The Tangled Bridge (48 page)

The girl sat Madeleine on the stool and examined the leg, using her fingernails to pull out the largest sliver.

Madeleine closed her eyes and drew her attention to her body. The heat and pain. She could hear the sound of the wind stirring the water outside, feel the creak of the boardwalk. She wanted to wonder about all those other houses out there but refused to give in to meandering thoughts. Kept herself safe in this room.

She heard, “What's happening?”

Madeleine opened her eyes and saw the girl was staring at her. They both regarded her leg, now untouched by any wounds. Some of the splinters lay harmlessly atop her skin. Some blood was still there but was no longer flowing.

“I'm sorry about the pajamas,” Madeleine said.

“You've got to take them off. They're wet and you're … so sick.”

Madeleine gave her a look but said nothing as she pulled off the chemise. In truth she felt tremendous. Bulletproof. Not a single ache in her body. Enough energy to haul a train.

The girl took the wet clothes and Madeleine reached for her old ones.

Then girl said, “You can call me Jane.”

“Madeleine.”

“I know.”

Madeleine gave her a backward glance as she buttoned her jeans and then pulled her shirt over her head. It smelled fresh like it'd been laundered and hung to dry in the sunshine. Jane had put the white pajamas into a washbasin along with the cup from the broth she'd fed her earlier, setting both by the door. But she was watching Madeleine from the corner of her eye, obviously perplexed by how energetic Madeleine must have seemed.

Jane said, “Are you … are you even sick? We were certain you were about to die.”

“All due respect, who is we?”

“I did. And my … people. And him.” She waved her hand at the door where Gaston had been.

Madeleine frowned. “And your people are…?”

“We wear these.” Jane touched her own necklace, which was yet another carving. Tupelo gum whittled into a tiny round cage, inside of which a pea-sized bit of wood rolled freely.

Madeleine couldn't help but look down at her own necklace. “What are these really for?”

“It's a way of keepin track. Things get mixed up over here. Sometimes you lose your memory altogether and can't keep one day from the next. I really ought not to be talkin to you at all but you were … dyin … I thought.”

This place was starting to give her the profound creeps. Now that her body felt healed, she was going to find her way back to Ethan if it meant she had to ride back on an alligator. She certainly felt fit to wrestle one.

“Yeah. I'm not dying anymore.” Madeleine headed for the door but Jane stopped her.

“You mustn't. Please just wait here. I'll bring you something to read. I have books.”

Madeleine nearly shoved her out of the way but stopped, sighing, and looked at the young thing. Her posture made her taller than her measuring height, and Madeleine wouldn't have known she towered over the girl were they not standing eye to eye. Brilliant blue eyes and bronze skin, black hair tied into a clean knot at her neck. Couldn't be a day over eighteen.

Madeleine squeezed her hand. “Thank you, Jane. You might have saved my life.”

And then Madeleine opened the door and was striding down the boardwalk along rows upon rows of floating houses.

 

sixty

HUEY P. LONG BRIDGE, 1933

WHEN PATRICE SAW THE
bridge, the time passage finally felt real. One thing to be told that six years had gone by; yet another to see an 8000-foot bridge standing where it felt like only days ago there was almost nothing.

She saw the structure miles before arriving at the site. The cantilever formation was incomplete but she could see all the tangled threads of steel reaching for one another, waiting for workers like Ferrar to finish weaving them into a whole. He explained that construction had started fast and then come to a halt because it was a high water year. Patrice nodded, then had to reorganize her thoughts, because 1927 had been a high water year, too.

“The workers are on strike now, so construction's held up again.” Ferrar said.

“You're on strike?”

“Yeah. Made it easier to come out to Bayou Bouillon, at least.”

He was holding her hand as they sat atop pecan sacks in the back of a Chevrolet truck driven by Ferrar's friend. The road was high and bumpy and the land had gone from farmland to swamp to farmland again, much of which was growing cane like at Terrefleurs.

