CHENOIRE
by Suzanne Johnson
**Chenoire is a novelette set in the world of ROYAL STREET,
first in a new urban fantasy series by author Suzanne Johnson
coming in April 2012 from Tor Books.**
he man outside Baronne Boat Rentals in Delacroix, Louisiana, aimed a mouthful of mahogany-hued tobacco juice in the vicinity of Grace Sims’ left foot. Joe Michoux was weather-beaten, wrinkled, and thinning on top, but his blue eyes pierced like razor wire. “You come from up north for dat reality show? ’Cause I ain’t got no boats. Gotta call ahead if you want a boat.” Grace took a deep breath and exaggerated her accent until it sounded as if she’d walked off the set of Gone with the Wind. “Mr. Michoux, I called you last week and reserved a boat. Remember? The ornithologist from Auburn University?” His brow wrinkled. “I study birds.” At least she used to, before her life fell apart. She’d spend hours examining the delicate structure of a feather, the way light reflected off its vanes and shaft to deepen or enhance its color, or how the bird’s diet affected the pigments in its beak and feet. Joe squinted at her. “You done paid for da boat?” “No, but you said come by and you’d have one for me. Grace Sims.” She’d always heard gritting your teeth was unhealthy. Sometimes it was called for. “It’s gator season ― all the boats been rented.” Joe shuffled off the pier and back inside Baronne headquarters, a one-room wooden rectangle painted an eye-gouging shade of yellow. Scientists were thick as mosquitoes in Louisiana since the oil spill, which is why she’d planned ahead, for all the good it had done. Boats came at a premium these days, and while she’d never really thought about how one might go about hunting an alligator, apparently it involved boats. Grace didn’t buy the boatless song-and-dance, though. She’d seen two perfectly good skiffs tied to the pier, and she intended to get one. She had the paltry contents of her savings account and exactly one semester to pull her academic career out of the toilet. She wouldn’t be turned away for lack of a floating piece of metal. She caught the door a half-second before he slammed it in her face. “What about those?” She pointed to the two aged but sturdy aluminum craft. Their bottoms were stained the same dull greenish-brown as the water, but the motors perched on back looked pristine. “I want to rent one of them.” Joe picked up an old coffee tin and spat in it. “Dey ain’t my boats to rent. Dem boats”—he pointed in the general direction of the pier — “belong to old Tou-Tou Delachaise, and he don’t rent ’em out. You go on back to N’Orluns, sign up for a swamp tour.” He grinned at her, a sorry advertisement for the achievements of back-bayou dentistry. Not happening. “So, tell me how to find this Tou-Tou guy. Call him for me, or give me his phone number.” Her sister Gabi called her a pushy broad for a reason. “Him and his people live down by Chenoire. Ain’t got phones.” Grace prayed to the god of obtuse men for patience. “Fine, then. Tell me how to get to…Shin-wah.” “Tou-Tou don’t take to folks droppin’ by, him.” Joe stared at her from beneath eyebrows drawn so close they met in an explosion of bristly hair. “And he ain’t gonna rent you a boat.” She crossed her arms and gave him what Gabi called her twenty-mule glare. Muttering under his breath, Joe scrabbled on his desk and fished a manila envelope from a teetering stack of papers. On the back he sketched a rough map, adding twists and turns until he ended with a five-pointed star. He circled it with a flourish, but paused before handing it to her. “Chenoire,” he said, finally thrusting it into her hands. “But don’t you go tellin’ Tou-Tou I sent you. Don’t need no Delachaises or Melonçons comin’ after me.” The map looked like a toddler’s Etch-a-Sketch masterpiece, but it was better than nothing. And what the hell was a Melonçon?
he left Delacroix at three p.m., still hoping to procure a boat for the next morning. Joe’s treasure map proved as unfathomable as she’d feared. The roads might as well be serpentine donkey trails. She’d creep the rental car along until the road gave out, then maneuver a U-turn and wind her way back so she never lost track of the main highway. After driving six hours from Auburn to lay the groundwork for a research grant proposal, by God she wasn’t going to get hopelessly lost in the wilds of St. Bernard Parish. Grace squinted at the sinking sun and pressed the accelerator, determined to try one more road before conceding defeat. A narrow set of dirt tracks peeled off to the west and she eased onto the path slowly, the overgrown grass in the middle swishing along the car’s undercarriage. The pathetic excuse for a road narrowed until it barely exceeded the width of the Chevy, and it was then she saw a board nailed to a spindly water oak. Black block letters proclaimed the place CHENOIRE. Finally. The faux-road led through a sparse grove of oaks and ended near the front porch of a neat wood-framed house painted such a deep green it threatened to fade into its surroundings. Two tiny green-painted cabins sat to the left of it and two more to the right, forming a semi-circle. A spotted Catahoula hound lay on the porch of the largest house, its mismatched eyes brightening with interest as Grace got out of the car, her knees cracking in protest. A loud noise, something between a squawk and a cluck, echoed off the water surrounding the nickel of land on which the houses stood. Grace cocked her head and listened. Not a pelican or egret. Maybe a swamp hen — beautiful, pesky birds with showy purple plumage, red crests, and gaudy yellow feet. Bad tempered, though. Probably because she’d heard people in this neck of the swamp kept shooting them and frying them for dinner. “You done got lost, girl?” A short, wiry man with an Einstein-ish mane of white hair and skin the color of tanned hide had joined the hound. He wore jeans, a camouflage-print T-shirt so faded its design looked whitewashed, and an apron splashed with what looked suspiciously like dried blood. He didn’t look happy, but he didn’t exactly look mean, either. “I’m looking for Tou-Tou Delachaise. Saw his boats over in Delacroix.” Grace pronounced Delacroix and Delachaise like the locals ― DELLA-crow and DELLA-shay ― so the man wouldn’t mistake her for a Yankee in a reality show. She sucked in a breath and approached the porch, knowing she made a vulnerable picture with her slight frame and tousle of short blond hair, armed with only a camera bag. But he looked harmless enough. Wasn’t much taller than her. Bet she could even take him in a fight, but she didn’t want to get herself stuck in a too-stupid-to-live moment. “Saw dem boats, did you?” The man raised the bushiest eyebrows she’d ever seen and jerked his head toward the house. “C’mon then, you.” “Are you Tou-Tou?” She trailed him through the front door, across a large, cluttered living room/kitchen that smelled like new wood and out the back door onto a porch the width of the house. It overlooked an ancient swamp that probably hadn’t changed since Adam. An egret watched her from a stump fisting out of the water. “I might be him, and I might not.” The man hooked a right and walked to a long, wooden table set up at the end of the porch, across which stretched a dead alligator splayed on its back, its pale belly reflecting the fading