Rising Tides (39 page)

On that night, Plaquemines’s rancid, mildewed heat had settled over him like a message from hell. He had circled back into Plaquemines after leaving the parish earlier that evening.
He suspected that he had been watched as he crossed the parish line the first time, heading toward New Orleans. Largo would have had him watched, just to be sure where his loyalties lay.

He doubted that he was watched the second time. It was late, and as careful as he was, Largo was almost sure that Ferris would go along with him. Ferris would lose too much if he told Hugh what was planned for the next night.

But Largo hadn’t understood the bond between brothers. Ferris hadn’t understood it himself, until the moment he turned his car around. He had seen the benefit of Hugh’s death. He had listened quietly as Largo made convincing arguments. And in the end, he had agreed. Except that somewhere on the road, he had realized that leaving his brother to die wasn’t going to be the end of it at all.

Near Our Lady of Good Counsel, he had turned into a drive lined by magnolias and killed his headlights. After minutes elapsed and no cars worth noting passed on the highway, he turned around and pulled back out, driving without his lights. He traveled the short distance to the rectory, parked and circled the house on foot to be sure no one was nearby. Then he knocked on the back door.

Hugh was alone, and still up. He let Ferris in with out a word. They were brothers. Hugh looked at Ferris’s face and shrugged. “So you told Largo that I know about the leases.”

Ferris didn’t question how Hugh knew. “He’s coming after you at the meeting on Wednesday night. He wants you dead.”

“And what do you want?”

“I want you to get out of here. Just pack and get out of the state. If you have to, tell the archbishop your life’s in danger, but don’t give him any details. Ask him to assign you to another
diocese, somewhere as far north as he can find. Then don’t come back to Louisiana, Hap. Don’t ever come back.”

“Do you think I’m going to run, Ferris?”

With a sinking heart, Ferris knew the answer. When had Hugh ever run? He didn’t even looked frightened. He opened the door and held it for Ferris. “I don’t want Dawn to be there,” Hugh said. “I don’t want her to see me die. Keep her away. And I don’t want Ben or any one else hurt.”

“You’re committing suicide!”

“Maybe. Or maybe you’ll do something to stop Largo. You have a choice. I’m leaving it all up to you.”

“I’m warning you! That’s what I’m doing. That’s
all
I’m doing!”

Hugh opened the door wider and waited. Ferris passed in front of him. When he reached the ground, he looked up at his brother. He had always looked up at Hugh. “I didn’t even have to warn you,” Ferris said. “But you’re my brother, and I owe you. Damn it, Hap, we could have
been
something together! Haven’t you ever thought about what we could have been together?”

Hugh started to close the door.

“You want to die, don’t you? You want to be a martyr!” Ferris shouted.

“Do you really expect me to say yes and make this easier for you?” Hugh shook his head. Then the door closed with a final click.

Even after that, even after he stared at the door and felt the finality of Hugh’s answer, Ferris still hadn’t truly believed that Hugh would go to the meeting. Up until the moment that Largo called to tell him it was all over, he had almost believed that Hugh would run.

But when had Hugh ever run?

The rain seemed to fall harder with each passing minute. His windshield wipers were barely up to their task, but the car was moving so slowly it didn’t matter. At the highest point of the bridge he had glimpsed the traffic in front of him, an unbroken line of headlights. He was imprisoned with his thoughts, and a growing need to see Largo Haines. Pressure built inside him, a panic he had felt only during the war, and then only on those rare occasions when his life was in the hands of fate.

Across the bridge, he struggled to stay calm, but panic built steadily. He told himself there had to be something he could do to still his fears, some way of gaining control again.

He was on the chénière now, a place where he, Val and Hugh had come as boys. He couldn’t think of the night they had spied on the bootleggers, wouldn’t think of it, because it was sure to panic him more. Ghosts were said to dwell here, ghosts from another hurricane. But his ghost was an older brother who had stood trembling in front of him to protect him from harm.

He had to get off the chénière and onto a clear stretch of highway to Baton Rouge.

He nearly passed the turnoff before he remembered a road that ran toward the marsh that bordered Caminada Bay. He and Hugh had fished near this place as boys, and he recalled that the road stopped just short of the marsh, turned west and followed the highway before it circled back. After years of avoiding the chénière, after more than half a century of stories of hauntings and the strange screaming of the wind, fishermen and hunters had begun to return and build their camps along the Gulf and farther back, near the bay. If the road had been passable in his childhood, surely now it was well maintained.

