Lake Charles

by Ed Lynskey

  Like a woodchuck, I nestled in a fetal ball position, wishing we’d a tarp to shelter us. The horror of arrows sliced from crossbows replayed behind my closed eyelids, and I feared a fatal arrow had lanced Edna. To calm down, I recited the words to a prayer: “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou . . .”

  * * *

  In next to no time, a hand jostled me awake, and I blinked up. My grainy eyesight focused on Mr. Kuzawa crouched low behind the log and murmuring.

  “We’ve got uninvited guests.”

  I pulled up to my knees, and my fingers shucked out the shells from my pocket. Two shells spilled into the moss where I left them. Swallowing hard, I fed the ammo into the 12-gauge’s breech, slotting in a full eight-shot load. “Where are they?”

  “Above us. I heard a silhouette slip along the ridge top. They’re out of our range, but I can snake my way up and ice them. Easy as pie.”

  “You heard a shadow move on the ridge?”

  “When I’m in my foxhole mode, I doze in spurts. It’s a handy knack you never forget.”

  Wishing it was dusk bringing on the dark, and not dawn bringing on the sunlight, I had limited visibility to see much along the patchy ridge. “A bear or a buck is out foraging. Try hollering.”

  He bawled out. “You there up in the trees! What gives?”

  “Ahoy. Who have I the pleasure of addressing?” replied a man’s cultured voice from above us.

  “Jerry Kuzawa.”

  “Mr. Kuzawa … is that you, sir?”

  “That’s what I said. Ain’t that you, Herzog?”

  My confusion cleared. Herzog my lawyer had told me that he planned to scope out Lake Charles for hunting sites. A memory of our pre-trial meeting I kept avoiding added to my irritation.

  “Come down and my 12-gauge won’t dust off your balls,” said Mr. Kuzawa.

  “No cause to perpetrate any violence, Kuzawa.”

  Mr. Kuzawa’s militant eyes darted to mine. “Why is he on the prowl at sunrise?”

  “He belongs to the gentlemen’s hunt club,” I replied. “He takes himself for a mountain man.”

  “Yeah, and I’m Mary Fucking Poppins.”

  A lumbering gait marked his course off the ridge and down through the trees. Besides his disturbing my sleep, hunger and frustration also left me in a pissy mood.

  “Seeing you here makes me wonder,” said Herzog.

  “I could say vice versa,” said Mr. Kuzawa.

  The oafish Herzog halted within spitting distance where his Aqua Velva scent swept over us. “I’m out reconnoitering because my hunting lodge makes it a practice to prepare early. Next week Dr. Smith will race his red ticks and start their field conditioning. He’s heard Lake Charles teems with game. Have you spotted any turkey scratchings? Or wing feathers dropped under the pines?” Herzog shifted the strap to the brown leather game pouch that Pete Rojos had fixed.

  “We’ve seen the usual boar hog wallows, but nothing in the way of turkeys,” replied Mr. Kuzawa.

  “No toms are feeding or roosting in this stinking sump,” I said. “Paranoid is my middle name so seeing a hunting license will help to back up your claim.”

  Unflustered, Herzog produced his wallet and showed me his state hunting license. It was current. Being legal was a lawyer’s stock in trade. “If only you were as conscientious in our meeting for your trial prep.”

  “My sister Edna went missing. Did you see or hear anything?”

  “Edna? Lost?” Returning his wallet to his pocket, he wagged his head. “If I’d seen her, I’d have shared it with you.”

  My gaze appealed to Mr. Kuzawa. “How do I cope with this crap?”

  Herzog shrugged. “It’s the God’s truth, Brendan. But again, when do we sit down and map out our defense strategy? Your trial is right around the corner.”

  “With you on my team, why should I sweat it?”

  He turned to Mr. Kuzawa. “Mr. Fishback’s surliness dims his odds to win an acquittal. Can’t you reason with him?”

  “Brendan is always his own man.”

  “We still have a little time. How did Edna get lost?”

  “Brendan and my boy Cobb walked up on a pot farm and startled the guards.” Mr. Kuzawa tossed me the ball.

  By now sick of telling it, I chronicled our sordid adventure, summarizing with, “The greedy bastards killed Cobb, and we think kidnapped Edna.”

