Mississippi Rose | Book 1 | Into Darkness

by Lopez, Rob

  “Oui,” affirmed Jacques.

  Warden Edwards turned to the others. “That’s what this penitentiary is all about. A model convict and the best cook we ever had. A fine product of the vocational training we offer here, and now a model citizen, giving his all to society.”

  Darla was tempted to mention something, but she didn’t want to prick the warden’s bubble.

  “So,” continued the warden, “I understand that you want us to take in some patients from …” He glanced at one of the notes on his desk. “… from New Orleans?”

  “From the registered FEMA camp at Point Clair,” said Eleanor.

  Edwards looked straight at her. “We’re not a hospital.”

  “As I understand it, you have limited medical facilities here.”

  “Very limited.”

  “But you may not be aware of the situation outside of this correctional center. Trust me when I say your limited facility will now likely rank as the best in the State. If you’ll allow me to explain …”

  “I’m well aware of the situation, Mrs. Roberts. And yes, I know who you are. I told you I never forget a face. I met both you and your husband at a fundraiser for your husband’s campaign.”

  “My husband is dead, Mr. Edwards.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. He was a fine man. And please, call me Bill.” Edwards leaned back in his chair. “I know how bad things are out there. I’ve seen it for myself.”

  “That was you,” exclaimed Darla suddenly. “In the plane over Baton Rouge!”

  Edwards eyed her. “I do not believe we have been introduced.”

  “Darla Jean Griffiths, captain of the Mississippi Rose.”

  “Ah, the little steamer. Yes, that was me in the plane. I’ve flown over Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas, and the situation is the same everywhere. It’s grim, I will say that. Grim.”

  “So you’ll help us?” asked Eleanor.

  “I can help you. I just want you to understand that we can only do so much. I trust you’ve already exhausted other options, like Baton Rouge?”

  “We’re locked out of Baton Rouge.”

  “Understandable, if regrettable. I too need to protect the resources I have. I hope you’re not considering making us the go-to destination for any other cases you might have.”

  “There are no other cases,” said Eleanor. “We are the sole remaining survivors from the camp. I’m only asking you to take these patients.”

  “Then I graciously accept.”

  “We have another issue,” said Carl. “I’m Lieutenant Fisher of the Coast Guard, by the way.”

  “I can see that from your badge.”

  “Well, there’s a boatload of escaped convicts on the river who might try to release more of their friends from this correctional facility. They’re well armed and they’ve already destroyed our boat.”

  “It’s not destroyed,” cut in Darla.

  “Virtually destroyed.”

  “Damaged.”

  “What I’m trying to say is that there’s a real risk of attack from the river.”

  Warden Edwards looked at them both.

  “They damaged that little steamer of yours?”

  “Yes,” said Darla.

  “That’s a shame. They already tried to attack us, though. Didn’t end well for them. I was aware, of course, of the other steam boat being on the river. The Pride of Orleans I believe? A fine looking boat. Well, they turned up and tried to take our guards by surprise. We lost a good man, but they lost a few more. We’re well protected here and I have a good team. They won’t catch us by surprise again.”

  Darla thought he was being too complacent.

  “But how many guards do you have?” she said. “You’re outnumbered by the prisoners you have here. Seems to me you’re going to have a breakout sooner or later. Like, this is the best opportunity for them. You can only keep them penned in for so long.”

  “We don’t keep them all penned in.”

  “That’s even worse. Mister, the world’s gone to shit and you’re going to have cons running left, right and center. This is paradise for them.”

  Edwards raised his eyebrows. “I don’t tolerate that kind of language in any establishment that I run, young lady, so I’ll have you refrain from using any ungodly words while you’re here. As for your other point, I should inform you that the men who escorted you here are all convicts.” He paused to let that sink in. “We run a merit-based system at this facility. Those that prove their worth become trustees. They help run the facility. The harder cases stay locked in the hole, and there they will stay until they have earned their privileges. I have spoken to all the staff and inmates about the situation outside. We have everything we need to live well as a community — a disciplined community. Outside is anarchy. That is not paradise for anyone. Those who’ve gone rogue will struggle to feed themselves, no matter how much freedom they initially have. The Lord provides, but only to those willing to do the work. We farm and we fish here. Any man who wishes to leave will only find hunger and strife. This is the time of Armageddon. Only a fool chooses to walk into the arms of Satan now.”

  Darla thought about what Eric would likely think of that speech. He would most definitely choose chaos, and she had a hunch that there were quite a few Erics in the warden’s cells. On the other hand, he might also have his fair share of Jacques.

  Time would tell if he had enough.

  She didn’t imagine he would have any of the godly variety, though. But good luck trying.

  “How many have you had go rogue so far?” she said pointedly.

  Edwards’ chair creaked as he sized Darla up.

  “Two,” he said. “Foolish men. They will not find what they want, and when they return, they will lose their privileges.”

  “What makes you think they’ll return?”

  “Because we are the haven.” Edwards eased up on his suffering chair by leaning forward, planting his meaty forearms on the desk. “Fourteen other trustees, wiser men, came to me and asked permission to go fetch their families and bring them here. They had good records, so I let them go. They will have hard journeys, but I trust they will return, because this is where they would rather have their loved ones. Safe and secure.”

