Their trek took the full eight days Johnny had predicted. The pirogues the girls kept at Lake Palourde for their hunting and fishing business were still there, and they wasted no time in loading up and setting off. Justine sat dreamily watching the lake as Johnny poled them across, sticking to the shoreline shallows as they headed for the mouth of the Atchafalaya River. She’d never been more relaxed, this gentle progress so soporific, almost idyllic, while the motion of the flat-bottomed craft lulled her, and almost without thinking she went to trail her hand in the calm water.
“Justy! No!” barked Johnny, startling her out of her semi-trance state. Justine jerked upright, causing the pirogue to wallow. Johnny kept his balance easily, years of using the craft had made handling them almost instinctual with him.
“Don’ put your han’s in the water, baby-girl; looka there!”
Justine looked where he indicated, seeing a few ripples, but nothing unusual.
“What am I looking for, Johnny-Bear?” she asked, puzzled at his reaction.
Johnny continued to scan the water.
“That there’s a big ole bull-gator, been following us since we set out, an’ he ain’t th’ only one; this waterway full a’ them things, they thicker’n ticks on a brush-hog in here, an’ trailin’ your han’ in the water jus’ askin’ for trouble. Keep your han’s inboard, honey, han’s, feet, everythin’; don’ even let your shirt trail in the water, one a them things grab ahold o’ your shirt and take it down, you goin’ with it, and it gonna be ‘adios muchacho’, so be careful!”
Justine stared wide-eyed at him, and Johnny tried to hide his grin at the sight of her trying to make herself as small as possible dead-center in the craft, huddling as far from the gunwales as she could get. Justine caught his expression, and smiled winsomely at him.
“You’d save me, wouldn’t you, Big Bear?” she simpered, trying to look like a helpless, wide-eyed girly-girl. Johnny wasn’t fooled for one second.
“I’d surely try, Minou, but I ain’t Tarzan, an’ I sure ain’t no Crocodile Dundee, an’ I rather keep you safe in the boat than try wrassle one o’ them damned things, so you be careful, Honey-Chile!”
Once they reached the far shore of Lake Palourde, and beached the pirogues at the small landing-stage there, they transferred to an altogether more substantial river craft, an Apreamare Smeraldo 9 cruiser. Johnny whistled when he saw the sleek river cruiser.
“Damn, baby-girls, where you get boat like this from?”
Melette smiled at his reaction.
“We got her as a salvage at damage auction; after ‘Sandy’ finish with her, she all stove in and stuck prow-first under the jetty. Owner got his insurance on her, an’ we pick her up for five thousand dollars, keel was clean an’ strong, just the sides stove in, an’ noncle Lubin, Jean-Noel, an’ Pop Richeleaux fix her up an’ get her certified again for us. She a sweet handler, fit us four an’ gear no problem, there’s even a stateroom so you an’ Justy git a little privacy. You-all get seasick Justy? Reason I ask, the Bayou Chene channel get kinda choppy this time a year, no proper pilot channel cleared there, so we liable to get a mite shook about, you handle that?”
Justine shook her head.
“I’ll be fine, let’s just get our gear aboard and get out of here, I don’t like this place, there’s something wrong here…”
Odelie cocked her head curiously at Justine, her eyebrow raised in query.
“You feelin’ it too, hun? Damn, you gettin’ good at this. Li’l Jean, I got a bad feelin’ too, an’ where Pop Richeleaux? He should be right here, where he at? Somethin’ ain’t right; watch my back, I mo take a look aroun’, an’ Mellie, you an’ Justine get the gear stowed, I think mebbe we need to get outta here real soon…”
Melette clambered onto the moored boat and stared; the awning was still furled back, and so the small fly-bridge and prow were covered in sticky sap from an overhanging tree, and littered with leaves and wind-blown debris. The same dripping sap had also stained and streaked the forward cowling and windscreen, and coated the custom sport-rod harness rails, superstructure, and brightwork with a sticky layer of tree sap mixed with trapped bugs.
“Odie, what happen here? Pop Richeleaux usually keep it so clean, why he stop?” murmured Melette.
“I wuz jes’ thinkin’ same thing, baby; where he gone, an’ why? You stay with Justine, an’ stay out of sight; Li’l Jean an’ me poke aroun’ some, somethin’ bad wrong here, we need to find out whut; you keep this handy.”
She handed Melette a Beretta 9 mm, and grinned at the girl’s questioning look.
“Got it offa that gunnie I shot down to noncle Lubin’s place; reckoned he warn’t gonna need it, him bein’ dead an’ all. I stripped an’ cleaned it, she good to go; anyone show up ain’t me nor Li’l Jean, you-all take no chances, these people mean business, so do we, got that?”
