With One Look (23 page)

She could not see

"They were murdered! Your mother is dead! Dead! You saw it, you saw it!" "Nooo! No! I don't see! I don't see! I don't—"

The small black boots on the stairs, the bouncing plaits on her gold frock, the long hall. The door. A hand touched the latch. The door opening. A blinding white light burst

in her mind as she grabbed her head against the pain.

*****

A hot Louisiana sun beat down on the small wood shack, beat through the shade of tall cypress and oak trees, beat into the very roots of the marshy land. A slight murmur of a breeze blew from the Gulf, but the air was still intense, muggy, unbearable at the afternoon hour. Dogs draped themselves around the yard like moss on the trees, each beast still and sleeping, waiting for a cool evening that always came.

Hotter than a two-dollar pistol on Saturday night....

With the morning chores finished, old man Tom leaned back in the porch chair, watching the heat shimmer in waves all around him. With thumbs tucked under his suspenders, he drifted in and out of a light sleep. Like his dogs, he waited for the heat to recede, for that pleasant hour when day meets night and the fellows gathered on his porch, to shoot the breeze over whiskey and tobacco.

Two or three dogs growled, then barked, and old man Tom looked up to see a tall white man, an uptown buckaroo, riding a fine black steed. Tom whistled twice. Nine dogs came to a quick attention at his feet. The man stopped outside the yard to study the small shack, Tom's dogs, and finally Tom.

Tom's bright eyes scrutinized the man. "What can I do for you?" "I was told you're the man to see about a dog."

Tom smiled, sizing up the visitor as he swung off his horse. "Well, now, you'se told right. I got me plenty of dogs, all kinds. I got large and small, trained dogs, huntin' dogs and pups. I got two bitches out back, just thrown litters. What you be lookin' for?"

"I know exactly what I want. I want the largest, smartest, and toughest dog you have. The best. A puppy, though; it has to be a puppy."

Tom twisted a straw around in his mouth and grinned, taking in the man's long, muscled frame, the buckskin breeches, the two ivory-handled pistols hanging from a black leather shoulder harness and the knife hanging from his belt.

"Know much about dogs, mister?" Tom asked, grinning still.

"Naw, not much," Victor admitted easily with a shrug, bending down to pet one of the dogs. "I only had one dog as a boy." During the happy days when his mother was still with them. "I guess I've traveled too much."

"Uh huh." Tom smiled, twirling the long straw. "And what kind of dog was it?" "Oh"—Victor laughed—"just some dog I came by. Not much, I suppose." Not much to

anyone but himself. He had loved that dog for seven long years, his constant companion. "But this time," he said, returning to the old man, "I need the best dog you have."

"The best," the old man drawled. The trouble would be in keeping a straight face. "Uh huh.

Well, I do believe I got just the one."

He led Victor around the back, where he kept dogs in shaded pens. Victor examined both litters: the first litter seemed to be shepherd-type dogs, while the second seemed of a short-haired hunting breed. Thinking of Hamlet, he took a second look at the shepherd puppies when the old man motioned to come look at a puppy in a small pen, separated from the others.

The puppy had been brought to Tom by a Cajun fisherman, who in turn had taken it from a riverboat man. The riverboat man claimed to have found it abandoned in a forest up north. The pup's mother knew the puny thing was not worth keeping alive. Both Tom's nursing dogs rejected the pup outright, but since he never could bring himself to kill animals, especially dogs, he was forced to care for it himself. It was not even weaned yet, and Tom, with years of experience, knew a belly-up dog when he saw one.

Tom held the small bundle of blond fur up for Victor's scrutiny. "This here be your dog." "This thing?" Victor questioned.

"Yes sir, this is an honest-to-God golden mastiff." "A golden mastiff?"

"The finest dog you can get."

"Geez," Victor said uncertainly. "It doesn't look like much." "You ever seen one of these here dogs full grown?"

"No, I can't say I have."

"This be one of de largest, strongest dogs in the world," he said with authority. "They been known to pull sleds up north carryin' mayhaps five hundred pounds and"—he paused for effect

—"the golden mastiff is the only dog able to take out bears." "This little guy?" Victor pointed.