He reached over and gave her a quick squeeze around her waist, and they both grinned, looking up at the cab's rear window as though Ferrar's friend might be able to see them while he was driving. Like he had eyes in the back of his head. She felt brazen and secretive all at once.

It had hurt when they'd made love. Though Ferrar had been careful, she herself had been overwhelmed with the actions of her body. She hadn't been able to stop pushing herself against him even though she was tearing. The heat and damp and an unfamiliar urgent sensation had won out over pain. The exigency later subsided but was not quite satisfied. She didn't know why.

But despite the pain, despite the frustration of having missed something, the worse thing about it was that it was over. They'd rested there together on that canvas tarp for a good long while. She'd been the one to finally insist they untangle themselves and wash in the shallows and continue their journey to New Orleans. But oh, how she yearned for different circumstances. She imagined what it would be like to spend the whole day lying in his arms there on the banks, listening to the sleepy cicada rattles, walking her fingers against his like in the “Itsy Bitsy Spider” song she used to sing with her classmates. What if she and Ferrar could just do that all day? What if Gil and Rosie and Trigger were all safe and sound back home at Terrefleurs, and she and Ferrar had just run off together?

 

sixty-one

BAYOU BOUILLON, NOW

THE VILLAGE WAS THE
strangest one Madeleine had ever seen. Everything was floating atop the bayou, every inch and pinch of it. Most of the houses were painted though all seemed weathered. There were no cars, of course, because there was no solid ground aside from the boardwalk that ran through it and even that was dicey in places.

Jane followed at her elbow, quietly insisting that she return to the shanty.

Madeleine kept walking. “Where are we, Jane, what is this place?”

“It hasn't got a name. It's meant for hiding. You're here to hide, aren't you?”

“Not anymore.”

No roads visible anywhere along the tree line. Madeleine could only catch glimpses of it through the boardwalk alley, but the area seemed extremely remote. Not the towering cypress swamp like where Gaston lived—the shoreline here was comprised mostly of bulrushes and short, scrubby trees. Swamp gas bubbled up so that it looked like some kind of invisible rain was falling across the surface.

“It's called Bayou Bouillon,” Jane said.

Madeleine regarded her without breaking stride. “I thought you said it doesn't have a name.”

“Please, the less you know the better.”

“Not in my experience.”

They were at the center now, where one of the structures looked like it might be a storefront. There were men seated on a bench by the door, and a woman walked out carrying a burlap sack of beans or rice or some other kind of grain. All were wearing clothes that seemed worn and faded. No one looked at Madeleine. Not one of them. She could tell by the way they lowered their voices that they'd noticed her, though.

There were many things that were strange about this place, but something about the appearance of the men caught Madeleine's attention. One of them wore an eye patch, and his shoes were half worn away at the soles. It reminded Madeleine of the man Alice had killed along the levee.

The second man was barefoot. She could see the bottoms of his feet, black and callused so that a splinter would probably have to bore in a half inch before it drew blood.

And then it hit her. The kind of suspenders he was wearing. An undershirt and suspenders. And that cap.

Madeleine finally slowed, her lips parting—and Jane slapped her across the face.

*   *   *

MADELEINE WENT RIGID. HER
ears were ringing and her senses clouded. Jane was standing with her hands clasped and her gaze elsewhere, out over the bayou, her back straight as straw. The sun was dipping below the tree line now and the water reflected wavering pink and golden rays into Jane's face.

Madeleine's hand had gone to her cheek.

Suddenly Jane broke her stillness and thrust Madeleine into movement, her arm around her waist and her hand stretched across both of Madeleine's. Madeleine was too stunned to do anything but comply.

“Will I be able to get back?” Madeleine whispered.

Jane replied through tight lips. “When the tide's high. Just as you were told.”

“What … year is it?”

“No more questions like that.”

Jane released her then, and the two walked together in silence past the rows and rows of floating houses, back to the one with the canted tin roof where Madeleine had convalesced.