  “Good Lord.” The shaken Herzog scratched his chin stubble. “Did just a few pot plants provoke that much violence?”

  Mr. Kuzawa took that one. “These shitbirds turning a fast buck have no regard for human life.”

  “Any idea who we’re speaking of?”

  “A few locals probably peddle grass on the side, but this is much more ambitious. I have to figure a big bug grows beaucoup dope around Lake Charles.”

  “That’s a shock to hear.” Herzog widened his stance in a pose he used for delivering his courtroom arguments. The game pouch added the absurd prop. “You’ve certainly concocted some wild-eyed accusations.”

  Anger left me snappy. “Nothing about it is concocted.”

  He took a haughtier tone. “I counsel you already in legal troubles to cease this action.”

  “Stick your counsel where the monkey puts the whistle.”

  “Brendan, let Herzog have his say.”

  “Kuzawa is right. You’d better take this trial more seriously. If you end up executed at Riverbend, my conscious will be clear because I’ll know I did my best defending you.”

  “I don’t have time for this tired shit,” I said. “Edna needs my help.”

  “Maybe I can assist in your search. I’m here anyway, and you’re my client. Your trial is a week from next Thursday, and I can see firsthand how much this distracts you.”

  “How much does this extra help cost me?”

  “It’s all included in the same price, of course.”

  “Even if it is, buzz off, Herzog. We’ll do fine.”

  Mr. Kuzawa’s gnarled knuckles rested on my shoulder. “Not so fast, Brendan. Beefing up our ranks improves our odds of success. Plus you did pay good money for Herzog’s help. Why turn away his offer?”

  I clammed up, realizing I’d lost the argument. For now.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Growing anxious to find Cobb’s body where I’d left it, Mr. Kuzawa set our grinding pace. Herzog’s gangly strides bringing up the rear sandwiched me between the two larger, older men. I craved smoking a cigarette but now only a quarter-mile from the growers’ campsite, we soldiered on. It’d been my suggestion we kick off our search for Edna from there since that’s where I’d found her barrette. The sky’s pearly overcast, a mix of the wood smoke and haze off the lake, blotted out the morning sun.

  Famished, I made an ambulatory breakfast off the tin of sardines. Their rusty taste reminded me of human blood, and I spat out the repugnant mouthful. A log bridge took us to the last cove, and we cut by a bronze plaque left for a firefighter (“Amos O’Doul, 1925-56”) who’d perished here in the line of duty. My mood fell into a grimmer pit. Herzog’s croak said he wanted a break, and we rested in the next patch of shade.

  “Herzog, you’re a courthouse regular.” A breeze mussed Mr. Kuzawa’s wiry, gray hair. “What’s the inside slant there on the local pot scene?”

  “Nothing really consequential.”

  “Except we now suspect a big bug grows it here in abundance.”

  A thumbnail scratched at Herzog’s chin stubble. “Are you sure? The news media reports the lion’s share of dope is smuggled over the Rio Grande.”

  “True but smuggling in dope from México or Bogotá attracts unwanted attention, especially at the border checkpoints. The beauty of homegrown pot is removing those risks.”

  “I still urge you not to pursue this rash action.”

  “Why not?” I asked Herzog.

  “My professional role is to play the voice of reason. Plainly put, I don’t approve of what I perceive as your brand of roug
h frontier justice.”

  “If your boy got killed, you’d feel different.”

  “It was inhumane and tragic, I agree. But the rule of law will rectify it, not you both acting as his avengers.”

  To head off my rising anger, I shouldered my 12-gauge. “We better get a move on.”

  Mr. Kuzawa emptied the whiskey fifth. “Brendan, walk point.” He tossed the bottle, and it smashed on a rock pile. “You have the best feel for this theater of operations.”

  Hearing his military jargon—“theater of operations”—suggested again that he put us in a different spot than Lake Charles, Tennessee. We’d been teleported to 1950 and deployed in the stark, rocky hills behind the Chosin Reservoir. We held the rat-infested, ice-rimmed foxholes and fended off the waves of the Communist infantrymen.

  I led us up the next promontory into a shifty breeze wicking the sweat off my forehead. The inky vestige to Lake Charles emerged and other familiar landmarks like Will Thomas Mountain grew in clarity. My hope grew to greet Edna huddled by her campfire and squeal in joy to see us. A shallow ravine came before the stand of firs to reach the campsite’s rear side.

