by Jon Sharpe
Fargo grinned and reached for her.
5
Fargo never did like being stared at, and by five o’clock the next day he’d had a bellyful.
The tavern filled up by noon. So many Cajuns, they were shoulder to shoulder and wall to wall. So many men, they were three and four deep at the bar and every table was filled. All there because of him.
Word had spread rapidly. The swamp grapevine, Liana called it. News that an outsider had arrived at the tavern, and that he was there to meet one of their own. The outsider was a famous scout, the rumor went, a tracker whose skills were often called on by the army. And he had come to the Atchafalaya Swamp to solve the mystery of the vanishings.
Small wonder, then, that the tavern was packed.
Fargo had a corner table to himself. He drank and played solitaire and grew tired of the endless stares and fingers jabbed in his direction. His mood wasn’t helped any by the presence of Doucet, who swaggered around as if he were somebody important.
“I am sorry,” Liana said at one point as she was refilling Fargo’s glass to the brim with her best whiskey. “I never expected this.”
“Makes two of us.”
Liana bent so her mouth was close to his ear. “I am also sorry about Doucet.”
“Why? What is he up to?” As if Fargo couldn’t guess.
“He is going around telling everyone how he clashed with you over me,” Liana related. “And how for the good of everyone, and out of the nobleness of his heart, he spared you.”
“Leave the bottle.”
“Don’t let him get to you. He loves to hear himself talk. Most will know there must be more to his story.”
“Leave the bottle anyway.”
The afternoon dragged. By three Fargo was wondering if Namo would show. By four he was willing to bet Namo wouldn’t. By five he was so tired of being stared at that he was about to get up and go for a walk when the door opened and in came a man holding a small girl in his arms. A boy of twelve or so trailed after them. Instantly the tavern fell quiet, completely, utterly silent. No one talked. No one whispered. No one so much as breathed loud.
The man holding the girl was rake thin but all sinew. He sported a clipped beard much like Fargo’s. He paused and surveyed the room from end to end.
The boy said something to him and they threaded through the throng toward the corner table.
“You are the only outsider here so you must be him.”
“And you must be Namo Heuse, the gent who wrote to me.” Fargo introduced himself.
The rake-thin Cajun said quietly, “I wasn’t sure you would come. I wasn’t even sure you got my letter. Then I got your reply, and here I am.”
“I have a fair idea of why you wrote to me,” Fargo said. “But there’s one thing I don’t know. Why me?”
“I read about you in the New Orleans newspaper. About the time you tracked some killers in Missouri and saved a woman’s life. The paper said the army considers you the best tracker and scout alive. It said you can find anyone or anything, anywhere, anytime.”
“Don’t believe everything you read.”
Namo pulled out a chair and set his daughter down. “This is Halette.”
“How do you do,” Fargo said.
The girl sat ramrod straight, her cherub face blank, her hazel eyes fixed unblinkingly on the wall.
Namo sadly frowned. “She hasn’t spoken a word since her mother disappeared. All she does is sit and stare. I’ve taken her to a doctor and two healers but they are unable to help. They say she might come out of it with time but there’s no telling when.” Namo indicated the boy. “And this is Clovis. Don’t let his age fool you. He’s a good hunter. He’s killed just about everything that walks, crawls and flies in the Atchafalaya.”
“That’s a lot of killing.”
Namo pulled out the chair next to his daughter and sat. “You say you have some idea of why I sent for you? I take it, then, you’ve heard about my wife, my sweet Emmeline.”
“Her and the others who have disappeared, yes.”
“Disappeared, nothing. They were killed by a swamp beast. I know. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”
“If you were able to get that close on your own, why send for me?” Fargo wanted to know.
“You don’t understand. I’ve hunted it every day since my wife vanished. Every day from dawn until dusk for the past two months. Sixty days, and all I have to show for it is that one glimpse. Only for a second or two, with night about to fall.”
