INTO THE SWAMP
In spite of the fact that they received but lukewarm encouragement from
Charity, both Holmes and Creighton lingered on in New Orleans. Mr.
Creighton made several attempts to get in touch with Jeems, whom he
seemed to suspect of concealing vast literary treasures. And he spent
one hot morning going through the trunk of papers which the Ralestones
had found in the storage-room. Ricky commented upon the fact that being
a publisher's scout was almost like being an antique buyer.
Holmes was a perfect foil for his laboring friend. He lounged away his
days draped across the settee on Charity's gallery or sitting down on
the bayou levee--after she had chased him away--pitching pebbles into
the water. He told all of them that it was his vacation, the first one
he had had in five years, and that he was going to make the most of it.
Companioned by Creighton, he usually enlarged the family circle in the
evenings. And the tales he could tell about the far corners of the earth
were as wildly romantic as Rupert's--though he did assure his listeners
that even Tibet was very tame and well behaved nowadays.
Charity had finished the first illustration and had started another.
This time Ricky and Val appeared polished and combed as if they had just
stepped out of a ball-room of a governor's palace--which they had,
according to the story. It was during her second morning's work upon
this that she threw down her brush with a snort of disgust.
"It's no use," she told her models, "I simply can't work on this now.
All I can see is that scene where the hero's mulatto half-brother
watches the ball from the underbrush. I've got to do that one first."
"Why don't you then?" Ricky stretched to relieve cramped muscles.
"I would if I could get Jeems. He's my model for the brother. He's
enough like you, Val, for the resemblance, and his darker tan is just
right for color. But he won't come back while Creighton's here. I could
wring that man's neck!"
"But Creighton left for Milneburg this morning," Val reminded her.
"Rupert told him about the old voodoo rites which used to be celebrated
there on June 24th, St. John's Eve, and he wanted to see if there were
any records--"
"Yes. But Jeems doesn't know he's gone. If we could only get in touch
with him--Jeems, I mean."
"Miss 'Chanda!"
Sam Two, as they had come to call Sam's eldest son and heir, was
standing on the lowest step of the terrace, holding a small covered
basket in his hands.
"Yes?"
"Letty-Lou done say dis am fo' yo'all, Miss 'Chanda."
"For me?" Ricky looked at the offering in surprise. "But what in the
world--Bring it here, Sam."
"Yas'm."
He laid the basket in Ricky's outstretched hands.
"I've never seen anything like this before." She turned it around. "It
seems to be woven of some awfully fine grass--"
"That's swamp work." Charity was peering over Ricky's shoulder. "Open
it."
Inside on a nest of raw wild cotton lay a bracelet of polished wood
carved with an odd design of curling lines which reminded Val of Spanish
moss. And with the circlet was a small purse of scaled hide.
"Swamp oak and baby alligator," burst out Charity. "Aren't they
beauties?"
"But who--" began Ricky.
Val picked up a scrap of paper which had fluttered to the floor. It was
cheap stuff, ruled with faint blue lines, but the writing was bold and
clear: "Miss Richanda Ralestone."
"It's yours all right." He handed her the paper.
"I know." She tucked the note away with the gifts. "It was Jeems."
"Jeems? But why?" her brother protested.
"Well, yesterday when I was down by the levee he was coming in and I
knew that Mr. Creighton was here and I told him. So," she colored
faintly, "then he took me across the bayou and I got some of those big
swamp lilies that I've always wanted. And we had a long talk. Val, Jeems
knows the most wonderful things about the swamps. Do you know that they
still have voodoo meetings sometimes--way back in there," she swept her
hand southward. "And the fur trappers live on house-boats, renting their
hunting rights. But Jeems owns his own land. Now some northerners are
prospecting for oil. They have a queer sort of car which can travel
either on land or water. And Père Armand has church records that date
back to the middle of the eighteenth century. And--"
"So that's where you were from four until almost six," Val laughed. "I
don't know that I approve of this riotous living. Will Jeems take me to
pick the lilies too?"
