1867
Silas Tremball sat in the smoky tavern listening to his drunken friend rambling on again about the witch and her supposed treasure. He’d heard the tale of the treasure a thousand times and now he’d let the little fool drag him out here to St. Martinsville and this godforsaken swamp to search for it. Silas stood and stretched his long lean body. Even in his mid-fifties he considered himself a very vital man and when he stood, his six-foot-two frame, dressed completely in black, drew every eye in the dim room. After working a knot from his shoulder, Silas took his seat once more and emptied his mug of beer.
“I’m tellin’ ya, Silas,” the little man said, slurring his words, “It’s here somwheres close. I got it from ole Henry Johnson when we was out here collectin’ up them darkies.” The man burped loudly. “He told me as how them fellas got her to pay a big bounty and she...” his eyes went wide and his voice rose, “she paid it in pure gold.” The little man dressed in shabby attire emptied his mug and motioned for the girl to bring another. “They said the Constable told ‘em how he seen her treasure box and was gonna split it with ‘em after they had a bit of fun with the darkie bitch.” The man scrunched his nose in disgust. “Then they was gonna put her in chains with the rest of her kind.”
“And what happened to your friends, Bert?” Silas asked. “What makes you think they didn’t just run off with the money and the girl?” The pretty tavern girl returned with another two mugs of the hearty brew. Silas drained his and handed it to the smiling blonde. With his other hand, Silas latched onto her butt cheek and gave it a squeeze. The girl jerked her behind out of his grasp with a bored smile and sauntered back to the bar, carrying their empty mugs.
“I know,” Bert said adamantly, “‘cause the next day we went out lookin’ fer them three fellas and that lazy Constable. He was ‘sposed to be the one as set the whole thing up, but never showed up to help doin’ the work to round up them darkies. We done it all,” Bert huffed. “Well, anyways, we found that Constable dead an’ burned up in the witch’s house and then we tracked her out into the swamp.” He took a long drink before continuing. “An’ from the looks of her tracks, she was carryin’ somethin’ heavy!” Silas watched Bert take another drink, but felt disgusted as he saw most of the brew run out of his mouth onto his whiskered chin.
“An’ we found one of them fellas along the river path all bit up by water moccasins.” Bert shook his head as a shiver ran through his wizened body. “I ain’t never seen nothin’ like it, Silas. He musta been bit a hunerd times! He was all purple and swolled up.” Bert shuddered and took another drink.
“Her tracks went on into the swamp fer a good piece, but we lost ‘em. We lost them other fellas’ tracks too. One of ‘em we lost where we found the dead one, and we figured he got bit too and fell inta the river. There’s lots of big gators in that swamp. The othern went off in the same direction as the witch, but we lost his, too.” Another noisy gulp.
“She was bleedin’. We seen signs of that along the trail, but we lost her in that godforsaken swamp. And believe me, Silas, me and the fellas was ready to get outa that place. Dark and spooky it were even at high noon.
“And we had us all them darkies to get back to Mississip’ with so we could collect our bounties.” Bert’s eyes stared off into the dark smoky tavern and he smiled. “And since them fellas never showed back up, we split it up amongst ourselves.” He laughed loudly and slammed his mug onto the table. “And a good payday that were, let me tell ya, Silas.”
Silas had met Albert Graff during the war and had kept in touch with over the past two years since the end. They’d both been in the same Alabama infantry regiment. Silas had been a Major and Bert a private and Salas’s personal attaché. The man had been a drunkard, even then, but he had managed to make himself useful, finding certain luxuries for Silas when he needed them.
Silas Tremball had an affinity for certain types of women and Bert had always been able to deliver such women to him. Sometimes the little man had surprised Silas with a girl without being asked. He even managed to find quiet and secluded spots for Silas to enjoy those women. Sometimes Silas’s pleasures could be loud and messy.
He’d been eyeing the little blonde tavern wench while Bert droned on with his story and wondered if there might be a quiet cellar somewhere close by. He reached down between his leather-clad legs and adjusted himself. Watching the girl’s tight little behind swaying around the room with her bouncing blond curls had made Silas hard and he found it difficult to concentrate on Bert’s silly ghost story. Silas stroked himself under the table, watching the bitch, and fantasized about making a ghost of his own.
Bert must have noticed Silas’s rapt interest in the girl. “Silas, if you want that ‘ne there, I’ll go find ya a place to take her.” He reached across the table and grabbed Silas’s wrist. “But you gotta promise me you’ll come with me out to the swamp and help me look fer that treasure.”
Silas eyed the girl again, imagining her wet body beneath his. She sashayed by once more and his cock throbbed between his long legs. Silas nodded to the scrawny man who rose from his chair unsteadily. Silas watched Bert totter toward the bar and whisper to the girl, slipping a coin into her hand that brought a smile to her sweet lips.
