Black Bayou Read online

  "I used a little boat and came up the bayou. Motor was too small to make any speed, but here I am. Aren't you glad to see me, brother?"

  Ellen could scarcely believe her ears. “Brother? You are brothers!” She shook Mac's arm from her shoulder. He tried to grab her hand, but she pushed him away with a shove to his chest.

  "Wait, Ellen. Let me explain!"

  "There is nothing to explain ... you lied to me. Told me your name was Hayward McGregor. What happened to the LaClare, like your father? What were you trying to hide?"

  "Honey, listen a minute. I was not lying to you. I just..."

  "Didn't tell the truth! So is that so different? Why?

  "Actually, my last name was never LaClare, because our mother named us Atwater since that was her name and she had never married him. James and I—"

  "I don't care about either one of you. Just get away from me.” She turned and fled the room, returning to the parlor as fast as she could run, locking the door behind her.

  "Sounds like a love-spat to me. Sorry, brother, didn't mean to cause you any trouble. She sure is a pretty little thing, so if she is too mad at you, then I will be happy to comfort her."

  Mac started after her, but Mrs. Atwater said sharply. “Let her be for awhile, Mac. She will come around in awhile. In the meantime, who wants breakfast?"

  * * * *

  Ellen sat on a couch in front of the dwindling fire, wrapped in a blanket. She did not really understand her reaction to the news they were brothers. After all, what difference did it make? On the other hand, he had not told the whole truth and had taken advantage her. No, to be honest, she had started the sex, not he. She closed her eyes and pictured them wrapped around each other and how wonderful it had been. The picture changed for a second and she saw a crescent moon on his buttock, and then it was gone. She remembered what he had told them when Windy asked if they were brothers. Guess I should have looked, she commented to herself as she fell asleep.

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  Chapter 20

  Her dreams turned to nightmares with images of her three friends. She heard Eartha's screams as an alligator as big as a horse dragged her into the swampy bayou. She pictured Marybeth's little car swept into a swollen stream, spinning it until it flipped, throwing the small woman out a broken window, slashing her body and face on the glass. Windy, where was Windy? In her subconscious, Ellen saw only a black hole, a yawning cave full of filthy water, as a phantom face shimmered and separated in the maelstrom of madness, carrying Windy into an endless eddy.

  A horrific crash jerked her back to the real world, and for a few seconds, she was glad. Her nightmares were beyond comprehension. Then she realized the noise that had awakened her was the crashing of a tree into the corner of the house, collapsing behind her, leaving branches and limbs to become the only wall between her and the outside.

  Birds flew from the tree. Small animals crawled inside the house for shelter, and she saw something that made her mind shut down ... three snakes, thick and long and black, moved out of the broken branches and in different directions about the room. She made not a sound, just stared into darkness only she saw.

  The crash brought Mac, James, and Henry running. At the locked door, James, who was so much heavier than the others, put his shoulder to it. The doorframe gave way under his strength, pulling the lock loose. They all three saw the tree at the same time, but Henry was the first to see the snakes. Mac saw Ellen on the couch, and moving as fast as possible, he pulled her up and into his arms before realizing she was catatonic.

  "Looks like your little lovely is in la-la land, or wherever nutty people go when they take leave of their brains. What the hell is wrong with her, Mac? Looks like no one is home at her house?” James laughed and flopped in one of the chairs.

  Henry had picked up two of the snakes, harmless rat snakes, and tossed them back out into the storm and was looking for the other. He was sure there were more, and he knew he had to keep looking so Miss Ellen would get better again.

  Mac continued to hold her close, humming to her as he tried to get her to stand. Her legs seemed like gelatin, so he picked her up and carried her in his arms out of the room, heading for the kitchen.

  "Hey, brother, are you going upstairs for some leg-tangling? Might be more fun with a woman who can't talk. But then she can't move either, so not so much fun. Let me know how it goes. Maybe you would even give me a chance to see which is best myself."

