Chapter 100
The month we were to spend apart turned into six. First it was setting up a new Chief Cook and Bottle Washer for the New Orleans office. In the end, after much heartburn on my part, it turned out to be a partnership. Higg – who was great in admin but didn’t have field experience – handled a lot of the administrative crap and Robert Howard – who hated all things paperwork and phone related – took over the field operations. It turned out to be a really good fit for both of them and I learned a valuable lesson. When you think you must do everything yourself, you make the mistake of missing some of the best talent of other people. And a lesson I had to re-learn … a load shared is a load lightened.
The next kaflooey was Em’s. The job that was only to take a month turned into more like three because he kept getting called in due to his still active security clearance. There were some buildings that had to be rewired long enough for them to get certain records and equipment out of there, but they wanted to do most of the scanning and destroying on-site. Which was fine because vid-calls were sufficient for both of us after a long day and I was in the middle of negotiations for a large bit of land that backed up to Bayou Teche.
It was NW of the Isabella and on the same side of the bayou. The man who owned it, claimed to own it, didn’t want to give it up but couldn’t afford to rehab and clean up the commercial site “just yet.” He had also joined a lawsuit trying to prevent the State from imposing fines for code enforcement issues. Turns out that the guy claiming ownership didn’t actually hold the deed; he was in a Lease Option but hadn’t put the rest of the deposit down. The survivors of the estate that did hold the deed had proof that he’d violated his lease and that they’d had an eviction in process prior to the night of the evacuation. They in turn were in negotiations with the State to take the property in lieu of fines and clean up costs. Because, as everyone has been finding out since the Riots of 2020, hazard insurance does not cover acts of terrorism, riots, war, etc. In other words, it was a mess. The problem was that the various arms of the government weren’t communicating. Then add people in that were unscrupulous and those trying to do things illegally, and the fraud and all the rest, there was a royal mess every which way your turned.
I was close to giving up and rethinking the plans that I’d already gotten invested in enough that I was buying supplies; but then Em said he knew someone that knew someone from the “old days” and that their cousin’s son-in-law might have an in with the State that had realized it had bitten off more than it could chew with the whole “use code enforcement to bring the State back on line.” A lot of people had left the Gulf Coast during the evacuations and weren’t interested in returning and many gulf coast states were hemorrhaging tax income. Old Timers said it was the same after this hurricane that smacked New Orleans upside the head and a lot of evacuees that had headed to Texas and Florida just never returned.
With Em’s bassakward contacts I was finally able to get the ground I wanted. It cost a little more because there were more fines than had originally been listed and it was going to cost more in clean up, but both were because I bought an adjacent property that the family also owned as incentive for them to let go and move on. I suppose I could have found something else cheaper but the more I thought about it the more invested I became in the ideas forming in my head. I was going to have more to look after than I ever had at the Isabella, quite a bit more; from just south of Bayou Ln to the corner of Berard St. and Mills Ave where the Food n Fun had been. The only exception to this is the acreage owned by the folks that still held the Bayou Cabins. Those folks got a little worried thinking I was going to come in and build a resort but by the time I was finished laughing my butt off we were all on the same page and thinking in terms of partnership rather than competitors.
Em was a little blown away, including his pride, when he realized just how big a tract of land we were talking about and the kind of plans I had been making without him.
“Business has been good and this way we can …”
“What’s this ‘we’ crap?” he snarled.
I must confess I had gotten a little worried when Higg asked me what Em thought of it all. I’d just been doing my thing as I always had and that was the first cold fish to slap me in the face. To cover some of my own discomfort I asked him tongue in cheek, “Don’t you want to be a kept man?”
Wrong thing to say. He was not amused. “You know if I was there instead of on the other side of this vid screen exactly what you’d be due?”
Caught between my own anger and trying to use humor to defuse things I responded, “Try it and see if you don’t start limping again. Maybe then you’ll let me do what I can instead of acting like I’m some damaged little prima donna.”
“What the hell is that about?” he asked, this time not snapping and more concerned with my apparent attitude.
I sighed. “I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem like anything is worth it if … if I don’t have a crew to share it with.”
