He silently thanked God he’d come in time. She needed a man in her life, to take care of her and Abby. But if he had learned anything in all his years, it was patience. This woman was going to be a part of his life someday—she had to be. Mary spoke to him, shaking loose his fantasy.
“I am very grateful, Joshua,” She whispered and smiled weakly. Mary glanced over at the heap of semi-human flesh on the floor. His clothes were filthy, his boots had holes in them, and his face was all puffy and red. “What did you do to him?”
“I let myself in when I heard him a cursing at you. I kicked him in the kidneys and again in the back of his head, hard enough to put him out, not quite hard enough to kill him. I would’ve shot him, but I left my pistol in the car. Pity. He deserves to meet his maker down yonder.”
“He’s evil, Joshua.”
“I reckon he is, but you never mind about him. If you’re up to it, just go on and get yourself freshened up and let me handle this. Will you do that for me, now?” he asked her.
Mary leaned over and kissed Joshua on the forehead, wincing from the unexpected pain. “You are a fine gentleman, Mr. Larkin. I’m truly glad you’re my friend.”
She rose slowly, holding on to the walls to steady herself toward the bathroom. Mary looked at herself in the mirror and watched her eyes fill with tears. The swelling and bruises disfigured her delicate features. “Dear Lord, what will I do now?” she said out loud.
She removed what was left of her clothes and washed herself as hard as she could stand, rubbing the skin where he touched her. She wrapped herself in the blanket and dressed in her room, choosing a soft yellow dress decorated with blue and white daisies; it hung loosely against her frame, hiding her figure.
Michael and Patrick were there when she came out. Jack was still on the floor, his hands and feet tied with twine. They both stopped talking. Mary ran to Patrick and buried her head in his shoulder, sobbing uncontrollably.
“There, there, sweet darlin’.” Patrick held her, gently stroking her head. His fury was immediate. “Me and the boys here are gonna take this heap of trash for a long ride out of Louisiana as soon as it gets a little darker.”
“Papa, where’s Abby?” Mary’s eyes darted around.
“Abby’s at Mo’s. She thinks you’re busy getting ready for work, and it wasn’t hard to convince her to stay the night. Mo will get the girls to bed, and your mother will come home to be with you. She’s sittin’ over there, goin’ crazy with worry, so call her as soon as we leave.” Patrick’s voice was totally in control, the edge of his anger just a scratch below the surface.
“Mary, he’ll never set foot in the state again. We don’t take kindly to this sort of thing down here,” Joshua said with confidence.
Mary had to believe them or go crazy with fear. “I want you to be right,” she said through stuffy tears. “He could hurt us again.”
“No more, luv. No more,” Patrick said.
As darkness fell, the three men loaded Jack in the back seat of Joshua’s car and drove in silence to the Louisiana-Mississippi border. After a time, they saw the sign that read Honey Island Swamp. Just as they crossed into Mississippi, the silence was broken.
“Hey, what’s goin’ on? Where am I?” Jack was trying to sit up and found that he couldn’t move anything but his throbbing head.
“Well, the bastard’s come ‘round, has he?” Patrick said.
“Oh, it’s you. Well, you got no right. I come to take my wife, and you can’t stop me!”
“You got no rights, you son of a bitch! And she’s not your wife anymore,” Joshua growled at him. “We’re in Mississippi now, and we’ll be droppin’ you off in the swamp. If you ever set foot in Louisiana again, your balls will be hangin’ from one of them ol’ hangin’ trees. There won’t be no next time for the likes of you.” Joshua took in a deep breath and continued.
“Hell, you’re mighty lucky you’re not dead already. ‘Course we could always take ya on down to the Parish police and see how long they’d like to lock you up with the rest of the riff raff. Why, there’s plenty of lonely ol’ boys who’d just love to stick their pecker up yo’ white ass.”
They turned onto a bumpy dirt road. The only lights for five miles came from an occasional campfire in the woods. Joshua knew the woods were filled with folks who lived off the land and sharecropped. Jack Mitchell wouldn’t be welcome. He’d have to walk a long time to get out of the swamps if he got out at all.