  Mac, with Ellen in his arms, stopped and turned slowly. “You bastard. Shut your filthy mouth! This woman has been frightened into this state, and I don't have time now to smash your face in, but I will later."

  He heard James's laughter. The sound of it would have made the Devil envious, he thought. He entered the kitchen and looked around, finally settling on a wide counter where he lay Ellen. In the foyer, he found a small sofa that he pushed inside the room, in front of the warm wood stove. He found some coats in the alcove and used them to cover her. He then sat beside her, holding her hands, staring into her blank face.

  * * * *

  "Mac, do you remember the day we realized that Glenda was going to bear the results of her tragedy with those slaves?” Mrs. Atwater asked. Mac did not reply, simply nodded. “She walked into the water of Black Bayou, sinking slowly into its tow, which began to pull her away from shore in the current that would take her to the river. We did not know it until much later when that man, Mr. Woodward, came into the yard with her in the back of his wagon. She was filthy with mud and bitten by water creatures, but alive. Barely. She did not want to live, but you sat by her bed, hours on end, every time you had a chance. You somehow convinced her that the Lord wanted her to live, to have her child, and raise him as best she could. Mac, why did you do that?"

  "Why? Why do you even have to ask? She is my aunt, and I love her. She is your daughter. Didn't you love her? Do you love her now? What is the matter with you?"

  "I do love her now, in a way, I guess. However, I did not love her then. I hated her. I hated what had happened to her. I hated that she was alive and Daniel, Matilda, and my other children were dead. I hated the bastard she would bear. I even thought of ending her pathetic life myself. The shame for her, the shame for the family! A black child was unacceptable, and I had every intention of seeing that it never took a breath."

  Mac stared at her with eyes full of disbelief. “You can't mean that! My God, Grandmother, if you did mean all those things, then you are a monster, as bad as any that has ever visited us. Why are you saying these things? Why are you telling me this?"

  "Because, my grandson, you who have always been my favorite, I have much to ask you. When this storm is over, so shall I be. I am soon to go, but first I need some promises from you."

  "Bullshit, Mrs. Atwater, I will make you no promises. None now, none ever. So just shut up. Ellen is right, you are a cruel old woman. Shut up!"

  "No, Mac, I shall continue. As you know, Glenda bore not one, but two children. A boy and girl. The boy died, the girl lived. I could not stand the sight of her, so I sent her to live with Mr. Alexander Woodward at his plantation a few miles from here. He did not want to, but my money was more than he could refuse. He put the child with a wet nurse who had lost her own baby. The wet nurse was a house servant, so the girl grew up in the house.

  "He became smitten with Glenda, who was a beautiful young woman. He was a widower with a small boy named Daniel of his own, and he surely must have missed wifely companionship. Even aware of her past, he chased after her until she gave in, and they wed. They had had two more children together ... they were Joshua and Jebbie. They lived at his home, but she was never aware that the black child who also lived in his house was her own daughter, even after she became fond of her, making her little dresses and such. It was as if she had a living doll.

  "He came here one night with the family. While Glenda was upstairs putting their children to bed, he told me that he could not get the picture in his mind to go away ... a picture of
her under those black men. Sometimes in her sleep, she cried out as if in lust rather than in fear or pain, and that was more than he could stand anymore. He said she never responded to his loving, as she seemed to do in her dreams. He said he was leaving and taking their children with him, and he did, the next day. She had planned to spend a few days with her family here, and as it turned out, she never left again.

  "I gave him a good sum of money, and he never returned and I did not hear from him again. His plantation was practically in ruins anyway and so heavily mortgaged, the bank was foreclosing. You never knew any of this, as most of it happened while you were in that northern school, Yale or Harvard, or whatever it was.

  "Glenda mourned the loss of her children, but not her husband. She had Henry, whom she grew to love as one would a pet cat or dog. She still did not know of the black daughter. That girl disappeared when Mr. Woodward did, so it was all for the best."

