Jackpot Blood: A Nick Herald Genealogical Mystery (17 page)

Wooty turned and stalked to the card table. He snatched the watch from his father and drilled it into the trashcan, a hollowed, painted cypress knee which two centuries before had served as a Katogoula ceremonial drum.

“Well, I can’t help it, gotdamnit,” Mr. Tadbull said. “That’s just the way I am. Now, don’t be like that, Wooty. One day you’ll be old and crotchety, like me. Catfish, give him the list of our Baton Rouge boys. Wooty, you go on down the hall to the office and write up these checks for us. That temper of yours needs something to do. Use the sawmill’s checkbook. Memo ’em . . . what do you think, Catfish?”

Girn leaned back in his chair and studied the blue smoke rising from his cigar. “‘Fertilizer.’”

Mr. Tadbull laughed heartily. “‘Fertilizer’!
Got
damn, that’s good, Rufus. Yessir, I like the sound of that! Do it like he says, Wooty. When you’re finished, come on back and have a few drinks with us. We got big old steaks to grill for supper, son.”

Wooty left the room quickly, without a word.

“‘Fertilizer’!” Mr. Tadbull said, still chuckling as he rooted around in the trashcan for his watch. “Your boys down there at the Capitol sure done prepared the ground for us, they sure have.”

“When you got the best bullshit in the South,” Girn said, “you ought to spread some around on your friends’ fields.”

“That’s the
got
damn truth!”

CHAPTER 12

L
IVE BAIT—HOT FOOD—ROLAIDS.
A few minutes after seven
P
.
M
., Nick read that appetizing invitation spelled out in black letters on a lighted signboard, and knew he’d finally found Three Sisters Pantry. There was no oncoming traffic, and he suspected there seldom was out here in the boonies of the piney woods of central Louisiana. He downshifted and steered from the gently rolling, two-lane parish road into the crowded gravel-and-dirt parking lot of the general store.

His old MG scraped the rutted ground as it clattered past the sign.

Nick had to grin. Either Luevenia and Royce Silsby, the couple who ran the store, had a good sense of country humor, or else they needed serious tutoring in the mysteries of marketing. He felt sure the former was the case.

He’d driven for five hours from New Orleans, with two bathroom and coffee stops; for the last hour, he’d cursed his way back and forth on wrong roads that led him on an unwanted scenic tour of the pine wilderness of Tchekalaya State Forest.

The green, gold, and blue of the forest afternoon had given way to an otherworldly orange dusk. Now the pine woods hugging the back and sides of the store looked to Nick like a giant Irish setter towering
over the building, the gas pumps, the dumpsters, and the venerable but well-kept mobile home in the rear.

Most of the parked vehicles were old pickups with a pair of rubber hip waders stuck soles-up between cab and bed; gun racks hanging inside back windows held shotguns, rifles, and fishing rods. In the rural parishes of Louisiana, when fall deer, duck, and squirrel seasons open, towns empty as men and their sons head for the woods; the Katogoula weren’t any different, Nick reflected, except that their passion for the outdoors was much older than hunting licenses and bag limits.

He pulled into a narrow space between a rattletrap International pickup and an old Volkswagen van. The van was plastered with decals and stickers of almost every liberal advocacy group he’d ever heard of, and some he hadn’t. Definitely an outsider. The locals’ trucks displayed stickers declaring “Rush—Right On,” “Don’t Blame Me—I Voted for O’Reilly,” variations on the theme of “pry my cold, dead fingers from the trigger,” or even stronger sentiments from beyond the fringe of normal conservatism. The Rebel flag was also popular as an emblem of the local complex of attitudes.

As a general rule, Nick had no interest in airing his own Machiavellian brand of moderately liberal beliefs to proselytize or antagonize those on the opposite end of the spectrum—especially when they were clients. He wasn’t a picketer, a marcher, or even a complaint-letter writer. What was the point? Anyone with an opinion strong enough to be objectionable to someone else has no interest in changing teams. And besides, out here in the sticks, they probably settled ideological conflicts with those ubiquitous guns. The wisdom of taking a bullet for a bumper sticker escaped him.

He killed the engine, and in the process, a fading signal of National Public Radio.

