Rafe (15 page)

“O, I harpooned whales and drunk me grog

on a thousand ships or more,

but the only berth I dearly love

is 'tween the legs o' a Yankee whore.”

The girl shoved his hand away from her breast. “No more a' that.”

Butkis grabbed the bottle from her and took several swallows before handing it back. As she drank he sat up, grabbed her ankles, pulled her down flat on the bed and forced her legs apart. The prostitute, too startled to cry out, gagged on the rum still in her throat as Butkis mounted and drove himself into her with increasingly rapid strokes until he peaked, his head thrown back and a growling moan issuing from his throat. The girl kicked feebly, then gave up.

His goal achieved, Butkis pushed himself away and reached for the bottle before the final dram of run emptied onto the sheets. He crossed the room and stepped into his trousers, sliding them up over his bare rump, then pulled on his shirt and buckled his pistol belt around his waist.

“Bastard,” the girl gasped, still coughing and spitting, trying to clear her lungs of the fiery fluid. “Bedetta will geld you for this.”

“No she won't, 'cause you ain't gonna say a thing, doxy. Yore gonna keep that stick-suckin' mouth o' yores quiet 'cause you know that you gonna have to tell that big bag o' blubber how you drunk my rum when you should a' been headin' downstairs. An' she'll not be likin' that a'tall.” He pointed the bottle at her menacingly. “You ain't,” he continued quietly and slowly, “tellin' no stories. Anyway, figger that quick 'un was payment for the rum you spilled. Course, I'd wash me mouth out if'n I was you. I 'spect ol' Bedetta ken smell likker on a girlie's breath quicker'n a sailor gets the stick.”

The prostitute thoughtfully fingered the white scar that spoiled her jaw, running its length from ear to chin. Black Bedetta had left a mark on her once before. She didn't relish the idea of a second kiss from the madam's straight razor. “Go yore way, Mistuh Butkis. But when you come back 'round, don't you be buyin' my services 'cause it'll get you nothin' but grief over havin' throwed good money away.”

The overseer drew his cutlass and stepped near the bed. The girl's breath caught in fear. He rested the point of the heavy blade on her inner thigh and forced her legs open. Her eyes widened and she stiffened as he lifted her shift to stare at her musky femininity. It was seconds before she realized he was chuckling, the laugh coming low and mean from his throat. He let the fabric drop and deftly slipped the blade back in its scabbard. “There's plenty better here to ask for,” he said quietly. “An' tighter, too,” then turned and strode from the room.

The lower hall was dark, even in daytime. Butkis started for the front parlor where his companions waited, then sensing danger, spun around and stared into the darkness at the back of the house. A door closed. Drawing the pistol from his belt he stealthily made his way along the wall. The light from an outer room faintly illuminated the dark recesses and he could make out a single door at the end of the hall. He approached silently.

The man in Bedetta's room cocked his pistol and aimed its .54 caliber load directly at the door. He had seen Butkis and in his haste shut the door too noisily. He knew it and cursed himself, but it was too late now for recriminations. He would have to run for it, and assuming he could kill Butkis, hope he could win his way past the two guards before they could contest his passage. The latch began to move. Why hadn't he bolted the door? Damn it. Damn, damn, damn, he repeated angrily to himself.

A door behind Butkis opened and the hall flooded with light. “What you doin' messin' wit my room, Mistuh Butkis?” Bedetta shouted from the doorway. Butkis whirled about, startled at the sudden noise and light. The man in the room slumped in relief. “Lawd have mercy but he gots a gun,” Bedetta continued, advancing on him. “You don't need to deflowa' me at gun point, honey. Why, you ken hav this any ol' time.” The fleshy madam lifted her silk skirt and revealed the black vastness of her thighs.

Butkis saw his two companions grinning at him from the parlor door. He scowled at having been taken unawares. “I was lookin' for those two rumskins and thought I seen one head this way. You get that big black fleece o' yores out o' my face an' we'll be goin'.” He hurried past the madam and gestured violently for the two guards to follow him.

