Ritual (39 page)

‘Who else could
it be?’ asked Eric.

‘Celestines?’
Robyn suggested.

Charlie dressed
himself. ‘The only way to find out for sure is to go out there and see for
ourselves.’

‘Charlie,’ said
Robyn, ‘they’ll kill you.’

‘I don’t think
so. I don’t think they meant to kill us the last time.’

‘They shot
holes in our car and they didn’t mean to kill us?’

Eric stood up.
His belly hung slack in his longjohns like a giant canned tomato. ‘I can think
of a better way. Let me send my dog Gumbo, he’ll roust them out. He’s half
Doberman, half German shepherd, and half bird-dog.’

‘That’s a dog
and a half,’ Charlie remarked.

‘Sure it is,
and that’s what Gumbo is, a dog and a half.’

Charlie said to
Robyn, ‘You’d better get dressed. If the Celestines are really here, we may be
in for some trouble.’

Eric went off
to find himself a yellow plaid shirt and some bleached-out blue denim overalls,
while Robyn dressed in the same skirt and blouse that she had been wearing this
morning. She had washed the blouse and it was still slightly damp. ‘What are you
going to do if it is them?’ she asked.

Charlie
shrugged. ‘Try to give them the slip, I guess. Maybe Eric knows another way out
of here.’

‘There can’t be
another way,’ said Robyn. ‘The house backs right on to the bayou.’

Charlie gave
her a wry smile. ‘What kind of a swimmer are you?’

Just then, Eric
came in to tell them that he was ready to let Gumbo off the leash. They all
went downstairs, keeping the lights off, feeling their way across the kitchen
to the back door. Eric unlocked it, and opened it up as quietly as he could,
and stuck his head out to listen to the sounds of the night. Charlie whispered,
‘Anything?’

‘Nothing; but there’s somebody there.
I can feel it in my
bones.’

‘Where do you
keep your dog?’

‘He’s around
the side, in his doghouse. Come on, Charlie, you follow me. Miss – you stay
here. Keep the door locked. Don’t open it to nobody, only to us.

But when it is
us, you make sure you open it real quick.’

Robyn gripped
hold of Charlie’s sleeve in the darkness. ‘For God’s sake, Charlie, be careful.’

‘You can count
on it,’ Charlie told her.

He and Eric
stepped out on to the verandah and Robyn turned the key in the lock behind
them.

Dawn was not
far off. All along the banks of the bayou, the trees and the bushes seethed in
agitation, and Charlie wondered how Eric could distinguish any kind of noise
amidst it all, but when they reached the top of the steps Eric stopped for a
moment, listening, and then said,

‘Come on. It’s
okay for now.’

Keeping close
together they skirted the northern side of the house until they came to a
ramshackle collection of outhouses and derelict chicken coops. Gumbo, the dog
and a half, growled deep in the back of his throat as they approached, and his
tail started to lash against the planks of his doghouse. Charlie had never seen
a doghouse built like this before. It was more like a miniature fort. Eric
unfastened the padlock that held the doghouse door, and Gumbo launched himself
at them like
a jet
-black, bristling drag racer.
Charlie instinctively jumped back, but Gumbo was chained up and, with a
jingling of solid steel links, he was arrested only a foot away from Charlie’s
ankles. He snarled and slavered and twisted, but Eric let out a sharp whistle
between his teeth and said, ‘You mind your etiquette, Gumbo, this is a houseguest,’
and the dog quietened down a little, and allowed Eric to approch him, although
Charlie still felt uncertain about his lolling tongue and hungry panting, and
decided to keep well back. ‘Now, you stay polite, boy,’ Eric kept soothing
Gumbo. ‘You stay polite and keep your fangs to yourself.’

Eric caught
hold of the dog’s chain and released it. Then, with the dog leaning away from
him as if it were being pulled by a giant magnet, its breath scraping in its
half-strangulated throat, he led it across the yard toward the edge of the
fields. ‘You see
them
trees,’ Eric told Charlie,
indicating the dark, sad spires of the cypresses. ‘That’s where they’re at. I
heard them drive off the track and across to them trees and they haven’t
stirred since. But old Gumbo’ll roust them, won’t you, Gumbo? Gumbo’s the best
rouster that ever was.
Chickens, rats, turtles, catfish,
gars.
He’d roust anything on land or water, would Gumbo – wouldn’t you,
Gumbo?’

