Gone South (26 page)

“Brought you a barbecue,” she said, and she offered him a grease-stained white sack. “Restaurant’s right across the road.”

The smell of the charred pork made his stomach lurch. He lowered his head, trying to think through the pain.

“Don’t you want it? You must be hungry. Slept all day.”

“Just get it away from me.” His voice was a husky growl. “Please.”

“Okay, okay. I thought you’d want somethin’ to eat.”

She left the room. His memory was coming back to him in bits and pieces, like a puzzle linking together. A pistol shot. The dying face of Emory Blanchard. Reverend Gwinn and his wife’s crullers. The DeCaynes and a shotgun blast tearing the tire of his truck apart. Fifteen thousand dollars reward. Susan and Chad at Basile Park, and her telling him about the cabin in Vermilion. The bounty hunter with the flashlight, and Elvis Presley hollering for Mr. Murtaugh.

The girl, now. He’d given her a ride to Lafayette to see a man at a nursing home. Mr. Richards, the man’s name was. No, no; it was Jupiter. Old man, talking about somebody called the Bright Girl. Faith healer, down in the swamp. Take that mark right off your face. You His hands, you gone have to steer her the right direction.

A motel in Lafayette. That’s where he was. Slept all day, Arden had said. The sun was still high outside, though. He struggled to focus on his wristwatch’s dial, and read the time as eight minutes after four. His cap. Where was his cap? He found it lying on the bed beside him. His shirt was stiff with dried sweat, but there wasn’t much he could do about that. He sat there gathering the strength to stand up. He’d pushed himself yesterday to the limit of his endurance, and now he was going to have to pay the price. His headache was easing somewhat, but his bones throbbed in raw rhythm with his pulse. At last he stood up and staggered into the bathroom, where he caught a glimpse in the mirror of a white, sunken-eyed Halloween mask with a graying beard that couldn’t possibly be his face. There was a shower stall, this one thankfully with no frogs hopping about, and Dan reached in and turned on the cold tap and then put his head under the stream.

“Hey!” Arden had returned. “You decent?”

He just stood there in the downpour, wishing he’d had the sense to lock her out.

“Got somethin’ to show you. Just take a minute.”

The sooner he could get rid of her, the better. He turned off the water, found a towel to dry his hair, and walked into the front room. Arden was sitting in a chair at a round table next to the bed, a map spread out on the tabletop. She still wore her blue jeans, but she’d changed into a fresh beige short-sleeve blouse. “Wow,” she said, staring at him. “You really look beat.”

He reached back and massaged the cramped muscles of his shoulders. “I thought I locked that door before I went to sleep. How’d you get in?”

“I stood out there knockin’ till my knuckles were raw. You wouldn’t answer your phone, either. So I got an extra key from the lady at the front desk. I told her we were travelin’ together. Look here.”

“We’re not travelin’ together,” Dan said. He saw that what she’d spread out was his own Louisiana roadmap, taken from the station wagon.

“Here’s LaPierre. See?” She put her finger on a dot where Highway 57 ended at the swamp. “It’s about twenty-five miles south of Houma. Didn’t you say you were headed that way?”

“I don’t know. Did I?”

“Yes. You said you were goin’ somewhere south of Houma. Not a whole lot down there, from the looks of the map. Where’re you headed?”

He examined the map a little closer. LaPierre was maybe three miles past a town called Chandalac, which was four or five miles past Vermilion. South of LaPierre the map showed nothing but Terrebonne Parish swamp. “I’m not takin’ you any farther. You can catch a bus from here.”

“Yeah, I guess I could, but I figured since you were goin’ that way you’d help me —”

“No,”
he interrupted. “It’s not possible.”

She frowned. “Not possible? Why not? You’re goin’ down there, aren’t you?”

“Listen, you don’t know me. I could be … somebody you wouldn’t want to be travelin’ with.”

“What’s that mean? You a bank robber or somethin’?”

Dan eased himself down on the bed again. “I’ll give you a ride to the bus station. That’s the best I can do.”

Arden sat there chewing her bottom lip and studying the map. Then she watched him for a moment as he wedged a pillow beneath his head and closed his eyes. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

“Depends,” he said.

“Somethin’ wrong with you? I mean … are you sick? You sure don’t look healthy, if you don’t mind my sayin’.”

Dan opened his eyes and peered up at the ceiling tiles. There was no point in trying to hide it. He said, “Yeah, I’m sick.”