The girl brought Silas another mug of the bitter beer and took Bert’s vacant seat. “Your friend said you might like to take me out to a late supper after I’m finished up here.”
Silas’s heart pounded, anticipating the pleasure of the girl squirming beneath him. His cock throbbed harder and Silas squeezed himself beneath the table before bringing his hand up. He gave the girl his warmest smile. “That I do.” He offered her the hand he’d used to stroke his erection. “My name is Silas. And you are?”
She took the offered hand. “Millie, sir… Millie DuMonte.”
“Well, Miss DuMonte, it is my most honorable pleasure to make your acquaintance. How long have you been working in this fine establishment?” Silas used his very best diction, presenting himself as the fine southern gentleman he’d been raised to be.
“Oh, I’ve been working around here most all my life.” She motioned back toward the bar. “My daddy owns DuMonte’s, this place. We moved out here from New Orleans before the war and been here ever since.”
“My gracious,” Silas sighed, squeezing the girl’s rough hand tighter, “A New Orleans girl. You must be bored silly out here in this backwater.”
“Oh, no,” she quickly replied, “I was just a little girl when we moved here. I don’t remember much about livin’ in the city ‘cept it was hot in the summers and we lived up over the gamin’ house where daddy worked and it was hard to sleep at night.” She looked around the little tavern and smiled. “It’s nicer here. We have our own house and it’s much cooler with the breezes off the bayou.”
“So tell me, Millie, if you’ve lived here most of your life, then you must have heard the stories of this Clairvoux witch my friend has been rattling on about.”
Millie snatched her hand away and looked around the room nervously. “Mr. Silas, that’s somethin’ mamas use to scare their children with to keep ‘em out of the swamp. I never put much stock in it myself.”
“But there was such a person?” Silas asked benignly before taking a sip of his beer. “My friend said she was a voodoo witch who got herself killed by slave catchers and who may have hidden some treasure out there in the swamp. Is there any truth to that or is my drunken friend simply blowing smoke up my backside?”
“Oh, he ain’t lyin’ to ya. There are still Clairvoux living here in St. Martinsville and there was a woman livin’ out by the river who read fortunes and such.” She was cut off by the barman, whom Silas assumed was the girl’s father, calling her back to tend the bar while he went out.
“Later then, Miss Millie,” Silas said as she exited her chair to return to the bar.
The pretty girl smiled at Silas and sauntered away. His hard cock throbbed, watching her shapely behind. He could almost read the girl’s simple mind. She was thinking she might just be able to use her good looks to lure in and snag herself a nice and possibly rich gentleman if she played her bait correctly. Silas smiled a secret smile and ran a hand over his bald head. It had worked so many times before.
How easily he lured these foolish over-reaching girls in. How it thrilled him when he saw it dawn in their frightened eyes that they hadn’t been the ones doing the luring, but him. Silas touched the sharp little knife he wore in a sheath on his belt. How he so loved to snag them. Silas found himself hoping Bert would come back soon with news of a nearby cellar or empty secluded barn.
Bert didn’t return for over two hours as Silas continued to watch the silly little country girl and sip the warm, bitter beer. When the drunken man finally returned, he looked beaten down, dropping into the empty chair with his bottom lip hanging toward his whiskered chin.
“Silas, I can’t find no cellars ‘round here nowhere. They don’t dig ‘em cause of the floodin’.” He took a long drink of the beer he’d picked up on his way in. “Ain’t no empty barns neither, but there is an empty stilt-house built out by the river, an’ it’s built in the same spot as that witch’s house that burned down.”
Silas raised an eyebrow. A plan formed. “Thank you, Albert. You have been most resourceful, as usual.” He took out a gold ten-dollar piece and handed it to the little man who smiled broadly at the glint of the gold and the praise. “Get yourself some food and a room for the night at the hotel.” Silas met the smiling eyes of the barmaid who was removing her apron and hanging it upon a peg.
“Go on now,” Silas told Albert, “and don’t drink all that up. You’ll need to be sharp in the morning if we’re going out on this witch hunt of yours.”
Albert nodded vigorously and stood. “Right, Major, sir, I’ll be on my way now.” He turned to leave, and then looked back to Silas. “There’s a café just down the street that stays open late for the Opera folks.”
Silas nodded and ushered the little man toward the door. “Thank you again, Albert. You’re very resourceful, indeed.”
As Albert exited the tavern, Millie walked to Silas’s side. “I can go now,” she said coyly, “Daddy will finish up here tonight and I can come in early tomorrow to mop the floors and wipe up the tables.”
That statement made Silas smile, knowing the girl had mopped her last floor and wiped her last table.
I’m giving the pretentious little bitch just what she’s hoping for. I’m going to take her away from this life of abject drudgery in this miserable backwater little swamp town.
Silas straightened his black duster and put on his black wide-brimmed, short-topped bolero hat, covering his bald head and giving him a very sophisticated gentlemanly appearance.
