Fever Moon (8 page)

When he was at his car he turned back to Marguerite, who’d stood and walked to the door. “There was never any particular convict linked with Adele?”

“If there was, Henri never told me.” She let the screen door bang behind her as she entered the house.

Raymond drove the hundred yards to the stables. The men were in the field, and he hoped the foreman was, too. When he entered, the stench nearly made him gag. He crossed to the small office and walked straight to the desk. He felt no hesitation as he began to go through the papers until he found what he sought.

The prisoner inventory list from the previous year showed one Armand Dugas arriving at the Bastion farm in February of 1941. Dugas was serving a life sentence for murder. No additional information was given. Raymond scanned the other papers. There was no mention of Dugas being returned to Angola. Either he was still in the field, or he was dead.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doin’?”

Raymond looked up to find a tall man, freckles burned to a burnished copper across his face, red hair thinning and arms as big as hams.

“I’m checking your prisoner inventory.”

“Just because you’re wearing that tin on your chest doesn’t give you the right to come in here and poke around.”

“No, but Mrs. Bastion gave me that right.” He smiled. “She also told me to check the condition of the convicts. She’s wondering if their food ration is adequate.”

“She doesn’t give a fuck about the food.”

“You must be Veedal Lawrence.” Raymond held the papers in his left hand, his right easing ever so slowly to the gun at his side. Veedal didn’t look like a man who’d been refused by the army because of physical defects, yet Raymond knew he’d never served a day.

“It ain’t no concern of yours if I’m Peter Piper. Now give me that list and get out of my office.” Veedal made a grab for the pages.

Raymond stepped back. He took Veedal’s measure. He saw the foreman’s pale eyes, the way his jaw set and locked, loutish and eager for a fight. “Try that again, and I’ll have to shoot you.”

“Put that gun and badge on the desk and fight me like a man.”

Raymond smiled. “I’d rather blast your dick in the dirt and watch the show while you try to figure how to put it back in place.” His fingers closed on the grip of his gun. “Now I want to see Armand Dugas.”

Veedal grinned. “I’d like to see him, too. Bastard pulled a runner last fall. Either he made it out of the swamp alive or a gator got him. Couldn’t rightly say which.”

“You’re telling me that Dugas, half starved and in leg shackles, got away?”

“Strange, ain’t it? Almost like some kind of magic. I come down that mornin’ and his leg irons was lying open on the ground. He was gone and no amount of whippin’ could get the others to say what happened.”

“He just up and disappeared?” Raymond forced his grip on the gun to relax, fighting his impulse to pull the weapon and slam it hard into Veedal’s face, repeatedly.

“Mr. Henri was right upset. Dugas was a good worker, for all of his oddities. The state sent two to replace him, though, so it worked out. Mr. Henri was satisfied.”

Raymond had no doubt Armand Dugas’s body, or what was left of it, was somewhere in the swamp. Most likely Veedal had beaten him or worked him to death and then dumped the remains for the hogs to eat or the swamp to swallow.

“How many other prisoners have you lost, Veedal?”

The man grinned. “Dugas was the only escapee. We’ve had eight in the last year die from the fever.”

The fever. Another convenient cause of death. “I’m sure you had Doc Fletcher out here to verify the cause of death.” He saw the negative answer in Veedal’s heated eyes. “You’d best see to it that the men’s food ration is increased. Considerably. I’ll be back by to check, and if they don’t look a little less like walking skeletons, you and I are going to have another talk, and you aren’t going to like the gist of what I have to say.”

Veedal snapped a salute. “Yes, sir, boss. I’mma gonna do jus’ what you say.”

Raymond dropped the papers he held to the floor. He walked past Veedal Lawrence. He’d intended to interview the convicts, but the men wouldn’t talk to him with Veedal around. He’d come back in a day or two. Check on the foreman’s progress.

T
HE sun hung above the treetops when Chula turned down the road to Louiselle Dumont’s home. The post office was closed for the day, but there were older residents, or those who lived alone or without transportation, whose mail Chula delivered whenever she could.