light, its smell a nose-wrinkling eau-de-fish. “Why you want him?” Grace wrenched her eyes from the poor dead alligator. It was small, as gators went, about four or five feet long, with a leather strap knotted around its snout and Freddy Krueger-like claws angling from its broad feet. An assortment of knives fanned out on the table next to it, and Grace suspected she’d interrupted a gator-skinning. Thank God he hadn’t start. “I was interested in renting a boat and maybe hiring a guide.” She stumbled through an explanation about her research, the birds, and the oil spill. Under the man’s brow-lowered scrutiny, she babbled about research grants and even the view from her French Quarter hotel room ― of an alley, because river view cost too much. She left out the parts about Gabi’s death and her depression and her department chair’s one-semester leave of absence to “ponder her future.” She paused uncomfortably in his prolonged silence before adding, “Did you kill the alligator?” “Dis gator-huntin’ season” He poured two cups of coffee from a fancy Braun coffee maker that sat incongruously on a small shelf near the gator’s upended head, and handed one to her. “I’m Toussaint Delachaise. You can drink some coffee, and den you can leave. Ain’t in the business of rentin’ boats.” He stared at her a few moments too long for comfort. “Gonna have to talk to Joe Michoux ’bout sending folks up here. He knows better’n dat.” Tou-Tou spoke with a thick, rolling accent in the cadence of extreme South Louisiana — part French, part rural Southern. He took his coffee and sat in a chair overlooking the swamp, and Grace perched on the edge of the one next to him. Grace said a silent apology to Mr. Michoux. “Well, since I’m here now, how about renting me a boat? I studied the wildlife maps of the area.” Maybe if she explained in more detail why she wanted the boat, he’d change his mind. After taking a polite sip of coffee so strong it might as well be espresso, she set the cup on the porch and pulled a folder from her camera bag. “I looked at the places where the oil didn’t encroach as deeply but where it might have been ingested by the insects and fish the birds eat. Maybe on the western edge of Lake Borgne.” He studied her map for a moment, leaning closer, and Grace instinctively moved back. A tinge of doubt crept through her for the first time. Maybe coming out here alone hadn’t been such a great idea. She heard Gabi’s voice: Too stupid to live, Grace. Tou-Tou stood up, stretched, and headed into the house. “No boat, girl, and it’s almost dinner. You best be headin’ back to da city ’fore it gets dark.” Dark in this outpost of civilization would be really dark. Grace pulled her cell phone from her bag while Tou-Tou clattered around the kitchen. She tried to imagine what Gabi, the cautious twin, would say. She’d tell her to get in the car and drive. The sight of the four-bar cell signal boosted her confidence. At least help was within reach if needed. In the meantime, her business was unfinished. She walked to the kitchen and leaned against the doorjamb, watching Tou-Tou set a big cooler on the table. “I’ll head back to New Orleans as soon as you tell me you’ll let me have a boat for the day tomorrow.” She plastered on her most winning smile. “Please?” The sound of a car horn outside made her jump. Tou-Tou cursed and fixed her with a decidedly unfriendly glare. “Dat’ll be my wife.”
ichelle (accent on the Mee) was a half-head taller than her husband and at least twenty years younger. She practically adopted Grace on the spot. “I don’t have many women to talk to. None of Toussaint’s boys are married yet ’cept the oldest, and his wife’s busy with their kids. You stay with us tonight ― it’s already gettin’ dark. Toussaint can take you out in one of his boats tomorrow morning.” Grace knew she’d won when Tou-Tou pulled another plate out of the cabinet and slid it atop the stack already on the counter. “I ain’t got time that, me,” he said, sounding put-upon. “Rene can take her.” “That’s his youngest son,” Michelle whispered. “He’s visiting for gator season.” Turned out Michelle and Tou-Tou were practically newlyweds, having married only a year after the original Mrs. Delachaise “died in that Hurricane Katrina mess, poor thing.” Michelle, a city girl from Lafayette, filled Grace in on the various branches of the Delachaise family tree as she rolled chunks of gator meat from the cooler into a cornmeal mixture and piled them on a platter. Once the stack of breaded gator grew about a foot high, Tou-Tou grabbed the platter and took it to the back porch, where he’d set up a propane-powered aluminum fryer. “The men do the serious gator cookin’,” Michelle said. “We’ll just throw the rest on the stove to boil.” The rest turned out to be a mountain of new potatoes and vegetables in a pot of water dyed red by a liberal dose of cayenne. Grace was helping peel potatoes when the sound of car doors and giggling children heralded the arrival of the rest of the Delachaise family, arriving for dinner after a day of hunting. There was the eldest son, Toussaint’s namesake, whom everyone called “Son,” along with his timid wife and four stair-step preschool boys. A set of twins, Cheney and Claude, looked to be in their early thirties. The last to arrive was Rene, who Michelle said was twenty-eight, same as Grace. “He got a twin, too ― Robert,” Michelle whispered. “Boys and twins run wild in this family. Two of Son’s kids are twins.” Sorrow backhanded Grace without warning as she watched Cheney and Claude roughhouse with the children. Cheney wore a beard and Claude was clean-shaven. Grace knew they did it so people could tell them apart. She and Gabi had played that game since they’d rebelled against being dressed alike. Different styles of dress, different haircuts. She didn’t know how to make decisions without considering Gabi. She startled as Michelle wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “What’s wrong, honey?” Grace shook her head. She would not stand in a kitchen full of boisterous Cajuns and cry. “Everyone lives in these houses out here?” “All but Son and Rene,” Michelle said. “Son’s family done got too big. They got a place over in Ycloskey. Rene and Robert moved down to LaFourche Parish a while back. All their mama’s people live down there. He’ll leave when gator season’s over in a couple of weeks.” Cheney and Son set up a long table with benches on the end of the porch opposite the gator-skinning area, and everyone began filling plates. Grace had never eaten alligator and tried to maintain a casual expression as she speared a nugget with her fork and stuck it in her mouth. It really did taste like chicken. Mostly. Rene, seated on the bench across from her, watched her chew. “Your first taste of gator, you?” He had a soft drawl, less accented than his father’s and brothers’. Grace smiled. “Is it that obvious? It’s good.” As long as she didn’t think too hard about eating a big lizard. Rene barked out a laugh and turned his focus to his own plate. As the family chattered around her, she made light conversation with Michelle, who sat next to her, and surreptitiously studied her guide for the next morning. Rene ate with quiet efficiency, eyes on his food, not talking unless someone asked him a question. Grace wondered if he knew his dad had volunteered