with her and took her arm. “You alright?”

  She nodded.

  He asked her, his voice soft, “Is this what you saw when you were in the briar last night?”

  “No. I didn’t have anything to do with it!”

  “Of course not. I didn’t say that.”

  He was looking at her carefully, as though he wasn’t sure what kind of question he really wanted to ask. And she didn’t know how to explain.

  She said, “Not much happened, there was just that bird call. I was following the clicks. I don’t know why.”

  “Alice used the word ‘hunting.’”

  She said nothing. What could she say?

  Ethan asked her, “Do you have any idea what’s really going on here?”

  Madeleine glimpsed the flop-soled shoe again, shaking her head. The streetlights went out up above on the hike-and-bike trail. Light enough now.

  “All I know is, that poor guy lying there wasn’t the intended victim. And that woma
n Alice, she’s not really the one who killed him.”

  three

  NEW ORLEANS, NOW

  SHALMUT HAD STAYED WITH Alice. Ethan had waited with both of them while Madeleine went to the Circle K and asked the manager to call the police. They arrived shortly thereafter and like moths chasing the blue-and-white lights, neighbors gathered to watch. Now the police were interviewing witnesses, with various sections of the woods cordoned off and Alice in handcuffs sitting in the back of a cruiser. Madeleine took it all in. She knew that Alice had been used like a puppet to commit that murder, but she didn’t know what to do about it.

  Madeleine toyed with the idea of consulting the river devil. She didn’t want to think of her as Severin anymore. In fact she didn’t want to think of her as a “her” anymore. This was a river devil. An “it.” Thinking in terms of name and gender made it feel human. River devils weren’t human.

  “Ya daddy woulda been proud a you.”

  It was Shalmut, shuffling up to pat her shoulder.

  Madeleine gave his hand a squeeze. “Proud of what, Shal? I haven’t done anything.”

  “You coulda just let it all be. Most wouldn’t a bothered with folks like us.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.”

  He said, “It’s true. People give up on us, I know. We give up on ourselves so who else gonna care? Bible says the Lord helps those who help themselves.”

  Madeleine looked at him and then over at Alice. Both had trouble with booze. Maybe other substances, too. On the street, most folks were addicts or had mental disorders.

  Shalmut leaned his back against the truck and put his hands on his thighs. “You ain’t tryin to save us or sweep us away. For you it ain’t like givin up cuz you one of us. Used to be. Ain’t tryin to be disrespectful in sayin so.”

  “I know, Shally.”

  “You talk to him ever? Your ole man?”

  Madeleine gave him a careful glance. Some people believed she could commune with the dead. Or predict the Super Bowl score or any manner of things. All her secrets had come out last year during Zenon’s murder trial. Seemed like admitting to talking to river devils would be scandalous enough, but the public liked to attach other ideas to that, thinking her a psychic of many stripes. Or a crackpot. She’d set up a Web site and accepted the help of a few volunteers (angels, as she liked to think of them) to sort through the hundreds of letters and e-mails. The messages were pretty much categorized according to what the inquirer wanted; most just wanted to tell their own stories.

  “I talk to Daddy, Shal. But maybe not in the way you mean.”

  He looked offended. “Whatchoo talkin bout, ‘the way I mean.’ I’m talkin about a quiet moment and you say a little prayer. That’s what I mean. Put a flower or a nip of something strong on his stone pillow.”

  But he added, “Course if they’s any sonofabitch gonna come back from the dead and raise the roof out here, it’s Daddy Blank.”

  Madeleine laughed, and Shalmut guffawed so loud it drew glances from the officers. He tipped an invisible hat to them.

  She grinned. “Why don’t you stick with us for a while, Shal? You could stay with Ethan, or I could ask around, see if I can find you a room for a few days.”

  “That’s awful kind a you, Darlin, but I’m OK.”

  “Then how about a ride somewhere?”

  “Naw, I don’t think I need to see this through. You alright now.”

  “Did the police finish up with you already?”

  He shrugged. “They don’t need to talk to an ole man drinks too much. Ain’t seen nothin ain’t heard nothin. I think they want to talk to your doctor-man next.”

  He pointed, and Madeleine looked. Ethan was standing with a detective who’d already questioned her and whose name she’d already forgotten. The poor guy was wearing a suit jacket in this heat.

  For the police, this was a cut-and-dry case. Madeleine wished her friend Vincent was here. She’d chance telling him a bit more about what she knew. Vincent wasn’t a detective but he was on the force, and he might be able to help.

  “Too hot to be wearin…” she started to say to Shalmut, but he was gone.

  She looked around, but no sign of him. Just the neighborhood and the boat sales lot and cars passing on Leake Avenue, an unfortunate name for a street that ran along a levee. Neighbors had satisfied their curiosities and were turning back to their homes. There were some cyclists along the hike-and-bike trail.