  "That is quite a story,” came the lethargic drawl from the doorway. Neither of them had noticed James slip inside and lean against the doorjamb. “Why, Granny, I didn't know you had it in you. Congratulations!” He clapped his hands loudly, three times.

  "What the hell do you mean by that, James? You are as sick as the old woman!” He jumped up, heading for the door, fists tight, face of fury.

  "Is that what you want, brother? I will be happy to oblige. How about a deal? Winner gets the girl."

  Before Mac could make a move, James punched him twice, once in the stomach and the other under his jaw. Mac hit the floor with a resounding noise similar to a tree falling. As James tried to grab his shirt to pull him up, Mac rolled away. He jumped to his feet and started toward his brother. He felt a small hand cover his and a voice behind him. “Mac, don't do it. He is not worth it."

  Without looking, he knew it was Ellen. When he turned to her, she immediately slipped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. “Oh, baby, I am so glad to see you back. You scared the hell out of me.” He bent to kiss her, holding her as tightly as humanly possible.

  "I think it was the clapping I heard that woke me.” She moved her lips along his chin line and up to his lips once again.

  "If that is the case, then we need to thank my fallen brother.” Mac started toward James again, but Ellen held him tight.

  "Enough of that, you two. Sit down! James, you sit too, and keep your mouth shut for a change,” Mrs. Atwater continued, having to shout to be heard above the storm. “Now, girl, tell us why you are so afraid of snakes. There is a reason, and only by talking about it will it go away. I may not be the nicest person you will ever meet, but I am not totally heartless. Sometimes it helps to close your eyes to make your mind see the things that frighten it. Mac, make her comfortable and stop kissing her so she can think clearly. So, Miss Ellen, tell us why."

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  Chapter 21

  Ellen closed her eyes and leaned her head back onto Mac's shoulder. “I really don't remember, Mrs. Atwater. Only that it had something to do with a dark place when I was little. My cousin Vincent was there, and his friend Wesley."

  "That is very good. Now, listen to my voice and nothing else. See into the darkness, Ellen. See where you are. Can you tell me where you are?"

  "No. It is cold and drafty and smells moldy. Yes, I know ... it is a cellar. It is large, and I know it is not the cellar in our home."

  "Tell me, Ellen, can you see anything at all in the darkness?"

  "Yes, a bit. Lots of old junk, like broken furniture. Boxes everywhere. Shelves with jars of food, lots of them. A little line of light up by the ceiling. Oh, it is at the top of the stairs."

  Mac realized that somehow his grandmother had induced a hypnotic state in which Ellen was regressing to the time of her first fears. He felt her relax even more until she was slumped rather than sitting.

  "Very good, Ellen,” Mrs. Atwater continued. “Are you alone? Do you know why you are there?"

  "No, my cousin and his friend are here. They brought me down here to show me something, they said."

  "How old are you, and how old is your cousin? Do you like him?"

  "I am four years old, and he is nine. I am mostly afraid of him, because he does mean things to me. Pulls my hair, puts frogs in the bathroom when I am taking a bath. Once I saw him hitting a puppy until it stopped crying. I told my daddy, and he said not to think about it."

  "Yes, so you are there in the cellar with the two boys. What did they show you?"

  Ellen started to cry, sounding much like a small child. Between sobs, she whispered, “Vincent held my hand tight and shoved it in a barrel on the floor. I could feel the movement of something in it. He laughed and told me it was full of water moccasins and he was letting them out on the floor. I heard the barrel tip over and screamed, but Vincent and his friend just laughed and ran upstairs and locked the door behind them. That is the last thing I remember until I woke up in bed with my mother and a doctor with me."

  "What happened then, child?” Mrs. Atwater's voice was soft and kind, hardly the voice of the woman who said she planned to kill a newborn babe.

  "My Uncle Big Vincent brought my cousin into my room. My cousin said he did not know anything about the snakes and that I must have made the whole thing up to get attention. As he left the room, he looked back at me and made a motion with his finger like a snake. I think my daddy believed me, because we never went to their house again."

