Juan Salazar thanked the men for their help. They offered excuses and words of encouragement, obviously ashamed to be giving up, but they left anyway. Juan kept at it with a handful of hunters, a couple of shepherds, and Elizondo’s Guardia Civil. Javier Atienza was there too, hounded by guilt. He refused to eat, drink, or rest until they found the child. The darkness was total by eight in the evening.
That’s when the storm broke.
Ipar knew about storms. Thunder didn’t intimidate him and neither did lightning, but he was worried and agitated by whatever was lurking out there in the bushes. The icy rain drenched Amaia. The girl huddled, shivering, under the cowl of her soaking wet jacket. Water gushed over them as if from a broken pipe. Her hand, sunk deep in the dense fur of Ipar’s neck, ached with cold. The night was totally black except when bolts of lightning zigzagged across the sky. Driven by their energy, Amaia stumbled onward in an effort to navigate the landscape the flash had etched in her mind.
Ipar knew the child was tired. Often, she sank to the ground to rest. He pressed himself against her to give her his warmth, for her pulse was becoming sluggish and her body temperature was sinking. Amaia hugged him tight, closing her eyes and wrapping her arms around his neck. She drowsed off only to awaken frightened and feverish a few seconds later.
Ipar knew sleeping in the rain was dangerous, but it was almost as bad when Amaia got up again, for she set off in the wrong direction, even though Ipar had tried to direct her every way a sheepherding dog knew how. She kept wandering northward, as though obeying the silent call of the dark herald hiding in the bushes. Something out there was tracking the girl’s movements, slipping subtly through the undergrowth. Ipar could do little more than stay close to the poor little thing while carefully monitoring the ominous rustling. He growled and barked from time to time to keep the tracker at a distance. Ipar wasn’t going to allow that unseen menace anywhere near his little mistress.
62
LE GRAND BAYOU
The swamp
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
They crept around the structure and came upon the entrance just as Charbou, Bull, and the old shrimper arrived. It was obvious this building hadn’t been abandoned like the others; someone had propped the door open with a fallen branch. Médora waded in through thigh-deep water and drew back against the wall like a frightened mouse. Amputated heads of pumas, wild boars, alligators, and crocodiles glowered at them from the dimness. The sight seemed to terrify her. The taxidermy was in terrible shape, ravaged by time and dried out by the high temperature, and the coating of mud and flood residue gave the heads a disgusting, diseased appearance. This place, obviously used as a hunting lodge at one time, had been derelict for many years.
Two large tables stood in the center of the main room, flanked by floating benches. The tabletops were above the water, but the surfaces were thick with mud and slime. Floodwaters had coated the panes of half a dozen windows with filth. Exposed wooden pillars in the center of the vast room held up the ceiling and roof.
A flight of stairs with two landings led up to a loft space where a door stood open. The unmistakable sound of whistling came through the doorway, despite the rain thundering down on the roof. A shirtless man backed through the upstairs doorway, appearing so suddenly they had no time to hide. He was dragging some kind of heavy bundle down the stairs. It knocked sharply against each step. They raised their pistols, waiting for a sign from Dupree.
Médora screamed like an animal caught in a trap. The man stopped whistling, dropped the bundle, and whirled to face them.
The corpse of a young woman with long black dreadlocks slid toward him, her head knocking with a horrible hollow sound each step of the way. His initial impulse was to scramble upstairs, but the body was in his way. Jason Bull fired a warning shot, and one of the shrimpers tried to hit him. They both missed.
The whistler snatched a gun out of his waistband and opened fire with incredible quickness. His two shots blasted some of the old trophy heads, sending a shower of wood chips and sawdust over Médora’s head. He darted down the stairs and Charbou jumped him at the lower landing. The two smashed against the wooden banister, which gave way and sent them both plunging into the water. They wrestled while the others shouted, their pistols following the suspect as they called on him to surrender. A gun went off several times, the reports muffled by the muddy water. The whistler went limp on top of Charbou. Bill pushed him off and waded clear of the area where blood was rapidly spreading in the dark water.
Médora had stopped screaming. They turned and saw that the traiteur had covered her head with his jacket. She stood motionless against the wall on her thin, fragile legs, scarcely able to stay erect. She rocked back and forth with the hissing sound of a leaky pipe. The dressing of her leg wound was filthy, and a dark red stain was spreading down her other leg.
“Oh, my God!” the traiteur cried. He leaped and caught her just as her legs gave way. Kneeling, he wrapped an arm around Médora’s skeletal shoulders and fought to keep her head above water. His other hand was trying to stanch the hemorrhaging that spread like red dye up that absurd flowered hospital gown.
In that final instant, a beautiful light flickered in the dying eyes of the girl whose life had been stolen. Médora didn’t scream or shout, but her lips moved as if attempting to speak. The traiteur leaned close, trying to make out her words. Then her body slipped from his grasp and her abdomen sank into the dirty water. Dupree and Bull went to their knees beside him and helped hold up the young woman’s head and shattered frame. The traiteur put one palm to her brow and the other to her chest, continually murmuring. He leaned in again and pressed his face close to the woman’s mouth. He kept praying for her even after that faint light in her eyes had faded away forever.
Dupree helped him carry her to one of the tables, all the while keeping his eyes on the staircase.
Bull whispered, “If anybody else was up there, surely he’d have shown himself by now.”
“If he had a gun, that is,” Charbou replied.
They exchanged a complicit glance, went to the stairs, stepped over the corpse jammed against the landing rail, and rapidly ascended. They positioned themselves on either side of the door at the top. They extended their pistols as they peeked inside, took turns checking the interior, and then went in.
Bull came back immediately. “All clear. There’s a young man up there, dead, Dupree, and more girls.” He gestured toward the traiteur and the two shrimpers. “I think they should stay downstairs.”
In the attic room, they found five victims, all of them girls. Amaia estimated their ages at between twelve and sixteen. The floodwaters had gone down hours earlier, and though the residue reached almost up to the ceiling, everything was dry. Their clothing and hair had the shriveled appearance of something first soaked and then dried. The humid atmosphere of the swamp and the lower floor were completely gone, replaced by a parched, all-consuming heat. At the doorway and in the center of the room, the ceiling of the cramped loft was high enough for Bull or Charbou to stand upright. The walls sloped rapidly downward, following the slant of the roof, so the team was forced to bend over or go on all fours to investigate. There were no windows. The only furnishings were a dozen or so torn mattress sacks stuffed with Spanish moss, a good-sized table that had lost a leg and lay on its side, and a lit lantern hanging from a nail by the door. That was the only light source. They had to use their flashlights to examine the bodies.