His decision made, Ferris turned off the highway. He would follow the road north, then take it west. When it
finally deposited him back on the highway, he would be well ahead of the stalled traffic. If the road wasn’t pass able, it would still be wide enough that he could turn and get back on the highway.

Elation began to take the place of panic. He had taken control again. He had been frightened, was
still
frightened, but wasn’t he taking control? And wouldn’t his life be the same? He might flounder for a short time, but he would find a way to get back everything he had lost. Hugh had chosen his own death. He had been warned. Ferris had no responsibility.

The road was wide, and firm from the addition of oyster shells. Through the curtain of rain he saw the out line of a house, high on stilts at the roadside, then an other. He had been right. The road was inhabited now, and soon he would be traveling west.

He had gone nearly half a mile farther before his elation began to fade. The road was narrowing, and the shells had given way to ruts. The road was awash, its boundaries nearly impossible to determine. Worse, it seemed to him that the road hadn’t yet turned west. He had watched for a clear turnoff but hadn’t seen one, so he had expected the road to begin a slow curve away from the marsh. Now, although he couldn’t be sure, he was afraid he was still going north.

At the point where he knew he had to turn back, his car stalled. For a moment, he sat stunned. He still had gas, although only a little. He turned the key and listened gratefully as the engine purred to life again. With great care, he pressed his foot against the accelerator and eased forward. The car traveled a few feet before it stalled once more. This time, when he started the engine, the car refused to move at all.

He was mired in a road rapidly turning into quick sand. The
realization hit him just before the panic. He was mired on a road leading nowhere, and no one was nearby to help.

He had left the cottage without anything. He searched the back seat for an umbrella until he realized the futility of such a thing. Nothing could protect him from the fury of Betsy’s advance. He opened the door, and it was whipped out of his grasp. Outside the car, he was soaked in an instant. A glance at the tires confirmed his fears. He was squarely in a rut made worse by the spinning of his own wheels. He had to find something to put under them, something that would give him the traction he needed, or his car would be stuck here until Betsy picked it up and tossed it into the marsh.

The winds and rain were already strong enough to make walking a nightmare. He edged along the road, looking for branches, but there were no trees. Back at the car, he opened his trunk, praying that he had some thing, anything, that would lend him the boost he needed. But the trunk was empty.

He had no choice now. He had to walk back to the houses he had seen. If no one was there—and why should they be?—he would be forced to walk the full length of the road to the highway and flag down some one willing to give him a ride to safety.

He crossed his arms, ducked his head and started into the wind. The weather service had waited too long. They’d had days to make this prediction, but they’d waited until it was nearly too late. He was still a powerful man. He would demand an investigation.

He was thrown forward, then snatched backward. Water rushed swiftly over his feet. He saw a snake swimming across the road in front of him, and he shuddered. The marsh was too close. He tried to move faster, but each time he hurried, he was thrown forward, once all the way to his knees.

When the houses finally appeared at the edge of his vision, he felt a surge of relief. Lightning had split the sky ever since he left the cottage, but now the storm seemed to be drawing closer by the minute. Now he had to worry about being struck dead, as well as about being blown to New Orleans.

The houses began to take shape in front of him. He could see the towering roofs, the tall, sturdy pilings. He put his head down and stumbled in their direction, care fully watching the ground at his feet. Even if no one was home, he could take a few minutes to rest in the shelter of the first house. Then, when he was able, he could continue.

He glanced up once more and saw that he was closer. He plowed into the wind again, taking one step, then an other. Minutes passed, and he continued that way. He was going to make it.

This time, when he looked up, he saw a grove of trees, twisted water oaks, with a canopy of branches like the roof of a hunter’s camp and trunks that, from a distance, had looked like pilings.

“No!” He shouted a denial, but the wind blew it back in his face. He had gone off the road. Somewhere, as the wind pummeled him, he had wandered off it. The ground had been spongy under his feet, but it had been that way from the beginning. He’d had nothing more to guide him, no landmarks except the houses, which must have been farther ahead.

He didn’t know where he was now. He could turn, but in what direction? If he chose the wrong way, he could stumble into the marsh itself. Panic settled over him, but he tried desperately to hold it away. Trees didn’t grow in a swamp, not trees like the water oaks. The oaks meant solid ground ahead, as solid as any the chénière might have. And where there was solid ground in South Louisiana, there was often a road. If he
made his way to the grove, he might find a quicker way to the highway. And even if he didn’t, perhaps in their shelter he might find his bearings again.

He had no other choice.

