Chapter 76
“Miss Yula Mae? You home? It’s me … Ava. Just come by to see if you need any work done.” That’s what I said so she wouldn’t think I was dogging her because I thought she was too old or “special” to take care of herself.
Silence. Something I’d never been met with before. She always seemed to know when I was coming whether that was with Martin or not. I stepped off the porch and started walking around. I had a bad feeling and it wasn’t just from the storm clouds that had followed me into the swamp.
I looked all over the little island and was about to leave thinking I’d come on a fool’s errand, or that maybe Martin had taken her and gone someplace he thought was safer. I know that doesn’t make sense in hindsight but I was really wigging by that point. When I got to the back corner she’d never taken me before and spotted a few turkey vultures sitting in a tree. I prayed it was just a dead animal. I prayed hard. I did not want to see that poor old lady lying dead of something, whether that something was natural or not. Yeah, that’s where my head was going at that point.
In that back corner I found an area that turned out to be a small family cemetery marked off with bricks and wrought iron that would have had to be brought in on a boat. It was old and the wrought iron was completely rusted through in places and had been repaired with wood and sticks making the entire thing look like it belonged in a horror movie. I pushed the gate open to find some few little graves in the ground with homemade markers. None of the homemade markers had names on them which in my research either meant they were child burials or burials of family pets.
What dominated the space was a stone crypt, the kind that sits above the ground like the ones in most of Louisiana do. It too was made of bricks but there were a few carved stone pieces to it as well that looked as professional and ornate as found in any Louisiana cemetery. The name LEVERT was carved above a door. And the fancy roof capping the small building had enough crying angels and crosses on it to prove the family meant business when they buried their people in it.
The crypt looked like it had been disturbed because the metal door wasn’t closed on it good; it sat all calliwumpus in the frame. I got close and realized that the smell wafting out of that door was what had drawn the vultures. I swear I did not want to have to open that door any wider but I couldn’t just run screaming into the night to wait for someone else to take care of things. I owed it to … someone … maybe myself, not to show such cowardice in the face of whatever it was. Using my boot I pulled the little door open. The sound that door made could have been recorded for a scary sound effect. It certainly gave me chills despite the awful heat nearly stilling my breath. Then I took my penlight and shined it inside … after the worst of the smell had escaped.
I knew it was her. Her long white braid had escaped the sheet she’d been wound up in. What shocked me was the stains on the sheets that I realized was blood. I pulled my head out of there and shut the door as fast as I could and started backing away. I was heaving but I’m not sure if it was nerves or the odor. Thanks to this war I’ve seen death up close too many times. Death as I’ve seen it has never been pretty. I looked around but didn’t see Martin. He’d be the only one I know of that would know or care enough to take care of the old woman so respectfully in the family crypt.
I returned to the house to see if he’d left a note or anything and discovered the back door was unlatched. The same moment I put my hand on the latch there was a huge clap of thunder and the first fat drops of rain started to fall. Had I been wondering just what to do, the sheets of rain that started falling right after that, as well as the lightning, would have driven me inside one way or the other. Downpour was so heavy I wasn’t even sure there was any oxygen between the drops.
I was shaking as reaction had set in and the inside of the little house was nearly completely dark. The shutters were closed keeping what little bit of light out that the storm clouds let reach the ground. I was still trying to figure my next move when I heard a hoarse, “I knew you’d come.”
I nearly came out of my skin, at the same time I pulled the buck knife I’d taken to carrying on my hip and was swishing it first one way or the other not wanting anything to sneak up on me. Took me a moment to find him with my light and when I saw what he looked like I freaked a bit, but only on the inside as I forced myself to calm down from my earlier fritzy reaction. I’d learned long ago that panic didn’t help anything. But I couldn’t hide some of my feelings. “Martin?! What happened to you?! They said you might be hurt but … but nothing like this!”
I started to go over to him and tripped over something soft and squishy.
In a rough, gravely voice barely loud enough to be heard over the rain on the metal roof he explained, “I … I didn’t have the strength to move them all after I finished taking care of Yula Mae.”
“Who … uh …” I said picking myself up and backing away from what I discovered was another person … body I guess since there wasn’t anyone occupying it any longer.
“The one you just stepped on is Remy. I was going to drag him into the swamp and dump him with the other two but … but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it and now I can’t …” He gave a painful cough. “He deserves it just like the other two. I just … just …”
There wasn’t much time after that, and it makes me a little nauseous and crazy to remember that conversation. Essentially this is what happened:
Remy Edgar escaped from prison with a couple of buddies. He came back to Breaux Bridge to get some money to head to Florida with. Why Florida? It was just a coincidence. The brain-dead fugitives thought they’d be able to live off the land and take what they wanted from the communities that had been evacuated. Why they’d thought there’d be anything left after a year is beyond me. It takes several layers of stupid to wind up in prison and doing the kind of time they were so what’s one more layer.
