Gator Aide (12 page)

This was easier said than done. A new scam in vogue was to make an anonymous call reporting a poaching in progress. I’d rush to the area only to discover that I’d been kept busy on a sham. Meanwhile, a group of poachers would be leisurely blasting six hundred grosbeaks out of their nests just twenty-five miles away. This time of year was a free-for-all on grosbeak babies. Not only did they have the bad luck of being a favorite food for Cajuns, but they were also dumb enough to sit on branches awaiting their fate.

In another ruse, one good ol’ boy would be set up to take a fall on a minor poaching charge, spiriting me away from where the real dirty deeds were going on. One or two ducks over the limit ate up a day of my time, filing papers and heading to court. Twenty-five dollars later, Bubba or Billy or Tommy Lee would be set free to join the others. It was the perfect flimflam.

In order to placate Charlie’s black mood, I spent five nights in a row at Bayou Lafourche, scouring the area for poachers. Hitting a different spot each night after dark, I’d stake out a likely location for poaching and wait for the evening deluge of rain to begin. Dawn found me soaking wet, sore, and waterlogged down to my bones as I trudged through miles of marsh in search of suspects. Steam-cleaned from the heat rising with the sun, I’d rush home each afternoon to catch a few hours’ sleep before heading back out on another late-night marathon.

But my luck appeared to have changed this evening. There was no sign of rain as I headed down Highway 55, my headlights illuminating battered road signs flashing exotic names—Chauvin, Boudreaux, Dulac, and Cocodrie—all in the heart of Cajun country. Pointe Au Chien was on my card for tonight. Twenty miles outside of Houma, the Pointe is flat and nearly devoid of trees. I’d at least be able to watch the geese take flight in the morning.

I’d begun to choose my spots by instinct. The obvious thing to do was head west of the Pointe, where a ricefield lay close by. I was after the poacher who was smart enough to lie low in the cordgrass of the east. Parking my car, I grabbed my flashlight along with my .357 and headed for the water.

The air was filled with the scent of gunpowder. Holding my flashlight to the ground, I searched for any telltale signs of a hunt. But this was my fifth night out with little sleep, and I was tired of kicking around in the dirt. About to give up, I caught the light’s gleam off a mound of spent cartridges that glittered like a pile of fool’s gold. Whoever had been here just a short while ago had had a field day—not that it did me any good now. But at least I knew I was right. This was an area worth staking out.

Feeling absolved by my find, I looked for a spot to rest and wait for more luck at first light. A large muskrat nest sat close by. Long and wide, with tightly woven twigs, it was the closest thing I’d had to a bed in five nights. I curled up on it and played with the idea of asking for a transfer.

Life without Charlie. The phrase had a nice ring. Dealing with the man was becoming more difficult by the day. On top of that, Louisiana had come to seem like a hopeless skirmish with no end in sight. I didn’t mind the fight. But if I was willing to sacrifice my sleep, existing on little but Cokes and candy, I needed to see at least a modicum of progress.

Tracing the routes of dozens of stars above, I was still on a fruitless search for Orion’s belt as the sky grew light and a new moon slowly grew old. A circle of geese hovered overhead, trying to decide whether or not to land. Either way, there was more than a good chance they would end up being blown to smithereens. I tried to shake my morose mood, when something else grabbed my attention.

The muskrat nest beneath me had begun to shake. I knew it wasn’t from muskrats, unless they’d taken to snoring, too. Jumping off as I pulled my gun, I kicked hard at one side of the nest and then the other.

“Quit kicking!”

Curious as to whom I’d been lying on top of all night, I planted myself in the shooter’s position I’d learned at the Academy, my gun held steady in both hands.

“Come out or I’ll shoot.”

“Jesus Christ. Hold your fire!”

A pair of yellow rubber boots appeared, followed by jean-clad legs the size of hamhocks. Next came hips wriggling their way free from a tight squeeze, as a wide waist and round belly clad in red-and-black checks jiggled out. The effect was that of a fully grown adult emerging from a cocoon.