Once outside he turned on them. “Wipe them grins off'n yore faces,” he said venomously, “else it's the cane fields from now till doomsday for the both o' you.” The two expressions changed from mirth to one of supreme sobriety. “An' not a word o' this to a soul,” he continued, “or I'll split yore tongues on my blade an' feed em' to you with yore beans.” He swung awkwardly into the saddle and rode out at a gallop, followed by the two thoroughly cowed guards, totally unaware of the pale, handsome face that watched them from the window of Bedetta's bedroom until they were lost from sight.

Rafe finished his twelve laps for the afternoon. The sweat pouring off him, he squatted at the tank a long time, outwardly calm, inwardly a seething ball of doubt and tension. When he could no longer take the nagging fear, he made his way to Old Chulem's hovel, a tent made of hides and wood. The entrance was low and he had to crawl in on all fours. Old Chulem sat in the gloom, a brass cup set before him. The cup held a few small brownish green leaves which were burning and sending up a slim, tenuous gray coil of scented smoke. The old man was staring at the leaves, mumbling an unintelligible chant. Rafe waited, slumped forward, legs crossed. Little used to the fetid odors of Old Chulem's abode, he looked about apprehensively. Fetishes hung on the walls. Some were man-shaped, carved of wood or fashioned from mud-covered reeds and twigs. Several were carved from bone. There were other shapes, too. Recognizable animals, the hunters and the hunted. Reptiles. And more. Nightmare shapes, fragments of despairing dreams, of demons, and eaters of spirits. The latter were evil totems and occupied a niche all to themselves. There were quills from an assortment of fowl, small clay bowls of unguents and poultices, all exuding singular pungent odors. Skulls hung from the hide roof, suspended by vines or lengths of twisted cord. Old Chulem's hut was a place of mystery, of dark ritual and age-old superstition.

Old Chulem himself was a dabbler in secrets sometimes best left untouched and unremembered. His had been a tribe living in the cloistered confines of a narrow valley on the fringes of the African delta. His remote ancestors were among the first of men. They had been some of the first to witness the unfathomable terrors of a dangerously capricious world, the first to try to understand and cope with nature, the first to try to predict and control their environment with primitive magic. Old Chulem was a proud product of the dark wisdom his ancestors had garnered over the centuries. And now, far from his native land, he practiced the ancient workings of his cult.

He looked up and stared at Rafe. One long bony finger rose to point at a man-shape carved of a chunk of meat that had hung on the wall so long it had begun to mummify. Chulem's toothless grin was all the more dreadful because of his tattooed gums. “Ezra Clayton,” was all he said. His laugh was more a wheeze. Old Chulem squinted in the gloom, his finger lowered to probe at Rafe's thigh. “Yo' leg?”

“Better.”

“I seed yo' walk de balls.”

Rafe uncrossed his legs, crossed them again.

Old Chulem shook his head. “Shouldn't worry 'bout dem young bucks. Food fo' de rats an' snakes. If not now, yo' prob'ly be killin' 'em fo' too long.” The old man could feel Rafe wasn't listening, wasn't paying attention, only waiting for him to cease his gabble. He sighed. “What yo' come to Ol' Chulem fo', Rafe?”

“Throw the bones, Chulem. Throw the bones an' tell me what you see. There's fightin' come Sunday.”

“Ah don't need no conjurin' to see what's ahead. Blood. Yo' knows dat well as Ah do. Blood flowin' in de pit. An' bloody death … yassuh.”

“Throw the bones, old man. There's a fear in me. Some-thin' happenin'. Not wrong. Not right. A change maybe. I'm not fightin', yet I feel in my gut … throw the bones, Old Chulem, dammit, read 'em fo' me. See what comin'. I gots to know.” The more urgent he became, the more Rafe lapsed into the compound dialect. I'm losing it, he thought. It I don't get out soon, I'll be nothin' more than a compound nigger jus' like the others.

Old Chulem sighed despondently and took his box of white bone fragments from behind him. He shook them twice and emptied them onto the ground, scooped them up into the box, muttered, threw them again. He repeated the action a third time. The fourth time he let the ghostly white shards lay. He bent his withered frame, his eyes studying the fragments cautiously and with great deliberation. He remained unmoving for a long time. Twice Rafe suppressed the urge to flee the old man's presence, to flee into the clean air. There was too much of the dark here, too much of the spirit world into which a man ventured only at great risk.