him. He was taller than Tou-Tou but still only five-nine or so, a couple of inches more than Grace, and was muscular and tanned from the outdoors. She didn’t see much resemblance to his father. His black hair was cropped short, a dark moustache and goatee framed his mouth, and his arms were heavily tattooed below his Abita Beer T-shirt. Eyes such a dark brown they looked black, rimmed with dark lashes, rose to catch her watching him. “Like what you see, babe?” One corner of his mouth edged up, and Grace felt the heat wash across her face. Okay, so she thought he was hot in an exotic kind of way ― not exactly the mix of fresh-faced farmboys and geeky science guys who populated the Auburn campus. “Rene, don’t embarrass our company,” Michelle said softly, and Grace saw a shot of anger cross his face before his expression settled back into neutral. Definitely some tension there. She risked another glance, and he met her eyes as he chewed his last bite. Okay, yeah, so she could drown in those eyes. “You got gear that needs to go in the boat?” Guess he knew about his tour-guide duty. She nodded. “Just camera equipment, water-testing kits, some computerized tracking tags, stuff like that. Nothing big.” “Papa has ice if you need it for dead birds,” he said, jerking his head toward the other end of the table, where Tou-Tou was entertaining his young grandsons with what sounded like tall-tales about swimming in the swamp. Grace shivered. No way she’d swim in that water. “Well, I’m not exactly looking for dead birds.” She poked her fork in a gator nugget and was surprised to see it was the last one on her plate. “I’m looking for birds whose feather colors might have changed because they ate insects and fish that had absorbed the oil.” He raised his eyebrows. “You get money for studyin' what color birds are?” Bird coloration was a very specialized field, she’d have him know, but she felt the heat on her face again anyway. It probably seemed frivolous to people who lived so close to the land that they hunted alligators ― and ate them. Time to change the subject. “So, we haven’t talked about the price. Your dad didn’t say how much you’d charge.” Actually, Tou-Tou hadn’t said anything, period, at least not within her hearing. Rene pushed his plate aside and crossed his arms, giving her a steady look. “Depends. Papa says you want to go to Lake Borgne. If you’re willin’ to go to Lake Lery instead, I’ll take you for free. Gotta check my lines out that way anyway. You want to go to Borgne, you gotta pay what I’d miss from a day of gator hunting ’cause I ain’t licensed up there — ’bout two grand.” Holy cow. Grace did the quick math on thirty days of hunting. She could kill gators for a month and make more than a year as an assistant professor on the long, slow climb toward tenure. Which was great except for the killing-gators part. Lery wasn’t that far from Borgne so the impact should be similar. She could be flexible and, besides, free was a good price for a scientist with a questionable future. “Lery sounds fine,” she said, grinning. “Thanks.” Rene nodded and grabbed his plate, sliding off the end of the bench. “Be ready by five, babe.”
race didn’t need the wind-up alarm clock Michelle had provided before leaving her in the tidy, sparsely furnished cabin next to Tou-Tou’s. Robert had lived in it before the “boys” moved to LaFourche Parish. The doors had no locks, but Grace took wooden slat-backed chairs from beside the kitchen table and wedged them under the doorknobs in front and back, just in case. No one tried to come inside, but the swamp beneath her bedroom window echoed all night with odd splashes, croaks, flutters, and clicks. Not that she’d slept well since the accident. Dreams always ended in the screech of tires, the crunch of metal, the beautiful crackled patterns that spread over the windshield and reflected blue and red flashing lights. She couldn’t blame the other driver for the wet roads. She couldn’t in good conscience blame Gabi for not wearing her freaking seat belt. All she could do was lie in the dark and wonder at the point of it all. By the time five a.m. rolled around, she was dressed and stood next to her car in the pre-dawn gloom. Rene emerged from the house opposite, a rifle strap slung across a bare shoulder. Grace couldn’t decide where to look first: at the gun or the man himself. He might not be tall, but his body was lean and muscled and beautifully formed. And tattooed. Animals, birds, fish ― all surrounded by unfamiliar symbols ― covered most of his chest and disappeared into a tattered pair of jeans. Her gaze finally settled on the gun. “You think you’ll need that?” He grinned, and she realized it was the first time she’d seen him flash more than a hint of a smile. It looked good on him. “Hope so, babe. Only way to kill a gator without it gettin’ messy.” She wanted to slap herself on the forehead. Gator season. She’d never thought about how one went about hunting alligators, but apparently it involved lines, boats and rifles. “Can I see it?” Rene smirked as he handed her the rifle. “What’s a scientist” — he stretched the word out into about six syllables — “know ’bout rifles?” “You might be surprised.” Her grampa, mournful over the lack of grandsons, had taken Grace and Gabi deer hunting since they’d been old enough to hold a gun. Gabi hated it; Grace loved everything except the killing part, and she always intentionally shot wide. The gun was a Browning .22, not much different than the ones she’d used with grampa but a bit heavier, with a little more kick. She handed it back to him. “Not bad. I prefer a Remington.” Rene chuckled as he took her camera bag and supplies and set them in the bed of his fancy black pickup. He’d already loaded one small cooler and another the length of the truck bed. A bright light pierced the dawn gloom from the door of Tou-Tou’s cabin, and Michelle stood silhouetted in the doorway. “I got sausage and biscuits packed up for your breakfast, and a thermos of coffee,” she said, holding up a bag. Grace glanced across the truck hood at Rene, who was stashing his rifle behind the seat and ignoring his stepmother. Well, she didn’t intend to eat the Hershey bar in her camera bag for breakfast. She climbed onto the porch, took the brown paper bag and thermos, and wrapped an arm around Michelle in an impulsive hug. “I don’t know what his problem is, but I appreciate it. Guess he’s just mad because he has to babysit me today.” “Ain’t you, hon,” Michelle whispered. “He didn’t want me marrying his daddy. These Delachaise men got their own ways.” That was surely the truth. “You kids be careful out there. Plan on stayin’ with us again tonight, Gracie.” Michelle waved with a forced cheeriness before turning back inside and closing the door behind her. Rene had cranked the truck and was thrumming his fingers across the top of the steering wheel as he watched the exchange. Grace climbed in the passenger side of the truck and barely had the door shut before he backed out of the clearing with a heavy foot on the accelerator. Tongue-biting had never been one of Grace’s strengths. “You could be nice to Michelle without betraying your mom. She just wants you to like her.” “Ain’t your business,” Rene snapped without turning to look at her, and he was right. Didn’t mean she wouldn’t bring it up again, though.