“What do you think it was?”
Namo hesitated. “I’m not sure. I know what it wasn’t. It wasn’t an alligator and it wasn’t a bear. It wasn’t a cougar or a bobcat. It was much too big.”
“And now you want me to find it for you?”
“No. I want you to help me find it. But first I want your word that you won’t kill it when we do. Leave that to me.”
Fargo was taking the measure of this man as they talked, and he liked what he saw. Namo wasn’t foaming at the mouth with rage; the Cajun had thought this out and knew exactly what he was doing. “In your letter you mentioned a thousand dollars.”
“All the money I have, yes. And it is yours if you agree to help.”
“Let’s say I do. I can’t stick around forever. I can stay a month. Not much more.”
“I will take what I can get.”
“And what if we don’t find it? What if I try my best and I don’t have any more luck than you’ve had?”
“You will still get your money. Half today and the rest when you decide you have had enough.”
Fargo started to extend his arm to shake on the deal.
“We can start in the morning. Clovis and Halette won’t be any bother, I assure you.”
“Wait. You’re taking your kids along?”
“Oui. I can’t leave them home alone. Not with Halette as she is.”
Fargo studied the man more closely. “They’d be safer in your cabin than out in the swamp with us.”
“I disagree. And they are my children. It is my decision.”
Fargo withdrew his hand and sat back. “I don’t know as I like it.”
“You’re having second thoughts?”
“Third and fourth thoughts,” Fargo responded. “I won’t deny I can use the money. It will buy me a week or two of poker and women in St. Jo. But I don’t need it so bad that I’ll agree to going after this so-called monster with your kids along.”
Namo Heuse frowned. He glanced at his daughter and then at his son and drummed his fingers on the table. “How can I make you understand? I love them. I love them more than anything. I’ve already lost their mother and I couldn’t bear to lose them, too.”
“Then leave them at home.” Fargo had an inspiration. “Better yet, leave them with relatives. Or with friends here in the settlement.”
“I wouldn’t want to impose on anyone in Gros Ville.”
“Now you’re just making excuses.” Fargo gestured at the bar. “Liana might do it. She’s been real friendly to me.”
“I can’t let my daughter out of my sight.”
“Then hunt the thing yourself.” Fargo considered that the end of the matter. “I’ll take twenty dollars for my expenses and we’ll call it even.”
Namo Heuse put his hand on Halette’s shoulder. “Look at her. Look at how she is. Now watch.” He pushed back his chair, got up, and made for the bar. Barely had he taken half a dozen steps when Halette began to tremble and to whimper. She didn’t turn her head to see where he had gone. She just sat there whimpering.
Her brother, Clovis, bowed his head.
Namo turned around and came back. Reclaiming his seat, he gave his daughter’s arm a tender squeeze. “She does that every time I leave her side. She doesn’t talk. She doesn’t cry. She just makes that sound.”
Fargo took a long swallow of whiskey. “It’s too dangerous in the swamp. You’re taking too great a risk.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” Namo rubbed a
hand across his face, and only then did Fargo realize how bone weary the man was. It showed in the deep lines and in his haunted eyes. “But what choice do I have? I must find the thing. I must kill it. Or never again hold my head high as a man should.”
“But the danger,” Fargo persisted.
“Clovis is old enough. He understands the risks. And Emmeline was his mother. As for Halette—” Namo regarded his daughter with the undeniable love of a devoted father. “You see what happens when I leave her. The doctor says she could have fits if I am away too long. Convulsions, he called them. He said they could kill her. You talk about risks? I don’t dare leave her alone.”
“Damn.”
“Yes. Damn. What is the saying, monsieur? I am caught between a rock and a hard place. Between the love I had for my wife and the love I bear for my child.” Namo paused. “I’ve never done what I am about to do. I have always been too proud. But I will do it now. I will beg you.”
“Don’t,” Fargo said.