The insect turned out to be none other than Hunky Delroix, a poacher I’d already caught three times for illegally shooting ducks. This was getting to be a bad habit. A big man, Hunky weighed in close to 260 pounds. But even more distinctive was his near-fluorescent, carrot red hair with full beard to match. I was unsure how he had managed to squeeze himself inside the nest in the first place; he was swathed in sweat from the exertion of working his way back out. His shirt clung tightly to him, outlining each roll and bulge of fat on his frame so that he resembled the Michelin man. Panting hard, Hunky sat down on the muskrat nest.

“Jesus Christ, don’t shoot me, Porter.”

“Don’t tempt me, Hunky. This isn’t a very good morning for me. Ever hear of PMS? I think I have it.”

Twigs and reeds stuck out from his hair and clothes, and a stench hung about him that made me wonder if the man ever took a bath, or just soaked in marsh water.

“What were you doing in there?”

“What the hell do you think I was doing? I was hiding from you.”

At least I now knew where all the spent cartridges had come from.

“Why don’t you pull out the rest of your gear. The gun first. Slowly.”

A new twenty-gauge 1148 Remington appeared, attesting to the fact that Hunky had been pulling in money from somewhere lately.

“Leave it on the ground and kick it over to me.” I picked the gun up, not wanting to leave anything to chance. “Let’s see the rest of the goodies.”

I must have arrived at the Pointe just as Hunky had been about to leave. The ducks were all neatly packed in a burlap sack.

“All right, Hunky. Let’s go. I’m taking you in.” Another day, another twenty-five-dollar fine.

Hunky wrapped his arms around his massive frame and stamped his feet in protest, an overgrown child in the midst of a temper tantrum.

“You’re taking the food right out of my babies’ mouths, that’s what you’re doing, Porter. You’re causing my babies to go hungry.”

I knew his babies. Two hulking boys of fifteen and nineteen, who’d already been brought up on numerous poaching charges of their own.

“I have the feeling it’s more like I’m putting a kink in an upcoming party.”

Hunky had plans for his daddy’s seventieth birthday. Custom required not only that all his kin be invited, but that he feed them as well. In this case, that amounted to sixty-four people. They’d just have to eat something other than duck.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake Porter, you know my cousin’s only gonna get me off anyway, so why don’t you give yourself a break and just let me go? I promise I’ll never do it again.”

He grinned as he crossed his heart and spit in the dirt. His cousin was Delbart Lumstock, famous throughout the area for his defense of poachers. While his courtroom skills were mediocre at best, he excelled in backroom politics. In the old boy network, Delbart was on top of the heap keeping the wheels of justice sufficiently greased. Busy poachers had made him a wealthy man. And for those cases too slimy even for Delbart to weasel out of, only the minimum fine was applied. I’d been here long enough to know how the game was played. In fact, I was beginning to learn how to play it myself.

“For me to let you go, I’d need something in return, Hunky.”

A look of relief passed over his face.

“Sure. Whatever you want. How about a couple of ducks?”

“No. A couple of ducks isn’t going to do it. I want you to tell me where I can find Trenton Treddell.”

The color drained from Hunky’s florid complexion. “What you want him for?”

“What do you care, as long as it’s not you I’m after?”

It was easy to guess why Hunky was panicked. Notorious for his explosive temper, Trenton had once caught a man who had tried to turn him in. After Trenton finished with him, the man had never looked the same. It was an example that had not been forgotten.

“Are you going to tell me where to find him, or do you want to spend your morning having me haul you in? It doesn’t matter to me, Hunky. In fact, it’ll get me out of the swamp for the rest of the day.”

Carefully weighing the situation, it was evident Hunky had a lot of hunting left to do.

“If I tell, you can’t say where it came from.”

“He’ll never know, Hunky. I promise.”

Five minutes later, I not only had explicit directions to Trenton’s house, but the time he usually arrived home after a morning of hunting. Picking up the sack of ducks along with Hunky’s shotgun, I headed back to my car.

Hunky watched in stunned silence and then waddled after me. “Hey, wait a minute! Where you going with my stuff?”

“I never said you’d be getting these back, Hunky. Only that I wouldn’t bring you in on charges. The ducks were illegally shot and are being confiscated. As for the gun, I’m sure Delbart will be glad to retrieve it for you. And try not to poach anymore, because the next time I catch you, I’m taking you in just to screw up your day.”