“You’’ve got a crew. You’ve got fourteen at last count.”
“No. That’s the business. Plus two of them are independents, not my crews anymore. I used to think it was more than it was, but it isn’t. They’ll come. They’ll go. Some will advance. Some will … not. I mean a crew. Not someone I have to pay to stick around.”
His anger over with he’d started listening. “You mean a family.”
“Yeah, I guess.” I shrugged. “And all this does is make it seem like … like you … er … nevermind.”
“Naw, uh uh Cher. We gonna talk about this. Because unless I haven’t said it lately or enough, I’ll take you anyway I can get you. But I also need to pull my weight. You gonna need to let me and stop protecting me from whatever problems you think you have. Because we are crew … family one way or another … the kind that I resent you think you need to pay to keep around.”
Well we did talk it out some more and I realized that I was a little worried that to keep him wanting to be around I needed to do things that kept him looking in other directions besides at my weaknesses that he’d feel duty bound to try and help me deal with. I didn’t necessarily need to be “Cap” with him, but I did need to feel a full partner in whatever we wound up creating. I was no longer satisfied to only play follow the leader, or hide my light under a bushel to save anyone’s pride. Once you’ve been Boss Dog it is damn hard to ever completely change back to just being a member of the pack. I think that may be why when Alphas can no longer do their job they just kinda go off and die someplace in the bushes.
I’ve seen the same thing with men and women that I’ve tried to help. That loss of personal self-worth, that change in circumstance that many of them had to face for one reason or another, was almost too much for a lot of them to take. It was easier for them to crawl off in the bushes and wait to die than it was to do battle with what had changed their circumstances. And for some of them … nah, it isn’t my place to make those kinds of decisions or choices. I just think it would be nice for the do-gooders of the world to back the frick off and let someone take life on however they may. A hand up is a heck of a lot better than a hand out. Unfortunately, hand outs are all some want to see as a possibility … the giving or the getting. Hand ups were stickier and more work and sometimes the hand you stuck out got gnawed on up to the elbow.
I was thinking thoughts like that on one of my solitary trips to Breaux Bridge. Ostensibly it had been to survey the new site and get a better idea of the supplies and personnel I would need to accomplish my plans. In reality it was me getting out of New Orleans so I wouldn’t be tempted to take over Higg’s new way of doing things. She’d wanted to implement more tech in the office than I’d been interested in for some time. She’d also been complaining about accountability because she always said that I let the men call out too often and it really wasn’t helping them the way I imagined. She made good points and Robert Howard agreed with her though he did balance out and say call outs were just part of the landscape in both construction and dealing with people’s personal challenges but there could be a slow tightening up to keep those that didn’t do that from always having to cover for those that did. I didn’t disagree with them, but as Higg said, I wasn’t the hardass that I thought I was when it came to some of the men and that I couldn’t be boss and mother at the same time. And to prove that I trusted them I would take off when the temptation to “mother” the men got too great.
That particular trip also coincided with me being called up yet again and this time getting shot when the snake we were trying to cut the head off of came close to being a Hydra. I was mobile but I really didn’t want to spread the knowledge of my injury around. One, it could damage business and we were at a critical phase as news got out that I had ceded the New Orleans crews to new leadership – though I did it in-house so Higg and Robert Howard were known quantities and didn’t freak people out – and that I was expanding into new areas with potentially mixed crews of both Wounded Warriors and non-Vets and people were concerned about what they might mean.
I was camping out in one of the least-damaged buildings on the property when I just couldn’t stand to be house bound anymore. I packed a bag, left a note, and dragged my new pirogue down to the bayou. I looked for my old fishing and hunting spots but the more I looked the more frustrated I became. Everything had changed, or maybe it was simply that the old landmarks were gone. After a lunch of a self-heat I did the one thing that I had told myself I wouldn’t and I went looking for Yula Mae’s island.
Well I found it, or what was left of it. Cyprus trees were down all over the place and it make it difficult to get back to it. And once I did find it, the dock was completely missing. The house itself had fallen in and the water table was much higher. I was glad that I had chosen to wear my waders as most of the island had that squishy feel to it that said the water table was very high. Some of the trees in the orchard – the second highest point on the island – still lived and it looked like they were being tended to. I didn’t feel threatened so I figured it was a Swamp Person and I wouldn’t disturb their spot.