He put a caressing hand around Millie’s shoulders. “My friend tells me there is a lovely café just down the street that offers a late repast.” He opened the door for her. “Shall we?” Silas ushered the girl down the block toward lights of the open café. He could see people sitting in wrought iron chairs around tables of the same. Even at this distance, Silas could smell the mosquito repelling candles upon the tables. He smiled at that, because the nasty little beasts had practically bled him dry on the trip out here. He also knew the Yankee doctor; Walter Reed had recently discovered the creatures caused the Yellow Fever that had killed so many of his troops during the war.
“You seem very deep in thought,” Millie said as he helped her to sit in one of the wrought iron chairs in front of the little brick-front café. It looked out onto the neatly cobbled street where horses pulled carriages filled with laughing opera-goes, returning home after the performance. People from New Orleans still flocked into St. Martinsville during the summer months to escape the sweltering heat and to attend the one civilized attraction here—the opera.
As St. Martinsville had been spared many of the ravages of the war, many of the New Orleaners only had their fine summer estates to fall back to. So many had lost so much in that fine city on the Gulf during the senseless war.
Silas’s own parents had been burned out of their plantation home in Alabama, but were rebuilding with his help. He and his small band of troops left toward the end of the conflict had taken up pillaging wherever they happened to be and he’d managed to acquire a small hoard of silver, gold, and gems that he’d turned into cash and given to his father so the family estate could be put back into some working order. He’d also made certain the proper palms had been greased in the local constabulary so his father got a good share of the negroes taken into custody as indentured servants in the area.
“I was just thinking about the War, my dear Millie.” He seated himself across from her. “It was a terrible thing and so meaningless in the end with the Black Codes all the states have introduced to suppress the black men they freed.”
The girl nodded vacantly as the waiter came over to ask them if they’d like a glass of wine. Millie asked for one, but Silas, full of beer, declined and asked for a coffee. He wanted a perfectly clear head for the fun to come.
“We didn’t see much of the War out here, but we lost lots of boys to it.” Millie folded her hands demurely on the table in front of her. “My brother, Daniel, and my cousin, Carl, were lost.” She took a long drink of the dark liquid when the waiter brought it.
Silas patted her hand sympathetically. “I’m so very sorry for your loss, my dear. I too lost many good men I’d grown fond of in my command. I was a Major in the Alabama Twenty-first. We took a good many losses at Vicksburg, I’m afraid.” Silas squeezed her hand again. “But let’s not dwell on that tonight.” The waiter returned and took their orders for Muffolatas and green salads. With the mood lightened, Silas directed the conversation back to the earlier subject. “So tell me about this Clairvoux witch and the rumors of a treasure out there in the swamp.”
The big man watched little Millie shiver and pull her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “People ‘round here don’t talk much about that,” she offered in a hushed tone. “There is supposed to be a curse on anyone who goes out into that swamp looking for her treasure.”
Silas persisted, “But you mean there was such a person with an actual treasure of silver and gold? How could a poor witless negress possibly have accumulated a treasure in the first place? Did she work for one of the white planters in one of these big houses out here and steal it?”
“Well,” Millie said with irritation in her voice at Silas’s belittling of a local resident, “she was supposed to have been a very good fortune teller and medicine maker, and her grandmother, who raised her, was too. It’s customary to pay those women in silver or gold unless making a fair trade for food or drink.” Millie lifted her glass of wine and sipped. “Those two were at it for several years out there. I was only ten when the raid happened, but I remember Angelique comin’ into the tavern with her aunt Callie Ann who makes our beer and wine. I’d say Angelique and her Maman could have put away quite a bit over the years.” Millie seemed to consider her next words carefully. “A lot of it was probably only Quarter Golds and silver dollars, but those can add up.” The waiter brought out their sandwiches and greens and Silas watched Millie dig into the food with vigor.
Silas toyed with his and sipped his water. “And what about this curse? You don’t really believe in that sort of backwoods superstitious nonsense, do you?”
Millie swallowed the bite of food in her mouth and then told Silas what she’d heard about the curse Angelique’s grandmother had put on the priest and his church all those years ago. She drank more wine and Silas motioned for the waiter to bring her another. He’d ply her with as much of the stuff as he could get her to drink so she’d be more pliable later. “I don’t know as I put much stock in it, but I know most of the locals here abouts do. There are still plenty of folks who lived out here when all that business with the church and the priest happened. I can give you some names if you’d like to go and talk to them,” Millie offered, relieved to have the responsibility off her plate.
“Thank you, Millie, that would be most helpful, indeed.” Silas picked at his greens before venturing on. “Albert tells me the witch’s house is still out there.”