First, they looked up Daniel. Remy remembered Daniel being the baby brother and thought he’d be easily intimidated. Wrong. Worse, he told them to get because that was the only break he was giving big brother because he was calling his superiors and they’d soon be on Remy’s tail. In the process, some how or other, Remy got Martin’s address. Probably from Daniel which still has me all kinds of suspicious, especially since it was never mentioned that Remy might just be who beat on Daniel and left all the blood evidence behind. If Daniel did turn Remy in, it sure wasn’t common knowledge.
Remy knew the story of the treasure. He never put much faith in it until he saw Martin’s notes and “evidence” spread all over the kitchen table. And for another layer of stupid Remy got it into his head that somehow Uncle Henley took it to the grave with him. Really? Last time I checked Louisiana and Ancient Egypt looked nothing alike. Who is going to be crazy enough to bury gold treasure and such with someone that doesn’t need them anymore? Be that as it may that’s what Remy and his buddies got in their heads and when Martin tried to explain reality to them they beat on him and then marched him to the cemetery and forced him to dig Uncle Henley up.
You can guess the resulting disappointment. Yep that’s sarcasm you hear and a buttload of snark as well. Remy also didn’t appreciate Martin’s grief over a man that had been more brother to him than Remy and Daniel. So when they got back to Martin’s place Remy beat on him some more and then wanted real money. Only that wasn’t happening either because Martin had just given his wife his entire paycheck because his daughter needed things for school that was supposed to be starting up right quick. That’s when things got crazy … crazier. Remy shot Martin and Martin shot Remy. Neither man knew the extent of the damage as they’d been pumped up with adrenaline and testosterone but that was likely the reason all the blood was judged to be Martin’s. If they’d done a DNA test they would have found two men but that cost money and assumptions ruled the day.
Remy and his partners in crime were desperate. A military patrol came through the neighborhood regularly or someone might report the sounds of gunfire but in all honesty I doubt seriously anyone would bother. Martin was renting a place that was backed up to the bad part of town and gunshots were simply accepted or would be put down to a little night time hunting of nocturnal animals like possums and ‘coons. What Martin was sure of – based on some threats his brother made – is that they’d go after Martin’s wife and daughter next and he couldn’t allow that to happen. Just as bad for Martin was that Remy had stolen all of his notes on the family treasure and it included a map to Yula Mae’s place. Martin had to guess who he’d go after first and since he needed to get out of town he guessed correctly.
Come to find out that Remy knew about Yula Mae. How he knew remains a mystery, but Martin suspected that Remy had followed Sylvee on one of her many solo forays into the swamp because he was nosey like that when he was a boy. It wasn’t until he saw Martin’s treasure hunting evidence that Remy put two and two together and decided that the Levert homestead would make a good hideout and he could look for the treasure at the same time. Or so explained Martin after added two and two together. Of course two and two could have added up to three or five but that’s the new math for you.
What happened was that Remy and his buddies took off in Martin’s personal vehicle and it took longer for Martin to get to his pirogue while Remy stole a motorized boat from someone else. But even known the swamp ten times better than Remy, and nearly beating him to the island, he still wasn’t in time. Martin told me that Yula Mae didn’t suffer as she’d been shot before Remy even docked the boat he’d stolen and that is the only good thing that could be said. Martin was poling in right behind him and saw it happen. One of the other men had made the killing shot and then Remy started screaming at him because they could have questioned Yula Mae about the treasure. That’s when Martin shot the shooter and managed to also injure the one remaining man that hadn’t been shot at that point.
For the next 48 hours they chased each other around that small island with Martin gradually getting the upper hand, killing first one then the other fugitive. I have a suspicion they were all in worse shape than they were letting on since it took that long. But it was mostly insanity that seemed to be driving them. He and Remy took shots at each other, some hitting but most not. In fact none of each man’s injuries were killing shots in and of themselves, but with both Remy and Martin injured to start with, and not getting medical attention, they both wound up with a cumulative effect.
One of the last things that Martin explained to me before he went off the deep end was, “Remy must have sensed he was fading and finally decided to give up. He headed for the boat but I’d already disabled his and hidden mine. I don’t know what he was after when he headed back here but I was waiting for him. He had a surprised look on his face when he saw me, a look that is still on his face. Brother or not, what he did was wrong. You understand that don’t you? You have to.”
~~~~~
“Cher?” Em prompted when I’d fallen silent.