"Little now, but with some milk and some care this little thing will grow at least this high." He indicated an impressive height, and added, "Hey, they ain't nicknamed 'golden giant' for nothin'."

A lift of Victor's brow indicated he was impressed as he took the small bundle in his arms. The puppy looked at him, yawned and fell back asleep. Victor smiled. "Well, is he also loyal? He's got to be very loyal."

"Mister, all dogs is loyal by nature. A body don't have to beat it into him like you do with folks. Obedience be their nature."

"I suppose you're right," Victor replied, gently stroking the soft fur. "And this golden mastiff is a smart breed?"

"Smart?" Tom questioned, slapping his thigh with a chuckle. "Man, I tell you, the golden mastiff be the sharpest and quickest kind of dog. Why, all a body's got to do is rustle a little in a chair and this here dog is at your side, waitin' for you to get up. These here dogs pay attention to their masters."

"That does it, you just sold me. He sounds perfect for her." "Her?"

"Yes," he said, his voice softening. "I'm getting him for a very special lady who's blind. To help her, you know. To watch out for her." He thought of the man coming into his bedroom and poised to kill her, and his muscles tensed involuntarily. If a dog did no more than warn her and the household of an intruder, it would be a blessing.

He gently petted the little puppy. "She's going to love this little fellow."

"Blind ... ah, maybe this ain't the dog for you after all. These here shepherds—" "Oh no, I'm convinced. This little guy is just the thing. How much do you want?"

"How much?" Tom repeated stupidly. "Ah, no charge mister," he shook his head. "No charge for a blind lady."

While Victor appreciated such sentiments, he insisted on paying something. After mounting his horse, he tossed the old man a gold piece. Tom looked at the shiny gold coin, and

while it was more than he normally got in three long months, he'd like to see it turn to cold, stone lead. "If'in' anything goes wrong, you come back now to pick of any dog you want."

What a kind-hearted old man, Victor thought.

He turned his mount toward Shady Manor, returning from the stay in New Orleans, a necessary trip to handle his business in the city. He also needed time away from Jade.

They would soon be digging up the Devon graves. His agents were still investigating Jade's father's business affairs. They had not a clue, past that it was someone who had had a connection with her parents, someone who practiced voodoo. In desperation he had appealed to Marie for help, laying the whole thing at her feet.

He had concealed his own alarm upon witnessing her fear. "The amulet is gris-gris," she said, alarmed, but trying not to show how much. "The curse of death... Not an easy death. Death through terror."

Marie had promised to help him trace down the citizens who practiced the voodoo arts, a shockingly huge number that seemed to include the whole of the colored and Negro population of New Orleans. Yet Marie had assured him only a very small number would know the gris-gris magic. Marie had not wanted to help in this way, as she found the whole "voodoo religion" extremely distasteful, that to "trespass into darkness was to be drawn into its abyss."

Yet for Jade Terese she would.

"Jade Terese," he sighed out loud, "You are irreversibly entangled in my life."

Turning his mount from the road, Victor stopped by a small stream to give his horse a drink. He dismounted and set the sleeping puppy on the moist bank before splashing the cool water on his face. Then, leaning against a tree trunk, he stared unseeing at an afternoon sun slanting over the running brook.

It was not bad during the day. Work consumed both thought and energy as they now had three years worth of orders, and the orders kept coming in. Expanding the ship building company was not only worthwhile but necessary. He had begun to recruit labor from as far away as Hannibal, and this part of his dream was as rewarding as anything he had previously imagined.

The nights were difficult, to say the least. Unaware of any danger, Jade's enthusiasm for life, her charm, laughter and even her beauty seemed to blossom under the country sun. She constantly surprised him. Who would have suspected that hidden within her damnable femininity was a young lady capable of holding her weight in any argument or discussion on politics, religion,

philosophy? He had never enjoyed a woman's intellect as much as he enjoyed Jade's; his firm rationalism waged a continuous war with her exaggerated, at times unbelievable, idealism.