As if he had
been given his cue by an off-stage prompter, Gumbo said grrooorewrrrr and
scrabbled at the grass with his claws.

Eric knelt down
and let Gumbo off his chain. ‘Go fetch them, Gumbo. You go fetch them.’

Gumbo dashed
off madly towards the left, abruptly stopped, and then barked loudly and tore off
toward the cypress grove. They saw him running like the shadow of a passing
storm cloud across the grass, and then he had disappeared into the darkness.
Eric slowly stood up, and placed his hands on his hips and listened.

‘That’s some
dog,’ said Charlie, mainly because he was nervous.

‘That’s a dog
and a half,’ Eric agreed. Charlie liked to hear him say it, because of his
Cajun pronunciation of hay-uff.

They waited.
The wind blew through the trees, making the cypresses bow and curtsey like
dancers at a midnight ball. Eric sniffed but kept his hands on his hips and
said nothing. Charlie surreptitiously checked his watch. He didn’t like to say
that, for the best rouster that ever
was,
Gumbo was
taking his own sweet time about rousting. It was quite clear that Eric
worshipped his dog and a half; and Charlie would no more have thought about
criticizing Eric’s wife, if she had still been alive.

After about
five minutes, Eric placed his finger and
thumb
in his
mouth and let loose a sharp, ear-splitting whistle. ‘Dog’s taking too darn
long,’ he said, by way of explanation.

Charlie
strained his eyes to penetrate the pre-dawn darkness. ‘Give the poor fellow a
chance.’

‘Fellow?’ said
Eric. ‘That ain’t
no
fellow. That’s my dog.’ And to
prove the point, he let out another piercing whistle.

The wind blew
and the night began to lighten a little, a faint grey light that outlined the
world without colouring it. Eric hummed ‘Les Blues du Voyager’ and Charlie
could tell that he was worried now. ‘Maybe that dog forgot to stop running,’ he
said.

‘Maybe there’s
nothing in those woods to roust,’ suggested Charlie.

‘Oh, I heard
them all right.’

Charlie said,
‘Do you want to go take a look?’

Eric was silent
for a long while. Then he said, ‘I don’t know... this ain’t like Gumbo one bit.
That dog’s the best rouster that ever was.’

Charlie peered
into the gloom. He was sure that he could see something move, over to the left
of the trees.
Something small, and pale, like a child running
through the long grass.
He took hold of Eric’s arm and said, ‘Look – do
you see that?’

Eric looked,
with his glasess and without them, but in the end he shook his head. ‘I guess I
could use a new pair. I haven’t had my eyesight tested since Nancy went. I
guess I haven’t been looking after myself too well in lots of ways.’

Charlie said,
‘Come on. Let’s take a look for ourselves. It’s the only thing we can do.’

He began to
walk toward the cypress trees, and Eric reluctantly followed behind him. They
were almost halfway there, however, when Eric said, ‘Ssh – listen! I heard
something! That’s Gumbo, I swear it!’

Charlie
listened but all he could hear was the wind. Eric said, ‘He’s mewling or
something, like he’s been hurt.’

Without any
further hesitation, Eric began to run stiffly across the field, his long arms
and legs waving like a semaphore. Charlie called, ‘Eric, for Christ’s sake
be
careful!’ but Eric had heard his dog calling and that was
all he cared about. Charlie had no choice but to go running after him. He
glanced behind him only once, just to make sure that the house was still
deserted and unlit, apart from the single lamp that he had switched on in their
upstairs bedroom.

‘Eric!’ Charlie
shouted. He didn’t care if there was anybody there to hear him. If there was,
they would have seen them and heard them by now in any event.

He had almost
caught up with Eric when they saw a huge ball of orange fire suddenly ignite in
the shadow of the trees. The flare up was immediately followed by a high
stomach-lurching scream – a scream that sounded human at first – but which was
even more horrifying to Charlie when he realized that it wasn’t.

The fireball
came rushing towards them through the grass, zigzagging as it came, and it was
shrieking unbearably – high and harsh and agonized, like somebody dragging
their fingernails down a dry chalkboard. Charlie and Eric stopped where they
were, both of them, and stared at the running, tumbling flames in helpless
fright. They knew what it was but they couldn’t bring themselves to believe it.
It was Gumbo, and he was ablaze from head to tail, and screaming in agony as he
ran.