Millie shook her head. “There’s one out there, but it’s not the one the witch lived in.” Millie cut into the big sandwich before taking a dainty bite. “The old house burned the night Angelique disappeared. The one out there now was built by some Indians after the War.” She took another bite followed by a gulp of wine. “Her family lived with the Indians during the War and old Augustine Clairvoux let them build there. Nobody stays there long. The Indians say it’s possessed by bad spirits and the whites say it’s haunted by ghosts.” She shrugged her shoulders, bouncing her lovely golden curls. “I don’t know.”
Silas raised his eyebrows and widened his green eyes to appear excited. “Have you ever been out there, Millie?”
“Oh, Lord, no!” she exclaimed and gulped more wine.
“Why don’t we go, Millie?” Silas said, pleading. “It would be so very exciting. Don’t you think? I can rent a carriage and we can ride out there tonight.” He went on with excitement in his voice. “I’ve never seen a real ghost. Have you?” He slapped his hand solidly upon the table. “It would be such an adventure.” How he longed to give Miss Millie an adventure.
The half-drunken girl looked at him with something between horror and excitement on her pale face. “I don’t know, Silas.” She glanced around at the other tables as if to ascertain whether or not the other patrons knew her or her father.
She pulled the shawl tighter around her shoulders. “It would be unseemly for me to be goin’ out with you in a carriage so late at night. If my daddy found out, he’d tan my hide for sure.”
Silas took her hand and persisted. “And just how is he going to find out? We’ll just take a carriage ride out there, look around a little, and then ride right back into town.” He gave Millie’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “We’ll be back before he even gets the tavern closed up and walks home. I’m sure of it.”
Millie pulled her hand from his, but she returned it with a squeeze of her own. Silas knew he had her. “Oh, what the heck!” she exclaimed, giddy with the wine. “Let’s do it. I’ll wait here and have another glass of wine while you get the carriage.”
Silas rose, ecstatic with the anticipation of his latest prize. “I’ll be right back, my dear.” He went inside and paid for their meal, adding another glass of wine for Millie. He tipped the waiter generously and bent to whisper into his ear. “The young lady’s father is a bit of a prude, so if you could forget we were ever here, it would be appreciated.”
The young man accepting the heavy coin nodded knowingly. “Of course, sir, we are very discreet here at Le Petite Paris.”
He left the café, tipping his hat at Millie who smiled with her goblet of wine clutched in her fingers. Silas walked down the street until he came to a line of black carriages parked. With another heavy gold coin, he rented one without a driver for the rest of the night. After getting directions to the stable where he should leave the rig when finished, Silas turned it around to return to the café. Millie, having finished her wine and hearing the clomping of hooves on the cobbled street, stood waiting on the corner.
Silas loved it when they seemed to be waiting for it happily. He pulled the carriage to a halt and got down to help Millie onto the leather seat. Then he walked back around and slid into the seat beside her.
“Well, my lady, how do we get to this haunted house?” Of course, Silas already knew the directions from his earlier conversation with Albert, but he wanted to give Millie’s simple mind something to concentrate on besides what might happen once they reached their destination. Silas was fairly certain the addle-headed little tavern slut could never imagine what might be in store for her.
Millie gave him rough directions to the stilt house near the river and they traveled making light conversation about the area and the weather. Silas made it seem as though he was ever so interested in the large storms that had hit the area and how they might affect the swamps and the town.
It only took them about fifteen minutes by carriage to get to the darkened cabin set high up on six-foot stilts, presumably to avoid floodwaters from the nearby river. Millie explained to Silas that although the river almost never got nearly high enough to warrant the high stilts, it had been built by the local Indians who lived farther out in the swamp where they were sometimes necessary.
Silas’s cock throbbed riding out so close to his latest catch. He could smell her honeysuckle oil perfume. He ached to grab her hair and yank her into his arms so he could feel her squirm. He took a calming breath, climbed down, and unhooked one of the lanterns used for the driver to see the roadway. Silas walked around and helped Millie down from the carriage. He held the lantern high above his head with one hand and Millie with the other.
He could feel Millie shivering in his arm and wondered if it was from more than just the damp night air. He hoped so. He hoped her fear was beginning to build. Silas savored the sight of fear in their eyes. The uncomfortable throbbing between his thighs had become almost more than he could bear, but he couldn’t touch himself now. It had been several months since his last very unfulfilling catch and he wanted to string this one out for as long as possible. Silas thought Miss Millie would be the best he’d had in a very long time. He licked his thin lips in anticipation.
When they get to the steps leading up to the raised deck around the cabin, Millie stopped. “Are we actually going in there, Silas? I don’t think I…” He cut her off with a hard yank on her arm toward the steps.
“It’s why we came out here. Isn’t it?” He continued tugging her toward the stairs. “Come on now. This is going to be fun.”
Millie hesitated, but finally put a foot onto the first step and began climbing. Silas held onto Millie’s trembling arm as he led her up onto the deck surrounding the cabin. Tree frogs and crickets chirped, but other than a soft breeze rustling the branches around them, Silas heard nothing. The lights of the town glowed in the distance, and Silas smiled knowing this place would be perfect for what he had in mind for little Millie. His cock throbbed and he wondered if the damned thing would hold out until the grand finale.
