Chapter Twenty-Eight

Without hearts there is no home.

—Byron.

The next day, Hunter drove Caitlin and Tejan to visit his parents in Caldwell Parish. Hunter felt it was time to go home. There was some kind of ache inside that he thought going home might cure. Home is supposed to do that. His parents still lived in the house where Hunter had been raised.

There were amends to be made, too. It would be easier to face his father if Caitlin were to be with him. His arrest for the pot possession had hurt his parents, but his father especially. Hunter knew his father would never be able to understand why a man would want to use any kind of recreational drug. His father was a farmer, and son of farmers, a solid man, good of heart but definitely one to whom the wildness and infatuation of the fast-living music world Hunter moved in would have had little appeal. Drugs could never be a part of his father’s world. Hunter remembered his father warning him about the alcoholics and dope fiends and adulterers in the music industry. Now Hunter wondered if his father thought of him as having joined those casualties. Some days, Hunter wondered if he truly had. Was he doomed to join the ranks of the countless worn-out, burned-out musicians who never reach their dreams and often never even find themselves?

In spite of his apprehensions, Hunter smiled as they approached the house. It was a gray, one-story cypress board plantation-age home, resting on a gravel road along the banks of the Ouachita River. Its porch extended along the whole front of the house and had been screened in for protection from mosquitoes so the family could sit outside on hot summer evenings. The windows were large, and long, reaching from the ceiling almost to the hardwood floor, a floor that creaked at night in response to the lightest of footsteps.

Hunter parked underneath one of the pre-Civil War live oak trees next to a shotgun house. As they stepped out of his truck, a yellow hound ran up to them barking. Tejan froze.

“Stonewall! Behave yourself!” Hunter said. “Don’t worry, Tejan. Come here, boy.” Hunter patted his leg and Stonewall trotted amiably over to him, his tail wagging. “He doesn’t bite. He just likes to call attention to himself. All that barking and noise makes him feel important.”

“So, he’s just like any other redneck male, eh, Hunter.” Caitlin knelt down and rubbed Stonewall’s head. “Come pet him, Tejan. See? He’s a good dog.”

Tejan squatted and cautiously rubbed Stonewall’s back, then pulled his hand back quickly. He touched him again, and when Stonewall licked his face, he laughed.

“He’s not used to dogs?” Hunter asked.

“Not as pets. Sierra Leone had a lot of dogs, feral ones mostly. Pye-dogs, they called them. There were packs of them everywhere in Freetown. They were bad to bite and often carried rabies. The government said they were planning on a pye-dog extermination program, but first they needed to figure out what to do about the packs of wild boys in Freetown. What kind of dog is he?”

“Stonewall is what they call a Blackmouth cur, and a very good hog dog. But he’s of questionable origin. Daddy likes to say that his mama was a feist, and the father was just a real good friend she met somewhere. By his build and his blue eyes, I’d say one of his parents was a Catahoula Cur.”

Hunter heard the screen door slam. He saw his mother step outside. She wiped her hands with her apron.

“Land’s sake alive, Hunter, it’s about time you found your way home.” She wrapped her arms around Hunter and he gasped as she squeezed the breath out of him.

“This is Caitlin, Mother. The love of my life.”

Then she held out her arms for Caitlin and embraced her. “Hello, Caitlin. Hunter used to talk about you all the time. It is so good to finally meet you.”

“Hello, Miss Belle,” Caitlin said. “Hunter talked about me?”

“All the time. Caitlin, you are as purty as can be. You look a lot like I did when I was your age. I’m happy that you and Hunter are seeing each other again. I hope you can keep this boy of mine out of trouble this time around.”

Hunter thought that maybe mothers have some kind of radar that automatically kicks in when it’s needed.

“Your daddy’s out in the garden,” his mother said. “Why don’t you go say hello, Hunter.”

“Sure,” he said, but hesitated.

“Don’t worry, son. He won’t give you a hard time. We done talked about it. Go on now. I’ll fix us all some iced tea. Tell your daddy to come to the porch.”

****

After Hunter was out of earshot, Miss Belle looked at Tejan. “And who might this young man be?”

“That’s my son, Tejan,” Caitlin said. “I adopted him when I was in Africa.”

“Is that right? Hunter told me you went to Africa, but he didn’t say anything about you having a kid now.” She held out her hand and smiled. “Good to meet you, Tejan. You can call me Miss Belle.”

Tejan took her hand and pumped it once. “Hello, Miss Belle.”

“Go take a look around our place if you want while your mama and I talk. Stonewall will go with you. Call him.”