“I plead with you to help me. I can’t do it alone. Not and watch over my children, both.”
“Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn.”
“You are weakening? Good. I beg you on my dead wife’s behalf. They say you are one of the best at what you do. Only a few are your equal. Jim Bridger, but he is old. Kit Carson, but I couldn’t find out where he is. And that mountain man in the Rockies who has a Shoshone wife but he never leaves the Rockies. So that left you.”
“If I had known about your kids, I’d never have come.”
“You hate children that much?”
“I hate seeing them die.” Fargo remembered one little girl in particular. He had been fond of her, and she died in his arms.
“With the two of us working together, maybe they won’t.”
“Maybe,” Fargo said.
“I will go anyway, you know. With or without you, I will continue to hunt the creature. And they will continue to go with me.”
“I should hit you with a chair.”
Namo Heuse grinned. “You’ve changed your mind. But let me hear you say the words.”
“By any chance are you related to Doucet?”
“Why would you ask such a thing? He and I are nothing alike.”
“You’re both bastards.” Fargo smiled as he said it. “All right, Namo. I’ll do as you want. We’ll take your son and your daughter.” He looked at them. “God help us.”
“Thank you.”
“Save it for after. If we’re still alive.” Fargo nodded at the kids. “And if they are.”
“We can head out at dawn. I came by pirogue. It is faster than walking. And safer.”
“I have a horse.”
“Where we are going is not for horses, monsieur. You must leave the animal here.”
“That’s my point. There’s no stable or livery.”
But there was Liana, and when Fargo asked, she agreed to let Fargo tie the stallion out behind the tavern, and promised to feed and water him while Fargo was gone.
“For you, handsome. But only for you. And be careful out there, yes? The swamp is a very dangerous place.”
Fargo had no need to be reminded. But he shut it from his mind for the time being, in part because she invited him to stay with her a second night if he wished. Of course he wished. While he waited for her to close, he went out for some air. Night had fallen over the Atchafalaya. From the swamp came bellows and croaks and an occasional roar.
Fargo had been in swamps before. There were no more treacherous places on earth. They were home to a host of things that could do a man in. The prairie and the mountains had their perils but compared to a swamp they were downright hospitable. He could never live there. Not that he shied from danger. He just wasn’t fond of snakes and even less of quicksand, and he had a passionate dislike for mosquitoes. And, too, he preferred to have a horse under him, not a canoe.
Far off something screamed. A death shriek, unless Fargo was mistaken. Prey had fallen to a predator. He thought of the animal they were going after. He didn’t buy that nonsense about a monster. There must be a logical explanation. Whatever the creature was, if it was flesh and blood it could be killed. All he needed to do was get it in his gun sights.
“Mister?”
Fargo nearly jumped, and cursed himself for his nerves. He turned, surprised to find Clovis Heuse. “Does your father want to see me?”
“No. I came looking for you myself. It’s him I want to talk about, though.”
“I’m listening.”
“Don’t let anything happen to him. Losing our mother was awful enough. We couldn’t stand to lose him, too.”
“I’ll do my best but I can’t make any promises.”
The boy didn’t seem to hear him. “I’d take it poorly if he died. I might even blame you. Something to keep in mind.” Without so much as a “good night,” he wheeled and walked off.
Fargo stared after him in disbelief. Was it his imagination or had he just been threatened?
6
The stillness was what got to you.
Whole stretches of the swamp were as still as a cemetery. Moss-covered cypress reared in rows like head-stones, their branches bowed as if they were about to pounce on the unwary. Willow trees hung their branches as if weeping for the fallen. Shadow and gloom held sway even in the bright of day.
The wildlife seemed to have been sucked into the muck and the ooze. Nary a bird chirped. Even the insects were quiet.
Fargo was glad when they came to a bayou. The open channel was a relief after the murk. It felt good to have the sun on his face. He stroked his paddle, matching his rhythm to the Cajun’s.