Clouds suddenly rolled across the moon and obscured the bright stars that had shone down on them during their drive out. He hoped the warm breeze heavy with moisture didn’t mean rain. Perhaps he should have lifted the top on the carriage. Silas didn’t relish a wet behind on his return trip into town. He looked down at his prize shivering beside him and forgot all about wet behinds.
When the lantern finally shone upon the door to the cabin, Millie stopped again.
“Silas, I’m afraid.” She pulled back a little, but Silas held firm to his prize. Millie’s fear thrilled him beyond belief. She should be afraid, but silly ghosts were the least of her worries. He lifted the wooden latch keeping the door in place and pushed it until it creaked open on its old hinges and pulled the weakly protesting girl inside.
He saw piles of jumbled wooden crates in the room along with old benches and a table. Huge webs with black and yellow spiders hung throughout the long-abandoned cabin. With the lantern held high, Silas brushed aside the webs and dragged the struggling girl to a room at the back of the cabin.
Crude bunks lined the walls of what must be a bedroom. There were no mattresses on the bunks, but Silas didn’t care. He didn’t need the comfort of a mattress and he hoped the experience would be especially uncomfortable for sweet Miss Millie.
She protested more vigorously and whined. “Silas, I don’t want to be here. You’re hurting me, Silas.” She thrashed. “Let me go.” Silas had finally had enough. He hated whining women. Silas backhanded Millie across the face, throwing her down onto one of the slatted wooden bunks. Blessed silence at last.
Stunned from the pain of the slap and the viciousness of the attack, Millie lay there shaking and silent, staring up at Silas. He leered down at her and took off his long black coat. He neatly folded it and placed it upon one of the bunks. Atop it he set his hat. Silas sat upon one of the bunks and kicked off his boots, placing them beside his hat and duster. When he began unbuttoning his white silk shirt, Millie began to softly moan. As he folded it with the other garments the moan turned to a keening and when he undid his trousers to release his massive pent up erection, she screamed and tried to roll off the bunk. He used his foot to block her escape and push her back onto the narrow bed. Silas unbuckled the silver infantry buckle on his wide leather belt. The thought of how it would sound lashing Millie’s tender flesh was almost more than he could bear and he had to pinch his erection to keep it from blowing into Millie’s tear-stained face. Silas pulled the little sheath holding the real implement of pain and pleasure from his belt. He removed the thin-bladed little knife from the sheath and held it up in the lantern’s light for the wide-eyed girl to see.
Millie screamed again and tried to roll off the bunk. Silas grabbed a handful of curly blond hair and pulled Millie to her feet. He glared at her and slapped her back to the bed. She sobbed now and pled with him. Silas smiled, enjoying the useless pleading.
“Please, please let me go home, Silas. I won’t tell anybody.” Millie gulped air. “I promise I won’t,” she sobbed. “Please, Silas, please.”
Silas ignored her pitiful pleas, but enjoyed them nonetheless. He folded his leather breaches. He’d had them custom fitted by a leather worker in Birmingham. Silas turned back to Millie, stroking his pulsing erection. He wanted his little prize to get a good look at its sizable length and girth. Silas had no intention of soiling himself in this piece of backwater trash, but he wanted her to think that was what was coming to her. She gulped air and whimpered. Time to have some fun.
He yanked the thrashing, moaning girl up by her hair. He backhanded her again, relishing the spray of blood from her broken nose. He ripped the handmade, homespun dress and undergarments from her body and discarded them in a pile like so much rubbish.
Silas ran his hands over her trembling body, finally coming to rest upon Millie’s firm breasts. They weren’t the largest breasts he’d ever had, but he enjoyed the way they heaved up and down as she sobbed. Silas Tremball pinched the nipples of each breast and twisted them savagely. The girl screamed and rolled, trying to escape the pain. Silas picked up and tossed the thrashing and sobbing Millie onto her belly upon the rough wooden bunk. He mounted her and thrust his hardness between the cheeks of her soft white ass, letting her imagine what might be about to come.
Rather than assaulting Millie with his oozing erection, Silas grabbed up his belt and began lashing the soft white skin of Millie’s back. Screaming with the stinging pain of the lashing, Millie twisted and rolled, but Silas kept bringing the strap down upon her back, rump, and thighs. The belt raised purple welts and in some places split the skin, drawing tiny spots of blood. Silas trembled with pleasure and his cock oozed.
Silas could remember, as a child, watching his father lash his slaves. He could especially remember him lashing the naked females. His father did that on a regular basis. If he happened to get one of them pregnant, he’d lash the woman until she lost the unwanted child in a rush of water, blood, and screams. Silas had so loved listening to those screams. As it happened, Silas’s father liked to copulate with his slaves so there were a lot of lashings and lots of screaming.
