by Abe Dancer
‘I want some o’ what that goddamn cock-a-doodle-doo had,’ came the brisk response. ‘An’ in case you’re wonderin’, my wife was already dead. She died soon after Melba was born. Look, Rogan, let’s cut this drunken jawbone an’ get down to cases,’ Savoy continued after a short, fitting silence. ‘I want to go back there … take the families with me. You understand?’
‘Because of something that did or didn’t happen ten years ago? Not really.’
‘Not just that. But maybe. I’m not too sure. Hell, I couldn’t even fill out a docket for one o’ them catalogue women. I couldn’t do much anythin’ with folk sniggerin’ behind my back … urchins chasin’ me down the street yellin’ “hog boots”. I got to be able to mingle with folk without soundin’ like some goddamn foreign person. You can learn me if you’re wantin’ your horse an’ that fancy pistol back, Rogan. Do you understand that?’
‘Yeah. Though I’ll be doin’ it for me not you,’ Jack retorted. ‘I think there’s a church schoolhouse in Blackwater. Maybe I could get you a bench there. It’s where most learning starts.’
Savoy grinned and shook his head. ‘An interestin’ thought, but I don’t have the time,’ he said with a short, humourless laugh.
‘How about I turn you into a gambler?’ Jack suggested wryly. ‘You’d intimidate most pikers into folding on anything above a pair. I’m sure it’s not what you had in mind, but it’s what I know about.’
‘I’ve already told you, I want to go beside others. I don’t want to be an outcaste ’cause o’ manners or appearance. An’ I’m speakin’ for all of us. You know Blackwater … what’s needed.’
‘Yeah, I know what’s needed. That’s something different,’ Jack muttered. ‘You want me to create a falsehood. What if I said it’s impossible and I can’t help?’
‘Then I couldn’t help you.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I’d let someone else decide what’s to become o’ you. Someone out there, who you’ve already done harm to.’ As he spoke, Savoy leaned forward, pushed the door open a few inches.
The first person Jack saw was Melba. She was nearby, putting out eel traps at the water’s edge. And Homer Lamb hadn’t gone far. He was leaning against the bole of a tupelo keeping an eye on Savoy’s shack. It looked like he was ready to bite himself with meanness. A number of men still seemed to be hanging around. Jack couldn’t help but notice they were not only similar in looks and demeanour; their slouch hats, gunny-sack clothing and simple boots gave them the appearance of a makeshift, Territorial Army. To a man, they looked impatient to inflict a severe beating on someone.
Half-wit defectives, Jack silently accused. He’d bested a few of them and they shared a serious grudge. They would skin him alive if he was to tell Savoy that most of them would have been slaughtered at birth if they’d been bred as domestic livestock. ‘Your threat’s good enough,’ he said. ‘And have you got any kind of physic in here? My head’s fit to blow apart.’
‘I’ll get Melba to feed you some willow wood,’ Savoy offered. ‘It works for us.’
6
The wind was soughing through the cypress and drapes of Spanish moss, feathering the grasses and bankside reeds. Around the Whistler township, birch lanterns glowed from flimsy cabins and a lonely dog yowled at the big moon.
The stillness and peace wasn’t how Homer Lamb wanted it, not this night, anyhow. He’d lost status when Jack’s horse chomped his fingers, and Jack had smashed him in the mouth. Now he sought retribution, wanted to harm Jack until he was beyond begging for mercy. Then he’d whip his ass across the bayou just to set things right.
But instead of being on the receiving end of Lamb’s wrath, Jack Rogan was being entertained in Gaston Savoy’s home. ‘Probably bein’ fed gumbo an’ greens by Melba,’ the man mumbled through a split lip.
Casting wary eyes at Lamb, Cletus Savoy was sidling around. He too was wondering if old Gaston had lost his edge. ‘Fallin’ for deceiver words,’ he muttered darkly.
‘Yeah. Looks like he’s gone to fish from the far bank,’ was how Loop Ducet agreed.
For almost a decade, the bayou people had weaved in and around Whistler with their hard, stubborn customs. Customarily, they dealt with those who came looking for trouble, in such a way there was hardly ever a return for more. They were a law unto themselves, made their own rules. But, if truth be told, there was never a time when anything else was needed. If towners considered them ignorant and rough-grained, they would live with it. ‘Our strength is our family. What we have we hold,’ Gaston was once fond of telling them.
