Ritual (40 page)

‘Don’t you dare
try.
Those people who burned my dog are out there
somewhere and believe me they want to do the same to you, or worse. The best
thing that you can do is get the hell out of here, you and your lady friend,
and not come back.

There’s a skiff
down by the landing. You can row south-westwards from here, if you keep the sun
ofFn the right side of your back all morning, and ofFn the left side of your
chest all afternoon, you shouldn’t get lost.’

‘Eric, you’re
coming with us,’ said Charlie.

‘No,’ said
Eric. ‘Leave me here, Charlie, and leave me now. I’ll only slow you down.

Charlie stood
up. He looked towards the cypress grove, following the zig zag path of scorched
grass which Gumbo had left behind him as he chased after his master. It was
light enough now for him to be able to see the quick glint of chrome from an
automobile bumper, and the small pale flicker of a hooded child.

They had sent
David the dwarf after him. Now he knew for certain that the Celestines meant
business. They were determined to catch him, and they were probably determined
to kill him, too. He bent forward to give Eric’s hand one last squeeze, and
then he began to jog towards the house. He had no intention of leaving Eric out
in the field unattended, but with the Celestines closing in on them, he figured
that the best idea would be to call for an ambulance as quickly as he could.

He ran up the
verandah steps and knocked at the kitchen door. The curtain was tugged back and
he saw Robyn’s frightened face. ‘It’s okay, it’s me. Let me in.’

She frantically
unlocked the door. ‘Where’s Eric? What’s happened?’

‘Eric’s been
hurt. The Celestines are here. I have to call an ambulance.’

‘Oh, my God!
What are we going to do?’

Charlie picked
up Eric’s old-fashioned telephone and dialled for the operator. While he waited
for an answer, he told Robyn about the skiff moored on Eric’s jetty. ‘We won’t
stand a chance if we try to get out by road. They’ve probably got the track
blocked back by the highway.’

‘Do you know
how to row?’ Robyn asked him, aghast.

‘It’s easy,
it’s like anything else. You can pick it up as you go along.’

Robyn watched
him, biting his lip, as he talked to the operator. ‘Listen – there’s been an
accident out at Eric Broussard’s place, on the Normand Bayou. Eric’s suffered a
heart attack. He’s in the field about seventy feet to the east of his house. I
offered to move him into the house but he didn’t want me to touch him. Can you
make sure an ambulance gets here quick.
. ..
You don’t
have to worry about my name. I’m just passing through. All right, then, yes. I
surely will. Thank you.’

Charlie hung up
the telephone and said, ‘That’s the best I can do. Right now, you and I have to
get out of here.’

They went
upstairs to gather up the few possessions they had left there, including the
Celestines’

Bible.
Then Charlie went all around the house, peering out
of the windows, to see if there were any signs of an ambush. ‘It looks quiet,’
he said, as he let the parlour drapes fall back. ‘Maybe they’ve decided that
we’re too scared to come out again.’

They opened the
kitchen door, and Charlie leaned this way and that to make sure that the
verandah was deserted. He listened – but, like before, his untrained ear could
hear nothing at all but the wind and the rattling of dry leaves across the
yard.

‘All right,’ he
said. ‘I guess it’s now or never.’

They tiptoed
along the verandah and down the steps, checking from right to left with almost
ever step they took. Robyn clung on to Charlie’s sleeve, and kept nervously
coughing, a little dry cough of sheer fear. They crossed the yard, and there
was a sudden gush of wind which made the dust
sizzle
against their ankles. Robyn said, ‘Is that somebody singing? I’m sure I can
hear somebody singing.’

Charlie
listened, and when the wind died down he could hear the high quavering voice of
Eric Broussard still lying on his back in the field where his own dog had
brought him down, singing ‘Laisser les Cajuns Danser’. There was something
infinitely sad about it, a man lying dying in a field, singing
his own
requiem, but there was something infinitely eerie
about it too.

The crouched
their way along the back fence until they reached the path which led to the
jetty.

