“That’s right. I’m tryin’ to find her, because —”
“My own two eyeballs broke, they ain’t. Come from where?”
“Huh?”
“He wants to know where you’re from,” Burt interpreted.
“Texas. Fort Worth, I’m from,” she said in unconscious emulation of Little Train’s Cajun patois.
“Huuuuwheee!” he said. “That distance, you gotta believe mighty hard. Ay?”
“I do believe.”
“This what you believin’,” he said, “is wrong.”
Arden flinched again. Her hand was white-knuckled around the bag.
“Bright Girl on Goat Island, non,” Little Train continued. “Was a church out there, never. Who you think she may be, she ain’t.”
“Wait,” Dan said. “Are you sayin’ … there really is a Bright Girl?”
“Sayin’ oui. Sayin’ non, too. Not who this girl come from Tex-ay-ass to find.”
“Where is she?” Arden’s throat clutched. “Please. Can you take me to her?”
There was no answer. Both she and Dan realized the blurred face was gone from the window.
A door on the screened porch skreeked open, and Little Train stood before them.
24
Elephants and Tigers
HIS GRAVELLY VOICE THROUGH the window screen had made him sound as if he might be a seven-foot-tall Goliath. Instead, Little Train stood barely five-six, only four inches taller than Arden. But maybe he had the strength of a giant, because Dan figured he carried at least a hundred and sixty pounds on his stocky, muscular frame. Little Train wore a faded khaki T-shirt over a barrel chest, and brown trousers whose cuffs had been scissored off above a well-worn pair of dark-blue laceless sneakers. His forearms appeared solid enough to pound nails. The bayou sun had burned Little Train’s skin to the color of old brick, and it looked as rough. His jaw and cheeks were silvered with a three-day growth of beard, his hair a pale sandpaper dust across the brown skull. Beneath his deeply creased forehead his clear gray eyes were aimed at Arden with a power that almost knocked her back a step.
“Ya’ll come on in,” he offered.
Dan crossed the Astroturfed plank first, then Arden and Burt. Little Train went ahead into the houseboat, and they followed him across the porch into a room with oak-planked walls and oak beams that ran the length of the ceiling. On the floor was a threadbare red rug that instantly charged Dan’s memory: it had a motif of fighting elephants and tigers, and it looked like one of a thousand the street-corner businessmen had hawked from rolling racks in Saigon. The furnishings also had an Oriental — Vietnamese? Dan wondered — influence: two intricately carved ashwood chairs; a bamboo table with a black metal tray atop it; an oil lamp with a rice-paper shade; and a woven tatami neatly rolled up in a corner. A shortwave radio and microphone stood on a second bamboo table next to a shelf of hardback and paperback books. Through another doorway was a small galley, pots and pans hanging from overhead hooks.
“My place,” Little Train said. “Welcome to it.”
Dan was struck by the cleanliness and order. There was the ever-present smell of the swamp, yes, but no moldy stench. In the black metal tray on the first bamboo table were three smooth white stones, some pieces of dried reeds, and a few fragile-looking bones that might have been fish, fowl, or reptile. Mounted on one wall was a variety of other objects: a huge round hornet’s nest, wind-sculpted pieces of bleached driftwood, an amber-colored snakeskin, and the complete skeleton of a bird with its wings outspread. Then he knew for sure what he’d suspected, because he saw a group of framed photographs on the wall above the shortwave set. He walked across the Saigon-special rug for a closer inspection. They were snapshots of a boat’s crew, bare-chested young men wearing steel helmets and grinning or firing upraised middle fingers from their stations behind .50-caliber machine guns and what looked to be an 81-millimeter mortar. There were pictures of a muddy brown river, of the garish nightlights of Saigon, of a cute Vietnamese girl who might have been sixteen or seventeen smiling and displaying the two-fingered V of a peace sign to the camera.
Dan said, “I was a leatherneck. Third Marine. Where’d you catch it?”
“Brown water Navy,” Little Train replied without hesitation. “Radarman first class, Swift PCF.”
“These pictures of your boat?” The Swift PCF patrol craft crews, Dan knew, had taken hell along the constricted waterways of ’Nam and Cambodia.
“The verra one.”
“Your crew make it out?”
