Blackwood Farm Part 21

"Then it all came cras.h.i.+ng back to me, what they'd done to her, and I gasped aloud.

"Vengeance? Oh, it had been enough to make a vengeful spirit of a choirboy, what they'd done. And she had died like that, I knew it. She had died and rotted there, but did she mean her vengeance to be on me?

"I saw the sticky s.e.m.e.n on the boards, glittering in the light of the moon, and, looking through the windows, I thanked G.o.d for that moon. I needed that moon. Maybe I could get the h.e.l.l out of here with that moon.

"I made the Sign of the Cross. I felt for the rosary under my s.h.i.+rt. (This one's not blessed but it will have to do.) And hastily and shamefully I said a Hail Mary, telling the Blessed Virgin in my own words how sorry I was to call on her only when all seemed lost.

"Then I realized to my horror that my pants were still unzipped. I'd said a Hail Mary to the Virgin Mary while officially exposing myself. I put that to rights immediately and said another three prayers before I groped my way to the stairs and down to the first floor.

"I scooped up the gold plate with its little forest of wax candles, and, taking out my lighter, I quickly lighted every wick. Carrying my little tray of light, I went to the door of the Hermitage and looked out. Yes, the moon was up there all right, I could see it from this vantage point, but the swamp looked dead black, and once I pushed off from this clearing, once I tunneled into that blackness, the 121.

moon just might not do me any good.

"Of course, I didn't have a flashlight or a lantern. I hadn't planned on this! In fact, if anybody had said, 'Will you spend the night on Sugar Devil Island?' I would have answered, 'That's insane.'

" 'Wait till I get finished with this place,' I said aloud. 'I'll have electricity everywhere. And these windows will have properly fitted gla.s.s. Maybe they'll have screens as well. And these plank floors will be covered with marble tiles that the swamp can't consume with its infernal dampness. No, this shall be a small Roman palace, what with even more elaborate Roman furniture, and the stove, I shall get a new stove. And then if I'm trapped out here, I'll have delicious pillows on a couch on which to sleep, and plenty of books to read by fine lights.' It seemed I saw the vision of the place, and Rebecca's fate had no part in what I saw. It was as if her grisly death had been erased.

"But for now? For now I was in the d.a.m.ned jungle in a tree house!

"Okay, what if I stayed here and didn't try to find my way home in this abominable situation?

What if I just read some of those old books by candlelight, and kept my pistol on hand for any emergency either man or beast might send my way?

"Well, the worst consequence of my doing that would be that everyone at Blackwood Manor would think something terrible had happened to me. Indeed, they might be looking for me right now. That was more than a good possibility. They might be out there in a pirogue with flashlights and lanterns.

"Didn't that argue for me staying where I was?

"I set the plate of light down on the desk, and I went out the front door, down the steps, and crossed the clearing before the Hermitage so that I stood near to the bank.

"It was quite amazing how the few candles illuminated the windows of the Hermitage. Indeed, n.o.body coming close in a pirogue could have missed it. Maybe it was best to sit tight.

"But if so, why did it seem such a cowardly decision? Why did I feel I should get back to rea.s.sure those who loved me that I was all right?

"I checked in the pirogue. No, I did not have a flashlight or lantern. Big surprise.

"Then I peered into the swamp. I tried to see what lay before me. I tried to make out the small channel by which I had come to this point. I could see nothing in the blackness.

"I walked around the island as best I could. Why precisely I wasn't sure. Maybe I wanted to feel that I was doing something, and I listened, listened very carefully in case anyone out there was calling my name.

"Of course I heard the countless night birds and low gurgling noises coming from the water, but there was no human voice.

"I came back to the point where I'd tied up the pirogue and there stood Goblin, my perfect mirror image, watching me intently, his figure apparently illuminated, just as if it was solid, by the candlelight that came from the house.

"What a marvelous spectacle, it seemed to me, that could create such an illusion, and I racked my brain to remember if he had ever done something so spectacular before.

"I had seen him in shadows, in darkness and in light, of course, but never had I seen light falling on him, outlining his shoulder and his face. He made a sudden gesture with his right hand, beckoning me to come closer to where he stood.

