House on Diablo Road: Resurrection Day (The McCann Family Saga Book 3) (15 page)

“
I’m intrigued,” Katie said. “Thomas it will be. Nate, will you pay the lady?”

“
Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Madame Emmaline said. “And don’t ask for your money back.”

Although strong and sturdy looking, it was obvious by his aging hands, that Thomas was well past middle age. He was dressed in ordinary street clothes and a seaman’s cap over curly salt and pepper hair. Only one feature was extraordinary: his pale blue eyes which were startling against the mocha-colored skin. When he directed his gaze upon the two of them, Katie was transfixed. Then he drew her hand into his for a moment as a means of connection. She turned his hand to look at the golden ring bearing the Freemason’s insignia. “You are a Mason?” she asked.

“
No, Mademoiselle, but the ring belonged to my
real
father and was given to me before I came to live here. My mother would not tell me who brought it to her for me nor would she speak my father’s name. You see, he was not her husband. This is all that the people here told me.”

Thomas fanned out the tarot cards, and suddenly his fingers clenched the edge of the table. “I will not tell you what I see.
Mache' pon! Souple!
”

“
No. I’m not leaving until you tell me what you see,” Katie said. “That’s what my husband paid you to do.”

“
Katie...please. Let’s just get out of here,” Nate said.

“
I want to know what he sees.”

Thomas paused and then relented. His gaze was now rested somewhere in the distance, and the cards lay forgotten.

At last he spoke directly to Katie, staring intently into her eyes. “You ask what I see. I see what the Creole call
nzambis.
One maybe good, one maybe bad. They are trapped in a big lonely house at the end of a long winding trail, in the middle of a great forest. They wait there...for what I do not know.”

“
Can you describe them for me?”

“One I can see clearly. The other is in shadow, behind a petite, fair haired woman with sad eyes. She wears a long dress from the last century.”

Yes, with old fashioned skirts that make a swishing noise that grows closer and louder...in the middle of the night.

“
You must not return to your house,” Thomas said. “There are bad energies there, but it was not always so before the Civil War, when it was owned by the man who built it. Now I see him. He is of your family—a man of Irish descent standing in white fields. Cotton. Acres and acres of it. He wears a Confederate uniform. Now I see his blood beneath a tree upon which swings a rope. The same man now lies in a deep blue circle that mirrors the sky. He looks at me with empty eyes.” A shudder passed through him. “No more.
Mache pon. Souple!
”

Katie felt nauseous and dizzy, and she wondered if it had been something she had eaten that morning. When she spoke, her voice came out stilted and monotone. “No, I will
not
leave. You must tell me the rest of it. I want to know all of it.”

Thomas re-stacked and spread the cards in a show of compliance, but before he could say what he saw, Nate jumped to his feet and flung the cards to the floor. “This has gone far enough. Let’s get out of here!”

Nate pulled a stunned Katie to her feet and bustled her to the front door, bumping into patrons along the way.

Madame Emmaline shrieked “I warned you. I told you about him!”

Then she approached Thomas with hands on her hips. “You run off the tourists. Stick to the locals from this day forward. Tell me what you saw that upset you so.”

“
Just what I told Mademoiselle, just what you overheard.” Thomas did not look at her as he spoke but stared at the patrons fingering the candles and potions, seeking a talisman for truth and peace—just as he himself had done during a purposeless youth. What good was truth when it came too late?

Madame Emmaline shook him by the shoulders, as if to awaken him from a trance. “It is not the first time you saw
nzambis
. What is different? Did you
know
these people?”

“
I never met them until today. I saw and felt
blood calling to blood.
When I touched the woman's hand, a curtain lifted, just far enough to see what I have never known, what I have sought to know my entire life. The young woman is blood related to me on my biological father’s side. The man I saw in the vision, I knew was my father, and on his finger was this
very ring I wear. I wish to know his name.”

The inside of the Gentleman's Literary Club was dimly lit, brightened only by ladies with beaded headbands, dangling earrings and red rouged lips, against the back drop of embossed wallpaper patterned in maroon and gold. Candles flickered through the haze of cigarette smoke, and the air smelled of cheap perfume and nickle cigars.

Frank Clancy looked up from his chair, saw Jesse McCann and Buck Hennessy enter and turned his head. He knew Jesse would not set foot in the club unless he was on a mission, and Clancy wanted nothing to do with it. The earlier meeting downstairs at the bookstore had left his nerves a jittery jumble of paranoia.

The men seated themselves at the counter, and someone slid Buck a shot of red-eye. Buck reached for the glass, but Jesse caught him by the wrist. “Not this time, old boy.”

“
One snort won’t make no difference no how,” Buck growled. “You’ve gotten a bit too goody-two-shoes for me of late. Why I remember when….”

Jesse cut him off. “I never claimed to be a saint, but we're here on
business
. In case you’ve forgotten, the country’s gone dry.”

