Rising Tides (15 page)

“I know all these places. I trap here wit’ my cousin Coo. You know Coo Boudreaux?”

The rifle barrel turned toward Hugh. “Who you got behin’ you, boy?”

Val had warned Hugh not to say anything, but he knew he had to answer. “My brother, sir. He’s just a little kid. He didn’t want to come, but we made him. I don’t care if you shoot me—” it was a lie “—but please, don’t hurt him.”

“Le’s see this brother.”

“No. I’m not movin’.” Hugh stood taller. “I can’t. I’ve got to take care of him.”

The man moved closer.
“Un bon frère, heh?”
The other two men started to murmur angrily. The man with the rifle turned to them.
“Taisez vous-autre!”
He turned back to Hugh. “You’re not from here?”

“No sir.”

“From the city?”

“Yes. But we live on Grand Isle in the summers.”

“We?”

The man moved close enough to poke Hugh in the belly with his rifle. Hugh squeezed his eyes shut. He could feel the rifle burning a hole just above his navel. He was going to die, and the bullet was going to kill Ferris, too. “Please, sir, let my brother move away before you shoot me.” Tears welled in his eyes and bile rose in his throat. He didn’t know if he would vomit or cry first. It scarcely seemed to matter.

“Wha’s your name, son?” the man asked.

“Hugh.” He swallowed.

“Hugh? Tha’s a French name?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hugh what?”

“Gerritsen, sir.”

“Gerritsen?”

“Yes sir.”

The rifle no longer pressed against his belly. “You know Henry Gerritsen?”

Hugh knew his father had a number of enemies. But being caught in a lie could be fatal. “He’s my father, sir.”

“You’re Henry Gerritsen’s son?”

“That’s right.” Hugh opened his eyes. He saw a smile on the
man’s weathered face. He shouted something at his comrades. Laughter seasoned the air.

“You!” The man swung the rifle at Val. “You’re their frien’?”

“Bes’ frien’s. Since we were this high.” Val gestured below his knees.

“Then take your frien’s an’ go. From now on? Fin’ something else to do at nigh’, or nex’ time, I’ll shoot. Low.” He made his point by aiming at Val’s balls.

Val motioned for Hugh to follow him. Hugh stepped away from Ferris; then, shielding him as best he could, he moved away from the men. He didn’t look back, al though he fully expected to be shot as he retreated. No bullet followed. Just laughter and obscure French references he didn’t understand. Halfway through the marsh leading back to dry land he remembered the alligator, but although once he thought something brushed his leg, nothing attacked. On solid ground again, he thrust away a clinging Ferris and vomited his fear until nothing was left in his stomach.

“You all righ’?” Val asked when he seemed to be done.

“Yeah. Let’s get out of here!”

The three of them, silent and chastened, hurried back toward Val’s boat. Even Ferris was subdued.

They didn’t talk until they were out on the water. The wind was against them, and they moved slowly. Hugh suspected it might be dawn before they got back to the house, but even his father’s wrath seemed minor com pared to what they had just experienced.

“Why’d they let us go?” he asked at last. Ferris was asleep in the bottom of the boat, his head pillowed on Hugh’s lap.

“Because you were so brave,” Val said.

For a moment, Hugh basked in the compliment. Then he
saw that Val was grinning. “Really! I want to know! I thought for sure they were going to kill us. We could go back and tell somebody what we saw. I’ll recognize them again if I see them.”

“Oh, you won’ tell,” Val said. “They saw that.”

“Why?”

“You didn’ hear what they was sayin’?”

“I couldn’t understand it all.”

“You’re Henry Gerritsen’s son.”

“So?”

“You really don’ know, do you?”

“No!” Hugh leaned forward. “Tell me!”

Val grinned wide enough that his teeth gleamed in the moonlight. “Who d’ya think owns the ship that carried that rum from the West Indies?”

Grand Isle, 1937

A
urore had been very young when the hurricane that destroyed the settlement on Chénière Caminada nearly took her life, as well. Ti’ Boo’s uncle, Clebert, had rescued her mother, Aurore and Ti’ Boo, and they’d waited out the storm in his sturdy house at the center of Grand Isle. The twisted, tormented oaks on the island had never been cut down, as those on the chénière had been. Largely due to them, Grand Isle and Nonc Clebert’s house had been spared.

