Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 02 - Skeletons of the Atchafalaya (2 page)

I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve stepped into
a pirogue and within thirty seconds of pushing off from
shore, found myself in an antediluvian world in which at
any moment I half expected a forty-ton brontosaurus to lift
his long neck and tiny head from the brown waters or a
savage Tyrannosaurus rex to come crashing through the
marshy floodplain with his teeth gnashing.

But not even my wildest imaginings of the chilling phantasmagoria that lurked beyond those lush stands of mixed
hardwoods could compare with the bizarre events of our
family reunion last June.

Instead of a three-day fail do do of food and dancing
and laughing over old times, we not only found ourselves
cut off from the rest of the world by Belle, a Category
Three hurricane, but also confronted with voodoo wangas,
a family trying to lynch one of its own, and a killer who
had decided to double the population of Boudreauxs and
Thibodeauxs in the family cemetery. Me included.

The last time I saw Uncle A.D. alive, his fat cheeks and
bulbous nose were bright red from the network of tiny capillaries ruptured by too much alcohol, too much rich food,
and the mistaken belief he would outlive everyone he had
cheated.

When I saw him an hour and a half later, he was dead,
lying in a pool of his own blood, a screwdriver buried to
the hilt in the side of his fat neck.

To make matters worse, the white members of our family
had decided that the killer was its single black member, my
cousin, Leroi Thibodeaux.

Since February, I’d been looking forward to the family
reunion at Whiskey Bend in the Atchafalaya Swamp. Once
every five or six years, someone in the family usually organized afais do do, pronounced “fay dough dough.” Fais do do is a Cajun corruption of the French expression faitesle dormir, literally meaning “make some sleep.”

For generations, Cajun families had been coming together for three days of laughter, dancing, and food. They
threw pallets on the floor to make some sleep for the
youngsters while the adults danced and gossiped and caught
up on all the family news.

At first, I wouldn’t admit even to myself that something
more fueled my anticipation than simply the opportunity to
visit family members I hadn’t seen in a few years. As I
drew nearer Whiskey Bend, I finally acknowledged my ulterior motive for attending the reunion.

After crossing the Sabine River on Interstate 10, I pulled
into the Louisiana Highway Tourist Information and Rest
Stop. I stepped out for a breath of refreshing Louisiana air.
Instead of a clean, cooling breeze, however, a deathly calm
and suffocating humidity enveloped me.

I glanced southward, toward the Gulf of Mexico. At that
moment, the newscaster on the radio announced that a
small tropical disturbance had formed in the Gulf. I grimaced, but shrugged it off. Those who live along the Gulf
coast are always facing tropical storms.

The inhabitants have accommodated themselves to deluges, flash floods, and rising tides. With casual aplomb,
they shrug off the hosts of snakes, possums, bobcats, coyotes, hybrid wolves, and Florida panthers seeking refuge
from the rising water. The water is one of the main reasons
so many of the older homes were constructed on piers.

A five-foot alligator emerging from under a house after
a storm was not an unusual sight, nor was a water snake
nosing around at the front screen, seeking dry shelter. Even
the black bears in Atchafalaya headed for higher ground
when the storms blew in.

As usual, traffic was heavy on 1-10. As usual, the Louisiana Department of Transportation had shut down half the lanes between the Sabine River and Atchafalaya Swamp to
accommodate its constant, ongoing construction. And as
usual, the Louisiana drivers practiced the philosophy that
any speed under eighty was for old ladies and one-eyed
widowers.

My on-again, off-again significant other, Janice CoffmanMorrison, had agreed to meet me at Whiskey Bend, the location of the reunion. She’d been judging competition at a
daylily show in New Orleans and was returning to Austin.
When you’re rich-very rich-you can do that sort of thing.

The real reason I was so eager for this reunion was not
so much to renew family ties as to show off before my
family, most of whom would have given odds that I would
end up a bum like my father, John Roney Boudreaux, who
deserted us thirty-two years ago when I was seven.

