The Tangled Bridge (14 page)

Francois circled the Ford once, his weakening body seeming to have been restored. With fury.

Patrice could see the dead man's hair in the rumble seat now that she knew to look for it, but it was quite camouflaged. She took a disintegrating horse blanket from what used to be a chicken coop but now wasn't anything, and she draped it over that horrible, vulgar, splayed mop of hair and tucked it in like she was keeping biscuits warm in a basket.

Finally, Francois said to Trigger, “You put gasoline in it?”

“No sir. Just some oil.”

“Show me where you put the oil.”

Trigger showed him and Francois looked satisfied. Rosie watched, too, as though she might be the one to do it next time.

“Now put the gas,” Francois said.

When Trigger gave him a blank look, Francois pointed to the corner behind the old coop where a barrel stood. Rosie slipped her hand in Patrice's and they watched while Francois showed Trigger how to run the hose down to fill the tank.

Patrice said, “But it doesn't run.”

“Liable to be fine. Just need the gas.” And then Francois climbed into the passenger's side of the Model T and released a sigh that seemed to outfox his very lung capacity.

“Tell me what happened here, girl,” Francois said.

Patrice told him all of it. Every speck. Marie-Rose listened with wide eyes, having missed the details of the church service this morning. She was still gripping Francois' Bible. Trigger finished putting gas in the tank and cranked the motor car to life.

“Your mother sent a letter to me,” Francois called over the rumble of the motor.

“She did?” Patrice was surprised.

He listened to the motor for a few moments, then nodded and told Trigger to turn it off.

Francois said, “Couldn't read no letter. Miss Bernadette read it for me. She'd got one, too.”

“What did it say? They say?”

“She told me I got to come to New Orleans, your mama. Supposed to tell a judge that your papa married your mama, good and proper. Miss Bernadette thinks a cousin of your daddy's was trying to get Terrefleurs. Sayin your mama don't really own it, seein as your daddy wasn't in his right mind and she a colored woman.”

Patrice listened, hand to her throat. Trigger's face was smudged with grease. He was leaning over the hood, watching Francois.

Francois said, “We didn't know what to do. Of course we don't want nothin to happen to Terrefleurs, and we sure don't want no wrong to come to you young'uns. But your mama, she a hard one. I remember what it was like before she came. Your mama sets things right in a lotta ways, but in others…”

Patrice knew what he meant. After Papa went to wandering with the sickness in the head, it was their Maman who brought Terrefleurs from near-bankruptcy back around to a thriving, sugar-producing plantation. But she was mean and murderous, trying to enlist her children's skills in the briar as a way to increase her station and wipe out her enemies.

Francois swallowed and said nothing further. Patrice waited for him to speak again but he just closed his eyes and let his body sag. Fury gone, the sickness had found him again.

She asked, “Did you write back to her?”

He opened his eyes. “Naw. Miss Bernadette and me, we just let it go quiet. Ain't no way I's going to make a trip to New Orleans, anyway, sick as I am.”

He looked at Patrice full in the face for a moment, then his gaze traveled to the barn door. “She wrote another letter after that.”

“What did that one say? Same thing?”

Francois shook his head. “Said she wanted to find Jesus. Miss Bernadette read that one to me, I just laughed and laughed. I figured your mama was talkin Jesus because she wanted us to go see that judge of hers. But Miss Bernadette, she wasn't laughing. She went to tears a little. I felt real bad. I oughtta have said something to y'all, I guess.”

Patrice's stomach was in knots. All those years, Tatie Bernadette had been the one to sing the children to sleep at night, tend their injuries, paddle them for naughtiness. Though Mother had only returned to Terrefleurs periodically when business called for it, Tatie Bernadette was always there, ever present. That's why they called her “
tatie
” though she wasn't really their aunt.

But Tatie Bernadette, she did love God. And she would never turn away a soul who sought the Kingdom of Heaven.

Francois said, “I never did ask Bernadette to reply to the letters for me. Figured if your mama thought she's gwine to lose the deed to Terrefleurs, she'd come here herself.”

Trigger's eyes met Patrice's.

The barn door rattled.