“I thought so. What is it? AIDS?”

“Leukemia. Brain tumor. Worn out and at the end of my rope. Take your pick.”

She didn’t say anything for a while. He heard her folding the map up, or trying to, but road maps once unfolded became stubborn beasts. Arden cleared her throat. “The Bright Girl’s a healer. You heard Jupiter say that, didn’t you?”

“I heard an old man callin’ me Mr. Richards and talkin’ nonsense.”

“It’s not nonsense!” she answered. “And you bear a resemblance to Mr. Richards. He had a beard and was about your size. I can see how Jupiter mistook you.”

Dan sat up again, his neck painfully tight, and looked at her. “Listen to me. The way I figure this, you’re tryin’ to track down a faith healer — who I don’t think even exists — to get that mark off your face. If you’re goin’ on the tall tales of some crazy old man, I think you’re gonna be real disappointed.”

“Jupiter’s not crazy, and they’re not tall tales. The Bright Girl’s down there. Just because you don’t believe it doesn’t make it not true.”

“And just because you
want
to believe it doesn’t make it true. I don’t know anything about you, or what you’ve been through, but seems to me you ought to be seein’ a skin doctor instead of tryin’ to find a faith healer.”

“I’ve seen dermatologists and plastic surgeons.” Arden said icily. “They all told me I’ve got the darkest port-wine stain they ever saw. They can’t promise me they can get it all off, or even half of it off without scarrin’ me up. I couldn’t afford the cost of the operations, anyway. And you’re right about not knowin’ anything about me. You sure as hell don’t know what it’s like to wear this thing on your face every day of your life. People lookin’ at you like you’re a freak, or some kind of monster not fit to be out in public. When somebody’s talkin’ to you, they’ll try to look everywhere but your face, and you can tell they’re either repulsed or they’re feelin’ pity for you. It’s a bad-luck sign, is what it is. My own father told me that when I was six years old. Then he left the house for a pack of cigarettes and kept on goin’, and my mama picked up a bottle and didn’t lay it down again until it killed her. From then on I was in and out of foster homes and I can tell you none of ’em were paradise.” She stopped speaking, her mouth tightening into a grim line.

“When I was fifteen,” Arden went on after a long pause, “I stole a car. Got caught and put on a ranch for ‘troubled youth’ outside San Antonio. Mr. Richards ran it. Jupiter worked at the stable, and his wife was a cook. It was a hard place, and if you stepped out of line you earned time in the sweat box. But I got my high school diploma and made it out. If I hadn’t I’d probably be dead or in prison by now. I used to help Jupiter with the horses, and he told me stories about the Bright Girl. How she could touch my birthmark and take it away. He told me where he’d grown up, and how everybody down there knew about the Bright Girl.” She paused again, her eyes narrowing as she viewed some distant scene inside her head. “Those stories … they were so real. So full of light and hope. That’s what I need right now. See, things haven’t been goin’ so good in my life. Lost my job at the Goodyear plant, they laid off almost a whole shift. Had to sell my car. My credit cards were gettin’ me in trouble, so I put the scissors to ’em. I went to apply for a job at a burger joint, and the fella took one look at my face and said the job was already filled and there wasn’t anything comin’ open anytime soon. Same thing happened with a couple of other jobs I went lookin’ for. I’m behind two months on my rent, and the bill collectors are barkin’ after me. See … what I need is a new start. I need to get rid of my bad luck once and for all. If I can find the Bright Girl and get this thing off my face … I could start all over again. That’s what I need, and that’s why I pulled every cent I’ve got out of the bank to make this trip. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, I do,” Dan said. “I know things are tough, but lookin’ for this Bright Girl person’s not gonna help you. If there ever
was
such a woman, she’s dead by now.” He met Arden’s blank stare. “Jupiter said the Bright Girl was livin’ in the swamp long before his daddy was a little boy. Right? So Jupiter said she came to LaPierre when
he
was a kid. He said she was a young and pretty white girl.
Young,
he said. Tell me how that can be.”

“I’ll tell you.” Arden finished refolding the map before she continued. “It’s because the Bright Girl never ages.”

“Oh, I see.” He nodded. “Not only is she a healer, she’s found the fountain of youth.”