Many years afterward, when Rafe and Nicolette were both gone from her life, Aurore had come back to the island to buy Nonc Clebert’s house. She had her own memories of Rafe that were rooted here. On Grand Isle they had reunited after years of bitterness, and here she had learned the truth about her father’s part in the death of Rafe’s mother and sister. The only man she had ever loved and the child that had always been lost to her were gone now. But on Grand Isle, she could remember them.

Aurore had joined the altar guild of Our Lady of the Isle
soon after buying the house. Since the house had stood unoccupied for nearly a decade, it had needed extensive renovation. But even with a large project to over see, she had immediately joined the guild and requested that she be allowed to take charge each Saturday throughout July. Each time she arranged flowers and polished silver, she said a prayer in her heart for the daughter she had never been able to call her own.

Although the other guild members couldn’t understand the odd request from a New Orleans society matron, they were happy to let her have her way. They had other chores to do; it was better, was it not, to let some one whose hands were soft and white tend the altar? Aurore’s hands smelled of rose water, theirs of fish or strong laundry soap.

On the second Saturday of July, Aurore carried an armload of yellow chamomile into the church. In the worst heat of the summer there were few flowers to choose from, but the Depression had taught all but the very rich to be contented with simple pleasures. She had already made a pile of cattails and marsh grasses. On her morning walk she had discovered a handful of blue asters, another of black-eyed Susans. Like the child for whom they were a memorial, the flowers would lend grace and beauty for too short a time before they died.

At the front of the church, she knelt and crossed her self before she removed the vases. She rubbed them with a little polish until they gleamed; then she finished the remaining chores, polishing the tabernacle and candlesticks before she laid freshly starched and ironed white linen on the altar.

She had added flowers to one vase and had moved to the other end of the altar to work on the second when she looked up to see Hugh coming down the nearest aisle. She never grew tired of looking at her son. At twenty-two, he was tall, slim, and deeply tanned from a summer on a Gulf Coast towboat.
The tan was a perfect background for eyes of such a piercing blue that even she sometimes felt as if he were gazing into her soul. But not judging. Never judging.

“Hugh, darling.” She dropped the flowers into the vase and started down the steps toward him. “When did you get here?” She embraced him and felt his arms tighten around her in response.

“Just now. I thought I’d find you here, Mamere.”

He had called her by that name since his childhood, and had never given it up. She glowed every time she heard it. “Did you come alone?”

“Yes. King Henry says he’s too busy.”

She smiled at the nickname Hugh had given his father years ago—but never repeated to his face. Henry, as a faithful supporter of Huey “Kingfish” Long, had shared in a king-size portion of Huey’s patronage. In Huey’s years as governor, Henry had been appointed to the prestigious Highway Commission, finally tasting the political power that he had always believed should be his. Now, nearly two years after Huey’s assassination, Henry was still part of the Long machine. But while Huey had been shrewd enough to give Henry just a taste of power, Richard Leche, the new governor and a man of questionable integrity, had thrown open the doors to a banquet hall. Aurore worried constantly about the abuses she sensed, while at the same time she was grateful that Henry’s manipulations often took him far from home.

“Ferris Lee has been here for two days,” she said. “You should have come down together.”

“I had business, and Ferris didn’t want to wait.”

Ferris never waited for anyone. Even his birth had been two weeks early, as if he had decided in the womb not to dillydally any longer. At eighteen, he shoved his way through life
at a speed that terrified Aurore. In the Ford roadster with the V-8 engine that his father had bought him for his fifteenth birthday, he raced from experience to experience. Life was a banquet, and his appetite was ravenous.

“Well, you’re both here now.” She moved away from him. “How long will you be staying?”

“I’m leaving on Monday. I’ve just come to say good bye.”

“Then you’ve decided to take your father’s offer?”

“I have no reason to stay here. Monsignor still insists I’m not ready for ordination. I’m supposed to see more of the world. Have adventures.”

