Bayou Trackdown

10

Her cry came from a tent that was still standing.

Fargo ran toward it. Without warning the side burst outward and the beast, squealing ferociously, was on him. Fargo dived to one side. He glimpsed it as it went by, glimpsed the gleam of a curved tusk and a hide covered with bristly hair. Its hooves drummed past his ear.

Another second, and something struck Fargo across the shoulders, something heavy. Dazed by the blow, for a few harrowing seconds he thought the creature had turned on him.

Then someone groaned.

Fargo rolled and pushed. The person on top of him slid off, and he rose to his knees. He still had the Henry and he jammed it to his shoulder.

The creature was streaking toward a lean-to. In it huddled two men too terrified to do more than scream as the beast smashed into their flimsy sanctuary and reduced it, and them, to crushed ruins.

Fargo fired. He was sure he hit it but the thing didn’t break stride or stop. It crashed off into the night, the brush and the trees no hindrance at all.

Figuring it was circling to come at them again, Fargo waited. He was going to empty the Henry into it, if that was what it took to bring it down. But the crashing faded and the creature didn’t reappear. He became conscious of moans and sobs from all around him, and he glanced down at the person who had been thrown on top of him.

“Oh, hell.”

Pensee had been ripped open just like Onfroi. Only in her case, a tusk had penetrated just above the junction of her legs and ripped in a zigzag pattern clear up to the base of her throat. Thankfully, her eyes were closed. One breast, untouched, was exposed. Her dress was shredded; he pulled part of it up to cover her.

Only then did Fargo think of the Heuses. Whirling, he ran to where the biggest tent lay in shattered tatters. “Halette! Namo! Clovis!”

“Under here!”

Fargo kicked a broken pole aside and hauled at the flattened canvas. Underneath, covering his son and daughter with his body, was Namo.

“Is it safe?”

“The thing is gone.” Fargo pulled the canvas out of the way and offered his hand to help them stand. “Any of you hurt?”

“Non, thank God.” Namo brushed dirt from Halette. “I woke up and got them down on the ground barely in time.”

“Where’s Remy?” Fargo asked, looking all around.

“He was in a cot on the other side.”

Fargo moved another piece of canvas. He found the broken cot, and a prone, still Remy. Quickly kneeling, Fargo rolled him over. He expected to find Remy had been gored like the others but the only wound was a gash on the temple. A tusk or a hoof had struck him a glancing blow. Slipping his hand under Remy’s shoulder, he dragged him clear of the debris and held him propped against his leg.

The Breed ran up, pale and limping. “Is he dead? Tell me that bête hasn’t killed him too?”

“Fetch some water.”

“Oui. Right away.”

Halette came up and stood at Fargo’s elbow. “Is Uncle Remy dead? Has the monster killed him like it did my mère?”

“Your uncle will live,” Fargo assured her. “And it’s no monster.” He knew what it was now. One of the most vicious, and crafty, of all the animals there were anywhere.

Namo had come up. “If you know what that fiend is, don’t keep it to yourself.”

Remy groaned, then blinked, and looked about him in confusion. “What? Where?”

“Stay still,” Fargo advised. “You were hit on the head and you’re bleeding pretty bad. You need a bandage.”

But Remy didn’t lie still. He twisted, stared in horror at the carnage, then sat bolt upright. He put a hand to the gash, stared at the wet blood on his fingertips, and rose. “It can’t be. That brute did all this!”

It was then the Breed returned bearing a tin cup filled with water. He held it out to Remy but Remy angrily swatted it aside. “How many?” he demanded, and grabbed the Breed by the front of his shirt. “How many, damn you?”

“I haven’t checked.”

Remy shoved him. “Do it! Now!” He took a step but his legs wobbled and he started to pitch forward. Namo caught him and held him, and Halette clasped his hand.

“Are you all right, Uncle Remy?”

“Oui, child,” Remy said as Namo lowered him so he could sit.

Fargo was listening to the sounds of the swamp. The frogs were croaking again, the crickets chirping, the gators bellowing. The beast was gone. Or was it? It might be lurking out there, watching and girding to finish what it had started.

“Did any of you see the thing?” Remy asked Namo and his children. “Do you know what it is?”

“He does,” Namo said, nodding at Fargo.

“What could possibly do all this?” Remy swept an arm at the bodies and the shattered tents. “The cries it made. It didn’t sound like a bear.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Well? Tell us, damn you.”

“The monster of the Atchafalaya Swamp is a razorback.”

“What was that you said?”

“A razorback. A wild boar.”

Remy uttered a sharp bark of disbelief. “You’re crazy. I caught a glimpse of it as it came through our tent. It was gigantic. Bigger than the biggest black bear.” He shook his head, and winced. “No. Hogs don’t grow that size. They just don’t.”

“Some razorbacks do.”

Fargo recalled hearing somewhere that the first hogs were brought to America long ago by the Spaniards. Some escaped and reverted to the wild. They multiplied like rabbits. Now, razorbacks were common from Texas to the Carolinas. A normal boar grew to no more than four or five hundred pounds but every now and then a giant one appeared, twice that size, a king among its kind, a thousand pounds of might and malice with tusks a foot long and a hide so thick that most slugs barely penetrated.

“Mon Dieu,” Namo breathed. “To think! My fair Emmeline was killed by a pig.”

“A razorback out to kill everyone it comes across,” Fargo amended. He also recalled that boars were known to roam territories of fifty square miles or more.