" 'What do you want?' I asked. 'You don't mean to tell me you're going to be useful.' I moved towards him and he reached out with his left arm to guide me in a turn. Then he pointed out into the swamp.

"For a moment I was only aware of a distant pool of moonlight --that is, an opening in the thick growth many yards from where we stood, where the water sparkled with clear radiance. Then I heard the sound of lapping. And Goblin's left hand tightened on my arm, and he made the symbol to me with his right index finger that I should be very quiet.

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"Again he pointed to this distant spot of visibility, and into it glided a pirogue apparently helmed by one man. And quite distinctly I made out the figure of that man.

"He wore a jacket and trousers, perhaps jeans for all I could see, and as I watched with Goblin he lifted up a human body from the pirogue and slipped it into the water slowly with hardly a splas.h.!.+

"I was confounded. Goblin hurt my shoulder he squeezed it so tight.

"The distant figure now appeared to do the same thing again. With inconceivable dexterity and strength he lifted another body and dropped it down into the muck.

"I stood stock-still. I was horrified. The thought of danger to myself didn't even occur to me. What filled my mind was the bitter sense that two dead bodies had just been fed to the swamp's lethal darkness, and no one, no one, would believe me when I returned home with this tale.

"Only gradually did I realize that the figure was now motionless and in all probability facing me, and that he looked on steadily and that Goblin and I were partially illuminated for the figure by the candles in the house.

"Across the black water there came a sound of laughter. It was low, simmering, as the voices of my visions had been simmering, but it was real, this laughter, it wasn't spectral. It came from the figure.

"And as I watched, as Goblin and I watched together, the figure guided his pirogue into the blackness and was gone.

"For some long agonizing moments Goblin and I stood together, and it was more than a comfort to feel Goblin's left arm around me, and to rest my weight against him in an intimacy I would never have shown with a human being.

"But I knew he couldn't keep up the solid shape for very long. I also knew that he could hear this individual, this character, who had just dumped the two bodies. Goblin would know when it was safe to leave.

"For the proverbial eternity we remained there, motionless and cautious, and then Goblin told me telepathically that we should escape the island as best we could.

" 'And what if I get lost, hopelessly lost?' I asked aloud in a whisper.

" 'I'll lead you,' Goblin answered. And then he disappeared. Within a second the candles in the house were extinguished, and my familiar was pus.h.i.+ng at me and tugging me to make me go to the pirogue right now.

"All the way back to Blackwood Farm he guided me, sometimes in total darkness, other times by the light of the moon. In less than an hour I saw the lights of the house s.h.i.+ning blessedly through the trees, and I shot straight for the pier.

"People were shouting. I heard someone scream. And then as I hurried up to the kitchen door, Pops came out to embrace me and say: " 'Thank G.o.d, son. We didn't know what the h.e.l.l had happened to you.'

"Aunt Queen came down the steps dabbing at her eyes.

"Sheriff Jeanfreau was there with one of his worthless, s.h.i.+ftless deputies, Ugly Henderson. All the Shed Men were hollering, 'He's home, he's okay.'

"Immediately I fired off at Jasmine, 'How come you put that beer in the cooler!' to which she answered that she wasn't the one who packed the d.a.m.ned cooler, her mother had done it, and then there was Big Ramona saying she wasn't even awake when I left (which was true), and Jasmine remembering that it was actually Clem. And where the h.e.l.l was Clem?

"I didn't care. I wanted supper. I wanted everyone to gather round the kitchen table and listen so I'd only have to tell this story once.

"I demanded that Sheriff Jeanfreau stay. I even wanted worthless and annoying Ugly Henderson to stay. I told everybody that I wanted them to listen to me.

"Meantime, since it was only nine o'clock by my watch, I wanted one of the Shed Men to run the camera with its film over to the all-night drugstore in Ruby River City and get the pictures done in 123.

one hour, as the sign in the window always boasts.

" 'Where's Goblin?' I asked suddenly. I was in the kitchen. Big Ramona had just given me a wet washrag. 'Goblin, where are you?' and then I realized that after all he'd done, he didn't have the power to make me feel him or see him or hear him.

". . . And so mercifully, and gratefully, and with a new respect for him, and a new love, I let him alone."

14.