They pulled over in the total darkness and dragged Jack kicking and cursing out of the car. They untied his legs, ripped off his boots, kicked him in the back and pushed him in the direction of the woods.
“You’ll pay for this,” Jack spat at them. “I ain’t taking no orders from nobody. You’ll pay.”
“Good riddance,” snapped Patrick.
“Rot in hell,” said Michael.
“Let’s go, men,” said Joshua.
The three men drove off in silence, leaving their prisoner in a cloud of dust.
It was a black night. Thick clouds had rolled in, completely obliterating the haze of the earlier sky. Jack might as well have been blind as he struggled one painful step at a time, still cursing, not realizing the magnitude of his predicament.
The soft marsh grasses tempted him to wander off the road. He stumbled, cut his feet on exposed roots and kept going deeper and deeper into the dense primeval swamp-forest. The gnarled old cypress trees looked like floating alligators in the shadowy maze. A ghostly mist rose from the floating floor. Jack was lost in the bowels of the swamp, his feet sinking deeper and deeper into the thick ooze. Every step was treacherous; the effort to move forward required more strength than he had. “Who’s there?” he hissed at the air. There it was again, a rustle, a cracked twig, breathing.
“Who’s there? I need help. I been hurt.”
It had only been an hour, but the consummate darkness conjured a time warp to eternity. Jack started to panic. The city boy didn’t know how to get out of this Godforsaken swamp. A chill rose through his hulking body; he shook it off and sat down on a log positioned precariously on the wet, decaying earth. Jack’s eyes were darting rapidly in all directions.
A sharp, pungent odor surrounded him, biting at his nostrils. Little squeals and yips were getting louder, closer. There it was again—a popping noise...click...click.
Jack was now aware of a mass moving through the thick vegetation. The rhythmic scraping of the forest floor started quietly. Closer, closer. Louder, louder, the scratching, threatening, heavy breathing noises echoed in his head. Jack could almost hear the moisture dripping from the creature’s nose.
Jack’s fear overcame his exhaustion and pain. He ran, and as he ran, jagged branches tore at his clothes and body. He was trapped; the tall pines and cypress were bars on his cage. He couldn’t move far in any direction without being ripped and tripped.
Finally, a clearing! The ground fog was lifting slightly. Jack could see a campfire a few hundred yards ahead. He almost forgot about his predator, but his predator had not forgotten him.
The snorting and grunting was piercing now, the clicking more like the crack of a broom handle breaking in two. A razorback family watched from the swamp-forest as their father protector charged the invader.
Five hundred pounds of heavy coarse flesh, led by sharp, protruding tusks, lunged at the invader, slicing the hamstrings of his enemy. The wild boar tossed his head from side to side, slashing, snorting and cracking.
A blood-curdling scream was cut short as Jack Mitchell savagely dug into the ground, gurgling his last breath and falling then to silence, as the beast relentlessly tore at his corpse like a rag doll.
The campfire folks heard it, but they had heard it before. Morning would be soon enough to see what was making all the noise near the swamp.
“I don’t see no haf a white boy laying there dead, do you, Errol?”
“Nope, I don’t see nothin’ ‘tall, Nonk Dewey,” Errol said.
“Drag ‘im back dare in
de swamp an’ don’t ax nothin,” said Dewey.
“Nonk Dewey, dat boy, we don’t see. He must be a Moody to be out here in de swamp all ripped up wit no boots on. He must a met up wit a boar.”
“N’er you mine, boy. You jus’ do what I tell ya.”
It was nearly dawn, and Mary finally lay asleep. As she drifted off from exhaustion, she dreamed of laughter, sunshine and children floating in bubbles, in the bluest of skies. She smiled in her sleep.
She awoke feeling lighter. Even her bruises could not dull this new feeling of liberation. I can’t feel him anymore. He’s gone, she thought. She felt alive, truly alive for the first time since she had lain next to Frank, so many years ago.