The sky was
light enough now for them to be able to see Eric’s skiff outlined black against
the bronze surface of the bayou. Frogs croaked, katydids chirruped, and steam
rose from the surface like a graveyard scene in a horror movie. ‘Come on,’ said
Charlie. ‘I don’t think they’ve managed to figure out where we are yet. They’re
probably still watching the car.’

Running now,
they headed for the jetty; but just as they did so they heard the roaring of a
car engine, echoing around the side of the house, and a pale-coloured Buick
came sliding around the corner in the dry black dirt, its headlights full,
cutting them off from the entrance to the jetty.

‘This way!’
Charlie shouted, and took hold of Robyn’s arm
and dragged her away from the jetty and back towards the house. They ran in
between the outbuildings, their footsteps thudding, while behind them the Buick
revved up its engine again and came slewing around the yard.

Charlie pressed
Robyn against the wall and then breathed. ‘They have to go all the way around
the house. Come on – let’s get back to the bayou.’

They could hear
the car’s tyres sliding and howling as it circuited the house once more,
hunting for them like an enraged beast. They ran without a word towards the
jetty, along the wooden duckboards, and out on to the rickety wooden structure
itself. They were only halfway along it when the Buick reappeared, its
headlights blinding them, its engine screaming. It headed straight towards
them, the duckboards clattering and thundering under its wheels.

‘Dive!’ yelled
Charlie, and they tumbled off the jetty into the water. The Buick flashed past
them with its brakes shrieking like strangled pigs. Although there was fifty
more feet of jetty to go, the Buick’s driver must have been heading towards
them a fraction too fast, and the boards were slippery with moss and
early-morning damp.

Charlie,
tossing his head up out of the water, saw the huge car go flying off the end of
the jetty in a bloody blaze of brakelights, and crash into the bayou.
Immediately, weighted down by the engine, the front of the car dipped under the
water, and the trunk reared up like the stern of a sinking ship. A wave of
chilly brown water slapped against Charlie’s face, and he felt as if he had
swallowed half of the bayou. He frantically trod water, then mud.

‘Robyn!’ he
shouted. ‘Robyn! Are you okay?’

‘I’m here!’
Robyn called back. ‘I’m right by the boat!’

Charlie touched
the oozy bottom of the bayou, and managed to wade a little way closer to the
shore. Grabbing hold of the tough grass that grew on the bank, he pulled
himself hand over hand toward the jetty, and at last managed to climb back up
on to the planks, where he lay chest down for a moment, panting with effort,
his trouser legs glistening black with mud from the knees down. After a few
seconds spent getting his breath back, he stood up and squelched along to the
end of the jetty, and looked down into the water. Robyn was clambering into
Eric Broussard’s skiff, tilting it sideways as she did so.

‘You sure
you’re okay?’ he asked her.

‘What about
those men in the car?’ said
Robyn.

Charlie looked
towards the bayou. Already there was nothing to be seen of the Buick but its
red taillights glowering under the surface. Charlie wiped his hands across his
mouth to clear away some of the mud, and said, ‘Fuck them.’

‘But they must
be still alive.’

‘They wanted to
run us down, didn’t they? They were trying to kill us!’

But before
Robyn could say anything else, Charlie took a deep breath, ran a short distance
along the jetty, and dived back into the bayou. He knew just as well as Robyn
that he couldn’t leave the car in the water without making at least a token
effort to save the men inside. Fighting for your life was one thing. Letting
people die was another.

He felt his
clothes clinging heavily around him as he swam below the surface towards the
submerged car. The water was so murky that he found it impossible to see
anything except the vehicle’s lights until he was almost on top of it. It was
tilted downward, with its nearside bumper already buried in the ooze, its
passenger compartment still half-full of air, giving it
a
lumbering
buoyancy. Charlie could hear the blurting of bubbles, however,
as the air steadily poured up to the surface, and he guessed that it couldn’t
be more than a matter of seconds before the car filled up completely. He swam
around it, short of breath now, staring as wide-eyed as he could.

He heard
thumping, and something that must have been a shout for help. He kicked himself
around to the car’s offside, and saw M. Fontenot, his white face pressed
against the driver’s window, a mask of absolute terror. In the passenger seat,
the big-shouldered man called Henri was sitting, his face equally strained, but
making no effort to open the Buicks’ doors. Charlie tried to snatch at the
driver’s door handle, but he was out of oxygen now, and he had to thrash
himself up to the surface.