he sun angled blinding rays from the east by the time they loaded the big cooler onto one of the flat-bottomed skiffs and filled it with ice from Joe Michoux’s freezer. The old man practically groveled at Rene’s feet with offers of beer and free samples of his special gator bait. “Got my own,” Rene told him, motioning Grace into the boat. “Don’t be suckin’ up, you. Papa’ll be talking to you about sending strangers his way.” That earned her a glare from Joe as Rene pushed the boat from the pier and jumped in to start the motor. Guess she wouldn’t be expecting any future discounts from Baronne Boat Rentals. Rene steered with a deft hand, guiding the prow in and around the narrow, mazelike inlets as marsh grass crowded both sides. By the third quick turn, Grace became disoriented. “You do know where you’re going, right?” The early heat was already stifling, more like August than mid-September, and she patted her pocket to make sure she hadn’t lost her tube of sunscreen. “Grew up here,” Rene said. “’Course, Katrina changed things round — lots of land disappeared and didn’t come back, but I come out here every day during the season.” He steered as he talked, occasionally weaving the boat closer to one bank or another to avoid the shallows. “Why’d you move to LaFourche?” Grace figured Michelle was part of the reason, but maybe she was wrong. Rene hesitated. “Spent every summer shrimpin’ there since I was a kid, and decided to do it full-time except for gator season. Me and my brother moved down ’bout a year after Katrina.” When Tou-Tou remarried. “You left Chenoire because your dad married Michelle?” She winced as the words came out. She really needed to think first, then talk. Rene was quiet a long time, and she’d turned away before he finally spoke. “Partly ’cause we could make more money shrimpin’ if we lived down there. But, yeah, mostly ’cause of Michelle. And that’s all I got to say about it.” Grace swallowed an apology, deciding to let it go. They rode in silence until she couldn’t stand the quiet any longer. “What’s a Melonçon?” He shut off the boat and frowned at her. The overwhelming silence of the place underscored its isolation. An occasional gull cawed, but nothing disturbed the still surface of the water. No breeze rustled the swamp grass. The flat vista stretched to eternity. “What you know about the Melonçons?” Rene’s voice took on a hard edge. Sheesh. She was just making conversation. “I don’t even know what a Melonçon is. The guy at the boat dock said he didn’t want trouble with the Delachaises or Melonçons. Who are they?” “Nobody you need to know about. Joe Michoux got foot-in-mouth disease, and you talk too damn much.” Rene restarted the motor and set out with a lurch that threw Grace off-balance. She held onto the seat to stay upright. Yeah, well. “My sister always says the same thing.” She paused. “Said the same thing.” “She don’t say it now?” Grace looked over the water and swallowed a golfball-sized lump of hurt. “She died in a car wreck last spring, on the day of the oil spill. She was my twin.” And roommate and best friend and a nicer, better person than me. Rene slowed the boat as the channel widened. He turned dark, liquid eyes on her and his expression softened. She could swear he looked almost pained, but of course he had a twin brother himself. He’d know about that bond ordinary siblings couldn’t understand. “That’s a hard thing, chère, losing a twin. But you’re still alive, and if you’re feeling bad about that you shouldn’t.” She blinked back tears and turned her head as he fed more gas into the engine and eased them around an outcropping of muddy soil and grass. A wide body of water stretched to their east, its distant bank appearing to shimmer as light reflected off the surface. “Lake Lery,” Rene said. “I’ll let you out on the bank here to look for your birds while I check my lines. I won’t be far, so yell if you need anything. Work for you?” Grace nodded, pulled her camera bag closer, and dug in her case for a water-testing kit. “Have you seen any sign of oil up here?” “Wasn’t here when it happened, but Cheney found some dead fish and sick birds. Now, if you wanna come down to where I live in LaFourche, I can show you oil. Got real bad down there. Bad all along the coast.” Rene ran the front of the boat aground on a narrow, muddy beach that rimmed a tall section of marsh grass. He jumped ashore and looked around, then extended a hand to help her out. “You be okay here?” He pointed to a pole sticking out of the water about thirty yards down the bank with a black line stretching from it. “Got me something on a line there, but you don’t wanna be that close.” “I’m good here.” As she climbed out of the boat, Grace spotted a belted kingfisher, with its slate blue head and long, pointed beak. As she approached, it took flight, circling the area a couple of times before making a dramatic dive head-first into the brown water and emerging with a fish. No sign of oil shock with this guy, but she’d take photos back to her lab and compare his coloring with shots taken of birds in this area before the spill. She took a half-dozen images before looking around to point out the bird to Rene, but he’d already maneuvered the boat to his gator line. Grace waded into the shallows to watch him as he tugged gently on the line with his left hand while aiming the rifle with his right. She couldn’t resist raising her camera to get a few shots. He belonged out here, seemed a part of it, and she wondered if she could capture his wild essence in a two-dimensional image. Rene turned to look at her, his face magnified through her zoom. At first she thought he was angry. She lowered the camera and stared, puzzled, as he shouted and pointed. From her peripheral vision she caught a flash of movement and turned to look at the bank in horror as an elongated, dark gray head rose slowly from its grassy cover behind a small rise in the land. Round golden-green eyes watched her from above a long, leathery snout. This was no small gator. If the size of its head was any indication, it had to be at least nine or ten feet long. Grace froze, part of her mind vaguely aware of Rene rowing toward her. If he startled the gator with the engine, it might attack. Maybe she could stand perfectly still until he got close enough with the rifle to hit that small spot behind its head — about the only place on its tough body a bullet would penetrate. Gators grew sluggish in the sun. If she didn’t make any sudden movement, maybe it would lie still. Seconds ticked by with agonizing slowness, and sweat ran down her face, tickling her neck. She fought the instinctive urge to wipe it away and hoped the beast couldn’t hear her heart pounding. She’d thought a lot about death in the last year, about what it meant, about what came after. She realized she wasn’t ready to find out. The gator stretched its neck, swiveling its