They were wrong. I wanted them to know they were
wrong. I wanted them to know that I was a successful private investigator with a Texas license, and that I was a
close friend with the heiress to one of the largest fortunes
in the state. I didn’t plan on revealing it was the Chalk
Hills Distillery fortune, although that would certainly endear Janice to the drunks in my family. On the other hand,
such an announcement would undoubtedly alienate the
women in our family.

Bottom line was that I wanted them to know I was somebody.

That might seem shallow, crass, self-serving. So what?
For years, family members watched as I bounced from job
to job, smug in their satisfaction that it was just a matter
of time until I took off for the anonymity of the road. It
was in my blood, some whispered. Like father, like son,
others predicted.

But I had proven them wrong, and I wanted them to
know it. I glanced at the alligator boots on my feet, a deliberate and expensive purchase aimed at showing them
how wrong they were.

Whiskey Bend is a small village on an island in the middle of the Atchafalaya Swamp, connected to the mainland
by a two-mile bridge built back in the administration of
Huey Long. I couldn’t help noticing the rust on the bridge
and thinking to myself that the state was going to have a
job on its hands when it started refurbishing the narrow
span.

I looked ahead to the end of the bridge, noting the water
oak and cypress on either side. A surge of anticipation
rushed through my veins. From as early as I could remember, my grandfather and I had made a game of who could
see my great-grandfather’s house first.

Patches of locoweed, its tiny white flowers forming an
umbrella that bobbed up and down with the breeze, grew
on the marshy spits projecting out from the island. Every
time I saw the plant I remembered the time my cousin
Giselle kept our cousin Ozzy from eating one of the pods.
“Just because it smells like carrots doesn’t mean it’s good,
dumbbell,” she had admonished him.

With a chuckle, I remembered the several times we kids
spotted black bears roaming the island. All of us except
Giselle had raced for the sanctuary of the big house. And
to further enhance her preeminence in our generation, Giselle was the only one of us whoever mastered the whiplike
skill of popping the head off a snake.

At the end of the bridge, the water oak and cypress grew
thick, blocking a view of the three-story antebellum-styled
house.

When I used to drive over the bridge with Grandpa, I
always jammed my nose against the windshield to get the
first glimpse between two ancient water oaks, the only spot
in the stand of trees through which the house could be seen.

Nostalgia washed over me when I reached the end of the
bridge. I leaned forward and spotted my great-grandfather’s
three-story house. “I see it, Grandpa,” I muttered, remembering how the old man had taken my own pa’s place in
raising me.

I braked my pickup to a halt to savor the nostalgia of
returning to a part of my childhood. The red brick house
sat on a stone and concrete foundation that raised it twelve
feet above the ground. Covered verandas surrounded the
perimeter of the house on each of the three floors.

With a chuckle, I remembered playing hide-and-seek in
the house, especially upstairs where there were four bedrooms on the second floor and five on the third, each with
its own fireplace.

Remodeled by my uncle, A.D. Thibodeaux, GreatGrandfather Garion Thibodeaux’s house perched on the
highest elevation on the island, itself a rough square about
three miles on each side. Beyond the house a couple miles
was Whiskey Bend, a small community of about 400, the
majority of whom were shrimpers or offshore roughnecks.

A crowd milled about on the south and west sides of the
house. Cars and pickups were parked at random on the
north and east side. Everywhere. I whistled softly when I
saw them. At least fifteen or twenty. “What did you expect,
Tony?” I muttered. “Eight to ten families, four or five generations each.”

According to what Mother had told me over the phone
earlier, over sixty family members had attended the last
reunion. They expected more for this one. Considering the
fact that my great-grandfather had five daughters and two
sons, the anticipated attendance did not surprise me.

