THE WEAPONS HADN’T arrived by the time he went back to the Historical Society. Before that he went to the express company and told the manager he would call for them inside of a week. Moving the Hotchkiss around was a job he hadn’t figured out yet.
Mrs. Lamartine had good news for him; he could tell by her face when he walked in the door on Friday morning. This time he accepted a cup of coffee-and-chicory while she explained that she had spent four days digging into the files and the boxes of unsorted material.
“Fontaine Parish,” she said eagerly. “That’s where Laffite’s house was or perhaps still is. But definitely Fontaine Parish. Actually, a number of people have known about it over the years, yet somehow it’s been forgotten. There is a letter from a French traveler who visited it in 1842. According to him, Laffite was still alive at the time. That, however, may have been a fib. But the house was there: He describes it. Another letter from a naturalist in Boston confirms the existence of the house. That was in 1850. Local fishermen told him Laffite had been dead for years. They couldn’t be quite accurate about the year. Their time isn’t our time, you know.”
“Any maps?” Gatling asked the old lady.
“Nothing official,” she answered. “The Boston man did make a rough drawing at the bottom of his letter. He sent it to a retired Naval captain who was interested in pirates. I’ll show it you.”
She took a faded letter from a file and handed it to Gatling. It was dated April 16, 1850, and the address was a hotel in New Orleans. The writing was strong and careful without being fussy. Gatling read it through to the crude map at the end.
There was a big house standing on an island in a lake. “Laffite’s House” was printed above the house. There were other signs for Fontaine Lake and Fontaine River.
“I can’t say how accurate it is,” the old lady said. “So far as I could discover, there isn’t one Fontaine River, but many, forming many miles of swampland. The lake must be the same, a vast tangle of wilderness. There is a tiny village called Fontaine, but that seems to be thirty or forty miles from the house. The Boston man refers to it as the back of beyond.”
“Can I get there by train?” Gatling felt a surge of excitement he didn’t show. He could not have said how he knew Murrill was there, but he knew. He was tired of hunting Murrill and wanted to make an end of it.
“No train,” the old lady said in a regretful voice. “There isn’t a train that goes anywhere near the village. I would say the village hasn’t changed much since the first Cajuns came from Canada. The natives fish and hunt. As you know, there is a great market for alligator luggage. Dear me, it must be one of the wildest places on earth. You will be careful, won’t you?”
“I’ll do that, Mrs. Lamartine. Thanks for all your help. Is it all right if I make a donation to the Society?”
“That would be much appreciated,” the old lady said. “We could use a new coffeepot and stove.”
Gatling left enough money to buy ten pots and stoves and enough coffee-and-chicory to last her for the rest of her life. He hoped it would be a long one. She had taken him closer to Murrill than anyone he’d met since he started out. Usually a straight-thinking, practical man, he didn’t want to consider the possibility that Murrill might not be at the house.
Now all he had to do was get there. He smiled grimly at the thought. What he had to do would be as simple as robbing the Denver Mint with an air rifle. Murrill was a long way from Fontaine village, but the Cajuns would know if he was there. Some of them could have worked at the renovation of the house. Some had to be on his payroll. There might be spies on the way, so Gatling would have to watch himself. Getting backshot by some barefoot hunter was not what he had in mind. Barefoot or not, they were all good shots, and if they killed him he would disappear into the muck.
Two days later he got a postcard from the express company saying his shipment had arrived. It had been sent collect, and that would be Colonel Pritchett’s idea. Gatling’s fee was fifty thousand, and he had to pay for everything.
He bought a light wagon with a canvas top; he put the weapons in the space for luggage. It was still raining when he started out for Fontaine, the village on the edge of the great swamp that went south and west. He had enough food for a week. He would sleep in the wagon. Places to spend the night would be scarce along the way, and even if he found one or two, he knew he couldn’t trust the people who ran them. Out in the swamps where strangers were few and the law was thin, they might try to murder him for the horse and wagon and anything else he had.
It kept on raining as he made his way west from the city. Louisiana was one of those places that can be warm and wet at the same time. The roof had a leak in it, but he took off the slicker before he sweated down to a puddle. A ferry took him across the river, but he didn’t make such good time because the road was flooded in places. At times the wagon wheels were a foot deep in mud, so he took it easy; breaking an axle would be a goddamned disaster.
By late afternoon he was moving through swampland, not the true swampland he would find farther west, but now with night coming on, it looked black and dangerous. A few houses on stilts were set back from the road. From one house, with the door open, he heard somebody playing a fiddle. The music came across the black water, a lonesome sound.
Before it was full dark, he pulled the wagon over, drank a bottle of beer, ate a sandwich, and went to sleep covered by a blanket and the slicker. His clothes were damp, but he slept well enough. Once he was awakened by a movement in the dark, but figured it was some animal looking for shelter.
