Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 02 - Skeletons of the Atchafalaya (14 page)

But that was impossible. Leroi and I were the first to
reach the scene. Only Ezeline was there, fighting the bear.
Giselle had to have come up with Uncle Henry. The old
man just didn’t remember. “I-”

Without warning, the shrieking winds of the storm exploded in our ears. “What the-” I shouted, jerking my
head around in an effort to spot the source of the roaring.
I figured probably another tree or maybe even some object
picked up by the wind had smashed through another window.

A scream cut through the roaring. “Bailey! Close that
door!”

Bailey had opened the French doors and pushed the
storm door open so he could peer into the violent, swirling
winds. That was his first mistake. The second was that he
had opened the door that faced into the wind. His third
mistake was that he had miscalculated the strength of the
winds.

When I spotted him, he was bent almost double, straining
to close the storm door against hundred-mile-an-hour winds
and rain.

He looked around frantically, fear in his eyes. “Help.
George! Henry! Help me here. Somebody help me here.”

Even as we dashed across the parlor, a loud crack like a
gunshot cut through the screaming. The door, and Uncle
Bailey, vanished into the storm.

When I reached the open doorway, I spotted Uncle Bailey in waist-deep water, his arms wrapped around one of
the columns that supported the portion of the veranda still
in place. A twenty-foot section of the second-floor veranda in front of the French doors had collapsed. It leaned against
the house at an angle.

Down the veranda, more shutters were loose, banging
against the frames.

“Someone get a rope,” Leroi called out.

I searched the crowd for Uncle Henry. “The rope you
got for Leroi and me-where is it?”

“It on shelves at bottom of stairs,” the old man-replied.-

“Get us some, but be careful of the water. There’s bound
to be a strong current through there.”

He nodded. “I go.”

Bailey screamed into the wind, “Help. Hurry. I don’t
know how long I can hold on.”

Someone grabbed my arm. It was Leroi. “Here.” He
shoved some sheets into my hands. “I tied them together.
They’ll help until the rope gets here.”

Nodding, I threw out one end of the sheets. “Grab it,
Bailey,” I shouted.

The wind and rain grabbed the sheets, stringing them out
almost parallel to the swirling water, well above Bailey’s
grasping fingers.

Leroi grabbed the sheet and pulled it in. “I’ll go down.
We’ll hold on until Henry comes back with the rope.”

Before I could say wait, hold on, or you’re crazy, Leroi,
clinging tightly to one end of the sheet, slid down the veranda into the water. Moments later, he had tied the end of
the sheet around Bailey. Leroi waved at me. “Let’s try to
get him up.”

We tried to hoist Bailey, but the sheet ripped. Leroi
grabbed the floundering man and pulled him back to the
column where they both clung desperately.

Behind me, a terrified scream echoed through the house,
followed by the slamming of a door and another terrified
scream. “Snakes!”

I looked around at Patric. “What’s going on now?”

Uncle Henry’s voice carried above the storm. “The basement stairs are covered with snakes and alligators.”

I rolled my eyes. I should have thought of that. I handed
the end of the sheet to Patric. “Hold on tight. I’ll be back.”

Uncle Henry was leaning against the basement door, his
face pale as a new sheet. He had his hand over his heart.
“It almost scare me to death. I open the door, and the
snakes and gators, they cover the stairs.”

I muttered an oath.

Someone shouted, “Bleach!”

I looked around at Giselle. “What?”

“I said, bleach. You know, chlorine bleach. Look, I’m
sure we don’t have any gasoline in the house here, but I’ll
bet chlorine bleach would drive the snakes and gators off
the stairs at least long enough to grab some rope.”

I shook my head. “Why not? Let’s do it.”

Janice headed for the kitchen, Sally and Giselle upstairs.
Moments later the three returned, each with a partially full
bottle of bleach, two of which we dumped into an aluminum pot.