  “You are not authorized to release prisoners,” said Eleanor, shocked.

  “For sure, I did not consult the secretary for the Department of Safety and Corrections, but that is because I do not feel they are in a position to be consulted. Nor anybody else. We are living in the time of Armageddon, and I had to release a little steam from the pot to keep the rest in. This is a delicate situation, Mrs Roberts. It is possible that, after this is over, I may be brought before the board to face charges.” He looked around at them all. “But that looks increasingly unlikely. What we have is here to stay, and I follow a higher power now. With diligence and mercy, we may yet come through. And then I will be judged. Until then, I am the one with sole responsibility for this facility and everyone in it. That makes me judge, jury and, if necessary, executioner.”

  There was a chill in the room as he said that.

  Darla, however, saw a glimmer of hope.

  “That makes you the law here,” she said.

  Edwards gave her a suspicious look. “In a way,” he said cautiously.

  “And you wouldn’t want anything disturbing the peace,” continued Darla. “Like you said, delicate situation. You certainly don’t want the wrong ideas to be circulating among the inmates.”

  “What are you driving at, Miss Griffiths?”

  “Captain Griffiths, to you, if you don’t mind. Well, you’ve got prisoners in the hole, dreaming of the day they get out. They’re not going to believe what you say about how bad life is outside. They’ll figure that’s what you’d say anyway. But imagine a story gets around about a bunch of convicts, with a boat, pretty much doing whatever they want, how they want and where. It sure doesn’t look like they’re suffering, does it now? You know you’re not going to be able to keep tha
t kind of story quiet. Going rogue is going to be a lot more appealing with those kinds of role models loose.”

  Edwards gave Darla a long hard look, leaning back in his chair again. “And what would you have me do, Captain Griffiths?”

  “You could enforce the law. That’s piracy out there.”

  Edwards frowned. “My jurisdiction ends at the prison boundary.”

  “You’ve already exceeded your jurisdiction once, and you know the rules have changed. Help me get my boat back out and lend me some of your team, and we can solve a mutual problem.”

  Edwards gazed blankly at her for a while.

  Carl was shocked. “You can’t be serious about taking your boat out again,” he said to her. “We barely made it here the last time.”

  Darla replied, “I’m not going to sit here while Eric’s still out there with Gene’s body on display. Somebody’s got to take him down and make him pay.”

  “Darla,” said Carl, “the boat’s shot to hell.” He turned to Edwards. “Excuse the language.” Turning back to Darla, he said, “We’re lucky to have made it this far, and we’ve accomplished our mission of getting the patients to safety. I’m sorry for what happened to Hartfield, and I lost a good man too, but you’re not thinking straight. Eric has the faster boat and all the advantages. Let it go.”

  “I’m not letting it go! Eric has to be stopped and if you don’t want to help me, I can do it myself.”

  “But you cannot do it yourself,” pitched in Edwards. “And my men are not available as guns for hire. We defend what we have, but they will not go on some wild expedition for a questionable purpose. That is not what they signed up for. I’m sorry, but they are needed here. Besides the prisoners we need to guard, we have families. This Eric you’re talking about — he doesn’t sound the type who’ll last the winter.”

  Darla turned to him. “Neither will his victims,” she said firmly.

  The warden creaked his chair. “I don’t get the sense you’re really thinking about his victims.”

  Darla felt the argument slipping away from her.

  “I’m thinking of a good friend of mine who was murdered in cold blood. Does that mean nothing to you?”

  “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord,” intoned Edwards.

  “Don’t give me that Bible crap. What you’ve got out there is a threat. I’m willing to take most of the risk but I need assistance. Are you going to help me or not?”

  There was an embarrassed silence in the room.

  Edwards looked her in the eye. “Request denied,” he said.

  26

  A line of trustees helped carry the patients to a horse-drawn funeral carriage, usually reserved for lifers at the end of their sentences. There was some consternation among the patients when they saw what they were being taken to, but eventually they were reassured that they weren’t being prepared for their final, final journey.

  At least, not just yet. The patients were fragile and the trustees were surprisingly gentle with them. Few of the trustees were young, and they just seemed to understand what it was to be vulnerable, having perhaps watched their own youth wither away behind bars. Eleanor supervised the disembarking and the patients were taken slowly to the prison clinic.

  Darla watched the last of them go and returned alone to the boat, sitting herself down on the bank. The Mississippi Rose listed forlornly in the bayou, and Darla stared at it, not knowing what to do now.

  The warden’s refusal to help irked her, but it wasn’t that unexpected. Carl’s unwillingness to help, however, disappointed her. Most everybody else seemed to assume this was the boat’s last journey, and Darla felt abandoned. There was talk of people looking to return to their homes, and she felt small. Everyone was going their own way and leaving her with nothing, a failed captain with a busted up boat.

  Getting up and dusting herself off, she boarded the boat, casually looking at the damage, feeling the deadness of the deck beneath her feet. It was like the Mississippi Rose had given up, tired after her long years. This was almost too much to bear and Darla felt a lump in her throat. Doing a melancholy tour of the boat, she stopped when she heard sobbing from inside the boiler room. Entering, she found Manny sitting on a stool, head down and shoulders shaking.