"Maybe. He wanted to know why you always moved so carefully. And I told
him about the accident. Then he said the oddest thing--" She was staring
past Val at the oaks. "He said that to fly was worth being smashed up
for and that he envied you."
"Then he's a fool!" her brother said promptly. "Nothing is worth--" Val
stopped abruptly. Five months before he had made a bargain with himself;
he was not going to break it now.
"Do you know," Ricky said to Charity, "if you really need Jeems this
morning, I think I can get him for you. He told me yesterday how to find
his cabin."
"But why--" The objection came almost at once from Charity. Val thought
she was more than a little surprised that Jeems, who had steadfastly
refused to give her the same information, had supplied it so readily to
Ricky whom he hardly knew at all.
"I don't know," answered Ricky frankly. "He was rather queer about it.
Kept saying that the time might come when I would need help, and things
like that."
"Charity," Val was putting her brushes straight, "I learned long ago
that nothing can be kept from Ricky. Sooner or later one spills out his
secrets."
"Except Rupert!" Ricky aired her old grievance.
"Perhaps Rupert," her brother agreed.
"Anyway, I do know where Jeems lives. Do you want me to get him for you,
Charity?"
"Certainly not, child! Do you think that I'd let you go into the swamp?
Why, even men who know something of woodcraft think twice before
attempting such a trip without a guide. Of course you're not going! I
think," she put her paint-stained hand to her head, "that I'm going to
have one of my sick headaches. I'll have to go home and lie down for an
hour or two."
"I'm sorry." Ricky's sympathy was quick and warm. "Is there anything I
can do?"
Charity shook her head with a rueful smile. "Time is the only medicine
for one of these. I'll see you later."
"Just the same," Ricky stood looking after her, "I'd like to know just
what is going on in the swamp right now."
"Why?" Val asked lightly.
"Because--well, just because," was her provoking answer. "Jeems was so
odd yesterday. He talked as if--as if there were some threat to us or
him. I wonder if there is something wrong." She frowned.
"Of course not!" her brother made prompt answer. "He's merely gone off
on one of those mysterious trips of his."
"Just the same, what if there were something wrong? We might go and
see."
"Nonsense!" Val snapped. "You heard what Charity said about going into
the swamp alone. And there is nothing to worry about anyway. Come on,
let's change. And then I have something to show you."
"What?" she demanded.
"Wait and see." His ruse had succeeded. She was no longer looking
swampward with that gleam of purpose in her eye.
"Come on then," she said, prodding him into action.
Val changed slowly. If one didn't care about mucking around in the
garden, as Ricky seemed to delight in doing, there was so little in the
way of occupation. He thought of the days as they spread before him. A
little riding, a great amount of casual reading and--what else? Was the
South "getting" him as the tropics are supposed to "get" the
Northerners?
That unlucky meeting with a mountaintop had effectively despoiled him of
his one ambition. Soldiers with game legs are not wanted. He couldn't
paint like Charity, he couldn't spin yarns like Rupert, he possessed a
mind too inaccurate to cope with the intricacies of any science. And as
a business man he would probably be a good street cleaner.
What was left? Well, the surprise he had promised Ricky might cover the
problem. As he reached for a certain black note-book, someone knocked on
his door.
"Mistuh Val, wheah's Miss 'Chanda? She ain't up heah an' Ah wan's to--"
Lucy stood in the hall. The light from the round window was reflected
from every corrugated wave of her painfully marcelled hair. Her vast
flowered dress had been thriftily covered with a dull-green bib-apron
and she had changed her smart slippers for the shapeless gray relics she
wore indoors. Just now she looked warm and tired. After all, running two
households was something of a task even for Lucy.
"Why, she should be in her room. We came up to change. Miss Charity's
gone home with a headache. What was it you wanted her for?"
"Dese heah cu'ta'ns, Mistuh Val"--she thrust a mound of snowy and
beruffled white stuff at him--"dey has got to be hung. An' does Miss
'Chanda wan' dem in her room or does she not?"
"Better put them up. I'll tell her about it. Here wait, let me open that
door."