As he stepped from his car, the hypnotic, strangely plaintive and foreboding whine of cicadas enveloped him. The fat bugs had slept silently for years in the ground, and now, having shed their old skin, they clumsily crawled and flew around looking for mates of the same cycle, uncomprehending actors in an ancient script penned on their chromosomes.

Nick walked across the parking lot toward the store, scaring up puffs of red dirt. His briefcase seemed heavier; it must be, he supposed, the weight of the responsibility of exhuming and releasing long- slumbering family histories among the present generation. What would the living tribe hear in the songs of their ancestors?

In front of the store sat three sparkling rent cars and a van, parked in spaces that obviously had been saved for them; their flashy newness seemed to make the sturdy frame building, constructed of weathered, unpainted cypress, look like a cut-out from a Depression-era photograph. Nick wondered if a similar clash of cultures was occurring inside.

The raised porch stretched across the front of the store below a slanting, tin-roofed overhang propped up by thick posts. Nick walked up steps of well-worn planks onto the porch, where a bare bulb overhead and a large neon Lotto sign above the entrance provided weak light. A cardboard sign stuck in the frame of the screen door informed the visitor: TRIBEL MEETING TONITE. INVITED GESTS COME ON BACK. CUSTOMERS JUST HOLLER.

The screen door squealed like an animal in agony as Nick opened it and entered the store. A customer wouldn’t need to holler after being announced by
that
rural doorbell.

He found himself standing in a rectangular open area, fifteen by ten feet; four long shelving units, filled on both sides with merchandise, started where the open area ended. A walkway between the two central units led to the rear of the store, where, as he judged from the indistinct
sound of people mingling, the meeting had yet to begin. More bare incandescent bulbs with dented metal reflectors hung from rough-hewn rafters. Nick looked behind him and saw six stools under the large windows flanking the front door. One for each of the six core families—a physical manifestation of the tribe’s genealogy?

A nice place to spend the day drinking coffee and talking about nothing very important, Nick decided. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly why, but the pleasant clutter of the store had a soothing, private aura, even though it was a public place. Like a house of worship, this place seemed to emanate unshakable solidarity and faith. The comforting smell of home cooking wafted through the air. Nick thought of the family kitchens of his childhood, where many troubles had been weathered and a few triumphs celebrated; and he had a fleeting vision of something even older: a cave, a procession of generations, innumerable fingers reaching for warmth from a flickering fire, for sustenance from offering hands.

The construction of the old store confirmed to Nick that trees and the lumber industry had been the mainstay of this community for a long time. Hunting and fishing, too: almost every inch of wall space not dedicated to commerce sprouted stuffed specimens of the local wildlife, once dangerous or benign.

To his left Nick saw the cash-register counter festooned with hundreds of small useful, tasty, or frivolous things for sale, as if it were a nineteenth-century peddler’s wagon. Down the wall on that side was a set of venerable coolers that certainly contained lots of banned refrigerant. The wall on the other side of the store was a jumble of long-handled implements, stacked bags of feed and seed, columns of tires, ladders, and other supplies for people who fixed and built things for themselves. Nick had no clue what much of this stuff was.

“Used to be the company store over at Tadbull Lumber Mill,” a female voice said. “The present Mr. Tadbull’s father donated it to us
back in the sixties. We moved it out here. They don’t build them like this anymore.”

He hadn’t heard her approach. “You must be Luevenia Silsby.”

“Yes.”

“I’m—”

“I know who
you
are, too.” She looked him up and down for a moment—an awkward moment, for Nick. Her steel-framed glasses sparkled over dark brown eyes. Nick had a vague recollection of a childhood dentist who’d worn similar specs. “The genealogist,” she said at last, unenthusiastically. He had an irrational, unsettling idea that she’d been watching him for some time.

Nick offered his hand; she hesitated, and then quickly clasped and released his fingers, as if he had some disease she was worried about catching.

He tried to maintain a semblance of politeness: “Tommy was right on the money with his description of you. He also said you’ve held the tribe together for years.”

