The Cottoncrest Curse: A Novel

Chapter 56

201 Chapter 56 “I don’t believe it. You got huckleberried by Cajuns! Walked square into it, didn’t you. Didn’t think about splitting up the men, trying to flank Lamou, did you?” Bucky slumped dejectedly in his chair behind his desk, trying to disappear into the corner. Trosclaire had kept them in Lamou all day, serving them food and talking constantly but not letting them leave. The rifles had remained trained on them the entire time. Finally, when twilight came, Trosclaire had allowed them to depart. But that wasn’t bad enough. Now, all Dr. Cailleteau was doing was jawin’ him. “See you got a hole in your hat. Lucky they didn’t put a hole in your head . . . although, come to think about it, if they had, it might have let a little sunlight in there. When, during the Port Hudson siege, a miasma would drift through—and that’s about the extent of what’s going on inside that skull of yours—the only thing to cure it would be a good day’s sunlight and a stiff breeze.” “I don’t got no asthma,” Bucky pouted under his breath. “Not asthma, Bucky. Miasma. Poison vapor from decaying corpses.” Dr. Cailleteau took another puff on his big cigar and drank down the glass of whiskey that Raifer had put in front of him. “Raifer, a phrenologist could take this boy to Charles Darwin, if he were still alive, and Darwin would have to declare him to be a whole new and inferior species.” Bucky sunk lower into his chair. “You have to do it now, Raifer. You don’t have any choice.” Raifer got up and poured himself another cup of coffee. It was dark outside. Another day lost. “I know, Doc.” “Told you that you should have done it after we came back from Cottoncrest. Should have done it right then, when you sent the flimsy 202 on to Baton Rouge and New Orleans about arresting Marcus and Sally and Jenny for theft and shipping them back here to Petit Rouge.” Raifer didn’t want to have the rest of this discussion in Bucky’s presence . He turned away from Dr. Cailleteau and said to his deputy, with firm direction in his voice, “Go home.” Bucky just gazed down at his feet, trying to avoid the glare from Raifer ’s eyes. “Right now.” Bucky looped two fingers through the hole in the brim of his hat and pulled it off the desk with a scowl. Dr. Cailleteau was behind this. He had pushed Raifer into it. Dr. Cailleteau had just said that Raifer should have done it after they came back from Cottoncrest. Done what? Done did what Raifer just did, firing him and sending him home. Now, with no job, what would he do? People would laugh at him. They would point him out and say that poor Bucky couldn’t even catch a Jew and let himself get tricked by Cajuns, of all people. Ain’t hardly nothin’ worse than Cajuns ’cept darkies and Jews, and yet Marcus has done gone and slipped through his fingers, and the Jew has disappeared into the swamps, and Cajuns got him pinned down all day, feeding him and Tee Ray and Forrest and the other Knights like pigs getting fattened up for the slaughter. And Tee Ray and Forrest would blame him, and they’d kick him out of the Knights. He might just as well die now. “Get going, Bucky,” Raifer commanded. “Can’t have you sitting ’round here a moment longer than necessary.” There was no hope. This was it. “Raifer, can’t I at least take my stuff from my desk? Just got a few things to clean out. Won’t be a minute, then you won’t never see me again.” “What are you talking about? I need you here tomorrow morning at dawn. Pack your bag for a three or four days journey. Pack some go-totown clothes, the best you’ve got. Clean ones. Understand?” Bucky looked up, startled. “Don’t sit there like a gin barrel waiting to be emptied. You were right that the peddler had to be in that pirogue. If they were headed south down the bayou, they were making for the swamp. They have to be trying to get him to New Orleans. It’s either that or the Gulf of Mexico , and there’s no way they can make it into the Gulf...