  “Hey,” she said.

  Manny looked up, tear tracks on his cheeks. “Sons of bitches,” he said bitterly.

  She wasn’t sure to whom he was referring to, but she sat down on a toolbox opposite.

  “It’s done now,” she said.

  “It ain’t right for her to come to this end,” said Manny.

  “No,” sighed Darla, “it isn’t.”

  “After everything we did, the times we had, the effort we put in, this just is not right.”

  “We did our job,” murmured Darla. “That’s all there is to it.”

  “Don’t give me that.”

  “It’s what it is.”

  “Don’t give me that!” said Manny with a ferocious look.

  Darla glanced at him. “What do you want from me?”

  “I want some fire! If there ain’t no fire in you, there ain’t no fire in this boat.”

  Darla sagged back to lean on the welding cylinders.

  “I did everything I could, Manny.”

  “But why ain’t you angry?”

  “What difference would it make?”

  “Because then I’d know you was you.”

  Darla gave him a wan smile. “Being me wouldn’t change anything. Hell, it’d probably make it worse. Usually does.”

  “The guy who did this to you is out there and you’re just going to feel sorry for yourself? He destroyed. Our. Boat.” Manny punctuated his words with an angry finger.

  “I know, and I want to get him back, but … he really does have all the advantages. I’ve been trying but I can’t figure out a logical way to make it work.”

  “Who’s talking about logic? We float the boat and we take her out, just you and me. Then we ram him. We ram him hard enough to take us both down and that ends it. Unless he’s got a cannon to blow us out of the water, there ain’t nothing he can do to stop us.”

  “You’d be prepared to do that?”

  “Damn right. Question is, are you?”

  Darla thought about it and a flame kindled in her heart. “Yeah,” she said slowly.

  “See? If you was you, you’d have come up with that idea in the first place, and you wouldn’t have needed me to tell you. You’d have been like, ‘Manny, we’re going to sink that son of a bitch and if you don’t like it you can leave.’ And I’d have said, ‘The only way I’m leaving this boat is in a box.’ And we’d be getting on it already.”

  Darla gave him a long look, almost surprised. “You love this boat as much as I do,” she said.

  “What kind of statement is that? Of course I do. She’s my life.”

  “Are you willing to lose that life for one last ride?”

  “I don’t do it willingly, I ain’t stupid, but I’ll be damned if I leave the Mississippi Rose rotting here because I was too afraid to do what’s right.”

  “Manny,” she said, “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “Hey, don’t go all soft on me. If you ain’t cussing, you ain’t right.”

  Darla jumped up, feeling a new resolve. “Are you really ready for this?” she asked.

  “You don’t need to be asking me that. Are you ready for this?”

  Darla was deep in thought. “I will be. Start fixing the boat. We are going to wipe that smile off Eric’s face and make him sorry he ever picked this fight.”

  ***

  They buried the dead in the prison cemetery, including the Coast Guardsman who’d fallen. Darla had been looking for Jacques and hadn’t planned to attend the funeral, but she’d been approached by Eleanor.

  “You’re the captain and they died on your boat. They’re waiting for you,” she said.

  The cemetery was situated in a glade of the forest that stretched to the Tunica hills and
beyond. Pallbearers took the last body off the funeral carriage, now converted back to its proper function, and the small crowd of mourners followed. Darla caught sight of Jacques with Zack, both hanging back and waiting on the road that led from the main compound. Darla didn’t really know the victims and had other things on her mind, but as captain, she had responsibilities. She usually wasn’t into respecting traditions, but that was one she did take seriously.

  “You’re right,” she said contritely. “I’ll come now.”

  She took her place by the gravesides. Carl and his two remaining crew members stood to attention nearby and saluted their lost comrade. Aguilar and her engineers formed another respectful line, and a couple of relatives who’d accompanied the victims huddled together to comfort each other. Warden Edwards took on the role of pastor, saying a few words with a Bible clutched in his hand. Heads were bowed for a prayer, then trustees with shovels filled in the graves.

  After the ceremony ended, Darla tried to catch Carl’s attention, but Eleanor intercepted her and took her to one side.

  “I’ve spoken to the warden and he’s agreed to house you and your crew, seeing as you have nowhere to go now,” said Eleanor.

  Darla shuffled her feet impatiently. “Gee, that was nice of him.”

  “It took some convincing,” pressed Eleanor, “so please don’t say or do anything to make him change his mind.”

  “What about the others?” asked Darla.

  “They’ve opted to make the overland trek to Natchez to get to their families. If they stick together they should be okay. I’ll be staying to help with the patients, and also to assist the warden. He seems intent on playing the role of benevolent dictator and, well, I feel duty-bound to use my influence to make sure he stays on the right side of the line, so to speak.”

  “Cool,” said Darla indifferently. “This is the best place for you.”

  “Hopefully it will be for you too, once we’ve decided what jobs you can do. I daresay you have a variety of skills among your crew.”

  “I won’t be staying,” said Darla.

  “Why? What are you thinking of doing?”