He wondered what his father would do now that the females were no longer slaves and he couldn’t force them to copulate with him, nor would he be able to lash them. Silas thought his father was going to be a much unfulfilled man and that made Silas smile to himself.
He looked down at the simpering Millie again. This one looked the most like his precious sister, Katherine. She had been Silas’s first love and his first lover. At first he’d forced himself upon her, but after the first few months she’d become completely submissive to her big brother and allowed his advances whenever he stole into her room at night. The first time he’d taken Katherine, she’d been having her monthly cycle and Silas remembered the pleasure the feeling of her hot bloodiness had given him as his hard cock slid in and out of her tightness. He’d always visited Katherine during her cycles after that.
However, of course, as happens with repeated intercourse between healthy youngsters, his sweet loving Katherine found herself with child. When her maid servant realized the girl hadn’t had her menses in a few months, she told their mother, who’d in turn, told their father. Their father became enraged and demanded to know who’d sullied his virgin daughter, who he’d hoped to marry to a widowed and childless neighbor. The man’s one requirement had been that the girl had to come to the marriage bed unsullied.
When Katherine had refused to point the finger at her defiler, their father had done with her what he’d done with all the other unwanted pregnancies on his plantation, leading Katherine shackled and naked to the whipping post. However, unlike the simpering Millie here, his Katherine had never begged their father to stop lashing her. She’d never screamed once under the lash, standing steadfast until her womb had finally failed her and released their child, his child, in a rush of blood down her long white legs. Silas closed his eyes, remembering the light going out of his Katherine’s lovely blue eyes as she hung on the post beaten and bloody, her breasts worn raw from the rough wood of the post. Yes, this one looked very much like his beautiful Katherine, but hearing her whimper again, Silas remembered sadly that she was not.
After the girl had finally exhausted herself under his lash and lay gasping and hiccupping on the hard, rough bunk, Silas went to work with his little knife. He slowly and expertly flayed the skin from the girl’s breasts. Somehow Millie found the breath to scream some more and Silas shivered with delight as he heard every ear-piercing howl. He crawled atop Millie’s blood-drenched, trembling body, sliding his rock-hard cock between her blood-slickened breasts until he couldn’t hold his explosive release. Silas drew his sharp little blade across Millie’s throat to sever her pulsing vein. The explosive release of the hot, red blood from Millie’s jugular matched him spurt for spurt until they both slumped drained and limp upon the bunk.
Silas lay atop the lifeless Millie until her blood stopped jetting into his eyes and he knew it had begun to cake upon him as it dried. He looked down one last time into the lifeless eyes of Millie DuMonte, knowing there would be no more delicious screams from her slack lips. This one had been a good screamer and she hadn’t passed out or puked once. Silas hated it when they passed out and he had to wait until they revived enough to get them screaming again. It delayed his gratification and Silas hated that.
As he lifted himself off her, Silas grabbed her cheek and pinched it almost lovingly, “Miss Millie, you were perfect, just perfect.”
Silas stepped out of the cabin and skipped down the stairs where he retrieved the horse’s bucket of water from the back of the carriage. He walked back upstairs and into the room with Millie’s body. He picked up the girl’s ripped and discarded dress from the floor. He ripped it apart some more, dipped it into the bucket and began bathing Millie’s blood from his lean sinewy body. Silas wished he’d been able to acquire some soap before leaving town, but this would have to do. After a goodly bit of scrubbing, Silas picked up the rest of Millie’s ragged clothes and dried his body as best he could. He was careful to wipe all the crevasses inside his ears and nose holes. They were insignificant spots, but if he walked into the lobby of the hotel with blood caked in his nose or ears, it was bound to foster unwanted questions.
Silas redressed himself and left the cabin invigorated. This catch had been especially gratifying. He would have to buy Albert a nice breakfast for this one. He drove the carriage back into town and delivered it to the livery and then walked back to the hotel.
In his room, Silas kicked off his boots and stripped out of his clothes, hanging and folding them neatly. When he looked at himself in the mirror above his washbasin, he saw that he’d missed some blood stuck in the creases in his forehead. Silas poured water from the pitcher in to the basin, wet a bar of sharp-scented soap and lathered himself all over. When he’d finished rinsing, he noted the water in the basin was quite pink. He smiled, thinking he really hadn’t planned to bring Miss Millie back to his room, but he had; just a bit of her anyhow.
When Silas crawled into the inviting comfort of the soft quilts, Millie’s screams still echoed pleasantly in his head. He wanted to sleep, but revisiting his evening’s very satisfying events brought about another throbbing erection he had to do something about. He wondered if it had been because this one resembled his beloved Katherine so closely. Silas usually tried to get blondes, but a brunette or redhead would do in a pinch. Silas, however, never took negresses. Those were his father’s vice and not his. Silas stroked his erection to release and fell into a satisfied sleep.
