“No need,” said the gent in question as he entered with a pack over his shoulder. “I have been lying in the bedroom for the past hour staring at the ceiling and finally couldn’t take it anymore.”
“We need to have words, you and I,” Remy said.
“I know what you are going to say and you can’t talk me out of it.”
“Hear me out. Your wife was one of the kindest women I knew. She didn’t turn her back on me as most of my family did. For that I owe her.”
Namo began slicing a loaf of bread. “Nothing you can say will change my mind.”
“Damn it, man. Think of your children. If something were to happen to you, where would that leave them? Orphans. With no one to look after them.” Remy wagged a finger at him. “If you care for them, you’ll stay here. Fargo and I can get by without you.”
“Who are you trying to fool? Just the two of you against that beast and the Mad Indian? You can use a third set of eyes and a third rifle.”
“But Clovis and sweet Halette—”
“I’ve talked it over with them. They understand. Should I share my wife’s fate, they will go live with my brother. He will gladly take them in.”
“So I am wasting my breath?”
“
Oui
.”
Fargo didn’t contribute but he agreed with Remy. They finished their coffee in silence. Namo slung his pack, urged them to be quiet so as not to awaken his children, and they filed down the hall.
Three figures awaited them at the front door. “Were you going to leave without saying good-bye, Papa?” Halette asked accusingly.
Namo stared hard at Liana. “This is your doing.”
Clovis stepped between them. “No, it’s not, Papa. Halette and I thought you would try to slip away so we took turns staying awake and I woke her when you went to the kitchen.”
“I did not want a scene.”
Liana said, “Better tears now than have your daughter cry all day because her father was too callous to hug her when he left.”
“That is harsh.”
Remy nudged Fargo. “This is not for us, eh? Let’s wait for him at the pirogues.”
Fargo nodded. But first he went up to Clovis and held out his Henry. “I’d like to swap you.”
“Monsieur?”
“I want to use your Sharps. You can hold on to my rifle until I get back.” Left unsaid was the fact that if Fargo didn’t make it back, the boy could keep the Henry.
Clovis glanced at Namo. “Papa?”
“It is your decision. The Sharps is yours.”
“I guess I will do it, then,” Clovis said uncertainly, and they switched. He ran a hand over the shiny brass receiver. “This is the prettiest gun I have ever seen.”
“How much spare ammo do you have for this?”
“Eleven cartridges.” Clovis untied a pouch from his belt and held it out. “I’m sorry it isn’t more.”
Fargo jiggled the pouch, opened it, and took one out. It was longer and thicker than the cartridges for his Henry. But then the Henry was a .44 caliber and the Sharps was a .52. “These will have to do me.” All it should take was one shot to the right spot. “I’m obliged.”
Gros Ville looked as if it had been through a war. Wisps of smoke rose from the charred remains of the buildings that had burned to the ground. The two flattened shacks were in shambles. Bodies had been removed but blood stains marked where the victims had fallen.
Few of the inhabitants were out and about. An old man sat under an overhang, weeping. A woman was shuffling about saying someone’s name over and over again.
Remy crossed himself.
A surprise awaited them at the landing. Eight men were already there, loading supplies.
“What is this?”
“Need you ask?” a burly Cajun replied. “We are going after the beast. We can’t permit a repeat of last night.”
Remy nodded at Fargo and Namo. “Why not leave it to me and my friends?”
“
Non
,” the burly Cajun said. “What sort of men would we be to let others fight our battles?”
A sour-faced Cajun swore and spat. “My wife had her arm ripped open by that thing. Only her arm, so in that we were lucky. But I vowed to her that I will kill the brute.”
A third one gazed at the bleak ruin of their settlement. “We must defend what is ours.”
Fargo realized there was no talking them out of it, and he didn’t try. He did say, “There’s something you should keep in mind. The razorback didn’t show up here by chance. The Mad Indian lured him.”
“What are you saying, monsieur? That the monster is the Mad Indian’s pet?”
At that, some of them laughed.
“Don’t mock him,” Remy growled. “If he says it is so, it is.”
“Now I have heard everything,” the surly Cajun said. “You, of all people, trust an outsider?”