He said the last with a wry smile. She wondered if some tiny part of him that hadn’t been colored by his lifelong dream of the priesthood was secretly pleased at this roadblock.

“And you can’t have adventures in Louisiana?” she said.

“I need to go away.”

His reason hung unspoken between them. Aurore knew she was too possessive and his father too demanding. Through the years, while Henry grew increasingly critical of Hugh, she had tried not to hold her son too tightly. But in the end they had both failed him. Now he was leaving.

She started back toward the altar to finish the flowers. He followed her, but his voice reverently dropped in volume. “I’ve always wanted to see more of Europe, but there was never time. What could be better? I’ll be living there, representing Gulf Coast. The king will be pleased with me for once, and I’ll have a slew of adventures to report on next time I seek ordination. Do you suppose that’s why I’ve been ordered to live a little? Because Monsignor wants to hear my version of what he’s missing?”

“Hugh!” She shook her head, but didn’t hide a smile. “More likely he just wants to be sure you realize what you’ll be giving up.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to try everything at least once.”

“Don’t say that.” She lowered her voice. “At least, don’t say it right here.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Go home. I’ll be there in a little while. Go see your brother.”

“He’s not off chasing the island girls?”

“Go home.” She watched him stroll back down the aisle, but only after he turned to genuflect and cross himself. He could tease about the worst disappointment of his short life, but he hadn’t given up his dream. The church was as important to him as carousing was to his brother. Someday he would be standing at God’s altar in a far different capacity.

She turned to the tabernacle. “Someday you’ll steal another of my children, won’t you?” she whispered.

The sanctuary suddenly seemed stifling. The door was wide open and the multipaned windows were tilted, but no air moved through the room. Eighteen years had passed since Nicolette’s death in a Chicago race riot, but the desolation Aurore felt the day she had learned of it filled her again.

Henry had brought the news. She had been lying in a hospital bed, holding her newborn son in her arms. Henry had towered above her, the satisfied bearer of bad tidings. He had gone to his club that morning, and in an out-of-town newspaper he had seen Rafe listed among the riot’s dead.

Henry had always known about Rafe and Nicolette. He was a man who relished other people’s secrets and the power they gave him. He had chosen to marry Aurore as much for her secrets as for her family name. On their wedding night he had issued a warning. If she did as she was told, he would never expose her for what she was. But if she didn’t, she would suffer, and so would the child she had given away.

Her life had been spent trying to best him at his own game and minimize the damage he inflicted. He had inflicted his
share on the night of Ferris’s birth. After reading Rafe’s name in the newspaper, he had called Chicago to get all the facts. Then he had passed them on to her. Rafe was dead, caught in the street by white bullets seeking black flesh. Aurore’s daughter had died in the ensuing fire, a fire that burned down a block of houses and apartments and left half a dozen people unaccounted-for. Nicolette had never surfaced. There was no hope she was alive.

Later, Aurore had risen from her bed to beg Spencer to investigate. His information, delivered two terrible weeks later, had been the same as Henry’s. Nicolette had been staying in one of the apartments that burned. The old man she had been with had escaped. Tragically, Aurore’s daughter had not.

Now, every July, Aurore arranged flowers and polished silver and brass. Every July, she mended and washed linen in remembrance of the child she hadn’t kept but had loved anyway. And every July, as she thought of her daughter, she thought of her daughter’s father.

She was almost fifty. The dark hair waving against her neck was streaked with gray; her once smooth skin was lined. But sometimes, in her heart, she was still eighteen, running toward life with her arms wide open, running toward the only man she had ever loved, with out thought of anything except what happiness they could bring each other.

And always, always, she ran, but she could never reach him. She could never feel his arms around her. She could never find peace.

“So that’s how you used to do it.” Ferris stepped away from the drainpipe beside Hugh’s window as his brother thudded to the ground. “I didn’t give you enough credit, Hap. I never guessed you’d be that brave.”

