Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 13 - The Diamonds of Ghost Bayou (26 page)

I wasn’t certain just what I was going to do other than play out
the hand the next few minutes would deal me. Whatever it was
I would do, it had to be soon.

The only light was the flicker of starlight through the canopy
of cypress needles. I could see T-Ball leering at me.

“Just ahead,” Lacoutrue called out over the purr of the powerful engine.

T-Ball grunted and looked over his shoulder.

It was now or never. I leaped forward, slamming my hands
into his chest and knocking him over the gunwale. With flailing
arms and a wild scream, he flipped head over heels.

Behind me, the sheriff shouted and the powerful boat whipped
into a sharp turn, throwing me off balance. I slammed into the
console, swinging the handcuff still fastened to my right wrist. I
caught the sheriff in the forehead and sent him stumbling backward to the deck.

The screaming engine drove the boat in wild circles, bouncing
off cypress trunks and scraping over cypress knees, wrenching
shrieks of agony from the fiberglass hull. I clutched at the console with both hands. Behind me, Lacoutrue was thrown from
side to side as the boat literally tore apart on the rugged cypress
knees.

“You’re a dead man, Boudreaux!” Lacoutrue screamed.

I turned around in time to see him pulling his revolver. I
lunged at him, knocking the Magnum from his hand and sending both of us to the deck of the careening powerboat.

He dug his fingers into my throat. “I’ll kill you. If it’s the last
thing-”

I slammed a fist into his face, smashing his nose. Blood spewed
over both of us. I hit him again, sending him tumbling against the
gunwale.

I jumped to my feet just as the bow of the Wellcraft smashed
into a thick cypress, sending both of us flying through the night
into the black water. Moments later, the boat exploded, lighting
the swamp with leaping yellow flames. The blazing fire would
bring every alligator within five miles.

Even before I hit the water, I was flailing my arms, swimming for the nearest cypress with all my strength. The towering
tree couldn’t have been more than ten feet away, but it seemed
like ten miles.

Nothing had ever felt as good as the rough bark of the cypress against my palm. I admit I was scared when I was swimming, but nothing compared to the fear I felt those last few
seconds in the water before I shimmied up the cypress, ignoring
the more than even chance of running into snakes in the tree.

When I was about ten feet up, I looked down. My blood ran
cold when I saw several wakes converging on the inferno.

From somewhere back in the darkness, I heard a scream and the churning of water. I searched the firelight for Sheriff
Lacoutrue but saw no sign of him.

I clung to the cypress, my feet resting on protruding branches.
The fire died away as the powerboat sank beneath the black
waters of the swamp. I caught my breath when I spotted a wake
moving away from the boat and toward me. There was just
enough reflection from the fire to see the eight-foot alligator lift
its scaly head and open its toothy jaws. I don’t know if that
sucker could see me or not, but there was no question in my
mind that he knew that somewhere above him in that cypress
was something good to eat.

Flexing my stiffening fingers about the branches to which I
clung, I glanced over my head into the darkness of the tree above.
If I could hang on until morning, then I had a chance. Maybe
there was a fork above that would afford me a chance to rest.

A flickering of lights fluttered through the trees. Despite my disregard for local superstition, my first thought was of the feu
follet. Then a spotlight cut through the thick stand of cypress
trunks.

The strong beam wound its way through the trees, steadily
growing closer. “Here! Over here!” I shouted, knowing chances
were slim that anyone in the approaching boat could hear me.

Then I heard Valsin. “Boudreaux! Where you be at? Boudreaux!”

If I am ever fortunate enough to hear heavenly voices, they
couldn’t sound any sweeter than his.

“Valsin! Over here!”

The Ranger began to take shape in the peripheral glow of its
spotlight. I made out Valsin behind the wheel and his two
brothers, August and Dolzin, at his side.

Then the brilliant beam of light hit me.

“There he be!” one of the brothers shouted.

Skillfully, Valsin guided the Ranger forward, gently bumping the protruding cypress knees until the bow of the boat steadied against its trunk.

I lost no time in scampering down and stepping onto the bow.
I grabbed each of them in a bear hug. “Where in the blazes did
you come from? I figured I’d be out here for a couple of days at
least.”

August grabbed Dolzin by the shoulder. “Thank this one. He
be shoeing one of T-Ball’s horses when he hear T-Ball talk to
the sheriff about dumping you into the swamp.”

“That be right,” Valsin added. “We call you at your friends’,
but them, they say you done gone to Sheriff’s.”