“That boy’s been talking a lot of foolishness again,” she said. Her apparent modesty was mixed with a certain condescending air that grated on Nick. Or was there downright hostility in her cool reception? What could Luevenia Silsby have against him, or his trade? he wondered. Maybe when he got to know her better, she would warm up to him, and he to her. According to Tommy, she was an extraordinary woman, strong-willed, smart, and fair, whose opinions held great sway with the other tribe members.

He imagined she seldom got taken in by sharpsters. Luevenia Silsby could surely cut off the glibbest of salesmen in mid pitch. Yet she seemed uncomfortable without the insulating barrier of her cash-register counter. Her hands drew Nick’s attention. They were lovely, not the hard-working hands of a storekeeper in her fifties; they seemed
to radiate health and fastidious cleanliness and undying youthfulness. She held them crossed at her trim stomach, rare jewels on display. A surgeon’s or a priest’s hands, Nick was thinking. The brief touch of her fingers had felt like a benediction.

“I didn’t know you had any sisters,” he said affably. “Not a very good refection on my abilities as a genealogist.”

She looked briefly puzzled, and then smiled, revealing a faint glint of gold fillings. He got the distinct feeling she was laughing
at
him, not
with
him.

“You mean the name of this place, don’t you?”

Nick nodded.

“
We
all know what it stands for. Just never occurred to me that . . . oh, I’m not making fun of you. It’s just that nobody’s ever asked that, and lots of folks been asking plenty around here, lately. All of a sudden, everybody wants to poke their nose into our business.”

She drew up her shoulders, subtly growing a bit in height, as if ready to let some transgressor have an earful; but with a sniff she relaxed. Her sudden peevishness was gone.

“The three sisters are corn, beans, and squash—the crop staples of the Indians in the Southeast. That’s what we call them.”

“Oh, I see,” Nick said, feeling suddenly ignorant of the American Indian tradition, in spite of his recent concentrated study of the subject.

He’d noticed Luevenia’s pride in relating facts of tribal history; she must have taught Tommy’s generation a great deal about the Katogoula heritage. It was people like her, with their unwritten stock of remembrances, who could transform the story told by colorless genealogical charts into a human mosaic of inimitable and timeless beauty. She would probably be a good choice as the new tribe’s historian and genealogical director. He’d have to mention his idea to Tommy.

Nick recognized a kindred spirit, a teacher at heart, who would never refuse to share her cup of learning. He was beginning to like Luevenia Silsby, in spite of her prickly personality. He would enjoy the challenge of working with her.

“I guess you better come on back, then.” She made a half-turn and added, “You can have some coffee and persimmon bread. A Katogoula favorite. My girls make it real good . . . no, I don’t have any daughters, either. I’m talking about my
cooks
. Or maybe you’d like some supper?”

Her instincts as a hostess cut through whatever had bothered her about Nick’s arrival.

He told her he’d already eaten, but the coffee and persimmon bread—whatever it was—sounded good.

“Tommy’ll be glad you’re here,” she said. “These business folks, he’s not used to dealing with them. And he’s got too much on his mind, what with his brother’s death and all.” She shook her head. “Find you a seat and I’ll bring your coffee and bread. You’ll need
something
to keep you awake with these Las Vegas screwballs and their cockamamie ideas. They don’t know diddly-squat about us. Even less than you do.”

Ignoring the casual insult, he followed the bespectacled little woman, who wore jeans and a cowboy shirt, and moccasins, which helped explain how she’d surprised him a few minutes earlier. Nick could see from her stiffness that she had some arthritis. A question jumped into his consciousness: could a person with that handicap have sent an atlatl spear flying at deadly velocity into a man’s body?

Now was not the time to ask her what she knew about Carl Shawe’s murder, even though his intuition was telling him that finding the killer was vital to the tribe’s continued existence. From the moment he stepped from his car, he’d felt the presence of a murderous tragedian thousands
of years old, standing just behind the gauzy curtain of reality, rehearsing for the next violent act of the present. Nothing was unconnected here.

Hawty would not be happy at the macabre direction of his thoughts. She always accused him of seeing murder in everyone’s heart. But he had discovered that he was right: murder is coded in our souls, waiting for just the right catalyst that will motivate the machinery of self-justification. And this inherited potential for homicide that we all share fascinated him as much as the nonviolent, merely documentary aspects of genealogy.