Last week he had returned to his study early. He overheard her in the adjoining drawing room, one voice among others. Curious, he had opened the door. The room was filled with his house servants, including Tessie and, even, Chachie. Each pair of dark hands held a bible. Jade quoted passages as they followed along.

Mercedes, Tessie, indeed all of them, looked at him with guilt and fear. At first he didn't understand it until his eyes found the chalkboard. It rested on a mahogany table, leaning against a prized picture of a ship on the open seas. He later learned Carl had paid for that board himself.

Written on the chalkboard were beginners' words: man, woman, cat, dog, etc. It seemed half the lesson was spent going over the spelling of these beginning reading words, the other half spent reading from the Bible.

She was teaching his servants to read.

And damn if Carl wasn't, suggesting none to politely, that he ought to build a proper school house somewhere to accommodate the number of free people living in the country and their children. Carl wanted a school ready as soon as Jade Terese could be returned to society.

There were many other ways Jade had found a place in his household; and everyone's growing fondness for her both amused and alarmed him.

By far, the worst of it was resisting the temptation of that lovely body of hers—and that was at all times sheer agony. He had only to think of the sweet mercy her slender figure offered his flesh ...

The sound of her name had the power to heat his desire. And he was forced to see Jade in all manners that a man sees his wife: They shared the same roof, table and friends and she slept in the adjoining bedroom. He felt her presence at all times; there were numerous near disasters— encountering her while she dressed, or worse, undressed, in a bath. The other women he carefully kept in his life, hardly helped or even distracted...

He understood there would come a day when he had to let her go and somehow, the idea presented itself with the thought of another man in her life. That idea brought him such a swift surge of emotion, it made him grasp what was happening to him. While he was still unable to get past the reality of her blindness, the alternatives were felt on a deeper level, a level that manifests in a powerful possessiveness. A physical thing, as if she belonged to him and to him alone.

He had to get past this. He did not want her love.

He shook his head with a soft curse. The puppy looked up at him and cocked his head, as if curious about the sound. Deciding he liked it, the dog came bounding back to Victor. Gentle hands came over him.

It had only been a month, one lousy month. Just how did he expect to last until the danger was mute, until he could return her to the convent and her former life.

"Marie, help me now ..."

A thin, brown hand wrapped around a white one and Jade asked, "Can you see it now, Tessie?"

"Uh huh, I'se see it." "Describe it to me again."

Tessie obligingly began a description of the country estate as they returned from a long walk. "The house be the prettiest and grandest manor a soul's ever laid eyes to. It be shaped like the letter L. Tall cypress trees shade the round circle in front. The drive is made of rocks that sparkle like gems in the sun. Sometimes if I squint my eyes just so, it looks like a road made of diamonds. The house be two stories high, five picture windows on top and four larger ones on the bottom, all the storm shutters be painted green and it be plastered and white washed. Can't see the kitchen to the side or the whistler's walk—" This referred to the well worn path connecting the cookhouse with the main house, the path that servants took from the kitchen and in most houses, a path where a body had to assure anyone nearby they were working and not eating what they were carrying. "But you can make out the stables nearby, all of that is covered by ivy. I'm looking through a whole passel of trees all around it, and lord, the bougainvillea, be turning' scarlet now, and it's climbin' all around it, too. Ivy started up the right side, too—Carl says the whole house will be covered by summer next and;—" She laughed, "he says he's looking forward to all the amusement brought by a house full of spiders. If'in you look to one side, you see a stretch of forest, lovely, dark and deep and if'in you look to the other side—"

"You can see a crystal blue lake shimmering beneath the summer sun," Jade finished for

her.

Tessie did not correct her. The "lake" was a large green pond surrounded by woods—no

one could see it through the trees until your feet got wet. Victor had set the men chopping a small

stretch of one side, that was all. She and Mercedes sat there while Jade swam in the heat of the afternoon when most all the house was restin'.

"I wish you could see it. You'd a know how pretty it be." "Oh, but I can see it, and it is beautiful!"

Could life be this perfect? Or was Mercedes right when she said they were dreaming? They must be dreaming, for it was all too good to be true.