But times were changing. There’d been talk of moving near to, even into Blackwater to live cheek by jowl with these townspeople.
‘I’ve heard there’s places where a man’s not free to tote his own gun, or knife, or fishing pole, even,’ Ducet protested.
‘Yeah, an’ the first time you used your rope would be to wrap it round your own scrawny neck,’ Lamb put in. ‘But you’ll be all right, Cletus,’ he added. ‘Now you ain’t got nothin’ to get caught with.’
Cletus Savoy didn’t smile or make comment. He wasn’t sure if Lamb’s remark was funny or serious.
*
Gaston Savoy’s idea of conciliation with progress, was putting some men’s nerves on edge, and their tempers were fiery. To Homer Lamb, the current business between Savoy and Jack Rogan felt like the last straw. Savoy was sharing a jug like they were old friends, a long, wet toast to carving up a future.
The thing Lamb was nervous and worried about, more than any alliance between Savoy and Jack Rogan, was a resettlement, a move away from Whistler. For a long while his dream had been to take over from Gaston Savoy as family leader. That included the women he wanted, all the power and authority he craved and the freedom to enjoy it. ‘Gator in a pond o’ bluegills,’ was how he saw himself. A removal to Blackwater would change all that. Over time, the bayou clans would transform into respectful users of sidewalks, customers of stores with fancy goods.
It was enough to make a man spit, and Lamb did that just before flexing his shoulders aggressively and slouching off to the cookshack. He was nervy dry, thought snake-head would help him to stir those who would throw in with him.
Loop Ducet was of similar mind. He emerged from the shadows of the storehouses, nodded and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘I’ve already talked to some of the boys,’ he said, with a sense of Lamb’s intent.
‘What about?’ Lamb’s voice wasn’t loud, but it was raw-edged, short with anger.
‘They don’t like interlopers an’ poke-noses. Makes ’em feel kind of uncomfortable.’
‘Good. We ain’t family for nothin’. Huh, ’cept young Cletus, maybe. I’m worried about him. He ain’t even ornamental.’
‘You go too far with that ribbin’, Homer. One mornin’ you’ll wake to your goddamn throat bein’ cut, family or not. Serious. Don’t you reckon Gaston’s rubbin’ our beaks in it … cosyin’ up to that showboat tinhorn?’
‘Even if I did, it’s him callin’ the shots. The head man can do what he likes. That’s the whole point, Loop. If it means makin’ a squinch-eyed fool of himself an’ lettin’ himself be taken for a sucker, then that’s how it’s goin’ to be. Time bein’. You understand?’
‘Yeah, I think.’ Ducet studied the bigger man intently. ‘What about that fat lip you got? An’ what about Melba? I bet Gaston’s got her mewin’ an’ stuff.’
‘Feisty talk don’t get the pot boiled, Loop.’
‘What? You say I’m talkin’ too much?’
‘Don’t mind a feller talkin’, Loop, so long as it’s the same feller backs up his words.’
‘You want me to do somethin’ about Rogan?’
‘Not necessarily,’ Lamb said, looking towards the chinks of light from Savoy’s big cabin. ‘I’m sayin’, if somebody was makin’ a move, they wouldn’t be runnin’ off at the mouth about it.’ Lamb pulled down the brim of his hat, half turned away from Ducet. ‘If anythin’ was to go wron
g, you’d end up sleepin’ with the cottonmouths.’
‘You got somethin’ planned. I knew it,’ Ducet said quietly.
But with his jaws grinding, Lamb was already walking away. He went behind the cookshack, peered out to the pole corral where a big sorrel gleamed in the darkness. He grunted, pulled the .44 Walker Colt from its holster and checked the loads. His disposition was growing hostility. He was ready to make his move, make the change.
After having watched her father chew on his corn dabs, Melba raised a tight smile at the thought of him tackling the basics of town conduct. Gaston Savoy had travelled to Baton Rouge and New Orleans, but that was all for taking notice of, not for fitting in. That came later, when he got home to Whistler.