head and moving one thickly muscled leg in her direction. Grace’s nerve shattered. She backed slowly into the water as the animal watched. It took another slow step toward her and she panicked, backpeddling and slipping on the slick, muddy lake bottom as it suddenly sloped downward. Time slowed into freeze-framed images and sensations: falling backward, her camera flying from her grip; gulping water that tasted of salt and mud; a swift, dark movement from the bank; the wait for a leg or arm — or both — to be crushed by the force of powerful jaws. A hard blow slammed into her from the left, knocking her feet from beneath her. She struggled to the surface only to see what looked like the massive tail of God’s biggest fish swinging toward her head. Instinctively, she ducked, gulping another mouthful of water as she reeled, disoriented, in the murky current. Finally, she gathered her feet under her again and spluttered to the surface, coughing the fluid from her lungs as she tried to decipher the whirling, splashing thing in front of her. The gator was rolling ― the biologists she worked with called it the death roll. If their prey was large, the gators would tuck in their legs and spin until their victims drowned before taking them to deep water to feast on slowly as the carcass rotted. And this gator’s victim was Rene, who’d latched onto it like Tarzan in one of the old Sunday-afternoon bad movie marathons. Her body frozen in fear, she tried to think of a way to help. She didn’t know how, but she couldn’t watch another person die. She just couldn’t. A silvery tail splashed a heavy rain of water on her, and Grace inched backward, struggling to understand. Many times since Gabi’s death she’d thought she was losing it, but never more than now as she stared at something so far outside her reality she couldn’t grasp it. Rene’s upper body looked normal, but his skin thickened and changed at the waist, melding into a silvery, scaly tail as powerful-looking as that of the gator. So the tail that knocked her out of the gator’s reach earlier had been his? Another flash of silver, and Rene, who’d had his arms wrapped around the gator during the roll, thrust a knife in the soft spot just behind the animal’s plated head. With a snarl, it flung him away, and they both disappeared into the lake. Oh my God. Grace scanned the surface of the now-still water and clambered toward the bank. She crawled onto the muddy edge and sat heavily, wiping water off her face with trembling hands. The voice of ever-practical Gabi chastised her: Stop sitting in the mud and crying. It might not be too late to help him. The boat was about twenty yards away. Grace pushed herself to her feet and ran for it, looking along the surface of the lake as she went. She thought she saw a disturbed area thirty or forty yards out and stopped, squinting. That’s where she’d take the boat. There! She saw it again, closer. “Rene!” She backtracked into the shallows, relief flooding through her as his dark head bobbed up. “I’m okay,” he shouted, swimming toward her awkwardly, his left arm wrapped around something, his knife still clutched in his right hand. Surely he wasn’t dragging that gator to shore. Finally, he reached water shallow enough to find his footing. She waded out to meet him, avoiding the sharp drop-off in the lake bed she’d stumbled into earlier. He was breathing hard, and blood from three deep claw marks mixed with the muddy water running down his stomach. Grace gasped when she saw what he was dragging―make that who. An unconscious man. At least she hoped he was only unconscious. “Who is that? Where did he come from? Is he alive?” She knew she was shrieking, but by God if any situation called for shrieking it was this one. “Help me with him,” Rene panted, and she sloshed deep enough to grab a meaty arm. Together, they dragged the man toward the bank. “Rene, what happened? I thought I saw ―” “You’re about to see even more, babe.” Rene gasped as they finally reached the shallows. He’d lost his jeans in the scuffle with the gator. She caught a glimpse of a bottle-nosed dolphin tattoo in a most interesting place before turning her head, only to see the unconscious man was just as naked. She wasn’t sure where to look, and finally decided the situation was ridiculous enough without getting bashful. If Rene didn’t care, she shouldn’t. She focused resolutely on his face. “Who is this guy? We need to get him to a doctor.” “Julien Melonçon, and he’ll wake up soon enough, him.” Rene’s voice shook with what Grace first took to be nerves or exhaustion. But his brows were knit tight and his jaw clenched and unclenched. He wasn’t shaken; he was furious. “Shoulda left the sonofabitch out there, but that’ll be papa’s call.” Grace ran a wet hand through her hair and pulled out a clump of mud. “I don’t understand. Where did he come from? I mean one minute you’re fighting that gator, and then you disappear, and then you come out with this guy and you had a tail and…” She couldn’t have seen what she thought. Maybe she’d swallowed enough muddy water to cause hallucinations. Maybe she was going into shock. She stopped as they dragged Julien Melonçon out of the water and dropped him face-down on the grassy bank not far from where the gator had been. A gash along the back of his neck trickled blood. Grace knelt down and looked more closely. He was a tall man, with thickly muscled arms and legs. “Looks like he’s been stabbed. How did he get stabbed in the middle of the lake?” Her head was starting to pound from the combination of adrenaline drain and confusion. “We’ve got to call the sheriff. First the gator, then you sprout fins and a tail, and now we have this unconscious guy―” Rene grasped her upper arm in one strong hand and jerked her to her feet, pulling her against him so abruptly she almost lost her footing again. Only his fingers squeezing the circulation out of her arm kept her upright. “What did you see, Grace?” She pulled away from him. What was his problem? “I saw you with fins and scales and then you stabbed the… gator…” As her words trailed away, she stared down at Julien Melonçon’s stab wound, then at the knife Rene had dropped on the ground nearby while he examined his own injuries. No. Freaking. Way. “I need to get out of here.” Grace edged around Rene, who watched her with glowering eyes as she stomped to the boat. If he followed her, fine, they’d leave. If not, she’d take his damned boat, find her way back to the dock ― somehow ― and restart this project somewhere else. This had gone past weird a long time ago. Her muddy feet fought for traction as she slid down the bank to the boat. Climbing in and sitting near the motor, she finally risked another look at Rene. He stood with his hands on his hips, shooting storm clouds with his eyes. And he was…well, good grief. Grace wasn’t so mad that she couldn’t appreciate a nice view. A