Fargo took a long swallow of whiskey. “It’s too dangerous in the swamp. You’re taking too great a risk.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” Namo rubbed a hand across his face, and only then did Fargo realize how bone weary the man was. It showed in the deep lines and in his haunted eyes. “But what choice do I have? I must find the thing. I must kill it. Or never again hold my head high as a man should.”
“But the danger,” Fargo persisted.
“Clovis is old enough. He understands the risks. And Emmeline was his mother. As for Halette—” Namo regarded his daughter with the undeniable love of a devoted father. “You see what happens when I leave her. The doctor says she could have fits if I am away too long. Convulsions, he called them. He said they could kill her. You talk about risks? I don’t dare leave her alone.”
“Damn.”
“Yes. Damn. What is the saying, monsieur? I am caught between a rock and a hard place. Between the love I had for my wife and the love I bear for my child.” Namo paused. “I’ve never done what I am about to do. I have always been too proud. But I will do it now. I will beg you.”
“Don’t,” Fargo said.
“I plead with you to help me. I can’t do it alone. Not and watch over my children, both.”
“Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn.”
“You are weakening? Good. I beg you on my dead wife’s behalf. They say you are one of the best at what you do. Only a few are your equal. Jim Bridger, but he is old. Kit Carson, but I couldn’t find out where he is. And that mountain man in the Rockies who has a Shoshone wife but he never leaves the Rockies. So that left you.”
“If I had known about your kids, I’d never have come.”
“You hate children that much?”
“I hate seeing them die.” Fargo remembered one little girl in particular. He had been fond of her, and she died in his arms.
“With the two of us working together, maybe they won’t.”
“Maybe,” Fargo said.
“I will go anyway, you know. With or without you, I will continue to hunt the creature. And they will continue to go with me.”
“I should hit you with a chair.”
Namo Heuse grinned. “You’ve changed your mind. But let me hear you say the words.”
“By any chance are you related to Doucet?”
“Why would you ask such a thing? He and I are nothing alike.”
“You’re both bastards.” Fargo smiled as he said it. “All right, Namo. I’ll do as you want. We’ll take your son and your daughter.” He looked at them. “God help us.”
“Thank you.”
“Save it for after. If we’re still alive.” Fargo nodded at the kids. “And if they are.”
“We can head out at dawn. I came by pirogue. It is faster than walking. And safer.”
“I have a horse.”
“Where we are going is not for horses, monsieur. You must leave the animal here.”
“That’s my point. There’s no stable or livery.”
But there was Liana, and when Fargo asked, she agreed to let Fargo tie the stallion out behind the tavern, and promised to feed and water him while Fargo was gone.
“For you, handsome. But only for you. And be careful out there, yes? The swamp is a very dangerous place.”
Fargo had no need to be reminded. But he shut it from his mind for the time being, in part because she invited him to stay with her a second night if he wished. Of course he wished. While he waited for her to close, he went out for some air. Night had fallen over the Atchafalaya. From the swamp came bellows and croaks and an occasional roar.
Fargo had been in swamps before. There were no more treacherous places on earth. They were home to a host of things that could do a man in. The prairie and the mountains had their perils but compared to a swamp they were downright hospitable. He could never live there. Not that he shied from danger. He just wasn’t fond of snakes and even less of quicksand, and he had a passionate dislike for mosquitoes. And, too, he preferred to have a horse under him, not a canoe.
Far off something screamed. A death shriek, unless Fargo was mistaken. Prey had fallen to a predator. He thought of the animal they were going after. He didn’t buy that nonsense about a monster. There must be a logical explanation. Whatever the creature was, if it was flesh and blood it could be killed. All he needed to do was get it in his gun sights.
“Mister?”
Fargo nearly jumped, and cursed himself for his nerves. He turned, surprised to find Clovis Heuse. “Does your father want to see me?”
“No. I came looking for you myself. It’s him I want to talk about, though.”
“I’m listening.”
“Don’t let anything happen to him. Losing our mother was awful enough. We couldn’t stand to lose him, too.”
“I’ll do my best but I can’t make any promises.”
The boy didn’t seem to hear him. “I’d take it poorly if he died. I might even blame you. Something to keep in mind.” Without so much as a “good night,” he wheeled and walked off.
Fargo stared after him in disbelief. Was it his imagination or had he just been threatened?
6
The stillness was what got to you.
Whole stretches of the swamp were as still as a cemetery. Moss-covered cypress reared in rows like head-stones, their branches bowed as if they were about to pounce on the unwary. Willow trees hung their branches as if weeping for the fallen. Shadow and gloom held sway even in the bright of day.
The wildlife seemed to have been sucked into the muck and the ooze. Nary a bird chirped. Even the insects were quiet.
Fargo was glad when they came to a bayou. The open channel was a relief after the murk. It felt good to have the sun on his face. He stroked his paddle, matching his rhythm to the Cajun’s.
Between them perched Clovis and Halette. The girl sat facing Fargo, not her father, her face vacant, her eyes pits of emptiness. Now and again Fargo would glance at her and for a few fleeting seconds he caught a glimmer of—something. When that happened he made it a point to smile but she never smiled back.
Clovis sat with a rifle across his legs. For twelve years old he was a remarkable shot, as he’d demonstrated when a large cottonmouth glided toward them and he put a slug smack in its eye when it was still a good twenty feet away.
“Nice shooting,” Fargo had complimented him.
“Shucks, mister. That wasn’t anything.”
“Don’t brag, boy,” Namo said over his shoulder. “It’s not seemly.”
Now, as they moved at a brisk pace along the winding bayou, Fargo thought to ask, “Where are we headed? You haven’t told me.”
“To where I saw the beast. It’s far into the Atchafalaya, further than most ever go.”
“What makes you think the thing is still there?”
Namo’s arms pumped with effortless ease. “I noticed a pattern. One or two would go missing and everything was fine for a month or so. Then more would disappear, and it was fine for a while.”
Fargo put two and two together. “You think the thing has a territory it roams, like a bear or a cougar?”
“That would explain a lot, yes.”
“But what it doesn’t explain is what the thing is and where it came from and why it’s attacking people,” Fargo said. Most animals avoid humans if they can help it.
“I have an idea what it is but I don’t want to say anything until I’m sure. And if I’m right, we will be in for the fight of our lives.”
“Don’t forget your kids,” Fargo said with just enough resentment to let Namo know he was still angry.
“They’ll be fine. You’ve seen Clovis shoot.”