I’d at least be able to keep him from killing anything else for a few hours. As for the ducks, I’d leave them at the first shack filled with kids on my way. While Charlie would have fried my rear end for that, my job was to keep ducks from being shot in the first place. At this point, they might as well feed some hungry kids.

As for my deal with Hunky, I’d never be able to tell Charlie, though I knew he would have done the same thing himself. As with the rest of life, he lived by a double standard: what was fine for him was not okay for me. I intended to change all that.

I was headed for the outskirts of Gibson, a small town just before Morgan City. With a natural swamp close by, it was Trenton’s kind of place. I was hoping this would be my ticket out of hell. I needed something to get me into Charlie’s good graces and out of permanent duck patrol if I was ever going to make it in my new career. I wasn’t asking for much. Just a break. Where Charlie Hickok was concerned, that was crossing the line. But I was willing to take the risk, even if it meant having to deal with the looming specter of Trenton Treddell. He had unknowingly gotten me into this mess. The least he could do was help get me out.

A slight breeze brought the distinct smell of swamp water on the air as the rising humidity cooked the odor of muskrat into my clothes. It was early yet. Too early for Trenton to return. I stopped at a local restaurant as my stomach began to growl. I had forgotten what it was like to have three well-balanced meals a day, subsisting on Hickok’s eye-opener of a candy bar and a quart Mason jar filled with iced Coca-Cola. I sat down for a leisurely breakfast.

Two overly greasy eggs, underdone fatty bacon, and a side of grits later, I was back on the road, vowing to follow Charlie’s example from now on. At least I had a full thermos of coffee. With an erratic schedule that dictated catching a few hours of sleep on the run, I was relying more and more on caffeine these days. Long gone was my devotion to juicers, vitamins, and health food. Even Terri had thrown up his hands in defeat, calling my haphazard lifestyle the “kamikaze beauty technique.”

Following Hunky’s directions, I pulled off the main blacktop and headed down a narrow dirt road, hitting every hole and bump along the way. A lumbering movement off to the right caught my eye, and I slammed on my brakes to see a nutria scurry by. A small alligator basking in the sun slithered into the canal as my VW spewed up dry, dusty plumes of dirt in its wake. Another five minutes of bone-jarring bounces passed and there was still no sign of human life. I felt sure Hunky had swindled me, even now having a good laugh over the con he had pulled.

My faith was restored as I rounded a bend and saw the outline of a dilapidated house looming ahead. In bad need of new paint, the one-level ranch had rows of wooden shingles missing. Tape had been stuck on most of the windows, and a Confederate flag was draped across the front door. Parked out front was a vintage pink Cadillac, with tail fins that easily ran the length of my car. Off to the side stood a small wooden shack, home to chickens pecking for bits of grain, and a pot-bellied pig which buried its face in the earth, its nose blowing up tiny dirt devils of dust. A large wading pool was fenced off to the left, holding a multitude of baby gators. It looked like Trenton was an efficient one-man hit team, exploiting the reptile from both ends of its existence. Busy collecting eggs to hatch on his own, he had a steady pool of skins coming in once the gators were grown. All was quiet, with a heavy air of neglect about the house and grounds.

I knocked at the front door, not expecting an answer. If Trenton were here, he would have made his presence known by now. I tried to peer through the front window, but drapes obscured my view, their dirty cream lining shredded in long, thin strips. Turning around, I followed a trail of parched brown grass back to my car, a thin trickle of sweat running down between my shoulder blades. I resolved to sit there and wait till Trenton returned home.

Then I caught sight of a woman coming around from the back of the house, moving with the force of a bulldozer picking up speed, her sights set on knocking me down. Her piled-up mound of flaming red hair resembled the muskrat nest on which I’d spent my night. Her body was beyond Rubenesque, with a royal blue top stretched tightly over her chest, the deep V-neck accentuating heaving breasts that pushed forward like twin torpedoes. Black stretch pants seemed grafted onto her skin, outlining every muscle, clump of cellulite, and grainy ounce of fat in excruciating detail. Chanel perfume permeated the air, mixing with the noxious odor of stagnant water and rotting waste. Color-coordinated, her coral lipstick matched her manicured nails, long and sharpened to fine deadly points. From Hunky’s description I knew this to be Dolly Treddell, Trenton’s wife.

“What do you want here?” Dolly didn’t carry a gun like Marie. She didn’t need to.