“Jus’ me and the fella sittin’ at the mortar. Night of May sixteen, 1970, we run into a chain stretched ’cross the river. Them black pajamas waitin’ on the bank, ay? Hit us with rockets. I went swimmin’, back fulla shrap.”
“You never told me you were over there in Vet’nam, Little Train!” Burt said.
He burned his gaze at the other man. “Never you ask. And bon ami, I tell you plenty time: call me Train.”
“Oh. Okay. Sure. Train it is.” Burt shrugged and cast a nervous grin at Arden.
“Please,” Arden said anxiously. “The Bright Girl. Do you know where she is?”
He nodded. “I do.”
“Don’t tell me you know where her grave is. Please tell me she’s alive.”
“For you, then: oui, alive she is.”
“Oh, God.” Tears sprang to her eyes. “Oh, God. You don’t know how … you don’t know how much I wanted to hear that.”
“Who’re you talkin’ about, Train?” Burt frowned. “I never heard of any Bright Girl.”
“Never you needed her,” Train said.
“Can you take me to her?” Arden asked. “I’ve come such a long way. I don’t have any money, but … I’ll sign an IOU. I’ll get the money. However much you want to take me, I swear I’ll pay you. All right?”
“Your money, I don’t want. Got ever’ting I need, I’m a rich man.”
“You mean … you won’t —”
“Won’t take no money, non. Who tell you ’bout the Bright Girl way up there in Fort Worth Tex-ay-ass?”
“A friend who was born in LaPierre. He saw her when he was a little boy, and he told me all about her.”
“Oh, them stories. That she’s a young beautimous girl and she don’t never get old or die. That she can touch you and heal any sickness, or cancer … or scar. Your friend tell you all that?”
“Yes.”
“So you believe mighty hard, and you come all the way down here to ask her touch. ’Cause that mark, it hurt you inside?”
“Yes.”
Train reached toward her face. Arden’s first impulse was to pull away, but his gaze was powerful enough to hold her. His rough brown fingers gently grazed the birthmark and then drew back. “You strong-hearted?” he asked.
“I … think I am.”
“Either am or not.”
“I am,” she said.
Train nodded. “Then I take you, no sweat.”
Dan couldn’t remain silent any longer. “Don’t lie to her! There’s no such person! There can’t be! I don’t care if she’s supposed to be some great miracle worker, no woman can live a hundred years and still look like a young girl!”
“I say I take her to see the Bright Girl.” Train’s voice was calm. “I say, too, the Bright Girl ain’t who she come to find.”
“What?” Arden shook her head. “I’m not followin’ you.”
“When we get there, you see tings clear. Then we find out how strong you heart.”
Dan didn’t know what to say, or what kind of tricks this man was trying to pull. None of it made any sense to him. What had started to gnaw at him again was the fate of Murtaugh and Eisley. He couldn’t stand the thought that his pulling the trigger in Shreveport had resulted in the death of Harmon DeCayne and now, most likely, the two bounty hunters. There would be four murders on his head, and how could he live with that and not go insane? He remembered what Burt had said about Train, back in the cafe: He gets all ’round the swamp. If anybody wo
uld know, it’d be him.
Dan had to ask. “There were two other men with us. We were at St. Nasty. Around five o’clock, four men with guns broke in our cabin and took ’em away. The one in charge was called Doc. Do you know —”
“Oh, shit!” Burt pressed his hands to his ears. “I don’t wanna hear this! I don’t wanna know nothin’ about it!”
“Hush up!” Train’s voice rattled the screens. “Let ’im talk!”
“I’m not stayin’ around for this! No way! Ya’ll have fun, I’m gettin’ back up the bayou!” Burt started out but paused at the door. “Train, don’t do nothin’ stupid! Hear me? I’ll be expectin’ the cat and turtle by Tuesday. Hear?”
“Go home, bon ami,” Train said. “And to you safe passage.”
“Good luck,” Burt told Dan, and he went out and crossed the gangplank. Train walked past Arden to a window and watched Burt untie his boat, climb in, and start the engine. “He’s okay,” Train said as Burt steered the motor skiff back up the narrow bayou the way they’d come. “Hard-workin’ fella.”
“He knows who Doc is, doesn’t he?”
“Oh, out. And so do I.” He turned away from the window; his face seemed to have drawn tighter across the bones, his eyes cold. “Tell me the tale, ay?”