Morning was gray and wet; the rain looked as if it would never stop. But it did stop, then started again inside of an hour. For breakfast he drank beer and ate another sandwich. He figured he had come about ten miles from the city. He was making no kind of time, but he was getting there. He checked the weapons after he fed the horse from a nosebag. They were damp, and he rubbed them off with gun oil.
During the day he passed a few houses, a rickety general store, a Negro church hammered together out of tin and boards. The black minister, in overalls and clergyman’s collar, stood on the steps of the church and stared at him. He didn’t do anything but stare. For all he knew, Gatling could be some kind of law; he could be dangerous. Out here, no stranger was ever to be trusted.
It stopped raining in the late afternoon, but the horse had developed a cough that didn’t sound good. He knew he had to find a place to put up for the night; the animal needed a good rubdown and maybe a pint of whiskey. If he didn’t see to the horse, the poor brute was sure to come down with pneumonia and die.
The water was starting to drain off the road; it remained bad in places. Far ahead he saw lights brighter than any he’d seen in the swamps. When he got close, a tall man came out of a tall house with a long-barreled shotgun in the crook of his arm. Beside the house was an old barn with a sign: “BLACKSMITH.”
The tall man didn’t point the shotgun at Gatling, but he kept it handy. Gatling asked him if he could step down and the man spat and said, “It’s a public road, mister. That’s a bad cough your animal has. Looks like she’s fixing to die.”
Gatling said, “Can you help me fix her up? I can pay.”
“Wouldn’t do it for nothing. Let’s see the color of your money, then you can take her inside.”
Gatling showed just enough money to get the man interested. More money, he’d be too interested. “The animal needs a brisk rubdown, hot mash, enough whiskey to break the fever or whatever it is that ails her. You got whiskey?”
“Sure I got whiskey. You telling me my bidness?”
“Just making a suggestion,” Gatling said, keeping his temper in check. Never argue with a man with a shotgun if you don’t have to. The shotgun wasn’t a sawed-off. Sawed-offs were no good for shooting birds. This one, a Greener twelve-gauge with the finish worn off by long use, could do plenty of damage.
“You want to do it yourself?” the blacksmith asked.
“What will that cost me?”
“Ten dollars.”
“How much if you do it?”
“Ten dollars. One way or t’other your horse will be in my barn, using up my embrocation, eating my hot mash, drinking my medicine whiskey.”
“That’s a very smart horse,” Gatling said. “Here’s the ten dollars. I’ll look after the horse.”
He didn’t like this fool, but he didn’t want to tangle with him for no better reason than Gatling was short-tempered from being wet and cold and hungry and wasn’t moving as fast as he should. In the barn, it was warm from the glowing-red stove, its stovepipe going up through the tin-sheathed roof. The place had the good smells of horses and hay and hammered iron.
The blacksmith blinked at him. “What you said ’bout the horse, was that supposed to be funny? Him being so smart, I mean?”
“No, sir, the horse isn’t so smart. It was a lame joke.”
The blacksmith stared at the dripping horse. “That animal don’t look lame.”
“I meant it was a lame joke.”
The blacksmith blinked again; thinking came hard to him. “What does that mean? How can a joke be lame? Jokes ain’t got legs.”
“I meant it was a bad joke, a rotten joke, a shitty joke. Now will you give me the things I need to work on the horse?”
“Sure I will—I took your money, dint I—but don’t you be talking dirty in my place of bidness. You don’t know it, but I’m an ordained minister of the gospel. You planning to spend the night unner my roof? That’ll cost you extry. You drink any of the horse whiskey, that’ll be extry too. You’ll be wanting someto eat?”
“Maybe something in a can,” Gatling told him.
“You don’t want ham and beans right off the kitchen stove?”
“Maybe a can of bully beef,” Gatling insisted. “You got any beer?”
“Not on your tintype!” he shouted, and the mare whinnied. It was easy to see him in his peeling-paint little church, haranguing the yokels. “Beer is the Devil’s snare that leads to strong drink. You’ll drink coffee and like it.”
Gatling started to rub down the horse, then he covered it with a blanket. He put about a pint of whiskey in a pail and added sugar and hot water. The mare lapped it up greedily. Last, Gatling set out the hot mash and let the animal eat. No longer wet and cold, the mare got frisky as he led it into a stall. There it lay down on a pile of straw, to sleep.
Gatling sat on a barrel and drank the bad coffee, ate the corned beef. The blacksmith took the can opener away, thinking Gatling would steal it. “What you got in them boxes out there?”
“That’s my business,” Gatling said, wanting nothing more than to finish the rotten meal and get some sleep.