I pulled up at the edge of the parking area. I didn’t want
my truck dinged. My pickup was still new, a Chevrolet
Silverado. It was a gift from Joe Vaster. He’s an east-coast
mobster-I mean businessman-for whom I once did a favor over in Galveston.

A brown-haired woman about my age and about half-adozen children suddenly appeared between two vehicles.
The woman and I stared at each other a moment. Then I
recognized her. Giselle-Giselle Melancon. My cousin. I waved through the window and then pulled in beside a
yellow and red pickup. I grinned when I saw the logo on
the pickup door: Catfish Lube. That meant Leroi was
around.

Giselle said something to the children, who raced back
to the house. She was waiting for me when I climbed out
of the truck. We hugged. “You look wonderful, Tony.”

“You too, Giselle. Haven’t changed a bit.”

She laughed softly and jabbed a finger in her waist,
which was thicker than last time I had seen her. She wore
loose-fitting denim shorts and a red tank top. “I’m starting
to get up there, Tony.” She patted my belly. “You’re staying trim.”

I hugged her around the shoulder and headed for the
others. “Try to.”

She slipped her arm around my waist.

Nodding to the Catfish Lube logo on the yellow pickup
next to mine, I said. “Leroi’s here, I see.”

She glanced up at me, a look of pain in her eyes. “Yeah.
He brought his wife.”

“What about his kids?”

She shrugged. “You know kids. The oldest has a car. He
and his girlfriend stayed a few minutes and left.”

Her tone cooled my laughter. I glanced down at her.
“Things any different?”

“What do you think?” She shook her head. “I’m surprised Leroi’s still here. He told me he was just going to
pop in and out to satisfy his papa.”

I grimaced. “Some family we got, Giselle. They hold it
against the kid because his father married a black girl. Go
figure.”

“Yeah, but he’s the reminder.”

“Yeah. Bunch of bigots. Family or not.”

She laughed and squeezed me. “You were always the
contrary one, Tony.”

“Maybe so.” I laughed. “But not this time. A.D. can drink all he wants. Bailey can brag all he wants. Patric can
fight all he wants. Anyone can do whatever they want. I’m
just going to smile and agree with everybody.”

“Even Nanna?”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re kidding. I thought she died.”

Nanna was the oldest of the clan, Great-Grandpa’s sister.
Some family members claimed she was a Seer. I knew for
a fact that people went to her for grin-grin or wangas-all
that voodoo nonsense.

“No. She’s still alive and kicking.”

“How’s Affina? She here?”

Giselle grew somber. “Mama had to work. You know
she doesn’t like these things. Too many memories.”

For a moment, there was an awkwardness between us.
Giselle’s mother, Affina, had never married. The non-event
and its subsequent result was one of those old family skeletons hidden away in the back of a closet. I leaned over
and kissed Giselle on the forehead. “Well, I’m glad you’re
here. Tell her I said hi.”

“Tony!”

I looked around. A man about my age waved from the
porch. His grin revealed brilliant white teeth contrasting
with his cafe-au-lait complexion. Next to him stood his
wife, Sally.

I waved back. “Leroi!”

Several young children raced past, laughing and shouting. I spotted two or three with tiny flannel bags pinned to
their shirts. Gris-gris. I laughed to myself. Yep, Nanna was
here. She had made grin-grin for me when I was a kid.

Leroi led Sally down the steps two at a time. “You old
son-of-a-gun,” he shouted.

We threw our arms around each other and laughed. After
a moment, we reached out and drew Sally and Giselle into
our little huddle.

I stepped back and eyed my cousin and his wife. “How
long you two been here?”

“Not long. Planned on just stopping in so Pa wouldn’t fuss so much,” he replied, nodding to his father, who stood
by washtubs full of iced-down beer. Beyond were tables
laden with succulent barbeques, spicy gumbos, piquant
Creole jambalayas, peppery etouffees, juicy crabs, boiled
shrimp, tangy potato salads, dirty rice just about every
imaginable dish in Cajun cuisine.