Dan told him, omitting the fact that he was wanted for murder and that Murtaugh and Eisley were bounty hunters. He omitted, as well, the fact of Murtaugh’s freak-show background. “Doc said he was takin’ ’em somewhere by boat. He had some kinda score to settle with ’em, but I’m not sure what it was.”
Train leveled that hard, penetrating stare at Dan. “Friends of you, they is?”
“Not friends, exactly.”
“Then who they is to you?”
“More like … fellow travelers.”
“Where was they travelin’ to?”
Dan looked at the elephants and tigers in the rug. He could feel Train watching him, and he knew there was no use in lying. Train was no fool. He sighed heavily; the only path to take was the straight one. “Flint Murtaugh and Pelvis Eisley are their names. They’re bounty hunters. They tracked me down here. I met Arden in a truck stop north of Lafayette and brought her with me.”
“I came because I wanted to,” Arden said. “He didn’t force me.”
“Bounty hunters,” Train repeated. “What crime you did?”
“I killed a man.”
Train didn’t move or speak.
“He worked at a bank in Shreveport. There was a fight. I lost my head and shot him. The bank’s put fifteen thousand dollars reward on me. Murtaugh and Eisley wanted it.”
“Huuuuwheeee,” Train said softly.
“You can have the reward, I won’t give you any trouble. Can you call the law or somebody on that shortwave set?”
“I a’ready tell you, I don’t need no money. I’m rich, livin’ as I do. I love this swamp, I grew up in it. I like to fish and hunt. What I don’t eat, I sell. I boss myself. I get fifteen thousan’ dollar in my pocket — poof! There go my riches. Then I want another fifteen thousan’ dollar, but no more there is. No, I don’t need but what I got.” He frowned, the lines deepening around his eyes, and he rubbed his silvered chin. “If them bounty hunters after you, how come for you wanna he’p ’em? How come you even tellin’ me this?”
“Because they don’t deserve to be murdered, that’s why! They haven’t done anything wrong!”
“Hey, hey! Calm down. Flyin’ you head off ain’t gonna he’p nobody.” He motioned toward the porch. “Ya’ll go out there, set, and take the breeze. I’ll be there direct.”
“What about the shortwave?”
“Yeah, I could call the law way over to Gran’ Isle. Only ting is, they ain’t gonna find you … fella travelers,” he decided to say. “Likely they dead a’ready. Now go on out and set y’self.”
There wasn’t much of a breeze on the porch, but it was a little cooler there than inside the boat. Dan was too jumpy to sit, though Arden settled in a wicker chair that faced the cove. “You’re goin’ with me, aren’t you?” she asked him. “We’re so close, you’ve got to go with me.”
“I’ll go. I still don’t believe it, but I’ll go.” He stood at the screen, looking out at the water’s still surface. “Damn,” he said. “There’s gotta be somethin’ somebody can do!”
“Oui, you can take a swaller of this here.” Train came onto the porch. He had uncapped a small metal flask, and he offered it to Dan. “Ain’t ’shine,” he said when Dan hesitated. “It’s French brandy. Buy it in Grand Isle. Go ahead, ay?”
Dan accepted the flask and took a drink. The brandy burned its flaming trail down his throat. Train offered the flask to Arden, and when she shook her head he took a sip and sloshed it around in his mouth before swallowing. “Now I gonna tell you ’bout them men, so listen good. They got a place ’bout five mile southwest from here. Hid real fine. I ain’t got an eye set for it, but I come up on it when I’m huntin’ boar near Lake Calliou. They been there maybe t’ree month. Set up camp, brung in a prefab house, build a dock, swimmin’ pool, and all whatcha like. Got a shrimp boat and two of them expenseeve cigarettes. You know, them fast speederboats. Then they put bob wire’ round ever’ting.” He swigged from the flask and held it out to Dan again. “I hear from an ol’ Cajun boy live on Calliou Bay them men be poachin’ ’gator. Season don’t start till September, see. Ain’t no big ting, it happen. But I start to windin’ in my head, how come they to poach ’gator? Somebody owns hisse’f two of them cigarettes, he got to poach ’gator? Why’s that so, ay?” He took the flask back after Dan had had a drink. “Ol’ boy says he seen lights at night, boats comin’ and goin’ all hours. So I go over there, hide my boat, and watch through my dark vision binocs ’cause I eat up with curious. Took me two night, then I see what they up to.”
