John Raven Beau

by O'Neil De Noux

  “What does a boiler do?”

  “Boils the cane into molasses. Ever use cane syrup on pancakes?”

  Angie nods. “My favorite.”

  Eventually, past Abbeville, the road narrows into a two-lane blacktop as we move through the marshland Cajuns call the floating prairie. The cypress forest closes around us. We cross three wooden bridges over bayous to a road with no white stripes. I slow down as we cross Crooked Bayou.

  Looking around, Angie lets out a sigh. “Gorgeous,” she whispers, as if something out there can hear us. Buck climbs back in my lap, paws up on steering wheel as we ease through the vast swamp. Spanish moss drips from the cypress tree like beards of long dead Spaniards. I roll the windows down completely to let in the rich scents of the swamp. There’s no smell like it. The air is thicker, heavy with oxygen, carried on the sweet smell of chlorophyll from the flora, along with the sourness of decay.

  I turn down a shell road and circumnavigate a log in the road, through more cypress until the road rises slightly. We move next to the brown water of Bayou Brunet. The cypress gives way to a stand of oaks and suddenly we’re there. I turn off the road and pull up against a wooden fence, once painted white. Angie lets out a high-pitched sigh as Vermilion Bay opens in front of us, vast and olive green. The sun shimmers off it and a nice warm breeze floats from it.

  I let Buck out and he races to the fence, sniffs it, cocks a leg up and pees on it. Angie stares at the bay, a hand over her eyes. I turn my eyes to an unpainted wooden house to our right, half-hidden at the edge of the bayou, the swamp its backyard. A typical Cajun house with porches in front and back, it has a high-pitched roof. A red pick-up is parked next to the house. At its rear is the dock my father built, a pirogue tied to it.

  My throat tightens.

  “It’s lovely here,” Angie says. “And so peaceful.”

  I wave my hand at the wide bay. “When the rain comes in, you can smell it first, rich and damp.” Shielding my eyes, I look at the bay. “The clouds build. Tall, gray clouds. Suck the humidity right off the bay and it becomes almost cool, even in the dead of summer.”

  I turn back to the house. “It comes down in sheets, in waves, peppering the swamp, bending the branches of the big oaks and fluttering the cypress moss and it’s like the sky’s falling. Fat raindrops hammer the tin roof like thousands of nails falling from heaven.”

  Angie moves to me and stares at the house. “That was eloquent.”

  Me, eloquent?

  I point to the house. “After my father died, my mother sold it and moved back to South Dakota to be with her people.”

  “The Sioux.”

  Nodding, I tell her, “This land doesn’t belong to my family any more.” There’s a catch in my voice. I clear my throat as if something’s caught there.

  The screen door opens and two dark haired boys rush out, the door slamming behind them. The boys run around to the far side of the house, out of sight. For a moment, I wonder if their father teaches them the wonders of the swampland as my father taught me.

  Looking at Angie, I can see it in her eyes. She won’t say it, but the house is little more than a shack.

  “My great-granddaddy built it.”

  I don’t tell her it’s a daubed house, its walls filled with swamp mud and moss to keep the house almost cool in summer and warm in winter. I don’t tell her that the stairs on the front porch lead to the attic where I slept.

  She puts a hand on my shoulder for a moment as she looks around again. “I’m serious. This place is so beautiful.”

  “That’s what the mosquitoes think and the gators and cottonmouths.”

  Buck sniffs along the edge of the swamp, but doesn’t go in, thankfully.

  I can’t stop staring at the house. “I guess a part of me will always belong here.” Can’t believe I said that aloud. But I continue the thought. “My mother’s father, up in Dakota, used to tell me how the white man believes the land belongs to him. The Sioux believe we belong to the land. I guess I feel both ways.”

  Taking in a deep breath, the familiar scents fill me with a deep heartache. I close my eyes. This is where I belong. This is the only place I’ve ever belonged, with my daddy here on the swamp. A pain stabs me deep in my chest as I see my father’s craggy face. And I remember, with unforgiving clarity, the long, beautiful summer of my youth.

  Every school I went to – I didn’t belong. I didn’t belong at LSU. I don’t belong in Bucktown and hardly in New Orleans. And it hits me hard, as I stand here, that I’ll never belong again. Because it’s gone. That time is gone.