"THEY DIDN'T BELIEVE a word I said. When I bubbled over crazily with the horrible dream of the piercing of Rebecca, Sheriff Jeanfreau just laughed at me, laughed at my references to myself as both man and woman in the dream, and only a sudden expostulation of " 'Please!' from Aunt Queen shut him up.

"When it came to my depiction of the mysterious stranger dumping the two bodies, Sheriff Jeanfreau started laughing again and there even came some audible snickering from his worthless deputy Ugly Henderson.

"Patsy, who had come into the kitchen sometime during the proceedings, picked up on Ugly's snickering and started some snickering of her own.

"And when I described how Goblin had led me back out of the swamp, the sheriff, figuratively speaking, rolled on the floor.

"I ignored all this with first-rate patience, devoured two plates of pancakes made by Big Ramona from the Cracker Barrel pancake mix and looked to Aunt Queen.

" 'You know Rebecca was murdered out there, Aunt Queen. All I'm asking is that somebody go out there and collect the remains and test them for DNA!'

" 'Oh, Quinn, my precious darling,' " Aunt Queen sighed.

"As for Pops, it was well past his bedtime, and he looked like he'd been rode hard and put away wet. I knew what a worry I was to him.

"THEN the snapshots came back from the drugstore! THE SNAPSHOTS!

"And round the kitchen table I pa.s.sed them like so many playing cards. They were good shots too. You couldn't tell much about Rebecca's remains from the shots, but you could easily see the five rusted chains; and of course the outdoor shots of the Hermitage itself, and the mausoleum, were very good.

" 'Now you know d.a.m.ned good and well,' I said, 'that there's a house out there, you can't deny it; and if that metal there' --I jabbed my finger at the photograph --'isn't pure gold, then my name's not Blackwood.'

"The sheriff was in the midst of another belly-jiggling fit of laughter when Aunt Queen gestured for quiet.

" 'All right,' she declared. 'We've heard all Quinn has to say. Now, this island is real and he knows the way to it, and according to him these mysterious bodies were dumped at a spot some matter of yards beyond the banks of the island. In other words, he can take you to the very place from which he spied the dumping and a search of that small area would be entirely manageable.'

"The sheriff couldn't stop himself from laughing. 'Now, Miss Queen,' he said, 'you know how much I admire you, as does everybody in these parts. . .'

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" 'Thank you, Sheriff,' she at once responded. 'On New Year's Eve I shall expect a tribute of seven youths and seven maidens, handpicked of course.'

"Now it was my turn to die with laughter, because I knew this referred to the minotaur myth, but he hadn't a clue of that and only stared at me and then at her, and I was just stupid enough at eighteen to feel superior to him.

"Aunt Queen went on without missing a beat, ignoring my exultation.

" 'Now, I will personally pay,' said Aunt Queen, 'for the bagging and collecting of these chains and the black residue which Quinn has described. I will pay to have it thoroughly and completely a.n.a.lyzed as to its substance, and will go so far as to run DNA tests on it to determine, among other things, whether or not only one person perished in this spot, or more than one, and whether or not Rebecca Stanford --whose hair we have conveniently in a hairbrush in the attic --did indeed die in this place.' She paused for effect, her eyes narrowing.

" 'All I ask of you, Sheriff,' she continued in a high matriarchal fas.h.i.+on, 'is that you go back out there and you look for these mysterious bodies. I a.s.sume you and Pops can go by motorized pirogue in the morning.'

" 'The motors will never make it,' I piped up. 'We'll have to take the small pirogue, same as I did. The cypresses are just too dense.'

" 'Very well then, Pops knows how to handle the pole and I a.s.sume you do too, Sheriff Bobby Jeanfreau! So you take care of that, and consider yourself solemnly charged to find those bodies, while the labwork I will handle through my own personal physician, a.s.suming that Ruby River City doesn't have a medical examiner on its payroll who is qualified in the field.'

"At this point, the sheriff, having been laughed at by me, very smoothly smiled and asked: " 'And may I deputize Goblin, ma'am, so he can show Pops and me the way to the island?'

"Now it was Pops who became riled, though his tone was low and pretty much apathetic, given the state of things.