She felt the familiar burn of tired muscles between her shoulder blades as she wrestled the car through a patch of wet sand. It would be good to get home to a hot bath, to the supper her mother would have planned for her. There were days she thought she missed the life of wife and mother, but mostly she was glad to remain a daughter. Once she left her mother’s home, no one would coddle her. In Iberia Parish, and the rest of the country, the yoke of domesticity rested firmly on the woman’s shoulders.

Smoke rose from Madame Louiselle’s chimney and Chula felt a pulse of excitement. Madame had begun to teach her the ways of the
traiteur
, the healer, and each encounter with the older woman brought something new into her life. Chula had discovered an innate ability to sense illness. Part of it was her willingness to listen, to truly hear what lay beyond words. She’d come to believe, though, that another part was a gift. Madame had convinced her of that and was helping her learn to accept and hone her talent.

She picked up the letter from California off the car seat and hurried up the steps of the cabin. She was about to knock on the door when it opened. Madame put a finger to her lips and drew Chula inside.

The room was too hot, stifling for such a lovely October afternoon. She was about to protest the heat when she saw the form of a young woman on the sofa, the firelight flickering over her sleeping features. At first she didn’t recognize Adele, but when she did, she raised her eyebrows. She’d heard the talk that Adele had been spirited away from the jail—that Raymond was protecting her, for some unknown reason. Chula knew why. For all that Raymond had lost of himself, he was still a man who defended the helpless.

For a time, just out of high school, Chula had believed she loved Raymond. Believed it enough to yield to the hot passion that jumped between them. She felt a smile touch her lips. Those were good memories to cling to when seasons passed and no man sparked her interest. The thing between her and Raymond, though, had been, ultimately, a joining of two minds that could not abide injustice. When the passion had burned away, a bond of friendship as strong as love had remained. At least until the war, when Raymond returned a shell of the man she’d known.

“Chula?”

For a moment Chula had forgotten where she was, or who lay before her in a sweating coma. “Madame, what is this?”

“It’s an unusual case, Chula. Like none I’ve seen.”

Chula stepped closer to the sick woman. “Will she live?”

“I haven’t been able to break the fever, but it’s reduced. I lit a fire to ward off the chills.” Madame’s voice was in a low register, barely a ripple of noise.

“Fever?” Images of the most recent epidemic came to mind. Delivering the mail, Chula had seen funeral after funeral, coffins nailed shut by doctor’s orders against the spread of illness. Some said it came from mosquitoes, others said it was a sickness in the swamp water, and others believed it was bad humors from an evil spirit. Chula and her mother had escaped illness, but many lives had been lost.

“It isn’t the yellow jack.” Madame’s dark eyes held Chula’s, telling her not to be afraid. “This is something else. Want to examine her?”

Chula nodded. She did want a closer look. She stepped over to the sleeping woman and took in the paleness of her skin, the purple rings beneath her eyes, the way her hands and feet twitched like a sleeping dog.

She touched Adele’s forehead and felt the dry, hot fire that burned within her.

“She had a seizure this morning and bled from the nose. She lost a lot of blood before I could stop it with cold compresses.” Madame stood beside Chula.

“Has she regained consciousness?”

Madame shook her head. “I thought she might, but she slips back into her sleep. She doesn’t want to leave her dreams and return to this world.”

Chula touched one of Adele’s jerking hands and held it firmly. She felt the tremors that pulsed through Adele’s flesh as an electric current might. Chula inhaled sharply and looked at Madame, who only nodded.

Chula’s hands moved up Adele’s arms, touching, pressing, sensing. As her hands explored, she tried to clear her mind to register the sensations she felt. Adele’s muscles were strung taut, defying the appearance that she slept. There was an inner tension in Adele’s body that Chula had never experienced.

“She fights herself,” she said, not intending to speak aloud.

“What else?”

Chula let her hands wander to Adele’s chest. The drum of her heart reminded Chula of a trapped bird, wings beating in the effort to escape. Panic, fear, the consuming need to be free. “She’s afraid. If she continues, the fear will kill her. Her heart will burst.”

“Which is why she bled from the nose. The pressure of her beating heart.”

Chula stepped back. “The fever has no physical cause, does it?”

Madame took her arm and led her into the kitchen. She closed the door and went to the open window for a breath of cool air. “I’ll make some tea.”

