Love and Glory: The Coltrane Saga, Book 3 (13 page)

“Then
listen
to my stories,” Eldon sighed dismally. “Listen to me and then I think you will agree it best for you to leave Haiti at once.”

He began by explaining how the voodoo rites had come from Africa to Haiti, and Travis interrupted to say that he had heard it was practiced in some parts of Louisiana. “That’s where I was raised. In the bayou. I never believed in it then, either.”

Eldon nodded, then went on to explain that in the early days of slavery in America, the voodoo priest carried on without attracting too much attention, but in time, the “possessions” or “seizures,” as they were sometimes called, which occurred in the slave quarters, along with the sounds of the conical drums beating, attracted the attention of their masters. Afraid that it would make the slaves band together to rebel, the masters prohibited voodoo. It was decreed that anyone found possessing a voodoo symbol would be beaten and, sometimes to set an example, hanged.

Eldon explained how all of this cruelty merely made the slaves cling to their gods all the more tightly. “Voodoo did not die. It will never die.”

“You still haven’t told me anything to make me believe in it.”

“I was trying to make you understand how
strong
it is.” Eldon slammed his fist down on his knee. “Now I will tell you what it is really like.”

Voodoo in Haiti, he described, was a systematic religion where the gods descended and possessed their worshipers, and the spirits of dead ancestors entered their living relatives to give them power.

Children, he said, were taught to be good for fear of punishment from the gods. They were taught not to allow their heads to get wet, particularly with dew, for it was believed that water was a magnet for spirits, and a spirit of a person lives in the head.

At night, bogies were about. Doors and windows were carefully closed to keep them out. Some, however, could get inside no matter what precautions were taken. These were the
loupgarous
who sucked children’s blood. They could be seen whizzing through the night as bright lights.

The middle of the day was considered terribly dangerous, for that was the time when no man cast a shadow, and his soul was said to disappear. With soul and shadow together, a spirit flew around looking for a body to make a home in.

“Then there is the
tonton macoute,
a witch doctor of sorts,” Eldon continued. “He carries such medicines as dead spiders and live centipedes, or the heart of a cat.”

Eldon looked at Travis with deep sympathy. “What I am trying to tell you, Travis, is that you have made this girl very angry. You have scorned her. She has gone to a
houngan and
a
mambo,
and these are great priests. They got their position by going through an initiation that is too horrible to describe. My grandfather never saw one, but he said the rites lasted forty days or more. They ate spiders, bugs, and raw animals. They were put through all manner of misery and sickness. They even walked on fire—stones placed in saucers with hot rum poured over them and set aflame.

“These priests,” Eldon said firmly, “come out of the initiation
as
priests, and they can call on the
loas,
the gods, to invoke their spells and do all kinds of evil. They can kill. They can raise the dead and make zombies of them. Don’t you see? There is no telling what the girl is going to ask the
houngan
to do to you.”

“Kill me? Raise me from the dead?” Travis scoffed. “Make a zombie out of me? Yes, I’ve heard of zombies.” He recounted the story the little Negro boy had told him about why graves were placed near well-traveled places.

“That is true. That is true.” Eldon nodded enthusiastically, as though he were finally getting through to the skeptical man before him. “A zombie has no soul and only goes through the motions of life. It’s a slave, compelled to follow his master’s bidding forever, doing the hardest labor possible, fed only a flat, unseasoned food called
bouillie.”

Eldon leaned forward, clasping and unclasping his perspiring hands. “My grandfather even told me how it happens. A sorcerer goes to someone’s hut late at night with an empty corked bottle and a hollow bamboo rod. When he’s sure his victim is sound asleep, for that is when the soul is completely unprotected by its owner, he whispers an incantation to Damballa, the god of the home, invoking Damballa to look the other way so he won’t see what is being done.”