Buck peered at Jesse as if he were some unknown species that needed further researching. “You know how to kill a good time better than a gaggle of nuns in a dance hall. If you’d let your Irish sentiments roll out, you’d be a right fun fella. Answer me this—why'd you agree to meet with this Higgins fella in a speakeasy anyhow?”

“
For one thing, it’s the only private place in town. What's overheard here goes no further. Besides, this is where the man comes in the afternoon, when he’s anywhere close to Morgans Bluff. In fact, he’s walking in the door right now.”

Snake Eye Higgins loved to make a grand entrance. His presence filled the room and electrified the air around him. He strode in with his fringed rawhide vest, his lively eyes that consumed everything and everybody. All the club members turned to speak as he passed by, but he headed straight for the table where Jesse and Buck waited. He was more than a mere man. He was a big boned, renowned bounty hunter on the trail, single minded and committed—all for finding a decades-old skeleton for no reason he understood. He was a legend in his own mind, and promotion was as important as performance. He was ready for a little sensationalism to advance his career. He wanted not just to find the remains. He wanted to know who murdered Cyrus McCann.

He looked in Clancy’s direction, after shaking hands with Jesse and Buck: “Mr. Clancy, shoo off anybody there in the back booth, so I can talk to these gentlemen in private.”

Clancy scurried away to the back, whiskers twitching and eyes bulging. He returned alongside an ousted and disgruntled couple. “All’s clear, Mr. Higgins,” he announced.

The three men went back and leaned in with heads close together.

“Ask away
,” Buck told Snake Eye.

“
I need to know how to get to the old Hennessy home place, so I can talk to Louis Monet...if he’s still there, and if he’s still alive.”

“
How can
I
help?” Jesse asked.

“
I really don’t need you, Mr. McCann. There’s probably not much you can do. You’re needed at the mill any way. Best place for you for now.”

Jesse said nothing, but he knew it was a matter of time before he would insist on inclusion. For now he would bide his time, and let the man do the job for which he was more than well paid.

Buck, as usual, was not to be dissuaded: “I’m comin’ with you, whether you want me to or not...but I gotta advise you. You can drive only as far as a place called Blue Hole. Then you ain't got no trail at all. We’ll have to get out and walk, ‘cause comin’ through the underbrush will be like pullin’ ticks off a speckled dog. You won’t know what you’re lookin’ at or where to look first. You can't even get through on horseback. Of course
you
would know, after all your years in the piney woods.” Buck could not help but smirk.

“
I do know. I also know you won’t be able to make it in that terrain, Mr. Hennessy.” Snake Eye pointedly eyed Buck’s empty and pinned pant leg.

“
Don't tell me what I can and cannot do, Buster. I can do any dad-gum thing I’ve a mind to, including whoopin’ you if need be!”

“
Lower your voice, Buck,” Jesse said.

Snake Eye simply smiled. “Far be it from him to take away the old man’s pride. When it's all said and done, pride is all a man can count on and all that's left at the end.”

The ride out started well enough. Buck had brought along a machete to cut through the jungle like area. His years as a lumberjack had taught him how to manage in the woodlands, and nothing other than his age and lack of a leg could slow him down. So after driving several miles, the trail all but disappeared at Blue Hole, just as Buck had said. They parked and got out to walk, with Buck slashing back the tangle of vines and brush, clearing the way for Higgins behind him. One fourth of the way to the old home place, Buck was slowing down and was unable to continue. “Go on ahead, Higgins. Chaps my hide to admit it, but I’m tuckered out and my leg’s gone rubbery. Here. T
ake the machete and whack your way on through.”

“
I don’t need that. I’ll do just fine,” Higgins blustered.

“
Suit yourself. I can make it back to the truck. if you ain't back in a couple of hours, I’ll go for Jesse. He may be a man of few words, but he’s man enough to bring you out of there.”

After a grueling trek onward, Higgins finally spotted the shack through overgrown bushes. He stopped to make sure his revolver was still tucked just inside his waistband. He was prepared, in case he walked into more than the elderly couple he was expecting. He knocked on the door several times without a response, and as he turned to go, the screen door creaked open. A woman who fit the Buck’s description of Phoebe peered out at him.

“Phoebe Monet?”

The woman re-latched the screen with shaking hands. “Who are you?”

“My name is Philip Snake Eye Higgins, and I’ve been sent by Mr. Hennessy. I’ve come to help the McCann family find their deceased relative. Mr. Hennessy thought it would be kinder for me to talk to you, rather than the sheriff. Seeing as your friend Buck is the only person who knows how to get here, you can believe it was he who sent me. I mean you no harm. I want to speak to Louis Monet.”

Phoebe’s keen dark eyes narrowed as she looked Higgins up and down. “Okay, so you found us. Why would I let you speak to my man, even if he
was
here?”

“
Because, as I said, it’s either me as Buck’s friend or the sheriff. We would rather do this in a civilized way that brings no trouble to Mr. Monet. So which way will it be?”

Phoebe unlatched the screen, stepped aside and granted the bounty hunter entrance. She led him to a back room where a stooped, elderly man sat in a cane bottom chair staring out the window. He did not turn around when they entered.