Francois nodded, and Trigger peeped through the crack, then opened it. Gil stood there with tear streaks on his face. It occurred to Patrice that he was the only one weeping over leaving Terrefleurs. Maybe that was because he was the only one who had a friend to say good-bye to.

“Let's go,” Francois said. “I'm a-ride with y'all as far as Locoul.”

The four children looked at him.

He said, “Get on in before ole Bernadette gets back.”

And that's when Patrice finally burst into tears. Because Tatie Bernadette, she was the one they were all leaving behind.

 

seventeen

NEW ORLEANS, NOW

MADELEINE AND ETHAN LOOKED
for Bo Racer in Bridge City at the Rosewood Arms mobile park. The storm had heaved the heat somewhere down the coast and left behind a pleasant breeze. People were out, smoking and chatting with one another along the chain-link or having a sip and a sit or a turn with the weed whacker. Turned out everyone knew the little boy with the click. And everyone seemed to have a little something to say about him.

A lady in pink clamdiggers named Cheryl told Madeleine how Bo had just recently mashed her cow peas when they were still just sprouting in the garden. Apparently he'd wanted to ‘see if they'd growed yet.' Cheryl had smiled as she relayed the story. Bo was also known for finding lost dogs or cats, she'd said.

“He say he can hear them. You know, he's blind. Ain't got no eyes a-tall.” She was leaning on the fence with her hand bowed at her forehead for shade, her gaze on the weedy asphalt as she spoke to Madeleine and Ethan. She never looked at their faces.

She said, “Even clear across the highway. Sandy's dog got out and run off. Bo found'm. Told Sandy to go looking over there. They found the dog, mm-hmm.”

“Keen sense of hearing, I guess,” Ethan said.

“I guess,” Cheryl said with enough irony in her tone that Madeleine laughed.

“Bo Racer; I'm assuming that's not his real name?” Madeleine said.

Cheryl shook her head no. “His name is Beauregard Ramirez. His mama is Esther Ramirez. But everyone call him Bo Racer because he never stops movin.”

Then Cheryl lowered her voice to a whisper and said very slowly, “There … he … go.”

Madeleine and Ethan followed her gaze to a stand of devilwood that bordered the mobile park. Two kids were playing in an abandoned semi-paved drive just beyond the end. One boy was running like mad pushing another boy in a wheelchair, both shouting as they careened around the turn, and it looked like the second boy was about to bounce out onto the pavement. The wheelchair jostled over olivelike berries dropped from the devilwood.

“Bo?” Madeleine said, looking at the boy in the chair.

“Mm hmm,” Cheryl said.

But as they drew closer Madeleine saw that the child in the wheelchair had sight. Then she recognized Bo as the one pushing, the one rocketing along behind. His mouth was gaping wide and his head was thrown back toward the sky.

The one in the chair was shrieking what sounded like, “Left!”

Bo's legs kicked as the two careened around the curve in the drive. Madeleine could hear Bo's clicking, too.

“Is he … is that other boy telling Bo when to turn?” Ethan asked.

“Yeah, that's my boy, Ray. Can't walk and he can't hear. They play like that all the time.”

“Looks kind of dangerous,” Ethan said.

Cheryl waved her shade hand with a roll to the eyes. “We quit trying to stop'm. Esther say Bo gonna do what he do. And he the only friend Ray ever had. They play like that til they get tired, and then they don't give us no trouble. I known that boy Bo since he was a baby. Went from crawling to running and never bothered to walk. Even though he couldn't see.”

Madeleine watched, intrigued as the two barreled toward the end of the street. Bo slowed and turned though the other boy, Ray, hadn't told him they were at the end.

Bo spun Ray's wheelchair around and then picked up speed again, clicking like mad, Ray whooping and grinning as they raced by.

“Look at that rascal go,” Ethan said.

Cheryl took Madeleine's hand and patted it. “Watch.”

Madeleine looked at her.

Cheryl called out to the boys, “I wish that little boy from next door would come over here and talk to me.”

But Bo and Ray continued rocketing down the drive, oblivious to Cheryl's call. They neared the curve and were about to disappear around the bend. Madeleine looked back at Cheryl. Cheryl winked, the first eye contact she'd made since they arrived.

And then Cheryl cast her gaze down toward her pink clamdiggers and, very softly, as though speaking to the crooked big toe curving over her sandal, whispered: “Bo Racer.”