Robyn was
sitting in the skiff watching for him.
Charlie gulped for
air, and doggy-paddled around in a circle.
‘Did you find them?’ called
Robyn. ‘Are they still alive?’

‘They’re alive
all right. But they don’t have long. It’s that Fontenot guy from the Celestines,
and the other one, the big one. But they don’t seem to be making any effort to
get themselves out.’

‘Can you open
the doors?’

‘I don’t know,’
Charlie gasped. ‘I’m going back to give it a try.’

He took two
more giant breaths,
then
plunged back under the
surface of the bayou once more.

He had never
been a good underwater swimmer, and it took him several strenuous strokes of
his arm to get himself back down to the car. Even then he had to tug himself
further down by holding on to the drip-rail around the car’s roof.

M. Fontenot and
Henri were still sitting where they had been before. The water had already
filled up to M. Fontenot’s chest. His eyes were bulging and his teeth were
clenched, as if the skull that had been hidden inside his head for so many
years had caught the scent of freedom. Henri’s expression was
extraordinary,
and even more frightening because it was so
resigned. Charlie wrenched the door handle, but the door was either locked or
jammed, or too heavy to open because of the water pressure. Charlie banged on
the window, and gestured frantically that M. Fontenot should try to open it
from the inside. That way, the pressure inside and outside the car would
equalize.

But M. Fontenot
shook his head, and screamed, ‘I’m trapped! I’m trapped behind the wheel! My
legs are trapped!’

Charlie
realized with cold dread what he was witnessing. M. Fontenot refused to open
the Buick’s doors because he was unable to get out; and obviously he had
ordered Henri to remain where he was, too, so that he could have just a few
more seconds of life. Henri’s lungs must have already been bursting for air,
but obediently he remained where he was, drowning for the sake of his master.
Because the car was tilted towards the nearside, the water would reach Henri’s
face first. It was already filling up to the side of his chin, but he made no
attempt to lift his mouth clear of it.

Charlie banged
on the door again, and gestured towards the door locks. But M. Fontenot did
nothing but stare at him in desperation. Charlie couldn’t stay down any longer,
and he released his hold on the car and kicked himself up to the surface.

Robyn had
untied the skiff and brought it closer. Charlie, coughing, spitting up water,
clung gratefully on to the side of it. ‘Tried,’ he choked. ‘No damn good.
Fontenot’s legs are trapped.’

Robyn leaned
forward and took hold of his hand. ‘Just get on board, Charlie. If there’s
nothing you can do, there’s nothing you can do. I don’t want you to drown too.’

‘One more
try
,’ said Charlie, but just as he was taking his second
deep breath, there was an abrupt and noisy rush of bubbles from below the
surface, and the Buick’s lights went out.

‘It’s no use,’
said Robyn. ‘God knows you did your best.’ Charlie trod water for a few
minutes, waiting to see if Henri had managed to get out, but after a while the
bayou returned to steamy stillness, and the frogs took up their regular chorus
as if nothing at all had happened. ‘Okay,’ said Charlie. ‘I’m coming aboard.’

With Robyn
tugging at his soaking shirt, he clambered into the wildy rocking skiff, and
sat on the plain plank seat, with water running from his clothes, his head
bowed, trying to cough up as much of the Normand Bayou as he could.

‘Well,’ he
said, ‘we licked them, didn’t we? And all that’s going to look like is accidental
death.

Come
on,
let’s get back to the jetty. I want to see if Eric’s
okay. Then we can take the car and get the hell out.’

Robyn balanced
her way to the middle of the skiff and picked up the paddle. She leaned forward
and kissed Charlie’s wet tangled hair. ‘You were fantastic,’ she whispered.
‘You were better than Lloyd Bridges.’

Charlie gave a
wry, slanting smile. ‘Can’t you ever love me for myself?’

They began to
paddle their way back toward the jetty. As they did so, however, they heard the
warbling sound of an ambulance siren in the middle distance. They heard
something else, too – the whip-whipping of a police siren.