He rushed on excitedly. “He puts the end of the bamboo rod against the slit under the door and sucks out the soul of the person inside. Then he spits it into the bottle and puts a cork on it. He goes home, sacrifices a hen to Damballa, recites an incantation of gratitude. Then he buries the soul, imprisoned in the bottle, along with the dead hen, under a big rock somewhere. All he has to do then is wait for his victim to die, which usually happens in around three days. The night he’s buried, he goes to the graveyard, invokes the voodoo god Baron Samedi, the keeper of the dead, asking him to let him dig up the corpse without any interference. He digs up the body and sticks a freshly cut fern of a plant called
mouri leve
in its mouth. In just a few minutes, the corpse sits up.”

He spread his hands in a gesture of finality and leaned back to await Travis’ reaction.

Travis chuckled. “Now I’m actually glad I never knew my grandfather. If he had told me wild tales like that, I think I would have broken his heart by calling him a senile old fool.”

Eldon leaped to his feet.
“Damn it, Coltrane, this is serious. You go to some of the government officials here and tell them what happened and see how fast they
help
you out of Haiti. From what you told me, this girl has already been to a
houngan,
and when she tells him about the episode today, you can believe that when you hear drums beating tonight, they will be beating at a rite calling on spirits to come down and help punish Travis Coltrane.”

“Eldon, I’m so damn tired right now that by the time I have a few more drinks, I’m going to be so sound asleep they can use my
head
for a drum if they want to. I won’t hear a thing.”

Eldon began to pace the room nervously. “It’s too late to apologize. The damage has been done. You took the girl’s virginity. You refused to make her your
placée.
You rejected her and humiliated her. She was terribly angry or she would not have attacked you as she did. Right now she is probably with her
houngan
or
mambo,
making plans. No…it would do no good to go to her and apologize. You must leave at once.”

“Look, Harcourt. I never meant to hurt Molina. She was lovely, and she offered herself to me, and I made love to her, and it was good for both of us. I never made her any promises, and I had no idea she was making plans. I tried to tell her that, but she wouldn’t listen. She just went crazy. You’re right, there’s no need for me to go and see her and apologize, because it wouldn’t do any good. I just hope to God I never see her again, anyway.”

“So leave Haiti!” Eldon cried imploringly. “Lord, man, I heard this morning that we may be here for months yet. It seems that the committee has discovered some dirty dealings. Certain rich Americans have learned of President Grant’s plan, and they’re slipping in to buy up land on speculation, hoping to make a fortune. The committee is going to conduct a full investigation.”

“I still have a job here. The pay is good, and you must admit the work is easy. You are summoned occasionally to take in brandy and cigars, and I wait around in case a marshal is needed for protection. It’s an easy life, Eldon.”

“If you don’t get out of Haiti, the only life you will have is that of a zombie!” He yanked the empty whiskey bottle from Travis’ hand and threw it against the wall. Shards of glass scattered at his feet. “Listen to me, God damn you! Get out while you can.”

“I think…” Travis yawned as he got to his feet and stretched, “that I’m going to get that bath and that food and those drinks I promised myself, and then I’m going to bed. When I wake up, I
will
leave Haiti.”

Eldon breathed a sigh, sinking down on the cot in relief. He had finally gotten through to Travis. “Thank God! Oh, thank God, you’re listening to reason.”

“Yeah,” Travis went on as though he had not spoken. “I think I’ll take a few days off and find a boat to take me to Santo Domingo to look up Sam Bucher. By the time I get back, Molina will have a new lover, and everybody will be happy.”

Eldon looked at him in weary disbelief. “You’re coming back? After everything I’ve told you? You’re coming back in only a few days?”

Travis smiled and walked to the door, pausing with his hand on the knob. “That’s right, Eldon. You see, I’ve never been scared of a damn thing in my life.”

With one final chuckle, Travis opened the door and walked out.

Eldon Harcourt sat on his cot for a long, long time, staring at the closed door. Travis Coltrane would not understand that he was a marked man. He was already dead, soon to walk the earth forever as the living dead, a zombie.

In the distance, the drums began to beat.