‘Watch out!’
Charlie told Eric. ‘He’s coming straight for you! He wants you!’

Gumbo ran
burning through the grass and the fire that engulfed him rippled like a cloak.
Eric was paralysed for a second, but then he turned and began to stumble away.
Gumbo in his death agony was running for the one person he could trust; the one
person who had always protected him and fed him and kept him from harm.

Eric tried to
escape, but Gumbo was too fast for him. Gumbo was driven by the pain so intense
that he was running faster that he had ever run in his whole canine life,
faster than he had ever chased chickens or catfish. He passed within two feet
of Charlie and Charlie felt the heat of his blazing fur, and smelled gasoline
and burning flesh.
tripped
, and cried out, and fell to
his knees. Gumbo leaped on top of him, still screeching, still blazing, like a
dog from hell. Eric rolled over and over trying to beat him off, but Gumbo’s
flesh and fur came off in burning chunks, and seemed to stick like napalm to
Eric’s clothes. Eric yelled out hoarsely for help. ‘Charlie! Charlie! For God’s
sake, Charlie! He’s killing me!’

Charlie ran
through the grass and kicked Gumbo hard in the side. The dog rolled off his
master with a roar of flames, then rolled over again and lay quivering on his
back, only barely alive, his blackened paws drawn up like spider’s legs.
Charlie tugged off his coat and covered up Eric’s shoulders and chest with it,
and brushed the smouldering dog fur away from his face. He glanced at Gumbo but
the dog must surely have been dead now. The flames had died down, and all that
Charlie could hear was the crackling of his fire-shrunken tissues.

‘Eric, are you
okay?’ Charlie asked him.

Eric shook his
head. ‘He’s hurt me bad, Charlie.’

‘Come on, Eric,
I’ll call for the ambulance. You’ll be okay.’

‘It’s not the
burns, Charlie. The burns hurt but the burns ain’t
nothing
.’

‘What are you
talking about?’ Charlie demanded. ‘If you let me call the ambulance right now, we
can have you in hospital in fifteen minutes.

‘Don’t,’ Eric
whispered. In the growing light of the morning, Charlie could see how grey his
face had become. ‘I don’t want to die in no hospital. I want to die here, by
the Normand Bayou.’

‘Eric, you’ve
been burned, but only superficially. You’re not going to die.’

Eric cleared
his throat, and looked up at Charlie with an odd smile. ‘It’s my heart,
Charlie, it’s been giving up on me for years. I had a bad attack last
year,
the doctor said I was lucky as all hell to be still
alive. I’m going, Charlie. I can feel it closing in.
Old man
death, creeping in.
Old Baron Samedi, that’s what my mother used to call
him.’

‘Eric, I’m not
going to let you die in some field,’ Charlie protested. He squeezed the old
black man’s hand very tight.

‘Well, you
don’t understand, this isn’t
no
ordinary field, this
is the field where I lived, me and my Nancy. This is the field where we danced,
and delighted ourselves. So, this is a good field to die in, if you’re talking
about dying in a field.’

Charlie said,
‘Somebody set fire to Gumbo on purpose.’

‘
Them
Celestines.’ Eric nodded. ‘They’re out there
now,
you take my word for it. They came after you, didn’t
they, even though you thought you
was
clean away?’

‘Eric, what can
I say? If it hadn’t have been for us, this wouldn’t have happened.’

Eric laid his
head back in the scorched grass, and let his eyelids droop a little as if he
were tired.

‘Every man has
to go some time, Charlie, and none of us chooses the way. It wasn’t your fault.

My heart was
ready to take me at any time. I could
of
been brushing
my teeth, I could of been dancing. I just thank the Lord that it wasn’t in bed,
when I was asleep, because then I wouldn’t have known nothing about it.’

Charlie said,
‘Do you think you can make it back to the house, if I carry you?’

Eric shook his
head again. ‘Don’t move me, Charlie. I want to stay here. I want to see the sun
rise, if I can.’ He grunted, and then he smiled and said. ‘It’s a funny thing,
that yours should be the last human face I ever see. My father ain’t going to
be too pleased with me, when I get up to heaven. He sent the doctor out of the
room when he was dying. He said he didn’t want
no
white ghost faces looking at him when he died.’

‘I have to move
you,’ Charlie insisted.