“By the time Dolzin and me get there, he was driving away,”
August put in. “Us, we see your white pickup behind Thertule’s
police car, so we follow. Valsin, he was following us in the boat.
When we saw where he was taking you, we jump into the boat
with Valsin.”

“Oui!” August said, reaching under the console and pulling
out ajar of moonshine. “We got lucky. That calls for a drinkwhat you say?”

Far be it from me to argue with the ones who saved my life.
I reached for the jar. “I say, drink up”

A terrified scream interrupted us. Valsin grinned. “That be
the sheriff,” he drawled. “What you think, Boudreaux?”

“Probably.” I squinted into the darkness behind us. “T-Ball
fell out a good piece back.”

Another scream ripped through the night. Sheriff Lacoutrue’s
voice seemed to rise two octaves. “Snake! I be snakebit! Cottonmouth!”

Backing skillfully through the cypress knees, Valsin followed
the spotlight with his eyes as Dolzin used it to search the dark
swamp. On a distant cypress, the beam found the sheriff, who
was shaking his arm to throw off the cottonmouth.

The black snake went flying through the air, landing with a
loud splash.

“Hurry!” Lacoutrue shouted. “Me, I got to get to the hospital.”

Just before we reached the tree, Valsin throttled back. I
looked at him. “What are you doing?”

He ignored me. “You want help, Sheriff? You tell truth about
old Benoit and the others.”

Panic filled Lacoutrue’s eyes. “What-me? I don’t know what
you mean”

Valsin backed away. “Too bad.”

I grabbed Valsin’s arm. “You can’t leave him. We’ve got to get
him to the hospital.”

The lanky young man leered at me. “Why? We all better off
leaving him out here.”

“No, no!” Lacoutrue paused, clutching his forearm. “Oui!
Me, I tell you. It be T-Ball. He want Theriot’s diamonds. He kill
old Benoit.”

Valsin backed farther away. “The truth, Sheriff. Me, I want
the truth, the whole truth.”

Chewing on his bottom lip, sheriff Thertule Lacoutrue wore
a deer-in-the-headlights look on his face before dropping his
chin to his chest. “Oui. Me and T-Ball, we-plan-it.”

I spoke up. “What about your deputy, Thibodeaux?”

.,No. He know nothing. He just dumb Cajun. He do whatever I say.” Lacoutrue went on to spill it all, incriminating himself
as well as T-Ball and the latter’s three thugs, Mule, Turk, and
Buzz.

Thibodeaux met us at the boathouse, where I gave him the whole
story. When I finished, Lacoutrue tried to crawfish, to back away
from his confession, but all the deputy had to do was promise
to threaten Mule, Turk, or Buzz with murder one, and Sheriff
Lacoutrue saw the proverbial handwriting on the wall.

All we found of T-Ball was half his shirt.

To my surprise, when we dropped the sheriff off at the hospital,
I discovered Jack and Diane in the emergency room. The doctors were fitting a cast onto his right leg from the knee down.
Despite the pain, Jack was grinning from ear to ear. “What in
the blazes is so funny?” I asked.

He winked at Diane. She cleared her throat. “You remember
when we were talking about the diamonds earlier this evening,
and what you said when Jack remarked, `They’ll probably never
be found unless someone just stumbles on them’?”

“Yeah, I remember. I said it would be just dumb luck.”

She continued. “When Valsin called and told us about the
sheriff and T-Ball, Jack ran out of the house. He was going to
the sheriff’s office to help. He tripped and fell down the stairs,
breaking his ankle.” She paused for dramatic effect. “That’s not
all he broke. He shattered three of the balusters supporting the
rail, the hand-carved ones. And guess what we found?”

I knew instantly, remembering Ramsey’s recollection, “I
was visiting family over in Texas when the news broke that Eloi
Saint Julian’s had been hit. It was on every TV channel and
radio station. Well, when I returned two or three days later, Al
Theriot was waiting for me at the house.”

Of course, I said to myself. That explains why Ramsey found
Theriot at the house. He wanted to be sure his diamonds were
safely hidden in the balusters.

Before I could reply, Diane pulled a handful of diamonds from
her pocket.

“Take a look,” she said as the light sparkled off glittering diamonds. “Pretty, aren’t they?”

I shook my head in mute wonder.

When we had been talking about the diamonds earlier, Jack
had snorted, “I figure he hid them somewhere else, and they’ll
probably never be found unless some lucky idiot finds them.”

I winked at my old friend and remarked, “Dumb luck, huh?”

And his response was, “Why not? It works for me°”

“Does it ever,” I replied. “Does it ever.”