  Blinking my eyes, I feel tears and look away from Angie, lest she notice. Buck scampers over and rubs his nose against my leg. He senses something is wrong.

  “Are you all right?” Angie touches my hand.

  I nod but can’t stop the damn tears. Pulling away, I cover my face and fight the tears.

  Angie’s voice comes faintly. “You don’t have to hold it in.”

  I grit my teeth and struggle though the sadness. I can’t let it out. Not here. Not now. Eventually, the tears subside and I wipe my face quickly and take in a strong breath and look away. “If my Sioux grandfather could see me now, he’d call me a bad name.”

  “What name?”

  I take in another deep breath, still struggling to calm myself. Looking into the aquamarines, I explain. “In the code of the plains warrior, the Sioux and Cheyenne, a warrior never shows emotion. Unlike the white man, who is known to show his anger and even cry in front of everyone, if a Sioux warrior did the same, he would be called Woman Face.

  Angie laughs and immediately covers her mouth with a hand. I laugh too.

  “No way,” she says. “No one could call you woman face with that square jaw and falcon nose. Anyway, you’re only half Sioux.”

  “When my daddy died, I was a Woman Face for a long time. Guess I still am.”

  I take her hand and lead her back to the car.

  “How about lunch?”

  “Good. I’m famished.”

  I call out to Buck, but he’s too busy sniffing a frog. I have to go get him and he growls as I pick him up. I put him next to the bowl and he laps the cool water. As we pull away, Angie tells me she’s a half-breed too, half-French and half-Italian. I can’t help but laugh. Half-breed, huh?

  Aunt Lillian’s lies on the edge of the swamp, just outside Cannes Bruleé. Suspended on pilings, the white wooden building has a tin roof and seating out back, little gazebos where Buck can ramble around. On our way up the stairs, I tell Angie this place has the best nutria gumbo and fried armadillo. She pokes me in the side.

  “Real cute.” She takes my hand as we step inside to the strong smells of filé gumbo and boiling crawfish.

  We carry our plates out to the gazebo closest to the swamp. I go back and let Buck out of the car and he races right for the swamp, but doesn’t go in. Good city dog. As Angie takes her first mouthful of crawfish etouffee, scooping a spoonful of the thickly seasoned crawfish tails and white rice, I take a sip of icy Barq’s. She makes a yummy sound and I start in on my crawfish bisque.

  “So that’s how it’s done,” she tells me as I use the butt on my spoon to dig out the crawfish stuffing from the shells. Mixing it with the rice and gravy I taste it. Wonderful. Buck’s yipping turns us around. A huge box turtle has emerged from the swamp and lumbers across the grass, Buck circling it and yipping.

  “Lucky that’s not a snapper.”

  So Angie and I share our first meal together in the shelter of the small gazebo, beneath the strong Cajun sun next to the vast swamp where I hunted and fished away my young days and nights. Later, we drive through Cannes Bruleé and I point out my old high school. A large sign in front of Holy Ghost reads: Go Riders!

  “Holy Ghost Riders?” Angie asks incredulously.

  “State champs my junior and senior years.”

  “What position did you play?”

  I tell her I was an all-state quarterback, believe it or not.

&nbs
p; “Quarterback, huh? Guess you got a lot of girls.”

  Shaking my head, I tell her, “I was ... um ... sort of ... well not part of the crowd.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “My daddy worked part-time. My family. Um, we were on relief.”

  I can see in her eyes, it’s not registering.

  “I went to catholic school without paying tuition.”

  “What? On a football scholarship?”

  “No. I never knew we were poor until I got to high school. I remember overhearing a girl I had a crush on telling her friends I was cute and all, but poor as a church-mouse.”

  Angie’s eyes are suddenly red.

  “We always had enough to eat. I just, uh, didn’t have nice clothes, stuff like that.” I take one last look at the school as we move away. “Stuff that doesn’t matter ... now.”

  “But it mattered then, didn’t it?”

  Turning off Landrieu Avenue, I take her along Breaux Lane where fine southern homes of wide verandahs and manicured lawns line the street.

  “We have rich people here too.”

  “So many trees,” Angie says.