“What was it?” Arden asked, pulling her thoughts away from the Bright Girl for the moment.
“Freighter in the bay, unloadin’ what look like grain sacks to the shrimp boat. All the time the two cigarettes they circlin’ and circlin’ ’round, throwin’ spotlights. And — huuuuwheee! — the men in them boats with the like of guns you never did saw! Shrimp boat brung the grain sacks back in, freighter up anchor and went.” He had another swig of Napoleon’s finest. “Now what kinda cargo unloaded by night and be that worth protection?”
“Drugs,” Dan said.
“That’s what I’m figurin’. Either the heroin or the cockaine. Maybe both. All them miles and miles of swamp coast, the law cain’t hardly patrol a smidgen of it, and they boats in sorry shape. So these fellas bringin’ in the dope and shippin’ it north, likely takin’ it up by Bayou du Large or Bayou Grand Calliou and unloadin’ at a marina. Sellin’ some of it at St. Nasty, too. Burt’s the one found out fella named Doc Nyland was hangin’ ’round the poolhall, givin’ men free samples to get ’em interested. Peacekeeper tried to do somethin’ about it, he went missin’. Only ting is, I cain’t figure why they poachin’ the ’gators. Then — boom! — it hit me like a brick upside my head.” Train capped the flask. “They worry somebody gonna steal them drugs away from ’em. Worry so much they gonna be hijack they gotta figure a way to move ’em safe. So what they gonna do, ay? They gonna put them drugs somewhere they cain’t be easy stole.” His mouth crooked in a wicked smile. “Like inside live ’gators.”
“Inside ’em?”
“Sans doute! You wrap that cockaine up in metal foil good and tight, then you jam it down in them bellies with a stick! How you gonna get it out unless you got a big knife and a lotta time to be cuttin’? That’d be the goddangest mess you never did saw!”
“I’ll bet,” Dan agreed. “So what are they doin’? Shippin’ the ’gators north to be cut open?”
“Out, puttin’ ’em on a truck and takin’ ’em to a safe place. Even if them ’gators die of bad digestion ’fore they get where they goin’, the cockaine still protected in there.”
“Maybe so, but I can’t understand how Murtaugh and Eisley got m
ixed up with a gang of drug runners. Is Doc Nyland their leader?”
Train shook his head. “I seen somebody else over there, look like he was bossin’. Fella don’t wear no shirt, showin’ hisse’f off. Standin’ by the pool, them irons and weight bars layin’ ever’where. His girlfrien’, all she do is lay there sunburnin’. I’m figurin’ he’s the honch.”
Dan looked out through the screen at the water. The sun was up strong and hot now, golden light streaming through the trees. A movement caught his attention, and he saw a moccasin undulating smoothly across the surface. He watched it until it disappeared into the shadows. It seemed to Dan that in this swamp the human reptiles were the ones to be feared most of all. He lifted his forearm and stared at his snake tattoo. Once, a long time ago, he had been a brave man. He had done without hesitation what he’d thought was the right thing. He had walked the world like a giant himself, before time and fate had beaten him down. Now he was dying and he was a killer, sick at heart.
He felt as if he were peering into a snake hole, and if he reached into it to drag the thing out, he could be bitten to death. But if he turned his back on it like a coward, he was already dead.
An image came to him, unbidden: Farrow’s face and voice, there on that terrible night the snipers’ bullets had hissed out of the jungle.
Go, he’d said. It had not been a shout, but it was more powerful than a shout.
Go.
Dan remembered the glint of what might have been joy in Farrow’s eyes as the man — a citizen of Hell, one of the walking damned — had turned and started slogging back through the mud toward the jungle, firing his Ml6 to give Dan and the others precious seconds in which to save their own lives.
Farrow could not live with himself because he’d gone south. There in the village of Cho Yat, his simple mistake with the foil-wrapped chocolate bar had resulted in the death of innocents, and Farrow had decided — in the muddy stream, at that crisis of time — that he had found an escape.
Dan had once been a Snake Handler, a good soldier, a decent man. But he’d gone south, there in that Shreveport bank, and now he was a citizen of hell, one of the walking damned.