Chula took a seat at the table while Madame put a kettle on and prepared the teapot. The room was painted aquamarine, a color that Madame said soothed her mind when she was troubled. Chula loved the color and the bright glass jars of preserved tomatoes, beans, potatoes, jams, and fruits that lined the shelves. Often Madame took payment for her services in meat or vegetables. She canned what she couldn’t eat, supplies that would last her during the winter or a long flood.

Herbs and different marsh grasses hung in the windows, drying. Madame’s gift of healing was her use of the native plants to concoct medicines. Those who couldn’t afford, or didn’t trust, Doc Fletcher came to her.

“Have you given Adele anything?”

“She holds nothing down.”

“Not even water?”

Madame shook her head as she placed tea in a pot. “She acts as if she can’t swallow, but I’ve checked her mouth and throat. There’s nothing wrong. She drools constantly.”

Hydrophobia. Chula thought about the infection spread by the bite of a rabid animal. “Could it be rabies?”

“I thought it might, but no.”

She had a terrible thought, one that would devastate a parish already overwhelmed with disaster. “Polio?”

“No, not that.” Madame poured the hot water over the tea. “It’s a fever in the brain. It comes and goes. Raymond said she was sensible this morning.”

Chula accepted the cup of tea Madame handed her. “Could it be that someone is giving her something to cause the fever?”

Madame’s smile was proud. “That thought has crossed my mind.”

Chula frowned. “Or is it possible Adele seeks the fever because of something she’s done? Maybe the illness is mental.”

Madame took a seat opposite Chula. “You are gifted, Chula Baker. You tease out the seed that others can’t find. With time you’ll ferret out the truth.”

“Adele doesn’t have much time.” She spoke with certainty. There had been the finger of death on Adele’s face. “If that fever doesn’t break, she’ll die before anyone can help her.”

“Do you believe she has the right to choose death?” Madame’s ringless hand touched Chula’s arm.

“Father Finley says that we must live according to God’s plan for us. That it’s a mortal sin to commit suicide.” She spoke slowly, remembering Rosa. “I’m not so sure. There are other questions. These men who go off to war know they’ll die. Isn’t that suicide, too? To rush a hill into gunfire?” She shook her head. “They’re called heroes and given medals. Poor Rosa Hebert was called a sinner and excommunicated.”

Madame’s chuckle was soft. “The laws of the church, which are man’s laws, are often woven to a purpose,
cher
. Not God’s purpose, but man’s. The question I asked you is one only you can answer. It must come from your heart, not your mind. Law and logic are of no use.”

“If I put myself in Rosa’s place, I understand. I saw her hands, the awful wound that opened every Friday. I can imagine that all week long she dreaded Friday, when her flesh would rupture in those painful wounds.”

“Imagination is an important part of healing. To feel another’s illness is to understand it.” She patted Chula’s arm. “It’s also a danger. To feel too much—the illness will trick you.”

Chula sipped her tea. Madame was never straightforward with her lessons. This was one, turned upside down, for her to figure out. “Did you ever see Rosa’s hands?”

“I did. She came here, wanting me to make it stop.”

That surprised Chula. “Father Finley wanted her to be verified as authentic. I think he saw certain sainthood for her. And lots of glory for the parish.”

“You’ve read the life of the saints. Is this something you’d willingly seek?”

Chula laughed. “Stoning, persecution, burning at the stake, no, I wouldn’t choose that, but I’d never have thought of it that way.” She sobered before she spoke again. “Could you help Rosa?”

“There was no physical reason for the wounds to open in her hands.”

“Was there a mental reason?”

Madame stood. “Isn’t that the same question we just asked of Adele?”

Chula rose, too. She drew the letter from her pocket. “I almost forgot.”

Madame took the envelope and looked at it. “My sister writes me every month. She says there are no bugs or snakes in California. The sun shines every day. The air is dry and like a kiss.” She put the letter on the table. “I would die there.” She shook out her apron. “Come back tomorrow if you can. I’m going to steep some tincture tonight. I may need help getting it down Adele.”

“Certainly.” Chula hugged the older woman. “Will you be okay tonight?”

“The full moon has passed. At least for this month.”