  “If you look closely, you’ll see the houses were built around the trees or between them.” As they carved our village from the Cajun floating prairie, the founders of Cannes Bruleé didn’t believe in cutting down trees.

  Before leaving the village, I pull over at a small grocery store “I want to get some authentic boudin and andouille to take back home.”

  Angie climbs out, making sure Buck doesn’t get out. He barks at us and I tell him we’ll only be a minute. I ask the woman behind the counter for ten pounds of andouille and ten of boudin. She wipes her hands on her white apron and gives me a strange look. Her graying hair in a bun, she’s about my mother’s age. She goes about cutting and wrapping the spicy pork sausage we call andouille and the boudin, white sausage made with rice, ground pork, chicken and vegetables.

  The woman brings the packages to the register. She gives me that same strange look and says, “You gotta be Calixte Beau’s boy.”

  I nod.

  “An weren’t you de quarterback dat went to L.S. and U.?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “What happen to you? It was zif you fell of de eart.”

  I pull ID folder out of my back pocket and show it to her. “I’m a cop.” I dig my cash from my front pocket.

  “Get on wif’ youself!” The woman laughs loudly, which causes Angie to laugh too.

  I interrupt the laughter, asking for another slice of andouille, which she also wraps in white paper. On our way out, she calls out, “You came back soon, child. I can believe Calixte Beau’s little boy a cop. I knew you turn out to no good, yeah.”

  I give Buck the slice of andouille and he attacks it, then laps more water before settling on the seat between us. Driving through Acadiana, I take Angie to St. Martinville and show her the little statue of Evangeline.

  “That’s Delores Del Rio,” I tell Angie. “The stature was cast in her image. She played Evangeline in the movie back in the 1920s.”

  Buck sleeps most of the way home. As we close in on the city, I feel sullen, feel it all closing in on me again. Angie asks what’s wrong. I tell her about Felice and about Sandie and Mullet. I tell her about So. Derbigny Street and the alley behind Sandie’s. I tell her about the blood we found on Peter James’ badge. I ramble on until I’m describing Cassandra’s lifeless face.

  Angie says nothing when I finally stop talking. The sunlight still has a good hour or two to go by the time we pull back into Bucktown.

  “If you’ll have dinner with me,” I say as I park the T-Bird. “I’ll make you the most succulent boudin you’ve ever tasted.”

  Angie seems relieved that I’ve come out of my funk and we unpack. Fixing Buck a can of gourmet dog food, I flip on my police radio out of habit. The traffic seems normal.

  “This is so cozy,” Angie says as she steps around the houseboat. Noticing the loft, she says, “So that’s your bedroom.”

  An excited voice rises on my radio, the whoop of a siren echoing in the transmission. I turn it up.

  “706, headquarters.”

  “Go ahead, 706.”

  “I’m in pursuit of that gold motorcycle, northbound on Highway 11!”

  Jesus Christ – Clyde.

  The savage bayou

  I step over to my closet, pull off my shirt and put on a black tee-shirt and put the Glock and place it on the end table next to my sofa as I unfasten my belt. I slip on my canvas holster, along with two ammo pouches.

  “What’s happening?” Angie stares at me with wide, suddenly frightened eyes.

  Nodding to the radio I tell her that’s the last killer they’re chasing. I sit on my sofa, pull off my white leather Nikes for my black canvas Reeboks, then fill the two ammo pouches with magazines of 147-grain, semi-jacketed hollow-point ammunition. Slipping the Glock into its holster behind my back, I reach down and tie my knife to my leg.

  Angie steps in front of me. “You’re leaving?”

  “I have to.”

  “But ... I thought ... you were off duty.” Her lower lip quivers.

  I stare into her eyes for a long moment, step around her and grab a dark blue shirt from my closet. Slipping my handcuffs into the waistband of my jeans, I snatch up my radio. Angie hasn’t moved. I step back in front of her.

  “You can stay. Is your car here or did your Dad drop you off?”

  She’s breathing heavy now.

  “Maybe you should go home.”

  “My car’s at Flamingo’s but I’ll stay with Buck.”

  The voice on the radio screams that the bike has made a U-turn and is heading toward Chef Menteur Highway. Angie reaches for my face, but stops.

  “I have to go.”

  “I know.” Her eyes glisten.