‘You act like any stranger in a new town, who plans to stay more than a night,’ Jack Rogan was advising. ‘Don’t say too much, and don’t make a noise. Don’t spit or puke on the boardwalks, and nod courteously when someone in a dress goes by. It’s probably a lady,’ he went on. ‘Take a bath and clear the pig muck off your boots.’ He wanted to tell the old patriarch that he’d met toe chiggers with more style, certainly better taste than any goddamn Savoy. But, at that moment, his life depended on finding more accommodating words. ‘And staying clear of the cat house and saloon’s probably a good idea. Keep that up for a month or so, and who knows…?’
‘An’ what if we tire o’ the kowtowin’ an’ eatin’ their dust?’ Savoy asked. ‘Some o’ the younger ones might not stick to it.’
‘If it’s thinking you have as much right as anybody else to be there … remember the Choctaws. It weren’t so long ago, and they were clans, too.’
‘Anythin’ else?’
‘Yeah, keep your dogs out of town. And look out for the law. It won’t be wearing a badge of office, but it’s there in some guise or other. Don’t cross it.’
Responding to Savoy’s notion of social integration, Jack was pitching somewhere between difficult and ludicrous. He thought he was getting away with it, enough to keep him alive that much longer.
He didn’t like Gaston Savoy, yet there could be no doubting that the man was of extraordinary influence. Not by size alone did he control the fifty or so citizens of the Whistler settlement. He was the accepted chief, with his own order of bayou lifestyle. But while most other men in his position would settle for that, Savoy was going for more, including what he thought he’d missed along the way.
‘You’ll never pass for a West Point graduate, but with luck and a fair wind, you might just pass,’ Jack said. Although he was thinking, Not that it matters to me. I’m short in this goddamn hole. Time to get back where I belong. And no more short cuts.’
By the same time tomorrow, Jack wanted to be sitting on a train headed East. Frog Hollow and the life forms of Whistler would ultimately merge into a tired traveller’s old windy.
‘I’ve learned that time’s not for wastin’ … to find out fast,’ Savoy declared. ‘I know what I want, an’ hell-fire, I’m goin’ for it.’
Yeah, that’s right, feller. You and me both, Jack silently agreed. He was thinking that if he could mete out some measure of harm on his departure that night, it would justify his helping Gaston Savoy.
Without Melba or her father noticing, Jack lowered his head, peered out through a split in the cabin wall. From what he could see, there were few people about, and his eye sought out the picket line. There was a faint post light at either end, and Jack guessed his sorrel was there, wondered if anyone was watching out for it. He imagined the big horse wide-eyed and distrustful, ready to kick or bite a stranger, hoping he was going to turn up and get them away from there.
Yeah, I am … won’t be long, lady, Jack said to himself.
He’d noticed how the swampers looked at his horse. They might be ill-bred, as thick as john seats, but they recognized horseflesh when they saw it. Jack had been offered heaps of dollars for the sorrel. But as long as the horse outran anything else on four legs, had more intelligence than the Whistler collective, there wasn’t a price tag. Until it happened along, Jack thought it was only cowboys and troopers who admired and felt genuine affection for horses. Consequently, he wouldn’t be leaving other than by an encouraging heel to the mount’s muscular rump, and heaven help any hostile cracker who stood in their way.
‘All right, Pa, that will do for tonight. We don’t want to give that ol’ brain o’ yours a hernia,’ Melba said, and Jack came back from his thoughts. ‘He’s done more learning this night than in his entire life. With prospect, he’ll be more tuckered than one o’ them Mississippi steamer girls. Ain’t that so?’ she added, with a challenging glance at Jack.
‘There’s towns out East where you get cast out for that sort of talk,’ Jack replied.
‘As you do for being a slick-fingered, card sharp.’
‘Cut it out, you two. Is that sort o’ smart talk an off-put with decent folk?’ Savoy grated.
‘I reckon so,’ Jack replied. ‘I’ve almost forgotten decent folk exist.’
‘Your contempt for the likes of us is like a lit torch, Mr Rogan,’ Melba accused.
‘It was the likes of your goddamn degenerate family that brought me here,’ Jack snapped back. He strolled to the door, looked at Savoy angrily. ‘Do I need your dog soldiers to show me back to that provisions store?’
‘There’s nowhere else for you to go. Not that’s out o’ harm’s way. So don’t try an’ run off, Rogan. There’s more murderous varmints out there wanting blood than you’ll ever imagine.’
Jack caught sight of Melba’s reproachful glare as he stepped out into the dark night.