When they were back inside with the door closed behind them, Jane spoke again. “If you find it so odious to wait quietly, I can put you to work. Anyone who stays here may contribute to the upkeep.”

Madeleine said, “Yes, please. I'd like to work.”

Jane nodded. “Then wait here. You speak to no one, and I mean no one!”

“Understood.”

*   *   *

MADELEINE AND JANE WORKED
alongside one another in silence for the first hour. Their tasks were mainly carpentry-related. They began with covering the gap in the roof. Jane crawled up atop the shack and had Madeleine hand her first a square of tin that looked like it had been borrowed from another roof, then a hammer and tacks. Jane had it mended in no time. Then they got to knocking out rotted slats from the boardwalk and replacing them with new ones. This was hard work. Madeleine and Jane each worked her own section, pulling up rotted or damaged wood with a pickax, then replacing it with fresh wood.

Though Jane was a good ten years younger and half a foot shorter, Madeleine found herself reverent in her presence, like a first-grader before a school marm.

Jane could work, too. She hacked at the rotted wood with no sign of fatigue. Madeleine's hands had blistered within the first fifteen minutes, her fingers and back going stiff. She fixed her body the same way she had before with the splinters and the infections. Even her muscles lost their stiffness and were ready afresh.

Back to work. The evening light had gone from a sunset spectrum to violet gray, and now was full dark. The moon was high and radiant though, and neither woman suggested they stop.

With the darkness, the village came to life. It seemed the cloak of shadows gave freedom to all in a place where no one dared look at one another. There were voices all around. Sound carried across the water and gave the illusion that someone was speaking just over Madeleine's shoulder even though Jane was the only other person nearby. Doors slammed. The boardwalk moved as people walked along it down the way. Madeleine could hear others sawing and hammering, too. No electric lights but the occasional lantern or torchère would appear, turning people into drifting silhouettes.

An hour later Madeleine was in need of rejuvenation again. She paused after a water break and closed her eyes, let the memory of the quiet, cool fissure of rock fill her. The scent of impending rain. The spongy moss. Healing waves filtered through her body, freshening her muscles, new skin cells building up from her palms and pushing away the raw flesh.

“What is this?” Jane said.

Madeleine opened her eyes just as Jane grabbed her palm and held it at an angle to catch the moonlight. Madeleine's hands were sticky with blood and sweat, but the sores themselves had vanished by now.

“So that's why you made such a miraculous recovery. You heal.”

Madeleine nodded. “I do now.”

“What else can you do?”

Madeleine shrugged. “Hold my breath a long time. Control thoughts.”

“Other people's thoughts.”

“Yes.”

Jane shook her head in disgust. “You must have done some kind of evil for your river devil if you've been rewarded that way.”

“No, I didn't.

“You're lying.”

Madeleine regarded her. “You can hear them, too? The river devils?”

“I was raised to hear them. And I know how doing what they want leads to their so-called rewards, which only makes you a more useful tool for evil. Fight back and you go mad.”

“Jane, listen. The things we've been told are not true. You're believing what your devil wants you to believe. They just want to keep us in a state of anguish. They are not so powerful. We can be stronger.”

“No, we can't.”

“We can regulate them.”

Jane was whispering through gritted teeth now. “Who do you think you're kidding? We can't control them. No more'n an arsonist can control a fire once he sets it.”

“Not control. Stabilize. And not fight. Learn. Instead of thinking of ways to survive around them, maybe we ought to think of how they can be useful.”

“They are useful in killing lumens, Madeleine, that's all.” Gaston's voice.

Madeleine turned to see he'd come up the boardwalk beneath her notice. Beyond, she could see a group of silhouettes. From the sound of things some of them were drinking. A sway in Gaston's step indicated that he might have been drinking, himself.

Jane averted her eyes from him, her face showing disgust.

Gaston paused next to her, lifted his hands as if to touch her shoulders, but then dropped them again.

He turned to Madeleine. “Back inside now. Both y'all. Gone dangerous out here.”