movement near Rene’s foot caught her attention and she squinted to see. All they needed was another gator to —. Oh shit. Julien Melonçon was sitting up, and Rene had his back turned. Grace yelled and pointed, but Julien grabbed Rene’s ankles and pulled him off his feet. The man was at least a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than Rene. No way this would be a fair fight. Looking around in the boat, Grace spotted Rene’s rifle and snatched it up on her way to the bank. Slipping every other step, she lurched her way toward the men. Julien had Rene pinned on his stomach, and was twisting the smaller man’s head to the side as if to snap his neck. Grace stopped on the hill just above them, quickly examining the rifle and chambering a round. She aimed it at Julien and shouted. “Stop!” He paid her no attention. When Rene tried to twist his way out of Julien’s grip, the bigger man jammed a knee into Rene’s upper arm while pulling up on the lower half. She heard the bone snap. “Julien Melonçon!” She screamed as loud as she could, enough that her voice echoed around the empty lakefront. “Get away from him.” Julien rolled off Rene, who curled, coughing, into a ball around his broken arm. God, Julien was huge. And naked. And kind of excited. “I’ll get to you in a minute, darlin’.” His voice was a deep, scratchy rumble. “Gotta take care of this lil minnow first, then we can have some fun.” He dropped his full weight onto Rene with a knee to the back, and got an agonizing groan from the smaller man in response. Grace’s arms were growing tired, but she steadied the rifle. “Get away from him or I swear I will shoot you.” Julien laughed, revealing a few gaps where teeth should be. “Naw, you won’t do that, darlin’.” He scrambled in the grass beside him, coming up with Rene’s knife. He raised it above his head with both hands. Good God. He was going to impale Rene with that thing. Without thinking, Grace aimed for the widest target — Julien’s back — and fired, landing on her backside in the grassy muck from the recoil, her shoulder throbbing from the rifle’s kick. The last echo of the shot died away, and Grace couldn’t move, couldn’t take her eyes from Julien’s still body. After a couple of tries, Rene managed to pull himself from beneath Julien and roll to his knees beside the bloody mess she had created. She could’ve missed his heart. Whatever he was, maybe he could survive — “He’s dead, Grace. You just killed a Melonçon.” She could swear that, mingled with blood and mud, Rene’s face held a look of respect. All she felt was nausea.
erman. Rene Delachaise and his whole family were flipping merpeople, although he claimed to prefer the term aquatic shapeshifter. And Julien Melonçon could turn into an alligator. Rene’s broken arm had already healed enough for him to use it, but Julien wouldn’t heal from having his heart blown open by a round from a Browning rifle. Grace shivered despite the heat and watched Rene pull on a pair of khaki shorts he kept in the boat for emergencies. Emergencies like ripping his clothes as he morphed into a big fish. He could shift halfway or fully, as he’d proven to her — no way she’d believe him otherwise. She’d argued science and physics until he finally steered the boat offshore and dove off the side, shifting in a blur as he arced high and entered the water with barely a splash, arms first, then his head, then the beautiful silver tail that had appeared in a blur of light and air. Finally, he shifted the rest of the way and did some impressive leaps and splashes, looking like a big tuna. Not that he was cheerful about it. After his initial pleasure at the sight of a dead Melonçon, Rene had been gruff and distracted. Even with his arm still sore, he picked up Julien’s body like it hadn’t weighed much more than her camera case, and dumped it in the long cooler in the back of the truck. While he retrieved the rifle from the bank, Grace sat in the boat with her head in her hands. Merpeople. Weregators. And she was a murderer. God only knew what horrible fate awaited humans who murdered weregators. She listened for Gabi’s calm voice to ease her shaking hands, but her inner advisor had fallen silent. “Do we call the sheriff?” she asked Rene as he climbed back in the boat, laid the rifle on the seat next to him, and tinkered with the engine. His smile was grim. “No sheriff. We take Julien back to my place and see how papa wants to handle it with Guste—he’s head of the Melonçon clan. Julien was his youngest.” Grace swallowed hard and hated how fragile her voice sounded. “Rene, are they going to kill me?” He shut down the engine and tethered the boat to the pole where his line hung, then climbed across the length of the craft toward her. Her heart sped and stuttered as he knelt inches from her knees. “We need to have a talk, you and me, before we get back to Chenoire.” Maybe she wouldn’t have to wait for the Melonçons to kill her. The mers’ secret was out now, too. She nodded, and Rene slid onto the seat next to her, sending the boat rocking gently against the grass overhanging the bank. He studied her face for what seemed like a week before slipping an arm — the one that hadn’t been broken — around her waist and pulling her into a hug against skin warm from the sunshine. She had killed someone. Maybe the weregator had been a murderous psychopath, and maybe he’d been somewhere he had no business being, but he was a son and brother. His death would leave a hole in someone’s life the way Gabi had in hers. She couldn’t stop shaking. It started in her hands and spread all the way into her legs and shoulders. Rene clasped her harder. “If you hadn’t shot him, I’d be dead. I won’t let anybody hurt you. Even the Melonçons don’t want a war.” Grace blinked back tears. “Maybe I should just leave, go back to New Orleans. We could throw the body in the water and you could deny ever seeing him. Nobody would know.” She hated the words even as she said them. It was the chicken’s way out. Rene stared over the water. “We’d always be looking over our shoulders, babe. Gotta face his family, see what happens. Old Guste and Tou-Tou been keeping peace in the parish a long time. We’re gonna have to trust ’em to do right by us. You’re not in this alone.” He held her till the infernal shaking stopped, stroking her shoulder until his touch, combined with the sun and the birds and the lap of water against the side of the boat, finally calmed her. He was right. She’d never run from anything till Gabi died and her world tilted on its side. Since then, she’d done nothing but run. The man whose car had hit them, who’d accidentally caused the crash, had walked into her parents’ home to face them. She’d never appreciated how much courage that took because, on some level, he had to know they blamed him, or at least wondered why Gabi had died and he hadn’t. But it wasn’t his fault he’d lived either.