CHAPTER 8
Pride Plantation
Touchdown scraped her hoofs against the wooden planks of the large stall. Sturdy and more than fifteen hands, she quivered at the sound of Zach’s voice, like a debutante waiting for her first dance.
Fresh straw mixed with remnants of manure gave rise to the familiar and pungent barn odor. It leaked out from the cracks in the boards and the door openings until it reached Zach’s nose. He circled the split rail fence, entered the paddock and slid in next to her. Smelled like home; he loved it.
“Happy to see me, ol’ girl?” The mare’s head rolled, she whinnied and snorted as he rubbed her legs and head. If she could have, she would have smiled. Her boy was back. The tall young man moved his head to the mare’s long, strong neck and whispered in her ear, “I missed you, too.”
Going to school at Girard was not an option, though he dearly wished it were. He hated school, except for football. The ancient military academy was only a few hours drive from Hammond, but it might as well have been a continent away. Neither he nor his five brothers before him dared admit they’d rather sleep in their own beds, eat Sophie’s fried chicken or sit on the well- groomed backs of their steeds as they wandered the vast acreage of Pride Plantation. All the Trudeau men had gone to Girard, as his mother once said, “Since God was a baby.”
Thanksgiving vacation. A chance to get on TD and ride the stiffness out of his soul. The gentle rhythm of her gait, faster than a trot, slower than a canter, hypnotized him. The bonded flesh of man and horse were all that was real. The youngest son of Maurice Zachary Trudeau V recalled his grandfather’s raspy, deep voice. ‘Boy, the outside of a horse is the best thing for the inside of a man.’ Granddaddy was right. He was always right.
Zach left his horse to go to the tack room in the back of the barn. With any luck at all, Silas would have cleaned the mildew from the rich, thick leather of his saddle. The heavy cowhide was elaborately tooled, each curve and cut precise and elegant, the maker an artist in his medium. Two years ago, his father presented it to him for his sixteenth birthday. The silver shone like highly polished chrome on a new Chevy. Even Touchdown seemed more upright and proud when the saddle rubbed against her back, as though she knew she was dressed for her outing.
They headed out the gate along the dirt and gravel circular drive that led around to the huge white house. Five generations of Trudeaus had called Pride their home. Beyond a distant row of tall pines were the three tenant houses spaced apart, each with a plot of tilled land tended by the black women while their men worked in the fields or the barn and gardens of the big house.
A hundred years ago, there were many more tiny, unpainted wooded shacks that housed the plantation’s slave families before the Civil War, before nearly all the Trudeaus were wiped out fighting for a cause, the results of which still left a bitter taste in the mouths of newborn successors to the land. Now there was oil and sugar cane in place of cotton.
Zach rode out through the cane fields on the narrow path that led to the deep woods. TD’s hoofs smacked from the sticky suction of the sand mixed with clay, slowing her pace until they reached open fields of thick grass. A covey of quail fluttered from their protected nests, thrilling the hunter in Zach, surprising his horse.
Maybe this year his father would finally give him the shotgun he coveted, with its stock of gleaming beryl walnut, tailored to fit his long arms. It’d be a week’s worth of wages for most men, but he had to have it. If only he had it now, he could go hunting with his brother Luke.
They were a good team, Luke circling around, flushing the game and Zach moving in for the kill. If he were successful, they traded jobs and started in a new spot. Sometimes they flushed small deer and when they didn’t get buck fever, managed to spray enough buckshot to bring home venison for cook’s famous venison stew. Deer were cagey though; a lot of loads fell on the ground where a split second before dinner stood staring at them.
He could almost taste the succulent meals that would come from game bagged for their traditional holiday dinners. The tables of wild turkey, duck, crawfish and shrimp made a legendary feast. Platters of corn, sorghum, rice and sweet potatoes would be piled high, the steam filling the room with mouth-watering aromas mixed together like a cornucopia. Cook would bring out plate after plate of savory delicacies as all six boys and their families sat down to a shimmering table laden with china and cut crystal.
Hunger gnawed at his stomach, reminding Zach that he was nearly late for supper, a sin of sizeable proportion. His ride had eased his homecoming. Nothing could bother him tonight. The family would be gathering by now, his father would have taken the three o’clock train up from New Orleans, and his mother would be fussing over everybody.
