Bayou Trackdown

Clovis was staring anxiously into the swamp. “What was that, Papa? What can make such a sound?”

Strangely, Fargo had the feeling he had heard something like it before but he couldn’t recollect exactly when or where.

“I don’t know what it is, nor do I care,” Namo was saying. “All that matters is it killed your mother. The three of us will not rest until we have avenged her.”

Fargo wondered if Namo included him or Halette in that “three.” “Whatever it is, you were right. It’s a long way off.”

“But will it stay a long way? I hope not. I hope it comes for us. Right now. Right here.”

“We shouldn’t have brought your kids.”

Namo snorted in annoyance. “We have been all through that. They are here and that is that.” He carried Halette to her blankets and laid her on her side. “I propose we get some sleep while we can. Morning will come too soon.”

Fargo tried but it was pretty near hopeless. He tossed. He turned. He stared at the stars. He peered into the moss-shrouded Atchafalaya. Eventually his eyelids grew heavy. He was on the verge of falling asleep when a screech rent the night. So loud and so close, it seemed to come from right next to him. Pushing up into a crouch, he grabbed the Henry.

Clovis was by the fire, terror-struck.

“It’s here!” Namo shouted, rising, only to have his daughter do as she had done to Fargo and wrap her arms around his legs.

There was a commotion in the swamp. Fargo swung around but all he saw was the black of the pit. The starlight wasn’t strong enough to penetrate the thick canopy.

“Do you hear that?” Clovis whispered.

Fargo’s gut balled into a knot. For from the blackness came breathing. Heavy, laborious, as if the act of working its lungs was an exertion. Grizzly bears wheezed like that, only not as loud.

“It’s watching us!” Namo said.

Clovis flung limbs on the fire. The flames leapt high, and the ring of light grew. But only by a dozen feet. Not nearly enough to relieve the blackness, or to show them the creature.

“Why doesn’t it do something?” Namo wondered.

Fargo edged forward. He wanted to see it. Just a glimpse, enough to tell what it was.

“Careful, monsieur,” Clovis warned.

Something stirred in the water but it was only a snake gliding swiftly away.

Fargo had the Henry to his cheek. He took another step, straining his eyes for all they were worth. The moss lent form where there wasn’t any, lent substance to empty space. “Where are you?” he said under his breath.

The next moment the swamp exploded with racket, with tremendous splashing and the snap and crackle of brush.

For a few heartbeats Fargo saw a vague shape. There was the suggestion of enormous bulk. For its size it was incredibly quick. It was there one second, gone the next. The thing plowed through the heavy growth without hindrance, the sounds growing fainter and fainter until once again, the night was quiet.

“Thank God!” Clovis exclaimed.

Fargo shared the sentiment. Whatever that thing was, if it had attacked, he doubted they could bring it down. Not in the dark. Not as huge as it was. The breath of death had brushed them and gone by.

Namo, however, was filled with rage. Shaking a fist, he hollered, “Come back here! Face us, beast!”

“Don’t press our luck,” Fargo advised.

“I want it dead. I want it dead more than I have ever wanted anything.”

Halette had stopped sobbing and was on her knees, her thin arms wrapped tight, trembling like a leaf in a gale. Namo didn’t notice. He stormed toward the water, shaking his fist and blistering the air.

“Pere!” Clovis shouted, and ran after him.

Smothering curses of his own, Fargo squatted. He touched Halette’s hair, saying, “It’s gone. We’re safe. Don’t worry.” He twisted to yell for Namo to come back.

“No one is ever safe.”

Fargo looked at her, at her upturned faced streaked with tears, at her quivering lips. “You can talk.”

“I have been me for a while now,” Halette said softly. “I just had nothing to say.”

“I should tell your father.” Fargo cupped a hand to his mouth.

“Non! Not yet. Please.” Halette put her small hand on his. “You must help me, monsieur. Make him see we must leave this awful place or all of us will end up like my mere.”

Fargo leaned toward her. “They tell me you saw what happened. You saw what killed her.”

“Oui.”

“If it won’t upset you, I’d like to hear.”

The girl bowed her head, and shook. “You ask a lot.”

“I came a long way to help your pa, girl. The least you can do is help me. If I know what it is, I’ll know what to do.”

Halette began reciting in a tiny, scared voice. “It was awful. My mama had me climb a tree. She said I would be safe up near the top. I did as she wanted. It was dark, so very dark, and I couldn’t see much.” She stopped.

Fargo waited. Let her tell it in her own good time.

“Then it came, monsieur. It was big, so big. My mother shot her rifle but it did no good. I heard”—Halette stopped and sucked in a breath—“I heard her screams—”

“That’s enough. So you don’t know what it is?”

“I know only that it is not like anything I have ever seen or heard. They call it a monster, and it is.”

“You were scared. It was dark.”

Fargo slowly rose and she rose with him.

“My mother couldn’t kill it and she was a good shot. You can’t kill it. Nor can Papa.” Halette clutched at his buckskins. “We must go back. Make Papa go back too. Before it is too late.”

Just then Namo and Clovis returned. Seeing Halette, Namo bellowed for joy and swept her into his arms. Clovis, too, was delighted, and spun in circles, whooping. Both had forgotten the beast.

But not Fargo. He made a circuit of the hummock. Some frogs croaked and a gator grunted but the rest of the swamp was unnaturally still. He thought he heard, faint in the distance, the breaking of underbrush, but he couldn’t be sure. He was turning to go back when he heard a sound he was sure about: the splashing of a paddle. Dropping onto a knee, he spied what he took to be a pirogue gliding toward the hummock. But as it came closer he saw that it was a canoe.

A silhouette told him only one person was in it. A Cajun, or so Fargo reckoned until the canoe was near enough for him to see that the man was naked from the waist up and had hair that spilled past his shoulders. Fargo saw him put down the paddle and pick up a curved pole and a short stick. Belatedly, Fargo realized what they were: a bow and arrow. The man was about to loose a shaft at the Heuses.

By then the canoe was only a few yards from the hummock. Setting down the Henry, Fargo took a long leap and launched himself from shore. The warrior cried out in surprise as Fargo slammed into him. The canoe tilted from the impact and down they went. Rank swamp water embraced them.

Fargo got hold of a wrist and kicked to the surface. To his surprise, the warrior offered no resistance. Hauling him onto dry land, Fargo let go and retrieved the Henry.

The Indian looked up, his long hair hiding much of his face. But Fargo could tell he was old, very old, and his body much more frail than it had appeared at first. The man wore a breechclout and nothing else. His legs were spindly, his knees knobby. Each of his ribs stood out as if his skin were too tight. The effect was that of a walking skeleton.

“Who are you?”

An odd sort of laugh was the reply. The Indian pushed his hair aside, revealing a swarthy face seamed with wrinkles. So many wrinkles, he had to be eighty if he was a day. His dark eyes glittered and he bared his teeth in a mocking grin.

“You’re the one they call the Mad Indian.”