  Down below, pitcher plants adorned the bog with late season blooms. Madeleine thought about all the mosquitoes that had been buzzing near that soft, damp earth, and wondered how many of the insects had followed the pitchers’ scent and into the drowning traps. Ants, flies, and even small frogs seemed to fall for the attractive illusion the pitcher plant created, inviting its victims deeper into its belly. Occasionally a stoic beetle might bore its way out of an already weakened plant. But usually, once the pitcher had its prey, it kept it.

  Madeleine felt eyes upon her. She didn’t even have to look up to know that the river devil, Severin, was there.

  * * *

  TO MADELEINE’S EYES, SEVERIN looked like a little girl. The voice was light and cherubic, and so at odds with what it was. Severin tapped fingernails along the pickup as she walked around the bed, grinning in that manner that looked more grimace than grin. Bare feet, bare body, silver-gray and filthy.

  “You called for me,” Severin said.

  “Did I?”

  But of course Madeleine hadn’t. In fact she’d never summoned the river devil, ever, and likely never would.

  She said in her mind, “I didn’t summon you. I was just thinking about you.”

  But Severin said, “To think is to summon. It seems you wish to see about last night. As to why it was such.”

  Madeleine looked over toward the policemen and the remaining onlookers. No good consorting with Severin in public. Madeleine would look like a lunatic. Even if she spoke only in her mind she’d lose track of the physical world around her—not respond if someone spoke to her, exhibit wild expressions and posture.

  “No. Later,” Madeleine said.

  “A thing such as this. You think it could wait, so?”

  Madeleine swallowed. Severin was right. If she waited she might lose track of whoever or whatever was behind Alice’s behavior last night.

  Severin slipped a small, grimy hand into Madeleine’s, and guided her to the pickup’s door handle. Madeleine pulled the handle and climbed inside the truck.

  Or rather, her physical body did.

  She settled back onto the seat and closed her eyes. Tugged. Feeling the light wobble, prying her ghost from her body.

  Madeleine left her shell behind and followed the river devil back in the direction of the Mississippi, where otherworldly thorns were already starting to stretch, and blacken, and curl into tunnels.

  four

  HAHNVILLE, 1927

  PATRICE LAY IN HER bed waiting for the four o’clock rooster. The night was still night, and it was a quiet one. Even Marie-Rose was silent. No noise but the clock ticks. Patrice counted them, waiting for Sunday to emerge.

  The lovely thing about Sundays was that they were perfect—perfect in the ways of God, not man. On Sundays, the heart went to grace. Of course, that didn’t prevent the river devils from coming around. Patrice had once hoped it might. Was a time, Patrice and her sister and brothers were not permitted to go to church—their mother had forbidden it though Tatie Bernadette had secretly told them about Lord Jesus. Mother had never allowed church because she had a black heart and wished to lead her children away from God, away and down into the depths of the bramble world, that the children might learn shadow magic to serve her.

  But now, their mother was gone. After Papa had died, Patrice had used her skills to banish her mother to New Orleans. The children had been going to church for many months now.

  And yet Patrice recognized the ugly irony of it: The river magic that was an abomination in the eyes of God was the onl
y thing that kept their mother at bay. Patrice knew this had to stop. The river magic had to stop. The children had to find a means to escape their mother without using river devil ways. And to do that, Patrice knew, they would have to leave Terrefleurs. They would have to hide.

  Today in church, Patrice would have to pray for courage to do this. She didn’t know how to leave Terrefleurs, the only home she’d ever known. She was the oldest at fourteen; Guy and Gilbert were both eleven; and Marie-Rose, the youngest, was only seven years old. Where would they go? How would they feed themselves?

  They could try living off the land. At least the boys were good hunters. Guy was, anyway. Frog gig, fishing pole, slingshot, it didn’t matter; he never came home empty-handed. And since Papa died, Guy had also begun using the rifle. He was good with it. They’d all started calling him Trigger. If you were just talking about him, it was Trigger. But if you were talking about the twins together, it was Guy and Gilbert.

  Patrice rolled over and looked at the rumpled heap of bedding where her little sister, Marie-Rose, was sleeping. Marie-Rose always tossed and turned through the night, sighing and muttering and laughing, sleeping about as peacefully as a toad in a dragonfly swarm. She even sassed in her sleep. Usually, when Patrice lit the lamp by the four o’clock rooster’s crow she’d find Marie-Rose with her feet on her pillow and her head buried deep under the quilt. Were it not for Patrice’s insistence that Marie-Rose sleep with a kerchief wrapping her hair, the child would awake each morning with so many snarls on her head she’d look like she was starting to cocoon.

  Patrice smiled, listening. Still dead peace. Still too early to wake her. Where was that rooster?

  On Sundays, the children rose and washed and donned their best clothes—Trigger always needed a little nagging but the others got themselves ready and were taking breakfast by dawn—and they all went to church with Tatie Bernadette and Francois and the other Christians on the plantation. They sang and clapped and praised and praised. A far cry from pigeon exercises.

  The rooster crowed.

  Patrice drew up on her elbows. It wasn’t right.

  The crowing hadn’t come from the four o’clock rooster. This one was different. One of the later ones.