Longarm and the Voodoo Queen (9 page)

She picked up a paddle lying in the bottom and dipped it into the water. Longarm checked for another paddle so that he could help, and saw that there wasn't one. Clearly she intended to do all the paddling herself. She gestured for him to keep his head down, then settled into a steady rhythm with the paddle. It bit quietly into the water and pushed them along, first on one side of the pirogue, then the other. The splashes were so faint that Longarm doubted if they could be heard more than a few feet away.

He could still hear Royale's men shouting among themselves as they searched for him and Millard, though, and the growing frustration was plain to hear in their voices. There had been no more shots, which gave Longarm reason to hope that Millard had gotten away. After having such a perfect setup for his investigation fall into his lap, he hated the idea of having to start over if Millard wound up dead at the hands of Royale's men.

More streams intersected the one on which they were traveling, and Longarm quickly grew confused by the twists and turns of the route that the young woman was following. He knew that the shouts of Royale's men were dying away in the distance behind them, however, and for the moment, that was all he cared about. His lovely young rescuer and guide, self-appointed though she might be, was doing an excellent job of getting him out of a whole mess of trouble. Longarm slipped his Colt back in its holster, figuring that he no longer needed it, at least for the time being.

Within half an hour, they were out of the marshes and back in the bayou country, with huge cypresses spreading their limbs over the twisting, slow-moving waterways. Now that she didn't have to worry so much about noise, the young woman paddled with stronger strokes, and the pirogue slid easily over the water.

"I'm mighty obliged for what you did back there," Longarm said, breaking the silence between them. "Reckon you saved my bacon, ma'am."

She turned her head and flashed a dazzling smile at him. "This bay-konn of yours, him is good with the hush puppies, no?" Her Cajun accent was thick, but the words still sounded soft and musical coming from her.

Longarm chuckled. "I suppose you may be right. I'm Custis Parker."

"Cussstisss," she repeated, drawing out the name. "Name is Claudette, mine."

"Well, Claudette, you came along just in time. Those fellas who were looking for me would've found me pretty soon, and when they did they'd have done their best to put some bullets in my hide."

She nodded as she paddled, and without looking back at him, she said, "Knew they wanted to kill you, I did. Heard 'em yellin' 'bout it. Figure any man in so much trouble, gotta help him."

"You know who those other gents were?"

She shrugged her shoulders without breaking the rhythm of her paddling. "Smuggler men." The distaste in her voice was evident.

"You don't like the smugglers? Lots of folks in this part of the country are mixed up in it, I hear."

Claudette shook her head. "Other people, not me. I catch the crawfish, trap the otter and the nutria for their furs, get by jus' fine."

"What about your family?" asked Longarm.

Again, she shook her head. "Gran'pere the last one left, an' the sickness take him last winter, it did. Now jus' me, but I don't mind."

"Where do you live?"

She brought the paddle back into the pirogue and used her right hand to point. "My home, there."

Longarm leaned over to look past her, and saw that she was pointing at a shack built on the edge of the bayou, part of it extending over the water on its stilts like some of the others he had seen today. This one was surrounded by thick brush and cypress trees, however, so that it seemed even more cut off from the rest of the world as it perched on the edge of the slow-moving water. Claudette turned and smiled at Longarm again, then resumed paddling toward the ramshackle cabin.

There was a crude ladder built on the side of the shack that hung over the water, and Claudette sent the pirogue skimming straight toward it. As they came alongside, she caught hold of the ladder, which led up to a door mounted on sagging leather hinges. She stood up, steadying herself with the ladder, and tied the pirogue to it with a stout cord. Then she climbed up to the door and opened it, and Longarm couldn't help but admire the play of the muscles in her legs and rear end under the thin dress. She looked back over her shoulder and beckoned for Longarm to follow her.

He reached up and grabbed the ladder, waiting until Claudette had disappeared into the cabin before he started up. When he stepped through the open door into the shack, it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. Here under the cypress trees, the world was cloaked in perpetual green shadows, but the light was even dimmer inside the cabin. He saw Claudette moving on the other side of the single room, and after a few seconds he could tell that she was starting a fire in an old wood-burning stove.

"Heat you up some gumbo, I will," she said. "He's gonna fill up your belly. Mighty tasty, I guarantee."

Now that she mentioned it, he was getting hungry, Longarm realized. It had been a long time since breakfast in the hotel dining room this morning. He figured it was well past mid-afternoon, and when he pulled out his watch and flipped the cover open, he saw that he was right.

"Pretty-pretty watch," said Claudette when she saw what he was doing. "Gran'pere, he have him a watch like that. When he die, bury it with him, I did."

"Looks like you could have used it," commented Longarm as he put his own watch away.

Claudette waved a hand to indicate their surroundings and said, "Time, she don't matter here in the bayou country."

Longarm knew what she meant. In this region of heat and water and lush vegetation, this ever-shifting borderland between the sea and the shore, one day was much like the next. There were few changes, few reasons for anyone to know exactly what time it was.

He looked around the inside of the cabin. Besides the stove, it was furnished with a rough-hewn table, several rickety-looking chairs, and a narrow bed with a straw mattress. Through a window in the front wall, he saw a hammock strung between two posts that held up a rotting porch roof.

Claudette noticed him looking around, and she dropped her gaze to the unpainted planks of the floor as she said, "This a mighty sorry place to live, you're thinkin', Custis. And you're right."

Quickly, he shook his head. In truth, he didn't understand how a bright, vital young woman like Claudette could be happy in such squalid surroundings, but he didn't want to hurt her feelings by saying that. After all, she had saved his life, more than likely, and she was about to feed him a bowl of gumbo.