“I … I have a lot of emergency first aid. A lot. I’m wilderness trained and some beyond that. But there was nothing I could do. Remy Edgar was already dead of a gunshot to the head. And before you ask, let’s just say no one is going to be identifying him the regular way, not even through dental records and leave it at that. As for Martin, I think one of the bullets he was hit with must have knicked his bowels. That wound smelled nastier than the others that I cleaned and bandaged; and it was in his side.”
“Er … you saying?”
“That Martin Edger is dead? Yeah. Probably about like Uncle Henley only without the painkillers to help him along.”
It took a moment for Em to work out what I meant. “Aw Cher. C’mere.”
“Maybe in a minute. I need to finish this out.”
“There’s more?”
“Yeah. Unfortunately.”
~~~~~
The pain got so bad Martin asked for his gun a couple of times. God help me I nearly gave it to him but he was out of bullets and all I had was my shotgun and one mess of that kind was all I was facing. I’d tried to figure some way to get him to medical help but the storm had swamped both boats and even my raft. I’d make a little headway and then another squall line would come through and make everything worse than when I’d started. I finally managed to get my raft and pole up on land and just left it there and did what I could.
Martin started having fever-delusion-illusions. I’m not sure what to call them exactly but nightmare comes in a close second. I learned things about his childhood that fit so hand in glove with what I’d seen in foster care that I cursed his father for being the perpetrator and his mother for waiting so long to take the man in the swamp and leave him there. Yeah. That’s what happened because apparently as the oldest he had to help his mother get rid of the evidence. Remy and Daniel don’t know that part and I’m thinking no one does except the mother who is well out of the mess she helped to create and then leave behind. I’ll keep his secret. There’s no proof and it wouldn’t do anything but cause more pain if it was made public.
At the very end he was eager to go. Seems his daughter was a twin but the other was stillborn. But they named the little girl and when the wife was too distraught to do much more than tell the hospital to deal with it, Martin stole his baby’s corpse and carried it out here and put it in the Levert crypt with Yula Mae’s permission. Apparently there’d been babies and children that didn’t survive to adulthood – Yula Mae’s siblings and nephews and nieces – and there’s a pile of what looks a lot like bird bones in the crypt from all those babies. Well Martin seemed to be seeing something I couldn’t and talking to someone that wasn’t there. I stopped worrying about him at that point. I don’t have any room to preach in this life but I guess I hope that I’ll see my family again so if that’s what it took to let Martin have peace at the end, so be it. We should all be so lucky.
He did have one lucid moment in there and he asked that I put him in the crypt with Yula Me and his baby daughter and not to tell anyone about the Levert place … to let the swamp swallow it back up and the spirits of the people that lived here go free. Talk about heart strings being pulled and getting weirded out at the same time. Then he went and asked me to do something for Remy … to put him in the swamp to join their father. I didn’t tell him he was smoking dope or anything. I wasn’t sure I was going to do it at that point but the smell was getting to me that was for sure despite me having pulled Remy’s body to the front porch rather than be in a dark house with a swelling up corpse while tending to a dying man. I got enough nightmares thanks anyway.
When I was sure that Martin was completely gone I wrapped him in the sheet he’d been lying in and then found some rope and tied him up like a bird going in the oven. It was the wrong visual to have and I had to hit the porch railing and dump what little I’d eaten in the last couple of days. It was still raining off and on, but I was running out of time. There was no way I was going to drag a body a couple of acres, so I did what I didn’t want to do and carried Martin’s body in a fireman’s carry and took him to the crypt. The smell was so much worse that I puked some more but it’s done and I sealed the crypt properly to keep animals out. Our Creator set things up to work a certain way. As the priest said when my own family was put in the ground, “From dust we came and to dust we return.”
I was pretty numb but it was getting late and the weather remained uncertain. I didn’t think it a good idea for me to try to make it back to Breaux Bridge. Water level had risen around the island but it wasn’t to the house or cemetery yet though there was water encroaching in other places. Having decided I couldn’t leave just yet, I also decided I was not going to deal with that smell again. I rolled Remy off the porch and down to the floating dock and then off the dock and into the flooded swamp. I had to throw up again. Rolling Remy like that kinda let the gas out of him along with some bodily fluids. I’m hard but I’m not that hard and I added another nightmare to the playlist in my head.
~~~~~
“Cher, we gonna talk about you trying to do things that no man or woman should have to do alone.”
I leaned over with my head on his knee accepting the rough comfort he was offering. But then I sat back up. “Yeah well, life sucks. It might have been better for me if you were there, but it wouldn’t have changed anything and I’d feel guilty about dragging you into it.”
I felt him brushing my hair off my neck. It was still hot and even though it was night and cooler it still wasn’t great.
I asked him, “You want to hear the rest of it or are you sick of it and me?”
“Hush your mouth on that thought. Not to mention I want to know what this ‘rest of the story’ sound is in your voice.”
“Yeah. About that ….”
~~~~~