The Drought (36 page)

“Jared. Jared Riley.”

Nathan held out his hand.

The boy came the rest of the way out and the screen slammed behind him. He accepted the proffered hand. Nathan said, “Nice to meet you Jared, Did you sleep well?”

The boy nodded and slipped into a chair. He busied himself scrubbing Agador behind the ears, struggling with what he needed to say. Finally he asked, “Last night. Did you see a girl on the bridge?”

Nathan shook his head. He’d called river patrol on his way back to the house last night and reported a possible jumper. It seemed the only explanation for the boy’s state of mind when he found him. “You called out in your sleep for Suzy. Is that the girl?”

The boy nodded, his chin trembled.

Nathan knew he’d have to tread lightly. The boy had been through an ordeal and if he wanted to get to the truth. He’d have to go at his pace. “I suppose you’re hungry. Why don’t we go inside and make some breakfast?” He stood. Placing his hand on the boy’s shoulder, he said, “Maybe once you’ve been fed we can talk about what happened last night?”

*

After Jared ate his third helping of eggs and polished off the last of the bacon, Nathan cleared the table. While he was doing the dishes, the phone rang. He took the call, listened intently and glanced over at the boy. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

He refilled his coffee mug and sat across from the boy. He said, “That was the station. River patrol didn’t find anything in the river.” He cleared his throat. “There was a report in from Hymel about two runaways, hitching a ride this way. That you?”

Jar nodded. He knew the old man had called them in. He looked at Nathan, trying to appraise what kind of man he was. He didn’t strike him as a dolt, not like old rocking Horace back in Junction. He needed someone to trust. He needed to talk about what happened to Suzy on the bridge before he lost his mind. Fingering the grain of the wood he said, “Listen I don’t think you’re going to believe any of what I’ve got to say but let me get it out, let me tell you everything before you stop me. Can you do that?”

“I think I can do that.”

“Suzy and me, we’re from Junction, Texas. Things over there have been crazy for awhile. We’ve had a drought going on for a little over a year, a few people have died. One of our friends got killed in a drainage pipe.” He paused, trying to figure out how to tell the story best, then decided to start with what he thought was the connecting factor. “It was the heat. Everything started going bad when the drought started.”

Jar told him about Barry and the lost Carlton Fisk ball, how Luke died and how the heat just kept getting worse. He described his mother’s heat migraines and his dreams about the dark man, and how he found a small book by Edna May that told a story about the gypsies coming to town back in 1949 and how the heat seemed to follow them.

He looked up from time to time, trying to catch a look of disbelief on Nathan’s face. It remained neutral throughout the long tale. He’d get up occasionally to pour himself another cup of coffee but he always waved his hand at Jar to keep talking.

When he reached the part of the journey where they were crossing the bridge his voice cracked. He didn’t know how to explain the black mass or what it had done to Suzy. He kept hearing Jean-Claude’s words,
She let death in, the moment she opened the door to you.
He felt responsible for Suzy. Had he told her the truth back in Junction she might not have come with him, she would still be alive.

Nathan watched the boy stumble into silence. He knew better than to pressure him. He could tell he was struggling with what had transpired on the bridge. It wasn’t easy to lose a friend. He had to be feeling a sense of responsibility at his inability to stop her from jumping. The boy’s explanation of the events on the bridge chased away the neutral look he’d managed to maintain.

The change in expression wasn’t lost on Jar. He said, “I know it doesn’t make sense how this thing could materialize. But it did. It was like me bringing him here made him stronger.” He stammered the last sentence, “You think, you think that was the joke he was keeping?”

An odd look crossed Nathan’s face. “Jared there was no one on the bridge last night. No one but you.”

“I told you. He vanished as soon as you came.”

“Men just don’t vanish.”

A wild look appeared in his eyes, “I never said he was a man. I, I, don’t think he’s a man.”

Nathan looked tired, he said, “If it wasn’t a man, what was it? A phantom, a specter?” Remembering the word the boy had screamed in his sleep, he threw it out as another option. “The tonton macoute?”

Jar looked at him blankly as if he’d never heard the term in his entire life.

“You don’t know what it means? Last night when you woke up screaming, you said, ‘Run Suzy, Run. It’s the tonton macoute.’”

He shook his head.

Nathan eyed the boy intently, half convinced he was being conned. “It’s the Haitian word for boogeyman. Common enough around these parts, not so common I imagine in Texas.”

The wild look in Jared’s eye’s transformed into calm conviction. “That’s what he is.”

Nathan couldn’t believe they were having this discussion. He wanted to shake the boy and get him to tell the truth.
A truth that made sense.
It wasn’t that he thought the boy was lying. He knew a lie when he heard it. This boy at least thought he was telling the truth. He told the entire story with conviction, not once wavering
.
What was he supposed to do with this? Put an APB out on the boogeyman?

As much as he wanted to dismiss the boy’s words as nonsense, he knew he couldn’t. He’d said himself he thought the heat was a manifestation of something. Why stop there? What was so impossible to believe about the boogeyman? Deep down the thing bothering him wasn’t the boy’s words at all, it was the memory of the dead man out in the dried out marsh. Even with the passage of time and decay the face was obviously twisted in fear, the jaw locked in one final scream. The acid in his stomach started to churn at the memory of it.

He mentally clicked through his own list. Unfathomable heat, missing animals, a shit load of abandoned cash, a dead guy out in the swamp, a missing girl, and now two runaways, one most likely dead the other telling an impossible story.