He started toward the trees, shoving his hands into his pockets to keep them from trembling. His fingers came in contact with something smooth and unfamiliar. Slowly, bead by bead, he pulled out a rosary of olivewood from the Holy Land.

Hugh’s rosary.

He wanted to drop it in the water at his feet, but he couldn’t make himself. The rosary was warm, and still dry, as if it had just been smoothed through his brother’s fingers. He held it to his cheek. And as he stumbled forward, he soaked it with his tears.

D
awn reached for her mother’s gloved hand. The mass was in English now, not the Latin she had always found comforting, if not altogether comprehensible. She hadn’t been inside a church of any kind since her uncle’s funeral. Now the funeral was her father’s. The same ritual, for two very different men.

She was determined that she had cried all the tears she would. The tears had begun the day the state police informed Cappy that they had found Ferris’s car mired to the top of its windows on the chénière. Then she had cried fresh tears at the discovery of his body, days later, caught beneath the lightning-splintered trunk of an oak tree hundreds of yards away.

She would never know what had caused her father to wander so far from the highway. But the irony would have given even Ferris pause. The oaks had marked the spot where more than seventy years ago a mass grave had been dug for victims of another terrible hurricane. Betsy had unearthed the evidence, the fragments of bone and cloth, a primitive headstone with names and dates scratched in its surface.

Perhaps when Ferris drew his final breath, Marcelite and her daughter had rested in the ground beneath him.

The church was filled to overflowing. Governor McKeithen had convinced Cappy to delay Ferris’s funeral until the worst of Betsy’s devastation was addressed. South Louisiana would never look quite the same again. Grand Isle had been ravaged, with nearly all of its structures destroyed or damaged. The cottage, which had survived the storm with minor blemishes, now housed a variety of refugees who were waiting to rebuild their homes.

Plaquemines Parish had been heavily hit, too. A rumor was circulating that Leander Perez had rounded up Negroes and forced them at gunpoint to clean up the parish. New Orleans had also suffered, but the worst damage had come after Betsy swept out of the city. A wall of water thirty feet high had engulfed large areas on both sides of the Intracoastal and Industrial canals. Some people claimed they had heard explosions along levees in the Ninth Ward just before the worst of the flooding. Whether the resulting devastation was an act of God or of Orleans Parish officials, thousands of homes in the Ninth Ward and in Saint Bernard Parish had been swamped, while the New Orleans business district had been protected.

Dawn knelt for the last time, then she stood as the pall-bearers removed her father’s coffin. Cappy moved toward the aisle, and she followed. To ease her mother’s pain, Dawn was willing to play the role of devoted daughter this final time. She had dressed in traditional black, and a veil hung from the small hat her mother had bought her. Cappy was the perfect widow, composed yet haunted; this was the last act of her life as a politician’s wife. Dawn knew that her mother grieved for Ferris, but like her daughter, she grieved for the man he might have been.

Near the middle of the church, Dawn saw Nicky, Jake and
Phillip at the end of an aisle. Cappy saw them, too. Cappy hesitated; then she moved toward them, al though she hadn’t greeted anyone else. She held out her hand to Nicky. For a moment, they spoke in hushed tones; then Nicky leaned over and kissed Cappy on the cheek. Dawn glanced at Phillip, and he shrugged. Dawn’s veil hid her smile.

The interment at Saint Louis Cemetery #2 was blessedly brief. Afterwards she stood with her mother and accepted condolences from a steady stream of people. Most of them were strangers to her, but she murmured polite replies and thanked them for coming. There would be a gathering at the house, but she would be late arriving. She had something to do first.

The line had almost ended when she saw Spencer. She held out her hands, and he took them. “You’re sure you want to do this today?” he asked. He was dressed in a dark suit, and his expression was somber.

“I’m sure.”

“Then I’ll give the box to your driver.”

“Please.” She kissed him on the cheek.

She shook half a dozen hands and said half a dozen thank-yous. Finally the crowd dispersed, and she and her mother were alone, except for two close friends of Cappy’s and the staff from the funeral home.

“You’re sure you don’t want to come straight home?” Cappy asked.

“No. I want to do this today.”

“I could go with you.”

“No. You have guests waiting. And I think I should do this alone.”

“You’ll come home when you’re finished?”

“Absolutely.” Dawn hugged her; then she walked Cappy
and her friends to the first limousine. When they had gone, she slid into the second and waited until the door was closed before she took off her hat and gloves.