Chapter Seven

Travis lay on his bed in the small, dingy hotel room and listened to the rhythmic falling of the never-ceasing rain. A hot bath, decent food, and a half bottle of rum could work miracles, he thought drowsily. Now he could get some much-needed sleep. When morning came, he would feel like setting out for Santo Domingo. Finding Sam had suddenly, for some reason he could not explain, become very important. He cursed himself for not going sooner. But why hadn’t Sam come to him? Maybe the work Sam was doing was important, and he had not been relegated to sitting around, waiting.

Just lying there, peacefully waiting for slumber to take him, Travis could already think more clearly. He had not only discovered the urgent need to find Sam but now questioned the wisdom of having left home. Kitty had behaved strangely, but he had been too damned pigheaded to try to figure out that strange behavior. Something had been bothering her, just as he had been plagued with misery over the way they were living, but hell, why hadn’t they talked it out? Why did it have to lead to this? And what, he asked again, had made Kitty act so strangely?

His eyelids grew heavier, closed, and sleep came, but only for an instant. Suddenly he was wide awake, staring toward the window. It was very dark. Hours must have passed. The rain was not quite so heavy but the roll of thunder was constant. Sleepily, he turned on his side and thought that a big storm was probably about to explode, but he was too tired to care. Let an ocean fall from the sky. He was going back to sleep. The thunder was getting louder. It was so rhythmic that it might have been drums beating, but he was too drowsy to listen.

A sharp rapping on the door brought him fully awake, and he sat up and yelled irritably into the darkness, “Who the hell is it?”

“Eldon Harcourt,” the frightened voice called through the door. “Coltrane, I have to talk to you. Let me in.”

His patience snapped. “Goddamn it, Harcourt, I’m not listening to any more of your superstitious drivel,” he yelled. “Now go away and let me sleep or I’m really going to get mad.”

“It’s the drums. Can’t you hear them?”

The man sounded almost hysterical, Travis realized.

“They’re different tonight. I
know
what they mean. My grandfather had a drum like they use, and he beat out the different rhythms for me.”

Travis wearily covered his face with his hands and asked tonelessly, “And what song are they playing tonight, Harcourt?” He really didn’t care. He just wanted the man to go away. Eldon meant well, but damn it, he was making Travis mad.

“That’s the beat they use for Baron Samedi. It’s bad, Travis. Real bad. I told you about Baron Samedi. He’s the king of the cemetery spirits. The drums have been beating like that for over an hour. If I remember everything Grandfather told me correctly, there is going to be a sacrifice tonight, Travis.
Sacrifice!”

Travis got up and stomped across the room to unlock the door and fling it open. The man’s voice had risen to an hysterical shriek, and as he stood there looking at him, Travis could see that he was scared out of his wits. Clamping his hand on Eldon’s shoulder, he yanked him into the room.

Slamming the door behind him, Travis faced Eldon, pointing an angry, accusing finger. “Now listen to me, Harcourt. I wish to God I’d never told you a damn thing today, because it seems to have triggered some kind of insanity. I wish you could see yourself.”

Eldon held out trembling arms. “Please, Coltrane, listen to me. You’re in danger. Lock your doors and windows and make sure your guns are loaded. First thing in the morning, get out of here. They’ll come for you tonight. I know they will. Listen!” His eyes widened, and he fell silent for a moment, then cried. “They’re getting louder. Hear them? The drums are louder. They’ll be coming soon.”

Travis felt sorry for the man. Trying to make his voice gentle, Travis said, “Look. I only let you in here to try to calm you down before you woke everybody and they carried you away to wherever they put crazy people around here. Now believe me when I say I am not frightened, and while I appreciate your concern for my welfare, I wish you would just butt out of my business.”

“Will you leave town in the morning?” Harcourt persisted, perspiration beading his forehead.

“I am going to Santo Domingo to look up an old friend of mine I think I told you about—Sam Bucher. He’s with the committee there. I am not leaving because of any voodoo. Now will you just get out of here and let me get some sleep?”