Burial Ground (22 page)

“I’m a white man,” I told him. “A hungry one right now. You don’t have anything to eat, do you?”

Ben Picote took a deep breath, then stepped back from the fire. He reached down and I saw what looked like an old schoolbag. He tossed me something wrapped in a bandanna. I unwrapped it and saw some cheese and a half-loaf of French bread.

“Thank you.” I broke off a piece of the bread and handed it to Pepper. Then I gave her a piece of the cheese.

“Sit down,” I invited him. “There’s no need for you to stand up. It doesn’t look like we’re going anywhere.”

He considered for a moment, then lowered himself slowly to a sitting position across from us.

“Don’t try anything,” he warned. “I’ve still got this gun.”

“Twenty-two, isn’t it?” I asked.

“A .222,” he said. “So don’t get any big ideas.”

We ate in silence and when I’d finished I wiped my mouth. “Got any water?” I asked.

“You want a lot,” he said and then tossed over a plastic canteen. I took a couple of swallows and passed it to Pepper. Then I flipped it back to him.

“So have you decided what you’re going to do with us?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve got to think about it.”

“Sure.”

He took a quick sip of water, his black eyes never leaving us. “If I let you go, you’re going to come back here, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know. Like I said, I don’t think there’s anything on this island.”

“But you’ll go on looking somewhere else.”

“That’s my job.” I shrugged. “But I won’t break the law. I won’t dig up your peoples’ bones.”

“I don’t believe you.”

I stretched out my hands to the fire, hoping he couldn’t see them shaking.

“That’s your call, Ben. But it won’t solve the problem if you kill us.”

“I didn’t say I was going to kill you,” he said, changing the rifle from one hand to the other. “You’re putting words in my mouth.”

“I’m sorry.” I shifted slightly. “Look, Ben, does your family know you’re over here?”

“Never mind about my family. I take care of myself.”

“And it’s pretty clear you can. I just thought your dad or your mother …”

“I don’t have a dad. He’s been gone for five years. Killed in a wreck on Highway 1. My mama has other kids to take care of.”

“Your brothers and sisters?”

His turn to shrug. “Two brothers, a sister. But that doesn’t matter. What are you trying to do?” His face turned into a sneer. “Study the red man?”

“No. Just study Ben, maybe.”

“Don’t bother. All you gotta study is this rifle.”

He lapsed into a sullen mood, the weapon resting across his knees, and I let myself relax. As I sat back slowly, I sensed some of the tension leaving Pepper. She flexed the hurt ankle and I knew she was telling me she could walk if she had to.

I told myself that we had the advantage, because he had to watch us and stay awake, while we could doze. He seemed to realize that, because several times in the next few hours he got up and pulled out a cigarette and walked back and forth to keep himself awake, but just before dawn I rolled over, and across the embers of the fire I saw that his eyes appeared to be closed.

Of course, he could be watching and waiting, but this was as good a chance as we’d ever get. I inched my hand over and nudged Pepper. She turned her head to me, our eyes met, and she slowly nodded.

I drew my feet up to me and then levered myself into a sitting position. I waited for him to awaken, but there was no reaction. Slowly, I pushed myself up to a squatting position, then stood. He was only a few feet away and if I reached for the gun I’d have a good chance of snagging it. But all I needed was for him to clamp a hand on the trigger guard and we’d be in a free-for-all. Two bodies rolling over on the sand were a prescription for somebody’s getting shot, while if he caught us just trying to sneak away I didn’t think he’d shoot.

I didn’t think
.

Pepper reached up and I caught her hand and pulled her upright. She grimaced and then shook her head, telling me she could make it. I nodded toward the head of the island and she gave a little shrug and followed, hopping after me across the sand. The cloud cover had dissipated now, and there was a milky moon, washing the island in a sickly white. The waves brushing the shore swallowed the sounds of our steps, and I thought we were going to make it when she stumbled, giving a little cry as she fell forward.

“Hey!” He was on his feet now and I couldn’t think of anything else to do, so I ran back toward him, head down. My hands caught the barrel and drove the weapon to the side. He swore and tried to pull the gun away, but I pushed forward, pitting my weight against his own. He fell back and the gun flew out of his hand. I went down on top of him but his knee came up, catching me in the chest. I grunted and he rolled away, clawing for the rifle. I grabbed his feet and dragged him toward me and he swung the barrel toward my head. I parried with my arm and levered myself onto one knee. Years ago, when I was younger and lighter, I’d taken a few months of karate, and without thinking I gave him a punch to the head with my doubled fist. He went down then, falling on top of the rifle, and I took out after Pepper.

She was watching, horrified, from fifty yards away.

“Where are we going?” she asked, as I caught up, puffing.

“He has to have taken the boat someplace. Since he didn’t pass us in it downstream, he must have dragged it upstream. But it’s tough pulling a boat that big, so he can’t have gone far.”

I heard her exhale: “I hope you’re right.”

Fortunately, I was: Behind a fallen tree that served as a natural barrier, sloping down into the water at an angle, was the boat. I untied the painter and motioned for her to get in, then reached out for the paddle she extended and pulled so that the boat slowly came parallel to the shore. I stepped in and she shifted her weight to the other side. Now, ensconced at the stern, I turned my attention to the motor.

God, let him not have sabotaged it. Drifting down the Mississippi in a dawn mist without any power was not my idea of fun.

I yanked the cord and the engine started. I steered away from shore, hoping we could melt into the fog before he could get a bead on us. The boat chugged away from shore and into the current and I felt our forward progress slow. If we could just get away from the island long enough to steer back for the shore, where the current would be less…

There was sound behind us on the island, movement.