With two men to a craft, the avengers pushed off.
“They’re fools,” Remy declared.
“What does that make us?” Fargo wondered.
15
The great swamp was as oppressive as ever. Shadowy gloom held sway where the canopy was thickest. Occasional patches of sunlight gave a luster to the gator-and snake-infested water it didn’t deserve.
The swamp was a world unto itself. A hostile world. A world that would kill the unwary in the blink of an eye.
Fargo sat in the stern of the pirogue, paddling. Remy was in the bow, Namo in the middle. They sat tensely, eyes constantly probing the vegetation and the water, their rifles across their legs. It was nearing midday and the sun was nearly directly overhead.
“I used to love the swamp but now I hate it,” Remy broke their long quiet. “It is a foul place.”
Namo said, “Despite all that has happened, I will always love it. To me it is my home.”
Remy nodded at a cottonmouth that was slithering away from their craft. “To that it is home. To us it will always be alien. We will always be intruders. Unwelcome intruders.”
“There is a beauty to the swamp,” Namo insisted. “One must look beneath the surface to appreciate it.”
“Look beneath the surface and you will find an alligator ready to bite your head off or a water moccasin ready to strike.”
Fargo didn’t get involved in their argument. He understood both points of view. To him, the swamp was a festering quagmire. Yet he could see why Namo liked it as much as he liked the mountains and the prairie.
“We should stop soon and rest,” Namo proposed. “No sense in tiring ourselves out our first day.”
They were gliding along somber ranks of cypress, the trees spaced far enough apart that they had an easy going. That soon changed. Before them rose one of the intermittent tracts of land that broke the monotony, this one several acres in extent. Remy made for a point where the ground sloped. Hopping out, they hauled the pirogue out.
Namo carried the pack to a grassy spot. “This looks safe enough.”
Fargo didn’t sit when they did. His leg muscles were cramped and he paced to relieve the pain.
“How do we even know the razorback came this way?” Remy said.
“This is the direction it was heading when we heard it last.”
“But we’ve seen no sign of it. No sign at all.”
Namo was opening the pack. “I suspect it sticks to the water. But we’re bound to find something.” He indicated the rank growth. “It could be hiding in there for all we know.”
“After we kill it I am leaving the Atchafalaya.”
“You don’t mean that,” Namo said in surprise. “You have lived here your whole life.”
“And what has it gotten me? I’m an outcast, shunned by my own kind. All my friends are dead.”
“I’m your friend.”
“You know what I mean. Life was bearable so long as I had other outcasts to share it with.”
“Where will you go?”
“New Orleans, I think. I’ve been there a few times and there is much about it I like.”
“You won’t last a month,” Namo predicted. “City life isn’t for the likes of you. Or me, for that matter.”
Fargo was listening for sounds of wildlife but there weren’t any. Not so much as the chirp of a bird. That struck him as peculiar. Moving a few feet from the others, he peered into the growth.
“I’m not you,” Remy said to Namo. “You have the swamp in your blood. I merely tolerate it.”
“My offer holds. You can come and live with us if you like. My children adore you.”
Remy looked away and was a while answering. When he did, his voice had a husky quality. “I thank you. The three of you are the only people left in this world who truly care about me. But no, my friend. Think of what others would say. The talk. The gossip. I am not held in high regard.” He chuckled. “To put it mildly.”
“What do I care what other people think? So you are an outcast. You have never killed a Cajun.”
“That I would never do.”
“Then let people say what they will. There are always small minds and loose tongues.”
Remy smiled. “I can see what my cousin saw in you, Namo Heuse. You have a fine quality.”
“I pull my pants on one leg at a time like every other man. But I won’t be swayed by the opinions of others.”
Fargo was listening with half an ear. He was more interested in why the spit of land was so empty of life. He was about to say something when he gazed at the high grass a few yards behind Remy and Namo and a tingle of alarm shot down his spine. “Look out!” he hollered, while simultaneously jerking the Sharps to his shoulder.
The two Cajuns reacted with razor reflexes and sprang to their feet.
