Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 13 - The Diamonds of Ghost Bayou (4 page)

We mounted the steps, and I unlocked the door. Back in the
yard, Mr. Jay was yap-yap-yapping. I pushed the door open for
Diane, and she headed directly for the master bathroom. I called
after her. “After I throw open the windows, I’ll check on the
boat”

With San Antonio winking at me, the last thing I wanted was
to be in the house while she was showering.

As usual in Louisiana, by midmorning the sun had burned
away the clean freshness of dawn, and steam was beginning to
rise from the soaked gumbo soil.

I watched the yapping pup as I made my way to the Mako,
several times scanning the dark swamp water for alligators. Mr.
Jay was in dog heaven: all the birds he could chase, and all the
room to chase them in.

When I stepped onto the dock, I glanced into the swamp where I thought I had seen a man the day before. The only
movement was the Spanish moss waving idly in the faint breeze.

Unzipping the boat cover, I climbed over the gunwale, plopped
down behind the wheel, and stared at the gauges. For twenty
minutes, I sat in the captain’s seat, staring, unseeing, at the gauges,
going back over the events of the last couple of days. The only
obvious conclusion I could draw at the time was that there must
be diamonds somewhere on the premises and somebody wanted
them.

I had two leads: the two jokers running from the house, and the
yellow Stratos, the same color boat that Jack had spotted. I guessed
it had to be moored along the river somewhere, and I decided to
see if I could run it down. Just then, Diane stepped out onto the
porch and waved. She wore a white blouse and matching shorts.
I waved back. “I’ll fix some lunch,” she shouted. “Ten minutes.”

Though the early-morning nip was gone, the air flowing through
the open windows kept us cool as we sat in the living area
munching on tuna fish sandwiches, chips, and soft drinks. The
TV was on the local news. Outside, Mr. Jay continued barking.

I reached for my Dr Pepper. “What time do you want to go
back to the hospital?”

She was sitting on the couch with her tanned legs folded under her. “Maybe later this afternoon. Jack needs rest, not visitors, don’t you think?” She looked at me innocently.

Outside, Mr. Jay was still yapping.

“Oh, yeah, yeah.” My mind raced. I had no intention of spending the afternoon with Diane in this large, empty house. Yet, I
had promised Jack I’d look after her. “Tell you what,” I said.
“Why don’t we take a leisurely trip up the river today? Give you
a chance to see your neighbors. We can take our cells in case
the hospital calls.”

She clapped her hands like a schoolgirl. “That sounds wonderful. Should I make us something to eat?”

“No,” I hastily replied. “We won’t be gone that long. We’ll
just see what’s up there and then get back early so we can spend
time with Jack this evening.”

Mr. Jay’s yap turned into a startled yelp.

By the time we reached the front door, he was sitting on top
of the stairs looking back at the bayou where a five-foot alligator stood motionless on the shore, staring up at the trembling
pup.

“Oh, dear,” Diane exclaimed, hurrying to the shaking dog.
“Look at his little tail. That horrid creature bit him.”

I suppressed a grin. The pup was lucky. All Mr. Alligator had
done was chomp down on the tail, but it was so tiny-a stub,
really-and the pup had managed to jerk it loose, peeling away
some skin. He was lucky it hadn’t ended up a lot stubbier.

I opened the door as she brought the pup inside and headed
for the bathroom. “He’ll be okay,” I said above his whining and
her cooing voice. But, I told myself, he’ll never venture down
those stairs again.

Swamps and forests are misleading. From a distance, their cool
shadows promise an inviting respite from the hot sun. In reality,
they are usually hot and oppressive because the thick canopy of
cypress and water oak holds in the heat and humidity. The air
is suffocating.

Only the uncharted waterways crisscrossing the swamp offered a modicum of relief, and then only because of the forward
movement of the watercraft.

When I helped Diane into the boat, I heard Mr. Jay barking from
inside the house. “I opened the door for him to come out, but he
didn’t want to.”