uguste Melonçon was as tall as his son, broader, browner — seeming all the more so as he stood on the back porch of his family’s sprawling house near Lake Borgne talking to the shorter, wirier Tou-Tou Delachaise. Rene and Grace sat in a room just off the porch, side-by-side on a worn sofa. They’d gotten cleaned up and then told their story one at a time, first to Tou-Tou and again to Guste after arriving at the Melonçon compound with Julien’s body. He’d listened to Grace without interruption or expression, but the clench of his leathery jaw gave away his emotions. She’d held up okay when she explained everything to Tou-Tou, but with Guste, she’d broken down. He didn’t have to cry or even speak. She could feel the weight of his broken heart. “What do you think is going to happen?” she asked Rene, twisting her hands in her lap. “No idea. Those two old lions” — he shook his head as he watched the patriarchs talk — “they got their own justice system. I gave up trying to understand it a long time ago.” They sat in silence another half hour, watching out the window as Tou-Tou talked and Guste paced. Finally, the old weregator leaned on the porch rail overlooking the swamp and hung his head. Tou-Tou opened the back door. “Mr. Melonçon, he got somethin’ to say to Grace.” She clutched Rene’s hand in panic, then took a deep breath and released it. Julien’s father deserved to have his say. She stood up, and Rene stood with her. Tou-Tou shook his head. “No, son. Just Grace.” “It’s okay.” She wiped a couple of stray tears from her cheeks and squared her shoulders, smiling faintly at Tou-Tou as she passed him. When she stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind her, Guste still stood with his back to her. “Sit a minute, child.” His deep voice rumbled like his son’s. She sat in one of two Adirondack chairs overlooking the swamp, and Guste finally turned, studying her for a moment before taking the other chair. His voice was oddly formal against the backdrop of swamp sounds. “On behalf of the Melonçons, I apologize for Julien. I accept your account of what happened because I can tell your heart is true. My son was willful and—” His voice broke. Her eyes met his. They were a golden green, and filled with tears. “I didn’t want to kill him,” she whispered, feeling her own tears spilling over. He reached out a huge, wrinkled hand and patted hers. “I know, child. Now, you go home and take one piece of advice from me. Stay away from the Delachaises. Those Mers will do nothing but bring you trouble.”
he final piece of unfinished business arose on the ride back to Chenoire. Grace had folded herself into the cramped backseat of Rene’s pickup behind Tou-Tou. His wild white mane fluffed out around the headrest in front of her, the only part of him she could see. She could hear him, though. “Grace done know ’bout us now,” he said to Rene. “What you gonna do ’bout dat?” Why was that Rene’s choice? She had no intention of telling anyone ― who’d believe her? Oh, sure, the thought had crossed her mind. She’d win the flipping Nobel Prize if she proved such creatures as mers and weregators existed. Her department chair would beg her to return, and she could tell him to shove it ― right before she took her research post at Harvard. She’d have tenure before she hit thirty. Study of their rapid healing abilities alone could mean unfathomable things for medical research. They could also throw her to some less-sympathetic Melonçons if they suspected such thoughts had occurred to her. Besides, she liked them. Not just Rene, but all of them, even old Guste. They deserved to continue their lives in peace, or as much peace as they’d afford each other. People weren’t doing a very good job of tolerating other humans these days. They sure wouldn’t accept merpeople and weregators. She leaned forward and tried to sound reassuring. “I’m no threat to your family. I have a million questions I’d like to ask but I’ll never tell anyone. I swear it.” They ignored her. “I been thinkin’ ’bout it,” Rene said to Tou-Tou. “I’ll take a covenant.” Tou-Tou twisted in his seat and pierced Grace with an angry look, then faced forward again with a grunt. “Tonight,” he said. “What’s a covenant?” she asked. Nobody answered. Michelle met them at the door, looking relieved. “I was praying for you,” she whispered, hugging Grace and pulling her into the kitchen. Which brought up the whole issue of religion among some of God’s more unusual creatures, but Grace would worry about that later. “What’s a covenant?” she asked softly, looking around to make sure Tou-Tou wasn’t nearby. Rene had disappeared into his cabin as soon as they’d gotten back. Michelle’s eyes widened. “Who’s taking one?” “Rene. What is it?” Michelle’s brows lowered into a frown. “It’s one of their ceremonies. Rene would be vouching for you — promising you won’t tell anybody about them. Tou-Tou did it when we were married.” Well, okay. That didn’t sound like such a big deal. “Why would Tou-Tou have to do it? I mean, you were getting married. Of course you wouldn’t tell.” Michelle smiled. “I’m an outsider, not a mer. Tou-Tou’s first wife was a full-blood, but not me. It’s why the kids never took to me. Especially Rene and Robert, being the babies. I’ll probably have to leave since it’s one of their mer things.” Grace felt badly for her, but was sort of glad. She’d probably have to leave as well, and she and Michelle could go together. A few minutes before six, after a hushed conversation with her husband, Michelle gathered her purse and announced a sudden need to visit a friend. Grace grabbed her camera bag and followed Michelle toward the door. “Not you, girl.” Tou-Tou grabbed her arm as she walked past him. “You’re part of dis.” While Grace sat at the kitchen table, Tou-Tou took a plastic tarp out of a closet and spread it over the living room floor. She wanted to ask questions so badly her tongue itched, but some instinct told her to keep her mouth shut. Not the instinct driven by Gabi’s voice, either. Her sister had been silent since Rene hauled Julien Melonçon out of Lake Lery. She was on her own. At six-fifteen, Son arrived, minus his wife and kids. Claude and Cheney followed within minutes. Everybody looked somber, and no one met Grace's eyes. Finally, Rene showed up, wearing a pair of low-slung jeans with stains on the knees and no shirt or shoes. Grace had wedged herself into the corner of the living room sofa when Son arrived, but now Tou-Tou motioned for her to join them. “We gonna gather here. You come up here with Rene.” Rene winked at her as she went to stand next to him, easing some of the tension that had been building since they got back. If he was winking, it couldn’t be that bad, right? Tou-Tou faced them, flanked on either side by Rene’s brothers. He addressed Grace first. “Dis is a covenant. It is a sacred thing among les familes. It means one of our people―in dis case, Rene―is swearing upon his life you will not tell anybody ’bout us. The rest of us are swearing to take payment from him if you do tell.” Grace’s sense of relief dissipated. Whether it was the grim expressions of Son and the twins, or the solemn manner of Tou-Tou as the head of the family, she knew his words were more than rhetoric. She looked at Rene, then back at Tou-Tou. “I will swear to it myself. Rene doesn’t have to pay anything. I'll swear on my life.” Rene squeezed her hand again. “Don’t work that way, babe.” When she turned back to argue