Beware (2 page)

Dusk settled over Bayou Lafourche, and the participants began to arrive. They came in dinghies and skiffs and canoes, silently paddling or poling their way around the bend, landing on the high ground and dragging their vessels ashore.

The man’s black, sweaty face looked grim in the telescopic sight of Matthew Dukane’s rifle. “Smile,” Dukane said. Though his whisper seemed loud, he doubted anyone would hear him. He was sitting astraddle a branch high in the tree. Even in total silence, those below would be unlikely to catch his whisper; in all this din, they didn’t stand a chance.

A Chicago boy, Dukane didn’t know what the hell was causing such a racket. The place sounded like the Brookfield Zoo gone manic. Or the jungles of Vietnam.

He sighted in an old, white crone. A teenaged girl with corn rows. A fat white man who looked like a good ol’ boy. A bony red-haired gal. A strikingly beautiful mulatto woman. A black fellow with the build of a Sumo wrestler.

Quite a congregation, Dukane thought. But then,
Laveda was quite a woman. Hard to imagine anyone so beautiful could be so damned evil.

She hadn’t shown herself yet. That was her style, though. Like most ladies who thought too highly of themselves, she had a fondness for dramatic entrances.

The drums began. Dukane glanced at the three drummers. They were all black men, naked to the waist, squatting at the edge of the clearing with their drums between their legs. They thumped the skins with their open hands.

Dukane looked away, and saw another skiff land. Its lone occupant climbed out. A white girl in cutoffs and a T-shirt. Quite attractive. He found her in the scope. The girl was Alice Donovan, no doubt about it. Though her hair was longer now, she still bore a striking resemblance to the graduation photo given to Dukane by her parents when they hired him.

Even as she walked toward the clearing, she began to sway with the low throb of the drumbeats.

The ceremonial fire was lighted.

The drumbeats quickened, and the dancing began.

Resting the weapon across his lap, he watched. The tempo was picking up, the drummers pounding out a frenzied beat. The dancers twirled and leapt in the firelight. Several were already naked. As he watched, Alice skinned off her T-shirt. She whirled, waving it like a banner while her other hand opened her cutoffs. She didn’t pull the shorts down. She danced as if forgetting them. They hung in place, at first, then slowly slipped lower and lower until they
were halfway down her bare rump. They suddenly dropped. Dukane thought they might hobble the girl and trip her, but she jumped gracefully free. He turned his gaze to the mulatto woman with skin the color of tea. She was glossy with sweat, writhing as she rubbed her breasts.

Plenty of guys, Dukane thought, would pay through the nose for a show like this. He was slightly aroused, himself, but frightened. He’d heard people say fear is an aphrodisiac. Maybe it was, for them. In Dukane’s experience, he’d found fear to be a great shrinker of erections.

Erections. Plenty of them down there. No coupling, though. Not yet. Nobody was even touching—not each other, anyway. They danced alone, jerking to the wild race of the drums, stroking themselves as if no one else existed.

Suddenly, the drums stopped. The dancers dropped to their knees.

A single, low voice said, “Laveda.” Other voices joined it in a slow chant. “Laveda, Laveda, Laveda…”

Dukane flinched as something dropped onto his head. It moved in his hair, scurried down his forehead. He brushed it away. Probably a goddamn spider. The swamp was full of them.

The group kneeling around the fire continued to chant.

Out of the darkness behind the drummers stepped Laveda. Dukane had kept her under surveillance for two weeks in New Orleans hoping she would lead him to Alice—but he’d never seen her like this. He stared.

She wore a sheathed dagger at her side, suspended from a belt of gold chain. She wore a gold band on each upper arm. She wore a necklace of claws. And nothing else.

Her thick, blonde hair hung past her shoulders. Her skin glistened as if rubbed with oil. Dukane couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was sixfootone of the most stunning woman he had ever seen.

The chanting stopped as she walked among her congregation.

“The river flows,” she said.

In unison, the others chanted, “The river is red.”

“The river flows.”

“Flows from the heart.”

“The river flows.”

“All powerful is the river.”

“Its water is the water of life,” she said.

“All powerful is he who drinks at its shore.”

“Who, among us, would be all powerful?”

