The Chinese water lilies produced vivid purple flowers that nodded above pads lying flat on the surface like green plates. On one plate was a small green frog. The frog tensed at an uneven sucking sound and a harsh, rasping exhalation, leaped for his life as a muck-covered push pole was driven down into the lily pads from above. The pole found bottom. Beyond it, the side of the pirogue slid by.
So did an hour. Now Dain poled through a hyacinth-choked neck of bayou that looked like solid earth — what the Cajuns call prairie tremblant. Here in the open, merciless sun beat down on his unprotected head. He poled one-armed, his useless arm tied to his side with a sling made of Minus’s bright yellow shirt. More of the shirt, ripped from the tail, had been stuffed right through the bullet wound from front to back. This crude bandage was soaked with new blood. Sweat stood on his unshaven, sun-reddened face, his eyes glittered feverishly.
He had done all that as soon as he had found Minus, knowing his infected wound would soon make him even more feverish, then had used a trick from his two years of convalescence after the first try on his life: narrowing the focus of his mind to a single thing.
Then it had meant taking this step, resisting the pain of that flexing movement, using them to block out the pain and guilt of his family’s death brought about by his own stupidity. Now it was a single laser of thought: follow the bayou. He might lose why he was following it in the fog of fever; but he was hoping he could hang on to the action: follow the bayou.
He forgot about the bonds, and he had to block out the knowledge that he was now half an invalid, more a liability than an asset to Vangie. He had one overwhelming concern: get to her, warn her they were coming. He had to beat them there. He still had to try and make her safe while preparing for his own final confrontation with Inverness.
If he didn’t die on the way.
Beyond the prairie tremblant was a small lake dotted with stands of cypress. Water hyacinth broken free from the main body drifted in clumps and patches on the otherwise clear water. In the middle of this sudden dazzlingly open expanse, the pirogue was a toy canoe, Dain a toy soldier leaning motionless on his push pole. The toy figure slid down the pole to the bottom of the small tippy craft, almost capsizing it.
Little waves moved out in concentric rings from the pirogue, became mere ripples, ceased. Under the noonday sun the surface of the lake was glassy and still. A shoal of fingerling shad came up to just below the surface, camouflaging their presence from below with the pirogue’s shadow.
Dain stirred, edged his head painfully over the gunwale of the pirogue so he could look down into the water with dazed eyes. He could see minnows swimming there. The water looked cool, inviting. The minnows looked like they were having fun.
But he couldn’t give a fuck about them, whether they lived or died. He had to follow the bayou.
His hand went down, burst the surface of the water to scoop some up, dash it over his head. Another, then another. His wound gave him an almost overwhelming thirst, and he knew he was dehydrating. But to drink unfiltered swamp water was to invite dysentery and disaster. No matter how weak, how disoriented, he had to keep going — by nightfall he would be totally irrational. Already his periods of lucidity were getting shorter.
Follow the bayou.
He splashed more water. Rested. Below him, the little shad returned. Dain grunted getting upright again. The pirogue tipped, almost sending him into the water. Concentric circles of waves became ripples and died, but they had sent a message out to a warmouth bass. It came up from below in a rush, shot right out of the water beside the pirogue as it struck one of the shad, dropped back in with its typical triple tail-splash as it swallowed its victim, dashed after another.
Dain’s pole descended into the water. The pole found bottom. Dain grunted, the clouds scudding across his mind again even as the pirogue slid forward. On the far side the little lake narrowed back into twisting bayou again. At its mouth was a fallen tree with two dozen turtles sunning themselves on one of the limbs that rose out of the water.
Follow the bayou. Why? Don’t know. Do it.
As Dain’s pirogue approached, one of the turtles, then another, then the rest in bunches scrambled and slid and splashed off their perches back into the illusory safety of the water.
When he had passed, still following the bayou, they returned. They had hid from him but his passage had meant nothing to them.
Her flatboat was pulled up in front of the cabin, Vangie was on the bank, checking setlines for fish. Papa had chosen his site well. His fishing camp was on what had once been a peninsula sticking out into vast flat marshlands stretching to the edge of Fausse Point Lake. A mile back from the tip, the bayou once had cut a narrower, separate channel to the marsh, thus forming an island. On one side was the marsh, on the other the narrow bayou which meandered through thick woodland to empty into the marsh.
The camp gave a good view over the open marshland. The rest of the island, behind the raised, cleared area where he had placed his cabin, was deep woods. It was a peaceful scene, but inside Vangie was churning. All she could do was hide here. She could not go to the police: she had stolen $2 million. She had to count on the fact that although Maxton was a ruthless and powerful man who wanted to watch her die, he was from the city. Eventually, even he would give up.
Dain was out of the picture once and for all, thank God, the blood money for giving them to Maxton heavy in his pocket. With him gone, she could survive here until things quieted down. Then she could slip away, with the bonds...
She had arrived trembling with terror, but it was her second day here, and she had finally stopped leaping at every crackle in the brush. She could check her setlines. The very familiarity of the place and the work helped calm her.
Stay alive. It was what she wanted now. Try to forget about Maxton. This place was hard to find even if you were a Cajun. But she couldn’t forget the bonds, and she knew Maxton wouldn’t either. She had fled empty-handed, and Papa never left any guns here at the shack. Which meant that if Maxton ever did find her, it would be three armed men against her bare hands.
But he couldn’t find her. And the police had no reason to be looking for her. They would have accepted Jimmy’s death as a suicide, her parents’ deaths as random — they knew nothing of the bonds.
Her parents. She wanted to cry, but she couldn’t. She wanted to smash things, throw things, grieve — but she couldn’t. How could you grieve when your parents were dead because of you?
Some animal sense made her suddenly raise her head to look up the bayou. She stood up abruptly. Far, far up the narrow waterway, just coming into sight around the last turn, was a pirogue. Even at this distance she could see that the man was poling one-armed and had the other arm in a gaudy yellow sling.
Vangie drew in her breath. Dain! Here! He had set up Zimmer for the kill; she didn’t see how he could have, but maybe he’d had some hand in getting her parents killed, also. And now he was here to set her up for them. The Judas goat. Maxton and the other killers would not be far behind.
Goddam him! Weapon or no weapon, she’d see about that.
She started walking rapidly back toward the cabin.
Dain poled his erratic way toward the distant camp. The wetness soaking through his bandage was no longer red, but pus-yellow. It took all of his willpower to stay focused on that cabin. Follow the bayou. He had made it! He was here!
Where? Why?