[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
recent months to last me a lifetime. I picked up a branch about eighteen
inches long and used it to strike out in front of me when I passed through
stands of higher shrubs and trees.
I had been walking for about twenty minutes when I saw the house. It was an
old cottage, based around a simple hall-and-parlor plan, two rooms wide and
Page 160
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
one room deep, but it had been expanded by the addition of an enclosed front
porch and a long, narrow extension at the rear. There were signs of recent
repairs to its heavy timber framing, and the central chimney had recently been
repointed, but from the front the house still looked virtually the same as it
had when it was first constructed, probably during the last century when the
slaves who built the levees chose to stay on in the Congaree. There were no
signs of life: the washing line that hung between two trees was bare and no
sounds came from within. At the back of the house was a small shed, which
probably housed the generator.
I climbed the rough-hewn stairs to the porch and knocked on the door. There
was no reply. I walked to the window and put my face close to the glass.
Inside, I could see a table and four chairs, anold couch and easy chair, and a
small kitchen area. An open doorway led into the main bedroom, and a second
doorway had been created at the back of the house leading into the rear
extension. That door was closed. I knocked one last time, then walked to the
back of the house. From somewhere in the swamp, I heard the sound of gunshots,
their noise muffled by the damp air. Hunters, I guessed.
The windows to the extension had been blacked out. I thought for a moment that
there were dark drapes obscuring them, but when I drew closer I saw the lines
that the brush had drawn through the paint. There was a door at the end. For
the final time, I knocked and called before trying the knob. The door opened
and I stepped into the room.
The first thing that I noticed was the smell. It was strong and faintly
medicinal, although I detected something herbal and grassy to it rather than
the sterile scent of pharmaceutical products. It seemed to fill the long room,
which was furnished with a cot, a TV, and a set of cheap bookshelves
uncluttered by any books. Instead, there were piles of out-of-date soap opera
magazines and wrinkled, much read copies of People and Celebrity.
Every bare space on the walls had been covered by photographs culled from the
magazines. There were models and actresses and, in one corner, what looked
like a shrine to Oprah. Most of the women in the photos were black: I
recognized Halle Berry, Angela Bassett, the R&B group TLC, Jada Pinkett Smith,
even Tina Turner. Over by the TV were three or four photographs from the
society pages of local newspapers. Each showed the same person: Marianne
Larousse. There was a thin coating of wood dust on the photos, but the
blacking on the windows had prevented any fading. In one, Marianne was smiling
in the middle of a group of pretty young women at her graduation. Another had
been taken at a charity auction, a third at a party held by the Larousses to
raise funds for the Republican party. In every photo, Marianne Larousse s
beauty made her stand out like a beacon.
I stepped closer to the cot. The medicinal smell was stronger here and the
sheets were stained with brown patches like spilled coffee. There were also
lighter blotches, some of them veined with blood. I gently touched the
bedsheet. The stains felt moist beneath my fingers. I moved away and found the
small bathroom, and the source of the smell. A basin was filled with a thick
brown substance that had the consistency of wallpaper paste and dripped
viscously from my fingers as I held them up before me. The bathroom itself had
a free-standing bath, with a handrail attached to the wall and a second
support rail screwed into the floor beside it. There was a clean toilet and
the floor had been expertly, if cheaply, tiled.
There was no mirror.
I stepped back into the bedroom and checked the single closet. What looked
like white and brown sheets lay piled on the floor and shelves, but once again
I could find no mirror.
From outside, I heard the shots come again, closer now. I made a cursory
search of the rest of the house, registering the man s clothing in the closet
in the main bedroom and the woman s clothing, cheap and dated, that had been
packed into an old sea chest; the tinned foods in the kitchen area; the
scrubbed pots and pans. In a corner behind the couch I found a camp bed, but
it was covered in dust and had clearly not been used in many years. Everything
Page 161
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
else was clean, spotlessly so. There was no telephone, and when I tried the
light switch the lights came on low, bathing the room in a faint orange glow.
I switched them off again, opened the front door and stepped out onto the
porch.
There were three men moving through the trees. Two of them I recognized as the
men from the bar the night before, both the skinhead and the older man still
wearing the same clothes. They had probably slept in them. The third was the
overweight man who had been at the airport with his hunting partner on the day
that I had first arrived in Charleston. He wore a brown shirt with his rifle
slung over his right shoulder. He spotted me first, raised his right hand, and
then all three paused at the tree line. None of us spoke for a moment. It
seemed it was up to me to break the silence.
I think you boys may be hunting out of season, I said.
The oldest of the three, the man who had restrained the skinhead in the bar,
smiled almost sadly.
What we re hunting is always in season, he replied. Anybody in there?
I shook my head.
Figured you d say that, even if there was, he said. You ought to be more
careful who you hire your boats from, Mr. Parker. That, or you ought to pay
them a little extra to keep their mouths shut.
He held his rifle at port arms, but I saw his finger move from outside to
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]