“I,” answered the chorus.

Dukane spotted Alice. She looked ecstatic.

Laveda drew out her dagger. Standing near the fire, she raised it high and slowly turned in a circle. “Who, among us, would drink at the river?”

“
I.
”

“For he who partakes of the flowing river shall inherit all powers.”

“The power of life, the power of death…”

“…shall vanquish all enemies…”

“The strong and the weak shall perish at his command!”

“…shall do what he will!”

“What thou wilt shall be the law!”

“Who shall drink at the river?”

“
I!
” they roared.

The drums rumbled. The congregation, still kneeling, swayed to the rhythm.

“The river flows!” Laveda yelled, wandering among her people. “It flows and winds. We shall drink from its shores, this night. We shall drink its all powerful waters and take its power into ourselves. The river is endless. Its waters flow forever. Eternal power shall be ours!”

She stopped and placed her open hand on the head of the beautiful young mulatto. The woman rose to her feet.

“We shall drink at the river!”

Dukane winced as Laveda jerked the woman’s head back by the hair and flicked her knife across the throat. She pressed her mouth to the spouting wound.

Two men held the convulsing mulatto from behind, and Laveda stepped back. Her face was smeared with blood. It streamed down her body.

“Drink, all of you, at the river!”

As the drums roared, the whole mob rushed forward. Including Alice. They caught the blood in their mouths and hurried off, smearing their bodies, dancing with sudden fury as if they’d all gone mad. Laveda, herself, leapt and spun like the others, her golden hair flying, flesh shimmering in the firelight, breasts slick with blood. A huge, black man fell to the ground at her feet. She dropped onto him, impaling herself. As she rode him, she took a man into her mouth.

Everywhere Dukane looked, bodies were falling upon each other, mounting and thrusting to the thunder of the drums.

Alice, on her back near the center of the group, was barely visible under the pale body of a middle-aged man.

Slinging the rifle across his back, Dukane climbed down from the tree. He propped his rifle against its trunk. He tried to ignore the lump of fear in his belly as he disrobed.

A piece of cake, he told himself.

Cakes get eaten.

Screw that analogy, he thought, and managed a smile.

When he was naked, he mussed up his hair until it hung over his eyes. Then he slipped his Buck knife from its sheath.

The things I’ll do for money.

Even as he cut into his forearm, though, he knew this wasn’t just for money. Now that he’d located the girl, he could think of several less hazardous ways to snatch her from the cult. But none were this daring, this exciting. None would give him the same thrill.

Gonna get myself killed one of these days.

With a trembling hand, he smeared blood over his cheeks and mouth and chin.

He stabbed his knife into the trunk of the cypress, then made his way toward the clearing. His heart pounded with the thudding drums. His mouth was parched. Licking his lips, he tasted his own blood.

From behind a bush, he studied the fire-lit congregation. No one was standing, no one keeping watch. All were busy writhing in groups of two or more, or crawling off to join new partners.

Six feet from where he stood, two women were entwined, faces buried between widespread thighs. The one on top was a lean, white woman with a strawberry birthmark on her rump. Dukane crawled forward and nipped it. Her buttocks clenched and she yelped with surprise. Twisting her head around, she gazed at him with wild eyes. Dukane leered. He threw himself onto her sweaty back. Together, they rolled off to the side. She squirmed on top of him, moaning as he nibbled the side of her neck and fondled her breasts. The other woman scurried to join in. She pried apart their legs and knelt between them, her mouth going to the girl, her hand groping Dukane.

It squeezed him, massaged him, stroked him. He grew hard, his erection rising and pressing against the groin of the girl on top of him. He felt a tongue.

Then the woman tumbled away, sprawling as a burly black man fell upon her and rammed in.

Dukane threw himself over, rolling onto the girl who’d been on top of him. She clawed at the grass as he wedged her legs apart. Kneeling behind her, he stroked her wet opening. Then he clutched her hips and thrust into her. His quick, hard lunges soon brought her to a quaking orgasm. He withdrew, rigid and aching, concentrating to prevent his own body from finding its release. With a pat on her rump, he crawled away from the girl.