He awoke the next morning to a steady rapping at his door and Albert calling loudly, “Silas, you in there?”
“Yes, Bert, just give me a minute to dress.” He rolled off the bed and pulled on a pair of cotton twill trousers. He didn’t intent to ruin his leathers, traipsing with Bert through the muddy swamp. He finished with a light cotton shirt and a narrow black string-tie. There was no reason he shouldn’t look the gentleman even if he was out here in the bayou with a bunch of Creole trash.
Silas opened the door and Bert came limping in, still smelling of last night’s liquor and tobacco smoke. Silas held his breath until the little man had passed by. “Albert, do you not own a razor or comb and did your room not come with water and a basin?”
“Sure it had water. I drunk me some of it before I come up here.” He stared around Silas’s room before asking. “What do I need with a comb or a razor? Is we goin’ to church or somethin’?”
Silas shook his head in resignation. “No, we are not going to church. We are going to breakfast.”
Albert gave the Major a knowing smile. “I guess she were a good one, then.”
“Yes, Albert, she was a very good one.” They left the hotel and went across the street to the same café with wrought iron furniture on the front patio. However, this morning they went inside and sat in soft cushioned chairs at wooden tables.
Albert glanced around, making certain nobody sat close enough to overhear their conversation. “Where’d ya leave her? Do ya need me to go clean it up?”
“No, she’s fine where she is. I’m sure someone will find her when she starts to stink or after she’s a dried up husk.” Their waiter arrived and they ordered a breakfast of coffee, eggs, ham, and biscuits.
While they waited, Silas offered, “I got some verification of this witch story of yours, though.” The waiter brought their coffee with two cups and a full pot he set on the table they could refill from.
“It seems there was a woman out here who may have had some gold and silver stashed away and who may have run off into the swamp when you slave hunters came out here.” Silas filled his cup and took a careful sip of the hot brew. “I don’t know that it’s any great treasure though. It may have only been a few Quarter Golds and some silver dollars.”
Albert shook his head. “Them fellas said she paid that bounty in twenty-dollar gold pieces and ten-dollar silvers.” He took a big gulp of his hot coffee. “And they said that Constable seen her treasure box. It weren’t just no little sack, neither.”
The waiter brought out their plates of food. It smelled good and Silas found he was actually quite hungry.
Albert picked up his fork and added, “Anyways, right now I’d settle for a sack of Quarter Golds and silver dollars. I ain’t got nothin’ left since the War and my farm was burned down by the Yankees. My wife an’ youngins went back up to Tennessee to her ma and pa’s and they ain’t comin’ back if I can’t come up with somethin.”
“What did you do with your share of the loot we gathered in those last months? That’s what that was supposed to be used for; getting things set back up,” Silas asked the little man who was hunched over his plate.
“I give it to my wife.” Albert shrugged his shoulders. “They was burned out too and all their stock confiscated to feed the Yankee bastards.” Silas nodded in understanding as he shoveled eggs into his mouth. “I couldn’t just leave ‘em up there with nothin’. My wife said she was gonna stay up there with the youngins until I could get things back up and runnin’ in Alabam. But there just ain’t nothin’ to work with. The damned carpetbaggers is gougin’ on prices fer everthing. I got to come up with some cash somewheres.”
“Why don’t you just go back up to Tennessee and help her parents. You can just take the place over when they’re gone.”
“I thought on that,” Albert sighed, “but her damned brother’s done moved his wife an’ youngins in. He’s primed to take right over when the old man dies after they spend my money fixin’ things back up.”
Albert seemed to be more worked up than Silas had ever seen the little man. “If we can find that treasure, I can go back up there an’ hire me some rough sorts to work the bastard over and get him out of my way. I’d rather be in Alabama, but Tennessee is a nice enough place with a workin’ farm already in place built up with my money.”
“Then I suppose we’d best be on our way, Bert. Do you remember where that trail was that you and your friends were following?”
“I sure do. We just got to get back out to where that witch’s house was.” Albert took a final bite of biscuit and stood, wiping his greasy hands on his trousers.
Silas motioned toward the door. “Go on and wait outside while I pay for our breakfast and we’ll be on our way.” He went to the counter and paid for their meal. On the way out he dropped a coin on the table for their waiter. It wasn’t nearly as generous as the one he’d given the man the night before, but that had been something else altogether.
He and Albert walked across town in the heavy morning air toward the stilt house by the river. When they got to it, Albert stopped and stared around, getting his bearing. He pointed to the stilt house. “That’s where the witch’s house was and where we found that Constable all burned up.” He gazed up at the little cabin on its high stilts. “I wonder why they built it up so high. I wouldn’t think the water’d get that high over here.”
“I was told this house was built by the local Indians who generally build farther out in the bayou where it floods. They build all their houses like that.”