The blacksmith still carried the Greener shotgun; it seemed to be as much as part of his as his greasy suspenders. “You’re spending the night under my roof, that makes it my bidness. Bet you don’t know I’m a justice of the peace along with serving The Lord as a preacher. You don’t want to answer a civil queshun, you can take yourself and your sick mare outen here. Sleep in a ditch for all I care.”
Gatling knew he could grab the shotgun and lay the barrel along the side of his scruffy head. Nothing to be gained by that kind of work. Next thing he knew he’d have a posse with a rope on his trail.
“I sell a small kerosene stove that burns anything,” Gatling said. “A salesman, a drummer. This new patent stove burns green wood, hay, leaves—anything.”
“Kinder off the beaten track, ain’t you? We don’t get many drummers out this way.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Gatling told him. “Figure I don’t have any competition.”
“Sounds downright foolish to me,” the blacksmith decided. “But that’s your bidness. You can sleep in here, anyplace you like. Just don’t set the place on fire. Don’t put no more wood in the stove than’s in it right now. You want to smoke, mister, go outside and smoke in the rain. You want that wagon in here, you pull it yourself. God bless you, son.”
Gatling woke up when he heard somebody moving about, and through slitted eyes he watched the blacksmith looking at the crated weapons in the wagon. Earlier, Gatling has given the rest of the whiskey to the mare when the animal kicked and plunged in a violent fit of coughing. No sugar was in the barn, but hot water was on the stove. Gatling mixed the drink for the mare, and the animal went back to sleep.
The empty bottle stood on the barrel. The sneaking blacksmith looked in, decided Gatling was dead drunk, and thought it would be safe to snoop around. Gatling lay near the sick horse with a blanket over him. He didn’t mind the smell of horses.
Maybe the blacksmith didn’t drink beer, but he drank something. He mumbled to himself. Gatling heard him trying to open the case with the Skoda in it.
Gatling didn’t move until the blacksmith put down the shotgun. Unless he was faster than he looked, he couldn’t grab the Greener before Gatling came up behind him.
The blacksmith was having a conversation with himself. Gatling interrupted it by putting the Colt .45 to the back of his head. He was so startled that he tried to reach for the shotgun, but Gatling had it in his hand.
“You wanted something, Preacher?” He didn’t want to kill the mealy mouth. The same reasons held true. Why do it? What would it get him?
“I thought I smelled smoke.” His breath was foul with alcohol. “I got a right to check my propity.”
“Where did you smell the smoke? In the wagon?”
The blacksmith’s high-pitched voice was as obnoxious as the rest of him. “Yep, that’s it, in the wagon. Thought you might light your hay-burning stove and burn me out. I want that shotgun, you hear me, mister?”
Gatling gritted his teeth and said it. “An honest mistake. I figured robbers were on the premises.” He gave the blacksmith the shotgun without removing the shells. The ungainly fool could always get more. “Get some sleep, not a bad idea. I see any real robbers round here, I’ll shoot them dead.”
The blacksmith lumbered out and Gatling moved to the side of the door, ready to kill him if he suddenly lunged in with the shotgun. Then he heard the door of the other house bang shut, but he stayed where he was for about thirty minutes.
He sat with his head against the back of a horse stall. No more sleep tonight, not with the blacksmith crashing around, drunk and dangerous. He was sure the blacksmith meant to kill him and sink his body in the swamp. There might be other bodies in the muck. This was spooky country, with spooky people in it.
There was no sign of the blacksmith when he started out in the morning. He harnessed the mare as quietly as he could. The animal wasn’t coughing so hard, but it had a dazed look. Gatling fed it oats and gave it water. He wondered if horses suffered from hangovers.
He drove through a scatter of unpainted houses after he left the blacksmith’s. It was good not to have to travel in the rain, with the canvas top leaking and water running down the back of his neck.
A boy he asked to direct him to the village of Fontaine pointed down the road. “A good piece down that way. Hit ain’t no village, mister. Jes a bunch of no-good Cajuns.”
Sometime later, he met a man on a spavined horse who told him much the same thing. “Will take you a good day’s drive to get there. How many miles? A lot of miles. Jes stay on the road and you’ll smell it. The fish drying, is what it is.”
Gatling didn’t ask anyone else; he didn’t meet anyone else except an old Negro who ran into the brush when he saw him. They seemed to be breeding a race of dimwits out here.
It got to be night, but there was no sign of the Cajun settlement. No smell either. He didn’t know any Cajuns. All he knew was he didn’t want to drive into some dark place where the people were as untrustworthy as the blacksmith. For all he knew, they might be fine, simple folk. He decided to sleep in the wagon.
No rain this night. He covered the mare with the blanket and fed it oats. Water he had taken along in the blacksmith’s tin pail. He’d left a dollar to pay for the blanket. Hobbles kept the mare from wandering off in the dark. No lights showed anywhere.