"Everybody's got a right to live where they want," he said, "and to live the way they want to as long as they ain't hurting anybody else. Which I don't reckon you are."

"Just want to be left alone, me," she said, still not looking at him, and he wondered if somehow she had been hurt in the past. Had she left this bayou haven and ventured out into the rest of the world, gone to New Orleans maybe, and had something happen to her that was so bad she had run back here determined to spend the rest of her life among the cypresses and the bougainvillea and the water lilies?

It was none of his business, of course. After what she had done for him, he didn't want to pry too deeply into her life.

She found bowls and spoons in a wooden crate that evidently served as a pantry, then dished out the gumbo from the black iron pot on the top of the stove. Longarm sat down at the table as she brought over the food and took the chair opposite him.

"Eat up," she said with a smile. "Hope you like gumbo."

"Sure do," said Longarm. He dipped up a spoonful of the thick, steaming soup. It tasted good and was full of chopped-up okra, just the way he liked it. He said as much to Claudette, who smiled brightly.

They ate in silence for several minutes. Then Longarm asked, "How'd you happen to be down there in the marshes so that you could help me out?"

"Planned to go out into the bay and do some seinin' for shrimp, I did," she replied. She grinned across the table at him. "Caught me a big ol' fish instead."

Longarm chuckled. He had been called a lot of things in his life, but he didn't remember anyone ever referring to him as a fish before.

"A shark, maybe, with plenty-plenty sharp teeth," Claudette went on. Her smile disappeared, replaced by a solemn look. "Why you runnin' round the marshes with smuggler men tryin' to shoot you, Custis?"

Longarm hesitated, unsure how to answer that question. Claudette had an obvious antipathy for smugglers, so he didn't want to admit to working with Jasper Millard, but he wasn't just about to reveal his true identity to her either. Finally, he said vaguely, "I was on my way down to Grand Isle to see a man about a boat. Those fellas you say were smugglers jumped me for no good reason and tried to kill me." He said nothing about Millard.

Claudette nodded, seeming to accept his explanation. "Prob'ly see you and think you spyin' on 'em, they did. Hones' folks in the Delta stay away from them smugglers, you bet."

"That sounds like a good idea," said Longarm sincerely. He didn't want an innocent like Claudette getting tangled up in the feud between Millard and Royale. Of course, by helping him, she had already taken a hand, but maybe he could keep her out of any further involvement.

He scraped up the last of the gumbo, swallowed it, and asked, "What's the best way back to New Orleans from here?"

"There a road not far off. Take you there in the mornin', I can."

Longarm frowned. "I figured I'd start back to town today."

Claudette shook her head. "No. Too far to walk 'fore dark, and you don't want to be out trampin' round the bayous after the sun, she is gone down. Too many snakes, and the night is black like God damn. Best you stay here tonight, tomorrow maybe catch a ride on a wagon goin' to town."

What she said made sense, all right, but Longarm still chafed at the delay. He wanted to get back to New Orleans and find out if Millard had survived this second attack by Royale's men. Two attempts on Millard's life in less than twenty-four hours, mused Longarm. Royale was certainly turning up the heat. The friction between the two leaders of the smuggling rings was going to burst into the flame of an all-out war if this kept up.

But there was nothing he could do about it tonight, so he nodded in acceptance of Claudette's advice. "I'm much obliged," he said. "I reckon that hammock out on the front porch will hold me all right."

Again she shook her head. "You get the bunk, Custis. Gran'pere sleep there when he still alive. I take the hammock, me."

"Don't hardly seem fair," said Longarm with a frown as he reached into his pocket for a cheroot. "This is your place."

"And you my guest. Don't argue with me 'bout this, you."

He had to grin. "All right," he said as he held up his hands in mock surrender. "I'll take the bunk, and you can use the hammock."

She nodded, clearly pleased with her victory.

Nightfall was not far away now. Longarm smoked a cheroot, which Claudette said reminded her of her gran'pere's pipe. She brought out a clay jug with a wooden stopper and offered it to Longarm. "Home brew," she told him. "I like a little taste now and again, me."

"So do I," he said with a grin. He pulled the stopper with his teeth, then crooked his arm and tipped the jug to his lips. Fiery liquor flowed into his mouth. He caught his breath as the heat of it seared his gullet and fairly exploded in his belly. "Potent stuff," he said as he blew his breath back out.

"Good for the digestion." Claudette took the jug from him and downed a healthy swallow of the homemade whiskey. She wiped the back of her other hand across her mouth.

She was quite a contradiction, thought Longarm. Undeniably lovely, probably intelligent, yet she willingly lived this primitive backwoods existence... which, of course, was her choice and none of his business, he reminded himself. Yet he couldn't help but wonder how she would look cleaned up and in some better clothes.

Shadows were gathering outside, making it even darker in the shack. After putting the jug away, Claudette opened the front door and said, "Good night, Custis."

"Sort of early to turn in, isn't it?"

She shrugged. "In the bayou country, not much to do after dark."

Longarm might have been able to make a suggestion or two about how they could pass the time, even in the dark, but with all Claudette had already done for him, he didn't want to force himself on her. He nodded and said, "All right then. Good night, Claudette."

She shut the door, and he heard her climb into the hammock on the front porch. Longarm went over to the bunk, trying not to think about how Claudette's grandfather had likely died there, and sat down to pull off his boots. He took off his gunbelt as well, coiling it and placing it on the floor beside the bunk within easy reach. He had already tossed his hat onto the table. That left his tie and his shirt, because he intended to keep his pants on. He undid the tie, shrugged out of the shirt, and placed both of them on the table beside his hat. The light in the room was just about gone by the time he stretched out on the bunk, feeling the ropes underneath the straw mattress sag a little.