I picked up the pot and nodded to Uncle Henry. “Open
the door and as soon as I throw this on them, slam it shut.
Okay?”

He swallowed hard. “You-You bet.”

“Anytime.”

He jerked the door open. In the next second, I soaked
the stairs with bleach, and immediately, Uncle Henry
slammed the door.

“How long do we have to wait?” I asked Giselle.

“Not long. Another few seconds, and they’ll be gone.”

I gave them more than a few seconds. Finally, I opened
the door a crack. I grinned. Giselle had been right once
again. The bleach had cleared the stairs.

Slowly, I opened the door. “Now, where’s the rope, Uncle Henry?”

He crept up to my shoulder. “See them shelves at the
bottom of the stairs? Well, the rope is on them spools on
the middle shelves.”

I spotted the spools. They were half in, half out of the water. I guessed the water to be about three, maybe threeand-a half-feet deep. To reach them, I was going to be
about thigh-deep in water for three or four steps.

I extended my hand toward the remaining bottle of
bleach. “Let me have that in case I need it down there.”

So, armed with only a bottle of bleach, I eased down the
stairs, grateful for the electricity powering the lights. I don’t
think I would have had nerve enough to go down below
with only a flashlight.

Carrying a spool upstairs was not in my plans. All I
wanted to do was grab a loose end and scoot back upstairs
where we could unroll it away from the snakes and alligators.

Pausing just before I entered the water, I scanned the
room that had once served as the dining room for laborers.
Beyond was the old kitchen, and adjacent to the kitchen
was the old storeroom.

The current was strong and cold. Suddenly, a chill ran
up my spine. Beyond the doorway, a wake broke the surface. It was headed directly for me.

I hurriedly sloshed three or four steps to the shelves,
grabbed a loose end of rope, and scurried back up the stairs
like a frightened mouse.

Just as I reached the top of the stairs, a six-foot alligator
burst out of the water. I slammed the door behind me, shivering at the thought of being the first one to go through
that basement after the water receded. No telling what creatures might take up habitat there.

We had to open the door a crack to cut off the rope we
needed for Leroi and Bailey. Uncle Henry and Giselle continued to unspool the rope. “No telling what we might need
it for,” she said. “It doesn’t hurt to be ready for whatever
might come up.”

Pulling Bailey and Leroi from the water was almost anticlimatic, for the rescue went exactly as we planned. We
doubled the rope, Bailey slipped it under his arms, and we
proceeded to slide him up the veranda. Same with Leroi.

“Think you’re a hero, huh?” I slapped Leroi on the back.

“If I hadn’t gone after him, you would have.”

I grinned at him. “Don’t hand me that. I know why you
went after him.”

Our eyes met. I saw the glitter of amusement in his.
“You think so, huh?”

“No. I know so. You think you’re pretty sneaky. That
was the worst thing you could have done to him.”

Leroi glanced at the retreating back of Uncle Bailey.
With a grin of smug satisfaction, he replied, “It was, wasn’t
it? That bigoted old man is going to have to live the rest
of his life knowing that a black boy saved his life.”

“Not just a black boy,” I replied, laughing. “But a
nephew.”

“Who he has never wanted to admit he had,” Leroi added
to my remark.

We both laughed. Right then, in the middle of all our
troubles, Leroi and I were closer than we had ever been.
“Come on,” I said. “Let me buy you a beer.” I was ready
for one. I didn’t figure the folks in AA back in Austin
would object too much if I went off the wagon for a single
beer. The last twenty-four hours seemed like twenty-four
months. Maybe they would recognize the warp the last two
days had made in the time-continuum.

I knew I was using that as an excuse, but at the moment,
I didn’t care. We were suspended in the middle of a terrifying world of sound and fury and death. If we made it
out, then we could go about putting our lives back together.

The incident had sobered Uncle Bailey, a physiological
state he promptly set about altering. “Where’s a beer?”
were the first words to come out of his mouth.