“Come, Stonewall!” Tejan said. Stonewall barked and followed, his tail thumping their legs like a metronome as he passed by them. Tejan ran laughing to the tire swing, stuck himself inside and hurled himself into the air while Stonewall barked and jumped, dashing in and out of Tejan’s path as he swung.

Caitlin and his mother walked to the house and Caitlin sat in the porch swing while Hunter’s mother went inside to pour glasses of iced tea.

“You have a beautiful place, Miss Belle,” Caitlin said when Hunter’s mother returned. “I may ask Hunter to walk me out to that high ground over there so I can see the river.”

Hunter’s mother set the tray of glasses down on an end table next to the swing. “That high ground yonder is what folks call Jayhawk Hill. Near the end of the Civil War, Jayhawkers hid out there. They were a criminal sort mostly—deserters from both sides, thieves, rapists, murderers, vagabonds, smugglers. Seems like every unsavory man who came into Louisiana found his way to that hill. My daddy said that the White Camellias finally ran them out—at least all the ones they didn’t shoot or hang. Tejan,” she called out. “Would you like a glass of tea?”

“Oui!” he said. He and Stonewall galloped toward the porch. He gulped down the tea, smacked his lips and he and Stonewall ran back to the swing.

Belle said, “I’m going to tell Hunter what I think today.”

“Ma’am?”

“I think it’s time he gave up whatever dream notions or idle fancies he has in his head and settled down. He needs to give up that gypsy life. I don’t want no old-maid son. You’d make him a fine wife, Caitlin. I can see it in your eyes. I know Hunter thinks he wouldn’t make a good husband, but the fact is there ain’t no man that’s a good husband right away, and he can learn how to be one just like every other man has to do. I think that spell on the pea farm broke that bad temper of his. If he had any sense at all, and since he’s my son I’m inclined to think he does, he’d ask you marry him before next week. That shotgun house on our property would make a fine starter home for you. Now, I know with this new boy you got, and that means if he takes you, he’s got a black son to raise too. That might slow Hunter down a bit, but Tejan seems like a good boy. Louisiana ain’t as bad or prejudiced about such things like it used to be, so I don’t think his being black will cause you much trouble as long as you don’t go on a crusade or something. Where do you live now?”

From Miss Belle’s words Caitlin realized how Tejan was a difficulty factor to consider if she wanted to add any man permanently to her life. But Tejan was non-negotiable, and any man that couldn’t accept Tejan, could just kiss her ass and move on. “Tejan is very important to me. He and I live in a houseboat on the river in West Monroe. But I’m not that attached to it. I heard Hunter say he wanted to settle down in the country. If Hunter and I end up together, I guess I could sell the houseboat.”

“Pshaw. There ain’t no doubt in my mind you and him will be together, but there ain’t no need to talk of selling anything to do it. You could hook that houseboat on the river here just as easy as you could there if you’re attached to it.”

Then Hunter’s mother looked at Tejan sailing through the air in the swing. “But then, sometimes you got to do what feels right, even if it don’t seem quite natural. Don’t you think so?”

Caitlin wasn’t sure exactly what she meant by natural or doing what feels right. Her sentence seemed to be a cryptic Southern aphorism, containing wisdom that Hunter’s mother thought Caitlin needed to hear. “Yes, ma’am, I think so.”

After meeting and talking with his parents, Caitlin understood Hunter a little better. She also got a glimpse of what Hunter could be like in his later years. Worth thinking about because all of us grow old.

When Caitlin returned home, she found a brightly wrapped package propped against the door, and an envelope taped to the door. She opened the letter and recognized the handwriting.

Caitlin:

My dearest. I am so sorry we quarreled. I behaved like such an ass. I miss you. I need to see you so much. I don’t want you to feel pressured. I can’t bear the thought of living without you. Please call me at the hotel and let me know what you think of the gift. Maybe this will make amends for my horrendous behavior this afternoon. I hope to see you wearing them soon.

Yours always,

Von.

Inside the package were a diamond necklace and a pair of diamond earrings. The attached tag said that the stone for the necklace was one carat and the earrings were one-half carat each.

Caitlin called Von’s hotel and asked for his room, wanting to tell him that there was no way she could accept the gift, that he would have to come and pick up the diamonds up tomorrow. Von needed to know that she could not be bought. There was no answer when the operator connected to his room, so she left a message on the voice mail.

Later that night, after she was sure Tejan was asleep, Caitlin stood naked in front of the bathroom mirror, wearing only the diamond necklace and diamond earrings. The stones sparkled and glittered in the light. She hated herself for wanting to keep the diamonds.