“I didn’t say anything about the fountain of youth!” Anger lightened Arden’s eyes but turned the birthmark a shade darker. “I’m tellin’ you what Jupiter told me! The Bright Girl doesn’t ever get old, she always stays young and pretty!”

“And you believe this?”

“Yes! I do! I — I just do, that’s all!”

Dan couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. “Arden,” he said quietly, “you ever heard of somethin’ called
folklore?
Like stories about Johnny Appleseed, or Paul Bunyan, or … you know, people who’re bigger than life. Maybe a long, long time ago there was a faith healer who lived down in that swamp, and after she died she got bigger than life, too, because people didn’t want to let her go. So they made up these stories about her, and they passed ’em down to their children. That way she’d never die, and she’d always be young and pretty. See what I’m sayin’?”

“You don’t know!” she snapped. “Next thing you’ll be sayin’ Jesus was a made-up story, too!”

“Well, it’s your business if you want to go sloggin’ through a swamp lookin’ for a dead faith healer. I’m not gonna stop you.”

“Damn right you’re not!” Arden stood up, taking the map with her. “If I was as sick as you are, I’d be hopin’ I could find the Bright Girl, too, not sittin’ there denyin’ her!”

“One thing that’ll kill you real quick,” he said as she neared the door, “is false hope. You get a little older, you’ll understand that.”

“I hope I never get that old.”

“Hey,” Dan said before she could leave. “You want a ride to the bus station, I’ll be ready to go after dark.”

Arden hesitated with her hand on the doorknob. “How come you don’t want to go until dark?” She had to ask another question that had bothered her as well. “And how come you’re not even carryin’ a change of clothes?”

He thought fast. “Cooler after dark. I don’t want my radiator boilin’ over. And I’ve got friends where I’m goin’, I wasn’t plannin’ on stoppin’.”

“Uh-huh.”

He avoided her eyes because he feared she was starting to see through him. “I’m gonna take a shower and get some food.
Not
barbecue. You ought to call the bus station and find out where it is.”

“Even if I take a bus to Houma, I still have to get down to LaPierre somehow. Listen,” she said, determined to try again, “I’ll pay you thirty dollars to take me there. How about it?”

“No.”

“How much out of your way can it be?” Desperation had tightened her voice. “I can do some of the drivin’ for you. Besides, I’ve never been down in there before and … you know … a girl travelin’ alone could get into trouble. That’s why I paid Joey to drive me.”

“Yeah, he sure took good care of you, all right. I hope you get where you’re goin’, but I’m sorry. I can’t take you.”

She kept staring at him. Something mighty strange was going on, she thought. There was the broken glass in the back of the station wagon, the fact that he was traveling without even a toothbrush, and was it happenstance that he hadn’t awakened until a shrieking siren had gone past the motel?
I could be somebody you wouldn’t want to be travelin’ with,
he’d said. What did that mean?

She was making him nervous. He stood up and pulled off his T-shirt. She could see the outline of every rib under his pale skin. “You want to watch me get naked and take a shower, that’s fine with me,” Dan said. He began unbuckling the belt of his jeans.

“Okay, I’m leavin’,” she decided when he pushed down his zipper. “My room’s right next door, when you get ready.” She retreated, and Dan closed the door in her face and turned the latch.  

He breathed a sigh of relief. She was starting to wonder about him, that much was clear. He knew he should never have given her a ride; she was a complication he didn’t need. But right now there was nothing to be done but take his shower and try to relax, if he could. Get some food, that would make him feel a whole lot better. He started for the bathroom, but before he got there, curiosity snared him and he turned on the TV and clicked through the channels in search of a local newscast. He found CNN, but it was the financial segment. He switched the set off. Then, after a few seconds of internal debate, he turned it back on again. Surely he wouldn’t have made the national news, but a local broadcast might come on at five and he’d find out if Lafayette had picked up the story. He felt as grimy as a mudflap at a tractor pull, and he went into the bathroom and cranked the shower taps to full blast.

Arden had gone to the office to return the extra key. The small-boned, grandmotherly woman behind the registration desk looked up over her eyeglasses from working a crossword puzzle in the Lafayette newspaper. “Your friend all right?”

“Yeah, he is. He was just extra tired, didn’t hear me knockin’.” She laid the key down on the desk. “Could you tell me how to get to the bus station from here?”

“Got a phone book, I’ll look up the address.” The woman reached a vein-ridged hand into a drawer for the directory. “Where you plannin’ on goin’?”