She sat back and closed her eyes. The trip to the riverfront was short. They arrived before she had time to fully consider what she was about to do. It was a last re quest of her grandmother’s, one Spencer had explained privately. When she was standing outside, the driver handed her a plain metal box. “You’ll wait right here?” Dawn asked.

“As long as you need me.”

This spot had been chosen carefully. It was Gulf Coast property, which seemed appropriate. Before long, the city would take title, so that a park could be established here as a memorial to both her grandparents. Now the property was crowded with old warehouses and platforms, but someday, perhaps, it would bloom with all the flowers her grandmother had so loved, a place where the people of New Orleans could come to contemplate the river that was the lifeblood of their city.

She nodded to the Gulf Coast employee who was waiting to unlock the gate that would take her down to the river. She wound her way through rusting machinery and rotting barrels until she was standing on a plat form at the river’s edge. Her grandmother had loved the river. Once Dawn had loved it, too. She watched the rusty water rushing toward the Gulf and hoped that someday she might learn to love it again.

It took only a moment to grant her grandmother’s final wish. Dawn opened the box and, standing safely back from the platform’s edge, sprinkled her grand mother’s ashes into the river.

“Goodbye,
Grandmère.
May God grant you peace.”

She stood for a long time watching the water, then she turned.

Ben was standing fifty yards away, shoulders hunched, palms turned out. He hadn’t been at the funeral or the interment. She hadn’t even been sure he was still in the city.

She walked toward him. He didn’t smile. She held out her hand, and he took it in both of his. “Did Spencer tell you I’d be here?”

“I’m sorry about your father.”

“I know.”

“Spencer said this was your grandmother’s last re quest. She was quite a woman.”

“How did you meet her, Ben? I never introduced you, but obviously you met.”

“I went to see her a few days after I got out of the hospital. You’d already left town by then, and no one would tell me where you’d gone. So I went to your grandmother and insisted she tell me.”

She raised a brow. “Insisted?”

“She said she might, if I’d stay and talk a while. She grilled me for an hour.”

“And did she tell you where I was?”

“No. In the end, she told me that I still didn’t understand that your only crime was loving your uncle and your father too much. She said until I understood that kind of torture, I wasn’t ready for a reconciliation.”

“She had a habit of making decisions for everyone.”

“This time she was right. Over the next months I thought about everything she’d said, and I realized that your crime was loving too much, but mine was loving too little.”

Dawn didn’t know what to say.

“I had traced you to England by then,” Ben said. “I bought a ticket to go and see you, but then I got the letter about your grandmother’s death and the gathering at Grand Isle.”

“You were coming to see me?”

He smiled.

“I’ve wondered what finally made
Grandmère
decide to expose all her secrets. I thought it was Uncle Hugh’s death, but maybe your visit was the final catalyst.”

“I’ve thought about that, too. Maybe I was proof that all the lies and secrets were going to continue into this generation. Maybe she wanted to give us a chance that her generation and your father’s had never had.”

“A clean slate.”

“Maybe.”

Dawn began to walk toward the road, and he walked beside her. “Why are you still in the city? What about
Mother Lode?
” she asked.

“I’ve resigned. Gulf Coast Publishing is going to keep me busy.”

“Then you’re staying in New Orleans?”

“The South needs a publishing company that will bring out books on controversial subjects. I think that’s what your grandmother wanted me to do. I want to find books that will make people think and maybe, when the smoke clears, help bring them together.”

“
Grandmère
would be pleased.”

“What are your plans?”

“I have to finish up my assignment in England. Then I’m not sure. Phillip came to see me a few days ago. He’s still investigating Largo, and he expects to have enough proof to go public soon. We talked about collaborating on a book about the civil-rights movement in Louisiana. His words, my photographs. I think we’re both willing to give it a try.”

“I hope Gulf Coast is the first publisher you contact.”

She stopped at the gate and faced him. “Ben…”

He didn’t touch her. “I still have a ticket to London.”

“Do you?”

“If I decide to use it, will you let me buy you dinner when I’m there?”

She didn’t answer. She took his hand in hers; then she raised it to her cheek.

He sighed; then he spread his fingers into her hair and pulled her close. She went to him easily. His lips were warm and impossibly gentle, a prelude, not a goodbye.

He released her finally and opened the gate. On the sidewalk beside the limousine, he bent and touched his lips to hers again.

Dawn watched as he strode away. She had always loved the way Ben moved, eyes fixed on the horizon, steps long and confident. He was sure that any place he was headed would be lucky to have him.

He was right.

When he had disappeared from sight, she got back into the limousine and told the driver to take her home.