The highest spot on the island was the little cemetery. The mausoleum door had a crack in it and one of the cherubs had fallen off the roof. For a moment I was tempted to come in and clean everything back up but the a wind blew and the crack in the door let a smell waft out that reminded me too much of the battlefield. It also let me know that someone was using the mausoleum because the odor was too new to be from when I’d put Martin Edgar in there.
I nearly jumped a mile when someone said, “The boys are in there.”
I turned and saw a man that looked too old to still be breathing. I was used to deal with people that had trouble keeping their cheese on their crackers on some days and calmly asked, “The boys?”
Rather than answer me he said, “You been gone a long while Sylvee. Why you come back now?”
“I’m not Sylvee.”
“Hmm. Sylvee gave her little girl up. You her?”
“No Sir. Sylvee was my aunt. She died before I was born.”
It took a moment but the old man nodded. “Oh yeah, ‘member you now. You Henley’s niece. And you took care of Martin and Yula Mae.”
“Martin took care of … I mean buried … Yula Mae. I buried Martin. But who are the boys you said are in there now.”
“Got any chewing gum? Ain’t had any in I don’t know how long. You youngin's always seem to have chewing gum.”
I did and was more than willing to hand it over to the old man if it would move him along a little faster.
“Thankee.” Instead of opening the package he put it in the pocket of his bib overalls and made himself a home-rolled, used a zippo to light up, and then puffed a moment and then said, “We were there that night. We’d been looking for ground to hide from those that didn’t belong in the swamp. They’d been around before but not in the number they were that night. There were so many we were afraid that we’d have to leave and find a new home. We weren’t here long before crazy Danny Edgar showed up with them painted women. Lord weren’t they complaining about the skeeters eatin’ ‘em up.”
Putting two and two together I said, “That was the night of the evacuation.”
“Hmph. So’s they call it. People sure were running ‘round like ants what had had boiling water poured on the mound. But not you. You were doing what you were born to do. We watched you. One homme after another. Then the fems killed each other. Then you killed Danny and took them
bébés and left.”
I nodded. “That’s what happened.”
“Ah, but you didn’t know the boys were there.”
“Boys?”
“Franc and Fontaine.”
It was like my world was slipping sideways. But remembering what the old man had said and the smell I looked to the mausoleum.
“Have they been living in the swamp this entire time?”
“What? Non! They got took by the army. When they came back they said they’d been made to fight. Would run away and then get caught by the enemy and then were made to fight for them. Back and forth until the someone said the war was over. They came out here looking for treasure.”
“When?” I asked cautiously.
“Last full moon. Said they’d been looking for this place for years. X marks the spot.”
“Isn’t any treasure.”
He nodded. “Sylvee took it and hid it so Martin would stop looking for it. Cursed. But him and Henley looked for it anyway. Killed both of ‘em. It gonna kill you?”
“No Sir,” I told him and left it at that.
“Good, good. Killed the boys.”
“How?”
He old man hawked up a wad of spit and said, “Told you. It's cursed. Gator got both of ‘em. Didn’t go fast either. He’d play with ‘em, nearly drown ‘em some, and then let ‘em get away. Watched it happen three, four times before he finally took the little fat one and tucked him up under a cypress log about twenty yards thataway.” He pointed east of the island.
“And the other?”
“The one called hisself Fontaine lasted longer but not by much. Boy was a fool for wantin’ them papers off that boat. Shoulda seen his brother's death as a warning.”
"What boat?” I asked trying to ignore the rest.
“It sank. You can just see it, ain’t but about three feet down.”
“It was underwater and they were diving for it?!”
“Naw. Boys were idiots but not that bad. Wellll mebbe, but still smart enough to know they couldn’t swim in these waters. The boat used to be hung up in some cypress knees but ever since the gator got ‘em the water has been rising, the boat came loose of the knees, and sank.”
I was wondering if the old man was crazy or yanking my chain.