In the morning, the road got worse and went downhill. Swamp country stretched away as far as he could see. The swamps were brownish-green in the morning light. Very far off, a straggle of huts clung to the edge of a wide stretch of water. Cook smoke spiraled up from two of the huts. As he got closer, he smelled the fish drying on racks.
He didn’t know what he could expect down there, but that had to be the Fontaine River, and these were the Cajuns he had to talk to. They had a reputation for being wild and dangerous, and probably deserved it. They hunted alligators by night, using lights, and it took hard men to take on bull gators in dark bayous in flat-bottomed boats. The law didn’t bother them much because they were so hard to find, and when they killed one another, the law didn’t bother them at all. Some spoke English, some couldn’t. They had their ways and they stuck to them.
Their huts had no glass in the windows. They were dirt poor, and they didn’t give a damn. The Old French in places like New Orleans looked down on them, and they didn’t care.
Gatling knew he was being watched as he drove the wagon down the long hill. If there had been a village there, then it was long in the past, and all that remained were the shanties, the stink of drying fish, the dark, still water of the bayou.
They had disappeared into the huts; after a while a stringy man with sparse red hair emerged and looked at Gatling. “Lost your way, have you?” His accent wasn’t Cajun. “There’s nothing here as you can see.”
Holding the reins, Gatling said, “You never know, do you?”
“Know what?” He talked and looked like an ordinary poor white farmer, except that he wasn’t wearing shoes. Most white farmers tried to wear some kind of shoes. A white man who didn’t wear shoes was no better than a Negro.
“This is Fontaine, isn’t it?”
“Used to be afore the big flood of ’70 washed it away. Now it ain’t called nothing. You one of them fellers that takes fotergraphs and makes pitchers of birds?”
Gatling shook his head.
“You come to buy gator hides or snakeskins? Dried fish? Frogs’ legs?”
“I want to find Lake Fontaine. You know where it is? Far back in the swamp, they tell me.”
The man worked a chaw of tobacco around in his toothless mouth. “I can’t help what somebody told you. There ain’t no such thing as Lake Fontaine. Wouldn’t I have heard of it if there was?”
“You been up that way?” The red-haired man wasn’t sullen. But he wasn’t giving out any information.
“Well, course I ain’t,” he said. “I just sell what these good people perduce. What I mentioned, the fish, gator hide, and so forth. You don’t catch me going in there. Lord God! They got reptiles and such back there would turn your hair white.”
Gatling got down from the wagon and made a show of stretching his legs. “My name is Jeffers,” he said.
“Please to meet you. I’m Jonas Jones. All my friends call me J. J.”
“Your Cajun friends go back in the swamp,” Gatling said. “For the gators, so on. Maybe they know where the lake is?”
“Doubt it sincerely,” Jones said.
“My information is there’s an old house, a great big house, on an island in the lake.”
Jones laughed at the stories people tell. “How’d they get the great big house in there? By hot-air balloon? Somebody’s been pulling your leg. Not much of a joke, though. You coming all this way. Mister, if you ever seen that country, you’d know you couldn’t build a doghouse on that quaking ground. My advice is, go on home and look at some nice blue lake. The swamps smell bad, they are bad. You could lose your life.” Gatling couldn’t figure what Jones was. His story about selling fish and hides was a lot of bull. A man hiding from the law was more like it. He had taken on some Cajun ways, and maybe he liked them, but Gatling guessed his real purpose there was to watch for strangers.
“And I could lose my life being run down by a horsecar in New Orleans,” Gatling said. “What good is life if you don’t take risks?” Gatling, lover of adventure.
Jones didn’t respond to that. “This ghost house you’re looking for, who did it belong to?”
“Jean Laffite, the famous pirate.”
Jones poked the packed dirt under his feet with a big toe. “He sure got a long way from the ocean. What did you say his name was?”
“Jean Laffite.”
“And you want to look at this so-called house? Why? Just asking, you don’t have to answer.”
“Curiosity,” Gatling said. “I want to see if the story—the legend—is true. Can you get me a boat?”
“Well, now, I don’t know as I can, Mr. Jeffers. Whether you get a boat or not depends on what the head man here has to say. At the risk of sounding unfriendly, which I’m not, these good people ain’t used to strangers and don’t like them. If you’re an outsider they don’t trust you. I was here a long time before they trusted me. You see, you go in there and they’ll wonder what you’re up to. Won’t make sense to them, you twig?”
“Well at least can you ask the head man?”
Jones shrugged indifference. “Your funeral,” he said. “I know when a man’s mind made up. Sure I’ll ask. You wait here, my friend.”
Jones went into a hut, and a short while later a big scarred Cajun, obviously the leader of this ragged clan, came out with him.
“You men can business till nightfall. But I got a few things to do,” Jones said.
Gatling noticed that Jones was wearing shoes.