Out of the grass hurtled an alligator six feet long, or so. It snapped at Remy, its razor teeth narrowly missing his leg. Its own legs pumping, it dived into the water with a loud splash. Bubbles rose, marking its underwater course, and then stopped.
Remy cursed luridly. “Did you see? It almost had me. It is an omen. I must get out of this swamp while I still can.”
“That could have happened to anyone,” Namo said, eyeing the surface with his rifle up.
“Here, yes. But you don’t see many alligators wandering the streets of New Orleans.”
Fargo had come to a decision. “I’m going to scout around. It could be the boar was here.”
“You shouldn’t go alone,” Namo said.
“I’ll give a holler if I need you.” Fargo penetrated the tangle, moving slowly, treading with care, watchful for snakes and other gators. A mosquito buzzed him but flew off. Then a butterfly flitted by, a splash of color, reminding him the world wasn’t all gloom.
Fargo came on a game trail. He sank to one knee to examine it. Deer tracks were plentiful. In a patch of dirt he also found the prints of a skunk and a raccoon. Farther on he saw bobcat tracks. He rounded a bend and drew up short.
There, plain as could be, were different hoofprints. They were larger than the deer tracks, and more rounded. The dewclaws were longer, and more pointed. Only one animal made those kind of tracks.
Wild boar.
Fargo looked up, his skin prickling. He almost called out to Remy and Namo. But the tracks were fresh. The animal might be near. He didn’t think it was the razorback; the tracks weren’t big enough.
The quiet took on new meaning.
Fargo wedged the Sharps to his shoulder and kept going. It could be the tracks were those of a sow. And it could be the razorback was paying her a visit. Male boar were as randy as an animal could be.
The trail was as sinuous as a snake, turning and twisting every which way. Suddenly it ended at the last thing Fargo expected to find: a spring. Edging close, he touched his left hand to the water and let a drop fall on the tip of his tongue. It tasted clean and cool.
The spring explained all the tracks. It explained what the wild boars were doing there.
Another trail led to the spring on the other side. Dense growth was everywhere else.
Fargo scoured the vegetation but saw nothing. He lowered the Sharps, cupped his palm, and dipped his hand in. He raised his palm to his mouth and drank. He dipped his hand again, drank again. Somewhere off in the swamp a frog croaked. He wondered why there were no frogs at the spring. He dipped his hand in a third time, and froze.
An eyeball was staring back at him.
Fargo pretended not to notice. He looked past it and then roved his gaze back again.
The eyeball was fixed on him unblinkingly.
Only then did Fargo realize that what he took for shadow wasn’t shadow at all but a large animal. The silhouette left no doubt as to what it was. Either a boar or a sow. It wasn’t the giant razorback but that hardly mattered.
Any
wild boar that size could kill.
Calmly, Fargo sipped from his palm. The Sharps was at his side. If he snapped it up the boar might charge. Since it wasn’t the one they were after he would as soon let it live. He began to back away and to slowly raise the Sharps, just in case.
Fargo didn’t think to look over his shoulder, which made his surprise all the greater when a squeal came from behind him. He glanced back and saw two young boars, or piglets, which told him the large animal in the brush was a sow and these were her offspring.
“Oh, hell.”
With a savage squeal the sow burst into the open. She had her head up and her mouth wide.
Fargo dived out of her way. She bit at him but missed and went on by. Rolling onto his shoulder, he took a quick bead but the sow hadn’t turned to attack him again. She was racing down the trail with her young.
Rising, Fargo waited a suitable interval, then started back. He was extra cautious. Where there was one sow there were often more. The females lived in groups known as sounders. If Fargo recollected rightly, there could be anywhere from a dozen or so up to fifty animals in one sounder. Only females and young. The males kept to themselves except when mating.
The last thing Fargo needed was to run into twenty or thirty at once.
He had no trouble finding the spot where the Cajuns and the pirogue should be—only they weren’t there.
Fargo looked around in bewilderment. He refused to believe they had up and left him. He went to shout but thought better of it. Hunkering, he waited. All sorts of wild imaginings went through his head. What if they had seen the razorback and gone after it? Or spotted the Mad Indian and gone after him? And what if they never came back? It would take him months to find his way out of the swamp, if he even made it.