He could almost see her, hair tied back in a tight knot, stretching the skin on her face so tight it looked like any movement might cause her pain. Her voice whined in a syrupy way, like a violin out of tune as she ordered her sons and servants about. They all waited on her like she was a queen; to refuse was to risk the wrath of their father.
There was no warmth between his parents, but there were rules. Each of the boys learned them in his own way, after having broken one. Each of them became accustomed to the leather strap that hung from a rusty hook on the kitchen wall. Somehow, though, Zach had escaped the strap on more than one occasion when he expected it. His brothers taunted him. “Baby Zachy, Mother’s best, won’t get strapped like all the rest.”
In the last three years he had grown so tall that he could look down at all of them, even his father. A gradual change took place as some moved on to their own lives and as it became clear that he could beat any of them at anything physical. Only Nathan, the second oldest, came close to outrunning and out-wrestling him. As the youngest, the tallest, the most athletically gifted, Zach came to expect the attention showered on him by his parents. He had to be first because he was last.
An easy laugh and natural abilities made it easier for most of Zach’s brothers to ignore the obvious favoritism. Only Louis seemed to resent him. Sandwiched between the oldest and the youngest, Louis was not blessed with the Trudeau good looks. He favored his mousy mother, and was the butt of many milkman jokes. Lost in the pack, he never failed to find fault with Zach, never missed a chance to get him in trouble. Louis guessed his youngest brother would be in the barn. He always smelled like a horse when he was home.
“You’re late. Everybody’s here. Mother’s half-crazy wondering where you’ve been for hours, and she’s takin’ it all out on us on account of you.”
“Nice to see you, too, Lou. I was fixin’ to come in. Gotta put TD up for the night. I’ll be along. Just tell Mother I’m on my way, if you can manage it.” Zach didn’t look up. He wiped TD down and filled her trough. It bothered him that he’d only cool walked her for a few minutes. He’d come out later and finish the job.
“Tell her yourself.”
Louis spun around and marched back to the house, his anger just a scratch below the surface. Zach shook his head. At twenty-three, Louis was still bitter. Joining the Marines had given him an identity and some substance - until he walked through the doors of Pride Plantation. It seemed Louis only came home to avoid the constant nagging he would receive when he stayed away. He acted like he hated them all, but Zach figured he came home ju
st wishing in the innermost shadows of his soul that one day their mother and father would come rushing out of the house with open arms to welcome him. But Zach knew better and expected less. Mother and Daddy never greeted any of their children with the bottled Southern charm they saved for friends, and certainly nothing was saved for pouty ol’ Louis.
A late afternoon storm began to blow up, flipping the leaves to their paler undergrowth, warning of rain. With Touchdown settled, Zach headed for the house. Even today, the old place deserved her name. Massive white pillars encircled the front and side verandas, shading the tall windows of the living and entertaining rooms. The rear annex was added in the 1920s to house an elaborate kitchen and downstairs maid quarters.
At one time the Doubois family had served the Trudeaus, but since the early part of the century, the controversial bequest of land that had come from Zach’s great-grandaddy made them independent, even uppity, his Daddy had said. The Doubois were the richest black family in Tangipahoa Parish, farming and making money off the oil found on their land. It didn’t matter that they hired more black labor for better wages or that they were well educated or that they attended their own Baptist Church. What mattered, “They don’t know their place no more.” That’s what Mother’s bridge ladies always said.
The gardens around the big house always looked like they’d been cut from magazine pages, the ones where they tell the ordinary person how to turn their plain yard into Eden.
Elizabeth Turner Trudeau could have set up tours, like those folks do on the old river plantations. Pathways led to a covered gazebo with vines curling and blooming with purple and white morning glories around the lattice work. Through the fall, perennial flowers of every color imaginable flourished under her watchful eye. A variety of hedges were neatly cut and shaped to add borders to the walks and soften the edges of the drive, and low growing delicate lady palms fanned out to adorn the base of the house.
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