Hugh leaped at him, and they crashed to the ground together, muffling laughter as they struggled to pin each other’s shoulders. Hugh was still taller by half a head, but Ferris outweighed him. Hugh was deceptively thin; Ferris was deceptively sturdy. They had learned years ago that even though they were opposites, they were evenly matched.

Hugh succeeded in straddling Ferris to pin him to the soft ground, but he knew it might be the last time. “Uncle,” he said, panting with exhaustion. “Say uncle.”

“Aunt. Aunt Happy!”

Hugh pressed harder. “Uncle. And no more of this Happy stuff. Get it?” He made his point by bouncing once, driving Ferris farther into the ground. “Uncle!”

“About time.” Hugh rolled off Ferris and lay beside him, staring at the stars through lacy branches.

Ferris put his arms under his head. “What do you s’pose old Val’s doing about now?”

“Making more babies.”

“You think like a man. How come you wanna be a priest?”

Hugh slapped at him, with little energy. “Ti’ Boo showed me his little girl’s picture. Good thing she looks like her mother, not Val.”

“Who’d want to be a father? He’s what—twenty-three? I’m not getting married. I’m not having kids. Too many swell girls out there just waiting for a night with me.”

“You’re a horny little rodent, aren’t you?”

“Hey, don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it!” Ferris paused. “Have you tried it, Hap? Do they bring girls into your seminary classes to give you a taste of what you’re missing?”

Hugh slapped at him again. “Let’s go down to the beach.”

“I’ve got some beer. And Ti’ Boo cooked some crabs for tomorrow. Want me to bring them?”

“You’re going to bring the beer no matter what I say.”

“But—” Ferris whined the next words, in imitation of their father “—I’m a descendant of an old New Or leans family. I always ask politely before I do exactly what I want.”

“Bring it. I guess I could use a drink.”

Ferris’s voice deepened to normal. “You know your trouble? You’re too busy pleasing everybody. You want a drink? Just have one. Why should Mother care?”

“We’ve got a father who drinks too much. Why not spare her another worry?”

“You try too hard at everything.” Ferris sat up and swiped at his shirt, brushing pine needles and leaves to the ground. “I’ll get the stuff. Then I’ll race you down.”

“My legs are longer.”

“Mine are stronger.”

The race, over a treacherous sandy footpath, was a draw, although Hugh declined to admit it. Ferris had an athlete’s coordination and stamina, but aside from four years of football at Jesuit, he had never worked at sports. Even football had been more of an exercise in glory than progress toward a goal.

On the sand at the water’s edge, Hugh examined his brother, who wasn’t even panting. As a child, Ferris hadn’t possessed a child’s face. He looked much the same now as he always had. He had never been awkward or insecure; he had simply been Ferris.

Women considered Hugh handsome; he had heard it often enough since he became an adult. When women learned of his calling, they promptly tried to change his mind. Had God wanted Hugh to serve him, God would have made him an angel, they said.

No one considered Ferris handsome. His features were too irregular; nothing about them or him was re fined. But Ferris had charisma, a way of drawing girls into the web of his life, a way of casting them out again that made them want him more. He never broke hearts; rather, he set them beating permanently out of rhythm.

“So you’re really going to France,” Ferris said. “Over to Marseilles to live with dirty little foreigners?”

“I’m going to represent Gulf Coast all over Europe. Remember Gulf Coast? The company you’re supposed to run someday?”

“Run it? Not me. I’m going to marry a woman who’s smarter than me, like Pop did. Or, if you decide saying mass is too boring, you can. I don’t care. I just want my share.”

“Right now, your share could be some undetermined percentage of nothing.”

“Hey, things aren’t that bad. The old cripple in the White House’s going to bring it around for us.”

Hugh thought of the last years, when at times the New Orleans riverfront had been nearly deserted. Too often, Gulf Coast had no goods to carry to foreign shores and no market for the ones it brought into port. Over the years, his mother had assumed more control, while his father was in Baton Rouge, exploiting his loyalty to Huey Long. Hugh didn’t discount the value of Henry’s political influence in Gulf Coast’s survival, but it was his mother’s uncompromising and innovative leadership that had saved Gulf Coast from the fate of less fortunate companies.