Albert shrugged and brushed at a gnat. “Makes sense, I guess. Just seems like a waste of good lumber to my way of thinkin’.” He pointed past the house to the east. “We followed her tracks that way to the river. There’s a trail there along the bank.” They moved off in that direction away from the little stilted cabin where Millie’s cold body lay covered with flies and other insects drawn to her by the first odor of decay.
The two mismatched men reached the riverbank and found the path meandering along through a sparse stand of cypress and oaks. Silas imagined it had been made by fishermen and game, using the river for its bounty. A mass of darkening clouds filled the sky and the breeze coming up from the gulf hung heavy with humidity. Before their day ended, Silas expected to see rain.
They soon came to another spot where Albert stopped. “I’m sure this is about the spot where we found that fella that was all bit up, so be careful where you step, Silas.” He peered at the ground and pointed to some high grass and Silas recognized a good sized gator slide down into the roiling green waters of the river.
Silas wasn’t much worried about snakes. His boots covered his legs up past his calves, but he kept his eyes on the banks for alligators. He certainly didn’t want to trip over one of those in his haste. He studied the muddy brown river and imagined he saw scaly heads popping up along the way.
The first drops of rain splattered on the ground around them as Albert led them into a more densely foliaged part of the swamp. “Good thing we’ll be under these bigger trees now,” Albert grunted and pointed in a westerly direction away from the river. “It’s not far from here we lost their trails. It gets real dark in here up under these big cypresses and oaks.”
Huge clumps of dusty green sphagnum moss hung from the low branches and huge diaphanous webs containing some of the biggest spiders Silas had ever seen danced in the breeze between the thick bushes. “Are those things poisonous, Albert?” he asked as they passed by one of the big yellow and black striped arachnids.
“Oh, no, thems just ol’ swamp spiders. Heck, I don’t even know as they’d bite ya.” He chuckled. “Silas, you ‘fraid of lil ole spiders? I didn’t think Major Silas Tremball was afraid of nothin’.”
Irritated by Bert’s impertinence, Silas replied, “I’m not overly fond of biting or stinging insects.” As if for dramatic effect, he slapped at his neck where another mosquito had landed and gorged itself on his blood. As they moved farther into the trees and brush, the wind picked up and moved the treetops more violently. The sound of it blowing through the densely twined branches almost sounded like a woman’s sultry laughter.
Albert stopped again and peered around. Silas could tell the man was on edge. “I think this is about as far in as we got before we lost their tracks.” He scratched absently at his thinning hair. “All the fellas was getting’ spooked by then and we called it quits.” Albert lifted his eyes to the dancing treetops. The creaking of the old branches grated on Silas’s nerves along with the creepy laughing on the wind.
“I don’t know why she’d cut off in this here direction when the ferry ‘cross the bayou was straight ‘head the way we was headed before.”
“I don’t know, either, Bert,” Silas said, agitated by the terrible laughing sound on the wind. “But let’s keep going if we’re going before this turns into a storm we can’t get out of.” He moved off toward a mass of honeysuckle vines draped across a wild plum thicket. It looked to Silas like a place an injured girl might crawl inside to die.
He’d just passed into the plum grove and felt his hat collide with something when he heard Bert yell a tardy warning, “Look out Silas, hornets!” By that time, Silas heard the mad buzzing and looked up to see what his hat had bumped into. The hanging bulb of a paper hornet’s nest swung over Silas’s head and the little beasts were upon him before he could even think about running.
Soon, Silas Tremball’s face and bald head were covered with the stinging insects. Each sting pounded him like the blow from a sledgehammer. He tried to keep his mouth shut to the onslaught, but found the pain and horror too great. When Silas opened his mouth to scream, the hornets flooded into it, stinging his lips, his tongue, and the roof. They stung his bald scalp, his exposed neck, and his hands as he tried to brush them away. He felt his tongue and throat swelling. His nose filled with the stinging creatures and he struggled to breathe.
Through the buzzing of the stinging hornets in his ears, Silas heard Bert calling his name. But he could tell the cowardly little fool’s voice got farther away. Bert was running away. He was leaving Silas here in this ghastly place with these horrible hornets and that never-ending wicked laughter. Silas heard the woman’s laughter as his airway finally swelled shut and his lungs no longer functioned. As Major Silas Xavier Tremball fell away into darkness, he heard that sultry, mocking laughter above the buzzing of the hornets crawling into his ears.
Next to a tree behind the once writhing man, stood two shadowy naked female figures. One, with tight blonde curls stood by and smiled smugly down at the dead body, while the other, a mulatto beauty, laughed. She raised a dark hand into the air and waived away the infuriated swarming insects.
“Thank you, Spirits, for avenging this poor, sweet soul. She walks with me now.” The wraith of Angelique Clairvoux tugged at the blonde girl’s arm and they retreated into the mists rising up from the ground to envelope the swollen, still body of Silas Tremball. Both young women laughed as the Spirits dragged his screaming soul away with them into the swirling mists.