  The rotten meat smell of decay fouled it, and I took short gasps through my mouth. Though death smelled putrid, it tasted even worse. My 12-gauge was a pointer to where beyond the black pot. Head down, Mr. Kuzawa slogged over and crumbled to his knees at Cobb’s dead body.

  My eyes mashed shut as I cringed at his moan soaring into an anguished, wolf-like howl. My eyes opened. His mouth gaped wider, and he roared out, the agony churning from his mastiff chest. Numb to the core, I retrieved the death arrow, Cobb’s blood crusted to its barbed steel point, and I flung it with the busted crossbow into the shrubbery. Jagged angles creasing his face, Herzog paced in wide circles. I wondered if Edna could hear the power to Mr. Kuzawa’s keening wail. His final notes trailed off.

  “This just ain’t right,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

  Herzog pulled up at his side. “We’ll return to my Mercedes and go right on to notify the local authorities.”

  An old warrior’s fury seethed in Mr. Kuzawa’s eyes. “Why? For Brendan to get another jailhouse beatdown? Fuck no, we’ll bury my dead boy. Make it quick, too. These shitbirds still hold my daughter-in-law.”

  With smooth deference, Herzog nodded. “I understand, sir. It’s always your call to make, of course.”

  My ink-stained hands felt useless. “We’ve got no shovels or picks.”

  Resembling a hoary troglodyte, Mr. Kuzawa brandished a flat stone. His rising shirt cuffs showed the “Semper Fi!” dagger tattooed on his wrist. “We’ll just pile on the rocks.”

  The audacity to his idea freaked me. Appealing for support from Herzog, I saw the attorney—a graduate of the Vanderbilt University Law School, no less—nodding his head in agreement. My wishy-washy counselor switched opinions on a whim, and I distrusted him even more.

  “Listen at you.” I punched Mr. Kuzawa in the shoulder. “Just listen, will you? You’re talking crazy. We have to carry out the body and not build a damn crypt around it. A century ago, that was okay but not in 1979. Am I right, Herzog?”

  My turn faced him. His bloodless lips thinned in an exaggerated wince. “The crypt will serve as a temporary container, I’m certain.”

  “Right. I’ll use it as long as I need to keep Cobb on ice,” said Mr. Kuzawa.

  Cobb kept on ice in a crypt. What shit. Was I alone in my sanity here? I wandered to the tent site and struggled to order my thoughts. Lake Charles’ chaos had spiraled into a vortex trapping me at its center. I ached to drive home to my flat. I ached to crack open a cold PBR from the fridge. I ached to erase this weekend. Yeah, I’d go back to work on Monday and breathe the ink fumes, and I’d never bitch about my life again. Scuffing at the loose sand with my boot tip, I unearthed a second plastic baggie stuffed with pot and picked it up.

  Mr. Kuzawa’s narrow-eyed gaze saw it. “Greed for what you hold in your hand is what killed my boy.”

  “No, you’re wrong.” My angry finger pointed at the dead archer under the sassafras branches. “He’s the guilty party. So, put the blame on him except he’s also dead.”

  “You’re forgetting the big bug’s orders to kill trespassers like Cobb and you on sight.”

  “So what if he did?”

  “So now the big bug gets his due.”

  “Gentlemen please. Your tempers.” Then in a surprise move somewhat appeasing me, Herzog posed a compromise. “Our search-and-destroy mission will comb these wilds and eradicate their pot gardens. Socking them in the pocketbook will offer some measure of compensation. At the same time, we can look for Edna, and then we’ll reassess where matters stand.”

  “Then we smash the big bug,” said Mr. Kuzawa.

  “A distinct possibility, I’m sure.”

  I glared at the obsequious Herzog nodding like a bobble-head doll. “No, we keep on searching for Edna. But for now, we can build the damn crypt.”

  We inset the sheets of red slate to forge the liner to Cobb’s temporary mausoleum. Mr. Kuzawa swaddled him in the cleanest of the two ponchos used for the pup tent, and I rested his “EAT MORE BASS!” tattooed forearm on his stomach. I waved a blowfly off his bristly black hair. His cadaver’s reek burned in my nose, and we hustled to button up the makeshift crypt by stacking and fitting on more slate sheets.