‘I can’t imagine doing it on foot,’ he said, wincing at the intimate cacophony of unseen croaks, ticks, barks and hisses.
He paused for a moment, looking back to Savoy’s cabin. Melba seemed a cut above the rest, he thought, especially in looks. A bit of an enigma … something from her mother’s side. It was Melba who had given her father the idea of making use of him, seeing if there was anything to learn instead of turning him loose as quarry for the dogs. For that, he supposed he should be showing some sort of gratitude. ‘Huh, think again, sugar pie,’ he muttered. But he couldn’t understand why she should be so hostile towards him, something out of nothing. He hadn’t touched her, and she was certainly smart enough to acknowledge that if she wanted to. None of it altered the fact that she was just as much a primal threat as any other Savoy and, to Jack, represented just as much danger.
As he headed for the forage store, picking his way cautiously across the open ground, he took in that there really was no one performing any kind of lookout. He knew they were thereabouts, though, could almost smell them, feel their feral presence. Too bad he wouldn’t have time to hand out a severe pasting to one and all, a real settle up for what they’d put him through. Perhaps one of you will get in my way, he was thinking as he entered the store.
He made plenty of suitable darkness and unfamiliarity noises, grunted noisily before pushing aside a vertical plank at the rear of the store. He bent low and shuffled out, for a long minute stood silently in the darkness, listening. Then, in the deep shadows at the back of the dilapidated sheds and store rooms, he moved towards where he knew the settlement’s stake line ran.
Bitch lamps burned low and feeble at either end of the line of picket pins, but there was no one standing watch. Jack smirked. ‘I guess even pigs get their heads down when they’re tired,’ he whispered to no one. Stepping across curls of strewn fodder, he walked the line. He expected to see the big sorrel standing impatiently between the swampers’ mules, but he was disappointed and cursed silently.
They’ve moved her. That’s why there’s no one here, he thought. It’s Lamb. He’s put her in his goddamn corral.
Jack should have known that Homer Lamb would be ready for him when he tried to escape. So, much more alert now, he made his way to the pole corral he’d noticed earlier. Moments later he saw the sorrel, couldn’t miss its size and shape. He was about to raise his hand in greeting,
when he sensed the run of cold sweat between his shoulder blades. It was an instinct born of high-stake card games, treacherous adversaries and friendless places.
He turned to see Homer Lamb glaring at him from the shadows, his fingertip squeezing against the trigger of a big old .44 Walker Colt.
‘Got you,’ the man mouthed.
Jack knew it was the truth. This time he was facing his demise. It was there in Lamb’s painful grin, the vindictive eyes.
Jack released his breath. He had allowed his mind to get scrambled in the last hour, only thinking of himself, his escape, the means. But there was always going to be someone laying for him, the one who’d been hurt most.
Homer Lamb was inferior to Jack Rogan by most reckonable gifts, but he’d outplayed him now and was going to do the cashing in.
With a knot in his vitals, Jack watched the fire-flash from the chamber of the Colt. It was close range, but even as the gun blast shattered the night, his reflexes had already moved him.
There wasn’t time for Jack’s brain to transmit the message to his body and make sense of it. It was the instinct for survival that took him aside. A reflex action in a fragment of a second as Lamb’s bullet cleaved his cheek.
Lamb was dragging back the hammer, getting ready for his next shot. But with a raging blood surge, Jack was no longer a soft, unmoving target. He suddenly became the most dangerous opponent Homer Lamb had ever faced.
Knowing that within seconds, Lamb’s cronies would be gathering, Jack had little time. He lunged under the second shot, took a step forward, driving his forehead like a battering ram into Lamb’s belly. As Lamb doubled up, Jack jerked the back of his head up, crunching the man’s mouth shut with a vicious, jaw-breaking crack.
Dazed and staggering, Lamb dropped his Colt. He crumpled to the ground, unable to move or make a sound. Jack went for the big gun, but gasped when the toe of Cletus Savoy’s boot connected with the side of his head.
Jack realized there were three of them as he held himself on his hands and knees. Shivering with revulsion, he recalled Gaston Savoy’s warning about night critters, and didn’t want to stay down longer than he had to. He wasn’t going to let the next savage kick that came from Loop Ducet break his arm, either. He was mindful that it wasn’t the blade of a knife or a rope around his neck.