“Our fires should have kept it away,” Remy said. “My men knew better than to let them go out.”

Fargo told him about the Mad Indian, and the dousing.

“Wait. Are you saying the Mad Indian is helping the thing? That the Mad Indian put out our fires just so this boar would attack us?”

“That’s ridiculous,” Namo said.

“Is it?” Fargo countered. “The Mad Indian hates whites. He blames us for the smallpox that wiped out his people. He follows the razorback and does what he can to help it kill as many of us as it can.”

“Can it truly be?”

“The razorback would kill the Mad Indian, too, wouldn’t it?” Clovis asked them.

“Not if he was careful.”

Out of the dark came the Breed. His shoulders were slumped and he tried twice to say, “Only three.”

“Only three what?” Remy said.

“Besides you and me, only three of us are still alive and they won’t last long.”

As if to accent the point, sobs were borne by the breeze.

Remy grabbed the Breed by the shoulders. “The women! Not the women too? Where is Pensee? And Delmare?”

“I—” the Breed began, and sadly shook his head. “I am sorry, my friend. All the women are dead. Pensee is one of the worst. The beast split her like a melon.”

“No!” Remy looked wildly about. “All of them? All our friends? All those we called brothers and sisters?”

“All.”

Halette began crying.

Remy sank to his knees and wrapped his arms around himself. Chin bowed, he said morosely, “They counted on me. I was their leader. I was to keep them safe.”

“You took precautions,” the Breed said. “No one could have foreseen this.”

“I should have,” Remy insisted. “A good leader thinks of everything. I should have had two men on guard, not just one.”

“You’re being too hard on yourself.”

Fargo agreed. There was no way in hell anyone could have guessed a giant razorback was running amok in the Atchafalaya.

“This razorback has never done anything like this before,” the Breed was saying. “It has never attacked so many people at once.”

Another good point, and food for Fargo’s thought. Until now, except for Emmeline and Halette, the thing attacked only those who were alone.

“Show me the women,” Remy said, rising. “Show me each of them.”

“You don’t need to see.”

“Yes, I do. I want it seared into my memory so I never forget.” Remy motioned and the Breed led the way.

Halette held out her arms to Namo and he squatted and hugged her. “There, there, little one. God was watching over us. None of us were harmed.”

“But those nice ladies. I want to go home, Papa. I want to sleep in my own bed. I want our roof over my head.” Halette stared wide-eyed out over the great swamp. “I don’t want to be here any more.”

“We will leave in the morning.”

“Please. Now. I’m afraid.”

Fargo turned and walked to the water’s edge. He thought of Pensee, of her ravaged body. He thought of how close the razorback came to killing him. And then and there he decided he wasn’t leaving Louisiana until the creature was dead. “No matter how long it takes,” he said out loud.

“How long what takes?”

Fargo nearly jumped. “Damn, boy. Don’t sneak up on folks like that.”

Clovis was glumly cradling his rifle. “Pardon. I couldn’t bear to watch my sister weep.”

“Me either.”

“This razorback. How can it be so big and yet be so fast? It was faster than any horse. Faster even than deer.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.” But Fargo agreed it was ungodly quick. Anyone who tried to outrun it wouldn’t have a prayer.

“I used to love the swamp,” Clovis said. “It has been my home since I was born. I know the animals, the birds, the trails. The gators and the snakes, they don’t scare me like they scare some. But this—” and the boy gestured at the inky veil. “I want no part of this. I have lost my mama. I would not lose my papa or my sister as well.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“Help me, Monsieur Fargo. Talk to him. Talk to my father and convince him to give up the hunt. Now, while he still can. Before it’s too late.”

“I doubt he’d listen to me. You should talk to him yourself. Blood counts for more than the advice of a stranger.”

“You mean the blood in our veins?” Clovis said. “Yes, I’m his son, but I’m only a boy. You are a grown man.”

“You talk old for your age. Give it a try. What can it hurt?”

Along the shore came the Breed. He didn’t say anything. He stopped and did as they were doing: stared out over the sinister swamp.

“Where is Uncle Remy?” Clovis asked.

“With your father.” The Breed poked a clump of grass with his toe. “They are going to join forces. For Remy this is personal now. He won’t rest until he has his revenge.”

“What about you?”

“Where Remy goes, I am, always,” the Breed said. “We are brothers, him and I. Not in body but inside.” He thumped his chest with a fist.

Fargo asked, “Do you have a name?” Few men liked being called breeds. To many it was an insult.

A look of surprise came over him. “Yes. I am called Hetsutu. In your tongue that would be Yellow Jacket.” He smiled. “You are the second white man to ever ask.”

“Who was the first?”

“Remy Cuvier.”

Wind gusted from the swamp, bringing with it a far distant squeal and then the shriek of a hapless animal caught in the razorback’s rampaging path.

“It doesn’t kill just people,” Clovis said.

“No,” Hetsutu replied. “The madness is in its veins. It kills everything, and it won’t stop killing until it is dead. Many more lives will be lost if we do not stop it.”

“White lives,” Fargo said.

“You suggest it isn’t my fight? But Remy is white and he is my friend. Pensee was a good friend, too. Even Onfroi treated me as an equal.” Hetsutu squared his shoulders. “I have told you I am part Washa. Perhaps the last of my kind. I swear to you on the blood of my ancestors that I am with you in this. Come what may.”

“Come what may,” Fargo said.

The wind off the swamp suddenly seemed chill.