Madeleine looked over at the devilwood grove. And though he was zooming along about two hundred feet away and couldn't possibly have heard Cheryl's murmur, Bo slowed the wheelchair and stopped.

Madeleine could hear Ray shouting from the chair, “Why you stop?” and even from this distance she could tell Ray's speech was not clear; like that of a deaf child.

Bo had turned his face toward Cheryl and was clicking.

That night bird sound by the levee. The tick-tocking click from under the bridge. It made Madeleine's heart skip.

Cheryl said very quietly, gaze still on the dusty toe, “Bo Racer, come on over here and see your friend the neighbor lady. Gonna introduce you to some folks.”

Then it looked like Bo said something to Ray. Their hands came together in a private kind of sign language and vocal speech combination; though the distance prevented Madeleine from hearing their words now that they weren't shouting. Bo leaned his shoulder in to the wheelchair and turned it around. And then he and Ray were racing again, this time headed for Cheryl.

*   *   *

“MOM!” BO YELLED AS
he threw wide the door.

A high, tense voice from inside called back, “Ya mama's sleeping! Close ya goddamned mouth!”

Madeleine and Ethan halted on the steps. Ray was “parked” below by the fence, scowling up at them, and Cheryl had returned to her garden.

Bo said into the dark room. “These people come here to talk to mom and me. They—” He turned toward Madeleine and Ethan. “What's y'all's names?”

Madeleine said, “This is Dr. Manderleigh. I'm Dr. LeBlanc.”

“Doc LB!” Bo said.

“Shut it!” the high voice said.

“But Mare, she's Doc LB! The lady at—”

“Shut that door!”

Bo stepped inside and shut it.

Madeleine and Ethan looked at one another, awkward, surrounded by half a dozen ferns that had sprouted furry, snaking feet. Bo's and the woman's muffled voices came from inside the trailer.

In the yard were one huge dead tree and one smaller live one. The trunk of the dead tree was wrapped in a mattress; the live one was wrapped in layers of yellow foam seamed with duct tape. Like someone had tried to pad the entire yard.

From the other side of the chain-link, Ray was giving a look of such menace that the ferns were at risk of withering.

Ethan cleared his throat and said to Ray, “Guess you and Bo are good pals.”

Brows still knit, Ray replied with thick words accompanied by hand signs, “He's my best friend. I won't let anything bad happen to him.”

Madeleine nodded. It had taken the boy a while to get the words out. Though he still had some dexterity to him, the speech and hand movements were slow and blunted.

Ray added, “He's going to be the first blind person to play for the Saints when he grows up.”

Ethan said, “He can play football?”

The door squeaked and Madeleine looked back over her shoulder. A short woman with enormous eyes and elliptical painted brows was glaring at them, a face like Esther's only rounder and less haggard. She wore a loose gray suit and bare feet.

“What you want?” She was the high-voiced one Bo had called Mare.

Madeleine said, “We just need to talk to Bo and his mother.”

The woman seemed at the end of her patience. “Oh, that right? About what?”

A pause. Madeleine averted her eyes. How to explain why Bo's life might be in danger because a hospitalized man in a vegetative state wanted to kill him?

Ethan said, “It's about what happened under the bridge last night.”

Mare put her hand to her hip and gave a long sigh that held a ghost of that high voice in it, but she made no further move. Something stung Madeleine on the ankle.

Ethan opened his hands. “Look, we just want to help.”

Mare said, “Y'all are doctors, huh?”

Ethan nodded. “Academic doctors, but yes.”

“Academic.” Mare rolled her eyes, then widened the door. “Get in. Mosquitoes'll carry us all off.”

Madeleine cast a wave back toward Ray who was watching with the same mistrustful frown, then stepped through the entry after Mare, Ethan's hand on her back. The scent of cigarette smoke greeted her and beneath that, old bacon and mildewed air-conditioning.

“Doc LB,” Bo whispered just as loudly as he'd been speaking earlier, and he reached for Madeleine's hand and shook it. “I heard a you.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Madeleine whispered.

At the boy's touch, something jumped inside Madeleine. Not bad, not good; just a feeling of sudden alertness—like she could sense the very blood and breath and the life current in her own body.