“Stop!” It was his voice and I ducked down, trying to make less of a target. “Come back here!”

I gritted my teeth, waiting. All he had to do was hit the motor and we’d come to a dead stop.

Pepper called out from the bow, but I couldn’t make out the words. Then I understood, because the first bullet plopped into the water two feet from my face.

“I said,” she yelled back, “
he’s shooting
.”

The rifle cracked again and water geysered up a foot from the bow.

I wrenched the tiller, steering back toward shore, then straightened out again, trying to make our movement too erratic for him to hold us in his sights, but all along I knew we were too slow for it to matter.

A third bullet sang over our heads and went off into the darkness.

He couldn’t be that bad a shot, so why hadn’t he hit us by now?

The fog had closed over us by the time I realized the answer:
He hadn’t wanted to
.

I steered toward the bank, and the boat shuddered as it hit a submerged log. I grabbed the gunwale, felt the tremor pass. The shore loomed over us and I searched unsuccessfully for familiar features. What if we passed the launch site in the dark? How far would we have to go to find a spot to put in? What if we hit another snag, one that gutted the boat open like a tin can, dumping us into the treacherous waters?
What if…?

The bank gave way and ahead, as the mist parted, I saw a sloping surface and—yes—my Blazer. I nosed in and felt the prow of the boat bump into the mud of the shore. Pepper tumbled out and, painter in hand, tugged us up until I could make my way forward, get out, and help her pull the boat up to where I could attach the cable for the winch.

Ten minutes later, with the boat safely on the trailer, we sat in my vehicle, the windows rolled up against the predawn chill.

For a long time we remained motionless, but finally Pepper spoke.

“I just want to say I admire the way you kept your cool,” she said. “I was impressed.”

“Thank you,” I said through chattering teeth.

T
WENTY

A sleepy deputy took our report and we waited on a bench in the sheriff’s office, half-dozing, until ten o’clock, when a deputy on the day shift came over and told us they’d found Absalom’s body. Then he made me repeat Ben’s description.

“Skinny, just under six feet, black hair, swarthy, black eyes, and a baseball cap,” I told him. “But I don’t think he did it.”

The deputy grunted and waddled away. We went out for a late breakfast and when we got back a man from the D.A.’s office was waiting to talk to us. He was young, with curly, mussed hair, and looked like his last year in law school had left him frazzled. He kept asking about Ben, and why we didn’t think he’d done it.

“People remember the Tunica Treasure,” he said with a head shake. “They don’t have a real kindly opinion about these Indians. Most people around here figure the guy that dug up the treasure had a right to it, not some tribe that hasn’t lived here for two hundred years.”

“You’d prosecute on that basis?” I asked.

“I’m just saying how people feel,” he said. “Besides, this Ben fellow shot at you. You both said so. So why wouldn’t he shoot the man you found?”

“Was Absalom Moon shot?” I asked.

The prosecutor frowned, obviously discomfited. “That’s got to wait for the autopsy. But we know he shot Joseph Dupont.”

“We do?”

The lawyer looked surprised. “The pathologist’s report said he was shot with a .22 and you told me just now that’s what this Ben carries.”

“No, I said a .222. Same diameter bullet, but the .222 has a higher velocity.”

“I know that, Mr. Graham. Believe it or not, I even own one. But whether the bullet goes fast enough to pass through a skull instead of stopping inside, like happened with Dupont, I’ll leave to the medical people. Right now we’ll settle for laying hands on this Ben.”

At eleven-thirty we got permission to go home. I took Pepper back to the Dupont place to get her car. As we passed Greenbriar, I had the eerie sense of someone watching, but I realized it was probably excitement combined with lack of sleep. We drove back to Baton Rouge, and when we reached my office she pulled in, got out, and gave me a formal handshake.

“Thanks,” she said.

“For what? I almost got you killed.”

“I think it was the other way around. Going out there again was my idea, remember?”

I rubbed my eyes. “I’m not sure I remember anything right now.”

I watched her get into the Integra and then went inside to report to Marilyn. I’d called her from the sheriff’s office, but she was still upset. There was a message slip from the State Archaeologist on my desk, but I ignored it, calling David, instead. I gave him a brief report and accepted his reprimand.

“Christ, man, you don’t go out on that river in a little boat no matter who the woman is.”

“You’re right,” I said. Then I hung up and called Willie Dupont. He listened while I told him about our visit to the island and escape.

“You don’t think the kid killed my dad?”

“No.”

“Why not? He’s got reason. And he may have the right gun.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But everybody in the world’s got some kind of .22, don’t they?”

“Sure. I got a couple. So what’s the real reason?”

“He could’ve killed us and he didn’t”

“Maybe him and Dad got in a argument. People do things when they’re mad.”

“Like kill their fathers?”

“What?”

“Your sister called us. She says you were burned because your father bought the property in the first place, that you pitched a fit in front of Carter Wascom.”

Willie breathed out. “Dominique. I should’ve known it Probably told you to stop what you’re doing. My sister’s a bitch.”

“She said she had the power of attorney nullified.”

“She did. But I got my own lawyer. I’ll fight her every step.”

“Why were you against the purchase?”

“Sometimes Dad thought he was still in the glory days, when oil was forty-five dollars a barrel. I thought the land was overpriced. And I was still resentful. Hell yes, I’ll admit it: He wouldn’t pay five hundred bucks to bail me out of jail but he could spend half a million for a place to go on weekends.”

“But you changed your mind.”

“I grew up. When I saw my father dead I realized what an asshole I’d been. But now I’ll never have a chance to tell him. That’s the part hurts.”