He spotted Alice. She was several yards away, on her back, her heels embedded in the rump of a fat man, pressing him down deeper. As Dukane crawled toward her, a hand darted from behind and gripped his erection. Lowering his head, he looked between his legs.

A chill swept up his spine.

Lying on her back, one hand clutching him, was Laveda. She licked her lips. Her eyes looked dull and glazed.

Maybe she’s too far gone, Dukane thought, to realize I don’t belong.

He started to crawl backward as Laveda pulled him.

There are thirty others here, he told himself. At least thirty. She couldn’t know them all on sight.

Could she?

No. The New Orleans group was only one of a hundred. She had followers all over the country. Several thousand. New members all the time. She couldn’t possibly keep track.

Her face appeared between his legs. Lifting her head, she sucked him into her mouth. He felt her tight lips, her pressing tongue, the edges of her teeth.

If she knows, Dukane thought, she’ll bite. Or ram that dagger…

But she didn’t. Her mouth held him tightly, sucking.

At least she can’t see my face, he thought.

And then he was lost in the growing ache of need. Images flashed through his mind of Laveda writhing in the firelight, her skin glossy, her firm breasts tipped with rigid nipples.

Her hands spread his buttocks. She pushed a finger in, and he burst with release. She sucked hard as he pumped inside the tight wetness of her mouth. After he was done, she continued to tug at him for a few moments.

Then her head lowered. Her eyes were shut. She licked her lips.

Dukane crawled forward. Looking back, he saw her curl onto her side and reach out for the foot of a nearby girl. The girl, astraddle an older man, freed herself from his embraces and scurried toward Laveda.

He looked for Alice, and found her in the same place, still gasping under the fat man. He hurried to them. The fat man was grunting and pumping, his rump shaking like Jell-O.

Dukane pinched his carotid artery, felt him go rigid for a moment, then limp. He rolled the man off Alice, and took his place.

She smiled languidly. Her hands stroked his back. Her heels caressed his rump. She was hot and slick beneath him. She shivered as Dukane gnawed the side of her neck.

He pushed himself to his hands and knees. Alice clung to his neck, at first, when he started to crawl forward. Then her grip loosened. She fell to the ground and he kept crawling. Her hands trailed down his belly as he passed over her. They fondled his penis.

Dukane lowered his head to look at her. “Ride me,” he said.

Alice made a husky laugh. Then she rolled over
and climbed onto Dukane. She straddled him, thighs hugging his hips, breasts against his back, arms wrapping his chest. “Giddyap,” she whispered.

He crawled past several squirming piles of bodies. Once, Alice reached out to squeeze a looming breast and fell from Dukane’s back. She quickly remounted.

Dukane continued forward.

“My turn,” Alice whispered in his ear.

“Huh?”

“You ride me.”

Dukane dropped to his elbows. She slid forward. Dukane climbed onto her back, but kept his feet on the ground for support. With one hand, he gripped her hair. He raised her head and pointed her toward the bushes. With his other hand, he slapped her rump. She whinnied and started to move.

Dukane walked, keeping most of his weight off her back while he guided her away from the group. At the edge of the clearing, she halted. She began to chew the leaves of a nearby bush.

Hunching low, Dukane pressed himself to her back. His right arm reached under her and caressed a breast. His left hand pinched her carotid. She started to collapse. He threw her over and they rolled together under the sheltering bushes.

For a long time, Dukane lay motionless on top of the girl. He watched the crowd.

Apparently, the disappearing act had drawn no attention.

He climbed off Alice. Staying low, he dragged her deeper into the undergrowth. When they were
well away from the clearing, he hoisted her over his shoulder and ran.

Oasis Tribune

Wednesday, July 16

GUARD DOG SLAIN

The dismembered body of Rusty, bartender Red Peterson’s German shepherd, was found yesterday morning inside Hoffman’s Market where the dog had been left, overnight, to guard the store against recurrent vandalism and grocery thefts.

Says proprietor Elsie Hoffman, who found the slain canine, “I’m just sick about it, just sick. We shouldn’t have left that poor dog in here. I just knew he’d come to no good.” In tears, she added, “That dog was the world to Red.”

Red Peterson, owner of the dog and bartender at the Golden Oasis, was unavailable for comment.