The little blonde nodded grimly, shoving the handgun in her waistband and urging Justine down into the forward compartment and away from prying eyes, while she scanned the surrounding terrain.
Odelie jumped back onto the landing-stage and ported her rifle, jerking her head at Johnny to tell him they were going to look around. She was afraid she was going to find what she was looking for, and sure enough, before they’d gone more than a few yards into the verdant foliage, her nose was assailed by a sickly, rotten smell, the ripe stench of decay and corruption. Johnny had caught it too, and now they also heard the buzzing of flies, lots of flies, clouds of flies.
Johnny pushed through between two Honeysuckle bushes, and there, tied on the ground, was the small, wiry body of a very old man. He’d been shot in the back of the head, and most of his face was missing, but Johnny couldn’t help but see how cruelly the plastic ties had bitten into his frail wrists and ankles, the circular burn marks from either a cigarette or cigar dotting his torso, and the huge, ugly bruises on his thin ribcage, the marks of fists and boot-soles clearly visible. He tried to shield Odelie from the sight, but it was too late. She gasped in horror, and spun around, her fist in her mouth to hold back the howl of anguish at the sight of what had been done to a helpless old man, what his attackers had put him through.
Odelie hugged Johnny’s arm like a drowning man holds a lifebelt, clinging to him like she never meant to let go, while angry tears coursed down her cheeks.
“Why they do this, Jean-boy, he jes’ a harmless ole man, he help anyone ask for it, he do anythin’ for anyone, why they got to do him like this? He ain’t never hurt no-one his entire life, he jes’ work here, help out, clean an’ patch-up boats, sell bait, nuthin’ to get killed over; all he do is be here an’ be helpful, he don’ know nuthin ’bout nuthin’ an’ they do… this to him? I swear Jean-Bastienne, God is my witness, I find them, I gon’ kill them for this, but first I gon’ make them bleed an’ scream; they gon’ pay for whut they done here; no-one need to die like this, not fer nuthin’!”
*
Interlude:
Even as Odie and Johnny were staring aghast at a scene of torture and cowardly murder, a conversation was taking place on a deserted stretch of dusty blacktop about ten miles west of Elida, New Mexico, almost a thousand miles west of them, that would have far-reaching implications for both Johnny and Justine.
*
Gina Machado aka Gina March (and various other aliases) was sitting in a dusty old LeBaron off the side of the road with a map of New Mexico spread open before her, trying to look like she was checking their route, although she already knew where she was going and what she was going to do; Carlo was oblivious, as usual, preferring instead to whine and complain, and she was trying her hardest to sound like the sweet little woman he believed her to be; it was a difficult acting job; her patience with the fat idiot was stretched to breaking point, and she was sick of biting back what she really wanted to say.
“Why are we out here in the middle of nowhere, Gina?” he snivelled, “we could have flown in to Las Vegas, hit the tables, found a place, and we’d be set; why are we here? It’s so hot!”
Gina’s lip curled (behind his back, through; no sense tipping the fat loser off just yet…) but she now fully understood why Justine had loathed him so; she’d explained a thousand times why they’d had to take such a roundabout route to get where they were headed, but her voice was calm, placating, none of her anger and contempt coloring her words when she spoke, once more going over what should have been engraved in his brain by now.
“I told you, honey; if they’re looking for us, the airports are the first place they’ll check; those places have cameras everywhere, supposing Justine and her brother have filed charges, do you really want to get picked up now, when we’re so close? Just a little longer, baby, I promise…”
Mollified, Carlo subsided; Gina loved him, she was taking care of him, she was looking after his best interests, and all was well in his world. How could he know Gina had her own reasons, some very sinister reasons indeed, for bringing him on this long, meandering trek through the deserted badlands of the sun-baked south-west?
With Carlo settled and unsuspecting, Gina made an excuse to go around to the trunk of the nondescript old beater, and, with the trunk-lid up, hiding her from Carlo’s sight, she poked a bobby-pin into the tire valve on the left rear tire, watching the tire settle as it deflated. When it was down enough, she slammed the trunk, and, in a voice dripping with phony concern, called out:
“Honey? We got a flat; come help me find that foot-pump thing an’ get it connected so we can at least get into town and get a new tire.”
Grumbling at being disturbed, Carlo climbed out of the car and shambled round to the rear to inspect the flat.
“Where’s the pump, baby?” he whined, and Gina, pretending to examine the tire, said “I think it’s somewhere in back of the trunk, I’m sure I saw one in there.”
With much bad grace, Carlo leaned over the lip of the trunk, shoving stuff around ineffectually as he searched for the foot-pump. His constant muttering and grumbling completely drowned out the soft ‘snick’ as Gina cocked the slide of the wicked little nickel-plated . 25 caliber Baby Browning pocket pistol he knew nothing about.