Val looked into Ricky's room. As usual, it appeared as though a
whirlwind, a small whirlwind but a thorough one, had passed through it.
Her discarded costume lay tumbled across the bed and her slippers lay on
the floor, one upside down. He stooped to set them straight.
"It do beat all," Lucy said frankly as she put her burden down on a
chair, "how dat chile do mak' a mess. Now yo', Mistuh Val, jest put
eberythin' jest so. But Miss 'Chanda leave eberythin' which way afore
Sunday! Looka dat now." She pointed to the half-open door of the closet.
A slip lay on the floor. Ricky must have been in a hurry; that was a
little too untidy even for her.
A sudden suspicion sent Val into the closet to investigate. Ricky's
wardrobe was not so extensive that he did not know every dress and
article in it very well. It did not take him more than a moment to see
what was missing.
"Did Ricky go riding?" Val asked. "Her habit is gone."
"She ain' gone 'cross de bayo' fo' de hoss," answered Lucy, reaching for
the curtain rod. "An' anyway, Sam done took dat critter down de road fo'
to be shoed."
"Then where--" But Val knew his Ricky only too well.
She had a certain stubborn will of her own. Sometimes opposition merely
drove her into doing the forbidden thing. And the swamp had been
forbidden. But could even Ricky be such a fool? Certain memories of the
past testified that she could. But how? Unless she had taken Sam's
boat--
Without a word of explanation to Lucy, he dashed out of the room and
downstairs at his best pace. As he left the house Val broke into a
stumbling run. There was just a chance that she had not yet left the
plantation.
But the bayou levee was deserted. And the post where Sam's boat was
usually moored was bare of rope; the boat was gone. Of course Sam Two
might have taken it across the stream to the farm.
That hope was extinguished as the small brown boy came out of the bushes
along the stream side.
"Sam, have you seen Miss 'Chanda?" Val demanded.
"Yessuh."
"Where?" Carrying on a conversation with Sam Two was like prying
diamonds out of a rock. He possessed a rooted distaste for talking.
"Heah, suh."
"When?"
"Jest a li'l bitty 'go."
"Where did she go?"
Sam pointed downstream.
"Did she take the boat?"
"Yessuh." And then for the first time since Val had known him Sam
volunteered a piece of information. "She done say she a-goin' in de
swamp."
Val leaned back against the hole of one of the willows. Then she had
done it! And what could he do? If he had any idea of her path, he could
follow her while Sam aroused Rupert and the house.
"If I only knew where--" he mused aloud.
"She a-goin' to see dat swamper Jeems," Sam continued. "Heh, heh," a
sudden cackle of laughter rippled across his lips. "Dat ole swamper
think he so sma't. Think no one fin' he house--"
"Sam!" Val rounded upon him. "Do you know where Jeems lives?"
"Yessuh." He twisted the one shoulder-strap of his overalls and Val
guessed that his knowledge was something he was either ashamed of or
afraid to tell.
"Can you take me there?"
He shook his head. "Ah ain' a-goin' in dere, Ah ain'!"
"But, Sam, you've got to! Miss 'Chanda is in there. She may be lost.
We've got to find her!" Val insisted.
Sam's thin shoulders shook and he slid backward as if to avoid the white
boy's reach. "Ah ain' a-goin' in dere," he repeated stubbornly. "Effen
yo'all wants to go in dere--Looky, Mistuh Val, Ah tells yo'all de way
an' yo'all goes." He brightened at this solution. "Yo'all kin take
pappy's othah boat; it am downstream dere, behin' dem willows. Den
yo'all goes down to de secon' big pile o' willows. Behin' dem is a li'l
bitty bayo' goin' back. Yo'all goes up dat 'til yo'all comes to a fur
rack. Den dat Jeems got de way marked on de trees."
With that he turned and ran as if all the terrors of the night were on
his trail. There was nothing for Val to do but to follow his directions.
And the longer he lingered before setting out the bigger lead Ricky was
getting.