  Cobb had one thing right: stonework like erecting a chimney or crypt wasn’t brain surgery. We did a passable job. I piled more sassafras branches over the wilted ones to camouflage the dead archer, also a stranger to Herzog and Mr. Kuzawa.

  “Leave the shitbird for the wild boars,” said Mr. Kuzawa.

  Herzog slit his hand on a slate’s jagged edge. The klutz used his white linen handkerchief as a crude bandage as he sat down on the overturned black pot. Mr. Kuzawa and I crouched like cowboys. I felt too sick and disgusted to light up a cigarette. Herzog adjusted the game pouch to rest it on his lap.

  Anxiety lines furrowed my forehead. Upslope on Will Thomas Mountain was where more cannabis ripened in the other covert glens. Somebody asshole held Edna against her will. I’d little grit left to do more bushwhacking. We left the campsite through the firs left denuded by aphids and adding to Lake Charles’ gloom. Herzog pampering his injured hand went first.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Our quest for the pot plants paralleled Lake Charles, a dark mirror held up to our souls, and I didn’t care to see its reflection. In a quiet part of my mind, I saw us—Edna, Cobb, and me—seated in my cab truck and departing Lang’s Teahouse for home in Umpire. But my earnest wish didn’t make it happen. Tracking along a flat stretch, we steadied our gait, and my idle thoughts derailed into my habitual reverie.

  “Brendan, be a love and lower the blind.” Ashleigh tucked in the motel bed sheets pointed her red-tipped finger to direct me.

  “I’m on it.”

  “This motel is so grotty. Our summerhouse is much nicer.”

  “Your summerhouse?” I lit her Virginia Slim after I made our love nest more private by tugging down the window blind. She inhaled and then vented her smoke into my eyes. What a doll she was.

  “It’s back on our Gatlinburg estate called Aeaea.” She saw my quizzical reaction. “I wondered too and looked up the name. Aeaea is the island where the sorceress Circe held dominion over her male subjects that, if ever disenchanted, she conjured into swine.”

  I cut in on Ashleigh’s mythology lesson. “What about the damn summerhouse?”

  “Right, the summerhouse. Well: it’s a birch log cabin. A dark lane winds through the trees, making it secluded and ideal for our dissolute purposes.”

  “Then next time we’ll go flop there.”

  “Brilliant. I can hardly wait.” Smiling, her expression turned wistful and enigmatic. “I need a favor.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Will you be my bodyguard? I can afford to pay top rates.”

  “I’d be honored. My friend Cobb can lend me his .44s.”

&n
bsp; “Hey, I’m not kidding,” she said, miffed at hearing my flippancy.

  “All right, simmer down and I’ll do it. Are you in any immediate danger?”

  “No, but what I have in mind is very dangerous.”

  Wariness served me a dose of caution. “Just how dangerous is it? You see, I charge accordingly.”

  “Oh, I’m always sure I can meet your price, Brendan.”

  My eyes refocused, I staggered for a step, my boot almost crushing a corn snake sunning itself on a pancake rock before a grove of beeches shaded our progress. Feces in the wallows made by the wild boars rooting for snails, salamanders, and mushrooms to eat burned out my nose hairs. Something of a grub myself, I knew my porcine lore. Unable to sweat, the boars writhed in the mud’s gooey coolness, and the baked on dirt coat also kept off the ticks. The DEET that I smeared on did the same thing.

  The boars’ upper tusks scraped on the bottom ones to hone them to a razor sharp edge. During the hottest part of the day, they bedded down, and during the cooler night, they foraged. The butchered wild boars offered nutty-tasting pork chops. Their intestines became tripe, and their livers fixed with onions were edible. Shunning food stamps, our religious cousins had starved enough to go shoot and feast on the wild boars. Right now, so could I.

  Our wild boars weren’t native. One tale I heard as a kid said the pissed off scratch farmers during the Great Depression freed their hogs rather than let the bankers seize them in the foreclosures. Or did Ashleigh’s yarn of Circe changing Ulysses’ men into swine enjoy credence in Tennessee? After her lovers bored her, Ashleigh also bewitched them into boar hogs driven to root for survival in the Appalachian outback.