He considered what his next words should be. If he handled the situation wrong he knew the boy would just close down and that wouldn’t get them anywhere. He finally asked, “This clay box, this Govi, where is it?”

A grateful look flooded the kid’s face. He left the table, rushing to the back bedroom to retrieve his backpack.

Nathan felt like a jerk. Something had happened to the kid, real or imagined something had happened.

The boy brought the beat-up bag into the kitchen and laid it across the wood table. The bag smelled like the road, its beaten, well-traveled look somehow lent credence to the boy’s story. Very gingerly, Jar reached inside and pulled out the clay box.

He set it carefully in the center of the table.

Nathan sat there for a minute just staring at the plain, clay box. He couldn’t imagine how it could be responsible for the heat or the destruction in two towns. He reached out to touch it. His fingertips barely grazed the top and he felt a jolt—like a current from an electrical outlet zapped him. He pulled his hand back in surprise and stared at the kid.

“No, don’t touch it. It’s—” the boy struggled for a word finally settling on, “cursed.”

Nathan’s hand hovered just above the box. Heat was definitely radiating off the surface. He wanted to dismiss the boy’s words, pick the box up and shake it, open it up and see what it held but he couldn’t bring himself to touch it—under the electrical current he’d felt something dirty, unpleasant. Jared’s eyes looked feverish, glazed over with fear and grief.

Breaking away from the boy’s hot gaze, he lowered his hand back to the table and spoke of his own suspicions for the first time.“I think you’re right about a curse. But I don’t think it’s a gypsy curse, I think it has something to do with Voodoo.”

There, he’d said it. It felt good saying it out loud, even if his audience was a twelve-year-old kid.

Reserve, Louisiana

Nathan watched from his front porch as Daniel Dupier pulled his squad car onto his property. He could count on one hand how many times Daniel had been out to his house in the past two years and wondered if there was news about Angelina.

Daniel stepped out of his car, dressed in full uniform. Even from the porch Nathan could see pit stains from the early morning heat. It felt hotter today. Nathan looked back toward the house with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension on his face. Had it gotten hotter since the boy arrived?

Daniel tipped his hat and offered up the niceties, “Morn’ng Nathan.”

Giving his own nod, Nathan waved his arm toward the chairs on the porch and said, “Why don’t you come up and grab a piece of this shade?”

Daniel walked up onto the porch. He peered into the house as he walked past the front door and took a seat. Once seated, he removed his hat and gently waved it back and forth in front of his face.

Realizing Daniel might need someone to talk to about his missing niece Nathan asked, “How are you holding up?”

Daniel waved off his concern. “I’m all right.” Adding, “River patrol says you had a jumper last night out at Veterans Memorial.”

Nathan paused. Suzy was Jar’s friend and somehow he felt he owed her a bit of respect. He didn’t want the report to read she’d committed suicide. “Can’t say it was a jumper, I just saw her go over.” The small lie was out before he could stop it. Nathan tried to steer the conversation back to Angelina. “You ready to get back out there?”

Daniel leaned his elbows onto his knees and spun his hat between his fingers. “Hell, you and I both know we’re just wasting our time out there.”

Nathan lowered his voice, “Don’t you give up, Daniel. We could still get lucky.”

Nodding half-heartily, Daniel changed the subject. “Hey, you didn’t see two kids out there last night, did you?”

Nathan scrubbed his chin and tried to appear deep in thought. He hadn’t shaved yet and his hand met rough stubble. “No can’t say I saw two kids. Just the girl as I was coming up the bridge. My lights lit up the railing right as she fell.”
Nathan didn’t know why he was lying. Hell, he didn’t know how he was going to explain the boy who was hiding in his house right at that moment.

Daniel nodded as if he accepted Nathan’s story then said, “It’s just that after your call went out over the radio last night about a possible jumper, a man over in Hymel called the station and said he’d picked up two strays at the rest area up on Interstate 10. He said it was a boy and a girl, and they were heading this way to see their sick mamma.” Daniel looked up at Nathan to see his reaction. He added, “Hell of a coincidence if it wasn’t the same kids.”

Nathan played dumb. “So you think one of them is somewhere in town?”

“Could be they both went over. Maybe it was a double suicide.”

Nathan raised an eyebrow, “Hadn’t thought about that possibility.”

Daniel rose from his seat and placed his hat back on his head. “Anyway just came out to give you the news and ask if we should have the river patrol looking for two bodies instead of one.”

Nathan appeared to consider Daniel’s suggestion. “Couldn’t hurt. If they find a body we’ll get your guy from Hymel to come out and identify it.”

Daniel stood to leave. A noise came from inside the house. He nodded toward the screened door and asked, “You got company?”

Nathan considered blaming the noise on Agador but he’d have to test his lie sooner or later, so he said, “No, that’s my nephew.”

Daniel pulled back surprised. “I didn’t know you had any brothers or sisters.”

“I don’t. It’s my ex-wife’s nephew. His folks wanted to send him down for a few days to get him out of the city.”

Daniel walked down the steps shaking his head. “Forgive me, but you don’t seem the kid type. When did he get here?”

“Just this morning, I picked him up from the bus terminal in New Orleans.”

Daniel passed Nathan’s truck on his way back to his squad car. He thumped the hood of the pickup and asked loudly, “When you supposed to get your squad back?”

Nathan shrugged. “I guess two or three more weeks.”

Daniel smiled as he slid into his car. He called out. “Bring your nephew into town. I’m sure we’d all like to meet him.” He backed out of the dirt driveway.