He found the canoe behind the willows as Sam had said. Awkwardly he
pushed off, hoping that Lucy would pry the whole story out of her son
and put Rupert on their track as soon as possible.
The second clump of willows was something of a landmark, a huge matted
mass of sucker and branch, the lower tips of the long, frond-like twigs
sweeping the murky water. A snake swimming with its head just above the
surface wriggled to the bank as Val cut into the small hidden stream Sam
had told him of.
Vines and water plants had almost choked this, but there was a passage
through the center. And one tough spike of vegetation which snapped back
into his face bore a deep cut from which the sap was still oozing. The
small stinging flies and mosquitoes followed and hung over him like a
fog of discomfort. His skin was swollen and rough, irritated and
itching. And in this green-covered way the heat seemed almost solid.
Drops of moisture dripped from forehead and chin, and his hair was
plastered tight to his skull.
Frogs leaped from the bank into the water at the sound of his coming. In
the shallows near the bank, crawfish scuttled under water-logged leaves
and stones at this disturbance of their world. Twice the bayou widened
out into a sort of pool where the trees grew out of the muddy water and
all sorts of lilies and bulb plants blossomed in riotous confusion.
Once a muskrat waddled into the protection of the bushes. And Val saw
something like a small cat drinking at a pool. But that faint shadow
disappeared noiselessly almost before the water trickled from his
upraised paddle.
Clumps of wild rice were the meeting grounds for flocks of screaming
birds. A snow-white egret waded solemnly across a mud-rimmed pocket. And
once a snake, more dangerous than the swimmer Val had first encountered,
betrayed its presence by the flicker of its tongue.
The smell of the steaming mud, the decaying vegetation, and the nameless
evils hidden deeper in this water-rotted land was an added torment. The
boy shook a large red ant from its grip in the flesh of his hand and
wiped the streaming perspiration from his face.
It was then that the canoe floated almost of its own volition into a
dead and distorted strip of country. Black water which gave off an evil
odor covered almost half an acre of ground. From this arose the twisted,
gaunt gray skeletons of dead oaks. To complete the drear picture a row
of rusty-black vultures sat along the broad naked limb of the nearest of
these hulks, their red-raw heads upraised as they croaked and sidled up
and down.
[Illustration: _The canoe floated almost of its own volition into a dead
and distorted strip of country._]
But the bayou Val was following merely skirted this region, and in a few
moments he was again within the shelter of flower-grown banks. Then he
came upon a structure which must have been the fur rack Sam Two had
alluded to, for here was their other boat moored to a convenient willow.
Val fastened the canoe beside it. The turf seemed springy, though here
and there it gave way to patches of dark mud. It was on one of these
that Ricky had left her mark in the clean-cut outline of the sole of her
riding-boot.
With a last desperate slap at a mosquito Val headed inland, following
with ease that trail of footprints. Ricky was suffering, too, for her
rashness he noted with satisfaction when he discovered a long curly hair
fast in the grip of a thorny branch he scraped under.
But the path was not a bad one. And the farther he went the more solid
and the dryer it became. Once he passed through a small clearing,
man-made, where three or four cotton bushes huddled together forlornly
in company with a luxuriant melon patch.
And the melon patch was separated by only a few feet of underbrush from
Jeems' domain. In the middle of a clearing was a sturdy platform,
reinforced with upright posts and standing about four feet from the
surface of the ground. On this was a small cabin constructed of slabs of
bark-covered wood. As a dwelling it might be crude, but it had an air of
scrupulous neatness. A short distance to one side of the platform was a
well-built chicken-run, now inhabited by five hens and a ragged-tailed
cock.
The door of the cabin was shut and there were no signs of life save the
chickens. But as Val lowered himself painfully onto the second step of
the ladder-like stairs leading up to the cabin, he thought he heard
someone moving around. Glancing up, he saw Ricky staring down at him,
open-mouthed.
"Hello," she called, for one of the few times in her life really
astounded.
"Hello," Val answered shortly and shifted his weight to try to relieve
the ache in his knee. "Nice day, isn't it?"