“Can’t blame the little fellow,” I said.

“I think I’ll take him back to the vet’s until Jack comes home.
What do you think?”

“Yeah. That’s a good idea.”

I raised the special-ordered canopy on the Mako, and we enjoyed a gentle breeze generated by our ten-mile-an-hour speed.
On the left, the shoreline, thick with oak and pine and an occasional cypress, sloped gently upward to a six- or seven-foot crest
above the waterline. About halfway up was a line of debris marking the last high water in the swamp. From time to time,
dark and narrow bayous cut through the shore and wound
deeper into the forest.

On our right spread the deep and uncharted Marais de
Fantome, Ghost Swamp, which flowed into the Atchafalaya
Swamp. The swamp abounded in myth and legends spread by
the old-timers since the time of the dispersal of the Acadians
from Nova Scotia in 1755, when one solitary band of the exiles
wandered into and explored the wilds of Louisiana.

As we glided silently along the river, the bellowing of alligators and harrumphing of bullfrogs echoed from the dark
shadows of Ghost Swamp.

“Oh, look!” Diane exclaimed, pointing to an eight-foot alligator sunning on the bank. As we drew close, the reptile slid
silently into the water. The sight of dazzling white egrets
perched on cypress knees thrilled her as much as the sinuous
wake of a water moccasin repelled her.

Despite the canopy of leaves and the gentle breeze, we began
to swelter. Perspiration beaded on our foreheads. She dabbed at
hers and gestured to the shade along the edge of the swamp cast
by the tree crowns extending over the river. “Wouldn’t it be
cooler over there?” She indicated the inviting shadows dappling
the brown-tinted water.

I pointed to the protruding limbs overhead. “You bet, but what
if one of those falls?”

She gasped when she spotted several coiled snakes sunning
on limbs high above the water.

A few minutes later, she shifted in her seat. Her bare legs made
popping noises as they pulled away from the plastic to which
her perspiration had stuck them. “It doesn’t look like we have
any neighbors.”

I was thinking the same thing, but the yellow Stratos had to
have come from somewhere, and I had yet to run across a boat
ramp or any spot that gave evidence of a launch site. The few
bayous we had noticed cutting off the river appeared too narrow and shallow. No, I told myself. Whatever we were looking
for was still ahead. “Let’s give it a few more minutes.”

Around the next bend, we spotted a neat house with a porch
on all four sides. It stood on twelve-foot piers. A flight of steps
led down to a dock at which were moored a single powerboat
and a pirogue. An older man and woman squatted on the pier, a
basket between them. As soon as we rounded the bend, they
looked up.

I headed directly for them.

Diane gasped. “You’re not going over there, are you? Those …
those are swamp people.”

I laughed. “Don’t worry, they’re not going to make you dance
with snakes or anything like that.” I waved and eased back on
the throttle. As I drew near, I saw they had been peeling and
deveining shrimp. “Hello!” I shouted, shifting into neutral, and
then reverse, to keep from bumping the pier.

Their eyes wary, they remained silent. I gestured to Diane.
“This is Diane Edney. She and her husband bought the gray
house downriver from you. I’m Tony Boudreaux.”

The woman remained in her squat when the man stood. A wiry
little man with a thick head of straight black hair, blacker than the
inside of an alligator’s belly, tapped his fingers to his chest. “Me, I
be Clerville Naquin. This here be my wife, Zozette.”

I looked at the shrimp in the basket and the swirls of catfish
and alligator beneath the pier feeding on the discarded shrimp
heads. “Nice-looking shrimp, Mr. Naquin. What are they, about
twenty count or so?”

“Oui.”

His wife, Zozette, just stared at us. I glanced at Diane, who was
chewing her bottom lip and eyeing Zozette.

It didn’t appear they harbored much of a desire for idle chitchat. Before I could ask about the yellow powerboat, a battered
Ranger outboard rounded a bend to the north and headed
toward us. In its prime the twenty-foot boat had probably been
white, but now, covered with years of mud, rotted vegetation, as
well as fish and shrimp slime, it looked almost gray.