  As I turn to leave, she grabs my arm, pulls me back and kisses me softly on the lips. She lets go of my arm and whispers, “Be careful.”

  I reach behind her neck and pull her to me and kiss her lips as softly as I can. In a deep, steady voice I tell her, “You may not believe this, but I’m always careful.”

  Taking her hand I lead her to the door and ask her to lock me out. I wait for the click of the dead bolt before running to my car.

  •

  The T-Bird’s engine whines as I dash to the interstate, dodging slower cars, blowing lights when I have a shot, gunning it when I’m clear of traffic. Clyde’s bike turns on the Chef. To my surprise, he’s heading back into town instead of east toward the Honey Island Swamp and the great state of Mississippi.

  As soon as I hit I-10, I floor it. It takes me eleven minutes to transverse half the city, cross the Industrial Canal and blaze through most of New Orleans East. The T-bird’s big V8 is flat-out flying. The gold motorcycle pulls another U-turn and heads back toward Highway 11. I take the Paris Road exit, wheels screeching, barely catch hearing the pursuing officer tell headquarters the bike has turned up a gravel road off the Chef. Headquarters asks where.

  “I’m not sure,” the officer replies. “There’s a sign.” Three seconds later the officer shouts, “It’s Bayou Sauvage ... National Wildlife Refuge ... Trail. Runs off the Chef toward the lake.”

  Other units respond, their sirens whooping over excited voices. Six minutes later, I barely see the sign as I blow by it at eighty miles and hour. I pump my brakes and bring the T-Bird to a tire-screaming stop, wheel it around and turn up the gravel road. Riding along a small levee next to Bayou Sauvage, I have to stop quickly again as I almost pass three parked police cars and a gold motorcycle lying on its side in a shell parking lot to my right.

  I scramble to the bike and recognize the license number. It’s Clyde’s, all right. I pull out my Glock and walk quickly to the brown building at the end of the small parking area. A white sign on the building reads: Take a Hike. To the building’s right is another sign on the railing of an elevated wooden walkway that runs into the vast swamp beyond. That sign read
s: Ridge Trail Through Swamp.

  A sound turns me around as a door opens and a uniformed officer comes out of a bathroom. Zipping up, the officer freezes when he sees me pointing my gun at him. I pull the Glock down and tell him I’m Homicide.

  “All of you in the bathroom, or what?”

  His name is Billiot and it takes him several seconds to explain the biker ran off down the ridge trail. “We all went after him, but he jumped the rail and went into the swamp. Who the fuck ever heard of a swamp in the city limits?”

  Footsteps on the walkway turn me around again. Two officer come walking back along the ridge trail. One is a sergeant who raises his hand and says, “He must be a fuckin’ swamp rat or something. He just vanished.”

  The second officer brushes his shoulders briskly. “You should see the fuckin’ spiders in there!”

  “Which one of you jumped him first?”

  The spider-scared officer says he was prowling around Highway 11, looking for that damn gold bike and jumped the bastard.

  “Good work.” I step around them to the walkway. “Is he armed?”

  “I didn’t see anything.”

  “What’s he wearing?

  “Dark green shirt and black pants. It’s that guy Pailet, all right. Salt and pepper hair.”

  “Come on,” I tell them as I move forward. “Show me where he jumped the rail.”

  “Why?” the sergeant answers. “We got SWAT coming. And Chief Kay’s in route.”

  “SWAT?” I try not to keep my voice down. “It’ll take them a good hour.” I point to the west where the sun hovers at tree top level. “We don’t have enough light.”

  The sergeant shakes his head. “Kay’s getting bloodhounds.”

  “From where? Kentucky?!” My voice echoes.

  “No, Angola.”

  “From the penitentiary? That’s a two hour drive. Maybe three.”

  I point to the spider-scared cop whose name plate reads: Anderson. “Show me where he went in.” I’m backing quickly down the walkway. Anderson lowers his head and follows.

  The canopy closes over us, tall bottom-land hardwoods – oak and cypress and sweetgum trees, all dripping Spanish moss. We follow the zig-zag wooden walkway suspended over soggy, black mud. I scan the trees for movement. Sugarberry trees stand next to huge magnolias and the occasional elderberry tree.