with Tou-Tou, he’d taken a long double-edged knife from the table and was running the blade back and forth through the flames of a lighter. What the hell did he plan to do with it? While Tou-Tou heated the knife, the twins each brought a bowl from the table — one with a clear liquid, the other with white powder. “Rene, you take dis covenant, and take it freely?” Tou-Tou's face collapsed into a sad mass of wrinkles as he looked at his youngest son. “I do.” Rene dropped Grace’s hand, stepped forward, and turned around with his back to his father. Tou-Tou lifted the knife and placed its tip just above the younger man's left shoulder blade. “No!” Grace gasped as Tou-Tou sliced a deep gash his son’s skin. Rene’s eyes closed but he didn’t flinch — at least not until the twins stepped forward and Tou-Tou swept his fingers through the liquid and ran them down the cut. The powder came next and Rene shivered, his eyes still closed. “Alcohol to purify da cuts, and salt to make sure you always carry da mark.” Grace couldn’t move. How could they do this? Why would Rene let them scar him? She watched, horrified, as Tou-Tou passed the knife to Son and they exchanged places. They were each going to carve into him like a turkey? “Oh, no. No more.” Grace edged around Rene, reaching for the knife, and Son hesitated just before the blade touched Rene’s back. Quicker than sound, Tou-Tou grabbed her wrist. “You step back, girl. Dis is our way and if Rene can do it you can watch.” Her hands shaking, Grace turned to look at Rene’s back. The cut was a straight mark, three or four inches long, that sent blood running in rivulets along his spine and soaking the waistband of his jeans. Before shooting Julien today, she hadn’t seen so much blood since the accident. Gabi’s face had been red with it, running down her cheeks and soaking into her blouse. “Grace.” Rene’s strained voice jolted her to the present. “It’s okay.” She walked around to face him again. His beautiful, dark eyes locked on hers and she could see the pain in them. Still, he smiled at her. What he was doing, not only enduring agony but putting his entire future in her hands, staggered her. The least she could do was honor the sacrifice he offered. She nodded and took his hands. If he could do this, she could help him. Tou-Tou began talking again, making Son promise to kill Rene if Grace ever broke her word. Oh, it sounded prettier than that, but the meaning was clear. Then Cheney, then Claude. Each one made a cut and sealed the wound so it would scar. Four marks Rene would wear forever. Four people who vowed to kill him if she ever broke her word. By the time Claude made the final cut, Rene was shivering and holding onto Grace’s hands so hard they were numb. Tou-Tou gave her a fierce look that told her more than words how much the ceremony had hurt all of them. “You help Rene get cleaned up, right. Come back and eat after dat.” They walked to Rene’s cabin in silence. It was identical to the one she’d stayed in the night before, even down to the fake-floral centerpieces on the kitchen table. “What can I do — you got bandages?” Grace asked. “A first-aid kit?” Rene shook his head. “Won’t need ’em. Wait on me while I take a shower.” She sat at the kitchen table, listening to him banging around in the bathroom, then the water running. Had it been only a day since she’d made that last turn off the Delacroix Highway onto the dirt track to Chenoire? She'd changed. The world was bigger than she’d known. Life was even more precious than she’d realized. Things she’d ranked on the top of her importance scale—like tenure, career, her own monumental self-pity—seemed trivial. “I’m sorry, Gabi,” she whispered. Sorry she’d wasted hours, weeks, months blaming the universe instead of living. “You okay, babe?” Grace looked up at Rene. He’d pulled on a clean pair of jeans and had the bloody ones wadded up in one hand. He padded into the kitchen, tossed them in the trash, and opened the fridge. “Want a beer?” “Sure.” He pulled out two bottles of Abita and opened them, setting one in front of her as he took the other kitchen chair and pulled it next to her. “You never said if you were okay.” She nodded, and looked at her hands. “I don’t know what to say to you. I mean, you just bet your life — literally wagered your life — that I won’t tell anyone about you. You don’t even know me. And your back…” She shook her head. “It won’t heal fast like your broken arm or the claw marks, will it?” He slid around in his chair so she could look at the marks, straight and neat. They weren’t healed but had begun to scab over. “They’ll be gone in a day or two. I’ll even be able to take you out to the lake again — unless you’re chicken.” He grinned at her as he turned back around, and she couldn’t help but laugh. “That depends. You think there will be any Melonçons around?” “Nah.” He pulled her to her feet and shuffled her toward the door. “We’ll only see real gators. They’re not nearly as dangerous.”
race and Rene sat on the swing of the big cabin’s back porch, watching Son’s boys play tug of war after a late dinner. Tou-Tou sat near the kids, occasionally reaching out to jerk the rope inward when they got too near the edge. “Don’t wanna be fishin’ you outta da swamp. Your Oncle Rene and Miss Grace already done it today.” Now, feeling full and exhausted, Grace watched darkness settle over the water and didn’t flinch when Rene bumped her shoulder with his, then slid an arm around her. She leaned into him, wondering how she could feel so close and connected to someone she knew so little about. Except she knew the important things, didn’t she? “What you thinkin’?” She turned to look at him, suddenly aware of how long his lashes were, the strong cheekbones, the shape of his mouth. He leaned in and kissed her softly once, then again. After what she’d been through today, her heart shouldn’t be doing flip-flops. His voice was soft. “Why don’t you go home tomorrow?” She pulled away from him. Maybe she’d just imagined that kiss was a promise rather than a goodbye. “You want me to leave?” He smiled. “Yeah, I want you to go home, pack up some stuff and come down to LaFourche, where I live. More oil and birds down there, y’know. Gator season’s almost over. I can take you shrimpin’. It’s a lot safer — no such thing as a wereshrimp.” She laughed and settled back onto the swing. Why not? By the time gator season ended, she could make a research plan, pack up some things, and clean out the boxes of Gabi’s stuff that still cluttered the apartment floor. It was time. On the other side of the porch, Tou-Tou had gone to stand beside Michelle, his arm around her waist as they watched a brown pelican catching its dinner. Grace studied them, thinking about how, in his own way, Rene had been clinging to the memory of his parents’ marriage the way Grace had been holding on to Gabi ― not in a way that celebrated their lives but in a way that spread darkness like oil in a fragile ecosystem. “Your dad looks happy,” she said. “He shouldn’t have to spend his life alone, and she loves him. It’s not fair to make him lose you, too.” Rene didn’t answer, so they sat in silence. She wouldn’t push him. Michelle turned as one of the kids tugged on her sleeve, glancing their way and pausing when her gaze met Rene’s. A look of surprise crossed her face, followed by a tentative smile. Curious, Grace looked round at Rene. He was smiling back at her. |
Chenoire
©2011 Suzanne Johnson