I paused, peering out into the storm. Great oaks and red
maples swayed in the wind. As far as I could see, there
was nothing but water. I thought about the generator, wondering how high the water had risen.

“What now?” Leroi asked.

“The generator. We need to check on it.”

He gestured to the storm. “In the middle of this? We’d
never make it to the shed. Don’t sweat it, Cousin. If it goes
out, then we’ll just sit here in the dark. Now come on. I’m
ready for that beer.”

“I’m for that.” I dumped the water from my boots and
followed Leroi.

Everyone around the radio grew silent. After a moment,
a few men cursed. Janice spotted me and hurried from the
crowd.

“What’s going on?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know exactly. All I heard
was that the hurricane went back offshore.”

I stared at her. “You sure?”

She gestured in the direction of the radio. “That’s what
the weatherman said. What does that mean, Tony? It must
be bad because everyone seems upset.”

“Well, it might not be all that bad,” Leroi volunteered.
“The problem is that when it goes back offshore, then it
can move up or down the coast.”

“Where it was heading,” I explained, “was east of us,
maybe Baton Rouge, or even New Orleans. Wherever it
went, we would be on the west side of the eye.”

“That’s the good side,” she said.

“Yeah. But offshore, she could move west.”

A woman’s voice sounded behind us. “And still come in
right on top of us.”

We looked around. It was Giselle. “In fact, if you look
outside, you’ll notice the wind and rain is slacking off
some.”

Janice slid her arm under mine. “So, it isn’t over yet, is
it?”

I led the way back to the kitchen. “Hard to say. She
might move on down the coast. We might wake up in the
morning and the sun will be out. It’s just hard to say.”

Opening the back door, I peered through the glass insert in the storm door. Water was in the generator shed.
Only about a foot or so, I guessed. That meant we had
another three feet to spare before the water reached the
generator.

Sally and Leroi came into the kitchen. “You better find
some more of that bleach, Giselle,” she said, gesturing to
the parlor. “George Miller looked out one of the storm
doors and said the steps and veranda are covered with all
sorts of animals.”

Janice gasped. I patted her hand and tried to reassure
her. “It’s natural. Don’t worry. Once the worst is over, the
animals will be just as happy to get out of here as we will
to see them go.”

“You sure?” She looked up at me hopefully.

I nodded. “Bet you wish you were back in Austin, huh?”

“Yes.”

“I wish we were both back there.” I leaned over and
touched my lips to hers.

“Think I’ll get me something to snack on,” Leroi said.

The others joined in. Janice looked up at me. “You want
me to make you a sandwich, Tony?”

“No. You go ahead. I’ll be in there after I talk to Aunt
Ezeline.”

Aunt Ezeline was nervous. At first I figured she was still
edgy from her husband’s close call, but later I realized I
hadn’t seen her around the window during our rescue efforts, another puzzling detail.

I explained what I was doing and the fact I just wanted
her to tell me what she could remember. She shook her head. “I don’t like this, Tony. It make me nervous. I don’t
know nothing to help.”

I laid my hand on hers to reassure her. I truly felt sorry
for Aunt Ezeline. She’d worked hard all her life. Her eyes
reflected that watery hopelessness that comes from years of
not quite making ends meet. Her frazzled hair and ill-fitting
dress were mute evidence of too many cheap home perms
and too much discount shopping.

“Just relax, Ezeline. Tell me about you and Marie going
up to your room yesterday to look at your new blouse.”

She frowned at me. “Is that all?”

“Unless there’s more. Just tell all about it.”

“Not much to say, Tony. I find a blouse at Carpenter’s
in Eunice. It costs half what one like it costs at the Junior
Shop.”

“Did you see anyone when you were going up to your
room?”

She studied the question. “Leroi,” she said. “We see
Leroi.”

“Anyone else?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Then what?”

“After Marie see the blouse, we come back downstairs.”