  "Now, listen to me carefully, Ellen. Those were just harmless garden snakes. They could not hurt you. Your cousin lied. Very few snakes can hurt a person, so what we do is just avoid them. We do not need to fear them, just stay away from them. When you see one, just think of it as a stick that moves. Remember Moses in the Bible. He was unafraid of snakes, and now so shall you be. Do you understand, Ellen? From now on when you see a snake, think of Moses, and you will be safe and have no more fear. Ellen, do you hear me?” The young woman nodded. “Fine, now sleep for a few minutes, and when I call you, you will wake up with no more fear of snakes."

  Mac could not believe what had transpired. He wondered how many other people his old grandmother had been able to hypnotize. Had she helped them or harmed them with her abilities?

  "Way to go, old lady.” James moved to her and kissed the top of her head. “You are something else. Did you do that to us kids when we were young?"

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  Chapter 22

  The storm raged for hours and then suddenly stopped. Totally stopped. No wind, no rain, no nothing. Every pair of eyes in the house looked up, then out the nearest window.

  "Well.” Mrs. Atwater smiled. “The eye is passing over us, and the worst is over. It will storm again for several more hours, but the tail end is never as bad as the front. When things calm down, we will step outside to see the damages."

  Ellen had been very quiet since Mrs. Atwater awakened her but now jumped up. “Then we can look for my friends. Go to town, even.” She clapped her hands like an excited child.

  James laughed his cruel bray, reminding her of an angry animal. “Sorry, pretty one, no one will be going anywhere for several more days. It will take at least that long for the waters to start to drop, once the rain is done. And that might be weeks, even. So you might as well get used to our company. Hey, and maybe Grandmother will not charge you for the extra time you will be spending here."

  Ellen's anger flared, but she forced herself to calm down. She did not want him to see his words had affected her in any way, so instead she replied, “Instead, I would think she should refund the amounts my missing friends have not used, as they have not been staying here. Or at least credit my account for, let's see, at least three more weeks.” She smiled sweetly at him, feeling revulsion at the very sight of the man.

  Again, he roared with laughter. “Bro, you have a real firebrand there. If she ever gets to be too much for you, just call old James for backup."

  Ellen stood, pulling Mac up beside her. Without a word, they left th
e kitchen and moved to the foyer and out the front door. Standing on the wide porch looking out was like experiencing the aftermath of an atomic explosion. What few trees were still standing were bent and bare of branches. The rest had been tossed around like so many matchsticks. None of the statues still stood, nor was there any sign of the hanging light fixtures, outdoor furniture, or trellises. At the end of the house, the entire corner was gone, from the attic to the crumbling cellar wall ... an old maple, probably several hundred years old, had taken it all away while Ellen was transfixed in the parlor.

  "God, Mac, it looks worse than I could have even imagined. The house is in ruins, and it looks like the outbuildings, even the barn, are mostly gone. Completely gone. Everything."

  "Guess I would have to agree, honey, but it has been on its last legs my entire life. A bulldozer and a match would be the best thing to happen to the house, but knowing my grandmother, that will not happen. She is probably looking out the kitchen door now, sending Henry out to find some hen eggs if there is anything left of the hen house. Hell, she probably has James out repairing the pump house right now."

  As he spoke, the wind began to build again, and the rain increased. The electrical storm did not return, and the day seemed lighter without it. They moved quickly back inside, out of the rain, but stood in the door watching the storm. Mac moved his hand to cup her chin and gently kissed her lips. The kiss grew within seconds, becoming a meeting of tongue and deep breaths. His hand moved up under her blouse, cupping one breast while he moved his lips down her neck as he unbuttoned his way to the nipple he rolled gently between his fingers.

  He let his lips and tongue take over from his fingers as he moved his hand down to unzip her jeans. She slid her tongue into his ears, hearing his sharp intake of breath. Both her hands moved to his waistband to unfasten his pants. She let one hand move down his back to his buttocks while the other grasped his throbbing penis.