“Much death,” the old man began. “Much death. Red gold. Ah sees dead men an' de cat. Ah sees fang an' jaw. An' mo' … but Ah cain't say.” He hurriedly scooped up the bones and deposited them back in the box and shoved it behind him.

Rafe grabbed the withered arms, held them tight. “What else, old man?”

“Leabe me alone, boss. Bes' leabe Ol' Chulem be.”

“What did you see?”

“Ah tol's yo' what Ah seed. I doan tells yo' no mo'. Now go 'way.”

Rafe dropped the conjure man's arms and backed away from him, scrambling out from the stifling lair. The bright light confused him and for a moment he did not know which way to turn.

Old Chulem clutched a fetish and chanted an incantation in the dark. He had seen beyond Sunday.

8

Torches flared, lining the carriage path to the house in a manner reminiscent of the night almost a week earlier when Crissa first arrived. Thrust into the ground at six-foot intervals, they illuminated the gathering throng of townspeople, farmers and trappers on the way to pay their respects, garner the much-desired favors of Ezra Clayton, and partake of the abundant refreshments and entertainment for which Freedom was rapidly becoming famous. Claytonville was virtually emptied as were many of the surrounding farms. The tone of the evening was one of eager anticipation. There was gold to be wagered on the next day's event. No one could guess what Ezra planned for the pit, but it was certain to be novel and exciting.

Tables were set up on the front and side lawns. On them were heaped the rewards of nature's bounty and man's ingenuity. Slabs of venison, roasted and dripping with its own juice; wild turkey, cooked whole and stuffed with rice and herbs; vegetable pears stuffed with crab-meat; jellied pigs' feet; and bowls of steaming jambalaya done up with ham and sausage with more bowls of gravy almost thick enough to hold upright the huge wooden spoons. A huge kettle of hot, spiced chicken gumbo simmered over an open fire. Another table held desserts—loaves of fresh bread and bowls of fig, jujube, dewberry, muscadine and scuppernong preserves. Behind each table were two fan-wielding slaves to keep the flies and mosquitoes away. Other slaves from the fields had been specially bathed and clothed and trained to wander through the crowd with trays full of cups of coffee or bottles of rum.

A platform was set under the magnolias and on it sat the
fais-dodos
, the Acadian troubadors with their violins and accordions, hired for the occasion. In front of them on the lawn, town and country folk danced between food and drink. Off to one side eight or ten tables were set up. There some of the older ladies were playing a furious hand of
vingt et un
. Two tables were surrounded by men watching fierce poker games which would last the night. Farther off and beyond the glow of the lanterns a person had to walk carefully, for Saturday night in western Louisiana was an occasion for more than dancing, eating, drinking and card-playing. Young and not so young lovers sought the shadows of the cedars, from which came an occasional giggle or cry of delight as flesh met flesh under hastily raised skirts and lowered trousers.

Dressed in an immaculate white frock coat, Ezra was the perfect host, the soul of gentility and congeniality. He roamed about, laughed, smiled and greeted all with quiet dignity as befitted his position. Few knew he had made it a point to post several of his guards at various key points on the perimeter of the party.

Micara was nowhere to be seen. Hidden in her room, she drained another glass of sherry and lay back on her bed, barely able to distinguish the voices outside her door, but hardly caring. She just wished they would leave. “I just don't know what else to say to her, Crissa.” It was nosy Abigail Terson. “She won't listen to me and I'm her best friend. Or was. I haven't been invited up for … I don't know how long. And now she'll barely talk to me.”

Crissa murmured something unintelligible in return. The door opened and closed before the Terson woman could repeat herself again, as she had been doing for the last twenty-four hours, and Micara's daughter approached her mother and sat down beside her on the bed.

“Mother?”

Micara pretended to sleep.

“I know you're awake, Mother.” Micara sighed, opened her eyes and tried to focus. “Please join the party with me. I shall have to talk to all those people and would hate to have to do it alone. I'll never remember their names without you there to help me.”

Micara stared at her daughter from beneath heavy lids. The girl swam into focus and she reached up to stroke Crissa's cheek. “I'll be down shortly, dear. Run along and find Steven. I … I need to be alone a moment more. It's been too long, I'm afraid, since the last party I was … invited to.”

“Mother, you.…”