Between them perched Clovis and Halette. The girl sat facing Fargo, not her father, her face vacant, her eyes pits of emptiness. Now and again Fargo would glance at her and for a few fleeting seconds he caught a glimmer of—something. When that happened he made it a point to smile but she never smiled back.
Clovis sat with a rifle across his legs. For twelve years old he was a remarkable shot, as he’d demonstrated when a large cottonmouth glided toward them and he put a slug smack in its eye when it was still a good twenty feet away.
“Nice shooting,” Fargo had complimented him.
“Shucks, mister. That wasn’t anything.”
“Don’t brag, boy,” Namo said over his shoulder. “It’s not seemly.”
Now, as they moved at a brisk pace along the winding bayou, Fargo thought to ask, “Where are we headed? You haven’t told me.”
“To where I saw the beast. It’s far into the Atchafalaya, further than most ever go.”
“What makes you think the thing is still there?”
Namo’s arms pumped with effortless ease. “I noticed a pattern. One or two would go missing and everything was fine for a month or so. Then more would disappear, and it was fine for a while.”
Fargo put two and two together. “You think the thing has a territory it roams, like a bear or a cougar?”
“That would explain a lot, yes.”
“But what it doesn’t explain is what the thing is and where it came from and why it’s attacking people,” Fargo said. Most animals avoid humans if they can help it.
“I have an idea what it is but I don’t want to say anything until I’m sure. And if I’m right, we will be in for the fight of our lives.”
“Don’t forget your kids,” Fargo said with just enough resentment to let Namo know he was still angry.
“They’ll be fine. You’ve seen Clovis shoot.”
Fargo looked at the children and again caught a gleam in Halette’s eyes. But the next moment the blank look came over her again. “What are you playing at?” he quietly asked.
“What was that?” From Namo.
“I was talking to myself.” Fargo didn’t want to get the man’s hopes up, only to have them dashed.
For over a mile they relied on the bayou. Presently, though, Namo veered into a tributary, which in turn merged into the swamp and once again they glided through bracki
sh water so dark Fargo couldn’t see the bottom. Twice he spotted alligators. The first, a small one, dived out of sight. The second, almost as long as their pirogue, stared balefully from atop a hummock where it was sprawled in reptilian ease.
“We’ll see a lot more,” Namo let him know.
“I can’t wait.”
The change from day to night was abrupt. What light there was didn’t gradually fade. One moment the swamp was its perpetual gray, the next they were plunged in black.
“We should stop,” Fargo suggested.
“I can go another hour yet.”
Fargo didn’t see how, not when he couldn’t see the other end of the pirogue from where he sat. It invited disaster. Night was when all the gators were abroad. And there would be no warning if they came on a poisonous snake. “What about your kids?”
“For them we stop.”
After they pulled their craft onto a small island, Namo gathered wood for the fire and got it going using a fire steel and flint. On his hands and knees, he puffed tiny fingers of flame to crackling life.
Clovis had shot a squirrel shortly before the sun went down so supper consisted of coffee and squirrel stew. The boy skinned it and chopped the meat and didn’t care one whit that his hands were covered with gore.
Fargo ate with relish. He wasn’t fussy when it came to food. Cook it well, and he would eat just about anything. He was on his second helping and had just set his coffee cup at his feet when loud crashing broke out across a narrow span that separated their island from another.
“Deer,” Namo said. “They caught our scent and ran off.”
Clovis came around the fire and held his rifle out to Fargo. “Want to look at it? It was my mother’s. We found it where she died and Papa gave it to me.”
It was an old Sharps. Somewhere or other the stock had cracked and been wound with strips of leather. Fargo pressed it to his shoulder and sighted down the long barrel. “Nice gun.”
“Have you ever fired a Sharps, monsieur? They kick.”
“I owned one,” Fargo enlightened him. For years, until he switched. There were days when he thought about switching back again.