“That be August and Dolzin, my boys. They been shrimping
and crabbing. Dolzin, he works at T-Ball Stables on the side.”

By now, I’d eased our boat up against the pier. Diane tugged on my arm. Under her breath, she whispered, “Tony, let’s go” I
heard her shiver.

“In a minute,” I muttered through the side of my lips.

The shrimp boat nudged the pier. One of the young men
leaped off, tied up the boat, and then stared at us warily. He wore
no shirt, and his muscles rippled under his dark skin.

Clerville introduced us. The two young men nodded briefly.

I cleared my throat. “I know you have work to do, Mr. Naquin, so I won’t bother you any longer. Just one question if you
don’t mind. Do you folks know anyone with a yellow Stratos, a
newer model?”

He frowned as he concentrated. The two boys folded their
arms over their chests and glared at me defiantly. Finally, Clerville spoke. “Me, I see many like that on the bayou.” His sons
uttered their agreement.

From the porch above, a guttural voice called out, “You be them
city folk what bought the old Prioux place?”

I looked up and spotted a man in shorts leaning against the rail,
a beer in one hand. The sun had baked his skin almost as dark as
his hair, which was straight, not curly like that of the pure Cajun.
I glanced at Diane, but she was as puzzled as I. “It’s the gray
house downriver, if that’s what you mean.”

As he looked straight at me, a satisfied smirk played over his
lips. “Me, I know you.”

“Tony?” Diane said, looking at me in surprise.

I shrugged. “I’ve got no idea what he’s talking about.”

That be Valsin, my oldest,” explained Clerville.

I called out, “You must be mistaken. We’ve never met.”

He bounced down the steps to the pier. He wore a bloody
skinning knife on his hip. “I see you when you almost sink the
boat.”

Then I remembered. The figure out in the swamps, the one I
wasn’t certain I had seen. “Yeah, yeah. Now I remember. You were
out in the swamp”

While there was absolutely no physical difference in the musculature between him and his brothers, the crow’s-feet fanning
out from his eyes and the furrows in his leathery cheeks were
mute evidence that he was the oldest. “And you, mon ami, almost
lose a motor.” He glanced past me and spoke in a dialect with
which I was not familiar. There were Cajun phrases in it, but the
other words, phrases, and various nuances were, as the Roman
soldier might have said, Greek to me. His family laughed, and I
knew they were laughing at me.

Putting my hands out to my sides, I shrugged and sheepishly
replied, `Ane muet.” Dumb donkey.

Valsin leaned off the pier and offered me his beer. I declined. While not always successful, I did try to observe my
AA vows.

Of course, my job didn’t help. Much of my work was on the
seamy underside of our society. There, hard beverages flow like
the Mississippi River. So I faced a daily battle.

But it was growing easier. At least it seemed that way.

Valsin insisted I take his beer, but I shook my head. Changing the subject, I said, “If you saw me almost tear the transom
out of the Mako, then you had to see the Stratos.”

“Oui. I see it.”

“Do you know where it is?”

He glanced at his father. The smug smile faded. “They not
good people.”

“Then you do know where I can find it!”

He hesitated and again glanced at his father.

Clerville looked upriver.

“I show you,” Valsin announced, leaping lightly from the pier
onto the deck of our boat.

Diane froze, her eyes fixed on the bloody knife on his hip.

He pointed upriver. “There.”

I eased into the river and shoved the throttle forward. The
Mako’s bow rose, and moments later we slid onto a smooth
plane. The powerful boat sliced through the water. I glanced
at Diane. The expression on her face vacillated between fear
and panic. I winked at her. “Everything’s all right. Don’t worry.”

I don’t know if I said that to make her feel better or to reassure myself. The bloodstained leather sheath holding his knife
remained in the periphery of my vision.

Valsin stood behind us, legs spread. He held on to the back of
the bench seat with one hand. Ahead, the river forked. “Take the
left, you.”