" 'We don't need for you to deputize Goblin,' he said. 'But I do think that you need a real team of people out there, not just to find those bodies but to examine this death scene with the chains, this residue as we're calling it; you need somebody to look to that in an official way.'

" 'Now, Pops, you know there's nothing to all this --' the sheriff countered. He was as stubborn as I'd ever seen him, and as ignorant, too.

"But Pops pressed on, his tone never changing except in terms of the contents of what he said.

'Now you listen to me, Sheriff,' he stated calmly. 'A body out there even on the second floor of a house could decompose within a few years. And it is possible that Quinn has stumbled upon the scene of a crime, and he might have stumbled on the criminal himself. I'm insisting you take a team of men out there, and if you don't I'll call in the FBI.'

"Why this struck utter terror into the sheriff I'm not sure, but given some of the rumors of what went on in Ruby River Parish, including the c.o.c.k fighting (which isn't illegal in Louisiana, by the way), I guessed he didn't want the FBI snooping around, so he agreed to the terms.

"In spite of Pops trying to restrain me I followed the sheriff all the way to his car, hammering on him about those two bodies: 'You've got to check and see who's missing! I'm telling you, I saw it. Two bodies, just dumped out there. You've got to search.'

" 'One thing at a time,' Pops said finally. 'Let them check out the house. And then if you think you can pinpoint the place where this stranger dumped the bodies, then we'll insist on a search.'

"Finally the sheriff and his snickering deputy were gone from the property, and Aunt Queen and Pops had ahold of me and told everybody else to leave the kitchen so we could be alone.

"Patsy was pretty ticked off that she couldn't stay, but Pops gave her one of the worst glowering looks I've ever seen on his face, and she finally retreated, in a sulk, to her apartment over the shed.

"A bitter lecture came from Pops as to my having disobeyed Aunt Queen by going out there by 125.

myself, about my having 'stolen' his pistol, and some strong statements about how I was in real danger from myself now, and it was time for me to leave Blackwood Farm and go out into the world.

" 'What do you mean "out into the world" ?' I asked. 'Can't you see these pictures! There's this gold tomb out there, Pops, I've got to find out what's in it, and then there's the house itself. I'm not going anywhere. Pops, you know what I want to do,' I went on, full throttle. 'I want to run electricity out there to that house, you know, run the cables right through the swamp. I want to clean it up and make it livable again, a real Hermitage, but I can't do that until they collect and a.n.a.lyze Rebecca's remains. I can't do that until I've done right by Rebecca, even though if truth be told Rebecca doesn't always do right by me.'

"He looked sad and tired, moving slowly to exasperation.

"But I kept at him.

" 'And they have to catch this stranger,' I said, 'this murderer, this miscreant who is dumping bodies in our swamp.'

"There came a final change in Pops, a change I'd seen many times in the past. He became angry, angry with me, the way I'd seen him with Patsy.

" 'You're getting t.i.tched in the head, son,' he said. 'You need to get clear of here. You can enroll at LSU in Baton Rouge if you want to stay close to home, but I'm for you going up East to Harvard. Aunt Queen's looked over all the material given her by Lynelle on your schooling and your examinations, and you could easily get into an Ivy League school right now. You're going out of here.'

" 'My darling,' Aunt Queen said, 'Pops is absolutely right. You have to think now of your future in the world and not the mysteries and histories of those who once lived in this house. This house will be here for you all your life. But you are at an age now when impressions mean everything, and it's time for you to get away.'

"I went silent. I had met with total resistance. I wondered if the gators could eat those bodies so quickly that there would be nothing left. I wondered if I could pinpoint the place on the island where I'd been standing when I saw the dastardly deed.

" 'You go to bed, Quinn,' said Aunt Queen gently. 'I know you saw something out there. I don't doubt you. And clearly the Hermitage exists. You've brought back proof of it. But it's late, and nothing can be done until morning.'

"Upstairs, I found Big Ramona in my wing chair by the cold fireplace with her rosary beads in her hand. Her full white hair was already braided. She was in her best rose-flowered flannel nightgown. She gave me a big hug and I went in to shower and change.

"After we said our night prayers and I let it be known I was too d.a.m.ned tired for a whole Rosary, we were soon snuggling spoon fas.h.i.+on and I was remembering that mysterious stranger in the weak light of the broken moon.